The M+G+R Foundation
Current News Commentary
June 29th, 2013 [Feast
of Sts. Peter and Paul,
Apostles]
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
Retired general
target of leaks probe. (1)
A former vice chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff is under investigation for allegedly leaking
classified information about a covert cyberattack on Iran's
nuclear facilities, according to media reports.
Retired Marine Gen. James "Hoss" Cartwright has been told he is a
target of the probe, NBC News and The Washington Post reported
Thursday. A "target" is someone a prosecutor or grand jury has
substantial evidence linking to a crime and who is likely to be charged.
The Justice Department referred questions to the U.S. attorney's office
in Baltimore, where a spokeswoman, Marcia Murphy, declined to comment.
The investigation of the leak
about the Iran cyberattack is one of a number of national security leak
investigations that have been started by the Obama administration,
including ones involving The Associated Press and Fox News.
Cartwright, once considered the leading candidate to become Joint
Chiefs of Staff chairman, resigned from the military in August 2011.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: As the saying goes: "The 'leaking bug' must
be in the air":
_________________
(1)
News Report
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
Senior Vatican
cleric arrested in corruption investigation.
(1)
A senior Vatican cleric suspected
of trying to help rich friends bring millions of euros into Italy
illegally was arrested on Friday as part of an investigation
into the Vatican bank, police sources and his lawyer said.
Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, 61, worked as a senior accountant in the
Vatican's financial administration and is already involved in another
investigation by magistrates in southern Italy.
He was arrested in a parish in the outskirts of Rome and taken to the
city's Queen of Heaven jail, his lawyer Silverio Sica told Reuters.
Also arrested in the investigation were a member of Italy's secret
services and a financial broker.
Sica said Scarano was accused
of being involved in an attempt to help friends bring 20 million euros
($26 million) into Italy from Switzerland by plane in league
with the secret service agent and the financial intermediary.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Another "air borne" infection.....
_________________
(1)
News
Report
News
Report No. 3
[our highlights]
Vatican Rentboy and Satanism
Claims
Revealed by Paedophile Priest Don Patrizio Poggi.
(1)
Serving and former priests hired
rentboys for sex in churches from pimp who sold consecrated hosts to
satanists, says defrocked clergyman.
Italian investigators have opened an inquiry into claims by a convicted
paedophile priest that an underage prostitution ring has been operating
inside the Holy Roman Church with clergymen hiring rentboys for sex
inside churches. Don Patrizio Poggi, 46, told Italian authorities that
a former Carabinieri pimped boys for nine clergymen.
Poggi, who served a five-year
sentence for abusing teenage boys while he was a parish priest at the
San Filippo Neri church in Rome, said he made the allegations to
"protect the Holy Church and the Christian community." The boys were
paid €150- €500 (£130-£425) to perform sex acts in church
premises across the capital.
Poggi also accused the former
Carabinieri of selling consecrated hosts for satanic rites.
Poggi reportedly presented documentary and photographic evidence to
police in the company of two senior Vatican clergymen who vouched for
his credibility. Poggi identified the nine clergymen, including two
senior church officials and a religion lecturer. Three people have been
placed under formal investigation.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: We must consider the source:
Poggi, who served a five-year sentence
for
abusing teenage boys while he was a parish priest at the San
Filippo
Neri.
If true, then we must highlight the fact that satanists have more faith
in the transubstantiation than far too many priests and faithful. A sad
state of affairs!
_________________
(1)
News
Report
June 28th, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
Europe strikes deal
to push cost of bank failure on investors.
(1)
The European Union agreed on
Thursday to force investors and wealthy savers to share the costs of
future bank failures, moving closer to drawing a line under
years of taxpayer-funded bailouts that have prompted public outrage.
After seven hours of late-night talks, finance ministers from the
bloc's 27 countries emerged with a blueprint to close or salvage banks
in trouble. The plan
stipulates that shareholders, bondholders and depositors with more than
100,000 euros ($132,000) should share the burden of saving a bank.
The deal is a boost for EU leaders, who meet later on Thursday in
Brussels, and can show that they are finally getting to grips with the
financial crisis that began in mid-2007 with the near collapse of
Germany's IKB.
"For the first time, we agreed on a significant bail-in to shield
taxpayers," said Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, referring
to the process in which shareholders
and bondholders must bear the costs of restructuring first.
The rules break a taboo in
Europe that savers should never lose their deposits, although
countries will have some flexibility to decide when and how to impose
losses on a failing bank's creditors.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: When they recently pulled this trick on
Cyprus, they swore on the proverbial stack of Bibles that such was a
one time event and would never be applied as a European Union wide
policy. We wrote about it back in March.
(2)
Now, picture this: Eurozone, June 27th, 2013..... The Eurozone economy
cannot get restarted no matter what they say and or claim to do. Credit
is all but non existent since the banks "do not have enough (real)
money to lend". No credit, no growth; no growth, greater unemployment;
no new jobs, no new spending; no spending, no growth; and so on.
Now, they come up with this "brilliant" idea. It logically follows that
all foreign nationals - individuals and corporate - will pull out all
of their money from the Eurozone.... an action to be followed by
the wealthy Europeans. This will leave the Banks with a few sea shells
and
soda pop caps to lend so that the European economy gets restarted.
Brethren, this is really troubling. Troubling because economics
certainly is not my strength (actually,
I am quite ignorant about economics)
and I can see the monumental idiocy of the actions that the European
Union rulers continue to take.... and they obviously do not.
Not only do they lie through their teeth to their citizens, but do not
take any
action that will really pull Europe out of the crisis.... yet they
believe that they are in a position to tell the U.S. how to run our
business.
Amazing; simply amazing!
_________________
(1)
News
Report
(2)
March
28,
2013, News Report No. 2
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
Federal agency finds
lax regulation of chemicals.
(1)
A federal agency investigating a deadly
explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant will tell a Senate committee
Thursday that regulation of the dangerous chemicals used in the
industry fall under a "patchwork" of standards that are decades old
and are far weaker than rules used by other countries.
The U.S Chemical Safety Board
is the first federal agency to acknowledge the lax oversight of
ammonium nitrate, the chemical blamed for an explosion in West
so massive that it registered as a small earthquake, flattened swaths
of the small town and killed 15 people. The agency, one of several
investigating the April incident, made 18 recommendations in a
preliminary report obtained by The Associated Press.
The West Fertilizer Co. had
no sprinkler systems, stored the chemical in wooden bins and did not
report to local emergency responders the potential hazards of storing
tons of ammonium nitrate because the law does not require them to do so,
the report states. Firefighters
are given only vague guidelines on how to battle a blaze involving
ammonium nitrate - a chemical often used as a cheap alternative
to dynamite in mining operations that has been used in terrorist bomb
attacks.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: This is the chemical that almost flattened
Texas City in 1947
(2)
causing over 500 deaths and many mutilations.... and it is now, 66
years later, when we find out that the official responisble authorities
have been lax in their oversight regarding that same chemical.
Paraphrasing a well known cliche: "
Houston,
we have so many
problems"
that only God can correct them and only by a complete "Reset".
_________________
June 27th, 2013 [Mary of Perpetual Help]
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
Political moves in Brazil
fail to quell protests.
(1)
Protesters from two of Rio de Janeiro's
favelas took to the streets to demand investment in public services.
They are calling too for the right to organise events in their
neighbourhood without official authorisation. It is the latest street
protest to hit the South American country.
The rally came as politicians struggled to deal with the raft of
grievances behind the demos. President
Dilma Rousseff has been told her proposal to hold a referendum asking
Brazilians which political reforms they want is illegal.
Security was tight for the demonstration in one of the most affluent
areas of Rio. There were no incidents and it passed of peacefully. The
focus now turns to the city of Belo Horizonte where the national
football team will meet rivals Uruguay in the Confederations Cup
semi-finals.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: We have been following this as closely as
time allows. President Rousseff has responded to the street protests in
a way that no other demonstration, in recent history, has succeeded in
attaining.... yet it is never enough.
Every time they want something else, she makes a move to accommodate
it.... then, they will dream up something else. This is an orchestrated
attack upon Brazil; a fact which the Media (of course!) is choosing to
ignore.
Has anyone noticed that no one has raised a discordant voice about the
immense expense of the demonic altar and stage being prepared for
Francis to use on July 26th?
This is how intellectually dead people are and how controlled the Media
is.
Right on schedule!
_________________
(1)
Euronews Reports
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
F.T.C. Member Starts
'Reclaim Your Name' Campaign for Personal Data.
(1)
The revelations this month about
government surveillance programs that collect the phone logs of people
in the United States and can monitor e-mail traffic abroad is provoking
a larger debate on the rights of consumers to control the collection
and sharing of data about them.
One industry under the microscope is data brokerages. These are business-to-business
companies that collect thousands of details - like the shopping habits,
vacation preferences, estimated income, ethnicity, hobbies,
predilections for gambling or smoking and health concerns -
about millions of consumers, the better to help marketers identify
potential new customers as well as maintain their already loyal clients.
Although some of these companies do permit people to opt out of their
marketing databases, most do
not have systems to allow consumers to see records held about them and
correct possible errors. Because of this lack of transparency,
federal regulators and privacy advocates have long warned about the
potential for such data-mining to discriminate against consumers based
on sensitive details like financial or health information.
Now Julie Brill, a member of the Federal Trade Commission, has proposed
an industrywide initiative to give consumers access to their own
records held by data brokers. She
envisions an online portal where data brokers would describe their data
collection practices and their consumer access policies.
"Reclaim Your Name would empower the consumer to find out how brokers
are collecting and using data; give her access to information that data
brokers have amassed about her; allow her to opt-out if she learns a
data broker is selling her information for marketing purposes and
provide her the opportunity to correct errors in information used for
substantive decisions – like credit, insurance, employment, and other
benefits," Ms. Brill said in a speech on Wednesday morning at the
Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference in Washington.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: These data brokerage companies
are the ones
about which everyone should be concerned and not whether the NSA
has
the records of our phone calling history or web pages visited.
If the government makes a mistake based on misinterpreting our records,
sooner or later the matter can be corrected and even the damanges, if
any,
may be compensated. With the data brokers, few, if anyone, have a
chance.
(Sarcasm on) We will inform Ms. Brill about the moment the temparure in
hell reaches 32ºF (0ºC) because it is then when her proposal
will be put in practice. If she is lucky maybe it will be before it is
announced
that excessive mobile phone radiation is indeed hazardous to one's
health. (Sarcasm off)
_________________
(1)
New
York Times Reports
News
Report No. 3
[our highlights]
Ten Thousandth Near-Earth Object Discovered.
(1)
More than 10,000 asteroids and comets
that can pass near Earth have now been discovered. The 10,000th
near-Earth object, asteroid 2013 MZ5, was first detected on the night
of June 18, 2013, by the Pan-STARRS-1 telescope, located on the summit
of the Haleakala crater on Maui. Managed by the University of Hawaii,
the PanSTARRS survey receives NASA funding.
"Finding 10,000 near-Earth
objects is a significant milestone," said Lindley Johnson,
program executive for NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations (NEOO)
Program at NASA Headquarters. "But
there are at least 10 times that many more to be found before we can be
assured we will have found any and all that could impact and do
significant harm to the citizens of Earth."
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Let's see..... Just the other day NASA
reported that they had already catalogued 95% of the NEO's - a claim
which we exposed as ridiculous
(2)
since it is impossible to calculate a percentage of a total that is
unknown.
Now they claim that such unknown total may be as high as 10,000 times
10. Amazing; simply amazing!
_________________
(1)
NASA
Reports
(2)
June
20th,
News Report No. 3
June 26th, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
Websites in North
and South Korea shut down on war anniversary.
(1)
Major government and media
websites in South and North Korea were shut down for hours Tuesday
on the 63rd anniversary of the start of the Korean War. Seoul said its
sites were hacked, while it was unclear what knocked out those north of
the border.
Seoul said experts were
investigating attacks on the websites of the South Korean presidential
Blue House and prime minister's office, as well as some media servers.
There were no initial reports Tuesday that sensitive military or other
key infrastructure had been compromised.
The North Korean websites
that shut down Tuesday included those belonging to the national
airline, Air Koryo, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, the North's
official Uriminzokkiri site and Naenara, the country's state-run
Internet portal. All but Air Koryo were operational a few hours later.
South Korean National Intelligence Service officials said they were
investigating what may have caused the shutdown of the North Korean
websites. North Korea didn't make any immediate comment.
It wasn't immediately clear
who was responsible.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: The most important message for the world
leaders delivered by such actions is the one that they seem to be
missing:
They (the
traditional world leaders)
are no
longer in charge of the World.
The Manning's, the Snowden's and all the Hackers are.
Move over, Alice!, whistleblowers and hackers are taking over
Wonderland!
Instead of placing the cyberspace security
as a number one
priority -
even above
any
and all military matters - they (the traditional world leaders)
will start a series of summits
which, as usual, will only benefit the travel industry.
What a waste!
_________________
(1)
News Report
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
Is Arctic Permafrost
the "Sleeping Giant" of Climate Change?
(1)
Flying low and slow above the pristine
terrain of Alaska's North Slope research scientist Charles Miller of
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory surveys the white expanse of tundra
and permafrost below. On the horizon, a long, dark line appears. His
plane draws nearer, and the
mysterious object reveals itself to be a massive herd of migrating
caribou, stretching for miles.
It's a sight Miller won't soon forget.
"Seeing those caribou
marching single-file across the tundra puts what we're doing here in
the Arctic into perspective," says Miller, who is on five-year
mission named “CARVE” to study how climate change is affecting the
Arctic's carbon cycle.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: God is even using the caribou in the hopes
that our
scientific "geniuses" can put 2 and 2 together and come up with 4.
By the way - even if there were not going to be a direct Divine
intervention as the chastisement climax - it is too late to do anything
regarding the global meltdown.
_________________
(1)
NASA
Reports
News
Report No. 3
[our highlights]
"No need to escalate 'confrontation with Russia' over Snowden": Kerry.
(1)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
said on Tuesday there was no need to raise the level of confrontation
with Russia over Edward Snowden, a former U.S. spy agency
contractor charged with disclosing secret surveillance programs and
believed to be in Moscow.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: (sarcasm on) Gee.... why don't we check with
Snowden in case he left some data behind so that it can be shipped to
him?
They should not forget either the vacation pay that he has accumulated
and is
legally his. Am sure they can forward it to him via Western Union.
(sarcasm off)
Now, seriously: If the US has, as Snowden has claimed,
all internet and telephone
connections under surveillance, why hasn't the NSA heard/read
what Snowden has been, and is, communicating to and from his support
groups from the moment he went AWOL?
(sarcasm on) Oh, yes.... they are probably using smoke signals....
(sarcasm off)
As radical as this may sound - but from a high security point of view -
all
system administrators involved with the security of the US should have
a microchip implanted so that, should this happen again, they could be
immediately tracked. This should include all who have access to
the nuclear missile silos and any other highly sensitive areas of
National Security. This is not a matter of Big Brother - this IS a
matter of National Security!
Once the individual resign from the position which required the locator
chip, the chip should be removed.
_________________
(1)
News
Report
June 25th, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
The Asian and
European markets continue to crash. Following are yesterday's results:
Asian Indexes
| |
Index |
Country |
% Change |
 |
Australia ASX
All Ordinaries
|
Australia |
-1.54% |
| |
Shanghai
SE Composite Index |
China |
-5.30% |
| |
Hang Seng |
Hong Kong |
-2.79% |
| |
Mumbai Sensex |
India |
-1.24% |
| |
Nikkei 225 |
Japan |
-1.26% |
| |
Taiwan TSEC 50
Index |
Taiwan |
-0.45% |
European Indexes
| |
Index |
Country |
% Change |
| |
FTSE 100 |
England |
-1.43% |
| |
Euronext 100 |
Europe |
-1.38% |
| |
CAC 40 |
France |
-1.16% |
| |
DAX |
Germany |
-1.28% |
| |
Swiss Market
Index
|
Switzerland |
-2.31% |
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
'The Scariest Threat Is the Systems Administrator'
(1)
Edward J. Snowden, the former National
Security Agency contractor who leaked details about American
surveillance, personifies a debate at the heart of technology systems
in government and industry. Can the I.T.staff be trusted?
As the N.S.A., some companies and the city of San Francisco have
learned, information
technology administrators, who are vital to keeping the system running
and often have access to everything, are in the perfect position
if they want to leak sensitive information or blackmail higher-level
officials.
The director of the N.S.A.,
Gen. Keith B. Alexander, acknowledged the problem in a
television interview on Sunday and said his agency would institute "a
two-man rule" that would limit the ability of each of its 1,000 system
administrators to gain unfettered access to the entire system.
The rule, which would require a second check on each attempt to access
sensitive information, is already in place in some intelligence
agencies. It is a concept borrowed from the field of cryptography,
where, in effect, two sets of keys are required to unlock a safe.
"The scariest threat is the systems administrator," said Eric Chiu,
president of Hytrust, a computer security company. "The system administrator has
godlike access to systems they manage."
miguel
de
Portugal comments: No, no.
The truly scariest threat
are the
individuals like Gen. Alexander who
just now realized that in
such sensitive work there should be "a two man rule".
This procedure IS fundamental in any high risk operation. Doesn't he
know that to launch a nuclear tipped missile it takes two keys? Doesn't
he know that today - RIGHT NOW - the greatest threat for any
industrialized nation is a cyber threat?
Brethren, I do not consider myself the possessor of a brilliant
intellect so, I must assume, as we see the "Idiots March By", that it
is
not that I am getting brighter; it is that they are really getting
dumber.
Lord have Mercy!
_________________
(1)
New
York Times Reports
June 24th, 2013 [Feast of the Birth of John the
Baptist]
News
Report No. 1
[translated highlights]
Pope Francis will visit Rio de Janeiro on July 26th.
(1)
The set up of the structures for the
main events during Pope Francis visit have commenced.
The structures have been designed so that Pope Francis is always at the
highest point from every direction assuring good visibility for all
attendees.
In the central stage at Copacabana the opening Mass, the official
welcome to Pope Francis and the Via-Crucis will be celebrated next July
26th.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: It must have taken a microsecond after I
viewed the images of the structure/altar to recognize the symbolic
horns of satan.
As you may also notice - The large cross seems to be in a grouping of
vertical columns.... which brings to mind the saying: "
One cannot see the tree for the forest."
which could not be more prophetic in this case.
To add insult to such grievous injury, the events will take place on
July 26th - a date which symbolizes to all hispanics and portuguese
speaking individuals Fidel Castro's communist movement -
El Movimiento 26 de Julio.
Exactly what else God has to do to confirm to the world what we have
been announcing for 22 years in His Name?
_________________
(1)
Original News report in Brazilian Portuguese
News
Report No. 2
[contributor's highlights]
Brazilian bishops support peaceful protests as World Youth
Day nears. (1)
Leaders of the Brazilian
bishops' conference announced their support for the massive
demonstrations sweeping across South America's largest nation, but
declined to say how they might affect World Youth Day (WYD) activities
and the visit of Pope Francis in July.
The support was expressed in a document distributed to
journalists in Brasilia by Archbishop Raymundo Damasceno Assis of
Aparecida, bishops' conference president.
The document said the conference "declares its solidarity and
support to these demonstrations, as long as they are peaceful, and
which have taken to the streets persons of all ages, especially the
youth."
Missing from the document was any mention of World Youth Day,
set for Rio de Janeiro July 23-28. But Archbishop Assis told reporters
it was the government's responsibility to guarantee the safety of the
pilgrims. He conceded that the events of the recent few days
may discourage foreign pilgrims from attending World Youth Day.
Earlier, Archbishop Orani Joao Tempesta of Rio de Janeiro said in a separate
statement that the protests would not affect World Youth Day, nor the
planned visit of Pope Francis. The
demonstrations are, he said, "in some ways similar to the spirit of WYD
-- the desire to work together for a new world, for a new life, a new
society."
The archbishop said the local committee
planning World Youth Day events continues "to focus on the safety of
pilgrims as well as the general population during the event." He added
that the military police and municipal guard will closely monitor the
situation.
"I think that there will not be any safety issues, whether for
the pope or for those in attendance as we are
studying everything down to the smallest details, to all of the
minutiae," he said.
Contributor's comments: The
only way for this to be true is if the churchmen are in control of the
revolution, or are working closely with those who are.
Government officials estimated that nearly 1.2 million people
participated in protests across the country June 20. The mayors of
Brazilian cities, such as Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, announced June
19 that they were revoking transportation tariff increases.
"These demonstrations show us that it is not possible to live
in a country with such inequalities," said the bishops' document.
The document also emphasized that the church strongly opposes the
violence that has erupted and the destruction of private property as
the protests have grown.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Again I repeat: Exactly what else God has to
do to confirm to the world what we have
been announcing in His Name for 22 years?
_________________
(1) News
Report
News
Report No. 3
[our highlights]
Edward Snowden Lands in Moscow After Fleeing Hong Kong - Final
destination is reportedly Ecuador via Cuba and Venezuela.
(1)
Edward Snowden left Hong Kong today
"through a lawful and normal channel," and has now landed in Moscow, though
that's not his final destination.
WikiLeaks tweeted that it had
helped the former NSA contractor flee, just after the United
States filed extradition papers, securing him "political asylum in a
democratic country, travel papers (and) safe exit from Hong Kong."
WikiLeaks says Snowden is in
the company of its legal advisers. From Moscow, Russia's ITAR-Tass news service is reporting
that Snowden will take a plane for Cuba Sunday night, then fly to
Caracas, Venezuela.
Hong Kong acknowledged the White House's extradition request, reports
the AP, but said in a statement that it failed to "fully comply with
the legal requirements under Hong Kong law" and that in the absence of
"sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant
of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving
Hong Kong.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: China is indeed clever. In one simple, and
legal (at the moment), stroke they got Snowden out of their territory
and placed him in the hands of the Cuba-Venezuala-Ecuador axis; and
axis which
seems to be "protected" from any action by the U.S. - legal or military.
Perhaps if Israel were running our Security Services, Snowden would
already be in a U.S. detention center and not traveling with his "legal
advisers" to a Caribbean Paradise.
If we get more egg on our collective face, there will be an egg
shortage in the world!
If we had been that incompetent in the early forties, Hitler would have
been crowned Emperor of the World while sitting on the Throne of Peter.
_________________
(1) News
Report
June 22nd, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[contributor's highlights]
25,000 Dead
Bumblebees Fall From Trees in Oregon.
(1)
A Wilsonville, Oregon, Target parking
lot has seen what could be the biggest-recorded mass bumblebee die-off
in the Western US.
The 25,000 deaths were first noticed on Saturday, as bees tumbled from
55 linden trees in bloom, the Oregonian reports. "They were literally
falling out of the trees," a biologist tells the Portland Tribune, who
calculated that some 150 colonies likely met their end. Adds an
agriculture official: "I've never encountered anything quite like it in
30 years in the business."
Pesticides -
particularly a neonicotinoid called Safari that may have been sprayed
by a landscape company on the trees on Saturday - could be to blame, though test
results might not be in until the weekend. A Safari product label apparently
warns that it's "highly toxic" for bees and shouldn't be used when
they're around.
Officials are now putting bee-blocking nets over the trees to halt the
deaths, the Oregonian reports. Honeybee deaths have been widely
reported, but bumblebees have also been in decline, the paper notes.
"Bumblebees are the single most important natural pollinator in Oregon,"
says a conservation advocate. Interestingly, it's currently National
Pollinator Week.
Contributor's
comments: From personal experience I now know how important bees
are to fruit and
vegetable crops.
I have been
harvesting blueberries , blackberries as well as
raspberries. I will have peaches, pears, apples and figs soon. I am
not even
using ant killer because sometimes my chickens get out and I don't want
them to eat the ants if there were poison on the ant hills. To read the
above quoted
story is the notification of another nail in our coffin.
My
neighbors used to call me the city slicker until they saw my
sweet potato and tomato crops - so generous that I needed a ice chest
with wheels
to harvest them because I had so many. Now
they say that I could stick my finger in the soil and it would grow.
God is Great ! God is good !
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Yes indeed, He is Great and He is Good; we
also know that you are attentive and responsive to His promptings
which, in turn, produces much fruit - no pun intended.
_________________
(1)
News Report
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
Considering that
Spain's economy is the fifth in the European Union....
(1)
90 % of Spaniards
consider that Spain is a corrupt country.
That is the headline of the news reporting an official survey by the
Real Instituto Elcano.
(2)
In addition, 75 % consider that Spain's image abroad has not improved
in the last months. Such horrid numbers are followed by concerns of the
Spaniards broken down by sectors. It follows:
Political
Corruption 40.4 %
Unemployment
18.8 %
State of the Economy 13.5 %
International Crisis 11.5 %
To the question:
Do you believe that
Europe is helping Spain out of the crisis? The response is:
Not at all 33.8 %
Not much 51.4 %
Much
2.6 %
A
lot
8.8 %
In other words - about 85 % negative vs 11 % positive
Considering that Spain's unemployment rate is somewhere bewteen 26 and
27 %, with no let up in sight, it is impacting that the general
populace is doubly concerend about the level of corruption, with the
State of the Economy having a "worry index" of only a third of that of
institutional corruption.
Naturally, this is downplayed by many in the Spanish and European media.
_________________
(1)
European
Union
Statistics
(2) Spanish daily La Gaceta, Thursday, June 20, 2013,
p. 38
June 21st, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
New MERS virus more
deadly than SARS.
(1)
Epidemiologists investigating a new respiratory virus that
has killed 38, say it spreads easily between people and is more deadly than SARS.
More than 60 cases of Middle
East Respiratory Syndrome have been reported so far, mostly in Saudi
Arabia. The new coronavirus is related to SARS, which claimed
800 lives following the 2003 pandemic .
Researchers probing MERS say it can spread quickly, particularly in
hospitals and one sufferer can infect many. The fatality rate of the MERS
in Saudi Arabia stands at 68 percent, 60 percent higher than SARS.
The origin of the virus is
unknown, but it is thought that animals are involved, either
bats, camels or goats.
One hypothesis is that infected bats may be contaminating foods like
dates. Medics admit a
reliable method of treatment is yet to be found.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Do we have here a "
Made to order apocalyptic
virus"?
Unknown origin, like that of the so called Spanish Flu; more
deadly than SARS; spreads easily bewteen people; and, last, but not
least, from the Middle East.
The only thing that seems to be missing is that the virus, under a
microscope, has the shape of a horse....
[Revelations 6]
_________________
(1)
Euronews Reports and FOX
News Reports
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
Drones used on US
soil, admits FBI director.
(1)
The FBI are using drones on US soil.
The admission by the agency's director has sparked further debate over
privacy vs security in the USA.
FBI director Robert Mueller was put on the spot at a Senate hearing by
a Republican senator on Wednesday.
Charles Grassley asked plainly: "Does the FBI use drones for
surveillance on US soil?" "Yes," replied Mueller curtly.
Grassley continued, "I want to go onto a question…" as Mueller cuts in,
"Well let me just put it in context now, in a very, very minimal way
and very seldom."
miguel
de
Portugal comments: I do not want to appear Pro-Police State
but.... it seems that we are making mountains out of mole hills.
In my "old days" - while driving my silver Porsche
(2) in Florida, confident
that my state-of-the-art radar detector was protecting my unlawful
speeding - I was nabbed by a Florida State Patrol helicopter.... and
fined.
So what is the difference between helicopter patrolling the skies and
drones doing it? If a drone had spotted my speeding, would that have
been any different from the helicopter doing it?
I deserved it - I was breaking the law. I paid the fine and shut up!
_________________
(1)
Euronews
Reports
(2) Yes, in those days I
did not drive a Volare with the paint peeling off. (I make this
statement for the Glory of God and not as a derogatory remark toward
those who drive
modest cars. I do not even own one now - I drive a borrowed '92 VW Polo
and, as the saying goes, "clams
could not be happier than I am now!")
News
Report No. 3
[our highlights]
The
Most Honest Person Award
goes to....
(1)
An unemployed teacher was driving
home after dropping her cat off at a veterinarian when she noticed a bag on the street.
She stopped but doubted it contained anything, but soon discovered the bag was holding about $20,000.
Candace Scott said the bag
had a Chase bank label, so she promptly delivered it to a nearby branch.
She pound on the glass around 8 a.m. Tuesday to get the branch manager
to come to the door before the bank opened for business, The Eagle
newspaper reported. The banker thanked Scott for returning the
cash.
"She told me I'm the most honest person in the world, and I said 'or
the dumbest,'" Scott said.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Thank God! for refreshing good news.... and a
reminder that there are still a few upright citizens running the
streets!
May God find a suitable job for her soon!
_________________
(1)
News
Report
June 20th, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
One person dies in flash flooding at the Sanctuary of
Lourdes. (1)
A husband was unable to save his
wife after their car was submerged by flash floods near the
famous French pilgrimage site of Lourdes.
The authorities have been
forced to close the shrine temporarily due to the torrential rain.
More than 200 people have also been evacuated from a nearby camp site.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Do we need to call Daniel to read the writing
that continues to be appearing on the wall?
_________________
(1)
Euronews Reports
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
Baked Alaska:
Unusual heat wave hits 49th state.
(1)
A heat wave hitting Alaska may not
rival the blazing heat of Phoenix or Las Vegas, but to residents of the
49th state, the days of hot weather feel like a stifling oven...
With temperatures topping 80 degrees
in Anchorage, and higher in other parts of the state, people
have been sweltering in a place where few homes have air conditioning.
They're sunbathing and swimming at local lakes, hosing down their dogs
and cleaning out supplies of fans in at least one local hardware store.
Mid-June normally brings high temperatures in the 60s in Anchorage, and
just a month ago, it was still snowing.
On Tuesday, the official
afternoon high in Anchorage was 81 degrees, breaking the city's record
of 80 set in 1926 for that date.
Other smaller communities throughout a wide swath of the state are
seeing even higher temperatures.
All-time highs were recorded
elsewhere, including 96 degrees on Monday 80 miles to the north in the
small community of Talkeetna,.... One unofficial reading taken at a
lodge near Talkeetna even measured 98 degrees, which would tie
the highest undisputed temperature recorded in Alaska.
That record was set in 1969, according to Jeff Masters, meteorology
director of the online forecasting service Weather Underground. "This
is the hottest heat wave in Alaska since '69," he said. "You're way,
way from normal."
miguel
de
Portugal comments: More of the same writing on the wall....
which will continue to be ignored
by those who need to pay attention to them the most.
_________________
(1)
News
Report
News
Report No. 3
[our highlights]
NASA Announces Asteroid Grand
Challenge.
(1)
NASA announced Tuesday a Grand
Challenge focused on finding
all asteroid threats to human populations and knowing what to do about
them.
The challenge, which was announced at an asteroid initiative industry
and partner day at NASA Headquarters in Washington, is a large-scale effort that will use
multi-disciplinary collaborations and a variety of partnerships with
other government agencies, international partners, industry, academia,
and citizen scientists. It complements NASA's recently
announced mission to redirect an asteroid and send humans to study it.
"NASA already is working to find asteroids that might be a threat to
our planet, and while we
have found 95 percent of the large asteroids near the Earth's orbit,
we need to find all those
that might be a threat to Earth," said NASA Deputy Administrator
Lori Garver. "This Grand Challenge is focused on detecting and
characterizing asteroids and learning how to deal with potential
threats. We will also harness public engagement, open innovation and
citizen science to help solve this global problem."
"I applaud NASA for issuing
this Grand Challenge because finding asteroid threats, and having a
plan for dealing with them, needs to be an all-hands-on-deck effort,"
said Tom Kalil, deputy director for technology and innovation at the
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: It is getting harder to not laugh (or cry) at
the level of idiocy of these people. Even if they had one year's notice
of an impending collision, they could not act in time to prevent it.
By the way, how can anyone claim to have found 95 % of an unknown
quantity? If one is seeking what one does not know exists, how can it
be
quantified in order to be able to report a percentage? Amazing!
Truly amazing!
I hope that the NASA boys are just trying to "snow" the general public
and
not that they - NASA Administrators - are that stupid.
_________________
(1)
NASA
Reports
June 19th, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[contributor's highlights]
Protestors flood Brazilian cities. (1)
Youths clashed with police in central
Rio de Janeiro yesterday as more than 200,000 people marched in major
Brazilian cities to protest the billions of dollars spent on the
Confederations Cup and higher public transport costs.
The nationwide demonstrations, the most extensive since the
unrest began 10 days ago, were relatively peaceful. However acts of
vandalism were reported in Rio and Porto Alegre.
Police used tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets to
disperse small groups of masked youths engaging in acts of vandalism
near Rio's state legislative assembly. Some of the young people broke
into the building and television showed a small fire.
"I am here to show that Brazil is not just about football
and partying. We have other concerns, like the lack of investments in
things that really matter, like health and education," said Daiana
Venancio, a 24-year-old lawyer marching in Rio.
Earlier, Sports Minister Aldo Rebelo warned that that
authorities would not allow the protests to disrupt international
football tournaments Brazil has pledged to host - the Confederations
Cup and next year's World Cup.
"The government assumed the responsibility and the honor to
stage these two international events and will do so, ensuring the
security and integrity of the fans and tourists," Rebelo said.
But the spreading unrest is tainting the image of South
America's dominant power as it hosts the Confederation Cup through June
30, in a dry run for the World Cup.
The protests over a hike in mass transit fares from $1.5 to $1.6
began 10 days ago in Sao Paulo, days before the opening of the
Confederations Cup. The tournament brings together eight national teams
from around the world in six Brazilian host cities.
The unrest rapidly spread to other cities with demonstrators
focusing their anger not just on the transport fares but also on $15
billion the government is allocating for the Confederations Cup and the
World Cup.
The demonstrators want these resources to be earmarked
instead for health care and quality education in a country with vast
economic disparity between rich and poor.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Brethren, when one see Brazilians (or
Portuguese, Spaniards, Italians, etc.) displaying this level of
displeasure displeasure regarding any sport related
situation,
it is obvious
that it is a staged,
and
well manipulated, event.
What happened to that deep and sincere love and approval they had for
Lula da Silva, which was transferred to the new President, Dilam
Rousseff ? Only the blind or those who want to be blind cannot see that
this, just as what is taking place in Indonesia, and a very
long etc., are just staged
with
an agenda.
Wait until those "agenda managers" find themselves faced with God's
Agenda. Our Christian advise to them now is to start wearing their
shoes on their knees.
_________________
(1) News
Source
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
Google pledges $5
million to fight child porn.
(1)
American multinational corporation Google has announced a $5
million (3.75 million euro) effort
to eradicate child abuse imagery online, which it described as
"a global problem that needs a global solution".
The company, which already uses "hashing" technology to tag child
sexual abuse images, said that it was working to incorporate encrypted
"fingerprints" of images into a cross-industry database.
This would allow law
enforcement, charities and businesses to better collaborate to detect
and remove such images, as well as to take action against
the criminals.
The pledge includes a $2 million (1.5 million euro) Child Protection
Technology Fund for the development of more effective tools to combat
such content.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: I knew that if I looked "long and hard" we
would finally find some good news in the world... and this is the best
news I
have read in a long time!
_________________
(1)
Euronews Report
News
Report No. 3
[our highlights]
Hunting web child sex predators.
(1)
Demand for child sex abuse
material is at an all time high, with more than half of all explicit
content being hosted in Europe. Several high profile cases, most
recently the conviction of Mark Bridger in the UK for the murder and
abuse of five-year-old April Jones, have brought the issue into the
public consciousness again.
Along with the higher volumes of material being distributed, experts say the victims are
getting younger - including toddlers and babies. Head of
Interpol's Crimes Against Children Unit, Michael Moran, attributes this
to the fact that younger children are less able to expose their
abusers. He says: "pre-speech children cannot disclose, pre-speech
children can't tell on you basically".
miguel
de
Portugal comments: That is how sick our society has become.
Maybe the following words from Jesus will make more sense now:
[11]
And into whatsoever city or town you shall enter, inquire who in it is
worthy, and there abide till you go thence. [12] And when you come into
the house, salute it, saying: Peace be to this house. [13] And if that house be worthy, your
peace shall come upon it; but if it be not worthy,
your peace shall return to you. [14] And whosoever shall not receive
you, nor hear your words: going forth out of that house or city shake
off the dust from your feet. [15] Amen I say to you,
it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the
day of judgment, than for that city. [Matthew 10]
"That city" signifying a culture which has rejected His Peace. A sin
that
is magnified many times over when His Holy Name and Messages have been
used to exploit the world population, instead of leading it to Him!
If someone has difficulty understanding why would Jesus make such
statement - "shall be more tolerable
for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the
day of judgment" - we will explain it using something else He
said:
But
he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten
with few stripes. And unto
whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and
to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more. [Luke 12:48]
In the heyday of Sodom and
Gomorrah, no one there had had the opportunity that God gave the rest
of humanity with Jesus' manifestation in Time. As we have said
before, Jesus, The Word of God, was the way of God, The Father, was
telling
the Jews something like: "Exactly
what part of the Law and the Prophets
can't you understand and live?"
Jesus made clear what the Law and
the Prophets transmitted to the
people of God. Let us not forget that He also said:
Do
not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not
come to destroy, but to fulfill. [Matthew 5:17]
All things therefore whatsoever you
would that men should do to you, do you also to them. For this is the
law and the prophets. [Matthew
7:12]
As all that is truly from God, is perfectly coherent and simple (after
He
explains it, of course!).
________________
(1)
Euronews
Reports
June 18th, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
Messages Galore, but
No Time to Think. (1)
I'm old enough to remember a simpler
time in the office, when talking - whether in person or on the phone -
was the main way to communicate. I once had a job where I filled out
those pink "While You Were Out" slips for employees who had stepped
away from their desks.
Then, in the 1990s, came e-mail, and things were never the same. .... e-mail made communicating with
people incredibly - and,
at first, delightfully - easy.
Now, a few decades later,
people constantly complain that their e-mail in-boxes are unmanageable.
And many more technologies have joined the workplace party. We can now use cellphones, texts,
instant messaging, text messaging, social media, corporate intranets
and cloud applications to communicate at work.
Something may have been lost
as we adopted these new communication tools: the ability to concentrate.
"Nobody can think anymore because they're constantly interrupted," said
Leslie Perlow, a Harvard Business School professor and author of
"Sleeping With Your Smartphone." Workers fear the repercussions
that could result if they are unavailable, she said.
The intermingling of work and personal life adds to the onslaught, as
people communicate about personal topics during the workday, and about
work topics when they are at home.
...let's never forget the value of face-to-face, or voice-to-voice,
communication. An actual unrehearsed conversation - requiring sustained
attention and spontaneous reactions - may be old-fashioned, but it just
might turn up something new.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: In simple terms: More communication tools and
less communication quality, as well as a reduction in creativity due to
the lack of concentration/focusing.
No question about it - satan keeps peddling his apples and people keep
buying them.
_________________
(1)
New York Times Reports
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
Belgium on verge of
legalizing child euthanasia.
(1)
Belgium might become the first country
in the world to allow
seriously ill children the right to choose to die if lawmakers
in the Federal Parliament decide to expand on the already controversial
euthanasia laws.
While the Netherlands has also stopped prosecuting doctors who perform
euthanasia on minors, as long as strong medical guidelines are
followed, Belgium could become the first country in the developed world
to openly embrace the practice, according to a report in Belgian daily
newspaper Der Morgen, translated by French news agency Presseurop.
Current laws in Belgium allow euthanasia only on people over 18 years
of age. The new law would apparently allow doctors to decide on a
case-by-case basis if the
child is mature enough to make a decision on his or her life,
but they will also consider whether a child's condition truly is
hopeless enough to warrant euthanasia.
Statistics showed that 1,333
people were euthanized in the European country in 2011, accounting for about one percent
of all deaths. "The lessons are clear. Once you relax the law on
euthanasia or assisted suicide steady extension will follow as night
follows day," Peter Saunders, director of campaign group Care Not
Killing, has said.
Christian groups, including the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium, are
getting ready to protest this new proposal.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Considering the fact that such decision (to
kill oneself) is most difficult for a well adjusted adult, imagine
finding a child who is "mature enough" to make such decision.
Also keep in mind that Belgium
is often used as an example
of a highly
developed and mature - intellectually y politically - country; and
example to
emulate.....
As we do not tire of saying: Man, without God in his/her heart,
occupies the firs rung in the zoological ladder.
(sarcasm on) Pass 'them apples, please! (sarcasm off)
_________________
(1)
Radio Vaticana Reports
News
Report No. 3
[our highlights]
Facebook Made Me Do It.
(1)
A few weeks ago I was skimming through
my Instagram feed when my mouth dropped open. Sandwiched between images
of sunny afternoon outings and boozy brunches was a photo of my friend
in a hotel room, wearing lime green thong underwear and very little
else. It was scandalous, arguably over the top for a photo posted in
public where, in theory, anyone who wanted would be able to see it. But
people loved it. It had dozens of likes as well as some encouraging
comments.
That feedback loop of
positive reinforcement is the most addictive element of social media.
All those retweets, likes and favorites give us a little jolt, a little
boost that pushes us to keep coming back for more. It works whether or
not we post the typical social media fodder of lush vacation pictures
and engagement announcements or venture into realms that showcase our
most daredevilish antics and risqué behavior.
It is one way to understand why people upload things that make us gasp,
from my friend's playful bare-all portrait to more sinister, illegal
activities, like the defacing of parks and monuments with graffiti and
other acts of outright vandalism.
Our growing collective
compulsion to document our lives and share them online, combined
with the instant gratification that comes from seeing something you are
doing or experiencing get near-immediate approval from your online
peers, could be giving us more reason to act out online, for better or
for worse.
We are, in other words, one
another's virtual enablers.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: How sad.... "
Our
growing collective compulsion to document our lives and share them
online,".
If most realized that the reason that they spend so much time "sharing"
and reading/viewing "what others share" is really because they do not
have a much of prayer life, they would be embarrassed to tears.
Of course, all of those tools could be very valuable if used
judiciously. Unfortunately, most cannot even spell the word
"judiciously", much less acting in such manner.
_________________
(1)
New York Times Reports
June 17th, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[highlights by contributor]
Far-Right supporters of the disgraced rebel Catholic bishop
Richard Williamson are planning a takeover of the ultra-traditionalist
Society of St Pius X (SSPX), according to the
anti-fascist magazine Searchlight. (1)
Williamson, a convicted Holocaust denier, had his excommunication
lifted by Pope Benedict XVI along with that of the SSPX's three other
bishops as a prelude to possible reconciliation with Rome. But the
unity plans fell apart after Williamson was exposed as a Holocaust
denier – and after Bishop Bernard Fellay, the "moderate" leader of the
SSPX, failed to grasp Pope Benedict's olive branch.
Williamson was eventually expelled from the SPPX – but now,
according to Searchlight, his supporters are trying to wrest control of
the body, alienated from Rome since the 1970s, from Fellay.
The following is from a Searchlight document which provides detailed
claims of links between allies of the English-born Williamson and
former supporters of the British National Front and the BNP:
A coup within Catholicism is imminent. The target is The Society
of Pius X (SSPX), an ultra-traditionalist group founded in 1970 out of
opposition to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). The
plotters intend to make a major step towards their takeover at a
conference on the weekend of 1 and 2 June, which we can reveal will be
held at Earlsfield Library Hall, 276 Magdalen Road, Earlsfield London
SW18 from 9am to 5pm. The key players in this plot are a bunch of
neo-Nazis, fascists and others with disreputable backgrounds. Their
objective is to replace SSPX’s current Superior General, Bishop Bernard
Fellay, with the convicted Holocaust-denier Bishop Richard Williamson.
This plot is a very worrying turn of events.
SSPX is no stranger to controversy. Its members have
supported the French Front National and given sanctuary to a Nazi
collaborator and war criminal. A previous District Superior… removed
Nazi sympathisers from the Society, but our sources inform us that they
have re-infiltrated it … This has left many decent members
shocked and fearful for its future. They do not want to see it fall
into the hands of neo-Nazis.
The SSPX is, in my opinion, more trouble than it's worth:
mainstream Catholic bishops use its extreme stance as an excuse to
persecute traditionalists within the official Church and deny them
their canonical right to celebrate the traditional Latin liturgy.
That said, far-Right views have hitherto been confined to a (fairly
significant) anti-Semitic fringe within the SSPX. But now that
hardliners in the Society have set their face against reunion with
Rome, the dynamics of sectarianism are taking over and the fringe risks
becoming the SSPX mainstream
Contributor's
comments: I consider the author (Damian Thompson) to be a
reliable source; he is a conservative Catholic writer in the UK.
However, I do not know about the "anti-fascist campaigners" who may be
his source.
This May 25th story refers to an SSPX conference in early June.
_________________
(1) Source
News
Report No. 2
[highlights by contributor]
Pope confirms faith encyclical nearly done. (1)
Pope
Francis put aside his prepared remarks this morning and told members of
the Synod of Bishops that the encyclical on faith is almost ready and
the exhortation on evangelization will be finished before the Year of
Faith is over.
“Now the four hand encyclical
should be released, which Pope Benedict XVI had begun,” Pope Francis
said June 13.
“He handed it to me, it is an intense document,” he told the bishops.
“He has been the one to do the great work,” he added.
Pope Francis made his comments during a meeting with 25 members
of the Synod of Bishops on June 13 in the Consistory Hall of the
Apostolic Palace.
The group gathered in Rome today to help him choose the theme of their
next general assembly, which will take place in 2015.
“I thought that the Year of Faith should not end without a nice
document that can help us,” said Pope Francis, referring to the
exhortation from the new evangelization synod that was held in Oct.
2012.
The Pope issues post-Synodal Exhortations after a synod of bishops is
held. The documents are the fruit of the discussion and prayer that
takes place during the gathering, combined with the unique
contributions of the Holy Father. “I liked the idea and I will
take that road,” Pope Francis said of the synod.
Contributor's
comments: In the last
Private
FYI&R Mr. KF wrote...
"Ratzinger usurped him and now
works secretly in the shadows using Bergoglio as his shiny,
smiley puppet."
....and the above news provide another confirmation of what
is indeed taking place.
A "four hand encyclical"
... who could make this up? I have a vision of a multi-armed Hindu
"god" on the throne.
Maledict
II says that his predecessor did the "great work" of the encyclical on
faith. "Great work" is a phrase that is common among occultists and
magicians, and it means this: (2)
The Great Work is, before all things, the
creation of man by himself, that is to say, the full and entire
conquest of his faculties and his future; it is especially the perfect
emancipation of his will. (Eliphas Levi, the French occultist of the
19th century).
June 14th, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
The bee-ginning of
the end?
(1)
According to the British
Beekeepers Association, a third of all bee colonies have
died over the last year, and in some parts of the country the
number of colonies has even halved.
The alarming figures raise the question of whether the EU’s decision in
May to ban bee-killing pesticides was a case of 'too little too late'.
Experts are saying that the poor summer of 2012, followed by the
lengthy and cold winter is the main cause of the loss; the inclement
weather prevented honey bees from being able to gather pollen and
forage and also stopped queen bees from mating.
Unfortunately this in not an isolated incident. All across Europe and the rest of
the world similar declines in bee numbers are being recorded.
One beekeeper in the UK, who lost around a quarter of his colonies,
told the BBC: "We are in a different era; quite frankly the bees
haven't got the resistance and reserves that they once did because of
various illnesses and viruses."
So what does it mean?
In addition to the 70% drop
in the honey crop this year, the knock-on effect from a decline
in the bee population could prove catastrophic. Einstein is reported to have once
said "If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only
have four years left to live."
miguel
de
Portugal comments: There are a number of theories and counter
theories about the cause, but the only thing that is known for certain
is that: "
All across Europe and the
rest of the
world similar declines in bee numbers are being recorded. "
It does not take an expert in any field to realize that
the bees are a
key element in the ecosystem and their unstoppable demise will
have
severe consequences for humanity - Einstein or no Einstein. The "good"
news are that at this point in the End of These Times schedule, it
really does not matter any more.
_________________
(1)
EuroNews Reports
News
Report No. 2
[contributor's highlights]
Grim New Number for
Syria: 92,901 (1)
Almost
93,000 people have been confirmed killed in the Syrian conflict,
the United Nations' human rights office said today -
but the real number is likely to
be far higher.
The analysis found 92,901 documented killings in Syria between March
2011 and the end of April 2013, said the UN's top human rights
official, Navi Pillay. But she acknowledged that it was impossible to
put an exact figure on the death toll from Syria's upward spiral of
violence. The last such analysis, in January, had documented nearly
60,000 killings through the end of November.
"The constant
flow of killings continues at shockingly high levels, with more than
5,000 killings documented every month since last July," said Pillay.
And "this is most likely a minimum casualty figure," she added. Among
the victims were at least 6,561
children, including 1,729 children younger than 10.
"There are also
well-documented cases of individual children being tortured and
executed, and entire families including babies being massacred."
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that a top
rebel commander has pleaded with the White House to send weapons,
asserting that the rebels "cannot hold on to Aleppo without" them;
he claims Assad's forces are gathering in parts of a city for a
possible attack, on the heels of this regime victory.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: God knows that if Syria were a strategic oil
country for the West, some sort of "coalition action" would have been
railroaded past the UN Security Council and those revolting numbers and
actions would not have reached the point that they have.
He knows.... and the actions that He Will allow upon the responsible
parties amongst the Western Powers will be proportional to such
crime-by-omission.
_________________
(1) Source
News
Report No. 3
[our highlights]
Leaker Snowden alleges NSA hacking on China, world. (1)
For months, China has tried to turn the
tables on the U.S. to counter accusations that it hacks America's
computers and networks. In
an interview with the South China Morning Post newspaper, Snowden
claims the U.S. has long been attacking a Hong Kong university that
routes all Internet traffic in and out of the semiautonomous Chinese
region.
Snowden said the National
Security Agency's 61,000 hacking targets around the world include
hundreds in Hong Kong and mainland China, the paper reported
late Wednesday. The Post, Hong Kong's main English-language newspaper,
said Snowden had presented documents to support those claims, but it
did not describe the documents and said it could not verify them.
The Post cited Snowden as saying the NSA has been hacking into
computers in Hong Kong and mainland China since 2009, citing documents
he showed the paper, which it said it could not verify. It didn't
provide further details about the documents.
He said that among the
targets was the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which hosts the Hong
Kong Internet Exchange, the main hub for the city's Internet traffic.
Set up in 1995, it allows all data between local servers
to be routed locally instead
of having to pass through exchanges in other countries, including the
United States.
"We hack network backbones -
like huge Internet routers, basically - that gives us access to the
communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to
hack every single one," Snowden told the Post.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: After Manning's case and now Snowden's, we
must assume that the crime of "High Treason Against the State" must
have been redefined or erased from the books.
_________________
(1)
News
Report
June 13th, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
Unusually massive
line of storms aim at Midwest.
(1)
A gigantic line of powerful
thunderstorms could affect one in five Americans on Wednesday as
it rumbles from Iowa to Maryland packing hail, lightning and
tree-toppling winds.
Meteorologist are warning that the continuous line of storms may even
spawn an unusual weather event called a derecho (duh-RAY'-choh), which
is a massive storm of strong straight-line winds spanning at least 240
miles. Wednesday's storms are also likely to generate tornadoes and
cause power outages that will be followed by oppressive heat, said Bill
Bunting, operations chief at the National Weather Service's Storm
Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.
The risk of severe weather in
Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, is roughly 45
times higher than on a normal June day, Bunting said. Detroit,
Baltimore, Washington, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Louisville, Ky., have
a risk level 15 times more than normal. All told, the area the weather
service considers to be under heightened risk of dangerous weather
includes 64 million people in 10 states.
"It's a pretty high threat,"
Bunting said, who also warned that the storms will produce large hail
and dangerous lightning. "We don't want to scare people, but we want
them to be aware."
For Washington, Philadelphia and parts of the Mid-Atlantic the big storm risk continues and
even increases a bit Thursday, according to the weather service.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: ...and the Hand of God continues to be
felt..... and explained away by most.
_________________
(1)
News Report
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
Travel Tips Tuesday:
Safely Packing Batteries for Your Trip. (1)
If you're traveling on vacation this
summer, you'll most likely need to bring some batteries along, whether
they're for your camera, personal electronics or other battery-operated
equipment.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has implemented safety
guidelines for batteries being transported on airplanes designed to
prevent fire-related incidents from occurring. TSA works closely with
the FAA on potential aviation safety and security issues, and
TSA security officers are trained
to identify potential safety and security battery-related threats in
carry-on and checked bags.
Here is the breakdown on what batteries are allowed and prohibited
in
carry-on and checked bags, along with some packing tips for safe travel
with batteries.
Whether one likes TSA or not, it is best to
know what their guidelines to avoid unpleasantness at the airport. That
is why we are bringing to our reader's attention these guidelines.
News
Report No. 3
[our highlights]
Pope confirms 'gay lobby' at work at Vatican, in remarks reported by
priests and nuns.
(1)
Pope Francis lamented that a 'gay
lobby' was at work at the Vatican in private remarks to the
leadership of a key Latin American church group - a stunning acknowledgment
that appears to confirm earlier reports about corruption and
dysfunction in the Holy See.
The Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Religious - the
regional organization for priests and nuns of religious orders -
confirmed Tuesday that its leaders had written a synthesis of Francis'
remarks after their June 6 audience. The group, known by its Spanish
acronym CLAR, said it was greatly distressed that the document had been
published and apologized to the pope.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: What next? (sarcasm on) The sphericity of the
planet Earth will soon be acknowledged too? .... and, will they
soon admit that our planet orbits the Sun. So much wisdom! So much
light! It is hard to know what to do with all of it. (sarcasm off)
These people must think that most catholics are intellectually
challenged!
Let's see.... so far Francis has acknowledged and/or condemned that:
(a) the
Church should be a church of and for the poor; (b) the Vatican should
get out of the money laundering business; and, now, (c) there is a 'gay
lobby' at work at the Vatican, but it is business as usual.... and will
continue to be until God brings it to an end.
_________________
(1)
News
Report
June 12th, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[contributor's highlights]
Whistleblower's
Employer Has Cozy Ties to Uncle Sam. (1)
If you haven't previously heard of Booz Allen
Hamilton, the employer of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, it's not
for its lack of ties with Washington,
DC.
Some 98% of the company's revenue in
the past fiscal year came from
its government contracts, and 23% of that - or $1.3 billion - came from
intelligence
work, including for the NSA, the New York Times reports.
It's not just contracts that link
the private firm to Washington: President Obama's top
intelligence official, James Clapper, used to be a Booz Allen
executive, and the man who held Clapper's job in the Bush
administration works there now.
Close to half of Booz Allen's 25,000
workers have top secret security clearance: They have "access to
information that would cause 'exceptionally grave
damage'
to national security if disclosed to the public," in the company's words.
The Washington Post figures a leak was bound to happen thanks to the
speedy
post-9/11 outsourcing of intelligence jobs; a 2010 analysis by the
paper found 1,931 private companies engaged in national
security-related work.
And the system in place for quietly
reporting concerns is less clear to contractors than to government
workers, a former NSA official tells the Times.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: As we said elsewhere - If the unthinkable has
not happened yet,
it only is
because God has not allowed it.
Statistiscally speaking there must be more than one Soviet and Chinese
mole well imbedded where Edward Snowden was.
_________________
(1)
News Report
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
500 years later,
theological debate still simmers.
(1)
The debate over the Christian concept
of Calvinism is about 500 years old. That's not stopping it from
causing division in the nation's largest Protestant denomination.
Calvinism is named for
the 16th-century theologian
John Calvin. Among
other things, it teaches that Jesus died only for those who have been
elected by God for salvation. That idea does not sit well with many Southern Baptists, who believe Jesus died for the
whole world.
Some Calvinists believe that professors on their side have been forced
out of positions at seminaries controlled by the Southern Baptist
Convention.
Convention leaders say there is room for both sides and recently issued
a statement trying to unite the factions ahead of their annual meeting
next week in Texas.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: These poor people continue to grapple, meet
and confer and get nowhere. If they would just come to our pages, their
hysteria would be over.
In the Time Frame
(2)
- Jesus died for the Salvation
of the Whole World.
In the Eternal Frame
(2)
- Jesus only died for those who have been elected by God since, in
Eternity, all is finished. Those who were destined for hell are there
and those who were destined for Heaven are also there.
And I
entreat thee also, my sincere companion, help those women who have
laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement and the rest of my fellow
labourers, whose names are in
the book of life. Philippians
4:3
He that shall overcome, shall thus be
clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name out of the
book of life, and I will confess his name before my Father, and
before
his angels. Apocalypse 3:5
And all that dwell upon the earth
adored him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the
Lamb, which was slain from the beginning of the world. Apocalypse
13:8
The beast, which thou sawest, was,
and is not, and shall come up out of the bottomless pit, and go into
destruction: and the inhabitants on the earth (whose names are not
written in the book of life
from the foundation of the world) shall
wonder, seeing the beast that was, and is not. Apocalypse
17:8
And I saw the dead, great and small,
standing in the presence of the throne, and the books were opened; and
another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the
dead were
judged by those things which were written in the books, according to
their works. Apocalypse 20:12
And whosoever was not found written
in the book of life,
was cast into the pool of fire. Apocalypse
20:15
There shall not enter into it any
thing defiled, or that worketh abomination or maketh a lie, but they
that are written in the book
of life of the Lamb. Apocalypse
21:27
And if any man shall take away from
the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part
out of the book of life,
and out of the holy city, and from these
things that are written in this book. Apocalypse 22:19
and last, but not least, to the chagrin of satan (notice the verse
number)....
And
he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless
it be given him by my Father. John 6:66
As you can see, we settled that 500 year long argument, years ago,
without having to be a "whatever century" theologian. God reveals His
secrets to those He Wills and for His purpose - not to pin medals on
one's chest or "wear" titles.
_________________
(1)
News Report
(2)
About Time and
Eternity
Regarding
former CIA's Edward Snowden
miguel
de
Portugal comments: As we view that poor child's video interview,
I cannot help but feel sorry for him - even though,
as we have clearly
stated, I strongly disagree with his actions.
He thinks of himself as being smart. He thinks of himself
"Intelligence" savvy. Yet....
If he had come down to Earth long enough to read Tim Weiner's book
Enemies: A History of the FBI (1), he would have realized
that the only different thing he saw was the use of more sophisticated
equipment....
doing the exact same things
that has been done for decades upon
decades. Activities which have been known to most in positions of
leadership in the US and abroad.
In other words - he has taken a plunge, with no return, for nothing.
Just like with the Vatican, the Intelligence Services - of all
countries - will continue to function as always; wasting their time,
because it is God Who calls the proverbial shots.
How boring; how terribly boring
and wasteful.
_________________
(1)
Enemies:
A History of the FBI
June 11th, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
Koreas just days
away from renewed high-level talks.
(1)
North and South Korea head towards
ministerial level talks this Wednesday in Seoul, following the weekend breakthrough
at a meeting in historic Panmunjon, where the 1953 armistice was
signed between the two then-warring nations.
It will be the first talks at
this level in six years, and will end a period of frosty and
sometimes violent relations which culminated earlier this year with all
contacts suspended and telephone hotlines cut.
South Korea's president has held a special cabinet meeting to prepare
the agenda for talks, and set priorities.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: That is how intellectually challenged the
Western Powers leadership is.
What the North Korean leadership is now feeding to its totally
uninformed
masses is that: "
The West capitulated
after being faced with an attack by North Korea fearless and powerful
military."
Not only we have not won any wars since World War II;
we are not
even able to win wars of words. How sad! What a poor example to
our
youth.
Of course, those are just rhetorical comments
since it no longer
matters.
_________________
(1)
Euronews Reports
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
Erdogan calls
Turkish protesters 'those who burn and destroy'.
(1)
Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan has visited several cities to verbally challenge the mass
demonstrations against his rule.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the most inflammatory of his speeches as he
arrived in the capital, Ankara. Erdogan belittled the protesters, again
calling them "capulcu," the Turkish word for looters or vandals. He
made his speech in Ankara on an open-top bus, which then drove into the
city in a motorcade.
"If you look in the dictionary, you will see how right a description
this is," Erdogan said, speaking to thousands of supporters who greeted
him at the airport. "Those who burn and destroy are called capulcu.
Those who back them are of the same family."
"All they do is to break and destroy, to attack public buildings ...
They didn't stop at that," Erdogan said. "They attacked daughters who
wear headscarves. They entered Dolmabahce mosque with their beer
bottles and their shoes."
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Do notice.... less than two months ago the
"hot button" used to cause unrest in Turkey - the Kurdistan separatist
movement - was resolved in a harmonious matter.
"They" needed something else to replace the Kurdistan "hot
button" so that "they" could also bring the only stable country
in the area (except for Israel) to its boiling point as the intial
program fro the establshiment of the New World Order called for:
Step
1: The whole world, country by
country
is brought into great turmoil. Propitiated by political, financial,
ethnic
or religious confrontations or whatever is the best means in each
country
to achieve the desired purpose: Generalized chaos.In Summary: "Bring the world up to its
boiling
point".
The fools do not know that "their plans" will never come to pass for so
has been Decreed by God.
(2)
_________________
(1)
News
(2)
Where their silly
plans stand.
News
Report No. 3
[our highlights]
According to Mr. Snowden: "
The
greatest fear that I have (after revealing the NSA operating
secrets)
is that nothing will change."
(1)
miguel
de
Portugal comments: The question, knowing as he really
does, that nothing will really change is: "Why did you do it? An ego
trip?"
If he did not agree with what his work was all about, while living in
"paradise" - Hawaii - and making "a ton of money" (using his words),
then he should have resigned.
But in this situation, just like in pedophile scandals, the real blame
rests upon
his superiors. He said that he repeatedly brought the issues which he
considered improper and illegal to his superiors and they repeatedly
ignored him.
Any superior who is worth "half his salt", would have let him go or
relocated him under whatever excuse after the second complaint. Said
"superior(s)" (what a misuse of a term!) are more responsible for what
happened than
Snowden is.
_________________
(1)
Interview
with the former NSA/CIA contract worker - Mr. Snowden
June
10th, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[contributor's r highlights]
Obama: 'Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone
Calls' (1)
President Obama tried to defuse the
growing surveillance
controversies during a speech in San Jose today, reiterating that
anything the government does is limited in scope and necessary to keep the country safe,
reports the Washington Post. (Pretty much the argument that the New
York Times bashed him about.) He
added that he came to office with a "healthy skepticism" of the
programs but is now on board with the safeguards in
place.
Some highlights:
• "Nobody is listening to your phone
calls."
• "I know that the people
involved in these programs operate like professionals,"
he said. They are “looking at phone numbers and durations of
calls. They are not looking at people’s
names, and they are not looking at content.”
• In
the same vein, he said the government isn't reading your email. The
Internet surveillance program “does not apply to US citizens and it
does not apply to people living in the
US.”
• "You can't have 100%
security and then also have 100% privacy and zero inconvenience. We're
going to have to make some choices."
• Obama also criticized the
leaks that have led to the recent spate of stories.
"There's a reason why these programs are classified."
Contributor's
comments: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-5
[1] But of the times
and moments, brethren, you need not, that we should write to you; [2]
For yourselves know perfectly, that the day of the
Lord shall so come, as a thief in the
night. [3] For when they shall say, peace and security; then
shall sudden destruction come upon them, as
the pains upon her that is with child,
and they shall not escape. [4] But you, brethren, are not in
darkness, that that day should overtake you
as a thief. [5] For
all you are the children of light, and children of the day: we are not
of the night, nor of darkness.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Luke 8:17
For there
is not any thing secret that shall not be made manifest, nor
hidden, that shall not be known and come abroad.
________________________
(1) Source
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
Asteroid the size of
a small truck buzzes Earth: NASA.
(1)
An asteroid the size of a
small truck zoomed past
Earth four times closer than the moon on Saturday, the latest in
a parade of visiting celestial objects that has raised awareness of
potentially hazardous impacts on the planet.
NASA said Asteroid 2013 LR6
was discovered about a day before its closest approach to Earth,
which occurred at 12:42 a.m. EDT (0442 GMT on Saturday) about 65,000
miles over the Southern Ocean, south of Tasmania, Australia.
The 30-foot-wide (10-metre-wide) asteroid posed no threat.
A week ago, the comparatively
huge 1.7-mile-wide (2.7-km-wide) asteroid QE2, complete with its own
moon in tow, passed 3.6 million miles (5.8 million km) from Earth.
While on February 15, a
small asteroid exploded in the atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia,
leaving more than 1,500 people injured by flying glass and debris.
That same day, an unrelated asteroid passed just 17,200 miles from
Earth, closer than the networks of communication satellites that ring
the planet.
The U.S. space agency and other research organizations, as well as
private companies, are working on tracking smaller objects that fly
near Earth.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: I continue to place my trust in God and not
in NASA. Obviously, their surveillance efforts is only nice to create
employment... and for nothing else. Imagine what would they have done
if the asteroid was on course to hit our planet? What if they discover
one that will hit our planet within two weeks?
They can do absolutely nothing
short of praying. Well, I believe that is better to remain in the
"prayer mode", thus, be ready for any and all eventualities: asteroids,
tsunamis, tornadoes, snipers, freeway accidents and, of course, a Gamma
Ray Burst!
(2)
_________________
(1)
News
Report
(2) About a Gamma
Ray Burst
June 8th, 2013 [Feast
of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary]
News
Report No. 1
[highlights by contributor]
Wealth
of Roman Catholic Church impossible to calculate. (1)
It is impossible to calculate the
wealth of the Roman Catholic Church. In truth, the church itself likely
could not answer that question, even if it wished to.
Its investments and spending are kept
secret. Its real estate and art have not been properly evaluated, since
the church would never sell them.
There is no doubt, however, that between
the church’s priceless art, land, gold and investments across the
globe, it is one of the wealthiest institutions on Earth.
Since 313 A.D., when Catholicism
became the official religion of the Roman Empire, its power has been in
near-constant growth.
The church was able to acquire
land, most notably the Papal States surrounding Rome, convert pagan
temples and claim relics for itself. Over 300 years, it became one of
Europe’s largest landowners.
For the next thousand years,
tithes and tributes flowed in from all over Europe. Non-Christians and
even fellow Christians were killed and their property confiscated.
For example, the Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople in the
early 13th century brought it gold, money and jewels.
But by the beginning of the 20th century,
the church had faced several hundred years of turbulence. Protestantism
had claimed many of its members. The French Revolution at the end of
the 18th century outlawed the church and though Napoleon allowed it to
return, his relationship with various popes was stormy.
Despite this, the church retained great
influence in Europe and the Jesuit order focused on missionary work,
spreading Catholicism to other countries.
In the 1870s, the Papal States were
annexed by the new kingdom of Italy and the pope’s territorial
influence dwindled to the Vatican.
In 1929, the Church received
compensation for its lost land in an agreement with the fascist regime
of Benito Mussolini. Under the Lateran Accords, it was paid about
$92-million and, in return, recognized his government.
Investing that money helped fill
the Holy See’s coffers, ensuring its financial security.
According to Britain’s Guardian
newspaper, the nest egg has grown to at least $655-million.
The Vatican’s portfolio includes property
in London, including the building housing Bulgari Jewelers, and
apartment buildings in Paris and Switzerland.
716,290
is the amount of Church-owned land, in square kilometres,
across the globe - an area slightly bigger than Alberta. Properties
include Vatican embassies, churches, cathedrals, monasteries, some
schools and convents. (276,560 square miles) (2)
"Impossible to calculate" does not even come
close to its reality. The prime real estate is so vast that it defies
comprehension, yet, in yesterday's local paper - front page - we were
told that the local Cathedral needs donations to prevent fine works of
art from getting damaged further. The unmitigated gall of the RCA
Administration
is as vast as
their real estate holdings.
_________________
(1) Source
(2) For comparison
purposes: Alaska: 663,266 sq mi; Texas: 268,581 sq mi;
California: 163,696 sq mi
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
The former
archbishop of Buenos Aires was speaking at a gathering of children from
Jesuit schools after being asked whether he had wanted to become leader
of the Roman Catholic Church.
(1)
"Anyone who wants to be pope
doesn’t care much for themselves, God doesn't bless them. I
didn't want to be pope," he said.
Francis, who has rejected much of the pomp and circumstance of office
since his election in March, said his choice was also motivated
by wanting to lead a simple life and to set an example.
"These days there is a lot of poverty in the world and that's a scandal when we have so
many riches and resources to give to everyone," he said.
“We all have to think about
how we can become a little poorer."
Earlier in the week the Argentinian Pope, the first from outside Europe
for 1,300 years, said that throwing
food away was akin to stealing food from the plates of those with not
enough to eat.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: According to Francis, most Popes were not
Blessed by God. We have to give him credit him for that,
because it is true.
Now that he has defined as a scandal "
...when
we have so many riches and resources to give to everyone,....",
when is he going to convert the unnecessary
and obscene riches of the
Church into means for the poor to feed, clothe and house themselves?
If we go by his performance as the head of the Argentinean Roman
Catholic Church regarding the conversion of riches into rice and beans
for the poor, hell will freeze over before we see the example coming
from Francis' Vatican.
As we just stated in the commentaries for News Report No. 1:
The unmitigated gall of the RCA
Administration is as vast as their real estate holdings. It
seems that brother Francis is no exception to this.
_________________
(1)
News
Report
June 7th, 2013
[Feast
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
and First
Friday of the Month]
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
Wi-Fi Signals May
Stunt Plant Growth, Study Suggests
(1)
A science experiment completed by a
group of ninth graders in Denmark is gaining worldwide interest from
biologists and radiation experts, and may lead to a change in how we
view wireless devices in the home.
Because the school did not have the equipment to test the effects of
mobile radiation on humans, the girls instead devised an experiment
using cress seeds and Wi-Fi routers. Six trays of cress seeds were
placed in a room with no radiation, while another six trays were placed in a
different room near two routers emitting approximately the same type of
radiation emitted by mobile phones.
After a period of 12 days, the girls determined that while the cress
seeds not exposed to radiation grew normally, the seeds exposed to
radiation from the routers appeared less healthy than the other group -
in fact, they did not grow
at all. The experiment secured the five girls a place in the
“Young Researchers” competition.
Several researchers from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Sweden
have already shown interest in the research project...
"Within the limitations of their understanding and ability, the girls
have carried out and documented a very elegant piece of work. The
wealth of detail and precision is exemplary, the choice of the right
cress is very intelligent, and I could go on," Johanson told DR.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: The question is: How soon, and how, the
mobile
phone and wireless internet industries "prove" such "nonesense"
wrong.
_________________
(1)
News Report
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
German city copes
after
worst flood in 500
years.
(1)
Germany dispatched thousands of
soldiers Tuesday to help cities and towns cope with flooding from the
rain-soaked Danube and other southern rivers - reinforcements that came
a day after the Bavarian
city of Passau saw its worst flooding since 1501.
The death toll rose to at least 10, including seven in the neighboring
Czech Republic, where a man was found dead in the water in eastern
Bohemia. Another nine people have been reported missing in the floods
that have also swept through Austria and Switzerland.
Chancellor Angela Merkel toured flooded German regions, pledging €100
million ($135 million USD) in immediate federal help and holding out
the possibility for more. She
told reporters in Passau, a city of 50,000 on the Austrian border, that
the damage looked even worse than during the massive flooding that hit
central Europe in 2002.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Another part of the chastisement.
_________________
(1)
News
Report
News
Report No. 3
[our highlights]
Nuke missile crews cite morale-sapping pressures.
(1)
Officers with a finger on the
trigger of the Air Force's most powerful nuclear missiles are
complaining of a wide array of morale-sapping pressures,
according to internal emails obtained by The Associated Press.
The complaints shed fresh light on dissatisfactions roiling this
critical arm of the Air Force, an undercurrent that has captured the
attention of the service's leaders.
Key themes among the complaints include working under "poor leadership"
and being stuck in "dead-end careers" in nuclear weapons, one email
said.
The sentiments were expressed privately by members of the 91st Missile
Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D.,.... The complaints also said there was
a need for more experienced missile officers, a less arduous work
schedule and "leaders who will listen."
The 91st at Minot operates
150 intercontinental ballistic missiles - one-third of the entire ICBM
force.
The missiles stand in
underground silos on constant alert for launch within minutes of a
presidential order.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Is anyone surprised?
_________________
(1)
News
Report
June 6th, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
Pacific Fears Spread
of Sorcery-Killings.
(1)
A conference being held at Australia's
National University generally would fly under the radar - but when the topic is witchcraft, the
equation changes.
What experts are talking
about: The fear that
sorcery-related violence could spread from Papua New Guinea to other
parts of the Pacific.
Time reports that deaths from diseases like AIDS tend to spur
witchcraft accusations. And the former head of the Solomon Islands
National Museum tells the AFP, "The reason why it’s growing is because
there is some kind of economic benefits people are receiving from these
practices."
Ignore the problem, and that country "might end up in the same
situation as in Papua New Guinea where they are actually physically
killing people." It's those killings - including this horrific February
example in which a 20-year-old accused witch was burned alive - that
led PNG to last week bring back the death penalty (to deter those would
would commit these murders) and repeal the 1971 Sorcery Act, which
outlawed "evil sorcery," reports Time.
But Richard Eves, an Australian anthropologist who is co-convening the
conference, notes that legislative changes "don’t necessarily mean an
end to the problem because the ratio of police to population is quite
low. When you’ve got an armed mob screaming for blood, there's nothing
much a few policemen can do. And the fact is that police in PNG are
just as likely to believe the accused are guilty as charged."
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Those are the "fruits" of over a century and
a half of
"Evangelization" of PNG.
In
1844, Pope Gregory XVI erected the Vicariate Apostolic of Micronesia
and Melanesia entrusting it to the Missionary congregation of the
Society of Mary. A vicariate Apostolic is a mission territory under the
pastoral care of a Bishop. The vicariate of Melanesia included Papua
New Guinea. Jean-Claude Collin, founder and superior of the Marist
Fathers, was in close negotiations with his agent in Rome, Bishop Jean
Baptiste Epalle, about the proposed missionary endeavors. The proposals
for the twin vicariates were launched on 16th July, 1844. Bishop
Epalle, together with seven priests and six lay brothers, immediately
set sailed from Europe, in the beginning of February 1845, their eyes
and hearts were set on the Pacific Islands. (2)
But as the highest profiled prelate in Spain, Cardinal Rouco Varela,
told me in a letter:
The failed
Evangeliztion is
the people's fault. Not the Church's fault.
"Pass the salt, please", the one on the shelf has
obviously lost its
savour....
You
are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savour,
wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but
to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men. [Matthew 5:13]
_________________
(1)
News Report
(2)
Source
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
The Bilderberg Group
gathering will this week take place at the Grove Hotel, a golf resort
in Watford, Hertfordshire.
(1)
The annual gathering of royalty,
statesmen and business leaders, will this week take place at the Grove
Hotel, a golf resort in Watford, Hertfordshire.
Guests will include George Osborne, the Chancellor; Ed Balls, the
Shadow Chancellor; and Ken Clarke, the Cabinet Minister who also sits
on the group's steering committee, according to a list of participants
published on www.bilderbergmeetings.org.
Other attendees include Lord Mandelson, the former Labour First
Secretary; Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State; Timothy Geithner, the
former Secretary of the US Treasury, and Gen David Petraeus, the former
Allied commander in Afghanistan and head of the CIA.
Delegates from business include Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google;
Peter Sutherland, the
chairman of Goldman Sachs; Robert Dudley, the chief executive of British
Petroleum; Douglas Flint, the chairman of HSBC and
Jeff Bezos, the founder of
Amazon.com.
The group will discuss how
the US and Europe can promote growth, the way 'big data' is
changing 'almost everything', the challenges facing the continent of
Africa and the threat of cyber warfare, according to an agenda
published today.
The concentration of politicians and business leaders has meant the organisation, founded at the
Bilderberg Hotel near Arnhem in 1954, has faced accusations of
secrecy. It has been at the centre of a number of conspiracy theories.
More conventionally, the
group is likened to the World Economic Forum in Davos and provides an opportunity for
leaders to discuss the challenges facing Europe and the United States
free from the constraints of public office.
Meetings take place behind
closed doors, with a ban on journalists. There is no agenda and no votes are taken or
public statements issued.
Delegates are able to speak on an informal, off-the-record basis and
are not bound by their public, "pre-agreed" positions. This, the
organisers say, allows delegates to "take time to listen, reflect and
gather insights."
miguel
de
Portugal comments: It is obvious the
the salt without savour is
everywhere.
These folks have been at it since 1954 and look at the state of the
world today - much worse than it was in 1954 by overall standards.
Don't the world political and religious leaders ever get tired of
spinning their wheels with no other result outside of spinning wheels?
What a waste! Most specially when one considers the awesome power that
God placed in man's hands via His Son, Jesus Christ.
_________________
(1) Source
June 5th, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
Malware (a
virus-like program) That Drains Your Bank Account Thriving on Facebook.
(1)
In case you needed further evidence
that the White Hats are losing the war on cybercrime, a six-year-old
so-called Trojan horse program that drains bank accounts is alive and
well on Facebook.
Zeus is a particularly nasty Trojan horse that has infected millions of computers,
most of them in the United
States. Once Zeus has compromised a computer, it stays dormant
until a victim logs into a bank site, and then it steals the victim's
passwords and drains the victim's accounts.
In some cases, it can even
replace a bank's Web site with its own page, in order to get even more information
- such as a Social Security
number - that can be sold on the black market. The Trojan, which
was first detected in 2007, is only getting more active.
Mr. Feinberg (founder of the advocacy group Fans Against Kounterfeit
Enterprise) has tried to alert Facebook to the problem, with increased
urgency, but wasn’t satisfied with their response.
Mr. Feinberg said that after-the-fact approach was hardly sufficient.
"If you really want to hack someone, the easiest place to start is a
fake Facebook profile - it's so simple, it's stupid."
"They're not listening," Mr. Feinberg added.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: This is a very serious matter since more and
more people
are banking via internet.
_________________
(1)
New York Times Reports
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
Manning wanted to
enlighten US about war.
(1)
Sitting almost motionless, Pfc. Bradley
Manning listened to his attorney argue that the soldier was young and
naive and only wanted to enlighten the public about the bitter reality
of America's wars when he gave a massive amount of classified material
to WikiLeaks.
Prosecutors, though, contend the
25-year-old Army intelligence analyst effectively put U.S. military
secrets into the hands of the enemy, including Osama bin Laden,
and they want to send Manning to prison for the rest of his life.
"This is a case about a
soldier who systematically harvested hundreds of thousands of documents
from classified databases and then dumped that information onto the
Internet into the hands of the enemy," prosecutor Capt. Joe
Morrow said.
He said the case is "about what happens when arrogance meets access to
sensitive information."
miguel
de
Portugal comments: I do not understand what this fuss is all
about. A very serious crime was committed - no lengthy trial is needed
to establish that. The only thing that needs to be determined is the
length of the sentence which should be based on the level of
sanity of this young man.
Where we need to "fuss about" is:
Who
placed Manning, whose psyche is
an obvious security risk, in that position? and
Why was he not caught
at the early stages of his crime?
The answer to those questions, and then, a permanent solution,
is what
is
really important.
_________________
(1)
News
Report
News
Report No. 3
[our highlights]
Top political appointees use secret email accounts.
(1)
Some of President Barack Obama's
political appointees, including the secretary for Health and
Human Services, are using
secret government email accounts they say are necessary to prevent
their inboxes from being overwhelmed with unwanted messages,
according to a review by The Associated Press.
The scope of using the secret accounts across government remains a
mystery: Most U.S. agencies have failed to turn over lists of political
appointees' email addresses, which the AP sought under the Freedom of
Information Act more than three months ago. The Labor Department
initially asked the AP to pay more than $1 million for its email
addresses.
Google can't find any reference on the Internet to the secret address
for HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Congressional oversight committees
told the AP they were unfamiliar with the non-public government
addresses identified so far by the AP.
Ten agencies have not yet
turned over lists of email addresses, including the Environmental
Protection Agency; the Pentagon; and the departments of Veterans
Affairs, Transportation, Treasury, Justice, Housing and Urban
Development, Homeland Security, Commerce and Agriculture. All
have said they are working on a response to the AP.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz declined to comment.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Is everyone losing their intellectual
capabilities?
As a taxpayer I prefer "my employees" to have unlisted
e-mail accounts so that they may get some work done.
If anyone has a serious complaint which they want to bring to the
attention to a government official, they can write a letter - on paper;
place it in an envelope and send it by the US Postal Service. If it is
not worth that little effort,
it
certainly not worth e-mailing about it!
With the exception of an e-mail or two - as requested by a US Embassy
here and there - all of our communications with government and
religious officials, which over 28 years may have run into the
thousands, have been using the traditional paper-envelope-stamp
technique.
_________________
(1)
News
Report
June 4th, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
China Is Reaping
Biggest Benefits of Iraq Oil Boom.
(1)
Since the American-led invasion of
2003, Iraq has become one of the world's top oil producers, and China is now its biggest customer.
China already buys nearly
half the oil that Iraq produces, nearly 1.5 million barrels a
day, and is angling for an
even bigger share, bidding for a stake now owned by Exxon Mobil
in one of Iraq's largest oil fields.
"The Chinese are the biggest
beneficiary of this post-Saddam oil boom in Iraq," said Denise
Natali, a Middle East expert at the National Defense University in
Washington. "They need energy, and they want to get into the market."
Before the invasion, Iraq's oil industry was sputtering, largely walled
off from world markets by international sanctions against the
government of Saddam Hussein, so his overthrow always carried the
promise of renewed access to the country's immense reserves. Chinese
state-owned companies seized the opportunity, pouring more than $2
billion a year and hundreds of workers into Iraq, and just as
important, showing a willingness to play by the new Iraqi government's
rules and to accept lower profits to win contracts.
"We lost out," said Michael Makovsky, a former
Defense Department official in the Bush administration who
worked on Iraq oil policy. "The
Chinese had nothing to do with the war, but from an economic standpoint
they are benefiting from it, and our Fifth Fleet and air forces are
helping to assure their supply."
Notably, what the Chinese are not doing is complaining. Unlike the
executives of Western oil giants like Exxon Mobil, the Chinese happily
accept the strict terms of Iraq's oil contracts, which yield only
minimal profits. China is
more interested in energy to fuel its economy than profits to enrich
its oil giants.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Is it necessary? The news report says it all!
_________________
(1)
New York Times Reports
Commentary on European Union News (Saga?)
The overall failure of the European Union dream can be summarized as
follows.
(a) A European governmental
structure/body was established to run the Union. This body/structure is
comparable in size and functions to that of the US if we remove the US
Department of Defense from the comparison.
(b) The governments of each nation have not been reduced. On the
contrary, additional departments have been added to interface with the
new EU central government.
(c) The central EU government spends its resources in trying to
homogenize a group of nations which are internally divided by history.
This is a monumental and expensive effort since the meetings, the
summits, etc., etc. seem to never end, only to the benefit of the
travel
industry.
(d) The individual governments must market their own exports
to other EU nations and the world. The EU government has contributed
nothing to this effort; on the contrary, as regulations upon
regulations flow out of the the EU headquarters, even the local
bureaucrats cannot keep up in understanding and applying them.
(e) The local (national) incentive for creativity has been all but
killed, thus
clouding the future further.
The net result, which explains the state and continued demise, of the
economy of the EU is:
A very expensive to operate machinery
has been established. A machinery which has not aided its participants
in any way - financially or psychologically - and which has
substantially increased
their financial and social burdens, while limiting their individual
worldwide horizons.
It seems that only the Chinese have
benefited by
being given an essentially duty free license to import into the EU
whatever they manufacture, and then blanket the EU with Dollar-Store type of
establishments to market them. Logically, impoverished Europeans
welcome the Dollar-Store type
of outlets.
Welcome to the 21st Century fiefdom!
(1) The European feudal
system, with heavy make up and different clothes as desguises, is back!
The only way this concept would have come close to work it would have
been if forced upon the citizenry as part of the New/One World
Order.... and that
global dream is just that, a dream (a nightmare, really) that will
never
happen. Thanks be to God!
(2)
_________________
(1) fiefdom
a.the estate or domain of a
feudal lord.
b.anything, as an organization or real estate, owned or
controlled by one dominant person or group.
(2) The
still birth of
the New/One World Order.
June 3rd, 2013
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
Judge orders Google
to give customer data to FBI.
(1)
A federal judge has ruled that
Google Inc. must comply with the FBI's warrantless demands for customer
data, rejecting the company's argument that the government's
practice of issuing so-called national security letters to
telecommunication companies, Internet service providers, banks and
others was unconstitutional and unnecessary.
FBI counter-terrorism agents began issuing the secret letters, which
don't require a judge's approval, after Congress passed the USA Patriot
Act in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The letters are used to
collect unlimited kinds of sensitive, private information, such as
financial and phone records and have prompted complaints of
government privacy violations in the name of national security. Many of Google's services,
including its dominant search engine and the popular Gmail
application, have become
daily habits for millions of people.
In a ruling written May 20 and obtained Friday, U.S. District Court
Judge Susan Illston ordered Google to comply with the FBI's demands.
In 2007, the Justice Department's inspector general found widespread
violations in the FBI's use of the letters, including demands without
proper authorization and information obtained in non-emergency
circumstances. The FBI has tightened oversight of the system.
The FBI made 16,511 national
security letter requests for information regarding 7,201 people in 2011,
the latest data available.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: As we have stated before - as long as the
information is safeguarded and used in the appropriate manner, no law
abiding citizen should be concerned about this.
I know that I "live in a fishbowl" - the "why" of it is a mystery
to me - but am not concerned since, with me, it is as the saying
goes: "
You see what you get".
Whatever we have not published yet it is because the time has not
been available to do so.
_________________
(1)
News
Report
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
3-D printing goes from sci-fi fantasy to reality.
(1)
Invisalign, a San Jose company, uses
3-D printing to make each mouthful of customized, transparent braces.
Mackenzies Chocolates, a confectioner in Santa Cruz, uses a 3-D printer
to pump out chocolate molds.
Once a science-fiction fantasy, three-dimensional printers are popping
up everywhere from the desks of home hobbyists to Air Force drone
research centers. The machines, generally the size of a microwave oven
and costing $400 to more than $500,000, extrude layer upon layer of
plastics or other materials, including metal, to create 3-D objects
with moving parts.
Users are able to make just
about anything they like: iPad stands, guitars, jewelry, even
guns.
But the military, D'Aveni said, is likely to be among the first major
users of 3-D printers, because of the urgency of warfare.
"Imagine a soldier on a
firebase in the mountains of Afghanistan. A squad is attacked by
insurgents. The ammunition starts to run out. Is it worth
waiting hours and risking the lives of helicopter pilots to drop it
near you, or is it worth a
more expensive system that can manufacture weapons and ammunition on
the spot?" he said.
In the past two years, the U.S. Defense Department has spent more than
$2 million on 3-D printers, supplies and upkeep, according to federal
contract records.
NASA is also wading into this arena, spending $500,000 in the past two
years on 3-D printing. Its Lunar Science Institute has published
descriptions of how it is exploring the possibility of using the
printers to build everything from spacecraft parts while in orbit to a
lunar base.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: The free fall to the bottom of the abyss
continues with no let up in sight (
because there will be none
until God
steps in).
_________________
(1)
News
Report
June 1st, 2013 [First Saturday
of the Month]
News
Report No. 1
[our highlights]
Even in church,
Venezuelans face shortages.
(1)
When it comes to Venezuela's growing
scarcities, not even the Roman Catholic Church has received a
dispensation.
Church officials say food shortages and foreign exchange restrictions
are causing a lack of ingredients needed to celebrate Mass: altar wine
as well as wheat to produce communion wafers. They say the wheat flour
used for the sacramental wafers is scarce and the supply of altar wine
used for Holy Communion is threatened, which could force them to ration
it.
"We only have enough for two months," said Archbishop Roberto Luckert,
a spokesman for the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference. He said
Venezuela's only producer of church-standard communion wine, Bodegas
Pomar, recently informed the church that it can no longer guarantee
production because it lacks some imported ingredients.
The church is considering asking the government for access to dollars,
but it hasn't made a formal request so far, Luckert said. The shortage
of wheat flour has compounded the problems for the church, because the
host, or wafer, administered during Holy Communion must be made of
wheat. The wafers are made by nuns in convents and parish houses.
"Sometimes we spend days trying to get two or three bags," said Sister
Maria de los Angeles, a 49-year-old nun shopping in a small grocery
store in Caracas.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Assuming that the lack of wafers and wine is
a true story and not another staged act - why aren't they being sent -
free of charge -
by the
I-love-the-poor
Francis and/or the many sects/cults within the Roman Catholic Church
who are literally rolling in money?
This, of course, could also be seen as another symbolic manifestation.
_________________
(1)
News Report
News
Report No. 2
[our highlights]
Wal-Mart
Pleads Guilty To Federal Environmental Crimes And Civil Violations And
Will Pay More Than $81 Million.
(1)
Retailer
admits violating criminal and civil laws designed to protect water
quality and to ensure proper handling of hazardous wastes and pesticides
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. pleaded guilty today in cases filed by federal
prosecutors in Los Angeles and San Francisco to six counts of violating
the Clean Water Act by illegally handling and disposing of hazardous
materials at its retail stores across the United States.
According
to documents filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, from a date
unknown until January 2006, Wal-Mart
did not have a program in place
and failed to train its employees on proper hazardous waste management
and disposal practices at the store level. As a result, hazardous
wastes were either discarded improperly at the store level – including
being put into municipal trash bins or, if a liquid, poured into the
local sewer system - or they were improperly transported without
proper
safety documentation to one of six product return centers located
throughout the United States.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Why should anyone wonder why there is more
cancer today than fifty years ago?
Walmart was caught; now imagine how
many, many others are still doing it.
_________________
(1) Source
News
Report No. 3
[our highlights]
Prepare for Severe
Weather with Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA)
Recent
severe weather and the start of the Atlantic hurricane season reinforce
the need for Americans to familiarize themselves with the look, sound
and authenticity of real-time
Ready.gov/alerts
or
Ready.gov/alertas
(Spanish).
Find out how do Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) work.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: Just because we are heading to the climax of
the Chastisement does not mean that we should not behave in a a prudent
manner to minimize individual harm.
May 31st, 2013 [Visitation of
the Blessed Virgin Mary
(used to be on July 2nd) ]
A Report about
the elusive Jesuit Oath
Courtesy of Mr. WO
From an article about a Jesuit (and former classmate of
mine):
"...Fr, Mark Hallinan, SJ,
pronounced his final vows....on October 14, 2001.....(with) these words:
I
(my name) make my profession to Almighty God, in the presence of the
Virgin Mother, the whole heavenly court, and all those here present,
and to you, Reverend Father (Provincial's name), representing the
Superior General of the Society of Jesus and his successors and
holding the place of God,
perpetual poverty, chastity and obedience; and, in conformity with it,
special care for the instruction of children, according to the manner
of living contained in the apostolic letters of the Society of Jesus,
and its Constitutions. I further promise a special obedience to the
Sovereign Pontiff in regard to the missions according to the same
apostoiilc letters and the Consitutions.
After "solemn" vows, the
"fully professed" take five "simple vows", privately - after
Mass, in a side chapel or a sacristy. "(1)
Mystery solved!
These unspoken of five simple vows are the modern version of the
dreaded "Jesuit Oath". So, it/they are still taken!
This
finally sorts out this perplexing matter. I had personally heard the
vow written above, years ago, as a participant in a 'final vows mass'.
Of
course, nobody mentioned what was sworn to privately in the Sacristy!
As a curious indicator of status, the above is taken from an
article written by the now famous Fr. James Martin, SJ, in reference to
his own profession of final vows - in 2009. Hallinan is significantly
younger and far less well known then Martin, yet he is selected years
before to take the vows (in 2001).
Obviously, Martin 'proved himself' by his skillful jesuitical
defense of Opus Dei, in which he was both gently criticizing AND
defending them, and critiques of 'Da Vinci COde'.
After not
having contact with Hallinan for many years, I contacted him from the
nursing home where I was recovering from surgery. He was not the same
man I had once
known.
In retrospect, I would have sooner invited Nosferatu to my bedside.
He reeked of ...something hidden..... hidden agendas. And that he was
wearing a mask for me.
I also got the distinct impression that, once contacted by me, that he
was under orders to 'keep an eye on me'.
miguel
de
Portugal comments: We thank Mr. WO for sharing this personal,
and very valuable, experience with all.
_________________
(1) Taken
from the parish newspaper of St. Ignatius Loyola Church, NYC, Spring
2009
The Links to the past News Commentary Issues follow:
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