BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) – Anger over increasing tuition and school budget cuts boiled over as students across the country staged rowdy demonstrations that led to clashes with police and the rush-hour shutdown of a major freeway in California.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

Perplexity

“…upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed….”
—Luke 21:25

“But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every kingdom•Strongs 932: basileia, bas-il-i´-ah; from 935; properly, royalty, i.e. (abstractly) rule, or (concretely) a realm (literally or figuratively): — kingdom, + reign. divided•Strongs 1266: diamerizo, dee-am-er-id´-zo; from 1223 and 3307; to partition thoroughly (literally in distribution, figuratively in dissension): — cloven, divide, part. against itself is brought to desolation•Strongs 2049: eremoo, er-ay-mo´-o; from 2048; to lay waste (literally or figuratively): — (bring to, make) desolate(-ion), come to nought.; and a house divided against a house falleth.”
—Luke11:17

Students, teachers, parents and school employees rallied and marched Thursday at college campuses, public parks and government buildings in many U.S. cities in what was called the March 4 Day of Action to Defend Public Education.

In California, protesters evaded police and walked onto Interstate 880 near downtown Oakland just before 5 p.m., forcing the closure of the freeway in both directions for more than an hour and causing traffic to back up for miles.

Police arrested more than 150 people, said Officer Sam Morgan, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.

One protester suffered serious injuries after jumping from the elevated freeway while officers were making arrests.

Elsewhere, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee police arrested at least 15 people protesting tuition hikes after demonstrators tried to enter an administrative building to deliver petitions to the chancellor.

Some protesters threw punches and ice chunks when police turned them away, university spokesman Tom Luljak said.

Faced with plunging tax revenue and massive budget shortfalls, states have slashed funding to K-12 schools, community colleges and universities. In response, many colleges have canceled classes, furloughed instructors and raised tuition.

Experts say schools and colleges could face more severe financial problems over the next few years as they drain federal stimulus money that temporarily prevented widespread layoffs and classroom cuts.

At the University of California, Davis, about 75 police officers responded after nearly 300 students tried to block a freeway onramp near campus, university spokeswoman Claudia Morain said.

A tense standoff ended after police fired pepper spray to disperse the crowd and one female student was arrested, Morain said.

Protesters at the University of California, Santa Cruz blocked campus gates and smashed the windows of a car while its uninjured driver was inside. University officials urged students and employees to avoid the campus because of safety concerns.

At the University of California, Berkeley, a small group of protesters formed a human chain blocking a main gate to the campus. Later, hundreds rallied in a busy intersection before marching to downtown Oakland.

Senior Eugene Pascual, 22, said he was worried about rising college costs after the 10-campus university system raised fees by more than 30 percent this year.

“My dad’s already working two jobs,” Pascual said. “My mom is working a job … They’re struggling. They’re stressed.”

At the University of Illinois, more than 200 professors, instructors and graduate faculty marched through campus carrying signs that read “Furlough Legislators”—a reference to recent furloughs and 4 percent pay cuts imposed on thousands of university employees.

In Olympia, Wash., a group of about 75 protesters arrived at the Capitol bearing a faux coffin emblazoned with the slogan “R.I.P. Education.” They were ejected from the state Senate gallery after interrupting a debate with a protest song that followed the tune of “Amazing Grace.”

At the University of Texas at Austin, about 100 students and staff rallied on campus to protest a 5.4 percent hike in tuition and fees approved by regents a day earlier. Protesters complained the quality of education was taking a back seat to the university’s bottom line.

In Alabama, Broderick Thomas, a 23-year-old Auburn senior, attended an annual higher education rally in Montgomery and said he feels “it’s the moral duty of the state to give back what they promised.”

On the campus of California State University, Northridge, a group of protesters sat down in an intersection blocking traffic. Police said five students were cited for misdemeanors and released.

In Sacramento, hundreds of students, teachers, parents and school employees rallied at the Capitol to urge lawmakers to restore funding to public schools.

“My kids are seeing their PE, art and music teachers leave, and they’re even taking away school buses,” said Monika Monte, who has three children in public schools. “When does it stop?”

___

Associated Press Writers Marcus Wohlsen and Lisa Leff in San Francisco, Robin Hindery in Sacramento, Calif., David Mercer in Urbana, Ill., April Castro in Austin, Texas, Bob Johnson in Montgomery, Ala., Curt Woodward in Olympia, Wash., and Dinesh Ramde in Milwaukee contributed to this report.

Graduates from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton and other Ivy League schools have accelerated our nation and the world toward the final-day battle of Armageddon.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

The Falling Away

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away•Strongs 646: apostasia, ap-os-tas-ee´-ah; feminine of the same as 647; defection from truth (properly, the state) (“apostasy”):—falling away, forsake. first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;”
—2 Thessalonians 2:3

These schools with a Christian history (more below) are now bastions of secular humanism. They have produced leaders who are directly responsible for the debacles that we are facing — and which are threatening the very survival of America and the world, as we know it. These very bright and gifted people have left us with accelerating problems on many fronts.

The areas

Forty years of flawed Middle East policy is leading to the world’s final battles

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) agenda is legalizing immorality and leading to judgment

The financial derivatives collapse is a worldwide financial contagion

The financial collapse on Wall Street is leading to a one-world financial order and a one-world currency

Secular humanism has led to a godless, immoral world

Ecumenical meetings between the Protestant churches and Muslims are leading to a one-world religious order

Islam is being legitimized to insure the world’s oil flow

Islam’s Sharia finance system is being endorsed

The global warming hoax is an attempt at a one-world order

Violation of the U.S. Constitution is leading to one-world accountability and the federal government’s takeover of America

The ACLU’s excesses have targeted church and state issues

Ellis Washington, in his article “Harvard, the Ivy League and the forgotten Puritans,” wrote:

“How did the eight so-called ‘’Ivy League’ schools — Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell and Dartmouth — go from being training grounds for Christian missionaries and ministers and respected citadels of higher education to what they are now — propaganda factories for every leftist, perverted, radical, tyrannical, failed ideology known to mankind? — Marxism, Darwinism, Freudianism, Higher Criticism, communism, multiculturalism, relativism, naturalism, positivism, socialism, liberalism, egalitarianism, feminist studies, gay studies, transgender studies, transvestite studies, outcome-based education, radical environmentalism, etc.”

Unbeknownst to them, all of these schools are rapidly producing leaders in our country that are leading us to the final days and Jesus Christ’s return to Jerusalem. America may not be predominant in final-day Scriptures, but no nation is a more significant catalyst to the final days than the United States of America under the leadership of academic elites whose god is secular humanism.

Ivy League colleges

Many Ivy League schools were opened as seminaries to train Christian pastors and missionaries to share Jesus Christ with the world. Today, these secular humanist schools of thought are behind the rapid movement of our nation away from God.

The following are excerpts directly from the Ivy League universities websites that show their Christian heritage:

Harvard University: Harvard, which celebrated its 350th anniversary in 1986, is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Founded 16 years after the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. During its early years, the College offered a classic academic course based on the English university model but consistent with the prevailing Puritan philosophy of the first colonists.

Although many of its early graduates became ministers in Puritan congregations throughout New England, the College was never formally affiliated with a specific religious denomination. An early brochure, published in 1643, justified the College’s existence: “To advance Learning and perpetuate it to Posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches.”

Yale University: Incorporated as the Collegiate School, the institution traces its roots to 17th-century clergymen who sought to establish a college to train clergy and political leaders for the colony. Yale was founded in 1701 nearby Saybrook as the Collegiate School to educate students for “Public employment both in Church & Civil State.”

In the over 300 years since its founding, Yale has worked to educate those who would become leaders and contributors to every sector of society. Yale graduates include five Presidents of the United States (including four of the last six), 45 Cabinet members, over 500 members of Congress, and too many other senior officials, judges, diplomats and military officers to name. (Yale Charter)

University of Pennsylvania: “It has long been regretted as a misfortune to the youth of this province that we have no academy in which they might receive the accomplishment of a regular education,” observed Benjamin Franklin in 1749.

Franklin’s associates in this college-creating endeavor included ten patriots who would go on to sign the Declaration of Independence and seven signers of the Constitution. The Academy of Philadelphia opened in 1751 in the building, which once housed George Whitfield’s charity tabernacle on Philadelphia’s Fourth Street, near Arch.

Princeton University: The College of New Jersey (as Princeton University was known until 1896) was a child of the Great Awakening, an institution born in opposition to the religious tenets that had ruled the colonial era. The principles on which Princeton University was founded may be traced to the Log College in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, founded by William Tennent in 1726.

Tennent was a Presbyterian minister who, along with fellow evangelists Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen, Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Davies and George Whitefield of England, preached and taught an approach to religion and life that was the very essence of the Great Awakening period.

The seven founders of the College of New Jersey were all Presbyterians, with Ebenezer Pemberton, a minister and a graduate of Harvard, the only one of the seven who did not graduate from Yale. The remaining six included Jonathan Dickinson, Aaron Burr Sr. and John Pierson, who were ministers; William Smith, a lawyer; Peter Van Brugh Livingston, a merchant; and William Peartree Smith.

The aforementioned seven approached Gov. Lewis Morris in late 1745 or early 1746 seeking a charter for a college that would, in time, become Princeton University. Gov. Morris, an Anglican and a Loyalist, refused the charter because of the applicants’ anti-Anglican views and beliefs. Soon afterwards, Gov. Morris died and John Hamilton became Acting Governor of New Jersey. Hamilton was also an Anglican but more liberal-minded than his predecessor.

Columbia University: Controversy preceded the founding of the College, with various groups competing to determine its location and religious affiliation. Advocates of New York City met with success on the first point, while the Anglicans prevailed on the latter. However, all constituencies agreed to commit themselves to principles of religious liberty in establishing the policies of the College.

In July 1754, Samuel Johnson held the first classes in a new schoolhouse adjoining Trinity Church, located on what is now lower Broadway in Manhattan. There were eight students in the class. At King’s College, the future leaders of colonial society could receive an education designed to “enlarge the Mind, improve the Understanding, polish the whole Man, and qualify them to support the brightest Characters in all the elevated stations in life.”

The college reopened in 1784 with a new name — Columbia — that embodied the patriotic fervor that had inspired the nation’s quest for independence. The revitalized institution was recognizable as the descendant of its colonial ancestor, thanks to its inclination toward Anglicanism and the needs of an urban population, but there were important differences:

Brown University: As the third oldest college in New England and the seventh oldest in America, Brown was the Baptist answer to Congregationalist Yale and Harvard; Presbyterian Princeton; and Episcopalian Penn and Columbia. At the time, it was the only one that welcomed students of all religious persuasions (following the example of Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island in 1636 on the same principle).

Brown has long since shed its Baptist affiliation, but it remains dedicated to diversity and intellectual freedom.

Dartmouth College: The Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, a Congregational minister from Connecticut, founded Dartmouth College in 1769. He had earlier established Moor’s Charity School in Lebanon, Connecticut, principally for the education of Native Americans.

Middle East affair — CFR members

The United States Middle East policy legacy has been 40 years of miscalculations and missed opportunities. American diplomats and presidents refuse to acknowledge that Arabs and members of Islam are like no other people in the world and must be handled differently.

Moreover, the CFR’s pressuring of Israel to divide her land has empowered the terror organizations that are threats to the world. The $1 trillion-and-climbing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue to take a major toll.

Henry Kissinger (Harvard) was Richard Nixon’s national security advisor and then secretary of state. He was one of the original participants in the land-for-peace efforts.

Zbigniew Brzezinski (Harvard and Columbia) served as national security advisor for Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. He advises Obama and is not a friend of Israel.

George H.W. Bush (Yale) began the latest land-for-peace process in Madrid, Spain, in 1991.

Bill Clinton (Yale) was active for eight years in the Israeli-Palestinian talks.

G.W. Bush (Yale and Harvard) coined the term “Israel and Palestine, two democratic state living side-by-side in peace and security.” Bush’s aggressive war in Iraq and Afghanistan accelerated final-day events. His efforts to democratize former Soviet Union countries infuriated Russian President Vladimir Putin and increased his involvement in the Middle East and aligning with final-day countries; Iran, Turkey, Syria and others.

Hillary Clinton (Yale), Obama’s secretary of state, is active in the peace process in Israel.

Richard Haas (Harvard) is the president of the CFR who introduced the book Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President in the first week of December 2008. The book was the collaborative effort of 15 scholars.

LGBT

President Barack Obama (Columbia and Harvard) was the first president to endorse the Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Transgender agenda through proclamations, posting of his LGBT agenda and legislation.

Here’s how Harvard grads implemented the LGBT campaign:

Putting strategies to work: the homosexual propaganda campaign in America’s media:

http://www.article8.org/docs/gay_strategies/after_the_ball.htm

If you think that the radical changes in the minds of Americans — and in your own mind — about homosexuality in the last decade are an accident, you must read the section below. It’s taken from the 1989 book, After the Ball: How America will conquer its fear and hatred of gays in the 90s (Penguin Books) — which immediately became a beacon for the then-emerging homosexual movement.

Building on the basic strategies outlined in Marshall Kirk’s groundbreaking 1987 article, “The Overhauling of Straight America,” this book puts forth the very sophisticated psychological persuasion and propaganda mass media techniques that we’ve all seen and been affected by over the years — without understanding their purpose and impact.

Kirk is a researcher in neuropsychiatry. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1980, majoring in psychology, and writing his honors thesis on the testing of gifted children.

The book describes his co-author Hunter Madsen as having received a doctorate in politics from Harvard in 1985 and as an expert on public persuasion tactics and social marketing who has designed commercial advertising on Madison Avenue, served as a consultant to gay media campaigns across the country, and appears frequently on national media as an advocate for gay rights.

Of particular note is their tactical device throughout the book of referring to religious dissenters and other critics of homosexual behavior as “bigots.” Their language is purposefully crude to enhance that idea. Much like the “big lie” theory developed in the 1920s and 1930s by the Nazis, the constant repetition of this eventually has the desired psychological effect on masses of people.

As you read this, keep in mind that it was written in 1989 — and look around to see how far the homosexual movement has gotten using these techniques.

David Kupelian of WND.com wrote:

Kirk and Madsen’s “war goal,” explains marketing expert Paul E. Rondeau of Regent University, was to “force acceptance of homosexual culture into the mainstream, to silence opposition, and ultimately to convert American society.” In his comprehensive study, Selling Homosexuality to America, Rondeau writes:

President Obama (Columbia and Yale) selected Elena Kagan, the dean of the Harvard Law School, to be his Solicitor-General. She has been committed to the elimination of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Cass Sunstien (Harvard) — the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. In a recent book, Sunstein proposes that government recognition of marriage be discontinued.

“Under our proposal, the word marriage would no longer appear in any laws, and marriage licenses would no longer be offered or recognized by any level of government,” argues Sunstein. He continues, “The only legal status states would confer on couples would be a civil union, which would be a domestic partnership agreement between any two people.”

Sen. Joe Lieberman (Yale): The current law, dubbed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” calls for service members to be discharged if they disclose that they are homosexual.

The law “is inconsistent with our most important national values and diminishes our military readiness,” one of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) told reporters.

“The record is now clear that the application of the current ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy has diminished America’s military readiness,” he said.

George W. Bush (Yale and Harvard) committed the U.S. to $50 billion in fighting AIDS. In search of a legacy, President George W. Bush committed $15 billion in funds over five years to battle AIDS in Africa.

Financial derivatives

The financial derivatives model was established at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It has cost American taxpayers $1 trillion and climbing. It was a major vehicle in the subprime fiasco and all other excesses on Wall Street.

Myron Scholes met Fischer Black (Harvard), and Robert C. Merton (Columbia), who joined MIT in 1970. For the following years, Scholes, Black and Merton undertook groundbreaking research in asset pricing, including the work on their famous option-pricing model.

The term Black–Scholes refers to three closely related concepts: The Black–Scholes model is a mathematical model of the market for an equity, in which the equity’s price is a stochastic process.

The Black–Scholes PDE is a partial differential equation which (in the model) must be satisfied by the price of a derivative on the equity. The Black–Scholes formula is the result obtained by solving the Black–Scholes PDE for a European call option.

The Guardian’s Julia Flinch: The worst economic turmoil since the Great Depression is not a natural phenomenon but a man-made disaster in which we all played a part.

The following is from “25 people at the heart of the meltdown”:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/26/road-ruin-recession-individuals-economy

Alan Greenspan, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, 1987- 2006 (Columbia). He is viewed as one of those most culpable for the crisis. He is blamed for allowing the housing bubble to develop as a result of his low interest rates and lack of regulation in mortgage lending. He backed subprime lending and urged homebuyers to swap fixed-rate mortgages for variable rate deals, which left borrowers unable to pay when interest rates rose.

For many years, Greenspan also defended the booming derivatives business, which barely existed when he took over the Fed, but which mushroomed from $100 trillion in 2002 to more than $500 trillion five years later.

William Jefferson Clinton (Yale). President Clinton’s tenure was characterized by economic prosperity and financial deregulation, which in many ways set the stage for the excesses of recent years. Among his biggest strokes of free-wheeling capitalism was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, a cornerstone of Depression-era regulation. He also signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which exempted credit-default swaps from regulation.

In 1995, Clinton loosened housing rules by rewriting the Community Reinvestment Act, which put added pressure on banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods. It is the subject of heated political and scholarly debate whether any of these moves are to blame for our troubles, but they certainly played a role in creating a permissive lending environment.

G.W. Bush, U.S. President (Yale and Harvard). From the start, Bush embraced a governing philosophy of deregulation. That trickled down to federal oversight agencies, which in turn eased off on banks and mortgage brokers. Bush did push early on for tighter controls over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but he failed to move Congress.

Stan O’Neil, Merrill Lynch (Harvard). Merrill Lynch CEO for nearly six years (ending in 2007), O’Neil guided the firm from its familiar turf — fee businesses like asset management — into the lucrative game of creating collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), which were largely made of subprime mortgage bonds. To provide a steady supply of the bonds — the raw pork for his booming sausage business — O’Neal allowed Merrill to load up on the bonds and keep them on its books.

By June 2006, Merrill had amassed $41 billion in subprime CDOs and mortgage bonds, according to Fortune. As the subprime market unwound, Merrill went into crisis, and Bank of America swooped in to buy it.

Sandy Weil, Citicorp (Cornell). Who decided banks had to be all things to all customers? Weill did. Starting with a low-end lender in Baltimore, he cobbled together the first great financial supermarket, Citigroup. Along the way, Weill’s acquisitions (Smith Barney, Travelers, etc.) and persistent lobbying shattered Glass-Steagall — the law that limited the investing risks banks could take. Rivals followed Citi.

The swollen banks are now one of the country’s major economic problems. Every major financial firm seems too big to fail, leading the government to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to keep them afloat. The biggest problem bank is Weill’s Citigroup. The government has already spent $45 billion trying to fix it.

Frank Raines, Fannie Mae (Harvard). Raines, who was at the helm when things really went off course. A former Clinton Administration budget director, Raines was the first African-American CEO of a Fortune 500 company when he took the helm in 1999. He left in 2004 with the company embroiled in an accounting scandal just as it was beginning to make big investments in subprime mortgage securities that would later sour.

Fannie and rival Freddie Mac became wards of the U.S. government.

Robert Rubin (Harvard). In 1997, together with then-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, Rubin strongly opposed the regulation of derivatives, when such regulation was proposed by then-head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Brooksley Born.

Overexposure to credit derivatives of mortgage-backed securities was a key reason for the failure of U.S. financial institutions Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, American International Group, and Washington Mutual in 2008. Rubin was highlighted in a Public Broadcasting Service “Frontline” report, “The Warning.”

Arthur Levitt Jr., a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has said in explaining Rubin’s strong opposition to the regulations proposed by Born that Greenspan and Rubin were “joined at the hip on this.” “They were certainly very fiercely opposed to this and persuaded me that this would cause chaos,” said Levitt.

Secular humanism

Humanist Manifesto II — Excerpt from the Preface

by Paul Kurtz (Columbia) and Edwin H. Wilson (1973)

As in 1933, humanists still believe that traditional theism, especially faith in the prayer-hearing God assumed to live and care for persons, to hear and understand their prayers, and to be able to do something about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith.

Salvationism, based on mere affirmation, still appears as harmful, diverting people with false hopes of heaven hereafter. Reasonable minds look to other means for survival.

New statements should be developed to supersede this, but for today it is our conviction that humanism offers an alternative that can serve present-day needs and guide humankind toward the future.

Secular humanism is a humanist philosophy that upholds reason, ethics and justice, and specifically rejects the supernatural and the spiritual as warrants of moral reflection and decision-making. Like other types of humanism, secular humanism is a life-stance focusing on the way human beings can lead good and happy lives.

From Harvard Magazine, December 2005, p. 33:

Paul Kurtz received his Master’s degree and Doctor of Philosophy degree from Columbia University. Many of his contemporaries attend Ivy League Schools.

Global warming hoax (Harvard)

Al Gore (Harvard) — Few people have been as vocal about the urgency of global warming and the need to reinvent the way the world produces and consumes energy as Mr. Gore.

Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming skeptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire,” profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in. (The Telegraph, UK)

Sharia finance (Harvard-sponsored meeting)

Islamic Finance Project. Through their Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School, Harvard sponsored a Treasury Department seminar last week entitled ‘Islamic Finance 101.” The advertised purpose of the closed meeting was to provide Treasury regulators with objective information on Islamic Finance, a rapidly growing sector also known as Sharia-Compliant Finance (SCF). In reality, the seminar was little more than a government-sponsored promotion of the subversive Islamist agenda carried out under the guise of Sharia Finance. (Frank Gaffney Jr.)

Constitution (Yale Law School dean)

According to the past writings of Harold Koh, the former Yale Law School dean who is now the U.S. government’s top authority on international law and its application domestically, “norms” like the new Human Rights Council resolution should supersede U.S. laws and even the Constitution.

ACLU (Harvard)

The ACLU’s Crystal Eastman and Roger Baldwin. Baldwin received his bachelor’s and master’s from Harvard. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was founded in 1920 by a group of people who were concerned that the Bill of Rights was nothing but a “parchment barrier” to governmental misdeeds. The ACLU is a legal organization that provides attorneys and legal expertise in cases where Civil Rights are allegedly being violated.

(Note: Many religious groups oppose the ACLU because it actively works to over-indulge in “separation of church and state” issues. A majority of the members are far-left liberals. Jay Sekulow’s ACLJ opposes them continuously.)

One-world order (Princeton and Yale)

Princeton graduate John Foster Dulles, responsible for the convergence of one-world political order and one-world religious order.

World leaders gathered in New York to resolve global problems with former President Bill Clinton as he opened the fifth annual session of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI).

Obama gave the keynote speech, saying, “Bill Clinton has helped improve and save the lives of millions.” In the audience sat another 60 current and former heads of state along with the chief executives of Coca-Cola, Nissan, ExxonMobil and Goldman Sachs and some Hollywood stars.

Among its accomplishments, the CGI says, are commitments to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 60 million tons, treat 34 million people for tropical diseases, give 10 million children better education, and provide safe drinking water to three million people in Asia. (Agence France-Presse)

One-world religious order (Yale Divinity School)

Yale theology declaration that God and Allah are the same

An eight-day conference at Yale University that drew scores of prominent Muslim, Christian Protestant and Catholic leaders from around the world ended with a unanimously accepted declaration for mutual respect, understanding and further interfaith discussions.

“Let us learn to love each other. Let us learn to love all neighbors. And let us do that in the name of our common future and in the name of our one God,” Yale Divinity School professor Miroslav Volf, who co-hosted the event, told about 150 participants on the final day of the July 24-31 conference.

In the name of the Infinitely Good God whom we should love with all our Being …

The nation must defend its historical ties to the land against those who deny them

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

Israel in the Last Days

“And he shall set up an ensign •Strongs 5251: nace; from 5264; a flag; also a sail; by implication, a flagstaff; generally a signal; figuratively, a token:—banner, pole, sail, (en-)sign, standard.
•Strongs 5264: naw-sas´; a primitive root; to gleam from afar, i.e. to be conspicuous as a signal; or rather perhaps a denominative from 5251 (and identical with 5263, through the idea of a flag as fluttering in the wind); to raise a beacon:—lift up as an ensign. for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.”
—Isaiah 11:12

“And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them.”
—Deuteronomy 28:13

Jerusalem – JERUSALEM–The Israeli government adds two culturally rich, millennium-old historic sites to a list of national treasures, and riots break out, followed by international condemnation. Yet, it is precisely this cynical, albeit predictable, response that demonstrates why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was right to add the Tomb of Rachel and the Cave of the Jewish Patriarchs and Matriarchs to Israel’s National Heritage Sites.

There is no nation with firmer roots in a land than the Jewish people in the greater land of Israel. Yet, that great heritage has been under assault by Arab protagonists and their pusillanimous patrons for the longest time, and this has intensified in recent years.

As the Arab people began to recognize their inability to defeat the Jewish people on the battlefield, they began to cleverly craft a strategy of burying Israel’s legacy in the arena of world opinion. This strategy seeks to eradicate the Jewish connection to the land and erode the support for Israel’s legitimacy and very existence. Indeed, the increasingly global campaign to delegitimize Israel has been bolstered significantly by the reticence of past Israeli governments and other Jewish opinion leaders to assert the great Jewish legacy in this land.

The arrogation to itself of the “Palestinian” mantle was the first formidable success for the Arab population that shared with the Jewish people the land that came to be known as Palestine. Likewise, 50 years ago, there was nary a reference to a “West Bank” until that term was introduced by Palestinian Arab propagandists to eliminate further references to the time-honored titles of Judea and Samaria, as the land had been routinely referred to in maps, travel guides, newspapers and even U.N. resolutions.

The continuing threats and acts of violence each time Israel seeks to take a step that reflects its great historic ties to the land are specifically calculated to deter just such steps. Thus, the true reason for the 1996 Arab riots was to prevent Israel from opening a Herodian Tunnel that demonstrated to the world that the Jewish Temple reached well into what has only in more modern times been referred to as the Muslim Quarter. This too was the basis for riots in 2000, when Ariel Sharon dared to walk on the Temple Mount, also known as the Haram al-Sharif, and assert the inalienable right of Jewish people to cleave to that holiest of sites.

In a similar fashion, Palestinian Arabs have sought to eradicate signs of Jewish heritage throughout the land. Brutal excavations on the Temple Mount by the Islamic Waqf destroyed Jewish archaeological treasures of great significance. Likewise, as Israel relinquished control of territories to the Palestinian Authority in 2000, Palestinians savagely destroyed Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus and a 1,500-year-old synagogue in Jericho under the watchful eyes of Palestinian police. The most recent hysterical protest over Israel simply naming two ancient sites as significant to the Jewish people is simply the thin end of a wedge designed to create yet another chasm between the Jewish people and their historic ties to the land.

Mr. Netanyahu was correct when he observed that for “a people that doesn’t remember its past, its present is uncertain and its future is unclear.” Yet, the far more troubling paradigm is that a world disabused of a nation’s rich historic past might ultimately deny that nation’s claims to its land.

A nation that declines to assert its historic truths does not deserve its place among the community of nations. And a government that cowers in the face of its enemies’ condemnations and muzzles its historic claims in response has abdicated its basic obligation to defend the rights of its people.

Mr. Netanyahu — beginning with his decision to open the Herodian tunnel in 1996 and continuing with his recent emphasis on teaching Jewish values and history, and the public assertion of Jewish ties to important historic sites — has correctly recognized the critical need to trumpet the historical narrative of the Jewish people in their land. The raw nerve that he exposed in doing so only demonstrates just how important this is.

For Israel to survive, it must continue to carry this message to the world at large, precisely because its enemies seek to prevent it from doing so.

Aron U. Raskas, a Baltimore attorney currently residing in Jerusalem, has held leadership positions in several prominent U.S. Jewish organizations. His e-mail is aronuraskas@gmail.com.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem told the pan-Arab newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat that Israel must first declare its intention to withdraw to the 1967 borders before any kind of Syrian-Israeli talks can take place, Israel Radio reported on Friday.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

Israel in the Last Days

“And I will bring again the captivity•Strongs 7622: shbuwth, sheb-ooth´; or shbiyth, sheb-eeth´; from 7617; exile, concretely, prisoners; figuratively, a former state of prosperity:—captive(-ity).
•Strongs 7617: shabah, shaw-baw´; a primitive root; to transport into captivity:—(bring away, carry, carry away, lead, lead away, take) captive(-s), drive (take) away. of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.”
—Amos 9:14-15

Syria and Damascus

“The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous•Strongs 4654: mappalah, map-paw-law´; or mappelah, map-pay-law´; from 5307; something fallen, i.e. a ruin:—ruin( ous). heap.”
—Isaiah 17:1

Moallem’s remark came as a response to statements made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said Wednesday that he was prepared to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad immediately and without preconditions.

The Syrian foreign minister said that there is no point in “putting the cart before the horse,” and that “Israel must withdraw from the occupied territories before Syria and Israel can meet.”

`The Prime Minister’s Bureau said Wednesday that Netanyahu is willing to meet with Syrian President Assad.

Netanyahu’s statement came in response to a recent Haaretz report that Syria was prepared to make “gradual peace.” Arab sources told the London paper that the report in Haaretz correspond with the position held by Syria since the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991.

According to the bureau’s statement, “Netanyahu is prepared to immediately set out for Damascus to meet with President Assad, or to invite him to Jerusalem, or to meet with him in a third country.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu quickly announced that Turkey was prepared to start mediating if both parties agreed.

The Obama administration is pushing to carve out an exemption for China and other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council from legislation pending in the Senate and the House that would tighten sanctions on companies doing business in Iran, administration and congressional sources said.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

Perplexity

“…upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed….”
—Luke 21:25

New World Order

“And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.”
—Revelation 16:12

China has balked at supporting a fourth round of U.N. sanctions on Iran. That has emboldened countries on the council, such as Brazil, Turkey and Lebanon, to also express opposition.

The administration’s plan in effect would label China as a country cooperating in the U.S.-led drive to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and appears to be part of a broader strategy to prod Beijing to vote for a new sanctions resolution. The three previous resolutions enjoyed broad support in the 15-member council, so any result that includes several abstentions or no votes would be viewed as a major diplomatic setback.

But the administration’s lobbying for a Chinese exemption has raised eyebrows in Congress and angered several allies, most notably South Korea and Japan, which would not be exempted under the administration’s plan.

“We’re absolutely flabbergasted,” said one senior official from a foreign country friendly to the United States. “Tell me what exactly have the Chinese done to deserve this?” Japan and South Korea, which are U.S. allies, have raised the issue with the Obama administration.

Among other things, the legislation tightens existing U.S. sanctions on Iran by targeting sales of refined petroleum products to the country and the administration would want it to include an exemption for the six countries seeking to negotiate with Iran on its nuclear program. The six are the five permanent members of the Security Council — the United States, France, Russia, China and Britain — and Germany. The most controversial, by far, would be China.

“Given the Chinese-Iranian relationship, it’s hard to imagine a meaningful cooperating country exemption that China would fall into,” said a Hill staff member involved in the issue.

One foreign official complained that the administration’s efforts would encourage China to water down U.N. sanctions on Iran as much as possible and then push Chinese firms — should the U.S. law pass — to invest more in Iran’s oil and gas sector.

Similar behavior has been seen in Chinese companies before. Over the course of the past decade, Japanese firms, under U.S. pressure, have divested significantly in Iran’s oil and gas industry. As they have pulled out, China has moved in.

Today China has commitments of more than $80 billion in Iran’s energy sector. Japan, which once had a 70 percent interest in the Azadegan oil field, has reduced it to 10 percent. Last August, a Chinese consortium led by the Chinese National Petroleum Company signed a memorandum of understanding to invest $3 billion in the field.

Several diplomats said that until now, China has refused to even engage in discussions about possible sanctions. On Thursday, China indicated a slight shift after Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg held talks with officials in Beijing.

During a Security Council meeting, Chinese diplomat Liu Zhenmin underscored Beijing’s desire to see the nuclear standoff resolve through diplomatic negotiations.

But he reaffirmed that China remains committed to supporting the “dual track strategy” — negotiations and sanctions — and urged Tehran to step up cooperation to the International Atomic Energy to “remove doubts” about the suspected military nature of Iran’s nuclear program, Liu said.

At the session, China and Russia pressed Tehran to agree to an offer to swap its enriched uranium for a foreign supply of nuclear fuel for its medical research reactor. The apparently coordinated appeal presented Iran with a final chance to skirt U.N. sanctions.

Clinching Chinese support for sanctions is critical also to winning over other wavering countries on the Security Council.

Lebanon has indicated it will not be in a position to support any sanctions resolution against Iran, which has provided military and political support to an influential faction in the government, Hezbollah. “Lebanon for internal reasons is unlikely to vote for a sanctions resolution,” a senior diplomat said. “I suppose they would rather avoid to take a clear yes or no stand on this issue.”

Turkey and Brazil have also been hesitant to back sanctions against Iran. In November, the two countries abstained on a vote by the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency censoring Iran for its secret construction of a nuclear facility. U.N. diplomats fear they will do the same, particularly if China does so.

Lynch reported from the United Nations. Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Scores of Islamic students staged protests outside Jakarta’s parliament and in at least three other major Indonesian cities on Friday against President Barack Obama’s upcoming visit to this predominantly Muslim country.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

Ishmael•FYI: Ishmael is the son of Abraham through Hagar, the maid of Abraham’s wife Sarah.
Ishmael is the Biblical father of the Arab nations. •From these nations came Mohammad, who in approximately 632 a.d founded the Religion of Islam.
•The verse below is speaking directly concerning Ishmael and the nations that would come from this direct descendent of Abraham.

“And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.”
—Genesis 16:12

Perplexity

“…upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed….”
—Luke 21:25

The students carried banners branding Obama as an enemy of Islam and an imperialist in downtown Jakarta as well as in the provincial capitals Padang, Yogyakarta and Surabaya.
They also threw shoes at large pictures of Obama’s head. An Iraqi journalist was sentenced to a year in prison for throwing his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush during a news conference in Baghdad in 2008.
Protest organizer Ahmad Irhamul Fikri, spokesman for the Coordinating Board for Campus Proselytizing Institute, said bigger rallies will be staged next Friday in more Indonesian cities ahead of Obama’s March 20-22 visit.
Such demonstrations of hostility toward Obama are rare in Indonesia, where he enjoys widespread popularity because he spend part of his childhood in Jakarta while his mother was married to his Indonesian stepfather.
Local government officials allowed business people to erect a statue of a 10-year-old Obama in a Jakarta park in December. But it was shifted last month to a nearby elementary school that he attended after more than 50,000 people supported a Facebook campaign against it and court action was threatened.
Obama is expected to sign the statue’s pedestal while in Jakarta.

Just sitting down at a desk at the marriage bureau at D.C. Superior Court on Wednesday was too much for Angelisa Young. She cried so hard that she eventually had to bury her face in her fiancee’s chest.

Days of Lot

“And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded. But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. ”
—Luk 17:26-30

Days of Noah

“The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.”
—Gen 6:11

Days of Lot

“Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”
—Jude 1:7

“And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;”
—2Peter 2:6

“And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity.”
—Ecclesiastes 12:5-8

About a half-hour later, Young and her partner, Sinjoyla Townsend, who met 13 years ago in a Constitutional Law class at the University of the District of Columbia, became the first same-sex couple to apply to be married in the District as the city officially joined five states in allowing gay marriage.

“I’m just so happy. We’re whole now. We will actually be a true family like everyone else,” Young, 47, said as Townsend, 41, used her thumb to wipe away her soon-to-be wife’s tears. After the couple from Southeast Washington rose from the desk, couples in line behind them broke into spontaneous applause and cheers.

For Young, Townsend and the cheering masses, being there, in the tiny and usually sleepy marriage bureau, on the very first day meant everything. There was the history of it all, but mostly it was about having the nation’s capital validate their relationships and their families.

For the couples in line Wednesday and those who follow, it was the culmination of a three-decade struggle for equality. Advocates had long known that the D.C. Council would approve same-sex marriage. But the timing had to be right. Congress and the White House could have killed the bill, which had to clear a congressional review period, so advocates waited for a president and legislature sympathetic to gay rights and home rule. In the meantime, the gay community picked up important rights in the District, including a domestic partnership law, before the council passed the same-sex marriage bill in December.

Still, there were no white wedding dresses or tuxedos among the gay couples Wednesday because they won’t be able to marry until Tuesday, at the earliest. Gay or straight, the District requires a three-day waiting period from the day you get your license. Young and Townsend plan to marry that day at the Human Rights Campaign headquarters as part of a ceremony involving other same-sex couples.

The line to get into the marriage bureau was composed of racially diverse couples of all generations and appeared to include more women than men. By the end of the day, 151 couples had filed to be married, far surpassing the dozen or so applications the bureau typically collects on a single day. Some brought their children or spoke of the importance of their change in status to their sons and daughters.

“It’s a great source of pride for her and, deep down, a source of relief and stability,” said Silver Spring resident Deborah Weiner, referring to her 15-year-old daughter. Weiner stood in line with her partner of 24 years, Janne Harrelson.

There were congratulatory hugs, commemorative pens and chocolate cupcakes to mark the moment. But it was also a scene of quiet anticipation as applicants sipped coffee, checked their BlackBerrys and prepared to head to work after filing their forms and paying $45 in fees.

Court officials had called in extra security officers to monitor the halls for protesters — but the officers far outnumbered the protesters. And the celebration largely overshadowed the presence of four people from a church in Kansas who gathered outside the courthouse, chanting and carrying protest signs, one of which read: “Mourn for your sins.”

The crowd included local religious leaders who showed their support for same-sex marriage, and dozens of college students cheered as couples emerged hand in hand from the courthouse. Representatives of the Hyatt Regency handed out roses and offered discounts on catering and accommodations for same-sex weddings held before the end of the year.

Absent from the event was Bishop Harry Jackson, one of the leading opponents of the law. Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, has tried unsuccessfully to block the measure by seeking a public vote on same-sex marriage.

Jackson said he would continue to press his case in court in an effort to “let the people vote.”

The D.C. Council approved same-sex marriage on an 11 to 2 vote Dec. 15, and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) signed the bill into law soon after, saying that he hoped the District would provide a road map for gay rights activists in other jurisdictions, including possibly Maryland. Last week, Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler (D) said the state would begin recognizing same-sex marriages from other places.

On Wednesday, David A. Catania (I-At Large), the bill’s chief sponsor and one of two openly gay council members, signed autographs and handed out cupcakes in the hallway. Fenty issued a statement congratulating the couples and saying the city had “taken a historic leap forward, becoming a more open and inclusive city in which all residents can thrive.”

But even as couples planned their marriages, there was some concern the celebrations could be cut short by Congress or the courts. Members of Congress could try to block the District from implementing the law through the appropriations process, and the D.C. Court of Appeals has not ruled on Jackson’s efforts.

“Who knows how long this will last?” said Sharra Greer, 37, as she waited in line with her partner of 10 years, Darcy Kemnitz, 46. “As long as Democrats are in the majority, we’re hoping they can hold the line.”

Many of the couples were registered as domestic partners and covered by a partner’s health insurance policy. But marriage status should give them all of the rights and responsibilities afforded under D.C. or state law, as long as they live in a jurisdiction that recognizes same-sex marriage.

Michael Lavin, 55, and his partner Joe Peters, 48, of Brookeville, in Montgomery County, have been together for 17 years. Although they are registered domestic partners, Peters had to pay a hefty tax when his name was added to the deed to Lavin’s farm. Peters also said that if they remained unmarried and one of them became incapacitated, the other could be denied access to him. “This just gives us an extra level of protection,” Peters said.

But not all couples who made their way into the wedding bureau were there for the District’s historic day. Karen Huang, 30, of Rosslyn, wearing a white dress, walked into the courthouse chapel for her scheduled wedding.

Huang was accompanied by her maid of honor, carrying a bouquet of flowers, as well as her fiance, David Chou, 30. Huang responded quickly when strangers inquired.

“I’m marrying him,” she said laughing and pointing to Chou. “Not her,” she said pointing to her maid of honor.

The authorities of the United Arab Emirates made an unusual decision. Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan al-Tamim said on March 1 that anyone who looks or sounds like a citizen of Israel will be blocked from entering the country, even if a suspected individual produces a passport of a different state.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

Anti-Semitism

“And they shall no more be a prey•Strongs 957: baz, baz; from 962; plunder:—booty, prey, spoil(-ed).
•Strongs 4192: bazaz, baw-zaz´; a primitive root; to plunder:—catch, gather, (take) for a prey, rob(-ber), spoil, take (away, spoil), x utterly. to the heathen•Strongs 1471: ywø…g gowy, go´-ee; rarely (shortened) y…Og goy, go´-ee; apparently from the same root as 1465 (in the sense of massing); a foreign nation; hence, a Gentile; also (figuratively) a troop of animals, or a flight of locusts:—Gentile, heathen, nation, people., neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid.”
—Ezekiel 34:28

“I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth;”
—Isa 43:6

“It is easy for us to identify [Israelis], through their face or when they speak any other language. We used to respect them when they would come holding European passports; we regarded them as Europeans and never treated them badly. But from now on, anyone we suspect to have a dual citizenship, they will be treated with great suspicion,” the police chief said.

The decision is directly linked with the assassination of a high-ranking official of Palestine’s Hamas movement in one of Dubai hotels on February 20. UAE officials believe that Mahmud al-Mabhuh, one of the founders of the military wing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, was killed by Israel’s Mossad. The secret agents most likely used passports of other countries to commit the crime.

It is not quite clear, though, how Arab officials are going to identify Israelis. They would obviously have no difficulty in identifying Orthodox bearded hasids for their side-locks, hats and glasses. It looks like a joke though: “Wearing a hat and a pair of glasses makes you a Jew.”

Such people would never think of traveling to Emirates. Will Emirates liken itself to the Third Reich and use rulers and protractors to measure the shape of the nose, earlaps and the skull structure? If it does, the UAE will lose all of its friends in the West.

The police of Dubai suspect 26 people in the killing of Mahmud al-Mabhuh. The suspects hold passports of Britain, Ireland, Germany, France and other countries.

Mossad’s participation in the plot to kill the high-ranking official of Hamas is just a theory. Even if we assume that it is true, the passports, which the suspected Israelis produced, may not necessarily be fake. Israel has dual citizenship agreements with dozens of countries, including those mentioned in the criminal case.

It may just so happen that law-abiding Britons or Australians will not be allowed to enter the UAE. Such a state of affairs will quickly develop into an international scandal. There are influential Jewish communities in the two countries, and the members of those communities hold two passports on absolutely legal grounds.

In general, the situation is a comic one. However, the scandal related to the assassination of the Hamas official does not look like a joke at all.

Israeli scientist of politics, Avigdor Eskin, said in an interview with Pravda.Ru that the police chief of Dubai released the above-mentioned statements for propaganda purposes.

The Obama administration reasserted its commitment to banning proprietary trading by banks with draft legislative language on Wednesday, despite signs that Congress is unlikely to adopt such a rule.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

Perplexity

“…upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed….”
—Luke 21:25

In a scant five pages from the Treasury Department, the administration put a two-year phase-in on its “Volcker rule” to curb “prop trading” — or buying and selling of investments on financiers’ own books unrelated to customer needs.

The rule would apply to banks, with limits slapped on large, non-bank financial firms, as well. In addition, banks would be barred from sponsoring or investing in hedge funds and private equity funds, under the administration’s language.

While key details were left up to regulators, the language showed the White House is determined to push ahead with a rule it first proposed in January, as the U.S. Senate inched its way toward acting on new financial reform legislation.

Authored chiefly by White House economic adviser Paul Volcker, the rule arrived late in a reform debate that has raged for months since the severe 2008-2009 financial crisis tipped the U.S. economy into a deep recession.

President Barack Obama in mid-2009 proposed a comprehensive package of reforms aimed at preventing another crisis. Most of them were embraced in a bill approved in December by the House of Representatives, but the Volcker rule was not in the mix.

By the time Obama and Volcker unveiled it almost six weeks ago, the Senate was well along in its debate about reforms. The Volcker rule complicated Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd’s task of moving a reform bill to the Senate floor, and he has still not managed to do that.

Amid ferocious lobbying by banks and Wall Street firms opposed to reforms, Republicans have pushed the Senate toward a narrower, compromise bill that looks likely to exclude the Volcker rule and other key Obama proposals.

SHELBY OPEN ON WATCHDOG IN FED-SOURCES

In a potential breakthrough on Capitol Hill, sources said a senior Republican is open to making a new government watchdog for financial consumers a division of the Federal Reserve.

Senator Richard Shelby was said to be willing to explore the so-called “Fed option” being promoted by Dodd as a possible compromise on the watchdog first proposed last year by Obama.

The sources said Shelby was proposing the idea along with giving less independence to the consumer watchdog.

For weeks now, the watchdog has been an obstacle to cutting a bipartisan deal in the Senate on financial reform, one of the White House’s highest domestic policy priorities.

December’s House bill included an independent consumer watchdog agency, as Obama proposed, but Republicans oppose this and their greater clout in the Senate has been decisive.

Even if Dodd and Shelby, the banking committee’s top Republican, agree to a bill in which the watchdog is relegated to a Fed division, that aspect of the bill could face intense opposition on the Senate floor from senior Democrats.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday he would not accept reforms that failed to protect financial consumers. But his remarks at a meeting with consumer groups, perhaps in a significant omission, did not specifically say the watchdog must be a stand-alone agency.

TOP DEMS HIT PUTTING WATCHDOG IN FED

Senior Democrats in Congress on Tuesday sharply criticized the idea of putting the watchdog — designed to shield Americans from abusive mortgages, deceptive credit cards and other dodgy financial products — inside the Fed.

Representative Barney Frank, chief architect of reform in the House, told Reuters he “thought it was a joke” when he learned about the approach being eyed in the Senate.

Frank said on Wednesday, however, that he “could, if necessary,” support putting the watchdog in the Treasury Department, an earlier Dodd proposal rejected by Republicans.

Billionaire financier George Soros said in New York on Wednesday that a consumer protection agency is urgently needed, but he called putting it in the Fed “absolutely unacceptable.

Dodd and Republican Senator Bob Corker, a first-term banking committee member, on Wednesday were near a final deal on revised legislation, with Shelby involved in the talks, according to sources familiar with the talks.

Lobbying groups for large banks sent a letter to lawmakers on Wednesday saying that the Fed should retain its role as the supervisor of large bank holding companies, such as Citigroup and Bank of America.

Despite sharp criticism leveled at the U.S. central bank over its failures as a bank supervisor before the crisis, the approach backed by the lobbyists also will likely be included in the Dodd bill, said lawmakers, aides and lobbyists.

They said another component of the deal calls for forming a “hybrid resolution fund” for financing the dismantling of large financial firms that get into trouble.

Some money for the fund would be fronted by large firms, held by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, and invested in Treasury securities that banks could keep on their balance sheets, with insurance companies partly exempt, they said.

(Reporting by Kevin Drawbaugh and Karey Wutkowski)

(Additional reporting by Rachelle Younglai and Caren Bohan)

Obama names brother of undecided House Dem to Appeals Court.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

Days of Noah

“But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”
—Matt 24:37

“These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just•Strongs 6662: tsaddiyq, tsad-deek´; from 6663; just:—just, lawful, righteous (man). man and perfect•Strongs 8549: tamiym, taw-meem´; from 8552; entire (literally, figuratively or morally); also (as noun) integrity, truth:—without blemish, complete, full, perfect, sincerely (-ity), sound, without spot, undefiled, upright(-ly), whole. in his generations, and Noah walked with God. And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The earth also was corrupt•Strongs 7843: shachath, shaw-khath´; a primitive root; to decay, i.e. (causatively) ruin (literally or figuratively):—batter, cast off, corrupt(-er, thing), destroy(-er, -uction), lose, mar, perish, spill, spoiler, x utterly, waste(-r). before God, and the earth was filled with violence•Strongs 2555: chamacç, khaw-mawce´; from 2554; violence; by implication, wrong; by meton. unjust gain:—cruel(-ty), damage, false, injustice, x oppressor, unrighteous, violence (against, done), violent (dealing), wrong
•Strongs 2554: chamacç, khaw-mas´; a primitive root; to be violent; by implication, to maltreat:—make bare, shake off, violate, do violence, take away violently, wrong, imagine wrongfully..”
— Genesis 6:9-11

Tonight, Barack Obama will host ten House Democrats who voted against the health care bill in November at the White House; he’s obviously trying to persuade them to switch their votes to yes. One of the ten is Jim Matheson of Utah. The White House just sent out a press release announcing that today President Obama nominated Matheson’s brother Scott M. Matheson, Jr. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

“Scott Matheson is a distinguished candidate for the Tenth Circuit court,” President Obama said. “Both his legal and academic credentials are impressive and his commitment to judicial integrity is unwavering. I am honored to nominate this lifelong Utahn to the federal bench.”

Scott M. Matheson, Jr.: Nominee for the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

Scott M. Matheson currently holds the Hugh B. Brown Presidential Endowed Chair at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1985. He served as Dean of the Law School from 1998 to 2006. He also taught First Amendment Law at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government from 1989 to 1990.

While on public service leave from the University of Utah from 1993 to 1997, Matheson served as United States Attorney for the District of Utah. In 2007, he was appointed by Governor Jon Huntsman to chair the Utah Mine Safety Commission. He also worked as a Deputy County Attorney for Salt Lake County from 1988 to 1989. Prior to joining the University faculty, Matheson was an associate attorney from 1981 to 1985 at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C.

Matheson was born and raised in Utah and is a sixth generation Utahn. He received an A.B. from Stanford University in 1975, an M.A. from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1980.

So, Scott Matheson appears to have the credentials to be a judge, but was his nomination used to buy off his brother’s vote?

On February 26, Syrian president Bashar al-Asad hosted Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad and Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah for a dinner in Damascus. Nasrallah is a routine guest in the capital, but the timing of this high-profile trip — just a week after the United States dispatched Undersecretary of State William Burns to Damascus and nominated its first new ambassador in five years — seemed calculated not only to irritate Washington, but also to highlight the central role Hizballah plays in Iran and Syria’s strategic planning. Apart from serving as a pivot between Tehran and Damascus, however, the group also holds the power to engulf Lebanon and perhaps the entire region into another war through actions of its own.

To view popup window put your cursor on the blue words

Moving Towards Ezekiel 38-39

“Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:”
—Ezekiel 38:5

Editors note about Persia and Hezblooah•FYI: Many Bible teachers believe Persia is the area of present day Iran.
It certainly appears that, Hezblooah, is a surrogate army for Iran.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

Syria and Damascus

“The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous•Strongs 4654: mappalah, map-paw-law´; or mappelah, map-pay-law´; from 5307; something fallen, i.e. a ruin:—ruin( ous). heap.”
—Isaiah 17:1

“Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.”
—Zechariah 11:1

Unfulfilled Promise of Retaliation

Two years after Hizballah military commander Imad Mughniyah was assassinated in Damascus — prompting Nasrallah to declare an “open war” on Israel, the presumed perpetrator — the group has yet to successfully retaliate. But it is not for lack of trying: in 2008, two Hizballah operatives and several Azerbaijani nationals were convicted of plotting attacks against the Israeli and U.S. embassies in Baku and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The same year, Turkish authorities foiled as many as six possible Hizballah terrorist plots targeting Israelis and possibly the local Jewish community. Iranian intelligence agents were reportedly helping the group establish a network of operatives posing as tourists.

During his February 16, 2010 speech marking the martyrdom of Mughniyah and other Hizballah heroes, Nasrallah rationalized the conspicuous lack of significant retaliation: “Our options are open and we have all the time in the world….[W]e are the ones to choose the time and place and target.” He also suggested that Hizballah had not yet found a target that “rises to the level” of Mughniyah.

Meanwhile, the group has been preparing for a conventional fight against Israel by stockpiling weapons in the south in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. In July 2009, for example, a large arms depot believed to contain bullets, rockets, and artillery shells exploded in Khirbet Silim village, nine miles north of the Israeli border. Three months later, another Hizballah cache detonated near Tayr Filsay village just south of the Litani River. It is unclear whether these explosions were coincidental or acts of (presumably) Israeli sabotage. In addition, a month after the second explosion, the Israeli navy interdicted a ship carrying fifty-five tons of Iranian weapons to Hizballah. Then, in January 2010, UN peacekeepers uncovered 660 pounds of explosives buried along the Israel border, reportedly pre-positioned by the Shiite militia.

These discoveries represent only a fraction of the weapons Hizballah has procured during its most recent massive military buildup. Since the 2006 war with Israel, the group has acquired an estimated 40,000 rockets and — with Syria’s help — reportedly improved the quality of its arsenal. In addition to boosting the range of this stockpile, Syria may have provided the organization with the Russian-made shoulder-fired Igla-S antiaircraft system, which is capable of downing Israeli F-16s. Nasrallah hinted at this possibility in February 2009, stating, “Every few days, reports appear that the resistance has acquired…sophisticated air defense missiles,” adding coyly, “Of course, I neither deny nor confirm this.” U.S. officials have already confirmed in the Arab press that Hizballah is training with Syria on the antiquated SA-2 antiaircraft system.

New Strategy against Israel

To complement its upgraded arsenal, Hizballah recently spelled out a new, more aggressive military posture toward Israel. Since the 2006 war, rumors have persisted that the group would cross the border and “take the fighting to Israel” in the next conflict. During his February 16, speech, Nasrallah offered a new vision of strategic parity with Israel, if not an advanced conception of the organization’s longstanding “balance of terror” strategy.

Deriding Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defense system as a “science fiction movie,” Nasrallah upped the ante by pledging to go toe to toe with Israel in the next campaign. In 2009, he had warned that if Israel bombed the Hizballah stronghold in Beirut’s southern Dahiya suburb,, then the group would “bomb Tel Aviv.” This time he went one step further, stating that if Israel bombed Beirut airport, “We will bomb Ben Gurion airport,” and then adding ports, oil refineries, factories, and power plants to the list. He also boasted that Hizballah would confront Israeli threats “not with withdrawal, hiding, or fear, but with clarity, steadfastness, preparedness, and with threats, too.”

Repairing Hizballah’s Image in Lebanon

Despite considerable success in rebuilding an impressive military infrastructure under the nose of UN observers, Hizballah’s image has suffered at home. In May 2008, the group invaded and occupied Beirut. In June 2009, it failed to win a majority in Lebanese parliamentary elections. That same month, the fraudulent presidential election in Iran undermined the legitimacy of Hizballah’s chief patron and its controversial doctrine of velayat-e faqih (Islamic governance), to which the group adheres.

Even more detrimental to Hizballah’s domestic standing is evidence implicating the group in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, as reported by Der Spiegel in May 2009 and underscored by Le Monde last month. Nasrallah has repeatedly denied these stories, but the public perception that the Shiite militia was involved in the killing of the Lebanese Sunni leader persists. Worse, in September 2009, one of Hizballah’s chief local financiers went bankrupt in a Ponzi scheme — a particularly damaging scandal given that it involved the same kind of corruption that the group routinely accuses the Sunni government in Beirut of perpetrating.

Nasrallah has attempted to mitigate the impact of these accusations and soften public attitudes toward the group. In his February 16 speech, for example, he offered condolences to the Hariris on the anniversary of Rafiq’s martyrdom. And in December 2009, he delivered a surreal speech promoting the novel idea that his constituents should adhere to Lebanese laws, such as respecting traffic signals, paying for (as opposed to stealing) government water and electricity, abiding by building laws and civil codes, and putting an end to smuggling that undercuts Lebanese businesses. In addition, he emphasized the importance of civil servants showing up for their jobs and actually performing their duties.

Hizballah’s efforts to improve its image also included the publication of a new “manifesto” in November 2009, updating its 1985 charter. Although the new document reiterated the group’s longstanding enmity toward the United States and its commitment to “resistance,” it differed from the 1985 version in ways seemingly designed to reingratiate the organization to a broad Lebanese audience. For example, the new version downplayed Hizballah’s allegiance to the clerical leadership in Tehran and instead focused on its participation in the Lebanese political system. Likewise, rather than urging Lebanese Christians to convert — as the 1985 manifesto put it, “We call upon you to embrace Islam” — the group adopted the more palatable conciliatory language of consensus politics.

Conclusion

If Hizballah succeeds in avenging Mughniyah by striking an Israeli target — whether on the border or abroad — it could set off another round of fighting similar to that of 2006. This time, however, other actors could well enter the fray. If one takes Damascus at its word, Syria may decide to participate in the next Israeli-Hizballah war, a development that could spark a region-wide conflagration. At the moment, Hizballah may be keeping its powder dry on orders from Tehran, in anticipation of an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Still, avenging Mughniyah is a key priority for the group, and its success or failure in meeting this goal could be the difference between the current status quo and a regional war.

David Schenker is the Aufzien fellow and director of the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Matthew Levitt is a senior fellow and director of the Institute’s Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.

Hezbollah getting advanced weapons from Syria, Iran Photo: AP

Syria is transferring weapons to Hezbollah that it did not dare to hand over before, Senior IDF intelligence official tells Knesset committee Tuesday; PM Netanyahu: Iran creating false impression, we’re not seeking confrontation with Syria

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

Syria and Damascus

“The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous•Strongs 4654: mappalah, map-paw-law´; or mappelah, map-pay-law´; from 5307; something fallen, i.e. a ruin:—ruin( ous). heap.”
—Isaiah 17:1

“Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.”
—Zechariah 11:1

Moving Towards Ezekiel 38-39

“Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:”
—Ezekiel 38:5

Editors note about Persia and Hezblooah•FYI: Many Bible teachers believe Persia is the area of present day Iran.
It certainly appears that, Hezblooah, is a surrogate army for Iran.

Syria is crossing previous red lines in supplying Hezbollah with weapons, handing over arms that it never before dared transfer to the Lebanese terror group, the head of the IDF’s research division of Military Intelligence says.

“Syria is handing over to Hezbollah components that it would not dare hand over before,” Yossi Baidatz told the Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee Tuesday

Addressing the Hezbollah threat, the senior IDF official said the group was facing a dilemma between its Jihadist identity and commitment to Iran on the one hand and Lebanon’s domestic arena on the other hand.

“For that reason, although it has maintained the quiet and is uninterested in a clash, it attempts to carry out a revenge attack for Mugniyah’s death, especially against Israeli targets abroad,” Baidatz said. “Simultaneously, it continues to build up its strength for a confrontation against Israel, deploys its members broadly throughout south Lebanon but also deeper, and accumulates advanced weapons – long-range missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, and anti-tank missiles, with Iran’s and Syria’s assistance.”

‘Iranian regime won’t collapse soon’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also addressed the issue, noting that “there is a process of military buildup and very methodical provocation by Iran.”

“We are not seeking any kind of confrontation with Syria. The talk about us preparing for an offensive against Syria is unfounded,” the PM said. “This false impression is being created by Iran.”

Baidatz added that “Iran continues to tighten its ties with the radical axis.”

“Just look at the three-way meeting held in Syria,” he said. “It included the commander of Iran’s revolutionary forces, who are responsible on behalf of Iran for supplying weapons to all terror groups at all regions.”

Also in respect to Iran, Baidatz said that hopes for an imminent collapse of the Ayatollah regime are premature.

“The potential for something taking place within the Iranian population exists, but there’s a great distance between the riots we saw and the regime’s collapse,” he said. “The Iranian regime is not about to collapse, and those who expect that Iran will soon collapse will be gravely disappointed.”

WASHINGTON – At least 50 same-sex couples lined up to apply for marriage licenses when city offices opened Wednesday as the unions became legal in the nation’s capital.

Days of Lot

“And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded. But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. ”
—Luke 17:26-30

“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion. Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.”
—Leviticus 18:22-25

Cheering erupted from the crowd when the first couple signed in at the city’s marriage bureau inside the Moultrie courthouse, just blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Because of a mandatory waiting period of three business days, however, couples won’t actually be able to marry in the District of Columbia until Tuesday.
Court officials have been told to expect up to 200 people. They plan to have five people taking applications instead of the usual two.
Sinjoyla Townsend, 41, and her partner of 12 years, Angelisa Young, 47, claimed the first spot in line just after 6 a.m. They are already domestic partners in the city, so they are converting the partnership into a marriage license.
“It’s like waking up Christmas morning,” Young said. “It’s really like a dream come true.”
Mike and Tobey Slagenweit-Coffman of Arlington, Va., had a civil union in Vermont and a big church wedding in Minnesota, but wanted to get legally married in D.C. Tobey Slagenweit-Coffman said allowing same-sex marriages in the nation’s capital is historic.
“It’s signaling definitely a change in the mood of the country,” he said.
Washington will be the sixth place in the nation where gay marriages can take place. Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont currently issue licenses to same-sex couples.
To deal with the expected crowd Wednesday, the marriage bureau will bring in temporary employees to help, courthouse spokeswoman Leah Gurowitz said.
“Everybody who wants a marriage license is going to get one. It may take a little longer, but they will get their license,” Gurowitz said.
The marriage bureau has changed its license applications so they are gender-neutral, asking for the name of each “spouse” rather than the “bride” and “groom.” And at civil marriage ceremonies to be performed in the courthouse, a booklet for the official performing the marriage now reads, “I now pronounce you legally married” instead of “I now pronounce you man and wife.”
A marriage license application costs $35, and the marriage license $10. Couples who are already registered as domestic partners in the city can convert their registration into a marriage license by paying the $10 fee.
Supporters expected the day to be festive. A District of Columbia councilman who introduced the gay marriage bill planned to hand out vanilla and chocolate cupcakes to the first 200 couples in line.
Terrance Heath, 41, planned to be at the courthouse with his partner, Rick Imirowicz, 43. The two have been together for 10 years and have a 7-year-old and a 2-year-old.
“My husband has always been my husband to me, but having that legal recognition, that legal protection, makes it easier to deal with any number of situations,” said Heath, a writer and blogger. “If you tell people you’re married, you don’t really have to explain much beyond that.”
The couple, who live in Maryland, plan to marry Tuesday.
The gay marriage law was introduced to the 13-member D.C. Council in October and had near-unanimous support from the beginning. The bill passed and D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty signed it in December. But because Washington is a federal district, the law had to undergo a congressional review period that expired Tuesday.
Opponents, however, are still attempting to overturn the bill in court.

This was the view from Bill Gray Road Tuesday morning as workers for the Tao Fellowship/Mago Earth Park began the task of disassembling the controversial 50-foot Mago Mother Earth statue. VVN/Jon Pelletier

COTTONWOOD — After months of protests on both sides of the cause, the controversial Mago Mother Earth Statue at began to be disassembled Tuesday morning and carried away.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

Idols

“Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings•Strongs 4878: mshuwbah, mesh-oo-baw´; or hDb¨vVm mshubah, mesh-oo-baw´; from 7725; apostasy:—backsliding, turning away. shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken•Strongs 5800: {azab, aw-zab´; a primitive root; to loosen, i.e. relinquish, permit, etc.:—commit self, fail, forsake, fortify, help, leave (destitute, off), refuse, x surely. the LORD thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts.”
—Jeremiah 2:19

Idols

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”
—1 John 5:21

The end of the lengthy debate over the 39-foot statue on a 10-foot tall pedestal ended in something of a muted way.

About 20 Save Mago protesters ended their obstruction of heavy equipment at the park with a morning vigil that was agreed upon by the Tao Fellowship before the 8:30 a.m. beginning of the disassembly.

Organizer Genia Sullivan said a meeting was held with the Tao Fellowship. “They told us they are going to take down Mago, no matter what we do. They want to comply with the City of Cottonwood requirements and could be fined up to $30,000 for each day of violation beyond the Feb. 24 deadline.”

The protesters reportedly asked for several conditions in exchange for allowing the disassembly to begin.

“The Fellowship said they would allow us to have 30 minutes with Mago before the 8:30 a.m. start of the removal,” said Sullivan.

The Tao Fellowship also agreed to a 7 p.m. Wednesday question-and-answer meeting with the protest group to determine how to continue the “spirit of Mago” after its removal.

The protest began in the drizzling rain Saturday morning and continued through Tuesday morning. A blog web site was launched at savemago.org to follow details of the protest and post pictures and video.

Sullivan, the manager of a Dahn Yoga studio in Closter, N.J., organized the protest. Sullivan and others contributed to the construction of the Earth Park for which she said they had been waiting about three years.

Sullivan said that Tao Fellowship and Dahn Yoga employees share the same “vision,” but are different companies. No Tao Fellowship employees were involved in the protest, she noted. About half of the protestors are employees of Dahn Yoga.

“I think that it was worthwhile, the protesters feel a lot better. A lot of people stopped by, giving us $5, or smiling and waving at us, wishing good luck. They have been very friendly.

“By the end,” Sullivan said, “the feeling was much more supportive. People asked questions and shared their thoughts. One person advised how we could contact the ACLU. There were also people who said negative things, but they were in the minority. We want to put in writing that Mago has significant support in Cottonwood.”

Cottonwood City Manager Doug Bartosh says he was contacted last week by the Fellowship asking for additional time beyond the Feb. 24 deadline.

He recalled, the Fellowship said, “they are running into problems and asked for a few more days,” according to Bartosh, but he refused the request.

“That is not acceptable to us,” he told them. “The Planning and Zoning Commission has directed us to take whatever action is necessary if the statue is not down on the morning of the 25th.”

Bartosh said that if necessary, the city would have to go to Superior Court to get a court order to force them to remove it. He also noted that could also trigger a revocation of their conditional use permit on the property.

In addition to removal of the large Mago statue, the other smaller statues must be moved within the setback requirements for the zone and proper screening provided so they are not visible from the public street.

The planning commission asked for a completed master development plan be submitted for the site within six months of the Jan. 25 hearing or the CUP would be terminated.

Cultural divide: women of different faiths in a street in Blackburn, Lancashire

More than half of voters in four other major European states back a push by France’s Nicolas Sarkozy to ban women from wearing the burka, according to an opinion poll for the Financial Times.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

Perplexity

“…upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed….”
—Luke 21:25

Ishmael

“And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.”
—Genesis 16:12

As Mr Sarkozy presses ahead with plans to ban the wearing of the burka in public places, the FT’s latest Harris poll shows the move is not just strongly supported in France, but wins enthusiastic backing in the UK, Italy, Spain and Germany.

The poll shows some 70 per cent of respondents in France said they supported plans to forbid the wearing of the garment which covers the female body from head to toe. There was similar sentiment in Spain and Italy, where 65 per cent and 63 per cent respectively favoured a ban

The strength of feeling in the UK and Germany may seem particularly surprising. Britain has a strong liberal tradition that respects an individual’s right to full expression of religious views. But here, some 57 per cent of people still favoured a ban. In Germany, which is also reluctant to clamp down in minority rights, some 50 per cent favoured a ban.

“This poll shows that the number of people in France opposed to the burka is going up and that is the product of debate on burka and national identity,” said Professor Patrick Weil, an expert on national identity at the University of Paris-Sorbonne. “But the figure is clearly going up in other countries in Europe like the UK as well, and that reflects the growing concern that there is about this issue in some parts of Europe.”

In the US, concerns about the issue are far less strong than in Europe. Just 33 per cent of Americans surveyed by Harris supported a ban, a far lower figure than the 44 per cent who said they supported it.

In Europe, while opposition to the burka was strong, few respondents said they were prepared to support the ban as part of a wider drive towards secularism in their country.

Asked if they would support the burka ban if it were accompanied by a clampdown on wearing all religious icons such as the Christian crucifix and the Jewish cappel, only 22 per cent of French people said they supported such a move. In Britain, just 9 per cent of people said they would back such a move.

Harris also looked at the issue of whether the public supported the introduction of scanners at airports that xray the full body. In the aftermath of the failed Christmas day al-Qaeda attack on Detroit, a number of states have moved to introduce such scanners, a policy that has raised objections from some groups on privacy grounds.

More than half of people in the US and all but one of the four European states surveyed were in favour of the introduction of body scanners. Only in Spain was there a little less enthusiasm for the move, with 46 per cent in favour of the scanners and 23 per cent against.

A recruit of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) attend a training shoot at a military base in Changzhi, Shanxi province, February 1, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Stringer

BEIJING – China should build the world’s strongest military and move swiftly to topple the United States as the global “champion,” a senior Chinese PLA officer says in a new book reflecting swelling nationalist ambitions.

New World Order

“And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.”
—Revelation 16:12

The call for China to abandon modesty about its global goals and “sprint to become world number one” comes from a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Senior Colonel, Liu Mingfu, who warns that his nation’s ascent will alarm Washington, risking war despite Beijing’s hopes for a “peaceful rise.”

“China’s big goal in the 21st century is to become world number one, the top power,” Liu writes in his newly published Chinese-language book, “The China Dream.”

“If China in the 21st century cannot become world number one, cannot become the top power, then inevitably it will become a straggler that is cast aside,” writes Liu, a professor at the elite National Defense University, which trains rising officers.

His 303-page book stands out for its boldness even in a recent chorus of strident Chinese voices demanding a hard shove back against Washington over trade, Tibet, human rights, and arms sales to Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.

“As long as China seeks to rise to become world number one … then even if China is even more capitalist than the U.S., the U.S. will still be determined to contain it,” writes Liu.

Rivalry between the two powers is a “competition to be the leading country, a conflict over who rises and falls to dominate the world,” says Liu. “To save itself, to save the world, China must prepare to become the (world’s) helmsman.”

“The China Dream” does not represent government policy, which has been far less strident about the nation’s goals.

Liu’s book testifies to the homegrown pressures on China’s Communist Party leadership to show the country’s fast economic growth is translating into greater sway against the West, still mired in an economic slowdown.

The next marker of how China’s leaders are handling these swelling expectations may come later this week, when the government is likely to announce its defense budget for 2010, after a 14.9 percent rise last year on the one in 2008.

“This book represents my personal views, but I think it also reflects a tide of thought,” Liu told Reuters in an interview. “We need a military rise as well as an economic rise.”

Another PLA officer has said this year’s defense budget should send a defiant signal to Washington after the Obama administration went ahead in January with long-known plans to sell $6.4 billion worth of arms to Taiwan.

“I think one part of ‘public opinion’ that the leadership pays attention to is elite opinion, and that includes the PLA,” said Alan Romberg, an expert on China and Taiwan at the Henry L. Stimson Center, an institute in Washington D.C.

“I think the authorities are seeking to keep control of the reaction, even as they need to take (it) into account,” Romberg said in an emailed response to questions.

Liu argues that China should use its growing revenues to become the world’s biggest military power, so strong the United States “would not dare and would not be able to intervene in military conflict in the Taiwan Strait.”

“If China’s goal for military strength is not to pass the United States and Russia, then China is locking itself into being a third-rate military power,” he writes. “Turn some money bags into bullet holders.”

China’s leaders do not want to jeopardize ties with the United States, a key trade partner and still by far the world’s biggest economy and military power.

Yet Chinese public ire, echoed on the Internet, means policy-makers have to tread more carefully when handling rival domestic and foreign demands, said Jin Canrong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.

“Chinese society is changing, and you see that in all the domestic views now on what China should do about the United States,” said Jin. “If society demands a stronger stance, ignoring that can bring a certain cost.”

Liu’s book was officially published in January, but is only now being sold in Beijing bookstores.

LIGHTING A FIRE IN AMERICA’S BACKYARD

In recent months, strains have widened between Beijing and Washington over trade, Internet controls, climate change, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and President Barack Obama’s meeting with Tibet’s exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, who China reviles.

China has so far responded with angry words and a threat to sanction U.S. companies involved in the Taiwan arms sales. But it has not acted on that threat and has allowed a U.S. aircraft carrier to visit Hong Kong.

Over the weekend, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said he wanted trade friction with the United States to ease. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg is due to visit Beijing this week.

Liu and other PLA officers, however, say they see little chance of avoiding deepening rivalry with the United States, whether peaceful or warlike.

“I’m very pessimistic about the future,” writes another PLA officer, Colonel Dai Xu, in another recently published book that claims China is largely surrounded by hostile or wary countries beholden to the United States.

“I believe that China cannot escape the calamity of war, and this calamity may come in the not-too-distant future, at most in 10 to 20 years,” writes Dai.

“If the United States can light a fire in China’s backyard, we can also light a fire in their backyard,” warns Dai.

Liu said he hoped China and the United States could manage their rivalry through peaceful competition.

“In his State of the Union speech, Obama said the United States would never accept coming second-place, but if he reads my book he’ll know China does not want to always be a runner-up,” said Liu in the interview.

U.S. President Barack Obama is targeted because of standing up to the Jews who control American politics as well as its economy, the Chicago Sun Times quoted the leader of Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan as saying on Monday.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

Ishmael•FYI: Ishmael is the son of Abraham through Hagar, the maid of Abraham’s wife Sarah.
Ishmael is the Biblical father of the Arab nations. •From these nations came Mohammad, who in approximately 632 a.d founded the Religion of Islam.
•The verse below is speaking directly concerning Ishmael and the nations that would come from this direct descendent of Abraham.

“And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.”
—Genesis 16:12

Anti-Semitism

“O Israel, trust•Strongs 982: batach, baw-takh´; a primitive root; properly, to hie for refuge (but not so precipitately as 2620); figuratively, to trust, be confident or sure:—be bold (confident, secure, sure), careless (one, woman), put confidence, (make to) hope, (put, make to) trust. thou in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.”
—Psalms 115:9

Farrakhan, speaking to a crowd of 20,000 followers at Chicago’s United Center on Sunday, said that Obama’s political problems began when he, according to the Chicago Sun Times report, stood up to the Jewish lobby during a White House meeting.

When they left the White House, his problems began,” Farrakhan said, adding that “the Zionists are in control of the Congress.”

Minister Farrakhan also referred to the U.S. president’s chief economical advisors, Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson and Larry Summers, asking “Who does he have around him? The people from Goldman Sachs.”

The leader of the Nation of Islam added that “bloodsuckers of the poor” were rewarded with a bailout.

Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in response to Farrakhan’s speech that “anybody who thought the old Farrakhan was gone: He never was.”

“It’s the same Farrakhan: ugly and anti-Semitic. With age, he doesn’t get milder, he gets uglier.”

Further on in his address, Farrakhan also reiterated his claims that the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 was “an inside thing.”

Last year, the Anti-Defamation League lashed out at Farrakhan for remarks he made in which he accused “the Israeli lobby” of controlling the government.

“When the people of Gaza were being slaughtered, the pro-Israeli lobby sent messages to the House and the Senate of words that they wanted them to use, gave them the language, and now you have bipartisan support,” Farrakhan told supporters in Rosemont, Illinois in a speech.

“You cannot deny the pro-Israeli lobby and get re-elected,” Farrakhan said. “Ask Cynthia McKinney. Ask David Hilliard. Ask our mayor in Oakland, California. Ask [former Illinois Senator Charles] Percy. Ask Jimmy Carter. You can’t criticize, you can’t say nothing because if you do, you’re branded as an anti-Semite.”

“Why, U.S. Congress, will you not speak? It is because you fear a lobby that has money and influence that will turn you out of your seat? So you’re terrorized. That’s why you don’t act for the American people that sent you to Congress. You are not their representative. You are the representative of the money and interests that have bought your soul.”

At one point during his address, Farrakhan implied that the validity of Holocaust records should be open to debate.

“[You] can’t even engage in constructive argument over the veracity of the figures of the Holocaust. We know something happened, sure, but you can’t talk about [it]. In certain cities in Europe they arrest you and put you in prison for denying such.”

“There’s not a vote that the pro-Israeli lobby wants that doesn’t get bipartisan support,” Farrakhan said. “Why? Because the Israeli lobby controls the government of the United States of America.”

The remarks were again met with strong condemnation by Abe Foxman.

“Louis Farrakhan is at it again,” said Foxman. “After his near-silence on Jews over the last several years, we thought Minister Farrakhan had put his long history of anti-Semitism and racism behind him, or at least had held his views in check. Apparently, that was wishful thinking. Once again he is clearly comfortable with putting his bigotry on display, unfettered and unhidden for his supporters and the world to see.”

While the eyes of the world focus on Greece’s debt crisis, investors in Edinburgh are busy preparing for the U.K. to be next.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

Perplexity

“…upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed….”
—Luke 21:25

Root of All Evil

“For the love of money is the root •Strongs 4491: rhiza, hrid´-zah; apparently a primary word; a “root” (literally or figuratively):—root of all.of all evil•Strongs 2556: kakos, kak-os´; apparently a primary word; worthless (intrinsically, such; whereas 4190 properly refers to effects), i.e. (subjectively) depraved, or (objectively) injurious:—bad, evil, harm, ill, noisome, wicked. which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows•Strongs 3601: odune, od-oo´-nay; from 1416; grief (as dejecting): — sorrow..”
—1 Timothy 6:10

Turcan Connell, which caters to rich families, expects the pound to lose between 20 percent and 30 percent against the dollar once investors turn their sights on Britain as the government sells a record amount of debt. Sterling slid to a 10- month low versus the U.S. currency today.

“Alarm bells were ringing in Greece for a long time and when it happened, it happened very quickly,” Haig Bathgate, head of strategy at Turcan Connell, said at the company’s offices in the Scottish capital. “The U.K. is in a similar predicament. It could be hit very hard.”

Money managers in Edinburgh, where investment decisions have been made on behalf of insurers, pensioners and the wealthy for two centuries, are maneuvering to protect assets from the U.K. economy as it limps out of its worst recession on record.

Bruce Stout, whose Murray International Trust Plc in Edinburgh has doubled over the past five years, said the chance of a plummeting pound are “better than even” and his biggest holdings are in Asia and Latin America. He called sterling a “very vulnerable currency.”

U.K. fund managers at Aegon Asset Management and Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, together responsible for more than 30 billion pounds ($45 billion), said in January they are buying companies that do the bulk of their business abroad.

‘Very Dire’

“When there’s a fiscal crisis, the markets tend to punish that country very quickly,” said Bathgate, who is responsible for 560 million pounds. “I don’t think Britain is in nearly as bad a position as Greece. We’ve got a good taxation system, however the position of the economy is very dire.”

The U.K.’s budget deficit is roughly the same as Greece’s, both exceeding 12 percent of economic output. Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s said last week they may cut Greece’s credit rating as the five-month-old government struggles to curb spending and control its debt.

Concern that Greece won’t be able to cut its deficit helped send the euro 5.6 percent lower against the dollar this year. The euro today strengthened to a three-month high against the pound, trading above 90 pence.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government in December increased its planned gilt sales for the financial year ending this month to a record 225.1 billion pounds from the 220 billion pounds announced in April. Moody’s Investors Service said in December the U.K. may “test the Aaa boundaries.”

Hung Parliament

Brown must call an election by June and some polls signal that no party will emerge with a clear majority.

The pound fell below $1.50 today for the first time since May last year, taking this year’s decline to 8 percent. A YouGov Plc poll published yesterday showed Brown’s Labour Party only two percentage points behind the opposition Conservatives, the narrowest margin for more than two years.

A so-called hung parliament or signs retail sales and economic growth aren’t recovering as expected might be the catalysts for the pound to accelerate declines, Bathgate said. The Office for National Statistics last week revised up the rate of economic growth for the fourth quarter to 0.3 percent from a previous estimate of 0.1 percent.

“There could be a number of triggers,” he said. “If there’s indecision about how you deal with a problem, that’s when things start to fall apart. We could be in the position where the spotlight turns to the U.K.”

UBS Report

The pound may fall below parity with the euro and drop to the lowest level against the dollar since the mid-1980s should the U.K. cut spending too quickly, Mansoor Mohi-Uddin, chief currency strategist at UBS AG, said in a Feb. 24 report.

Sterling slid to a nine-month nadir against the dollar last week, trading at $1.52. Zurich-based UBS, the world’s second- biggest currency trader, predicted it could fall “quickly back” to $1.05 or below.

The pound may come under further pressure with the Bank of England resuming its quantitative-easing program, a process of injecting new money into the economy, within the next three to four months, Bathgate said. Policy maker Adam Posen said Feb. 24 the central bank may expand the 200 billion-pound asset-purchase plan should the economic recovery prove weaker than expected.

“If it comes back then we’re likely to be the only people doing that in the world at that time,” said Bathgate. “My strong view is the government is trying to create inflation and devalue the currency.”

Selling Bonds

Bathgate said he sold conventional U.K. government-bond investments at the end of 2008 and only holds index-linked securities because of concern inflation may accelerate.

The firm also has reduced holdings in corporate bonds because of the potential “knock-on impact” from a decline in government securities.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year gilt dropped 24 basis points to 4.03 percent last week. The yield on Greek 10-year bonds fell 6 points to 6.39 percent. German bunds, the region’s benchmark debt, declined 18 points to 3.10 percent.

Turcan Connell, whose clients typically have at least 5 million pounds to invest, was founded in 1998 and oversees about 1 billion pounds in total. Bathgate is responsible for allocating money to different funds, and half is currently in stocks portfolios with 30 percent in hedge funds and other so- called alternative investments.

Delegation to Beijing offers Chinese ‘the full intelligence picture available to Israel’.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

Ishmael•FYI: Ishmael is the son of Abraham through Hagar, the maid of Abraham’s wife Sarah.
Ishmael is the Biblical father of the Arab nations. •From these nations came Mohammad, who in approximately 632 a.d founded the Religion of Islam.
•The verse below is speaking directly concerning Ishmael and the nations that would come from this direct descendent of Abraham.

“And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.”
—Genesis 16:12

Perplexity

“…upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed….”
—Luke 21:25

An Israeli delegation that traveled to Beijing last week presented detailed intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program in an attempt to persuade China that Tehran seeks atomic weapons, a senior diplomatic source told Haaretz.

The group, led by Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon and central bank chief Stanley Fischer, tried to persuade China to support sanctions on Iran by offering “the full intelligence picture available to Israel,” the diplomat said.

The Israeli officials also told the Chinese that a nuclear Iran would push up oil prices – China depends on Iran for a significant proportion of its imported oil.

Israel is trying to recruit China’s support for a fourth round of sanctions on Iran, and the UN Security Council is due to vote on the issue in the coming months. At the very least, Israel wants to ensure that China does not oppose the sanctions when they come to vote.

Israel also wants to make sure that China supports the report on Iran published by the new head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano. Unlike his predecessor Mohamed ElBaradei, Amano discussed in his report the possibility that Iran might secretively be developing nuclear weapons. The IAEA’s annual conference is set to open in Vienna today.

The diplomat told Haaretz that the delegation’s main aim was to present the Chinese with evidence that Iran is developing nuclear arms. China’s official position is that Iran has a right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful, civilian purposes and that there is no proof Iran has a military nuclear program.

Most detailed overview in years

“The Chinese were given the full intelligence picture Israel has about the Iranian nuclear program, which clearly shows Iran is developing nuclear weapons,” the source said.

“The delegation also stressed how concerned Israel was, and that all options must remain on the table,” the source added.

The delegation that set out for Beijing in coordination with the U.S. administration also included senior officials in the Foreign Ministry, the National Security Council and the defense establishment.

It met with a number of Chinese officials, the most senior being State Councilor Dai Bingguo.

According to the source, the Israelis spent two hours presenting the Chinese with an overview of the intelligence information Israel has on Iran’s nuclear program. This was the most detailed overview given by Israel to China in more than three years, since prime minister Ehud Olmert’s visit in January 2007.

The Israeli delegation left with a positive feeling, the source said, with the Chinese saying they would seriously consider the information they received.

Talks were conducted in a friendly atmosphere, with Beijing stressing the importance of Chinese-Israeli relations and its desire to develop ties further, the source said.

Fischer detailed the implications a nuclear Iran would have for the world economy, stressing a dramatic rise in oil prices. Alternatives to importing oil from Iran were also discussed.

Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia and the United States proposed to China that it buy oil from Arab states at much lower prices than oil imported from Iran.

China is also concerned about possible sanctions because of its deals with Iran on developing railroads, tunnels and oil fields. These contracts are expected to be highly profitable, so the Chinese fear that sanctions would put them at risk.

MOSCOW (AP) – Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday that Russia will build a new strategic bomber, a move that comes as the nation tries to upgrade its aging military arsenal.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

Perplexity

“…upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed….”
—Luke 21:25

Wars and Rumors of Wars

“Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.”
—Joel 3:9-12

Putin said in televised remarks that work on the bomber must follow the development of a prospective stealth fighter, which made its maiden flight in January and was hailed by the government as a big step in military modernization efforts.

“We won’t limit ourselves to just one new model,” Putin said at a government meeting that focused on military aviation. “We must start work on a prospective long-range aircraft, our new strategic bomber.”

Putin didn’t mention any details in his public remarks, but said that the development of new aircraft engines, materials for aircraft construction and electronics will be the top priorities.

The chief of the Russian long-range aviation, Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev, said earlier this year that a prospective new bomber must join the air force in 2025-2030. Zhikharev said the new aircraft should replace the Soviet-built Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers.

While the first flight of the new stealth fighter, the T-50, was cheered by the government, observers noted that it came nearly two decades after the first prototype of the U.S. F-22 Raptor took to the air.

No images of the prospective new Russian strategic bomber have been published, but some commentators said it might follow the design of the U.S. B-2 bomber, which also made its first flight more than 20 years ago.

Military analysts said that new Russian weapons programs have suffered from post-Soviet industrial degradation that badly affected the production quality and slowed down new developments.

Putin acknowledged that the new fighter program is still in its early stage, adding that the aircraft will have to conduct about 2,000 test flights before it goes into production. He said earlier that the fighter’s serial production is set to begin in 2015.