Thursday, June 19, 2014
Russia to Test New Mobile Communications System during Vostok-2014 Exercise
The Russian military is to test its new mobile communications system, which is superior to its foreign alternatives, during the Vostok-2014 strategic exercise in Russia’s Eastern Military District, the Defense Ministry announced Thursday.
“In the course of the Vostok-2014 strategic exercise, which will be conducted in September of this year in the Eastern Military District, communications specialists will test the newest communications control system through a Tiger light-armored vehicle. The new system is able to provide all types of communications, including radio, satellite, wire and relay. It’s really a mini communications hub, superior to alternatives used in foreign armies,” stated the ministry.
In 2014, the Eastern Military District will receive 140 items of new-generation communications equipment, including medium-range radios, command and staff vehicles, and tropospheric and satellite communications stations. This year, the district has already received medium-range digital radios and ten comprehensive communications units.
By the end of the year, the Russian Armed Forces is to engage in more than 300 tactical exercises, with Vostok-2014 being the largest. The Defense Ministry stated the exercise would emphasize the coordinated strategy and tactical cooperation of units involved in military missions. All branches of Russia's Armed Forces will take part and there will be no detailed scenario developed in advance.
Credit to RIA Novosti
God's Calendar
The study of the early foundations of human history and this present creation would be incomplete if it did not include an examination of the celestial testimony that Yahweh wrote upon the immense canvas of the heavens. It is a message placed where all mankind and the angels can read it. In this present age the heavenly constellations are viewed with great disdain by the church. Christians have been taught to associate the constellations of the Zodiac with pagan astrology. To many believers, looking to the stars to discern a divine message is considered as great of an evil as consulting a medium, or participating in a seance. The majority of Christians today have been taught that the practice of star-gazing to receive a divine message has its origins in idolatrous religions.
The rejection of Yahweh’s heavenly message provides evidence of how little most Christians study the Scriptures to discern truth for themselves. Many, having heard their pastor, or some Christian teacher, warn against paying heed to occult astrology and horoscopes, have been all too willing to relegate the entire field of celestial signs and messages to Satan’s domain. This constitutes an imprudent overreaction to Satan’s corruption of a mode of communication that Yahweh originated. Rejecting celestial signs and messages is an untenable position to adopt from a purely Biblical perspective.
Christians exhibit a mental contradiction when they annually recount the story of the magi who were informed of the birth of the King of the Jews by their observations of the heavens, while at the same time condemning the practice of receiving divine messages from the stars. In the Gospels we read of the wise men seeing the Messiah’s star announcing His birth. Acting upon the celestial revelation, these wise men traveled to Jerusalem, ultimately arriving at the home where Joseph and Mary dwelt with the young Messiah in Bethlehem.
Matthew 2:1-2, 10-12
Now after Yahshua was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east, and have come to worship Him...” And when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And they came into the house and saw the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell down and worshiped Him; and opening their treasures they presented to Him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their own country by another way.
Here we have worshipers of the Son of God bowing prostrate before Him and presenting gifts of great value and significance. Not only are we informed that these wise men from the East rightly discerned the heavenly message announcing the birth of God’s Son, but they afterward received further communication from God in a dream, informing them of the treachery of King Herod, and advising them to take another route on their return journey. It is readily apparent that Yahweh spoke to these learned men of the East through the stars even as He did through a dream. There is NOTHING in this account that would condemn the practice of looking to the heavens for divine messages.
Star of Bethlehem, 1890, Sir Edward Burne-Jones
If this passage were an isolated account, and there were no more Scriptural references to Yahweh speaking to mankind through celestial signs, it might be viewed as an anomaly, with no endorsement of the practice implied. However, it is not an anomaly. There are many passages that speak of the role of the stars and constellations being used as a divine message board by Yahweh. Not only was the first coming of the Messiah announced by signs in the heavens, but Yahshua has informed His disciples that His second coming to the earth will be preceded by a similar testimony in the heavens.
Luke 21:25-28
“And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars and upon the earth, dismay among nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Even as there were signs in the heavens announcing the birth of the King of the Jews, there will be heavenly signs announcing the time of His return. The Sun and Moon and stars serve as Yahweh’s appointed messengers. The wise men from the East understood this and accurately read the divine message while King Herod and the Jewish religious leaders were ignorant of the fact that the birth of their long awaited Messiah, the most anticipate event in all of Jewish history, was occurring in their day.
It should not seem strange that Yahweh would use the stars to speak to mankind. There is a profound correlation made between stars and messengers in the Bible. We begin to see this as we observe that the angels of God are often associated with the stars of the heaven.
Job 38:6-7
“On what were [the Earth’s] bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”
“The sons of God” (bene ha elohim) is a reference to the angelic hosts. They were present at the creation of the Earth. These sons of God are also called “morning stars.” In this passage from the book of Job we read of the stars “singing” and “shouting for joy.” Both “singing” and “shouting for joy” are forms of communication, something most people do not associate with stars.
In the New Testament, the Greek word used to describe these heavenly messengers is “angelos.” This Greek word that is rendered into English as “angel,” literally means “a messenger.” We see this meaning affirmed in the word “evangelist” which is defined as “a messenger of good news.” In the New Testament angelos is oftentimes translated as “messenger,” whether heavenly or terrestrial.
Matthew 11:9-10
“But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written: ‘Behold, I send My messenger (angelos) before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You.’”
In these words, Yahshua describes John the Baptist as an “angelos,” a messenger. The correlation between an “angelos” and a star is further revealed in the book of Revelation as the Son of God is figured as holding seven stars in His right hand.
Revelation 1:20
“As for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.”
Star of Bethlehem - Close Up, Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Some translations render the word “angels” here as “messengers.”
Revelation 1:20
As to the hidden meaning (the mystery) of the seven stars which you saw on My right hand and the seven lampstands of gold: the seven stars are the seven angels (messengers) of the seven assemblies (churches) and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
[Amplified Bible]
Revelation 1:20
The seven stars are the messengers of the seven assemblies, and the seven lampstands are the seven assemblies.
[The New Testament: An Expanded Translation by Kenneth S. Wuest]
Revelation 1:20
The secret of the seven stars that thou hast seen upon my right hand, and the seven golden lamp-stands: the seven stars are messengers of the seven assemblies, and the seven lamp-stands that thou hast seen are seven assemblies.
[Young’s Literal Translation]
It is demonstrably proven by the Scriptures that stars are intended to be viewed as divine messengers. The utilization of stars and other heavenly bodies as divine messengers is established from the very first chapter of the Bible.
Genesis 1:14-18
Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. And God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.
There is a mystery contained in these words whose depths need to be plumbed. Many Bible teachers when discoursing on this passage from Genesis, comment on the divine role the heavenly bodies serve as they mark the annual seasons and passage of months and years. Although much more is indicated by this passage, it is certainly true that Yahweh determined that the lights in the heavens should serve as a sort of divine calendar. The passage above states that the lights in the heavens are “for seasons.” We recognize that the angle at which the earth faces the Sun changes over the course of a year. This results in distinct seasons being observed on the earth.
The Hebrew word translated as “seasons” in the passage above is “moed.” A common mistake is made due to the fact that we are reading an English translation of a book originally written in ancient Hebrew. The mistake is in assuming that the Hebrew word translated as “seasons” is referring to the four seasons of the year that we know as winter, spring, summer and fall. The Hebrew word “moed” actually means an “appointed time.”
The feasts of God are collectively called “moedim.” Three times a year, on dates prescribed by God, all Israel was required to gather at the place appointed to observe the feasts. The dates were based upon Yahweh’s divine calendar. We can see the relationship between the moon and Yahweh’s calendar and appointed times in the following verses.
Psalms 104:19
You made the moon to mark the [moedim], and the sun knows when to set.
Isaiah 66:23
“And it shall be from new moon to new moon and from sabbath to sabbath, all mankind will come to bow down before Me,” says Yahweh.
If we were to state the verse above in modern vernacular we might say, “from month to month and from week to week, all mankind will come to bow down before Me.” The new moon marked the beginning of the month for the Jews. This was Yahweh’s design for a calendar. The English word month is derived from an ancient Germanic word meaning “moon.” The time it takes for the moon to go through all of its phases and return to the same point is 29.53 days. Because the lunar cycle does not perfectly match the solar day, the month prescribed by Yahweh may be either 29 or 30 days in length.
The first day of every month is referred to in Hebrew as Rosh Chodesh. Rosh Chodesh means “head of the month” and it occurs on the first sighting of the new moon over Israel. You can note on the calendar above that the days of the week are numbered, rather than named. Yahweh did not assign names to the days of the week such as Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc.. These names are pagan in origin, the days of the week being named after a specific god that was honored during each consecutive 24 hour period. The beginning of this practice was ancient Babylon. The Babylonians recognized five planetary bodies, as well as the Sun and Moon. Each one of these planetary bodies were named after gods.
It is easy to recognize the name of the moon in Monday, and the Sun in Sunday. The other five days of the week which correlate to planets and their associated gods bear different names depending upon the nation, language and century in which the calendar was in use. Four of the five names for the days of the week have come down to us in English through Norse or Teutonic mythology. The fifth bears a Roman name.
• Tuesday - Tiws’ Day, Tyr - God of War. One of the sons of Woden. (Corresponds to the Roman god Mars.)
• Wednesday - Woden’s Day - The chief Teutonic deity. (Corresponds to the Roman god Mercury.)
• Thursday - Thor’s Day - Hammer wielding god of thunder and lightning. (Corresponds to the Roman god Jupiter.)
• Friday - Frige’s Day, Freya - Wife of Woden, and goddess of beauty and love (Corresponds to the Roman goddess Venus.)
• Saturday - Saturn’s Day - The Roman God Saturn.
For obvious reasons, Yahweh eschewed the use of such names, referring to each day of the week solely by its numeric value. This is true even of the Sabbath, for the word Sabbath (shabbat) in Hebrew means “seventh.”
Yahweh’s appointed calendar for His people has always been a Lunar calendar. It seems significant that Yahweh would force men to look up toward the heavens to determine what time it is. Yahweh desires mankind to remember that the creation runs according to a divine calendar of events. Yahweh has appointed times and seasons for mankind. Every event upon this earth is running according to a heavenly timetable, a divine plan of the ages. It is important for Christians to recognize this truth. Nothing can hinder God’s calendar, or speed it up. There is a time appointed for all things under the Sun.
Isaiah 46:9-10
“Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, 'My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.'”
Isaiah 48:3
“I declared the former things long ago and they went forth from My mouth, and I proclaimed them. Suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.”
Before Adam was formed, even before the stars were set in their courses, Yahweh established by His own counsel a divine plan of the ages. He saw the end from the beginning and appointed times for every event, culminating in the reconciliation of the entire creation back to Himself through His Son Yahshua.
Ephesians 3:8-11
Unto me—the less than least of all saints, was given this favour, unto the nations, to announce the glad-message of the untraceable riches of the Christ, and to bring to light—what is the administration of the sacred secret which had been hidden away from the AGES in God, who did all things create: In order that now, unto the principalities and the authorities in the heavenlies, might be made known, through means of the assembly, the manifold wisdom of God,— According to a plan of the ages which He made in the anointed Jesus our Lord.
(Rotherham's Emphasized Bible)
There is a profound precision to the calendar of God. The exactness of events that occur on Yahweh’s timetable is observed everywhere throughout the Scriptures. The Israelites wandered for forty years in the wilderness, and Yahshua was tested for forty days in the wilderness at the beginning of His ministry. The Israelites came up from Egypt at the appointed time, on the night of the first Passover. This occurred 430 years to the day from the time they first entered Egypt.
Exodus 12:40-41
Now the time that the sons of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. And it came about at the end of four hundred and thirty years, to the very day, that all the hosts of Yahweh went out from the land of Egypt.
The first three kings of Israel, and the only three to rule over the entire twelve tribes, each in turn ruled for forty years and then died.
Acts 13:21
And then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years.
I Kings 2:11
And the days that David reigned over Israel were forty years...
II Chronicles 9:30
And Solomon reigned forty years in Jerusalem over all Israel.
Similarly, we see that Joseph, David and Yahshua were all 30 years of age when they began their ministry.
Genesis 41:46
Now Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
II Samuel 5:4
David was thirty years old when he became king...
Luke 3:23
And when He began His ministry, Yahshua Himself was about thirty years of age...
The design of God’s plan bears a greater precision than a Swiss made watch. The stars serve as the jewels in Yahweh’s heavenly chronometer, marking the precise moment of every event established by divine fiat. It was Yahweh who determined that there should be 14 generations to divide each of His great works among His chosen people.
Matthew 1:17
Therefore all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the time of Christ fourteen generations.
Before Adam was formed of the dust of the earth, Yahweh had already set a star in motion that would appear at a precise moment to announce the birth of the Seed of the woman who would redeem mankind from their sins.
Galatians 4:4
But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son...
Truly the stars and heavenly bodies are given for much more than to mark seasons as most men understand seasons. They were established to declare the “appointed times” of Yahweh. Only One with all power, Who has a will that cannot be resisted, could establish the course of the stars of the heavens to mark events that would not occur until thousands of years later. This knowledge should give great confidence to the faithful servants of God. No matter how much Satan boasts and wicked men prosper, Yahweh has set a limit to their activity. The day has been established when Yahshua will return to rule upon the earth. The minute has been established when every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Yahshua the Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Despite the great pride and swelling words of Satan, he recognizes that he is operating on borrowed time. The book of Revelation announces the following.
Revelation 12:12
"For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time."
Before Satan ever rebelled, Yahweh had established a limit to the time of his insurrection. The day of Satan’s judgment was determined from the beginning of Yahweh’s plan of the ages. It will not delay. Christ announced during His time on earth that the very hour and day of His return are known to the Father, yet disclosed to no one. That hour hastens forward, and will not delay.
Hebrews 10:37
For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not delay.
The remarkable characteristic of Yahweh’s creation that sets it apart from the works of men and angels, is its irresistible character. There is an appointed time for everything. The clock of God, just like the starry heavens above, never loses a second, nor does it run fast. It is always right on time.
We have observed that the calendar Yahweh delivered to His people to mark the time of events established by His will follows the template of a lunar calendar. Each month begins with a new moon and goes through one complete lunar cycle. God has pegged His moedim, His appointed times, to precise dates on this calendar.
Exodus 12:2
“This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you.”
Numbers 9:2-3
Now, let the sons of Israel observe the Passover at its appointed time (moed). On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, you shall observe it at its appointed time(moed); you shall observe it according to all its statutes and according to all its ordinances.
There is a great preciseness to the times established by God. Note that for the Passover Yahweh identified the month, the day, and even the hour of day (at twilight) in which the Passover is to be observed. The hour and day and year in which the Son of God was offered up as the Passover Lamb to secure the life of mankind was similarly set to occur at the precise time determined by Yahweh from the very creation of the earth.
Revelation 13:7
And they shall worship him, all who dwell upon the earth, [everyone] whose name does not stand written in the scroll of the life [the scroll] belonging to the Lamb who has been slain [in the mind and purpose of God] since the time when the foundations of the universe were laid...
[The New Testament: An Expanded Translation by Kenneth S. Wuest]
Because Yahweh established a plan of the ages, and His good will shall prosper with no one to turn it back, He is able to show forth by signs and parables the length of time between the formation of the first Adam and the appearing of the Last Adam who will come to establish His kingdom upon the earth. The time between these two events is revealed in the seven days of creation. A key to understanding Yahweh’s prophetic timetable is declared in the following Scripture verses.
Psalms 90:4
For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by...
II Peter 3:8
But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
It should be obvious to any reasoning child of God that Yahweh did not need six days to create the earth as it is described in the opening chapter of Genesis. Yahweh did not need as much as six minutes. He could have created all things as they exist today in no time at all. He is omnipotent. There is no limit to His power and wisdom. He chose six days because it conformed to a specific pattern established in His own mind that He devised to show forth His mighty works among the creation.
Exodus 20:11
For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day...
The Scriptures declare that when Christ returns He will set up His kingdom upon the earth. In that day the earth will know rest.
Isaiah 65:25
"The wolf and the lamb shall graze together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall do no evil or harm in all My holy mountain," says Yahweh.
The rule of Christ is described as “the millennial kingdom,” for it shall last for a thousand years.
Revelation 20:6
Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.
Peter has told us that one day with God is as a thousand years. The seventh day is holy in the sight of God. It is a day of rest. This seventh day corresponds to the millennial rule of Yahshua. It comes after six days of humanity’s existence on the earth. Six thousand years from the creation of Adam the Lord must return and establish His rule upon the earth. That hour is near at hand, for Yahshua appeared the first time, born of a virgin, 4,000 years after Adam was created. It has now been 2,000
years since Yahshua ascended to the Father. We stand at the end of 6,000 years of human history. The 6th day of mankind is coming to a close, and the 7th day is about to begin.
It is an important matter in the sight of God for His people to recognize the times in which they live. Yahshua chided the Jews for failing to recognize the time of their visitation by the Son of God.
Matthew 16:2-4
He answered and said to them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times?”
Luke 19:41-44
And when He approached, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you when your enemies will throw up a bank before you, and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”
Brothers and sisters, if we would live in readiness as wise men and women, knowing that the return of the Lord is near at hand, we must look to that heavenly calendar that Yahweh set before us to give us knowledge of His appointed times. Providing a detailed discussion on the heavenly signs being observed at this hour is beyond the scope of this book. The intent of this chapter is to declare that the heavenly luminaries were established by Yahweh for this purpose. Wise men will continue to look to the heavens to discern the days in which they live and the acts of God that must be accomplished during their lives.
Credit to Joseph Herrin
THE STAGE IS BEING SET FOR WORLD WAR III
THE STAGE IS BEING SET FOR WORLD WAR III
16Jun, 2014by Dave Hodges
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Doug Hagmann
DIRECTOR
June 16, 2014
Image courtesy of
Canada Free Press
By Douglas J. Hagmann
Click HERE to discuss this article at Canada Free Press
Today, every American everyone in the West needs to step away from their backyard barbeques and pool parties and pay close attention, look long and hard at what is being engineered in Iraq, for life as we know it will soon change. For Americans, Iraq is a half a world away. For others, it much closer. For everyone, though, it’s soon to become very personal for all of us.
America, the West and the world is bearing witness to one of the most significant geopolitical events of the last century taking place in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. But few fully understand the enormity of what they are seeing. Even fewer understand the big picture or thinking big enough, as all is not what it appears. We are witnessing the second act of the play about which I’ve previously written, which is the setting of the stage for World War III. Our world as we know it will soon change, and no one will be left untouched by the events that have been orchestrated by the globalist screenwriters and directors.
The average American sees sudden, unexpected chaos, death and destruction in Iraq. Elected leaders, the corporate media and cheerleaders of partisan politics are presenting these events as unfortunate and unforeseeable, or even worse, a consequence of the alleged incompetence by the Renegade-in-Chief and his determined band of outlaws. They are, however, neither based on incompetence nor were they unforeseeable. Rather, we are watching the opening scene of “Act Two,” which is the final cast placement in the run up to World War III as was always intended and long in the making, separated only by a brief intermission due to the public exposure of Benghazi.
Briefly, the first part of the latest play taking place on the global stage began with the fictional tale of the Arab Spring, which was supposedly a spontaneous uprising by freedom fighters against oppressive tyrants. It was neither spontaneous nor engineered at the hands of lovers of freedom. It was a Western intelligence operation designed to change the balance of power for future events, future acts of the play on the world stage. An important act of the play involved Libya and the ouster of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, as I detailed in my August 3, 2013 column titled Unmasking the Embassy Threat.
In my earlier column of October 8, 2012 titled Lemmings…At the precipice of WW III, I warned that “we are at the precipice of global conflict, WW III. The killing of Ambassador Stevens and other Americas in Libya was merely the prelude, like the opening scenes in a Bond film, but we haven’t yet grasped how it relates to the rest of the script. During the ‘Arab Spring’ we thought we were seeing trailers for several different films before the main attraction, but little did we know how seamlessly the various clips all tie together at the end. The show has already started.” We are now well into the opening act after intermission.
As I wrote, “[I]f the script proceeds as written, the entire geopolitical world and balance of power could, and most likely will, change with this next curtain call. No one will be left untouched by the coming events.” And now, here we are. Following the last curtain call, we are watching the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a U.S.CIA/DOS backed organization, taking over Iraq with relative ease. Cue the video cameras and audience attention to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad for a flashback to the April 30, 1975 airlift. The march of ISIS will proceed as intended, but it will not stop at Baghdad. They are headed for Syria and have their sights set on removing Bashir al-Assad from power.
The evidence of a Western backed operation
It’s unlikely that you will see the multitudes of new Toyota pick-ups or the NATO/Western military armaments currently in use by the Muslim Brotherhood backed ISIS on your television screen, as the global power brokers would rather keep those telling images from anyone who might be paying close attention in America. It was the current Secretary of State John Kerry, following the lead of his predecessor Hillary Rodham Clinton, answering to the current Renegade-in-Chief and his globalist handlers, who toured the Middle East in late December of 2013 and gave ISIS the green light to “do what they wilt” as the U.S. would not interfere. Not only would the U.S. take a step back, we would leave our military hardware and armaments intact for ISIS to conduct their blood sacrifices in typical Wahhabi fashion.
It’s unlikely that the corporate media will expose that the development of ISIS was years in the making, first developing in 2004 as “The Organization of Monotheism and Jihad” (JTJ) and then as al Qaeda in Iraq. In 2006, they changed their name to the Islamic State of Iraq and more recently to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as it is known today.
It’s even more unlikely that you will hear about the financing of ISIS, for it is perhaps the most heavily funded terror organization in the world. Even before ISIS overran Mosul last week and pillaged Iraqi banks of hundreds of millions of dollars, ISIS financial documents that were seized during operations in Iraq disclosed that their net worth before they entered Mosul to be at least $900 million. Where did such robust funding come from? A review of their meticulous financial documentation found that much of the wealth possessed by ISIS came from the oil fields they seized in Eastern Syria earlier this year. Yes, Syria. Now their net worth is now over $2 billion, or some speculate about $200,000 per ISIS terrorist. This is no ragtag, unsupported group of spontaneous and opportunistic terrorists, although the Obama-Hillary-Rice-Benghazi narrative is once again in play, this time in Iraq.
Based on the funding and military assets alone, it should be obvious to anyone paying the least bit of attention that ISIS is a creation of Western backed intelligence agencies, spearheaded by the U.S., and funded in part through the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that has its own headquarters based inside our own White House, State Department and CIA.
The bigger picture
The events of today are not taking place in a vacuum. I have written many times about the significance of Benghazi, the third rail of U.S. politics and media. The attack in Benghazi that claimed four American lives was a planned event at the nation-state level…
For the breathtaking conclusion of Doug Hagmann’s stunning article, please click this link
Doug Hagmann is both a friend and a colleague. His radio broadcast airs from 8pm-11pm Monday -Friday and is one of the most listened to talk shows in the new and truthful media! The “Listen Live” buttons are located in the right hand margin of this article’s homepage.
Credit to Common Sense Show
The Death Of The Rust Belt
Their names are familiar to all of us: Cleveland, Flint, Youngstown, Saginaw, Gary, Toledo, Reading, Akron, Flint and Buffalo were all once booming manufacturing cities that were absolutely packed with thriving middle class families. But now most of the manufacturing jobs are gone and all of those cities are just shadows of their former selves. When you drive through many of these communities, you will notice that a lot of people have a really hollow look in their eyes. Decades of slow, steady economic decline have really taken a toll, and even the architecture in these cities looks depressed. But despite all of the decay, there is still evidence that there was once something truly great about these communities. Will we be able to recapture that greatness before it is too late?
A lot of writers make economics really complicated, but the truth is that it does not have to be. For example, if you want your country to have a great economy it has got to produce wealth. And one of the primary ways to produce wealth is to make stuff. Immediately after World War II, the United States had the greatest manufacturing base the world had ever seen and we outproduced the rest of the planet combined. Great manufacturing cities sprouted up all over America and the middle class thrived. It was truly a great time to be an American.
But then we decided to start shipping in cheaper products from overseas. At first it didn't create too much of a problem for our massive economy, but eventually the floodgates opened up and we lost tens of thousands of manufacturing facilities and millions upon millions of good paying jobs. Our labor pool was merged with the labor pool of countries such as communist China where it is legal to pay slave labor wages to manufacturing workers. Needless to say, our workers could not compete with that and our middle class started to shrink rapidly.
Today, there are many American cities that were once truly great that are now truly frightening to visit. For example, a recent CNBC articledetailed the plight of Reading, Pennsylvania...
In August 2008, factory workers David and Barbara Ludwig treated themselves to new cars—David a Dodge pickup, Barbara a sporty Mazda 3. With David making $22 an hour and Barbara $19, they could easily afford the payments.
A month later, Baldwin Hardware, a unit of Stanley Black & Decker, announced layoffs at the Reading plant where they both worked. David was unemployed for 20 months before finding a janitor job that paid $10 an hour, less than half his previous wage. Barbara hung on, but she, too, lost her shipping-dock job of 26 years as Black & Decker shifted production to Mexico. Now she cleans houses for $10 an hour while looking for something permanent.
They still have the cars. The other trappings of their middle-class lifestyle? In the rear-view mirror.
I once had an aunt that lived in Reading. She is dead now, and so is most of the city. At this point, more than 40 percent of those living in Reading are impoverished and the city government is flat broke.
But similar things could also be said about the rest of the Rust Belt...
Perhaps no other region in the country has more eerie examples of urban decay than the once dominant industrial region known as the Rust Belt. Covering the Midwestern states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, the region is plagued by a number of abandoned factories, houses and buildings that lay in crumbling ruins.
You can see some incredible photographs by Seph Lawless of the decay in the Rust Belt right here. The pictures are incredibly depressing, but it doesn't take too much imagination to see that these cities were once truly impressive.
Just take Gary, Indiana for instance. It was once known as "the Magic City" because it was doing so well, but now it is a rotting, decaying hellhole. The following is from an excerpt from a Daily Mail articleabout Gary...
Gary, a struggling city 30 miles south of Chicago along the shores of Lake Michigan, is a prime example of the trend.
Known as the ‘Magic City’ in the roaring 1920s for its spectacular growth, Gary is still home to U.S. Steel's largest plant, but the number of mill jobs has shrunk to 5,000 from 30,000 in the 1970s.
Gary's population in 1960 was more than 178,000, but it disintegrated to just 79,000 by 2012.
Some one-third of its residents live in poverty and the home and business vacancy rate is about 35 percent. Gary recorded 43 murders in 2012 - three times as many per capita as nearby Chicago.
At one time, Gary was the envy of the rest of the globe.
But now very few people would ever want to willingly live there.
The following is how James Kunstler described what he saw when he traveled through Gary, Indiana...
Between the ghostly remnants of factories stood a score of small cities and neighborhoods where the immigrants settled five generations ago. A lot of it was foreclosed and shuttered. They were places of such stunning, relentless dreariness that you felt depressed just imagining how depressed the remaining denizens of these endless blocks of run-down shoebox houses must feel. Judging from the frequency of taquerias in the 1950s-vintage strip-malls, one inferred that the old Eastern European population had been lately supplanted by a new wave of Mexicans. They had inherited an infrastructure for daily life that was utterly devoid of conscious artistry when it was new, and now had the special patina of supernatural rot over it that only comes from materials not found in nature disintegrating in surprising and unexpected ways, sometimes even sublimely, like the sheen of an oil slick on water at a certain angle to the sun. There was a Chernobyl-like grandeur to it, as of the longed-for end of something enormous that hadn't worked out well.
Sadly, what is happening to Reading and Gary is just a preview of what is slowly happening to the entire nation as a whole.
Since 2001, the United States has lost more than 56,000manufacturing facilities.
That is absolutely astounding.
Most of those jobs have gone overseas. That is why it seems like most of our products say "Made in China" these days. They are getting rich while our communities suffer, and then we have to beg the Chinese to lend our money back to us.
Meanwhile, we have a permanent epidemic of unemployment in this country. Back in the 1980s, over 20 percent of the jobs in the U.S. were manufacturing jobs. Today, only about 9 percent of the jobs in the U.S. are manufacturing jobs.
And an astounding number of our young men are just sitting at home instead of doing something productive. As I wrote about the other day, one out of every six men in their prime working years (25 to 54) do not have a job at this point.
Also, the percentage of working age Americans not participating in the labor force is up to 37.2 percent - a 36 year high.
Not only that, but the quality of our jobs has also steadily declined as we have lost good paying manufacturing jobs to overseas workers.
Right now, half the country makes $27,520 a year or less from their jobs.
No wonder the middle class is dying.
And of course there is so much more that could be said about this. For even more numbers about our manufacturing decline, please see my previous article entitled "Shocking Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Everyone Should Know".
These problems were not created overnight, and they are not going to be solved overnight either.
But as a nation, we have got to understand that we cannot consume our way to prosperity. That is only going to result in even more debt.
Instead, we have got to make the decision to produce our way to prosperity.
In other words, we have got to start making stuff in this country again.
That may sounds "crazy" to a lot of people, but it is possible. We have just got to have the willingness to do it.
Credit to The Economic collapse
A lot of writers make economics really complicated, but the truth is that it does not have to be. For example, if you want your country to have a great economy it has got to produce wealth. And one of the primary ways to produce wealth is to make stuff. Immediately after World War II, the United States had the greatest manufacturing base the world had ever seen and we outproduced the rest of the planet combined. Great manufacturing cities sprouted up all over America and the middle class thrived. It was truly a great time to be an American.
But then we decided to start shipping in cheaper products from overseas. At first it didn't create too much of a problem for our massive economy, but eventually the floodgates opened up and we lost tens of thousands of manufacturing facilities and millions upon millions of good paying jobs. Our labor pool was merged with the labor pool of countries such as communist China where it is legal to pay slave labor wages to manufacturing workers. Needless to say, our workers could not compete with that and our middle class started to shrink rapidly.
Today, there are many American cities that were once truly great that are now truly frightening to visit. For example, a recent CNBC articledetailed the plight of Reading, Pennsylvania...
In August 2008, factory workers David and Barbara Ludwig treated themselves to new cars—David a Dodge pickup, Barbara a sporty Mazda 3. With David making $22 an hour and Barbara $19, they could easily afford the payments.
A month later, Baldwin Hardware, a unit of Stanley Black & Decker, announced layoffs at the Reading plant where they both worked. David was unemployed for 20 months before finding a janitor job that paid $10 an hour, less than half his previous wage. Barbara hung on, but she, too, lost her shipping-dock job of 26 years as Black & Decker shifted production to Mexico. Now she cleans houses for $10 an hour while looking for something permanent.
They still have the cars. The other trappings of their middle-class lifestyle? In the rear-view mirror.
I once had an aunt that lived in Reading. She is dead now, and so is most of the city. At this point, more than 40 percent of those living in Reading are impoverished and the city government is flat broke.
But similar things could also be said about the rest of the Rust Belt...
Perhaps no other region in the country has more eerie examples of urban decay than the once dominant industrial region known as the Rust Belt. Covering the Midwestern states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, the region is plagued by a number of abandoned factories, houses and buildings that lay in crumbling ruins.
You can see some incredible photographs by Seph Lawless of the decay in the Rust Belt right here. The pictures are incredibly depressing, but it doesn't take too much imagination to see that these cities were once truly impressive.
Just take Gary, Indiana for instance. It was once known as "the Magic City" because it was doing so well, but now it is a rotting, decaying hellhole. The following is from an excerpt from a Daily Mail articleabout Gary...
Gary, a struggling city 30 miles south of Chicago along the shores of Lake Michigan, is a prime example of the trend.
Known as the ‘Magic City’ in the roaring 1920s for its spectacular growth, Gary is still home to U.S. Steel's largest plant, but the number of mill jobs has shrunk to 5,000 from 30,000 in the 1970s.
Gary's population in 1960 was more than 178,000, but it disintegrated to just 79,000 by 2012.
Some one-third of its residents live in poverty and the home and business vacancy rate is about 35 percent. Gary recorded 43 murders in 2012 - three times as many per capita as nearby Chicago.
At one time, Gary was the envy of the rest of the globe.
But now very few people would ever want to willingly live there.
The following is how James Kunstler described what he saw when he traveled through Gary, Indiana...
Between the ghostly remnants of factories stood a score of small cities and neighborhoods where the immigrants settled five generations ago. A lot of it was foreclosed and shuttered. They were places of such stunning, relentless dreariness that you felt depressed just imagining how depressed the remaining denizens of these endless blocks of run-down shoebox houses must feel. Judging from the frequency of taquerias in the 1950s-vintage strip-malls, one inferred that the old Eastern European population had been lately supplanted by a new wave of Mexicans. They had inherited an infrastructure for daily life that was utterly devoid of conscious artistry when it was new, and now had the special patina of supernatural rot over it that only comes from materials not found in nature disintegrating in surprising and unexpected ways, sometimes even sublimely, like the sheen of an oil slick on water at a certain angle to the sun. There was a Chernobyl-like grandeur to it, as of the longed-for end of something enormous that hadn't worked out well.
Sadly, what is happening to Reading and Gary is just a preview of what is slowly happening to the entire nation as a whole.
Since 2001, the United States has lost more than 56,000manufacturing facilities.
That is absolutely astounding.
Most of those jobs have gone overseas. That is why it seems like most of our products say "Made in China" these days. They are getting rich while our communities suffer, and then we have to beg the Chinese to lend our money back to us.
Meanwhile, we have a permanent epidemic of unemployment in this country. Back in the 1980s, over 20 percent of the jobs in the U.S. were manufacturing jobs. Today, only about 9 percent of the jobs in the U.S. are manufacturing jobs.
And an astounding number of our young men are just sitting at home instead of doing something productive. As I wrote about the other day, one out of every six men in their prime working years (25 to 54) do not have a job at this point.
Also, the percentage of working age Americans not participating in the labor force is up to 37.2 percent - a 36 year high.
Not only that, but the quality of our jobs has also steadily declined as we have lost good paying manufacturing jobs to overseas workers.
Right now, half the country makes $27,520 a year or less from their jobs.
No wonder the middle class is dying.
And of course there is so much more that could be said about this. For even more numbers about our manufacturing decline, please see my previous article entitled "Shocking Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Everyone Should Know".
These problems were not created overnight, and they are not going to be solved overnight either.
But as a nation, we have got to understand that we cannot consume our way to prosperity. That is only going to result in even more debt.
Instead, we have got to make the decision to produce our way to prosperity.
In other words, we have got to start making stuff in this country again.
That may sounds "crazy" to a lot of people, but it is possible. We have just got to have the willingness to do it.
Credit to The Economic collapse
The real birth in electronic money is not Bitcoin, but Google Wallet
The real birth in electronic money is not Bitcoin, but Google Wallet. Standing in line at Starbucks you will see the under 25 crowd pay with their cell phones. Sorry, but Google is already there. Bitcoin cannot compete nor will traditional banks. Just as Amazon reduced book publishers to a subservient role at their direction, and book stores went out of business, while the internet is rendering newspapers obsolete, the trend to pay attention to is Google Wallet, which is targeting the traditional banks.
Google has launched in the US market its electronic purse known as the Google Wallet. This form of electronic money enables users to pay for the internet as well as a rising number of stores like Starbucks. However, Google Wallet also allows you to send and receive money. In Europe, the search engine already has a banking license and could start at any time. Because Google’s Android operating system runs on many smartphones, the company has the ready market globally. Google Wallet has the best conditions to establish their electronic money in Europe including Germany and Switzerland than any other system. The younger the generation, the greater the market share Google already has in place. Extending their business into banking will be much easier than anyone anticipates. Google is poised to emerge as a bank that nobody seems to quite appreciate at this time.
Apple’ latest iPhone is also equipped with a fingerprint sensor. The strategy in product development is clear. With this technology, your cell phone can become the most secure credit card because it will require your fingerprint to function. Apple is using this technology in its music platform iTunes that again is used in a greater proportion as you move down the age group..
Facebook is also applying for a banking license in Ireland. They intend to offer banking using its vast worldwide online network throughout Europe. We are looking at a younger generation moving rapidly to electronic money much faster than the older generations even think is possible.
We will see Google and Facebook emerge with electronic accounts for a client-base that will increasingly move away from brick-and-mortar banks rendering them obsolete just as Amazon wiped out a lot of bookstores. A Camera shop that has been here in my neighborhood for 40 years is closing at the end of June. When I ask why? The response was they cannot compete any long with their expenses.
Banks are dinosaurs and are simply incapable of competition. They are as incapable of competing as the local camera store or the newspapers that cater to the older generations, not the younger. This is a wave of Creative Destruction that is in part contributing to the rising systemic unemployment as technology renders many jobs obsolete.
The Internet giants of Google, Apple and Facebook already have the millions of customers established. They are tracking their buying behavior precisely. They can target customers like never before and making the next step in banking to lending will be a breeze. Credit applications are already being approved electronically in minutes. This makes much of the banking staff redundant.
Moving to electronic money is being aided by this technology shift. So while the older generation pray for Bitcoin, the real money is in the hands of Google, Apple, and Facebook who do not have to sell their names to get people to trust them and like PayPal, you can keep your account in your home currency and pay in whatever currency you desire.
Companies will ne moving more and more toward this shift in money. Once we see Google, Apple, and Facebook move to the next big step of lending, say goodbye to the banks of old. If someone online buys a book or bids for something on Ebay, his Internet company might will simply then offer you the right loan. Consumer loans are relatively set formulas and computers by default calculate the risks and decide approve of not.
In Germany just over a 25% of all Internet purchases is now being paid for using the Ebay’s subsidiary PayPal, with estimates in volume exceeding almost 150 billion euros. Ebay’s subsidiary has startled the financial industry and offers credit. You can link a credit card to the account and charge that card automatically.The German banks are too traditional to even contemplate how to compete.
As the economy turns down, banks will be unable to comepte with rising costs in a down market. In Germany, the Samwer brothers who have the online shoe retailer Zalando added Lendico, which has a similar concept like Lending Club. This is part of the internet revolution that is as significant as the industrial revolution was back during the 19th century. Banking is a rapidly collapsing industry just as newspapers. Mainstream news will not be around much longer for the younger generation pay no real attention to them and shows like MSNBC and FOX are really just propaganda selling their political views rather than reporting a fair and balanced news service. Banking will be unrecognizable in another decade.
Credit to INfowars
Russian Army Ready for Any Developments in Ukraine
MOSCOW, June 18 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian Army is ready for any developments in Ukraine or anywhere in the world and Russian defense industry can quickly replace any imports, including those from Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a State Duma meeting behind closed doors.
“A question was asked whether our army is ready to defend the motherland in the circumstances of a more complex international situation. We received a positive, life-affirming answer. Everyone’s ready, combat efficiency is at a high level,” Mikhail Yemelyanov, first deputy head of A Just Russia parliamentary faction, told RIA Novosti.
He noted that another issue up for discussion was replacement options for imported equipment in the defense industry.
“I asked a colleague of mine how the shortages of supplies from Ukraine will affect our defense capabilities. He said he was confident that they won’t, that everything could be replaced,” said Yemelyanov. According to Shoigu, Russia can replace its military imports relatively quickly, Yemelyanov said.
Another parliamentarian, Vadim Solovyov noted that “concering the situation in Ukraine it was said that we are ready for any developments and it all depends on specific situation, first of all, the position of our western partners, army is ready to accomplish any task set by the country’s government and the Commander-in-Chief.”
Credit to RIA Novosti
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