Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

U.S. Families Prepare for 'Modern Day Apocalypse'
Dec 23rd, 2014
Daily NewsSky News
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Thousands of families are hoarding food and weapons in anticipation of an impending catastrophe, writes Sky's Dominic Waghorn.

From the outside America may seem to be a land of endless optimism and confidence. But could it be in danger of falling apart?

An increasing number of Americans seem to think so, and they're preparing for the end.

They call themselves preppers. Mainstream suburban Americans hoarding supplies and weapons while leading otherwise perfectly normal lives.

This old nuclear missile facility has been turned into an apocalypse refuge

It's a national phenomenon and it's supporting a doom boom industry worth many millions.

Braxton Southwick is a typical father-of-six in Salt Lake City, who believes the nice suburban neighbourhood he lives in could soon be swept away by some kind of modern day apocalypse.

"I think that is what I'm scared of the most," he told Sky News, "Not the actual events. I've already prepared for that. It's the aftermath, when there are no police, there are no military to protect us, we're going to be protecting ourselves."

The trigger could be a terrorist attack, a monetary collapse, cataclysmic failure in power generation, or a natural disaster. Preppers fear what comes next and have no faith in either their government or human nature.

"Once people use up all their resources, they're going to come after the people that prepared and had more resources. So basically we have to take care of ourselves."

Braxton and his wife Kara have a basement that will see them through Armageddon, literally. Enough dried and canned food to last six months. Enough guns and ammunition to turn their family into a small army.

And they have trained each of their six children, including the youngest aged 15, how to defend themselves with guns to see off the mobs of marauding looters they predict could come after them after their world collapses.

At the other end of America, another family are preparing in exactly the same way. In Virginia, Jay and Holly Blevins hoard food and weapons and run a network of like-minded families.

"I'm talking about professionals: doctors and lawyers and law enforcement and military. Normal, everyday people. They can't necessarily put their finger on it. But there's something about the uncertainty of our times. They know something isn't quite right."

Jay is a celebrity in the strange but increasingly mainstream world of preppers, writing prepper books and touring America, speaking at prepper expos where a bewildering range of survival supplies and techniques are on offer.

Why is it happening? Partly, no doubt, because it allows Americans to indulge in some of their favourite pastimes: consuming, camping and buying lots and lots of guns.

And partly because fear sells, drives up numbers for cable news, and increases sales for everything from dried food to assault rifles.

But it's also arguably a sign of a country coping with economic decline. The end of the American Dream has left people more uncertain about their future, and their country's.

Katy Bryson is in Jay's prepper network. Prepping, she says, puts Americans back in charge of their destiny.

"They're not in control of whether they lose their job or not but they are in control of whether they are prepared. So I feel like that's why the industry is just booming right now for preparedness," Katy added.

It is also a fundamentally American phenomenon. In a country built on the radical individualism of its founding fathers, people have an inbuilt mistrust in their government's ability to protect them.

Sociologist Barry Glastner wrote The Culture of Fear. He told Sky News: "Americans are fairly unique as world citizens in that we tend to believe that we control our own destiny as individuals to a much greater extent than we really do."

Ironically, he points out preppers may actually be reacting to their fears in the least effective way. Dangerous weather, terrorist attacks and economic collapses are all best dealt with by higher authorities, he said.

"Where there are real dangers, to take an individualistic approach is usually exactly the wrong thing to do. So the kinds of things that the preppers are preparing to protect themselves from are much better handled on a community-wide basis than they are in your own home."

Pope Says Vatican is, Sick With Power, in Curia Address
Dec 23rd, 2014
Daily NewsThe Telegraph
Categories: Contemporary Issues

Pope Francis sharply critiques Vatican bureaucracy in a Christmas speech, complaining that scheming and greed have infected administrators with "spiritual Alzheimer's"

North Korea: 1.2 Million Troops, Nukes - - and a 3,000-strong Cyber-elite
Dec 23rd, 2014
Daily NewsBloomberg
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

North Korea’s alleged ability to hack into Sony Pictures Entertainment is extending Kim Jong Un’sreach far beyond the range of his missiles.

While North Korea has kept Western defense officials guessing for years about a nuclear program that it may or may not ever use, the regime’s ability to wage cyber war adds a new dimension to its standing abroad.

“There is this image that North Korea never carries through on its threats,” said Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow on Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation in Washington and former deputy division chief for Korea at the Central Intelligence Agency. “But it sometimes does carry through. You can’t always dismiss North Korea threats as simply being words.”

The Kim family is often mocked in European and U.S. media for its style of totalitarian rule and bursts of anti-Western invective. And yet, poking fun at the regime’s eccentricity ignores North Korea’s technological prowess in areas where it chooses to pour resources. South Korea has already accused the North of numerous attacks over the past five years, and now Pyongyang may be showing its global reach.

In June, North Korea promised to "mercilessly destroy’’ anyone associated with “The Interview,” a Sony Pictures action-comedy movie about a plot to assassinate Kim. Six months later, Sony Pictures pulled the movie from release after hackers invaded its computer systems.

Greater Skills

“Fears of North Korea’s hacking skills and also its general offensive capabilities have risen,” said Kim Jin Moo, a North Korea researcher at South Korea’s state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul. “The perception that North Korea is a terrible threat has gotten stronger.”

North Korean cyberintimidation is no surprise to South Korea. The country says North Korea has carried out six major cyber attacks on its institutions since 2009, costing the country $780 million. It includes an attack on one of South Korea’s largest banks, Nonghyup, that left about 30 million account holders unable to withdraw money for days in 2011.

In response, the government plans to more than double the size of its cyber-defense unit to about 1,000 by 2030, while the science ministry warned in January that North Korea has been stepping up efforts to steal information from computers by using hacking emails.

Pentagon Threat

North Korea yesterday warned of damage “thousands of times” greater if the Obama administration punished the country over the Sony hack, saying its targets would include the White House and Pentagon. The country’s National Defense Commission also maintained its denial of involvement in the Sony attack.

Obama told CNN over the weekend that he was considering putting the North back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, from which it was removed in 2008.

“We cannot have a society in which some dictator in some place can start imposing censorship here in the United States,” Obama told reporters in Washington on Dec. 19.

North Korea has for decades tried to make up for its deteriorating conventional war-fighting forces by developing nuclear bombs, ballistic missiles and long-range artillery. In recent years, it has added elite hackers to its list of asymmetric weapons as Kim charts a new era under his leadership.

Hacking Sony was something that North Korea would have felt had to be done because the movie involved its “supreme dignity,” the defense institute’s Kim said.

Elite Hackers

Even though North Korea ranks among the lowest in Internet infrastructure, it operates an elite unit of 3,000 cyber experts in addition to an army of 1.2 million troops and a nuclear arms program, South Korea’s then-Defense Minister Kim Kwan Jin said at a conference last year.

Greater Skills

Workers remove a poster for "The Interview" from a billboard in Hollywood, California

Most members are recruited from top schools such as Kim Il Sung University, and they take turns as attackers and defenders in teams to cope with their country’s isolation, Kim Heung Kwang, a North Korean defector who taught at Hamheung Computer College, said by phone. He said he received information from his former students who are now in the “121” unit.

“They are put into posh apartments in Pyongyang and live in groups, commuting by bus and allowed to meet with families and friends on weekends,” said Kim, who now heads activist group North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity in Seoul. “North Korea is poor, but it funnels resources into what a dictator thinks it needs. The country gets the best computers and people it can get to enhance its cyber warfare skills.”

Trained Unit

Recently the unit has been training in gleaning big chunks of data from foreign networks and analyzing them, Kim said, saying he suspected it is also behind the attack on Sony Pictures.

Understanding North Korea’s capabilities has taken time. Following the attack on Nonghyup Bank in 2011, many South Koreans, including major daily Dong-A Ilbo, initially reacted with skepticism to the allegation that the North was behind the incident, saying Internet Protocol addresses traced to Pyongyang may have been manipulated by hackers trying to divert blame to one of the world’s most opaque countries.

A “denial of service” attack on the anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War last year and an attack in March that crippled the networks of some Korean banks and broadcasters were also linked to North Korea.

‘Unique Situation’

“Korea is in a unique situation because a truce is still in effect between the North and the South, and IP addresses are often all that it takes to say that the North is the culprit,” Hwang Jun Won, a professor of cyber-hacking security at Seoul Hoseo Technical College, said by phone. “But it takes more than a couple of pieces of circumstantial evidence to nail down the offender. Finding a smoking gun can involve steps as difficult as raiding the site where hackers sat.”

In a mutual acknowledgment of threats posed by North Korean hackers, U.S. and South Korean defense chiefs agreed at a 2012 meeting in Washington to create a joint military body that discusses ways to defend against hacking, the South Korean Defense Ministry said on its website.

South Korea’s military set up a cyber-defense command in 2010 after authorities said North Korea masterminded a 2009 cyber attack that paralyzed the websites of U.S. and South Korean government websites, including that of the White House.

“Kim Jong Un is so interested in hacking because cyber skills are the most cost-effective way to wage war,” said Kim Heung Kwang, the former defector. “Hacking can be performed even in peacetime and costs little compared to developing weapons of mass destruction. It’s is really worth the time and effort.”

Meet the Transhumanist Party: Want to Live Forever? Vote for Me (Excerpts)
Dec 23rd, 2014
CommentaryJamie Bartlett
Categories: Warning;Creation - Evolution

Jamie Bartlett meets Zoltan Istvan, the man behind a political movement in America that wants to make us all more than human.

Let the Headlines Speak
Dec 23rd, 2014
Daily NewsFrom the internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

BREAKING: Protesters Ignore Mayor De Blasio & Families of Slain Officers & March on 5th Avenue
On Tuesday the protesters were back on the street. They are marching to 5th Avenue and promise to “shut it down.”  

Sharyl Attkisson: CDC Is Tracking 1,400 Possible Ebola Cases in US Today
media coverage of Ebola vanished after the White House appointed a far left hack with expertise in revolutionary politics as Ebola czar.....the CDC is hiding suspected cases from the American public.

Abbas says to cut ties with Israel if UN move fails

Algiers - Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas warned on Tuesday that his administration would "no longer deal" with Israel if a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a final peace deal fails.

FBI warns of Islamic State threat to Mississippi River bridge
WASHINGTON - The FBI has warned local authorities of a threat that Islamic State militants would blow up the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge spanning the Mississippi River, an agency spokesman said on Tuesday.  

ISIS Closing in on Israel from the North and the South
The war against ISIS is taking a dangerous, perhaps inevitable turn. The terror organization has been keen to expand to southern Syria and the Syrian capital of Damascus. Now it says it has recruited three Syrian rebel groups operating in the south of the country in an area bordering the Israeli occupied Golan Heights — that have switched their loyalties to ISIS.  

Ukraine votes to drop non-aligned status
Ukraine's parliament has voted to drop the country's non-aligned status and work towards Nato membership.  

New EPA Regs Issued Under Obama Are 43 Times as Long as Bible
Since President Barack Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued 3,120 new final regulations, equaling 27,854 pages in the Federal Register, totaling approximately 27,854,000 words.  

Meet the Transhumanist Party: 'Want to live forever? Vote for me'
Transhumanists, broadly speaking, are people who want us to become "beyond human". It’s an umbrella term for a broad family of ideas united by the vision that technology now, or at least soon will, allow us to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. That means everything from bionic limbs to 3D printing organs to uploading our entire brains on to memory sticks and carrying them around with us as back up.  

Report: Islamic State is turning churches into torture chambers in Iraq and Syria
the militants have converted the ransacked churches in Qaraqosh into torture chambers for local Christians. The members of the Islamic State who now run the churches are holding the Christians prisoner and forcing them to convert to Islam. IS has made clear that they intend to destroy any religious group that does not agree with their interpretation of Islam.  

Obama literally spanked in brand-new images
Most of the caricatures depict Putin in a positive light, as a strong, savvy, global chess master, while Obama appears to be a dishonest, political midget who is weak, tuckered out and even harms the environment.  

2014 sees 7% increase in North American aliyah
Immigration to Israel from North America increased 7% in 2014 from the previous year, with 3,762 olim from the United States and Canada, compared to 3,504 olim in 2013, according to figures released by the Nefesh B’Nefesh organization. A 6% growth in aliyah from the United Kingdom was recorded during the same period.  

Seventh Earthquake Reported off BC Coast
A seventh earthquake has been reported by Natural Resources Canada, this just the latest in a series of shakers to take place over the past two days.  

Pope says Vatican is 'sick' with power in Curia address
Pope Francis criticised the Vatican bureaucracy on Monday in a pre-Christmas address, complaining of 15 "ailments" that he wanted cured in the New Year. Pope Francis said the Curia – the administrative body of the Roman Catholic church – was suffering from "spiritual Alzheimer's" which has made them forget that they are supposed to be joyful men of God.  

Anti-Islam 'Pegida' rally in Dresden sees record turnout
A record 17,500 people have turned out for the latest "anti-Islamisation" rally in the German city of Dresden, according to police estimates. Demonstrators sang Christmas carols and listened to speeches about immigrants and asylum seekers. Weekly rallies by a group called Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West, or Pegida, began in October.  

Australia PM Abbott warns of 'heightened terror chatter'
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott says there has been a "heightened level of terror chatter" since the siege at a Sydney cafe last week. Mr Abbott said the National Security Committee had met to discuss the development on Tuesday. However, the terrorist threat level would remain at "high" and not be raised to "extreme", he added.  

Economic growth revised down to 2.6%
The UK economy has grown more slowly in the past year than previously thought, official figures indicate. Revised figures show gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter of this year was 2.6% higher than in the same period last year, down from an earlier estimate of 3%. The Office for National Statistics confirmed that the UK's GDP grew by 0.7% in the third quarter of the year.  

China ignores EU, offers to help Russia
China has joined India in helping the Russian economy, but closer to home Belarus and Kazakhstan are hedging their bets on future relations. Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said in China Daily, a state mouthpiece, on Monday (22 December): “Russia has the capability and the wisdom to overcome the existing hardship in the economic situation. If the Russian side needs, we will provide necessary assistance within our capacity”.  

ISIS Threat Prompts Israel To Boost Border Defences, ISIS and Al-Nusra Planning 'Black Winter' in Lebanon
As ISIS continues to attract more supporters to its cause, Israel is reportedly strengthening its military forces in Golan Heights to counter the growing threat of the terror group expanding its territory. A senior official in the Israeli army has revealed government forces are currently regrouping along the border areas of Israel.  

The Palestinian Bid at the Security Council: International and Domestic Ramifications for Israel
The decision by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to seek a UN Security Council resolution that would recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and would require Israel’s withdrawal from the territories by the end of 2017 has forced many countries, in the Middle East and around the world, to revisit the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and restore the issue yet again to the front burner.  

Battered NY mayor calls for temporary protest halt
As the New York Police Department mourns two of its own, Mayor Bill de Blasio pleaded for a pause in protests and rancor amid a widening rift with those in a grieving force who accuse him of creating a climate of mistrust that contributed to the executions of two officers.  

Harvard Capitulates to Anti-Semitism
As a Harvard graduate, class of 1974, I am thoroughly disgusted by the Harvard Administration’s cowardly capitulation to the anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divestment, sanction) movement on campus. As reported recently by the Harvard Crimson (Harvard’s daily student-run newspaper), since April 2014, Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) stopped purchasing SodaStream machines (do-it-yourself soda and water machines which are owned and manufactured by an Israeli-based company).  

At U.N. council, U.S. calls life in North Korea 'living nightmare'
UNITED NATIONS - The United States and other Western members of the U.N. Security Council on Monday slammed North Korea's human rights record after voting to overrule China's objections and add alleged grave abuses by the hermit state to the council's agenda.  

Bombs in north Nigeria bus station, market kill 27
ABUJA/MAIDUGURI, Nigeria - Two bomb attacks at a bus station and a market in north Nigeria on Monday killed at least 27 people and wounded around 60, officials said.  

Obama's popularity falls to record low among US troops. Why?
If President Obama's approval ratings have slipped with the general population, they have plummeted to record lows within one segment of the population: the US military.  

Isis Threat Prompts Israel to Boost Border Defences Isis and Al - Nusra Planning....
Dec 23rd, 2014
Daily NewsInternational Business Times
Categories: The Nation Of Israel

As ISIS continues to attract more supporters to its cause, Israel is reportedly strengthening its military forces in Golan Heights to counter the growing threat of the terror group expanding its territory. A senior official in the Israeli army has revealed government forces are currently regrouping along the border areas of Israel.

According to Lebanese media and A-Sharq Al-Awsat, the Israel has sent reinforcements to Golan Heights following the news of three groups of insurgents holding ground near the borders of Israel and Jordan had pledged allegiance to ISIS.

Previous reports have indicated that the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade militants from the Free Syrian Army were among the recent groups to have promised to support ISIS. The senior Israeli officer said the boosting of IDF is intended to thwart ISIS' plans to advance towards Israel. The show of strength is meant to protect the lives of Israeli civilians.

Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya'alon has recently declared that Israel will not stand by while the country's borders and security are under threat. The minister said Israel has been radical Islamic terrorism that seeks to destroy. He accused "cruel" organisations of spreading terrorism and sabotaging Israel, Algemeiner reports.

In late November, Israel's Combat Intelligence Collection Corps "Vulture" battalion has boosted its movements in the Golan Heights due to concerns of Israel being involved in Syria's conflict.

The Israeli army has monitored the events in Syria and conducted military exercises following months of occasional gunfire across the border. Incidents of mortar shelling and failed attempts of hostile aircraft to infiltrate Israeli borders were also reported.  

In a recent report by NOW Media in Lebanon, Israeli forces are preparing for ISIS to launch an attack against Hezbollah forces via Mt Qalamoun. The Lebanon-based terror group allegedly aligned with the units of Syria's President Assad.

Sources of the Lebanese media outlet said ISIS and Al-Nusra forces are planning a "black winter" and "bad days" in Baalbak and Hermel. Both terror groups have clashed repeatedly in months as they fight for control of Mt Qalamoun which is a strategic area overlooking Lebanese territory.

How Oil's Become the World's Most Potent Weapon: Forget Nuclear Arms.
Dec 23rd, 2014
Daily NewsMail Online
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

The U.S. and Saudis are behind an oil price crash that could topple regimes in Russia and Iran

Price of oil has fallen dramatically - down by nearly half in six months The collapse in price means it is cheaper to fill up your car at the pumps  But has sparked fiscal crisis that threatens to shift global power balance U.S. and Saudi Arabia are using market slump to wreak havoc on enemies While Russia - which depends on a bouyant price - is on the edge of crisis Most pressing issue for Britain is the fate of oil industry in North Sea basin

From Russia to America, and from Scotland to the Middle East, the dramatic fall in the price of oil — down by nearly half in six months — has sparked an economic crisis that threatens to shift the global balance of power in dramatic fashion.

As Russia teeters on the edge of crisis, America and Saudi Arabia are using the depressed oil market to wreak havoc on enemies such as Iran. The repercussions are being felt closer to home, too, with the North Sea oil industry described as being close to collapse.

The good news is that it’s cheaper to fill up your car at the pumps, but what does it mean for Britain’s national security?

Here, the Economist magazine’s Energy Editor EDWARD LUCAS offers a simple guide to these deeply turbulent times.

The dramatic fall in the price of oil - down by nearly half in six months - means that is that it’s cheaper to fill up your car at the pumps, but what does it mean for Britain’s national security?

RUSSIA IN MELTDOWN

The world has become used to Vladimir Putin giving tub-thumping speeches about the glory of modern Russia. His three-hour press conference last Thursday — by turns bombastic and duplicitous as he deflected questions about his country’s teetering economy — was no exception.

Railing against the sanctions enforced by the EU and America in response to the annexing of Crimea, he warned darkly against shackling the Russian bear and tearing out its ‘fangs and claws’.

During a recent visit to Turkey, however, he was forced to adopt a very different tone, announcing in clipped and petulant terms that his country’s prized new South Stream gas pipeline to Europe would not be going ahead.

The £25 billion pipeline across the Black Sea and the Balkans would have given the Kremlin a stranglehold on the energy supplies of a slew of European countries — Italy, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary and Austria.

It would also have contemptuously demonstrated Russia’s superiority over the European Union, which had ruled the pipeline plans illegal. (The rules of the European energy market — strongly backed by Britain — say that the same company cannot own both a pipeline and the gas that runs through it because it gives them too much control over supply and pricing.)

But Putin has had to eat humble pie and cancel the whole project.

Why? The collapse in the oil price across the world — down by nearly half since June — is emptying the Kremlin’s coffers.

As the third-biggest oil producer in the world, Russia is heavily dependent on a buoyant price, deriving more than half of its budget revenues from oil and gas extraction.

The kleptocrats in the Kremlin rely on oil and gas exports to sustain Russia’s bloated and bribe-ridden bureaucracy, as well as its ruthless aggression against other countries.

But the price per barrel of oil hit a five-year low of $58.50 last week, and though it has recovered slightly, it is still far too low to keep Mr Putin’s regime running at full blast, especially given the economic sanctions the West has imposed.

No wonder the value of the rouble has plummeted, causing panic buying in Russia, the movement of money out of the country and even the jacking-up of interest rates to an eye-watering 17 per cent in a bid to stop the currency sliding further. So these are very bad times for Russia, where no one has forgotten that low oil prices brought down the Soviet Union in 1991 by eviscerating its economy. Today, they could spell doom for Putin’s attempt to recreate that Soviet empire.

He has naively set out his spending plans for the next three years based on an oil price of around $100 a barrel — which now looks wildly optimistic.

But though the Kremlin is weakened, we should not count our blessings yet. For there is a danger that the Russian autocrat will lash out militarily, distracting his hard-pressed people with another foreign policy gambit aimed directly at humiliating Nato in Europe.

With that in mind, some feel that now is the time to go easy on Mr Putin. He has learned a hard lesson from this collision with reality; we should not push him too hard, the argument goes. Instead, we should offer him a face-saving deal on the situation in Ukraine, offer to lift sanctions and prevent the Russian economy from staggering over a cliff.

I disagree. Putin does not want a deal with the West. He wants to rewrite the rules of European security. Only if we accept that countries such as Ukraine are to be consigned to Russia’s control will the hard men of the Kremlin be satisfied.

That is a concession we cannot and should not make. If we concede Ukraine, we signal that might is right. What happens when Mr Putin tries his tricks on another country — perhaps our Nato allies in the Baltic states?

Oil prices fall to lowest in five years due to slow EU

As the third-biggest oil producer in the world, Russia is heavily dependent on a buoyant price, deriving more than half of its budget revenues from oil and gas extraction.

THE HUMBLING OF OPEC

For all our worries over Russia, however, we in Britain should not lose sight of the humiliation of another swaggering and once-mighty force in world politics, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). When it burst on the world scene 40 years ago, OPEC terrified the wasteful West.

Over the previous decades, we had grown used to abundant oil, bought mostly from Middle Eastern producers — with little global muscle — at rock- bottom prices.

However, OPEC changed that. By restricting supply, the cartel quadrupled the oil price, from $3 to $12.

Saudis remain in a strong position because oil is cheap to produce there. Above, the country's Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Ibrahim Naimi 

That is only a fraction of today’s price — but the oil crisis sparked by the rocketing cost in 1974 was enough to lead to queues at filling stations and national panics in the pitifully unprepared industrialised world.

Four decades later, Saudi Arabia has become one of the richest countries in the world, with reserves totalling nearly $900 billion.

But the rest of the world is less at its mercy than it once was. Here in Britain, our energy consumption is dropping remorselessly — the result of increased energy efficiency.

Moreover, many other nations now produce oil. And oil can be replaced by other fuels, such as natural gas, which OPEC does not control.

Also, OPEC no longer has the discipline or the clout to dominate the market, and we in Britain are among the big winners from all this, reaping the benefits of lower costs to fill up our cars and power our industries.

At its meeting in Vienna last month, the OPEC oil cartel — which controls nearly 40 per cent of global production — faced a fateful choice.

Would it curb production and thus, by reducing supplies, try to ratchet the oil price back to something near $100 a barrel — the level most of its members need to balance their books? Or would it let the glut continue?

The organisation’s 12 member countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Venezuela and Nigeria, chose to do nothing, proving that its once-mighty power has withered. Oil prices subsequently fell even further.

One central problem is that several of OPEC’s members detest each other for a variety of reasons.

Above all, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies see Iran — a bitter religious and political opponent — as their main regional adversary.

They know that Iran, dominated by the Shia Muslim sect, supports a resentful underclass of more than a million under-privileged and angry Shia people living in the gulf peninsula — a potential uprising waiting to happen against the Saudi regime.

The Saudis, who are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims, also loathe the way Iran supports President Assad’s regime in Syria — with which the Iranians have a religious affiliation. They also know that Iran, its economy plagued by corruption and crippled by Western sanctions, desperately needs the oil price to rise. And they have no intention of helping out.

The fact is that the Saudis remain in a strong position because oil is cheap to produce there, and the country has such vast reserves. It can withstand a year — or three — of low oil prices.

In Moscow, Vladimir Putin does not have that luxury — and the Saudis know it.

They revile Russia, too, for its military support of President Assad, and for its sale of advanced weapons to Iran.

HOW FRACKING CHANGED THE WORLD

But if geopolitics and ancient enmities are playing a big role in the price of oil, so is modern technology.

Astonishingly, America has now overtaken Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest producer of crude oil.

That comes not from the traditional American oil industry, exemplified by J.R. Ewing in the TV series Dallas, but from fracking — pumping water and sand at high pressure into oil-and-gas-bearing shale rock.

America is a world leader in this technology. Costs are low and the geology is favourable: the regions in America where drilling is done for shale gas and oil are thinly populated — such as Oklahoma and North Dakota.

Not surprisingly, the Saudis are worried by America’s fracking revolution. And the more Westerners switch from oil to other fuels — such as gas or even solar energy — the worse it is for the nations which survive on oil exports.

The truth is that the shale juggernaut will only be slowed, not halted. In time, it will reach other countries, too, including Britain if David Cameron has his way. Above, Mr Cameron tours a shale drilling plant oil depot

Saudis note with alarm the growth in energy efficiency. Every barrel of oil not consumed in the West is profit lost.

So they hope that a low oil price will at least slow the development of fracking in America — and it is true that a low oil price is bringing bankruptcy for the riskiest drillers in the new American exploration fields.

The truth is, however, that the shale juggernaut will only be slowed, not halted. In time, it will reach other countries, too, including Britain if David Cameron has his way .

The truth is, however, that the shale juggernaut will only be slowed, not halted. In time, it will reach other countries, too, including Britain if David Cameron has his way

Indeed, one really big question is how we use the cash windfall that comes with a dramatically lower oil price. Will we take the opportunity to improve Britain’s energy efficiency and diversify our supplies to protect against an eventual rise in the cost per barrel?

WILL THE NORTH SEA CRISIS RUIN SCOTLAND?

The most pressing issue for Britain is the fate of the North Sea basin, where costs are rising as oil and gas fields are depleting and exploration becomes more difficult.

‘It’s almost impossible to make money at these prices — it’s a huge crisis,’ the chairman of the independent oil explorers’ association said last week.

That is bleak news for the tens of thousands of workers employed in our offshore industry and their families.

But it is even worse news for the Scottish Nationalists. Their dreams of an independent Scotland were balanced precariously — ludicrously, some said — on the idea that oil and gas revenues would pay for the lavish socialist spending and bloated bureaucracy they hold dear. Now, their sums simply no longer add up.

If the oil price stays down, Scotland’s only hope is to cling tightly to the security — and subsidies — which the Union with England brings. Above, the Cleeton North Sea oil platform

This week, an Office of Budget Responsibility simulation concluded that Scotland’s North Sea oil revenues would have slumped to just one-fifth of Holyrood’s forecasts within a year of independence if there had been a Yes vote in the recent referendum.

In 2012, The Economist magazine — for whom I am the energy editor — mocked the SNP’s optimistic economics with a cover story which dubbed Scotland ‘Skintland’, renaming the capital city ‘Edinborrow’.

The then SNP leader Alex Salmond said we would ‘rue the day’ that we published this ‘sneering’ piece. His party pals said we were ‘patronising and eccentric’. But we were right.

If the oil price stays down, Scotland’s only hope is to cling tightly to the security — and subsidies — which the Union with England brings.

The SNP's dreams of an independent Scotland were balanced on the idea that oil and gas revenues would pay for the lavish socialist spending and bloated bureaucracy they hold dear.

SO WHAT OF THE FUTURE?

The good news is that, even as high-cost oil producers are being squeezed by falling prices, it is a different story for consumers.

A $40 fall in the oil price shifts some $1.3 trillion from producers to consumers each year, largely through tumbling prices at the petrol pumps.

The RAC believes that petrol could fall to below £1 per litre — a price not seen since May 2009. That will keep millions of pounds in motorists’ pockets.

But they should not spend it on champagne — at least, not yet.

Oil production still rests on some of the most ill-run and fragile states in the world. Iraq produces 3.4 million barrels a day, and Libya another million.

That is half of the total produced by America. But both countries are precariously balanced on the edge of collapse. Libya is no longer a functioning state, riven by a bloody struggle between parliamentary forces and Islamist militias.

Iraq has already come perilously close to succumbing to the fanatical fighters of the so-called Islamic State.

The big picture is that the world is changing for the better: a number of despotic regimes —notably Russia’s — that depend on looting their country’s natural resources are facing a well-deserved comeuppance.

The question is whether they accept their fate, or whether the power of black gold to spark violent upheaval will see us all sucked into conflicts that could shake the world.

China's Leader is Telling the People's Liberation Army to Prepare for War
Dec 23rd, 2014
Daily NewsThe Week
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Preparing for what? (REUTERS/Stringer)

Over the last several months, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party have repeatedly exhorted the People's Liberation Army to "be ready to win a war." Xi has repeatedly called for greater military modernization, increased training, and enhanced overall readiness of the Chinese army, navy, and air force.

These repeated calls have alarmed China's neighbors from New Delhi to Washington. The question on everyone's mind: what is all this preparation for?

Is the Chinese leadership preparing for something? Are they gearing up for a military operation, or merely the option to carry one out? Or is there a more innocent explanation for all of this?

One credible explanation is that the Chinese leadership is pushing military readiness as part of the ongoing, national anti-corruption drive. Military anti-corruption efforts have been highlighted by the arrest and imminent court martial of Xu Caihou, a former high level military officer. Xu faces charges of embezzlement, bribery, misuse of state funds, and abuse of power, and is thought to have made at least $5.9 million by selling officer promotions.

Corruption in the Chinese military is thought to be widespread. Although the true effects are not known, it has resulted in ineligible officers being promoted, diversion of state funds, and sweetheart deals between military contractors and officials. Perhaps most importantly, time spent by corrupt officials making money is time not spent training the troops for conflict.

Although the Communist Party's message to "prepare to win a war" may seem bellicose, the government may simply be telling the military to stop making money on the side and just do their jobs.

Another possibility is that Xi and the Party are pushing for the Chinese military to adopt readiness levels on par with the Pentagon. The U.S. military, which is frequently deployed around the world, often on short notice, trains to a relatively high standard. Much of a typical deployment, such as operating planes from an aircraft carrier flight deck, is dangerous work that can only be safely accomplished by training to high level of proficiency.

It's quite possible that China wants the military to achieve this skill level too, for no other reason than to have it. This on the face of it does not imply aggressive intent, only a desire for a prepared military.

Of course, it's possible that the Chinese government has something more sinister in mind.

The Party may desire the ability to conduct military action overseas as a diversion from domestic issues. In recent years, China has used territorial claims in the East and South China Seas and the Taiwan issue to divert public attention from problems at home, even going so far as to organize protests. Political grievances, environmental pollution, food scandals, government land grabs, lack of affordable healthcare, and, most importantly, government corruption are all issues that have sparked civil unrest.

As the Chinese economy slows down, the Communist Party may be worried that decreased economic activity could lead to more domestic unhappiness. A military expedition that united the country behind the government could be an option they'd consider.

In 1982, the generals that ruled Argentina invaded the nearby Falkland Islands, a United Kingdom territory, in a bid to co-opt anti-government dissent. The junta ruling the country believed that invading the Falklands, regarded by Argentines across the political spectrum as belonging to their country, would rally the country around the government.

Unfortunately for the generals, military adventurism is a two-edged sword. The U.K. sent a naval task force to retake the Falklands and Argentina's ensuing defeat proved the downfall of the regime.

Thanks to its recent territorial spats, China has a wealth of option for adventurism, such as sending naval vessels to the Diaoyu Islands (known as Senkaku Islands to Japan) in the East China Sea, making a demonstration of force near Taiwan, or even picking a fight with smaller countries such as the Philippines. Well-trained armed forces are necessary even in operations short of war; a show of force can quickly become a demonstration of incompetence.

We don't really know what is pushing Xi and company's seemingly bellicose exhortations. Much of the decision-making taking place in the Chinese military is a black box opaque to the outside world. Maybe China is preparing for something. Maybe it isn't. Maybe they're preparing for something and even they don't know what it is.

Or maybe they're just telling their people to do their jobs.

A War on Christianity
Dec 23rd, 2014
CommentaryBerit Kjos
Categories: Warning

Humanism has paved the way for the New Age, but most of us didn’t notice. Just as termites can chew away at a home’s foundation for decades before the damage shows, so humanist educators have sought to undermine the public school system. Suddenly we had to face the fact that many schools teach goals and values that contradict biblical values. And the humanist-oriented educational establishment promotes its beliefs as aggressively as any other religious group. Listen to their war cry:

The battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being.

These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level—preschool, day care, or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new—the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent in its promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of ‘love thy neighbor” will finally be achieved.

American philosopher and educator John Dewey kindled the fire of educational reform. The first president of the American Humanist Association, Dewey was determined to weed out Christian absolutes and reseed with “truths” that could adjust to changing cultures. The Humanist Manifesto, which Dewey signed in 1933, declares the heart of the movement. This is part of its introduction:

There is great danger of a final, and we believe fatal, identification of the word religion with doctrines and methods which have lost their significance and which are powerless to solve the problem of human living in the Twentieth Century . . . Any religion that can hope to be a synthesizing and dynamic force for today, must be shaped for the needs of this age. To establish such a religion is a major necessity of the present.

Without the 3.2 million-member National Education Association, considered one of the nation’s most powerful political machines, Dewey’s ideas might have been confined to university campuses. Supported by the NEA, comprised of textbook writers and superintendents as well as professors and public school teachers, Dewey’s vision spread like wildfire. Through its militant leadership, the whole educational system became involved—with or without the personal support of local educators, many of whom didn’t realize what was happening.

Few textbooks have escaped the watchful eye of NEA censors, who have doggedly followed Dewey’s plan to provide a “purified environment for the child.” Historical facts that clashed with “progressive education” have been distorted or erased. The NEA has sought total control of curriculum content, control of teachers’ colleges, and sex education, free from parental interference. Though a high percentage of American teachers consider themselves moderate or conservative, the NEA supports abortion on demand (without parental consent), preferential treatment of homosexuals, and teaching evolution, while omitting creationism from the classroom.3

One book, Censorship: Evidence of Bias in Our Children’s Textbooks, unveils some alarming facts. Christianity, family values, and certain political and economic positions have been systematically banished from children’s textbooks. For example, in 670 stories from third-and sixth-grade readers:

No story features Christian or Jewish religious motivation, although one story does make American Indian religion the central theme in the life of a white girl.

Almost no story features marriage or motherhood as important or positive. . . . But there are many aggressively feminist stories that openly deride manhood.

In an original story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, the main character prayed “to God” and later remarked “Thank God.” In the story as presented in the sixth-grade reader, the words “to God” were taken out and the expression “Thank God” was changed to “Thank goodness.”4

While some elementary history textbooks still tell about Thanksgiving, they do not explain to whom the Pilgrims gave thanks. Pilgrims were defined as “people who make long trips.” The Pueblo Natives “can pray to Mother Earth—but Pilgrims can’t be described as praying to God.”5 Overt attacks on Christianity through distortion, depreciation, and ridicule have caused even more damage than omissions. Many of the books students are required to read refer to boring church services, self-righteous ministers, and lustful evangelists. One psychology text equated the historical Jesus with mythological gods:

A great many myths deal with the idea of rebirth. Jesus, Dionysus, Odin, and many other traditional figures are represented as having died, after which they were reborn, or arose from the dead.6

When children are subjected to such suggestions and pressures year after year, many yield to the hostile forces that oppose their beliefs.

The chart below lists several of the humanistic standards being passed down to a new generation of young people and compares these with traditional Christian values.

Secular Humanists

There is no God.

The world is self-existing.

Everything exists for the fulfillment of human life.

The goal. . . is a free and universal society where people cooperate for common good.

Man is responsible for the realization. . . of his dreams.

Values are relative and changing, determined by human need.

Man has within himself the power to create a new world.

Christians

We trust in a living, personal God.

God created the world.

“For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever.” (Romans 11:36)

Our goal is to “know” Christ and the “power of his resurrection.” (Philippians 3:10)

“In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God.” (Psalm 62:7)

Biblical values are absolute and unchanging. (Matthew 24:35)

“The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” (Luke 18:27)