Thursday, January 14, 2016

Signs of the Times....

Embracing homosexuality is America’s future, Obama says in State of the Union

This blog is LOADED with the latest MADNESS from the Modern World ....

President Obama hailed gay "marriage" as one of his proudest accomplishments and looked forward to the day when Americans would shed traditional sexual morality to embrace homosexuals in his final State of the Union address last night.

The president told a combined chamber of Congress, Cabinet members, and most of the Supreme Court that upholding our "unique strengths as a nation" and heeding the "spirit of progress" made our national celebration of sexual minorities possible.
"That's how we secured the freedom in every state to marry the person you love," Obama said early in his rather short national address.
The reference to a highly contested, 5-4 Supreme Court decision infuriated pro-family advocates.
"The Republican leadership ought to set aside an empty chair in the front of the chamber to represent the more than 50 million Americans whose votes in support of traditional marriage were stolen by...an anti-constitutional, illegitimate ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court," said Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage. "It's a national insult that President Obama would celebrate such an affront to democracy."
To underscore his commitment to the issue, First Lady Michelle Obama invited James Obergefell, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, as one of her special guests. Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan gave a spare ticket to the Family Research Council, which in turn invited county clerk Kim Davis, who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples on religious liberty grounds. Obergefell said if he confronted Davis, he would tell her that her stance "isn't right, it isn't fair, and isn't what America is about," but there is no indication that the two met. For her part, Davis said she hoped her presence helped "encourage" Christians who "want to make a difference" in our nation.
The president, who gave his final State of the Union address, returned to the subject of homosexuality later in the hour-long speech.
"I have such incredible confidence in our future, because I see your quiet, sturdy citizenship all the time," he said.
He said he found hope in "the son who finds the courage to come out as who he is, and the father whose love for that son overrides everything he's been taught" about homosexual behavior.
Once again, Obama made no reference to abortion in the national address, although he praised ObamaCare, saying that premium hikes caused by "health insurance inflation" were now increasing at a lower rate than in previous years.
He once again advanced federal intervention in education policy, calling the No Child Left Behind bill "an important start" to offering universal, publicly funded preschool.
"In the coming years, we should build on that progress, by providing Pre-K for all," he said.
Obama has advocated federally funded daycare since his first presidential campaign in 2008, mentioning it in previous State of the Union addresses, and even including a reference in the nation's first-ever report to the UN Human Rights Council.
Policy experts warn that the new entitlement would not be helpful, and that most Americans do not want that kind of government tinkering with traditional family roles.
“Families seem to prefer caring for their children at home in their early years," said Lindsey Burke, a scholar at the Heritage Foundation.
Multiple studies show that any educational benefit the child received by attending Head Start disappears by the spring of first grade, but well-documented "negative effects of preschool on children’s behavior" - such as increased aggression and arrested emotional development - "remain.”
Obama took several swipes at Republican presidential hopefuls Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio, although not by name.
He warned that, without heeding his advice, America may descend into a virtual civil war fueled by xenophobic religious fanatics bitterly clinging to their guns, religion, and antipathy to those who are different.
Unnamed forces may soon "roll back the equal rights and voting rights that generations of Americans have fought, even died, to secure," he warned darkly. "As frustration grows, there will be voices urging us to fall back into tribes, to scapegoat fellow citizens who don't look like us, or pray like us, or vote like we do, or share the same background."
During past epochs, he said, "there have been those who told us to fear the future; who claimed we could slam the brakes on change, promising to restore past glory if we just got some group or idea that was threatening America under control. And each time, we overcame those fears."
In one of the more remarked upon passages of his speech, Obama lamented the fractious nature of American political discourse - something his rivals said he has done more than anyone to create.
"It's one of the few regrets of my presidency ," he said, " that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better."
Actions that lead to this outcome include questioning the other side's motives, he said.
However, the Obama administration has released multiple reports accusing Christians and members of the pro-life movement of being incipient domestic terrorists and held a joint training session on terrorism led by Planned Parenthood. The rhetorical gambit has been picked up by Hillary Clinton.
Obama promised to "keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office."
Sen. Marco Rubio found the remark surreal. "This president has been the single most divisive political figure this country has had over the last decade," he said after the annual event.
Overall, conservatives dismissed the speech. Kim Davis proved to be underwhelmed by the oration. When asked for her reaction, she replied curtly, "It was a speech."

America Losing Humanity? Woman Watches 3 People Get Run Over, Keeps Eating Pizza

(The Free Thought Project.com) Surveillance video of a woman casually eating pizza while 3 people lay dying behind her highlights the ominous desensitization to violence in the US.
Brooklyn, NY — As presidential candidates call for banning Muslims and ending the internet, governments and media push for a race war, and World War III looms on the horizon, one is left wondering how in the world society is letting this happen.
Thousands of women and children are being blown up by US bombs, American police kill a thousand US citizens a year, the US and its allies are bombing hospitals in the name of ‘Freedom’ and mothers are trampling each other to get a discount vegetable steamer at Walmart!
As Tears for Fears said back in 1983, “It’s a very very mad world.”
Those of us who see this rapacious and sedated society from the outside feel compelled to interject some sense into it. Unfortunately, the thing about sane people is that they sound crazy to an insane society and are quickly written off as kooks or fools.
Surveillance footage from a crash on Sunday shows just how desensitized and numb some people in society have become in regards to human suffering.
As the video begins, a young woman is walking down the sidewalk about to take a bite of her pizza when all of the sudden an SUV comes plowing over a trio of pedestrians. After being run over, the pedestrians were in obvious need of assistance.
However, instead of helping them, this woman simply keeps on walking. The argument can be made that she was fearful of the situation, not know what happened, and wanted to get away…..but that falls apart when she picks up the pizza slice and enjoys a bite as she casually keeps walking.
All three pedestrians were taken to the hospital and, sadly, the youngest victim, Victoria Nicodemus, 30, was pronounced dead.
According to DNAinfo, the driver of the SUV was arrested and faces charges of driving without a license and insurance.
Of course, this woman had absolutely no obligation whatsoever to help these people, but her callous and indifferent attitude epitomizes the state of society today. Indifference is the opposite of love.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one who simply kept on walking. Multiple other people are seen walking by without so much as a look back.
It truly baffles the mind as to how humans can watch a fellow human suffer and care less about trying to end that suffering. How is it that the establishment can put a few images on the television of alleged suffering in the Middle East and Americans are chomping at the bit to start bombing them, but when an opportunity presents itself to actually render aid to a person right in front of them, they choose to abstain?
Either Americans are in a state of suspended disbelief, or they have grown so dependent upon the police state to handle things for them that they have lost the common courtesy of helping those in need – or perhaps it’s a combination of both.

North Korea claims fully successful ‘miniaturized hydrogen bomb’ test

North Korea has announced it has successfully tested a miniaturized hydrogen bomb following an “artificial seismic event” that has likely become the country’s fourth known nuclear test.

In a “special and important” announcement at noon, North Korean TV claimed that the country has successfully conducted a hydrogen bomb test at 10:00am local time.
“Through the test conducted with indigenous wisdom, technology and efforts, the DPRK fully proved that the technological specifications of the newly developed H-bomb for the purpose of [the] test were accurate and scientifically verified the power of [the] smaller H-bomb," the statement said.
"It was confirmed that the H-bomb test, conducted in a safe and perfect manner, had no adverse impact on the ecological environment," it added.
The announcement followed the USGS detection of a 5.1 magnitude earthquake in the vicinity of a known Pyongyang nuclear site.
The epicenter of the jolt was located 19 kilometers (12 miles) east-northeast of Sungjibaegam, Ryanggang Province, at a depth of 10 kilometers, according to preliminary data from the US Geological Survey (USGS). Similar seismic activity in roughly the same area was recorded on February 12, 2013, prior to North Korea claiming its third successful underground nuclear test.
The “unusual” seismic activity near a “known” North Korean nuclear site seems to be of artificial origin and was a clear sign of a nuclear test, South Korean News agency Yonhap reported.
"The Foreign Ministry is currently holding a meeting presided over by the minister to immediately determine the situation following the reports," a ministry official said.
South Korea’s intelligence agency is analyzing the probability of a fourth nuclear test having taken place, while the National Security Council is preparing to hold a meeting to discuss the issue, Yonhap reported.
Japan's chief government spokesman also said the earthquake was “likely caused” by a nuclear test, Reuters reports. But Japan didn't detect any radiation from North Korea's nuclear test at its monitoring posts, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference.
Meanwhile a US defense official said the department was “looking into the reports of a possible seismic event near North Korean nuclear facilities."

North Korea first declared that it created a nuclear bomb in 2005. Since then, Pyongyang has conducted three known underground tests. The first, conducted in 2006 at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site in the northeast of the country, contained five to 10 kilotons of explosives. It was recorded by seismic stations in Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and Australia.
The second and third tests were conducted in May 2009 and January 2013, increasing the power of the devices tested 10 to 20 kilotons of TNT each.
North Korea’s 2013 test triggered sanctions from the UN Security Council, which put restrictions on the county’s banking, trade and travel immediately.
Pyongyang also operates a nuclear reactor at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center, North Korea’s major nuclear facility, about 90 kilometers from the capital.
North Korea has repeatedly threatened to use its nuclear weapons in the event that its sovereignty is violated. Last month Pyongyang claimed that it had become a “great nuclear power capable of defending the independence and national dignity of our homeland by mighty nuclear and hydrogen strikes.”
However, it is not known whether North Korea had managed to develop a nuclear device small enough to be used as a warhead on a ballistic missile.

Related:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35240012?ocid=socialflow_twitter

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us10004bnm#general_summary

California law allowing seizure of guns without notice begins Jan. 1

Gun control legislation going into effect in California next week will allow authorities to seize a person’s weapons for 21 days if a judge determines there is potential for violence.

Proposed in the wake of a deadly May 2014 shooting rampage by Elliot Rodger, the bill provides family members with a means of having an emergency “gun violence restraining order” imposed against a loved one if they can convince a judge that this person’s possession of a firearm “poses an immediate and present danger of causing personal injury to himself, herself or another by having in his or her custody or control.”

“The law gives us a vehicle to cause the person to surrender their weapons, to have a time out, if you will,” Los Angeles Police Department Assistant Chief Michael Moore told a local NPR affiliate. “It allows further examination of the person’s mental state.”

PHOTOS: Best states for concealed carry — ranked worst to first

“It’s a short duration and it allows for due process,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for mental health professionals to provide an analysis of a person’s mental state.”

Rodger, 22, killed six people and injured 14 others before taking his own life during a wave of attacks across Isla Vista near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara, that he carried out with two knives and three handguns that he legally purchased.

The rampage was prefaced by a video uploaded to YouTube of Rodger discussing his plans, as well as a 107,000-word manifesto, both of which were circulated minutes before he began killing.

PHOTOS: Hand cannons: The world's most powerful handguns

“This is almost the kind of event that’s impossible to prevent and almost impossible to predict,” Janet Napolitano, the university’s president and a former homeland security secretary, said in the aftermath of Rodger’s ambush.

Twenty months later, implementation of the bill is expected to give family members a mechanism for having loved ones briefly lose access to their own, legally acquired weapons in hopes of stopping similar rampages.

“It’s the family members, it’s the people closest to the perpetrator, who are in the best position to notice red flags,” Wendy Patrick, a San Diego State University professor and lawyer, told San Diego’s CBS affiliate this week.

Second Amendment advocates have cried foul, however, and insist that legislation is not the answer in a state already ripe with gun rules that are more restrictive than most anywhere else in America.

“We don’t need another law to solve this problem,” Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, told The Associated Press. “We think this just misses the mark and may create a situation where law-abiding gun owners are put in jeopardy.”

Guess Where ‘Getting Right With God’ Ranks in Americans’ New Year’s Resolutions?

In January, Americans resolve to cut the carbs, hit the gym — and get right with God. When Americans make New Year’s resolutions, a better relationship with God ranks almost as high as better health, Nashville-based LifeWay Research finds.

And for many groups, faith actually outranks health. Older Americans, African-Americans, Hispanics, and Christians are all more likely to say they’ve made resolutions about God than about health. Overall, 57 percent of Americans report making health-related New Year’s resolutions in the past, while 52 percent say they’ve addressed their relationship with God. Those are the top two responses in a LifeWay Research survey of 1,000 Americans.
“We don’t hear a lot of talk about it, but a relationship with God is still something people want,” said Scott McConnell, vice president of LifeWay Research. “They have time at the holidays to think, and they realize what they didn’t do last year — things they value but are not living out. So they start the year with an aspiration to change.” FULL REPORT

Washington state opens all women’s bathrooms to men

(WND) Thanks to the Human Rights Commission, Washington state’s newest law makes businesses open their bathroom doors to both men and women – meaning, men must be granted equal and unfettered access to the ladies’ restrooms. “This first-of-its-kind, statewide law is part of the recent push to frame gender-segregated bathrooms as an affront to ‘equality,’” wrote Joseph Backholm in the Family Policy Institute of Washington.
A new rule issued by the state’s HRC just took effect this month – and that’s after the Houston’s lesbian mayor lost her own personal campaign to open women’s restrooms to men, due to voter backlash. Voters in Missouri and Arkansas recently shot down similar proposals, too. But Washington went a different way, and the HRC, which has rule-making powers, created a new mandate for the entire state to abide.
As The Family Policy Institute pointed, the state’s been battling with the issue for some time. “School boards throughout Washington state have been wrestling with it. The YMCA of Pierce and Kitsap County recently made headlines when they created a policy allowing transgender men to use the women’s locker room under any and all circumstances,” the organization reported. “However, this is the first statewide mandate that forces businesses to cooperate with a customer’s confusion about his or her gender.” FULL REPORT

Gun Sales Surge In Switzerland As Army Chief Warns "Arm Yourselves"

It would appear the people of Switzerland have been listening to their military leaders. Having recently been warned by the Swiss army chief of growing social unrest, SwissInfo reports applications for gun permits in Switzerland increased by 20% between 2014 and 2015, according to a survey conducted in 12 cantons. But while the army proposes "arm yourselves," Swiss crime prevention officials warn against the false sense of security that guns bring.
Whereas in 2011 numerous people in Switzerland voluntarily gave up their firearms, today more and more people are purchasing guns.
Swiss army chief André Blattmann warned, "The threat of terror is rising, hybrid wars are being fought around the globe; the economic outlook is gloomy and the resulting migration flows of displaced persons and refugees have assumed unforeseen dimensions," adding that "Social unrest can not be ruled out."
He further recalled the situation around the two world wars in the last century and advised the people of Switzerland to arm themselves...
And, as SwissInfo reports, it appears they have...

Applications for gun permits in Switzerland increased by 20% between 2014 and 2015, according to a survey conducted in 12 cantons by Swiss public television, SRF.

The survey, published on Wednesday, showed that in the 12 (out of 26) cantons surveyed, the Swiss are increasingly interested in purchasing pistols, rifles and other firearms for private use.

The greatest increase – more than 70% – was measured in canton Vaud, with more than 4,200 applications in 2015, compared with 2,427 in 2014.

There is a general climate of uncertainty and an increased fear of intruders, said Pierre-Olivier Gaudard, head of crime prevention for canton Vaud.

But Martin Boess, director of Swiss crime prevention, warned against the false sense of security that guns bring.

“When there are more guns in circulation, there is a greater danger for society,” he said in an interview on the 10 vor 10 news programme. “That’s shown by experience in places like the United States. When there are more guns, there are more accidents with guns.”

In Switzerland, with more than 8 million inhabitants, there are about 2.5 million legal weapons, around half of which are used for Swiss military service.

* * *
And while the Swiss go about their legal business of arming themselves, President Obama is preparing to unleash another weapon - the executive order - to enact gun-control legislation.
Facing stiff resistance to gun-control legislation in Congress, Mr. Obama has signaled that he plans to act on his own. The president has directed administration officials to explore any steps he could take on guns without lawmakers’ help, and he said in his weekly address that he would sit down with Ms. Lynch on Monday “to discuss our options.”

“I get too many letters from parents, and teachers, and kids to sit around and do nothing,” Mr. Obama said in the address, which was released Friday morning.

Gun-control advocates who are familiar with the White House’s plans say Mr. Obama could lay out multiple executive actions as soon as next week, and administration officials have confirmed that recommendations for the president are nearing completion.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz said Mr. Obama asked his team to “scrub existing legal authorities” and assess actions that could be taken administratively

Homosexual Group Wants Govt to Release Names of Schools ‘Using Faith as Guise for Discrimination’

A prominent homosexual advocacy group is calling upon the U.S. Department of Education to release the names of religious schools that it believes are “using faith as a guise for discrimination” by seeking exemptions from a federal law that has recently been interpreted to pertain to homosexuality and transgenderism.
“There is an alarming and growing trend of schools quietly seeking the right to discriminate against LGBT students, and not disclosing that information publicly,” said Human Rights Campaign (HRC) President Chad Griffin in a statement. “We believe that religious liberty is a bedrock principle of our nation, however faith should never be used as a guise for discrimination.”
The group is referring to Christian colleges and universities nationwide that have requested an exemption from Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits educational institutions from discriminating against a person based on their gender. Although the law has been most known as being applied to women, the Department of Education recently told various schools that Title IX also applies to transgender students. FULL REPORT

Willy do it? Man with bionic penis to finally lose his virginity at 43

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/sex/willy-do-it-man-with-bionic-penis-to-finally-lose-his-virginity-at-43/news-story/16671bb9507d08de5501759244937207

Americans With “Alternative Views” Could be Labeled Crazy, Have Guns Taken

Preppers, people who complained about corruption previously deemed "mentally defective"

Second Amendment advocates are warning that Americans who hold “alternative views” could be declared mentally ill and have their firearms seized as President Obama announced a raft of new gun control measures.

Columnist Jeff Edwards notes that, “American citizens, through mere suspicion by the government, could be denied a constitutional right.”

Highlighting California’s already stringent gun laws, under which a judge can order cops to seize someone’s firearms on mere suspicion alone, Edwards fears that Obama’s new control push could lead to Americans with divergent political beliefs being disarmed.

“If given the authority, how many people of the far right political persuasion would progressives label as “domestic terrorists”? How many people concerned about the expansion of government would be labeled “crazy” because they hold alternative views?” asks Edwards, adding that a person who spends $5,000 dollars on a weapons collection could be “deemed crazy by a judge”.

For years, some Americans have been designated mentally ill for holding certain political beliefs and in certain cases have had their firearms seized as a result.

In 2012, former Marine Brandon Raub was involuntarily detained for psychiatric questioning after he left anti-establishment posts on Facebook which complained about corruption within the U.S. government.

Raub’s lawyer John Whitehead noted at the time that there were 20,000 recent cases in Virginia alone of people being snatched from their homes having been declared mentally defective by the state with virtually no due process whatsoever and with the victim having committed no crime.

Earlier the same year, David Sarti, one of the participants in the National Geographic Channel’s Doomsday Prepper show, visited his doctor complaining of chest pains, only to have the doctor later commit him to a psychiatric ward and alert authorities.

Sarti was subsequently declared “mentally defective” and put on an FBI list that stripped him of his second amendment rights.

As Breitbart reports, under the “mental health” aspects of Obama’s new executive gun control plan, Social Security beneficiaries who are incapable of managing their own finances would also be prohibited from possessing a firearm.

“This means that information on beneficiaries who meet the criteria of mental impairment–demonstrated in part by an inability to manage their own benefits–will be added to the National Instant Criminal Background System (NICS) so that the beneficiaries cannot buy a gun,” writes Awr Hawkins.

Under Obama’s “common sense” gun restrictions, health care providers will also have the power to report the names of mentally ill patients to an FBI firearms background check system without the consent of patients and without legal ramifications.

Mark Zuckerberg to build robot butler to watch child??

Mark Zuckerberg intends to build a robot to look after his house and keep tabs on his newborn daughter. The Facebook founder and CEO’s resolution for 2016 is to build an artificially intelligent system that will be able to control his house, watch over his child and help him to run Facebook.
Mr Zuckerberg has in the past taken on “personal challenges” that have included reading two books per month, learning Mandarin and meeting a new person each day. But now he has undertaken perhaps his most ambitious plan — an artificially intelligent robot that seems to be able to run his whole house.
“My personal challenge for 2016 is to build a simple AI to run my home and help me with my work,” he wrote. “You can think of it kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man.” Facebook has been working hard on AI systems as a company, including building computers that can recognise the contents of a picture and then make sure it is shown properly on Facebook. FULL REPORT

Hillary Says Space aliens may have visited Earth!!

Hillary Clinton has no interest in talking about the Benghazi terror-attack cover-up, but she vows to investigate UFOs. The Democrat front-runner told the Conway Daily Sun during a campaign stop in New Hampshire that she believes aliens may have already reached Earth.
“I think we may have been [visited already]. We don’t know for sure,” the former secretary of state told the newspaper Dec. 30. John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman and former White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton, believes in UFO theories. “He has made me personally pledge we are going to get the information out. One way or another. Maybe we could have, like, a task force to go to Area 51,” Mrs. Clinton said.
The National Security Archive at George Washington University confirmed the existence of Area 51 in 2013. The top-secret site, which surrounds Groom Lake in Nevada, was the home base for U-2 spy plane missions for years, WND reported Aug. 16, 2013. FULL REPORT

Germany In Shock After "Monstrous" Attacks, Rape By 1,000 Men "Of Arab Or North African Origin"

Yesterday, we were shocked to learn that as German anger boils over at the country's unprecedented refugee wave, one or more so far unknown assailants fired shots through the window at a home for asylum seekers in western Germany injuring one resident as he was sleeping. As AP noted it wasn't immediately clear who was responsible for the incident or what the motive was. However, Darmstadt prosecutors' spokeswoman Nina Reininger told news agency dpa: "If someone shoots at housing which has people inside, I assume that it is a targeted attack."

An officer of the crime scene investigation unit examine the shattered window glass
of a refugee shelter in Dreieich near Offenbach, Germany, Monday, Jan. 4, 2016
Today, we are just as shocked to read that, even as we expected, the animosities between the two groups have dramatically escalated, and that the mayor of Cologne has summoned police for crisis talks after nearly 100 women reported they were robbed, threatened or sexually molested at the New Year's celebrations outside the city's cathedral by young, mostly drunk, men, police said on Tuesday. One woman said she was raped.
According to BBC, "the scale of the attacks on women at the city's central railway station has shocked Germany." About 1,000 drunk and aggressive young men were involved.
The initial shock will quickly transform to furious anger, because more important in this specific case was the origin of the 1,000 drunk assailants, who split into groups, and attacked women in the square. Citing the police chief Wolfgang Albers, BBC notes that the men were of "Arab or North African region", adding that they were mostly between 18 and 35 years old. He added that the attack was a "completely new dimension of crime".
BBC adds that what is particularly disturbing is that the attacks appear to have been organised. Around 1,000 young men arrived in large groups, seemingly with the specific intention of carrying out attacks on women.
Fearing a public backlash, Cologne mayor Henriette Reker said there was no reason to believe that people involved in the attacks were refugees. Nonetheless, after a crisis meeting, she admitted the attacks were "monstrous" adding that "we cannot allow this to become a lawless area."
This, of course, puts her in a very precarious position if it is found that the attackers were indeed refugees.
Reker was stabbed in the neck and seriously hurt in October, just a day before she was elected mayor. Police said that attack appeared to be motivated by her support for refugees.

Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker and President of the Cologne Police Wolfgang
Albers (R) hold a news confernece in Cologne, Germany, January 5, 2016.
Integration commissioner Aydan Ozoguz, a self-proclaimed Muslim, likewise warned against refugees and foreigners being put under "blanket suspicion".
At this point it is too late for damage control, however, as this has become a case of guilty until proven innocent, especially since politicians involuntarily may be stirring the pot: "We will not accept the disgusting attacks on women. All perpetrators must be held to account," said Justice Minister Heiko Maas, a Social Democrat, in a tweet.
As Reuters adds, the attack has stirred "strong emotions in Germany where Chancellor Angela Merkel has welcomed people fleeing war zones in the Middle East and Africa."
The political reaction was immediate: the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has gained in polls in part at Merkel's expense thanks to a campaign against refugees, said she should close the border.
"Mrs Merkel, is Germany 'colourful and cosmopolitan' enough for you after the wave of crimes and sexual attacks?" tweeted AfD chief Frauke Petry.
Meanwhile, Germany's embattled prime minister urged people to respect strangers. Merkel said that "We .. respect everyone, even if we don't know them," she said. "That is the case not only for Germans, but for everyone."

A police vehicle patrols at the main square and in front of the central railway
station in Cologne, Germany, January 5, 2016.
Unfortunately for Merkel, it is now too late to contain the incipient, and increasingly more violent - and soon, lethal - conflict between growing sections of the local population and the country's refugees wave, because as Reuters further adds, and as we have noted repeatedly, there are almost daily attacks on refugee shelters.
"Events like that in Cologne foster xenophobia," Roland Schaefer, head of Germany's association of towns and localities, told reporters. Yes they do, and it was very obvious to everyone long before the recent break out of violence that when mixing two combustible cultures, these would be precisely the results.
Unless, of course, outcomes such as these were precisely what the otherwise very perceptive Merkel had in mind all along. Recall AIG's answer to "what Europe wants" back in May 2008:

To use global issues as excuses to extend its power:

environmental issues: increase control over member countries; advance idea of global governance

terrorism: use excuse for greater control over police and judicial issues; increase extent of surveillance

global financial crisis: kill two birds (free market; Anglo-Saxon economies) with one stone (Europe-wide regulator; attempts at global financial governance)

EMU: create a crisis to force introduction of “European economic government”

As for the "monstrous" attack in Cologne, the local news website Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger says the suspects were already known to police because of frequent pickpocketing in and around Cologne central station. Police are trying to find out whether the men who targeted women on Thursday night, surrounding, molesting and robbing them, organized their assaults through social media. They are also studying mobile phone and CCTV surveillance videos.
For now, the local police are searching for the 1,000 assailants. The will be found, and if confirmed that the "monstrous" attackers were indeed recent refugees, the dramatically escalating conflict within German society is about to take a quantum jump into ever greater violence.

Norway: Oslo Police — “We Have Lost the City”

“Grønland is more Muslim than Morocco.” And Europe is bringing in millions more.

“Grønland is more Muslim than Morocco.” And Europe is bringing in millions more.

Norway: Oslo Police: “We Have Lost the City” By Poqari News, December 31, 2015 (thanks to Kenny):
The article below is about the apocalyptic level of culturally-enriched violence in Grønland, a district of the city of Oslo.
Grønland is only two subway stops from the Parliament, and one from the Central Station, fairly close to the government offices that were bombed by Breivik.
It looks like Karachi, Basra, and Mogadishu all rolled into one. People sell drugs openly just next to the Grønland subway station.
It’s not Norway or Europe anymore, except when there is welfare money to be collected. The police have largely given up. Early in 2010 Aftenposten stated that there are sharia patrols in this area, and gay couples are assaulted and chased away. “Immigrant Fatima Tetouani says that ‘Grønland is more Muslim than Morocco.’”
Readers should remember that Aftenposten, which is the largest newspaper in the Oslo region, is normally pro-Islamic and very Multicultural.
Robbery-Victim no. 351, Grønland
Sturla Nøstvik (36) did not suspect any danger when the barrel of a pistol was smashed into his forehead. That was the beginning of fifty minutes of hell as a hostage of the robbers.
The women are being raped at night in Oslo, and the men are robbed more than ever.
In just the past ten years more than 4,000 people have been robbed in the town center and the area of the Grønland police station [an immigrant ghetto]. Most of them are young men. Sturla Nøstvik is robbery-victim 351 from Grønland just from this year, the same period in which around fifty assault-rapes have been reported in Oslo. The robbers play on fear, violence, and severe threats that leave a mark on the victims. Police superintendent Inge Sundeng in Grønland describes them as the “somewhat-forgotten victims”.
The police visited Sturla Nøstvik in the emergency room after the robbery. They told Nøstvik that a gang of robbers had committed many similar robberies in Grünerløkka and surrounding areas in thee past weeks. They told him that everybody should have the right to feel safe, but that they had no way of halting the robberies. “We have lost the city,” they said…

New Jersey School Skips Legal Battle, Will No Longer Recite “God Bless America”

HADDON HEIGHTS, N.J. (CBS) — Students at a Haddon Heights Elementary School are getting a real-life lesson in Constitutional law.
Staffers at Glenview Elementary School say it became a daily ritual for students to say “God bless America” after the morning recital of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Principal Sam Sassano says it was not something the school promoted or required; it just endured as a way to honor first responders after 9/11.
“It never, to us, invoked any type of religious intentions. It was basically a patriotic gesture that the boys and girls were doing,” Sassano told KYW Newsradio.

But Sassano says the ACLU sent the school board attorney a letter challenging the recital of “God Bless America” as unconstitutional.
Rather than engage in an expensive legal battle, Sassano sent an email to parents over the weekend saying the school will look for alternate ways to honor those in the September 11th tragedy.

Former Reagan and Bush administration official warns ‘revolution’ might be only way to right the U.S. ‘ship of state’

(Bugout.news) A former national security official with the Reagan administration and a top military and civilian aid to Colin Powell both as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as secretary of state has made a startling admission: That revolution on the American continent may just be the only way the bust up the Washington power elite and put a stop to the endless proliferation of empire and the military-industrial complex.
In addition, retired U.S. Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson said in a recent interview that the main “purpose” today of American foreign policy “is to support the complex that we have created in the national security state that is fueled, funded and powered by interminable war.”
What’s more, U.S. foreign policy objectives are more about expansion of the empire than have little to do with altruistic intentions.
“It’s never been about altruism. It’s about sheer power, and lately it’s not even been about a realistic application of that sheer power,” he told investigative journalist Abby Martin.
“It’s been, more or less, so failed in its overall general aspects that it has diminished our real power in the world, and this is what concerns me mostly because history demonstrates that this is what empires do when they get ready to collapse,” he explained. “They begin to be so zealous of their own power and its expansion that they actually decrease their power and it becomes inevitable that they cease to exist or exist in the same form they did when they were an empire.”
“We’re in real trouble right now because of what this empire has generated,” he continued, “because of the incentives and motivations of it, and because it’s basically run by about 1 percent of the people, if not fewer in this country,” which is “essentially a plutocracy.”
“Its unconscionable,” and “it’s not sustainable,” Wilkerson noted.
And yet, the cycle of perpetual war – with bigger defense budgets – remains unbroken. Indeed, it may be impossible to break, Wilkerson admits.
“This ship is sinking,” Wilkerson noted.
When asked what can be done to break the cycle, Wilkerson said: “The American people, or at least a powerful, substantial minority, but hopefully a powerful majority, are going to have to get sick and tired of this, they’re going to have to get angry about it, and they’re going to have to take action. That’s the only thing that I see as a way to salvage this republic before it sinks completely.
“We are going to have to have [a large segment of American society] actually stand up on their hind legs and say, ‘I’ve had it. This isn’t going to happen anymore. You’re not going to…does that mean revolution? It might. It might indeed.”
Watch the entire startling 25-minute interview below:

‘Death Panels’ Resurrected under new Medicare Rules

You probably remember the controversy over Sarah Palin’s charge six years ago that the Affordable Health Care Act would include “death panels” that would ration health care, effectively deciding in some cases who lives and who dies. The assertion by Palin, the former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate, was PolitiFact’s “Lie of the Year” at the end of 2009. On her Facebook page, she wrote that “the sick, the elderly, and the disabled” would suffer most.
“The America I know and love,” Palin said, “is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”
But lawmakers crafting Obamacare did propose panels that would decide whether or not a health-care procedure was worth paying for. And now, as the Associated Press reports, changes for Medicare in 2016 include “coverage for end-of-life counseling.” FULL REPORT

Women in US 'three times more likely to say they're bisexual'

Washington (AFP) - Women in the United States are about three times as likely as men to say they are bisexual, and increasing numbers of them say they have had sexual contact with other females, new data showed Thursday.

More than 9,100 adults aged 18–44 took part in the 2011–2013 National Survey of Family Growth, conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics.

Respondents entered their answers on a computer instead of directly telling an interviewer.

Among women, 5.5 percent said they are bisexual, compared to two percent of men.

Fewer people said they were bisexual in the last survey of its kind.

In 2006-2010, 3.9 percent of women and 1.2 percent of men described themselves as bisexual.

Compared to the same survey taken from 2006-2010, researchers found "significantly higher percentages of women in the 2011–2013" reporting that they had had same-sex sexual contact.

In the most recent report, 17.4 percent of women had such contact, compared to 14.2 percent years earlier.
Among men, 6.2 percent said they had experienced sexual contact with another man, according to the latest data.

Identifying as strictly straight, or having feelings of attraction only to members of the opposite sex, was also more common in men (92 percent) than women (81 percent).

WE WILL CONQUER ROME AND SMASH YOUR CROSSES!- Apostate Catholic Turned Muslim Preaches Conquest, Destruction Of Rome

Australian Catholic apostate turned Muslim Musa Cerantonio has a message: Christians are infidels who don’t deserve respect or places of worship, and Islam is coming to conquer Rome.
Mr. Cerantonio converted from a nominal Catholic background in 2008. According to his story, he was “converted” after he studied Christianity and then took an interest in Islam:

As sad and vile is what Mr. Cerantonio is doing, he’s preaching Islamic truth to the letter. Muhammad would be proud:

Abu Huraira reported that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: By Him in Whose hand is my life, the son of Mary (may peace be upon him) will soon descend among you as a just judge. He will break crosses, kill swine and abolish Jizya and the wealth will pour forth to such an extent that no one will accept it. (Sahih Muslim, Book #1, Hadith #287)

Christians around the world- especially Catholics- he’s talking to you. This is the real endgame of Islam- the destruction of the Faith and world domination:

2FDB5D5300000578-0-image-a-14_1452121419209

Mr. Cerantonio at St. Peter’s Square

If you do not believe this man’s intentions are serious, I cannot help you

God has promised that the gates of hell would never prevail against the Church, and that in the end times Jesus will come back and defend his people against the Antichrist.
Get your soul and body physically fit- the war is upon us.
From the UK Daily Mail:

Mr Cerantonio, who comes from an Irish-Italian family from Melbourne, reposted an old photograph of himself in front of the Vatican holding a black and white jihadi flag bearing the slogan in Arabic, ‘There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is the messenger of Allah’.

According to the Israel Miltary Forum, the photograph was first posted up to four years ago with Cerantonio’s comment clarifies that Muslims ‘do not defend or respect’ other religions, do not believe that Christians deserve to have churches just as the Muslims have mosques, and says that Islam will ultimately conquer Rome.

In response to Cerantonio’s latest posting, two of his fellow radical Australian converts, Junaid Thorne and Wissam Haddad liked or commented on it soon after.

…

On Christmas Day, Cerantonio posted an old video of himself talking about the establishment of an Islamic ‘caliphate’ or state in Syria, saying that the dream had been realised.

‘Only a few years ago, we were speaking about it, yearning for the establishment of Islam, and now we see it before our eyes,’ he wrote, the Australian reported.

The original post with his photo outside the Vatican accompanied Cerantonio’s declaration that ‘

‘We do not believe in religious equality; Islam is the [truth], and other religions are false. When Jesus returns, he will smash their crosses, and Islam [will] rule. Anybody got a problem with that?’

Two days before Christmas, Mohammed Junaid Thorne posted on Facebook a long message about the ‘suffering’ of being arrested and the insults from prison guards and inmates, possibly a reference to his own arrest and incarceration for six months after his conviction for booking a flight under a fake name to avoid being detected by authorities.

In this recent talk from May 2015, take note of his words beginning at 21:30:

Sharia courts creating dual justice system in UK?

The rising popularity of Sharia courts in the UK is increasing concerns of a parallel justice system emerging. Authorities say they are conducting a review of the process. RT’s Eisa Ali looks at the arguments of those against and in favor of the system.

Sharia councils in the UK say they deal strictly with family matters, such as marriage and child custody battles, but there is concern that they constitute a parallel legal system.
“We believe that Sharia courts discriminate against women and especially against Muslim women,” Nazira Mahmari, of the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation, told RT.

https://www.rt.com/uk/328366-uk-sharia-court-law/

‘Transgender’ Teacher to Open Private K-12 School for Homosexual Youth in Georgia

A female teacher who identifies as a male is set to open a private school for homosexual and transgender youth in Georgia later this year. The “Pride School of Atlanta” will teach children K-12 beginning in September, and will operate out of a Unitarian Universalist facility in the city. The first of its kind educational institution will cost $13,000 a year in tuition fees.
Founder Christian Zsilavetz, 45, says that she never felt support while teaching as a male in public schools, and decided to found her own school where children could be open about their homosexuality or transgender desires.
“Kids have full permission to be themselves—as well as educators—where there’s no wondering, ‘Is this teacher going to be a person for me to be myself with?’” she told the Associated Press. “This is a place where they can just open up and be the best person they can be.” FULL REPORT

VR porn is here and it's scary how realistic it is

I've tried a lot of different virtual reality experiences. Some good, some extraordinarily amazing, and some terrible. But mostly good.
I've never, however, tried VR porn. So when Naughty America, one of the U.S.'s largest pornography production companies, invited me to try out VR porn for myself at CES, I wasn't sure what to expect.
Would I merely be a spectator in a room watching people get freaky? Or would I actually be having VR sex?

Marine Corps Ordered to Make Job Titles Gender Neutral

The US Marine Corps is under orders to integrate both male and female recruits at boot camp training and must alter job titles to adopt a more gender-neutral tone by April.
The mandate, announced in a January 1^st memo from Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to the Commandant of the Marine Corps, asks the department to submit a “detailed implementation plan that addresses the gender integration of officer and enlisted basic training.”
“In this submission, identify specifically where, if anywhere, this training is already integrated, where it is separate, and specific steps that you will take to fully integrate these trainings,” Mabus wrote.
Additionally, Marine Corps officials have been asked to review job titles and eliminate the word “man” wherever possible.
“As we achieve full integration of the force, mirroring even more closely the Nation we defend, this is an opportunity to update the position titles and descriptions themselves to demonstrate through this language that women are included in these MOSs [Military Occupational Specialty],” Mabus wrote.
“Please review the position titles throughout the Marine Corps and ensure that they are gender-integrated as well, removing ‘man’ from their titles and provide a report to me as soon as practicable and no later than April 1, 2016, so that it is included in the rest of the integration efforts.”
An anonymous Navy official told the Marine Corps Times the integration will not affect iconic titles like “infantryman,” “rifleman” or “midshipman,” “… But when the word ‘man’ appears as a separate word … they want that name to be changed.”
Female marine recruits have traditionally undergone segregated training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island in South Carolina. Officials reportedly enjoyed the segregation as it allowed recruits to mentor with same sex role models.
Following Secretary of Defense Ash Carter’s announcement opening all combat roles to women last year, a study conducted by the Marine Corps found that all-male combat units performed better than mixed groups.
Secretary Mabus later claimed the study was biased and based on the researchers’ pre-conceived negative attitudes towards women.
In another study last month, the Marine Corps found that very few nations around the world opened combat roles to women.

We Are On the Road To Normalizing Pedophilia

This has been coming for years. Ever since Anthony Kennedy decided that his view of human sexuality was the only one permitted in the United States we have been gathering speed in what will inevitably be the declaration by the Supreme Court that pedophilia is a Constitutionally protected right and the EEOC and other federal agencies will set about making us honor that particular perversion.

Back in September we saw one of the first blatant efforts to legitimize pedophilia. Salon published a piece titled I’m a pedophile, but not a monster (ummm, no).

My name is Todd Nickerson, and I’m a pedophile. Does that surprise you? Yeah, not many of us are willing to share our story, for good reason. To confess a sexual attraction to children is to lay claim to the most reviled status on the planet, one that effectively ends any chance you have of living a normal life. Yet, I’m not the monster you think me to be. I’ve never touched a child sexually in my life and never will, nor do I use child pornography.

But isn’t that the definition of a pedophile, you may ask, someone who molests kids? Not really. Although “pedophile” and “child molester” have often been used interchangeably in the media, and there is some overlap, at base, a pedophile is someone who’s sexually attracted to children. That’s it. There’s no inherent reason he must act on those desires with real children. Some pedophiles certainly do, but many of us don’t. Because the powerful taboo keeps us in hiding, it’s impossible to know how many non-offending pedophiles are out there, but signs indicate there are a lot of us, and too often we suffer in silence. That’s why I decided to speak up.

See how easy that was. Pedophiles are normal, just like you and me. Only a few do bad things. Interesting theory. Impossible to disprove. And so we’re off to the races.

We’ve nipped around the edges for years. We allow 13 and 14 year old girls to get abortions without any police involvement. We’ve enacted “Romeo and Juliet” laws that sexualize young women and give older sexual predators a literal “Get Out of Jail Free” card. We saw GOP women side with the abortion industry in defeating a bill that would have required any woman asking for an abortion based on rape or incest to report the incident to the police. In short, all the ground work has been laid for making pedophilia a legitimate sexual activity.

As it turned out, Todd Nickerson was not quite as anti-sex-with-kids as he let on. This from a pedophile-friendly chat room he frequented:

…in fact, I’d argue that it’s actually benificial for the child. I will reiterate my swimming metaphor here (though I’ve already mentioned it twice.) Society preventing children from engaging in sex play and romance play is akin to preventing them from learning to swim, but not only that — refusing to tell them anything ABOUT swimming (or swimming pools or lakes . . .) and then, when the child turns 18 or so, taking them to the ocean and tossing them in, shouting, “Well, you’re on your own!” That’s what society does to children in the name of protecting them.

This essay appeared shortly after a transexual progressive activist involved in the whole GamerGate affair, named Nicholas (but you can call me Sarah) Nyberg was revealed to have been a pedophile before he became a she. And in the shadow of Lena Dunham, Hillary Clinton’s campaign surrogate, revealing her own sordid background of pedophiliac incest.

Milo Yiannopolous, writing at Breitbart observes:

Yet, incredibly, Salon is by no means alone. In the aftermath of the Jimmy Savile scandal in the UK, the Guardian published a feature carrying the disturbing claim that there is “not even a full academic consensus on whether consensual paedophilic relations necessarily cause harm.” Even left-wing comedy websites are complaining about society’s “misunderstanding” of pedophiles, and their writers post pictures of their own children to pedophiles in “support” when the self-confessed perverts are outed.

What’s happening here? Why are defences of pedophilia so rampant on the Left? And why are pedophiles so attracted to the progressive movement, as opposed to conservatism, libertarianism, or even anarcho-capitalism?

…
Horrifyingly, there are signs of a new pedophile acceptance movement forming on the Left. Just as Allen West warned, the gay rights movement is being used as a template. First comes the argument that pedophiles are just “born that way,” absolving them of any moral responsibility for their desires. Then comes the argument that pedophiles are just normal people, like the rest of us, but somehow impoverished or victimised by their own condition.

Inevitably, our society’s current ostracisation of pedophiles will be portrayed as an injustice: an oppression from which pedophiles must be liberated, or for which they deserve our sympathy. And woe to the oppressors! Quietly, in progressive columns and academies around the world, progressives are losing their footing and sliding down that slippery slope. Publications like Salon are abetting the turpitude.

An lo and behold, we see phase two of the operation unfolding. We are being conditioned to believe that pedophiles acting as, well, pedophiles is a function on them being shunned by normal people and made feel inferior. From Realizing You’re a Pedophile Can Make You Want to Kill Yourself:

While some people are unbothered by the idea of persecuting someone not because he committed a crime but because of a sexuality they didn’t choose and don’t want, there are good reasons to be against this kind of mob justice. While studying adolescents who sexually abused other children, Miner, the professor from the University of Minnesota, found these individuals had often grown up socially isolated and that this isolation “more likely predicts committing sex crimes against children as against committing other sorts of crimes.”

“The less they have to lose, they less likely they are to adhere to social convention. It seems like it’s to society’s advantage to have those individuals with a propensity for acting out in some sort of deviant way to have better contact with social institutions, social norms, social involvement. That’s a protective factor,” Miner told me.

So pushing pedophiles further into the shadows by persecuting them at every turn may well increase the possibility that they will offend. Distancing pedophiles from society has also made some adopt extreme stances, like Tom O’Carroll, a British pedophile activist, who during the 1980s chaired a notorious pressure group called the Paedophile Information Exchange, which advocated abolishing consent laws completely. O’Carroll, who has been jailed for child pornography charges, admits on his blog that his views remain at odds with mainstream thinking with regards to “children’s sexual self-determination.

The unfortunate truth is that pedophiles and their sympathizers are using the homosexual rights playbook. The same arguments Anthony Kennedy (and I have no evidence that Kennedy is a pedophile) made in deciding Lawrence vs. Texas and hammered home in Obergefell vs. Hodges can be applied directly to pedophiles. The fact that we already allow 13 and 14 year old girls sufficient agency to decide to take birth control pills or get an abortion without parental consent is a de facto death blow to state age of consent laws. Once consent is taken as something that is inherent in one’s humanity, ephebophilia (or pedophilia-lite) will be all the rage and it will just be a hop-skip-and-jump to full blown legalization of pedophilia.

The unfortunate thing is that on the progressive side of the spectrum, where the urge to use whatever it takes to scratch that insatiable itch in your nether regions, there is already an an underlying current of pedophilia evident in movies and television that needs just a tiny nudge to take off. And when this happens you will see pedophilia mainstreamed into HBO, Showtime, and the edgy Hollywood and Indie movies that are featured at Cannes and Sundance.

The post We Are On the Road To Normalizing Pedophilia appeared first on RedState.

DAYS OF NOAH – Genetic Engineering And Science Fiction Come To Life

What do the words multiplex, made-to-order, and moratorium all have in common? If you said they all begin with ‘m’ youd be correct. But theres a deeper connection that blends together the worlds of genetic engineering and science fiction. Genetic engineering has been made easier by the use of the CRISPR-Cas9 machine, an invention that can be used to insert, remove, and change DNA in any biological organism, including human embryos. This opens the scientific door to a plethora of opportunities to treat and prevent diseases.
But in the United States, UK, and China the Big Three global leaders in gene manipulation the question on the table is: should this be allowed? Members from the triad met in Washington DC in early December to discuss the ramifications and ethics of moving forward in this field of study. One might think that great strides and regulations had burst forth from this grand moratorium. What actually happened is that the moratorium committee issued a statement urging the Big Three to take the lead in discussing the uses of genetic research, influencing policymakers, and formulating guidelines. It seems this moratorium was a cutting edge chance to kick the discussion can down the road a little farther. FULL REPORT

My Wife and I Are (Both) Pregnant??

The story of two women who set out to have a baby together, and were more successful than they ever imagined.

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/01/dual-pregnancy-c-v-r.html?mid=nymag_press#

Human-Animal Chimeras Are Gestating on U.S. Research Farms

Braving a funding ban put in place by America’s top health agency, some U.S. research centers are moving ahead with attempts to grow human tissue inside pigs and sheep with the goal of creating hearts, livers, or other organs needed for transplants.

The effort to incubate organs in farm animals is ethically charged because it involves adding human cells to animal embryos in ways that could blur the line between species.
Last September, in a reversal of earlier policy, the National Institutes of Health announced it would not support studies involving such “human-animal chimeras” until it had reviewed the scientific and social implications more closely.

The agency, in a statement, said it was worried about the chance that animals’ “cognitive state” could be altered if they ended up with human brain cells.
The NIH action was triggered after it learned that scientists had begun such experiments with support from other funding sources, including from California’s state stem-cell agency. The human-animal mixtures are being created by injecting human stem cells into days-old animal embryos, then gestating these in female livestock.
Based on interviews with three teams, two in California and one in Minnesota, MIT Technology Review estimates that about 20 pregnancies of pig-human or sheep-human chimeras have been established during the last 12 months in the U.S., though so far no scientific paper describing the work has been published, and none of the animals were brought to term.
The extent of the research was disclosed in part during presentations made at the NIH’s Maryland campus in November at the agency’s request. One researcher, Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte of the Salk Institute, showed unpublished data on more than a dozen pig embryo containing human cells. Another, from the University of Minnesota, provided photographs of a 62-day-old pig fetus in which the addition of human cells appeared to have reversed a congenital eye defect.
The experiments rely on a cutting-edge fusion of technologies, including recent breakthroughs in stem-cell biology and gene-editing techniques. By modifying genes, scientists can now easily change the DNA in pig or sheep embryos so that they are genetically incapable of forming a specific tissue. Then, by adding stem cells from a person, they hope the human cells will take over the job of forming the missing organ, which could then be harvested from the animal for use in a transplant operation.
“We can make an animal without a heart. We have engineered pigs that lack skeletal muscles and blood vessels,” says Daniel Garry, a cardiologist who leads a chimera project at the University of Minnesota. While such pigs aren’t viable, they can develop properly if a few cells are added from a normal pig embryo. Garry says he’s already melded two pigs in this way and recently won a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Army, which funds some biomedical research, to try to grow human hearts in swine.

“The specter of an intelligent mouse stuck in a laboratory somewhere screaming ‘I want to get out’ would be very troubling to people.”

Because chimeras could provide a new supply of organs for needy patients and also lead to basic discoveries, researchers including Garry say they intend to press forward despite the NIH position. In November, he was one of 11 authors who published a letter criticizing the agency for creating “a threat to progress” that “casts a shadow of negativity” on their work.
The worry is that the animals might turn out to be a little too human for comfort, say ending up with human reproductive cells, patches of people hair, or just higher intelligence. “We are not near the island of Dr. Moreau, but science moves fast,” NIH ethicist David Resnik said during the agency’s November meeting. “The specter of an intelligent mouse stuck in a laboratory somewhere screaming ‘I want to get out’ would be very troubling to people.”
The chance of an animal gaining human consciousness is probably slim; their brains are just too different, and much smaller. Even so, as a precaution, researchers working with farm-animal chimeras haven’t yet permitted any to be born, but instead are collecting fetuses in order to gather preliminary information about how great the contribution of human cells is to the animals’ bodies.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/545106/human-animal-chimeras-are-gestating-on-us-research-farms/

DAY OF DARWIN – Senator Introduces Resolution to Support Designation of Feb. 12 as ‘Darwin Day’

A U.S. Senator from Connecticut has introduced a resolution that would express Congressional support for the designation of Feb. 12 as “Darwin Day.” Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal introduced Senate Resolution 337 on Dec. 17, which was referred to the Congressional Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for consideration. “Charles Darwin developed the theory of evolution by the mechanism of natural selection, which, together with the monumental amount of scientific evidence Charles Darwin compiled to support the theory, provides humanity with a logical and intellectually compelling explanation for the diversity of life on Earth,” the measure reads in part.
While asserting that teaching biblical creation in public schools “compromises the scientific and academic integrity of the education systems of the United States,” the resolution rather contends that “Charles Darwin is a worthy symbol of scientific advancement on which to focus and around which to build a global celebration of science and humanity intended to promote a common bond among all the people of the Earth.” FULL REPORT

DAYS OF NOAH – First genetically-modified human embryos ‘could be created in Britain within weeks’

The first genetically-modified human embryos could be created in Britain within weeks according to the scientists who are about to learn whether their research proposal has been approved by the fertility watchdog. Although it will be illegal to allow the embryos to live beyond 14 days, and be implanted into the womb, the researchers accepted that the research could one day lead to the birth of the first GM babies should the existing ban be lifted for medical reasons.
A licence application to edit the genes of “spare” IVF embryos for research purposes only is to be discussed on 14 January by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), with final approval likely to be given this month. Scientists at the Francis Crick Institute in London said that if they are given the go-ahead they could begin work straight away, leading to the first transgenic human embryos created in Britain within the coming weeks or months. FULL REPORT

If They Would Feed Radioactive Oatmeal to Little Kids, What Wouldn’t They Do?

It’s getting harder to focus on the “news”.
Considering that all media is filtered through just five megacorporations (compared with 50 companies in the early ’80s), not to mention (but I will) the fact that domestic propaganda was officially “approved” for use against the American people a few years ago, it’s kinda hard to tell the difference between what is real and what isn’t anymore.
Besides, it’s all “hey look, shiny things”. Pay attention to the right hand so you won’t see what the left is doing.

The distractions on the “news” also serve another purpose. To fill up your short term memory like junk food for the brain. To keep you from remembering what happened last week, let alone last year. From putting these things into perspective, especially historical perspective.
We’ve undertaken a large-scale research project. We’re six months in. I was reading The Pluton ium File s, a book on the American government’s top secret medical experimentation against mostly unwitting, clueless American citizens during the Cold War. All of this stuff is on record, but many people still have no idea even half of this stuff went on.
And that’s how it is with a lot of government experimentation. There’s a decades-long history of it, stretching all the back to the stress tests that were done on soldiers in the first world war and, really, who knows if it only started there. Doubtful.
Take the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, for example, where the government lied to about and knowingly failed to treat rural African American patients for the disease so prominent health officials who could care less about the Hippocratic Oath could see what would happen as the disease progressed (and spread). The experiment on patients who never gave informed consent and thought they were being treated for “bad blood” spanned 40 years and only ended in November 1972 because of a whistleblower. Penicillin was validated as a cure in the ’40s. These medical officials essentially sentenced innocent men to slow, horrible deaths as they stood idly by and watched.
But that started in the 1930s. The real boom in experiments against the population didn’t begin until World War II, when the military not only began testing truth serum and other chemical agents against its own soldiers, but the military sailed ships up the California coastline spraying bacteria on coastal towns to see how far it would spread. Some died of pneumonia. After the war ended, and the country was swathed in the national security blanket, and unwitting citizens including soldiers, prisoners, terminal cancer patients, and even children, were subjected to all manner of experiments from radiation injections to mind control.
And, considering the level of corruption that has spread across this nation’s leadership like a cancer, there is no real reason to believe secret experimentation against the people ever stopped.
The book “The Plutonium F iles” specifically outlines the government’s cold war medical experimentation (or, what has come out on record since then anyway), which included injecting cancer patients and the terminally ill, including a 10-year-old boy who died days later, with high doses of radiation. It’s a pretty hard read.
One story that has really stuck with me (even though it is far from the worst) discloses how boys at a known eugenics school in Massachusetts were fed radiation-laced oatmeal by MIT scientists under the ruse that they were chosen to be part of a special club. Their parents were even sent letters which made this violation of human rights sound like a good and even healthy thing for these kids, stating the study was, “in connection with the nutrition department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology” with “the purpose of helping to improve the nutrition of our children.” It went on to say the boys would get, “a quart of milk daily… taken to a baseball game, to the beach, and to some outside dinners” and “enjoy it greatly,” all with zero mention that the government, via the Atomic Energy Commission, had signed off on turning their kids into human guinea pigs.