Israel Gas Field Is Now Twice the Size of Previous Estimates

WORTHY NEWS

By George Whitten, Jerusalem Bureau Chief

JERUSALAM, ISRAEL

Israel’s discovery of the one of the world’s largest natural gas field is much larger than previously estimated, according to a new report obtained by Worthy News.

The Tamar Gas field, offshore from Haifa, is now worth $8 billion, nearly double previous estimates of local analysts, said a report prepared by Wood Mackenzie Research and Consulting.

Tamar is the world’s second largest natural gas discovery over the past 18 months. Natural gas will be flowing into Israel by 2012, officials said.

Analysts say the natural gas field will have a huge impact on the economy of Israel and is expected to make the Jewish state more energy independent.

“The state of Israel will make over $5 billion in royalties and corporate taxes from the production of the gas at Tamar field alone,” said Gal Reiter, an energy industry analyst at Clal Finance & Brokerage, a leading Tel Aviv investment bank.

As infrastructure is built for bringing natural gas onshore, local economies are also expected to benefit from the billions that will be spent on a 500 kilometer (311 mile) distribution network, officials said.

Israel’s National Infrastructure Ministry (NIM) announced it is considering adapting the country’s bus fleet as well as cars to run on natural gas.

The NIM said it believes demand for natural gas “will triple” by 2016, as power plants and industry rapidly switch from oil to natural gas.

Christians arrested 7 times for signs declaring homosexuality a sin

WND

By Chelsea Schilling

Street preachers hold signs condemning homosexulaity on public sidewalk (photo: Chris Pettigrew)

A street preacher is accusing police of violating his constitutional rights after officers arrested him for not having a parade permit while he spoke out against homosexuality on a public sidewalk in Manchester, Ga.

Chris Pettigrew and Pastor Billy Ball and of Faith Baptist Church in Primrose, Ga., were arrested multiple times Aug 24 after they held signs on a public street corner telling people to repent and declaring homosexuality a sin.

They held signs that stated:
Repent ye, and believe the gospel. Mark 1:15
The sodomite lifestyle produces vile affections, ungodly lust, reprobates
Repent or burn
Three gay rights: AIDS, hell, salvation

“There were four of us to begin with. We weren’t preaching with any amplified sound,” Pettigrew told WND. “Basically, as soon as we got out of the cars and started toward the sidewalk, Manchester city police officers showed up and asked us if we had a parade permit.”

He continued, “We did not have a parade permit, and we informed them that we had no plans for obtaining a parade permit because we weren’t in a parade.”

Pettigrew said officers from the Manchester Police Department were initially cordial when they told him he must have a permit to stand on the sidewalk with his sign.

“We simply said, ‘We can’t do that. It’s our constitutional right to free speech. We’re not impeding any kind of traffic. We’re peaceably assembled, so we’re going to do what we came to do,’” he said.

At that moment, another officer arrived, joined the others and told the men they must obtain a permit to remain on the sidewalk.

Displeased with their answer, Pettigrew said, “they handcuffed us and took us to the city jail in Manchester.”

Later, while Pettigrew and his comrades remained in jail, Pastor Ball and another man arrived at the street corner to share his message.

So, police arrested Ball.

Meanwhile, officers issued Pettigrew a citation, returned his belongings and ushered him out of jail.

“So we went back to the corner because it’s America, and there was no sense in arresting us the first time,” Pettigrew said. “We weren’t going to let them bully us into going home.”

He continued, “By the end of the day, I had been arrested three times, and my pastor was arrested four times – simply because we wouldn’t go away.”

Police confront Pettigrew's group while they hold signs

By dark, his group had grown to 11 men – including four who had driven from North Carolina and South Carolina to stand on the sidewalk and support the original four who had been arrested.

“By that time they had ceased arresting us, with the exception of my pastor, who was arrested late in the evening,” Pettigrew said.

“We had some people who came down simply because we were being arrested.”

With a tone of frustration, Pettigrew said, “We’re sick and tired of people telling us what we can and can’t do. It’s not constitutional.”

Sheriff's department arrives

When WND contacted Manchester police and asked why Pettigrew had been arrested, a lieutenant who would not provide his name replied, “I can’t make any comments on that over the phone.”

Pettigrew said one young man who was arrested with his group was contacted by the police department and told charges would be dropped if he brought the citation back.

He maintains that his group always obeys the law “as long as it doesn’t interfere with constitutional rights.” However, he believes authorities detained his small group based on its message against homosexuality.

“If I were holding a sign that said, ‘Two large pizzas for $5,’ I don’t think I would have gotten a second look from police. I firmly and adamantly believe we were singled out and arrested because of the content of our speech,” Pettigrew said.

“If they arrest us for proclaiming the word of God, what will they arrest us for next?” he asked. “We need to get the word out that the rights of the American people are quickly being taken away, and nobody even knows it.”

The real Ted Kennedy legacy

WND

By Joseph Farah

Ted Kennedy

I know there’s an old adage that one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.

But I don’t subscribe to the idea that when evil and foolish people die we should pretend they were something other than evil and foolish.

And Ted Kennedy was evil and foolish.

He wasn’t just a politician with whom I disagreed.

He was a rotten man – a wicked man.

I know you’re not hearing this from the rest of the press. I know you’re not even hearing this from his worst critics. But if we can’t call Ted Kennedy wicked and immoral, those terms have lost all meaning.

It’s no secret I didn’t like Ted Kennedy.

I believe his political epitaph should have been written July 18, 1969, the day his behavior led directly to the untimely death of Mary Jo Kopechne at the Chappaquiddick Bridge.

Until that moment, as the surviving brother of an assassinated president and an assassinated senator-presidential candidate, he had been an object of love and pity for an entire nation.

Over four decades he has served as a kind of “enemy within” the American political system – attempting to elicit the support of the Soviet Union against President Reagan’s policies in the 1980s, ignoring the tax-cutting prescription of his elder brother, failing to learn the real lessons of Vietnam, failing even to learn the lessons of his own brother’s errors of appeasement in the Bay of Pigs, practicing his own unique brand of plantation racism and blaming America for all the problems of the world. That’s Ted Kennedy.

That even one of the 50 states would deem him worthy of serving in the U.S. Senate for most of his life is something of a national disgrace.

Nevertheless, maybe because of his alcohol-addled brain or his unfulfilled ego, occasionally Ted Kennedy has demonstrated a kind of candor that is in short supply in Washington.

It may have been intellectual frustration that caused Kennedy to admit what he was 14 years ago – and what he remained until his death.

Ted Kennedy always was a socialist – and he actually admitted it on the floor of the Senate Jan. 20, 1995.

I’ve never seen this revelation before, though it has been a matter of public record all these years – published, as it were, in the Congressional Record. I was amazed to find it in a book by Republican political consultant Marc Nuttle called “Moment of Truth.”

Here is how the Kennedy admission came about.

Economist Milton Friedman was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of a national constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. Kennedy argued that a requirement for a balanced budget would restrict the federal government‘s power and its ability to spend – thus, he said, Washington’s role in more fairly and equitably distributing wealth, goods and services.

“Senator, socialism hasn’t worked in 6,000 years of recorded history,” explained Friedman. “Why won’t you give up on it?”

Kennedy rose to his feet, according to Nuttle, who attended the hearing, and replied: “It hasn’t worked in 6,000 years of recorded history because it didn’t have me to run it.”

Surely Kennedy was not as skillful and sophisticated in articulating his position as some other politicians. Surely Kennedy, with his comfortable, unchallenged position as the senior senator from Massachusetts, didn’t need to be so tactful. Surely even Kennedy avoided, for the most part, such heated admissions that he believes socialism can work under the right kind of skillful leadership – namely his.

But I’m not going to forget that admission today – the day after his death.

I’m not going to forget the way he unashamedly promoted abortion on demand.

I’m not going to forget the way he attempted to aid and abet our enemies to further his own political ambitions.

I’m not going to forget the way he betrayed his own older brother’s political legacy of anti-communism and free-market economics to lead his party, and very possibly his country, off the cliff.

I’m not going to forget the idiotic way he characterized Ronald Reagan‘s brilliant initiative for strategic missile defense as “Star Wars.”

I’m not going to forget how he always blamed America and Americans first for every problem in the world.

I’m not going to forget the way he left Mary Jo Kopechne alive in a car underwater where she survived, according to the coroner’s report, for up to three hours, while he showered, shaved and sobered up before alerting police to his reckless, homicidal driving.

Obama: Boys from Brazil better than U.S.

WND

President blocks oil drilling at home, funds exploration abroad

Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert, the premium online newsletter published by the current No. 1 best-selling author, WND staff writer and columnist. Subscriptions are $99 a year or $9.95 per month for credit card users. Annual subscribers will receive a free autographed copy of “The Late Great USA,” a book about the careful deceptions of a powerful elite who want to undermine our nation’s sovereignty.

A controversy developed when it was revealed the Obama administration is willing to spend billions of dollars to fund offshore drilling in Brazil while blocking U.S. development of oil and natural gas resources by continuing environmental objections to opening U.S. offshore drilling, Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert reports.

Underlying the controversy was the disclosure that Obama-supporter and billionaire hedge-fund manager George Soros bought a $811 million stake in Petroleo Brasileiro SA in the second quarter, making the Brazilian state-controlled oil company his investment fund’s largest holding.

The sparks began flying when former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin wrote on her Facebook page: “So why is it that during these tough times, when we have great needs at home, the Obama White House is prepared to send more than two billion of your hard-earned tax dollars to Brazil so that the nation’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, can drill off shore and create jobs developing its own resources?”

Corsi noted that Palin was particularly frustrated because she had campaigned for the White House with Republican Sen. John McCain in 2008 partially on the theme “Drill Now,” and she has experienced decades of living in Alaska where environmentalists have blocked drilling in ANWR.

“I’ll speak for the talent I have personally witnessed on the oil fields in Alaska when I say no other country in the world has a stronger workforce than America, no other country in the world has better safety standards that America, and no other country in the world has stricter environmental standards than America,” Palin wrote. “Come to Alaska and witness how oil and gas can be developed simultaneously with the preservation of our eco-systems.”

Within hours of Palin’s posting, the White House hit back.

Ben Smith of Politico wrote that the U.S. Export Import Bank disputed Palin’s attack, noting that the $2 billion loan to Brazil’s state-owned energy conglomerate Petrobras would not come from tax dollars.

What set off Palin was a Wall Street Journal editorial that lead with the headline, “Obama underwrites offshore drilling,” followed by the subtitle, “Too bad it’s not in U.S. waters.”

What underscored the controversy was that Petrobras notified the country’s National Petroleum Agency late Monday that the company had made yet a third huge oil find in the Campos Basin off the coast of Rio de Janeiro in the Atlantic Ocean, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

“Brazil, a country that was once considered so devoid of oil that its auto industry has traditionally been fueled by sugar-derived ethanol, is now positioned to become a world leader in oil exports,” Corsi wrote, “thanks exclusively to deep-water oil exploration that has paid off.”

Red Alert has consistently argued that U.S. energy policy makes no sense when blocking offshore oil and natural gas exploration dooms the U.S. to continued dependency on foreign oil – especially at a time when the nation’s negative balance of trade and trillion-dollar deficits have caused the U.S. to hemorrhage the outflow of dollars when the nation can ill-afford the loss of foreign exchange reserves.

Red Alert has also consistently argued that oil is an abiotic product that should be found in abundance as drilling technology becomes affordable at deeper levels, especially offshore.

A key theme of “Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil,” the book Corsi co-authored with Craig Smith, CEO of Swiss America, was that Russian geologists at the end of World War II advanced deep-earth theories of oil.

According to deep-earth theories, oil is abiotic, a natural product of the earth created in the earth’s mantle on an ongoing basis, not a biological product or “fossil fuel” created by biological debris, including dinosaurs, ancient forests or small biological agents such as plankton.

While abiotic theories are still not embraced by U.S. geologists, Ukrainian geologists are generally in agreement with Russia.

“What should be clear is that opening up the U.S. offshore continental shelf to drilling will increase the supply of U.S.-produced oil and natural gas over time,” Corsi wrote. “Rather than funding offshore drilling in Brazil, President Obama would be well advised to take on the environmentalists to fund offshore drilling in the United States.”

Corsi continued, “Obama’s policy choice is obvious when we realize that most environmentalists, like President Obama himself, derive from the radical left where ideological purity demands that offshore drilling, especially by the capitalist-motivated United States, must be viewed as evil.”

Red Alert’s author, whose books “The Obama Nation” and “Unfit for Command” have topped the New York Times best-sellers list, received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972. For nearly 25 years, beginning in 1981, he worked with banks throughout the U.S. and around the world to develop financial services marketing companies to assist banks in establishing broker/dealers and insurance subsidiaries to provide financial planning products and services to their retail customers. In this career, Corsi developed three different third-party financial services marketing firms that reached gross sales levels of $1 billion in annuities and equal volume in mutual funds. In 1999, he began developing Internet-based financial marketing firms, also adapted to work in conjunction with banks.

In his 25-year financial services career, Corsi has been a noted financial services speaker and writer, publishing three books and numerous articles in professional financial services journals and magazines.

For financial guidance during difficult times, read Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert, the premium, online intelligence news source by the WND staff writer, columnist and author of the New York Times No. 1 best-seller, “The Obama Nation.“

For full immediate access to Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert, subscribe now.

Subscribe to Jerome Corsi’s new weekly economic newsletter, Red Alert, for one year and, for a limited time get “The Late Great USA” free. (This offer applies only to annual subscriptions for $99.)

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New York, New Jersey to Gadhafi: Go away

WND

Discourage visit from Libyan leader

By Stewart Stogel

Muammar Gadhafi

NEW YORK – Officials in New York City and New Jersey are moving quickly to pressure Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gadhafi to cancel his upcoming visit to the United Nations.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if he (Gadhafi) cancels,” confided one New York City official who has met with the Libyans.

The official, speaking on background, made it clear that Mayor Michael Bloomberg will not roll out the welcome mat for the controversial Libyan leader.

In fact, the official insisted that city hall will do nothing to facilitate a Gadhafi visit to the Big Apple. That means that the “colonel” may have a hard time finding a place to “pitch” his infamous “tent.”

The so-called “Bedouin tent” is a traveling, makeshift, desert-style hamlet set up to receive Gadhafi’s official “guests.” Gadhafi is expected to speak at the U.N. on Sept. 23, but it is not known when he will arrive. The upcoming visit would be the first for the headline-grabbing Libyan leader to the U.S.

His tent city is reminiscent of scenes from the classic movie Lawrence of Arabia, except without the sand, camels or palm trees.

Also, this time, no Central Park, no Flushing Meadows, no Yankee Stadium, no nothing.

Negotiations between Tripoli and New York had been going on for more than a month, but have gone “nowhere,” officials said.

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine also weighed in tonight.

Press Secretary Robert Corrales said the governor feels: “There should be no room in New Jersey for anyone who embraces convicted terrorists. Compassion should be given to the Lockerbie bombing victims and their families, not murderers.”

Corrales was referring to the “hero’s welcome” convicted Pan Am 103 bomber Abdelbasset Ali al-Megrahi received in Tripoli when he was released by Scottish authorities on “humanitarian” grounds last week. Megrahi is reported to have terminal cancer.

Gadhafi’s representatives had approached New Jersey officials for permission to set up his tent on the grounds of the home of Libya‘s U.N. ambassador in Englewood, a nearby New York suburb.

That could create a nightmare for thousands of commuters who use the George Washington Bridge or Lincoln Tunnel, as the Libyan moves from New Jersey to the U.N. compound about 15 miles away.

So, with New York and New Jersey rolling out the “no vacancy” sign, just about everyone is asking: “What can he do?”

The Bloomberg official insists the grounds inside U.N. headquarters are still “viable” despite a major renovation project now under way.

Another option:

Federal land in New York City, specifically Ellis Island or the Statue of Liberty. But both appear unlikely.

Or, the “colonel” could simply rent a yacht or barge and place his tent on it and sail around mid-town.

“That could be done,” confessed the New York City official.

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Reality TV Star Kourtney Kardashian Chooses Life

LIFESITENEWS

“I can’t even tell you how many people just say, ‘Oh, get an abortion.’ Like it’s not a big deal,” says the star.

By Matthew Anderson

Kourtney Kardashian, the famous socialite and model, told People magazine in a recent interview that she considered having her unborn child aborted but changed her mind after reading about the traumatizing effects of abortion online.

“I looked online, and I was sitting on the bed hysterically crying, reading these stories of people who felt so guilty from having an abortion,” Kourtney told David Caplan of People.

Kardashian, who is most famous for her role in the reality TV show Keeping Up with the Kardashians on E!, announced last week that she was pregnant.

Though Kardashian openly supports abortion as a legitimate choice in her interview, she says that she wrestled with the decision, something she thinks not many people do.

“I do think every woman should have the right to do what they want, but I don’t think it’s talked through enough.”

However, after researching the emotionally and physically devastating effects of abortion on women, she said, “I was just sitting there crying, thinking, ‘I can’t do that.’ “

“I felt in my body, this is meant to be. God does things for a reason, and I just felt like it was the right thing that was happening in my life.”

Further, Kardashian says she recognized that her motives for aborting the baby would have been selfishly driven. Kardashian, who with her sisters Khloe and Kim owns the clothing boutique DASH, said, “For me, all the reasons why I wouldn’t keep the baby were so selfish: It wasn’t like I was raped, it’s not like I’m 16. I’m 30 years old, I make my own money, I support myself, I can afford to have a baby.”

Disturbingly, though, Kardashian said a number of people advised her to get an abortion without much thought to the gravity of the matter.

“I can’t even tell you how many people just say, ‘Oh, get an abortion.’ Like it’s not a big deal.”

Luckily she was advised by a friend to see a doctor, and the doctor encouraged her to research abortion online. He also told her that she would never regret having the child, but she might very well regret aborting it.

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American Health Care Reform – A Good End Does Not Justify Evil Means

LIFESITENEWS

Commentary by Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro Carámbula

(Editor’s Note: Msgr. Barreiro, a Doctor of Dogmatic Theology and attorney with years of experience in international diplomacy at the UN, is head of the Rome office of Human Life International.)

All persons of good will need to understand the clear and present danger with which the US is being menaced by the health reform proposed by the Obama Administration. Abortion will be multiplied, the U.S. will move ahead on the road towards euthanasia, conscience rights will be in jeopardy: but what is worse, the United States would start moving towards a tyrannical, socialist government that would be the source of all sort of moral evils.

The current debate on health care reform has to be framed on the basis on some clear principles that are accessible to all persons of good will. The starting point is that health care is a basic human right. All human beings have a right to life from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death.

A consequence of this right is that all human persons are entitled to receive from society the necessary conditions to support life. If those conditions to support life were denied, the right to life would become illusory. One of the necessary means is appropriate health care.

This human right is complemented with the duty of each individual person to do all that he can to protect his own life, which at the same time is the first natural inclination that we find in all human beings. In this case the duty of the person is that, through gainful employment, he should be able to support himself and his natural dependents. This self-support should include healthcare.

The question that has always confronted us is when a person, either due to dysfunctions of society or his own personal handicaps, is not able to provide for himself or his family. In this case a Christian view of society on the basis of justice and charity leads to the support of those persons.

The Catholic Church has established hundreds of health care institutions dedicated primarily to assistance of the poor and destitute that could not afford to pay for appropriate health care. A good many non-Catholic Christian groups have also established such institutions.

In the recent magisterium of the Catholic Church, we can see the recognition of healthcare as a basic human right belonging to all human beings. This was proclaimed by Pius XI in his Encyclical letter, Quadragesimo Anno, n. 28, John Paul II in his Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, n. 42, par. 3, and Benedict XVI in his Encyclical Letter, Caritas in Veritate, n. 43. This position has been reiterated in letters to Congress by Bishops William Murphy on July 17th and of Cardinal Justin Rigali of August 11th.

The evident fact that society has an obligation to provide health care to those persons who are not able to obtain it by themselves, should not lead to the conclusion that this service should be provided by the Federal Government. A health care system administered by the Federal Government presents a multitude of problems.

Some have ascertained that the health care reform that is currently being considered by Congress is based on the good end of providing health coverage to all those who lack it. But there are reasonable grounds to be doubtful about this. There could be reasonable concern and doubt if that stated good end is just a cover up and a Trojan Horse to promote birth control and family planning, to expand in horrible ways the availability of abortion, to legalize euthanasia and to overwhelm the rights of conscience of all the persons that are rightfully opposed to those immoral acts.

We have to keep in mind that rights of conscience are violated not only by forcing a person to do what is against his beliefs, but also forcing him to refer a patient to another. If the rights of conscience of health care providers, medical workers and other health care personnel like nurses and pharmacists are not respected it would have catastrophic consequences for American society. All Catholic hospitals and probably many others belonging to different religious groups will have to close, and a substantial amount of their health care personnel will have to leave their professions or emigrate.

We also have to consider that this health program or any other administered by the Federal Government is another step towards socialism, and as a consequence towards the establishment of a despotic and dictatorial government.

Today we witness a constant growth of government programs that control increasing sectors of society. Those programs as a whole represent a growing erosion of the legitimate and traditional freedoms of individuals, and of many organic and natural intermediate societies like the family, villages and towns and the States of the Union.

The persons who established the American Republic were well aware of the risks of despotism that go hand in hand with the existence of a powerful central government. They placed in the Constitution all sort of checks and balances. The establishment of a national health care system would be another step towards the erosion of those constitutional guarantees.

A serious concern shared by most persons who are aware of the U.S. health care system’s problems is the continuing massive increase in the cost of that system. The constant growth of the Federal deficit makes it very unlikely that the central government will reduce those health care costs. More so, what is likely to happen is that the establishment of the proposed reformed national health care system will instead expand the cost of that system through a bloated bureaucracy that will actively promote a materialistic anti-life ideology.

The establishment of this health system will be an attack of the organic principle of subsidiarity. Instead, Americans need to design and develop all sorts of initiatives: first, at a local level, and then at a State level, that would provide some guarantees of health care assistance to the poor and destitute. Taking into account the principle of gratuity so well developed in the encyclical of Benedict XVI Caritas in Veritate, the establishment of non-profit medical facilities and non-profit insurance groups should be encouraged. In the current demographic circumstances those institutions should give a priority to the protection of well established large families.

Last, but not least, the cost of the proposed system should be taken into account. During this time of economic crisis, the tax burden upon American citizens should not be increased. But it should also be considered that excessive taxation not only paves the way towards despotism, it damages the economy. It paves the way towards despotism because one of the guarantees of personal freedom, the establishment of a family patrimony, would be eroded by overtaxation. It damages the economy by killing economic incentive and eliminating disposable income, two of the growth engines of a free market economy.

All persons of good will should make a serious effort to understand the deleterious implications of the Obama administration’s initiatives and oppose this health care reform, through prayer and all possible moral and legal means.

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Obama: ‘We are God’s Partners in Matters of Life and Death’

LIFESITENEWS

Obama manipulates religion like Hitler

By Kathleen Gilbert

Obama uses religion as a deceptive tool

WASHINGTON, D.C.,

A sudden shift towards religiously-charged rhetoric in President Obama’s stumping for health care reform continued yesterday in a telephone conference, in which the president said that “we are God’s partners in matters of life and death.”

Obama told the virtual gathering of Jewish rabbis – as many as 1000, according to the Washington Jewish Week news service – that he was “going to need your help in accomplishing necessary reform.”

Washington, D.C. Rabbi Jack Moline posted some of the president’s statements in a series of live tweets, which went viral on the Internet before Moline deleted almost all the posts hours later.  A handful of other Jewish clerics tweeted the event, which was not publicized by the White House.

In a conference call with largely left-leaning faith leaders yesterday, Obama also used religously-charged terms to dismiss the notion that the government would fund abortion through the new legislation.

“These are all fabrications that have been put out there in order to discourage people from meeting what I consider to be a core ethical and moral obligation – and that is that we look out for one another, that I am my brother’s keeper and I am my sister’s keeper,” he said. He also accused opponents of his healthcare plan of spreading “misinformation” and “bearing false witness.”

Pro-life leaders immediately blasted the president for the comment, pointing out that the House version of the bill now explicitly calls for the funding of abortion in the government plan, as well as taxpayer subsidies of plans that cover abortions.

The social justice groups sponsoring the conference claim that 140,000 individuals attended the call.  The same groups – PICO National Network, Sojourners, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, Faith in Public Life, and Faithful America – are now hosting a “40 Days for Health Reform” campaign to tell lawmakers “that quality, affordable healthcare is a moral issue for people of faith.”

The site’s attitude toward the arguments opposing the health care overhaul is remarkably similar to the White House’s own “Reality Check” Internet campaign. Visitors are encouraged to sign a petition that reads: “As a person of faith, I support health care reform, and I’m tired of shouting, disruptions and distortions preventing an honest debate.  Over the next 40 days, I commit to doing my part as a person of faith to promote health care reform. I commit to taking actions like writing my representatives, attending events, and telling my friends about our efforts to make the faith community a positive force for health care reform.”

40 Days for Life, an international movement encouraging prayer, fasting and advocacy for the end of abortion that has exploded in popularity in recent years, accused the health reform campaign of mimicking its pro-life counterpart, but with the opposite result.

“Who would have ever believed that the President of the United States would copy a page out of the 40 Days for Life playbook as a way to push abortion?” mused 40 Days for Life national director David Bereit in an email to members.  In Judaeo-Christian tradition, forty days is a spiritually significant length of time, often dedicated to sustained prayer and purification.

Meanwhile, strong warnings against the legislation in its current form have gone out from faith groups that oppose the killing of the unborn, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Focus on the Family, the Catholic Medical Association, the Christian Medical and Dental Association, and the Southern Baptist Convention.  While many of the groups express eagerness for genuine health care reform, they say that the current bill would amount to a vast expansion of abortion, among other troubling aspects, and therefore should not be accepted.

Christians Reviving America’s Values president Don Swarthout questioned the President’s apparent moralizing in favor of his own health care reform plans.

“I thought the use of religion in order to convince the people to follow anything political was prohibited by the U.S. Supreme Court‘s rulings,” said Christians Reviving America’s Values president Don Swarthout in a statement.  “Now the President of the United States is using religion to convince people to follow his political position.”

He continued: “As a Pastor I may understand the Bible a little better than the average person.  Apparently, the President thinks the Bible says government should help the poor instead of the Bible calling upon Christians to give to the poor.

“The truth is our very salvation may depend upon helping those in need.  However, there is no place in the Bible which tells us that the government is supposed to do these things for us.”

EMP threatens power shutdown for months

WND

Congressman says $100 million need to avert $2 trillion disaster

Power Grid

WASHINGTON – There’s been a lot of talk about the potentially devastating impact of an electrical grid shutdown from the effects of an electro-magnetic pulse from the sun or from terrorism, but little action, says a prominent members of Congress.

But it’s worse than a threat on the horizon, says Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Maryland. It’s an inevitability.

Bartlett told NPR that EMP is “an event we will not avoid” – and remediation after the fact will cost between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. Protection of the grid in advance of the disaster will cost $100 million, he said.

The threat of an EMP attack by a terrorist group or foreign enemy has been a major concern for years. But Bartlett said nature, too, represents a potential time bomb.

“The more sophisticated we become, the more vulnerable we are,” said Bartlett. “There’s a huge concern about cyber-attacks on the grid. [Well] a really robust [nuclear] EMP lay-down means microelectronics across the country would be shut down [and] you have no power…there’s one event that we will not avoid, and that is a solar electromagnetic interference, solar storm. If we have a big one like the one that occurred back in 1859, that would shut down the whole grid for quite a long while. … It would cost about $100 million to protect much of the grid, but if the grid went down, it would cost us between $1 trillion and $2 trillion in damages, and the loss of life could be horrendous if in fact you were without electricity for months at a time. There’s a bill in the House, and … it’s got to go through the Energy and Commerce Committee.”

William R. Graham, chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack and the former national science adviser to President Reagan, testified before the Congress and issued an alarming report on “one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences.”

He identified vulnerabilities in the nation’s critical infrastructures “which are essential to both our civilian and military capabilities.”

Not taking the steps necessary to reduce the threat in the next three to five years “can both invite and reward attack,” Graham told the members of Congress.

EMP is a pulse of energy that can be produced from non-nuclear sources, such as electromagnetic bombs, or E-bombs. Some experts claim an electromagnetic pulse shock wave can be produced by a device small enough to fit in a briefcase. But the most threatening and terrifying type of EMP attack could come following a blast from a nuclear weapon 25 to 250 miles above the Earth‘s surface. Like a swift stroke of lightening, EMP could immediately disrupt and damage all electronic systems and America’s electrical infrastructure. A detonation over the middle of the continental U.S. “has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures that support the fabric of U.S. society and the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power,” said Graham.

“Several potential adversaries have the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude nuclear weapon-generated electromagnetic pulse, and others appear to be pursuing efforts to obtain that capability,” said Graham. “A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack capability without having a high level of sophistication. For example, an adversary would not have to have long-range ballistic missiles to conduct an EMP attack against the United States. Such an attack could be launched from a freighter off the U.S. coast using a short- or medium-range missile to loft a nuclear warhead to high altitude. Terrorists sponsored by a rogue state could attempt to execute such an attack without revealing the identity of the perpetrators. Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of international terrorism, has practiced launching a mobile ballistic missile from a vessel in the Caspian Sea. Iran has also tested high-altitude explosions of the Shahab-III, a test mode consistent with EMP attack, and described the tests as successful. Iranian military writings explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States. While the commission does not know the intention of Iran in conducting these activities, we are disturbed by the capability that emerges when we connect the dots.”

An EMP assault could prove devastating because of the unprecedented cascading failures of major infrastructures that could result. Because of America’s heavy reliance on electricity and electronics, the impact would be far worse than on a country less advanced technologically. Graham and the commission see the potential for failure in the financial system, the system of distribution for food and water, medical care and trade and production.

“The recovery of any one of the key national infrastructures is dependent upon the recovery of others,” he said. “The longer the outage, the more problematic and uncertain the recovery will be. It is possible for the functional outages to become mutually reinforcing until at some point the degradation of infrastructure could have irreversible effects on the country’s ability to support its population.”

In an earlier report, the commission even went so far as to suggest, in its opening sentence, that an EMP attack “might result in the defeat of our military forces.”

U.N. accused of hiding Iran nuke evidence

WND

Atomic energy chief ElBaradei not trusted by Western diplomats

By Jerome R. Corsi

Mohamed ElBaradei

NEW YORK – The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog agency, has been accused by senior Western diplomats and Israeli officials of hiding new evidence that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons program.

American, French, British and German senior officials charge the IAEA’s out-going director, Mohamed ElBaradei, hid new evidence of Iran’s nuclear weapons program that was submitted to the IAEA in a classified report, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.NEW YORK – The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog agency, has been accused by senior Western diplomats and Israeli officials of hiding new evidence that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons program.

The report was written by IAEA inspectors in Iran and signed by the head of the agency’s team in the country.

In Israel, an effort to force the release of the allegedly censored report is being handled by Shaul Horev, director general of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, and by the Foreign Ministry.

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“Israel and other Western countries lost confidence in ElBaradei years ago,” Haaretz correspondent Yossi Melman wrote in a separate commentary. “As a result, Israel, the United States and Britain have all refused to give the IAEA sensitive intelligence, for fear that ElBaradei would leak it to Iran, thereby exposing their intelligence gathering methods and their sources.”

Melman further noted that Israel has no confidence in Yukiya Amano, the Japanese diplomat selected to replace ElBaradei at the IAEA, largely because Amano has reiterated ElBaradei’s stance that the IAEA has no evidence to support the claim that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

A May 2009 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report issued by the committee’s Democratic chairman Sen. John Kerry, entitled “Iran: Where We Are Today,” reported: “Potentially damning evidence surfaced in 2004 when U.S. intelligence obtained a laptop computer from an Iranian engineer.”

“The computer contained thousands of pages of data on tests of high explosives and designs for a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead,” the report said. “It also contained videos of what were described as secret workshops around Iran where the weapons work was supposedly carried out.”

The Senate report also pointed out that the Iranians denounced the computer documents as “fakes.”

Still, senior U.N. officials and intelligence officers who saw the documents told the committee staff “the documents come from more than just the laptop and appear to be authentic, right down to the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the workshops in Iran.”

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee concluded “Iran has moved closer to completing the three components for a nuclear weapon – fissile material, warhead design and delivery system.”

Obama’s assessment

President Obama has left no doubt the White House has concluded Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.

On Nov. 7, 2008, in his first press conference after winning the presidential election, Obama said, “Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable. And we have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening.”

In the press availability following Obama’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on May 18,, the president said, “I indicated to Prime Minister Netanyahu in private what I have said publicly, which is that Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon would not only be a threat to Israel and a threat to the United States, but would be profoundly destabilizing in the international community as a whole and could set off a nuclear-arms race in the Middle East that would be extraordinarily dangerous for all concerned, including for Iran.”