Christian Theologians Prepare for Extraterrestrial Life

Little green men might shock the secular public. But the Catholic Church would welcome them as brothers.

That's what Vatican chief astronomer and papal science adviser Gabriel Funes explained in a recent article in L'Osservatore Romano, the newsletter of the Vatican Observatory (translated here). His conclusion might surprise nonbelievers. After all, isn't this the same church that imprisoned Galileo for saying that the Earth revolves around the sun? Doesn't the Bible say that God created man -- not little green men -- in his image?

Indeed, many observers assert that aliens would be bad for believers. Jill Tarter, director of the Center for SETI Research, once wrote that finding intelligent other-worldly life "will be inconsistent with the existence of God or at least organized religions." But such predictions tend to come from outside Christianity. From within, theologians have debated the implications of alien contact for centuries. And if one already believes in angels, no great leap of faith is required to accept the possibility of other extraterrestrial intelligences.

Since God created the universe, theologians say, he would have created aliens, too. And far from being weakened by contact, Christianity would adapt. Its doctrines would be interpreted anew, the aliens greeted with open -- and not necessarily Bible-bearing -- arms.

"The main question is, 'Would religion survive this contact?'" said NASA chief historian Steven J. Dick, author of The Biological Universe. "Religion hasn't gone away after Copernican theory, after Darwin. They've found ways to adapt, and they'll find a way if this happens, too," Dick says. ...more

Bush 'may convert to Catholicism' -

President George Bush was given such a splendid welcome by Pope Benedict XVI yesterday that rumours started flying that the President, like Tony Blair before him, was on the verge of converting to Catholicism.

It was a Vatican visit such as no other head of state has ever enjoyed. Instead of greeting him, like all previous high-ranking visitors, in the papal library of the Apostolic Palace, the Pope took Mr Bush round the medieval St John's Tower then gave him a tour of the Vatican gardens, culminating in a brief open-air concert by the Sistine Chapel Choir.

The Pope waited for the President at the entrance of the tower. As he arrived, the President was overheard gushing "What an honour" as the two men disappeared for a half-hour tête-à-tête, details of which have not been made public.

The special reception was seen as a return of favours for the magnificent party thrown for the Pope two months ago when he turned 81 during his US tour, attended by up to 9,000 guests. But yesterday the Vatican was seething at rumours that there was much more to it than protocol: George Bush,lifelong Methodist, was about to convert.

The notion was given extra mileage by the fact that the President's brother Jeb, the former governor of Florida, converted to Catholicism on marrying his wife Columba, a Mexican.

The Vatican differs from the White House on immigration and the death penalty but on other issues including stem cell research, gay marriage and abortion there has been, as the Catholic daily L'Avvenire put it, "total harmony."

Cardinal Pio Laghi, the papal envoy to the White House, said: "Bush believes in the values of the Church and his brother is a convert." ...source- The Independent

Got you, under the skin - Telegraph

Old people will be implanted with microchips to remind them to take their medicine, according to a vision of the future conjured up by Ofcom, the communications regulating quango.

It won't end at that. We already see cats and dogs verified as rabies-free by chips implanted beneath their skin.

For humans it might sound quite handy to be reminded by an implant to take one's library book back or to send a birthday card to a niece. But what if the taste of the medicine is less welcome and the computer chip keeps buzzing away until you've swallowed it all?

In one of the more nannyish Scandinavian states, there used to be a system making it impossible to buy alcohol unless one's income tax was paid up to date. Such an arrangement would be child's play to a well-programmed implant.

So unless state ID schemes are resisted today, tomorrow you'll have had your chips....source

Army Yanks 'Voice-To-Skull Devices'

The Army's very strange webpage on "Voice-to-Skull" weapons has been removed. It was strange it was there, and it's even stranger it's gone. If you Google it, you'll see the entry for "Voice-to-Skull device," but, if you click on the website, the link is dead.

The entry, still available on the Federation of American Scientists' website reads:

Nonlethal weapon which includes (1) a neuro-electromagnetic device which uses microwave transmission of sound into the skull of persons or animals by way of pulse-modulated microwave radiation; and (2) a silent sound device which can transmit sound into the skull of person or animals. NOTE: The sound modulation may be voice or audio subliminal messages. One application of V2K is use as an electronic scarecrow to frighten birds in the vicinity of airports.

The U.K.-based group Christians Against Mental Slavery first noted the change (they also have a permanent screenshot of the page). A representative of the group tells me they contacted the Webmaster, who would only tell them the entry was "permanently removed."

The image above is one person's self-styled depiction of how a "voice-to-skull" weapon might work. source Wired.com

Another interesting read from Wired.com is The Voice of God Weapon Returns

Multinationals make billions in profit out of growing global food crisis - Green Living, Environment

Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry.

The prices of wheat, corn and rice have soared over the past year driving the world's poor – who already spend about 80 per cent of their income on food – into hunger and destitution.

The World Bank says that 100 million more people are facing severe hunger. Yet some of the world's richest food companies are making record profits.... more

Go-ahead signalled for animal-human embryos -

British scientists will be allowed to create part-human, part-animal embryos for research into potentially life-saving medical treatments, the Government signalled yesterday.

Caroline Flint, the health minister, is considering removing a ban on such work from a draft bill that will form the basis for new laws on fertility treatment and embryo research.

Two teams of British researchers have applied for permission to create "cybrid" embryos that would be around 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent rabbit, cow, pig, sheep or goat to produce embryonic stem cells – the body's building blocks that grow into all other types of cells.

They want to use the stem cells to understand and provide new treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cystic fibrosis, motor neurone disease and Huntington's. ...more

IBM joins Lockheed Martin on FBI Next Generation Identification Program

Lockheed Martin and IBM will join together to develop and maintain the Next Generation Identification system for the FBI. NGI is the new multi-modal, state-of–the-art biometrics system that will be used by state, local and federal authorities.

The NGI system will now also include palm prints, iris and facial recognition capabilities in addition to fingerprints. Lockheed Martin will provide program oversight as well as biometric and large systems development. As a subcontractor, IBM will provide information technology services, as well as specific software and hardware to be used in the NGI system.

IBM had previously protested the contract award to Lockheed. It wasn't immediately know if the computing giant dropped its protest bid with this announcement....source

Check out this eyeopening video: "IBM and the Holocaust"

Mad Scientists (transhumanism)

Attack of the killer ravens: Flocks are suddenly slaughtering lambs - what is going on?

High in the darkening sky, a flock of enormous ravens swoop and swirl - narrow black wings stretched wide, heads protruding forward and huge hairy beaks scything through the air.

Every few minutes they let out deep, throaty, honking calls as they soar effortlessly, circling around until, finally, they spot their prey and swoop.

But forget dormice, voles or even small furry rabbits; these sinister looking birds are feasting on something far larger - newborn lambs....more

Invisible 'Radio' Tattoos Could Identify Soldiers

Somark Innovations announced biocompatible RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) ink, which can be used to tattoo cattle and laboratory rats and can be read through animal hair.

It might even be used on humans eventually.

This is a passive RFID technology that contains no metals; the tattoos themselves can be colored or invisible.

Cows first

The Somark ID System creates a "biocompatible ink tatoo with chipless RFID functionality."

The RFID ink tatoo does not require line of sight to be read, as is the case with other RFID devices (making them better than a barcode for some applications).

RFID ink tattoos also solve the annoying problem of ear tag retention. Conventional RFID ear tags sell for about $2.25; about 60-90 percent of them eventually fall off. Also, Somark claims that the biocompatible RFID ink system will improve readability rates as well.

Humans next?...more

Could Soldiers Be Prosecuted for Thought Crime?

The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding a number of technologies that tap into the brain's ability to detect threats before the conscious mind is able to process the information. Already, there is Pentagon-sponsored work on using the brain's pattern detection capabilities for enhanced goggles and super-fast satellite imagery analysis. What happens, however, when the Pentagon ultimately uses this enhanced capability for targeting weapons?

This question has led Stephen White to write a fascinating article exploring the implications of a soldiers' legal culpability for weapons that may someday tap into this "pre-conscious" brain activity. Like the Minority Report notion of "pre-crime," where someone is convicted for contemplating a criminal act they haven't yet acted upon, this article raises the intriguing question of whether a soldier could be convicted for the mistake made by a pre-conscious brain wave....more

Return of the Watchers

Have you had an UFO experience or abduction? Do need you need an answer to this experience? Then listen to what pastor Chris Ward has to say on this subject. It might help you out.
Audio files: Part 1 Part 2

Interspecies blends walk razor's edge

Science and technology continue to stretch the conventionally acceptable boundaries for research, especially in genetic engineering. Bioethicists sometimes allude to the “yuck factor,” wherein the description of a research study lying at – or beyond – these boundaries may generate revulsion or disgust among the public.

Researchers at Newcastle University in England recently announced they had successfully replaced the original DNA in eggs taken from cow ovaries with human DNA, producing human-cow embryos that survived for three days. Electrical impulses were used to stimulate division of the cells in the embryos, and these stem cells then were harvested.

The long-term objective of this research is to develop a method to supply human embryonic stem cells that can be used in the development of drug therapies and for the treatment of such diseases as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s but without the need to rely upon the relatively scarce human eggs that are gathered from fertility treatments.

The chimera of Greek mythology, as described in Homer’s “Iliad,” was a creature with the head of a lion, the tail of a serpent and the body of a goat. By blending cells and embryos from two animals, interspecies chimeras have been artificially produced, such as the geep spawned in 1984 by uniting the embryos of a sheep and a goat. Such an animal has four parents, because each of its individual cells retains the characteristics of either one species or the other, with two distinct sets of these cells forming the organism....more

Microchipping humans? Part 1

SOUTHWEST FLORIDA - We've microchipped our pets for years for fear of them getting lost, but right now a project is underway in Florida to microchip people.

The FDA-approved microchip is about the size of a grain of rice. So far, the microchip project is geared toward patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease. The idea is that the chip, using a radio frequency, is trackable if the person goes missing, but some fear the microchip is "big brother" -- inserted right under your skin.

George Orwell's "1984" instilled images of "big brother," the idea that someone, somewhere is always watching us. Fast forward nearly a quarter century and some fear the pervasive, invasive surveillance that is "big brother" has become reality. Microchips, usually put in our pets, are now being used in people...read more

Wheat Crop Failures Could be Total, Experts Warn

"On top of record-breaking rice prices and corn through the roof on ethanol demand, wheat is now rusting in the fields across Africa.

Officials fear near total crop losses, and the fungus, known as Ug99, is spreading.

Wheat prices have been soaring this week on top of already high prices, and futures contracts spiked, too, on panic buying.

Experts fear the cost of bread could soon follow the path of rice, the price of which has triggered riots in some countries and prompted countries to cut off exports."

David Kotok, chairman and chief investment officer of Cumberland Advisors, said the deadly fungus, Puccinia graminis, is now spreading through some areas of the globe where "crop losses are expected to reach 100 percent.”

Losses in Africa are already at 70 percent of the crop, Kotok said.

"The economic losses expected from this fungus are now in the many billions and growing. Worse, there is an intensifying fear of exacerbated food shortages in poor and emerging countries of the world,” Kotok told investors in a research note.

"The ramifications are serious. Food rioting continues to expand around the world. We saw the most recent in Johannesburg.

"So far this unrest has been directed at rising prices. Actual shortages are still to come.” ...read more

New York City becoming like third world dictatorship, police units to patrol city subways with submachine guns and dogs!

"NYPD cops armed with rifles, submachine guns, body armor and bomb-sniffing dogs will start patrolling the city's subways on Thursday - a first for mass transit in the United States.

Teams of six officers and a dog will patrol subway platforms and trains in 12-hour shifts.

The TORCH teams are being paid for by $151 million from the feds announced in February.

Similarly equipped NYPD units, known as Hercules teams, have patrolled Wall Street and other aboveground icons as part of the NYPD response to the World Trade Center attacks.

'The TORCH teams are Hercules teams with a MetroCard,' a police source said." ...source

Face scans for air passengers to begin in UK this summer

Airline passengers are to be screened with facial recognition technology rather than checks by passport officers, in an attempt to improve security and ease congestion, the Guardian can reveal.

From summer, unmanned clearance gates will be phased in to scan passengers' faces and match the image to the record on the computer chip in their biometric passports.

Border security officials believe the machines can do a better job than humans of screening passports and preventing identity fraud. The pilot project will be open to UK and EU citizens holding new biometric passports.

But there is concern that passengers will react badly to being rejected by an automated gate. To ensure no one on a police watch list is incorrectly let through, the technology will err on the side of caution and is likely to generate a small number of "false negatives" - innocent passengers rejected because the machines cannot match their appearance to the records.

They may be redirected into conventional passport queues, or officers may be authorised to override automatic gates following additional checks.

Ministers are eager to set up trials in time for the summer holiday rush, but have yet to decide how many airports will take part. If successful, the technology will be extended to all UK airports.
...read more

VeriChip goes consumer with its implantable RFID chips; Would you buy? |

"VeriChip said Tuesday it will begin pitching its implantable RFID chips directly to consumers in a move that aims to link doctors directly to personal health records. verichip.png

VeriChip said it will launch a direct-to-consumer marketing campaign in South Florida on April 28. The general idea appears to be to woo a bunch of retirees to implant an RFID chip (right) and connect the information with personal health records. VeriChip will pitch its wares through HEARx hearing aid stores in the Palm Beach area."... read more

ZENIT - Bush Says He Sees God in Eyes of Pope

"WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 13, 2008 (Zenit.org).- U.S. President George Bush said that when he looks into Benedict XVI's eyes, he sees God.

The president made this affirmation Friday when he answered the last question posed him during an interview with Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) anchor Raymond Arroyo.

Arroyo noted that Bush is planning an all-out welcome for the Pope, who arrives in the United States on Tuesday for a five-day visit. Most notably, Bush will go to the airport to receive the Holy Father, a courtesy he has never extended to any visiting leader.

The president says he plans to do this 'because [the Pope] is a really important figure in a lot of ways. One, he speaks for millions. Two, he doesn't come as a politician; he comes as a man of faith. And, three, that I so subscribe to his notion that [...] there's right and wrong in life, that moral relativism has a danger of undermining the capacity to have more hopeful and free societies, that I want to honor his convictions, as well.'

The Holy Father, Bush said, 'represents and stands for some values that I think are important for the health of the country, and when he comes to America, millions of my fellow citizens will be hanging on his every word. And that's why it's important.'" ...source



President Bush Sees GOD in Eyes of Pope Video



Popes claiming to be God on Earth

"The Pope is not simply the representative of Jesus Christ. On the contrary, he is Jesus Christ Himself, under the veil of the flesh, and who by means of a being common to humanity continues His ministry amongst men ... Does the Pope speak? It is Jesus Christ Who is speaking. Does he teach? It is Jesus Christ Who teaches. Does he confer grace or pronounce an anathema? It is Jesus Christ Himself Who is pronouncing the anathema and conferring the grace. Hence consequently, when one speaks of the Pope, it is not necessary to examine, but to obey: there must be no limiting the bounds of the command, in order to suit the purpose of the individual whose obedience is demanded: there must be no cavilling at the declared will of the Pope, and so invest it with quite another than that which he has put upon it: no preconceived opinions must be brought to bear upon it: no rights must be set up against the rights of the Holy Father to teach and command; his decisions are not to be criticized, or his ordinances disputed. Therefore by Divine ordination, all, no matter how august the person may be — whether he wear a crown or be invested with the purple, or be clothed in the sacred vestments: all must be subject to Him Who has had all things put under Him." -Evangelical Christendom, January 1, 1895, pg. 15, published in London by J. S. Phillips.

"Your Papers Please" Registered traveler goes international

The Homeland Security Department today published notice it will begin testing an International Registered Traveler program at three airports starting June 10 to expedite airport clearances for prescreened travelers.

Initially, the pilot program is available only to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. The eventual goal is to coordinate with other international trusted traveler programs around the globe to allow pre-screened, low-risk foreign visitors to participate as well, according to the notice published today in the Federal Register. .Read more

THE UNITED STATES: REPLICATING THE SLAVE ECONOMY OF THE OLD SOUTH & LEAVING AVERAGE CITIZENS TO SINK INTO POVERTY - By S.R. Shearer

America is once again beginning to shed jobs - and it's doing so on a massive scale. Moreover, the jobs that remain are being relentlessly "down-waged" - creating in the process a growing class of "WORKING POOR" that's unprecedented insofar as the experience of most modern Americans is concerned.

All this lends a certain awful credibility to the saying of the rider of the Black Horse of the Apocalypse, a terrible personage in whose hands is a pair of balances, and out from whose lips issues a fearful warning:

"A measure of wheat for a penny [literally - denarius, a Roman coin which represented a WHOLE DAY'S wages], and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." (Revelation 6:6)

NOTE: The meaning of this is that the condition of man at the "end of the age" will be reduced to such that he will have to labor a whole day simply to buy a loaf of bread or three measures of barley. But the second part of the saying ["... and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine ..."] means that the destitution of these days will not extend to what might be called a "global elite of worthies" who have evidently allied themselves with the anti-Christ - only the rich in the ancient world could afford oil and wine.

The inexorable press of the American economic system in the direction of Revelation 6:6 augurs ill for all those Christians in the United States who want to hold onto the "Good-Life" and Christ at the same time. ,,, read more

Transportation Lab Seeks Radical Change “tunnel of truth”at Airport Checkpoints

LOS ANGELES — Transportation Security Laboratory Director Susan Hallowell would like to see the day when airline passengers no longer have to take their shoes off after standing in a long line at airport security checkpoints.

To that end, she would like to combine the line and an array of sensors into what she calls a “tunnel of truth.”

The concept — with the somewhat Orwellian name — would have passengers stand on a conveyor belt moving under an archway as various sensors scan them for weapons, bombs or other prohibited items. By the time they step out of the tunnel, they have been thoroughly checked out, she said at a homeland security science and technology conference sponsored by the National Defense Industrial Association.

“You’re in line anyway … why not enclose that in a little glass thing and do your analysis there?” she asked. The lab has given a grant to Penn State University to study the concept, she added.

The lab, located in Atlantic City, N.J., is responsible for testing current screening devices and developing new technologies for both airports and for other public transportation.

Among the new technologies that could be placed in the tunnels are backscatter X-ray machines, which peer underneath clothes, and passive and active millimeter wave sensors that can see the outlines of concealed metal objects. These technologies are already being used in pilot programs.

Puffer machines are also in use and dislodge molecules from the residue gathered during the manufacture of explosives. The human body also gives off a heat signature, and sensors could follow the thermal plume coming off the body as the passenger moves through the tunnel, she noted. Actual bombs, if they are hidden on the body, give off their own heat signatures, and could be detected as well.

Before the concept can move forward, the laboratory will have to perfect all the sub-systems that would go into the so-called tunnel, she said. Meanwhile, the lab continues to test machines designed to check shoes for explosives without passengers having to take them off. So far, it has not found an acceptable solution.
“We’re still working on shoes. We’re not there yet,” she said.
Source

Lockheed Secures Contract to Expand "Big Brother" Biometric Database

The FBI yesterday announced the award of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to Lockheed Martin to develop what is expected to be the world's largest crime-fighting computer database of biometric information, including fingerprints, palm prints, iris patterns and face images.

Under its contract to build Next Generation Identification, the Bethesda contractor will expand on the FBI's electronic database of 55 million sets of fingerprints and criminal histories used by law enforcement and other authorities. The aim is to make the query and results process quicker, more flexible and more accurate.

Lockheed built and maintains the fingerprint database.

"NGI will give us bigger, better, faster capabilities and lead us into the future," said Thomas E. Bush III, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division.

The system will not expand the categories of people whose prints are collected: known criminals, known or suspected terrorists, or foreign visitors to the United States who have been convicted of a crime or an immigration violation, Bush said. But additional types of biometric data, such as iris scans and face images, will be collected from criminals and terrorists. The system also separately houses 17 million civilian fingerprints, mostly of federal employees who have undergone background checks.

To enable global sharing of data, NGI is to be built to technical standards shared by the departments of Homeland Security, Defense and State, as well as by Britain, Canada and other countries, Bush said. The FBI also hopes to offer a service allowing employers to store employees' prints, subject to state privacy laws, so that if employees are ever arrested, the employer would be notified.

Beginning this year, Lockheed will conduct a series of "biometric bake-offs" to evaluate the work of biometric firms who will be competing to develop various elements of the system and the maturity of the technologies. It will first expand the FBI's fingerprint processing capability and add palm print processing capability, officials said.

"We're excited to move to the next generation with the FBI," said Judy Marks, president of Lockheed Martin Transportation and Security Solutions, a business unit of Lockheed.

By adding new biometric tools and applying them together, "the system will be able to enhance its accuracy and virtually eliminate the chance of mistaken identities," said Walter Hamilton, chairman of the International Biometric Industry Association.

Privacy advocates said that the work is proceeding before the technologies have been proven. "Congress needs to do a better job of assessing how taxpayer dollars are being spent, particularly on programs that impact the privacy rights of Americans," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center washingtonpost.com

Privacy concerns mount amid the 'microchipping of America'

...In 2006, IBM Corp. received patent approval for an invention it called "Identification and tracking of persons using RFID-tagged items." One stated purpose: to collect information about people that could be "used to monitor the movement of the person through the store or other areas."

After somebody enters a store, a sniffer "scans all identifiable RFID tags carried on the person" and correlates the tag information with sales records to determine the individual's "exact identity." A device known as a "person tracking unit" then assigns a tracking number to the shopper "to monitor the movement of the person through the store or other areas."

Another patent, obtained in 2003 by NCR Corp., details how camouflaged sensors and cameras would record customers' wanderings through a store, film their facial expressions at displays, and time — to the second — how long shoppers hold and study items.

Why? Such monitoring "allows one to draw valuable inferences about the behavior of large numbers of shoppers," the patent states.

Then there's a 2001 patent application from Procter & Gamble Co.: "Systems and methods for tracking consumers in a store environment." It lays out an idea to use heat sensors to track and record "where a consumer is looking, i.e., which way she is facing, whether she is bending over or crouching down to look at a lower shelf."

The documents "raise the hair on the back of your neck," said Liz McIntyre, co-author of "Spychips," a book that is critical of the industry. "The industry has long promised it would never use this technology to track people. But these patent records clearly suggest otherwise."...read more