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This newsletter is available online by
clicking here. The archived newsletter are also available by
clicking here.
The News In Review newsletter is a service
provided
by Understand The Times that
is a compilation of the news articles
previously posted
on our site . Understand The Times does not
endorse these events but rather is
showing the church the current events.
The
purpose of posting these articles is to warn the church of deception from a
Biblical perspective.
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July 26 - Just a face in a crowd? Scans pick up ID, personal data
Article: Technology For Global Monetary System
As you scan the face on
that giant billboard, it may just be
scanning your face right back. Increasingly
sophisticated digital facial-recognition
technology is opening new possibilities in business, marketing,
advertising and law enforcement while exacerbating fears about the loss
of privacy and the violation of civil liberties.
Businesses foresee a day
when signs and billboards with face-recognition technology can instantly
scan your face and track what other ads you've seen recently, adjust
their message to your tastes and buying history and even track your
birthday or recent home purchase. The FBI and other
U.S. law enforcement agencies already
are exploring facial-recognition tools to track suspects, quickly single
out dangerous people in a crowd or match a grainy security-camera image
against a vast database to look for matches.
Many fear that
future is coming too quickly, with facial-recognition technology
becoming increasingly advanced, available and affordable before
restrictions on its use can be put into place.
Concerns have been raised on Capitol Hill in recent weeks that FBI
searches using the technology could trample Fourth Amendment protections
against unreasonable search and seizure, while some in the industry say
excessive regulations could cripple cutting-edge technology.
"In our country, government shouldn't be looking
over your shoulder unless it has a reason," said Jay
Stanley, senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union's
speech, privacy and technology project.
"They should not be collecting data on innocent
subjects." The potential to "data-mine" raw video or photography using
facial-recognition technology is another concern, he
said, but one that could clash with First Amendment rights on the right
to photograph.
The
FBI's Next Generation Identification program also may accelerate the
rate of progress. It will provide a national database of mug shots,
enabling law enforcement officials to use the facial-recognition
technology to quickly search pictures of suspects against photos of
anyone who has been arrested. Set to take effect in 2014, it has caused
concerns that officials can discover a criminal past of anyone for whom
they can obtain a picture, with or without probable cause.
Sen. Al Franken, the
Minnesota Democrat who chaired the Senate hearing, noted that
FBI training manuals already show
facial-recognition technology being used to identify protesters. "I fear
the FBI pilot program could be abused not only to identify protesters
but to target them as well," he said.
"While fingerprints
take hours and days for analysis, some
advanced facial recognition in use today by U.S. law enforcement is as
accurate as fingerprints, but results are obtained in seconds, not
hours, in identifying criminals and perpetrators attempting to use false
identities and aliases," Mr. Amerson said.
"Something has to be done, because otherwise we
are living in a world of ubiquitous identity" where you can't walk out
your front door," he said.
Read Full Article....
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July 23 - Big Brother in Hindi?
Article: Technology For Global Monetary System
For most Americans,
nowhere are the repercussions of their nation's increasingly insecure
and outdated national identity systems more apparent than when they pass
through security at the airport. In contrast to America's struggles to
adapt its decades-old systems to handle modern challenges, India
is undertaking one of the grandest
technology experiments ever attempted. In a massive, nationwide project,
the government is attempting to collect the demographic information,
fingerprints, and iris scans of all 1.2 billion residents.
With this information,
the government hopes to issue a unique 12-digit "Aadhaar" (which means
"foundation") identity number to every man, woman, and child. If
successful, India will build a major new piece of technological
infrastructure for a modern economy, while fundamentally transforming
the way residents interact with their government.
Proponents of the plan argue that it will lead to a fairer and more
equitable distribution of public benefits.
Currently, each governmental department works in isolation, maintaining
its own separate databases and records. Over time, systematic corruption
and mismanagement have populated these databases with fraudulent
information. The Indian departments handling social support programs are
often the most abused.
Aadhaar may prove to be the most
far-reaching and large-scale technology system ever to be implemented in
a democratic nation, and it was done with almost no debate.
Innovative banking technologies capable of
reaching these marginalized groups could be built atop the national ID
system, presenting an opportunity to reshape the nation and help lift
hundreds of millions from poverty. Developers aim to create
sophisticated Aadhaar-linked bank accounts that could allow for a system
of digital payment, such that two villagers could send each other money
with just their identity numbers and an Internet connection. The mobile
phone market could offer a gateway for India's masses into the financial
system. With almost a billion cell phones in the
country, more than twice as many Indians have access to a cell phone
than a toilet.
India is a land of small businesses-and from every indication,
mom-and-pop shops can't wait to reap the benefits that Aadhaar has to
offer. Residents' ability to shop will no longer be limited by the
amount of cash in their pockets. Additionally,
unique identity numbers are the key to bringing
multiple different personal records together. They can serve to
facilitate beneficial services such as health insurance and background
checks. Though well-intentioned, Aadhaar could facilitate surveillance
and digitized discrimination of whole segments of the population,
grouped by their undesirable characteristics.
These
technologies will also enable government agencies to directly target
their benefits. Instead of the current inefficient cash distribution
system, agencies will be able to electronically transfer money directly
into a resident's account. Residents will be free to choose where to buy
their subsidized goods, and thus will gain purchasing power. This will
create major incentives for distributors to adopt competitive,
customer-oriented practices.
Although
enrollment is described as voluntary, in practice, residents will find
it to be virtually obligatory. Many important public and private
services have agreed to require an Aadhaar number for participation. If
a resident chooses not to enroll, he will be denied the basic rights and
entitlements he would have previously received. Unique identity numbers
can serve to facilitate beneficial services such as health insurance and
background checks.
Read Full Article....
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August 3 - The Happy Priest Reflects on the Eucharist, the Bread of Life
Article: Roman Catholic Church And The Last Days
This Sunday we continue our
journey through the 6th chapter of the Gospel of Saint John and our reflections
on the Holy Eucharist. This Sunday's gospel narrative concludes with these
words: "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and
whoever believes in me will never thirst" (John 6: 35).
When Jesus ascended to the Father, it would have been very simple for him merely
to leave us with a record of all that he had said and done; however, he could
not contain his love within the confines of time and space. Because of his
unconditional love, he had to remain with us.
The Eucharist is not a symbol, it is a reality. Jesus is truly with us.
The Eucharist is the most perfect of the seven sacraments.
God dispenses sanctifying grace through the
sacraments. Moreover, not only is the Eucharist an aqueduct of divine life, the
Eucharist is Jesus Christ himself!
"The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species
is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as the perfection of
the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.
In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist the body
and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and,
therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really and substantially contained. This
presence is called real - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of
presence as of they could not be real too, but because it is presence in the
fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God
and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present"
(Catechism of the Catholic Church #1374).
Transubstantiation means "change of substance",
or "change of reality." When the priest repeats the words that Jesus spoke at
the Last Supper, the bread is no longer bread, and the wine is no longer wine.
Instead, the entire substance of the bread and the entire substance of the wine
have been changed into the substance of The Body and Blood of Christ.
"It is highly fitting that Christ should have wanted to remain present to his
Church in this unique way. Since Christ was
about to take his departure from his own in his visible form, he wanted to give
us his sacramental presence; since he was about to offer himself on the cross to
save us, he wanted us to have the memorial of the love with which he loved us
'to the end', even to the giving of his life. In his Eucharistic presence he
remains mysteriously in our midst as the one who loved us and gave himself up
for us, and he remains under signs that express and communicate this love"
(Catechism of the Catholic Church #1380).
Read Full Article ....
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July 31 - Drought deepens worries about food supplies, prices
Article: Signs Of The Last Times
Alarm grew over the unrelenting Midwest drought on Tuesday, as one of the top corporate leaders in agriculture warned that the government must act quickly to reduce the amount of corn going to ethanol to prevent a sharp spike in food prices.
Worries about the worst drought in more than half a century afflicting the world's largest grain exporter also deepened overseas, where buyers in China and other hungry nations fret that the expected sharp drop in U.S. harvests will cause shortages and price spikes.
Greg Page, chief executive of global grains trading giant Cargill Inc, joined a chorus of critics of biofuels by urging the U.S. government to temporarily curb its quotas to produce corn-based ethanol fuel. Page said on CNBC that the U.S. biofuel mandate "needs to be addressed" through existing policy tools. Otherwise, the spike in U.S. corn and soybean prices to record highs will "ration" demand in ways that will hurt food production too much.
"If all of that is only on livestock or food consumers, it really makes the burden disproportionate. What we see are 3 or 4 percent declines in supply lead to 40 to 50 percent increases in prices, and I think the mandates are what drives that," he said.
The U.S. Agriculture Department last week raised its estimates of food price inflation due to soaring grain prices tied to the drought, saying prices could rise as much as 3.5 percent this year and another 3-4 percent in 2013, led by meat.
Grain analysts polled by Reuters pointed to a U.S. corn crop of 11.2 billion bushels, the smallest in six years and down 14 percent from USDA's latest forecast of 12.97 billion. Initial forecasts were for a crop of more than 14 billion bushels. Soybeans, which were planted later and until now escaped the drought's pressure, are now also being hurt. Analysts predict a 2.834 billion bushel harvest, the smallest in four years, and down from USDA's latest estimate of 3.05 billion bushels.
"We are continuing to see a deterioration of the crops," grains analyst Karl Setzer of MaxYield Cooperative in West Bend, Iowa said, referring to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's crop progress report issued on Monday.
Read Full Article ....
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August 2 - Ahmadinejad: World forces must annihilate Israel
Article: Israel And The Last Days
In a speech published on his
website Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
said the ultimate goal of world forces must be the
annihilation of Israel.
Speaking to ambassadors from Islamic countries ahead of 'Qods
Day' ('Jerusalem Day'), an annual Iranian anti-Zionist event established in 1979
by Ayatollah Khomeini and which falls this year on August 17, Ahmadinejad
said that a "horrible Zionist current" had been
managing world affairs for "about 400 years."
Repeating traditional anti-Semitic slurs, the Iranian
president accused "Zionists" of controlling the
world's media and financial systems. It was Zionists, he
said, who were "behind the scene of the world's
main powers, media, monetary and banking centers."
"They are the decision makers, to the extent that the presidential election
hopefuls [of the USA] must go and kiss the feet of the Zionists to ensure their
election victory," he added.
Ahmadinejad added that "liberating Palestine"
would solve all the world's problems, although he did not elaborate on exactly
how that might work.
"Qods Day is not merely a strategic solution for the Palestinian problem, as it
is to be viewed as a key for solving the world problems," he
said. He added: "Anyone who loves freedom and
justice must strive for the annihilation of the Zionist regime in order to pave
the way for world justice and freedom."
The Iranian president said
that Israel reinforced "the dominance of arrogant powers in the region and
across the globe" and that Arab countries in particular - he cited Bahrain,
Yemen, Libya, Syria and Turkey - were affected by Israel's "plots."
Ahmadinejad, who has called the
Holocaust a myth, has previously called for Israel's annihilation, in a 2005
speech in which he used a Persian phrase that translates literally as "wiped off
the page of time."
Read Full Article ....
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Antarctica Was Once Home To Rainforest, Say Scientists
Article: Creation/Evolution - Misc.
Comment from Understand the Times:
Those
familiar with our Understand The Times creation presentations
regarding the original earth will find the following article very
interesting. According to the Bible model, the original earth was
subtropical from pole to pole before the great flood of Noah. Once
again the biblical model has been confirmed.
Scientists drilling off the
coast of Antarctica made a startling discovery recently that could
hold clues to the Earth's future -- especially if climate change
keeps warming the planet.
According to a study
published in the journal Nature,
the frozen continent was home to a
"near-tropical" rainforest
52 million years ago, when temperatures measured about 68 degrees
Fahrenheit.
The sediment found in the
Antarctic seabed may be more relevant during a summer when drought,
record heat and violent storms are being connected to climate change
trends. "It shows that if we go
through periods of higher CO2 in the atmosphere it's very likely
that there will be dramatic changes on these very important areas of
the globe where ice currently exists," study
participant Kevin Welsh told AFP. The Australian scientist was on
the 2010 expedition that brought up fossil-rich sediment from Wilkes
Land on the east coast of Antarctica. "If
we were to lose a lot of ice from Antarctica then we're going to see
a dramatic change in sea level all around the planet,"
he said.
University of Glasgow
scientist James Bendle said in the London Evening Standard
that the sediment samples "are the
first detailed evidence we have of what was happening on the
Antarctic during this vitally important time."
Noting that the drilling
expedition worked through "freezing temperatures, huge ocean swells,
calving glaciers, snow-covered mountains and icebergs," Bendle said,
"It's amazing to imagine a
time-traveler, arriving at the same coastline in the early Eocene,
could paddle in pleasantly warm waters lapping at a lush forest."
The study found that
sediment cores were studded with
pollen from two different environments much warmer than present-day
Antarctica. There was evidence of palms, ferns and other trees
typical of warm, lowland rainforests like that of Madagascar. There
were also samples from beech trees and conifers of the kind found in
mountain forest regions.
Scientists involved in the
study warned that Antarctica could
become ice-free again. Already, rising levels of carbon dioxide, or
greenhouse gases, and other environmental factors have led to
reports of melting ice
and regional warming.
Read Full Article ....
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We hope the Weekly News In Review has been a
blessing to you.
Sincerely,
Roger Oakland
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