Critics slam Miley Cyrus over tweet perceived to be anti-Christian, report says

Miley Cyrus came under fire this week for a controversial tweet hat some critics deemed anti-Christian, according to a report from AOL. The pop singer tweeted a photo of theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, along with the word “beautiful.” On the photo is one of his quotes that reads, “You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, all things that matter for evolution) weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in stars. So forget Jesus. Stars died so you can...

The Church of Sex

Warning: The following column contains sexually explicit language.

There’s a new form of Christianity sweeping the U.S. Its main focus: sex.

Don’t be surprised. We already have a Christian denomination catering to every other worldview, comfort zone and obsession, so why not sex? As I said in “The Marketing of Evil”:

“No matter what kind of person you are, a form of Christianity has evolved just for you. There’s a politically liberal Christianity and a politically conservative Christianity. There’s an acutely activist Christianity and an utterly apolitical Christianity, a Christianity that holds up a high standard of ethical behavior and service, and a Christianity for which both personal ethics and good works are irrelevant. There’s a raucous, intensely emotional Christianity drenched in high-voltage music, and there’s a quiet, contemplative Christianity. There’s a loving Christianity and a hateful, racist Christianity, a Christianity that honors Jews as God’s chosen people and a Christianity that maligns Jews as Satan’s children.”

So, it was just a matter of time before we got a version of Christianity for people obsessed with sex.

Pastor Mark Driscoll

And while there is a surprising number of preachers, teachers and Christian websites today whose main focus is sex, the most prominent is Mark Driscoll, founding pastor of the wildly popular Seattle mega-church Mars Hill Church. According to Mars Hill’s website, Driscoll’s mostly youthful flock has grown from a handful of people in a home Bible study to over 19,000 people meeting across 14 locations in four states.

“One of the world’s most-downloaded and quoted pastors,” says Driscoll’s official bio, “his audience – fans and critics alike – spans the theological and cultural left and right. He was also named one of the ’25 Most Influential Pastors of the Past 25 Years’ by Preaching magazine, and his sermons are consistently No. 1 on iTunes each week for Religion & Spirituality with over 10 million of downloads each year.”

By the way, as runner-up for top mega-church pastor in “The Church of Sex,” I’d nominate Ed Young, senior pastor of Dallas-based Fellowship Church, who recently staged “a 24-hour bed-in with his wife atop his church,” a stunt designed to publicize his just-released New York Times best-seller, “Sexperiment: 7 Days to Lasting Intimacy With Your Spouse.”

But back to Driscoll: I have nothing personal against this popular, hip, tough-talking young pastor in blue jeans, and I totally understand the appeal of his blunt, masculine, passionate style – a refreshing respite from all the stuffy, pretentious and cowardly pastors out there.

However, let’s just state the obvious: Mark Driscoll is utterly obsessed with sex.

Crystal Cathedral Fires 3 of Founder's Relatives

The Crystal Cathedral has fired three relatives of the megachurch's founder in an effort to revamp the "Hour of Power" amid declining donations and viewership. The Orange County Register ( http://bit.ly/zlkwiY ) reported Tuesday that the church's board voted to oust Rev. Robert H. Schuller's daughter and two sons-in-law along with five other people. Church spokesman John Charles says Schuller and his wife abstained from voting to dismiss daughter Gretchen Penner and her husband Jim Penner as producers of the "Hour of Power"...

Utah on verge of passing bill demanding Feds relinquish public land

SALT LAKE CITY – Lawmakers who want to seize control of federal lands are pushing a legal battle they insist is winnable despite multiple warnings their effort is highly unconstitutional and almost sure to fail in court. Utah is poised to become the first state to pass a package of bills that demand the federal government relinquish claims to huge sections of public land. A proposal that advanced Wednesday demands that by 2014 the federal government cede control of nearly 30 million acres -- nearly 50 percent of the entire state.

Chi-Com Influence Op Revealed

Chi-Com Influence Op Revealed
China’s intelligence agencies are conducting a major covert influence campaign aimed at derailing the Obama administration’s military shift to Asia, according to U.S. intelligence officials. According to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Air Sea Battle Concept—a Pentagon program to develop new weapons and capabilities to counter China’s military buildup—was a tightly guarded secret. In November, the Pentagon...

Sen. Carl Levin after meeting with Netanyahu: Israeli attack likely if Iran doesn’t stand down

WASHINGTON — Senior Democratic Sen. Carl Levin says he thinks an Israeli attack on Iran is likely if Tehran doesn’t follow international demands to stop uranium enrichment and allow inspections of its nuclear program. Levin, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, made his remarks to reporters Tuesday after meeting privately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (neh-ten-YAH’-hoo). The Michigan Democrat said Tehran was violating a half-dozen U.N. resolutions. He said that as long as Iran refuses to open up its...

'Dr Doom' sees Iran-Israel clash, says buy precious metals

Political risk in the Middle East has increased significantly with war between Iran and Israel almost inevitable, and precious metals and equities investments offer some safety, Swiss money manager and long-term bear Marc Faber said on Tuesday. "Political risk was high six months ago and is higher now. I think sooner or later, the US or Israel will strike Iran - it's almost inevitable," Faber, who publishes the widely read Gloom Boom and Doom Report, told Reuters on the sidelines of an investment conference. Brent crude traded near USD 123 per...

Greek default priced at 1 trillion euros, bondholders say

LONDON - A disorderly Greek default would cause more than a trillion euros ($1.3 US trillion) of damage to the euro zone and could leave Italy and Spain dependent on outside help to stop contagion spreading, the main bondholders group has said. Greek private creditors have until Thursday night to say whether they will participate in a bond swap that is part of a bailout deal to help it manage its finances and meet a debt repayment on March 20. Investors will lose almost three-quarters of the value of their debt in the exchange. Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos told Reuters on Monday it was the best deal they would get and those who did not sign up would still be forced to take losses. Analysts said the Institute of International Finance document, marked “IIF Staff Note: Confidential,” may have been designed to alarm...

In event of an Iran-Israel showdown, what would US military do?

How would the US military respond if Iran attacked US interests – in retaliation for, say, an Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities? What would a US counterattack look like?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington Monday to meet with President Obama – which comes in the midst of increasingly vocal warnings from Pentagon officials urging caution on any military action in the region – has brought these questions into sharp focus this week.

These questions, too, were at the heart of one of the largest US military war-game exercises in a decade, meant to mirror the conditions that US troops would face if Iran were to, say, shut down shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The war game, dubbed “Bold Alligator,” included some 16,000 US Navy seamen and Marines, as well as a a contingent of US allies from Europe and Australia, and took place near Norfolk, Va., last month.

RECOMMENDED: 5 ways Americans and Iranians are surprisingly similar

Yet Iran conducts its own war-game exercises, too, designed to practice how best to make US military operations in the region difficult, defense analysts note.

The Pentagon’s exercise, for its part, was designed to explore what might happen when US troops face threats in a populated, “built-up” area like the Persian Gulf, according to senior US military officials.

The exercises were “certainly informed by recent history,” says Adm. John Harvey, head of the US Navy’s Fleet Forces Command.

Operating in seaway as narrow as the Strait of Hormuz – one of the most important in the world for US commercial interests – becomes “very difficult when you talk about irregular threats,” says Lt. Gen. Dennis Hejlik, commander of US Marine Corps Forces Command. Those threats include the widespread mining of the Strait, as well as small boats that could swarm US vessels.

The war games also explored the threat that Iran could pose with its shore-based cruise missiles, to which US ships might be exposed “under certain circumstances,” according to Harvey.

In any case, if the Pentagon were forced to respond to, say, the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, it would likely make extensive use of Special Operations Forces first, according to Hejlik. Such special forces “are going to condition that battle space” prior to any US Navy mission, he adds.

US military officials have been careful to emphasize, however, that it is not their first choice to attack Iran.

That’s because they are unsure how Iran would respond to such an attack, top Pentagon officials say. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, said uncertainty surrounding Iran's response to a a military strike is “the question with which we all wrestle and the reason we think that it’s not prudent at this point to decide to attack Iran.”

The problem is, too, that even a “successful” military strike on Iranian nuclear targets would likely delay Iran’s nuclear ambitions only for a limited time.

Iran might retaliate by striking at Israel with missiles, which would force the United States to join in missile defense.

More likely than closing down the Strait of Hormuz – which would be nearly certain to provoke a US military response – Iranian officials would choose a more subtle, complex response.

“Closing the Strait – [discussing] that is fine for talking heads on TV – but that doesn’t have anything to do with the complexity” of Iran’s potential response to a military strike.

It might use free-floating mines in the southern coast of the Persian Gulf, or conduct military exercises that wouldn’t justify a military response but that would give other nations’ commercial vessels pause before traveling in the region, thus affecting commerce. These are all scenarios that the Iranian military also war games, Dr. Cordesman notes, says Anthony Cordesman, a national security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Iran might also engage in covert acts that it would ensure are difficult to attribute to the regime, such as sabotaging Saudi oil fields. Iran is “very careful to test out all the ways they can apply pressure” on the interests of the United States and its allies, Mr. Cordesman adds. “And they practice all of this.”

American Scene: Prayer banner at school taken down

CRANSTON — Officials at a Rhode Island public high school have taken down a prayer banner that a federal judge ordered removed. The state affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued over the banner’s constitutionality, says the display at Cranston West High School has been permanently removed. Executive Director Steven Brown says the ACLU has agreed to allow more time to settle the issue of legal fees. ACLU lawyers who sued on behalf of 16-year-old Jessica Ahlquist have asked the court to order the city to pay $173,000...

Global march of banana fungus revealed

A banana and plantain fungus which has spread across the world originated in South East Asia, new research has found. Black leaf streak disease (Mycosphaerella fijiensis) affects leaf photosynthesis, and causes premature ripening. It also delays harvests and can affect banana quality, size and numbers. A Molecular Ecology Journal study found "an original and unprecedented global scenario of invasion". It is the most important and destructive banana disease in the world, says one of the authors, Stephanie Robert. "It starts with small...

What's causing the mysterious sounds coming from the sky that are so loud they set off car alarms?

Mysterious sounds have been heard booming from the sky all around the world – in some cases they were so loud they set off car alarms. The unsettling noises were heard recently from Europe to Canada, sounding like groans and powerful horns. In Germany noises coming from the sky were recorded on a video camera and uploaded to YouTube, with car alarms clearly heard going off in the background. The internet has been buzzing with theories about what the sounds could be, with suggestions such as Jesus returning and the world ending put...

Huge asteroid hurtling towards Earth will fly past our planet so close it will go UNDER many man-made satellites

A 150-foot asteroid orbiting Earth called 2012 DA14 will pass so close to Earth it will fly UNDER man-made satellites orbiting our planet. Nasa's Impact Risk report said that the odds of the space rock actually hitting our planet are very low indeed - but on February 15 next year it will pass just 17,000 miles from Earth, closer than 'geostationary' satellites. If an asteroid of that size hit our planet, it would cause an explosion similar to a nuclear blast. Two astronomers from the the Observatorio Astronómico de La Sagra in Spain spotted 2012 DA14 in late...

Scientists see rise in tornado-creating conditions

According to some climate scientists, such earlier-than-normal outbreaks of tornadoes, which typically peak in the spring, will become the norm as the planet warms. "As spring moves up a week or two, tornado season will start in February instead of waiting for April," said climatologist Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Whether climate change will also affect the frequency or severity of tornadoes, however, remains very much an open question, and one that has received surprisingly little study. "There are only a handful...

Could Iran send oil to $440 a barrel?

The scariest Iran scenario yet comes from Bob Bandos, CEO of marine logistics and services company GAC North America. Bandos tells Pierre Bertrand of the International Business Times: [T]ankers can haul 1.8 million barrels of oil a day through the strait. If that supply is choked off, the effect would be similar to the fuel shortages of the 1970s – but more extreme, Bandos said. “That would be nothing compared to this,” Bandos said, who added the shortage would be global. If the 1973 embargo experience repeats itself, the price of a barrel of oil could...

PM: I'll never let Israel live under shadow of annihilation

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned against allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons in his speech to the AIPAC Convention in Washington Monday night local time, vowing to never let Israel live under the shadow of annihilation or gamble with its security. Addressing concerns about the cost a military strike aimed at stopping its nuclear program, Netanyahu said: "It's about time we start talking about the cost of not stopping Iran." A nuclear-armed Iran, he warned, would provide a nuclear umbrella for terrorists and thereby increase global...

McCain calls for air strikes against Syria's Assad

Sen. John McCain on Monday became the first U.S. lawmaker to call for air strikes against the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, putting the influential Arizona Republican in front of the Obama administration in calling for American troop involvement in the year-long struggle between the dictator and Syrian citizens. "The time has come for a new policy," McCain said in a Senate floor speech Monday afternoon in which he compared Syrian violence to war crimes in the Balkans and Russia's annihilation of Grozny in Chechnya. "Providing military assistance to the Free Syrian Army and other opposition groups is necessary, but at this late hour, that alone will not be sufficient to stop the slaughter and save innocent lives. The only realistic way to do so is with foreign air power," he said. "The United States should lead an...

Britain won't be a Christian nation by 2030; Hindus, Muslims surge: Report

LONDON: Britain may no longer be a Christian country by 2030 as the number of non-believers is set to overtake the number of Christians, a media report said.

Christianity is losing more than half a million believers every year, while the count of atheists and agnostics is going up by almost 750,000 annually, the Daily Mail reported.
Research by the House of Commons Library found that while Christianity has declined, other religions have seen sharp increases.

In the last six years, the number of Muslims has surged by 37 percent to 2.6 million; Hindus by 43 percent and Buddhists by 74 percent. But the number of Sikhs and Jewish believers fell slightly, according to the Mail Friday.

Last week a group of MPs and peers - Christians in Parliament - claimed public policy was promoting "unacceptable" discrimination against Christians.

On Friday, the group's chairman, former Tory justice minister Gary Streeter, warned that believers were having their faith "steamrollered" by a "secular and hostile state".

It found that in 2010 there were around 41.1 million Christians in Britain - down 7.6 percent over the past six years.

There were around 13.4 million non-believers, up 49 percent over the same period.

UFO: U.S. marines report alien-like activity

An American witness inside U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan, reports there were many people watching a series of "seven equally spaced lights" in the sky that appeared and reappeared during one evening, according to recent testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database. "We were all in our office on Camp Leatherneck when we were told to come outside and see these really cool lights in the sky," the witness stated. There were many witnesses to the event. "I know that all of my friends...

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UFO sighted over Forest Glen on Saturday night
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Senator Barry Goldwater UFO Files Now posted
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Triangle UFO reported at 250 feet from Florida witnesses along I-275
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Investigators to probe UFO reported over Mass. town

Gone in less than 60 seconds! Engineers use LEDs and a camera to create an 'invisible' Mercedes (but they might need to work on the wheels)

Everyone from Harry Potter to Frodo Baggins has already got an invisibility cloak. But scientists have now figured out how to make an entire car disappear. Using optical camouflage technology boffins at Mercedes Benz created the illusion that their new zero emissions F-Cell car is not even there at all. Taking the principal that to see through something you need to see what's behind it, they covered the driver's side of the car in mats of LEDs, and mounted a digital SLR camera on the opposite side of the vehicle. The camera shoots video on the...

Japan invents speech-jamming gun that silences people mid-sentence

TOKYO – Japanese researchers have invented a speech-jamming gadget that painlessly forces people into silence. Kazutaka Kurihara of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and Koji Tsukada of Ochanomizu University, developed a portable "SpeechJammer" gun that can silence people more than 30 meters away. The device works by recording its target's speech then firing their words back at them with a 0.2-second delay, which affects the brain's cognitive processes and causes speakers to stutter before silencing...

Food must be cleansed, Chernobyl expert warns

AOMORI — A Russian expert on the 1986 Chernobyl disaster has told a symposium in Aomori Prefecture that it is imperative to cleanse food of radioactive substances emitted by the Fukushima No. 1 power plant. Mikhail Balanov, a professor at the St. Petersburg Research Institute of Radiation Hygiene, proposed during the symposium Friday at Hirosaki University in the city of Hirosaki that Japanese farmers use the Prussian blue pigment to remove cesium from livestock and apply fertilizer designed to prevent the transmission of radioactive...

Report: US to offer legal backing for 'targeted killings' of Americans overseas

WASHINGTON – Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to outline the legal framework for the use of lethal force in targeted killings of Americans overseas in a major speech at Northwestern University law school, an Obama administration official said Sunday night. Holder's speech Monday comes five months after the killing of U.S.-born Al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen in a drone attack. The official said the attorney general plans to say that lethal force is legal under a Sept. 18, 2001, joint congressional resolution. The Authorization for Use...

Hackers gained 'full functional control' of Nasa computers

Hackers had "full functional control" of key Nasa computers in 2011, the agency's inspector general has told US lawmakers. Paul K Martin said hackers took over Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) computers and "compromised the accounts of the most privileged JPL users". He said the attack, involving Chinese IP addresses, was under investigation. In a statement, Nasa said it had "made significant progress to protect the agency's IT systems". Mr Martin's testimony on Nasa's cybersecurity was submitted to the House Committee on Science, Space and...

Catholic leader Cardinal Keith O'Brien clashes with David Cameron on same-sex marriage plans

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, says the proposals to allow same-sex unions are “madness” and a “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right”. The cardinal’s intervention, in an article for The Sunday Telegraph, is the strongest criticism yet from any church figure of the plans, which are due to be unveiled this month by Lynne Featherstone, the equalities minister. He accuses ministers of trying to “redefine reality” and change long-standing laws and traditions “at the behest of a...

Police inundated by terrified callers as meteor lights up the sky across Britain

Police forces across the UK were inundated with calls last night after a large fireball, thought to be a meteor, was spotted in the sky. Reports of a 'bright light' and an 'orange glow' were received by police across Scotland and the north of England at about 9.40pm yesterday. Some people are believed to have phoned the police fearing a plane had crashed. The Met Office tweeted: 'Hi all, for anyone seeing something in the night sky, we believe it was a meteorite.' The Kielder Observatory also reported the sighting of a 'huge fireball' travelling from...

Cities blacked out for up to a year, $2 TRILLION of damage - with a 1 in 8 chance of solar 'megastorm' by 2014, experts explore the worst that could h

There is a one in eight chance of a solar 'megastorm' before 2014, according to a Californian scientist - and other space weather experts agree that Earth is facing a burst of violent activity that will peak within two years. It's unknown what effects this could have on our planet - but scientists have analysed the worst recorded solar event in history, 1859's Carrington Event, and worked out what effects a similar event would have now. In our connected, satellite-reliant electronic age, the effects would be devastating, they say, as it would disrupt global...

Israel delivers ultimatum to Barack Obama on Iran's nuclear plans

Their relationship, almost from the outset, has been frostier than not, a mutual antipathy palpable in many of their previous encounters. Two years ago, Barack Obama reportedly left Benjamin Netanyahu to kick his heels in a White House anteroom, a snub delivered to show the president's irritation over Israel's settlement policy in the West Bank. In May, the Israeli prime minister struck back, publicly scolding his purse-lipped host for the borders he proposed of a future Palestinian state. When the two men meet in Washington on Monday, Mr Obama...

Netanyahu expects Obama refusal to attack Iran

It is quite clear that US President Barack Obama will do what it takes to delay, if not prevent, an attack on Iran by the US or Israel. The quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan have once again shown that it is easy to declare war, but much harder to know when or how to end it, even if the first and only campaign is an air strike. Obama also knows that within minutes of bombs penetrating the first bunkers at Iran's nuclear facilities outside Qom, the countdown will start on a global economic crisis. The price of oil will soar, driving up the price of gasoline in the US to over the frightening $5 per gallon threshold, stock markets will tumble, taking down US economic growth, and with it, almost certainly, his chances for reelection in November. Obama also knows that Iranian Pandora's box opened by a US and/or Israeli attack will include...

Trinity Broadcasting Network Sued Again by Family Member

The leaders behind the Trinity Broadcasting Network, the "world's largest faith channel," are coming under scrutiny once again by another member of the Crouch family. Joseph McVeigh, uncle to Brittany Koper – the granddaughter of TBN founders Paul and Jan Crouch – filed a lawsuit against the Trinity Christian Center of Santa Ana, its affiliates, and TBN lawyers at the Orange County Superior Court. He claimed TBN was maliciously targeting him as part of a "campaign of retaliation" against Koper and anyone related to her for her recent...

'Missiles on Israel preferable to nuclear Iran'

The mathematics of war: A missile salvo on the greater Tel Aviv area, thousand of rockets fired at northern Israel, terror attacks against Israeli targets overseas, scores of Israeli casualties and countless others in bomb shelters – that is how a former top Israeli official described Iran's possible reaction to an Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities. According to a Thursday report in Yedioth Ahronoth, the former official – speaking anonymously with the New York Times – detailed the formula by which Israel assessed the magnitude of Tehran's response:..

Chinese police may have power to disappear people

Beijing: China is preparing to overhaul a key criminal law amid public confusion - and some dread - over whether the government is about to give police the legal authority to disappear people. At issue is an amendment to the criminal procedure law that would allow police to secretly detain suspects for months without informing their families. The effect would be to legalize the secret detentions police have increasingly been using against political critics, activist lawyers and other dissidents. Activist Hu Jia, himself living under a form of...

UN to propose planetary regulations of water, food

An environmental report issued by an agency of the United Nations last month has some critics sounding the alarm, saying it is a clarion call for "global governance" over how the Earth is managed. The report, “21 Issues for the 21st Century,” from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Foresight Process, is the culmination of a two-year deliberative process involving 22 core scientists. It is expected to receive considerable attention in the run-up to the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which will be held in...

Rush Limbaugh bomb scare: Suspicious package was harmless

PALM BEACH, Fla. — Authorities say a suspicious package sent to Rush Limbaugh's South Florida home was not dangerous or hazardous. Instead, police say the item investigated Thursday turned out to be an electronic plaque sent by a listener of the radio talk show host's program as a "business opportunity" for him. It concerned the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. A Palm Beach police spokesman said during a news conference the package was delivered late Thursday afternoon. When it was screened...

Arizona sheriff Arpaio unveils findings of Obama birth certificate probe

PHOENIX – Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has unveiled preliminary results of an investigation, conducted by members of his volunteer cold-case posse, into the authenticity of President Obama's birth certificate. At a news conference, Arpaio said the probe revealed that there was probable cause to believe Obama's long-form birth certificate released by the White House in April is a computer-generated forgery. He also said the selective service card completed by Obama in 1980 in Hawaii also was most likely a forgery. Obama's...

China slashes proportion of foreign reserves held in $US assets

CHINA has made a sharp shift away from purchases of US securities, slashing the dollar's share of the country's foreign reserves in what may signal a change in strategy for managing the massive cash pile, Dow Jones calculations indicate. The portion of China's reserves parked in the US appears to have sunk to a decade low of 54 per cent as of end-June from 65 per cent in 2010 and 74 per cent in 2006, according to the Dow Jones calculations. The calculations are based on data on China's holdings of US securities from an annual US Treasury...

Next phase of takeover: Foreign central banks buying U.S. companies' stocks

The Bank of Israel will begin today a pilot program to invest a portion of its foreign currency reserves in U.S. equities. The investment, which in the initial phase will amount to 2 percent of the $77 billion reserves, or about $1.5 billion, will be made through UBS AG and BlackRock Inc. (BLK), Bank of Israel spokesman Yossi Saadon said in a telephone interview today. At a later stage, the investment is expected to increase to 10 percent of the reserves. A small number of central banks have started investing part of their reserves in equities. About 9 percent of the foreign- exchange reserves of Switzerland’s central bank were invested in shares at the end of the third quarter, the Swiss bank said on its website. The investment will be made in equity index trackers and will include between 1,500 to 2,000 shares, among them stocks...

Obama says he's not bluffing on Iran military option

WASHINGTON/OTTAWA (Reuters) - President Barack Obama issued his most direct threat yet of U.S. military action against Iran if it builds a nuclear weapon, but in a message to Israel's leader ahead of White House talks he also cautioned against a pre-emptive Israeli strike.

"As president of the United States, I don't bluff," Obama warned Iran in a magazine interview published on Friday, three days before he will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington.

With the meeting expected to be dominated by stark differences over what Washington fears could be an Israeli attack on Tehran's nuclear sites, Netanyahu said he wanted to preserve the "freedom of action of the State of Israel in the face of threats to wipe us off the map."

Monday's talks are shaping up as the most consequential encounter of U.S. and Israeli leaders in years, with tensions further magnified by Republican presidential candidates slamming Obama over his Middle East policy.

Further complicating the talks is a trust deficit between the two men, who have had a rocky relationship.

There is mounting speculation that Israel, which fears that time is running out to stop Iran's nuclear advance, could act militarily on its own in coming months unless it receives stronger reassurances from Washington.

Netanyahu is trying to convince Obama to more forcefully define the nuclear threshold that Iran must not cross, while the U.S. president wants to convince Israel to hold off on any unilateral strike and give sanctions and diplomacy more time to work.

Both leaders talked tough ahead of their meeting.

"I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say," Obama said in an interview with the Atlantic magazine.

Obama repeated the U.S. refrain that "all options are on the table" but spoke in his most direct terms yet of a possible U.S. military response if sanctions and diplomacy fail to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

"It includes a military component. And I think people understand that," Obama said when asked about U.S. intentions on Iran, which insists it is not trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Rabbi Michael Lerner vs. Gilad Atzmon (very interesting)

The following is an interesting debate between Rabbi Michael Lerner hosted by Dennis Bernstein on KPFA Flashpoint.

Secret Codes Ready to Take Quantum Leap in Space

If secret agent James Bond wanted to tell his MI6 superiors about the location of a stolen superweapon without tipping off villains, he might turn to a global satellite network that transmitted coded keys made unbreakable by the weird laws of physics. Such "quantum key distribution" already exists on Earth beyond the realm of Hollywood spy fantasies, and could soon head for space. Plans to launch quantum communication satellites have already begun to take shape in Canada, Japan and the European Union. The satellites could securely...

One-in-eight chance of solar megaflare causing trillions of dollars of damage in next ten years, scientists warn

Earth has a 12 per cent chance of being struck by a solar megaflare of such violent proportions over the next decade it could cause trillions of dollars of damage, scientists warned today. The event would rival the last giant sunstorm, known as the Carrington Event, more than 150 years ago when telegraph stations caught fire and their networks suffered massive black-outs. In today's electronic-infused world, the consequences of such a huge magnetic force raining down on the planet could be catastrophic and may take a decade to recover from.

'Babies are not real people': Female Oxford academic claims doctors 'should have the right to KILL unwanted or disabled infants'

Doctors should have the right to kill newborn babies because they are disabled, too expensive or simply unwanted by their mothers, an academic with links to Oxford University has claimed. Francesca Minerva, a philosopher and medical ethicist, argues a young baby is not a real person and so killing it in the first days after birth is little different to aborting it in the womb. Even a healthy baby could have its life snuffed out if the mother decides she can’t afford to look after it, the article published by the British Medical Journal group states...

Russian Mogul’s Plan: Plant Our Brains in Robots, Keep Them Alive Forever

The Pentagon’s new Avatar project, unveiled by Danger Room a few weeks back, sounds freaky enough: Soldiers practically inhabiting the bodies of robots, who’d act as “surrogates” for their human overlords in battle. But according to Dmitry Itskov, a 31-year-old Russian media mogul, the U.S. military’s Avatar initiative doesn’t go nearly far enough. He’s got a massive, sci-fi-esque venture of his own that he hopes will put the Pentagon’s project to shame. Itskov’s plan: Construct robots that’ll (within 10 years, he hopes) actually store a human’s...

Darpa Warns: Your iPhone Is a Military Threat

There’s a growing threat to the U.S. military, according to the Pentagon’s premier research wing. No, it’s not Iran’s nukes or China’s missiles. It’s the iPads, Android phones and other gadgets we all carry around with us every day. “Commercial consumer electronics has created vulnerabilities by enabling sensors, computing, imaging, and communications capabilities that as recently as 15 years ago, were the exclusive domain of military systems,” Darpa deputy director Kaigham “Ken” Gabriel tells the House Armed Services Committee’s panel on...

Resort city of Branson takes a direct hit from tornado

(CNN) -- Officials in the resort city of Branson, Missouri, were relieved an EF2 tornado, which damaged some of its marquee musical theaters, struck before the prime tourist season began. They said Wednesday the town was still open for business, although tourists might have to change some of their entertainment plans. "We are getting through it," Mayor Raeanne Presley said of the storm that moved through early Wednesday. The tornado had winds of 120 to 130 mph, was 400 yards wide and was on the ground for about 20 miles, according to a...

Rick Warren builds bridge to Muslims

The Rev. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest and one of America's most influential Christian leaders, has embarked on an effort to heal divisions between evangelical Christians and Muslims by partnering with Southern California mosques and proposing a set of theological principles that includes acknowledging that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. The effort, informally dubbed King's Way, caps years of outreach between Warren and Muslims. Warren has broken Ramadan fasts at a Mission Viejo mosque, met Muslim...

Mosques spread across country despite hostility since Sept. 11

NEW YORK — The number of American mosques has increased dramatically in the last decade despite protests aimed at Muslim houses of worship in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to a new study. Researchers conducting the national count found a total of 2,106 Islamic centers, compared to 1,209 in 2000 and 962 in 1994, the increase reflecting Muslims moving into the suburbs and the arrival of newer immigrants from Africa, Iraq and elsewhere. About one-quarter of the centers were built between 2000-2011, as the...

Netanyahu expected to press Obama to threaten Iran with military action

JERUSALEM – Israel's prime minister sets off this week on a U.S. visit clouded by a deepening rift with Washington, which is pressing Israel to hold off on any attack against Iran's suspect nuclear program. Although Israel says it hasn't decided whether to strike, it has signaled readiness to do so -- a move that would have deep worldwide implications. Senior Israeli officials say Israel would have to act by summer in order to be effective. U.S. officials, wary that an Israeli strike could drive up oil prices and entangle the U.S. in a new Mideast military...

US Air Force prepared if diplomacy with Iran fails: general

The United States has powerful bombs at the ready in the case of possible military action against Iran and work is under way to bolster their firepower, the air force chief said Wednesday. General Norton Schwartz, air force chief of staff, declined to say whether US weapons -- including a 30,000-pound massive ordnance penetrator (MOP) bomb -- could reach nuclear sites in Iran that were concealed or buried deep underground. "We have an operational capability and you wouldn't want to be there when we used it," said Schwartz, when asked about the MOP bomb. "Not to say that we can't continue to make improvements and we are," he told defense reporters. Amid speculation that a nuclear site dug into the side of a mountain near Qom is beyond the reach of American weapons, Defense Secretary...