July 2008

Bible Publishers Sued for Anti-Gay References

A Michigan man is seeking $70 million from two Christian publishers for emotional distress and mental instability he received during the past 20 years from versions of the Bible that refer to homosexuality as a sin.

Bradley LaShawn Fowler, a gay man, claims his constitutional rights were infringed upon by Zondervan Publishing Co. and Thomas Nelson Publishing, both of which, he claims, deliberately caused homosexuals to suffer by misinterpretation of the Bible.

Fowler, 39, is seeking $60 million from Zondervan and another $10 million from Thomas Nelson.

According to a USA Today report, Fowler’s two separate suits against the publishers claim the intent of the Bible revisions that refer to homosexuals as sinners reflect an individual opinion or a group's conclusion.

Fowler says the deliberate changes made to first Corinthians, chapter six, verse nine caused him "or anyone who is a homosexual to endure verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence ... including murder."

Fowler, who is representing himself in both lawsuits, claims the publishers are misinterpreting the Bible by specifically using the word homosexuals, which made him an outcast from his family and contributed to physical discomfort and periods of demoralization, chaos and bewilderment.

“These are opinions based on the publishers and they are being embedded in the religious structure as a way of life," he tells a local NBC TV station affiliate in Grand Rapids.

Fowler admits that every Bible printed is a translation that can be interpreted in many ways, but he says specifically using the word “homosexual” is not a translation but a change.

Fowler says Zondervan Bibles published in the ‘80s used the word homosexuals among a list of those who are “wicked' or unrighteous and won't inherit the kingdom of heaven.”

Zondervan, for its part, issued a statement to the Grand Rapids press stating it does not translate the Bible or own the copyright for any of the translations it publishes

“We rely on the scholarly judgment of the highly respected and credible translation committees behind each translation and never alter the text of the translations we are licensed to publish,” the statement reads.

“We only publish credible translations produced by credible Biblical scholars.”

U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook Jr., who will hear Fowler’s case against Thomas Nelson, says the court “has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of [Fowler’s] claims."

Source: Newsmax.com

Greens are the enemies of liberty

by Brendan O'Neill, The Guardian.

Imagine a society where simply speaking out of turn or saying the "wrong thing" was openly discussed as a crime against humanity, and where sceptics or deniers of the truth were publicly labelled "criminals", hauled before the press and accused of endangering humanity with their grotesque untruths.

Imagine a society where even some liberals demanded severe restrictions on freedom of movement; where people campaigned for travelling overseas to be made prohibitively expensive in order to force people to stay at home; and where immigration was frowned upon as "toxic" and "destructive".

Imagine a society so illiberal that columnists felt no qualms about demanding government legislation to force us to change our behaviour; where the public was continually implored to feel guilty about everything from driving to shopping – and where those who refused to feel guilty were said to be suffering from a "psychological" disorder or some other species of mental illness".

Surely no one would put up with such a society? Yet today, all of the above things are happening – under what we might call the tyranny of environmentalism – and people are putting up with it.

In the current debate on liberty, we hear a lot about the attack on our democratic rights by the government's security agenda, but little about the grave impact of environmentalism on the fabric of freedom. It seems to me that green thinking – with its shrill intolerance of dissenting views, its deep distaste for free movement and free choice, and its view of individuals, not as history-makers, but as filthy polluters – poses a more profound threat to liberty even than the government's paranoid anti-terrorist agenda.

Environmentalists are innately hostile to freedom of speech. Last month James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate change scientists, said the CEOs of oil companies should be tried for crimes against humanity and nature. They have been "putting out misinformation", he said, and "I think that's a crime". This follows green writer Mark Lynas's insistence that there should be "international criminal tribunals" for climate change deniers, who will be "partially but directly responsible for millions of deaths". They will "have to answer for their crimes", he says. The American eco-magazine Grist recently published an article on deniers that called for "war crimes trials for these bastards… some sort of climate Nuremberg."

It is the mark of shrieking authoritarianism to look upon dissenting views not simply as wrong or foolish, but as criminal. Throughout history inquisitors and censors have sought to silence sections of society by labelling their words as "dangerous" and a threat to safety and stability; now environmentalists are doing the same. Their demonisation of sceptics as "deniers" has had a chilling effect on public debate. The environmentalist ethos is hostile to free movement, too. Behind the greens' attacks on road-building and cheap flights there lurks an agenda of enforced localism. What most of us experience as a liberty – the ability to drive great distances or to travel overseas, something our forebears only dreamt of as they spent their entire lives in the same town – has been relabelled under the tyranny of environmentalism as a "threat to the planet".

The Optimum Population Trust, which counts Jonathon Porritt among its patrons, says mass immigration is "a route to environmental collapse". It believes the UK is overpopulated and wants to "balance immigration with emigration".

Not surprisingly, opportunistic anti-immigrant outfits have borrowed elements of this argument. The British National Party now argues that "our countryside is vanishing beneath a tidal wave of concrete" as a result of house-building for immigrants. "Immigration is creating an environmental disaster", the BNP says.

But perhaps the main way that environmentalism undermines the culture of freedom is by its ceaseless promotion of guilt. In the environmentalist era, we are no longer really free citizens, so much as potential polluters. We are continually told – by government, by commentators, by radical activists – that everything we do, from wearing disposable nappies to using deodorant to allowing ourselves to be cremated, is harmful to our surroundings.

Liberty – true liberty – requires that people see themselves as self-respecting, self-determining subjects, capable of making free choices and pursuing the "good life" as they see fit. Today, by contrast, we are warned that we are toxic, loaded, dangerous specimens, who must always restrain our instincts and aspire to austerity. This is not conducive to a culture of liberty; indeed, it represents a dangerous historic shift, from the Enlightenment era of free citizenship to a new dark age where individuals are depicted as meek in the face of more powerful, unpredictable forces: the gods of the sea, sky and ozone layer.

And what of those individuals who say "to hell with environmentalism" and continue living the way they want to? Apparently, in the words of the Ecologist, they have a disordered "psychology"; they are victims of "self-deception and mass denial".

Some greens openly admit they are on the side of illiberalism. George Monbiot describes environmentalism as "a campaign not for more freedom but for less". Environmentalism is instinctively and relentlessly illiberal, and it is doing more to inculcate people with fear, self-loathing and a religious-style sense of meekness than any piece of anti-terror legislation ever could. If you believe in freedom, you must reject it.

Source: Comment, The Guardian.

COMMENT: Some interesting background to the Enviromentalists from the American Thinker: "With the first Earth Day in 1970 the Left had a movement uniquely poised to damage free market economies worldwide, and both socialists and neo-pagans swarmed into the movement. The collapse of the Eastern Block in the ‘80's, followed by the rise of Global Warming theory, gave great impetus to those who believe in a command economy, as this movement had the means, the emotional appeal, and could be manipulated to produce the desired ends; the radical reorganization of Humanity. So what we have witnessed in the Global Warming debate is a perfect storm of anti-Christian philosophies parading as science. Materialists, Socialists, and Left-leaning types found common cause with neo-pagans and anti-Christian spirituality to advocate a New World Order dressed as a movement to save the planet. A friendly media has nurtured and supported it, and it has advanced through a string of sacraments; separating trash, installing low wattage light bulbs, driving hybrid vehicles, etc. Environmentalism is in all of the schools, and children are being frightened by end-of-the-world scenarios by the prophets of doom while having the Green ethos inculcated in them through letter-writing campaigns and "Earth friendly" checklists. The Environmentalists, heavily financed by left-wing think tanks and environmental-activist organizations, are hurrying to push through Draconian emission standards and to stifle any debate-and that debate is plentiful, indeed." The Return of the Old Gods, A challenge to Green Evangelicals.

An Ark of the Earth has been built to house the Earth Charter, leaving us in no doubt as to the new religion: earth worship! Is the Ark of the Earth, man's attempt to copy the Ark of the Covenant?

Anglican bishop John Chane says 'demonic' conservatives going in wrong direction

A leading Anglican bishop has condemned conservatives as "demonic" for using his church as a punch bag.

The Bishop of Washington, the Right Rev John Chane, a leading liberal in the Episcopal Church in the United States, accused conservatives of leading the church in a "dangerous" direction.

Bishop Chane, whose diocese covers the American capital, said: "I think it's really very dangerous when someone stands up and says, 'I have the way and I have the truth and I know how to interpret holy scripture and you are following what is the right way.'

"I think it's really very, very dangerous and I think it's demonic ... the Episcopal Church has been demonised. It has been a punching bag and I'm sick of being a punching bag as a Bishop and I'm sick of my church, my province being a punching bag. Do we deserve criticism, absolutely. No question about it."

Bishop Chane is one of the 125 bishops from the Episcopal Church attending the Lambeth Conference, a gathering of 650 Anglican bishops from 38 provinces around the world in Canterbury.

About 230 bishops, mainly from the Global South provinces of Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya, are boycotting the conference because of the liberal direction of the Western church on sexuality and the Bible. More than 290 conservatives, including most of the 230, attended the recent Global Anglican Future Conference, or Gafcon, in Jerusalem which set up an alternative Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans to rival the official structures of the Anglican Communion.

Bishop Chane was talking to a BBC2 documentary on Gafcon, Battle of the Bishops, to be broadcast soon.

Dr Peter Akinola, the Nigerian primate, who is among those boycotting Lambeth, told the BBC: "Gafcon is a rescue mission - it is our duty to rescue whatever is left of the church from error, from all those, whoever they are, who have chosen to mutilate, to distort and to even deny the Gospel and to preach something different from what we know."

The Archbishop of Jos, in Nigeria, Benjamin Kwashi, another Lambeth boycotter and a man tipped as a likely successor to Dr Akinola, criticised the last Lambeth conference, held ten years ago. He said: "At Lambeth 98 we were looking for a place where we could cry our hearts out and pray and look for the support of the wider Church who would bless us and pray for us. You don't need much money, you just need some words of encouragement. Those things were absent.

"Respect is earned. When it is thrown away, gathering it can be difficult. From the Mother Church of England, there is the assumption that therefore we can do anything and Africans will automatically come with us, or respect us. I think that is an insult.

"So now Gafcon is an alternative to that, where we can cry together, look at our struggles, HIV and Aids problems, infant mortality, all those issues that dehumanise us as Africans. The wider Anglican world, if you ask my opinion, don't want to listen to us.'

BBC 2's This World: Battle of the Bishops is on July 21 at 7pm.

Source: The Times

Council bans woman from epileptic son's taxi

THE mother of a disabled and severely epileptic teenager has been banned from travelling to school with him – because she hasn’t been police checked.

Jayne Jones, of Aberfan, had previously been riding in the council-provided taxi with her 14-year-old son Alex on mornings she feared he was prone to having fits.

But now officials have told her she can only travel with her son once she has undergone a Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) check.

Mrs Jones, a mother of two, yesterday hit out at the bureaucracy which, she says, has left her son travelling to school with no-one trained to administer specialist life-saving treatment in the event of an epileptic attack.

“I have to be CRB checked before I can ride in a taxi with my own son,” she said. “And now they’ve said if I pass the check and am allowed to ride with him I can go to the school but then have to make my own way back to my home in Aberfan.

“I have to be checked to go in a taxi with him, but if I was able to take him in my own car they wouldn’t care and even offered to pay me expenses.

“I don’t want money – I need him to get back and fore to school.”

Alex suffers from cerebral palsy as well as severe intractable epilepsy, and can suffer fits before school. On particularly bad mornings Mrs Jones would accompany him to Greenfield School, Pentrebach, near Merthyr Tydfil, in case she needed to give him his specialised treatment during a fit.

However, when officials at Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council discovered she was travelling with her son they told her to stop. A few days later a request for a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check landed on her doorstep.

Mrs Jones, a full-time carer to Alex, is reluctantly in the process of having the check done, for which the council has waived the fee.

Alex, who was born with his condition, takes a combination of 32 anticonvulsant tablets each day, and the drop-attacks he suffers could one day kill him.

He currently travels to school with Victoria Taxis.

“The taxi company is great and they carry Alex’s medication but they won’t use it. And they’d know how to put him in the recovery position if needs be,” she said.

On Boxing Day last year, Alex was taken to hospital for a six-hour surgery which saw him fitted with a special lifesaving device called a VNS (Vagus Nerve Stimulation) therapy system.

The VNS is fitted under the skin in the chest and works like a pacemaker to help control electrical signals which can malfunction and cause him to seize.

However, Mrs Jones and her husband Malcolm, 42, are the only people trained to use the VNS therapy. His taxi escort is not trained and Mr Jones has to work, so no-one in the taxi could help Alex should he need it.

Mrs Jones, who also has an eight-year-old son, Lucas, said the VNS was “the best Christmas present” anyone could give them as it has improved Alex’s quality of life immensely.

Council officials last night said they could not comment on individual cases but defended its police-checking policy.

But one day she could need to administer the lifesaving jolts and may not be there as the council have refused to let her ride with him.

A spokesman for Merthyr Council said: “We cannot comment on particular cases but can confirm that CRB checking is a requirement of our transport provisions in relation to adults travelling on home-to-school transport in the capacity of an escort.“This is a standard requirement and has been for several years. Any adult acting as an escort will, in the public gaze, be viewed as acting with the full acquiescence of the council and hence with its implied authority.

“For the protection of the council and all vulnerable persons in its care it’s essential all those endowed with an authority, implicit or explicit, should meet the security requirements within the transport contract provisions.”

Source: WalesOnline.

Big Brother: The Google cars that will photograph EVERY front door in Britain

Plans by Google to photograph millions of British homes and publish them online have been condemned as a 'gross invasion of privacy'.

The internet giant's StreetView website will allow anyone in the world to type in a UK address or postcode and instantly see a 360-degree picture of the street.

It will include close-ups of buildings, cars and people. Critics say the site is a 'burglar's charter' that makes it easy for criminals to check out potential victims.

The pictures also show people leaving and entering hospitals, health clinics, adult shops and hotels. Although their faces are deliberately blurred, many could still be recognised by their clothing and hair colour.

The site was launched in major American cities last year.

Google has confirmed it is now in the process of photographing Britain as part of the Street View project.

Cars emblazoned with the company's logo and carrying massive 360-degree cameras have been spotted circling the streets of British cities in recent weeks.

The data watchdog, the Information Commissioner's office, is so concerned about StreetView that it has written to Google demanding privacy guarantees. A Google spokeswoman said: 'Google works hard to make sure that our products respect both users' expectations of privacy, and local privacy laws, in each country in which they are launched. Google Maps Street View is no exception.'

StreetView is designed to complement Google Earth, a collection of satellite pictures that covers every square mile of the globe.

Google Earth has come under fire for the level of detail in its overhead pictures, which have become enormously popular.

The pictures don't just show which homes have swimming pools or tennis courts, they can reveal the model and colour of cars, whether gardens have furniture and even sunbathers lying outside.

Source: Daily Mail.

Toddlers who dislike spicy food 'racist'

The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.

This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.

The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age.

It alerts playgroup leaders that even babies can not be ignored in the drive to root out prejudice as they can "recognise different people in their lives".

The 366-page guide for staff in charge of pre-school children, called Young Children and Racial Justice, warns: "Racist incidents among children in early years settings tend to be around name-calling, casual thoughtless comments and peer group relationships."

It advises nursery teachers to be on the alert for childish abuse such as: "blackie", "Pakis", "those people" or "they smell".

The guide goes on to warn that children might also "react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying 'yuk'".

Staff are told: "No racist incident should be ignored. When there is a clear racist incident, it is necessary to be specific in condemning the action."

Warning that failing to pick children up on their racist attitudes could instil prejudice, the NCB adds that if children "reveal negative attitudes, the lack of censure may indicate to the child that there is nothing unacceptable about such attitudes".

Nurseries are encouraged to report as many incidents as possible to their local council. The guide added: "Some people think that if a large number of racist incidents are reported, this will reflect badly on the institution. In fact, the opposite is the case."

Source: The Telegraph

RFID enabled tickets for Olympic opening and closing

The Olympics in Beijing has become a platform for rapid technology development and deployment in China. One of the new technologies becoming more commonplace is RFID (Radio Frequency Identification). Beijing has been using RFID subway passes for a while, and nothing but the best for the 2008 Games means RFID tags in the tickets.

A source at BOCOG
has offered more details about the RFID-enabled tickets being issued for the Beijing Olympics this summer: All tickets to the opening and closing ceremonies will include RFID tags containing personal information about the ticket holder, including passport information and home and e-mail addresses.

Officials originally planned to embed RFID tags in all 6.8 million tickets issued for all Olympics events. These plans apparently went by the wayside, along with a plan to include place a photo of each ticket holder on their ticket. The RFID tags will only be in tickets for the opening and closing events, and photos of the tickets released to the press show no photos on them.

The technology was developed by Tsinghua University's Beijing Tsinghua Tongfang Microelectronics Company. The RFID chip’s dimensions of 0.3 square millimeters and 50 microns in thickness means it won’t even be noticeable by ticket holders.

The ticket holder's information is included in an attempt to thwart counterfeiting of the tickets, but the tickets have raised concern among security experts, who worry that the system may cause delays when entering the stadium or that the data on the RFID tags
may be easy prey for hackers.

Chinese officials say the Games' security team will employ a team of at least 4,000 IT experts with 1,000 servers at their disposal. The system is currently being tested and readied for the Games.

Source: Danwei.org

Israel electric car project aims to wipe out oil

Israel today announced backing for Project Better Place, intended to switch motor transportation from oil to electric, and by a massive coincidence one of the project's prime movers, Shai Agassi of Better PLC, was evangelising at the DLD (Digital Life, Design) show in Munich. His objective, he says, is to "take one country off oil in a way that is repeatable." Israel is that country.

And the model is the mobile phone. Really. The point of choosing Israel, says Agassi, is that doing it in a chaotic country is important, and he claims Israel is the most chaotic nation he knows. Plus there are helpful limits to how far you can drive in Israel - the endurance of a electric car on one 'fill up' is about 200km, and that easily covers the furthest you can go within Israel.

He takes a pretty rational view of how far people are prepared to go to save the planet, and when it comes to cars that's not very far. It's got to be your car, no shares, with performance and size at least equivalent to today's models. It's got to be affordable (which includes image and cred, so lose points for non 'green' Hummers), and it's got to be fairly easy to 'fill up'. That last one's one of the gotchas of electric, and it's Agassi's primary point of attack. So you've got a vehicle that allows people to be green without it actually costing them anything to do so, and you've got the 'filling stations'.

Which work this way. Israel will be blanketed with a network of battery exchange stations and roadside charge points which allow the cars to be charged whenever they're parked. Agassi suggests there will be about 500,000 of these, and points out that it's doable, because they've got them in Sweden, Norway and parts of Canada, where if you don't plug in when you stop your engine freezes. Charge points and swap stations mean there's no need for lengthy charge periods, so 'filling up' should take no more time than it does currently at a petrol station.

Israel's helping with the economics. It currently taxes electric vehicles at 10 per cent and petrol at 72 per cent, and the government has promised to keep the electric car tax at that level until at least 2015. The switchover to electric vehicles is where the mobile phone model comes in.

Say the motorist pays the equivalent of their current annual petrol bill for a mileage plan, they could be given the car to use, and it would become theirs after four years. Other mobile plans could operate - all you can eat unlimited mileage, pay as you go, and so on. The plan is to have the first of the cars on the road in 2009, 100,000 in 2010 and Israel off oil within ten years.

Vehicles are being produced by Nissan and Renault, and significantly Agassi suggests France as another possible target, helped by French government policies. London, which already operates a world-famous congestion charge, he mentions as a possible single city target market. But he possibly underestimates the London Livingstone regime, which takes a somewhat more hair-shirted and autophobic view of green issues. Something that perpetuates these instruments of death and undermines the bendy bus programme surely won't fit the picture. Project Better Place is also backed by Israel Corp, the major local refinery operator. As Israel has no oil, flexibility probably makes sense to the outfit.

Gotchas? The mobile phone model requires a pretty high hardware refresh rate, and if the auto makers are to be kept in the game they're going to want people to be moving up every few years. Cheaper cars, which the electric ones could effectively be, would also tend to induce people to refresh more often, so there are recycling issues to be addressed, and the carbon costs of manufacturing to be factored in. It's green without pain, but maybe when the maths is done it'll turn out less green than you might think, and maybe you end up with even more cars on the roads.

And where does the electricity come from? How green is that? That's not Agassi's department, but it could be a big boost for Professor David Faiman of Ben-Gurion University, who has a cunning plan involving the Negev desert, huge mirrors and solar energy. He was also at DLD, so more on this later in the week.

Source: The Register

The Guardian publishes the biofuels report they didn't want you to read

Seventeen pages of graphs, footnotes and economic modelling; oh, and another couple of pages of bibliography. Hardly the stuff to get the pulse racing, you might think.

But in the week since the Guardian exclusively revealed the contents of the World Bank's draft internal report on the link between biofuels and food prices, its findings have been reported in newspapers, blog and broadcast media from Durban to Delhi.

What's caused all the fuss? Well, the World Bank report argues that the drive for biofuels by American and European governments has pushed up food prices by 75%. That is in stark contrast with the White House's claims that using crops for fuel, rather than food, has only pushed prices up by 2-3%.

All the other factors discussed - rising demand for food from China and India, back-to-back droughts in Australia - are, the report says, marginal:

Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate.

The implication of this report, then, is that crop-derived fuels have been the ultimate cause of food riots, starvation and high prices around the world. And it is not an anti-biofuels campaigner who arrived at that conclusion, but an internationally respected World Bank economist with three decades' experience in tracking commodity markets.

This is controversial stuff. It was certainly too controversial for the World Bank to publish when the report was completed back in April.

One source told me the study had gone all the way up to Robert Zoellick, the head of the World Bank, but was not published because "it was too hot for the Bank to handle".

Prompted by the Guardian's report, the Bank may now push the report out - although it may not be in quite this form. We'd rather you saw the original, which is why we're publishing it today, here: PDF of World Bank biofuels report.

Source: The Guardian

FSB Report on the Israeli Soldier Death

The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) is reporting to Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev today that France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy ‘narrowly escaped’ an assassination attempt during his departure from Israel's Ben-Gurion airport [top photo left] in an attack which left one French Security Officer and one Israeli policeman dead.

To the ‘sanitized’ Western propaganda reports being given to their peoples on this attempt against the French President’s life we can read as reported by Israel’s Ynet News Service:

“The incident caused a scare during the ceremony, prompting body guards to rush VIPs away from the area. The armored cars of President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were rushed to the ceremony site, and the two were taken away from the area.

Meanwhile, the French president was taken into his airplane, which was waiting on the runway, by his own bodyguards. After the circumstances of the incident became clear, the bodyguards allowed Peres and Olmert to board the plane and bid Sarkozy farewell.”

Russian Security Analysts are also stating that this ‘first version’ of the Western propaganda media reports, that an Israeli Border Policeman ‘committed suicide’ during President Sarkozy’s farewell ceremony, is ‘ludicrous’ to explain away this assassination attempt as only the most vetted Israeli policeman are allowed near foreign heads of state by Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (Mossad).

These reports further point out that Israel’s Prime Minister Olmert had just this past week extended the term of Mossad director Meir Dagan’s for another year due to Dagan’s ‘extreme’ anger towards the French Leader for his Nations mending relations with both Lebanon and Syria, both of which were former protectorates of Colonial France.

Israeli right wing extremist ‘anger’ against President Sarkozy turned to ‘hatred’, these reports continue, after Sarkozy’s earlier address to Israel’s Knesset stating that Jerusalem must be divided, and as we can read as reported by the Washington Post News Service:

“French President Nicolas Sarkozy told the Israeli parliament Monday that there could be no Middle East peace unless Israel drops its refusal to cede sovereignty over parts of Jerusalem claimed by the Palestinians, challenging one of Israel's most emotionally held positions.”

Further fueling Israel’s anger against President Sarkozy was his demand for the Israelis to immediately halt their building of settlements on Palestinian land and France’s latest rush to provide its Arab Allies with nuclear power, including United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Morocco.

Russian Military Analysts point out that the right wing factions of the Israeli government would feel ‘fully justified’ in the killing of President Sarkozy as he is himself of Jewish background (and had lost 57 family members to the German Nazis) and under Israel’s laws is a citizen of Israel, and by his negotiation with Israel’s enemies in the Arab World also under these laws, is a traitor.

It should be further noted that Israel’s fanatic right wing forces have used assassinations in the past to protect their homeland, including the 1995 killing of Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by the orthodox Jew Yigal Amir for Rabin having negotiated the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians.

Source: John Burke's Society

OUR COMMENT: President Sarkosy is one of the MOST dangerous person's on the world scene today, he is pushing the European project more than any other person, arming the enemies of Israel and is a "traitor" nor does he regard the God of His Fathers. He certainly is one person to watch on the world scene.

Is Europe Repainting Its Nazi Past?

Europe's soccer games have long been the preserve of boisterous fans, drunken brawls and riots. Lately, they have also become the province of anti-Semites and neo-Nazis who comfortably spew hateful epithets in the anonymity of crowded stadiums where they enjoy a troubling measure of support.

In recent years, soccer crowds have gone so far as to simulate the hissing of Nazi gas chambers, pairing the sound with Nazi salutes. In Belgium, Muslim fans at a soccer match between Israel and Belgium shouted "Jews to the gas chambers" and "strangle the Jews," while waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags. Freed from the restraints of acceptable behavior, with inhibitions loosened by alcohol consumption and the intense camaraderie of team spirit, soccer fans freely unleash anti-Semitic slurs with abandon and without fear of retribution.

This alarming behavior prompts questions as to whether anti-Semitism is becoming acceptable again in a Europe that has forgotten its Nazi past, and whether guilt has been supplanted by denial. Is the era of Nazism being re-examined and re-framed in a more positive light that contributes to such gratuitous and ugly outbursts?

Two recent disturbing incidents appear to support this idea, raising legitimate concerns that Europe is indeed repainting its Nazi past. The first incident occurred on June 16 during the televised, Euro 2008 soccer match between Germany and Austria. The words to the nationalistic first stanza of Deutschland Uber Alles, usually avoided since the fall of the Third Reich, were displayed in subtitles on Swiss television.

    Germany, Germany above everything,
    Above everything in the world,
    When it always for protection and defense,
    Brotherly sticks together.
    From the Meuse to the Neman
    From the Adige to the Belt.

Responding to the controversy generated by the broadcast, SRG, the Swiss company that televised the offensive lyrics, claimed that the editors who were responsible for subtitling for the match made an innocent mistake as a result of stress and poor research. The national coordinator for subtitling, Gion Linder apologetically stated, "We are going to hold a special history lesson for all German-speaking staff to explain the issues surrounding the national anthem."

Also at the Euro 2008, the No. 4 designee on the list of most-wanted Nazi war criminals and on Interpol's Most Wanted list cheered the team from his native Croatia at the European Championship in southern Austria. Milivoj Asner, the 95-year-old former police chief and Gestapo agent who sent hundreds of Jews, Serbs and Gypsies to their deaths, lives openly in Klagenfurt, Austria, under an assumed name, although his real identity and his Nazi-affiliated past is known and in some cases, admired by locals.

Former Austrian Freedom Party leader Joerg Haider, whose party was accused of supporting an anti-Semitic platform, refers to Asner as a "treasured" neighbor and told Der Standard, the Austrian daily newspaper, "He's lived peacefully among us for years, and he should be able to live out the twilight of his life with us."

Shielding Asner from justice, the Austrian government has resisted efforts to prosecute him. When Croatia demanded his extradition in 2005, Austria initially claimed that Asner was an Austrian citizen and was thereby exempt from extradition proceedings. Later admitting that he lacked Austrian citizenship, the authorities insisted that Asner was too ill to stand trial. Recently, the Austrian government informed a group of Jewish Nazi hunters that Asner was "not capable enough to be questioned or go before a court." Yet, a fit, confident Asner was recently filmed on a three-hour outing, strolling about town, attending a soccer match and visiting local cafes. 

Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the director of the Jerusalem-based, Simon Wiesenthal Center, which hunts Nazis and war criminals worldwide, exclaimed,

"Austria has long had a reputation as a paradise for war criminals and now they've been caught in the act. It is time for them to do what is right and help bring Nazi war criminals to justice. If this man is well enough to walk around town unaided and drink wine in bars, he's well enough to answer for his past."

Zuroff added, "This is clearly a reflection of the political atmosphere which exists in Austria and which in certain circles is extremely sympathetic to suspected Nazi war criminals."  

Ironically, in March, Austria assumed the chairmanship of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research. Clearly, by allowing a leading Nazi war crimes suspect to live freely in its midst, Austria demonstrates a poor commitment to Holocaust remembrance and derides the importance of seeking justice for its victims.

These two incidents, the posting of the lyrics to the Nazi anthem and the indifference to the presence of a wanted Nazi war criminal, indicate that Europeans may be beginning to rethink their Nazi past and view it in a more acceptable light. To nonchalantly dismiss the seriousness of the "mistaken" subtitles as job stress and ignorance and to shield a former member of the Gestapo from prosecution, indicates fading memories of the Nazi-era atrocities and, more seriously, a refusal to admit Europe's complicity in the greatest crime against humanity in modern times.

These incidents are not isolated. They occurred against a background of steadily increasing anti-Semitism in Europe since 1990, according to multiple country surveys conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In 2002, the ADL found that 1 in 5 Europeans harbor strong anti-Semitic views and that 49% of those surveyed believe that Jews talk too much about the Holocaust.

In Europe, comparisons are often made between Israelis and Israeli soldiers and Nazis and the SS. These simplistic comparisons ignore the basic reality that that Israelis are fighting suicide bombers and rocket barrages in a defensive war against annihilation and the Holocaust was a premeditated genocide against an entire religious group. The insistence that Israel's current struggle to survive is on a par with the inhumanity of the Holocaust is a blatant distortion. It is fueled by an undercurrent of Jew hatred.

It has also become commonplace in Europe to hear the Holocaust downplayed as an atrocity and equated instead with current racist attitudes. This, in effect, softens the immensity and horror of the Holocaust. It becomes recast as merely a social gaffe that only occasionally is carried to extremes by small groups, rather than its reality as a systematic, mass extermination. Such soft-pedaling of the Holocaust helps engender and legitimize anti-Semitism and should be a grave cause for concern for the future of European Jewry.  

Despite philosopher George Santayana's well-known warning - "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - Europe appears today stubbornly headed down the road to forgetting its past. This bodes poorly for the future of Jews on the continent and has chilling implications for all of us worldwide.

Source: American Thinker

June 2008

UK considers RFID tags for prisoners

The UK government is considering implanting prisoners with RFID tags containing data on identity, address and criminal record.

The RFID tags, about the size of two grains of rice, would be injected under the skin and could be scanned by a reader.

There are also proposals to link the RFID tags to a larger GPS device to monitor the location of high risk prisoners.

"We have wanted to take advantage of this technology for several years because it seems a sensible solution to the problems we are facing in this area, " a senior minister told the Independent on Sunday.

"We have looked at it and gone back to it and worried about the practicalities and the ethics. But, when you look at the challenges facing the criminal justice system, its time has come."

The Ministry of Justice has confirmed that it is considering the proposal as part of plans to modernise the prison system.

Human rights groups have pounced on the proposal, however, describing it as "degrading".

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: "If the Home Office does not understand why implanting a chip in someone is worse than an ankle bracelet, they do not need a human-rights lawyer they need a common-sense bypass.

"Degrading offenders in this way will do nothing for their rehabilitation and nothing for our safety, as some will inevitably find a way round this new technology."

The RFID proposals are designed to address problems with the existing tagging system which uses a transmitter strapped to the ankle.

Over 2,000 of the 17,000 offenders fitted with the ankle tags have escaped by tampering with, or simply cutting off, the device.

Curfew breaches for the past two years are up 283 per cent, and further development of the system has been halted until these problems can be sorted out.
Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, stated that the RFID proposal would be unhelpful.

"This is the sort of daft idea that comes up from the department every now and then, but tagging people in the same way we tag our pets cannot be the way ahead," he said.

"Treating people like pieces of meat does not seem to represent an improvement in the system, which works well enough as it is.

"Knowing where offenders like paedophiles are does not mean you know what they are doing."

The UK has been moving faster than most in the use of RFID, including plans to tag exam papers.

Similar schemes in the US have been banned, and there are fears about the health risks and security of RFID implants.

Source: Computer Active

Met Police officers to be 'microchipped' by top brass in Big Brother style tracking scheme

Every single Metropolitan police officer will be 'microchipped' so top brass can monitor their movements on a Big Brother style tracking scheme, it can be revealed today.

According to respected industry magazine Police Review, the plan - which affects all 31,000 serving officers in the Met, including Sir Ian Blair - is set to replace the unreliable Airwave radio system currently used to help monitor officer's movements.

The new electronic tracking device - called the Automated Personal Location System (APLS) - means that officers will never be out of range of supervising officers.

But many serving officers fear being turned into "Robocops" - controlled by bosses who have not been out on the beat in years.

According to service providers Telent, the new technology 'will enable operators in the Service's operations centres to identify the location of each police officer' at any time they are on duty - whether overground or underground.

Although police chiefs say the new technology is about 'improving officer safety' and reacting to incidents more quickly, many rank and file believe it is just a Big Brother style system to keep tabs on them and make sure they don't 'doze off on duty'.

Some officers are concerned that the system - which will be able to pinpoint any of the 31,000 officers in the Met to within a few feet of their location - will put a complete end to community policing and leave officers purely at the beck and call of control room staff rather than reacting to members of the public on the ground.

Pete Smyth, chairman of the Met Police Federation, said: "This could be very good for officers' safety but it could also involve an element of Big Brother.

"We need to look at it very carefully."

Other officers, however, were more scathing, saying the new system - set to be implemented within the next few weeks - will turn them into 'Robocops' simply obeying instructions from above rather than using their own judgement.

One officer, working in Peckham, south London, said: "They are keeping the exact workings of the system very hush-hush at the moment - although it will be similar to the way criminals are electronically tagged. There will not be any choice about wearing one.

"We depend on our own ability and local knowledge to react to situations accordingly.

"Obviously we need the back up and information from control, but a lot of us feel that we will simply be used as machines, or robots, to do what we are told with little or no chance to put in anything ourselves."

He added: "Most of us joined up so we could apply the law and think for ourselves, but if Sarge knows where we are every second of the day it just makes it difficult."

Another officer, who did not want to be named, said: "A lot of my time is spent speaking to people in cafes, parks or just wherever I'm approached. If I feel I've got my chief breathing down my neck to make another arrest I won't feel I'm doing my job properly."

The system is one of the largest of its kind in the world, according to Telent, the company behind the technology, although neither the Met nor Telent would provide Police Review with any more information about exactly how the system will work or what sort of devices officers will wear.

Nigel Lee, a workstream manager at the Met, said: "Safety is a primary concern for all police forces.

"The area served by our force covers 620 miles and knowing the location of our officers means that not only can we provision resource more quickly, but should an officer need assistance, we can get to them even more quickly."

Forces currently have the facility to track all their officers through GPS devices on their Airwave radio headsets, but this is subject to headsets being up to date and forces buying the back office systems to accompany them, according to Airwave.

Steve Rands, health and safety head for the Met Police Federation, told Police Review: "This is so that we know where officers are. Let us say that when voice distortion or sound quality over the radio is lost, if you cannot hear where that officer telling you where he is, you can still pinpoint his exact position by global positioning system.

"If he needs help but you cannot hear him for whatever reason, APLS will say where he is."

Source: Daily Mail

Householders fury over 'Big Brother' council plan to enter 2,000 properties for 'statistical survey'

A Town Hall scheme to 'inspect' the inside and outside of thousands of private homes was condemned yesterday as a 'tax raising snooper's charter'.

Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council has written to 2,000 homeowners asking permission to enter properties to assess the condition of homes as part of a general 'statistical survey.'

But suspicious residents believe the 'inspections' represent the latest intrusion of privacy in an increasingly 'Big Brother' state and could be a method to raise council tax bands.

Nationwide, officials have already been condemned for putting microchips in wheelie bins to monitor family rubbish and boosting the number of traffic cameras to raise revenue.

One council even recently used laws intended for anti-terrorist surveillance to spy on a family who were wrongly accused of lying on a school application form.

The local authority in Doncaster claims its home inspection plan will help to improve housing in the South Yorkshire town - but refused to explain how.

An Edinburgh-based firm of chartered surveyors has been appointed to carry out the 10-week review which will include an internal and external property inspection of each home selected.

All rooms inside will be viewed and the council promises 'this will not involve any disruption to your home or contents.'

Homeowners are to be asked 'general details' about themselves, their household, any concerns about their home and the local environment.

Property landlord Lewis Frame, 59, who lives in a six-year-old four-bedroom semi-detached home in Bessacarr, Doncaster said: "My immediate thought when I received the letter was that it was a scam by a shady company wanting to gain access to properties.

"I couldn't believe it came from the council. Why they can't assess the local housing situation through their own housing stock is beyond me.

"Why do they need to gain access to a new house like mine? If any officials come to my door they will be told in no uncertain terms where to go.

"The council has dropped a clanger and they should tell us the real reason behind this so-called survey or otherwise people will think something devious is going on."

Retired civil servant John Overton, 70, who lives with his wife Susan at Barnby Dun, Doncaster also received a letter and fears it is an attempt to boost tax.

He said: "I am quite happy with my home and I do not want anyone coming round. It is a snooper's charter. Doncaster Council is strapped for cash and all they are after is your money.

"The last thing I want is a rate increase especially when the rates are going up but the services are going down.'

The Labour-run council promised in the letters all information will be used for 'strategic statistical purposes' only.

But Councillor Garth Oxby, leader of the Alliance of Independent Members said: "The council is intruding into our lives at every possible opportunity and are checking up on people more and more and there are more restrictions than ever.

"It really is frightening. We really are going over the top here and this is in addition to all the surveillance cameras around the town.

"It is very worrying. I believe it is not a move to check on housing but part and parcel of a move to increase council tax throughout the borough."

Doncaster Council was reluctant to talk about the "Big Brother" claims yesterday but said it was a voluntary Government initiative.

Peter Dale, the council's acting managing director said: "Surveying houses is normal practice and all councils are required by the Government to carry out this type of work every five years.

"We have brought in additional support to help us speed up and improve housing conditions in Doncaster."

Last year it was revealed that state officials have 266 separate powers to enter a person's home.

The Centre for Policy Studies said officials could enter a property to carry out a fact-finding mission for landmines, search for material or tools related to nuclear explosions, measure rooms to regulate overcrowding or check for unlicensed scrap metal dealing.

The research also highlighted the power to enter a home to check for the presence of foreign bees, prevent signalling to smugglers, survey the seal population and cull seals, check the legality of imported plants, check for any offences related to stage hypnotism and to erect signs indicating a danger to aircraft.

In October Gordon Brown promised to scale back these 'piecemeal' powers to protect civil liberties.

Source: Daily Mail

Council used terror law to spy on fishermen

A council that used controversial powers to spy on a family to check whether they were living in the correct school catchment area has done the same to keep an eye on local fishermen, it emerged yesterday.

Poole borough council is using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) - a law brought in to combat terrorism and cyber crime - to scrutinise people gathering shellfish.

The Dorset harbour has valuable populations of cockles, oysters, mussels and clams. Officials used the controversial law to make sure stocks were not being harmed or taken from banned areas.

Human rights campaigners said the revelations, which the council released under the Freedom of Information Act, illustrated why the Ripa law should be reformed.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: "You do not use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. You can care about serious crime and terrorism without throwing away our personal privacy.

"The law must be reformed to require 'sign-off' by judges, not self-authorisation by over-zealous bureaucrats."

Last month the council admitted spying on a family to check they were living in the correct school catchment area. Jenny Paton, 39, Tim Joyce, 37, and their three daughters had their movements scrutinised and timed by an undercover official.

A detailed log of the family's activities was kept with statements including "curtains open and all lights on in premises", but no action was taken against them.

Since then it has emerged that councils are using the powers for a variety of offences, such as littering or dogs fouling pavements.

Some local authorities have used the act more than 100 times in the last 12 months to conduct surveillance, mainly against people suspected of being linked to rogue trading, benefit fraud and antisocial behaviour involving criminal damage.

Poole and other councils have argued that the act is not simply intended to target very serious criminals and terrorists.

According to the Home Office, the act "legislates for using methods of surveillance and information gathering to help the prevention of crime, including terrorism".

Poole said it had used the act 17 times since 2005. In March of that year, it used the law to "ascertain which person caused damage to a barrier". In September 2006, Poole used it again to "identify persons continually vandalising door entry systems to ground floor flats".

In addition, the council used the powers to try to find out who was stealing from a tip and to monitor a property from which it thought drugs were being dealt.

On four occasions the powers were used to see if fishermen were gathering shellfish from a prohibited area in Poole harbour.

Council officials have said the surveillance lasted on average for two weeks for the purpose of "preventing or detecting crime or for preventing disorder".

Tim Martin, head of legal and democratic services at the council, said: "Illegal shellfish dredging can cause harm to the conservation of stocks in the harbour and could also lead to a potentially serious public health risk if illegally fished stock is not fit for consumption."

Source: The Guardian

Police Snap Children During Stop & Search

Scotland Yard has admitted its officers have been photographing children who are stopped and searched even after they have been found to be innocent.

Police in Lambeth, south London, claim the tactic helps fight street crime and insist the pictures are kept on a database only for intelligence-gathering purposes. But the civil rights group Liberty has condemned the measure, and a leading community group working with the police has described the tactic as "sinister".

On Wednesday, police announced the temporary suspension of the tactic after meeting with the community police consultative group for Lambeth.

Last week, Sandra Moodie told how her son Jordan had been stopped and searched by plainclothes officers on his way home from school. They found he was carrying only school books, but took his picture.

Critics claim it marks the return of a new form of the "sus" law. James Welch, the legal director of Liberty, said: "The police don't have carte blanche to do anything that they think will help prevent crime; they have obligations under the Human Rights Act and the Data Protection Act."

In a statement, the police said: "The [Met] has, since 1998, employed the tactic of overtly photographing or filming persons in the street as a way of preventing offences, gathering evidence and intelligence and identifying offenders."

Source: The Guardian

Big Brother Cameras in Planes -

In-flight surveillance could foil terrorists in the sky

CCTV cameras are bringing more and more public places under surveillance – and passenger aircraft could be next.

A prototype European system uses multiple cameras and "Big Brother" software to try and automatically detect terrorists or other dangers caused by passengers.

The European Union's Security of Aircraft in the Future European Environment (SAFEE) project uses a camera in every passenger's seat, with six wide-angle cameras to survey the aisles. Software then analyses the footage to detect developing terrorist activity or "air-rage" incidents, by tracking passengers' facial expressions.

The system performed well in tests this January that simulated terrorist and unruly passenger behaviour scenarios in a fake Airbus A380 fuselage, say the researchers that built it.

Systems to analyse CCTV footage – for example, to detect violence (with video) or alert CCTV operators to unusual events – have been designed before. But the SAFEE software must cope with the particularly challenging environment of a full aircraft cabin.

Threat indicators

As crew and passengers move around they often obscure one another, causing a risk the computer will lose track of some of the hundreds of people it must monitor. To get around this, the software constantly matches views of people from different cameras to track their movements.

"It looks for running in the cabin, standing near the cockpit for long periods of time, and other predetermined indicators that suggest a developing threat," says James Ferryman of the University of Reading, UK, one of the system's developers.

Other behaviours could include a person nervously touching their face, or sweating excessively. One such behaviour won't trigger the system to alert the crew, only certain combinations of them.

Ferryman is not ready to reveal specifically which behaviours were most likely to trigger the system. Much of the computer's ability to detect threats relies on sensitive information gleaned from security analysts in the intelligence community, he tells New Scientist.

Losing track

But Mohan Trivedi of the University of California, San Diego, US, is sceptical. He has built systems that he says can track and recognise individual people as they appear and disappear on different floors of his laboratory building.

It correctly identifies people about 70% of the time, and then only under "optimal conditions" that do not exist inside an airplane cabin, he says.

"[Ferryman's] research shows that a system detects threats in a very limited way. But it's a very different thing using it day in and day out." Trivedi says. "Lighting and reflections change in the cabin every time someone turns on a light or closes a window shade. They haven't shown that they have overcome these challenges."

Ferryman admits that his system will require thousands of tests on everyday passengers before it can be declared reliable at detecting threats.

The team's work is being presented this week at the International Conference on Computer Vision Systems in Greece.

Source: NewScientistTech

Pensioners seized by Heathrow police - over 'inflammatory' protest T-shirts

Three pensioners were questioned and escorted from Heathrow after police decided the Stop Airport Expansion slogan on their T-shirts was ‘inflammatory’.

Mike Lacey, John Wilding and his wife Tessa were stopped as they tried to join a demonstration against plans for a third runway.

Police took their names, addresses and descriptions and followed them out of a bus terminal, warning they would be arrested if they returned within 24 hours.

Now the three have written to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, accusing the officers of harassment and abuse of their ‘stop and search’ powers.

They were stopped despite police knowing that a demonstration against the extra runway was taking place nearby.

Mr Lacey, a 71-year-old grandfather who used to work for Christian Aid,  Dr Wilding, also 71 – a retired academic and emeritus reader in psychology at the University of London – and his English teacher wife Tessa, 60, live in Slough, which will be badly affected by noise and pollution if the runway is built.

They were on their way to join a march to the village of Sipson, which is likely to be flattened if the runway goes ahead.

As they walked into the main bus terminal at Heathrow to catch a connecting service, they were stopped by five Met Police officers who accused them of breaching airport bylaws.

In a ‘stop and search form’ officers wrote that Mr Lacey was questioned because he had been ‘seen in the bus terminal wearing inflammatory clothes’.

Mr Lacey said: ‘The process took half an hour and the police were unable to give any justification for their behaviour.

‘When we asked why we had been stopped, they said the bus station was private property and only airline passengers and people meeting flights were allowed to use it.

'If that is the case, thousands of people broke the law that day.’

Dr Wilding said: ‘Their manner was overbearing and arrogant. My wife in particular felt intimidated.

'I have no doubt we were singled out because of our T-shirts.’

The protest on May 31 attracted 3,000 demonstrators.

Scotland Yard said a 1996 bylaw enabled police to stop people and ask them to explain what they were doing at the airport, as it was private property.

A spokeswoman added: ‘Three people were stopped and asked to account for their presence. They were not searched. The officers correctly interpreted the bylaws.’

Source: Daily Mail

Jersey: Now They Can Lock You Up Indefinately!

By Andy Sibcy

THE Home Affairs Minister has sent shock waves through the legal profession by authorising the indefinite detention of suspects without charge.

On 5 June, Senator Wendy Kinnard amended the criminal code that had limited pre-charge detention to 36 hours.

She did so under delegated powers enjoyed by the minister under the terms of the Police Procedures and Criminal Evidence (Jersey) Law.

However, that same law states that before such changes to codes are made, the minister is required to publish a draft of the changes and consult interested parties. She did neither of these things – a failure that has left the Island’s criminal lawyers stunned.

The new code came into force on Thursday, but no statement was released to either the media or the legal profession.

Source: This is Jersey

The Environmental Nazi's Suggests:

Having large families ‘is an eco-crime’

HAVING large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a 4x4 car and failing to reuse plastic bags, according to a report to be published tomorrow by a green think tank.

The paper by the Optimum Population Trust (OPT) will say that if couples had two children instead of three they could cut their family’s carbon dioxide output by the equivalent of 620 return flights a year between London and New York.

John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning at University College London, said: “The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights. An extra child is the equivalent of a lot of flights across the planet.

“The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child.”

In his latest comments the academic says that when couples are planning a family they should be encouraged to think about the environmental consequences. “The decision to have children should be seen as a very big one and one that should take the environment into account,” he added.

Guillebaud says that, as a general guideline, couples should produce no more than two offspring.

The world’s population is expected to increase by 2.5 billion to 9.2 billion by 2050. Almost all the population growth will take place in developing countries. The population of developed nations is expected to remain unchanged and would have declined but for migration.

The British fertility rate is 1.7. The EU average is 1.5. In some countries, such as France, the government is so concerned it has introduced financial incentives for women to have more than two children.

Despite this, Guillebaud says rich countries should be the most concerned about family size as their children have higher per capita carbon dioxide emissions.

The suggestion has been criticised by family rights campaigners. Eileen McCloy, a geography graduate from Glasgow with 10 children, said: “How dare they suggest how many children we should have. Who do they think are going to look after our elderly?

“According to this I would have five couples’ quota of children. I believe my children will be productive members of society.”

For more on the environment, read the Eco-Worrier blog

Tough Times Ahead--The Dollar Will Crash!

If you are struggling now, you haven't seen anything yet! The American Dollar is on its way out! It will be replaced by the Amero, the currency of the North American Alliance. For more information about the amero currency go to this website. To find out more about the North American Union go to the protestor website. The world is already divided up into ten regions by the Club of Rome. The European Union and North American Alliance are two divisions which will be used to take away power from individual nations under its authority! It is time we wake up, we are already under a socialist power!

The American dollar is practically bankrupt these days and the bankers are doing everything possible to delay it from happening. America will eventually fall taking its currency with it--this will have major implications on the rest of the world. The balance of power is moving from west to east.

Peter Schiff from goldseek.com writes: "The reality is that after years of reckless consumption and dollar debasement, Americans are now being priced out of markets over which they formerly held unchallenged title. As more affluent foreigners consume more of the resources and products they previously supplied to us, Americans are being forced to cut back. The rising dollar-based price of gasoline is simply an illustration of this global trend ... The surge in global demand is both a function of the increased purchasing power of foreign currencies and the fact that foreigners are choosing to spend more of their incomes themselves. In other words Greenspan’s famous “global savings glut” is turning into a global consumption binge, with Americans unable to crash the party.  This trend will only get worse as the dollar-denominated price of just about everything that is either imported, or capable of being exported, goes through the roof."

The days of a free lunch are over. The days of cheap food, comodities, two or three holidays a year, petrol guzzling vehicles will come to an end. Already those in the media are conditioning us to accept the new reality. Endless news reports informing us of the global crisis, informing us that these things will continue for a long time yet!

These are some of the resources out there that talks about the tough times ahead!

The Retirement Myth by Craig Karpel (May be out of print but try and find a copy)

When Governments Print Money, Buy Gold

The Coming Economic Collapse

My Space Secrets

Ron Paul on Economic Collapse

Gold Silver Videos

Global Economic Collapse

Shadow Government Statistics

US Economy& Financial System Bankrupt - What Next? (Single Tree Films)

The Ultimate Dollar Collapse (McAlvany - Single Tree Films)

Better Way to Own Gold (McAlvany Financial Company)

May 2008

Filesharing law 'unworkable'

The Guardian

Any move by the government to introduce legislation that forces the UK's broadband providers to police the internet by clamping down on illegal sharing of copyrighted music and movies would be technologically unworkable and create a legal minefield, experts have warned.

In a wide ranging review of the UK's £60bn creative industry, culture secretary Andy Burnham this week called on internet service providers (ISPs) to come up with a workable plan to stop music and movie piracy, or the government will bring in its own laws next year.

The industry's trade body, the ISPA, has spent months in discussions with music and movie companies about ways of preventing illegal filesharing, but buoyed by recent success in France, the major record labels and Hollywood studios have lobbied the government hard for faster action.

One senior internet industry executive, who did not wish to be named, said this intensive political lobbying has "given the government a completely false idea of what is possible with current technology".

Legal experts, meanwhile, pointed out that if the government does opt for new legislation it will need not only to rip up parts of the current legislation and amend data protection laws, but its plans could fall foul of wider human rights laws that entitle people to a degree of privacy in their communications.

"The big issue, frankly, is the impossibility of the internet service providers getting in amongst it and monitoring what goes on on their networks," warned Alex Brown, internet law specialist at Simmons & Simmons.

"Technically speaking, it's near impossible to do. The sheer volume of traffic means it just cannot be done fast enough. And this is a technical problem, not a legal problem. What is going to stop people stealing content is not the law — these people already know it is illegal; what will stop people is a technical solution that adequately protects both people's rights and copyrighted material. But we do not have one."

The sheer scale of online piracy in the UK has been highlighted by new research from price comparison site Moneysupermarket.com today, which shows that nearly one in five British internet users admit to having illegally downloaded copyright material.

Rob Barnes, head of broadband and mobiles at moneysupermarket.com, said many internet users do not actually know that the content they are downloading is illegal when they access it.

"The government is trying to prevent this growing problem, but it's clear people are not always aware they have infringed on copyright law," he said. "Perhaps the government should focus on educating people on the penalties of copyright [violation], as well as what actually constitutes piracy."

Among the 26 commitments made by the government to help the creative industries is a pledge to "promote better understanding of the value and importance of intellectual property" through school education programmes. It also wants to increase the fine that magistrates can impose on "pirates" from its current limit of £5,000.

The music and film industries welcomed the government's backing in the fight against piracy, which they claim lost them £460m in 2006, but the government's Creative Britain: New Talents for the New Economy document provided little detail of how the ISPs are supposed to stop the online pirates.

The music labels and Hollywood studios, however, believe recent plans announced in France could provide a blueprint for the UK market. Last year French president Nicolas Sarkozy backed an industry proposal that would see the country's ISPs monitor all their traffic for illegal filesharing.

British internet technology experts, however, believe the lack of detail in the French proposal shows the sheer complexity — and expense — of any system that requires service providers to check out every bit of data that travels across their networks.

Data traversing the internet is split into "packets", around which is wrapped information about where that piece of information is going. Like the address on an envelope, that data can easily be read, and initially it provided information to suggest the contents of the packet might be illegally copied copyrighted material. But peer-to-peer filesharing technology has evolved and now merely reading the so-called "packet header" will give no clue as to what's inside.

Inspecting the actual contents of the packet is much more difficult. It is also currently illegal. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) the UK's ISPs are not allowed to inspect the contents of packets without proper authority and only when such action is necessary and proportionate in the context of the issue being investigated.

These powers are used by the police to intercept and copy email and other traffic in terrorism investigations. Legal experts doubt that snooping on everyone's internet traffic just to protect the commercial interests of the music and film industries would be allowed under the current legislation. In addition, the police do not translate their intercepted material in "real time", as would be necessary in any UK-wide piracy clampdown.

Experts also warn that even if the technology evolved to make real-time, so-called "deep packet" monitoring — or "sniffing" — easy and cheap to do, the serious filesharers would simply start encrypting their content. As a result, only first-time or inexperienced filesharers would end up being caught.

Already there are several programs that use the popular bittorrent filesharing technology — such as Azureus, which can encrypt files so they are harder to spot.

One suggestion mooted by the music and film industry is for the ISPs to flag up as potential filesharers any customer with high data usage. But the booming popularity of legitimate broadband TV services such as the BBC's iPlayer and ITV.com, as well as the arrival of downloadable film rental services from sites such as Amazon, means that being a heavy consumer of bandwidth will increasingly be no indication of wrongdoing.

One voluntary way of dealing with major filesharers might be for the ISPs to prevent their users accessing the "tracker" websites that help filesharers set up the peer-to-peer connections they need in order to swap content.

A similar voluntary system of website blocking already exists for sites known to contain child pornography. But such a blacklist of sites risks wiping out all trackers, some of which do not signpost copyrighted material.

Forcing the ISPs to start monitoring what their customers do also ends their legal protection as a so-called mere conduit, leaving them open to lawsuits if they cut off a user who has not been doing anything illegal.

The ISPA warned today that any forced monitoring of internet traffic could lead to the collapse of many of the country's smaller ISPs.

Getting a workable system in France is easier as the country has less than a dozen ISPs. In the UK there are more than 140, and if they have to start spending millions of pounds installing new equipment, many of the smaller players could go bust without support from the hugely profitable music and film industry.

"Internet service providers are not law enforcement officers," said a spokesman for the ISPA. "And rights holders such as film and music companies already secure their rights in other formats, so it's only right for an industry to help pay to protect its intellectual property."

A spokesman for the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform said: "We would of course prefer a voluntary solution and we are certainly not pretending it will be easy."

The government intends to consult the internet industry about possible steps it can take after Easter, but if the industry cannot come up with a solution then the government will look at legislative solutions in 2009.

ISPs Content Monitoring is Coming

Outlaw

The Government is said to be close to publishing plans for a new law that would force internet service providers (ISPs) to trawl their networks for file sharers and ban them from using their service.

The then-minister for intellectual property Lord Triesman said in January that such legislation would be brought in the autumn if ISPs and the music industry could not reach voluntary agreement. A leak to The Times newspaper has now revealed that plans for the new law will be made public next week.

The music industry, represented by the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), has recently called for ISPs to monitor their networks and take action against people who infringe their members' copyright.

File sharing of music and films without making any payment remains a growing problem and music industry sales continue to fall. U2 manager Paul McGuinness recently accused ISPs of profiting from the exploitation of artists' work.

The new proposal will mean that ISPs will be legally obliged to take action against people it knows are engaging in file sharing. The most likely recommendation, said The Times, is that ISPs will have to monitor subscribers' internet use and give them two chances before disconnection.

They will be emailed once, suspended a second time and then cut off completely if they do not change their file sharing behaviour.

An estimated six million people in the UK engaged in file sharing last year, and could risk being cut off from the internet under the plan.

Any solution to the problem will involve identifying who is and who is not file sharing, a difficult technical task which some claim is impossible.

Such action has been long-rumoured, and intellectual property lawyer Kim Walker of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, told OUT-LAW Radio last week that ISPs faced difficulties when contemplating a change in the law.

"The main risk is that if the ISP is trying to take technological measures to filter and identify infringing material then it loses its safe harbour defence," he said, referring to the fact that ISPs are mostly not liable for users' actions as long as they do not know about them.

"It is immediately giving itself actual knowledge that there is infringing material up there and I think that the ISPs feel that they are therefore opening themselves up to potential liability as infringers," said Walker.

The move has looked increasingly likely as international pressure has mounted. A Belgian court recently ordered ISP Scarlett to filter its traffic to stop file sharing. France will this summer trial a system by which ISPs will be forced to block users who are file sharing.

BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor said that the content industry had tried to reach agreement with ISPs, but that negotiations had broken down.

"We simply want ISPs to advise customers if their account is being used to distribute music illegally, and then, if the advice is ignored, enforce their own terms and conditions about abuse of the account," he said. "But despite some agreements in principle, the ISPs refuse to do this on any meaningful scale."

November 2007

Online Store

We will be revamping our online store next year bringing you a good selection of products from Israel. The online store will be called Little Jerusalem that will sell many popular Judaica products to the general public.

The online store will be redesigned using X-cart software (at a cost of £1,500) including customisation of the store to include a custom made logo, integration of payment types (paypal, google checkout, nochex) and being able to view the prices in the currency of choice.

From our research it seems to be the average price for our project after getting several quotations from various companies.

The online store is a way to make judaica available to the general public at affordable prices. It will help the BSAUK to raise necessary funds which is currently lacking at the moment.

Memberships will be available from next year when the online store becomes available in its new design. As part of a membership package we hope to offer the magazine Firstfruits of Zion as part of the membership. In addition a membership would mean a discount when buying products from the store.

There is enough demand for Judaica for us to sell it. We will continue to make the kosher list available. The list gives us an added advantage of attracting visitors to our store.

From January next year we will begin the process of designing the online store. It is anticipated that the design and customisation will be finished by the end of February. We hope at least by May/June that we would have acquired a good selection of Judaica products to sell. The online store should be open by June at the very latest.

The funds that we raise from Little Jerusalem will help us to pay for a complete re-design of this site, to purchase booklets on the Sabbath to make these available free to the general public again. We used to offer many booklets free of charge but we had so many foreign requests that the money dried up to the extent that we just couldn't afford to pay for the booklets.

The difficulty of the BSAUK has been to find a mechanism which can fund its operations without relying on donations. We believe the online store is just what we need to bring in sufficient money to help its work. ADS, part of BSAUK is the mechanism that is being used to fund the online store (Little Jerusalem). Our policy is to create organisations as a means to fund our operations. We believe this is the most effective business model to adopt when financing BSAUK.

We are also anticipating some Sabbatarians might face legal penalties if they refuse on the grounds of religious conscience not to participate in the national ID scheme, or the DNA database. Funds must be available to help any members that refuse with any legal challenges.

BSAUK would also like to have a scheme going where the "poor" are looked after. We would like to help those people who are in desparate physical need in the Sabbatarian community.

We will help anybody who keeps Torah, whether Jew, Gentile, or Messianic(with or without a faith in Yeshua) it does not matter to us. But of course we need the funds to do this. So I hope many of our visitors will support us in our efforts.

Channukah

Hope you all have a good season, for those who celebrate channukah (like myself) enjoy the festivities. Searching through all the Judaica shops I have been able to pick up some very nice candles (my particular favourite is the Jacob Rosenthal channukah candles). At it only costed me £8 including shipping costs from the USA. With the exchange rate the way it is, the crazy thing is that buying from the USA is now cheaper than buying things in this country. Anyway I did pick up some other candles from UK Judaica shops as I like to support them as much as possible.

Channukah starts on the 5th December to the 12th. Each night a candle is lit in the menorah until on the 8th night, all the candles are lit.

Hanukkah is the annual Jewish festival celebrated on eight successive days beginning on the 25th day of Kislev, the third month of the Jewish calendar, corresponding, approximately, to December in the Gregorian calendar. It is also known as the Festival of Lights, Feast of Dedication, and Feast of the Maccabees, Hanukkah commemorates the rededication of the Temple of Jerusalem by Judas Maccabee in 165 BC after the Temple had been profaned by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, king of Syria and overlord of Palestine.

Hanukkah, marks the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem after its desecration by the forces of Antiochus IV and commemorates the "miracle of the container of oil." According to the Talmud, at the re-dedication following the victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Empire, there was only enough consecrated olive oil to fuel the eternal flame in the Temple for one day. Miraculously, the oil burned for eight days, which was the length of time it took to press, prepare and consecrate fresh olive oil.

Jesus observed Channukah following the Jewish tradition. "And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the Temple in Solomon's porch" (John 10:22). Unfortunately many of His followers have forgotten this most ancient custom and perhaps this year would be a good opportunity to re-discover the hebrew roots of our faith!

September 2007

Feast of Tabernacles

Most of us are slowly winding down in anticipation of the Feast of Tabernacles. It is the highlight of the year. Before we get to enjoy the feast, we have Trumpets and the Day of Atonement to celebrate first.

The important dates (based on the Hebrew calendar):

Feast of Trumpets - 13 September (Thursday)

Day of Atonement - 22 September (Saturday) (Fast day)

Feast of Tabernacles - 27 September (Thurs)- 3 October

Last Great Day - 4 October (Thursday)

There are going to be many festival sites around the UK organised by various churches and fellowship groups. For those people who want a list of Christian Festival of Tabernacle sites go to Festival of Tabernacles guide.

For me personally I will be going to Blackpool. The Conservative party conference will be there at the same time. And don't fear because I shall not be going to it. The BSAUK does not get involved in party politics nor do we campaign for political parties. Most of us do not vote nor get involved with politics. Our interests lies in perfecting ourselves in anticipation for the new world when Christ will return to this earth, establishing His government on the earth.The Feast of Tabernacles reminds us that we are only temporary in this life, so-journers and ambassadors for the kingdom of God. We look forward to the time when Christ has returned to this earth ushering in the millennium.

It is a joyous time of celebration. Escaping the horrors of this world for eight days, we forget the worries, the problems, the heart aches and everything associated with our every day lives. The days are spent learning about the millennium, the new world, our imaginations go wild with all manner of fantasy, we imagine what the earth will be like -- will it be an agricultural society again, how will technology fit in, will there be cars or horses-- the list is endless.

We look forward to the return of Jesus Christ. The festival reminds us that one day all nations will go up to Jerusalem to worship God and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. What a glorious future we have in front of us!

August 2007

Shopping list could make you 'a terror suspect'

By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels
Last Updated: 1:10am BST 09/04/2007

The European Union's privacy watchdog has given warning that new access for Europol to personal data could lead to individuals being labelled as terror suspects based on hearsay or records of their shopping habits.

The warning, from the head of the European Data Protection supervisor, comes amid moves to allow the EU police agency to process so-called "soft data" in search of relevant information for its criminal investigations.

Peter Hustinx said that moves to give Europol the power to gather intelligence on "people who have not (yet) committed a crime" are without privacy safeguards.

He told The Daily Telegraph: "The proposal does not specify what data could be used in criminal investigations. It could be everything. It could be a vital detail such as an insurance company about a stolen car. But it could also be soft data, behavioural data."

The information could include statements of hearsay given to a local police force or data on personal shopping habits from a supermarket loyalty card, he said.

Under the new Europol rules, expected to be agreed by governments later this year, people will be unable to find out what information is held on them unless all 27 EU police forces unanimously grant permission.

Sayed Kamall, the Conservative Euro-MP, shares the watchdog's fears and is concerned that "behavioural data" will lead to ethnic profiling.

"For example, someone who purchases kosher meat and never shops on the sabbath, or who buys halal meat but not alcohol, can easily be categorised and every purchase scrutinised, no matter how innocent it may be," he said.

Mr Hustinx, a Dutchman with decades of experience as a national privacy watchdog and data protection at the European level, is worried at the absence of proper safeguards to ensure the reliability of "soft data".

He said that individuals could easily be identified as suspects, giving the example of someone seen standing next to a terror suspect at a bus stop and becoming labelled "a facilitator for terrorism".

Max-Peter Ratzel, Europol's director, said that European law enforcers needed to update and extend the scope of intelligence gathering - which is unchanged since the EU police agency was set up in the early 1990s.

"Our databases are on organised or serious international crime so I would assume that ordinary citizens would not have any possibility of being there," he said.

UK: Terrorism Powers Should Not Be Used Against Heathrow Protesters

(London, August 15, 2007) – Human Rights Watch

The British authorities should not use terrorism powers against protesters at London’s Heathrow airport, Human Rights Watch said today. In a demonstration against global warming, hundreds of protesters have set up a tent camp next to the airport to pressure the government to halt the airport’s planned expansion.

“These are clearly political protesters, not terrorists, and the police should be using its regular powers to deal with them,” said Joanne Mariner, Human Rights Watch’s terrorism and counterterrorism director. “Any protesters responsible for disrupting flights or damaging property may be prosecuted, but powers granted under counterterrorism legislation should not be used against people simply engaging in public demonstrations.”  
 
On Saturday, The Guardian reported that a document produced by police at a court hearing relating to restrictions on the demonstration stated that the police would use their counterterrorism authority to deal with the Heathrow demonstrators. The document reportedly said: “Should individuals or small groups seek to take action outside of lawful protest they will be dealt with robustly using terrorism powers.”  
 
Under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which was specifically cited in the document, the police have the power to stop and search any vehicle or pedestrian if the police commander “considers it expedient for the prevention of acts of terrorism.” The controversial provision does not require that the police have reasonable grounds before stopping and searching an individual, and has been extensively used to police peaceful political protests.  
 
On Monday, protesters at Heathrow claimed that the police had already begun stopping and searching them under terrorism legislation.  
 
Although the international community has not agreed on a precise definition of terrorism, it is widely understood that the term applies only to the most serious crimes of political violence directed at instilling fear in the population in order to achieve a political goal. In the words of UN terrorism expert A.P. Schmid, terrorism is “the peacetime equivalent of a war crime.”  
 
The use of counterterrorism legislation against political protesters demonstrates how overly broad powers and laws such as those conferred in section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 are liable to be used as a matter of convenience or expedience against any form of political action or dissent, rather than against the narrow category of terrorist offenses that they should target.  
 
The police’s regular powers of arrest relating to breaches of public order, trespass and property damage are adequate to deal with such protests. Rather than inappropriately using powers granted to them under counterterrorism legislation, the police should rely on their regular policing powers.  
 
Human Rights Watch has previously criticized the El Salvadoran government for relying on counterterrorism legislation to prosecute political protesters.  

ID cards marked for fast rollout

9 August 2007

Treasury report will call for rapid take-up by citizens, say sources

Identity cards should be rolled out to citizens as quickly as possible, an influential Treasury-backed report will recommend to ministers this month.

Sir James Crosby's review of private sector uses of the proposed biometric ID scheme was due to be published with the Budget in March. According to insiders, the former HBOS chief executive's report will be circulated internally in the coming weeks and is to be published when Parliament reconvenes in early October.

'Probably the strongest theme will be a recommendation to establish a critical mass of cardholders very fast, to enable both public and private sectors to get the benefits of the scheme and start building ID checks into business models,' said a senior source.

The IT requirements have already been significantly scaled down. The plan no longer requires an entirely new National Identity Register but instead will reuse the governmentís existing Citizen Information System.

The Crosby report is expected to curb the scheme's high-tech ambitions even further.

'It will recognise that there are many ways for checking services to be used and a lot will be offline, without the need for a huge IT network infrastructure,' said the source.

Though the long-delayed technology procurement is expected imminently, the scheme is subject to continued accusations of confusion.

Officials on Crosby's Treasury team requested a meeting with industry body the Enterprise Privacy Group (EPG) at the end of last month to discuss the potential for private sector ID brokers.

Such a scheme would reduce the governmentís role to mandating and managing the biometric enrolment of citizens only. All subsequent use of the identity established would be run by one or more trusted third parties - such as a bank - as chosen by the individual.

'A broker system could achieve the same outcome but is potentially more civil-liberties friendly and has a much lower cost than the traditional monolithic, centralised approach,' said EPG director Toby Stevens.

The brokerage model is fundamentally different from that being pursued by the Home Office's Identity and Passport Service. But insiders say it is too early to draw any conclusions.

'The concept has not even been fully defined yet - we are only at the very start of debating if that is a direction we might want to go,' said a source.

source: Computing

Speeding drivers face DNA swabs under new Big Brother powers

2nd August 2007

Drivers stopped for speeding - or even for failing to wear a seatbelt - could soon be placed on the 'Big Brother' DNA database for life.

The most trivial offences, such as dropping litter, would also lead to samples being taken under sweeping new powers which police are demanding.

The samples would stay on the database, alongside those of murderers and rapists, even if the people involved were later cleared of any wrongdoing.

Campaigners condemned the plan as a step too far which could affect someone's job prospects for many years.

Under current rules, a person can have his or her DNA and fingerprints taken only if stopped for a 'recordable' offence - a crime serious enough to carry a jail term.

Minor offences such as allowing a dog to foul the footpath are excluded.

But police - backed by the Crown Prosecution Service - want to take DNA samples, fingerprints and even imprints of footwear for all offences.

They argue that, just because a person initially commits a low-level misdemeanour such as dog fouling, it does not mean they will not progress to the gravest crimes.

A chance to take their DNA - making any future crime far easier to solve - would be missed without new powers. Police also want to take samples - usually a mouth swab - at the scene of the "crime".

They say having to take offenders to the police station, as happens now, is too "bureaucratic".

The Home Office suggested the new powers to police in a consultation document earlier this year. Ministers are now under pressure to confirm the change.

There are already four million samples on the database - including those of a million suspects who turned out to be innocent.

Helen Wallace of GeneWatch UK said last night: 'There is significant potential for the loss of public trust in extending the taking and use of biometrics. They pose a serious threat to individual privacy and are unlikely to be an effective way to tackle crime.

"Any attempt to take DNA samples outside a police station is clearly unworkable."

Sonia Andrews of the Magistrates' Association said: 'We would find it difficult to justify extending the ability to take biometric data to cover nonrecordable offences.'

The Information Commissioner's Office warned of the danger of people being turned down for jobs if checks reveal details of minor offences committed many years ago.

Under the current system records of such offences are deleted after time. But if they are tagged to a DNA sample on the database they could remain 'active'.

But the idea is backed by police across the country, according to consultation responses published yesterday.

Inspector Thomas Huntley, of the Ministry of Defence Police, said failing to take samples 'could be seen as giving the impression that an individual who commits a nonrecordable offence could not be a repeat offender.

"While the increase of suspects on the database will lead to an increased cost, this should be considered as preferable to letting a serious offender walk from custody."

Pete Hutin, of Sussex Police, said the "taking of DNA samples in custody is unnecessarily bureaucratic".

David Evans, of the CPS, argued that the move would allow a 'more comprehensive database'.

The Home Office said: 'The DNA database has revolutionised the way the police can protect the public through identifying offenders and securing more convictions.

"The database provides police with, on average, over 3,500 matches each month and in 2005-6 alone led to matches against 422 homicides, 645 rapes, 1,974 other violent crimes and over 9,000 domestic burglaries.

"The consultation is about maximising police efficiency and ensuring that appropriate and effective safeguards are in place. No decisions have yet been made and any detailed proposals will be subject to a further public consultation next year."

The police demand was revealed as the Human Genetics Commission, the Government's independent DNA watchdog, launched an inquiry into the database. Panels across the country will gather evidence on public opinion.

source: Daily Mail (from the Home Office Watch Lib Dem blog)

ID cards 'could be a Big Brother tax trap'

14 August 2007

By Christopher Hope, Whitehall Editor

Identity cards could provide a back door for the taxman to snoop on people's affairs using a database of National Insurance numbers.

The card system will use an existing NI database to log details, potentially making it easier for tax inspectors to keep tabs. Officials had hoped to base ID cards on a National Identity Register but will instead use the Customer Information System run by the Department of Work and Pensions.

This holds the records of everyone with a NI number, sparking concerns that HM Revenue & Customs could track a person's personal life through their ID card, which must be produced whenever a proof of identity is required.

Guy Herbert, spokesman for the NO 2 ID campaign, said people would create an "audit trail" when they used their cards. This would be linked to their NI numbers.

"Of course ID cards are a tax-gathering tool," he said. "When the Home Office talks about 'preventing illegal working' it is getting you to think of illegal immigrants, but an employer 'verifying your status' with the National Identity Register will create an audit trail of precisely who employs whom."

Gareth Crossman, policy director at Liberty, added: "The Government sold us the ID card scheme under the guise of terror and crime protection, but the reality is that it has the potential for massive, unanticipated state access into our private lives."

Damian Green, the Conservatives' shadow immigration minister, said: "The public will be alarmed at this sinister Big Brother development."

The Government denied that the database would be used for tax enforcement. A spokesman said: "It is not connected to any plans for improved tax enforcement and the information held on NI records will not include any tax records whatsoever."

Grandma Got Run Over by a 'Hate-Crimes' Law

by Stephen Adams, associate editor

Next month Congress is expected to take up a ìhate-crimesî bill that would establish special protections for homosexuals.

So, what’s the big deal? Aren’t “hate-crimes” laws really just aimed at people who commit violent crimes and at extremists like Fred (“God Hates Fags”) Phelps?

No. They’re also designed to govern the speech, actions — even thoughts — of the general population. That’s me, you, your friends, neighbors — even your grandmother.

Just ask Philadelphia grandmothers Arlene Elshinnawy and Lynda Beckman.

Elshinnawy, 75, a grandmother of three, was holding a sign that said “Truth is hate to those who hate the truth” when she was arrested with Beckman, grandmother of 10, and nine other Christians on a downtown Philadelphia street in October 2004. This Repent America group, later dubbed the “Philadelphia 11,” was conducting a counterdemonstration near homosexual activists celebrating National Coming Out Day.

They spent the night in jail, but that wasn’t the worst part.

“When we were released and given this piece of paper — which were three felonies and five misdemeanors — if they had found us guilty of these things, it was worth 47 years in prison, plus a $90,000 fine for each of us,” Elshinnawy told an interviewer for the DVD Censoring the Church and Silencing Christians, produced by the Family Research Council and Coral Ridge Ministries.

The charges were dismissed a few months later, but not before some sleepless nights for the Philadelphia 11. Pennsylvania’s hate-crimes law is styled “ethnic intimidation.”

“In my case, pretty ironic that I would be charged with ‘ethnic intimidation,’ ” said Elshinnawy, who is black. “But since when does your sexual preference qualify you as making up an ethnic group?”

Also interviewed on Censoring the Church was Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

“Hate-crimes legislation is a bad idea on steroids,” Land said. "We should never allow the government to decide what is acceptable speech and what is unacceptable speech. We should penalize behaviors, not opinions and not speech. If you start trying to regulate speech and start trying to regulate thoughts, start trying to regulate beliefs rather than behaviors, there’s no way that you’re not going to abridge the constitutional rights of millions of Americans.”

Mats Tunehag, president of the Swedish Evangelical Alliance and spokesman on Religious Freedom for the World Evangelical Alliance, recently sparked major national debate when he published a critical article on hate-crimes laws in Sweden’s second-largest newspaper. He told CitizenLink that support for such laws is weakening in Europe.

“It may be helpful to remember that the messages of many biblical prophets – including Jesus’ message – were broadly perceived as offensive,” Tunehag wrote in his article. “… The ramifications [of hate-crimes laws] are huge, a threat not only to religious liberty but to democracy itself – and thus, to everyone.”

Source: Citizen Link

China Enacting a High-Tech Plan to Track People

By KEITH BRADSHER

SHENZHEN, China, Aug. 9 —At least 20,000 police surveillance cameras are being installed along streets here in southern China and will soon be guided by sophisticated computer software from an American-financed company to recognize automatically the faces of police suspects and detect unusual activity.

Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by the same company will be issued to most citizens.

Data on the chip will include not just the citizen’s name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord’s phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China’s controversial “one child” policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card.

Security experts describe China’s plans as the world’s largest effort to meld cutting-edge computer technology with police work to track the activities of a population and fight crime. But they say the technology can be used to violate civil rights.

The Chinese government has ordered all large cities to apply technology to police work and to issue high-tech residency cards to 150 million people who have moved to a city but not yet acquired permanent residency.

Both steps are officially aimed at fighting crime and developing better controls on an increasingly mobile population, including the nearly 10 million peasants who move to big cities each year. But they could also help the Communist Party retain power by maintaining tight controls on an increasingly prosperous population at a time when street protests are becoming more common.

“If they do not get the permanent card, they cannot live here, they cannot get government benefits, and that is a way for the government to control the population in the future,” said Michael Lin, the vice president for investor relations at China Public Security Technology, the company providing the technology.

Read the rest of the story here.

Pentagon to implant microchips in soldiers' brains

By Adam Thomas -- http://pressesc.com/news/80530072007/pentagon-implant-microchips-soldiers-brains
Tue, 31 Jul 2007 01:43:00

The Department of Defense is planning to implant microchips in soldiers' brains for monitoring their health information, and has already awarded a $1.6 million contract to the Center for Bioelectronics, Biosensors and Biochips (C3B) at Clemson University for the development of an implantable "biochip".

Soldiers fear that the biochip, about the size of a grain of rice, which measures and relays information on soldiers vital signs 24 hours a day, can be used to put them under surveillance even when they are off duty.

But Anthony Guiseppi-Elie, C3B director and Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Bioengineering claims the that the invivo biosensors will save lives as first responders to the trauma scene could inject the biochip into the wounded victim and gather data almost immediately.

He believes that the device has other long-term potential applications, such as monitoring astronauts’ vital signs during long-duration space flights and reading blood-sugar levels for diabetics.

“We now lose a large percentage of patients to bleeding, and getting vital information such as how much oxygen is in the tissue back to ER physicians and medical personnel can often mean the difference between life and death,” said Guiseppi-Elie. “Our goal is to improve the quality and expediency of care for fallen soldiers and civilian trauma victims.” The biochip also may be injected as a precaution to future traumas."

Clemson scientists have formulated a gel that mimics human tissue and reduces the chances of the body rejecting the biochip, which has been a problem in the past.

The researcher predicts the biochip is five years away from human trials, and the DoD could start implanting microchips in soldiers bodies soon after.

RFID innovation has blue cheese in its sights

By Charlotte Eyre

02/08/2007 Radio frequency identification (RFID) has now been adapted to track Spanish blue cheese as it travels along the food chain.

A team of scientists from the University of Dortmund department of logistics, said yesterday that they have developed a method of tracking and tracing the production of "Queso Cabrales", a blue cheese from northern Spain.

As stricter laws force companies to invest in ways of tracking the food they sell, RFID is becoming a necessity not only for large, international companies, but also a for smaller, family-owned businesses.

Cheese-makers using the new system will be able to put an RFID transponder on the product, which is then replaced by a serial number during packaging.

"The goal of the project is to develop a reliable labelling for each individual cheese which is applied at the first stage of production - filling the raw milk into the mould -  survives the ripening process and finally follows the cheese on the wrapping into food shops," said Thomas Jansen, who led the team in its experiments.

Customers purchasing the cheese can then use the serial number to track the stages of its journey to their table. The number will allow them to identify which farmer supplied the milk, when the cheese was produced and for how long the cheese was in the ripening cellar.

During the development of the new system, the scientists had to deal with problems such as using RFID on fresh cheese, and creating a transponder that survives the ripening process, Jansen said.

RFID was created in response to the EU guideline 178/2002, he added. This legislation stipulates that all companies in the food and feeding stuff industry have to completely track and document the flow of their ingredients, including the food as well as materials and wrappings coming into contact with the food.

"And these European guidelines don't make exceptions for the small farmers in Asturias", he said.

RFID uses a wireless system that helps enterprises track products, parts, expensive items and temperature-and time-sensitive goods. Transponders, or RFID tags, are attached to objects. The tag will identify itself when it detects a signal from a reader that emits a radio frequency transmission.

Each RFID tag carries information on it such as a serial number, model number, colour, place of assembly or other types of data. When these tags pass through a field generated by a compatible reader, they transmit this information back to the reader, thereby identifying the object.

The use of RDID along the food chain is set to rise to $5.8bn (€4.3bn) in 2017, and it will become most important new food technology, according to a new report by IDTechEx.

Surveillance is really getting under my skin

by Henry Porter

An Interesting Extract:

"One of these new technologies is RFID (radio frequency identification), which are inexpensive microchips that give out information when activated by a scanner. They are used by shops to track their products and now increasingly in identification of all sorts, from building entry cards to driving licences. The problem is that it is difficult to protect the chip you are carrying from transmitting your personal details.

Take the new passport. Pressed by the US, countries around the world are introducing a passport containing an RFID chip which transmits all the particulars of your passport together with your photograph when it is scanned at a national border. But these new, 21st-century passports may be rather less secure than the 20th-century version.

In an experiment conducted for Suspect Nation, security expert Adam Laurie took just a couple of weeks to write a programme and add a scanner which would read any new British passport without it being open.

The possibility of a passport being read by someone who needs only to brush against you with a version of Laurie's equipment is obviously alarming, yet a Home Office spokesman seemed relaxed about the lack of security. 'It is hard to see why anyone would want to carry out the procedure described. Other than the photograph, which could be obtained easily by other means, they would gain no information that they did not already have, so the whole exercise would be utterly pointless.'

If the Home Office hasn't got the point, authorities in the US have, which is why they have included a metal shield in the design for their new passport. What they probably realise is that the covert reading of passport could represent a considerable threat, especially to those whose nationality terrorists want to target or those who may represent rich pickings for criminals.

The technology used in the ID card is likely to be very similar to that in the new passport. It is true that all the information you will be forced to submit to the government in the ID card scheme will be stored on a central database called the National Identity Register, but our experiment reading passports must at least open up the possibility of ID theft. Once something has been read, it is that much easier to clone it.

Looking through the ID card debates in Hansard, it becomes obvious that most MPs simply didn't understand that the threat comes not just from pooling everyone's information in one database, but from creating a single trusted identifier which is bound to become a irresistible challenge for criminals.

Everywhere you turn in America, there are frantic efforts to make Americans more secure. One solution that is gaining currency in the US is the use of an RFID implant which is shot into the body by means of a large hypodermic needle. The chip can be read when a scanner is passed over the area where it lurks in the fatty tissue below the surface of the skin.

It is promoted by the sinister sounding VeriChip Corporation of America, which is pioneering the implants (originally developed to tag animals) as a way of identifying immigrants, military personnel, casino workers and patients who suffer various degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. We attended a surgery run by a Dr J Musher in an anonymous Washington suburb and I was duly injected with a chip bearing a unique number. I am probably now the only living creature in Britain, other than prize cattle and show dachshunds, to be tagged in this way. I have a hint of Blade Runner about me: half-man, half-transmitter.

But it turns out that this futuristic device is rather unimpressive. It took Adam Laurie no time at all to pass a scanner over my arm, extract the information and clone the RFID.

You can see the attraction of such gimmicks. The same instinct is busy consigning us all to centralised databases and promotes the use of number-recognition cameras to track our movements. In the face of the great threats of the modern world, our leaders have become mesmerised by the promise of total and inviolate security.

But there is no such thing. Indeed, there is every reason to suppose that this technology and the huge centralised databases, with their multiple points of access, mean that we will become exposed to the very threats they seek to protect us from.

The truth is that as soon as a piece of security technology is introduced, its existence inspires an equal ingenuity among those who wish to break it. Caught in the middle of this security arms race are you and me, seen as suspects by one side and as fair game by the other."

Heathrow baggage to be electronically tagged

Dan Milmo, transport correspondent
Monday July 9, 2007
The Guardian

Luggage at Heathrow airport is to be electronically tagged in an attempt to deal with the thousands of bags that go missing from Britain's largest airport.

The trial of the new technology will come too late for the millions of holidaymakers who will travel through Heathrow this summer amid reports that its baggage-handling operations are in chaos. BAA, the owner of Heathrow, will launch a trial of radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging at the airport in October.

Computer chips in bag labels will emit a signal detailing the owner's name and destination. In theory, sensors could be pointed at a mound of bags and a baggage handler will be able to download the details of every piece of luggage in the pile.

BAA declined to comment on the trials, but it is understood they will take place at Heathrow in the autumn, with the tagging equipment installed at check-in desks and sensors placed around the airport. "We are always looking for new ways to improve the customer experience at our airport and luggage is one of the areas we are looking at."

Baggage handling is not BAA's responsibility - airlines hire firms to manage luggage or do it themselves - but as the airport owner it is in charge of installing RFID technology.

News of the trial comes amid a luggage crisis at the world's busiest international airport. British Airways, which employs its own baggage handlers, is scrambling to redirect 20,000 stranded bags amid mounting tensions with staff. The T&G section of the Unite union said there had been "a failure of leadership by BA to the point of incompetence".

BA has laid on extra staff to deal with the baggage mountain after talks with T&G officials, who are blaming the chaos on job cuts and extra training to prepare staff for Terminal Five, which opens next year. Willie Walsh, BA's chief executive, has attacked the T&G's comments and has claimed that the baggage problem is due to recent security alerts and poor weather, which has delayed flights.

A spokeswoman for the Association of British Travel Agents said: "We welcome with open arms anything that improves service when it comes to baggage handling, particularly at Heathrow. If we want to help the image of the UK and the travel industry, Heathrow has to clean itself up and do it fast."

IATA, the global airline industry body, welcomed the trial but cautioned that it would be more effective if Heathrow launched it with another airport owner. As it stands, BAA will be able to track bags leaving the airport but not coming in.

RFID has been tested at other UK airports, with passengers rather than bags tagged. Manchester airport has carried out a six-month trial where tags were attached to boarding cards to prevent delays caused by passengers going missing when a plane is boarding. It would also allow airports to detect people in unauthorised areas.

EU politicians have expressed concerns that RFID technology could lead to Big Brother-style monitoring of airports, but the threat of terrorist attacks is driving further security upgrades.

The transport secretary, Ruth Kelly, has called an aviation summit to discuss security measures and how to minimise airport disruption.

Sliding towards a "surveillance society"

"The introduction of biometric passports and ID cards is though only part of the picture. A new EU health card is coming in from January 2006 which later will hold a person's medical history on a chip. New EU driving licence standards mean that these too will have to be renewed every ten years (like passports) and include first a digitised picture. Moreover, for passports and driving licences there have been suggestions that these should be renewed every five years instead of every ten.

It is not very hard to see that within the next ten years there will be moves to integrate the EU passport, ID card, driving licence and health card into one single biometric chipped card. Privacy concerns will be traded for convenience, at least that is what the authorities are hoping for.

Richard Thomas, the UK Information Commissioner, has said that he is afraid that we are "sleepwalking into a surveillance society", a fear that can be extended to the 450 million people in the EU.

See the rest of the article http://www.statewatch.org/news/2005/dec/09unaccountable-europe.htm

Tesco Boycott

Tesco is one of the biggest supporters of RFID technology and wants to eventually tag each product on the shelf. They allowed Gillette to secretely take a picture of people who picked up gillette razors in a store in 2003. See the article copied by Indymedia.They have extended the use of RFID for the use of pallets in the stores. The objection is not the use of RFID technology to monitor the pallets going to and from various destinations, it is the willingness to tag every item which is the objection.

This would mean that Tescos could potentially track every item from manufacture to the customer. Every item would have an unique seriel number. The number would be stored in a database and could be traced to the person who bought the item. RFID contains a microchip with an antenna emitting radio frequency that can be read in some cases up to 30 feet away with an RFID reader. This technology is rumoured to replace bar codes giving an unique seriel number to every product produced (in the same way products are all bar coded today). The difference being that for the first time items can be traced to the purchaser or consumer. Databases will be able to link seriel numbers to credit cards, store cards and RFID cash, taking away anonymity.

Japan already has experimented with placing RFID technology into high numbered yen notes. This means the bank can link the RFID seriel number to the customer at the ATM or bank. Money can then be traced back to the person. Even there was talk of placing RFID into Euro bank notes.

The government did a trial in 2005 with RFID implanted into licence plates. See the article, Brit Licence Plates Get Chipped. The technology is said to be useful to eliminate vehicle plate tampering and theft. The technology allows the government to track and monitor each person using a vehicle with RFID readers at various locations. For the first time it would be possible to track and monitor people's movements on a scale that has never been seen before. This is just the beginning.

Each product will eventually be itemised with an unique serial number with RFID antennas giving off information to RFID readers whereever they are kept. Every product with this technology can be traced to the purchaser. What would happen if someone stole your rubbish and planted it at a crime scene? How are you going to explain that? Who would believe you when your coke can bearing your fingerprints are at the scene? How are you going to prove it wasn't you? The government will use RFID technology for road charging or improvements in the number plate system to enable them for the first time to be able to monitor each vehicle on the roads. Do we really want the government knowing what we are doing? Did you know over 20 million people in the 20th century have lost their lives at the hands of their government. They all lost their lives by the people who were suppose to protect them. Should we really give governments so much control over us?

Of course not. What happens when our friendly government is replaced by one that only has evil intentions? History warns us that it has happened and will probally happen again in the future. Let us learn from history, reject measures designed to control our movements no matter how pleasing that they are presented. Even the forbidden fruit was pleasing to the eye to Eve.

The boycott of Tesco is one that we support because we do not want business knowing our every purchase, we all have the right to live our lives free from big brother.

You Tube Video: RFID - TRACKING EVERYTHING

If you want to know more about RFID go and watch this video on Youtube.

Mark of the Beast Series

We would you recommend that you listen to the Mark of the Beast series by Fred Coulter, minister of the Christian Biblical Church of God, it is eye opening information about current events surrounding the implementation of the microchip technology. We have come from organisations which have taught for decades that Sunday observance is the mark of the beast. However when we look at the book of Revelation it is clear, that the mark is a physical control on a spiritual people. When the doctrine was promoted that Sunday observance is the mark of the beast (even strongly promoted today by Sabbatarians) technology did not exist whereby it would be possible to track every person.

Applying the mark of the beast to Sunday observance does not make sense because trading can still be done Monday to Friday without infringing upon Saturday or Sunday religious observance.

We would recommend that you listen to the series and decide for yourself. Is the mark of the beast-- Sunday observance or is it going to be a literal identification mark (microchip or some other form)? Before making judgment listen to the series.

The Mark of the Beast

by Fred R. Coulter

1. Beast Power (One World Religion & Government) - 21 September, 1994 Listen Live or Download Coming Soon
2. Beast That Was, & Is Not & Yet Is #1 - 3 November, 1996 Listen Live or Download
3. Beast That Was, & Is Not & Yet Is #2 - 18 December, 2000 Listen Live or Download
4. Coming Beast - United Nations Army - 10 April, 1999 Listen Live or Download
5. Mark of the Beast - 28 August, 2004 Listen Live or Download
6. Mark of the Beast - 25 March, 2000 Listen Live or Download
7. Mark of the Beast - 7 November, 1998 Listen Live or Download
8. Mark of the Beast - 5 March, 1988 Listen Live or Download
9. Mark Of The Beast - 1 Corinthians #7 - 18 July, 1987 Listen Live or Download
10. Mark Of The Beast Is Here - 20 April, 2002 Listen Live or Download
11. Merchandising & Mark Of The Beast - 7 February, 2004 Listen Live or Download
12. Sodom & Mark Of The Beast - 28 June, 2003 Listen Live or Download
13. What is Babylon? Beast? - 29 December, 1990 Listen Live or Download
14. What is the Image for the Beast? - 22 June, 1996 Listen Live or Download

July 2007

Say No to Spy Chips

In the Nexus magazine article entitled "The Microchip and the Mark of the Beast", Dr. Carl Sanders tells about the project which lead to the invention of the microchip which may be the mark of the beast. Sanders became the leader of the project in 1968. They were told the microchip served medical purposes, but they found out later that the real reason for developing it was human identification. The microchip is recharged by body temperature changes. The scary thing is that it "can also be used for migraine headaches, behavior modification, upper/downer, sexual stimulant and sexual depressant", in other words for mind control. He is now concerned the chip will be misused, and he believes it "is going to be the positive identification and mark of the beast." 

The simplest implantable microchip is a miniature passive transponder without any power source. It stores a permanent, unique identification number which can only be read but not modified: this is a read-only device. External readers or scanners activate the transponder by transmitting low frequency radio waves. The transponder then responds by emitting the stored number. This device is also called implantable transponder or RFID tag, RFID meaning Radio Frequency Identification. 

Other implantable microchips are read-write devices: the information stored in them can be updated from a distance. More advanced implantable microchips are not only read-write, but they can also emit an identifying radio signal which can be tracked, thus the tagged individual or animal can be constantly monitored. These devices have a built-in a power supply. 

The newest implantable microchips hold several microprocessors and a miniature digital transceiver. They are powered electromechanically through the movement of muscles. They may remain implanted and functional for years. These devices are tiny computers capable of receiving and sending data to remote sensors and can be continuously tracked by the Global Positioning System (GPS). "The same computing power that once required an entire building to harness now can be inserted in your left arm."  ("Professor Warwick chips in", Computerworld, Jan. 11,1999)

U.S. Patent Number 5,629,678 was granted on May 13, 1997 , for a "personal tracking and recovery system". The device to achieve this would be an implantable microchip containing a miniature digital transceiver, powered electromechanically through the movement of the person's muscles. Applied Digital Solutions (ADS) has acquired the patent rights to this technology, which they call Digital Angel. According to ADS, this technology can be used for "widespread tracking, recovery and identification of people". The device sends and receives data and can be continuously tracked by Global Positioning Satellite technology. Many were shocked by this new step toward the mark of the beast.

The time will come when all men and women will be required to wear a microchip in their right hand or a bracelet of some description. Actually when we are given the reasons for accepting it--they will sound good. We want to stamp out crime, terrorism, safe guard our children and our property.

Different excuses are found to slowly force microchips on us. Here are a few examples. 

• Millions may be carrying microchips in their bodies worldwide. The Safe Medical Devices Act, which became a law in 1990, requires USA manufacturers of implants and medical devices, to adopt a method for identifying and tracking their products permanently implanted in humans, and to keep track of the recipients, in case malfunctions arise. Breast implants, pacemakers, replacement heart valves and prosthetic devices implanted in millions worldwide are all to be tracked. And one of the methods used to track these devices is implanting microchips which store data about the manufacturer, the surgeon, the date of implant, etc. 
• Bracelets containing microchips were given to more than 50,000 Cuban and Haitian refugees interned at a USA naval base to identify and track them. Small children had the wristband attached to their ankle. Some of the refugees tried to remove the bracelets. To prevent the removal, metal strips were embedded in the bands.
• To monitor and get precise results in races, runners and swimmers are given transponders in a wristband, and bike racers have them mounted on their bikes. 
• It has been suggested to use the microchip as a universal identification device, replacing credit cards, passports. People would pay in shops by passing their hands with implanted microchips over store scanners which would automatically debit their bank accounts.

Reminds us all of the tale in the Garden of Eden when the serpent told Eve that she would surely not die if she ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Evil is usually disguised as something good and note worthy. This world is run by people and organisations who think they have the best of intentions for society, they only exploit a perceived threat to bring about controls in our everyday freedom.

God gave us the Torah to live by and we are free from control and manipulation once we place our lives in the service of the Torah. The alternative is Satans way, it is a way of control, to limit our individual freedom which God gave us. God is the author of free choice and freedom. The enemy wants to destroy our ability to think for ourselves placing us under his control. The time will come when we will face a direct challenge to our individual freedom. We must resist any attempt by man to place any chip on our bodies -- no matter what the consequences. Once we have the chip implanted we will be controlled by radio frequencies going directly into our minds, who knows what effects this is going to have on the people implanted with these chips. Let us not surrender our personal freedom -- we must resist the mark of the beast. Say no and stand firm against any planned chips.

RFID: Sign of the (End) Times?

article from Wired

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts -- Katherine Albrecht is on a mission from God.

The influential consumer advocate has written a new book warning her fellow Christians that radio frequency identification may evolve to become the "mark of the beast" -- meaning the technology is a sign that the end-times are drawing near.

"My goal as a Christian (is) to sound the alarm," said Albrecht, in a conversation over tea at a high-end grocery store.

Albrecht has been a leading opponent of RFID, which is fast becoming a part of passports and payment cards, and is widely expected to replace bar-code labels on consumer goods. RFID chips contain unique identification codes, and can be read at varying distances with special reader devices.

Albrecht hopes her new book, The Spychips Threat: Why Christians Should Resist RFID and Electronic Surveillance, will be embraced by the millions of Americans (59 percent of them, according to a 2002 Time/CNN poll) who share her belief that the Book of Revelation in the Bible forecasts events that are yet to come.

The Spychips Threat is in fact a Christianized version of its secular predecessor, Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID, which came out last fall.

Both books are published by the Christian publishing powerhouse Thomas Nelson. Both lay out the same totalitarian scenarios, based on documented plans by Philips, Procter and Gamble, Wal-Mart and other companies, along with the federal government, to track consumer goods and people individually.

Absent from the Christian version is the original foreword by the science fiction author and blogger Bruce Sterling. In its place, Albrecht and co-author Liz McIntyre have written an introduction that says that RFID chips, particularly the VeriChip subcutaneous implant designed for humans, bear an uncanny resemblance to "the mark" described in the Bible's Book of Revelation.

If the VeriChip becomes a common payment device similar to the "contactless" payment system in the Exxon Mobil Speedpass, all who wish to buy and sell goods will be compelled "to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads," as it says in Revelation, the Spychips Threat authors contend.

Another passage in Revelation describes a vision in which "a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image." Albrecht and McIntyre write, ""Interestingly, an implanted RFID device like the VeriChip could potentially cause such a tormenting sore if it is subjected to a strong source of electromagnetic radiation," such as a directed energy weapon.

But fear not, says Boston University professor Richard Landes, who specializes in the history of apocalyptic thought. New technologies often trigger alarm among millenarians -- those who believe Christ is returning to Earth to set up a theocratic kingdom, but only after nonbelievers die most unpleasantly in a battle with the anti-Christ.

Y2K, bar codes and Social Security numbers all triggered end-times warnings, said Landes, who was co-founder and director of the Center for Millennial Studies at BU, which studied contemporary cult activities and end-times literature prior to 2000.

"Even the introduction of the Gutenberg press caused waves of apocalyptic thinking," said Landes.

Albrecht does not believe those who said bar code labels and Social Security numbers were "the mark of the beast" were completely wrong. Rather, those technologies were precursors to RFID, and steps toward totalitarianism, she said. "All of these technologies are of concern," said Albrecht. "I'd like to think I'd be speaking out against them, too, if I was around at the time they were introduced."

Albrecht's entry into the Christian book marketplace has not marginalized her voice in the media or with the RFID industry. Last week, Albrecht and her Spychips co-author, Liz McIntyre, made appearances on ABC-TV, The Osgood Files on the CBS Radio Network, and on the late night radio program, Coast to Coast AM. McIntyre was also quoted in a Financial Times article last month.

"I don't see any evidence of her being ostracized," said Mark Roberti, editor and founder of RFID Journal, an industry trade magazine. Roberti has appeared opposite Albrecht in debates in the media and at industry conferences.

But Richard Landes, the BU history professor, believes Albrecht may be among those who are seduced by the power of feeling like they are players at the center of world events.

"It's enormously attractive," said Landes. "If you believe you live in the end-times, then everything you do has meaning. You become a warrior, and everything is at stake."

Landes compared the feeling of sharing a collective, apocalyptic experience or narrative as like a near-death experience. "It's an intense, incredibly intimate experience," Landes said.

Albrecht sees little joy in what she predicts for RFID, however. "I hope I am wrong," she said, before leaving for an interview with ABC. "I'll take no pleasure in being proven right in a few years."

Jewish Satellite Channels

Jewish Life TV

People often want to know if there are any Jewish specific Tv channels out there.

There is the Jewish Life TV which is available free of charge on the Eutelsat W2 16 degree East. You can find out the satellite information from lyngsat here. A very interesting channel showing documentaries, films and insights into Jewish life. We can pick this up with no problems. You probally will need at least a 80 cm dish directed at 16 East or if you have a motorised dish then go to the satellite.

Israel Broadcasting Authority

IBA are broadcasting on the AMOS satellite at 4 West. Amos transmits a weak signal in the UK which is not easy to pick up.We cannot pick up the Amos satellite even though we have a 1 meter motorised dish.

Also on the Amos Satellite are channels Israel 10 and Channel 2.

Channel 3 Arabic IBA (on Hotbird 13 East) have moved to the Amos satellite.

Mars Still Kosher?

Masterfoods have announced that whey used in their products particularly chocolates like snickers and mars bars contain whey which might be derived from animal rennet.

This is not acceptable to the Vegetarian Society which says it goes against the accepted standard to be considered vegetarian.

But the London Beth Din (Jewish authority) have considered that these products are still kosher according to Jewish halacha as the amounts of animal rennet are too small to make any difference to the certification of the product.

It is a confusing message for anyone. Well perhaps the Vegetarian Society has a point on this issue. Any product considered to be vegetarian should not contain any animal products or by products.

The Bible forbids the eating of animal fats (but doesnt specify if there are certain fats acceptable or in what amounts) so we are left in a situation where we all have to make a judgment on this.

Article: Mars Bar Still Kosher

Sabbath Satellite Channels

Seventh Day Adventist Channel

There are two Seventh Day Adventist channels currently available on the HOTBIRD satellite. They are the Hope Channel and 3ABN.

Hope Channel

Europe, North Africa, Middle East, parts of Russia

The Hope Channel can be received on Hotbird 6 in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Western and Central Russia. To find Hope Channel, scan for channels and then select Hope Channel. To manually enter the channel, use the following parameters.

Parameters:

Satellite: Hotbird 6 at 13°E
Hope Channel - Europe
Frequency: 12.5770 GHz
Polarity: Horizontal
Symbol Rate: 27.500 Msps
FEC: 3/4
In PAL

Asia, Africa & Europe

Parameters:

Satellite: PAS 7 at 68.5°E (C-band Large dish system)
Asia, Africa, Europe
Hope Channel International
Frequency: 3.51550 GHz, (03516)
Polarity: Vertical fixed
Symbol Rate: 4.44400 Msps, (04444)
FEC: 1/2
In PAL

3ABN Channel

KU Band

Position: 13° East
Transponder: 75
Frequency: 12,207 MHz
Polarity: Horizontal
Symbol rate: 27.500 Msym/s
F.E.C.: 3/4

House of Yahweh (Sacred Name Group)

Prophetic Television

The House of Yahweh also has a channel on the HOTBIRD satellite. It is called The Prophetic Word Program.