Wednesday, August 11, 2010

In the news...

Pajamas Media has an excellent commentary today - one that gives great perspective on the situation in the Middle East:

"Israel At War: 586 BCE - 1982 - 2010"


Imperfect, tiny Israel is truly a “light unto the nations.” If only “the nations” would see it this way!

Israel is attacked by Turkey — and Israel, not Turkey, launches an investigation into the role its military played in defending their country. Yesterday, Prime Minister Netanyahu took “overall responsibility” for what happened. He said that although professional mistakes were made at intelligence and operational levels, the killings were justified.

Turkey has yet to admit its genocidal massacre of the Armenians; we are still waiting for Turkey to launch its own internal investigation—and for the United Nations to demand that they do.

The Taliban slay ten altruists, saints: two Afghans and eight western medical human rights workers, all of whom gave up lucrative careers and safe lives in order to minister to the same Afghan people whom the Taliban neglects and torments. I am waiting for President Karzai to take “full responsibility” and to disband, not negotiate with, the Taliban.

And, by the way, the Taliban also just publicly executed Bibi Sanubar, a pregnant widow whom they first kept in captivity for three days and then publicly flogged 200 times. Her crime? Alleged adultery.


Where is the United Nations condemnation of this and other crimes against women being carried out in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran, not to mention all over the Islamic world?


Below is a very interesting yet ominous story which comes under the heading of "pestilence" - another end times sign:

"New 'superbug' found in UK hospitals"


A new superbug that is resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics has entered UK hospitals, experts warn.

They say bacteria that make an enzyme called NDM-1 have travelled back with NHS patients who went abroad to countries like India and Pakistan for treatments such as cosmetic surgery.

Although there have only been about 50 cases identified in the UK so far, scientists fear it will go global.

Tight surveillance and new drugs are needed says Lancet Infectious Diseases.


NDM-1 can exist inside different bacteria, like E.coli, and it makes them resistant to one of the most powerful groups of antibiotics - carbapenems.

These are generally reserved for use in emergencies and to combat hard-to-treat infections caused by other multi-resistant bacteria.

The fear would be that it gets into a strain of bacteria that is very good at being transmitted between patients”

And experts fear NDM-1 could now jump to other strains of bacteria that are already resistant to many other antibiotics.

Ultimately, this could produce dangerous infections that would spread rapidly from person to person and be almost impossible to treat.

At least one of the NDM-1 infections the researchers analysed was resistant to all known antibiotics.

Similar infections have been seen in the US, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands and international researchers say that NDM-1 could become a major global health problem.

Infections have already been passed from patient to patient in UK hospitals.



Below, once again, we see a story involving anti-semitism, another end times sign which continues to worsen by the day:

"Anti-Semitism is worse in 2010 than 1910"

Times are dire, anti-Semitism is on the rise and the world is becoming a more perilous place for the Jews to live in by the day, if you ask Prof. Robert S. Wistrich, the head of the Hebrew University's Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism and the author of a recently published book on the subject called A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism - From Antiquity to the Global Jihad.

"Anti-Semitism is continually morphing all the time, which is its strength," he explained. "There's no sign of diminution and it will probably get worse. We see it in every indicator possible showing a clear and steady rise in the number of attacks recorded on Jews."

"There's a common resentment of Israel and American often linked with anti-Semitic thinking. Clearly, this has been round 70-80 years but it picked up steam with the Islamic Revolution. What we see is an assault on the West in which Israel and the Jews have become a surrogate for an attack."


One more story - if there is still any interest - which involves the Gulf situation. This is a fascinating article, and well worth reading. I don't know what is going on in the Gulf these days, but this article provides an interesting perspective:

"Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current Dying - Loop Current in Gulf of Mexico Already Dead"

An Italian theoretical physicist, Dr. Gianluigi Zangari, of the prestigious Research Division of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics at Frascati National Laboratories (LNF) of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Italy, has come up with some startling scientific findings. Dr. Zangari has specialized in global climate research and analysis. He has found that the massive amount of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, from the BP Oil Disaster, has caused a disruption of the Loop Current in the Gulf. And further, that this has resulted in a dramatic weakening in the vorticity of the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current, and a reduction in North Atlantic water temperatures of 10C.


There is much more to this article. A supplement to this may be found here:Washington's Blog

It is hard to know what to believe regarding the Gulf. The scientists seem to have multiple scenarios which they discuss and their opinions are widely varying. Many believe that most of the oil which "spilled" is lurking at deep levels in the ocean and the dispersants have killed millions of fish, and we now have dead zones in the Gulf.

Here is another link which usually carries interesting information on the Gulf situation:

Florida Oil Spill Law"

As with many newsworthy events in this era, the truth is VERY difficult to obtain. I have a feeling the Gulf story is not over yet. We shall see.

2 comments:

Expected Imminently said...

Scott
I really don't know what to believe. Here they say it was 40th down on the list of oil spills, and nowhere near as bad as our own Torrey Canyon disaster?

Sue

Scott said...

I don't know what to believe either, Sue

That seems to be characteristic of this era we finds ourselves in.

There seems to be a lot of evidence that there is significant oil on the ocean floor and suspended (because of the dispersants) below the surface.

But again, I don't know what to believe on this one.