We can do the right thing to create positive change within ourselves and the world around us! I have created this blog with the intention of keeping you informed of news that is affecting humanity and nature throughout the world! There is no better time than the present to become a global participant and not just an innocent bystander. I have provided you with several websites to help empower yourself and a list of global organizations that you can choose from to make a difference.
Amelia Mary Earhart (pronounced / "AIR-hart"); (July 24, 1897 – missing July 2, 1937, declared dead January 5, 1939) was a noted American aviation pioneer, and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many other records, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots. [source: Wikipedia]
7 Amazing Quotes Made by Amelia Earhart
Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things; knows not the livid loneliness of fear.
Never do things others can do and will do if there are things others cannot do or will not do.
Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn't be done.
The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.
I want to do it because I want to do it.
Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others.
Adventure is worthwhile in itself.
BONUS
The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.
SAUGUS - According to Environment Massachusetts, the Saugus River is the third most chemically polluted waterway in the state.
Eleanor Fort of EM and Becky Smith from Clean Action Water delivered that news while standing on the bank behind Ken's Car Care on Route 107 with the Saugus River stretched out behind them and General Electric looming across the water.
Fort said GE alone is responsible for dumping 1,000 pounds of toxic chemical waste into the Saugus River in 2007.
Pat Zerbe, manager of communication relations for GE Aviation, said GE is not acting illegally.
"The site in Lynn is in compliance with the water discharge permit that has been issued by the Environmental Protection Agency for many years," she said.
Zerbe said the plant does work to protect the environment as well as ensuring the health and well being of its employees and neighbors. But Fort is not arguing that GE is out of compliance. She said she simply would like to see industry do better.
In total, industrial facilities across the commonwealth dumped 12,727 pounds of toxic chemicals into the state's waterways in 2007, which is the most recent data available. Smith said the dumping goes directly against the goals of the Clean Water Act, passed by the federal government in 1972 the Federal Government and aimed at ensuring all of the country's waterways were to be clean enough for swimming or fishing by 1985. That, Fort said, clearly has not happened.
"Polluters continue to use our waterways as dumping grounds for their toxic chemicals," she said. "With facilities dumping so much pollution, no one should be surprised that nearly half of our waterways are unsafe for swimming and fishing, but we should be outraged."
Fort pointed out that Saugus' point of discharge sits next to Rumney Marsh, which has already been designated as an "Area of Critical Environmental Concern."
Among the toxic chemicals discharged, Fort said there is lead, mercury and dioxin, which contaminate drinking water and are absorbed by the fish that people eventually eat.
"There are common-sense steps that should be taken to turn the tide against the toxic pollution of our lakes, rivers and streams," Smith added.
Fort said EM has three basic goals it hopes to achieve to thwart the dumping of toxic chemicals into the waterways. First is forcing industries to switch from using hazardous chemicals to using safer alternatives. She said companies as large as 3M and as small as the neighborhood dry cleaner have found ways to use safer alternative chemicals.
Second, Fort said the Environmental Protection Agency should issue permits with more stringent limits for each type of toxic pollution discharged and enforce the limits with credible penalties, not simply warning letters.
Lastly, Fort said the federal government should adopt policies to clarify that the Clean Water Act applies to all waterways, not just the major ones or waterways ruled out by various court actions.
"We need clean water now," Fort said. "And we need our government to act."
Smith said the key piece of legislation coming up on the federal level is the reintroduction of the Clean Water Act, which she added Congressman John Tierney supports.
Fort acknowledged the EPA never fined GE for dropping the 1,000 pounds of chemicals into the river, but said that doesn't make it right.
"We say 1,000 pounds is too much," she said. "If the original intention of the Clean Water Act was to clean up all waterways then we need to make good on that promise."
An environmental group says an oil spill in the Timor Sea off the West Australian coast is worse than it feared.
The World Wide Fund for Nature has completed a three day boat trip of the area and says the spill is having a significant impact on marine life.
The West Atlas oil rig operated by PTTEP Australasia has been leaking oil for nine weeks.
A team of engineers will make a fourth attempt to plug the leak today.
WWF spokeswoman Dr Gilly Llewellyn says if the spill was closer to shore there would be global outrage.
"There were times when we were literally in a sea of oil from left to right and as far as we could see ahead of us - it was heavily oiled water and it was sickening because in this we were seeing dolphins surfacing," she said.
"We've build a picture of an area affected by a massive contamination event and a rich marine wildlife that was interacting in and around the area of the slick and presumably becoming affected and at risk of contamination from this slick."
Three previous attempts to intercept the leak have failed, but PTTEP Australasia has released a statement saying the drilling team has come within centimetres of the target.
Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett says he is confident everything possible is being done to stop the oil leak.
"The fact of the matter is, it's a fiendishly difficult exercise - a little bit like threading the needle - to try to get this oil spill stopped," he said.
"I very much hope that it will be on this occasion. I'm concerned about it, but we've put a lot of measures in place not only to monitor it, but to make sure that any wildlife that's affected is properly treated."
Earlier this week, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said the cost of the clean-up had reached more than $5 million.
The apparent victim of a ship collision, a dead 70-foot (20-meter) blue whale (pictured) washed ashore in a forbidding northern California cove this week.
Though unable to move the blue whale, scientists and students are leaping at the research opportunity, scrambling down rock faces to take tissue samples and eventually one of the 11-foot-long (3.5-meter-long) flippers.
Though relatively infrequent off California until recent years, ship collisions are "the number one human threat to blue whales," according to marine biologist Joe Cordaro of the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service.
This week's collision, he said, marks the second time this year that a ship off California has fatally wounded a blue whale.
(Related "High-Tech Sound Detectors to Warn Ships of Right Whales.")
The world's largest animals, blue whales can grow to about a hundred feet (30 meters) long—about the length of a space shuttle. Listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the whales are said to face a very high risk of extinction in the wild, largely due to heavy hunting prior to a 1966 ban.
(Related: "Baby Blue Whale Caught on Film Underwater.")
A Shudder and, Later, a Beached Blue Whale
On Monday, Cordaro received a report from a ship mapping the seafloor for the fisheries service. The researchers had "felt a shudder underneath the ship" about 7 miles (11 kilometers) from shore.
Soon after, a whale surfaced, bleeding profusely, Cordaro said. Several hours later, the beached blue whale was spotted near the city of Fort Bragg.
Given the evidence—timing, location, a fresh propeller wound—Cordaro said, "I don't think there's any doubt" that the mapping ship is the culprit.
Blue Whale Tragedy Turned Scientific Windfall
"I'm as sorry as anybody that that animal perished," said Humboldt State University mammologist Thor Holmes (pictured above atop the whale). But to find "a fresh, female blue whale in a place that's accessible—that is amazing."
On Tuesday, Holmes and two students drove several hours to study the blue whale.
After he'd scrambled down the "scary" rock faces, he told the eager students to stay put for their own safety. "Man, I knew from the looks on their faces there was an insurrection brewing," he said. The others eventually found another, wetter way around.
On the shore, the researchers took blubber samples, which Holmes expects will shed light on the whale's pre-collision health.
"Just the fact that the whale has a good, thick blubber layer," he said, "shows it was a really, really healthy animal."
Blue Whale to Be Left in Place
The blue whale will be left on the Fort Bragg beach, the National Marine Fisheries Service's Cordaro said. Given the cove's inaccessibility to vehicles, he added, "That whale ain't going anywhere."
But researchers are planning more tests, including an amputation of one of the blue whale's flippers this week—a potential windfall for an ongoing Humboldt State study comparing the limbs of cetaceans, which include whales, dolphins, and porpoises.
The university is also sending more students to examine the rare specimen, and a dermatologist at Humboldt is hoping to secure hair follicles for study.
For Holmes, the specimen holds great scientific promise, but also serves as a painful reminder of humanity's role in the blue whale's rarity.
"The presence of that animal on the beach," he said, "is another sign that we're malefactors on this planet."
Biologists in Australia have solved one of the great mysteries of modern ecology — how a simple fungus is pushing the world's frog populations closer to extinction. The answer surprised them: It's as if millions of humans were keeling over with heart attacks from athlete's foot.
The realization that frogs across the globe were dying came in 1989. It wasn't until 1998 that the deaths were linked to a fungus named batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. But no one knew how this superficial skin infection was killing frogs by the thousands. Until now.
The answer lies in the special nature of frogs' skin, through which they can not only breathe but also absorb water. Researchers at the Amphibian Disease Ecology Group at Cook University in Australia discovered that when the frogs got the skin disease chytridiomycosis from the fungus, it disrupted their ability to properly regulate electrolytes. Their paper is in today's edition of the journal Science.
Electrolytes are crucial to the body's ability to send the electrical signals that tell the heart to pump. When levels fall too low, cardiac arrest can follow. This sometimes happens with human athletes who exercise too long in hot weather and lose too much water and salt in their sweat.
The team took blood samples from sick and dying frogs and realized their electrolyte levels were well below normal. When they gave the frogs an electrolyte solution to drink, some of them recovered enough to try to jump to avoid being captured, says study author Jamie Voyles. But in the end, all the treated frogs died from the infection.
Though the species of fungus has existed for half a billion years, it appears to have recently evolved into this more deadly form and begun to spread, says Erica Rosenblum, a professor of biology at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho. She studies the genetics of the fungus. Where it first emerged is still unknown.
By some estimates, almost a third of amphibian species are threatened with extinction. A 2007 paper in the Journal of Herpetology estimated that the current extinction rate could be 211 times higher than it has been in the past.
A paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2008 found that more than 6,300 families of amphibians are at risk globally and said the fungus had been implicated in serious declines and extinctions of more than 200 amphibian species, "posing the greatest threat to biodiversity of any known disease."
While other trends are contributing to frogs' extinction, including habitat loss, newly introduced predators and water pollution, "the thing that is really imperiling them is this strange fungal disease," Rosenblum says. "We know of many hundreds of species that are infected, but my guess is that the actual number is far higher."
Frogs are an important part of the food chain and are crucial to a healthy ecosystem. "They are the food supply for snakes and birds and everything else that eats those animals," says Voyles. "So losing them is quite devastating."
Groups such as the Amphibian Ark Network are beginning captive breeding programs to prevent extinctions, but such programs are incredibly expensive and can save only a fraction of the world's frog species. Other researchers are working to identify possibly protective bacteria that might keep the fungus from taking hold on frogs' skin.
Over 230 Million Pounds of Toxics Discharged into American Waterways.
Industrial facilities dumped 232 million pounds of toxic chemicals into America’s waterways, according to a report released today by Environment America: Wasting Our Waterways: Industrial Toxic Pollution and the Unfulfilled Promise of the Clean Water Act. The report also finds that toxic chemicals were discharged in 1,900 waterways across all 50 states.
“While nearly half of the rivers and lakes in the U.S. are considered too polluted for safe fishing or swimming, our report shows that polluters continue to use our waterways as dumping grounds for their toxic chemicals,” said Piper Crowell, Clean Water Advocate for Environment America.
“On October 15, our Committee held a hearing to examine how the deterioration of the EPA’s Clean Water Act enforcement program has set back our progress in achieving the central goals of the Clean Water Act,” said Rep. James L. Oberstar (Minn.), Chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. “Today, we learned of the very frightening, tangible impacts on human health and the environment that occur when toxic substances are allowed to enter our waters. The fact that many industrial facilities are exploiting the system and using the nation’s waterways as toxic dumping grounds is nothing less than a public health crisis.”
The Environment America report documents and analyzes the dangerous levels of pollutants discharged in to America’s waters by compiling toxic chemical releases reported to the U.S. EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory for 2007, the most recent data available.
Major findings of the report include:
• Indiana topped the nation with over 27 million pounds of toxic chemicals dumped into the state’s waterways in 2007.
• ExxonMobil Refining & Supply Baton Rouge Refinery released over 4.2 million pounds of toxic chemical waste into the Mississippi River in Louisiana. The ExxonMobil refinery was one of the largest reported polluter of toxic chemicals in the country in 2007.
• The top three waterways in the nation for most total toxic chemicals discharged in 2007 were the Ohio River, New River, and Mississippi River. The Ohio River also topped the nation for toxic chemicals that are cancer causing and chemicals that cause reproductive disorders. The Alabama River had the highest amount of toxic chemicals causing developmental disorders in the nation in 2007.
“Our waterways are a source of sport and recreation. We need them protected, not polluted,” said Gary Botzek, the Executive Director of the Minnesota Conservation Federation.
Environment America’s report summarizes the discharge of cancer-causing chemicals, chemicals that persist in the environment, and chemicals with the potential to cause reproductive problems ranging from birth defects to reduced fertility. Among the toxic chemicals discharged by facilities are lead, mercury, and dioxin. When dumped into waterways, these toxic chemicals contaminate drinking water and are absorbed by the fish that people eventually eat. Exposure to these chemicals is linked to cancer, developmental disorders, and reproductive disorders. In 2007, manufacturing facilities discharged approximately 1.5 million pounds of cancer-causing chemicals into American waters.
“There are common-sense steps that should be taken to turn the tide against toxic pollution of our waters,” added Crowell. “We need clean water now, and we need the federal government to act to protect our health and our environment.”
In order to curb the toxic pollution threatening America’s waterways, Environment America recommends the following:
1. Pollution Prevention: Industrial facilities should reduce their toxic discharges in to waterways by switching from hazardous chemicals to safer alternatives.
2. Tough permitting and enforcement: EPA and state agencies should issue permits with tough, numeric limits for each type of toxic pollution discharged, ratchet down those limits over time, and enforce those limits with credible penalties, not just warning letters.
3. Protect all waters: The federal government should adopt policies to clarify that the Clean Water Act applies to all of our waterways. This includes the thousands of headwaters and small streams for which jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act has been called into question, as a result of recent court decisions.
“This Wasting our Waterways report is a reminder that we have a long way to go to realize the "zero pollution" goals of the Clean Water Act and that we not only need to defend and strengthen this important law but focus our efforts on prevention,” said Lynn Thorp, National Campaigns Coordinator, Clean Water Action.
"We urge Congress and the President to listen to the public’s demands for clean water. They should act to protect all of our lakes, rivers and streams from toxic pollution," concluded Crowell.
The Obama administration bowed to environmental groups and added a layer of protection for polar bear today, setting aside 200,000 square miles of Alaskan coastline and waters as their "critical habitat".
The decision would put restrictions on oil and gas drilling along the north coast of Alaska. It was brought in partial settlement of a law suit brought by environmentalists.
The "critical habitat" designation would bar government agencies from authorising activities that could hurt recovering species.
But it does not address the broader question of how to stop the melting of the Arctic that is putting the iconic animal at risk of going extinct.
The loss of Arctic sea ice due to global warming is widely recognised as the greatest threat to the polar bears' survival. The Bush administration last year declared the polar bear were a threatened species - but it made sure to exclude the animal from protection from greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.
The Obama administration infuriated environmentalists when it upheld that exclusion last May.
Earlier this week, another branch of the U.S. interior department gave Shell the go-ahead to begin exploratory drilling in the Beaufort Seat, which is home to large numbers of endangered bowhead whales, walruses and seals as well as polar bear.
"If polar bears are to survive in a rapidly melting Arctic, we need to protect their critical habitat, not turn it into a polluted industrial zone," said Brendan Cummings, a lawyer for the Centre for Biological Diversity, one of three environmental organisations which brought the suit. "The interior department is schizophrenic, declaring its intent to protect polar bear habitat in the Arctic yet simultaneously sacrificing the habitat to feed our unsustainable addiction to oil."
The administration has until June to finalise the habitat plan.
The Hollywood Reporter 'The Cove' screens in Tokyo written by Gavin J. Blair Wednesday Oct 21, 2009, 07:21 AM ET
TOKYO – The Tokyo International Film Festival received drama and media attention on Wednesday, although probably not the kind it had hoped for, as controversial dolphin-hunting documentary “The Cove” grabbed the spotlight with its first public screening in Japan.
At a post-screening press conference, director Louie Psiboyos claimed the previous Japanese government -- which suffered a historic landslide defeat in the August 30 election -- had pressured the festival not to show the documentary. The charge was vehemently denied by festival organizers, with one official describing it as “total bullshit.”
The film highlights both the dolphin slaughter in the small fishing port of Taiji, and the toxically high levels of mercury in their flesh.
“A festival director told me it would be hypocritical not to show the film given the environmental theme of the festival, but that the government was a major sponsor of the festival,” Psiboyos told The Hollywood Reporter, “Then the government changed; the film didn’t change.”
“The Cove” was a late addition to the festival program, having been initially rejected. The press conference at which the screening was announced took place on September 16, the day the new administration of Yukio Hatoyama took office. The new prime minister attended Saturday’s opening ceremony for the fest.
The fishermen featured in the film had asked TIFF organizers to cancel the screening, which was attended by the mayor of Taiji, a fisherman’s union rep and a fisheries spokesperson from the former administration. With emotions running high on all sides, the assembled media pack moved to a nearby venue outside the festival to carry on a Q&A with Psiboyos.
Local media questioned the filmmaker’s highlighting of the dolphin hunt while greater numbers of other animals are slaughtered around the globe.
Psiboyos responded by claiming the central message of the movie was the mercury levels of the dolphin meat, both as a health hazard to consumers, and as an indication of the poisoned state of the oceans.
Despite stating that the animal rights argument was “unwinnable, and leads only to stalemate,” he made a number of passionate pleas to stop the killing of the “sentient and intelligent” dolphins, and of whales, which Japan continues to hunt.
He went on to praise the “courageous decision” of TIFF organizers to show film, saying he was told it would be impossible to get it screened in Japan.
“I wouldn’t call it a bidding war but we’ve now in negotiations with a couple of Japanese distributors to get the film a proper release here,” Psiboyos told The Hollywood Reporter.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- A U.S. animal rights group says its push for changes in animal testing has resulted in adoption of more modern, humane methods of vaccine testing.
The organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said it had been urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Center for Veterinary Biologics to adopt non-animal methods to test the potency of each batch of a vaccine.
PETA officials said the center announced three of the tests involving pigs have been replaced with modern non-animal methods.
PETA said center officials have also announced they are moving to convert antibody production from an intensely painful method in mice to a humane and reliable system based on cell cultures.
"By mandating modern, effective, and humane testing methods, the USDA will not only reduce the number of animals who are harmed and killed in tests, but also improve vaccine testing," Jessica Sandler, director of PETA's Regulatory Testing Division, said. "The USDA is on the right track, and we look forward to a productive partnership to further replace the use of animals."
Nobody should get too hung up over President Obama's decision, reported by Der Spiegel over the weekend, to cancel plans to attend next month's 20th anniversary celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Germany's reunited capital has already served his purposes; why should he serve its?
To this day, the fall of the Berlin Wall on the night of Nov. 9, 1989, remains a high-water mark in the march of human freedom. It's a march to which candidate Obama paid rich (if solipsistic) tribute in last year's big Berlin speech. "At the height of the Cold War, my father decided, like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world, that his yearning—his dream—required the freedom and opportunity promised by the West," waxed Mr. Obama to the assembled thousands. "This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom."
Those were the words. What's been the record?
China: In February, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton landed in Beijing with a conciliating message about the country's human-rights record. "Our pressing on those [human-rights] issues can't interfere on the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis," she said.
In fact, there has been no pressing whatsoever on human rights. President Obama refused to meet with the Dalai Lama last month, presumably so as not to ruffle feathers with the people who will now be financing his debts. In June, Liu Xiaobo, a leading signatory of the pro-democracy Charter 08 movement, was charged with "inciting subversion of state power." But as a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Beijing admitted to the Journal, "neither the White House nor Secretary Clinton have made any public comments on Liu Xiaobo."
Sudan: In 2008, candidate Obama issued a statement insisting that "there must be real pressure placed on the Sudanese government. We know from past experience that it will take a great deal to get them to do the right thing. . . . The U.N. Security Council should impose tough sanctions on the Khartoum government immediately."
Exactly right. So what should Mr. Obama do as president? Yesterday, the State Department rolled out its new policy toward Sudan, based on "a menu of incentives and disincentives" for the genocidal Sudanese government of Omar Bashir. It's the kind of menu Mr. Bashir will languidly pick his way through till he dies comfortably in his bed.
Iran: Mr. Obama's week-long silence on Iran's "internal affairs" following June's fraudulent re-election was widely noted. Not so widely noted are the administration's attempts to put maximum distance between itself and human-rights groups working the Iran beat.
Earlier this year, the State Department denied a grant request for New Haven, Conn.-based Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. The Center maintains perhaps the most extensive record anywhere of Iran's 30-year history of brutality. The grant denial was part of a pattern: The administration also abruptly ended funding for Freedom House's Gozaar project, an online Farsi- and English-language forum for discussing political issues.
It's easy to see why Tehran would want these groups de-funded and shut down. But why should the administration, except as a form of pre-emptive appeasement?
Burma: In July, Mr. Obama renewed sanctions on Burma. In August, he called the conviction of opposition leader (and fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner) Aung San Suu Kyi a violation of "the universal principle of human rights."
Yet as with Sudan, the administration's new policy is "engagement," on the theory that sanctions haven't worked. Maybe so. But what evidence is there that engagement will fare any better? In May 2008, the Burmese junta prevented delivery of humanitarian aid to the victims of Cyclone Nargis. Some 150,000 people died in plain view of "world opinion," in what amounted to a policy of forced starvation.
Leave aside the nausea factor of dealing with the authors of that policy. The real question is what good purpose can possibly be served in negotiations that the junta will pursue only (and exactly) to the extent it believes will strengthen its grip on power. It takes a remarkable presumption of good faith, or perhaps stupidity, to imagine that the Burmas or Sudans of the world would reciprocate Mr. Obama's engagement except to seek their own advantage.
It also takes a remarkable degree of cynicism—or perhaps cowardice—to treat human rights as something that "interferes" with America's purposes in the world, rather than as the very thing that ought to define them. Yet that is exactly the record of Mr. Obama's time thus far in office.
In Massachusetts not long ago, I found myself driving behind a car with "Free Tibet," "Save Darfur," and "Obama 08" bumper stickers. I wonder if it will ever dawn on the owner of that car that at least one of those stickers doesn't belong.
World population is due to rise from six billion to nine billion by 2050.
Technology allowed food production to increase from 1.84 billion tonnes in 1961 to 4.38 billion tonnes in 2007, at great environmental cost.
The Royal Society says that a second "green revolution" must find ways to produce up to twice as much food from the same area by 2050.
Global food production needs to be increased by between 50 and 100 per cent if widespread famine is to be avoided as the human population expands rapidly, leading scientists say.
A second "green revolution" is needed in agriculture to feed the extra three billion people who will be added to the existing population of six billion by 2050.
The experts, drawn from the Royal Society, Britain's national academy of scientists, believe that a variety of short-term and longer-term measures will have to be adopted urgently if agricultural production is to meet the demands made by the growth in human numbers.
They cite the original green revolution of the 1960s when new crop varieties, greater use of agro-chemicals, and a change in farming practices led to a dramatic increase in food production: it leapt from 1.84 billion tonnes in 1961 to 4.38 billion tonnes in 2007.
But scientists accept that this increase came at great environmental cost, and the Royal Society report warns that a second green revolution has to be based on a sustainable increase in global food production without a significant expansion in the area of land turned over to farming.
"There is insufficient water to support an increase in the cultivated areas, and the environmental consequences of increasing cultivated areas are undesirable. Additional production will have to take place without further damage to [the environment]," the report says.
The area of land available to sustain each human being is dangerously declining because of soil degradation, the report says.
Professor Sir David Baulcombe of Cambridge University, who led the study, said that the British Government must be prepared to pay £2 billion ($4.4 billion) over a period of 10 years to fund research into ways of boosting food production around the world.
"We need to take action now to stave off food shortages," Professor Baulcombe said. "If we wait even five to 10 years, it may be too late."
"Biological science has progressed in leaps and bounds in the last decade and UK scientists have been at the head of the pack when it comes to topics related to food crops."
"In the UK, we have the potential to come up with scientific solutions for feeding a growing population, and we have a responsibility to realise this potential.
"There is a very clear need for policy action and publicly funded science to make sure this happens."
Poverty is still widely misunderstood as a matter of simple material deprivation. However, poverty is actually a human rights crisis because destitution is compounded by discrimination, state repression, corruption, insecurity and violence, which are as much defining features of poverty as the lack of material resources. These are human rights problems and can't simply be solved by raising income levels. That is why the solution to poverty lies not so much in enrichment as in the empowerment of people.
Material benefits alone do not guarantee an end to discrimination, or improve security, or give voice to those living in poverty. Investment in agriculture may boost crop yields for poor farmers but does not guarantee security of tenure against unscrupulous land owners. Building new schools doesn't guarantee that girls will have the same access to education as boys. Building new factories in export processing zones does not alone guarantee that those who migrate to work in them will have secure and improved existences.
In the west poverty is often identified with humanitarian crises – a sudden lack of food and housing due to natural disaster or war – and with people living in places which are somehow "naturally poor" who simply can't afford enough food, education or decent housing. These people are inevitably represented as needy, desperate and helpless. The underlying view is that they will get to our standard of living eventually – if they do things our free market way – through trickle-down economics, and meanwhile we'll help a few of the most desperate out with a bit of philanthropy. The reality is very different.
A billion people around the world now live in slums and face sudden, arbitrary eviction from their homes, because their tenure is not guaranteed and there is often pressure from developers to push them off their land. This is not just about material deprivation; it is about security and certainty of life and livelihood. Amnesty is working closely with the residents of the Deep Sea Settlement, a shantytown on the outskirts of Nairobi. Deep Sea's 7,000 residents live with the constant fear of suddenly being forcibly evicted from their homes – as happened in 2005 when a private firm, acting with police support, evicted hundreds of people in the middle of the night and demolished their homes. Deep Sea residents are organised, they know their rights, the Kenyan courts have even ruled in their favour but still their situation remains insecure because the authorities are able to ignore with impunity the voices and rights of the poor.
Pregnancy is not a disease, yet half a million women and girls around the world die during childbirth or from pregnancy related causes. This is too often seen as simply a health problem which will be "solved" when their countries achieve the GDP to have a decent healthcare system. The crisis levels of maternal mortality that we see in places like Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso are actually about the undervaluing of women's lives. I was recently in Sierra Leone – where maternal death is so frequent that becoming pregnant is tantamount to receiving a death sentence for many women – to launch a national campaign to raise awareness of this emergency and get the government and donors to recognise that women must be made a greater priority.
Many resource-rich countries, like Equatorial Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo or Chad, are among the poorest in terms of the conditions of the population because of weak and corrupt governments colluding with unscrupulous multinational corporations and misguided international investors. The global economy has challenged the human rights of the poor. What does the right to participate mean when the decisions that matter take place in foreign capitals or boardrooms?
Human rights are universal. Upholding them should be everybody's business. Framing poverty in human rights terms provides an empowering framework for rights holders (people living in poverty), and an accountability framework for duty holders (those who exercise power over poor people) to respect and protect rights. By asserting their rights, those living in poverty place themselves at the centre of the debate and gain the dignity to fight the conditions that keep them poor. By identifying obligations, we require the powerful to behave according to internationally recognised standards, rather than relying on market forces.
Today is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Amnesty is calling on governments, international institutions and companies to put human rights squarely in the middle of their objectives; and to put the poor themselves at the heart of all efforts to eradicate poverty. If the poor are empowered to control their own lives then we will see the beginning of the end of poverty.
The abolition of slavery, the achievement of universal suffrage and the emancipation of women, the victory over fascism and the end of colonisation and apartheid, the fall of the Berlin Wall – each of these struggles had at its core the claim that individuals had rights that cannot be denied, rights that transcend race, religion, gender class or citizenship, rights that take precedence over any political or economic systems. It is the struggle for our times and must be rooted in justice and equality.
15 Good and Evil Quotes
made by various people throughout history
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. ~ by Albert Einstein
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men and women to do nothing. ~ by Edmund Burke
Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -- the apathy of human beings. ~ by Helen Keller
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. ~ by Henry David Thoreau
He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done. ~ by Leonardo Da Vinci
At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols. ~ by Aldous Huxley
How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light. ~ by Barry Lopez
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil. ~ by Cicero
But goodness alone is never enough. A hard cold wisdom is required, too, for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom invariably accomplishes evil. ~ by Robert Heinlein
Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core. ~ by Hannah Arendt
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary: men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. ~ by Joseph Conrad
If your heart acquires strength, you will be able to remove blemishes from others without thinking evil of them. ~ by Mohandas Ghandi
Life has a bright side and a dark side, for the world of relativity is composed of light and shadows. If you permit your thoughts to dwell on evil, you yourself will become ugly. Look only for the good in everything so you absorb the quality of beauty. ~ by Paramahansa Yoganada
All good is hard. All evil is easy. Dying, losing, cheating, and mediocrity is easy. Stay away from easy. ~ by Scott Alexander
BONUS
We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too. ~ by Mairead Maguire
BONUS BONUS
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
I was awakened from a deep sleep earlier this week. When I awoke, I reached for the remote, turned on the television and changed the channel to Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). Just at that moment, barely awake, Benny Hinn's program was just starting. As I laid there in bed, I asked God what it was he wanted me to know. This was the message Benny Hinn was sharing that very morning. I was in AWE the entire time. Benny Hinn perfectly describes the beautiful personal relationship I share with my heavenly Father and how this nirvana reached me. It's an ongoing process. Benny Hinn has described this union in a way that I could never put into words the way he has. It's a way of living I wish everyone could truly know deep down in the core of their being. Would you please take a moment out of your day to listen to this most beautiful 9 part message that God wants you to know. God loves you soooooooo much! You have always been His precious precious child and He is just waiting for you to embrace Him right where you are. Open your heart, mind, body and spirit to Him and watch your life be trasformed in total amazement. I have typed a transcript of the first 5 minutes for my international readers who need to use Babelfish to translate.
When someone comes and says lunch is ready, you say eat it yourself I'm having lunch. I'm not responding. I'm not coming down. When your mom comes and says please they've been cooking all night, you say momma Jesus is more important. You be bold in doing that.
Song of Solomon 1 verse 12 says, "While the King sitteth at His table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof." Now suddenly the bridegroom is the center of your heart again. He's revealing Himself to you and as a result His fragrance is coming out of you to others. You have spent such time in His presence that every where you go, every where you go people begin to cry as they feel Jesus. Every where you go His presence begins to permeate the atmosphere. Now you've there and now you have been partaking, you've been experiencing death and you take Him with you now when you go.
I had that experience once, I'll never forget that. I'm in fellowship with the Lord, with His presence so deep. And I promised Jim Porter to go with him to a little Methodist Church where he was preaching. And the time was coming when he had come. And I said to the Lord, I said dear Jesus please come with me. I left my room, my mom was standing outside the door and she couldn't get near me. She just stares at me and I come out just smiling and such calmness. And my mom was startled by something she saw on me. I go down the stairs and I get into Jim's car and the man begins to cry and starts to sing Hallelujah. I said are you all right? He said when you walked in here, the presence of Jesus came with you. Oh that's right because I just told Him to come with me. And he could not drive.
That's what this verse means. While the King sits at His table, I've been there with Him and now His fragrance sends forth the smell thereof. The smell, the fragrance of His presence is now coming out of me. It's not just Him. I have become a vehicle of the fragrance of the Master.
That's what happen when Catherine comes to these meeting. She'd come out and Jesus came out with her. Precious people I'm sure some of you have been to these meetings. How many have put your hands up? These people that have put their hands up will testify with me. That you'd be sitting and the organ playing softly behind you and people talking when suddenly you felt the glory of God fill the stadium or the Shrine Auditorium or some place you were in. And next thing you felt literally, this happened to me I felt like something pulled me out of my seat, where suddenly I'm on my feet, tears running down my cheeks, singing how great the Lord and I didn't pay attention to Catherine. And I'd be sitting talking to Jim without even realizing she just walked on the platform. But when she walked on the presence of God startled me. Isn't that what happened to you. How many agree that's what happened to you? You were just so taken by the presence of God. She literally transformed the atmosphere in seconds. Why? Because when she walked out, He came out with her. And when He came out, everybody felt Him in that room. And you entered into worship instantly. There is nothing like a warm reception in her services. You went from cold to fire hot. There was no luke warm seasons in her meetings. You entered into fire instantly. Because she was living it.
Song of Solomon 1 verse 13 says, "A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; He shall lie all night betwixt my breasts." God's presence will so penetrate your being, you will not be able to sleep at night.
Song of Solomon 1 verse 14 says, "My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi." Because you know the depth of His presence, you'll discover His nearness like a cluster of cypress where you'll find JOY alone in Him. Where nothing else delights your soul but Him. He becomes your only Source of satisfaction. And if you seek any other source, you lose Him. So suddenly now His presence so raptures you that you say my beloved is to me like a cluster of cypress. I am so near to Him. I so delight in Him. To seek any other source of satisfaction is to lose ALL that comes from Him. I cannot get away from Him.
Song of Solomon 1 verse 15 says, "Behold, thou art fair, my love, behold, thou art fair; thou hast dove's eyes." He speaks back to His bride. He says you're fair now because you are in my presence. And I'm going to perfect you. I'm going to cause you to always see Me with dove's eyes. SIMPLICITY and FREEDOM FROM DECEPTION. Dove's eyes symbolize two things in the bible, simplicity and no deception. So now in My presence you're going to enjoy and NONE can deceive you. Now the bride gives praise.
Song of Solomon 1 verse 16 says, "Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant; also our bed is green." So now she responds calling Him my beloved. And she says to the bridegroom, she gives Him praise and she says our bed, that inner place of fellowship, that place of beauty and union BELONGS ONLY to you Lord Jesus. A place adorned with green. And when she says green, she means A THOUSAND VIRTUES. Fellowship UNTOLD is what green symbolizes.
Song of Solomon 1 verse 17 says, "The beams of our house are cedar, and our rafters of fir." Now the Lord begins to build His habitation around you. That's why He mentions the beams of the house. Now the Lord begins to build His habitation around you. And prepares you for the next stage of your relationship, which is the practice of His presence. That's the cedar. The beautifully carved rafters of cypress speaks of total death, total elimination of who you are. You are raptured in ALL He is. And that my brother and that my sister is the bride.
I was awakened from a deep sleep earlier this week. When I awoke, I reached for the remote, turned on the television and changed the channel to Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). Just at that moment, barely awake, Benny Hinn's program was just starting. As I laid there in bed, I asked God what it was he wanted me to know. This was the message Benny Hinn was sharing that very morning. I was in AWE the entire time. Benny Hinn perfectly describes the beautiful personal relationship I share with my heavenly Father and how this nirvana reached me. It's an ongoing process. Benny Hinn has described this union in a way that I could never put into words the way he has. It's a way of living I wish everyone could truly know deep down in the core of their being. Would you please take a moment out of your day to listen to this most beautiful 9 part message that God wants you to know. God loves you soooooooo much! You have always been His precious precious child and He is just waiting for you to embrace Him right where you are. Open your heart, mind, body and spirit to Him and watch your life be trasformed in total amazement. I have typed a transcript of the first 5 minutes for my international readers who need to use Babelfish to translate.
The bride continues to say in Solomon 1 verse 7, "Tell me O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock rest at noon. For why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?" Now here is the sad thing, even the bride eventually will be forced to leave that blessed fellowship and tend to lower matters. That's why the bride is crying come LORD Jesus, so I don't have to come down. So she says, "Tell me O thou whom my soul loveth, where Thou feedest, where Thou makest Thy flock to rest." So we know that between verse 6 and 7 she was forced out of her place of comfort, of her place of peace, of her place of fellowship. Somehow along the way they forced her out because she had to come down to deal with lower matters. That happens to all of us. But soon the true bride yearns to return to the place where the bridegroom is where He is feeding His flock, that place of fellowship, that place of resting. And she cries out O where are you? I want to be back where You are. Because I haven't been fed by Your presense. I want to be back where the flock is, where Your presense is.
I want to be back where the sun is shining more. I've gotten tired of dealing with lower matters. They've forced me out. But I'm coming back Lord, I'm coming back. I remember this happened to me one time when I was in England. I was in such glory, in such beauty with the LORD. And the woman I was staying at her house kept crying out "Benny lunch is ready come on." And I'm in the presence of God and I'm crying and I'm in fellowship I didn't care about lunch. "Benny come on we're all waiting for you." And I'm in such intensity with the LORD that she kept screaming at me. Finally I said dear Jesus I've got to go and the LORD said to me another minute, just one more minute don't leave me now for another. And I saw how He wanted me so bad and I said I promise I promise I promise I'll be right back I promise. And I ran down and I ran down into emptyness, into darkness, into ugliness, into chaos. Because in comparison that world I did not want it. The meal was good, but it was not as good as the one I was having up there. To the natural body it was marvelous. But I did not want it. When you taste heaven who wants the rest down here. I felt just like this bride, I was eating, screaming where is my shepherd, I have to go back to the flock, I have to go back to the place of that mid day sun where I can explain God's glory. I left that lady in a hurry and said did I miss anything. I'm back LORD. But it took about a whole hour before He came back.
So she says, "Why should I be as one who turns aside by the flocks of Thy companions." Why should I leave where You are and go talk to Your other sheep that don't care about being where You are. That's what happened to me in England. They were all Christian, but they were disconnected. There's a lot of Christians like that. And you lose the presence of God because they force you into their world. She still calls them Your companions, they still belong to You, but they don't seem to want Your fellowship.
Solomon 1 verse 8, "If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids, besides the shepherds tent." He answers her now. Now He replies and says, if you do not know how to find me again, then you must find your nothingness to experience my fullness. That's a little deeper than maybe you want to go. But can we go there please. She's crying out I miss you, I was forced out. Just like that woman forced me out in England. I was forced out. I would rather be with you, but sorry Lord I have to deal with lower matters because these people just won't let me out. Now when you go back He's not there. His presence is gone because He's God. He's not going to wait for you while you take care of the flesh and take care of the world of that flesh. So you've got to go back and start all over again. And so what does He say to you? Find your nothingness and then you will be with me. In other words, empty yourself of what the thing that caused you to go down there. He's a jealous God.
If thou knowest not. Because she just cried out in verse 7, she said please tell me O thou whom my soul loves. Where are you feeding so I can come back there. He says if you don't know where I am feeding, here's how you find it. And He still calls her O fairest of thy women. She's still the bride. Go thy way forth. Go thy way forth means return to that place. Oh my Lord this is awesome. Find that place where you got empty, where you experienced your nothingness so my fullness was revealed there to you. Jesus says look you want me back, empty yourself. And to empty yourself you need time. You can't empty yourself in a second. I demand total emptiness, total death, give it all up or you can't have Me. And then He makes this amazing statement, He says, "You must find your nothingness, then you'll find my fullness, you must go forth from yourself, you must be persuaded by your nothingness to experience God." And then he said this, "You must be obedient to what the true shepherd's have said." Meaning to what the apostle's have said. In other words, I am not going to repeat to you what has already been written. You know exactly what to do to get me back.
And then this amazing verse just jumps at you Solomon 1 verse 9, "I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharoah's chariots." This is awesome. What the Lord is really saying to the bride, you want to find me back, all right but what I really want is when you find me back I want you like a HORSE RUNNING towards me, running out of Egypt out of Pharoah's horses. This is how you'll find me. You were pulled away because of force and pressure by your family. You're looking for me again. All right. Find your nothingness, you'll find My fullness. But I won't accept you unless you run towards me like a company of horses out of Pharoah's chariots. Meaning, you better hate your Egypt so much that you're going to get on your horse and run towards me as fast as you can away from that Egypt. That's when He'll receive you. He'll receive you when you are going to run back to Him.
And then Solomon 1 verse 10, "Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold." He is still speaking to His bride. Because now she wants Him back. He says your cheeks which represents your inner life and outer life. He says when you return again to me, I'm going to crown you. I'm going to crown you. This is why He talks about the neck, which speaks of true love. I'm going to crown you with Myself, you're going to be most beautiful when you come back. So now she wants to come back. He says all right, you're going to empty yourself to find my fullness, you have to run towards me like a company of horses and when you come back I am going to crown you, you're going to be lovely, even your outer life meaning your cheeks will be lovely, that's what the word calmly means. They'll be with rows of jewels
I was awakened from a deep sleep earlier this week. When I awoke, I reached for the remote, turned on the television and changed the channel to Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). Just at that moment, barely awake, Benny Hinn's program was just starting. As I laid there in bed, I asked God what it was he wanted me to know. This was the message Benny Hinn was sharing that very morning. I was in AWE the entire time. Benny Hinn perfectly describes the beautiful personal relationship I share with my heavenly Father and how this nirvana reached me. It's an ongoing process. Benny Hinn has described this union in a way that I could never put into words the way he has. It's a way of living I wish everyone could truly know deep down in the core of their being. Would you please take a moment out of your day to listen to this most beautiful 9 part message that God wants you to know. God loves you soooooooo much! You have always been His precious precious child and He is just waiting for you to embrace Him right where you are. Open your heart, mind, body and spirit to Him and watch your life be trasformed in total amazement. I have typed a transcript of the first 5 minutes for my international readers who need to use Babelfish to translate.
Now look what it says in Song of Solomon 1 verse 6, the bride is still speaking, "Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me, my mother's children were angry with me, they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept." Dear God this is magnificent. Dear Lord give the people a heart to understand this. Now I am going to explain this to you.
When God's intimate LOVE envelopes you, where you are experiencing depth that you cannot experience out there. When God's intimate LOVE becomes real in your heart and your fellowship becomes abiding. This happened to me for a whole year, I could not get away from the presence of God day and night. That's what birthed the ministry. Because this is the abiding, remember I said earlier two unions. One that can last for moments or hours and one that can last permanantly. The practice of God's presense. I practiced the presense of God for a whole year. I couldn't get away from Him. I couldn't sleep. I would fall asleep at 2 and get up at 5 and feel as strong as though I had slept for 10 hours. Literally. The presence of God was so on me that things began to happen in our home and I'm leaving it right here.
Suddenly your weakness is revealed by the sunlight inside of you and all others see is your weakness. So they look at you and say "who do you think you are?" Because they can't see what is concealed. All they see is your outer being. All they see is your flesh. And they look at you and begin to urge you to focus on earthly things. You are so caught in this so-called experience of yours why don't you just come down to reality. My cousin walked into my bedroom and the presence of God was so strong that he began to mock what was going on. And I stood there and smiled at him. Because I was in a place that I could not get angry. Are you listening. Because when the presence of God is so deep on you there is no anger. They can curse you, they can say the nastiest things to you and to your shock you are loving them beyond description. Love is coming out of you and they start to INSULT you because you love them. My dad did the same thing with me for an entire year. I would come downstairs, the presence of God on me like a robe and my father would actually cus me out and I would stand there and just love him. Love him with a smile on my face, in other words heavenly and he would get angry that I was smiling. The glory of God got him angrier than calmer. I was the one in heaven, he was not in heaven because he was in a different world. But then when he got saved God began to change him.
But now she says, this bride who is in this atmosphere of glory, she says, "Don't look upon me because I am black, because the sun has looked upon me. So don't criticize me for my faults and weakness. My mother's children were angry at me." That's what happened to me in my house. So they begin to urge you to focus on your outward life. This is exactly what happened with Mary and Martha in Luke 10:40. Let's look at that verse Luke 10:40 when Jesus went to the house of Lazarus. I'll show it to you. You get so captured by the LORD you don't want anything else. "But Martha was cumbered about much serving and came to him, and said, Lord dost thou not care that my sister Mary hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me." Luke 10:41-42, "And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha thou art careful and troubled by many things. But one thing is needful: And Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." She is so captured by heaven don't criticize her for what she is experiencing Martha. Martha you are on a different world, on a different planet. And now she is so taken by me and you want to steal me from her. It will never happen. Because I am looking for a people who are just like Mary that want to sit at my feet and not go any place else. How many people are like Mary?
That's what happened to me, I was so captured they began to get angry with me, they would say why don't you just focus on this and that. But I was as calm, nothing bothered me. Because I was in that realm.
But then she says this, "They were angry with me, they made me the keeper of their vineyards." So they begin to urge her to focus on your outward life, focus on your vineyard and focus on my vineyard. Vineyard means my life. Why are you so caught up in heaven, you ought to help me. That's what Martha said, come help me in my vineyard. But the true bride says I'm so caught up in Jesus I have no time to fix your vineyard, fix your own. And I'm so caught up in Jesus that I am not fixing my own vineyard, he'll fix it for me.
I was awakened from a deep sleep earlier this week. When I awoke, I reached for the remote, turned on the television and changed the channel to Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). Just at that moment, barely awake, Benny Hinn's program was just starting. As I laid there in bed, I asked God what it was he wanted me to know. This was the message Benny Hinn was sharing that very morning. I was in AWE the entire time. Benny Hinn perfectly describes the beautiful personal relationship I share with my heavenly Father and how this nirvana reached me. It's an ongoing process. Benny Hinn has described this union in a way that I could never put into words the way he has. It's a way of living I wish everyone could truly know deep down in the core of their being. Would you please take a moment out of your day to listen to this most beautiful 9 part message that God wants you to know. God loves you soooooooo much! You have always been His precious precious child and He is just waiting for you to embrace Him right where you are. Open your heart, mind, body and spirit to Him and watch your life be trasformed in total amazement. I have typed a transcript of the first 5 minutes for my international readers who need to use Babelfish to translate.
Your spirit becomes so full of His love, you'll be carried into depth unknown. And suddenly the next thing you read is He will draw you. But who's crying to draw her in is the bride. So you experience this depth and suddenly everything in you cries out please bring me closer. Because what you're experiencing is so incredible, so heavenly, so indescribable glory you want more. Because the deeper you go, the deeper you want to go. You start crying out draw me, I'm not satisfied with just this level of depth. I want deeper depth because You are deeper than this. He is called the unsearchable Christ.
Now precious people, some people say wait a minute this kind of relationship belongs in heaven. Oh no it starts right here and continues in heaven. That's why heaven becomes... Why do you think the bride says come to Lord Jesus. Who's crying come, the Holy Ghost and the bride. Right? Why? Because she has experienced this depth. And she wants more of it and so she cries come please, I want more of this come please. The Holy Spirit and the bride say come. Because she is experiencing this depth of love, this incredible oneness with Him. That she wants to be one with Him forever. So she's crying come. And so she's making this request, draw me. She's so overwhelmed by His love that she's crying draw me. Why? That I may go deeper. Let me be guided by Your fragrance. Because earlier she talked about fragrance. She said in verse 3, "Because your fragrance is oinment and Your name heals my being and now please draw me deeper into that fragrance, bring me deeper into Your Self, guide me into Your Self." But where does He guide you? He guides you into His chambers. Because she's asking Him to draw her. She said draw me. I'm going to run. She said you draw me and I'm coming running. The true bride says I love you so much, just pull me in, pull me in. And I won't walk, I'll run towards You. And when I run towards You bring me into Your chambers. Because in those chambers I will experience UNSPEAKABLE JOY.
Now in that chamber what happens? In that chamber He reveals His face. In His chambers He rewards you by revealing His face. Because now you begin to prefer Him above ALL. That's why she says to Him in verse 4, "Draw me and I'll run after You. The King has brought me into His chambers, we will be glad and rejoice." I'm going experience such JOY in You and I'm going to remember You're LOVE more than I remember wine. And the upright love Thee. Therefore, only the righteous only the bride can walk in there.
But watch what happens the second she's in those chambers. Something happens to her. This happens to every believer who goes into this depth. Are you ready for it? The second she's in there she crys out, Solomon 1 verse 5, "I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon." Wow this is awesome. The bride is in the presence of Jesus and He is so, His LIGHT is so penetrating that the only thing she see's is her darkness. She feels unworthy to be there. So she says, "Lord your LIGHT is so bright, Your GLORY is so great that I have just seen my darkness." The hebrew word for I am black is I am dark. Dark because of sin. The opposite of LIGHT is dark. I am dark because of sin. Your LIGHT is so bright ALL I SEE is my flaws, my weakness. But even though I see my flaws, I am in a place that is calmly. I am in a place where it's still lovely because I am experiencing in my INNER HEART such JOY and such LOVE and such BEAUTY. I have been captured by the LORD. Yet LORD, it is lovely even though I can see my sin. That's what happened to Isaiah, he saw the glory of God and he said I am undone. But yet he was emmersed in that glory.
But she says this, "As the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon." The curtains of Solomon speak of your HUMANITY which conceals your beauty inside your spirit. So within your spirit is HEAVEN. Within your spirit there's Jesus. Within your spirit this world unknown is happening. Within your spirit you're experiencing such depth because this is where the oneness is. But now suddenly because of the brightness that's there you see your flaws, you see your flesh, you see your humanity. I've been to that place where the glory of God so shone around me that the first thing I saw was my humanity and I said who am I to be here. What gives me the right to be here. Just like Peter when he was faced with the glory, he said I am a sinner depart from me. Remember that? So you feel unworthy being even in there. Yet it is lovely, because He has allowed you in there. The glory of God has shone while your curtain is still on. The curtain of Solomon, your humanity is still there.
I was awakened from a deep sleep earlier this week. When I awoke, I reached for the remote, turned on the television and changed the channel to Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). Just at that moment, barely awake, Benny Hinn's program was just starting. As I laid there in bed, I asked God what it was he wanted me to know. This was the message Benny Hinn was sharing that very morning. I was in AWE the entire time. Benny Hinn perfectly describes the beautiful personal relationship I share with my heavenly Father and how this nirvana reached me. It's an ongoing process. Benny Hinn has described this union in a way that I could never put into words the way he has. It's a way of living I wish everyone could truly know deep down in the core of their being. Would you please take a moment out of your day to listen to this most beautiful 9 part message that God wants you to know. God loves you soooooooo much! You have always been His precious precious child and He is just waiting for you to embrace Him right where you are. Open your heart, mind, body and spirit to Him and watch your life be trasformed in total amazement. I have typed a transcript of the first 5 minutes for my international readers who need to use Babelfish to translate.
Song of Solomon 1:2, "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth. For Thy LOVE is better than than wine." That's awesome. So now your spirit is completely completely completely united. And like I said there is two kinds of union, one that is for moments or hours and one is permanent. But when you get into that place where His LOVE is stronger than wine, His LOVE begins to control everything you say and do. This is where your spirit becomes completely fruitful. Unfruitfulness and barrenness are not known in that realm. You know what happens when people drink wine. It controls them. But the LOVE of God can take hold of you in such a way that suddenly you are pulled into it, every word you speak is because of it, every act because of it, you are emmersed in it all in that realm.
And look what it says here, Solomon 1:3, "Because of the savour of thy good ointments Thy name is as ointment poured forth therefore do the virgins love Thee." Awesome. Now that LOVE that begins to control you better than wine, pulls you into His fragrances. Remember last time I taught on the fragrance of Christ? And do you remember when I taught first on the mire His love and the cinnamon His jealously over you and calamus His brokenness that you'll experience? And the case that now you are worshipping Him here. That's what this means here. Because of the savour of Thy oinment, I begin to experience the full fragrance of the Master. I begin to experience His love, His jealousy over me, I begin to experience His brokenness. And I begin to experience His Holiness where I am now prostrate in worship. That's what the fragrance is all about. So He says, "because of the savour of Thy oinments, Thy name is oinment poured forth." So now Your name is oinment poured forth therefore the virgins love Thee. What this says is the sweetness of your presence, it's so precious to me, it begins to penetrate my soul and spirit. So much so that your name begins to heal my being. Your name is healing to my soul. Your name is healing to my being. That's what it means by His name is as oinment. Oinment is used for healing. There is TOTAL HEALING for your total being in the presence of the Son of God. My God that is glorious. It happens in that realm where you are WHOLE COMPLETELY.
When I say whole I don't mean you will be physically healed. Because it has nothing to do with the physical realm. It has to do with wholeness of spirit, wholeness of soul where even though sickness may still be in your body, it is completely unimportant. Where you are ALIVE because of Him. His name heals your being. Why? Because now you are totally emmersed in Him, you have become ONE with Him, your overcome by Him. His very name brings Him on the scene. The name of Jesus brings Jesus. You are so emmersed in Him that His name penetrates your being with wholeness. Therefore the virgins, the church love Thee. You are the church. It is now not only given, it is love returned. Therefore the virgins love thee, it's a love relationship. I get into this deep presence and He loves me and He pulls me into that presence like the waterspouts on the ocean. And like those waves bringing me deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. It's that psalms 42:7 where I become so deep in Him I can't talk, my words are inadequate, and I am completely emmersed in Christ Jesus and it's just love love love love that just penetrates my being. And penetrates my being like wave upon wave upon wave upon wave upon wave and suddenly His name makes me whole and the next thing I know I am returning that same love towards Him and it is a marriage.
I was awakened from a deep sleep earlier this week. When I awoke, I reached for the remote, turned on the television and changed the channel to Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). Just at that moment, barely awake, Benny Hinn's program was just starting. As I laid there in bed, I asked God what it was he wanted me to know. This was the message Benny Hinn was sharing that very morning. I was in AWE the entire time. Benny Hinn perfectly describes the beautiful personal relationship I share with my heavenly Father and how this nirvana reached me. It's an ongoing process. Benny Hinn has described this union in a way that I could never put into words the way he has. It's a way of living I wish everyone could truly know deep down in the core of their being. Would you please take a moment out of your day to listen to this most beautiful 9 part message that God wants you to know. God loves you soooooooo much! You have always been His precious precious child and He is just waiting for you to embrace Him right where you are. Open your heart, mind, body and spirit to Him and watch your life be trasformed in total amazement. I have typed a transcript of the first 7 minutes of part 4 for my international readers who need to use Babelfish to translate.
It's that engagement season. He's not yet married. She's not yet married. But when that couple are married the journey begins. And the journey begins when they become one. The longer they live together, the more they become like each other. Correct? That's the earthly marriage. So think of it in the spiritual sense. When I got married to Suzanne, I didn't really feel one with her. On the day I said, "I do." I wasn't done. Thirty years later I feel already that she and I cannot be disconnected. Well that's in the natural. Take it a billion times more, strenghten it. We cannot really understand it in the spirit. But take it up way higher than the natural realm. Well that is what Jesus is talking about. That the day will come you are going to become so one with Him. You don't understand it now, but you will then.
If somebody told me thirty years ago that my wife and I would be so connected, so one with each other, it would take a miracle. It took a miracle. Because when you live with someone everything about them starts to rub on you and everything about you rubs on them. And sometimes you don't like the way it rubs, but it's there. Two lives are becoming one and there's a struggle. And that's in the natural realm. So salvation is our engagement if I can say it like that. We make our commitment to become one with Him. But where not there yet. Where it becomes real, where suddenly it becomes part of us is in that Holy of Holy experience. That's where we cannot get away from Him.
I can talk to the Lord in that outer court, but I'm not experiencing anything out of there. Except my, you know I'm praying, I'm making my request known, and I'm struggling, I'm fighting and such things happen in that outer court. But if I don't get any closer, I don't know the glory that is waiting for me in there. But when I experience that glory, that's what pulls me back. But I have to go through the right process, because there is no shortcuts, so I'll say all right I'll gladly go through that area of struggle so I can taste it again. I'll gladly pay the price here so I can enjoy this. And now I get to the deeper realm of prayer, the Holy of Holies that so overwhelms my soul it becomes a part of me. And as it becomes a part of me, if I do not experience that everyday I am not myself. Because the peace, and the tranquility and the joy and the oneness and the union is ONLY in there. This is where my LOVE is on fire. This is where I really LOVE Him. This where He TALKS to me. This is where He is SO REAL to me. This is where He EMBRACES me and I EMBRACE Him. And I miss Him because I've been there yesterday and I've got to go back to Him today. And the more you spend time in the Holy of Holies, the more REAL He is to you. And it's there that He'll kiss you. "Let Him kiss me, with the kiss' of His mouth."
Now you begin on this journey in the Holy of Holies where you begin to experience the depth, and the height. Phillipians talks about that and so does Ephesians. Let me show it to you, turn to Ephesians chapter 3. This is exactly what Paul was talking about. Verse 16 through 19, he talked about this. "That He would grant you according to His riches of His glory, to be strenghtened by might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in LOVE, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breath, and length, and depth and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with ALL the fullness of God." That's what I'm talking about. You begin by Christ living in your hearts by faith and end up experiencing the fullness of God. Now that's our destination to experience the fullness. That is what let Him kiss me is all about.
I was awakened from a deep sleep earlier this week. When I awoke, I reached for the remote, turned on the television and changed the channel to Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). Just at that moment, barely awake, Benny Hinn's program was just starting. As I laid there in bed, I asked God what it was he wanted me to know. This was the message Benny Hinn was sharing that very morning. I was in AWE the entire time. Benny Hinn perfectly describes the beautiful personal relationship I share with my heavenly Father and how this nirvana reached me. It's an ongoing process. Benny Hinn has described this union in a way that I could never put into words the way he has. It's a way of living I wish everyone could truly know deep down in the core of their being. Would you please take a moment out of your day to listen to this most beautiful 9 part message that God wants you to know. God loves you soooooooo much! You have always been His precious precious child and He is just waiting for you to embrace Him right where you are. Open your heart, mind, body and spirit to Him and watch your life be trasformed in total amazement. I have typed a transcript of the entire 8 minutes of part 3 for my international readers who need to use Babelfish to translate.
Remember that I have been talking about intimacy with the Lord which we develop as we begin in the outer court that is the world Jesus called, "Asking world." Ask you shall receive and then He said seek and you shall find and knock and the door shall be open. And you remember the asking world is that outer court where we begin our experience in prayer. So we begin with this outer court. But the more we plow, Josea 10:12, the more we plow the softer the land becomes and now we begin to experience more frequently and more often that second realm of prayer where we are seeking the Lord now and it becomes second nature. Where now seeking the Lord isn't as difficult as it used to be. Now we can get into God's presence much quicker than we did a month ago. And then you begin to experience the third realm, which is the knocking realm, the holy of holies and the more you go into that world, the more accustomed you become in it.
Because that world is Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know I'm God." That world is Psalm 42:7 "Deep calls unto deep with the noise of thy waterspouts." And I told you what waterspouts are. Waterspouts are little tornadoes formed over the ocean. Where the weather conditions develop these tornadoes that suck the water out of the ocean. And God's presence in that depth begins to pull you in Himself. Just like the wind pulls the water. So that is what it says in Psalm 42:7 "Deep calls unto deep by the noise of thy waterspouts or thy waves and thy billows are gone over me." So you are swept into the presence of God without much effort on your part. Because the more you live in that realm, the quicker He sweeps you into it. Now you have become accustomed to it.And that third realm of prayer begins to transform you. Where does it happen? It happens in the Holy of Holies. It's happens in the knocking realm. It happens where Jesus and you become very intimate. It happens where you experience Him in depth. And the deeper you experience Him, the quieter you become in His presence. And the deeper you experience Him, the more real He is to you. And when I say real, I literally mean reality beyond description. Reality so great that you LOSE the reality of SELF into His reality. He literally becomes all in all to you. In that realm is where the bride is comfortable. In that realm the bride is comfortable. Because that is the bride of intimate love and fellowship.
Now the song of Solomon begins with this amazing verse, the song of songs which is Solomon's verse 2, "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth." That's awesome. "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth." Now someone who is not the bride looks at this book and never understands it. Because to him it's a love story. Oh yes it is, but it's DIVINE. This is the relationship between bridegroom and bride. Let Him kiss me. What is this kiss? This kiss is our union with Him. This kiss completes our union with Him. This kiss is the union of our spirit with the Holy Spirit. Where God's Spirit and our spirit are united.
Now let me explain something to you. When one is saved, he or she at first comes into salvation. But is not yet in union. They are saved, but not totally immersed in Him. They are saved, but they have not experienced the abiding in Christ life. They are saved, but they have not merged and become one. They are saved, but have not yet begun on their eternal journey, which begins on the earth, where we begin to experience His depth. I want to tell you something, you get saved and you no nothing yet about oneness. To you it is foreign. It's something you read in the bible and don't fully understand. You read John 17:23 and you wonder what it means. What Jesus prayed for is what I'm talking about here. Absolute oneness with Him. But the journey becomes real and exciting when we experience depth in Him. Because over here it's not so much the journey yet, it's like when you get engaged but you're not married yet. It's that season when like someone get's engaged. It's that engagement season.
I love to travel and get away from it all whether it's 1st class, 2nd class or 3rd class makes no difference to me. I simply love to visit new places and meet new people. I really enjoy extreme sports. I started blogging 18 years ago and love to be able to express and share thoughts with others.
Most recently a Mortgage Professional prior to implosion. Earned a living in my previous career as an Institutional Equity Trader (sell side). I have a bachelor's degree in finance with special emphasis in economics.
❤ May my heart be kind, my mind fierce and my spirit brave. ❤
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Thank you for visiting. I will do my best to keep you posted to global news affecting humanity and this planet as we know it today. I will bring you global news Monday through Friday adding my insight along the way. In between the non-sense, I will pepper in a little humor, random stuff and inspiration for balance and I will use the weekend to feed your spirit.
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The Fall of the Cabal
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Dr Yuval Noah Harari is a transhumanist and top advisor to WEF Klaus Schwab. He said, "In the past many tyrants and governments wanted to do it. But nobody understood biology well enough and nobody had enough computing power and data to hack millions of people. Neither the gestapo nor the KGB could do it. But soon at least some corporations and governments will be able to systematically hack ALL THE PEOPLE. NWO depopulation eugenics agenda happening now.
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I've been asked many times if I still track the stock market. My answer is a resounding yes. The stock market is in my blood. I'm still tracking the markets, still doing research and still following economic news. This is the one industry that is the heart of global productivity. It is essential in pumping the necessary oxygen (capital) to corporations that in turn hire employees who will in turn produce the products and services that we all use. Capitalism is a very very important element to humanity. It is what fuels dreams, self-reliance and individualism!
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