Human Sperm Created In Lab From Stem Cells
July 7, 2009 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
Women who say they don’t need a man may well be right – after human sperm was created in the lab.
The breakthrough could give hope to infertile couples and men left unable to have children after having cancer treatment.
But don’t worry guys, the scientists who created the sperm using stem cells don’t plan to take you out of the baby-making process just yet.
Russia, India Question Dollar Reliance Before Summit
Russia and India said the world economy is too reliant on the U.S. dollar and called for changes in how $6.5 trillion in currency reserves are managed, as Group of Eight leaders prepare to meet this week.
“The dollar system or the system based on the dollar and euro have shown that they are flawed,” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with Corriere della Sera, repeating his proposal for a new international reserve currency.
Suresh Tendulkar, an economic adviser to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said in a July 3 interview that he is urging his nation to diversify its foreign holdings away from the dollar.
The challenge to the dollar, a linchpin of world finance and trade since 1945, underlines the shift in relative economic power toward emerging markets and away from the developed nations that spawned the global crisis.
China Calls To Replace Dollar With World Currency
China’s central bank has reiterated its call for a new reserve currency to replace the US dollar.
The report from the People’s Bank of China PBOC said a “super-sovereign” currency should take its place.
Central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan has loudly led calls for the dollar to be replaced during the financial crisis.
The bank report called for more regulation of the countries that issue currencies that underpin the global financial system.
“An international monetary system dominated by a single sovereign currency has intensified the concentration of risk and the spread of the crisis,” the Chinese central bank said.
The dollar fell after the report was released. The US currency dropped 1% against the euro to $1.4088, and declined 0.8% versus the British pound to $1.6848.
Russia – World Needs New Reserve Currency
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday the world needs new reserve currencies.
Medvedev told a regional summit that the creation of new reserve currencies in addition to the dollar is needed to stabilize global finances.
Medvedev has made the proposal before. It reflects both the Kremlin’s push for greater international clout and a concern shared by other countries that soaring U.S. budget deficits could spur inflation and weaken the dollar.
Airing it at a summit meeting underlined the challenge to U.S. clout.
Medvedev spoke at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes China and four Central Asian nations.
Later Tuesday he hosts a summit of the BRIC group of leading emerging economies — Brazil, Russia, India and China.
The Kremlin’s top economic adviser said Russia may put part of its currency reserves in bonds issued by Brazil, China and India.
Arkady Dvorkovich said Russia could make the move if the other three nations reciprocate. Brazil, Russia, India and China are the members of the BRIC group of leading emerging economies.
Judge Bans Bible from Childs Show and Tell
June 2, 2009 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
A U.S. court says a kindergartner’s mother cannot read Scripture during show and tell, even if the Bible is the boy’s favorite book.
Monday’s ruling is a victory for the Marple Newtown School District in suburban Philadelphia.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says the school’s decision does not violate First Amendment rights given the nonpublic nature of the classroom and the tender age of the children.
The mother, Donna Kay Busch, argues the students heard stories related to Passover, Christmas and other religious holidays.
The appeals court says there is a “significant difference” between identifying those holidays and reading from Scripture.
U.S. Inflation to Approach Zimbabwe Level
May 29, 2009 by admin
Filed under new world order
The U.S. economy will enter “hyperinflation” approaching the levels in Zimbabwe because the Federal Reserve will be reluctant to raise interest rates, investor Marc Faber said.
Prices may increase at rates “close to” Zimbabwe’s gains, Faber said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Hong Kong. Zimbabwe’s inflation rate reached 231 million percent in July, the last annual rate published by the statistics office.
“I am 100 percent sure that the U.S. will go into hyperinflation,” Faber said. “The problem with government debt growing so much is that when the time will come and the Fed should increase interest rates, they will be very reluctant to do so and so inflation will start to accelerate.”
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser said on May 21 inflation may rise to 2.5 percent in 2011. That exceeds the central bank officials’ long-run preferred range of 1.7 percent to 2 percent and contrasts with the concerns of some officials and economists that the economic slump may provoke a broad decline in prices.
“There are some concerns of a risk from inflation from all the liquidity injected into the banking system but it’s not an immediate threat right now given all the excess capacity in the U.S. economy,” said David Cohen, head of Asian economic forecasting at Action Economics in Singapore. “I have a little more confidence that the Fed has an exit strategy for draining all the liquidity at the appropriate time.”
Brazil and China Eye Plan To Axe The Dollar
Brazil and China will work towards using their own currencies in trade transactions rather than the US dollar, according to Brazil’s central bank and aides to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president.
The move follows recent Chinese challenges to the status of the dollar as the world’s leading international currency.
Beijing this week, and Hu Jintao, China’s president, first discussed the idea of replacing the dollar with the renminbi and the real as trade currencies when they met at the G20 summit in London last month.
An official at Brazil’s central bank stressed that talks were at an early stage. He also said that what was under discussion was not a currency swap of the kind China recently agreed with Argentina and which the US had agreed with several countries, including Brazil.
“Currency swaps are not necessarily trade related,” the official said. “The funds can be drawn down for any use. What we are talking about now is Brazil paying for Chinese goods with reals and China paying for Brazilian goods with renminbi.”
Henrique Meirelles and Zhou Xiaochuan, governors of the two countries’ central banks, were expected to meet soon to discuss the matter, the official said.
Is Socialism The New Atheism ?
May 13, 2009 by admin
Filed under Moral Decay
Socialism is not merely the labor question, or the question of the so-called fourth estate, it is above all things the atheistic question, the question of the form taken by atheism to-day, the question of the tower of Babel built without God, not to mount to heaven from earth, but to bring heaven down to earth. — Fyodor Dostoevsky
I learned something from Barack Obama. No, I’m not being facetious.
The above quote from The Brothers Karamazov had puzzled me for a few years. I understood that many atheists happen to be socialists, and vice versa. I saw that Marxists, in order to cement their control over a country, need to suppress Christianity (”religion is the opiate of the masses,” and all that). But Dostoevsky, who had firsthand knowledge of both Communism and Christianity, insists on more.
Socialism, he wrote, is “the form of atheism to-day.” It is the image of the invisible un-god; the Lie made flesh and dwelling among us. Socialism is the malfunctioning machine housing the malevolent ghost.
I thought that was pretty harsh. And I didn’t perceive it to be entirely correct. Isn’t socialism just an economic system — one that could be embraced by naïve Christians as well as by atheists?
Mideast’s Christians Are Losing Numbers and Sway
May 13, 2009 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
Christians used to be a vital force in the Middle East. They dominated Lebanon and filled top jobs in the Palestinian movement. In Egypt, they were wealthy beyond their number. In Iraq, they packed the universities and professions. Across the region, their orientation was a vital link to the West, a counterpoint to prevailing trends.
But as Pope Benedict XVI wends his way across the Holy Land this week, he is addressing a dwindling and threatened Christian population driven to emigration by political violence, lack of economic opportunity and the rise of radical Islam. A region that a century ago was 20 percent Christian is about 5 percent today and dropping.
Since it was here that Jesus walked and Christianity was born, the papal visit highlights a prospect many consider deeply troubling for the globe’s largest faith, adhered to by a third of humanity — itsmost powerful and historic shrines could become museum relics with no connection to those who live among them.
“I fear the extinction of Christianity in Iraq and the Middle East,” the Rev. Jean Benjamin Sleiman, the Catholic archbishop of Baghdad, said in a comment echoed across the region.
The pope, in a Mass on Tuesday at the foot of the Mount of Olives, addressed “the tragic reality” of the “departure of so many members of the Christian community in recent years.”
He said: “While understandable reasons lead many, especially the young, to emigrate, this decision brings in its wake a great cultural and spiritual impoverishment to the city. Today I wish to repeat what I have said on other occasions: in the Holy Land there is room for everyone!”
Judge Rules In Favor Of Prayer Ban For School Officials
May 12, 2009 by admin
Filed under Moral Decay
A federal judge on Friday approved a consent decree that calls for Santa Rosa County School District officials to stop promoting their religious beliefs in schools.
School officials now are prohibited from promoting or endorsing prayers during school functions and from organizing school functions at religious venues. The consent decree must be distributed to all employees.
“The court has ensured that decisions about religion will be left in the hands of families and faith communities and not public school officials,” said Benjamin Stevenson, an American Civil Liberties Union of Florida attorney based in Pensacola.
The ACLU and ACLU of Florida sued the district in August on behalf of two unnamed Pace High School students. The students claimed school officials regularly promoted religion and led prayers at school events.
Pope in Israel Calls for Palestinian State
Pope Benedict XVI called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian homeland immediately after he arrived in Israel Monday, a stance that could put him at odds with his hosts on a trip aimed at improving ties between the Vatican and Jews.
The pope also took on the delicate issue of the Holocaust, pledging to “honor the memory” of the 6 million Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide at the start of his five-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Benedict touched down in Israel on the second leg of a weeklong pilgrimage to the Holy Land, after spending three days in neighboring Jordan. He is using the tour to reach out to both Muslims and Jews.
In his first public comments upon arriving, Benedict urged Israelis and Palestinians to “explore every possible avenue” to resolve their differences.
“The hopes of countless men, women and children for a more secure and stable future depend on the outcome of negotiations for peace,” he told a welcoming ceremony at Israel’s international airport. “In union with people of goodwill everywhere, I plead with all those responsible to explore every possible avenue in the search for a just resolution of the outstanding difficulties, so that both peoples may live in peace in a homeland of their own within secure and internationally recognized borders.”
If You Think the Dollar Is Doomed, Read This
Warren Buffett has been called a sage, an oracle, and a genius. So when he says something as startling as the following, your ears should perk up: “In the future, I would predict that the U.S. dollar will decline. … Force-feeding the rest of the world $2 billion a day is inconsistent with a stable dollar.”
This is scary stuff. Except one thing: Buffett made that statement at the beginning of 2008, before (1) the U.S. dollar went on to have a pretty good year versus most other currencies, (2) the U.S. government announced the $800 billion bailout and $789 billion stimulus that will force-feed the world billions of additional dollars of U.S. debt, and (3) China’s central government proposed replacing the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
Passing on the buck
Now, we’re not policy wonks, Ph.D. economists, or long-winded talk-radio hosts, so we’ll leave the politics aside and focus on the implications for your bank account instead. By adding to our massive federal deficit, the TARP and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 could have a devastating effect on the
George Barna: America Is Being Destroyed Inside Out
May 11, 2009 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
Christian pollster George Barna made a controversial argument Wednesday night that Americans are to blame for the destruction of their country and it is up to faith groups to restore it.
George Barna, founder of The Barna Group, shares ideas presented in his latest book, 7 Faith Tribes, on the opening night of the Evangelical Press Association/Associated Church Press Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana on Wednesday, May 6, 2009.
The once great United States is decaying, declared Barna to a crowd of hundreds of Christian journalists on the opening night of the Evangelical Press Association/Associated Church Press Convention.
America’s divorce, abortion, sexually transmitted disease, spousal abuse and crime rates are the highest or among the highest compared to other developed nations. And the percentage of students graduating from high school on time has not changed in 32 years.
“The enemy of America today is not Iraq. It is not Afghanistan or communism. It is not Somalian pirates. It’s the moral degradation and spiritual complacency of Americans,” contended Barna, founder of the research firm The Barna Group. “In essence it is the willingness of Americans to become victims of the imposition of values and objectives that defy our common good.”
Many factors have led to America’s deterioration, he said, including moving from mass production to mass consumption, moving from common values to now radical individualism with personal values, and competition among faith groups rather than cooperation.
“Just think about the shift in mottos that characterize our nation,” Barna noted. “We talked about one nation under God, but today really we are one nation under self, sometimes aided by one or more gods.”
“We shifted from a nation that said ‘In God We Trust’ to reality and self we trust,” he said. “We transitioned from being a land of the free and the home of the brave, to now we are the land of the indebted and the home of the self-indulgent. We also shifted from a land that believes you can be all you can be to now it’s get all you can get.”
Obama Could Address Muslims From Top Mosque
May 11, 2009 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
The grand mufti of Egypt has invited President Obama to address Muslims around the globe from one of the most important mosques in the Islamic world.
The invitation to speak from Egypt’s Al Azhar mosque follows an announcement over this past weekend that Obama will travel to Egypt next month to deliver his promised address to the Muslim world.
According to Al-Masri Al-Yawm, a state-run Egyptian newspaper, Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa and other scholars from Egypt’s Al Azhar University invited Obama to use the mosque as venue for the president’s upcoming visit, explaining it would promote a culture of dialogue between Islam and the West.
Al AZhar University is the most respected Sunni Islamic learning center in the world and is the second oldest degree-granting school in the world. Clerics at the university’s attendant mosque decide Islamic sharia law matters for Sunni Muslims internationally.
