Military Tensions
China Warns of ‘Storm Clouds Gathering’ in U.S.-North Korea Standoff nytimes
China warned on Friday that tensions on the Korean Peninsula could run out of control, after North Korea said it could test a nuclear weapon whenever its top leader, Kim Jong-un, decided, and as an American naval group neared the peninsula in a show of resolve.
Israel
Top UN Official Calls Jerusalem the Ancient Capital of Israel israeltoday.co.il
Irina Bokova, the director-general of UNESCO, which last year passed a motion denying the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, shocked many last week when she publicly affirmed the Jews’ historic connection to the Holy City.
Antisemitism
Artist behind 'beware of Jews' sign apologises for causing offence theguardian
Franck Allais, a freelance photographer, said the contentious sign was part of an artistic project, which includes depictions of a woman pulling a shopping trolley, a man pushing his wheelchair and a cat.
Allais said he intended the project to be a comment on identity and that the sign in Stamford Hill, one of the largest Hasidic communities in Europe, was not an antisemitic statement. He said he was left shaken by the offence he had caused.
I posted the original story of this 'antisemetic' act yesterday on the previous blog, but appears that I (as well as several others) jumped to conclusions about the intent. I appologize for my part in passing the original story around.
Society
Most American Religious Groups Support Same-sex Marriage, Oppose Religiously Based Service Refusals prri.org
Overall, a majority (58 percent) of Americans support allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally. Among religious groups, Unitarian/Universalists (94 percent), Buddhists (85 percent), Jews (73 percent), Hindus (67 percent), white mainline Protestants (63 percent), white Catholics (63 percent), Hispanic Catholics (62 percent), and Orthodox Christians (59 percent) all have majorities supporting same-sex marriage. Black Protestants (45 percent), Muslims (44 percent), and Hispanic Protestants (41 percent) are somewhat divided. Only three religious groups–Mormons (37 percent favor, 55 percent oppose), white evangelical Protestants (31 percent favor, 61 percent oppose), and Jehovah’s Witnesses (25 percent favor, 53 percent oppose)–show majority opposition for same-sex marriage. Combined, these three religious groups comprise only 19 percent of the general population.
Society
Same-sex Valentine's Day cards are on the shelves at Sainsbury's for the first time home.bt w!
The 'cute' cards have a simple design featuring illustrations of a man and a man, and a woman and a woman, along with the words ‘You + Me’.
Apostasy
Southern Baptist Mission Trustee Resigns Rather Than 'Support False Religion' christiantoday
He told Tennessee's Baptist and Reflector baptistandreflector.org: "If we defend the rights of people to construct places of false worship are we not helping them speed down the highway to hell? I want no part in supporting a false religion even if it is in the name of religious freedom."
In a statement to Baptist Press apparently conceding one of Haun's points, IMB president David Platt said: "As a result of discussions among IMB trustees and staff over recent months, we have revised our processes for our legal department filing any future amicus briefs. IMB leaders are committed in the days ahead to speak only into situations that are directly tied to our mission."
Also see SBC Loses Funding Over Mosque-Building Support pulpitandpen.org
Research
New organisms have been formed using the first ever 6-letter genetic code sciencealert
While every living thing on Earth is formed according to a DNA code made up of four bases (represented by the letters G, T, C and A), these modified E. coli carry an entirely new type of DNA, with two additional DNA bases, X and Y, nestled in their genetic code.
False Religion
Televangelist Paula White Joins Trump Inauguration Day Plans hollywoodreporter
Prosperity gospel preachers Paula White, a friend of Trump's, and Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, whose Detroit church hosted the Republican in September, will be among six faith leaders selected to participate in the Jan. 20 inauguration. It will be the first time preachers who spread the prosperity gospel will be included in the ceremony.
While the faith movement is widely popular, many Christians consider it heretical. Ministers in the tradition often hold up their own wealth as evidence their teachings work. Trump had campaigned in part on his record as a wealthy real estate developer and businessman.
For more on the heretical teachings of people like Paula White, see: The Devilish Puppet Master of the Word-Faith Movement (Justin Peters) gty.org
Holocaust Denial Article No Longer in Google’s Top Search Results forward
Now, when users search “Did the Holocaust happen?” they must first scroll through articles about the search controversy, two articles by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ushmm.org, and a wikipedia page on Holocaust denial before they arrive at the Stormfront article.
What's interesting about this is the potential ramifications if, say, people started complaining that the top results were "anti-homosexual" or promoted only one Way (John 14:16) or the like. I'm all for Holocaust denial (AKA anti-semetic) sites being treated as the "fake news" they are, but to intervene to control how specific results get sorted up (or down) seems to be a slipperly slope.
Israel
Israel plans more settlements; Abbas looks to Paris summit usatoday v
The developments came just days after the United States broke with past practice and allowed the U.N. Security Council to condemn Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as a “flagrant violation” of international law.
Abortion
Obama Bars States From Denying Federal Money to Planned Parenthood nytimes
Mindful of the clock ticking down to a Trump presidency, the Obama administration issued a final rule on Wednesday to bar states from withholding federal family-planning funds from Planned Parenthood affiliates and other health clinics that provide abortions. The measure takes effect two days before the Jan. 20 inauguration of Donald J. Trump.
According to the department, repealing the rule would require a new rule-making process, or a joint resolution of disapproval by the House and Senate, with concurrence by the new president.
Anti-Semitism
Activists Manipulate Third-Graders into Hating Israel truthrevolt.org v
"Far under the radar, the attempt to demonize Israel is moving down the educational chain even into elementary schools, pushed by activists who accept no boundaries even for young children," begins Professor William A. Jacobson, who runs LI. "Yet because such activities take place in schools to which access is limited, and the young students are not developmentally able to report on what happens, it’s rare to obtain hard visual proof. We have such proof."
North Korea
North Korea Close to Having Nuclear-Armed ICBM: Official defensetech.org
North Korea now has an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, armed with a nuclear warhead capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, but they have yet to solve the “re-entry problem” that would burn up the warhead as it hits the atmosphere, a senior military official said Thursday.
Government
Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion in bureaucratic waste washingtonpost
Pentagon leaders had requested the study to help make their enormous back-office bureaucracy more efficient and reinvest any savings in combat power. But after the project documented far more wasteful spending than expected, senior defense officials moved swiftly to kill it by discrediting and suppressing the results.
Politics
Welcome to Washington’s new normal: One Trump drama after another washingtonpost
Trump summoned two dozen television executives and news anchors to his offices Monday to berate them as dishonest and disobedient. He sought to strong-arm the British government to appoint his Brexit ally, Nigel Farage ukip.org, as ambassador to the United States. He dropped his threat to prosecute Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, disregarding his “lock her up” campaign chant and incurring the wrath of some reliable supporters.
Then there was Tuesday’s meeting with the New York Times, the newspaper Trump loves to mock as “failing.” It was scheduled, then canceled, then rescheduled. And once the president-elect settled in at the Grey Lady’s wikipedia.org boardroom, he softened his position on climate change, floated the idea that his son-in-law could broker peace in the Middle East, voiced new doubts about the effectiveness of torturing terrorism suspects, savaged Republicans who wavered on his candidacy and left unresolved concerns about how — or even whether — he would disassociate himself from his global business holdings to avoid conflicts of interest.
Society
Troubling Study Says Artificial Intelligence Can Predict Who Will Be Criminals Based on Facial Features theintercept
The bankrupt attempt to infer moral qualities from physiology was a popular pursuit for millennia, particularly among those who wanted to justify the supremacy of one racial group over another. But phrenology britannica, which involved studying the cranium to determine someone’s character and intelligence, was debunked around the time of the Industrial Revolution, and few outside of the pseudo-scientific fringe would still claim that the shape of your mouth or size of your eyelids might predict whether you’ll become a rapist or thief.
Not so in the modern age of Artificial Intelligence, apparently: In a paper titled “Automated Inference on Criminality using Face Images,” two Shanghai Jiao Tong University sjtu.edu.cn researchers say they fed “facial images of 1,856 real persons” into computers and found “some discriminating structural features for predicting criminality, such as lip curvature, eye inner corner distance, and the so-called nose-mouth angle.” They conclude that “all four classifiers perform consistently well and produce evidence for the validity of automated face-induced inference on criminality, despite the historical controversy surrounding the topic.”
Society
Facebook to stop ads that target, exclude races usatoday
Facebook will also require advertisers to affirm that they will not place discriminatory ads on Facebook and will offer educational materials to help advertisers understand their obligations, Egan said.
Russia
Russia holds large-scale nuclear war games washingtontimes
The unannounced war games were called strategic operation of nuclear forces and took place between Oct. 10 and Oct. 12 throughout Russia. The exercises appear to be the latest round of nuclear saber-rattling against the United States by President Vladimir Putin.
One official said the exercises, involving numerous launches of nuclear missiles, were gauged to be at levels that reached or exceeded the kind of Soviet strategic force exercises held during the Cold War.
Israel
Obama: Don't Destroy the Peace Process by Turning it Over to the U.N. gatestoneinstitute.org
The Obama Administration is sending strong signals that once the election is over it may make a major push to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the United Nations. Despite repeated invitations by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Palestinian Authority President Abbas to meet without preconditions, the stalemate persists. Some blame it on Palestinian unwillingness to recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish People and to compromise to the so-called "right of return." Others — including the current U.S. Administration — lay the blame largely at the feet of the Netanyahu government for continuing to build in the West Bank, most recently approval of between 98 and 300 new homes in Shiloh. Whatever the reasons – and they are complex and multifaceted — President Obama should resist any temptation, during his final weeks in office, to change longstanding American policy — that only direct negotiations between the parties will achieve a lasting peace.
Society
5 things to know: Transgender case lands in Supreme Court sfgate
Grimm was allowed to use the boys' restroom at his high school for several weeks in 2014. But after some parents complained, the Gloucester County School Board adopted a policy requiring students to use either the restroom that corresponds with their biological gender or a private, single-stall restroom. Grimm says that policy violates Title IX, a federal law that bars sex discrimination in schools.
Also see US Supreme Court agrees to hear student privacy case adflegal v
