Cooked News; Lying Lily; CO's Aborted Bills; The North Korea Option; Elevated Russia; Oroville; and Passenger Drones

Fake News

Fake news is killing people's minds, says Apple boss Tim Cook telegraph.co.uk

In an impassioned plea, Mr Cook, boss of the world’s largest company, says that the epidemic of false reports “is a big problem in a lot of the world” and necessitates a crackdown by the authorities and technology firms.

But he is optimistic. “In some ways kids will be the easiest to educate. At least before a certain age, they are very much in listen and understand [mode], and they then push their parents to act. We saw this with environmental issues: kids learning at school and coming home and saying why do you have this plastic bottle? Why are you throwing it away?”

UN, Israel, and US; Real Nuclear Threat; The Anti-Disagrees-With-Gov Law; Robot Spouse; and The Deep Year

Israel

What Does UN Vote on Israeli Settlements Mean and What’s Next? bloomberg

United Nations Security Council 2334, which passed Dec. 23 by a vote of 14-0 with the U.S. abstaining, describes Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as illegal and an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians. It was the first time U.S. President Barack Obama declined to block a Security Council resolution that Israel considered hostile, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused him of staging a “shameless ambush” against his country. Netanyahu warned countries that backed the measure they would pay a diplomatic and economic price.

Netanyahu has declared that Israel will not not abide by the terms of the resolution. For the Palestinians, Resolution 2334 is “a moral victory and a symbolic victory, but at the end of the day nothing is really going to change on the ground and Israel will continue with its settlement construction,” Abusada said. Nearly 600,000 Jews now live in the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem beyond the 1967 boundary.

Also see Israel summons US ambassador as Netanyahu lashes out at Obama cnn and A final insult to Israel washingtontimes

19,000; Japan Deploys; Chemical Abuse; Lies to Murder; Cutting Bio-fuels; Robot Tongue; Molecular Dance; AI Blends

Economy

Dow eclipses 19,000 for first time in its 120-year history usatoday

After Monday’s record-breaking day, when the Dow Jones industrial average, large-company Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index, tech-dominated Nasdaq composite and the small-cap Russell 2000 all closed at record levels at the same time for the first time since Dec. 31, 1999, the Dow is making fresh headlines and will likely get a big shout out on the evening news.

Hard Brain; Trotting out the History; Fly By Accident; Pirate Party; Cursing on High; Christmas in December; Data are Forever; Why'd You Beep Like That?; The Secrets Computers Tell; Self Parking; Crushed on Mars; and Invisibility Bacteria

Archeaology

World's first dinosaur brain fossil discovered bbc.co.uk w!

The piece of stone was discovered more than 10 years ago by a fossil hunter at Bexhill-on-Sea. But it has taken scientists years to find out what was inside.

Lies Begetting Lies; The Racist Noose; Invoking God and Immigration Control; Russia's Texas-Sized Talk; Shrinking When Hot; and 3D Manufacturing Gallary

Depravity

Slippery slope: Study finds little lies lead to bigger ones sfgate

Neuroscientists at the University College London's Affective Brain Lab affectivebrain put 80 people in scenarios where they could repeatedly lie and get paid more based on the magnitude of their lies. They said they were the first to demonstrate empirically that people's lies grow bolder the more they fib.

The researchers then used brain scans to show that our mind's emotional hot spot — the amygdala — becomes desensitized or used to the growing dishonesty, according to a study published online Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience .

While we take the (early, unverified) conclusions of physical changes in the brain with a grain of salt, the fact that ones conscience becomes desensitized (or hardened/seared) the more we intentionally sin is well attested to in the Bible. We sin naturally but the longer we do it, the "better" we get at suppressing the conscience's warning of our guilt. Just a couple examples include Ephesians 4:17-19 and 1 Timothy 4:1-3. Also consider the source of, and desire to, sin comes from the very core of who we are: Jeremiah 17:9. Finally, take to heart the dire warning of Christ of those who are known for lying (indeed, all who remain unrepentant until the end, with one possible fruit of an unrepentant heart being lying): Revelation 21:7-8

Sloth Attack; Dead End; Mapping an Ancient Battle; Amazon's Minute of Human Interaction; The Spy Base Theory; Threats to Shoot; Afghan's Going AWOL; and Jailed Disturbing Inner Peace

Society

[OPINION] America’s ‘quiet catastrophe’: Millions of idle men washingtonpost

After 88 consecutive months of the economic expansion that began in June 2009, a smaller percentage of American males in the prime working years (ages 25 to 54) are working than were working near the end of the Great Depression illinois.edu in 1940, when the unemployment rate was above 14 percent. If the labor-force participation rate were as high today as it was as recently as 2000, nearly 10 million more Americans would have jobs.

Google, Am I Good?; End-Run BDS with Bonds; Fleeing BDS in LA; California's Sort Of Anti-BDS Law; Out on Bad Behavior; CA Plays Planned Parenthood Protector; Slave Recruit; Sinning Against Nature; 3D and Electrified Graphene; Quantum Computer Coming Soon; Creepy-Smart; Sanbot Service; Pizza Factory; AI Hope; and Sub Quiet

Depravity of Man

Am I a good person? You asked Google – here’s the answer theguardian w!

But before we even get to the question of what would make a good person, there is a basic difficulty with our inquiry: if we ask ourselves, the answer we get will probably be tainted with lies. Even when we know we have done wrong, our minds set at work to scrub the knowledge out. A rather elegant study recently published in PNAS showed that we have difficulties even forming memories of the times we have behaved unethically, and if they ever are formed, they disintegrate faster than other ones. And this is a truth that was known long before lab science, by anyone who studies human nature, from St Augustine to Jane Austen.

While clearly not holding to a biblical view point (and effectivly calling Jesus just another man and totally misunderstanding the point of Job), this is a good reminder that the problem with defining "good" is good by whose standard? God declared it's by His standard that we must be good, and said no one is good (Psalm 53:3, c.f. Romans 3:12). Jesus pointed to the Pharasees and said our righteousness must exceed those who were so about obeying laws that they even made up more laws to obey (Matt 5:20). No one is good, and certainly no one is perfect as God is and demands (Matt 5:48), but that's why Jesus had to live and die. To not only pay our fine in a legal sense through His death for our sin, but to also live righteously so that HIS righteousness could be credited to our account (2 Cor 5:21). There's only been one good man (Jesus - fully God, fully man), which is why there's only one way to be saved from the wrath of God! (John 3:36)

5 Years Prior; Iranian-US Secrets; EU Draft; Bomb Riddled Vacation; Great Barrier to Reef; and Holocaust Depravity

Israel

UN test ban head: Israel should ratify [nuclear test ban] treaty within 5 years washingtontimes

“I’m putting five years as the longest it should take now based on the positive sign that I’m seeing from Israel,” said Zerbo, who met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time during a visit there in June.

Iran-US

U.S., others agreed 'secret' exemptions for Iran after nuclear deal - think tank in.reuters

The report pdf, which was released by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, is based on information provided by several officials of governments involved in the negotiations. The group's president David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and co-author of the report, declined to identify the officials, and Reuters could not independently verify the report's assertions.

EU

Some E.U. countries got rid of the draft years ago. Now, they’re thinking about bringing it back. washingtonpost

In Europe, public opinion long appeared to develop similarly, as conscription was abandoned in France in 1996, followed by Italy, Sweden and Germany.

But more recently, many Europeans — especially those who are now too old to be drafted — have changed their minds on the issue. Following terrorist attacks last year, 80 percent of all French and 70 percent of Swedes said they would support a return of conscription.

Syria

The Syrian Ministry of Tourism Invites You to Enjoy a Lovely Vacation in Its War Zones foreignpolicy v

Mysteriously missing from the one-minute, 43-second video released by the Syrian Ministry of Tourism promoting vacation spots in the coastal town of Tartus [is d]amage from Islamic State suicide bombings that killed dozens in that very town this summer.

Environmental

A Huge Reef Hiding Right Behind the Great Barrier Reef atlasobscura

The existence of this reef has been known about for decades, but, up until recently, its exact scope and scale has never been truly known. But with the use of new laser mapping technology, the natural formations have become much more clear, and appear to be much grander than previously imagined.

Depravity of Man

Gruesome discovery in Germany raises questions about Holocaust-era experiments jpost

According to the report, the mostly brain and brain parts found in the building were remains from those murdered in Nazi human experiments, which were inhumanely conducted on prisoners including children, the mentally ill and people with disabilities during the Holocaust.

Flexi-Cam; Stretchy, Self-Healing, and Artificial Muscle; You...Are...Unplugged!; Chinese Military Plane Lands on Reclaimed Land; US Helps Philippines Spy on Someone in South China Sea; Golan Heights Arm Wrestle; Israel and Egypt Find Tunnels; PM vs. UNESCO; Call for Lamb Sacrifice; Face-to-Face Required Before Abortion; Marriage in the Sight of Man's Warped Mind; Registering Activities of Charities in UK; W.H.O. is Sounding the Alarm Again; Antelope Died Because of Climate Change or Something; Measuring Mount Paektu's BOOM Potential; and Rocket-Inspired Building Retrofiting

US, Germany, and Arab League insists Golan Heights is not Israel's; China lands military jet on disputed island; and new, blasphemous low with couple married before friends, family, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Future Tech

THIS FLEXIBLE CAMERA TAKES CRAZY IMAGES digitaltrends v

The camera lens looks vaguely like a flexible solar tile. When bent, it captures an image that may appear altered but is still a high quality full picture. The team used silicone for the prototype sheet camera that lets the focal length of each lens vary with the curvature of the sheet, meaning there is no missing information as the lens deforms.

North Carolina Support; Discriminating Behavior Not People; New Morality Pope; Rich and Famous Sinners; Wrestling with the Future; Turkey's State; Girl Infantry-Man; and Testing Global Banking

Society

Six Reasons North Carolina Got It Right townhall

On Monday Lt. Governor Dan Forest, who helped call the special session to pass HB2, called the executive in charge at one large protesting company and simply asked if him if he or anyone there had a actually read the bill.

He admitted they had not. They just labeled it “discriminatory” without even reading it.

An article linked to by today's Tim Challies update. Been tricky to find anyone not bashing North Carolina over this law.

3 Reasons Why Religious Liberty Laws Don’t Discriminate thegospelcoalition.org

One of the most ubiquitous phrases is that such bills are a “license to discriminate.” According to this line of thinking, it is invidiously discriminatory if a baker, florist, or photographer declines to use his or her creative talents in service of a same-sex wedding ceremony.

Two from Tim Challies in one day!

The New Morality of Pope Francis newyorker

I was ordained in early 1969, a few months after the promulgation of “Humanae Vitae,” the Vatican’s resounding condemnation of “artificial birth control,” which would define my future. I was a chaplain at a university where, true to the era, the norms of sexual morality had been upended. I certainly saw the need, in those wild days, for a humane and ethical analysis of the state of sexual intimacy, personal commitment, erotic longing, and gender rights. But, believe me, the triumphalist salvo from Rome made the moral condition worse, not better.

An opinion piece on how relative moralism was enshrined in Catholism long before Pope Francis. This article's author sees that as a good thing, and is praising the latest pope for pulling back further from absolutes. I found it worth reading, seeing the insights of one who is lost and deep within an idolatrous system where the issue at stake is not whether or not any decisions conform to God's word, but the words of the popes. Interesting read: sad because of the utter blindness of this man and enraging because of the utter joy taken in promoting a system wickedly at odds with God and calling it good. (Rom 1:32)

Depravity

The Troubled Minds of the Rich and Famous news.nationalgeographic

Talking from her home in Alexandria, Virginia, Kalb takes us inside the brain of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, explains how Howard Hughes had a grilled cheese sandwich problem, and why Charles Darwin is her hero.

Sin has affected how we think and relate and understand (known as the Noetic Effect of sin). This means that people really do end up a mess even by man's noeticly-effected-standard, but when we look for an answer in psychology, as the author of this book is doing, we are missing that we, ourselves, are corrupted and looking for the out for our own responsibility! This look at those in history shows us that being well-known doesn't change our nature. Not even one bit.

Singularitry

The funny things happening on the way to singularity techcrunch

About 10 years ago, inventor, futurist and now Director of Engineering at Google Ray Kurzweil famously embraced the concept of “the singularity” — that moment in time when machine intelligence surpasses our own. Kurzweil predicted the singularity would occur by 2045, and man and machine would become inseparable.

Given the relationship most people have with their smartphones, you could argue it’s already happening.

Though deeply entrenched in a humanistic worldview, an engaging read.

Turkey

One day after Israel issues travel warning to Turkey, US follows suit jpost

"The US Mission in Turkey would like to inform US citizens that there are credible threats to tourist areas, in particular to public squares and docks in Istanbul and Antalya," the statements reads.

Military

Louisiana woman makes U.S. Army history ksla

A Robeline native is making armed forces history as the first woman to enlist in the infantry in the United States Army.

Banking

4 top banks used blockchain tech to trade credit swaps qz

Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan, and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) successfully traded credit default swaps on the blockchain, according to an announcement today.