[YouTube] Today John Lennox celebrates his 80th birthday! To mark this occasion, we are releasing a special Practical Wisdom episode on the fascinating world of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
In this Practical Wisdom special, renowned apologist and Oxford mathematician John Lennox reveals the truth about Artificial Intelligence (AI), consciousness, and our understanding of God.
What is the truth about AI and its implications on our understanding of consciousness and the divine? Join us for this thought-provoking conversation!
Discover the latest advancements in AI and how they intersect with our beliefs and perceptions of the world. John Lennox sheds light on the ethical, philosophical, and existential questions arising from this technological revolution and explores new perspectives on AI's role in our lives, the nature of consciousness, and the profound connection to spirituality and God.
[Breitbart] The following content is sponsored by The Wellness Company.
As if one pandemic wasn’t enough.
Dr. Ashwin Vasan, health commissioner of New York City, sent a letter last April warning his colleagues to be on the lookout and screen for highly infectious diseases among newly arrived migrants into New York City. Biden’s non-existent border policies are producing contagious diseases not seen for years.
The 2,500,000 recorded migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2023 represent a new all-time high. These individuals come from 160 different countries, many with terrible healthcare standards.
Now, we are seeing a resurgence of rare diseases once extinct in the U.S. A prime example is Polio: in 2022, a New York man was paralyzed by polio likely originating from another country… the last previous confirmed polio case in New York was in 1990.
A nationwide public health crisis could emerge as we head to the polls.
Tuberculosis (TB), an airborne bacterial infection, has now been confirmed in every neighborhood in New York City, with 88 percemt of cases in people born outside the U.S. Florida has seen a 21 percent increase in TB since Biden was elected. Texas border counties have triple the national average rate for TB.
But the list doesn’t stop there:
Chickenpox outbreaks have ripped through migrant shelters in multiple states.
Measles, declared eliminated in the U.S. back in 2000, has been brought back to the U.S.
Malaria was reported by a Maryland resident who contracted it from someone who got it outside the U.S. and brought it into our country.
Leprosy is now endemic in the southeastern United States. Leprosy previously affected mainly persons who had immigrated from leprosy-endemic areas.
And that’s just the beginning.
Thanks to Sleepy Joe and Border Czar Kamala, it’s not “if” but “when” – and the most important thing you can do is be prepared ahead of time. That’s where The Wellness Company’s Medical Emergency Kits come in.
The Wellness Company and their great doctors – like Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Drew, Dr. Harvey Risch, and Dr. Jim Thorp – are regularly in the media fighting against the corrupt medical establishment.
Dr. Thorp, one of the nation’s leading critics of the U.S. public health policies, believes that now – more than ever – people should be prepared for the next crisis:
We can’t rely on our crumbling healthcare system to have our backs in an emergency. I’ve strongly recommended “stock piling” critical medications for years – like the meds found in our Medical Emergency Kits. Early intervention is KEY at the first sign of symptoms. Taking an active approach by being prepared for the next illness has helped my family tremendously.
I looked on the site, but could not find any mention of how long thr medications are good for before they have to be thrown out.
#4
#2 just for the record we still have the black plague. It's endemic to the four corners area (AZ,CO,NM,UT). Usually a handful of cases a year. Local medicos know the symptoms and take remedial action if the bitten don't show up too late.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Marina Akhmedova
[REGNUM] Today Ukraine fired shells into the center of Belgorod. Shells flew into the shopping center, the skating rink, and the central park. There could be no doubt that at this time - on the afternoon of December 30, on the eve of the New Year - there would be children at the skating rink, that there would be many people in the shopping center who came to buy gifts for loved ones. There was no doubt that children and civilian adults would die.
Belgorod today has plunged into terror. From our phone screens, we looked in real time at people lying on the ground, crippled by shrapnel, heard children’s and women’s screams, and saw a stroller covered in thick blood. And this is the blood of our compatriots. A siren howled over the city.
Belgorod is a small cozy town. I have been there many times, and even more often this year, to support with just my presence. Therefore, I know that Belgorod is still a mobilized town. Every school has a shelter. All windows in kindergartens and schools are covered with a film that protects against splinters.
The border with Ukraine is close. The Belgorod region was the first to begin to bear the brunt of shelling. Some villages were evacuated from the border more than a year ago. Military reports from the region became regular, and we seemed to begin to get used to the fact that the Belgorod region was restless.
But since everything is calm here, why not get used to this idea - to the fact that some of our fellow citizens live like this?
!
Inflexibility or bravado. How Moscow will withstand the test of strength
Till today. Today everything is mixed up. New Year, a Christmas tree on the square in front of the city administration, which was also hit. Festive mood. And Belgorod knows how to create it. It is a very cozy town. They know how to organize holidays there. Today it is a mix of a holiday (a common New Year that is important for all of us), children's screams and shards of glass.
Perhaps, through this general atmosphere of celebration, when it seems that calm is coming in the world and nothing bad will happen, it has come to us even more painfully today: these are our fellow citizens and they are suffering. Belgorod today has become closer to all of us.
Pain is the feeling that the leadership of Ukraine wanted to inflict on us. And he, in general, succeeded. It hurts for Belgorod residents. 108 people were injured, 15 of them children. 14 people died, including three children.
Yesterday rockets flew to Odessa, Kyiv, and Lvov. People died there too. These were our missiles. Why are those people worse than Belgorod residents or you and me? Civilian Ukrainians are no worse or better than us. Civilians, and especially children, should not die.
Casualties are inevitable during military conflicts, but civilians should not be targeted. The death of civilians is an irreparable tragedy. And it is very important that now our society does not say that tomorrow ordinary Ukrainians must answer for the death of Belgorod residents. No, they shouldn't.
It is very important that the Russians do not say: revenge must be taken and the blow of revenge must be directed at civilians. Hatred is destructive primarily for the hater.
And Ukraine - its political and military leadership - sent NATO shells into the Belgorod New Year's celebrations precisely out of hatred. Out of revenge. They wanted to hurt us, and Ukraine succeeded. Today its political and military leadership savors the pain and gorges itself on its hatred.
Today, Belgorod residents wrote to the chat of my Telegram channel from shelters, sharing their excitement for their children, who were returning home from classes under shelling and air raid warning. Belgorod parents asked for prayers for their children, and thousands, tens of thousands of people from different cities of Russia prayed for them.
However, I am sure that many in Russia prayed yesterday, when our missiles were flying at military targets in Ukraine, that they would not hit civilians there. And the one who is not affected by hatred and thirst for revenge wins. He is the strongest.
We cannot revive the children and people who died today. And yes, this is pain. But it is not what Ukraine planned for us. Through this pain, we became even closer to the Belgorod residents.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Gevorg Mirzayan
[REGNUM] The year 2024 could be unprecedented in Russian-American relations. After all, Moscow is now on the verge of breaking off relations with Washington. This was stated by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergei Ryabkov. “The trigger could be the confiscation of assets and further military escalation,” explained the Russian diplomat.
And this is not a diplomatic note, not calling the ambassador to the carpet, or even expelling him from the country to his homeland for consultations (which has happened more than once in Russian-American relations). We are talking about the complete closure of embassies and the severance of all official relations. This did not happen even during the most acute periods of the Cold War, when Russia (then called the Soviet Union) and the United States fought real wars on the periphery. When Soviet and American soldiers killed each other in Korea, Afghanistan and Central America. When Soviet and American tanks aimed at each other in Berlin. When we were on the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Relationships were not broken simply because it seemed unthinkable. The two largest nuclear powers, which have been treading on the threshold of nuclear war for decades, must continue to communicate with each other in any situation in order not to cross this threshold. In order, at least, not to demonstrate readiness to cross this threshold (since in the history of diplomacy, the severance of diplomatic relations is the last step before the start of direct hostilities). So why is Russia now talking about its readiness to break? First of all, because the situation now is fundamentally different compared to the Cold War.
Firstly, you cannot compare the war in Ukraine with Vietnam or Afghanistan. Conflicts on the periphery of the 20th century did not affect the territory of the great powers themselves. Now the United States is actually killing Russian soldiers not in Vietnam or Afghanistan, but on the territory of Russia itself. The Americans are supplying weapons and mercenaries to the Kyiv regime for the war on Russian lands occupied by Ukraine. So this is no longer a classic war on the periphery - this is direct aggression.
Secondly, during the Cold War, in the subcortex of all rulers - both Soviet and American - there was an important mixture of feelings. The fear of nuclear war is mixed with respect for the opponent’s capabilities and an understanding of the inevitability of a nuclear retaliatory strike (that is, the principle of guaranteed retaliatory destruction). However, now there is none of this. The United States has lost the fear of nuclear war, so it is systematically, in a spiral, increasing escalation in Ukraine. They are already supplying the Kyiv regime with missiles, and will soon send F-16 planes there.
Yes, this is being done, including by the hands of the allies - the British, the Dutch, but the essence of the matter does not change. Washington is escalating, believing that Moscow will not go beyond certain limits in its behavior. Which Moscow, relatively speaking, will tolerate. Moreover, it will tolerate not only the supply of the latest weapons to Kiev (which, whatever one may say, is legal - Russia is not in a state of official war with Ukraine, which means it has no legal grounds to demand that Washington not give Zelensky weapons), but also absolutely illegal, contradictory to all international and domestic American norms, the seizure of Russian government funds, which Washington is now preparing.
And in this situation, Moscow must respond not just harshly - we must talk about a step that would seem unthinkable and would demonstrate that the Kremlin is ready to raise the bar of the conflict and will not be shy about radical escalation. And this is necessary not only in order to flex their muscles, but also in order to sober up the overplayed Americans. Show them that nuclear war is real.
In a recent article, the famous Russian political scientist Sergei Karaganov suggested launching a nuclear strike on Poland as such a sobering step. However, although you don’t particularly feel sorry for the Poles (they deserve it), you can still resort to other unacceptable steps. For example, the severance of diplomatic relations.
Here you need to understand that, in essence, there are no longer relations between the United States and the Russian Federation. America imposes sanctions on Russia and actively sponsors the Kiev regime, and Moscow, in response, refuses to discuss with Washington even those issues that, it would seem, do not directly concern Ukraine. For example, the reduction of strategic weapons.
The Kremlin does not intend to communicate with the White House on a buffet basis and conduct serious negotiations until the Americans change their approach towards Russia. In this situation, of course, ambassadors perform only a nominal function, that is, simply put, they sit in their buildings. And in conditions when Russians have also lost the opportunity to obtain American visas, the continued presence of the same American embassy in Russia does not seem advisable at all - it only performs espionage functions. If leaders suddenly need to communicate with each other, they have other methods of communication. Including a straight line.
In fact, there are only two disadvantages for Russia from breaking relations. Firstly, it will be very difficult to provide consular services to Russian citizens located in the United States. To do this, it will be necessary to create a Russian interests section at some other embassy - and even then its capabilities will be limited. That is why the announcement of the severance of diplomatic relations should not take place, conditionally, a day before the rupture. It is necessary to make an announcement a month in advance for Russian citizens to decide: either they return home or remain in the United States without consular support.
Secondly, the severance of diplomatic relations with the United States will complicate the work of the Russian mission to the UN. Yes, formally the Americans do not have the right to interfere with the work of diplomats working in the organization, but the lack of diplomatic relations with them will complicate the process of permanent residence of Russian employees in New York.
However, despite all these difficulties, the game is still worth the candle. What is at stake is not some kind of ambition or demonstration, but an attempt to avoid nuclear war. To reason, to sober up the opponent with a diplomatic (for now) slap in the face in order to bring him to his senses and remember how fragile is the glass house in which we all live. A house that is already covered in cracks.
[Breitbart] Pope Francis has met with stiff opposition from black Christian leaders after approving the blessing of gay couples.
“We, your black Pentecostal brothers in the United States, standing in solidarity with our Catholic brothers in Africa and the diaspora,” begins an open letter to Pope Francis, are compelled to “condemn your decision to bless homosexual unions.”
The letter is signed by the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers III, founder and director of the Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies and a minister for the Pentecostal Church of God in Christ.
Speaking for American black Pentecostal Christians, Rev. Rivers writes that “it is with alarm and anguish that we received the document Fiducia Supplicans,” the recent text from the Vatican’s doctrinal office permitting the blessing of gay couples.
The authorization of the blessing of “couples whose sinful conduct is central to their relationship is easily interpreted in ways that contradict the biblical principle of the complementarity of male and female,” Rivers states.
“The decision is already almost universally being interpreted as approving the blessing of sexual sin; indeed, it invites the inference that it was meant to be interpreted thus,” he adds.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/31/2023 9:32 Comments ||
Top||
#3
at age 7 (1944) i was taught in parochial school that the pope was infallible in matters of faith and morals. and i wondered how that could be true. infallibility. never wrong. who wrote that down? were they also infallible?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Breitbart] Pope Francis has met with stiff opposition from black Christian leaders after approving the blessing of gay couples.
