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Did you see what just happened in Damascus?  In an absolutely stunning move, Israel took out the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.  Needless to say, the Iranians are absolutely furious and they are promising a “harsh” response.  For a long time, I have been warning my readers that an apocalyptic war in the Middle East will be one of the conflicts that defines World War III.  The good news is that the war in the Middle East has not escalated to an apocalyptic level yet.  But after what we witnessed on Monday, we are just one step away.

A building next to Iran’s embassy in Damascus has been destroyed in an airstrike, reportedly killing a senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and five others – with state media saying Israel was behind the attack.

Pictures show the building in Syria’s capital razed to the ground, with huge plumes of smoke rising from the site following the explosion this afternoon and emergency workers rushing to the scene.

This particular building was apparently the residence of the Iranian ambassador to Syria.

The Syrian government says that the missiles that destroyed this building were fired from the Golan Heights…

The Syrian Ministry of Defence responded with a statement.

“This evening, the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting the Iranian consulate building in Damascus,” it said.

“Our air defences responded to the missiles and shot down some of them. The aggression led to the destruction of the entire building and the martyrdom and injury of everyone inside.

“Work is underway to recover the bodies of the martyrs, treat the wounded and remove debris.”

It appears that the IDF was targeting a gathering of very important regional leaders.

Mohammad Reza Zahedi was among those that were killed.  He was the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps…

The head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Mohammad Reza Zahedi, was confirmed killed in the strike, alongside several other Iranian diplomats visiting the Syrian capital.

The IRGC-managed Fars News agency announced the commander’s death on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Another important Iranian military official named Haji Rahimi is also dead…

Haji Rahimi was named as the second commander killed in the attack on Iran’s consulate building in the Syrian capital, according to the statement shared by state news agency IRNA on Monday night.

Haji Rahimi was reportedly a coordinator for the Quds Force, according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News.

This was a major victory for Israel, but the Iranians will inevitably respond.

Read more at: theeconomiccollapseblog.com

Euthanasia isn’t really about compassion but fear of decline and a loathing of dependency — and of those experiencing them.

That nasty truth has become abundantly clear with a new column published in the Times of London in which former Tory MP Matthew Parris argues that euthanasia/assisted suicide should not only be permitted — but encouraged. In “We Can’t Afford a Taboo on Assisted Dying,” he writes (my emphasis):

I can’t dispute the objectors’ belief that once assisted dying becomes normalized we will become more apt to ask yourselves for how much longer we can justify the struggle.

The word “justify” is telling. It does not only concern the suffering of the person who is ill, disabled, or elderly but the suffering that person is supposedly causing to family and society. Parris believes that, eventually, for such a person to continue to live will be considered unjustifiable:

I can’t dispute the objectors’ belief that once assisted dying becomes normalized we will become more apt to ask yourselves for how much longer we can justify the struggle.

The word “justify” is telling. It does not only concern the suffering of the person who is ill, disabled, or elderly but the suffering that person is supposedly causing to family and society. Parris believes that, eventually, for such a person to continue to live will be considered unjustifiable:

Is life still giving us more pleasure than pain? How much is all this costing relatives and the health service? How much of a burden are we placing on those who love us? How much of a burden are we placing on ourselves? . . .

If assisted dying becomes common and widely accepted, hundreds of thousands — perhaps millions — will consider choosing this road when the time comes, and in some cases, even ask themselves whether it would be selfish not to. . . .

Within a decade or more [assisted suicide] will be seen as a normal road for many to take, and be considered socially responsible –– and even, finally, urged upon people.

In other words, the creation of a “duty to die.” Come on, Granny! Time to swallow the pills. We need your money to send Junior to college.

Read more at: wa

Hear, then, the plan which Hashem has devised against Edom, and what He has purposed against the inhabitants of Teman [Yemen] : Surely the shepherd boys Shall drag them away; Surely the pasture shall be Aghast because of them.” JEREMIAH 47:20 (THE ISRAEL BIBLE)

On Monday, Houthi rebels fired two anti-ship ballistic missiles from their bases in Yemen into the Red Sea toward merchant vessel Pinocchio, a Singaporean-owned, Liberian-flagged ship. The US navy responded harshly.

“United States Central Command conducted six self-defense strikes destroying an unmanned underwater vessel and 18 anti-ship missiles in Houthi controlled areas of Yemen”, CENTCOM announced.

“It was determined these weapons presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and U.S. Navy ships in the region,” officials said. “These actions are taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S. Navy and merchant vessels.”

Despite the US navy’s response, the Houthi attacks continued and two drones were shot down by an Italian warship in the Red Sea in what was described as an act of self-defense.

On Saturday, Centcom said US and coalition warships had “downed a total of at least 28” drones in what appeared to be a large attempted attack by the Houthis.

On Wednesday, a Houthi attack off the port of Aden killed three crew of the Barbados-flagged, Greek-operated True Confidence. On February 18, a Houthi missile sank the cargo ship Rubymar.

Since the US began its campaign of airstrikes in January, the U.S. military says it has shot down and destroyed more 100 Houthi missiles, according to an Associated Press analysis of its statements.

Claiming to stand with Hamas in its war against Israel, the Houthis have launched attacks against civilian vessels in the Red Sea that have disrupted global shipping, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa.  This has stoked fears that the Israel-Hamas war could spread to destabilize the wider Middle East.

During its first weeks in office the Biden administration chose to unconditionally revoke Trump’s decision to classify the Houthis as a terrorist organization but reclassifieed the organization as terrorists in January.

As the Middle East heats up, the US is encountering Yemenite Houthis and other Iranian proxies in hostile encounters. The US miliary is even coming close to putting boots on the ground in Gaza as it airdrops humanitarian aid. A US naval vessel is en route, carrying equipment to build a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza. Hamas has been accused by Israel of violently hijacking trucks carrying humanitarian aid into Gaza, raising the possibility they will be in conflict with US troops distributing food, fuel, and medical equipment to Gaza’s civilians.

Read more at: israel365news.com

By the first century, Rome had conquered a vast region of the known world, from modern-day Portugal on the west, to what we now call Iran and Iraq on the east. Rome controlled the largest portion of what would become Great Britain at the northern tip of the empire and portions of modern Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Egypt on the southern edge. At its peak, 60 to 70 million people lived under Roman rule, and they worshiped a vast array of mythical gods.

[Yet] The resurrection of Jesus is true. It can be confirmed by direct evidence: the testimony of eyewitnesses. The worshipers of Mithras, Osiris, Attis and others placed their trust in ancient mythologies based on folklores rather than verifiable, recorded history. Those who observed the resurrection of Jesus, on the other hand, testified about Jesus based on their own firsthand observations. More than 100 of His followers gathered following His ascension. On another occasion, He appeared to more than 500 at one time, most of whom were still available to the readers of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:6).

Fast forward to 1996. Jesus was still being worshiped across the region of the now fallen ancient Roman Empire, and He was also being celebrated as far away as Southern California. That’s where I learned about Him. I was 35 at the time, a committed atheist and a homicide detective. I found myself in a church service, sitting dutifully with my wife. The pastor that day described Jesus as “the smartest man who ever lived.” I was provoked enough to buy a Bible to see what was so smart about this ancient sage. That led me to the Gospels. As I read them, I began to recognize characteristics of eyewitness testimony, given that I had interviewed hundreds of witnesses by that time in my law enforcement career.

Was the story about Jesus true? I decided to test the Gospel authors by asking the same four questions I would typically ask of any eyewitness in a criminal investigation.

• Were these authors really present to see what they said they saw?
• Could their claims be corroborated in some way?
• Were they consistent, or did their story about Jesus change over time?
• Were they motivated to lie?

For the next six to eight months, I investigated the death and resurrection of Jesus like the many cold cases I’ve solved over the years.

I discovered that the Gospels were written early enough to have been penned by authors who had access to true eyewitnesses. Luke’s Book of Acts, for example, lacks any description of the destruction of the Jewish Temple (in A.D. 70); the Roman siege of Jerusalem (in the late 60s); the death of Peter or Paul (between A.D. 64 and 65); or the death of James, the brother of Jesus (in A.D. 62). These omissions are reasonable if Luke wrote this New Testament book prior to A.D. 62, and if so, he would already have completed the Gospel bearing his name. Paul must have had access to this Gospel written by his friend, as he quoted from it in his first letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 11:23-26), written in the mid-50s. That places the authorship of Luke between A.D. 50 and 55.

Mark’s Gospel (quoted repeatedly by Luke) was clearly written earlier and available to Luke as a resource. Both Gospels were penned early enough to have been constructed from true eyewitness accounts (as Luke declares in the opening lines of his Gospel) and “fact-checked” by those who were living at the time.

I also discovered that the Gospel accounts could be corroborated in several ways, including archaeology. Historical figures such as Pontius Pilate (Matthews 27:2); Erastus (Romans 16:23); Sergius Paulus (Acts 13); and many more have been verified and confirmed by archaeological discoveries. The Gospel authors also accurately described the cities and geography of the region, the popular names for men and women at the time, and the correct governmental processes and procedures employed by the Jews and the Romans. The authors even documented these truths using a form of Greek that was popular in the region in the first century.

The claims of the Gospel authors were also preserved over time. My experience documenting the “chain of custody” for any piece of evidence in a criminal trial helped me to trace the claims of the New Testament authors over the centuries. The students of the Apostle John, for example (Ignatius, Papias and Polycarp), reiterate John’s claims without any modification. Ignatius and Polycarp then repeated the Gospel claims faithfully to their student, Irenaeus, without altering them. As I examined the ancient letters of these Church Fathers, I discovered that the truth about Jesus could be reconstructed from their letters to one another and to local congregations. The facts about Jesus were never altered along the way.

Finally, I investigated the motives of the Gospel authors. My experience investigating homicides taught me that there are only three reasons why anyone commits a murder, and these are the same three reasons why people lie: financial greed, sexual desire and the pursuit of power. As I examined the lives of the Gospel authors, I found that none of them had anything to gain in any of these areas. Christians in the first three centuries (prior to the Roman Edict of Milan), suffered for their commitment to Jesus. Christians were persecuted during this time. Many lost their possessions, their standing within their family and community, even their lives. If the claims related to Jesus were untrue, they would have been the most dangerous and consequential untruths anyone could utter.

The Gospel authors passed the four-part test I typically applied to eyewitnesses in my criminal cases. Their written accounts reliably and accurately described the resurrection of Jesus without ulterior motive. When I realized this was the case, everything changed for me.

Read more at: harbingersdaily.com

As Americans observe Ramadan and prepare to celebrate Easter and Passover, the percentage of adults who report regularly attending religious services remains low. Three in 10 Americans say they attend religious services every week (21%) or almost every week (9%), while 11% report attending about once a month and 56% seldom (25%) or never (31%) attend.

Among major U.S. religious groups, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also widely known as the Mormon Church, are the most observant, with two-thirds attending church weekly or nearly weekly. Protestants (including nondenominational Christians) rank second, with 44% attending services regularly, followed by Muslims (38%) and Catholics (33%).

Majorities of Jewish, Orthodox, Buddhist and Hindu Americans say they seldom or never attend religious services.

Twenty-six percent of Orthodox adults, 22% of Jewish adults, 14% of Buddhist adults and 13% of Hindu adults attend services regularly. Although Buddhist and Hindu adults have similar levels of regular attendance, Buddhist adults are much more likely to say they seldom or never attend (75%) than Hindu adults (51%). The largest segment of Hindu Americans, 36%, say they attend about once a month.

Americans with no religious affiliation, including those who say they are atheist or agnostic, are very unlikely to attend church. Nevertheless, 3% say they attend weekly or nearly weekly.

Major religious celebrations for people of the Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu faiths in March and April — which involve gatherings of the faithful at churches, synagogues, mosques and temples — will likely draw many more adherents than typical weeks.

Gallup measures church attendance and religious affiliation on nearly every U.S. survey it conducts. These results are based on aggregated data from Gallup telephone surveys conducted in 2021, 2022 and 2023, which yield enough sample to examine attendance among a larger number of religious groups than would be possible in typical survey samples.

Beyond Protestants, Catholics and those with no religious affiliation, other religious groups each represent 2% or less of the U.S. population. The combined 2021-2023 data comprise interviews with more than 32,000 U.S. adults and at least 200 respondents in each religion, except for Orthodox churches and Hinduism. Gallup also constructed similar aggregates using 2000-2003 and 2011-2013 data to assess changes in religious service attendance over time.

Two decades ago, an average of 42% of U.S. adults attended religious services every week or nearly every week. A decade ago, the figure fell to 38%, and it is currently at 30%. This decline is largely driven by the increase in the percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation — 9% in 2000-2003 versus 21% in 2021-2023 — almost all of whom do not attend services regularly.

Still, most religious groups have also seen a decline in regular attendance at religious services over the past two decades.

Read more at: news.gallup.com

Says animal queerness has been “hidden from the public”

A museum in Britain has claimed that some birds are “queer” and that the history of animal queerness has been “hidden from the public”.

The Hastings Museum and Art Gallery is running an LGBTQ history exhibition funded by Arts Council England which claims that some birds are “queer” because they “change their sex from female to male.”

The Telegraph notes that the claims about birds such as pheasants are completely unfounded and have no scientific basis.

The exhibition, in association with a group called the Hastings Queer History Collective, further claims that arguments about “queer” behaviour in the animal world being “unnatural” are undermined by the behaviour of game birds.

A pamphlet available at the museum states “Despite queer behaviour in the animal kingdom being observed as far back as the 18th century, it is often ignored or hidden from the public,” adding “One example is of female pheasants changing their sex when they stop laying eggs and turn their brown feathers into the brightly coloured feathering typical of males.”

“Pheasants feature in some of the earliest European studies of queer behaviour in animals,” it continues, adding “With queerness visible in the natural world, the argument that it is somehow ‘unnatural’ begins to unravel.”

All of this is just totally made up nonsense.

While some older birds’ feathers change colour due to hormonal changes, to say they change sex is just flat wrong.

Biologist Dr Emma Hilton, who is also a board director of the gender-critical campaign group Sex Matters, noted that “The only vertebrates that change sex are all fish. Birds do not change sex.”

Hilton added that “Often in the process of ageing, female animals can produce male features as a result of hormonal changes, we can also see this in humans following the menopause, but we would not say that older women had changed sex if they have a bit of a moustache.”

After spewing total garbage about animals, the museum’s guide, designed by The They Them Studio, a “queer-led graphic design company,” goes on to claim that “Eighteenth-century colonialism is responsible for the destruction of many ancient gender systems in countries around the world.”

Without presenting any evidence, it claims that past important figures and cultures have a “queer history,” and believed in a “third gender,” and that it was all somehow covered up.

As an example, it notes that children starting puberty in ancient Japan were considered a different gender and entered into a sexual relationship with adult masters, without pointing out that this is pedophilia, not some sort of transgender history.

The guide further claims that some Greek gods were bisexual, King William II was definitely gay because he was a bit effeminate and had no wife or children, and that an 11th century Archbishop had “queer sensibilities” and could be “considered a defender of gay rights.”

By far the most ridiculous entry on the guide is a description of a fossilised dinosaur footprint, that states “we cannot comment on the sexuality of the dinosaur who made this footprint, but we do know that the 11-year-old boy who found it is now grown up, happily married to his husband Greg in a pink house in Hastings.”

Talk about clutching at straws.

“Queer history takes many forms, and in this case, it makes up an important part of the fossil’s provenance,” the guide ludicrously adds.

Queerassic Park?

Read more at: modernity.news

On April 8, parts of the United States will experience a total eclipse — and a projected million people will travel to Texas alone to witness the state as it descends into total blackness.

While many are excited to see the celestial event of a lifetime, the blackout could also affect how much solar power is generated.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas is lightly sounding the alarm, saying the phenomenon will affect solar energy production in Texas as the eclipse passes from the southwest to the northeast.

Texas is the second-largest producer of solar energy after California, harvesting 6% of its electricity from solar energy.

Keith, Jeffy, and Kris Cruz remind Pat Gray that this eclipse, its energy consequences, and the April 8 “devil comet” could be a sign of the “end times.”

The comet’s real name is 12P/Pons-Brooks, but it was given the nickname “devil comet” for its horn-shaped celestial body.

“That feels very apocalyptic,” Keith says while Gray notes that there’s a lot going on in the world that can be taken as “signs,” making this idea feel not too far-fetched.

One of these signs is the Red Heifer prophecy, which is the belief by some Jews and Christians that Texas red heifers are the key to rebuilding a Jewish temple in Jerusalem.

In addition, while recently listing the motives for the October 7 attack on Israel, a Hamas spokesman accused Jews of “bringing red cows” to the Holy Land.

“Signs of the apocalypse,” Gray says.

Read more at: theblaze.com

Fairfax County Virginia has named Easter Sunday 2024 as “Transgender Visibility Day,” in what many Christians see as a hijack of their most sacred holiday.

The Fairfax County School Board has added Transgender Visibility Day to its prior designations of June as LGBT Pride Month and October as LGBT History Month for a remarkable 62 days of LGBT celebration in the district’s schools.

The Rev. Emma Chattin, executive director of Transgender Education Association, praised the board’s decision, asserting that visibility can be “a heroic thing, especially for our trans women of color in our community, who face additional intersectional obstacles of prejudice regarding safety, housing, employment and health care.”

Writing for the Washington Examiner, however, Fairfax local Stephanie Lundquist-Arora said the board members are telling Christians they do not matter by turning “one of their holiest days into a celebration of an ideology that undermines the church’s core convictions.”

The school board’s nine Democrats all voted in favor of the measure, whereas the token Republican on the board, Patrick Herrity, did not show up for the vote.

“I’m looking forward to the day when we have a full dais for this proclamation, and that day will come,” said board member James Walkinshaw of Herrity’s absence. “One way or the other, that day will come.”

That sentiment was echoed by Democrat Dalia Palchik, supervisor for the Providence district of the county. “What we say at this dais matters,” she said. “What you say in the community, what our leaders say and the outcome of that really matters.”

“Our transgender students are depressed,” Palchik contended. “Nearly half have considered suicide. You see across the board in our LGBT community that it is the one community that stands out higher than any other demographic in our students of depression, attempting suicide, considering suicide.”

“To me, it is a moral imperative and also a public health imperative that we band together,” she said.

Read more at: breitbart.com

Within the past few days, so much has been happening in the heavens.  There has been an enormous geomagnetic storm that has caused “a major disturbance in Earth’s magnetic field”, a comet that only comes around once every 71 years is racing through the inner solar system, and a lunar eclipse just painted the sky red over much of the planet.  And of course we are just a couple of weeks away from the Great American Eclipse of 2024, and I will have much more to say about that eclipse as it draws closer.  But in this article, I want to focus on 3 very unusual things that are happening in the heavens right now…

#1 A massive geomagnetic storm hit the Earth on Sunday.  

The good news is that this storm was not strong enough to damage our power grids.

But it did create “a major disturbance in Earth’s magnetic field”, and CBS News is reporting that we should keep a close eye on the sun because “more X-class flares are possible through Wednesday”…

The planet was just slammed with what government officials dubbed a severe geomagnetic storm, the second-highest level of NOAA’s rating system. The event brought “a major disturbance in Earth’s magnetic field” that may have impacted infrastructure and made the northern lights visible farther than usual, officials said.

NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center issued a geomagnetic storm watch on Saturday, saying that a coronal mass ejection was detected and expected to hit the planet late that same day with impacts into Monday. Coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, are when a large cloud of plasma and magnetic field bursts from the sun’s corona.

This particular CME exploded alongside a solar flare on Friday, an event that occurs when electromagnetic radiation suddenly erupts from the sun. NOAA says these flares can last hours and the eruption “travels at the speed of light,” meaning it can impact Earth as soon as it is observed. An X-class flare, like what was observed with the CME, is the strongest type of flare, although this particular one was not the strongest on record. NOAA forecasters did say, however, that more X-class flares are possible through Wednesday.

Canada has fallen behind most of its G7 peers, warns senior deputy governor

Canada must tackle weak productivity to inoculate the economy against factors that will drive future inflation, such as the pullback from globalization, said Carolyn Rogers, senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada.

“An economy with low productivity can grow only so quickly before inflation sets in. But an economy with strong productivity can have faster growth, more jobs and higher wages with less risk of inflation,” she said in a March 26 speech in Halifax, adding that other drivers of inflation will include changing demographics, the economic impact of climate change and global tensions.

Canada’s productivity has fallen from a “not great” record of producing 88 per cent of the value generated by the United States economy per hour in 1984 to just 71 per cent in 2022, she said. And while weak investment has been a problem in Canada for the past 50 years, the gap between the level of capital spending per worker by Canadian firms and the level spent by their U.S. counterparts has become worse over the past decade or so.

“While U.S. spending continues to increase, Canadian investment levels are lower than they were a decade ago,” Rogers told her audience, adding that Canada has also fallen behind most of its G7 peers, with only Italy seeing a larger decline in productivity relative to the United States.

“You’ve seen those signs that say: In emergency, break glass — Well, it’s time to break the glass,” she said.

Increasing competition is among the solutions that Rogers proposed. She also urged policymakers to focus on sectors and companies that add greater value to the economy and to set the stage for increased investment, including in technologies that will improve productivity and efficiency.

“When a company increases productivity, that means more revenue, which allows the company to pay higher wages to its workers without having to raise prices,” Rogers said. “The bottom line is that the benefits from raising productivity are there no matter what your role is: for workers, for businesses and, yes, for central bankers, too.”

Rogers said policymakers should also focus on labour composition, or the skills workers bring to the job to improve Canada’s productivity.

This includes training and “re-skilling“ for existing workers and taking advantage of immigration.

“Too often, new Canadians are working in jobs that don’t take advantage of the skills they already possess. And too often these people wind up stuck in low-wage, low-productivity jobs,” she said. “Doing better at matching jobs and workers is crucial to the future of Canada’s economy.”

Rogers said her biggest concern, though, is competition, especially because certain sectors in Canada are not facing competition from firms in other provinces, foreign rivals or new entrants.

“Of course, every country has certain sectors that it champions, and there can be valid reasons to protect local businesses,” she said. “However, too much protection can lead to problems. It can also help to explain Canada’s weak record in business investment.”

Read more at: financialpost.com