Watching – Page 2 – The Faithful Watchman

Pentagon, FBI Alert Grieving 9/11 Families: Architect Of Attack, 4 Others May Have Death Penalties Overturned

The Pentagon and FBI have alerted several of the grieving families who lost relatives in the deadly 9/11 attack in which nearly 3,000 Americans were murdered that the suspected architect of the attacks and his fellow defendants may have their death sentences overturned through plea deals.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — who suggested the 9/11 attacks to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and then planned the attacks — and four other terrorists have been incarcerated at the Guantanamo Bay detention center for years, while repeated delays and legal disputes have postponed the death penalty being applied. No trial date has been set.

“The Office of the Chief Prosecutor has been negotiating and is considering entering into pre-trial agreements,” the August 1 letter sent to the families stated. It stated that although no plea deal has “been finalized, and may never be finalized, it is possible that a PTA in this case would remove the possibility of the death penalty.”

The families were given until Monday, August 21, to respond to the FBI’s victim services division with any comments or questions about the matter.

Some relatives of the nearly 3,000 people killed outright in the terror attacks expressed outrage over the prospect of ending the case short of a verdict. The military prosecutors pledged to take their views into consideration and present them to the military authorities who would make the final decision on accepting any plea agreement.

Jim Riches, a retired deputy fire chief whose son Jimmy was a firefighter who died as a result of the 9/11 attacks, emitted a bitter laugh when he received the letter. “How can you have any faith in it?” he said, adding, “Those guys are still alive. Our children are dead.”

Former President George W. Bush established the prison and court system at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 following the 9/11/2001 attacks. Former President Barack Obama promised to close the center; during his administration, the number of prisoners was reduced from roughly 250 to 41. Republicans in Congress blocked Obama’s move to close the detention center.

In early 2021, President Biden declared he would close the facility.

Chess Federation Bans Trans-Identifying Men From Women’s Events

The International Chess Federation (FIDE) has updated its handbook to ban trans-identifying males from competing in women’s competitions.

FIDE, the international governing body for the sport, provided new guidelines to address transgender chess players and how it would handle titles such as Woman Grandmaster, Woman International Master, Woman FIDE Master, and Woman Candidate Master amid transgender players, Mediaite reported.

“In the event that the gender was changed from a male to a female the player has no right to participate in official FIDE events for women until further FIDE’s decision is made,” the rule read. “Such decision should be based on further analysis and shall be taken by the FIDE Council at the earliest possible time, but not longer than within 2 (two) years period.”

“Titles. If a player holds any of the women titles, but the gender has been changed to a man, the women titles are to be abolished,” the guidelines added. “Those can be renewed if the person changes the gender back to a woman and can prove the ownership of the respective FIDE ID that holds the title.”

“The abolished women title may be transferred into a general title of the same or lower level (e.g., Women’s Grand Master may be transferred into FM, Women’s International Master into Candidate Master, etc.),” it continued, noting that there “are no restrictions to play in the open section for a person who has changed the gender.”

Exclusive: Florida Fines Medicaid Providers For Using Tax Dollars To Cover Trans Treatments For Minors

Five Medicaid healthcare insurers have violated Florida’s rule against using taxpayer funds to provide transgender treatments, and the state is now fining them for the action. It’s the first time any state has taken this step in regard to gender transition coverage.

Among the procedures one of the plans covered was a double mastectomy on a 16-year-old girl. The other plans paid for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors. Florida health officials sent out letters informing the providers they were being fined over the violation late Thursday.

“These plans recklessly continued to cover these services with permanent, harmful effects, after the rule was adopted,” Jason Weida, Secretary of the Agency for Healthcare Administration, told The Daily Wire news podcast Morning Wire. “[They] will not stand in the way of our fight to protect the innocence of Florida’s kids.”

Though a federal judge recently blocked a new law in Florida that banned transgender surgeries and medications for children, a rule from the Agency for Health Care Administration still required the state’s Medicaid plan providers to deny coverage for all such treatments.

The rule went into effect last August after the agency performed a systematic review of the medical literature on treatments for gender dysphoria in children, including surgeries, puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones. It determined they are not medically necessary. But in December, well after the agency says Medicaid healthcare plan providers were notified of the rule, the five providers covered the trans treatments anyway. The violations were caught as part of a routine audit of the Medicaid system.

Typically, Medicaid rule violations occur when providers refuse to pay for treatment that should have been covered. Paying for procedures and medications that have been banned is extremely unusual, raising the question of whether the providers’ decisions to provide coverage were politically motivated. Weida told The Daily Wire he doesn’t want to speculate about their reasons but “they’re certainly going to be on notice now.” He added that his office would consider more drastic penalties for any further violations.

Simply Healthcare, the provider that covered the mastectomy, is facing a $30,000 penalty and will be sanctioned. The other providers face smaller, unspecified fines, but the non-willful sanction is the more serious penalty as it places a black mark on a provider’s record that must be disclosed when it competes for contracts. Providers who have been sanctioned are much less likely to be awarded other state contracts for 10 years until the sanction expires. According to the Agency for Health Care Administration, Simply Health has already replaced the team that approved the mastectomy coverage.

Weida told The Daily Wire that he’s grateful Governor Ron DeSantis empowered his office to issue the rule blocking public money from going to transgender surgeries, and he doesn’t see it as a question of politics but of ethics.

Archaeologist Discovers the City of Sodom

Many people are familiar with the account in the biblical Book of Genesis about the two sin-filled cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and their cataclysmic destruction.

Yet many in this modern, scientific age struggle — or outright refuse — to accept that the cities ever really existed, much less that God wiped them out with fire from heaven. …

But last week — and again this week — on THE ROSENBERG REPORT, I sat down for an exclusive interview with Dr. Steven Collins, the archaeologist who claims that he and his team have actually uncovered the Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Kingdom of Jordan.

If he is right, Collins is responsible for the most dramatic — and controversial — archaeological find of the 21st century. …

As Collins explained in the interview, he first rejected the notion that Sodom and Gomorrah are fictional, mythical cities that were made up by ancient writers. …

Second, Collins said that the wealth and size of Sodom as described in the Bible meant that Sodom would have been one of the largest and most influential and powerful cities of its time. And thus hard to make up to ancient audiences who knew the history and the geography of the region well.

Third, Collins noted that the apocalyptic destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah ought to be verifiable, if the cities really existed.

So, Collins told me, he simply followed all the location clues laid out in Genesis and boom — he uncovered the biggest Bronze Age city in the entire Middle East, a city that comports with the Biblical account of Sodom in every respect, including its sudden and cataclysmic annihilation. …

Another clue the Bible gives regarding the location of Sodom, he told me, is the description of the meeting between Abraham and Lot before they parted ways.

“The proper question to ask in the location of Sodom is, ‘Where was Lot standing when he lifted up his eyes and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well-watered?’ It was Bethel and AI,” Collins explained. …

All this led Collins and his team to dig in a site called Tall el-Hammam, with the permission of — and under the supervision of — the Kingdom of Jordan.

And what did they find?

A massive series of cities, including the biggest and wealthiest city of the Bronze Age in the entire region.

What’s more, they found a massive metropolitan city that was completely wiped out in a sudden firestorm and then uninhabited for the next 700 years. …

Massachusetts Bans Couple From Adopting Foster Kids Because They’re Conservative Christians

A religious couple in Massachusetts took the Commonwealth to court today for banning them from welcoming vulnerable children into their home through the Commonwealth’s foster care program. In Burke v. Walsh, Mike and Kitty Burke wanted to foster and someday adopt children in need of a family. Even though Massachusetts has a foster care crisis, state officials refused to let the Burkes foster any children in the state.

The reason was their religious beliefs about marriage, sexuality, and gender. With the help of Becket, the Burkes are asking the court to ensure that qualified families no longer suffer for their religious beliefs and that vulnerable children are given a loving home.

Mike and Kitty Burke are a Catholic couple from Massachusetts who have long wanted to become parents. Mike is an Iraq war veteran, Kitty is a former paraprofessional for special needs kids, and together they run a business and perform music for Mass. Mike and Kitty began exploring becoming foster parents through the state’s foster care program, hoping to care for and eventually adopt children in need of a stable, loving home like theirs.

“After months of interviews and training, and after years of heartbreak, we were on the verge of finally becoming parents,” said Mike and Kitty Burke. “We were absolutely devastated to learn that Massachusetts would rather children sleep in the hallways of hospitals than let us welcome children in need into our home.”

Children in foster care throughout Massachusetts are waiting for families like the Burkes. The Department of Children and Families (DCF) currently does not have enough foster homes or facilities to meet the needs of the children in its care, leaving over 1,500 children without a family. The crisis has become so extreme that the state has resorted to housing children in hospitals for weeks on end. Now more than ever, Massachusetts needs the help of parents like Mike and Kitty to foster children in need.

During their application process, the Burkes underwent hours of training, extensive interviews, and an examination of their home. Mike and Kitty completed the training successfully and received high marks from the instructors. However, during their home interviews, the Burkes were troubled that many questions centered on their Catholic views about sexual orientation and gender dysphoria. In response, the Burkes emphasized that they would love and accept any child, no matter the child’s future sexual orientation or struggles with gender identity.

Disney Uses Occult Rituals For New Movie

When most people hear the words “Disney magic,” they think of the cruise ship or the decades of charming and delightful adventures that inspired generations of childhood wonder for millions of viewers, not cloaks, daggers, and dark rituals done in the dead of night. Recent promos for Haunted Mansion rely on precisely that.

Disney and horror rarely dwell in the same house, but the studio can have some truly unsettling and eerie creations when they do. As the studio prepares to welcome all foolish mortals to the Haunted Mansion with the upcoming film adaptation, they might be working some black magic in the process.

Occult Rituals of the Haunted Mansion

Fans of the prolific Disney Parks attraction know the sordid history of the Gracey Manor’s lore. From ghostly butlers to murderous pirates with a collection of dead brides, the original Disneyland attraction was one of the earliest examples of Disney’s darker side. The studio embraces that original flavor with some of Haunted Mansion’s latest marketing.

Hitting theaters July 28, 2023, the newest posters for Haunted Mansion depict its lead characters framed on the faces of tarot cards. Rosario Dawson, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, and all the rest are depicted as representing select cards in the deck, clearly a nod to the ones seen on Madam Leota’s table in the seance room. While this is creative marketing on Disney’s part, it might have a deeper meaning.

More gloomy news from Biden! White House says it’s open to plan that would BLOCK sunlight from hitting surface of the Earth in bid to limit global warming

The White House has opened the door to an audacious plan to block sunlight from hitting the surface of the Earth in a bid to halt global warming.

Despite some scientists warning the effort could have untold side effects from altering the chemical makeup of the atmosphere, President Joe Biden‘s administration have admitted they’re open to the idea, which has never been attempted before.

In a report released Friday by the White House, officials suggested limiting sunlight to rapidly cool the planet, a process known as solar radiation modification (SRM).

The administration added a note of skepticism to the report by noting that Congress ordered it, insisting it has not made any decision on ‘geoengineering’ policy.

The report noted several ways authorities could look to achieve SRM, all of which come with potentially devastating consequences if they backfire.

One method would be to significantly increase the amount of aerosols in the stratosphere, which would reflect the sun’s rays from the planet.

Other ideas floated included increasing cloud coverage over oceans, or reducing the amount of cirrus cloud formations, which reflect solar radiation back to the Earth.

The report noted that undertaking the mammoth task could have severe ramifications weather patterns and food supplies, which would in turn impact biodiversity, geopolitics, and health.

It also suggested that committing to the idea then backtracking and changing course could lead to abrupt warming as the suns rays suddenly heat the Earth once more.

While insisting that it was not definitively moving ahead with the plan, the Biden administration insisted in its report that the idea appeared promising.

It said a ‘program of research’ into the practice would ‘enable better-informed decisions about the potential risks and benefits’ of blocking the sun.

The White House added that exploring the idea would also allow a better understanding of ‘the foundational elements of greenhouse gas emissions mitigation and adaptation.’

An ancient language with nearly a million undeciphered texts just got a translator that does the job in seconds: A.I.

Dead languages are famously hard to decipher. It took 23 years to crack the Egyptian hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone. It took nearly two centuries to understand Mayan glyphs. And it took over 3,000 years to reveal Linear B, the earliest form of Greek. When techno-optimists talk about the game-changing potential of A.I., they cite difficult problems like this, and even for languages that have already been translated, challenges remain. Consider Akkadian cuneiform, one of the world’s oldest written languages. There are so few people who can read the extinct language that nearly a million Akkadian texts still haven’t been translated to date—but now an A.I. tool can decode them within seconds.

An interdisciplinary group of computer science and history researchers published a journal article in May describing how they had created an A.I. model to instantly translate the ancient glyphs. The team, led by a Google software engineer and an Assyriologist from Ariel University, trained the model on existing cuneiform translations using the same technology that powers Google Translate.

A beacon to weary translation travelers

In translating dead languages, especially those with no descendant languages, piecing together meaning without a wealth of cultural context can be like traveling without a North Star. Akkadian is just such a language. The tongue of the Akkadian Empire, located in present-day Iraq during the 24th to 22nd centuries BCE, Akkadian existed as both a spoken and written language. Its cuneiform writing system used an alphabet of sharp, intersecting triangular figures. Akkadians typically wrote by marking a clay tablet with the wedge-shaped end of a reed (cuneiform literally means “wedge shaped” in Latin). Hundreds of thousands of these tablets, due to the durability of their material, have weathered the centuries and now populate the halls of various universities and museums.

Translation is often misunderstood as a one-to-one decryption of a foreign word or phrase. But many times, a statement in one language doesn’t have an exact or easy equivalent in another, accounting for cultural nuance and difference in the languages’ construction. High-quality translation requires a deep knowledge of both languages’ structures, their surrounding cultures, and the histories that anchor those cultures. Translating a text while preserving its original tone, cadence, and even humor is a delicate craft—and an incredibly difficult one when the language’s culture is largely unknown.

For decades, computer-generated translations were brittle and unreliable, Tom McCoy, a computational linguist at Princeton University, said. Translation programs embedded with grammatical rules always missed the richness of meaning in idioms and nonliteral language that slip through the cracks of formal grammar. But recently, A.I. programs like the cuneiform translator have been able to get at the “fuzzier” areas of language. It heralds an exciting new period of A.I.-propelled computational linguistics.

“In recent A.I., the big new thing is statistical processing, which is another type of math but not the sort of rigid rules that people were working with before,” McCoy said. “Statistics got us kind of over the hump of previous methods. We’re now working with machine learning and deep learning. Machines are able to learn all these idiosyncrasies, idioms, and exceptions to rules, which is what was missing in the previous generation of A.I.”

Federal Judge Dismisses The Satanic Temple’s Lawsuit Challenging Texas Abortion Laws

The Satanic Temple claimed that Texas abortion laws infringed on their “rituals,” but the judge dismissed the suit for being filed in “bad faith.”

A federal judge in the Southern District of Texas has dismissed a lawsuit filed by The Satanic Temple (TST), calling their claims “willfully inadequate and deficient.”

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of “Ann Doe,” stems from TST’s claims that Texas abortion laws are preventing its members from performing their abortion “rituals.”

Lawyers on behalf of the complainant stated, “The abortion ritual requires an abortion; and affirms [Doe’s] religious subscription to TST’s Third and Fifth Tenets.”

Judge Charles Eskridge in Houston saw the case differently.

Eskridge called the complaint “spare and unusually cryptic” and explained that TST did not give sufficient information on how Texas law had a direct effect on their “belief structure.”

Providing numerous points of dissolution with TST’s claims, Eskridge continued on to explain that the “supposed ‘religious statutes’ aren’t specified or explained in any way. Neither are ‘the Seven Tenets’ or ‘the ritual.’”

The defendant in the case is Cecile Young, executive commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. She sought to dismiss this case, as she argued it lacked standing because the complaint failed to state a claim.

Young argued that the complaint should be dismissed also on the grounds of sovereign immunity, as it applies to state officials.

“Young argues that the third amended complaint is so devoid of explanation that Plaintiffs fail to demonstrate that any exception to sovereign immunity applies,” Eskridge said. “Plaintiffs don’t respond to this argument in any meaningful way.”

He went on to explain that it is not up to the court to “theorize what the best argument in this regard might be, or to imagine how they might be connected to facts that haven’t been pleaded.”

Eskridge continued this line of reasoning for the dismissal, stating that it is “unknown” how Young is involved in the enforcement of the complaint in the case at all. He asked in response, “How, when, why, and in what way did she apply them to Plaintiffs?”

China making ‘science fiction’ super warship, report claims: ‘Big step forward’

The ship will utilize nuclear energy to power electromagnetic weapons, an official claimed

China has revealed plans to develop a futuristic warship that would include breakthrough technologies that would bring “science fiction to the real world,” according to a report.

“It will completely overturn the combat formation of naval fleets that has been in place for over a hundred years,” People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy Rear Adm. Ma Weiming said in a peer-reviewed paper, the South Morning China Post reported.

The Chinese supership would look to adopt new technology such as rail guns, rocket launchers, laser weapons and high-powered microwaves. The technology would “cleverly and effectively transform the energy from the ship’s power source — nuclear energy — into the electromagnetic energy needed to power” the weapons, Ma wrote.

The admiral argued that these different capabilities would turn a single ship into an “all-purpose” platform that can perform “the traditional tasks of a fleet of conventional ships.”