The following articles are compiled by:

Leo Wong

Leo@WatchmenWatching.com

 

 

Iranian official threatens Israel and U.S. with missile strike

Source: Jerusalem Post

 

April 26, 2007 -- Iran's deputy interior minister, Muhammad Baqer Zolqadr, said Thursday that his country would attack Israel and American targets throughout the world if Teheran were attacked over its nuclear program, Israel Radio reported.

 

According to the official Iranian news agency, the official, who deals with defense issues, said that no American would be safe from Iran's long-range missiles.

 

Comments:   The usual media rhetoric.  Iran cannot possibly take on both the Israeli and U.S. military and expect to win.  You’re talking about the world’s 5th ranked and No. 1 militaries respectively.  After the bombs have devastated all Iranian cities and towns, there won’t be any Iranian commander to answer back with retaliatory strikes.  It would be game, set and match.  What Iran can do is somehow conduct pre-emptive strikes; catch Israel and America off guard?

 

I believe when officials threaten through the press that they’ll do this and that to their opponents, it’s all hot air.  Talk is cheap but to actually translate verbal warnings into concrete action, now that’s another matter.  Boxers like to trash talk each other before the fight, but the smart ones let their fists do the talking.  Iran doesn’t really want to be attacked.  That kind of Kamikaze thinking that would make salespersons selling prepaid funeral packages very rich.  I still don’t believe Iran will be bombed anytime soon. (Ezekiel 38 speaks of Persia (Iran) in the last days invading Israel with conventional forces.)  There’s too much at stake and besides, the EU is working relentlessly behind the scenes negotiating a peaceful solution.

 

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EU communications commissioner backs Royal in French election

Source: EUObserver.com

 

April 26, 2007 -- Although Brussels is formally keeping quiet on who it would like to see win the French elections, certain individual commissioners have been less discreet.

 

Margot Wallstrom, the EU communications commissioner, has made an all-out plug for socialist candidate Segolene Royal in her blog.

 

In an entry posted on Monday, the day after presidential elections that saw Ms Royal go through to the second round run-off on 6 May against Nicolas Sarkozy, the commissioner wrote that she "cheered" the achievements of her fellow socialist politician.

 

Continuing her blog in French, Ms Wallstrom says that "maybe more than anything else, I was so happy to see that a woman will take part in the second round of the presidential elections."

 

Noting that there are women ministers in several governments, particularly in Finland, she emphasizes that this is the first time a woman has made it through to the second round in France.

 

"It's historic and I wanted, as a woman involved in politics, to pay homage to Segolene Royal and wish her 'good luck' for what comes."

 

A spokesperson said her comments were "personal" but they reflect the increasing trend towards politicisation of the European Commission.

 

Dutch commissioner Neelie Kroes sparked criticism in 2005 when just days before the elections, she openly supported Angela Merkel to become chancellor of Germany.

 

Comments:  There are two issues here.  Woman politicians backing their own gender and the increasing preference for socialists to govern EU member nations.  Socialism is no more than modified Communism, i.e. Commie Light as opposed to the 100% Commie extolled by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.  It’s about a state run country where capitalism, free enterprise, and initiatives are shunned.  It causes the population to be indebted to the government and thus makes slaves of people.  It’s a preview of the Antichrist system.

 

After the Rapture event has occurred, the predominately socialist EU states will put their collective heads together and elect a single leader to take the Revived Roman Empire to a different plateau.  With the U.S. decimated by the disappearance of millions of Christians, Europe must act quickly to seize the balance of power, otherwise, China and Russia would come in to fill in the vacuum faster than you can say “Jack Robinson”.  That elected official will eventually be known as the Antichrist, a socialist populist who will become an autocratic dictator.  They say “Beware of what you ask for because you might just get it”.

 

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Israeli and U.S. rabbis try to pass pro-gay resolution

Source: Jerusalem Post

 

April 26, 2007 -- A group of Israeli and US Conservative Rabbis will try to pass a resolution next week at the Annual Convention of the Rabbinical Assembly (RA) in Cambridge, Massachusetts that would force Israel's rabbinic seminary to admit homosexuals.

 

"Whereas the Rabbinical Assembly has called for full civil rights for Gays and Lesbians," write the proponents of the resolution, "therefore be it resolved that the RA calls for all of the rabbinical schools the world over that ordain Conservative/Masorti rabbis to admit applicants without regard to sexual orientation."

 

Rabbi David Lazar, who has been conducting same-sex commitment ceremonies for over a decade in open disregard for Conservative Judaism's official stance, is one of the rabbis behind the initiative.

 

"We have the prerequisite 25 signatures we need from RA members," said Lazar, spiritual leader of the Tiferet Shalom Congregation in Ramat Aviv and founding director of RIKMA, a social activism movement.

 

"We cannot go on denying peoples' rights. Most Israelis can't afford to study in America for five years. Besides, they wouldn't be getting the training they need to serve Israeli congregations."

 

Comments:  I just don’t get it.  Why do “conservative” rabbis support the rights of gays and lesbians?  You would expect that from “liberal” rabbis but not from conservatives.  This surely is a topsy turvey world when traditional roles are reversed.  This just shows you that “conservative” no longer denotes godly precepts and principles as expounded by the Bible.  The same can be said about the U.S. Republican Party.  Not all Republicans are pro-life and anti-gay.  There are pockets of Republicans who are closet liberals masquerading as right-wingers.

 

Is there any wonder why modern day Israel is under siege by her Arab enemies when her spiritual leaders are being pressed by outsiders and inside pro-gay infiltrators?  Homosexuality clearly an abomination in the eyes of God.  The Old Testament that rabbis study declared time in and time out what God thought of Sodomites.  The sin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire and brimstone from Heaven.  Lot’s wife was turned into salt for looking back at Sodom.  The Jewish rabbis who give in to this pressure will surely incur God’s ire as well.  Luke 17:[32] Remember Lot's wife.

 

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Canada’s Stephen Harper government abuse cover-up alleged

Source: CanWest News Service

 

April 26, 2007 -- Embattled Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor -- facing unprecedented opposition pressure yesterday to resign over his handling of the Afghanistan prisoner controversy -- stunned even his own foreign affairs minister by announcing Canada had struck a new deal to monitor Afghan detainees.

 

The surprise announcement set off a wave of confusion and damage control within the Harper government over its conduct of Canada's controversial deployment of 2,500 troops to war-torn southern Afghanistan.

 

It came after a third consecutive day of calls for O'Connor's resignation in the House of Commons and opposition accusations of a Conservative government cover-up of the Afghan detainee affair. It was also revealed yesterday that Foreign Affairs had been given a report last year citing widespread human-rights abuses of prisoners in Afghanistan.

 

Just when it looked as if the dust had settled, O'Connor made what appeared to be an improvised announcement of the new detainee-monitoring deal after some intense questioning at the Commons foreign affairs committee.

 

"Within the last few days we have basically made an arrangement with the government in the Kandahar province so that we can have access to our detainees. So, henceforth, our military, but it can be anybody, can have access to our detainees," O'Connor testified.

 

Within a half hour, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said he had not heard of it, and Gen. Rick Hillier, the chief of the defence staff, who also appeared with O'Connor at the same committee hearing, could offer few additional details.

 

"I don't understand. You just said you have an agreement now with the government officials in Kandahar to have access to our detainees. Please show it to us. I don't believe anything that's said. It's time to tell us the truth," Bloc Québécois MP Francine Lalonde charged across the committee table.

 

O'Connor replied he had no time for "histrionics" and after what was a rough 90 minutes of questioning from the all-party committee, he rose from his chair, turned, and ran a gauntlet of reporters and cameramen without adding any additional information.

 

When MacKay was asked about the new deal late yesterday afternoon at a separate photo-op, he appeared to be caught off guard, saying he had just heard about it.

 

Comments:  There has been much ado made about Canada’s Stephen Harper being a staunch Christian.  He has been dubbed squeaky clean and doing things according to the Bible.  I tend to disagree with these Christian hopefuls who have had prime ministers in the past being caught in a web of corruption and then finally electing a “true” Christian.  Well, Mr. Harper has been photographed praying along with Muslims.  His foreign minister has applied undue pressure on Israel to give away more land (which God doesn’t sanction) and make peace with the Arabs .  Now, we read of government cover-ups.  It could be that he isn’t even aware of what his ministers are doing, but there’s a saying, “The buck stops here”, i.e. the leader is ultimately responsible for the wrongdoings of his/her hired hands.  Let Mr. Harper come straight with the Canadian public.  Let him reveal the entire truth and not make excuses.  A real believer won’t consult high price lawyers to mitigate the liability of indiscretions.

 

It’s lamentable that in these last days, one can’t even place full confidence in a supposedly Christian.  We ought to place our unwavering faith in Jesus who will never disappoint us.  Human leaders, no matter how godly they profess to be, are fallible and will shock and let us down in time.  Hebrews 12:[2] Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith…

 

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Margaret Trudeau faces her demons with hope, humour

Source: Winnipeg Free Press

 

April 26, 2007 – There’s been dope smoking. There have been bouts with anorexia and a 40-pound weight gain from anti-depressants. And then there was leaving her three young sons in Ottawa in the '70s so she could party in New York, Paris and London.

 

Wednesday morning, Margaret Trudeau frankly discussed the controversial subject matter -- all chalked up as manifestations of her decades-long battle with bipolar disorder -- with a well-heeled audience at the Fort Garry Hotel.

 

The 35-minute speech was sprinkled with humour and jokes.

 

"I took to marijuana like a duck to water," admitted the ex-wife of late former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to warm audience laughter, and explained she smoked pot throughout her life to self-medicate herself in her battle against despair.

 

"It doesn't work, there's always a crash and the crashes get bigger and bigger."  Margaret Trudeau spoke at a breakfast fundraiser for the Laurel Centre, a non-profit counselling centre that helps adult women who were sexually abused as children.

 

Trudeau, 59, talked to about 300 attendees about her own mental recovery after a series of events shattered her personal stability.

 

Those events included the death of her son, Michel Trudeau, in 1998 in an avalanche, as well as her dislike of living in a "political fishbowl" after marrying then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1971, culminating in a very public separation from her husband in 1977 and their subsequent divorce in 1984.

 

At one point following her son's death, Trudeau said she was so encompassed by grief she stopped eating and could not leave her house. It was only after a close female friend contacted one of Trudeau's children that she was forced to go to hospital, she said -- after police were called.

 

"After all the years, I finally accepted that I have a mental-health problem... you have to be your own advocate," she said. "I am bipolar, and I have got to make hard choices, and I've got to make strong choices and tough choices about how I'm going to live the rest of my life to be a whole person."

 

The way people who have mental-health issues are treated has changed dramatically since she began grappling with bipolar disorder in 1973 following the birth of her second son, Alexandre Trudeau, she said.

 

Trudeau said she was prescribed powerful medication that dealt inadequately with her bipolar disorder, she said, and was hospitalized in an executive suite for men with prostate and urinary problems instead of in a mental health-care facility.

 

"It was no solution for a young woman who was terrified of what was happening to her," she said. After her divorce, Margaret Trudeau said she stayed in close contact with Pierre until he died in 2000, and was at his bedside when he passed away. She remarried and had two more children with her second husband, then divorced again.

 

"We can't be narrow-minded in our search for solutions," she said, adding in her quest for mental balance she's started exercising, consulted an aboriginal elder, and layered Buddhist beliefs over her existing Christian faith.

 

"Life is mostly mundane, and mostly ugly and mostly hard... my message is that you can get past the terrible things that happen to you."

 

Comments:  Maggie Trudeau was the poster girl for “flower child” and she encouraged Canadian women to leave married life or remain single in order to pursue careers in order to discover themselves.  She was rumoured to have an affair with the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and the late singer Lou Rawls.  She left her hubby Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (not exactly a saint either) to take care of their three sons.  Cuba’s Fidel Castro had a huge crush on Maggie and they often flirted with each other.  She was a wild gal to say the least.

 

After losing one of her beloved sons and having to deal with her mental illness, she’s reflecting on her past life.  Like King Solomon of the Old Testament, due to her wealth and well heeled social connections, she has tried everything under the sun to please her carnal and spiritual desires and she declared that life is mostly mundane, i.e. predictably boring with the same old “been there, done that” things.  So, what did she do?  Did she as a “Christian” open her Bible and ask God for healing and guidance?  Nope.  She consulted with Aboriginal paganism and Buddhist soul damming teachings which could not help her.  The deceived of Satan are unable to offer solutions to a soul’s search for meaning.  Only God’s Word offers restoration, meaning of life, hope and joy.  To bypass it is spiritual folly.  Proverbs 12:[5] The thoughts of the righteous are right: but the counsels of the wicked are deceit.

 

 

 

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Keep watching (Matt 24:42)!

 

Until next time,

Shalom!

 

 

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