Vatican signs treaty with "State of Palestine" - Backs Two State Solution - Nicole Winfield -
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_REL_VATICAN_PALESTINIANS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-06-26-07-48-05 Maybe the Pope should read the Bible: I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land. - Joel 3:2
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The Vatican signed a treaty with the "State of Palestine" on Friday, saying it hoped its legal recognition of the state would help stimulate peace with Israel and that the treaty itself would serve as a model for other Mideast countries.
Vatican Foreign Minister Paul Gallagher and his Palestinian counterpart, Riad al-Malki, signed the treaty at a ceremony inside the Vatican.
Israel expressed disappointment when the Vatican announced last month that it had reached final agreement with the "State of Palestine" on the treaty regulating the life of the Catholic Church in the Palestinian territories.
It repeated that regret in a Foreign Ministry statement Friday, saying the move hurt peace prospects and would discourage the Palestinians from returning to direct negotiations. It warned that it would study the agreement "and its implications for future cooperation between Israel and the Vatican."
Gallagher, though, said he hoped the Vatican's recognition "may in some way be a stimulus to bringing a definitive end to the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which continues to cause suffering for both parties."
He said that he hoped the treaty could serve as a model for the church in other Mideast countries, where Christians are a minority and often persecuted.
The Vatican had welcomed the decision by the U.N. General Assembly in 2012 to recognize a Palestinian state and had referred to the Palestine state since. But the treaty marked its first legal recognition of the Palestinian territory as a state.
Al-Malki called the treaty an "historic agreement" and said it marked "a recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, freedom and dignity in an independent state of their own, free from the shackles of occupation."
The United States and Israel oppose recognizing the Palestinian state, arguing that it undermines U.S.-led efforts to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian deal on the terms of Palestinian statehood. Most countries in Western Europe have held off on recognition, but some have hinted that their position could change if peace efforts remain deadlocked.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon called the treaty itself one-sided, saying the text ignored "the historic rights of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel and to the places holy to Judaism in Jerusalem."
Old Demonic Lies - Todd Strandberg - http://www.raptureready.com/rap16.html
I have always despised the term "politically correct." It is a system of belief that has nothing to do with political thinking in a common sense correct manner. What is true for one group has no bearing on another.
I was recently listening to a political commentator put this problem in secular terms by saying, the issue is about liberals replacing objective truth with one that's based on subjective thinking. Generally, objectivity means the state or quality of being true even outside of a subject's individual biases, interpretations, feelings, and imaginings.
People who try to use logic here are wasting their time. The only way to make sense out of this world is to understand that there are spiritual forces using this correctness ploy to advance their own evil agendas. It is just the old demonic lies repackaged. Only the devil could come up with a system where homosexuality, abortion, atheism are viewed positively, while Christian values are seen in a negative light.
The greatest contradiction has to be the placating treatment of Islam. This faith runs against nearly every core value that liberals treasure and yet it gets a free pass every time.
Last week, First Lady Michelle Obama proved this fact when she visited a Muslim girl's school in London. She told the student audience that they might hear people make stereotyped comments about their religion, but that they cannot afford to be discouraged.
"You might wonder if people will ever look beyond your headscarf to see who you really are," she said. "But with your education from this amazing school you have everything you need to rise above it." The First Lady then said, "Your story is my story" because she faces discrimination back home. Most Americans are unfamiliar with Michelle's habit of trash talking our nation because the liberal media never covers her comments.
The problem with this Islam-is-wonderful narrative is that the school is located in the Tower Hamlets district of London. An area known for housing a disproportionate number of radical Islamists, and is the leading district in Britain for female genital mutilation. The school is also a haven for several anti-Semitic and anti-Israel groups. Mrs. Obama has no conflict with Islamic beliefs because deep down they are branches of her own mindset.
Another example of how these demonic lies have permeated our culture is the ability of Bruce Jenner to capture the country's attention by claiming to be a woman. As he transitioned into Caitlyn Jenner, the liberal media did their best to label the process as normal. Anyone with common sense knows that there is something horribly wrong with this man.
With identity an open issue, the way was cleared for Rachel Dolezal to say she is a black woman when it is obvious that she is white. The press has been so busy propagating the idea that African-Americans are an oppressed minority that their brains temporarily malfunction when encountering a woman who purposely labels herself as black.
Many folks in the conservative camp think the tide is turning because the liberals have been discredited by recent failures. But liberalism is not about learning from its mistakes. Rolling Stone magazine has been forced to fire a dozen staffers right after its disastrous, "A Rape on Campus" article. Yet there is no indication that fact-checking will be used for any future RS article motivated by a feminist ranting.
The liberal bias of CNN and MSNBC has put them in the ratings dumper for years. These networks are not concerned about growing their audience because they have a master (the devil) who only cares about advancing his wicked agenda.
The indication that we've reached the zenith of this craziness has to be Pope Francis taking up the climate change cause. It doesn't matter that that 95 percent of climate models predicting global temperature rises have been wrong. The Pope is talking like Al Gore because society has reached the tipping point of global delusion.
I'm sure when the Antichrist comes along he will be the biggest environmentalist, gay-friendly, Islam loving leader the world has ever seen. Being so close to the Tribulation hour, the Beast of Revelation might be serving in some public office right now.
"And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12).
The Two Popes and Climate Change - by Joseph Klein -
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/joseph-klein/the-two-popes-and-climate-change/ Pope Francis issued a lengthy encyclical last week calling for radical change in human behavior to confront climate change. He presented climate change as the moral issue of our time. "Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it," the pope declared. "It is a mistake to rely on the 'myths' of a modernity grounded in a utilitarian mindset (individualism, unlimited progress, competition, consumerism, the unregulated market)," he added. While denying that anyone is suggesting a return to the Stone Age and conceding that "Technoscience, when well directed, can produce important means of improving the quality of human life," Pope Francis refused to dismiss doomsday predictions if society continues along its present path.
The United Nations Secretary General position has been referred to by some as that of a "secular pope," because he is expected to speak out on issues of public concern as the moral conscience of the world. On the issue of climate change, the current "secular pope" at the UN, Ban Ki-moon, spoke strongly in support of Pope Francis's encyclical and said that he is looking forward to Pope Francis's address to the United Nations General Assembly this September. Ban Ki-moon has made climate change his own number one issue and attended a summit on climate change hosted by the Vatican last April. He has called climate change "a true existential threat to the planet." Ban Ki-moon is pushing for all UN member states to complete a legally binding global agreement to curb carbon emissions in Paris this December.
Assuming for the sake of argument that the problem of climate change is as serious as both the religious and secular popes think it is and that human activity is largely responsible for it, the question is how to address the problem without destroying the global economy in the process. Pope Francis rejects free market economics and technology as solutions. Ban Ki-moon is more ambivalent.
Stepping beyond his realm of religious authority, Pope Francis has taken sides in the policy debate regarding how best to reduce reliance on fossil fuels that are creating heat-trapping gasses. Don't rely on free market mechanisms such as cap and trade, he warns.
"The strategy of buying and selling 'carbon credits' can lead to a new form of speculation which would not help reduce the emission of polluting gases worldwide," Pope Francis said. "This system seems to provide a quick and easy solution under the guise of a certain commitment to the environment, but in no way does it allow for the radical change which present circumstances require. Rather, it may simply become a ploy which permits maintaining the excessive consumption of some countries and sectors."
This portion of the encyclical flies in the face of sound economic analysis and common sense. Carbon trading systems, which Pope Francis has specifically singled out for criticism, and carbon taxes are two ways to put a specific price on carbon that would have to be paid for one way or the other directly by the carbon emitter rather than indirectly as a negative externality by society as a whole.
As the World Bank explains:
"A price on carbon helps shift the burden for the damage back to those who are responsible for it, and who can reduce it. Instead of dictating who should reduce emissions where and how, a carbon price gives an economic signal and polluters decide for themselves whether to discontinue their polluting activity, reduce emissions, or continue polluting and pay for it. In this way, the overall environmental goal is achieved in the most flexible and least-cost way to society. The carbon price also stimulates clean technology and market innovation, fuelling new, low-carbon drivers of economic growth."
Pope Francis is not swayed by such arguments. Technology is no answer to the problem of climate change, according to his encyclical. "To seek only a technical remedy to each environmental problem which comes up," he said, "is to separate what is in reality interconnected and to mask the true and deepest problems of the global system." Continuing this theme, the pope added that the "alliance between the economy and technology ends up sidelining anything unrelated to its immediate interests."
Pope Francis's prescription is more stringent and enforceable global governance. He calls for "global regulatory norms" and "stronger and more efficiently organized international institutions, with functionaries who are appointed fairly by agreement among national governments, and empowered to impose sanctions." He also espouses "a better distribution of wealth," which would include a massive transfer wealth from developed countries to the less developed countries on the theory that the richer countries are largely responsible for the plight of the poor and owe them an historical debt. The pope does not use the term "reparations," but that is for all and intents and purposes what he is calling for.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon cannot afford to be as dismissive as Pope Francis is of market place carbon pricing mechanisms or of the importance of innovation as part of the solution to any environmental problems created by climate change and human activity. Nor would he be wise to push the notion of a global environmental authority with enforcement teeth.
The global agreement that the Secretary General is seeking by the end of this year is premised on national commitments to carbon reduction targets, which are to be accomplished through nationally crafted solutions that may or may not embrace market incentives and technology, depending on their particular economic, social and cultural circumstances. The World Bank, with whom the Secretary General has partnered, supports carbon pricing to bring down fossil fuel carbon emissions and make cleaner options more competitive. According to the World Bank, as of last September "Seventy-three countries and 11 states and provinces - together responsible for 54 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and 52 percent of GDP - joined 11 cities and over 1,000 businesses and investors in signaling their support for carbon pricing."
Choice of means to reduce carbon emissions at the national level, not top-down dictates from global bureaucracies, will be the only viable path if any sort of meaningful climate change agreement at all among UN member states is to be achieved.
Thus, if Ban Ki-moon were to come out and reject market place carbon pricing mechanisms such as cap and trade, he would be working at cross-purposes with his stated goal of moving the member states towards declaring their national commitments to carbon reduction as part of a year-end binding global agreement. In fact, he has in the past come out in support of putting an explicit price on carbon as one option for consideration.
Yet Ban Ki-moon does not want to publicly disassociate himself from the portion of Pope Francis's encyclical that rejects free market solutions. In response to my question on this point at the daily press briefing at UN headquarters on June 12th, the spokesperson for the Secretary General minimized any differences between the religious and secular popes:
"I think the Secretary-General very strongly supports the Pope's efforts to ensure that climate change remains at the top of the global agenda and to mobilize his authority, his moral authority, in that regard. The fact that the Pope and the Secretary-General may not agree on every line, on every approach, I think, doesn't take away in any way the Secretary-General's support for the encyclical... we are not dissecting the encyclical to see where we differ with the Pope... overall I think the Secretary-General spoke strongly in support of the encyclical and continues to do so."
Pope Francis would have been more credible if he had not tried to cross the line from religious leader to secular public policy opinion maker in his encyclical. And the UN Secretary General will be more credible if he sheds the role of "secular pope" who over-moralizes the issue of climate change. Instead, Ban Ki-moon should stick to the fine art of quiet diplomacy and negotiation facilitation. He can provide member states and the private sector with a global perspective on the effects of climate change, including the assembly of data and more balanced scientific analysis. He and his expert staff can help the member states try to devise practical and efficient targets and means to achieve them within their respective capabilities. He can help encourage businesses to make investments in alternative energy sources and cleaner fossil fuel technologies. He can suggest how developed countries could partner with less developed countries in overcoming obstacles to beneficial change and coming up with smart carbon emission mitigation strategies, without insisting they owe an enormous debt to developing countries as Pope Francis has done. Without the greatest engine for betterment of the human condition that the world has ever known - the free market and its concomitant of technological change - much of the world today would be living in far more dire circumstances reminiscent of the rigidity, disease and poverty of pre-Renaissance feudal society.
Economic freedom and individual liberties must not be sacrificed at the altar of religious or secular dogma, including the dogma that climate change is an immediate existential crisis and that it can only be solved by top-down dictates and government-controlled wealth redistribution.
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