Earthquake Magnitude 6.4 Hits Near Ridgecrest and South China Lake, South California

A 6.4 magnitude earthquake hit southern California. The epicentre was a few kilometres from the Naval Air Weapons Station at China Lake, Ridgecrest. The weapons station is the Navy’s largest land holding facility of weapons and armaments research, development, acquisition, testing and evaluation.

The region in the Mojave desert is sparsely populated. There were no injuries, but buildings and roads sustained varying degrees of damage. The earthquake is the largest to hit the region in 20 years, and was felt over 100 miles away in Santa Barbara.

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French designer Julien Fournier: Witches Were the First Feminists

French  fashion designer Julien Fournier has said he believes that witches were the first feminists, saying they were the first to challenge patriarchy. His comments were made during the opening of his new show, which he staged in a church.

His new collection is called, “First Spell”, in which he derives inspiration from witches who “knew how to control their destiny”.

Read More: Yahoo News

Dalai Lama Sorry Comments that a Female Successor Would Need to be Attractive

In a recent interview, with the BBC, the 84 year old Dalai Lama commented that if his successor were female she would have to be “attractive”. After receiving criticism for the remarks he apologised.

In the interview he also discussed the refugee crisis in Europe, and voiced his feelings about US President Donald Trump, saying that  his presidency was marred by a “lack of moral principle.” The Dalai Lama has met every US President since George H.W. Bush, and said he would be open to meet the President, but had never been asked.

Read More: NBC News

Worship leader penned these lyrics for North Korea in exact spot Trump walked on

A worship leader celebrated President Trump‘s historic meeting with Kim Jong Un Sunday as a “prophecy fulfilled” in the country that he described as the “darkest, hardest” place in the world for Christians.

Sean Feucht, penned lyrics for his song “Finish What You Started (Song for North Korea),” which was released in 2012 as part of an album called ‘Songs For Nations,” in the exact spot on the Korean Demilitarized Zone where Trump and Kim embraced before their 50-minute meeting — their third — in pursuit of peace. The song calls for peace and hope.

CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION CLOSE TO ‘GENOCIDE LEVELS,’ LARGELY IGNORED DUE TO ‘POLITICAL CORRECTNESS’: REPORT

Through his non-profit, Light A Candle Project, the Bethel Music singer/songwriter goes into some of the most heavily persecuted areas for Christians worldwide and has seen incredible things happen. But he told Fox News he “never imagined that the song would come true.”

Sean Feucht, Bethel Music worship leader and founder of Light A Candle Foundation, wrote lyrics for a song for North Korea in the same spot President Trump embraced Kim Jong Un on soil in the Hermit Kingdom.

Sean Feucht, Bethel Music worship leader and founder of Light A Candle Foundation, wrote lyrics for a song for North Korea in the same spot President Trump embraced Kim Jong Un on soil in the Hermit Kingdom. (Courtesy of Sean Feucht)

“Oh my God you can do anything, Oh my God Nothing is too hard for you,” Feucht wrote these words from the North Korean side of the DMZ eight years ago.

He shared an image on Instagram with his 97,000 followers of his blue guitar case in the exact spot where Trump and Kim walked Sunday, the first time a sitting president walked into the Hermit Kingdom.

IRAQI CHRISTIAN SURVIVES BEING BURNED ALIVE BY ISIS 3 TIMES: ‘[JESUS] SPOKE TO ME’

“Oftentimes we have no idea how God can use our simple songs and prayers to change history,” he added. “Long ways to go still but celebrating small steps (or giant leaps) today!”

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in said “President Trump is the maker of peace in the Korean Peninsula” in announcing the Trump-Kim meeting.

3 MILLION EVANGELICALS MARCH IN BRAZIL: ‘OUR COUNTRY BELONGS TO JESUS’

“I never expected to meet you at this place,” Kim, who appeared overjoyed in the moment, told Trump through an interpreter.

“I was proud to step over the line,” Trump told Kim later, inside the Freedom House on the South Korea side, according to the Associated Press. “It is a great day for the world.”

Christians around the world have been praying for peace on the Korean Peninsula, especially for believers in South Korea, one of whom told Feucht she is still singing his song regularly in prayer meetings for North Korea.

WILL TRUMP SOLIDIFY MORE CHRISTIAN VOTERS IN 2020? THIS EVANGELICAL LEADER THINKS SO

North Korean defectors describe situations of life back home, where they quietly sing Christian hymns every Sunday while someone is on alert for informers. Another cowered under a blanket or in the toilet to pray, and another detailed a fellow prison inmate who’d been severely beaten for refusing to renounce her Christian faith.

And while this is a sign of hope to many, Open Doors USA told Fox News in February that Christian persecution was “worsening” in the nation where God is virtually outlawed and Kim is treated as a deity.

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Feucht believes what his song says about God: “You’re faithful to the end. You will finish what you started.”

 

Original

Bills to Decriminalize Prostitution Are Introduced. Is New York Ready?

New York took a significant step toward expanding the national conversation about sex and crime when a collection of lawmakers on Monday introduced bills to decriminalize prostitution.

Described as the first decriminalization bills ever in the state, and the most comprehensive decriminalization effort ever initiated in the United States, the bills expand upon recent attempts in several other states and the District of Columbia.

If passed, the bills would allow paid sex between consenting adults — decriminalizing both the buying and the selling of sex, as well as promotion of prostitution — while maintaining prohibitions on trafficking, coercion and sexual abuse of minors.

There is no assurance that the measures will pass anytime soon; the legislative session is scheduled to end next Wednesday, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has not endorsed the effort.

The legislation introduced in Albany makes clear that the sponsors view centuries of criminalizing prostitution as failed public policy that has done far more harm than good, driving it “into the shadows in an underground illegal environment where sex workers face increased violence, abuse and exploitation, and are more vulnerable to trafficking.” The bills would also allow for those convicted of prostitution-related offenses to potentially vacate such convictions.

Such arguments echo those made by some of those who have worked in the sex trade, several of whom expressed satisfactionthat their concerns were finally being heard by state politicians.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for 30 years,” said Cecilia Gentili, a transgender woman who did sex work and is now a member of Decrim NY, the coalition behind the decriminalization push in New York.

“We are trying to change the lives of many New Yorkers who have historically been criminalized for using their bodies to survive. And it’s time we change that.

Could Prostitution Be Next to Be Decriminalized?

In some ways, the push to decriminalize came about as a result of last fall’s Democratic wins in the State Legislature. The bill’s two sponsors in the State Senate were both newly elected in November: Senator Jessica Ramos, a Democrat from Queens, and Senator Julia Salazar, a Brooklyn Democrat, whose campaign for office last year included an endorsement of decriminalization.

Ms. Salazar said she had been impressed by how rapidly decriminalization has become more mainstream to discuss, both nationally and in New York, where Democrats unseated eight Republican incumbents in the Senate in November.

“It’s only been in the last several months that this issue got more attention and has gained more popular support,” Ms. Salazar said, adding, however, that “it took years of sex workers fighting, having to face stigma, discrimination and abuse in trying to advocate for their rights.”

The idea has long had a prominent supporter in the Assembly in Albany, where the health committee chairman, Richard N. Gottfried, argued that “trying to stop sex work between consenting adults should not be the business of the criminal justice system.”

“It has not worked in a couple of thousand years,” he said. “And requiring sex workers to work in an underground, illegal environment, promotes abuse and exploitation.”

Prostitution is legal only in a few counties in Nevada, and few supporters believe any state will soon fully decriminalize prostitution.

Opponents of the decriminalization movement say that efforts such as the one being undertaken in New York are misguided, arguing that full decriminalization will create a demand that encourages underground sex trafficking.

Sonia Ossorio, president of the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women, said the decriminalization effort, if successful, would effectively set up a new industry and give legitimacy to existing brothels and pimps.

“Pimps would now just be promoters,” she said, adding “you can’t protect the exploited by protecting the exploiters.” Like some other opponents of full legalization, Ms. Ossorio said she supports a form of partial decriminalization known as the “Nordic model,” which emphasizes the prosecution of people who buy sex, but not the prostitutes themselves.

“It is the wise policy solution,” said Dorchen A. Leidholdt, the director of Sanctuary for Families legal center and a chairwoman of the New York State Anti-Trafficking Coalition, saying such modified plan would “shrink demand, shrink the market and shrink the industry.”

Full decriminalization, however, would be a “public-policy disaster for New York” that would “increase the size of this predatory industry,” Ms. Leidholdt said.

“And prostitution is always predatory,” she added.

Mr. Cuomo’s record on liberalizing once-forbidden activities is somewhat uneven: He has recently backed legalizing marijuana, for example, not long after calling it a “gateway drug.” He expanded gambling in the state, but has balked at backing mobile sports betting.

And on Tuesday, he said he had not read the decriminalization bill and had no opinion on it yet. “This is going to be a controversial issue,” said Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat.

But for activists like Ms. Gentili, after years of waiting to have their issue taken seriously, now is the time to demand action from their lawmakers.

“Are we really progressive or are we not?” asked Ms. Gentili. “I guess we are about to find out.”

Original

Pastors Targeted by Latest California LGBT Proposal

A group of California state legislators are pushing a resolution that would pressure clergy in the state to promote the falsehood that homosexuality and other LGBT behaviors are normal. According to the California Family Council (CFC), Democrat State Assemblyman Evan Low and three dozen other liberal lawmakers are aggressively pushing Assembly Concurrent Resolution 99 (ACR 99), which calls on “counselors, pastors, religious workers, educators” and institutions with “great moral influence” to cease from preaching and teaching that there is anything wrong with individuals identifying as LGBT or participating in homosexual behavior.

As reported by CFC, “ACR 99 also condemns attempts to change unwanted same-sex attraction or gender confusion as ‘unethical,’ ‘harmful,’ and leading to high rates of suicide.”

This is not Low’s first effort at forcing the normalization of homosexuality and LGBT behaviors on California residents. “Last year Assemblyman Low introduced AB 2943, a bill that declares ‘advertising, offering to engage in, or engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with an individual’ as illegal under state’s consumer fraud law,” reported CFC. “After receiving strong opposition from numerous Christian leaders and faith-based organizations … Low killed his own bill in hopes of coming up with a compromise.”

That compromise turned into ACR 99, which, although if passed would not carry the force of law, would as an official resolution from the State Assembly still carry weight in influencing public opinion.

For more Dip S reality of how wicked our world has become click here

Georgia’s Heartbeat Bill to Face Legal Challenge

Georgia’s new abortion laws which state that abortion cannot be carried out after a heart beat is detected are being challenged. The lawsuit is being filled by American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of Georgia abortion providers and reproductive rights advocates. They claim the bill is unconstitutional as it effectively cuts the abortion limit to 6 weeks. It is currently 20 weeks.

Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp admitted that he expected his bill not to go unchallenged.

Read More: NBC News

Line just went Orwellian on Japanese users with its social credit scoring system

It appears other countries besides China are heading toward a bleak dystopian future where a human being is scored by their online activities. Only this time, it’s a tech company and not a government implementing the social credit score. While not as bleak as China’s social credit system, today Line, Japan’s dominant social media company, introduced a slew of new products—the most alarming among them, Line Score, reports the Verge.

Line Score will use AI to give a social credit score to Line users. The strength of their social credit score will allow them to get access to better special deals and offers that Line users with lower social credit scores will not have access to.

While the new product is unnerving, it’s not completely out of character for Line. Recently the company has been positioning itself as a fintech provider, and its Line Pay digital wallet system is wildly popular in Japan. Line Pay also allows users to shop for insurance and allows them to invest in personal portfolios. Line Score builds on top of Line Pay by offering those with higher scores better perks.

However, before George Orwell rolls over in his grave, it’s important to note that Line stresses Line Score is opt-in only and that the company will never share a user’s Line Score with third parties without the user’s permission and it will not read a user’s online chats to determine their Line Score. Still, it’s unnerving that tech companies seem to think that social credit ratings are the next big thing for now. Hopefully, this is a trend that will not catch on.

Original

Chinese buyers are pulling out of New York real estate in droves

China’s capital controls are making their mark on New York’s luxury real estate market.

In an effort to shore up its currency, the world’s second biggest economy has been cracking down on money leaving the country, and there are significant concerns (paywall) about its real estate developers’ levels of US dollar debt.

Having briefly been the main movers and shakers in New York real estate, Chinese developers have fallen behind the Canadians, the Germans and the Dutch. As trade war tensions increase and having money in the United States becomes less desirable, many of those developers have decided to service their debts by offloading massive New York properties, according to the Financial Times (paywall).

Project Veritas Uncovers Google’s Plans for Social Engineering and To Stop Trump in 2020

Project Veritas has received confidential documents from a Google insider. The documents and information, from the insider, show that since the 2016 election Google have been training their learning algorithms to ensure the narrative fed to those using the platform contains the content they [Google]  want to be heard.

The “Fairness” algorithms are being trained to return searching that fit with the narrative and idea of society they wish to create, thus programming the thinking of their users to agree with that narrative. This also affects YouTube, also owned by Google.

Furthermore Project Veritas has secretly filmed an interview with top Google executive, Jen Gennai, Head of Responsible Innovation, at Google. In the interview she is heard saying:

We all got screwed over in 2016, again it wasn’t just us, it was, the people got screwed over, the news media got screwed over, like, everybody got screwed over so we’re rapidly been like, happened there and how do we prevent it from happening again.

We’re also training our algorithms, like, if 2016 happened again, would we have, would the outcome be different?

Read More: Breitbart

Random Events, Free Will, Pre-destiny or Something Darker ?