Jon Stewart Reflects on Departure Reaction: ‘Did I Die?’
World News Videos | ABC World News
No, Jon Stewart hasn’t died.
The host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” responded Wednesday to the attention brought on by his departure announcement one day earlier.
“Last night I was perusing the Internet, and I guess my question to you is, ‘Did I die?’ Cause it all seems very … ‘I died.’ Very weird. It’s an overwhelming day here, as you can imagine, and people have been asking, I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to do next,” Stewart said during Wednesday’s episode.
Stewart’s surprise announcement drew heavy attention across the entertainment and political worlds, with people reflecting on his impact and speculating about his potential replacement.
One thing Stewart doesn’t see in the cards is a job at Arby’s. The fast-food chain playfully tried to recruit Stewart on social media, posting messages featuring the company’s recruiting email address.
“You know what? Working there might be fun,” Stewart said. “I guess my only question as a future employee would be, to work there, would I have to handle, serve, touch, eat or even look at what you so generously describe as food?”
Verizon to sell $10B in wireline assets to Frontier
Verizon (NYSE: VZ) is close to reaching a deal to sell $10 billion in wireline assets to Frontier Communications, reports Reuters, citing a person familiar with the talks.
News of a potential deal follows reports that Verizon would sell a package of assets, including its wireless towers and elements of its wireline business for about $15 billion.
There also was a rumor circulating that Verizon would sell its fiber networks in Florida, Texas and California, but that particular package was valued at only $5 billion.
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Although neither service provider has specified any details of a deal, Verizon could use the proceeds to fund its recent $10.4 billion purchase of AWS-3 wireless spectrum in the FCC’s Auction 97.
Frontier has been expanding its territory through targeted acquisitions over the past five years.
This would not be the only time Frontier and Verizon have conducted a wireline deal. In 2009, Verizon sold off its unwanted rural wireline assets in 14 states to Frontier for $6.8 billion. Later, Frontier purchased AT&T’s Connecticut wireline operations for $2 billion last October.
However compelling a potential sale could be for Frontier in terms of scaling the geographic reach of its business, Macquarie Research said in a report that it is concerned about the quality of the assets it would buying.
“We are surprised that FTR’s Board would approve such a big, binary bet on declining assets with cable competition set to strengthen with pending Comcast and Charter deals,” wrote Macquarie in a research report.
Verizon would not provide a comment to Reuters and Frontier did not respond to FierceTelecom.
News of a potential wireline asset sale emerged in January when Verizon’s CEO Lowell McAdam told investors during the Citi 2015 Global Internet, Media & Telecommunications Conference that “there are certain assets on the wireline side that we think would be better off in somebody else’s hands so we can focus our energy in a little bit more narrow geography.”
In related news, AT&T (NYSE: T) is also close to selling off $2 billion of its data center assets, but no particular deal has been struck yet.
via Report: Verizon to sell $10B in wireline assets to Frontier – FierceTelecom.
When God speaks to Katy Perry
65 million Twitter followers saw it. Before the halftime show of the recent (and most watched) Super Bowl, Pop Superstar Katy Perry quoted Psalm 118:24,
“Today is the day that the Lord has made! I will rejoice and be glad in it.”
Then according to her, this happened, “It’s funny, I was praying and I got a word from God and He says, ‘You got this and I got you.’ And then I was on top of the lion and a guy, a random guy, just looked on me with a headset that I’ve never communicated with before and he just looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘You got this.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, this is God confirming I can do this.”
The religious critics were unleashed! Like hounds they sniffed for the heresy of her words. And filled with righteous anger they said, “How could God speak to such a sensuous and evil person?” “Of course it wasn’t God! She’s a rebellious, divorced, LGBT defender who has abandoned the one true faith.” “She’s stupid and part of the Illuminati!”Maybe.
Maybe it was her own mind who made it up. Maybe it was the devil tricking her. Or maybe it was God. Because maybe (just maybe) He still speaks to those who are broken and afraid. Maybe God is still a father, and maybe He still likes to encourage. People will say that it is impossible for God to be nice to Katy Perry right before she was about to sing “I kissed a girl and I liked it” in front of millions of people. But if God refrained from speaking to humans based on the proximity of their next sin, trust me friend, no one would ever get to hear His voice.
Who knows? Maybe God said those things because, “His kindness leads us to repentance.”
I believe the God of the Bible is interested in being the God of the people. And Jesus proved that by not setting a new religious standard but actually signing for us, a new contract of relationship. It is very clear that Jesus came for the lost. That was His mission. (Maybe we should join Him, because that includes us.)
Katy Perry still has a tattoo that reads “Jesus” on her left wrist. She got the tattoo as a constant reminder of her religious upbringing, which will always be a part of her. In 2009 she told Katie Couric “I knew I wanted this on me because no matter how much changes around me or how much I change, there’s not really an eraser for this.” She says that when she plays the guitar, “It stares right back at me. It’s like ‘remember, you came from this, and you can always go back to it.’”
Yes she can–Always come back. But the better news is that God has never left her. He’s always available, to all His children, whether they are home or they are drifting.
And if we are so sure that Katy Perry can’t hear the voice of God then we need to question the Burning Bush for the murderer Moses, or the encounter on the road to Damascus for the terrorist Saul, or the multiple times the adulterous King David entered the presence of God. You see, Scripture is full of undeserving hearers who somehow (just before or after sinning) got to hear God’s voice, and their lives were changed forever.
Long before Katy was singing about kissing girls, she used her talents as a “Christian singer.” (And you can buy her Christian album as Katy Hudson in Amazon – for more than $100 dollars!) She once told Vanity Fair that as a child, her parents, both evangelical pastors, wouldn’t read any book to her other than the Bible and refused to let her listen to non-religious music. So she questioned Christianity from an early age.
In a 2013 interview Perry said that she no longer identifies with a specific religion, but still feels that she has a connection with God. “I’m not a Buddhist, I’m not a Hindu, I’m not a Christian, but I still feel like I have a deep connection with God,” Perry said. “I pray all the time for self-control, for humility. There’s a lot of gratitude in it. Just saying ‘thank you’ sometimes is better than asking for things.”
So I’m not sure, but I want to believe God spoke to Katy. I want to believe He’s still speaking to her right now! Because that’s my hope for everyone who is lost or broken or famous or perfect, that they will hear the vibrations of love and the sounds of Salvation Himself.
Perry’s dad, Keith Hudson, is a pastor in California, and has said that he’s proud of his daughter, despite previously criticizing the messages in her music. (And that’s probably similar to what God the Father would say.)
I believe Jesus wants to share so much redemption and beauty with Katy Perry. So I pray that she would continue to remember the good seeds planted by her mom and dad (and forgive all the bad ones). But most of all, I pray that we the church would continue to focus on the plank in our eye, instead of the speck in everyone elses.
Yes, I’m always tempted to judge the ridiculous excitement we feel when someone on TV says the word, “God”. But somehow I feel hopeful about this one. I don’t feel hopeful because I want her 65 million Twitter followers to hear about her, “Born Again Experience.” I feel hopeful because I know that God loves His daughter. I know that He’s been there when she’s ignored Him. And I know that His mercy has been new through her brokeness and shame.
Just as He has done for me. Just as He has done for you.
So let’s join sister Katy and declare with a smile,
“Today is the day that the Lord has made! I will rejoice and be glad in it!”
Now maybe (just maybe) we will also get to hear His sweet encouraging voice.
Peace.
Quantum Equations Suggest Big Bang Never Happened
photo credit: NASA. A new model of the universe suggests that spacetime recedes infinitely into the distance, rather than starting from a single event.
Two physicists are trying to revive one of the great debates of twentieth-century science, arguing that the Big Bang may never have happened. Their work presents a radically different vision of the universe from the one cosmologists now work with.
The term Big Bang was created by astrophysicist Fred Hoyle as a way to mock the theory. Hoyle thought of the universe as like an endlessly flowing river, saying “Things are they way they are, because they were the way they were.” However, the weight of evidence—particularly the discovery of the cosmic background radiation—led the scientific community to overwhelmingly favor the idea that the universe came into being from a single, infinitely dense point.
Nevertheless, the problem of what, if anything, came before the Big Bang has continued to trouble many scientists, along with questions about how it actually occurred.
“The Big Bang singularity is the most serious problem of general relativity because the laws of physics appear to break down there,” says Dr. Ahmed Farag Ali of Benha University, Egypt. In collaboration with Professor Saurya Das of the University of Lethbridge, Canada, Ali has created a series of equations that describe a universe much like Hoyle’s; one without a beginning or end. Part of their work has been published in Physics Letters B, while a follow-up paper by Das and Rajat Bhaduri of Manchester University, Canada, is awaiting publication.
60 Minutes’ Bob Simon killed in car crash | New York Post
Veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent Bob Simon was killed when his livery cab crashed on the West Side Highway in Manhattan Wednesday night, sources said.
The CBS reporter died when the Lincoln Town Car he was riding in crashed with a Mercedes and then lost control and plowed into a pedestrian expansion near 30th Street at about 7 p.m., according to sources.
Cops had to cut off the top of the Lincoln to free Simon and the driver, who, according to a law enforcement sources, was treated for a possible heart attack by EMTs.
The driver of the Mercedes said the livery driver was driving erratically.
“He swerved into me,” the driver said. “He hit me and he looked like he lost control of the car.”
Simon was taken to St.Luke’s where he died.
The former war correspondent joined 60 Minutes in 1996.
via 60 Minutes’ Bob Simon killed in car crash | New York Post.
Libya: Cementary of british war victims destroyed by Muslim Mob
Gallup CEO Fears He Will “Suddenly Disappear” For Exposing Unemployment Rate’s ‘Big Lie’
The head of the Gallup polling firm recently backpedaled on his claim that the official unemployment rate being trumpeted by the White House, Wall Street and the media is a “big lie.”
Jim Clifton, the Chairman and CEO of Gallup, recently told CNBC that he was worried he might “suddenly disappear” if he disputed the accuracy of what the U.S. government is reporting as unemployed Americans, Wall Street on Parade reported.
“I think that the number that comes out of BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] and the Department of Labor is very, very accurate. I need to make that very, very clear so that I don’t suddenly disappear. I need to make it home tonight.”
A month after kosher market attack, French Jews plan an exodus
SAINT-MANDÉ, France — For all her 30 years, Jennifer Sebag has lived in a community that embodies everything modern Europe is supposed to be.
Inclusive, integrated, peaceful and prosperous, the elegant city of Saint-Mandé — hard against Paris’s eastern fringe — has been a haven for Jews like Sebag whose parents and grandparents were driven from their native North Africa decades ago by anti-Semitism.
“I’ve always told everyone that here, we are very protected. It’s like a small village,” Sebag said.
But in an instant on the afternoon of Jan. 9, Sebag’s refuge became a target. A gunman who would later say he was acting on behalf of the Islamic State walked into her neighborhood’s kosher market and opened fire, launching a siege that would leave four hostages dead — all of them Jewish.
A month later, the Jews of Saint-Mandé are planning for a possible exodus from what had once appeared to be the promised land.
In homes, in shops and in synagogues guarded night and day by soldiers wielding assault rifles, conversations are dominated by an agonizing choice: stay in France and risk becoming the victim of the next attack by Islamic extremists, or leave behind a country and a community that Jews say they are proud to call home.
The French government has scrambled to persuade them not to go, aware that if Jews see little future for themselves in Saint-Mandé — where Muslims, Christians and Jews have long lived in harmony — then there’s no chance for the European ideal of interfaith coexistence.
And yet, for a rapidly rising number of Jews, here in Saint-Mandé and across France, the decision has already become clear.
“The question is not will they leave or won’t they leave,” said Alain Assouline, a prominent Saint-Mandé doctor and president of a Jewish community center. “The question has become when they will leave.”
“The difference between high school in 1970 and 2015″ couldn’t be more accurate
FIRST SHARIAH LAW – ISLAMIC TRIBUNAL – IN THE USA
Breitbart confirms an Islamic Tribunal operating Shariah Law has begun in Irving, Texas. CBN News reported “The new Shariah tribunal in Irving, Texas, is trying to assure Americans they’re not planning to follow the type of Shariah law practiced in Muslim countries. But critics aren’t convinced”.
Breitbart have also confirmed that the four “lawyers” appointed are not members of the judiciary and are therefore practising law without a license in Texas. Though Shariah Law decisions are said to be “voluntary”, one of the four Texas “judges” Dr. El-badawi, restated several times that participation in the tribunal is voluntary, however, he would not discuss what happens to someone who did not follow their rulings.
Great Britain has already seen the effects of Shariah law in the UK, and the rulings of the tribunals have been detrimental to women especially in divorce and child custody cases, as women have very few rights over Muslim men. The UK Telegraph reported in August 2011 that “there are growing concerns” that the Sharia courts “are creating a parallel legal system — and one that is developing completely unchecked.” The UK Independent newspaper stated in April 2012 “some Sharia law bodies have been misrepresented by the media as being transparent, voluntary and operating in accordance with human rights and equality legislation. This is not the case. Many Sharia law bodies rule on a range of disputes from domestic violence to child residence all of which should be dealt with by UK courts of law.” Instead, “they operate within a misogynist and patriarchal framework which is incompatible with UK legislation.”
Now this has started in the USA. The Texas Islamic tribunal website states: “As mentioned earlier, Muslims are bound in iman and Islam to have masajid, mahkamas, al-Mahkama al-Shar’iyya or courts to solve the problems. Throughout Islamic history there has not been a time that qadis, or judges, and courts did not exist and they cannot go without existing today. Iman and the religion of Islam is based on the creed of Amantu billahi and believes that all deeds of men are recorded and will be brought forward and weighted upon the scales of justice and judged by Allah the Exalted, the Most Just. ”
The tribunal website continues: “The actions of men will be judged based on iman and Islam but not in violation of the laws that govern the land. It is a must for a healthy society best to respond the people’s needs in a faith based approach and answer problems within that framework…the Islamic Tribunal intends to respond to that need. Islamic Tribunals decisions have to be fair, just and conforming to legal proceedings at the local, state and federal level and recognized as such by the courts. This may be incrementally developed by educating ourselves and also the legal professionals in the country, so understandably it may naturally take time to find its way to be commonly accepted…”
The US Center for Security Policy issued a report in 2011 which found that cases in the US courts have already adopted Shariah law principles in some cases, to the detriment of many women and children. It states “These families came to America for freedom from the discriminatory and cruel laws of Shariah. When our courts then apply Shariah law in the lives of these families, and deny them equal protection, they are betraying the principles on which America was founded.”
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Obama Praises Dalai Lama at prayer breakfast
Obama praises Dalai Lama at prayer breakfast
President Obama praised the Dalai Lama and condemned the Islamic State during his annual address on faith at Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast.
The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan leader who is an object of attack by the Chinese government, is “a good friend” and “a powerful example of what it means to practice compassion,” Obama said to warm applause.
He “inspires us to speak up for the freedom and dignity of all human beings,” the president said.
China objects to any presidential meeting with the Dalai Lama, calling him a dangerous separatist. Obama and the Dalai Lama — who supports freedom for Tibet — have met privately at the White House; this was the first time they have appeared at the same public event.
A senior White House adviser — Valerie Jarrett —- sat at the Dalai Lama’s table during the president’s remarks.
‘Angel’ Photo By 10TV Viewer Becomes Social Media Sensation
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The photographer says it’s one of her favorite photos, and she feels it’s a sign from God.
Amanda describes the image in a comment on Facebook.
“I took this picture over at the ponds near my house in Obetz.. been dealing with alot and I feel this is a sign to me from God. This is my all time favorite pic I have ever taken and I’m so happy to have so many appreciate it as well.. hope u all have a very blessed day”
After she sent it to 10TV’s Chris Bradley and he posted it on Facebook, it became a viral sensation.