Important Takeaways:
- The last time the Northern Illinois Brood’s 17-year cycle aligned with the Great Southern Brood’s 13-year period, Thomas Jefferson was president. After this spring, it’ll be another 221 years before the broods, which are geographically adjacent, appear together again.
- “Nobody alive today will see it happen again,” said Floyd W. Shockley, the chair of the Entomology Collections Committee at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. “That’s really rather humbling.”
- These insects will begin to appear in late April. They’ll use their forelegs to tunnel out from the earth, their beady red eyes looking for a spot where they can peacefully finish maturing. A few days after they emerge and molt, the males will start buzzing in an effort to find a mate, a slow-building crescendo of noise that in a chorus can be louder than a plane.
- Shockley said the dual emergence would most likely result in more than one trillion cicadas appearing in the roughly 16-state area where the two broods are generally seen. Forested areas, including urban green spaces, will have higher numbers than will agricultural regions. To put that into perspective, one trillion cicadas, each of which are just over an inch long, would cover 15,782,828 miles if they were laid end-to-end.
- “That cicada train would reach to the moon and back 33 times,” he said.
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Important Takeaways:
- North Korea Says Tests Underwater Nuclear Drone, Criticizes US-Led Joint Drills
- North Korea has conducted a test of its underwater nuclear weapons system in a protest against this week’s joint military drills by South Korea, the United States and Japan, state media KCNA said on Friday.
- The test of the “Haeil-5-23” system, a name North Korea has given to its nuclear-capable underwater attack drones, was carried out by the defense ministry’s think tank in the waters off its east coast, the report said, without specifying a date.
- The ministry’s unnamed spokesman accused the United States, South Korea and Japan of “getting frantic” with military exercises, warning of “catastrophic consequences.”
- Later on Friday, South Korea’s defense ministry issued a warning against the North’s recent series of weapons tests, calling for an immediate halt.
- “Our military is thoroughly prepared for North Korea’s provocations under a solid joint defense posture with the United States,” it said in a statement, vowing “overwhelming” responses if North Korea stages a direct provocation.
- Dubbed “Haeil”, which means tsunami, the new drone system was first reportedly tested in March 2023, and state media said it was intended to make sneak attacks in enemy waters and destroy naval strike groups and major operational ports by creating a large radioactive wave through an underwater explosion.
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Important Takeaways:
- China Is Buying Up US Farmland, But Just How Much Isn’t Clear
- Foreign ownership and investment in US farmland, pastures and forests jumped to about 40 million acres in 2021, up 40% from 2016, according to Department of Agriculture data. But an analysis conducted by the US Government Accountability Office — a non-partisan watchdog that reports to Congress — found mistakes in the data, including the largest land holding linked with China being counted twice. Other challenges include the USDA’s reliance on foreigners self-reporting their activity.
- Outside ownership of US cropland is drawing attention from Washington as concern rises about possible threats to food supply chains and other national security risks. Lawmakers have called for a crackdown on sales of farmland to China and other nations.
- “Without improving its internal processes, USDA cannot report reliable information to Congress or the public about where and how much US agricultural land is held by foreign persons,” the report said.
- The GAO made six recommendations, including that the USDA share more timely and complete data with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, an interagency panel led by the Treasury Department that reviews foreign business deals.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Vladimir Putin ally and anchor of the Russia 1 channel has frequently described on his nightly programs how Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was a confrontation with the West, pushed Kremlin rhetoric and issued nuclear threats against Kyiv’s allies.
- Once again, Solovyov returned to this theme, warning that Russia was being “confronted with a formidable enemy—we are dealing with the collective West, so to speak, which means more than 50 countries.”
- “Some of them are not Western, the West is no longer a geographical term,” Solovyov said in the clip posted by journalist and Russia watcher Julia Davis on Monday. “Either way, they will get the economy going and move it onto a war footing.”
- He said this meant that Russia had only a year and a half to two years to bring its economy “up to a level when it will be able to stand up to these countries with their economic potential.”
- “We are moving towards World War III. In my opinion, it’s already underway.
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Important Takeaways:
- Technology Platform:
- We often lose sight that our modern conveniences also lay the ground work for a “One-World Everything” scenario, which is how Antichrist will come to power.”
- He will be seen everywhere, and his words will be understood in every language. (Note: A counterargument can be made for how we can also “go global” with the Gospel in a way that hasn’t been possible before. We realize this. Our aim in this illustration is not to preach against the tools, but to discuss how the evil messenger of the End Times will exploit them.)
- Vulnerability Platform:
- Right now, COVID-19 and a string of other upsets through 2020 produced a global desperation for leaders to take us “back to normal” and “repair our cities.” The devastation on the earth in the End Times will be so overwhelming that the fragility of human life will cause people of all walks of life—“small and great, rich and poor, free and bond”—to cooperate with an answer man out of panic, impulse, and fear (Revelation 13:16).
- When extreme tragedy hits, nonreligious people suddenly get very religious, very fast (9/11 is a major example of this), learning for themselves that the “God-shaped hole in everyone” that the Church talks about is real. When adherents of various faiths are shown the famous miracle worker who “is the one and only God over all world religions,” as he will claim to be, they’ll turn to him for answers to the natural calamities occurring all over the planet. The populations of the world will feel the instability and vulnerability of humanity and vote for, support, follow, and usher in any man who can effectively prove that his political and religious ideas will unite humanity in responding to these catastrophic End-Time events (Matthew 24:11). This moment in time is what Paul described in 2 Thessalonians 2:3: “The apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed” (NASB).
- The Day All Religions Are Destroyed:
- Scholars and theologians have long acknowledged that the Harlot of Revelation represents both: a) the city of Babylon…and b) false (pagan) religions of the world
- …throughout the Bible, when we read that “woman” (God’s people) is unfaithful to God, “she” is a “harlot,” like Gomer, the adulteress God told the prophet Hosea to marry as a symbol of the Israelites’ idolatrous spiritual infidelity (Hosea 1:2ff). Elsewhere, the Apostle Paul clearly demonstrated that God will not “share” His people with the “harlot” called false religion.
- Therefore, the Harlot of the End Times is understandably interpreted to represent “false religion” and the unholy alliance that false religion has with the “kings” of the One-World Government (Revelation 17:1–2). Upon her very forehead is “a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth” (Revelation 17:5).
- In the beginning, as the Great Tribulation begins to unfold for the first three and a half years…[Daniel 7:25; 12:7; Revelation 12:14]), the Harlot is perched atop the Beast, riding him like a steed
- Many scholars interpret the woman to be in complete control over the Beast, as if to suggest that Antichrist is not yet powerful enough to take over. Others believe that, due to her seemingly instant downfall, Antichrist will have been strong enough to devour her all along but chooses instead to take advantage of her ability to draw people into false religion…
- When the Beast is through with the Harlot—when Antichrist has successfully built a “peaceful,” “benevolent” rule with the help of all the “beautiful” religions and philanthropic economics she represents—he will “hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire” (Revelation 17:16) in the second “forty-two-month” (or three-and-a-half year) time slot of his command.
- Antichrist, in this moment, will “be God,” or so the globe will acknowledge, and it will be as if all the religions of the world from the beginning of time never existed.
- Woe to Western Laodicea!
- Why are we railing about Western Christianity, specifically?
- It’s because we are the world’s center for scriptural training that we are held more accountable for honoring the true Gospel message than are the other geographical areas of the world…and the Word agrees with this conclusion: “But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required” (Luke 12:48).
- Laodicea was another site of extreme cultural prosperity. Its resident Christians were so spoiled to “the good life” that they overlooked their true responsibilities and were found by their Lord to be spiritually empty (Revelation 3:14–22). To them, following Christ was a popular lifestyle or trend, but where it counted, they didn’t prioritize the Gospel as they had been commissioned. Consider what Christ says to them: “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing!’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (Revelation 3:17; NIV). They were blind to their own spiritual bankruptcy.
- Fast forward to the book of Revelation and the Laodiceans’ Ephraim-esque reliance on the comforts of their own routines, which propagated a festering apathy in the matter of the Gospel, making them into a then-modern Ephraim. This, the Laodicean compromise, “made their witness to Christ impotent in its effect…they were on the verge of being considered an unbelieving community (cf. also [Revelation] 2:5; 3:1–3), no different from the rest of the pagan world.”
- Both Ephraim and Laodicea booted the God of the Bible out of their club and raised up a pagan central focus that misdirected their God-appointed purpose—Ephraim to Jeroboam’s calf-worship and Ahab/Jezebel’s Baal-worship, and Laodicea to Roman emperor-worship. Not surprisingly, both were also destroyed—Ephraim to the hands of Assyria and Laodicea to a terrible earthquake.
- We cannot dine at the same table with Christ and with demons (1 Corinthians 10:21)
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Important Takeaways:
- The United States Has The Biggest Government In The History Of The World By A Very Wide Margin
- How does it feel to have the largest government that the planet has ever seen? When I was growing up, I was taught that we had a capitalist system and that we had a limited federal government. Of course, neither of those things has been true for a very long time. Today, the United States has the biggest government in the history of the world, and it gets even bigger with each passing year. Running that gigantic government requires more money than we actually have, and so we are going into staggering amounts of debt. But there is no way that our politicians will ever agree to reduce the size of the federal government to an appropriate size. So we are stuck with this system until the day when it finally collapses.
- Approximately 3 million people work directly for the federal government.
- The federal government spent 6.13 trillion dollars in 2023. That figure is larger than the GDP of every nation on the entire planet except for the U.S. and China.
- -More than 70 million Americans are on Social Security.
- -More than 65 million Americans are on Medicare.
- -More than 81 million Americans are on Medicaid.
- -More than 41 million Americans are on food stamps.
- Of course there are many more programs that hand out money to the population on a regular basis.
- We have reached a stage where most U.S. households are at least partially dependent on the federal government.
- We very much prefer not to call ourselves “socialists”, but that is precisely what we are. Sadly, if we attempted to go back to the way things were 100 years ago, most Americans would not know how to survive.
- Since 1980, the size of the U.S. national debt has gone from 1 trillion dollars to 34 trillion dollars.
- In fact, the size of the federal deficit in December was 52 percent larger than for the same month a year earlier…
- The U.S. federal government posted a December deficit of $129 billion, up $44 billion or 52% from a year earlier as outlays rose while receipts fell from December 2022 levels that were swelled by pandemic-deferred tax payments, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Thursday.
- The Treasury said that outlays for December rose 3% to $559 billion, a December record, partly as a result of higher Social Security outlays and interest on the public debt. Receipts for the month fell 6% to $429 billion.
- But for the moment, the talking heads on television continue to tell everyone that our leaders know exactly what they are doing, and millions of people actually believe that nonsense.
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Important Takeaways:
- U.K. Govt Warns: Be Ready for War with China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea in Five Years
- Speaking at Lancaster House on Monday, British Minister of Defense Grant Shapps said the West is facing a “much more troubled world” and could no longer consider itself post-war, with considerable new investment in military spending needed. He said:
- …now is the time for all allies and democratic nations across the world to… make sure their defense spending is growing too. Because as discussed, the era of the peace dividend is over. In five years time we could be looking at multiple theatres including Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.
- …we find ourselves at the dawn of this new era. [The] Berlin Wall a distant memory but we have come full circle, moving from a post-war to a pre-war world. An age of idealism has been replaced by a period of hard-headed realism.
- Illustrating actions taken by Britain to prepare itself for this multifaceted conflict the British government apparently believes is coming, Shapps cited the UK’s support to Ukraine, the country leading the largest NATO deployment since the end of the Cold War this year, the signing of a new UK-Japan-Italy fighter coalition, and the creation of the Australia-UK-U.S. submarine coalition. He said the government was moving to putting 2.5 per cent of GDP into defense spending as soon as it could afford to.
- Estonia, one of Ukraine’s most enthusiastic allies and a state which has a land border with Russia said through their Prime Minister on Monday that their intelligence states NATO has “three to five years” to prepare for a Russian attack on NATO itself.
- Sweden warned its citizens last week to be prepared for war.
- Germany is reportedly of the same mind, with the best-selling newspaper in Europe Bild splashing this week on leaked war plans anticipating Russian invasions of European states by the summer of 2025.
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Important Takeaways:
- Pakistan carries out military strikes on separatist targets in Iran following deadly attack on its own soil by Tehran
- Pakistan carried out a series of deadly military strikes on what it said were separatist militant hideouts inside Iran, in the latest incident across their shared border that has sent tensions between the two neighbors soaring.
- The new strikes mean both Pakistan and Iran have now taken the extraordinary step of attacking militants on each other’s soil this week at a time of expanding conflict in the Middle East and wider region.
- Islamabad said Thursday its forces launched a “series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes” in Iran’s southeastern Sistan and Baluchistan province as part of an operation called “Marg Bar Sarmachar” — a phrase which loosely translates to “death to the guerrilla fighters.”
- It said the hideouts targeted in the operation were used by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and the Baloch
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Important Takeaways:
- BlackRock Chief Warns Davos Elites: Trump Victory Poses ‘Fundamental’ Challenge to Europe
- The prospect of a Donald Trump return to the White House in 2024 poses a “fundamental” challenge to Europe, the leader of the world’s largest investment company warned Tuesday.
- The Daily Telegraph reports BlackRock vice chairman Philipp Hildebrand issued his caution from the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
- In doing so he added his voice to the swelling chorus from Europe that fears a Trump return to the world stage.
- [Why? Because] given Trump’s determination to embrace America First in matters from trade to diplomacy, NATO funding, and climate policy.
- For his part, Hildebrand urged Europe to seize the opportunity to transform itself into a technological superpower that was less dependent on America. He added Europe’s capabilities on defense were “just not there” and required a rethink. Hildebrand said:
- He spoke within hours of Trump’s stunning victory in the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses, as Breitbart News reported.
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Important Takeaways:
- Chinese scientists ‘create’ a mutant coronavirus strain that attacks the BRAIN and has a 100% kill rate in mice – as they admit there’s a ‘risk it spills over to humans’
- Chinese scientists have been experimenting with a mutant coronavirus strain that is 100 percent lethal in mice — despite concerns such research could spark another pandemic.
- Scientists in Beijing — who are linked to the Chinese military — cloned a Covid-like virus found in pangolins, known as GX_P2V, and used it to infect mice.
- The mice had been ‘humanized’, meaning they were engineered to express a protein found in people, with the goal being to assess how the virus might react in humans
- Every rodent that was infected with the pathogen died within eight days, which the researchers described as ‘surprisingly’ quick.
- The team were also surprised to find high levels of viral load in the mice’s brains and eyes – suggesting the virus, despite being related to Covid, multiplies and spreads through the body in a unique way.
- Writing in a scientific paper that has not yet been published, they warned the finding ‘underscores a spillover risk of GX_P2V into humans’.
- Professor Francois Balloux, an infectious disease expert based at University College London, wrote on Twitter (X): ‘It’s a terrible study, scientifically totally pointless.
- ‘I can see nothing of vague interest that could be learned from force-infecting a weird breed of humanized mice with a random virus. Conversely, I could see how such stuff might go wrong…’
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