Follow up to some previously published stories

FOLLOW UP

Let's check in on some older stories. I can't believe it has been 4 years since the Norway Seed Vault opened. I remember it vividly because of the event that happened a few days before opening ceremony. I'd done some research on the location, Svalbard, a rocky outcrop far north of Norway. It is a small island, and the furthest place north that is inhabited in the whole world. They specifically chose that place because of the lack of seismicity in that area. So of course a few days before all the dignitaries flew in for the opening, there was a huge earthquake, lol. It was the largest that Norway ever experienced and the largest ever for that area.

Norway's biggest quake hits Svalbard archipelago
"An earthquake of 6.2 magnitude -- the biggest in Norwegian history -- jolted the thinly populated Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic on Wednesday night, the Norsar seismic research institute said on Thursday. No one was hurt by the quake and no damage has been reported in the islands, about 600 miles from the North Pole, reports said. "This is the biggest earthquake on Norwegian territory in history," the institute said in a statement, adding that the quake occurred at sea, about 6 miles below the surface. ... Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and other leaders will be in Svalbard next week for the official opening of a seed vault which will store frozen crop seeds from around the world in case crops are wiped out by a future disaster."

I got such a charge out of that. God showing who is boss of the earth, couldn't have been clearer to the people who had the hubris to build their own ark. Here is a follow-up article on the seed vault that I thought was pretty interesting. I liked the photos and the artistic renderings in the article. Apparently they have been putting seeds in there all along and it is getting full.

SEED VAULT

After 4 Years, Checking Up on The Svalbard Global Seed Vault
"The other surprise is that we've had no bad surprises. When you plan something this complicated you figure something is going to go wrong. During these past four years we've had seeds come from all over the world and it's been a gigantic coordination process to try to get seed boxes from all of these locations, a lot of which are in developing countries---Africa, Asia and Latin America---and to try to get them up to Oslo and then up to Svalbard on roughly the same day, so you don't have them sitting out on some tarmac in the hot sun. It's also surprising that we haven't lost a single box of seeds in transit. It's a miracle."

Read more at link.

LeROY NY TOURETTE'S-LIKE OUTBREAK

Checking up on the Tourette's outbreak in NY: A few months ago a strange Tourette's-like illness complete with tics, seizures, and outbursts, began affecting students at a high school in LeRoy NY. By now two dozen people including a 36-year-old, are affected. Not finding a physical cause, doctors deemed it "mass hysteria" which didn't sit well with the parents of the affected students. Environmental lawyer Erin Brokovich got involved and tried to find of there was an environmental cause. None were found. Doctors say it is not Tourette's, but is stress induced. Parents are fed-up.

ABC covered the story in a follow up last month but no new information was given, just a notation that though more girls are affected than they were in December, no cause has been found.

Some say that it could be Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infections (PANDAS). Others say it could be from drugs like Gardasil. This article in the German magazine Spiegel noted that every time camera crews showed up more girls would come down with tics and when the crews left the girls would be better. I had noted in my original article that the other famous American case of mass hysteria, Salem Mass. had the same presentation: teenage girls, tics, seizures, more getting sick as attention grew and as attention faded less girls getting sick. Spiegel ended the article thus: (google translated)

"Last week, almost all of its declared McVige patients for symptoms. "They just needed a little encouragement," she reported in the local newspaper "TheBatavian." "Most go back to school." Why the improvement? "You are no longer on TV," she said. "I think it really helped."

Not saying the girls are faking but that attention fueled whatever was behind it, and I'd conjectured that it was not environment, stress, Gardasil or PANDAS but demons.

ANIMAL DIE-OFFS

Remember the spate of bird-die offs in January 2011 and January 2012, and the dolphin strandings etc? Here is an update.

March 7, 2012: 9 more dolphin strandings off Cape Cod this month
"Animal rescuers on Cape Cod say nine more common dolphins have stranded this month, bringing the total to 189 in 2012. The International Fund for Animal Welfare said Wednesday the March strandings are not considered part of a mass stranding in Cape Cod waters between Jan. 12 and Feb. 16. But the group says the total this calendar year is far more than the annual average of 38 on Cape Cod."

March 8, 2012: But another mass dolphin stranding happened in Brazil, however, beachgoers rescued them. A die-off of 60 endangered gulls in New Zealand has scientists perplexed. "They also could not find any traces of toxins or diseases in the birds' systems and therefore, "the cause of the mass die-off remains to be established."

So the strandings and die-offs are still happening, but are not being covered as intensively. Though one die-off, pigeons in Rapid City, was traced to poison. Someone had hired a company to place commercially applied poison to a rooftop.

FALSE BOOKS

I'd written about The Shack four years ago, "Is The Shack' a doctrine of demons?' the 'runaway bestseller' published five years ago. It still sees brisk sales. This week, Black Christian news reports that Colton Burpo's vision of heaven surpassed The Shack in sales. I'd written about Colton Burpo's "Heaven is for Real" last August in a discernment lesson, and a few days ago posted a link to a Justin Peters discussion of these kinds of books, here. I'm sad that these books are still getting the brisk sales that they are. The Shack spent 52 weeks at #1, Heaven is for Real just spent 53 at #1.  We all need heavy discernment in these perilous times, but some are lacking in that department. The Spirit will give wisdom to you if you ask! (James 1:5)

 That's about it for now. Any other stories you'd like me to follow up on?