Mark Zuckerberg BUYS WhatsApp!

Mark Zuckerberg BUYS WhatsApp!

Read what he writes on his facebook page:

I’m excited to announce that we’ve agreed to acquire WhatsApp and that their entire team will be joining us at Facebook.

Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. We do this by building services that help people share any type of content with any group of people they want. WhatsApp will help us do this by continuing to develop a service that people around the world love to use every day.

WhatsApp is a simple, fast and reliable mobile messaging service that is used by over 450 million people on every major mobile platform. More than 1 million people sign up for WhatsApp every day and it is on its way to connecting one billion people. More and more people rely on WhatsApp to communicate with all of their contacts every day.

WhatsApp will continue to operate independently within Facebook. The product roadmap will remain unchanged and the team is going to stay in Mountain View. Over the next few years, we're going to work hard to help WhatsApp grow and connect the whole world. We also expect that WhatsApp will add to our efforts forInternet.org, our partnership to make basic internet services affordable for everyone.

WhatsApp will complement our existing chat and messaging services to provide new tools for our community. Facebook Messenger is widely used for chatting with your Facebook friends, and WhatsApp for communicating with all of your contacts and small groups of people. Since WhatsApp and Messenger serve such different and important uses, we will continue investing in both and making them each great products for everyone.

WhatsApp had every option in the world, so I’m thrilled that they chose to work with us. I’m looking forward to what Facebook and WhatsApp can do together, and to developing great new mobile services that give people even more options for connecting.

I've also known Jan for a long time, and I know that we both share the vision of making the world more open and connected. I'm particularly happy that Jan has agreed to join the Facebook board and partner with me to shape Facebook's future as well as WhatsApp's.

Jan and the WhatsApp team have done some amazing work to connect almost half a billion people. I can’t wait for them to join Facebook and help us connect the rest of the world.

Student Support: Snowden elected rector at Glasgow University

More about Jesus played on Harmonica | Reinhardt Stander

More About Jesus | Eliza E. Hewitt



More about Jesus would I know,

More of His grace to others show;

More of His saving fullness see,

More of His love who died for me.



Refrain:

More, more about Jesus,

More, more about Jesus;

More of His saving fullness see,

More of His love who died for me.



More about Jesus let me learn,

More of His holy will discern;

Spirit of God, my teacher be,

Showing the things of Christ to me.



More about Jesus, in His Word,

Holding communion with my Lord;

Hearing His voice in every line,

Making each faithful saying mine.



More about Jesus on His throne,

Riches in glory all His own;

More of His kingdom's sure increase;

More of His coming, Prince of Peace.

Discipleship of Social Outcasts | Reinhardt Stander

Societies establish hierarchies. Wealthy or well-educated people usually acquire the highest positions.

Good moral citizens, the ordinary people, normally occupy the middle rungs on the social ladder. That leaves the bottom dwellers, those such as prostitutes, substance abusers, criminals, the homeless, and others. During Christ’s time, that list also included lepers and tax collectors.

Although hardened by sinful pleasures, and sometimes encased in self-constructed tough exteriors, the social outcasts were, and still are, easier to reach than the prideful, haughty, and self-righteous elite. Often, beneath the outcasts’ bravado lies emotional emptiness characterized by poor self-worth. Frequently, especially during the teenage years, such people openly rebel, frantically trying to establish a personal identity to compensate for the insecurities felt within. That identity is, purposefully, established in opposition to the wishes of whoever serves as the authority figure (often parents) for that person.

Jesus wasted no effort damaging their already diminished sense of self-worth. Instead, He created a renewed sense of personal value. He established that foundation by consistently loving and accepting the outcasts, whose hearts were often melted by the warm and loving receptions that they had received from Christ.

Overview on Bill Nye vs Ken Ham DEBATE

At last the debate took place that so many looked forward to! And the WINNER is...?

Bill Nye 'the Science Guy' and Ken Ham the 'Creation Expert' debated the old question about our origins: Evolution or Creation?

Both debaters made good arguments from the start and stayed with their arguments throughout the debate.
Ham stated that both him and Nye had the very same evidence, the battle is how they interpret the past."It's a battle over world views and starting points with the same evidence."

Ham then went to show that there's a great difference between observational science that do science in the present and historical science where 'faith' is needed since no present scientist lives in the past and therefore can't do any observation = science. Of cause he also showed different top scientists that are creationists, like Raymond Damadian, inventor of the MRI scanner.

Ham concluded his argument by stating: "Creation is the only viable model of historical science confirmed by observational science in today's modern scientific era."

For the next 30 minutes Bill Nye brought his argument to the table. He started out stating the audience is sitting on layer upon layer of limestone that indicate millions of years with fossils that lived for a whole lifetime - how could that have formed in just 4000 years? 'THERE ISN'T ENOUGH TIME.'

Later Nye challenged Ham with, "If you look at the layers carefully... you never ever find a higher animal mixed in with a lower one. You never find a lower one trying to swim its way to a higher one. If it all happened within such a short extraordinary time, would we expect to see some turbulence? If you can find ONE example of that... you would be a hero..."

Nye concluded his argument with the reasoning that we have Ice, Trees, Rocks and Starlight that are FAR older than 6000 years.

Of cause Ken Ham countered this with scientific data of hundreds of different natural, physical processes that show that the universe can't be billions or even millions of years old.

Nye replied, "I think this idea that you can separate the natural laws of the past from the natural laws we have now is at the heart of our disagreement."

And so it went on...

I would really liked to see a principle strictly applied to debates, where if a question is posed from the one to the other, the other is obligated to answer. Bill Nye sometimes asked questions that Ken Ham didn't respond to directly, and Ken asked a lot of questions that Bill never even referred to. What is the point of a debate if questions can't be DEBATED?

What I'm really impressed with is the spirit in which the debate was held. Both was absolutely respectful towards one another.

Of cause, Richard Dawkins, the famous atheist, warned Bill Nye:

Scientists should not debate creationists. Period.

Debates about the existence of God can be fun, they are not really that meaningful, but they are a debate about ideas and beliefs and can be worth effort.

Creationism vs. evolution however is not worth debating. Why? Simple, there is nothing to debate. Evolution is a scientific fact, backed by mountains of evidence, peer-reviewed papers you could stack to the moon and an incredible scientific community consensus.  Creationism is a debunked mythology that is based solely in faith. It has zero peer-reviewed papers to back up its claims, it has absolutely no scientific consensus and is not even considered science due to the fact it cannot be tested.

Why would a scientist debate this? Nye would do more good on his own going on TV and discussing evolution and the importance of scientific education instead of giving Ken Ham any publicity and a public forum with thousands, if not millions of viewers, to spew his dishonesty. Ham is a snake oil salesmen and Nye just offered him up an infomercial to sell his product. Ham can repeat his mantra over and over; “teach the controversy”.

Later during the debate they were confronted with questions from the audience. One of the interesting questions were: 'How did consciousness come from matter?'

Bill Nye simply responded with, "I don't know. That is a great mystery." And Ham responded, "Bill, I want to say that there is a book out there that does document where consciousness comes from," Ham said, referencing the Bible, and adding that he believes man was created "in God's image."

I would like to propose that we have more events like these where we can have dialogue with one another in a respectful way, but yet very direct where we answer one another's challenges. These are issues that we need to face and events like these are critical to give information through where both opposite parties have the platform to confront and interrogate the 'facts' of the other.

Winner? Both did well, but as I'm not neutral and am a creationist myself I really think that crucial questions from Ham posed to Nye was not answered - like where did the laws of nature come from? Ham's challenges still stand...

to see the debate for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI

New Book just released: "The Snowden Files" by Luke Harding a reporter from the Guardian

At last the book so many worldwide has been waiting for! The Story of Edward Snowden's BRAVE decision to warn the world.

To the USA Snowden is at this moment the "world's most wanted man". And with all the media attention for almost a year, this book promises to be a best seller. According to the CNN,

The Guardian is a key player in the Snowden saga, having provided an outlet for the former NSA contractor-turned-whistle-blower to expose what he knew about the U.S. government's mass surveillance programs. Harding accessed a wealth of inside information, such as this story about how Snowden first connected via e-mail with Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald.

This promises not only interesting reading, but vital information to continual and viable living in an ever changing world with privacy that are daily being infringed and step by step limited and dispelled. 

The book will also be released in the USA by next week. How did the Guardian balance this tricky one, keeping in mind the highly sensitive material it will contain? According to CCN, 

 The Guardian's U.S. Editor Janine Gibson drew up plan before publishing, including seeking legal advice and working out a strategy for approaching the White House. She had some tough decisions to make.

Harding wrote: "Gibson decided to give the NSA a four-hour window to comment, so the agency had an opportunity to disavow the story. By British standards, the deadline was fair: long enough to make a few calls, agree a line. But for Washington, where journalist-administration relations sometimes resemble a country club, this was nothing short of outrageous."

Harding said Gibson's tough decisions meant she'd have to face down some tough people, including FBI deputy director Sean M. Joyce, NSA deputy director Chris Inglis, and Robert S. Litt, general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The author writes: "By fielding heavyweights, the White House had perhaps reckoned it could flatter, and if necessary bully, the Guardian into delaying publication. Gibson explained that the editor-in-chief -- in the air halfway across the Atlantic -- was unavailable. She said: 'I'm the final decision-maker.' After 20 minutes, the White House was frustrated. The conversation was going in circles. Finally, one of the team could take no more. Losing his temper, he shouted, 'You don't need to publish this! No serious news organisation would publish this!' Gibson replied, 'With the greatest respect, we will take the decisions about what we publish.'"

The newspaper ran the story and, soon thereafter, Snowden disappeared. He's currently in Russia, where he has asylum.

"I think ... he's achieved far more than he could have possibly imagined when he was sitting in Hawaii planning this leak," Harding told CNN on Sunday.

The problem I DO have with this book though is that Harding who wrote this never even met or spoke to Snowden. But be it as it may, with companies that always go the financial way - there will be something in writing that due to fact of all the worldwide attention and scrutiny must definitely contain facts that matter no matter the agenda...

You know what's so hilarious? By making such a 'fuss' about Snowden and trying to locate him by ALL means, the US Government made EVERYONE aware of this whole agenda of tapping into everyone's life... By labelling someone as most wanted, they exposed themselves as found wanted...

What a Friend we have in Jesus - played on Penny Whistle | Reinhardt Sta...