US State Withdraws $18 Million in Tax Breaks for Noah’s Ark Project

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US State Withdraws $18 Million in Tax Breaks for Noah’s Ark Project

Concerned that the project will promote religion in violation of the separation of church and state provisions of the U.S. Constitution, the state of Kentucky has retracted approximately $18 million in tax incentives for the proposed Noah’s Ark theme park in Northern Kentucky.

Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis, the group behind the $172.5 million project, is now considering a federal lawsuit challenging the decision, according to The Courier-Journal.

Answers in Genesis had applied for and was granted preliminary approval to participate in a state tax-incentive program which would have allowed them to keep 25 percent of the sales tax collected at the theme park for 10 years, amounting to more than $18 million.

In a recent letter highlighted by the Journal, however, Kentucky’s Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet said the Ark Encounter theme park had changed its hiring policy since it first filed for the incentives in 2010 and plans to discriminate in hiring based on religion.

It also noted that the theme park had shifted from being a tourist attraction to an extension of the Answers in Genesis ministry which teaches a literal interpretation of the Bible.

“State tourism tax incentives cannot be used to fund religious indoctrination or otherwise be used to advance religion,” Tourism Secretary Bob Stewart noted in the letter. “The use of state incentives in this way violates the separation of church and state provisions of the Constitution and is therefore impermissible.”

The Kentucky Tourism Development Finance Authority, which had granted preliminary approval for the incentives in July, requested written assurances that there would be no discrimination based on religion. Since Stewart does not recommend the project for the incentives, however, it will not get final approval from the authority…Read More

Source and Original Content by CP

Microsoft Windows Unveiling Event Scheduled for January 21

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Microsoft Windows Unveiling Event Scheduled for January 21

Microsoft on Thursday has announced that the company has scheduled ‘The Next Chapter’ of Windows 10 for next year on January 21, where it is expected to unveil the consumer preview of the upcoming OS.
The Windows blog notes that at the January 21 event, the senior leaders from the ‘Operating Systems Group’ including Terry Myerson, Joe Belfiore and Phil Spencer will talk about the Windows 10 consumer experience and what’s next for the OS. The event will also witness CEO Satya Nadella, says company.

The event invite posted by Microsoft on Thursday, reads, ‘Windows 10: The Next Chapter’, and notes a date of Wednesday, January 21, 2015.

To refresh, Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system will finally bring the unified ‘Threshold’ ecosystem that’s been promised for a while, with a single iteration capable of working across multiple form factors and device types, from desktop, laptops and tablets to smartphones and even the company’s gaming console.

The Redmond giant when first announcing Windows 10 in late-September, said it had decided skip the name Windows 9 to emphasise the jump the new operating system will make in terms of catering to mobile devices and Internet services. Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore had then added that Windows 10 will offer “the familiarity of Windows 7 with some of the benefits that exist in Windows 8” to help business users make the transition.

Microsoft released an ‘early technical preview’ (Read: How to Install) of Windows 10 soon after in October, and before the end of the month, released the first update for it, introducing the action centre and other UI improvements.

Source and Original Content by Ndtv

Top Apps, Books, Movies, and Music of 2014 Revealed by Google

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Top Apps, Books, Movies, and Music of 2014 Revealed by Google

Google has announced the names of most popular apps, games, movies, music, news and books of 2014 on Google Play.
The Mountain View giant in an infographic titled ‘2014: The Year in Entertainment’ has revealed some of the interesting downloads from Google Play this year.

According to Google, the most downloaded apps by category are Education – Duolingo (a language learning app); Social – Facebook; Health and Fitness – MyFitnessPal (a calorie counter app); Entertainment – Netflix; Music – Pandora; Sports – NFL Mobile; Photography – Flipagram (for making short video stories), and Travel – TripAdvisor.

The top downloaded games on Google Play include Candy Crush Saga, Don’t Tap the White Tile, Farm Heroes Saga, Subway Surfers, and Clash of Clans.

Google’s movie of the year is Frozen, while the TV show of the year is The Walking Dead. The company’s lists the Toy Story as comeback movie of the year.

Interestingly, Frozen, apart from being the movie of the year, is also the album of the year with its original motion picture soundtrack. In 2014, Katy Perry’s Dark Horse was the song of the year. Meanwhile, the song of the summer was Fancy by Iggy Azalea.

The company also shortlisted news sources of the year which had The New York Times topping the chart followed by TMZ, Forbes Now, The Verge, The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, The Wall Street Journal, Gizmodo, and Android Central.

According to Google, book of the year is The Fault in Our Stars, followed by Fifty Shades of Grey, Divergent, Twelve Years a Slave, and Insurgent.

Brian Irving, global director of marketing for Google Play announced the top list of 2014 in a blog post and pointed that the source is Google Play’s internal data.

With the year 2014 coming to an end, company’s such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have also announced data gleaned over the course of 2014. First, it was Facebook that revealed its ‘2014 Year in Review’ top 10 lists, and then Twitter rolled out a list of the most popular tweets and personalities in the year 2014.

Lastly, Google unveiled its list of top trending YouTube videos of 2014 including from India.

Earlier this month, following the launch of Google’s Best Apps for 2014 section, Apple also unveiled its Best of 2014 list, featuring apps, movies, music, TV shows, and books.

Source and Original Content by Ndtv

Kenyan Church Leaders Alarmed by Recent Attacks on Christians

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Kenyan Church Leaders Alarmed by Recent Attacks on Christians

Church leaders say attacks by Somalia’s al-Shabab militants in Kenya are increasingly taking on an anti-Christian tenor, including targeted executions of non-Muslims.

At a news conference in Nairobi on Wednesday (Dec. 10), the leaders said Muslims must redouble efforts to preach religious tolerance and end youth radicalization.

In what the leaders describe as a dangerous trend, 64 Christians were executed in or near Mandera, a town on the border with Somalia, in the past three weeks. In both incidents, non-Muslims were separated from Muslims.

Last Tuesday (Dec. 2), militants shot 36 quarry workers. The militants asked workers to recite the Shahada, the Muslim profession of faith, and shot those who refused.

On Nov. 22, al-Shabab militants hijacked a bus and killed 28 non-Muslims, 21 of them teachers returning home for Christmas.

“This situation regrettably leads us to conclude these attacks, perpetuated by people claiming to be al-Shabab, are taking a religious angle,” Anglican Archbishop Eliud Wabukala said at the news conference…Read More

Source and Original Content by BCNN1

Pastor Rebukes Tv Show Host for ‘Blasphemous” Joke

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Pastor Rebukes Tv Show Host for ‘Blasphemous” Joke

Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, says a joke broadcast last weekend on the NPR show “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” mocking Jesus Christ was “blasphemous,” and if Muhammad had been ridiculed, the host would’ve been fired.

Peter Sagal, host of NPR’s weekend program “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” made a joke about a Christmas ad campaign launched by the Diocese of Brooklyn that shows a woman taking a selfie with Jesus Christ standing in the background. The print ads are part of an effort to reach out to millennials during the Advent season.

During the program that aired Saturday and Sunday, Sagal said:

You can take a selfie with Jesus. The Catholic Church preaches that Jesus is always with us. In fact, He’s right behind you.

So this new app, Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, shows a woman sitting by herself. She’s holding out a phone to take a selfie like the kids do, but in the picture you see this woman and a bearded beatific man standing behind her. It’s not the same rando creepo who got into the church, it’s the son of God.

This raises all sorts of questions for the woman. For starters, why didn’t Jesus just offer to take the picture Himself? His hands were occupied.

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said on his opinion program “The O’Reilly Factor” Tuesday night that when he asked NPR President and CEO Jarl Mohn to define what Sagal meant when he said “Jesus’ hands were occupied,” Mohn replied that the show’s goal is to poke fun at the news and make people laugh, and he “regrets that we didn’t succeed in this case.”

In an interview with O’Reilly, Jeffress said he wasn’t going to “speculate what was going through [Sagal’s] sick mind,” but did want to comment on the hypocrisy of the secular media.

“What I do want to point out is that this illustrates the hypocrisy, the double standard of the secular media when it comes to Christianity. I can guarantee you one thing — that if this host had been ridiculing Muhammad or Islam, he would’ve been out overnight. When it comes to Christianity, it’s open season,” Jeffress asserted.

“I think the content is something that, at the very least, is dirty and possibly could be blasphemous,” he added…Read More

Source and Original Content by BCNN1

Video: Franklin Graham Criticizes Atheists, Secularists

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Video: Franklin Graham Criticizes Atheists, Secularists

Reverend Franklin Graham says there is a growing hatred toward the Christian culture

Watch : Giggling Baby Jesus in Christmas Ad Goes viral

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Watch : Giggling Baby Jesus in Christmas Ad Goes viral

A church-produced video advert designed to challenge this year’s Christmas supermarket ads has been released. The Christmas Starts with Christ viral ad shows a typical Christmas scene of a modern couple sitting in their living room watching their newly-born baby in a cot and slowly the family are pulled back to the very first Christmas.

http://youtu.be/9W2UrAoh76o

Christmas Ad; Christmas Starts with Christ goes Viral

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Christmas Ad; Christmas Starts with Christ goes Viral

In carols still sung by millions each Christmas, Christians affirm that when baby Jesus is away in his manger, “no crying he makes.”

But neither carols nor the Bible make mention of giggling.

The Christmas Starts with Christ advertisement, launched today, quickly went viral on YouTube and Twitter with its giggling baby Jesus.

From His traditional position of powerlessness and vulnerability, the advertisement challenges the penguin, turkey, snowman and chocolate giants of contemporary secular Christmas advertising culture. And it is all done for just £10,000 to make, a fraction of the more commercial campaigns.

The video shows a modern couple sitting in their living room watching their newly-born baby in a cot in what is their first Christmas as a family. The fire is lit, the tree has presents under it and in the background plays the tune of “The Power of Love”. Slowly the scene transforms, in front of the viewer’s eyes, to the very first Christmas in a stable, and the couple into Mary and Joseph.

Francis Goodwin, who heads up the Christmas Starts with Christ campaign, said: “The supermarket viral ads, which were released last month, offered a ‘feel good’ take on Christmas designed to influence consumers into spending money with them. But they all avoided any reference to the religious meaning of the season. We thought it was time to produce the Christmas ad which the supermarkets are unable to make – one which shows where the feel good factor comes from. We are asking people to watch it, judge for themselves and share it with friends.”

Steve Clifford, general director of the Evangelical Alliance, said: “There have been a variety of reactions to the supermarket Christmas ads this year. However, they all have one thing in common. Each ad is trying to claim they have the ‘magic’ of Christmas and that if you shop with them then you will experience it. But it is not celebrities singing about turkeys, nostalgic chocolate bars or happy penguins that lie at the heart of Christmas. What the supermarkets are unable to say is where the real ‘magic’ lies and where it comes from. The Christmas Starts with Christ ad takes the viewer to the moment where Christmas began. It is magical. Go and see it for yourself and if you like it – share it with friends.”

On Twitter, TV’s Gogglebox vicar Kate Bottley ‏described it as: “The best Christmas ad you’ll see.”

The satirical Christian website Ship of Fools said: “Beautiful short video goes from modern cosy Christmas to the poor stable.”

Inspire magazine tweeted: “See the ad that takes on the big stores and highlights the heart of Christmas.”

The Methodist Church said it offered “that real Christmas feeling” and the Evangelical Alliance described it as the ad that “takes on the supermarkets”.

Lichfield Diocese said: “Christmas starts with the power of love. So simple, so powerful.”

In a comment on the video on YouTube, Steve Goddard said: “Away in a Manger clearly states ‘no crying he makes’ so, on that historical basis, he can’t have giggled either. The stereotypical nativity play Jesus – plastic, robotic, unthreatening, only seemingly human – has done us proud for many a long year. The giggle makes him real, alive. It’s as if God is with us in our joy and pain. Shockingly disrespectful.”

http://youtu.be/9W2UrAoh76o

Source and Original Content by CT

US Church to Hold Services in Restaurant to Attract Membership

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US Church to Hold Services in Restaurant to Attract Membership

Beer, hot wings and Jesus? Some people think it’s a theological mix worth trying.

In an effort to reach the unchurched, Riverchase United Methodist Church plans to launch a new worship service at the Buffalo Wild Wings on John Hawkins Parkway in Hoover on Sunday, Dec. 14.

“We believe there’s a population that would attend a service there that wouldn’t go to a church,” said the Rev. Wesley Savage, minister of young adults for Riverchase United Methodist Church. “We hope it’s going to be a more inviting atmosphere.”

The service will be called The Stream.

Since waiters and bartenders will be preparing to open for business, the atmosphere may not be conducive to church praise music, Savage said. “We’re not going to have a band initially,” he said.

That will help keep the service short. “It will be about 45 minutes,” he said. “We want it to be a dialogue, questions and discussion about a topic: Why God? Why the church? Why the Bible? Why should I care about these things?”

The service will start at 9:45 a.m. and conclude around 10:30 a.m. “We’re going to be meeting before Buffalo Wild Wings officially opens for business,” Savage said. “It will be a time of prayer and devotion…Read More

Source and Original Content by BCNN1

The Other Side Of Failure by; Daniel Folorunso Adebola

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The Other Side Of Failure by; Daniel Folorunso Adebola

The Other Side Of Failure by; Daniel Folorunso Adebola

What will be at the other side of failure was the question that rose on my mind when I saw this book, I asked ‘what will be at that side?, is there another thing apart from Success at the other side of Failure?” my answer was right and I know your guess is as right as mine.

The author of this book, Daniel Folorunso said, “The Fear of failure is more dangerous than failure itself. This is probably the greatest force that is keeping many people below their potential. It may interest you to know that the fear of failure is a major setback for a successful life.”

I also believe that the most talented people are not the most successful; people don’t succeed professionally and Mari tally because they have all the knowledge about how it works, Greatness comes to them because they try again and again every time they failed.

The author of ‘The Other Side of Failure’ Daniel Folorunso, quoted Baudjum in his book when he said “No matter how hard you work for success, if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors and make success impossible.” The fear of failure will make you sick, run your passion dry, and kill your vision if you don’t deal with it today.

The mysteries of men are hiding in their stories, learning from them will help you become a better person also, what you are facing is not new , somebody has passed through it and had overcome it and the best thing for you to do is to learn from them.

Daniel, the author of ‘The Other Side Of Failure’ pointed out in the book how you can use your mind to develop success and believe you me; if you don’t work on your mind to see victory, it will not happen in reality.

The other Side of Failure is a book packaged to push you away from the side of fear to success, It’s a book that will open your eyes to see attainment in every mountain confronting you; you don’t have to quit on your dream because of things happening around you, don’t give up on your child because he or she is not acting the way you want.

Your marriage is so important, don’t think you are with the wrong person; in marriage there is no right or wrong person, it’s the way you treat the person that shows if he or she is wrong or right. In the book you will also learn how successes hide itself inside challenges, it will amaze you.

Log on to www.kdp.amazon.com to get an e-copy of the book ‘The Other Side Of Failure’ by Daniel Folorunso Adebola or call 08070363393 to order for your copy because in the book, you will find out the Inspirational Tools that will always keep you motivated, how to deal with Procrastination and lot more.

Reviewed by; ToluBooks
Web site: www.tolubooks.com e-mail: [email protected] twitter : @tolubooks , facebook: ToluBooks Arogundade.

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