President Obama has long known that the real decision maker in Iran is Ayatollah Khamenei, the so-called supreme leader. While other Iranian officials have negotiated with Western powers over the mullahs’ nuclear program, Khamenei’s opinion is the only one that really counts. It is for this reason that Obama began writing directly to Khamenei early in his presidency. MORE

Funny, Traditional Catholics are not allowed to use new church churches or facilities at Catholic cemeteries.

Anglicans are to hold a cathedral service in a Roman Catholic Church in what is thought to be a first in the UK.

Derby Cathedral is to have an £800,000 refurbishment and will be closed during the week until the end of August. It means some services will be held at nearby St Mary’s church, starting on Thursday evening. MORE

An Afghanistan-based jihadist group known for its past ties to Pakistani intelligence on Wednesday vowed to send “thousands” of fighters to Yemen in support of Saudi Arabia.

Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin was one of the main Sunni insurgent groups that fought against Soviet troops and later re-emerged to fight US-led coalition forces after 2001. MORE

The group said in a regulatory statement that up to 100 billion barrels of oil could be onshore beneath the South of England, after it drilled a well at Horse Hill near Gatwick Airport, West Sussex, last year. The number comes from the fact that UKOG said that the local area could hold 158 million barrels of oil per square mile and from management estimates confirmed this morning on the BBC. MORE

Yet who could have expected the draconian measures the Times would propose? Either Christians fully embrace the gay lifestyle, or you will be coerced into doing so.

Op-ed writer Frank Bruni, onetime Times restaurant critic and a gay activist, has written that Christians who hold on to “ossified,” biblically-based beliefs regarding sexual morality have no place at America’s table and are deserving of no particular regard.

In one fell swoop, Bruni trashes all believing Christians as “bigots,” saying that Christians’ negative moral assessment of homosexual relations is “a choice” that “prioritizes scattered passages of ancient texts over all that has been learned since — as if time had stood still, as if the advances of science and knowledge meant nothing.” MORE

The eating habits of modern Americans have been described as, “eating breakfast in their cars, lunch at their desks and chicken from a bucket.” Within the last few decades, Americans are eating out more and more and cooking fewer meals at home, which is typically the healthier option, with meals containing less saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium, and more fiber. Therefore, the benefits to preparing healthy food at home may include the prevention of chronic disease. Even when food is prepared at home, it still may not mean much — microwaving a frozen pizza isn’t exactly home cooking. MORE

Decrying Atlanta pastor Charles Stanley’s “sordid history of virulent homophobic statements and actions,” a gay Jewish group is protesting the Jewish National Fund for plans to bestow a high honor on Stanley, senior pastor of First Baptist Atlanta and a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. MORE

This lighting display in the financial district of Manhattan was a surefire way to attract  attention during the Easter celebrations of 1956.

The nuclear deal negotiated with Iran is a “forever agreement” that will last well beyond the next decade, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said Monday from the White House briefing room.

Moniz, who played a key role in negotiating the nuclear pact in Switzerland, said the framework agreement provides for intrusive inspections that would ensure Iran is not racing to build a nuclear weapon. MORE

Government and private entities are working to shred privacy and warehouse personal, relationship, and communications data. Once unimaginable surveillance technologies are being perfected and implemented.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown declared a drought emergency on Monday in three southern and central Oregon counties, expanding upon earlier drought declarations the Democrat made in March, as the state faces record low snowpack levels.

Continuing drought has caused “natural and economic disaster conditions” in Oregon’s Crook, Harney and Klamath counties, heightening wildfire risk, and threatening wildlife and agriculture, Brown said in her declaration. MORE

Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina on Monday blamed environmentalists for what she called a “man-made” drought in California, which has led to the state’s first water restrictions.

“Despite the fact that California has suffered from droughts for millennia, liberal environmentalists have prevented the building of a single new reservoir or a single new water conveyance system over decades during a period in which California’s population has doubled.” MORE – VIDEO

…not to mention a New Christian Holiday

Not feeling well, and being concerned about his immortality, Barack Obama consults with a psychic about the date of his death.

Closing her eyes and reaching out to the future, she tells the President, “You  will die on a Jewish holiday.”

With much anxiety, Barack asks, “Which holiday?”

“It really doesn’t  matter.”  She replies.  “Whenever you die,
it will be  a Jewish holiday.”