Brazil, Sweden and New Zealand hit with strange phenomena as speculation rages about the end times

The mass bird and fish die-offs that have affected parts of the U.S. over the last week have now gone global, with Sweden, Brazil and New Zealand becoming the latest countries to experience a phenomena that has sparked both scientific intrigue and apocalyptic panic in equal measure.

Following the sudden deaths of thousands of birds that fell over Beebe Arkansas on New Year’s Eve, in addition to 100,000 dead fish found along a 20-mile stretch between the Ozark Dam and Highway 109 Bridge in Franklin County, 500 dead blackbirds and starlings were subsequently discovered in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana.

Large numbers of dead birds were also found in Kentucky around Christmas and more were found in the following days. Earlier this week, tens of thousands of small fish were found washed up in the Chesapeake Bay area. Despite their deaths being blamed on a cold snap, experts are bewildered that the fish didn’t swim to warmer waters as would be their normal response.
In a separate report emailed to us by an Alex Jones Show listener, more dead birds were seen near St. Louis, Missouri.

“I just wanted to let Alex now that I encountered over a hundred blackbirds killed on Christmas Day. This was about 30 miles south of St. Louis, MO near highway 55. The intersection was covered with them,” states the email.

The phenomenon has now gone global, with dead jackdaw birds falling to their deaths across central Sweden shortly before midnight on Tuesday.

In New Zealand, hundreds of dead snapper have washed up on Coromandel beaches. The fish looked fat and healthy, ruling out the weather or starvation as a cause of death.

“People at Little Bay and Waikawau Bay, on the north-east of the peninsula, were stunned when children came out of the sea with armfuls of the fish and within minutes the shore was littered with them,” reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, 100 tons of fish (sardine, croaker and catfish) have turned up dead off the coast of Parana over the course of the last week.

“Apart from Paranaque, (Edmir Manoel) Ferreira said the dead fish are starting to appear in other coastal towns,” reports Parana Online. “The dead fish are going to Antonia, and Guaraqueçaba. We need an urgent solution to this,” he warned.

The number of different cases of dead birds and fish around the U.S. and globally has been matched by the myriad of different explanations as to the cause of their demise.

The more mundane causes are cited as fireworks, localized hail, power lines, or other temporary phenomena that caused the birds to panic and fly into one another. However, this doesn’t explain why similar events are occurring in different areas of the country or indeed the world and it doesn’t address the issue of mass fish deaths.

As we have documented, the primary suspects should always be governments given the fact that they have routinely engaged in secret testing of biological and electromagnetic weapons that have detrimentally impacted both humans and animals many times in the past.

Others point to the New Madrid fault zone coming to life again as a result of being disturbed by the BP oil spill and threatening the onset of a series of mega-earthquakes which will hit Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. Why this would be preceded by mass bird deaths is not properly explained.

An example of one of the more esoteric theories behind the die-offs was explained by controversial Pastor James David Manning, who labeled the phenomena a “Global Katrina 2,” and an act of “biological warfare,” voicing his belief that the strange sequence of die-offs was a harbinger of tribulation and the biblical end times.

Web searches for bible prophecies and end time scenarios have exploded as some Christians fear that the mass die-offs mark the beginning of a series of catastrophes.

“Internet keyword searches continue to register off the charts. Queries like “dead fish Bible,” dead birds and fish Revelation,” dead birds and fish die End Times.” were being entered by the million Tuesday,” writes Jim Hagerty, with forum moderators kept busy answering questions about the opening of the Seventh Seal and whether or not a great pestilence will follow soon.

It seems unavoidable that the closer we get to 2012 and the onset of the widely prophesied end times theory, where a series of cataclysmic or transformative events will coincide with the end-date of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the Mayan Long Count calendar, which will subsequently herald the end of the world or the beginning of a new spiritual age, that every bizarre event will be cited as evidence of this coming transformation.

The mass deaths of birds in particular strike a resonant chord within the human psyche for a number of sociological and cultural reasons, not least of which is the fact that they are often seen as an early warning system for harm that could later come to human beings, which of course is where the term “canary in the coal mine” originates.

Although mass die-offs of birds and fish are by no means unprecedented, any increase in their regularity will combine easily with 2012 fever to whip up more frenzy and wide-eyed speculation.

This in turn will distract millions of Americans from both real environmental crises that could be connected to the bird deaths, as well as very real political conspiracies and financial plots that continue to spell doomsday for the very existence of the American republic, with no reliance on idle speculation about Mayan calendars or 2012 end times prophecies.

While some theories are rooted in scientific verbiage, others have taken on an altogether more spiritual and apocalyptic context.

Gerry Rafferty, the Baker Street genius, bows out at 63

GERRY RAFFERTY - BAKER STREET - A TIMELESS CLASSIC

I was saddened to hear the news today of the passing of one of the greats of the music industry, Gerry Rafferty.

Even though his music has very little to do with the subject matter of this blog, the Bible prophecies, because I enjoyed his music so much I still felt the need to leave this tribute here as another testimony to the timeless and lasting legacy of the musical genius that was the man himself.

We'll walk down Baker Street together one day. R.I.P. Gerry.

By TRISTAN STEWART-ROBERTSON
GERRY Rafferty, one of Scotland's greatest singer- songwriters, has died, aged 63.
Rafferty, whose most famous work was the 1978 hit Baker Street, died following a long battle with alcoholism.

According to his daughter Martha, Rafferty died peacefully at home surrounded by family. He had been admitted to hospital in Bournemouth in November with liver failure.

The Scot was a member of Stealers Wheel, whose huge 1972 hit Stuck in the Middle With You underwent a renaissance after featuring in Quentin Tarantino's film Reservoir Dogs in the 1990s.

Baker Street, with its distinctive saxophone solo, reached number 3 in the UK charts and No 2 in the US. Despite his success, however, Rafferty suffered from well documented problems with alcohol.

Fans paid tribute to the star last night as news of his death spread quickly. On website twitter one fan wrote: "Gerry Rafferty. Rest in Peace." Another fan said: "RIP Gerry Rafferty. Baker Street means so much to me."

Born in Paisley, Rafferty often recalled that, when he was a child, his mother would drag him round the streets of Glasgow, rather than risk his suffering violence at the hands of his Irish-born father, who would often come home drunk.

He cut his musical teeth as a busker on the streets of Glasgow, and first found modest success with Billy Connolly's folk group the Humblebums.

Rafferty started his career in a school band called the Mavericks, before working with Connolly. The comedian and Rafferty went their separate ways after two years, Connelly becoming a world-famous figure on TV and film, while the singer became one of Scotland's most notable musical talents.

He released a solo album in 1971 before founding Stealer's Wheel the following year. While Stealers Wheel enjoyed huge success with tracks such as Stuck In The Middle With You and Star, the group disbanded in 1975, leaving Rafferty free to pursue his solo career.

He had endured several professional disputes during his career, most notably a long- running contract disagreement with his former band members from Stealers Wheel.

It was in 1978 that Rafferty wrote Baker Street, the track that was recognised last October for having been played a staggering five million times worldwide. His most successful albums were 1978's City To City and Night Owl', released in 1979.

But despite his professional life going from strength to strength, Rafferty suffered from alcoholism, leading to the breakdown of his 20-year marriage to wife Carla in 1990.

Referring to their split, Carla said at the time: "There was no hope. I would never have left him if there had been a glimmer of a chance of him recovering."