In one spot in the Antelope Valley, the storm dumped 1.81 inches of rain in 30 minutes on Thursday, in what the National Weather Service described as a 1,000-year rain event. "It's absolutely incredible," said Robbie Munroe, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

October storms are nothing new in the high desert. But experts say the intensity of the deluge is just the latest by-product of the record temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. The warm ocean temperatures — about 75 degrees on Thursday, at least 5 degrees above normal — produced more water evaporation and higher humidity levels. The storm system combined with the high humidity to create enough instability in the atmosphere to trigger the intense thunderstorms and torrential rainfall.

Mr Hookem, speaking from Strasbourg where he has criticised the EU’s handling of Libya and Turkey, said, “The EU is slowly but surely trying to move from the principle of a nation state providing national security; to a more centralised model controlled and commanded from Brussels. The EU is using the current migrant crisis in the Mediterranean as nothing more than an opportunistic excuse for the creation of an EU wide army, navy and air force.

“The EU has already used the current crisis to create an EU wide border force and coastguard, and very soon, we will see Junker in command of naval assets that he has neither the qualifications or experience to command. The next step is land and air assets to be brought under EU control and without an official announcement, we will have an EU army through the back door.”

In Syria, for the first time since the cold war, Russia has deployed its forces far from home to quell a revolution and support a client regime. In the waters between Vietnam and the Philippines, America will soon signal that it does not recognise China’s territorial claims over a host of outcrops and reefs by exercising its right to sail within the 12-mile maritime limit that a sovereign state controls.

For the past 25 years America has utterly dominated great-power politics. Increasingly, it lives in a contested world. The new game with Russia and China that is unfolding in Syria and the South China Sea is a taste of the struggle ahead.

The struggle is also over legitimacy. Mr Putin wants to discredit America’s stewardship of the international order. America argues that popular discontent and the Syrian regime’s abuses of human rights disqualify the president, Bashar al-Assad, from power. Mr Putin wants to play down human rights, which he sees as a licence for the West to interfere in sovereign countries — including, if he ever had to impose a brutal crackdown, in Russia itself.

America still has resources other powers lack. Foremost is its web of alliances, including NATO. Whereas Mr Obama sometimes behaves as if alliances are transactional, they need solid foundations. America’s military power is unmatched, but it is hindered by pork-barrel politics and automatic cuts mandated by Congress. These spring from the biggest brake on American leadership: dysfunctional politics in Washington. That is not just a poor advertisement for democracy; it also stymies America’s interest. In the new game it is something that the United States — and the world — can ill afford.

Over the course of the last six months, we’ve seen China’s land reclamation efforts go from oddity, to spectacle, to alleged “provocation”, to excuse for war as Washington feels compelled to come to the aid of its allies in the South Pacific who cried foul after it became apparent that this was no “normal” dredging effort.

An editorial in The Global Times, which is close to China's ruling Communist party, condemned Washington's "ceaseless provocations and coercion": "China mustn't tolerate rampant US violations of China's adjacent waters and the skies over those expanding islands," it said, adding that its military should "be ready to launch countermeasures according to Washington's level of provocation," it added.

The warship or ships would pass within the 12-mile territorial limit China claims around the structures to demonstrate that US commanders do not recognise it. Such a move, the Global Times suggested, could be a "breach of China's bottom line". "If the US encroaches on China's core interests, the Chinese military will stand up and use force to stop it," the paper warned.

“The terrorists plan on killing several hundred million people. The west is drastically underestimating the power of ISIS. ISIS intends to get its hands on nuclear weapons,” says Todenhofer, calling the group a “nuclear tsunami preparing the largest religious cleansing in history.”

“They now control land greater in size than the United Kingdom and are supported by an almost ecstatic enthusiasm the like of which I’ve never encountered before in a war zone. Every day hundreds of willing fighters from all over the world come. They are the most brutal and most dangerous enemy I have ever seen in my life. I don’t see anyone who has a real chance to stop them. Only Arabs can stop IS. I came back very pessimistic.”

With the ink not yet dry on the “Iran nuclear deal,” Middle Eastern states opposed to Persian domination of the region now are actively pursuing a nuclear weapons capability of their own. President Obama’s deal could literally mean an arms race that could lead to nuclear devastation as Saudi Arabia and others look to get the bomb as well to counter Iran. With more countries obtaining nukes, the greater the possibility terrorists could obtain a weapon, which could be used to attack Israel or the West.

Over 21 billion dollars in shareholder wealth was wiped out on Wednesday, and this was just the continuation of a very bad year for Wal-Mart stockholders. Overall, shares had already declined by 22 percent so far in 2015 before we even got to Wednesday.

Perhaps things are going well for you personally at the moment, and that is great. But now is not the time to buy lots of new toys. Nor is it the time to accumulate more debt. Instead, now is a time to position yourself for a period of difficulty that could stretch on for years. The next recession is here, and it is going to grow progressively worse. The wise will take heed and make preparations, but the foolish will just keep on doing what they have been doing until it is far too late.

Stockman, a former Republican congressman from Michigan and President Ronald Reagan's director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote on his blog recently that the world is currently "in the midst of a lunatic financial mania" in which central banks around the globe have addicted national economies to endless printing of money - so much so that any hint of ending "quantitative easing" negatively affects stock markets.

Stockman noted that any hint of backing away from pouring billions of fiat dollars into markets, would cause stock prices to fall, and then the "robo machines and day traders" would implement massive amounts of "buy orders," causing stocks to reflexively jump skyward. So, Stockman points out, when central bankers are talking, 98 percent of monetary policy is being made; if they are moving their jaws, "then buy!"

Only, as in all monetary policy, what goes up eventually comes crashing down - especially when the upward trajectory was built on shaky policy. "Yet do the central bankers have even the foggiest clue that they are sitting on a potential $50-$100 trillion financial market implosion? That the mother of all meltdowns lurks around the corner?" Stockman asked rhetorically.

No, he says; they don't even seem aware of what is happening - of the monster they have created. All of the normal market hardware has been ripped out of the current global system, so there is no circuitry in place to warn of impending disaster.

Asked if the remarkable findings and the convincing if complex solution removed the need for a God figure to kick start the universe Dr Mir said: “If by God you mean a supernatural super man who breaks his own laws then yes he’s done for, you just don’t need him.

“But if you mean God as a great mathematician, then maybe yes!” What Professor Mir was referring to is known as inflation. According to inflation the total positive energy in the form of matter exactly balances the negative energy in form of gravity, such that the total energy of our universe is still zero.

Professor Mir - who also works on the Large Hardron Collider at CERN in Switzerland - further explained that by "nothing" he only meant absence of energy, and not the absence of laws of physics.

Even worse, the supply of vegetables in the United States has been falling since 2000. The amount of vegetables available per day to average Americans peaked at around 1.80 cups around the turn of the 21st Century. Since then, the supply of vegetables in the nation has decreased by around 15 percent, falling to 1.65 cups by 2013 (the latest year for which data is available). The USDA’s count includes both imported and homegrown produce available for commercial sale.

Around 50 percent of the vegetables currently available in the United States are potatoes and tomatoes, and most people consume those in unhealthy forms such as ketchup, French fries and pizza, the report said. The third most common vegetable was lettuce. The United States vegetable supply would have to increase by 70 percent if every American started following the USDA’s dietary guidelines, NPR reported.

The government tells people to eat healthy food but is subsidizing other crops – such as corn and soybeans – “that end up in cheaper, less healthy processed food,” NPR said. It looks as if those who want their families to eat healthy will have to grow a garden. If present trends continue, your garden could be the only supply of affordable vegetables your family has.

The Democratic governor announced Sunday that he approved a bill requiring day care centers and day care homes to maintain immunization records proving their workers and volunteers have been vaccinated for the flu, pertussis and the measles.

This is a first in the nation bill that gives power to the state to mandate vaccines for adults. This is just the beginning of compulsory adult vaccinations as well as a precedent-setting law for forced medical treatments such as psych drug implants for the supposed mentally ill; forced chemotherapy for children against the parents’ will and whatever the medical mafia decides is profitable.

The lectures are part of "Healthy Masculinities Week", in which the women's center claims to be devoted to "Celebrating Women" while "Empowering All".

The Media Research Center continued:

“The mission of the Women's Center is to affirm a space for all members of the Vanderbilt community that acknowledges and actively resists sexism, racism, homophobia, and all forms of oppression while advocating for positive social change."

Many Americans are still very unfamiliar with Wicca, but the truth is that it is rapidly growing in popularity. In fact, it has been projected that Wicca will soon become the third largest “religion” in America after Christianity and Islam. The New York Post recently ran an article which stated that some experts have estimated that the number of witches in the US is doubling every 30 months, and that there may now be “8 million undeclared practitioners” of “the craft” in this country.

So needless to say, this is a group of people that is very much growing in numbers and in influence. And of course not all of them believe the exact same things. Among various Wiccan groups there is tremendous variation in doctrine and practice. One common thread that you will find among many of them, however, is a disdain for “Halloween”. They tend to consider most Halloween traditions to be distorted Christianized versions of ancient pagan practices, and most of them are not really too thrilled with the mixing of the two.

Approximately 70 percent of all Americans will participate in Halloween festivities once again this year, and they will spend somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 billion dollars celebrating the holiday, and most will believe that it is just a bunch of innocent fun.

But the minority of Americans that take this holiday very, very seriously is growing, and that is not a good thing. When you participate in traditions and practices that are rooted in that world, you also risk opening up a door for supernatural forces that you do not understand and will not be able to control.

I’m no fan of this pope. Thus, I’m tempted to think that if Pope Francis wants to embrace the left, let him experience the full menu. What I actually think, however, is that Obama’s lack of respect for the pope is inexcusable. Including the nun who opposes church policy seems particularly egregious because Obama is gracelessly injecting himself into an internal church dispute.

Thus, I agree with Mona Charen who says:

“It’s vintage Obama. Even when hosting the most ideologically sympathetic pontiff in his lifetime (climate change, Cuba), Mr Obama cannot restrain himself. He cannot be civil and respectful, searching for common ground. We’ve become a little inured to this president’s staggering insensitivity and passive aggression over the years. But in this case, you’d have to remove the ‘passive’ part. This is an embarrassing moment for our country.”

Francis' surprisingly direct call for progress towards normalization came after weeks of Vatican assurances that he would not explicitly address politics during his pastoral trip to Cuba and the US. Francis served as mediator and guarantor of 18 months of secret negotiations that led to the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries this year.

"For some months now, we have witnessed an event which fills us with hope: the process of normalizing relations between two peoples following years of estrangement," Francis said in a speech on the tarmac of Jose Marti International Airport. "I urge political leaders to persevere on this path and to develop all its potentialities as a proof of the high service which they are called to carry out on behalf of the peace and well-being of their peoples, of all America, and as an example of reconciliation for the entire world."

After flying from Cuba to the US on Tuesday he will, like his predecessors, grab the world stage at the United Nations to press his agenda on migration, the environment and religious persecution. Elsewhere in the US, Francis will be delivering the message that Hispanics are the bedrock of the American church.