The game, which has gained significant traction online in recent days, involves a pair of pencils or pens, a sheet of paper, and the invocation of a spirit named “Charlie.” Scores of short video clips, posted mostly by teens, show players shrieking and running out of view when the pencil apparently moves on its own and points to a “yes” or a “no” after they say a phrase inviting the demon.

Spanish exorcist Jose Antonio Fortea told ACI Prensa that the so-called CharlieCharlieChallenge involves the very real, occult practice of “calling on spirits.” In an interview May 27, he warned that “some spirits who are at the root of that practice will harass some of those who play the game.” Even though the priest thinks that players “won't be possessed” necessarily, the spirit that has been invoked “will stay around for a while.”

Two programmes commissioned by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are seeking to create drones which can track and kill targets even when out of contact with their handlers. Writing in the journal Nature, Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkley, said the research could breach the Geneva Convention and leave humanity in the hands of amoral machines.

“Autonomous weapons systems select and engage targets without human intervention; they become lethal when those targets include humans,” he said. “Despite the limits imposed by physics, one can expect platforms deployed in the millions, the agility and lethality of which will leave humans utterly defenceless. This is not a desirable future.”

However Dr Sabine Hauert, a lecturer in robotics at the University of Bristol said that the public did not need to fear the developments in aritifical intelligence. “My colleagues and I spend dinner parties explaining that we are not evil but instead have been working for years to develop systems that could help the elderly, improve health care, make jobs safer and more efficient, and allow us to explore space or beneath the ocean,” she said.

Well, if we were all at a healthy weight they would lose a tremendous amount of money. Right now, if the US health care system was a separate country, it would be the 6th largest economy on the entire planet. The sicker that all of us are, the more money the medical establishment makes.

And then of course there is the massively bloated weight loss industry. As I mentioned above, 60 billion dollars a year is spent on weight loss programs and products in the United States. If we were all at a healthy weight, we wouldn’t need to spend all of that money.

In the end, it isn’t that complicated. Thanks to the Internet, there is lots and lots of great health information out there that you can access for free. But you have got to be willing to make the right choices and to do the right things consistently.

Half a world away, the “W” word was mentioned again yesterday. This time in an editorial by a Chinese state controlled paper. Said the Global Times: “If the United States’ bottom line is that China has to halt its activities, then a US-China war is inevitable in the South China Sea.” It came as China’s government effectively declared a “no fly zone” over the disputed waterway after warning the US over its “provocative” aerial reconnaissance of several islands.

Yesterday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman issued a formal protest at the United States’ actions in challenging its territorial claims.

“We urge the US to correct its error, remain rational and stop all irresponsible words and deeds,” Hua Chunying said. “Freedom of navigation and overflight by no means mean that foreign countries’ warships and military aircraft can ignore the legitimate rights of other countries as well as the safety of aviation and navigation.” It represents a distinct hardening of China’s attitude towards the rising clamour of international protest.

Last November, BBC diplomatic and defence editor Mark Urban said months earlier “a senior NATO decision maker told me that he had seen intelligence reporting that nuclear weapons made in Pakistan on behalf of Saudi Arabia are now sitting ready for delivery.” They’re paid for – ready to be shipped on request. A WikiLeaks reported State Department cable called it “logical for the Saudis to step in as the physical ‘protector’ of the Arab world by seeking nuclear weapons.”

Former Israeli military intelligence chief retired general Amos Yadlin calls the Saudi threat to acquire nuclear weapons “very credible and imminent.” So far, Riyadh prefers having them held in Pakistan. It provides plausible deniability. It avoids challenging Iran provocatively – besides further destabilizing the entire region already reeling from US imperial marauding and Israeli aggression. At the same time, intelligence officials believe Riyadh can deploy nuclear weapons and effective delivery systems faster than previously imagined.

Several kohanim, levi’im (ancestral Levites) and crowds of parents and children assembled on the Armon HaNatziv Promenade, just south of the Old City of Jerusalem, on the day after the official Shavuot holiday to newly re-enact this most joyous and beautiful ceremony, marking the time in the calendar when the wheat has just ripened and the first fruits of the season are ready for picking and eating by the entire populace.

“We’ve come here because we want to be part of the End of Times and prophecy,” said a woman, who learned of the event through the Temple Institute website, to Breaking Israel News.

What is important to understand is that the Shavuot holiday has not been celebrated in this manner for nearly 2,000 years. When the Great Temple stood at the center of Jerusalem, the entire populace celebrated this agricultural festival, which was harmonized directly with the agricultural activities that were the mainstay of industry in the Land of Israel. In recent years, due to similar events carried out by the Temple Institute and other organizations, the entire concept of Shavuot is undergoing a transformation.

Shavuot as a holiday has many aspects. It was the time for bringing first fruits to the Temple, and two loaves of bread taken from the first wheat of the year were baked and eaten by the kohanim. However, Shavuot was also the time when the Jewish Nation, assembled together as one, accepted upon themselves the Torah and received the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai after the long journey out of slavery in Egypt.

For many years I have told anyone who will listen that, if you have a high cholesterol level, you will live longer. Equally, if you have a low cholesterol level, you will die younger. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a fact. The older you become the more beneficial it is to have a high cholesterol level. This fact has become more difficult to demonstrate recently as so many people have been put on Statins that the association between cholesterol levels and mortality has been twisted, bent and pumelled into the weirdest shapes imaginable.

The Statin scam has been exposed, but there are powerful sources at work in the medical system to keep it going. One of the best documentaries exposing the Statin scam and interviewing doctors in the industry who have exposed it, was published in 2013 on ABC in Australia. The medical authorities were not successful in preventing it from being aired on TV, but they have removed almost all copies from YouTube now, and forced ABC to remove them from their website.

The catch, of course, is that Ashley Madison is the website for cheating spouses, with the unsubtle tagline, "Life is short. Have an affair." And Mr Biderman, a former sports lawyer who says he was often forced to deal with the aftermath of his clients' affairs, says he is helping women catch up to men not by giving them equal pay or more education, but by allowing them to cheat with just as much frequency as men do.

"There's a lot of brick and mortar business from brothels to escort agencies that cater towards men, so I really wanted to focus on the female side of the equation," he says. That's why he named the site Ashley Madison, after the two most popular baby girl names in the United States at the time.

Whatever your view on that equality proposition is, his bet that cheating could be profitable seems correct: the company, which lets women use it for free, but charges men fees to create profiles and send messages, notched $150 million (£95 million) in revenues in 2014, all from subscriptions. But the big question now, as the firm attempts to raise $200 million in a public share sale in London - which would value it at nearly $1 billion - is whether or not anyone will be willing to publicly invest in infidelity.

So why ask for outside funding? Even Manuel Montevidoni, the chief financial officer of Gleeden told the BBC: "From a financial standpoint, as a chief financial officer, I don't understand why Ashley Madison is looking for financing." But he notes that the firm supports Ashley Madison's efforts, mostly because it brings public awareness to the ubiquity of infidelity - and perhaps, in Mr Montevidoni's opinion, will allow for more acknowledgement of what both firms say is a fundamental aspect of not just married life but human nature.

And for all of his investor prospectus jargon, Mr Biderman admits that it's not just about making money for him - and shakes off articles that have branded him as being "possibly evil". "We are showing society some newfound data that might make them think differently about laws and monogamy," he says. "I'm just at the changing tide of our belief around matrimony and sexuality - which is a deeper legacy to leave behind."

Considering the fact that the US national debt is only 18 trillion dollars, that is an amount of money that is almost incomprehensible. When this derivatives bubble finally bursts, there won’t be enough money in the entire world to bail everyone out. The key to making sure that all of these interest rate bets do not start going bad is for interest rates to remain stable.

That is why what is going on in Greece right now is so important. The Greek government has announced that it will default on a loan payment that it owes to the IMF on June 5th. If that default does indeed happen, Greek bond yields will soar into the stratosphere as panicked investors flee for the exits. But it won’t just be Greece. If Greece defaults despite years of intervention by the EU and the IMF, that will be a clear signal to the financial world that no nation in Europe is truly safe.

Bond yields will start spiking in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and all over the rest of the continent. By the end of it, we could be faced with the greatest interest rate derivatives crisis that any of us have ever seen. It isn’t going to take much to topple the current financial order. It could be a Greek debt default in June or it may be something else. But when it does collapse, it is going to usher in the greatest economic crisis that any of us have ever seen.

So keep watching Europe. Things are about to get extremely interesting, and if I am right, this is the start of something big.