Why would you manufacture any product, let alone one which children would use, with the chemicals used in a date rape drug?

A popular children’s toy is being pulled from Canadian store shelves over safety concerns that it may contain a chemical which converts into a so-called “date-rape” drug when swallowed, a scare that prompted Australian officials to ban a similar toy after three children were hospitalized.

Toys “R” Us in Canada said it stopped selling Chinese-made Aqua Dots as a precautionary measure after being alerted to the potential problem on Tuesday, when a similar product called Bindeez was removed from Australian store shelves.

Toronto-based Spin Master Ltd., the company which distributes Aqua Dots in North America, issued a voluntary recall of the toy Wednesday afternoon, saying it was “working to identify any shipments” that could potentially be included in a recall by U.S. and Canadian officials.

I don’t care what they are seeking to identify. One case of a child being injured in such a manner by this product is enough. Please take the time to read the article and if you have this product in your home, think about fiding the nearest trash bin and disposing of it.

Update: With thanks to reader Newton, this link will direct you to toys which should be safe for your children.

I ran across this article today, and my soul is aching.

A claim by President Ahmadinejad that Iran has 3,000 working uranium-enriching centrifuges sent a tremor across the world yesterday amid fears that Israel would respond by bombing the country’s nuclear facilities.

Military sources in Washington said that the existence of such a large number could be a “tipping point”, triggering an Israeli air strike. The Pentagon is reluctant to take military action against Iran, but officials say that Israel is a “different matter”. Amid the international uproar, British MPs who were to have toured the nuclear facility were backing out of their Iran trip.

Even before President Ahmadinejad’s announcement, a US defence official told The Times yesterday: “Israel could do something when they get to around 3,000 working centrifuges. The Pentagon is minded to wait a little longer.” US experts say 3,000 machines running for long periods could make enough enriched uranium for an atomic bomb within a year.

Israel responded by serving notice that it would not tolerate a nuclear Iran. “Talks never did, and never will, stop rockets,” said Ehud Barak, the Defence Minister, after talks with the security cabinet.

The US and Western allies believe that Iran is using its civilian nuclear programme as a cover for weapon development. Tehran says that it merely wants to generate electricity.

Concern about Israel’s intentions has been heightened by its recent air strike on a suspected nuclear plant in Syria. In 1981 Israel destroyed Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi nuclear reactor, and as the sole — if undeclared — nuclear power in the region, it now considers Iran the most serious threat to its security. Mr Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be “wiped off the map”.

My soul aches because I know the time for salvation is short for so many people in this world, and I know they will still reject the One Who can save them and give them everlasting life and love.

A little over a year ago we saw Israel defeated in a war for the first time since its modern existence.

In all the other wars they have had to fight with their neigbors since their 1948 inception they have prayed for God’s help and they have received it. How else to describe the victories they have enjoyed as a nation?

This time they gave away land they shouldn’t have given away, and the enemy was right in their backyard to do with them as they wished until a cease-fire.

Now they talk of giving away more land that was given to them by God Himself in a meeting with the Palestinians in Annapolis, MD.

Ezekiel 38 spells out what is going to happen pretty well. God will turn His wrath on a confederation of nations including Iran and Russia and will burn them with fire, hailstones and brimstone.

He will not allow Israel to be destroyed in spite of themselves. But many lives will be lost because of their mistakes.

8″After many days you will be summoned; in the latter years you will come into the land that is restored from the sword, whose inhabitants have been gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel which had been a continual waste; but its people were brought out from the nations, and they are living securely, all of them.

9″You will go up, you will come like a storm; you will be like a cloud covering the land, you and all your troops, and many peoples with you.”

10′Thus says the Lord GOD, “It will come about on that day, that thoughts will come into your mind and you will devise an evil plan,

11and you will say, ‘I will go up against the land of unwalled villages I will go against those who are at rest, that live securely, all of them living without walls and having no bars or gates,

12to capture spoil and to seize plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places which are now inhabited, and against the people who are gathered from the nations, who have acquired cattle and goods, who live at the center of the world.’

13″Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish with all its villages will say to you, ‘Have you come to capture spoil? Have you assembled your company to seize plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to capture great spoil?’”‘

14″Therefore prophesy, son of man, and say to Gog, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “On that day when My people Israel are living securely, will you not know it?

15″You will come from your place out of the remote parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great assembly and a mighty army;

16and you will come up against My people Israel like a cloud to cover the land. It shall come about in the last days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me when I am sanctified through you before their eyes, O Gog.”

17′Thus says the Lord GOD, “Are you the one of whom I spoke in former days through My servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days for many years that I would bring you against them?

18″It will come about on that day, when Gog comes against the land of Israel,” declares the Lord GOD, “that My fury will mount up in My anger.

19″In My zeal and in My blazing wrath I declare that on that day there will surely be a great earthquake in the land of Israel.

20″The fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field, all the creeping things that creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the face of the earth will shake at My presence; the mountains also will be thrown down, the steep pathways will collapse and every wall will fall to the ground.

21″I will call for a sword against him on all My mountains,” declares the Lord GOD “Every man’s sword will be against his brother.

22″With pestilence and with blood I will enter into judgment with him; and I will rain on him and on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, a torrential rain, with hailstones, fire and brimstone.

23″I will magnify Myself, sanctify Myself, and make Myself known in the sight of many nations; and they will know that I am the LORD.”‘ Ezekiel 38:8-23

Gog is Russia, Persia is Iran. What do Russia and Iran have in common today? Both want Iran to become a nuclear power. A country that sits on some of the world’s largest oil reserves wants nuclear power for electricity. And its president has called for the destruction of Israel and is trying to rush the coming of the twelfth Imam.

So what will happen? Will this precipitate the war prophesied in Ezekiel 38 or will that happen later? Only God knows the answer to that question.

People laugh and say there is no God or that someone who lived and died was just as smart and had just as good intentions as God.

We are becoming Godless throughout the world and the world is suffering for it.

Nothing God has told us has ever been a lie. Everything needed for Christ to take His Church from the earth (the believers, alive and dead) is already done except the extraction of the Church from the earth.

I read with interest Tuesday of a “cousin universe” or whatever it is we call ourselves with our planets and sun, and that it is visible with binoculars and is only 41 light years away from here. It is believed it is capable of sustaining life.

What if this “cousin” is the new heaven and the new earth told of in the Book of Revelation? And it’s only 41 light years away!

What if Iran does invade Israel, along with the confederacy mentioned in Ezekiel? It looks as though Israel won’t survive except for the interference of God and we know God will never allow Israel the people or the nation to be completely destroyed.

I know I sound like a nut, but sometimes I’d rather be a nut for Jesus that to be considered sane by the rest of the world.

It’s all going to happen, folks. It’s just a matter of time. How much time only God knows, but right now there is still time for you to confess your sins and ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior.

At some point it will be too late, but for those who believe and those who do not believe the Bible tells us “every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” I wouldn’t want to be an unbeliever at that day because then all hope is lost for them.