America is Europe

David Brooks is the only conservative columnist at the NY Times and I'm guessing he isn't real well liked around there....but is probably too well known for them to get rid of.

In this article he clearly is saying that America is just like Europe...probably worse when it comes to our finances....but we simply do a better job of hiding it...so for now the confidence in the U.S. financial system keeps holding on.

But how long might it be before the world starts focusing again on our nasty balance sheet and our nasty gridlock in Washington?

We Americans cherish our myths. One myth is that there is more social mobility in the United States than in Europe. That’s false. Another myth is that the government is smaller here than in Europe. That’s largely false, too.    

The U.S. does not have a significantly smaller welfare state than the European nations. We’re just better at hiding it. The Europeans provide welfare provisions through direct government payments. We do it through the back door via tax breaks.        

For example, in Europe, governments offer health care directly. In the U.S., we give employers a gigantic tax exemption to do the same thing. European governments offer public childcare. In the U.S., we have child tax credits. In Europe, governments subsidize favored industries. We do the same thing by providing special tax deductions and exemptions for everybody from ethanol producers to Nascar track owners.

These tax expenditures are hidden but huge. Budget experts Donald Marron and Eric Toder added up all the spending-like tax preferences and found that, in 2007, they amounted to $600 billion. If you had included those preferences as government spending, then the federal government would have actually been one-fifth larger than it appeared.  

See here;  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/opinion/brooks-america-is-europe.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&emc=eta1&adxnnlx=1332518470-4XwuGTMMYcZd9QOaxqfA6g#   

If America is Europe...then California will be our Greece.  Who is going to bailout CA when they go bust...and the CA pension plan (largest pension in the world) starts paying out less than promised...and the unrest of the welfare state created there spills into the streets?      

North Korea May Get "Strong Response"

You may remember that a few weeks ago the USA bribed North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions.  We sent them some thousands of tons of food and probably some bags of cash in exchange for them playing nice.

Today we find out that they are planning to launch a rocket.  If they do it would violate the UN Anti Ballistic Missile Test Ban that North Korea is held to.

Of course North Korea says the rocket is simply to put a satellite into space for science.  That's REALLY funny since 99% of the country doesn't even have electricity!!

For his part, Obama has promised there will be a strong response if they do launch it.  I wonder what the means?...maybe he is going to strongly respond by giving them more bags of cash if they promise to not do it again?

SEOUL: North Korea will face a "strong response" if it launches a long-range rocket next month despite international calls to desist, a special adviser to US President Barack Obama said on Friday.

"If they go ahead anyway, we will want to work with our allies and partners for a strong response," Gary Samore, arms control coordinator at the National Security Council, told South Korea's Yonhap news agency in an interview.

The North says it aims only to put a satellite into orbit for peaceful space research. The United States and its allies see the plan as a pretext for a long-range missile test, banned under UN Security Council resolutions.

The North's announcement of the launch came only weeks after it reached a deal with the United States, suspending uranium enrichment and nuclear and missile tests in return for 240,000 tonnes of US food aid.

Washington says any rocket launch is likely to jeopardise that deal.

"I really can't speculate on why they are doing it, but we think it is a big mistake and we are trying to persuade them" not to proceed, Samore said.

Here;  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/US-warns-of-strong-response-if-North-Korea-launches-rocket/articleshow/12380032.cms

The problem with paying countries who blackmail or extort is that it encourages them to blackmail and extort.  I wonder if America will learn that lesson any time soon?

A more likely solution would be to tell young Kim Jong that if he launches the rocket he can expect that a U.S. drone will be hunting him down with a stinger missile the very next day...and that he should prepare to meet his dead father some time real soon.  That may get his attention....and probably get him to stop the launch.

North Korea is a miserable Satanic stronghold.  It is a dark country in more ways than one.  Our heart should break for the millions of folks there living in misery and starvation.  Thousands have been put in jail for not crying loud enough at Kim Jong Il's funeral.  Pray that the Lord of the Harvest will rise up workers within North Korea.

Egypt Designates Israel as #1 Enemy

Holy shocker!!  Last year we were hopeful that peace, love, tolerance and democracy were going to break out in Egypt after Mubarak was thrown out by popular protests.

We were hopeful that these folks would maybe focus more on their math skills and computer science and technology skills so that they could quit driving donkey carts to work into the 22nd century.

We were hopeful that they would draw closer to the only true democracy in the Middle East, (Israel) and learn from their successes.

But of course...we need to remember that Egypt has a vast majority of Muslims....and if given the vote, Muslims seem to vote for even MORE backwardness when it comes to women's rights, children's rights, tolerance of other religions, technology, science and even literacy.

Egypt’s parliament, which is dominated by two pro-Sharia Islamic supremacist groups, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists, voted unanimously last Monday to expel Israel’s ambassador to Egypt, and signaled that the Camp David Accords would soon be a thing of the past: Egypt, the parliamentarians declared, would “never” be Israel’s ally. In fact, Israel was Egypt’s “number one enemy.” And how did Barack Obama respond to this egregious trampling upon the agreement that has kept an uneasy peace between Israel and Egypt for thirty years? By announcing a resumption of military aid to Egypt.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/03/21/egypt-designates-israel-its-top-enemy-obama-restores-military-aid-to-egypt/

Remember friends, as hard as it is to pray for these folks who hate Israel and seem hell-bent on leading us all into WWIII....we NEED TO PRAY for these enemy nations and enemy peoples.  Why?  Because our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ said to do it.  So keep doing it!!

Strange Noises in Wisconsin

Last night on NBC Nightly News they had a story about some huge booming sounds that are disturbing hundreds of folks in Clintonville, WI.  As of now they are unexplainable...but they are loud enough to cause physical damage to homes.  One man said he was awakened by what he said sounded like a wrecking ball slamming into the side of his home.

Hundreds of people are reporting the same thing happening to their homes...all in the same town.

Also watch at the beginning of the video clip that they spend a few seconds on a church sign board...see if you can catch what it says.

>>i thought a car was coming through my house, it was that loud.

>>for three nights running, residents have been shaken and awaken. all these dots represent 365 residences reporting booms.

>>we have some weird banging going on and our whole house is shaking.

Here;  http://www.facebook.com/nbcnightlynews

We have no idea what it is.  Maybe WI is about to have a huge earthquake?  Maybe it is a supernatural event?  Maybe God continues to shake the planet in an attempt to wake up humans on earth that Jesus is soon coming?

Tennessee is an Anti Evolution State

Take a few minutes and watch this video and read the article about how Tennessee has passed a law that says teachers can't be fired if they teach other theories besides evolution.  Of course they are being ridiculed for being so stupid...and the video really slants a bias toward anyone who believes in God... must be anti-science...and thus an idiot.

Monday evening, a new bill (SB 893) was approved by the Tennessee Senate that will protect teachers who wish to promote "alternate" scientific theories, essentially allowing anti-evolutionists and climate change deniers a voice in the science classroom. A similar version of the bill (HB 368) passed in the House about a year ago. Advocates of the bill claim that it improves academic freedom, while its critics see it as an open door to the promotion of pseudoscience and religious doctrine within the public school system.

Here;  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/20/tennessee-evolution-scopes-education_n_1368636.html?ref=science&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl14%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D145530

Friends, can all domestic dogs have their original roots in the grey wolf?  YES!!!  That can be proven!!  So go ahead and teach it...but that is NOT evolution.  It is simply man-made selection where man has disrupted natural breeding and selection and CHOSEN specific traits are desirable to man.

But there is NO EVIDENCE at all that dogs left to breed over eons will one day have a cat.  Or that elephants left to breed over eons will one day have a giraffe. Those are species jumps and have no evidence what so ever of being a fact.

To suggest that one day a long time ago a bolt of lightning struck pond scum and sparked a single cell that kept dividing into all the thousands of species we have today is SO ridiculous!  You have to have WAY MORE faith to believe that than you do in intelligent design.

So when this argument comes up at your family reunion, make sure you clarify that you don't want Jesus taught in the public schools anymore than you want Muhammad taught there...but you DO want evolution to be taught as the theory that it is...and if you are going to teach one theory then the teachers should be allowed to say, "Life is so complex on planet earth that thousands of scientists have come to the conclusion that some greater power was responsible for creating it.  What that power is, or whom it may be, you will need to discuss with your parents and your church."

Why is that so hard for the evolutionists to understand?

You can file this article under "Persecution of Bible believers is coming."

Hat tip to April S.

Who Killed the Jews in France?

It seems the media is tripping over itself to avoid saying that a Muslim killed the Jews in France.  They prefer to call him a "French shooter", or a "Frenchman of Algerian descent", but when you see what his name is, you pretty much can figure it out.

TOULOUSE, France (AP) — In a tense standoff, French riot police demanded the surrender Wednesday of a gunman who reportedly boasted of shooting seven victims in an al-Qaida-linked terror spree aimed at "bringing France to its knees."

Hundreds of heavily armed police cordoned off streets around an apartment building in the southwestern city of Toulouse after a pre-dawn raid to arrest the suspect, Mohamed Merah, erupted into a firefight. Three police were wounded, the suspected holed up in the apartment and negotiations with the 24-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent dragged on for hours.

Here;  http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j0dF8hVSmeyKsM8J_eiz2FDXmOjQ?docId=5523e619bbee44b29f92a73657f5cc4d

So his name was Mohamed.

Surprise!!!!!

"They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God."  John 16:2

I'll bet you a dollar he said, "Allah Akbar" before he killed his victims.  Of course "Allah Akbar" means "god is greater"....so yes, this dude thought he was offering a service to God...but in fact he has played right into Satan's scheme.

Russian Military Arrives in Syria

Thousands of innocents are dying in Syria...the Arab nations are too weak and scared to do anything about it...the West continues to draw up plans to save the innocents...and Russia has vetoed the United Nation's resolution to stop the violence.  So what's next?  Remember, the Russians have a new naval base in Syria and they are not going to watch it fall to the latest round of The Arab Spring.

A Russian military unit has arrived in Syria, according to Russian news reports, a development that a United Nations Security Council source told ABC News was "a bomb" certain to have serious repercussions.

Russia, one of President Bashar al-Assad's strongest allies despite international condemnation of the government's violent crackdown on the country's uprising, has repeatedly blocked the United Nations Security Council's attempts to halt the violence, accusing the U.S. and its allies of trying to start another war.

Now the Russian Black Sea fleet's Iman tanker has arrived in the Syrian port of Tartus on the Mediterranean Sea with an anti-terror squad from the Russian Marines aboard according to the Interfax news agency. The Assad government has insisted it is fighting a terrorist insurgency.

Here;  http://news.yahoo.com/russian-anti-terror-troops-arrive-syria-164035966--abc-news.html

What could be more natural?  Assad is killing thousands of women and children calling them all "terrorists" and he requests help from crack Russian troops to put down the "insurgency"?

Makes perfect sense!

For Bible readers though...we know this is simply one step closer to the war predicted in Ezekiel 38.

Are we all wide awake and listening for the trumpet?

U.S. Tax Dollars to Fix Foreign Mosques

This next story is a tad disturbing...it would appear we have shelled out a whole bunch of $millions of dollars to fix a bunch of mosques in Egypt!  Now remember, these same mosques are used as platforms for fiery Imams to preach that the USA is the "great Satan" and that it must be destroyed...so Islam can rule the world.

Watch report here;  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXWm_xIxnZw

We say we give them the money in hopes that we can build relationships and that they will like us.

They take our money, laughing all the way to the bank and believe that this is a sign of weakness...and that Allah is rising and getting ready to take the world by storm.

Oh and hey....where did we get the $700 million to fix these mosques again?....oh yeah...we put it on another credit card.

What is the definition of insanity?  Doing the same thing over and over and each time expecting a different result.

Friends, it's official....the USA is insane.

Hat tip to Majel H.

Obama Birth Certificate Drama Will Not Die

Not sure if you are aware of it, but Sheriff Joe Arpio from Arizona and his "Cold-Case-Posse" are coming out and saying that their investigation is finding out that Obama's birth certificate was manufactured...also meaning it is FAKE!!

Why won't this story die?  What if it is true and Obama IS NOT legal to be president because he was born in Kenya?

Watch news report here;  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikaajbOEWpk&feature=related

Can you say the word, "Chaos"?  Because that is what's going to happen if someone can prove that Obama has lied and someone within the Obama Machine used a really good computer program to manufacture his certificate.

The storyline is going something like this;  Obama was born in Kenya and his mom flew to Hawaii within a few days and got a hold of someone she knew at the hospital to just fill in the certificate saying that Baby O...was born in Hawaii.  However, the certificate that the White House produced is a computer forgery...because there was something fishy about the Hawaii birth certificate...so they paid someone to forge a really good one.

Got it?

Holy Treason!

OK...you simply must watch this video of Senator Sessions asking questions of Secratary of Defense Leon Panetta and also General Dempsey.

Sessions asks them simple questions about who the military answers to...and both of them keep claiming that they need to find legal approval for any military action.  Sessions keeps asking, "Who are you looking to for legal permission?" 

Panetta keeps saying that they would look to the United Nations or NATO (like they did in Libya) for some legal foundation for using the United States military.  WHAT???????

When Sessions isn't satisfied with that, Panetta then goes on to say they would be looking for some sort of approval for some "international coalition".  WHAT???????

Watch it here;  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=iv&v=faRjF3-WGVA&src_vid=ikaajbOEWpk&annotation_id=annotation_355966

Friends, I hate to say it...but something is seriously afoul in the good ol' US of A. 

Are the leaders of our our military supposed to answer to the U.S. Congress?  Yes!!! 

Are they less concerned about what Congress says than they are about what their "international friends" are saying?

"Whose legal authority are you seeking?", asks Sessions.

Wow.

Obama Authorizes Peactime Martial Law

Martial law is necessary in times of emergency.  Order needs to be maintained in any society for the good of the society.  That's why when the National Guard shows up they can shoot looters without a trial....they don't have to arrest them.  That's also why it might be best to stay indoors if martial law is ever implemented.  So you best have some canned goods and a cook stove already in your house....because Walmart will be empty and don't really want to go to Walmart anyway if martial law is implemented.

If the USA ever got hit with a huge solar storm and the electricity went out in major cities around the country....we would have martial law declared within 24 hours.

It appears that Obama may be putting some more teeth into this executive order regarding martial law that he just issued.

President Barack Obama issued an Executive Order on March 16 giving the White House absolute control over all the country’s natural resources in case of a natural disaster or during a time of war.

In the order, the National Defense Resources Preparedness Order, the President granted to himself the authority to approve the dispensing of all domestic energy, production, transportation, food, and water supplies as he deems necessary to protect national security.

The underlying legal authority for the execution of such a radical order is found in the Defense Production Act of 1950, the President claims. That law combined with the rights vested in him as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces supposedly empowers the President to endow himself with these expansive powers.

That’s right. The last line of the quoted material gives the President of the United Staes the power to “control the general distribution of any material (including services) in the civilian market.” This seems to be no less than the nationalization of all food, energy, water, and healthcare pipelines and providers in the country. And to help him keep tabs on all this responsibility, he assigns a cabinet member to each category of control.

Perhaps the President is taking the first few steps necessary to cloak himself in the powers required to "legally" (albeit unconstitutionally) step outside the boundaries of his constitutional authority and ascend to a level of supervision witnessed in all the former republics of history just before their devolution into mobocracy and mayhem.

Here;  http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/11232-presidents-executive-order-authorizes-peacetime-martial-law

Wow!  So Obama now has the power to control the general distribution of ANY material in the entire civilian market??  That's pretty intense.

Of course any minor student of history knows that Presidents have had to do extreme things during war time.  Remember in WWII when people only got 3 gallons of gas per week?  Imagine if that happened today?  "What??  You can't take me to soccer practice in Delano, then run me to the mall to buy shoes in Maple Grove, then take me over to Johnny's in Buffalo and pick me up later?" 

Honestly, what is concerning to me is that Obama will most likely be president for another 5 years...and with the solar storms, earthquake, droughts, tornadoes, wars and rumors of war increasing in frequency and severity...I have a sneaky suspicion that Obama may have to implement this new Executive Order....and quite frankly...I don't trust him.

Have you heard that multiple U.S military bases have built substantial "containment facilities" over the past 5 years?  Who are they planning on containing?

I guess when and if martial law is implemented...we will find out.

I sure hope it isn't people who never supported Obama.

Iran Tells West, "Deal With It"

The international community must accept Iran's civilian nuclear program or incur "heavy losses," a senior Iranian lawmaker told the official Islamic Republic News Agency on Sunday.

The international group tasked with negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program, known as the P5+1, has accepted an Iranian offer to restart talks with Tehran.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of Iran's Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said that the P5+1 must acknowledge Iran's achievements in its civilian nuclear program, including advances in nuclear energy production and medical technology. 

Iran would not make concessions on its nuclear program, Boroujerdi said according to the report. 

Here;  http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=262381

Hmmmm.....they are telling us flat out that they are not going to negotiate.  I wonder if Obama will try sending them flowers to see if that will change their minds? 

Seriously...some humans will only accept violence and the barrel of a gun.  It's been that way since Abraham rescued Lot and it will be that way until Jesus returns.  We may as well pray really hard for peace but keep the gunpowder dry.  I'm betting that the next war is going to be a doozie.

Inflate Your Problems Away

If you were a government that had borrowed $16 trillion from multiple sources and you knew that you could not raise taxes enough to ever pay it back while at the same time continuing to pay generous benefits....what would you do?

There is only one thing to do.  You have to create money out of thin air and know that sooner or later, if you create enough, $16 trillion will really not be worth $16 trillion...so it will become a lot smaller debt in real terms than it currently is.

Think about it.  30 years ago if you had $1,000,000 in investments and took them all down to your local bank...you could put it in a CD and easily draw out $60,000 per year...and with that much income you were sitting at the top of the food chain.

Today, if all you had was $1,000,000 and no pension....you best keep working because the bank won't pay you more than $10,000 and cost have gone up 4 times on everything you need to live....and health care cost have gone up about 10 times.

Now watch this interview from a top analyst at Aberdeen Money Management.  He flat out tells it like it is....saying the Bernanke's latest comments on the U.S. economy are "disingenuous", (which is a nice way to say that he is lying) and also saying that inflation is already here for Americans and it is going to get a lot worse.

Watch it here;  http://www.bloomberg.com/video/88453082/

He also says that investors should be getting out of stocks...because when you paste them into a formula that takes into account the real return on government bonds...stocks are not a good buy....meaning they are overpriced.

He didn't really tell us what to invest in...but this is certainly an example of one smart dude who is not buying all the "good news" that the media has been pumping out over the last few months.