Do Martians Even HAVE Feet?

Do Martians Even HAVE Feet?
Vol: 67 Issue: 30 Monday, April 30, 2007

Al Gore blasted Canada this week for its new plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions which he called “a complete and total fraud.”

The Canadians, under the leadership of former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, pushed through Canada’s 2002 ratification of the Kyoto Treaty, in the main, to embarrass the Bush administration into following suit.

Chretien signed the document, making Canada the 98th nation (dare I say . . . DUMB enough?) to ratify the treaty.

The signed document was delivered to UN Headquarters in New York in a ceremony in which the champagne flowed freely.

Minister of the Environment David Anderson relayed a message from Chretien that the signed deal proved “that Canada is a good citizen of the world,” as compared to the USA — whose refusal to ratify the deal proved it was not.

Chretien’s signature on the treaty obliged Canada to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions by five percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

When push came to shove, however, Canada couldn’t figure out how to reduce its emissions levels without wrecking its own economy.

What happened instead is that Canada’s current greenhouse gas emissions are now thirty percent HIGHER than they were in 1990, requiring Canada to somehow now find a way to cut emissions by thirty-FIVE percent over the next five years.

So Canada is re-examining its commitment, made largely by the Liberal government in an effort to embarrass the US, instead promising to reduced emissions by twenty percent by 2020.

Gore was in Toronto to present his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” at a consumer environmental show. He acknowledged that as an American, he had “no right to interfere” in the Canadian decision. (Not that it stopped him).

“In my opinion, it is a complete and total fraud,” Gore said Saturday. “It is designed to mislead the Canadian people.”

Gore explained that the rest of the world “looks to Canada for moral leadership”, (and NOT the US) and that was why Thursday’s announcement was so “shocking.”

It is ironic that Gore would single out Canada for criticism. One could argue that Canada’s national policy was a mirror image of Gore’s own record. While lecturing others, Gore’s own ‘carbon footprint’ is twenty times that of the average American family.

And may God help us if Canada is the moral leader of the world. Chretien once famously announced that the first thing he would do after stepping down would be to fire up a ‘big, fat joint.’

Canadian opposition Liberal Leader Stephane Dion said Sunday that Gore was right.

“Mr. Baird is embarrassing Canada around the world,” Dion said. “The world expects Canada will do its share – more than that, that Canada will be a leader and we are failing the world. We are failing Canadians.”

The current Conservative government Environment Minister John Baird fired back, “our plan is vastly tougher than any measures introduced by the administration of which the former vice president was a member.”

Ouch!

Assessment:

According to Al Gore, environmental tree-huggers, liberal Canadians, a handful of scientists receiving grants from the UN, and the best scientific minds Hollywood has to offer, the Earth has been warming since the 1970’s — mainly as a result of man-made greenhouse gases.

“Greenhouse gases” is the catch-all phrase used to describe the natural atmospheric shield that keeps the sun from frying Planet Earth on one side while freezing it on the other. Those gases not only filter out cosmic radiation, but they keep the heat from escaping after the sun goes down.

The moon, which, in cosmic terms is a stone’s throw from the earth and pretty much the same distance from the sun as we are, is about +170 F in the sun. On the “dark side of the moon,” the temperature is estimated to be about -400 F — a difference of 570 degrees.

(The moon doesn’t have ANY greenhouse gases.)

In examining primordial core samples taken from deep below the surface of the earth, scientists have discovered evidence of increased carbon dioxide and nitrogen levels (one of the pantheon of greenhouse gases) whenever they found evidence of a warming of the earth’s atmosphere in the past.

Ipso facto, say Al Gore and Sean Penn, greenhouse gases cause global warming. But to make that theory work, however, they have to ignore the fact that the increase in greenhouse cases lags behind the warming trends by some 800 years.

In other words, warmer temperatures increase humanity’s ‘carbon footprint’ and not the other way around. Carbon dioxide is what plants ‘breathe’ in. What they ‘exhale’ is pure oxygen. Humans then breathe in the oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.

And nitrogen is what makes everything, including humans, grow. Ask any farmer.

(Full disclosure: I am neither a failed politician or a drug-addled Hollywood celebrity. Still, the whole symbiotic process seems quite efficient to me, not to mention self-explanatory)

Recently, NASA issued a report that Mars is exhibiting the exact same global warming trends that Al Gore says is being caused by humanity’s “carbon footprint.” NASA’s scientists say that the surface of Mars has warmed by about one degree Fahrenheit since the 1970’s — the same rise in temperature levels as on Planet Earth.

Whose ‘carbon footprint’ is to blame for Mars? For Martians to have feet, there must first be Martians.

NASA used heat maps of the Martian surface from the 1970’s Viking mission and compared them with maps from the 1990’s Mars Global Surveyor project, which marked changes in temperature on the Red Planet.

(Maybe THAT’s how carbon footprints warmed Mars. Emissions from Viking?)

One enterprising global warming advocate, Lori Fenton, assembled a team to come up with an explanation that doesn’t demolish the Al Gore Theory. In a paper published in the journal Nature, she advanced a theory that strong Martian winds stir up giant dust storms, trapping heat and raising the planet s temperature.

So, THAT’S how it works! Two different planets in the same solar system, experiencing identical climate changes, but with utterly unrelated causes. An amazing coincidence!

Fenton used the same ’cause and effect’ theory that Al Gore does. Gore’s formula is that global warming raises greenhouse gases, so greenhouse gases cause global warming.

So Fenton’s formula is this: Wind energy is created by rapid temperature changes, so high winds are creating global warming on Mars.

Are you starting to get just a little dizzy? Then you’d better give up your aspirations for a career in either Washington or Hollywood. You are too logical to be successful in either place.

For those of us not blessed with Al Gore’s scientific education, Sean Penn’s native brilliance, or Lori Fenton’s research grants, there is another explanation.

The sun has been unusually active over the past three decades — more active than at any time since man started keeping records of solar activity in 1755.

Solar flares and solar radiation tend to increase the sun’s output of heat. If you want to test the theory, strike a match. (It is hottest when it flares.)

Both Earth and Mars are heated by the same sun.

But global warming advocates argue that if the same process is observed in two separate closed systems whose only relationship is that they are warmed by the same sun, then the sun must have NOTHING to do with it.

Understand? If you do, then read no further. If you don’t, then step back with me and take another look at the Big Picture.

There have been observable signs in the sun, eg., an historically unprecedented increase in solar activity. There are observable signs in the moon, eg., without greenhouse gases, earth would be 170F in daytime and -400F at night.

But on the earth, whole nations are so distressed that they insist that ‘something must be done’ even before we know what that ‘something’ is, but are perplexed at what that ‘something’ should be.

Global warming advocates fear that global warming will raise sea levels to such catastrophic proportions as to possibly destroy all life on earth fifty years from now, (based on the same weather technology that can’t get next week’s forecast right.)

Is global warming real? I am the first to admit that I don’t know. What I DO know is that the PERCEPTION of global warming is real enough to try and invent a cause WE can effect, just in case.

From the human perspective on planet earth, the sun is the most powerful force in the heavens, and recent solar activity is at unprecedented levels. Even the climate of Mars is being shaken, either by massive winds or increasing solar output, depending upon whom you ask.

It all has a familiar ring to anyone who has any familiarity with Bible prophecy. Two thousand years ago, when Jesus was asked to describe the signs of His soon return, He said;

“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring. Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.” (Luke 21:25-26)

So we find that there are really THREE possible causes for global warming. 1) Carbon footprints (except on Mars where Martians have no feet). 2) Increased solar output, (except on Mars where wind energy creates itself and warms the Red Planet). 3) To fulfill a prophecy made by the Creator of the Universe.

But no matter what the cause, the effect is exactly the same. Distressed nations perplexed about how to prevent the sea from roaring inland to destroy the world’s coastlines.

They only thing everybody can agree on is that it is enough to make one’s heart fail for fear at the potential for what might be coming upon the earth, while hiding under sun screens to protect us from the upheaval emanating from natural source of all power in our solar system.

So what is the general consensus? It might be Answer (1); nobody is sure that it is Answer (2); but Answer (3) isn’t even worth considering by the scientists torn between (1) and (2).

That makes Answer (3) the only logical choice. See? It isn’t nearly as difficult to figure out as it seems.

Unless you are getting a government research grant, selling carbon footprints, or are a Hollywood celebrity.

In which case, it is distressing, perplexing and scary.

“And when these things BEGIN to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Luke 21:28)

Me? I’m getting a stiff neck.

Special Member’s Report: “The Last Generation”

Special Member’s Report: “The Last Generation”
Vol: 67 Issue: 28 Saturday, April 28, 2007

It’s finished. After one final marathon round of editing, my new book, “The Last Generation” is due to go to the printers on Monday morning. I don’t mind telling you how relieved I am to have that off my back.

There is a world of difference between a manuscript and a finished book. To my mind, writing it is the easy part. Writing a book is almost like reading a book, except that the process is backwards.

When one reads a book, one does so line by line, not knowing exactly what comes next, but having a pretty good idea from the context of the line before.

Writing one is like that. The next sentence doesn’t formally exist yet, but you have a pretty good idea of what it should say from the one that came before.

It isn’t until all the sentences and paragraphs have been assembled that the REAL work begins. Once it’s written, you’ve already read it. To give you an idea, take a book that you’ve read before, one that you really liked.

Read it again.

Once you get to the last page, go back to page one and read it again. Then read it again. And again. And again. And again. It no longer matters if the book is any good. Or that you liked it the first time. Or even the second time.

By the time you get to the fourth or fifth time, watching paint dry sounds like an interesting alternative way to spend that time.

That’s what editing it is like. Steve and I have each been poring over our copies of the manuscript, looking for awkward phrases, repeated sentences, proper tense agreement, correct punctuation, spelling mistakes and so forth, since I finished the first rough draft back in February.

Then, last week, Steve handed me The Master Copy for one final round of editing. By this time, I had read it so many times that I was convinced it was the most boring collection of words ever assembled in one place.

But I had yet to read it through AS a book. Up until that time, every sentence, every paragraph, every chapter, had been its own individual project. (I would have dreams about it when I went to bed.)

“This time,” Steve said, “Don’t read the sentences or chapters. Read the BOOK.” So I did.

It was as if I was reading it for the first time. I like it. I think you will, too.

The book is an outreach of your Omega Letter, and I want offer you an opportunity to be part of it. We are reserving the last few pages for your comments. (Obviously, not about the book, since you’ve not read it).

Instead, I’d like to include your reviews of the Omega Letter itself, since the book IS the Omega Letter, and the Omega Letter is the book.

And YOU ARE the Omega Letter.

The Omega Letter is all about the signs that signal the end of the age, and the book is about how those signs are coming together to form the Big Picture.

The difference is, the Omega Letter is written TO believers FOR believers, and is aimed at providing believers with additional tools useful to carrying the message of salvation to the lost as part of their own personal evangelistic ministry.

“The Last Generation” provides the same kind of information, but is aimed at reaching out to unbelievers directly with the good news that all the chaos and tragedy and uncertainty that plagues our planet in this generation is really evidence of a Divine Plan designed to give sinful mankind one last chance to repent before the Lord returns to judge a Christ-rejecting world.

Please, please, pray that God will use this effort to bring many into the Kingdom. Anybody can string words together, but only the Holy Spirit can use them to turn on the light that leads out of the darkness.

“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” (Philippians 4:6)

If “The Last Generation” leads even one unbeliever into the Light, it was worth all the effort expended. But without your prayer support, it is just another book.

If you want to post a comment for inclusion in the book, go to the member’s forum and post it under the thread entitled, “The Last Generation.”

We’ll be posting information on how to order your copy within the next few days.

Road Tour ’07

We’ll be pulling out of South Carolina tomorrow to head to Houston, Texas, for the first of many meetings with as many Omega Letter members as possible during Road Tour ’07.

Information about the tour schedule is posted in the Road Tour forum.

Mike is working on a calendar feature that will put all the information together at a glance. It isn’t quite ready yet. But we’re getting there.

By the way, did any of you see the Glenn Beck broadcast on CNN last night? If not, Kaye has posted a transcript from the program in the member’s forum. Check it out. It is truly amazing.

When CNN broadcasts a serious analysis of the signs of the soon return of Jesus Christ, it must be soon, indeed.

Maranatha!

Coming Again

Coming Again
Vol: 67 Issue: 27 Friday, April 27, 2007

In January 2000 , the Dow Jones Industrial Average set a new record of 11,722. In October, 2000 the Euro was worth eighty-two cents US. Oil was under $30.00 a barrel. A gallon of gasoline peaked in 2000 at $1.56, up more than fifty percent from the 1999 low of $.90 a gallon.

(Was 1999 really THAT long ago? In 1999, I could have filled my RV from empty for about sixty-five bucks. Yesterday, the same fill-up in South Carolina would have cost me $216.75.)

On April 25, 2007, a barrel of crude was worth $65.12, and the national average for a gallon of gas is $2.97. The Dow Jones just broke a new milestone closing above 13,000.

And the Euro, which was worth eighty-two cents seven short years ago, is now worth $1.36 against the dollar.

What is up? According to most business report headlines, the problem is “slow US growth.” If the Dow continues to soar to such dizzying heights, the price of crude and spot gas prices are determined by supply and demand, then ascribing the cause to ‘slow US growth’ seems somewhat confusing.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t early warning signs of an economic downturn. The housing market really IS beginning to slow down. And the first quarterly Gross Domestic Products reports for 2007 are the weakest in four years.

THAT sounds bad, until one considers that the overall US GDP in 2003 saw the most blistering economic growth spurt in more than 20 years.

And while the housing market is in a slump, personal consumption expenditures are up 2.2% this quarter, which is slightly higher than forecast. And way beyond the last quarter of 2006, when GDP growth was only 1.8%.

And, comparing this year’s first quarter with 2003’s first quarter, the last quarter where the GDP numbers were weaker WAS the first quarter of 2003.

Assessment:

If one reads the business news, the sky is falling. The end is near. Europe is eclipsing the United States as the world’s most powerful economy. And it is all because of the fiscal policies of the Bush administration.

The policies of the Bush administration may well be the reason that the Euro is crushing the dollar, but it isn’t the administration’s fiscal policies, but the Bush administration’s foreign policy that is to blame. Or rather, the world’s reaction to the administration’s foreign policies.

The Euro is rising against the dollar because the rest of the world has succumbed to the never-ending drumbeat of negative reports suggesting the United States is being led by a dishonest, warmongering group of out-of-touch neocons whose only allegiance is to Big Oil.

In point of fact, the Euro is rising because many oil-importing nations are paying for their oil in euros instead of dollars. Why is that important? There are a couple of reasons, none of which have anything to do with the Bush administration.

First, the dollar is an illusion. There is no such thing. A ‘dollar’ is a unit of measure, like a quart or a gallon, not a thing in and of itself. We get our word ‘dollar’ from the Dutch word ‘thaler’ — which is a weight of measure for precious metals like gold and silver.

No currency currently in circulation is named thaler. Several, however, are acknowledging its legacy with their names: twenty-three currencies named dollar, used in countries including Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand and United States of America, which pegged the dollar to the weight of the Dutch thaler.

Dollar bills used to carry the legend, “Will pay to the bearer on demand, X dollars in lawful US currency”. Until 1933, “lawful US currency” was silver or gold. When FDR ordered privately held US gold confiscated, “lawful US currency” became a thaler’s worth of silver.

The dollar continued to bear the promise of redemption in lawful US money until 1967 when the legend was changed to read, “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private,” in effect, BECOMING the thing it was supposed to measure.

The dollar, no longer backed by gold or silver, was now backed by the full faith and fidelity of the people of the United States — that is to say, it is an instrument of debt backed by America’s collective property holdings and future earning power. Your property. Your earning power. The dollar is a loan backed by collateral — your collateral.

People accept the dollar because they are confident that it will be honored as payment for goods and services in the future. When the dollar begins to lose its value, investors look for a more stable currency, in this case, the euro.

The dollar’s value is propped up by the price of oil. In 1971, Richard Nixon concluded a deal with the Saudis whereby they would only accept US dollars as payment for oil exports. Nations need oil. If the only thing that will buy oil is dollars, then the dollar holds its value.

Secondly, Iran and Venezuela are demanding payment for their oil exports in euros, instead of dollars, diluting the stranglehold the dollar has on international oil purchases. The net effect is that the dollar is losing strength against the euro.

So, while the stock market goes up, the US economy continues to enjoy net annual growth, etc., the euro continues to go up in value, while the dollar continues to decline on the international market. That means the dollar buys less, and the euro buys more. It makes US exports cheaper, but raises the cost of US imports.

It’s all very simple, really. It only sounds complicated, because the whole system is designed to be so complex that nobody will realize the dollar is an illusion supported only by the public faith it will still buy next week what it buys today.

As an economist once said of America’s ever-expanding economy, “Can a tree grow to heaven?”

Europe plays a leading role in Bible prophecy for the last days. According to Scripture, it will become the seat of the global government and the foundation of the global economy.

On the other hand, the Bible makes no mention of the United States of America during the Tribulation Period.

The Lord is coming again. In the words of the old hymn, “Coming Again”; “it may be morning, may be noon, may be evening, may be soon.”

The decline of the dollar and the rise of the Euro point in exactly the same direction that Bible prophecy says the world will go in the last days. Because these ARE the last days.

Oftentimes I close with the word, “Maranatha!” Some of you have written to ask what it means. It is an Aramaic word used by Paul in 1st Corinthians 16:22.

It means, “our Lord cometh.” Jesus IS coming again.

Maranatha!

And Now, the Time Is Here . . .

And Now, the Time Is Here . . .
Vol: 67 Issue: 26 Thursday, April 26, 2007

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” (2nd Timothy 4:3-4)

This morning’s Worldnetdaily headline story concerning a proposed Congressional bill piqued my interest enough to do a little independent digging into the background. I wish I hadn’t. (Sigh. Ignorance truly IS bliss.)

The bill in question is HR 1592, sponsored by Representative John Conyers of Michigan. As soon as I read who sponsored it, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

Conyers has been a member of the House for something approaching 42 years. That long in an ivory tower is enough to give anybody delusions of grandeur. In Conyers’ case, it’s more a case of total disconnect.

Conyers came to Congress from Detroit at the height of the civil rights movement. Those of us mature enough to remember the Detroit race riots in the Sixties have some perspective on the conditions under which Conyers’ ascended to power.

Conyers came to Congress in 1964, as race relations had reached critical mass. The 1967 Detroit Race Riot was among the most destructive in US history, eclipsed only by the 1992 Rodney King Riots in Los Angeles.

There was a lot of hate and injustice in those days, particularly against blacks, but evidently, being in Congress is like being stuck in a time warp. Conyers spent his whole 42-odd years in Congress still fighting conditions as they existed in the 1960’s.

But 2007 is not 1967. Most of America got over it. Conyers never did.

H.R. 1592’s ‘short title’ is the “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007.” Hate crimes legislation was necessary in 1967. The 1967 riots burned down large parts of the city, destroying more than 400 buildings. More than 2500 stores were looted.

Police made more than 7,000 arrests. Snipers shot at firefighters while they tried to fight the fires. Forty-three people died, another 467 were injured, and the dollar damage ranged from $40 to $80 million (in 1967 dollars).

Conyers attempted to calm things down personally, climbing atop the hood of a car to plead with the rioters to go home. Instead, he was pelted with rocks and bottles. One activist shouted, “Why are you defending the establishment? You are as bad as they are.”

That incident turned Conyers into an anti-hate crusader, which was a good thing, back in 1967. But Conyers (and ultimately, America) became a victim of his own successes. As existing anti-hate legislation gave way to improved race relations, Conyers was forced to find new victims of ‘hate’.

His bill expands a ‘hate crime’ to include; “prejudice, based on actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation gender identity or disability.”

Perpetrators of ‘hate crimes’ under the bill can be jailed for anywhere from ten years to life, depending on the victim.

As you have probably noticed, H.R. 1592 extends hate crimes legislation to include sexual orientation and gender identity and includes the words “perceived or actual.”

I am all in favor of protecting people from victimization, including gays and cross dressers. But under the provisions of this particular piece of legislation, it is possible that today’s column would be a criminal offense.

Why? Because of the words, ‘perceived or actual’.

Assessment:

H.R. 1592 would extend special minority protections to homosexuals and cross-dressers equal to the protections afforded racial minorities and foreigners. Here’s where I run the risk of being visited by the Thought Police.

People don’t choose their race. They don’t choose their national origin. But to say that homosexuality and cross-dressing is a choice rather than an involuntary condition inherited by one’s parents might be “perceived” as “homophobic” by a homosexual or transvestite.

Homophobia, if words are to have any meaning, is an ‘unreasonable fear of homosexuals’. I never understood the word ‘homophobia’ until I read HR 1592. If it passes, I will be very, very afraid of homosexuals.

Only that fear won’t be ‘unreasonable’. One need only denounce me as having said something offensive to put me in jail for ten years.

Heck, I offend people all the time. (I fled Canada for the US after it adopted similar hate-speech legislation.) There is an old saying to the effect that ‘the truth hurts’. And, like all ‘old sayings’ it became an ‘old saying’ because it is true.

So, if the truth hurts, under HR 1592, telling the truth can be a crime punishable by at least ten years in jail, if the person offended is a member of one of America’s protected classes.

Suppose I were to write, (as I have many times) that the Koran is the inspiration behind Osama bin-Laden’s al-Qaeda network and was the direct inspiration for the murders of three thousand innocents on September 11, 2001?

What if that is “perceived” by Muslims as ‘hateful’ either to their religion or national origin?

HR 1592 also expands the bill to include those acting under the ‘color of law’. (That should make things pretty interesting for members of the Border Patrol.)

Under HR 1592, any speech that is critical of Islam, homosexuals, transvestites, aliens, (legal or illegal) would be criminalized.

NC Representative Bob Etheridge (a Democrat!!!) wrote at Congress.org that this bill; “begins to lay the legal framework whereby Bible-believing Pastors, business owners and individuals can be persecuted and prosecuted.”

That includes, he writes, “Any remarks about homosexuality, such as reading Bible passages, preaching on these passages, telling a person they can come out of the homosexual lifestyle, etc. will be deemed critical remarks and will be ruled to be outside the bounds of First Amendment protections for pastors, business-owners and individuals.”

And not just pastors, business owners and individuals. Rep Etheridge explains:

“This also includes parents who refuse, for moral and religious reasons, to agree or teach their children that homosexuality, transgender, cross-dressing etc is normal and desirable.”

HR 1592, he writes, elevates homosexuality and transvestitism to the status of race under federal law.

The law will require the federal government to fund, “anti-Christian curriculum for children K-12, through the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice to promote homosexuality and cross-dressing as normal behaviors.”

(I’m quoting Representative Etheridge directly. Did I mention that Representative Etheridge was a DEMOCRAT?)

It is worth remembering that, during the Roman persecution of Christianity during the first centuries of the Church Age, Christians weren’t put to death for embracing a different God. The Romans had a pantheon of gods — another god, more or less, didn’t make much difference.

What ticked off the Romans was that Christians claimed that Jesus Christ is the ONLY God, and that only followers of Jesus Christ would get into heaven. If only Christians could be saved, then, by extension, worshippers of Ceasar or Jupiter would be eternally damned.

To the Romans, that was ‘hate speech’, punishable by death.

HR 1592 doesn’t go quite as far as ancient Rome’s anti-hate-speech laws. In ancient Rome, preaching Bible truths meant death.

In kinder, gentler, enlightened America, the worst they can give you is life.

A Cup of Drunkenness

A Cup of Drunkenness
Vol: 67 Issue: 25 Wednesday, April 25, 2007

An Israeli-Arab member of the Israeli Knesset resigned his seat recently under suspicion that he aided Hezbollah during the 2nd Lebanon War last summer.

Azmi Bishara is suspected of transferring information to Hezbollah during time of war, maintaining contacts with a foreign agent and money-laundering.

Bishara has a long record of treason against the government of which he is a member.

In 2002, he was charged with organizing an illegal delegation to Syria, with whom Israel is still officially at war, and for calling on other Arab states to intensify their conflict with Israel.

The Palestinian side argues that Bishara isn’t a traitor to Israel, but rather a patriot to the Palestinian cause. Bishara swore an oath to Israel when he assumed his office, and, while still bound by that oath, he broke it.

Had Bishara resigned his seat first, and then went to work for the Islamic-Arab cause, the annihilation of Israel, then Bishara could lay claim to being a Palestinian patriot. But he didn’t.

Under any reading of the rules of war, that makes him a traitor to his oath, and a traitor to the country to which, as a citizen, his primary allegiance is due.

Bishara was born to Palestinian-Christian parents in Nazareth, where he attended the Nazareth Baptist school before going on to attend Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 1997, Bishara received a kidney transplant at the Jewish Hadassah Medical Center in a operation performed by Israeli doctors.

He demonstrated his gratitude by working actively to destroy the state that gave him so much.

It is one of the peculiar ironies of the Israeli-Arab conflict that Israel is not only willing, but is expected, to treat its enemies better than its enemies treat each other.

If Bishara had been born in a Palestinian ‘refugee’ camp in Jordan, Lebanon or Syria, he would still be languishing there today, assuming he was able to live another ten years without the kidney transplant.

How did an Arab enemy of the Israeli state manage to get himself elected to the Israeli Parliament? That is another of the peculiar ironies of the region.

Arab-Israelis enjoy the same rights and protections under the law as Jewish-Israelis, including the right to hold elective office in the Jewish state. The Palestinians, on the other hand, have an official policy of ethnic cleansing.

One of the main stumbling blocks to ‘peace’ (according to the Palestinians, the EU, the UN, etc., is the existence of Jewish settlements within the territories claimed by the Palestinians.

A Jew on the Palestinian side of the Green Line can be killed with impunity. No Palestinian-Arab has ever been prosecuted by the Palestinian Authority for killing a Jew inside its territory. The life of a Jew is of no more consequence under Palestinian rule than that of a dog.

But on the Israeli side, Bishara, an elected official who committed treason against the state is, to this point, still drawing his Knesset salary from exile in Egypt.

Bishara’s Israeli citizenship came as a result of the choices made by his grandparents. In the weeks leading up to the Israeli War of Independence, thousands of Palestinians fled to the Arab world, fully expecting to return to their homes after an early Arab victory.

As Palestinian nationalist Aref el-Aref explained in his history of the 1948 War;

“The Arabs thought they would win in less than the twinkling of an eye and that it would take no more than a day or two from the time the Arab armies crossed the border until all the colonies were conquered and the enemy would throw down his arms and cast himself on their mercy.”

Jewish leaders urged the Arabs to remain in Palestine and become citizens of Israel. The Assembly of Palestine Jewry issued this appeal on October 2, 1947:

“We will do everything in our power to maintain peace, and establish a cooperation gainful to both [Jews and Arabs]. It is now, here and now, from Jerusalem itself, that a call must go out to the Arab nations to join forces with Jewry and the destined Jewish State and work shoulder to shoulder for our common good, for the peace and progress of sovereign equals.”

On November 30, 1948, the day after the UN partition vote, the Jewish Agency announced: The main theme behind the spontaneous celebrations we are witnessing today is our community’s desire to seek peace and its determination to achieve fruitful cooperation with the Arabs….

Israel’s Proclamation of Independence, issued May 14, 1948, also invited the Palestinians to remain in their homes and become equal citizens in the new state:

“In the midst of wanton aggression, we yet call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve the ways of peace and play their part in the development of the State, on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its bodies and institutions….We extend our hand in peace and neighborliness to all the neighboring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all.”

Did Israel keep its word? What about the Arab claims that the Palestinian refugees were forcibly deported? Bishara’s grandparents stayed in 1948 and Bishara is not only an Israeli citizen, but was a member of its parliament.

You tell me.

Assessment:

Despite the efforts of the revisionists, there is ample historical evidence backing up the claims that the Palestinians fled at the urging of the Arab world (in addition to the fact that Bishara’s own status as an Israeli citizen and lawmaker is lviing evidence to the fact).

The then-U.S. Consul General in Haifa, Aubrey Lippincott, wrote on April 22, 1948, for example, that local mufti dominated Arab leaders were urging all Arabs to leave the city, and large numbers did so.

The London-based Economist — then as now — was no friend of the Jewish state.

In its October, 1948 issue, it reported that Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit….It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades.

Time’s report of the battle for Haifa (May 3, 1948) was similar: The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by orders of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city….By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa.”

Another of the ironies of the Middle East conflict is the fact that, had the Palestinians accepted the UN’s 1947 Partition Plan, not a single Palestinian-Arab would have become a refugee. And an independent Arab state would already exist beside Israel.

But then, as now, the Palestinians are not interested in having a state beside Israel — they will accept nothing less than a state INSTEAD of Israel. (A Palestinian state ethnically cleansed of all Jews.)

In 1957, the Palestinian Refugee Conference in Homs, Syria, passed a resolution that clearly outlined the real Palestinian ‘peace plan’ with Israel:

Any discussion aimed at a solution of the Palestine problem which will not be based on ensuring the refugees’ right to annihilate Israel will be regarded as a desecration of the Arab people and an act of treason (Beirut al Massa, July 15, 1957).

Today, Palestinian refugee camps exist in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. There are no Palestinian refugee camps inside Israel, because any Palestinians who lived in Israel when it declared independence in 1948 were automatically granted Israeli citizenship.

But the Arab world has kept Palestinian ‘refugees’ interned in what are nothing less than concentration camps for almost sixty years. In 1998, five years after Oslo, a reporter for the Jerusalem Report asked a camp official why the camps were still in operation.

The reporter, Netty Gross, was told the Palestinian Authority had made a political decision not to do anything for the nearly half a million Palestinians living in the camps ‘until the final-status talks with Israel took place’.

The half-million Palestinians still remain interned by the Arabs themselves — and the world blames Israel.

This week, Hamas called on the Palestinian people to prepare for the NEXT war with Israel. It declared its ‘truce’ with Israel over and resumed its rocket barrages on Israeli cities along its borders. The world’s reaction was fascinating.

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said he would ask the European Union to lift an embargo on direct aid to the Palestinians despite the decision by Hamas to break its ceasefire with Israel.

The Pope reacted to the resumption of open hostilities against Israel by issuing the following statement YESTERDAY regarding his meeting with PA leader Mahmoud Abbas:

“In particular an appreciation was expressed for the relaunch, also thanks to the efforts of the international community, of the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians.”

On Monday, the EU foreign ministers met to discuss the resumption of the conflict before issuing its own statement, “expressing the hope that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations would lead to an end to the occupation that began in 1967 and the creation of an independent, democratic and viable Palestinian state, living side-by-side with Israel and its other neighbors in peace and security.”

For his part, Abbas emerged from his meeting with Italian Prime Minister Prodi long enough to call on ISRAEL to “show restraint” as Kassam rockets rain down on its cities.

These statements were issued AS Hamas announced its resumption of hostilities with Israel. Is there a parallel universe somewhere of which I am unaware?

There is no way of either explaining or understanding this in the natural. It is impossible to imagine that the situation could be more one-sided. It is surreal.

It doesn’t matter what ‘side’ one takes — reality is reality because it is what is real, not what somebody WANTS to be real.

Let’s tick off the points again.

1) The Arab refugee problem was created by the Arabs. 2) All the concentration camps are in the Arab world. 3) While no Jew is even allowed to live on the Arab side, an Israeli-Arab can commit treason while still drawing a Knesset salary. 4) Hamas announced the resumption of hostilities against Israel. 5) In response, Abbas demanded restraint — from the ISRAELIS. 6) The EU and the Pope react to the Palestinian attacks by expressing their hopes for a ‘lasting peace’ between the Israelis and the people now attacking them. 7) The Palestinian side openly laughs at the concept. 8) Nobody notices (or cares).

The situation defies logic. It defies common sense. It defies history. It is as if the whole world has gone off on a massive, drunken, bender.

No matter how patiently the Palestinian side tries to explain that its true intention IS the annihilation of Israel, the world hears that ISRAEL is the stumbling block to a lasting peace in the region, not the Palestinian Arabs.

You just can’t make this stuff up. If you did, nobody would believe it.

But despite its improbability in the natural, it lines up perfectly with 2500 year-old Bible prophecies concerning the last days.

“Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. (The NKJV translates Zechariah 12:2 as “a cup of drunkenness”)

“And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though ALL THE PEOPLE OF THE EARTH be gathered together against it. In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with MADNESS: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.” (Zechariah 12:2-4)

Although published and ‘on the books’ for more than 2500 years, Zechariah’s prophecy reads as if he were quoting this morning’s headlines.

“And when these things BEGIN to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Luke 21:28)

Maranatha!

When Ham Sandwiches Attack . . .

When Ham Sandwiches Attack . . .
Vol: 67 Issue: 24 Tuesday, April 24, 2007

When Ham Sandwiches Attack . . .

Generally speaking, ham sandwiches are quiet and unassuming and don’t really seem to have much of an opinion on any given subject.

Indeed, a ham sandwich can be a welcome friend, it can be a traveling companion, eventually, it can even be lunch, but there is no recorded incident in which a ham sandwich has ever exhibited any malevolence.

The last time a ham sandwich gave society a major problem was the Mama Cass Affair. When Cass Elliot (Mama Cass of the Mamas and the Papas — in case you were out of town for the 70’s) died in 1974, her death was popularly ascribed to having choked to death on a ham sandwich.

The ham sandwich was innocent. There was a ham sandwich and a Coke found by her bedside, but the sandwich was untouched. The coroner eventually ruled that Cass Elliot died of a heart attack brought on by obesity.

Blaming the ham sandwich was a bad beef. . .

Actually, the only thing a ham sandwich has ever been guilty of, in my experience, was bad judgment. Who can forget the time that a ham sandwich incorrectly assumed two packages would not get mailed unless somebody took them to the Post Office? Or how humiliated that same ham sandwich was when the Post Office Lady picked the packages up?

(Come to think of it, that particular ham sandwich had a Jewish accent. Hmmmm)

Now, sadly, another ham sandwich is back in the news. This time, however, it isn’t charged with murder, or parodied in a TV commercial for its bad judgment.

In this latest incident, the ham sandwich is charged with committing a hate crime.

Once again, however, it appears that the ham sandwich is getting a bum wrap. Allow me to explain. . .

A middle school student in Lewiston, Maine is being investigated by police for a possible hate crime because he placed a bag containing a ham sandwich on a cafeteria table where Muslim students from Somalia were eating their lunch.

Why Muslims students from Somalia were in a middle school in Maine eating lunch is grist for a different mill. Don’t they have cafeterias in Somalia? But I digress.

Anyway, the school superintended took prompt action, ordering the student who brought the ham sandwich to school suspended, and promising more disciplinary action, should the investigation prove the ham sandwich was guilty as charged.

“Placing ham where Muslim students were eating as an awful thing,” said Stephen Wessler, the executive director of the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence. “It’s extraordinarily hurtful and degrading. They probably felt like they were back in Mogadishu starving and being shot at.”

(Images of ham sandwiches running amok with high-powered automatic weapons flash across my mind at this point. No wonder Clinton pulled us out of Somalia in the 1990’s.)

Continued Wessler, “No child, Muslim or normal, should have to endure touching a ham sandwich.”

But wait! Isn’t there some other rule about not touching somebody else’s lunch in a cafeteria?

Evidently, THAT’S kosher — provided one isn’t actually IN Somalia, where touching somebody else’s lunch can be a capital crime punishable by death — depending on how well-armed the owner of that lunch is at the time.

And what does the guy mean by, “No child, Muslim or NORMAL?” Surely Stephen Wessler, as executive director of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, wasn’t suggesting that Muslim children aren’t ‘normal’, was he?

Wessler continued, “Incidents like this that involve degrading language or conduct are often said by the perpetrator as a joke. But unfortunately we don’t live in a world where young children try to be funny, we live in a society in which these types of actions always escalate into violence against minorities.”

“If people think insulting Muslims with ham is okay, more degrading acts will follow. The Jews had to go through the same thing when the Nazis would force-feed them bacon; do we really want our schools to become concentration camps?”

To which I reply with a hearty, “Heck, NO!” I can see Wessler’s point. First, some kid brings a ham sandwich to school . . . and the next thing you know, Jewish kids in middle schools all over America will be forced by Nazis to eat bacon.

A joke??? I’m not laughing. And neither is the Executive Director of a Ham Sandwich Anti-Defamation League. According to Porky Pig, “H–h-ham s-s-sandwiches are r-r-r-routinely t-t-t-t-targeted f-f-for m-m-m-m-m-m-mal-l-l-l-icous p-pprosecution. How mmmmany t-t-times have you heard that a prosecutor c–c-can g-get a g-g-g-grand jury to indict a h-h-h-ham s-s-s-sandwich?”

The middle school principle, Leon Levesque, assured Somali parents throughout Maine, “the incident does not reflect the moral values of the school staff and students. We need to take a look at this and review how a careless act is degrading and causes hurt to other people. All our students should feel welcome in our schools, knowing that they are safe from attacks with ham, bacon, porkchops, or any other delicious meat that comes from pigs.”

Assessment:

You probably think that I’m making this up. A ham sandwich as a hate crime? Sadly, I am not.

The story was reported by both Boston. com and the Lewiston Sun-Journal — it’s on the level.

According to the Sun-Journal, its been a rough week for Somalis in Maine.

“A lot of anger and hate has been flying around,” said Steve Wessler of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence. In the days after last Thursday’s report of a hate incident at Lewiston Middle School involving a ham steak left at a lunch table to insult Somali students, a Sun Journal newspaper forum was so filled with hostility it was shut down.

Wessler said he received hate e-mail and two phone messages in which a man threatened to commit violence against him.” The poor guy. What should be done? That is the question that has Pine Tree Staters all a’twitter.

Noted the Sun-Journal; “For years, Catholics suffered prejudice before being accepted.” (But, as everybody knows, it is harder to use a ham sandwich to commit a hate crime against a Catholic. He would be just as likely to eat the weapon, destroying the evidence in the process.)

But change is in the works. Last year, a local man named Brent Matthews rolled a pig’s head into a local mosque. Last Saturday, perhaps driven to despair by angry falafels, Matthews committed suicide in the local Marsden’s parking lot.

As one local, Edward Boucher, told the paper, “Eventually these things work themselves out.”

“But does it make it right?” the Sun-Journal quoted Zamzam Mohamud, 32, the mother of one traumatized victim. “Then does it just keep going? Where does it stop? There isn’t much of a community if we don’t make a change.”

And THAT is where the laughter stops.

America’s reputation was built around the concept of the Great American Melting Pot. In happier times, new immigrants would come to America to become Americans. The idea was to melt all the various cultures of all the various immigrants into a single, uniquely American culture.

Under that concept, Americans were not required to adopt the culture of its immigrants, but rather, immigrants were expected to adopt the culture of America. What made it a ‘community’ was that immigrants made ‘the change’ to conform to the existing culture.

The concept of “multiculturalism” — the Holy Grail of the liberal Left — insists that immigrants refuse to assimilate into American culture, forcing immigrants into cultural ‘ghettos’ where liberal politicians can pander to concentrated special interest lobbies.

One can’t win in Florida without the Cuban vote. One can’t win in Texas or California without the Mexican vote. One can’t win in the Northeast without the black vote, or in New York without the Jewish vote. And one can’t win in certain parts of Michigan without the Muslim vote.

So a liberal need only pander to the demands of the various concentrations of minorities to win public office — from which he can strengthen his base by bashing America as a whole as a collection of hateful xenophobes.

One can’t engage in class warfare without some underprivileged class to champion. And the best way to ensure that is to keep immigrants concentrated in ethnic ghettos as exiles from their home countries, rather than as immigrants to the New World.

Zamzan Mahamud’s solution was quoteworthy because her solution fits the liberal agenda — that America that must change its culture to conform to that of its immigrants.

Since America is made up of immigrants from every country in the world, there will always be more changes to demand, more immigrant groups to pander to, and more elections to be won.

Today, the ham sandwich. Tomorrow, Sharia law. Eventually, pictures of Osama bin Laden festooning American cities and towns.

Sound far-fetched? No more so than the fear of Nazis force-feeding bacon to Jewish kids in American concentration camps — cleverly disguised as middle-schools.

When a ham sandwich is a hate crime, NOTHING is too far-fetched.

Days of Noe

Days of Noe
Vol: 67 Issue: 23 Monday, April 23, 2007

I was watching Glenn Beck’s program on CNN the other day. He said something that bothered me when I first heard it, and it bothers me even more today. He mentioned how devastated he had been following the Columbine shooting in 1999.

But then he noted that the Virginia Tech massacre didn’t seem to have such a devastating effect on him. Or, it seemed, on most of America. Not because it wasn’t as terrible as Columbine– the VT massacre claimed more than twice as many lives — but because it isn’t as shocking as it used to be.

Shortly after the crazy little whack-job in Virginia (I refuse to honor him by repeating his name — he’s gotten enough publicity) murdered thirty-two students at Virginia Tech, some guy at NASA shot his boss because he thought he might lose his job.

Afterwards, the guy shot himself in the head while the police ‘closed in’. (I set that off in quotes because it seems the police no longer ‘close in’ until AFTER the gunfire stops.

There was a murder/suicide in Woodland, California (that you probably didn’t hear about) where a 54 year-old guy shot his 52 year-old girlfriend and then killed himself.

Fifteen hundred miles away, another guy shot his girlfriend to death and then killed himself in Houston. There was another three days ago in Portland, Texas. Two more the next day, one in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and one in Murrieta, California.

In Queens, NY, Jimmie Dawkins killed his mother, her boyfriend and his health care attendant before putting the barrel of his .40 cal pistol in his mouth and pulling the trigger.

Another murder suicide in Michigan the same day also claimed four lives. And yet another; a man in Lake Havasu City, Arizone killed his girlfriend, his baby, and then himself.

This morning, I heard of a truck bomb that went off in Baghdad that killed 25 Iraqi policemen and wounded 125 Iraqi bystanders. Twenty-one members of a religious minority in Mosul, Iraq were dragged off a bus and shot dead, execution style.

In Laguna Beach, a woman and her husband were shot dead during a confrontation with police. At press time, the police weren’t sure if they killed the couple, or if it were yet another murder-suicide.

One week’s time. Rivers and rivers of blood.

Assessment:

Seriously, how did the news that 32 students were murdered at VT affect you? Or the news of the 125 people maimed by an Iraqi car bomb? Or the 21 Iraqis in Mosul pulled from a bus and executed? What about the litany of murder-suicides across the US in the past seven days that you just read about?

That list is by no means a comprehensive one — those were just the murder suicide cases that popped up on Google’s first page when I queried it. Are you shocked?

I wish that I were, but I am not. Not particularly. I thought about what Glenn Beck said about it on his program, and I realized that the calluses on my soul were even thicker than his.

The last time I can remember being truly shocked was the OKC bombing of the Murrah Building back in 1995. And I was less troubled by that event than I was the destruction of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco two years before that.

I was moved by the horror that must have permeated the Waco compound as the flames claimed the lives of 83 men, women and children. By the time of the OKC bombing, the horror was mixed with a sort of clinical detachment.

By the time the Columbine killers went on their rampage, I had already become desensitized to the evil of children murdering children. Eight blood-soaked years later, I realized my first thought at hearing of the VT shootings wasn’t horror.

The first thing that came to my mind was the logistics. How did one guy carrying only two pistols manage to kill that many people? It wasn’t until I caught Glenn Beck’s program that I realized just how scarred my soul has become.

I used to be shocked by evil. My reaction has morphed from, “How could anybody do such a thing?” to “Not again!” to musing about the logistics involved in the commission of mass murder.

When asked of the signs of His return, among the signs Jesus gave was the “sign of Noe.” (Noah)

“But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” (Matthew 24:37)

“And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.” (Luke 17:26)

Genesis 6:5-6 give us the Lord’s perspective on the ‘days of Noah’:

“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

When we aren’t confronting actual evil in the form of crazy little gunmen and rivers of blood on our campuses, we seek it out for entertainment. Television and movies can rightly be called “the imagination of thoughts of our hearts” — indeed, what is a movie if not our imagination brought to life?

And the more violence and sex a movie contains, the more popular it is. No wonder we are so desensitized to evil.

The most popular video games are also the most violent. I confess that enjoy the WWII action games like “Medal of Honor” and “Call of Duty” and even admit to downloading the latest ‘blood patch’ to make the game even more gory. What in the world is wrong with ME?

“And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” (Matthew 24:12)

The more acceptable iniquity and sin becomes, the colder our love of righteousness gets.

The Bible teaches that the Tribulation Period is a period set aside for the judgment of a Christ-rejecting world and to effect the national redemption of Israel. But what of the Church?

In the days of Noah, God decided to judge sinful man, but he saved Noah and his family alive out of the flood by making a way of escape via the ark. Jesus said His return would be like the days of Noah. Wickedness, evil and the promise of judgment.

Genesis 6:8 says that “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” The Bible also says that the Church is the recipient of God’s grace.

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:” (Ephesians 2:8)

“Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:” (Romans 3:22)

Noah was found righteous in the eyes of the Lord and he was spared the judgment that came upon the whole earth. Later, when God purposed to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham pleaded with God not to destroy the cities if even five righteous men could be found within.

Only Lot was found righteous, and a way was made for he and his family to escape the judgment that was reserved for the unrighteous.

Of His return, Jesus also said;

“Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” (Luke 17:28-30)

The Church, like Noah and Lot, have found grace in the eyes of the Lord and we are clothed in the imputed righteousness of Christ. God views the imputed righteousness of Christ as being no different than that of Noah or Lot. (Romans 3:22)

God didn’t judge Noah for the sins of his neighbors. Neither did He judge Lot for the sins of his neighbors. And since the Church is clothed in the righteousness of Christ, it follows that He will not judge the Church for the sins of a Christ-rejecting world.

I can find no other understanding of these passages that makes logical sense, apart from the promise that the Lord will return for His Church BEFORE the judgment of the Tribulation Period.

If the Church goes through the Tribulation Period, then the Lord’s references to Noah and Lot are puzzling. Why refer to the only two historical instances in which God saved the righteous from being included in mass judgment in conjunction with the events that lead up to His second coming?

The only logical answer is that provided by the Apostle Paul:

“For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (1st Thessalonians 4:16-17)

As we wade through rivers of blood, our souls callused over by a constant barrage of unspeakable evil, it seems only logical that either judgment is due this old world, or God owes an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah.

The Bible promises “there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing.” (2nd Timothy 4:8)

If His appearing comes at the conclusion of seven years of judgment and death for the Church, then “loving His appearing” is an act of spiritual perfecton that is unfortunately a bit above my paygrade. And Paul’s final words about the Lord’s return for those who are ‘alive and remain’ would seem to make little sense.

“Wherefore, comfort one another with these words.” (1st Thessalonians 4:18)

And the Winner Is. . .

And the Winner Is. . .
Vol: 67 Issue: 21 Saturday, April 21, 2007

“First, a word for our brave American fighting men and women on the battlefield. The war is lost. Your cause is hopeless. Your country has abandoned you. Lay down your arms and go home — while you still can.”

One might be forgiven for thinking I am paraphrasing enemy propagandists Hanoi Hannah, Tokyo Rose or Lord Haw Haw. But I am not. I wish I were.

Instead, it was the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid of Nevada preaching defeat on the battlefield.

“This war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week,” Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters, referring to the US-led security push in Baghdad.

So, the war is lost. If America lost the war, then that means that somebody else won it. And, if the war is lost, who lost it?

Was it America’s armed forces? Was it the Marines? The Army? Was it the British forces in southern Iraq?

Nobody in their right mind would argue that al-Qaeda and the other terrorists are capable of defeating the United States of America on the battlefield. The enemy has been decisively defeated in every single engagement with US forces.

There are no exceptions. There were no battles in which our forces were beaten back or forced to withdraw militarily. Reid’s declaration of defeat in Iraq is analogous to the LAPD chief declaring the war against gang violence a lost cause because there are still gangs roaming the streets of LA.

LA’s street gangs haven’t disbanded, surrendered, joined the LAPD, or given up their criminal behavior. The cops still complain they need more men on the street to combat the gangs, and LA’s citizens still proceed with caution in certain parts of town, and absolutely avoid other parts.

There are parts of LA that even the LAPD hesitates to go without calling for back up before they get there. But the LAPD hasn’t declared defeat. What do you suppose would happen if they did? Would the gangs then disband and go home?

If America has lost the war, then it means that al-Qaeda won it. And they aren’t going to disband and go home, either.

One conservative blogger, Jeff Emmanuel, attempted to make sense of the Left’s argument that Reid’s statement did not ’embolden the enemy’.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid s pronouncement yesterday that the war is lost was made solely to Congress and to the American people, right? I mean, it s not like our enemies actually care or pay attention to what is said by those in leadership positions in our government (such as Bush Lied, US troops are Nazi storm troopers, etc., etc.) right?”

Emanuel, then citing coverage of the story in Al Jazeera and Iranian press , answered himself. Oops.

Assessment:

If America has lost the war in Iraq, yet American forces remain undefeated on the battlefield, then we must return to the question, “Who lost it?” together with the followup question of, “How?”

During the early days of World War II, Germany launched the “Battle of Britain” in which Goering’s Luftwaffe sent wave after wave of heavy bombers across the English Channel to bomb civilian targets.

Why did Hitler concentrate his forces on civilian, rather than military targets? In 1940, Great Britain was dotted with airfields, munitions factories, shipyards and heavy manufacturing, but Hitler’s bombers concentrated their attention on London and other large English cities.

Indeed, the RAF was successful in beating back the Luftwaffe BECAUSE the raids were focused on civilian targets instead of RAF airfields. In all, the Blitz claimed 27,450 civilian lives. Hitler believed breaking the British will to fight was more important than destroying their ability to fight.

Later, when British and American bombers attacked German targets, they also concentrated on civilian targets. The firebombing of Dresden killed more than 35,000 German civilians.

In 1945, as American forces closed in on the island of Japan, it was feared that a US invasion of the home island could result in as many as a million casualties. Instead, the US dropped the world’s first nuclear weapon on Hiroshima, and followed up with a nuclear attack against Nagasaki.

The civilian death toll in those attacks was estimated to top 100,000 civilians. Neither Hiroshima or Nagasaki had any more military value than did London, Coventry or Dresden. Why did all sides expend millions of tons of high explosive ordnance on targets that had no military value?

The answer is simple.

To break the will of the civilian population and destroy their will to fight in the hope that domestic pressure would force the government to surrender. That’s why Hitler bombed London. It is why Dresden and Tokyo were firebombed, and why America dropped the Bomb on Japan.

Militarily, the Germans could have fought on for years, had the will of the people not been broken. So could the Japanese. Both sides could have engaged in guerilla war against the Allies, even after the surrender.

But they didn’t, because their will to fight had been broken. Their losses were too great to sustain. They surrendered unconditionally.

Returning to the question of how America ‘lost’ the war in Iraq, assuming Senator Reid’s assessment is accurate, the answer must be the same. The terrorists have broken America’s will to fight. The enemy has won. But it wasn’t the terrorists who defeated America. It was Harry Reid and Company.

And it wasn’t the carnage inflicted on Americans that defeated America. It was the political ambitions of the Left and its hatred of George Bush and the ‘neocons’. The distinctions between right and wrong have been blurred by the differences between Right and Left.

If Harry Reid is correct, al Qaeda wins. And all our losses and all the sacrifices made by our troops were for nothing. All the post-9/11 yellow ribbons, all the American flags, all the rhetoric and bravado were just a sham.

And all the claims of supporting our troops in harm’s way? A lie. So, if Harry Reid is correct, al Qaeda wins. And may God have mercy on America.

Because al Qaeda won’t.

The European Nationalist Threat

The European Nationalist Threat
Vol: 67 Issue: 20 Friday, April 20, 2007

The various states of the European Union are turning back the clock in a direction some fear will bring Europe back to the ‘bad old days’ of European ultranationalism that produced the likes of Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler and Generalissmo Francisco Franco.

In France, polls show Jean-Marie Le Pen’s platform of “France First” resonates with one in five French voters.

Le Pen preaches a kind of xenophobia not heard since the pre-WWII era. He regularly rails against immigration, France’s role in the European Union, traditional Roman Catholic culture, and the high rate of unemployment in France, which he blames on unrestricted immigration.

Other planks in Le Pen’s platform include immigration restrictions, compulsory military service, and state censorship.

In May 1987 he advocated isolating those infected with HIV (whom he calls “sida ques[12]”) from society by placing them in a special “sidatorium”.

In 2005, he claimed that the occupation of France by Nazi Germany “was not particularly inhumane”.

Last year, he complained that the French World Cup soccer team had “too many colored players” and therefore, “were not an accurate reflection of French society.” Over the years, Le Pen gained widespread popularity among neo-nazis and white nationalists throughout Europe and North America.

A poll published last December by TNS Sofres found that 30% of French voters said they agree with Le Pen’s positions.

Le Pen’s brand of ultra-nationalism is not confined to France, however. In the Netherlands, a powerful nationalist movement sprang up around charismatic Pim Fortuyn before he was assassinated in 2002. Fortuyn championed policies that would reassert the primacy of Dutch culture by demanding citizenship tests, language proficiency and tougher immigration rules. Thanks largely to Fortuyn, the Netherlands adopted both the citizenship tests and a policy of deporting asylum seekers.

Denmark’s “Danish People’s Party” is the third-largest in Denmark’s parliament. Like the French and Dutch, they favor tighter immigration policies, oppose EU encroachments on Danish sovereignty, and oppose multiculturalism in Danish society.

A party spokesman, S ren Krarup, explained that Muslim immigration is a way for Muslims to conquer us, just as they have done 1,400 years past.

In Austria, Joerg Haider has risen to become one of Austria’s most prominent and controversial political leaders. His father was a member of both the Hitler Youth and the Nazi SA (storm troopers) who traveled to Munich with Adolf Eichmann and Alois Brunner in 1933 as a member of the Austrian Legion. His mother was a member of the Nazi Party’s League of German girls.

Haider lives on a 38,000 acre estate he inherited from his parents. The estate had once belonged to Jews — until the 1938 annexation of Austria by Germany.

When asked to comment on his parents’ wartime activities, Haider remarked: “In retrospect one is always wiser. As a descendant, one should not be so arrogant as to say, ‘I would have known better.'”

Haider has a long public record of defending the policies of Nazi Germany and of justifying individual actions during those years. Upon his election to the leadership of the Freedom Party, Haider rejected comparisons with the German Nazi Party, saying “The Freedom Party is not the descendant of the National Socialist Party. If it were, we would have an absolute majority.”

Even Great Britain is beginning to re-examine some of its most treasured liberal policies. Tony Blair campaigned in 2005 on the slogan, “Your country’s borders protected.” Despite Blair’s domestic unpopularity over his country’s support of the US and the Iraq war, that slogan won him re-election.

Blair’s opponents went even further, demanding HIV and tuberculosis tests for prospective immigrants. Blair is now on his way out, and they are in their way in.

In Germany, far-left ultranationalism parties remain on the political fringe, but they hold three legislative seats in what used to be the Communist East. But among the German population, crimes against foreigners, and in particular, Jews, is up by sixteen percent over last year.

Assessment:

The biggest problem facing the EU is that is purports to speak with one voice, but nobody is sure which voice to listen to. Who speaks for Europe?

Is it the French? The Germans? The UK? “Old” Europe? “New” Europe? The European Union? The Western European Union? NATO?

At some point, each claimed they speak for a unified Europe, but each dances to the beat of its own drummer. France speaks for what is best for France. The same goes for the Germans and British.

The EU speaks for Europe’s economic interests. The WEU speaks for Europe’s security interests. And NATO ‘s voice has a distinctly American accent.

The end result is that nobody takes the EU very seriously. Washington seldom holds substantive talks with Brussels, preferring to deal with the French, Germans and British directly. It is easier to negotiate one-on-one than with 27 simultaneous and conflicting voices clamoring to be heard.

One of the EU’s Founding Fathers was Paul-Henri Spaak, former Belgian Prime Minister and President of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe. Speaking nearly fifty years ago, he addressed the very situation that threatens European unity today. Too many voices.

We do not want another committee. We have too many already. What we want is a man of sufficient stature to hold the allegiance of all people, and to lift us out of the economic morass in which we are sinking. Send us such a man and, be he God OR THE DEVIL, we will receive him.

The Bible outlines the same scenario for the last days. Both Daniel and the Apostle John predict a revived form of the Roman Empire will arise in the last days. Daniel identified the antichrist as being a “prince” of the people who would come and destroy Jerusalem and the Temple. (Daniel 9:27)

Six hundred years later, in 70 AD the Roman legions under future Emperor Titus, slaughtered more than a million Jews in Jerusalem, burned the Temple, and dismantled it, brick by brick.

The Roman political Empire collapsed, but its power was temporarily transferred to the Vatican’s spiritual empire. No European king could hope to ascend to his throne without a papal blessing.

It wasn’t until the 20th century that the Vatican’s political influence began to wane, at the same point in history that Europe began restoring its political empire, which still lacks a Ceasar to lead it.

John further confirms Europe’s identification as the final form of world government, describing it as the “city on seven hills” — a geographic feature so indelibly linked to Rome that it is still one of the city’s nicknames to this day.

Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of an image with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, two legs of iron, and feet of clay as being four successive world empires; Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome.

Rome was depicted as two legs of iron. By the third century AD, the Roman Empire had become so large it split into two separate empires at Rome and Constantinople (modern day Ankara).

The ten toes of the image, Daniel described as being ‘iron mixed with clay’ — partly strong, and partly weak — a letter perfect word picture of the modern EU.

“And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.”

But, Daniel said, “in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed . . .” (Daniel 2:42-44)

Daniel also records that, out of this union will arise a ‘little horn’ with “a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows,” whom Daniel identifies as the antichrist.

The EU has but two possible future courses — continue on the one it is on now and crumble under the weight of growing European nationalist sentiments, or united under a single, powerful leader whose charisma can bridge the gap between Europe’s nationalist minority and the surpra-nationalist European Union.

Henri Spaak reflected Europe’s continuing frustration with the lack of a unified central leadership, one so desperate that Spaak joked that even the devil would do.

According to Bible prophecy, the devil is exactly who they are destined to choose.

Something Weird About April

Something Weird About April
Vol: 67 Issue: 19 Thursday, April 19, 2007

I had to break from my morning routine this morning. Usually, I start my workday by surfing the morning’s news programs while I have a couple of cups of coffee and come to.

I sample the local news (wherever I find myself that day) take in the first fifteen minutes of CNN’s Headline News, and then switch over to Fox and Friends at six am.

After I’ve caught up with what is going on in the world, I take it to the Lord and sort out where the OL is headed for that day. That is my usual routine, but not this morning.

This morning, there is evidently nothing going on anywhere on the planet as important as the analysis of the mind of Cho Seung-Hui. Ever since the crazed little gunman sent a publicity package to NBC News, that’s all anybody is talking about.

Every news program featured a snippet of the little monster raving and ranting about something, and every anchor had somebody on right afterwards to psychoanalyze the guy.

I understand why the world would be so curious about what makes a guy like that tick, but it all started to make me a bit sick to my stomach. Instead of my usual hour or so, I turned it off after about ten minutes.

There will be endless analyses of what turned the guy into a crazed killer, with about half of them, I predict, blaming the massacre on the easy availability of guns.

Which, of course, is exactly the wrong answer. The massacre wasn’t the result too many guns — it was the result of there being too few.

Cho Seung-Hui was the only one who had any.

Assessment:

On April 20, 1889, fresh evil came into the world in the person of Adolf Hitler. Fifty-six years later, on April 30, 1945, Hitler’s evil existence came to an end when he shot himself in a bunker outside Berlin.

On April 19, 1943, Nazi storm troopers completed their assignment to “cleanse” the Warsaw Ghetto of its Jewish population. On that day, the Nazis trapped the last of the Jewish resistance fighters in a storm sewer pipe. They used flame-throwers at both ends of the pipe to incinerate them.

In 1733, Sir Isaac Newton took on the task of calculating the date of the first Easter. The Bible says Jesus was crucified on Passover Week which fell on the 14th day of Nisan on the Jewish calendar.

Newton calculated that the most probable date for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was Friday, April 21, AD 34.

On April 30th, 1966, Anton LeVey founded the first Church of Satan, fittingly enough, in San Francisco.

One of the most important dates on the Satanic calendar, (according to Satanist websites) is April 19. It begins a 13 day period of blood sacrifice to the Beast, which ends on Mayday on May 1st.

On April 19, 1993, I was in Washington DC covering a convention called “Card Tech/Secure Tech” for the program, “This Week In Bible Prophecy”. The conference was dedicated to exploring ways to use computer technology to create ‘smart cards’. (We were looking at it in the context of Revelation 13:17-18)

I had just finished interviewing former CIA Director William Colby, who had given the keynote address that kicked off the conference.

There was a TV on in the hotel lobby. On the screen was the now-infamous footage of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, erupting in flames. The Branch Davidians had been engaged in an armed standoff with the FBI for fifty-one days.

Ironically, the siege began when the ATF, concerned over reports of gunfire coming from the compound, had an undercover agent infiltrate the group. The agent reported that the group had over 150 guns on the premises. That was enough to get a warrant under the Clinton administration’s enthusiastic gun confiscation policy. It resulted in the deaths of 83 men, women and children.

On April 19, 1995, I had just finished interviewing Gary Kah for a three-part series entitled, “If You’re Not Paranoid, it’s Because You Aren’t Paying Attention” – also for “This Week in Bible Prophecy.”

I had a television set in my office and, as Gary and I sat chatting, it broke in with a news flash that a bomb had gone off in Oklahoma City.

On April 20, 1999, I was working on the script for Hal’s television program, “The International Intelligence Briefing” when the news broke that two Colorado teenagers had gone on a shooting spree at Columbine High School that claimed the lives of 12 teenagers, a teacher and the shooters, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris.

Today is April 19, 2007. And today’s Omega Letter was prompted by Cho Seung-Hui’s having earned the distinction of being the worst mass murderer in American history.

There’s something weird about April.

Road Tour Update:

As it turns out, April 19th is also Day One of our renewed status of “no fixed address”. We closed up our winter rent house yesterday and will be pulling out today after I finish this column.

There is a problem with the rig’s charging system, so our first stop will be at a Camping World in Spartansburg, SC, where we have a service appointment on Friday. From there, we’ll spend a couple of days in South Carolina at Steve Spillman’s to put the finishing touches on my new book so it can go to press. Our first scheduled stop is in Houston on May 3rd.

You can find out more at the Road Tour Forum at the Omega Letter website, or by contacting our Road Tour Coordinator, Nicole Boedecker through our contact page, located at the “Help and Information” link on the Omega Letter’s link bar on the left side of the main page.

Gas prices are up again this year, and our rig gets about five miles to the gallon. If the Lord leads you to help support our efforts, there is a link on the main page just below the “Help and Information” link; called “OL Road Tour”.

We will be sending out a special Road Tour Daily Journal by email — as well as streaming video from the road — for those members who contribute any amount to help defray road expenses.

We’ve also set up a Member Services toll-free phone number through Vonage for while we are on the road for members having problems with PayPal or those who just don’t feel comfortable using credit cards online.

That number is 866-403-5918. It is toll-free so you will not be charged for the call.

Most of the time, we’ll be on the road, so you’ll have to leave a message. But we will be able to check messages wherever we have an internet connection and return your call when we settle in for the night.

Please pray the Lord will grant us journey mercies. We’ll see you on the road!