In the news:

IAF planes strike Gaza

Israel Air Force aircraft struck four targets in the Gaza Strip on Friday afternoon in response to a series of rockets that hit Israel, one of which left six people injured in Ashdod.

The army said it struck two weapons production facilities, and two other terror targets, one in the north and one in the south of the strip. No injuries were reported. Earlier on Friday, IAF aircraft struck seven Hamas security installations in Gaza, killing at least one Palestinian, in further retaliation for the three-stage terror attack on Thursday.

Ashdod: Rockets from Gaza leave 1 seriously injured

One person was seriously injured and another moderately injured after a Grad rocket fired from Gaza landed in the courtyard of a Yeshiva in Ashdod on Friday morning. Four other people were treated for shock following the attack. All were taken to Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot. An additional Grad that failed to explode subsequently fell in the area and was neutralized by the bomb squad.

Another Attack Near Eilat, Egyptian Soldiers Killed

A suicide bomber struck on Friday morning outside Eilat, near the site of deadly terrorist attacks Thursday. The bomber hit Egyptian soldiers near the border.

The attack caused injuries and fatalities among the Egyptian soldiers. Earlier in the day three Egyptian soldiers were killed by IDF fire as Israeli soldiers chased down terrorists along the border.

10 rockets strike Israel day after coordinated terror attacks kill 8

Less than a day after coordinated terror attacks killed eight Israelis, Palestinian attacks on Israel continue as 10 Grad and Qasasm rockets were fired Friday morning at Ashkelon, Be'er Sheva and Kiryat Gat.

Large contingents of police forces arrived at the scene of the rocket attacks and are on alert for additional missiles. Residents are called to remain in close proximity to bomb shelters.

The Palestinian rocket fire followed an IAF attack on the Gaza Strip overnight which came in response to the coordinated terror attacks on Israel that took place on Thursday afternoon.

Arab Riots in Jerusalem, Police Respond

Dozens of Arab men from Jerusalem managed to break down a police barrier early on Friday afternoon. The incident took place outside the Shechem gate in the Old City.

The night before, a young Arab man was caught with a knife at the Shechem gate. He admitted to planning to stab a police officer, and was arrested.

On Friday morning a group of Arab men attacked police with stones elsewhere in the capital city. The police were unhurt. The attackers were arrested.

Police remain on high alert following a wave of terrorist attacks in southern Israel

Debka has a new analysis up:

Continuous Palestinian missile blitz after Israel bombs 12 terrorist targets in Gaza

Back to the rest of the world. This first article follows yesterday's post on Putin:

Putin 'castrated' democracy in Russia

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has killed off democracy in Russia, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said on Thursday.

Gorbachev, 80, told The Guardian earlier this week that Putin was obstructing President Dmitry Medvedev’s attempts to implement a modernization program.

"The modernization plan put forward by the president in the economy, politics and other spheres is good but the president's possibilities are limited," Gorbachev said. "He's being outplayed and outsmarted by Putin, I see.”

Hurling democracy into the volcano to appease the market gods

The cancer of contempt by European elites for parliamentary accountability, for some two hundred years of the principles of responsible government, is metastisising as the eurozone crisis deepens.

Last Tuesday, Germany’s economy minister, Philipp Roesler, proposed the creation of a new EU 'overseer' that would crack the whip and impose sanctions on countries that do not adhere to rigid budget discipline and pro-business labour policies.

He told reporters that that the bloc should create a new EU institution, a 'stability council', of unelected supervisors that would ensure member states that stick to budget temperance and keep in check debt growth.

The proposal, which Roesler said would be presented at the next meeting of EU finance ministers in September, would set up the Stability Council as ‘independent’ from political influence, like the ECB is (for 'independent', read: unelected), so that it could slap sanctions on countries automatically.

These points above represent just a few tidbits. The conclusions tell the story far better:

Whatever form such emasculation of democracies of their power of fiscal decision making ultimately takes (and, to be clear, fiscal policy comprises everything a government wants to spend money on, from education to healthcare to bridges to space programmes) - a Stability Council, a European Monetary Fund, a super-agency or an EU finance minister -

none of these would be democratically accountable.

It is also clear that EU leaders are now intent on surgically removing fiscal policy from the realm of democracy, even if they haven’t yet quite agreed on how it should happen.

...today, it is the fashion to argue that voters are too stupid to know what is fiscally best for them.

Better to leave such decisions to ‘experts’, ‘technocrats’, who know what the markets demand. But who are these experts? Are they really free from politics and ideology, or are they actually the same pro-free-market supplicants that managed our economies into the worst crisis since the 1930s?

And back in the US, we see similar loss of democracy and subsequent loss of freedom:

This video is definitely worth watching:

Local TV Report: Globalist National Government's Assault on Family Farming

Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot used less sophisticated tactics (resulting in tens of millions of murders, largely by starvation) but did the same thing. Victorian England and its central banking influences treated the Irish in a very similar way.

Free enterprise starts with free agriculture. It must be conquered and subjugated as soon as possible, in any totalitarian revolution for the sake of centrally controlled and kleptocratic rule.

For analysis of this Agenda 21 assault upon American Sovereignty and liberty, including Obama’s Executive Order, see:

If you are interested in these detailed reports, the links are provided in the article.

I found this bit of news very interesting:

Do you wonder why George Soros has been buying heavily into grain elevators with Gavilon and intentionally, “federally” flood ravaged, thus heavily depreciated Missouri River valley farmland, with Ospraie?

And this:

Obama's Plan to Remove Family Farmers from their Land

How will they do it? Let us count the ways.

The part that sends chills up my spine, is the fact that this is exactly what every communist state has done in the early stages of takeover.

Consider the Department of Transportation’s recent announcement of its intention to reclassify farm vehicles and implements as “commercial” vehicles and require all drivers of these vehicles to hold a Commercial Driver’s License.

Applicants for a CDL must be 21 years of age; submit a medical record, a complete driving record from any state in which a license has been obtained; and pass rigorous written and driving tests.

CDL holders must keep a log of their activities available to law enforcement at any time; must not work more than 12 consecutive hours; must carry at least $750,000 in liability insurance; and many more requirements that farmers and ranchers just can’t meet.

This DOT regulation will end farming and ranching as it has always been known in this country.

Farmers and ranchers cannot afford to pay professional CDL holders to come plow the fields, mow the hay, or harvest the corn.

Farmers and ranchers who can no longer make a living from the land will have no choice but to sell their land and move to a “stack-’n'-pack” sustainable community.

The only potential buyers for these farms are corporate agricultural conglomerates, land trusts, or the government.

Since comprehensive land use plans, or other government regulations preclude the possibility of development in the open space, farmers and ranchers will never get the real value of the land.

To add to the hardship on rural families, the Department of Agriculture is still planning to require every farm animal to have an electronic identification ear tag, which will add more costs and bureaucratic red tape to farming and ranching operations.

Go back and read any historical document that describes the early days of communist takeover of any country and you will find these exact same measures, which effectively give the government control over individual property. Every time. And here we are marching right into the same abyss.

First - the government creates a labyrinth of rules and regulations that virtually no one can adhere to, and then they can selectively apply such laws and remove landowners from their property. Communism 101.

Every agency that is a member of the White House Rural Council can, and will, find some regulation that rural land owners must comply with in order to stay on their land. This new Executive Order has but one purpose: to further tighten regulatory control over people in rural communities to ensure that their life-style becomes “sustainable,” or in plain language, government-approved.

We are rapidly headed to a new world. A world that has a single dictator who rules every aspect of man's life and controls every aspect of man's life.

Is it a stretch to envision a world where this dictator requires every individual to receive "Mark of the Beast" in order to have the capability to "but or sell"?

Once again, we are witnessing the road to the Tribulation being paved.

And one more thought to close this post.

The world is only two steps away from the beginning of the Tribulation (excluding the timing of Gog-MaGog and the battles around Isaiah 17/Psalm 83, which could happen at any time):

- The formation of the 10 KIngs (which will somehow evolve from the revived Roman Empire/EU)

- The rise of the antichrist.

Two steps away; thats all that separates an unrepentant world from the Tribulation. "They" are almost there. "We" are not. We have a different fate awaiting us.

For the Church Saints there is another step which will occur prior to the beginning of the Tribulation. You can read about this step in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:50.

That is what we are waiting for and looking for - as directed by Jesus Himself.

The bride and the bridegroom will be reunited soon. What a blessing. What a gift. What a glorious moment that awaits us.