In The News:

Of course the news today is dominated by Hurricane Sandy, and the links provided below this post still seem to be the most up-to-date for ongoing news. There are still a few news items worth repeating in the face of watching the aftermath of Sandy:

Let 'Sandy' Remind Us To Pray For All The Nation At Election Time

There may be significant loss of life during storm “Sandy.” Each weak, about 2,300 innocent Americans are murdered in the womb.There will be a great deal of property damage during this storm. Consider the much greater share of property institutionally robbed of Americans, through excessive expenditures, Agenda 21 oriented regulations, Federal Reserve interest, debt repayment to foreign banks, and so many manners of corruption. It all results in a massive robbery of opportunity, for those in need.Let Sandy be a reminder to pray for its potential victims – and for our entire nation, so deeply flooded in it’s many corrupt, thieving, authoritarian ways. These ways are very anti-American. They carry destructive influences to other nations as well as our own. (E.g., the UN, IMF, CFR, Planned Parenthood, etc. are in large part American concoctions, in large part funded by Americans.)Beyond this is the creeping or very potential and impending loss of national sovereignty, to such imperialistic entities – and the potential loss of our Popular Sovereignty, and of Western Civilization, itself.Beyond this is the critical condition of the heart of every present and future American, and the Eternity that is at stake.

The Arab Spring And Israel

The song of the Arab Spring has ended, but the malady lingers on.  Even the most well-intentioned optimist has to acknowledge that the events in the Middle East over the last two years have not succeeded in introducing anything resembling democratic societies or political structures to replace the existing authoritarian regimes.  Those events have not so much reinforced traditional politics in the Arab countries as served to underline the failure of regimes based on secular politics to emerge.  The path to modernity has not been followed; indeed, the reverse has happened, with a greater prominence of religious doctrine and the fragmentation of some of the Arab states.

As a result of the uprisings and violence of the last two years, the Arab Middle East area has witnessed three important developments: an Islamist upsurge and calls for jihad in the name of the glory of Allah, the reassertion of tribalism in a number of countries such as Libya and Yemen, and religious sectarian violence in a number of countries including Syria.  All this is occurring in the context of the demographic factor of the large proportion of youth in Arab societies and the failure to provideemployment or other opportunities for them.
The Islamic upsurge has resulted not in the liberation of Muslims, but rather more restrictions over them. 
Repression has intensified.  The Western world is familiar with the fatwa issued in February 1989 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie, which called for the writer's execution and which has not been withdrawn.  It is perhaps less familiar with the stories of other authors who have been forced to flee Iran in 2012 after calling for artistic and intellectual freedom.
Islamic fundamentalists, especially the extreme Salafists, believe that their doctrine is superior to that of Western democracies and have become increasingly active on the political stage in states such as Egypt, Tunisia, and Iraq.  That extremism stems from religious conviction, not from economic grievances.
 It is a matter of some concern that the Mohammed Morsi, the president of Egypt, has said that the implementation of the 33-year-old Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, and the maintenance of peace, depends on "peace and justice" for the Palestinians.

A Short Guide To The Benghazi Issue: What Is Is Really All About?

There is a debate over the causes of terrorism and anti-Americanism in the world. One possible view is that the principal problem is that of genuine conflict. The adversaries hold certain ideological ideas — say, revolutionary Islamism — to which American society and policies are antithetical. The collision (as with communism, Nazism, and aggressive Japanese militarism in earlier decades) is inevitable. The United States is inconveniencing the totalitarians both because of what it does (policies) and because of what it represents (freedom, democracy, capitalism).

The other view currently dominates among many Western academic “experts,” politicians, mass media, and even governments. That concept is that the hatred is our own fault. We have done things in the past — which require apologies — and are doing things in the present that make people angry at America who otherwise would be friendly.

Thus, in this case, if American facilities are attacked in Cairo and Benghazi it must have been something America did wrong, to wit, an insulting video made by an immigrant from the Middle East about Islam.

Iran Develops Ababit-T, A 2,000-km Range Attack Drone

Manouchehr Manteqi, head of Iran’s aerospace industry, announced that Tehran now had drones capable of flying a distance of 2,000 kilometers – and therefore reaching Israel. Iran plans to store a supply of those advanced models to Lebanon for the use of Hizballah – and not only against Israel but  to extend its range against a whole array of Tehran’s enemies – before flying them back to home base in Iran.

Iranian sources claim that the latest drone was tested in combat conditions In November 2011. A UAV was sent secretly over US Fifth Fleet vessels in the Persian Gulf, collected data and gained valuable experience for its further development.They have now advanced to the planning stages of a spy drone with stealth qualities and a large UAV bomber, cannibalizing technology pirated from the American RQ-170 Sentinel drone they downed on Dec. 4, 2011, buying it from Russia and China and stealing it from the West.

Most of their UAV development program budget is being spent on upgrading their drones’ navigation, transmission and cyber warfare systems.The great progress Iran has made in the past five years in all these fields has been helped along by Iranian students returning home from studies at MIT and other universities in the United States, Britain and Germany.  They are offered attractive salaries to work hard on the goals set before them.

6.6-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes (again) Off Canada West Coast

A strong earthquake struck a largely unpopulated island off Canada's west coast on Monday evening, two days after a much larger earthquake triggered a small tsunami in the Pacific Ocean, seismologists said.
The Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) said the earthquake was felt on the Queen Charlotte Islands, which are also known as Haida Gwaii, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. The USGS estimated some 5,000 people near the epicenter may have felt very light shaking, but said damage was unlikely.

Works And Days

For the longest time, I tried to avoid any mention of politics on the blog, but right now, at such a critical time in U.S. history it is unavoidable. Additionally, it does tie into biblical prophecy, perhaps now more than ever. The reason is - liberalism in the U.S. has moved so severely to the 'left' that the views currently held by the extreme left are entirely consistent with the world-wide totalitarian form of government that the world will see during the Tribulation. To ignore it is almost a form of dishonesty. 

Below is a long introduction to this timely article:

Did California’s redistributive elite really believe that they could all but shut down new gas and oil production, strangle the timber industry, idle irrigated farmland, divert water to the delta smelt, have 37 million people use a highway system designed for 15 million, allow millions of illegal aliens to enter the state without audit, extend free medical programs to 8 million of the most recent 11 million added to the population, up taxes to among the highest in the nation, and host one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients — and not have the present chaos?

The California schools — flooded with students whose first language is not English, staffed by unionized teachers not subject to the consequences of subpar teaching, and plagued with politicized curricula that do not emphasize math, science, and reading and writing comprehension — scarcely rate above those in Mississippi and Alabama. Did liberals, who wanted unions, a new curriculum, and open borders, believe it was good for the state to have a future generation — that will build our power plants, fly our airliners, teach our children, and take out our tumors — that is at the near-bottom in national test scores?

Do Bay Area greens really believe that they that will have sufficient water if they blow up the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir? Did Barack Obama think that the Keystone pipeline or new gas and oil leases in the Gulf were superfluous, or that we do not need oil to make gasoline, wheat to make flour, or to cut timber to produce wood?

Did liberals (and their hand-in-glove employer supporters who wished for cheap labor) think that letting in millions from Central Mexico, most without legality, English, or a high school education (and in some sense at the expense of thousands waiting in line for legal admission with capital, advanced degrees, and technological expertise), was not problematic and that soaring costs in law enforcement, the criminal justice system, the schools, and the health care industries were irrelevant?