Signs of the Times

[nChrist]

Brothers and Sisters,

The HOLY BIBLE already provides instructions that PREVENT HIV and AIDS 100% of the time. GOD Created us with a NATURAL ORDER and gave us instructions in MORALS. Violating GOD'S NATURAL ORDER and ignoring HIS instructions for MORALS are always a perfect recipe for disaster, suffering of all kinds, or physical death. It really is just this simple!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Christian Quotes 41 - Today, many of us own Bibles, but are we changed
by the truths found there? We are called to read, hear, and obey His
Word. It should cause us to take immediate action to bring our lives
into harmony with God’s desires. -- Marvin Williams

[Shammu]

Ventura County hot spot puzzles experts

A two-acre patch of land north of Fillmore has heated up to 800 degrees, and firefighters and geologists are unsure why.
By Joanna Lin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 5, 2008

Video: The Earth is Heating Up in...

A patch of land in Ventura County's section of Los Padres National Forest where the ground recently heated up to 812 degrees continues to puzzle firefighters and geologists after weeks of monitoring.

"It's a thermal anomaly," said Ron Oatman, spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department.

Firefighters responded to reports of a blaze there a month and a half ago, when observers noticed smoke rising from the parched scrub. But when they arrived, they found no flames.

Firefighters and geologists who have surveyed the area in the Sespe Oil Field are uncertain what's causing the heat, but they do have a theory.

Allen King, a retired geologist with the U.S. Forest Service who went to the site Friday, said the smoking ground is "a normal occurrence" that does not appear to be the result of human activity.

The hot spot is in an area considered to be an active landslide that has shifted for more than 60 years. Several hundred feet below its cracked surface lie pockets of gas, tar and oil.

King said he suspects cracks along the landslide's slope allow oxygen to enter into the earth and hydrocarbon material to "seep out" of the fine-grain shale. The combination can create underground combustion, he said.

King said the depth at which hydrocarbon material can be found "varies tremendously" and that he does not know at what depth the combustion in the oil field is occurring. The 812-degree temperature was measured Friday about a foot below the surface, he said. No other temperature checks have been made since, according to Oatman.

During Friday's visit to the hot spot, smoke rose through five cracks in the ground. From a distance, it looked like "a small, smoldering camp fire," Oatman said. The smoke comes and goes, he said, and fire officials expect it will last until the next heavy rainfall, when water and mud plug the fissures.

The steep, rugged terrain is owned by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and leased by Seneca Resources Corp. The area is gated off from public access and is free of equipment and buildings.

The hot spot is not considered to be a threat to public safety, Oatman said, and the Fire Department is monitoring the area daily.

The 3,000-acre Sespe Oil Field was discovered in 1887 and has since produced about 50 million barrels of oil, said David Christy, spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management. The field contains more than 300 oil wells, 210 of which are active. In January 2007, about 200 to 300 gallons of oil spilled into a nearby creek after a pipe containing a mixture of groundwater and oil burst.

Jeff Kuyper, executive director of Los Padres ForestWatch, said he had not heard of hot spots in the oil field but was concerned about their potential effect on the nearby Sespe Condor Sanctuary and the forest's fire-prone nature.

"It's just a disaster waiting to happen . . . regardless of what the cause is," he said.

Ventura County hot spot puzzles experts

[nChrist]

Thanks for the article Brother Bob!

I've never heard of hot spots like this before, so I find it fascinating. We've had some sink holes fairly near us, and those are also strange. However, the sink holes don't involve heat as far as I know. We had a small one within a block of us and a huge one about 50 miles away about a year ago. POWER beyond man's ability to measure is locked up in GOD'S Creation. I feel certain that GOD holds everything in check, especially considering that any number of things could make natural mankind extinct.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Favorite Bible Quotes 450 - Romans 5:18 Therefore as by the offence of
one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the
righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto
justification of life.

[Shammu]

Thanks for the article Brother Bob!

I've never heard of hot spots like this before, so I find it fascinating. We've had some sink holes fairly near us, and those are also strange. However, the sink holes don't involve heat as far as I know. We had a small one within a block of us and a huge one about 50 miles away about a year ago. POWER beyond man's ability to measure is locked up in GOD'S Creation. I feel certain that GOD holds everything in check, especially considering that any number of things could make natural mankind extinct.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Favorite Bible Quotes 450 - Romans 5:18 Therefore as by the offence of
one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the
righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto
justification of life.

Major changes began to occur about 25-29 million years ago. The oceanic plate that had been subducting beneath the western edge of North America became completely overridden, starting in the south, and the North American and Pacific plates came into direct contact for the first time. Tangential motion and expansion replaced convergent motion as the North American plate began interacting with the Pacific plate. The arrival of the spreading zone associated with the East Pacific Rise produced a substantial amount of stretching and thinning of the crust in eastern California and throughout the Great Basin. Along the coast, the San Andreas Fault system was formed. The region to the west of the fault zone on the Pacific plate began sliding northwestward relative to the area to the east on the North American plate. A block of the continent that includes Santa Barbara was apparently rotated clockwise more than 90o to form the anomalous east-west trending Transverse Ranges. In far northern California and the Pacific Northwest, north of the Mendocino triple junction, convergent motion has continued right up to present times.

Volcanic activity, possibly related to extension and thinning of the crust, became widespread in the Sierra Nevada and Mojave regions around 20 million years ago. Around 10-15 million years ago a series of deep marine basins formed along the coast between Orange County and the San Francisco region. These basins apparently resembled current features in the Gulf of California which is being split open by the spreading zone associated with the East Pacific Rise. Possibly, some were also associated with stretching produced by the rotation of the Transverse Range block. The rocks formed in these basins (the shales of the Monterey Formation) are composed mainly of material derived from marine organisms, rather than terrestrial sediments.

About 5 million years ago mountain-building activity rapidly accelerated, and finally most of the modern mountain ranges were uplifted, including the Sierra Nevada and the large fault-block ranges to the east, the Coast Ranges, the Transverse Ranges, and the Peninsular Ranges. Subduction continued in the north forming the major volcanoes of the Cascades. Only in the last few million years (0.1% of all geologic history) did the California landscape began to resemble what we see today. In many areas the uplift has continued to the present. Other, more recent events which have further shaped the modern landforms have included: waves of Pleistocene glaciation in the Sierra Nevada and, to a minor extent, in the San Bernardino Mountains; recent volcanic eruptions in the Mojave and Great Basin regions; and the widespread volcanic activity that created the southern Cascade volcanoes (Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen) and the lava flows of the Modoc Plateau region.

This is all from my Geology book, though I do disagree with their time scale since the world is only 6,000 thousand years old. What I think we are seeing here, is the beginnings of a new volcano. But this is only my theory. A subduction zone was formed all along the west coast, from Baja California to British Columbia.

[Soldier4Christ]

Fear mark of the beast? State OKs special license
West Virginia drivers receive exemption from requirement to digitally store photo


It's not "666," but it's close enough to the New Testament's "mark of the beast," says a small religious group in West Virginia who has won an exemption from the state's requirement that driver's license photos be stored in a digital database.

Phil Hudok, a high school physics teacher in Randolph County, Pastor Butch Paugh and 12 others raised the issue in 2006 during meetings with Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Joseph Cicchirillo as the state prepared to bring its driver's license policy in line with the federal Real ID Act, passed a year earlier. Under Real ID, states would be required to share information about licensed drivers, including photos, with agencies in other states.

"We see us getting closer and closer to the mark of the beast," Hudok told the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

According to Revelation 16:1-2, those who are found with the mark are the objects of God's wrath:

    Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, "Go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth."

    So the first went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image.

In 1999, WND reported Hudok's fight with the school board over his refusal to wear a photo ID with a bar code that had to remain visible at all times.

Hudok said that his religious beliefs prevented him from wearing the ID because it had a bar code displayed next to his photo. He said that he believed the card was the "mark of the beast" as referred to in the Book of Revelation in the Bible

Although he was given an exemption based on his religious beliefs, he was fired because he would not enforce the rule against students who refused to wear the computer-coded ID.

"I can't do that. How can I possibly ask someone to do something that I can't do myself? They've already given me permission to cut off the bar code, which I did. But they're saying that I have to enforce the students to wear their cards which have bar codes," Hudok at the time.

The school implemented the policy based on federal guidelines for reducing campus violence.

In August 2000, WND reported, the West Virginia State Supreme Court ordered Hudok reinstated with back pay and benefits.

Now, eight years later, without having to go to court, Hudok has succeeded in winning an exemption for those like himself who believe the growing computerization of personal information – in this case, photographs – have spiritual meaning and consequences.

Under the agreement worked out with the DMV, members of Paugh's group will be allowed to have their DMV pictures taken at the Capitol DMV office where a hard copy will be kept on file. The digital version, however, will be deleted from the computer system.

"What these people objected to was the digital image," Cicchirillo said. "All the other information stays there."

Perhaps a sign that Hudok's fellow believers compose a minority in the state, Cicchirillo said he had received few objections to the state's digital-photo requirement.

"Right now, I have three or four people who have requested it for religious reasons," he told the Gazette. "I think what they told me was it had to do with the mark of the beast.

"The only reason we're trying it is these people's religious beliefs and they don't want their pictures stored," he said of the "pilot program."

For Hudok, the digital photographs are "getting closer and closer to the mark of the beast" associated with the arrival of the Antichrist.

"They haven't defined what the limits will be on the Real ID," he said.

According to Hudok, the digital images can be used to establish "unique facial" characteristics that identify people better than their fingerprints.

"My children won't even have yearbook pictures taken," he said, saying that companies taking the images also forward them to the national Amber Alert for storage in the missing children program's database.

[Shammu]

'Syria and Hizbullah gaining strength'
Aug. 12, 2008
JPost.com Staff
THE JERUSALEM POST

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Tuesday that "it is not a coincidence that the IDF is holding intensive drills in the Golan Heights," adding that UNSC Resolution 1701 was not accomplishing what it set out to do.

"Hizbullah has gained significant strength in the last couple of years," said Barak during an IDF Armored Corps drill in the North. "We are closely following a possible violation [of the resolution] caused by the transfer of advanced weapons systems from Syria to Hizbullah. The necessary preparations have been made, and regarding all the rest - I always prefer not to talk, rather to take action when the time comes."

Barak expressed optimism with regards to the IDF's capabilities. "The army is regaining its strength, and coming back to the right morals, carrying out the right exercises and it is our obligation as the government to ensure that the proper means are available to carry out such drills in a correct and intensive manner."

Referring to a proposed budget cut to the Defense Ministry, Barak said: "We live in a country where security and defense consist not just of tanks and planes, but also of fostering excellence and caring for the population through education and social welfare."

Nonetheless, Barak emphasized that "security and defense take precedence over quality of life and in a country such as ours, we do not have the luxury of cutting the defense budget."

The defense minister also addressed the Gaza ceasefire and the strengthening of the group.

"So far, the ceasefire has proved promising," he said. "There have been ten instances where rockets were launched in the past 6 weeks, compared to the hundreds of attacks that occurred in the past. Every week that passes with the ceasefire in place enables us to gain strength and to maximize the possibility or the probability of bringing about the right conditions for the release of [captured IDF soldier] Gilad Schalit.

Barak added that "in the meantime, the government must care for the social and economic infrastructure as well as the preparation of the home front in the Gaza periphery and the surrounding areas.

Concerning the Georgia-Russia conflict, Barak warned against leaving friends during testing times.

"We view Russia as a very important country both on a regional and global scale," he said. "[At the same time,] we see Georgia as a country with which we have friendly relations, and Israel, particularly due to its experience, must ensure that it does not rush to leave its friends at a testing time."

"This is what we have expected from our friends and it is what our friends expect from us," he continued.

Barak's remarks came amid Russian protests over Israeli weapons sales to Georgia.

The defense minister was accompanied on the drill by IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, OC Ground Forces Command Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrahi and other senior IDF officers.

"I am pleased with what I see and think that we are heading in the right direction," said Ashkenazi, adding that "the training and the drills serve to restore the army's readiness to act when necessary. Furthermore, we are talking about a process. There is still work to be done, there are no shortcuts, it is very hard work. I think that people understand this, I think that officers understand this. We are all working hard and use every day to strengthen our capabilities and readiness to execute our tasks."

'Syria and Hizbullah gaining strength'

[Shammu]

Mahmoud Abbas Purveys Anti-Jewish Incitement
22 Av 5768, August 23, '08   
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

(IsraelNN.com) Canadian Member of Parliament Irwin Cotler, a Liberal party representative, has stated that the Palestinian Authority, including its Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, is guilty of purveying hatred of Jews. He also lamented that the official PA incitement is being ignored by Western governments and media outlets.

MP Cotler said that Hamas, with their charter's "genocidal objective, anti-Semitic ideology and terrorist instrumentality," is not alone in its incitement in the PA public sphere. "I'm talking about the Palestinian Authority," said the Mount-Royal MP at a press conference this week. He added that the "culture of incitement" harms not only Israel, the PA Arabs themselves.

Cotler recently returned from a fact-finding mission to Israel, where he also met with PA officials and told them that "hate breeds hate. If you have a culture of incitement and hate, you're going to create a culture of hate that is pervasive in the Palestinian society itself."

Cotler cited several examples of anti-Jewish incitement in the PA. Among the most egregious offenses, he noted, were those promoted by official PA government outlets and officials, as well as by Arab academics.

"People don't realize that Abbas signed a law, on the very day there was a suicide terrorist attack in December 2005 against Israel, providing monthly stipends for the families of suicide bombers. In January 2007, Abbas addressed a large crowd that was estimated as being over 100,000, in which he said 'the sons of Israel are mentioned in the Koran as those who are corrupting humanity on Earth.'"

According to the Canadian MP, "Abbas has never recognized Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state." The official PA media, meanwhile promotes anti-Israeli libels and "breeds hatred and contempt for Jews."

The PA leader's anti-Israel statements and the hatred promoted by his official outlets, Cotler charged, has been judiciously ignored by the West and those involved in promoting Middle East peace. Yet, that incitement, Cotler concluded, is "the greatest threat to a just and lasting peace."

MP Cotler also noted in passing that other parts of the Arab world have bred a similar hatred. The recent ransom agreement between Israel and the Hizbullah, in which the Lebanese terror organization released the bodies of two IDF soldiers it had kidnapped in 2006 in exchange for several terrorists held in Israeli jails, was greeted in Lebanon joyously. In Cotler's view, "Knowing that Israel was in mourning was, tragically, a national day of celebration in Lebanon."

MP Cotler, a former Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General, is currently official Opposition Critic for Human Rights, a member of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Human Rights, and a member of the House of Commons Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

He is also a well-known advocate for the rights of Jews expelled from Arab and Muslim countries in the years following Israel's establishment.

Earlier this month, Cotler said that he was working on a draft legal indictment of Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which he'd like to present to the United Nations on September 22 of this year.  He would like to see Canada, the United States, the U.K., Australia, France and Israel, among others, work together to bring Ahmadinejad to an international court for Iran's domestic human rights abuses, support of international terrorism, and incitement to genocide against Israel.

Mahmoud Abbas Purveys Anti-Jewish Incitement

[Barbara]

Mr. Cotler knows Truth when he sees it - his eyes and ears are open! That's nice to hear someone who's not politically correct but tells TRUTH!

And God said to Abraham, "I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you."

[Barbara]

From Bill Koenig:

Has a shift in the nuclear balance between the U.S. and Russia helped embolden the bear?

- Under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which went into force in 1994, both the U.S. and the USSR made radical cuts in their strategic nuclear arsenals -- that is in weapons of intercontinental range.

- The 2002 Moscow Treaty pushed the numbers down even further, until each sides strategic nuclear umbrella was pocket-size.

- As far back as 1991, the U.S. began to retire all of its nuclear warheads for short-range ballistic missiles, artillery, and antisubmarine warfare. According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, not one of these weapons exists today. The same authoritative publication estimates that the number of tactical warheads in the U.S. arsenal has dwindled from thousands to approximately 500.

- Russia has also reduced the size of its tactical nuclear arsenal, but starting from much higher levels and at a slower pace, leaving it with an estimated 5,000 such devices -- 10 times the number of tactical weapons held by the U.S.
 
- Such a disparity would be one thing if we were conteding with a stable, post-communtist regime moving in the direction of democracy and integration with the West. That was the Russia we anticipated when we began our nuclear build-down. But it is not the Russia we are facing today.

Not only has Russia retained a sizable nuclear arsenal, its military and political leaders regularly engage in aggressive bluster about expanding deployment and possible use , and sometimes they go beyond bluster.

- Six months ago, Russia began sending cruise missile capable Bear H bombers on sallies along the coast of Alaska.

- As recently as July, the newspaper Izvestia floated the idea that Moscow would station nuclear weapons in Cuba if the U.S. went ahead with the deployment of anti-ballistic missile radar in the Czech Republic and interceptors in Poland. Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, chief of Russia's strategic missile command, has openly spoken about aiming nuclear-tipped missiles at those two countries.

- Vladimir Putin has warned Ukraine if it were to join NATO, "Russia will have to point its warheads at Ukranian territory."

- As the Cold War, nuclear weapons are central to the Russian geopolitical calculus. "The weak are not loved and not heard, they are insulted; and when we have parity, they will talk to us in a different way."


These words are not from the dark-days of communist yore. Rather, they were uttered last year by Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, and they perfectly capture the mentality we and Russia's neighbors are up against.   

[HisDaughter]

America's demonization next step in New World Order?
oldthinkernews

After the recent Georgian incursion into South Ossetia, discussion has been rampant regarding America's influence and dominance on the world scene. Some are proclaiming that Russia has laid to rest aspirations for a so called New World Order. From one angle this may appear to be the case, but there is a bigger picture needs to be examined.

The United States is going to - and to a degree already is - be held up as an example of why "global mechanisms" and a "world structure" need to be in place to prevent such actions as the invasion of Iraq and U.S. support of Georgian forces in the invasion of South Ossetia. We've been presented with a problem, now globalist think tanks and organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations will provide us with a solution. National sovereignty has no place in this era, so we're told. We must "share power".

Former President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, has stated that he sees the U.S. led Iraq war as an example of the need for a "new world order" to manage the globe.

"Look at the US in Iraq, everybody was opposed, even their allies, but they did not listen and what happened? They do not know how to get out of it now. Now we understand that... we are all linked to the US and if it falls apart it would be a real collapse. We have to help them to get out of there. That means that cooperation is needed, a new world order is necessary and global mechanisms to manage it."

Turkish President Abdullah Gul has made similar statements recently in response to the Georgia-Russia conflict. As the AFP reports,

"Turkish President Abdullah Gul predicted "a new world order" of joint international action, in an interview published in the U.K. on Saturday. He added that the conflict in Georgia shows the U.S. can no longer shape global politics on its own, and that it should start sharing power with other nations."

The 2008 election gives us an idea of the current trends underway and provides a window into the establishment's long term game-plan. Both Barack Obama and John McCain have openly indicated that globalist policy will be pursued if either of them are elected president.

John McCain discussed his proposed "League of Democracies" at the Hoover institution in May of 2007. McCain stated in part,

"This League of Democracies would not supplant the United Nations or other international organizations. It would complement them. But it would be the one organization where the world's democracies could come together to discuss problems and solutions on the basis of shared principles and a common vision of the future. If I am elected president, I will call a summit of the world's democracies in my first year to seek the views of my democratic counterparts and begin exploring the practical steps necessary to realize this vision."

Barack Obama made his globalist stance known during his highly publicized speech in Berlin on July 24th. He said,

"Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more -- not less. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity."

"In this new world, such dangerous currents have swept along faster than our efforts to contain them. That is why we cannot afford to be divided. No one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone."

The more sophisticated branch of globalist elites who see the route to power through slower, deliberate and incremental steps are now making their move. America's demonization, and in turn its use as an example of the necessity of global governance, may very well be the next stage of the establishment's plan for world government.

[Soldier4Christ]

oldthinkernews is owned and operated by Daniel Taylor who is an ardent supporter of Alex Jones and many other such conspiracy theorists.

The statement quoted in the above article by McCain is taken by itself does sound quite incriminating and seems to be in support of a one world government. When looked at in the context of the entire speech it shows to be a very different idea. The idea that McCain was trying to relay is a group of democratic nations that would be an alternative to the oppressive, power hungry United Nations. The 'League of Democracies' would be "the core of an international order of peace based on freedom". It would leave all nations to be completely sovereign which is unlike the UN that wants all nations to be under their complete control.

"Such a new body, he says, could help relieve suffering in Darfur, fight the AIDS epidemic in Africa, develop better environmental policies, and provide "unimpeded market access" to countries sharing "the values of economic and political freedom."  And, McCain adds, an organization of democracies could pressure tyrants "with or without Moscow's and Beijing's approval" and could "impose sanctions on Iran and thwart its nuclear ambitions" while helping struggling democracies succeed."

The idea is to be a league of nations that defies the UN and those other nations such as Russia and islamic nations that wish to dominate the entire world.

His full speech follows:

"Since the dawn of our republic, Americans have believed our nation was created for a purpose. We were, as Alexander Hamilton said, a people of great destinies.' In the Revolution, the Civil War, in World Wars One and Two, and in the many struggles of the Cold War, our forebears met and overcame threats to our nation's survival and to our way of life. They believed they had a duty to serve a cause greater than their self-interest. They kept faith with the eternal principles of our Declaration of Independence against the evils of despotism, fascism, and totalitarianism. And they changed the world. Democracy was born and then spread across the globe, from North America to Europe to Asia and Latin America, to Africa and the Middle East. Today we stand, grateful, on this foundation of freedom.

"Now it is our generation's turn to build. It is our generation's turn to restore and replenish the faith in our nation and our principles. We have suffered terrible attacks at the hands of a new enemy that relentlessly seeks our destruction. New dangers have arisen, great powers are emerging and seek to shift the international balance of power, and we are in the midst of two wars whose outcome will shape our future. Here at home there is discord and doubt, and our famous optimism as a people has begun to flicker. It must not. Ever since Jamestown, we have displayed courage in the face of adversity. We are a hardy, spirited and steadfast people, a nation of pioneers and inveterate problem solvers. Today, America remains the most attractive of nations, where people the world over wish to visit, study, live, start businesses, invest and look for inspiration in our values and our freedoms. That is why I believe we are about to enter our greatest and proudest years as a nation.

"Our great president, Harry Truman once said of America, God has created us and brought us to our present position of power and strength for some great purpose.' In his time, that great purpose was to erect structures of peace and prosperity that could provide safe passage through the Cold War. Today, we face new dangers and new opportunities and we must have a new common mission: To build an enduring global peace, and to build it upon the foundations of freedom, opportunity, prosperity and hope.

"There is so much promise in today's world. We live in an era of unprecedented human progress. An increasingly global commerce is spreading a better and freer life to millions. Our scientists and physicians are eradicating diseases that once ravaged populations. More people live under democracy than at any time in human history. More than ever before, a father and mother can pass on to their children a happier, healthier, longer, and freer life than they themselves knew. Yet as we seize and expand these opportunities, we must recognize the dangers posed by the forces of terrorism and tyranny that look backward into a world of darkness and violence. With our democratic friends and allies around the world, we need to build a new global order of peace, a peace that can last not just for a decade but for a century, where the dangers and threats we face diminish, and where human progress reaches new heights. "

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

"Almost two centuries ago James Madison declared that the great struggle of the Epoch' was between liberty and despotism.' Many thought that this struggle ended with the Cold War, but it didn't. It took on new guises, such as the modern terrorist network, an enemy of progress that has turned our technological advances to its own use, and in rulers trying to rebuild 19th-century autocracies in a 21st century world. Today the talk is of the war on terror, a war in which we must succeed. But the war on terror cannot be the only organizing principle of American foreign policy. International terrorists capable of inflicting mass destruction are a new phenomenon. But what they seek and what they stand for are as old as time. They comprise part of worldwide political, economic, and philosophical struggle between the future and the past, between progress and reaction, and between liberty and despotism. Upon the outcome of that struggle depends our security, our prosperity, and our democratic way of life.

"Democracy and freedom continue to flourish around the world, but there have been some discouraging trends. In China, despite miraculous economic growth and a higher standard of living for many millions of Chinese, hopes for an accompanying political reform have diminished. The ruling party seems determined to dominate political life, and as in the past, the talk is of order, not democracy, the supremacy of the party not of the people. China astonishes the world with its economic and technological modernization, but then spends billions trying to control that great icon of the modern era, the internet. China recognizes its vital interest in economic integration with the democratic world. But it has also joined Russia in hindering international efforts to put pressure on dictators in Iran, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma, and other pariah states. China expresses its desire for a stable peace in East Asia, but it contin ues to increase its military might, fostering distrust and concerns in the region about Beijing's ambitions. We must insist that China use its newfound power responsibly at home and abroad.

"A decade ago, the great Russian people had thrown off communist tyranny and seemed determined to build democracy and a free market and to join the West. Today, Russia looks more and more like some 19th-century autocracy, marked by diminishing political freedoms, shadowy intrigue, and mysterious assassinations. Beyond its borders Moscow has tried to expand its influence over its neighbors in Eastern, Central and even Western Europe. While the more democratic Russia of the 1990s sought to deepen its ties with Europe and America, today a more authoritarian Moscow manipulates Europe's dependence on Russian oil and gas to compel silence and obedience, and to try to drive a wedge between Europe and the United States. The Russian government is even more brutal toward the young democracies on its periphery, threatening them with trade embargoes and worse if they move too close to the West. It supports separatist mov ements in Georgia and Moldova and openly intervened in Ukraine's presidential elections. And it is supplying weapons to Iran, Syria, and indirectly to Hezbollah.

"But if some in Russia yearn to turn the clock back two decades, the zealots of Islamic radicalism would turn it back centuries. The mullahs of Iran and the leaders of Al Qaeda and Hezbollah want to cleanse the Muslim world of modernity and the ideals of the Enlightenment, and return it to an imagined past of theological purity. They state their goal plainly: a universal Islamic theocracy, a new Caliphate across all the lands once dominated by Islam, including the lands held in Europe centuries ago. Meanwhile, Mideast autocracies fuel this radicalism by denying their people political expression, economic opportunity or hope for a better future.

"These governments differ from one another in a thousand ways, and our policies toward them must reflect those differences. Our national interests require that we pursue economic and strategic cooperation with China and Russia, that we support Egypt and Saudi Arabia's role as peacemakers in the Middle East, and that we work with Pakistan to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But our national interests also require that we continually press for progress.

"We have seen how autocratic governments often work against our interests. Iran is able to aggressively pursue nuclear weapons and hegemony in the Persian Gulf, in part, because it has been shielded by the world's powerful autocracies. North Korea defies the international community with its nuclear weapons and missile programs and an obscene human rights record. Last month, North Korea unsurprisingly missed the first deadline in the most recent nuclear agreement and it remains to be seen if China will use its enormous influence to demand better behavior.

"The path to an enduring peace lies in a clear-eyed pursuit of our national interest that does not accede to autocratic trends. We must expand the power and reach of democracy, freedom, and human rights using our many strengths as a free people. But that means making some substantial changes in how we do business. Change must begin at home.

"Back in 1947, just a year into the Cold War, the Truman administration launched a massive overhaul of the nation's foreign policy, defense, and intelligence agencies to meet new challenges. Today, we must do the same to meet the challenges of the 21st century. I will have much more to say about this in the future but our needs are clear in the organization, skills, and capabilities needed to prevail in the conflict with violent extremists: an intelligence community that is able to collect and analyze information on and conduct operations against our enemies; a public diplomacy effort that makes our case to the world effectively; a diplomatic corps that understands stability' does not mean supporting dictatorships; foreign aid programs that foster good governance; generals that understand and learn from past wars and apply those lessons to the future; defense procurement that is transparent, accountable and e ffective; and civilian defense leadership that is held accountable for results and provides the resources necessary to achieve results. We must never again launch a military operation with too few troops to complete the mission and build a secure, stable, and democratic peace. When we fight a war, we must fight to win.

"We cannot build an enduring peace based on freedom by ourselves. Nor do we want to. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed our duty to pay decent respect to the opinions of mankind.' When I think back to the 1980s, the decade of triumph in the Cold War, I think about our great alliances. Reagan, Thatcher, Kohl, Mitterrand, Nakasone they were all strong leaders who jealously guarded the interests of their peoples. But they linked arms against communist tyranny.

"Today we need to revive that vital democratic solidarity. We need to renew the terms of our partnership and strike a new grand bargain for the future. We Americans must be willing to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies. Like all other nations, we reserve the sovereign right to defend our vital national security when and how we deem necessary. But our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom, knowledge and resources necessary to succeed. When we believe international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we must work to persuade our democratic friends and allies that we are right. But in return, we must be willing to be persuaded by them. To be a good leader, America must be a good ally."

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

"Our partners must be good allies, too. They must have the will and the ability to act in the common defense of freedom, democracy, and economic prosperity. They must spend the money necessary to build effective militaries that can train and fight alongside ours. They must help us deliver aid to those in need and encourage good governance in fragile states. They must face the threats of our world squarely and not evade their global responsibilities. And they must put an end to the mindless anti-Americanism that today mars international discourse. No alliance can work unless all its members share a basic faith in one another and accept an equal share of the responsibility to build a peace based on freedom.

"If we strike this new bargain and renew our transatlantic solidarity, I believe we must then take the next step and expand the circle of our democratic community. As we speak, American soldiers are serving in Afghanistan alongside British, Canadian, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Polish, and Lithuanian soldiers from the NATO alliance. They are also serving alongside forces from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea --all democratic allies or close partners of the United States. But they are not all part of a common structure. They don't work together systematically or meet regularly to develop diplomatic and economic strategies to meet their common problems. The 21st century world no longer divides neatly into geographic regions. Organizations and partnerships must be as international as the challenges we confront.

"The NATO alliance has begun to deal with this gap by promoting global partnerships between current members of the alliance and the other great democracies in Asia and elsewhere. We should go further and start bringing democratic peoples and nations from around the world into one common organization, a worldwide League of Democracies. This would not be like the universal-membership and failed League of Nations' of Woodrow Wilson but much more like what Theodore Roosevelt envisioned: like-minded nations working together in the cause of peace. The new League of Democracies would form the core of an international order of peace based on freedom. It could act where the UN fails to act, to relieve human suffering in places like Darfur. It could join to fight the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa and fashion better policies to confront the crisis of our environment. It could provide unimpeded market access to t hose who share the values of economic and political freedom, an advantage no state-based system could attain. It could bring concerted pressure to bear on tyrants in Burma or Zimbabwe, with or without Moscow's and Beijing's approval. It could unite to impose sanctions on Iran and thwart its nuclear ambitions. It could provide support to struggling democracies in Ukraine and Serbia and help countries like Thailand back on the path to democracy.

"This League of Democracies would not supplant the United Nations or other international organizations. It would complement them. But it would be the one organization where the world's democracies could come together to discuss problems and solutions on the basis of shared principles and a common vision of the future. If I am elected president, I will call a summit of the world's democracies in my first year to seek the views of my democratic counterparts and begin exploring the practical steps necessary to realize this vision.

"Americans should lead this effort, as we did sixty years ago in founding NATO. But if we are to lead responsibly, our friends and allies must see us as responsible nation, concerned not only about our own well-being but about the health of the world's economy and the future of our planet.

"Throughout the Cold War, America's support for a global economic system based on free trade and free flows of capital went hand-in-hand with our support of political freedom and democracy. To build a new era of peace based on freedom, we have to work even harder through our economic and trade policies to encourage open societies and create a climate of opportunity and hope. Our economic strategies in the Middle East must complement our political strategies by supporting modernizers who want to improve the lives of their people against those radicals and autocrats who would impoverish them. In Latin America and Africa, we need to support those who favor open economies and democratic government against populist demagogues who are dragging their nations back to the failed socialist policies of the past. In Asia we need to show that growing democratic economies can do more for the average man and woman and less for corrupt senior officials than growing economies in a one-party state.

"Americans are the most generous and caring people in the world. No one has sacrificed more in lives and treasure to save the world from tyranny. No nation spends more in combined public and private philanthropic efforts to combat disease and poverty around the world. And no one works harder to ensure the continued health and vitality of the global economy.

"Still, there is more we can do. To be successful international leaders, we need to be good international citizens. This means upholding and strengthening international laws and norms, including the laws of war. We must champion the Geneva Conventions, and we must fulfill the letter and the spirit of our international obligations. It is profoundly in our interest to do so, since our failure to abide by these rules puts our own soldiers at risk. Our moral standing in the world requires that we respect what are, after all, American principles of justice. Our values will always triumph in any war of ideas, and we can't let failings like prisoner abuse tarnish our image. If we are model citizens of the world, more people around the world will look to us as a model.

"When our nation was founded over two hundred years ago, we were the world's only democratic republic. Today, there are more than 100 electoral democracies spread all across the globe. We must reaffirm our faith in the principles that our founders declared to be universal, that all people are created equal and possess inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We fought a Revolution, a Civil War, two world wars, and a cold war to vindicate these principles and ensure that freedom could be enjoyed, as Abraham Lincoln promised, by all people of all colors everywhere.' We were right to struggle for democracy then, and we are right to do so now.

"This is not idealism, my friends. It is the truest kind of realism. Today as in the past, our interests are inextricably linked to the global progress of our ideals. The vision of a new era of enduring peace based on freedom is not a Republican vision. It is not a Democratic vision. It is an American vision. The American people have known instinctively for two centuries that we are safer when the world is more democratic. Whatever our differences, we all share the same goal: a world of peace and freedom, of prosperity and opportunity, of hope. We have a duty to ourselves to be true to those beliefs, to use our great power wisely on behalf of freedom. As Ronald Reagan proclaimed in his speech to the British Parliament in 1982, Let us go to our strength. Let us offer hope. Let us tell the world that a new age is not only possible but probable.'"

[Shammu]

Africa's 'king of kings'  Gaddafi
29 August 2008

A meeting of more than 200 African kings and traditional rulers has bestowed the title "king of kings" on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The rulers, wearing gold crowns, sequined capes and colourful robes met in the Libyan town of Benghazi in what was billed as a first of its kind.

Col Gaddafi urged the royals to join his campaign for African unity.

Africa's political leaders are lukewarm about his vision of merging their powers to create a single government.

"We want an African military to defend Africa, we want a single African currency, we want one African passport to travel within Africa," Col Gaddafi told the assembled dignitaries, who come from countries such as Mozambique, South Africa, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The BBC's Rana Jawad in the Mediterranean town of Benghazi says Libya's leader wants them to create a grass-roots movement to press Africa's political leaders to sign up to his vision.

Sheikh Abdilmajid from Tanzania told the BBC that the traditional rulers could play an important role.

"The people believe in the chiefs and kings more than they believe in their governments," he said.

Africa's 'king of kings'  Gaddafi

[Shammu]

Gaddafi is such a DOOFUS!!

If he doesn't repent and confess to Christ as Savior and Lord, he's going to be in for a shock one day. In fact, I believe that there's going to be alot of people in for a shock one day.

A meeting of more than 200 African kings and traditional rulers has bestowed the title "king of kings" on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

There is only one KING of KINGS!! That is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!!