World War III Has Started

Israeli Leaders Must Understand Broad Implications Of North Korean Nuke Test

One needs to be deaf, blind, and an idiot at this time in order not to understand that the nuclear bomb tested in North Korea two days ago also exploded in the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.

The North Koreans blatantly disregarded the Americans and publicly presented them as a meaningless power, yet officials in Jerusalem are still reciting the “Road Map” and making note of the evacuation of some minor West Bank outpost.

The world is changing before our eyes, yet here we see Knesset members earnestly explaining that the Americans will agree that we stay in Judea and Samaria if we only evacuate some tin shacks.

Two days ago, in North Korea, World War III officially got underway – the war that would pit “crazy” states such as North Korea and Iran, for example, against states we shall characterize as “moderate,” including Egypt, Gulf states, and Saudi Arabia, which at this time leads the Arab initiative for peace with Israel.

Ever since Sunday, the world has gone crazy, and this crazy world is monitoring with horror the struggle between the “moderate” and “crazy” states. The problem is that some of those crazy states – Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea – already have, or will have, a nuclear button to push, while the moderates, headed by the United States, are not eager to rush into battle.

Why? Because America is already entangled in wars, and there was someone who recently won the presidential elections there, among other reasons because he pledged to remove US troops from the Iraqi and Afghani quagmire. That same president promised that we shall live in a world free of nuclear weapons. Remember that?

A Gordian knot

This is the same North Korea that spat in America’s face three years ago, and this week it did it again. Based on the reactions in Washington (unless they are part of a deception campaign,) it doesn’t appear that the great America will respond. Now all we need is for Iran to blatantly disregard America and Israel in order to prompt us to slide into real emergency turmoil (as opposed to the drill planned for the coming days.)

Iran is here already. There is a direct and intimate link between the Korean bomb and the planned Iranian bomb; between Iran’s and North Korea’s spit in America’s face, Washington’s desire and ability to lead the fight against the crazy world, and the Israeli government’s conduct.

One does not need to be a supporter or rival of the settlement enterprise in the territories to understand this Gordian knot – and the question is whether we want the American sword to undo it for us.

If the answer is positive, we need to be familiar with the Americans to realize that three tin huts removed from the Maoz Ester outpost are not good enough.

By Eitan Haber

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3722339,00.html

Are Women Born This Way? So Talkative!

Abolish The Marriage License

Who needs the government to be involved?

Following the California Supreme Court’s decision this week to uphold a ban on gay marriage, the U.S. looks headed into a long, resource-sucking legal slog over whether same-sex couples may marry. Here’s an idea that could end the debate once and for all, and trim government spending to boot: Get government out of the marriage business altogether.

Currently in all but four states, a gay couple may not walk into city hall and demand the same right granted every day to drunks, madmen and teenagers: a government-licensed marriage. For anyone who believes that citizens should be treated equally under the law, this is a problem.

If states stop marrying people, they stop discriminating. At the same time, social conservatives score a coup: They no longer have to witness same-sex couples getting government approval for use of the word “marriage.” (There seems to be an irony here on both sides: Hands-off-our-religion conservatives and stick-it-to-the-man liberals are both obsessed with having the state’s OK.)

What about heterosexual marriage, you might ask? Well, the religious faithful could still get married in their houses of worship. Same-sex marriage advocates are not, after all, trying to force churches to expand their definition of marriage. Indeed, the U.S. tolerates all sorts of discriminatory practices in the name of religious freedom: You may pull kids from public schools and send them to a madrassah, ordain only men and not women, or even live in de facto polygamy. (Bans on polygamy are not well-enforced.) Americans hold freedom of religion in such regard that if you want to, say, rob banks, you’d do well to consider founding a bank-robbing religion.

As for the rest of us, no one is stopping us from throwing a party to declare undying love. Gay couples have been having commitment ceremonies for decades, celebrations that might look familiar to 18th century Britons. Until England’s 1753 Marriage Act, a marriage was recognized as legal if both parties had simply declared their consent. Afterward, more hoop-jumping was required, in the form of licenses and public announcements, and the state declared that liaisons outside its new rules were null. One benefit to the gentlemen who passed the law was that no women they might have impregnated following careless promises could now come around demanding child support.

Today, marriage licenses represent a different kind of government self-interest: They are, in effect, a tax. In Minnesota, the state legislature-set price for a marriage license is a rapacious $110. (Less, though, if you undergo “premarital education.”)

Abolishing state marriage would raise a number of questions of the who-gets-what-when variety. Throughout much of history, marriage was a business contract, and though we eschew that notion in our romantic times, money is still pretty much what the legal paperwork is about: Who inherits, who gets dental benefits, who gets what when a relationship is dissolved.

These things, though, aren’t that hard to work out. We already legally recognize next of kin, and write wills to determine inheritance. It wouldn’t be a huge leap to allow every person to declare a benefits-receiving partner of his or her choice–who could be a romantic partner, an elderly relative or an ailing friend.

This sort of arrangement might become, in effect, a one-size-fits-all nationwide civil union status, without the specter of the “marriage” appellation that gets some people’s bridal veils in such a twist. We could close marriage licensing offices nationwide and put an end to bruising legal wars. We could put a parasitic army of pre-nuptial and divorce lawyers out of business, though the wedding industry itself would probably survive. It doesn’t matter what you call it or what the government says: The desire to mate will find a way.

Elisabeth Eaves is a deputy editor at Forbes.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/28/abolish-marriage-license-opinions-columnists-same-sex.html

Memorial Day

Battle Hymn of the Republic

Dr. John Hosler holds two undergraduate degrees in Bible and Pastoral Studies and a B.S. in History from Martin University; an M.A. in History/Political Science from Butler University; and has earned an M.Div. and Th.D from Trinity Theological Seminary. He has served as an adjunct college instructor and full-time pastor since his early twenties. His two greatest academic passions are the clarity of the gospel and the sole authority of Scripture for faith and doctrine. Pastor Hosler, along with his wife Susan, have served at Napier Parkview since October 2002, and came to us from ministries in Chattanooga, TN and Indianapolis, IN.

Here is Pastor Hosler’s article:

Battle Hymn of the Republic, Examined – Or – Should Christians Sing What They Don’t Believe Just Because It Is An Old Hymn? — By Pastor J. O. Hosler, Th.D.

1. Do we believe that the American Civil War was the Second Coming of Christ and the Battle of Armageddon?
2. Do we believe that the evening campfires of the Union soldiers were actual altars to Jesus Christ?
3. Do we believe that the Civil War was the “Day of the Lord” prophesied in Scripture?
4. Do we believe that we receive the grace of God only to the extent that we brandish literal swords against the enemies of God?
5. Do we believe that Gen. 3:15 speaks of the Messiah or of soldiers in the Union Army?
6. Do we believe that answering the call to serve in the Armed Forces will enable us to avoid condemnation at the Judgment Seat of God?
7. Does Christ’s death on the cross inspire us to preach the gospel or to take up literal swords in a holy Jihad and die for the cause of political freedom?

These are questions we need to ask when we sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Introduction: When patriotic holidays approach, a favorite song will be one that challenges sound Bible doctrine. It is not a rap song about violence or perverted sex. It will be a so-called Christian anthem known as the Battle Hymn of the Republic. This song will hold a prominent position in nationalistic celebrations and Christian services. Many Christians understand its stirring words to be an image of a victorious Church dominating the world and bringing in the Kingdom of God (post millennialism). But let us take a closer reading of the song.

I. A hymn is a song which incorporates theological truth into its text such as A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, Great Is Thy Faithfulness and How Firm A Foundation. But the Battle Hymn is not about Christ marching against sin or the church being victorious over evil.

A. The Battle Hymn was written in the fall of 1861. While in Washington, D.C. with her husband, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe watched troops marching off to war singing John Brown’s Body and she determined to write a more inspiring war song. The Atlantic Monthly paid her five dollars for the song.

B. She was born into a prominent New York City family in 1819, a strict Episcopalian Calvinist home. Her mother died when she was young and she was raised by an aunt. When her father died, a more liberal minded uncle became her guardian. This caused her to grow more liberal religiously and socially.

1. Thus, in her younger years she rebelled against her parents’ strong Calvinism but ultimately married a Boston reformer, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe. He had become a radical Unitarian who had moved far from the Calvinism of New England. She adopted his tenants of Transcendentalism, then Unitarianism, and it was from these beliefs that the Battle Hymn was written. She believed that religion was a matter of deed, not creed

1. The Transcendentalists became the core of the radical abolitionist movement. Many Baptists in the North were part of a less radical abolitionism.

1. Dr. Howe and their Boston pastor, Rev. Theodore Parker, were members of the Secret Six who financed and armed the anti-slavery terrorist John Brown. Rev Parker often wrote his sermons with a handgun on his desk, ready if necessary to defend the runaway slaves hiding in his cellar

2. After his murderous rampage in Kansas and at Harper’s Ferry, Mrs. Howe lamented, John Brown’s death will be holy and glorious. John Brown will glorify the gallows like Jesus glorified the cross.

II. The Battle Hymn of the Republic can only be understood within the framework of the Transcendental-Unitarian creed. The First verse reads: Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on.

Mrs. Howe applied the apocalyptic judgment of Revelation 14:17-20; 19:15 to the Confederate nation. She pictured the Union army not only as that instrument which would cause Southern blood to flow out upon the earth, but also the Union army as the very expression of His Word [sword] itself.

The Transcendentalist-Unitarians believed that the evil in man could be rooted out by government action. The South was evil and was thus deserving judgment of the most extreme nature-its own Armageddon.

III. The second verse presents the Union army as the abode of their vengeful God: I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps. His day is marching on.

A. The third verse is so contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ that many hymnals leave it out altogether: I have read the fiery gospel writ in the burnished rows of steel. As ye deal with My contempters, so with you My grace shall deal; Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel. Since God is marching on.

1. Mrs. Howe proclaimed a gospel of judgment pictured by rows of affixed bayonets.

2. Taking God’s promise of deliverance of Genesis 3:15, instead of applying it to Christ, she applied it to the Union soldier who would receive God’s grace by killing Southerners. This was a different gospel and yet the Apostle Paul said, But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed (Gal. 1:8).

IV. Verse four returns to the prose of the Apocalypse with trumpet and judgment seat imagery: He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never sound retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat. O be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.

Civil warfare was the instrument being promoted for determining the hearts of men. A man’s positive response to the call for enlistment in the Union army was the action which would reveal their standing before God.

V. The fifth and final verse gives the ultimate expression of an unbiblical theology proposed by radical abolitionists: In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me. As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.

To Julia Ward Howe, the work of Christ was incomplete. It was up to men through civil government to bring about a utopian society.

She was quoted in her biography, “Not until the Civil War did I officially join the Unitarian church and accept the fact the Christ was merely a great teacher with no higher claim to preeminence in wisdom, goodness, and power than any other man.”

VI. The Battle Hymn theme is a political-patriotic song about the destruction of the South, written in religious terminology.

A. Mrs. Howe created the idea that the North was doing God’s work and paints a picture of a vengeful God destroying His enemies-the South, and elevating the North’s cause to that of a Holy War. In doing so, Howe portrayed the South and its people as evil and the enemy of God and it worked.

B. As a Unitarian, Julia Howe believed the Unitarian doctrine that man is characteristically good and that he can redeem himself by his own merits without any help from a savior who is God incarnate. She rejected a literal hell when she said: I threw away, once and forever, the thought of the terrible hell which appears to me impossible.

C. She also rejected the exclusive claim of Jesus, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me (John 14:6) when she said, Having rejected the exclusive doctrine that made Christianity and special forms of it the only way of spiritual redemption, I now accept the belief that not only Christians but all human beings, no matter what their religion, are capable of redemption. Christianity was but one of God’s plans for bringing all of humanity to a state of ultimate perfection.

Conclusion: The Battle Hymn would be more appropriate to inspire a Moslem to engage in an Islamic Jihad rather than to encourage Christians to take up arms to spread the cause of Christ.

To visit Pastor John Hosler’s Church web site at — http://www.napierchurch.org

Those who know Mrs Howe’s theology and what she meant when she penned those words usually don’t let this song be sung in their churches

http://biblicalperspectives.deanbible.org/?p=421#more-421

Survival Of The Fittest (Not Just For White Right-Wingers Anymore)

Fernando Antonio Salguero grew up with his sister and mom in “a community of junkies and thieves” in a series of squats in Kensington. The worst year, he says, was 1985. Salguero is certain of this because it was the same year that Mayor Wilson Goode dropped a bomb on the West Philly building containing members of the radical group MOVE, killing six adults and five children. Salguero watched the bombing on a neighbor’s TV.

Salguero was 11 years old. This was also the year he, his mom and his younger sister learned to survive on the five gallons of water a day that dripped from the faucet of the abandoned building where they squatted.

He says he’s still haunted by the memories of going to school “not being able to shower properly, in clothes that weren’t clean. The unbound contempt of other kids.”

But those aren’t his only childhood memories. Some of Salguero’s youth was spent on various military bases with his dad, an Air Force chief master sergeant who helped “design the trigger and release mechanism devices for nuclear weapons.”

There was probably no way Salguero was going to grow up to be boring. When he hit adulthood he studied Native American shamanism and became a survivalist. He got jobs working for environmental nonprofits, including as a door-to-door organizer for Ralph Nader’s Clean Water Action Project.

These days the bespectacled, stocky guy rocks a black goatee and earns his living selling water and air purification and filtration systems. It’s a subject Salguero is more than a little passionate about. But it’s not the only topic that excites him.

Google his name and you’ll find his footprints all over websites aimed at the dissatisfied and the suspicious, from moveon.org to the 9/11 Truth Movement.

Given his early contact with both Third World living conditions and some of the more mundane aspects of nuclear warfare, it’s not surprising that Salguero isn’t convinced that civilization in its current form is going to continue for much longer. He believes that a cataclysm will occur and that with the exception of himself, his loved ones and those he teaches, his species is horribly unprepared. When megamillion death comes a-courting it could be in one of any of a thousand guises, and Salguero is familiar with all the major suspects.

Years ago, the survivalist, or the man carrying the banner reading, “THE END IS NIGH,” might have been dismissed as an eccentric. But what is surprising is the increasing number of Philadelphians who’ve come to share his fears. In December 2008 Salguero set up the survivalist meet-up group Survive and Thrive, which, as it proudly boasts on its website, is “open to all faiths, beliefs and lifestyles. BAR NONE.”

Survive and Thrive, says Salguero, is for people who, like him, “don’t fit the Confederate flag-hat-wearing, baccy-chewing, racism-spewing stereotype.”

“This is not a stereotypical all-male, all-God-and-guns survivalist group. Atheist, Muslim, Jew, LGBT, women, immigrants—all are welcome.”

By February 2009 the group had 44 members, many of them professionals, some of them liberal, “gay, straight, black, white,” says Salguero. “No more than a handful are the white, male Christian Republicans you’d maybe expect.”

But don’t go mistaking Survive and Thrive for some sort of postapocalyptic bunny-hugging commune in the making. As the website emphasizes: “This is NOT a group that plans to work together in the event of a meltdown, but rather a group of individuals focused on SELF-PRESERVATION AND CARE OF OUR LOVED ONES.” Today the group has 81 “prepared members.”

In other words, no matter how nice and liberal Salguero might seem on first acquaintance—especially when compared to the (often blatantly racist) old-school survivalists—you do not want to be caught sniffing around his tomato vines after The End of the World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI) unless you’re looking for an ass full of buckshot.

Those turning up to Survive and Thrive looking for advice and information about practical cannibalism, ninja-stalking tactics or how to turn a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun (all information that’s out there on the survivalist Web) are likely to be disappointed. So far, Survive and Thrive meetings have been about post-disaster medicine, cooking, gardening and water purification. The next meeting, says Salguero, is likely to focus on health issues “like how to create a safe room and how to dispose of a corpse.” The meeting after that – Survive and Thrive’s eighth – may tackle guns and all that good stuff.

Salguero says we’re dealing with a new breed of survivalist here. Educated, multicultural, often professional—far removed from the monocultural camo-clad gun nuts of the Cold War era.

To read the rest of this article go to Survival Of The Fittest

Survivalists Stock Up Ready For The Worst

Lloyd Hughes isn’t particularly worried about swine flu. If the Government declares a pandemic, the 63-year-old truck driver will simply bunker down with his wife, three teenage children and their 200 cans of tomatoes.

“We’ve also got 250 kilograms of rice, 25 litres of olive oil and loads of flour, plus toilet paper and toothpaste,” Mr Hughes, who lives in the Upper Hunter region, said. “It’s about a year’s worth. And if I have to keep the kids at home, I will.”

Like many survivalists, Mr Hughes also has “an extensive supply” of over-the-counter medicines: ibuprofen, aspirin, paracetamol, antiseptic creams – everything except Tamiflu.

“Tamiflu won’t work with swine fever. It only addresses the symptoms. What you really got to do is keep to yourself and avoid crowded areas.”

News of swine fever has been manna from heaven for survivalists, with the outbreak dominating websites both in Australia and overseas. The US website Glock Talk urged visitors to monitor schools for outbreaks and to “Be vigilant! Be prepared!”

Members of the Aussurvivalist website debated the merits of gas masks versus vaccinations in between conjecture on “kill rates” and disease distribution. “It doesn’t really matter what the percentage death rate is,” writes Brian, “when you are talking millions/billions of people the death toll will be high.”

Many survivalists feel vindicated by swine flu, according to Simon Beer, founder of survival.org.au. “There’s a fair bit of ‘I told you so,’ ” Mr Beer says. “But it’s nothing compared to how survivalists will feel in a few years’ time when society collapses completely.”

Mr Beer believes the “whole thing is a bit of a beat-up”, but has posted some advice on his site nonetheless in a section entitled “Swine Flu Survival – Surviving the Pandemic”.

Other survivalists, like Tony, a 44-year-old former stockbroker, agree that “this is not the end. Rather, it’s just another nail in the coffin of civilization”.

Tony has stockpiled several months’ worth of food, including rice, multivitamins, peanut butter and honey in his Baulkham Hills garage.

“Even the Government is now saying you should keep two weeks’ supply. So it’s just common sense really.”

http://www.smh.com.au/national/survivalists-stock-up-ready-for-the-worst-20090501-aq6w.html

What Obama Does Not Know

This is a speech given by Richard J. Maybury, editor of Early Warning Report, At the Wealth Protection Conference in Phoenix, May 2, 2009

In 1992, I coined the term Chaostan – meaning the land of the Great Chaos – for the area from the Arctic Ocean to the Indian Ocean, and Poland to the Pacific, plus North Africa.

Thereafter, for nine years, I warned incessantly that federal officials did not understand Chaostan, and if they did not stop meddling in those countries, we would end up in a war. And, the war would wreck the economy, because the government would pay for it by borrowing and printing dollars; the debt and inflation of the money supply would lead to economic chaos.

Obviously, that prediction has come true, so today I’m going to explain three more things that the government and mainstream press seem not to understand.

The title of this speech is, “What Obama Doesn’t Know.” The first draft was 14 hours long, but I have cut that quite a bit.

You might ask, how can the president of the United States – the most powerful, most well-connected person in history, with all sorts of intelligence agencies – not know something important?

The answer is that a successful politician is not an expert at economics, foreign policy, military affairs or any of the other areas in which he makes decisions.

A successful politician is a person who is an expert at winning elections. That’s how he gets the job – by winning elections. That is his skill, his career, his area of expertise. Winning elections.

In other words, to be president, he needs to be highly skilled at illusion. He must be a better actor than his competition.

I sometimes think we need a change to the Constitution. Every six months, a president’s job performance should be evaluated, and if he isn’t doing well, we should call up Hollywood Central Casting and tell them to send over another president.

Since the president isn’t really an expert at anything presidential, except how to get the job, he doesn’t know what he should look for when he hires an advisor or cabinet member. Generally presidents just hire their drinking buddies, or whoever their drinking buddies recommend.

You can see that with Obama’s group of economic advisors. Before he was sworn in, he formed one group of advisors, then on February 6th, only three weeks after he took office, he hired a second group. Now he has two groups of economic advisors.

Why? Well, if you know a bit about economics, you can make a good guess.

During his election campaign Obama admitted he knows very little about economics.

The first group he hired were people who were prestigious, but they have different economic models. Some are Keynesian, some monetarist, some socialist – I’ll say more about the different models shortly – and I’m sure every time he got a dozen of them in a room and asked for an explanation of what’s happening, he got a dozen different answers.

He hired a second group, and he’s probably getting a dozen different answers from that group, too.

So, I’m going to explain three crucially important topics the president – and mainstream press – seem not to know anything about.

When I’m finished, you will know more than Obama does.

To read the rest of this speech go to What Obama Doesn’t Know

What’s Obama Going To Do?

The U.S. and South Korea put their military forces on high alert Thursday after North Korea renounced the truce keeping the peace between the two Koreas since 1953. The North warned it would retaliate to any hostility with “merciless” and dangerous ferocity.

The show of force along the heavily fortified border dividing the two Koreas comes three days after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test and fired a series of short-range missiles.

The test drew immediate condemnation from world leaders and the U.N. Security Council, where ambassadors were discussing a new resolution to punish Pyongyang. Obama called it a “blatant violation” of international law.

In response, South Korea said it would join more than 90 nations that have agreed to stop and inspect vessels suspected of transporting weapons of mass destruction.

North Korea called South Korea’s participation in the U.S. led Proliferation Security Initiative a prelude to a naval blockade and a violation of the truce signed to end the three year war that broke out in Korea in 1950. But on Wednesday Pyongyang renounced the 1953 armistice. North Korea has repudiated the armistice several times before, most recently in 2003 and 2006.

The U.N. Command on Korea said it would continue to observe the armistice, saying it “remains in force and is binding on all signatories, including North Korea.”

The two Koreas technically remain at war because they signed a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953. However, North disputes the U.N. drawn maritime border off their west coast, and used that dispute to provoke deadly naval skirmishes in 1999 and 2002.

The recent flurry of belligerence could reflect an effort by 67-year-old leader Kim Jong Il to boost his standing among his impoverished people.

It was also seen as a test of Obama’s new administration, and came as two Americans, journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling, remained in custody in Pyongyang accused of illegal entry and “hostile acts.” They face trial in Pyongyang next week.

Hong Hyun-ik, a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute security think tank, said “Kim Jong Il must be scoffing” at the talk of sanctions. “He knows the world will forget about any sanctions in the end.”

The U.S., has 28,500 troops in South Korea and another 50,000 in Japan.

If You’re Not Petrified, You’re Not Paying Attention

“We’re in a complete mess and the consumer is smart enough to know it,” says Howard Davidowitz, whose firm does consulting for the retail industry. “If the consumer isn’t petrified, he or she is a damn fool.”

Howard Davidowitz, who is nothing if not opinionated (and colorful), paints a very grim picture: “The worst is yet to come with consumers and banks,” he says. “This country is going into a 10-year decline. Living standards will never be the same.”

To listen to this interview, go to The Worst Is Yet to Come