Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Time to Face the True State of the Middle Class in America
Sep 23rd, 2016
CommentaryMICHAEL SNYDER/ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG
Categories: Contemporary Issues

Do you remember the old Saturday Night Live sketches in which comedian Chris Farley portrayed a motivational speaker that lived in a van down by the river?  Unfortunately, this is becoming a reality for way too many Americans.  As the middle class has shrunk and the cost of living has increased, a lot of people have decided to quite literally "live on the road".  
Whether it is a car, a truck, a van, a bus or an RV, an increasing number of Americans are using their vehicles as their homes.  Just recently, someone that I know took a trip down the west coast of the United States and stayed at a number of campgrounds along the way.  

What she discovered was that a lot of people were actually living at these campgrounds.  Of course there are some that actually prefer that lifestyle, but many others are doing it out of necessity.

Earlier this week, Circa.com posted a story about "the van life".  One of the individuals that they featured was a recent graduate of the University of Southern California named Stephen Hutchins.  Without much of an income at the moment, he decided that the best way to cut expenses was to live in his van...

"The main expenses are insurance for the van, which is like $60 a month," said Hutchins. "Then, I have a storage unit for like $60."

That puts his monthly rent at $120. The van cost him just $125 at an auction.

Living in a van is certainly not the most comfortable way to go, and many of you are probably wondering how he performs basic tasks such as cooking and bathing.  Well, it turns out that he makes extensive use of public facilities...

He showers at the gym, cooks on a portable stove on a sidewalk (he stores his butane at his friends' place nearby) and uses wifi at nearby coffeeshops.

For a while such a lifestyle may seem like "an adventure", but after a while it will start to get really old.  And not a lot of women are going to be excited about dating a man that lives in a van, and you certainly wouldn't want to raise a family in a vehicle.

Sadly, just like during the last economic crisis many Americans are getting to the point where staying in their homes may not be an option.  Just check out the following excerpt from a recent New York Post article entitled "The terrifying signs of a looming housing crisis"...

The number of New Yorkers applying for emergency grants to stay in their homes is skyrocketing -- as the number of people staying in homeless shelters reached an all-time high last weekend, records show.

There were 82,306 applications for one-time emergency grants to prevent evictions in fiscal 2016, up 26 percent from 65,138 requests the previous year, according to the Mayor's Management Report.

First of all, it is very alarming to hear that the number of New Yorkers staying in homeless shelters "reached an all-time high" last weekend.  I thought that we were supposed to be in an "economic recovery", but apparently things in New York are rapidly getting worse.

Secondly, the fact that applications for emergency grants are up 26 percent compared to last year is another indication of how rough things are right now for average families in New York.  We all remember what happened when millions of families lost their homes to foreclosure across the nation during the last financial crisis, and nobody should want to see a repeat of that any time soon.

During this election season, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would like all of us to believe that the economy is doing just fine, but that is not true at all.  

Even using the doctored numbers that the government gives us, Barack Obama is solidly on track to be the only president in all of U.S. history to never have a single year of 3 percent GDP growth, and he has had two terms to try to do that.

Gallup CEO Jim Clifton is also quite skeptical of this "economic recovery", and he recently authored an article on this subject that is receiving a tremendous amount of attention.  The following is how that article begins...

I've been reading a lot about a "recovering" economy. It was even trumpeted on Page 1 of The New York Times and Financial Times last week.

I don't think it's true.

The percentage of Americans who say they are in the middle or upper-middle class has fallen 10 percentage points, from a 61% average between 2000 and 2008 to 51% today.

Other surveys have found that it is even worse than that.

For example, a Pew Research Center study from the end of last year discovered that the middle class in America has now actually become a minority in this country.

Here are some other numbers that Clifton included in his article...

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of the total U.S. adult population that has a full-time job has been hovering around 48% since 2010 -- this is the lowest full-time employment level since 1983.

The number of publicly listed companies trading on U.S. exchanges has been cut almost in half in the past 20 years -- from about 7,300 to 3,700. Because firms can't grow organically -- that is, build more business from new and existing customers -- they give up and pay high prices to acquire their competitors, thus drastically shrinking the number of U.S. public companies. This seriously contributes to the massive loss of U.S. middle-class jobs.

New business startups are at historical lows. Americans have stopped starting businesses. And the businesses that do start are growing at historically slow rates.

Once upon a time, America was the land of opportunity.

We were the place where anything was possible and where entrepreneurship was greatly encouraged.

But today we strangle small businesses to death with rules, regulations, red tape and taxes.

If we want a stronger middle class, we need to create a much better environment for the creation of small businesses.  Small business ownership often lifts individuals into the middle class, and small businesses have traditionally been the primary engine for the growth of good jobs in this country.

If the middle class continues to shrink, poverty will continue to rise.  Previously I have written about how the number of homeless children in the United States has shot up by 60 percent since the last economic crisis, and Poverty USA claims that a staggering 1.6 million children slept either in a homeless shelter or in some other form of emergency housing during 2015.

If you will be sleeping in a warm bed in a comfortable home tonight, you should be thankful.  An increasing number of Americans are sleeping in tent cities, in their vehicles or on the streets.  These hurting people deserve our love, our compassion and our prayers.

The Dictatorship of Relativism: Absurdity Reigns - -for Now
Sep 23rd, 2016
CommentaryERIC METAXAS/BREAKPOINT.ORG
Categories: Contemporary Issues

Does it kind of feel like folks have lost their minds?  That we've taken a collective walk through the looking glass and nothing is logical, nothing really makes sense? 

That you can look people square in the eye, assert a scientific, biological fact such as "if you have an x and a y chromosome and you have male sexual organs, then you are not a woman," only to have them accuse you of being a hater or on the wrong side of history?

Or take abortion. Even some of the staunchest abortion supporters admit a fetus is a baby is a human being. But that doesn't matter, because a woman has a right to do what she wants "with her own body."

It's sort of kooky. How have we reached this level of absurdity?

Well, as I explain in a recent article at Intercollegiate Review, welcome to "the dictatorship of relativism," which, as Pope Benedict said, "does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires."

I first encountered this kind of pervasive relativism as an undergraduate at Yale. I came from a working-class background, I actually believed in the truth, that it was beautiful, and worth living for and even dying for.

Imagine my surprise when I arrived at Yale (whose motto is "Lux et Veritas"--Latin for "light and truth"), to find out that much of the faculty and student body didn't believe in Truth with a capital "T". No, there were many truths, which of course told me that there was really no truth at all.

Chuck Colson said to test the validity of a worldview, follow it to its logical conclusion. The logical conclusion of relativism is absurdity. Non-sense. A worldview that undermines its own premises.

Not long after I graduated from Yale, Allan Bloom wrote his famous book, "The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students." (There's a subtitle for you!).

Bloom wrote that "almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. If this belief is put to the test .  they will be uncomprehending. That anyone should regard the proposition as not self-evident astonishes them, as though he were calling into question 2 + 2 = 4."

Bloom then tells the story of his students' response to the Hindu custom known as sati: burning a widow alive on her husband's funeral pyre. The British, of course, banned the custom, and sharply reminded the Hindu priests that the British had a different custom: hanging men who burned women alive.

How did the students react? Bloom said his students were so steeped in relativism they could only meekly reply "that the British should have never been there in the first place." Heaven forbid they'd admit it's wrong to burn women alive.

With relativism so deeply ensconced in our schools and culture, it's no wonder that Christianity is increasingly viewed with a jaundiced eye. After all, Christians assert that there is a capital "T" Truth, and that we are made in His image--and that therefore every human life is precious. 

We dare to believe in inviolable moral laws as well--you know, like marriage is sacred and adultery is wrong. We're kind of crazy like that.

But remember this next time you feel like despairing over the trajectory of our culture: The dictatorship of relativism is built on a self-contradicting foundation of sand. The truth, as Shakespeare wrote, will out. Always.

Obamas Final UN Speech Promotes a Liberal World Order and a Palestinian State
Sep 23rd, 2016
CommentaryMichael Snyder / End Of The American Dream
Categories: World Government

During Barack Obama's eighth and final address to the United Nations he let his true colors show. He staunchly defended globalism, he took several not very subtle shots at Donald Trump, and he boldly declared that Israel "cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land". 

That statement about "Palestinian land" was extremely alarming to many, because there are indications that Obama may decide to support a UN Security Council resolution that establishes the parameters for a Palestinian state during his final months in the White House. 

Barack Obama has promised to squeeze every ounce of "change" out of the remainder of his term that he possibly can, and his last UN speech showed what is on his heart at this moment.

According to the Washington Post, Obama's final UN address represented "an impassioned plea on behalf of a liberal world order"...

President Obama, in his final speech to the United Nations Tuesday, made an impassioned plea on behalf of a liberal world order that he admitted was under growing threat from wars in the Middle East and rising nationalism at home and in Europe.

Speaking to the U.N. General Assembly for the eighth and last time as president, Obama sought to rise above the conflicts of the moment and outline a future of international cooperation, stressing the importance of the global liberal institutions formed after World War II, including the United Nations.

Barack Obama is a true believer in internationalism. He appears to be completely convinced that the best path forward for humanity involves more integration on all levels - political, economic and even spiritual. Just check out this excerpt from his speech...

"I believe that at this moment we all face a choice," Obama said. "We can choose to press forward with a better model of cooperation and integration or we can retreat into a world sharply divided and ultimately in conflict along age-old lines of nation and tribe and race and religion. I want to suggest to you today that we must go forward and not back."

Obama's obsession with globalism is one of the reasons why he has so much disdain for Donald Trump, and his speech at the United Nations contained quite a few comments that seemed specifically targeted at him. The following comes from CNN...

He painted a dark picture of the future awaiting Americans, and the world, if the forces of "aggressive nationalism" or "crude populism" win out. And he specifically inveighed against building a wall -- a centerpiece of Trump's proposal on border security.

"A nation ringed by walls would only imprison itself," Obama declared to the assembled representatives of the UN's member states.

But even more alarming than his defense of globalism was his wording about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I can't remember any previous president ever using the phrase "Palestinian land" before. Obviously a "two-state solution" is already an inevitable outcome in Obama's mind. Here is the full quote for those that have not seen it yet...

"Surely Israelis and Palestinians will be better off if Palestinians reject incitement and recognize the legitimacy of Israel. But Israel must recognize that it cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land."

To me, this statement is a major red flag.

Could it be possible that Barack Obama plans to stab Israel in the back by supporting a UN Security Council resolution that permanently divides the Holy Land before his time in the White House is done?

On Wednesday, Obama is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As you can see, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest says that a discussion about a "two-state solution" will be on the agenda...

Obama plans to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to "discuss the need for genuine advancement of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the face of deeply troubling trends on the ground," according to White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest.

Barack Obama knows that he only has until January 20th, 2017 to take any action on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

If he supports a UN Security Council resolution formally recognizing a Palestinian state and granting them East Jerusalem as their capital, the next president would not be able to go back and undo that. So this may be a way for Obama to "leave a legacy" in the Middle East, and he may especially be tempted to do this if it looks like Donald Trump could win the election...

A looming Donald Trump presidency would make it more likely for lame-duck US President Barack Obama to support a United Nations Security Council resolution laying down the basic parameters for the creation of Palestinian state, a former top US official said Sunday.

"I suspect that if Trump wins, the president would be more inclined to go for a Security Council resolution to try to do something that binds, creates standards for the future that the next president couldn't undo," Dennis Ross said at a conference on the future of Zionism and the US-Israel relationship. "If Clinton wins, I suspect he [Obama] would be more sensitive to her concerns as to whether this helps or hurt her."

Less than a week ago, I wrote an article about how UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also appears to want to see movement toward a Palestinian state before his term ends, and he reaffirmed this position very strongly on Tuesday...

Earlier on Tuesday, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon told the UN General Assembly that the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be a two-state solution, and that the one-state option would "spell doom" for both sides.

"This is madness. Replacing a two-state solution with a one-state construct would spell doom: denying Palestinians their freedom and rightful future, and pushing Israel further from its vision of a Jewish democracy towards greater global isolation," said Ban.

Of course Barack Obama and Ban Ki-moon are both dead wrong about this.

If the UN Security Council passes a resolution that sets the parameters for a Palestinian state, it would be one of the worst things that they could possibly do, and it would set the stage for a major war in the Middle East.

But the pressure is on, and the world community seems to sense a real opportunity to divide the land of Israel.

Every year, the World Council of Churches observes a "World Week for Peace" during the month of September, and the focus is almost always on the Middle East.

This year, the work of the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum will be highlighted during the "World Week for Peace", and it is an organization that is strongly affiliated with the World Council of Churches. On their website, the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum has just released a poem that declares that "it's time for Palestine". This is how that poem begins...

It's time for Palestine.

It's time for Palestinians and Israelis to share a just peace.

It's time to respect human lives in the land called holy.

It's time for healing to begin in wounded souls.

It's time to end more than 60 years of conflict, oppression and fear.

It's time for freedom from occupation.

It's time for equal rights.

It's time to stop discrimination, segregation and restrictions on movement.

It's time for those who put up walls and fences to build them on their own property.

It's time to stop bulldozing one community's homes and building homes for the other community on land that is not theirs.

It's time to do away with double standards.

Overall, I don't know if I have ever seen such an international push for a Palestinian state like we are seeing right now.

And the man that holds all the power is Barack Obama, because a potential U.S. veto is all that stands in the way of a UN Security Council resolution that divides the land of Israel and establishes a Palestinian state.

At this moment we are in the danger zone. Obama has only four months left to pull the trigger, and Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have both stated that they do not plan to support such a resolution once they take office.

So if something is going to happen, it is almost certainly going to be before January 20th, 2017.

It is unclear what Obama is going to do at this point, but it is not exactly comforting that the fate of the land of Israel lies in his hands.

Let the Headlines Speak
Sep 23rd, 2016
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines

Yahoo Says Hackers Stole Data on 500 Million Users in 2014
Yahoo announced on Thursday that the account information of at least 500 million users was stolen by hackers two years ago ...Yahoo said user information — including names, email addresses, telephone numbers, birth dates, encrypted passwords and, in some cases, security questions — was compromised in 2014 by what it believed was a “state-sponsored actor.”  

DHS admits refugee fraud ‘easy to commit’
Refugee fraud is “easy to commit” and much tougher to detect, Homeland Security officials acknowledged in an internal memo made public by members of Congress Thursday that challenges the department’s own assurances as it seeks to increase the number of refugees from dangerous countries. The U.S. has relaxed requirements for refugees to prove they are who they say they are, and at times may rely solely on testimony.  

Jordan polls: Muslim Brotherhood and women make gains
Islamists have won seats in Jordan's parliament after years of boycott, in polls which also elected record numbers of female MPs, initial results show. The Muslim Brotherhood's party, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), looks to share at least 16 out of 130 seats as part of a new political alliance. The IAF refused to contest the previous two elections, in protest at the electoral system.  

Syria war: New strikes in Aleppo as Syria announces offensive
Warplanes have launched fresh air strikes in Aleppo, hours after Syria's government announced an offensive to retake rebel-held areas of the city. Syrian and Russian planes were pounding eastern Aleppo, according to activists. A rescue worker described what was happening as "annihilation".  

US Congress denounces 'ransom' payments to Iran in new bill
The United States House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday to ban cash payments to Iran..."a rebuke of the Obama administration's decision to send...a 'ransom' on the same day American prisoners were released." ...The bill bars the United States from paying Iran "cash of any kind" and specifies that the US will not pay to "ransom or release prisoners."  

Japan reports earthquake southeast of Tokyo
A magnitude-6.5 earthquake struck southeast of Tokyo on Friday morning, the Japan Meteorological Agency reports. The U.S. Geological Survey measured the temblor at 6.4 and said it was centered at sea about 150 kilometers (93 miles) southeast of Katsuura.  

Netanyahu invites Abbas to speak at Knesset in UN speech
NEW YORK – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invited Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to come “speak to the Israeli people at the Knesset in Jerusalem,” during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Thursday,  

The Charlotte Riots: What They Are Not Telling You
As America awaits to see if Charlotte will burn for the third consecutive night, Paul Joseph Watson points out something troubling: thugs burned down a city because a black cop shot someone, yet meanwhile the mainstream media spun it, or at least tried, as as "peaceful protest." There is just one problem: violent criminals looting, attacking bystanders, attacking journalists, setting fires, smashing up cars, smashing up businesses and shooting at each other is not the a "peaceful protest."  

Rouhani uses UN to hit US over nuclear deal
Iran used the UN General Assembly on Thursday to accuse the United States of failing to implement aspects of the historic nuclear deal, demanding that Washington do so or risk formal complaint.  

Britain sends jets to intercept Russian bombers
Britain scrambled fighter jets from an airbase in Scotland to intercept two Russian bombers approaching UK airspace, the Ministry of Defence said Thursday. The Russian planes flew from the direction of Norway and passed to the west of Britain's Shetland Islands, northeast of the mainland.  

Police Say Video Shows Keith Lamont Scott Had Gun in Hand
The family of Keith Lamont Scott has reviewed the video that shows the moment when police fatally shot him in North Carolina on Tuesday, the family's attorney said.  

IBM shows how fast its brain-like chip can learn
Developing a computer that can be as decisive and intelligent as humans is on IBM's mind, and it's making progress toward achieving that goal. IBM's computer chip called TrueNorth is designed to emulate the functions of a human brain. The company is now running tests and benchmarking TrueNorth to demonstrate how fast and power efficient the chips can be compared to today's computers.  

Drone Wars: Only the Beginning
Sep 23rd, 2016
CommentaryPNW STAFF
Uncategorized

Perhaps the greatest revolution in warfare over the past decade and a half has been the proliferation of armed drones in combat, but in recent years the use of these lethal robots has quickly moved from the sole possession of the United States and into the hands of poorer countries, despotic regimes and now even terrorist groups. 
As of early this year, the number of countries that employ surveillance drones stood at 78 and those that have equipped their drones with weapons is now at least 21, with 7 of those countries actively using those drones in combat operations.

The combat drone is a weapon unlike most other tools of warfare because of the separation from the battlefield that it allows the soldier. Armed drones allow a nation to engage in combat operations without putting its own soldiers in harms way. Removing domestic casualties from the equation lowers the chance for political opposition to war since it virtually eliminates the consequences that politicians would normally face. 

The act of killing through a video monitor has also been shown to take a toll on the drone pilots that struggle with feelings of disassociation in the act of killing that is both real and artificial. And then there are the errors. Even in the hands of the United States, drones have resulted in a collateral damage rate of 9.5% when comparing intended kills with civilian deaths.

The newest country to receive drones is Saudi Arabia. The United States has refused to sell to its ally, despite supplying the kingdom with $60 billion in military equipment since 2010, including F-16 fighters. The sticking point for the United States in its dealing with Saudi Arabia is the dirty war it is currently waging in Yemen and the potential for drones to worsen the slaughter. 

Thousands of civilians have been bombed and numerous historical sites destroyed in their campaign to stamp out Shia rebels in Yemen. The Saudi kingdom has expressed its interest in obtaining lethal drone technology for at least the past six years and now it has found a vendor in the Chinese government.

The Chinese-made Pterodactyl drone is an armed autonomous flying robot that is about 30 feet long and that looks strikingly like the Predator and Reaper drones from the United States, yet with less sophisticated technology. 

With an airframe that has clearly been plagiarized from Western designs and with no Chinese moral compunctions to its sale, the Pterodactyl can now hover above Saudi Arabia or Yemen for hours, sending back grainy footage that pilots on the ground can use to fire payloads of missiles.

Another popular model, the CH-3 drone from China has been marketed abroad as well. Nigeria has bought at least 5 of the armed CH-3 or Rainbow drones, Iraq 4 and an unknown number of the larger CH-4 drones have been purchased by Pakistan. 

Pakistan announced on September 6th the killing of three high-profile terrorists in Waziristan by what many believe were drone strikes and Iraq used their drones to help retake Ramadi from ISIS recently.

Now being actively used by Pakistan, Iraq and Nigeria to target and destroy Islamic radicals ensconced in remote jungle and mountain regions, the use of drones is a temping weapon, as it is able to loiter over a battlefield far longer than a manned aircraft. 

Though the pilots may be safe within their control bunkers, the civilian populations under the flight path of the drones are certainly not. 

The fuzzy digital images relayed back to operators may often make distinguishing between a funeral and gathering of terrorist difficult and a farmer with a hoe may be mistaken for a militant with a rifle. Mistakes have grown all too common, even by the best intentioned countries.

The United States, the world's leader in drone technology with a fleet now over 500 strong, claims to have killed approximately 3,800 militants and around 400 civilians across 7 countries and 10 years

If the United State claims an official rate of 1 civilian for every 9 enemy combatants, imagine what ratio can be expected of British, Chinese, Russian, Saudi Arabian, Pakistani, Nigerian and Iraqi drones. 

Israel has built its own armed drone fleet and sold to Jordan and there is little doubt that the arms race is far from over. Just as nuclear weapons could not be contained in the twentieth century, so too have drones begun to spread and now even terrorist groups such as ISIS have begun to experiment with smaller, crudely built drones capable of hovering over mass gatherings where their bombs can achieve maximum lethality without sacrificing the lives of terrorists.

The escalation in the use of drones from surveillance to combat and the ensuing arms race has exposed millions around the world to the threat of collateral damage. Every wedding party, village gathering or innocent farmer that the United States, Saudi Arabia or Nigeria bombs breeds generations of violent resentment. 

As the technology becomes increasingly widespread and accessible, the technological edge enjoyed by the West fades until soon the use of armed drones will be as commonplace as artillery was a hundred years before. 

American police departments have also embraced the use of drone surveillance and North Dakota has now been the first state to legalize the use of armed drones by the police. Peter Singer, author of the book on autonomous warfare, Wired for War, commented, "It is a good illustration of how this technology has gone global. 

What was recently considered abnormal is the new normal of technology and war." Those living under drone-filled skies report a constant feeling of anxiety from the killer robots that fly just above visual range and the twisted terror that children in Pakistan have developed of clear skies is as strong an example of terrorism as any other.

We are already living in a world where nation states large and small use armed aerial robots to kill from afar without consequence. Perhaps a strong, general artificial intelligence will wake up one day twenty years from now, pleased to learn that it now controls thousands of autonomous flying killing machines capable of waging war without human intervention. 

Or perhaps, in the best case scenario, we humans continue to kill each other with the digital ease of ever-increasing fleets of thousands of armed drones. 

In so doing, we may instill a pathological fear of blue skies in future generations along with the belief that warfare has consequences only for those unlucky enough to live under the grainy video camera of an armed drone.