TORNADOES IN WINTER? JUST ANOTHER DAY IN ST. LOUIS

The tornado outbreak across Missouri reminded me of another time, long ago, when my wife and I lived about ten houses apart in West St. Louis county in a subdivision named Old Farm Estates. The date was January 24, 1967.

It was warm that day...real warm. I remember my mom talking to our neighbor that afternoon, standing in front of the house in the yard. She was telling Mrs Cohen, who had just recently moved into the area, that it wouldn't be unusual for a warm day like that to be the trigger for some big storms. Anybody that lives in the St. Louis area gets used to weird weather, extremes in all directions so we've seen it all before and my Mom was no exemption.

When I was just a couple months old, on February 10, 1959, I experienced my first F-4 tornado. Experienced may be too strong a word because I slept through the whole thing.

Come on, I was just a baby!

I don't know for sure that the temperature was warm on that day but I'd just about put money on it because that's how it always goes. I read some comments on the web today with the usual silly crap about global warming and how it's just incredible that we'd have tornadoes in winter. Sorry to burst your bubble, my friend, but it ain't global warming that causes tornadoes, it's local warming that does it. Always has, always will.



Anyway, back to 1967. We knew there was rain coming. You could smell it in the air and feel the weight of it on your skin. It had that early spring feel without the freshness of the new grass growing. It smelled instead like these strange, warm winter days always smell, kinda' clammy, gray and dead.

The sky had been a battlefield all day, with the sun and the clouds fighting over the prize. About the time my dad got home from work the clouds vanquished the sun, covering it in blankets of heavy gray, full of lumps and points, like mashed potatoes turned on their heads.

These were the days when forecasting was so primitive the weather guys didn't even try to give us advance warning. They generally could only say for sure that a tornado was coming after it had already passed. And that's how it was that day. We were in our family room, doing whatever it was that we usually did. Dad was mixing a drink and mom was cooking dinner. It had been raining at a pretty good clip for 5-10 minutes, a pretty substantial downpour, when suddenly, it stopped, and an eerie quiet wrapped around us. Then the colors changed.

If you've never been in a tornado you've probably never seen the way the colors, not just in the sky but all around you, wash out with a dull and sickening greenish gray pallor, how it washes the look of life from your skin and make you and every one else look like cast members in a bad B-grade horror flick. The clouds in the sky flatten and everything takes on a sort of monochromatic sameness. And the quiet hits you like a lead pipe. Where moments before rain and wind swirled and danced about pounding on the roof and smacking at the windows, lightning roaring through the sky, suddenly, like somebody flipped a switch, it stops. But it's not completely quiet. There was something else, coming from someplace and everyplace, a dull rumbling that we couldn't quite place.

But my parents knew exactly what it was. "Get to the basement, NOW!", hollered my old man and believe me, he didn't have to say it twice. He was a sergeant in the Marine Corp and we were raised to follow orders without question. But that didn't matter because we knew something wasn't right. As we ran I felt my ears pop with pressure, like going up in an elevator. My brother and I hauled our butts down the steps with my mom following and dad bringing up the rear.

Within maybe a minute of getting downstairs the rain started again and the color returned to normal. Dad said that the worst was over now. And it was, for us, anyway. At the other end of our neighborhood, starting about where my future wife, Kathy, lived, hell had been turned lose on our neighbors.

The house I lived in was in a valley, down in the Missouri River bottoms. Kathy lived at the top of a ridge that sloped off to the North and East. The tornado had touched ground about a mile West of our subdivision and torn a path of desolation through Riverbend Estates, a subdivision sitting on high bluffs overlooking the bottoms and about equal in elevation to where Kathy lived.

It skipped off the top of the bluff in Riverbend, jumped over my house and touched down again about 100 feet in front of Kathy's house, destroying the silos from the old dairy farm that had been there and dropping them on her neighbors house. It careened down the slope away from her house into the valley north of her and into the back half of our subdivision. One of the first houses it hit was the home of Jackie Cannady. She was a year or two older than us and I knew her slightly because I knew her brother. They found her body in the street after the storm had passed.

I don't know how many houses were destroyed back there but I know there were more than 100. Everything was flattened to the ground, the occasional section of wall or chimney standing as a stark reminder of the normalcy that had existed only moments before.

My impression of the storm boils down to one thing, sirens. We sat in our bedroom that night and watched all the ambulances and emergency equipment streaming past our house. We knew there'd been a tornado because the radio had warned us of the obvious about ten minutes after it passed. We knew that things were bad in the back of the subdivision but we didn't know how bad 'til the next couple days when we went down to look. Back in those days they didn't restrict access to disaster areas because, well, I suppose there was no reason to do it.

The streets had been cleared but that was the only thing that even resembled anything I'd ever seen before. Between the streets the whole thing looked like a lumber yard that had been organized by a mad man. Studs, joists and trusses were piled everywhere, jutting out into space. Cars lay on their backs, sides and noses, sometimes just barely recognizable under the debris.

And the people, they were everywhere, trying to find some little piece of their lives under the rubble, making small stacks of heirlooms by the street. For the most part, every single thing they owned was somewhere out there, scattered around hundreds of acres of destruction.

That tornado kept going after it tore our neighborhood to pieces and cut a path of destruction on into North S. Louis County, finally spending its fury in Spanish Lake. Three people died and hundreds of houses were destroyed. Over time the scars healed and new houses were built to replace the old. The dead were buried and lives went on.

Sometimes though, years later, when I'd be walking through the woods I'd look up. There, perched high in the branches would be a piece of roofing or some other bits and pieces of a house, reminding me of the night the sirens wailed.

SPRINGTIME STORMS RUIN NEW YEARS IN MISSOURI

Video of storm damage this afternoon in Robertsville, Missouri, about 1 1/2 miles from my house. The storm followed Interstate 44 up from S.W. Missouri, killing two in Dent County and one in Phelps, and causing extensive damage in Fenton, Sunset Hills and from what I hear on into the City of St. Louis.

Anytime we get temperatures into the upper 60's this time of year you just have to figure something is going to blow up somewhere. My wife and I were driving on Interstate 44 as the storm came through, heading out to St. Clair. The wind and rain were so strong that traffic actually came to a stop, right in the middle of the highway. We basically could no longer see the taillights on the vehicle in front of us even though we were only thirty or so feet apart.

From KSDK

THE POPE'S SPIRITUAL CALCULUS

DOIN' THE PENSION FUND TWO STEP

From The Pittsburgh Post Gazette:

"Pittsburgh City Council tonight passed a motion compelling Mayor Luke Ravenstahl to appear at a meeting tomorrow to discuss the city's pension crisis.

The motion followed hours of heated discussion over a bailout plan that council proposed and Mr. Ravenstahl summarily rejected today.

Five council members and City Controller Michael Lamb gathered behind a podium this morning to say they'd fashioned the best possible resolution to the pension issue. They said they needed Mr. Ravenstahl's support, but he called the plan unworkable and declined to support it.

The plan revolved around the idea of shoring up the pension fund not with cash but with a different asset -- 30 years of dedicated revenue from parking-rate increases.

"It is not cash, but it is a real asset," Mr. Lamb said."

Now it looks as though the cities, to mollify the unions, will start to shift revenue from whatever it was used for to the union pension funds. That money was being used someplace and now that someplace won't have it anymore. So what will the city do? Will they perhaps cut the budget to offset this lose of revenue? What do you think?

"Councilman Ricky Burgess said the city at some point might have to raise taxes to compensate for money that the parking authority might never provide."

Well, there you have it. YOU are going to have to reach deeper into your pocket, even though most working people are at the bottom all ready and just about to bust through it, and fund the lavish retirement of your local garbage man, sewer worker or some other "public servant". Looks as though all the money the unions spent buying off politicians all those years is paying off.

So, when you're in your '70's greeting the retired dog catcher as he walks into to WalMart to buy that big screen TV, just be happy that you have a job and that the price of the dog food you're living on hasn't gone up recently.

And rest easy knowing that your tax dollars, from your job at WalMart, are making it possible for your "servants" to enjoy their golden years in comfort.

I get all warm and fuzzy just thinkin' about it.

SOBRIETY IN FLORIDA - THE POWER OF THE STATE GROWS

"With New Year's Eve only days away, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration expects this to be one of the deadliest weeks of the year on the roads.

But now a new weapon is being used in the fight against drunk driving.

It's a change that could make you more likely to be convicted.

"I think it's a great deterrent for people," said Linda Unfried, from Mother's Against Drunk Driving in Hillsborough County.

Florida is among several states now holding what are called "no refusal" checkpoints.

It means if you refuse a breath test during a traffic stop, a judge is on site, and issues a warrant that allows police to perform a mandatory blood test."
WSTP

You're driving down the road, coming home from work; both perfectly lawful acts. You've done nothing wrong, haven't violated any traffic laws and suddenly you confront a sobriety checkpoint where you are detained against your will and both you and your vehicle are searched, using the visual and olfactory senses of the officer.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Based on a purely subjective opinion of the officer you are told to blow into a piece of equipment that is supposed to be able to measure your blood alcohol content. You know nothing about the accuracy of the instrument, whether it was calibrated correctly or if the officer using it is using it properly or was trained in its use.

What you do know is that if the machine says you're drunk, you're going to jail.

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

So now you've been stopped and searched against your will and the state is trying to bully you into taking the chance of self incrimination by blowing into a machine that is suspect at best. In a perfect world you would pull out your trusty copy of the Constitution and politely reaffirm your rights and go on about your way, stopping by your attorneys office to file a suit for the violation of your rights.

But this isn't a perfect world.

Cities, counties and states are hurting for money and a sure fired, tried and true way of raising revenue is the checkpoint. Regardless of the clear intent of the framers of the Constitution, the courts have allowed the police to stop and search us for no reason at all and then they have given them the power to threaten us with the revocation of our license if we don't cooperate.

Now the icing on the cake. If we refuse to follow their commands based on our understanding of the clear meaning of the Constitution they have a judge standing there to force the issue. Of course, the judge is employed by the same governing body and he needs work, too. Everyone that gets a DUI or is falsely accuse of a DUI or gets arrested for refusing to cooperate will end up in court and the judge will make a buck or two off the misery of the defendant.

So we submit to something that is clearly wrong and immoral. Just like we do at the airport when we get felt up and looked at by some baboon with a badge. We do it because it's easier to just go along and get it over with. We do it because the system is rigged against us. We do it because we're cowards.

When you hear somebody ask for your papers when you go to the store or demand to enter your house because they suspect that you might be doing something illegal remember where it all started. It started when we refused to say no to the little things.

THE GOD OF DEATH - FOR KIDS?

H/T Vigilant Citizen

I've not seen this show and I don't know any more about it than what I can see in this trailer. That being said, is this really necessary? Whether it's intended or not this thing with the all seeing eye symbolism and the occult rituals is, at least in my mind, normalizing and mainstreaming evil.

Everything that kids watch now is either all new agey or occult. I see it in the shows my granddaughter watches on Disney and Nick all the time. You never see anything more than a passing reference to God or Judeo/Christianity. And when you see these little snippets they're devoid of all meaning. Instead everything is all about witches, vampires and fancy clothes. Entire shows are devoted to materialism and ghouls.

I gotta admit that many of the shows are clever and funny. But so were the shows we watched as kids. The difference is that these new shows don't often seem to transcend a sense of narcissism, that everything is about the individual needs and desires of one character or another. This is all rather subjective on my part but these shows lack a certain warmth that shows like "I Love Lucy", "The Dick Van Dyke Show" or the "Cosby Show" had. I never get a sense of redemption. I rarely see good triumphing over evil. Instead, I see good and evil all mixed together with no real distinction between the two. Everything is cold and calculating, characters in conflict to see who can get the coolest gadget or cutest boy.

And now it looks as though we'll get another show seemingly designed to introduce kids to a world that they don't need to be involved in.

Sometimes, in my more conspiratorial moments, I have to admit that it does almost seem as though the world of the secret societies, the Freemasons and the Bilderbergers, is being mainstreamed for a reason and the kids are the target, just as Marxism went first to the schools. But this couldn't be true, could it?

My granddaughter won't be watching this new, scary kids show. We'll watch "Scooby-Doo" instead.

UNIONS ENDANGER LIVES

"These garbage men really stink.

Selfish Sanitation Department bosses from the snow-slammed outer boroughs ordered their drivers to snarl the blizzard cleanup to protest budget cuts -- a disastrous move that turned streets into a minefield for emergency-services vehicles, The Post has learned.

Miles of roads stretching from as north as Whitestone, Queens, to the south shore of Staten Island still remained treacherously unplowed last night because of the shameless job action, several sources and a city lawmaker said, which was over a raft of demotions, attrition and budget cuts.

"They sent a message to the rest of the city that these particular labor issues are more important," said City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens), who was visited yesterday by a group of guilt-ridden sanitation workers who confessed the shameless plot."
New York Post

If this is true then legal action needs to be taken against the people that ordered the work slow down and against the unions that were behind those orders. I know that the laws that have been used against organized crime apply here. This is no different than setting one business on fire to frighten other businesses into paying protection.

Public safety was threatened by this bit of extortion and intimidation. Police, fire and ambulance service was disrupted. If anyone died or was injured due to lack of availability of these services then the people behind the slowdown need to be prosecuted for that, too.

New York and every other city and state in this country needs to stand up against these union thugs and shut them down. The funding problems as regards pensions and the layoffs are only going to get worse; a lot worse. Do we really want public safety held hostage to organized crime?

Get the unions out now. Break the contracts and let 'em sue. That could stay tied up in courts for years. And be prepared to act like Reagan did with the air traffic controllers. Because this bullying in New York is just a warning of what we're going to see all year long if we don't stand up now.

THE POPE AND THE U.S. BISHOPS

OLMSTED, KEEHAN AND MORAL AUTHORITY

"The Catholic Health Association has once again found itself at odds with Church authority– this time, over Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted's decision to revoke the Catholic status of a hospital that admitted to serious ethics violations, including a highly-publicized abortion.

“Catholic Healthcare West and its system hospitals are valued members of the Catholic Health Association,” said that group's president, Sister Carol Keehan. Her remarks came less than 24 hours after the Bishop of Phoenix stripped one of those hospitals, St. Joseph's in Phoenix, of its Catholic affiliation."
Catholic News Agency

Sister Keehan, of health care bill fame, should be the next one on the list when it comes time to deal with dissent in the Church. She has become the very public face of the evil that has infected the Church here in America. She refuses to bow her head to lawful authority, instead proclaiming her personal beliefs as truth, giving cover for all those that want the Church to fail. Many of the faithful are being lost because of "religious" like her!

"Bishop Olmsted, in consultation with his own diocesan medical board, concluded that the abortion was a direct violation of the Church's ethical health care guidelines. He also accused the hospital and its parent company of “formally cooperating” in the management and administration of a government program that offers abortion, birth control, and sterilization procedures at other hospitals.

Sr. Keehan, however, opined that Catholic Healthcare West facilities were “well-known” for a “long and stellar history in the protection of life at all stages.” Her brief statement did not address the company's alleged cooperation with government-funded abortion and sterilization.

But she did defend St. Joseph's decision to perform the abortion. “They had been confronted with a heartbreaking situation,” she stated. “They carefully evaluated the patient's situation and correctly applied the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services to it, saving the only life that was possible to save.”
Catholic News Agency

While the staff at St. Josephs was reviewing the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services they must have dropped the page with this paragraph on the floor:

"Abortion (that is, the directly intended termination of pregnancy before viability or the directly intended destruction of a viable fetus) is never permitted. Every procedure whose sole immediate effect is the termination of pregnancy before viability is an abortion, which, in its moral context, includes the interval between conception and implantation of the embryo. Catholic health care institutions are not to provide abortion services, even based upon the principle of material cooperation. In this context, Catholic health care institutions need to be concerned about the danger of scandal in any association with abortion providers."

How can she say, with a straight face, that anyone in the hospital paid even the slightest attention to these guidelines? They were looking for ways to parse the meaning to justify their decision to kill a child, a decision I feel confident was already arrived at before the guidelines were consulted.

"...two obstetrician-gynecologists from the Diocese of Phoenix's Medical Ethics Department said Sr. Keehan was misrepresenting both the facts of the St. Joseph's Hospital case, and the ethical principles of Catholic health care.

According to those principles, doctors may perform a necessary and non-abortive medical procedure in order to treat a serious illness, even if it has the secondary effect of harming or killing an unborn child. However, the pregnancy itself can never be regarded as an “disease,” nor may a doctor perform an abortion as a means of treating a different condition.

“It goes back to the basic issue that you can never do an evil, to achieve a good,” Dr. William Chavira told CNA on Dec. 22. “The act is inherently evil.”

Dr. Chavira is a practicing obstetrician and gynecologist who also serves on the Phoenix Diocese's medical ethics committee...

...Dr. Clinton Leonard, another OB-GYN who belongs to the medical ethics board in Bishop Olmsted's diocese, stated to CNA on Dec. 22 that Sr. Keehan and other defenders of St. Joseph's were attempting to distract the public from a fundamental moral principle.

“They're making it too complex,” he said. “It's really a simple issue: the ends never justify the means. And the means that they used was a direct abortion,” Dr. Leonard stated. “That's not a treatment for pulmonary hypertension.”

“I would do everything possible to offer her cardiac support,” Dr. Leonard said, when asked what he would regard as an appropriate treatment under the circumstances. “If it's pulmonary hypertension, generally you use medications that are going to reduce the work that the heart has to do.”

In response to the assertion of Sr. Keehan and others, who regard the woman as having been on the brink of death, Dr. Leonard said it was “in debate, whether or not her life was at that point.”

But, he clarified, even under those circumstances, authoritative Catholic teaching would not have permitted the hospital to consider abortion as a form of necessary medical treatment. Pope John Paul II's encyclical “Evangelium Vitae” stated that “the deliberate decision to deprive an innocent human being of his life is always morally evil and can never be licit ... (even) as a means to a good end.”"
Catholic News Agency

In the end this issue comes down to whether or not the good Sister supports church teaching or not. It's obvious that she is misrepresenting the situation regarding this particular incident at St. Josephs and it seems that, based on her statement that St. Joseph and its parent company, Catholic Health Care West are "...valued members of the Catholic Health Association...", she is more than happy to overlook the history of abuses, not only against Church authority but also against the moral order perpetrated by this consortium.

Keehan has connections to Network, a Catholic social justice lobbying group that is connected to extreme, Progressive causes, not the least of which is the Catholic Campaign for Human Developement, which, of course, is part of the USCCB.

In the words of Sir Walter Scott: "Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive."

She teamed with Network to write the letter in support of the Obama health care bill that gave cover to many wavering Catholic politicians, such as Bart Stupak, and allowed them to convince themselves that voting for the bill was morally allowable. This is what George Wesolek, director of the Office of Public Policy and Social Concern for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, had to say about Sister Keehan's letter:

“For years, most of the leadership of the LCWR (Leadership Conference of Women Religious) and the Catholic hospitals (most of which are owned by these very same LCWR leaders) have been advancing a view of Catholic social teaching that reflects a vision that they learned in the 60s and 70s – a tired feminism that distorts the role of women and has at its center the freedom of women to ‘choose’ to kill the infants in their womb if they so desire… Thus, the sisters can say with a straight face that the current health care legislation is ‘life-affirming.’ They ignore or claim as ‘false’ what the bishops and every pro-life institution in the country has recognized as a flawed bill that will advance abortion…”
California Catholic

So, what do we have? We have a Sister that refuses to live according to her vows, fighting to replace Church teaching with the hippie/feminist lies of the '60's. We have Progressive groups hiding under the banner of orthodoxy spreading lies and distortions among the faithful, most dangerously among children and the poorly educated, the sick and the poor, the groups least likely to be able to sort out fact from fiction. We have a Church hierarchy trying to discipline Keehan while at the same time working with these same Progressive groups to enrich the coffers of both while spreading error and heresy.

In other words, what we have here is rot and decay, corruption and collusion. We have a Church in America that has become less about truth and more about Progressivism and Social Justice, both offsprings of the Marxist ideology condemned by every Pope since Pius IX.

What we have is a Church on the brink of collapse. What we have is a situation similar to that time in the early part of the 16th century when the heretic Martin Luther tore Christendom in two because the Church opened itself to its own destruction through its involvement in evil.

The Church in America has no moral authority today because it refuses to act morally. Nothing will happen to Sister Keehan and her merry band of discontents. Not one damned thing!

Bishop Olmsted has done the right thing in stripping St. Joseph of its Catholic identity. If the Bishops at the USCCB had any intention of supporting him they would distance themselves from the groups that support the hospital and defy the Bishop and work to see that all those that refuse to obey lawful Church authority in this instance are punished, very publicly, by their Bishop.

Until the heads begin to roll the malcontents will feel free to spread their vile distortions.

BISHOPS, MAN UP!! For the good of the faithful and the Church. Clean up your group, the USCCB, and seize the moral high ground. If you don't, very shortly you won't have a Church to lead.

THE POPE'S WARNING

I was thinking last year, or maybe the year before, why isn't the Pope saying something? Not just the normal Pope stuff, profundity couched in language the average person can't and doesn't want to understand, but clearly and with power. Why didn't he say something about what was becoming so clear to so many of us, the simple truth that the world is coming apart.

It occurred to me at the time that it was likely that he had his reasons because I figured that if we could see it then the Pope was well aware of the problems. So I thought about it and it seemed possible that there was a reason that was so clear that I couldn't see it...free will.

I truly believe that we have been living in a time of extreme grace, an outpouring of the Spirit designed by God to give us all one last chance to get on board. I also believe, and the Pope's speech, I think, verifies this, that this period has ended.

Up to now this Pope and his predecessor have been pushing and cajoling the flock, trying to get us to accept the teachings of the Church and through the Church, Christ Himself. Because we have free will we had to accept them on our own and we couldn't be just frightened and through fright bullied into it. And I think they did a really good job of it.

If my theory is correct and the time of grace has passed I would expect the words of the Pope to become much, much stronger. We're no longer practicing putting on life jackets. We've hit the iceberg and we're going down. He'll no longer be trying to get those that don't believe on board but instead will be taking every measure to save those that have chosen to accept salvation. We are at the end of this world as we've known it.

This is all supposition on my part but I've been waiting for this moment and I believe it has happened.

If I'm right there is only one lifeboat that will be effective and that is faith. Pray that you can find your way in time.

BOOMIN' INTO OLD AGE

"Through a combination of procrastination and bad timing, many baby boomers are facing a personal finance disaster just as they're hoping to retire. Starting in January, more than 10,000 baby boomers a day will turn 65, a pattern that will continue for the next 19 years."
Time

So let's see, we've got high unemployment, much higher than these jacked up numbers from the government represent, stretching on and on and unprecedented demand for Social Security beginning next month and continuing for the next 19 years.

There is not and never has been a lockbox or trust fund for SSI as our politicians would like us to believe. It's funded from the taxes of current workers, a classic Ponzi scheme about to unravel. Why? Because the funding source, the employed, is fast drying up at just the time the demand is going to increase at a level never before seen. And Medicare will have exactly the same problems.

So now the third rail has to be touched. Not just touched but torn out and reconfigured. Whatever replaces it will be nothing like what was there before. All of us in the Baby Boomer tsunami of retirees will need to find a way to support ourselves because the government can't. And guess what? If we can find a job, which we may because we can work for a lot less than younger people, that job we take will be taken from a dwindling pool of jobs and some other guy with a wife and kids will lose out. The unemployment numbers will look better but the jobs will all be something akin to a greeter at WalMart. And really, how many of those do we need.

So here is the future. No more villages full of happy oldsters swinging clubs in Florida. Families will consolidate, just like they always did in the first 5000 years or so of history and they do in most of the rest of the world. Mom and dad will live with their kids and they'll do the cooking and cleaning and baby sitting while the younger people earn the money. As the funding for Medicaid slowly dries up health care for old people will get less comprehensive and life spans will slip. In other words, we won't live as long. Which is probably just as well because there aren't enough beds in the retirement homes for all of us. There won't be enough money to pay for them anyway. The good thing is that we'll die in our beds with the grandkids around, just like people used to.

We need to get our minds wrapped around this new, at least in America, reality. Our standard of living is falling and it's going to continue to do so. This problem of what to do with the old will be one of the first big places it shows up because the Baby Boomers will force the issue, just as we have in every other stage of our lives. You can't get around the numbers and we've got 'em.

WHERE IS THE TIPPING POINT?

"The former president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister, says Americans could be paying $5 for a gallon of gasoline by 2012.

In an interview with Platt's Energy Week television, Hofmeister predicted gasoline prices will spike as the global demand for oil increases.

"I'm predicting actually the worst outcome over the next two years which takes us to 2012 with higher gasoline prices," he said.

Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst with Oil Price Information Service says Americans will see gasoline prices hit the $5 a gallon mark in the next decade, but not by 2012.

"That wolf is out there and it's going to be at the door...I agree with him that we'll see those numbers at some point this decade but not yet." Kloza said.

"The demand is still sluggish enough in some of the mature economies."
CNN

I just checked; oil is at $91.22 a barrel. In 2008 it hit $147 and the price of a gallon of gas in July of that year was $4.11. By December it had fallen to $1.61 a gallon because the high cost of energy, specifically oil, was the trigger that set off the economic collapse we are still in today.

We're much weaker now so we won't be able to withstand $4.11 a gallon gas. We'll shut down someplace before that. But the increase in demand for oil that is in part driving this inflation in price isn't coming from America but from Asia. And the other thing that's driving it is the collapse of the dollar which certainly won't be strengthened if we suffer further economic failure. So it's entirely conceivable that when we falter this time we won't see prices fall as they did the last.

I believe energy will play the role of trigger yet again as our economy tips into depression, probably sometime this year. Who knows, maybe we'll be able to push it out a bit farther but collapse is coming. The only question is where, besides America, will it occur? I tend to think that if we go everyone else will go with us but I really don't know and neither does anyone else.

So get ready and pray for wisdom and protection. I don't know what will happen this year and I hope to be surprised by growth, jobs and more good times but I'm not holding my breath. I'd rather prepare for the worst and get the best than just close my eyes to reality.

WHY WE OWN GUNS

Sometimes we forget the simple truth that the right to keep and bear arms gives America an edge against nearly any invader that makes an invasion of our country a task daunting to the extreme. It also presents one hell of a problem for those inside our borders and perhaps our government that have their own dreams of conquest.

From Father Z's blog:

Even if Admiral Yamamoto didn’t actually say this, it is nevertheless true. Se non è vero, è ben trovato:

You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.

I received this amusing piece via e-mail:

The state of Wisconsin has gone an entire deer hunting season without someone getting killed. That’s great. There were over 600,000 hunters. Allow me to restate that number. Over the last two months, the eighth largest army in the world – more men under arms than Iran; more than France and Germany combined – deployed to the woods of a single American state to help keep the deer menace at bay. But that pales in comparison to the 750,000 who are in the woods of Pennsylvania this week. Michigan ‘s 700,000 hunters have now returned home. Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia , and it is literally the case that the hunters of those four states alone would comprise the largest army in the world. America will forever be safe from foreign invasion of troops with that kind of home-grown firepower.

Hunting – it’s not just a way to fill the freezer. It’s a matter of national security!

THE TRUTH IS SEEPING OUT 'ROUND THE EDGES

"Apocalyptic pain" from an out-of-control debt could cause 18 percent unemployment and a massive contraction in the economy that would destroy the middle class, a leading Republican deficit hawk said in an interview that aired Sunday.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who recently issued a report on government waste, warned that the U.S. only has about three or four years to get its fiscal house in order or it could find itself facing austerity measures seen in Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and earlier in Japan...

...The senator, who was recently elected to a second -- and he pledges -- final term in Congress, said he's not trying to scare anyone, but eliminating waste in the federal government's ledgers is imperative not just to prevent default but a massive implosion that he defined in catastrophic terms.

"I think you'll see a 15 to 18 percent unemployment rate. I think you will see an 8 to 9 percent decline in GDP. I think you'll see the middle class just destroyed if we don't do this. And the people that it will harm the most will be the poorest of the poor, because we'll print money to try to debase our currency and get out of it and what you will see is hyperinflation," Coburn said.

"If we didn't take some pain now, we're going to experience apocalyptic pain, and it's going to be out of our control. The idea should be that we control it," he said."
Fox News

I'm thinking that the Senator will receive a stern talking to over these comments. Or maybe our elected representatives have decided to come clean because they really have very little choice. Maybe they figure it's better to start letting the truth out, bit by bit, to get the country ready for what's coming.

Either way, most won't listen and this will just get buried in the jacked up, pumped up cheer leading from the bankers boys in the White House, Fed and Treasury along with the patent medicine salesmen on Wall Street.

I think that Coburn is a bit optimistic in saying that we have 3-4 years to deal with this. I believe that the collapse is already under way and the snow ball of unmanageable debt that's about to roll over the economies of the world is picking up steam.

All we can do now is try to stay out of its way.

MONDAY MORNING READING

Once again I recommend that you read Kunstler's piece over at Cluster**** Nation. We disagree on so many of the details yet we always seem to agree on the overall picture. Kunstler isn't any different than anyone else - he can't predict the time that things will happen or exactly how'll the world's going to blow up. He does have a real knack, though, for understanding the root causes and the effects.

A little teaser to whet the appetite:

"A little ways off the curb on the Boulevard Henry IV here in Paris, you can see the memory of the Bastille outlined by a course of masonry in the pavement, in particular one of the bulbous towers of the old fortress-prison. It marks one of those threshold moments in history when things got out-of-hand - in the late afternoon of July 14, 1789 - and by the time a mob had detached the head of Warden Bernard-René de Launey from his shoulders and paraded it around on a pike, everyone in the city knew that they had crossed into the politically unknown frontier of Revolution.

Seeing this residue of history put me in mind of a riddle that one of my college professors presented to us one day years ago: why did Achilles drag Hector around the city of Troy three times? We came up with dozens of reasons ranging from conjectures out of the text of The Iliad to lame bits of Hippie numerology, but nobody could furnish the answer that the prof was looking for, which was eventually revealed: Because he [Achilles] was just that pissed off.

This was the idea that dogged me in the winter twilight of Paris late on Christmas Day as I pondered the fate of my own country back across the cold cold sea. A lot of Americans are beaten down and discouraged these days. They've lost not only jobs, incomes, and houses, but also a sense of purpose, and perhaps faith in the essential fairness of the American venture - as the propane runs out, and families try to subsist on Froot Loops, and the re-po squad turns up to haul away the Ford F-150 Raptor. Meanwhile, in their last remaining refuge from harsh reality, TV, they glimpse the likes of Jamie Dimon, Chloe Kardashian, and Jay-Z emerging from limousines looking hopelessly bored with wealth beyond imagination. When will the folks out there move from shame and despondency to being really pissed off about the disposition of things?

Isn't that a question, though?"

TSA SECURITY - COMING SOON TO A MALL NEAR YOU

"The United States is stepping up security at "soft targets" like hotels and shopping malls, as well as trains and ports, as it counters the evolving Al-Qaeda threat, a top official said Sunday.

A year after a foiled plot to bomb a US-bound passenger plane, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told CNN's "State of the Union" program that other places and modes of transportation must now be scrutinized."
Breitbart

It's taking every bit of will power I have not to say it...I'm so weak...I TOLD YOU SO!!!

This is what all the groping at the airports is about, desensitizing the public to 24 hour a day scrutiny of every aspect of our lives as America becomes a police state. Soon you'll not be able to escape the watching eye. There'll be cameras and questions, I.D. cards and permits. The ability to travel even to the local store without being harassed by law enforcement will be a thing of the past.

Remember this as you willingly submit to take that next flight.

America, the land of the free and home of the brave. It was good while it lasted.

PRISONERS TRAINING FOR EMERGENCY RESPONSE IN MISSOURI

"The Missouri National Guard plans to start training some of the state's prison inmates to help it during natural disasters and other emergencies.

Missouri Guard spokeswoman Maj. Tammy Spicer said Thursday that under the proposal, the prison inmates would become a more formalized part of the Guard's disaster response. She said it would give the Guard a larger and better trained pool of workers to respond to emergencies. The training would focus on skills such as filling and stacking sandbags and removing debris.

Prison inmates already have been used in the past to help local officials during floods and other emergencies. Over the past several years, prison inmates have worked with volunteers and others to shore up levees and fill sandbags along flooding rivers from near St. Louis to northwestern Missouri.

Earlier this year, Gov. Jay Nixon allowed 37 inmates from a prison in St. Joseph to help stack sandbags along I-29 near Craig to protect the highway from a flooded Missouri River. In 2008, nearly 150 inmates from prisons across the state were among those fortifying levees near the Mississippi River in northeastern Missouri. And in 2007, prison inmates and the National Guard worked to protect a water treatment plant, schools and an ethanol plant near Craig from flood water."
The Wichita Eagle

I suppose that to some this may seem like a crazy idea but I think it has merit, for three reasons. The first is that when the rivers are coming up and the levees are about to break any help is appreciated. Having a trained and willing group of workers organized along military lines could be a God send.

The second is that this very same training, along military lines, will help at least some of the prisoners when they enter back into the civilian world. A sense of pride in accomplishment goes a long way towards helping to foster further success.

Thirdly, I think that this is a step towards using prisoners as work crews. States are going underwater fast and will no longer be able to afford to hire and pension all the workers they have over the last 50 years or so. It's time to start using prisoners to do the work. We're paying them anyway, right? They should have to work just like the rest of us.

BOMBS IN A THERMOS - REALLY?

"An administration official says the Homeland Security Department is alerting air carriers to a potential terror tactic involving insulated beverage containers like thermoses.

The official stresses that there is no intelligence about an active terror plot. The official spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters.

Travelers may notice that airport screeners are taking a closer look at empty insulated containers, but the official said authorities have no information about a specific threat involving the items.

The Homeland Security Department regularly alerts law enforcement about evolving terror tactics as counterterrorism officials learn about them through intelligence chatter."
The Blaze

Really? Terrorists are going to go to all the problem of sneaking explosives through in a thermos? This when you aren't even allowed to take a bottle of shampoo on a plane? Why?
All they have to do is put a bit of poison in a salad bear.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; something's not right here. Someone is using the threat of terrorism to manipulate us. They keep focusing on planes because they're trying to justify the intrusive nature of airport searches which I believe are less about security and more about indoctrination into the state having the power to enter into any part of your life, regardless of the Fourth Amendment.

If you think that this isn't about intimidation than talk to the pilot that had the temerity to question the effectiveness of TSA screening at airports. He posted a series of videos on YouTube showing just how pointless these screenings are and found his home invaded by Federal Marshals and his gun taken away.

Is that enough intimidation to keep others quiet? The government hopes so.

Something is rotten with all of this and yet most go along like sheep. And that's what they count on. The Nazis relied on this while they were loading people into boxcars. Their methods were relatively direct yet no one said anything much less rose up en masse to stop it. Our government is acting in a more sophisticated manner to achieve the same ends. They are breaking down our resistance, one grope at a time. Once we're completely acclimated to airport searches they'll move onto schools and government buildings; all in the name of protecting us and keeping the chillins' safe. Soon biometric cards and permission to travel will become commonplace. And those that complain? Well, a little re-education never did anybody any harm.

All this because we're stupid enough to believe that real terrorists intend to use thermos' to blow up planes instead of simple, more effective means of achieving their purported goals.

WHEN THE WELL RUNS DRY AND THE MONEY STOPS FLOWING

"This struggling small city on the outskirts of Mobile was warned for years that if it did nothing, its pension fund would run out of money by 2009. Right on schedule, its fund ran dry.

Then Prichard did something that pension experts say they have never seen before: it stopped sending monthly pension checks to its 150 retired workers, breaking a state law requiring it to pay its promised retirement benefits in full.

Since then, Nettie Banks, 68, a retired Prichard police and fire dispatcher, has filed for bankruptcy. Alfred Arnold, a 66-year-old retired fire captain, has gone back to work as a shopping mall security guard to try to keep his house. Eddie Ragland, 59, a retired police captain, accepted help from colleagues, bake sales and collection jars after he was shot by a robber, leaving him badly wounded and unable to get to his new job as a police officer at the regional airport.

Far worse was the retired fire marshal who died in June. Like many of the others, he was too young to collect Social Security. “When they found him, he had no electricity and no running water in his house,” said David Anders, 58, a retired district fire chief. “He was a proud enough man that he wouldn’t accept help.”

The situation in Prichard is extremely unusual — the city has sought bankruptcy protection twice — but it proves that the unthinkable can, in fact, sometimes happen. And it stands as a warning to cities like Philadelphia and states like Illinois, whose pension funds are under great strain: if nothing changes, the money eventually does run out, and when that happens, misery and turmoil follow."
CNBC
H/T The Coming Depression

This is what we are going to start seeing more frequently as first cities, then counties and finally states all face the reality that they cannot pay the pensions that they promised. This will start the ball rolling downhill even faster as states look to the fed for a bailout and unions bring their anger to the streets.

Buckle up, 2011's gonna be an interesting year.

HYPERINFLATION IS COMING - PREPARE

Look, there's nothing magic about this. When you make more of something its value declines, whether that something is computers or dollars. As the dollar sinks in value investors will leave it and head for commodities which is why we're seeing oil and food already beginning to inflate. And those are just the beginning.

Assuming that you can keep your job, inflation isn't necessarily a bad thing. Any loans you have will get really cheap and if your salary goes up with inflation it will be a whole lot easier to pay them off.

The problem is that inflation will hit the things that we absolutely need to live the hardest and it will suck away any increase in income if you can't find a way to get around these necessities. Food, fuel and clothing will become incredibly expensive while house values and other assets collapse. The secret to having a chance of surviving this thing is to become as independent of the need to buy food, fuel and other essentials as possible. In other words grow it, make it and conserve it.

If you haven't started storing up food, start. If you haven't got a garden all planned out and ready to go for next spring, start. If you haven't been really working on ways to become as fuel efficient as possible, start.

How to become fuel efficient? Do you have access to wood? Get a wood stove. Learn to cook outside on a fire with dutch ovens. Build a solar hot water heater and a gravity fed shower. Learn to live without air conditioning and make sure that your house is capable of providing good ventilation by installing a whole house fan. The less you need to buy, especially of the essentials, the less inflation can affect you.

Learn to preserve food. Learn to sew. Learn to do your own repairs on just about everything. Try to divorce yourself from the things that you can't support with a way scaled back society.

Simplify.

Time is running short, of that I'm convinced. Even if I'm wrong I don't see the down side to learning to live more simply and more efficiently. There's something about working in closer cooperation with the seasons and the ebb and flow of time that's just...comfortable.

TERRORISM AT THE SALAD BAR

"In this exclusive story, CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports the latest terror attack to America involves the possible use of poisons - simultaneous attacks targeting hotels and restaurants at many locations over a single weekend.

A key Intelligence source has confirmed the threat as "credible." Department of Homeland Security officials, along with members of the Department of Agriculture and the FDA, have briefed a small group of corporate security officers from the hotel and restaurant industries about it.

"We operate under the premise that individuals prepared to carry out terrorist acts are in this country," said Dec. of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on Dec. 6, 2010.

The plot uncovered earlier this year is said to involve the use of two poisons - ricin and cyanide - slipped into salad bars and buffets.

Of particular concern: The plotters are believed to be tied to the same terror group that attempted to blow up cargo planes over the east coast in October, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula."
CBS News

At the risk of sounding like I'm rootin' for the bad guys, which I'm not, I've gotta say, it's about time.

Something about the terrorist threat in this country has bothered me since 9/11. First of all, why haven't we been hit inside our borders? Secondly, why all the emphasis on airplanes, what with the groping and scanning and all the other crap?

If I were a terrorist, which I'm not, I wouldn't mess around with planes; too costly, too much planning, too many things to go wrong. If I wanted to pull off an attack of any kind the first thing I'd do is keep it simple...real simple...poisoning a food bar simple. Or spraying a restaurant with automatic weapon fire simple. Or running a car through a crowd simple. Or tossing hand grenades into a grade school simple. (I hope I'm not giving anyone ideas. I'm just making a point.)

So why haven't any of these things happened? We all know, or at least we think we know, that there are terrorist cells active in America. We all know that the very hallmark of America, our freedom, leaves us open to attack just about everywhere. So where's the attacks? Who's holding them back, and why?

It's not like you'd even need a bunch of attacks. Look, the word's out now that the food bars might be hit. People are talking about it. Do they have to hit a bunch of food bars? No. A couple would probably be about right. How fast do you think the restaurant business would feel the pinch? Next time, threaten a mall. Business slows down. Now go all Hitchcock on 'em and don't do a thing. Let everybody relax a bit and then...WHAM!! Blow up a county courthouse in a rural area. You gettin' the idea?

Very little cost, very little risk and big, big effect. America would stop functioning and since we're teetering on the edge of collapse already it really wouldn't take much to push us over.

So if I can figure this out you know the professionals can, too. So what's stopping them?

Something's not right and it hasn't been since we were first attacked. I just don't know what it is.

BISHOP OLMSTED FOLLOWS THROUGH - REMOVES HOSPITAL AFFILIATION

"The Catholic bishop of Phoenix on Tuesday stripped a local hospital of Catholic affiliation after it ended a woman's pregnancy to save her life."
Reuters

To save the patients life? Really?

"The patient suffered from pulmonary hypertension that could limit the functioning of her heart and lungs, the hospital said. Allowing the pregnancy to continue could have exacerbated the condition, it said."

So we're not talking about a life and death struggle with the mother teetering on the edge of death. We're not talking about a baby that died in its mother's womb as a secondary effect of the medical procedures that had to be preformed to save the mother because without it she would have died, right now.

No, we're talking about an abortion, deliberately considered and assented to by the mother of the child while under no threat of imminent peril. The pregnancy did present the possibility of physical harm or death to the mother but it was not a clear and present danger.

"Hunt said the medical procedure to end the pregnancy was performed only after consulting with the patient and her family, doctors and the hospital's ethics committee. Olmstead later ex-communicated one member of the ethics committee, Sister Margaret McBride."

The mother's death was not only far from looming, there was time for meetings and discussions. And this instance of abortion is not the only one nor is abortion the only serious breach of Catholic teaching this hospital has involved itself in.

"Olmstead, at a news conference, said the hospital failed to adequately address "the scandal caused by the abortion" and that it has for years violated other ethical and religious guidelines set by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

He told reporters the violations included offering contraceptive counseling and supplies, providing voluntary male and female sterilization, and performing abortions due to a mother's mental or physical health or when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest."

While the media and feminist groups try to paint this as some sort of egregious interference in the "rights" of the mother, in reality what we have is a Catholic hospital that has not only refused to do what it's told but it has been implicated in mortal sin. The only way the Bishop could have been wrong would be if he did nothing!

The problem is that the doctors cannot put the life of the mother ahead of the child. Both are equally valuable. The proper thing to do would have been to try to save the life of the mother without purposefully killing the child. It seems as though the child was sacrificed to save the mother even though the death of the mother was not a foregone conclusion.

Damn. That sounds hard, doesn't it? Obviously, I wasn't there for all this and I'm just going off what I read between the lines and my knowledge of Church teaching on this subject. But, what if I put myself in the shoes of the mother and father? What if the situation was a whole lot dicier than it seems? What if there was a damned near certainty that my wife was going to die if the pregnancy went forward? What would I do?

I've thought a lot about this over the years because I am a husband and father. And pregnancy isn't the only thing that could put you in a tight spot regarding your life or the life of someone you love. What if it was my granddaughter? Or one of my grown kids?

The fact is that I have faith and what good is it if you can't rely on it. I've learned over the years that there are a bunch of things that I can't control. So far it's pretty much been most things. I've learned to put my faith in Jesus, say a prayer and just go. I know pretty well what the Church teaches in most instances and since I believe the Church teaches what Christ teaches then I have to do as the Church says. And leave the rest up to God.

That doesn't mean it would be easy and if the life of someone I love was on the line it would be a real test of my faith. But, my feelings don't change the truth and if I believe the Church teaches the truth when it's easy I have to believe it teaches the truth when it's hard.

So please Jesus, don't put me in a position like these people found themselves in. But if you do, give me the strength to follow you; to follow the truth. I'm weak but through you I can be strong. And please watch over the soul of that poor little baby and all the others that have died from abortions. And help all the moms and dads of those kids to find forgiveness and peace.

Amen.

REFORM THE MONETARY SYSTEM BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE

Watch this video and then go and watch the Secret of Oz. This is what I mean when I say that we need to collapse ourselves before others do it to us. We must decouple from the bankers and go back to real money, issued by the treasury without debt. Spend, not borrow money into existence. When doing this we'll necessarily have to reduce the size of our nation, bring it back within our borders and give up trying to protect the rest of the world. Austerity will only work in conjunction with reform of the monetary system.

BISHOPS AND GAY SOLDIERS

S.510 ABOUT TO BECOME LAW AND WHY IT WILL BRING STARVATION TO AMERICA

"In a world where we get garlic from China, shellfish from Thailand and sugar cane from Mexico, Congress is poised to approve an ambitious food safety bill that would strengthen the nation's top regulator and impose new rules on domestic production and trading partners.

The legislation is aimed at preventing tainted food from entering the supply chain, sickening Americans and forcing massive recalls. It would give the Food and Drug Administration sweeping new powers to demand recalls and require importers to certify the safety of what they're bringing into this country."
L.A. Times

Ahh, safety. Sounds good doesn't it; like being wrapped in your mothers arms, protected from all the evils in the world. Well, the government ain't your momma and this bill has nothing to do with keeping you safe.

"The following is a point-by-point overview of what's in the bill and how it would authorize new regulatory checks on food production and distribution:

-- The Department of Health and Human Services secretary would have the authority to inspect the records for food deemed to be susceptible to contamination.
-- The HHS secretary would have the authority to suspend the registration of any food facility deemed to be a health risk.
-- The bill would require food facilities to evaluate potential hazards to their food and keep records on how they are monitoring and correcting these potential problems.
-- The bill would require the HHS secretary to establish new standards for the harvesting of some fruits and vegetables and publish updated guidance.
-- The secretary would be able to collect fees for food recalls and food facility re-inspections.
-- The secretary would be required to draft new regulations for the sanitary transportation of food.
-- The secretary would be required to provide schools and other educational institutions with plans for managing the risk from food allergies and anaphylaxis in schools. Implementation would be voluntary.
-- The secretary would be required to increase inspection at food facilities and report to Congress annually.
-- The secretary would be authorized to shut down distribution at any facility regarding a contaminated or misbranded food if the facility does not do so voluntarily. The secretary would also be able to order a recall -- after a hearing is held.
-- The bill would encourage the secretary to investigate compliance with the act through officials at the state and local level.
-- The bill would require importers of food to verify that the products they are importing meet safety standards and are not contaminated.
-- The bill would block imported food that does not meet certain safety requirements from entering the country.
-- The bill would set up Food and Drug Administration offices in foreign countries to offer assistance with keeping food exported to the United States up to FDA standards."
Fox News

Does it seem to you, as it does to me, that this bill creates a super powered agency with carte blanche investigative and enforcement powers? You know that regardless of the restrictions built into the bill, of which I'm sure there are precious few, the real power will come from the regulations written by unelected bureaucrats inside Health and Human Services with little or no oversight from the Congress.

These regulators will be all cozied up to Big Ag which will want regulations written and enforced to control competition and enrich their bank accounts.

What, you say that this wouldn't happen? You think that we need some sort of safety controls on our food? You believe that the government only has your best interests at heart. Well, do you, bunky?

Let's look at what happened the last time a Progressive administration took control of the nations food supply.

"Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942), was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that dramatically increased the power of the federal government to regulate economic activity. A farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat to feed his chickens. The U.S. government had imposed limits on wheat production based on acreage owned by a farmer, in order to drive up wheat prices during the Great Depression, and Filburn was growing more than the limits permitted. Filburn was ordered to destroy his crops and pay a fine, even though he was producing the excess wheat for his own use and had no intention of selling it.

The Supreme Court, interpreting the United States Constitution's Commerce Clause under Article 1 Section 8 (which permits the United States Congress "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;") decided that, because Filburn's wheat growing activities reduced the amount of wheat he would buy for chicken feed on the open market, and because wheat was traded nationally, Filburn's production of more wheat than he was allotted was affecting interstate commerce, and so could be regulated by the federal government."
Wikipedia

Wickard v. Filburn, which grew out of government interference in the food supply, is the case upon which hinges nearly all of the government intrusion into our lives today. It established that the Commerce Clause has nearly unlimited potential to be used as justification for nearly anything the government wants to do. You've noticed, I'm sure, that almost anytime a politician is asked to justify some nanny state intrusion into our lives they cite the Commerce Clause. This is why.

So what makes you think that it won't be used again, in implementing S.510, as a hammer to control the freedoms of farmers and individuals that want to grow their own food? What makes you think it won't be used to shut down farmers markets so that the competition that Big Ag fears can be destroyed? What makes you think that all the local farmers that sell through co-ops won't be shut down? The government wouldn't do that, you say? Try, just try to buy raw milk from a farmer. You think Big Ag can't get laws passed to protect themselves? Then why do I have to buy my milk from a major producer and not from the guy that squeezed the teat on the cow? Why can't I sell my eggs from my happy, uncaged hens, to a restaurant or a store without all kinds of government red tape and inspections?

Humanity survived for thousands of years without government checking our food and we can make it thousands more. This isn't about safety, it's about control and profit. And our representatives, from both sides of the aisle are more than happy to see it passed because it will swell the coffers of Big Ag which I'm sure will be more than happy to pass the money around in Washington.

Nothing ever changes and nothing ever will until we throw 'em out and start all over again. And while our reps are eating steak and lobster and we're fighting over the last loaf of bread in the store I hope we all remember why things are as they are and who got us there.

HOMOSEXUAL "RIGHTS" IN MILITARY WILL SUPPRESS REAL RIGHTS

I hate to even bring this up, but, I told you this would happen.

"The U.S. Senate voted on Dec. 18 to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy barring open homosexuals from the military. Opponents of the repeal warned it will turn the military into a tool to impose “a radical social agenda” on the country...

...The change in policy could have significant consequences for those who assent to Christian sexual ethics.

Many backers of the repeal also support career penalties for servicemen and women who oppose homosexuality, including military chaplains.

Some chaplains have been told by superiors that they should leave the military if they have problems of conscience under a repeal.

Military officers are judged on their compliance with the equal protection goals of the military. In a November interview, Daniel Blomberg of the Alliance Defense Fund said that under a repeal of the policy on homosexuals, one of those military goals will include support for “incorporating and supporting homosexual behavior in the military.”

Archbishop of the Archdiocese for the Military Services Timothy Broglio has also opposed the repeal, citing concerns it might negatively affect the role of military chaplains. He noted that Catholic chaplains cannot accept or bless same-sex unions, and stated that no restrictions on the teaching of Catholic morality can be accepted.

In his June 1 statement, he added that moral beliefs should not be sacrificed for “merely political considerations.”
Catholic News Agency

THE DAY OF RECKONING HAS ARRIVED

So, you think we got problems in the economy now? Just wait 'til the states begin to seize up!

Here's my prediction: in the next few months states will begin to declare bankruptcy so that they can renegotiate all pension agreements with the unions. When that happens the federal government will backstop the states with money from future generations, sending more money to the unions, devaluing the dollar even more and hastening general, national collapse.

MARK MALLETT - END TIMES INTERVIEW

An Interview on the End Times from Mark Mallett on Vimeo.

THE POWERS OF THE STATE VERSUS THOSE OF THE PEOPLE

I have a question and I'm hoping that someone out there will weigh in and give me some ideas about the answer.

In America, the Founders believed that, as far as I can tell, power comes from God, through the people to the government. They believed that the powers of government were essentially granted it by the people as a loan. That the people, in the cause of advancing the common good, hand over certain of their rights and privileges to the government to allow the government to have the power to govern effectively. These powers are spelled out in the Constitution in Article 1, Section 8.

This idea puts a natural barrier in place against the overreach of government. If the powers of government are derived from the people then the government cannot posses powers greater than the people. In this regard the nature of the government and the people are the same and the people retain the place of honor because they create the government, not the other way around.

If this is the case, and we have an inalienable right to liberty which can only be removed from us if we commit a crime against the rights of another, how can the government have the authority to conscript its citizens? I, as an individual citizen, cannot enslave another and if the government cannot have any powers that I don't how can it enslave anyone in the military?

"US Constitution, 5th Amendment:

"No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

Conscription deprives a person of liberty without due process of law. This is clearly prohibited by the 5th amendment. Conscription is an involuntary taking of a person's labor-which is a form of property-without just compensation as provided by the eminent domain provisions of the 5th amendment.
Compulsory government service is incompatible with individual liberty.

We oppose imposition of the draft, the registration law, compulsory military training or any other form of compulsory government service.

We support a well-trained and highly organized volunteer state home militia, and voluntary Reserve Officer Training Corps (R.O.T.C.) military training in our schools, colleges, and universities."
Constitution Party Platform

I tend to agree with the position of the Constitution Party on this issue because I have always agreed with the ideas of government as stated above. But, I can also see an argument for a draft in times of serious defensive need.

"With Vatican II we recognize that: "As long as the danger of war remains and there is no competent and sufficiently powerful authority at the international level, governments cannot be denied the right to legitimate defense once every means of peaceful settlement has been exhausted". This principle acknowledges the right of the state to call citizens to acts of "legitimate defense". To this right there corresponds the duty each citizen has to contribute to the common good of society, including, as an essential element, the defense of society. Both the right of the state and the responsibility of the citizen are governed by moral principles which seek to protect the welfare of society and to preserve inviolate the conscience of the citizen."
USCCB: Statement on Registration and Conscription for Military Service

If the state has the moral authority to conscript its citizens in a time of great defensive need then it would seem that the state possesses rights and powers that the citizens do not. I couldn't force my neighbor to defend my property, so why can the state?

If this is the case then perhaps the idea that the nature of the state is much the same as ours is wrong. Is it possible that the understanding of so many in the Conservative/Libertaian movement could be wrong? What if, though government retains its authority through the consent of the governed, the nature of its authority is removed from and different than the nature of the authority of the governed?

"A closer study of the Declaration of Independence discloses its dissimilarity with the social-contract or compact theories as explained with slight variations, by Rousseau, Hobbes, Locke, Puffendorf, Althusius, Grotius, Hooker, Kant, or Fichte. The American Declaration, like the political doctrine of Cardinal Bellarmine, declared political power as coming, in the first instance, from God, but as vested in a particular ruler by consent of the multitude or the people as a political body. The social-contract or compact theories sought the source of political power in an assumed social contract or compact by which individual rights contributed or yielded their individual rights to create a public right. Contracts of individuals can create individual rights only, not public or political rights. According to the American Declaration and Cardinal Bellarmine, government implies powers which never belonged to the individual and which, consequently, he could never have conferred upon society. The individual surrenders no authority. Sovereignty receives nothing from him. Government maintains its full dignity, it is of Divine origin, but vested in one or several individuals by popular consent."
Catholic Education

It seems perfectly reasonable to me that because the nature of the two things, the people and the state, are different that the rights and powers of the two would not be interchangeable. If this is the case then the arguments being made today by people such as Glenn Beck, Judge Napolitano, Rush Limbaugh and others about the nature of our system of government are based on a false premise. The government is subservient to us because we have the power to choose our leaders and to cast it off it becomes destructive to our needs. However, it also retains rights and powers that we don't, such as the ability to enslave for the benefit of the common good.

So does government get its powers directly from God with the people only acting to establish it and to choose its leaders? Is it a sort of parallel to our human rights, not a derivative from them?

What other legitimate powers does it posses that we don't? And what does it claim to posses that it doesn't and how are we to know the difference? Can it be restrained by the Constitution that created it? One would think so since the lesser cannot create the greater, ergo the Constitution should be binding on the government.

Anyway, welcome to my world! I'll be thinking about this and doing research for the rest of my life now so I'd appreciate your comments to get the ball rolling. Am I completely off base on this?

HOMOSEXUALS, THE MILITARY AND FREE SPEECH

"In a landmark vote, the Senate on Saturday ended the Clinton-era ban on gays serving openly in the military, marking a major triumph for President Obama, liberals and the gay community."
Fox News

In an abstract sense I really don't care about this issue. It seems to me to be a subject not unlike deciding whether the uniform should be blue or green. The military should be allowed to make the rules that it believes will best serve the mission of defending the country and the Constitution. Since the Constitution gives the authority to Congress to meddle in the affairs of the military, for good or bad, then so be it.

My concern is that the real reason behind this is not to strengthen the military or to support the rights of homosexuals in the military, though I don't see how their rights are any different than anyone else's which makes me wonder why they need to be singled out based on a sexually deviant proclivity.

No, I believe that this is part of a larger effort to change perceptions, to pervert society and to silence those that disagree.

If I'm right then the proof will be in this; will military chaplains be free to openly opine on the verses from the Bible that I've posted below? You know, the ones that, in crystal clear and unambiguous language, condemn homosexuality and go so far as to declare it an abomination and a sin worthy of death.

I'm going to make a prediction that the God given freedom of speech and religion guaranteed and protected in the First Amendment will be trampled by the Pentagon and the courts in order to advance an immoral agenda based on the twisted idea that proscribing speech promotes tolerance. This is the pattern that is played out over and over in our battles with evil and I see no reason not to expect it to be played out here.

We live in an upside down, through the looking glass world where right is wrong, black is white and left is right. There is no truth because truth is the enemy and lies are our friend. Many are so afraid of dissent that they ban it in the name of transparency, not caring whether it is true but only whether it advances or retards an agenda.

Watch how this issue plays out in the military. Look for bans on certain parts of the Bible to accommodate the agenda of the homosexual lobby. As these bans become entrenched in the military they will be expanded into civil law and the First Amendment will be swept away as the free expression of religious belief becomes "hate speech", just as it has in Canada.

They don't need to invade us en masse, they just have to take us apart, piece by piece, one special interest at a time. Weaken the wall enough and eventually it'll fall.

Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,
Nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 6 9:10

Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, because it is an abomination.
Leviticus 18:22

If any one lie with a man as with a woman, both have committed an abomination, let them be put to death: their blood be upon them.
Leviticus 20:13

For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature.
And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.
And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient;
Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers,
Detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy.
Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.
Romans 1 26:32

But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully:
Knowing this, that the law is not made for the just man, but for the unjust and disobedient, for the ungodly, and for sinners, for the wicked and defiled, for murderers of fathers, and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
For fornicators, for them who defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and whatever other thing is contrary to sound doctrine...
1 Timothy 1 8:10

MY WIFE THE BLOGGER

My wife has decided to become a blogger. Her blog is called "Moving Onto The Past". She's a much better writer than I am and a whole lot smarter, too. If y'all would go over and take a look I'd appreciate it. I'm not sure exactly what she's going to be writing about but I think it'll mostly revolve around our family and trying to learn how to do things the old way. That and visiting Santa at the Harley dealership.

We do live in the country, after all.

THE CHURCH PREPARES FOR BATTLE

From Father Z's blog:

"His Eminence Raymond Card. Burke has been underscoring the interplay of civil law and the Church’s canon law. Last summer he organized a conference on that very subject.

This will be more and more important as the Church and state (and prevailing mores) become more and more estranged.

Catholics must consider what it will be like to maintain the Catholic identity of Catholic schools and hospitals (…. and, eventually, parishes). We must consider whether it is worth trying to do so. Most people will say that it is.

Under what conditions and constraints? At what cost?

I suspect we are going to get more direction from Card. Burke on these matters. Once he gets hold of something he, like a pit bull, doesn’t let it go. Think of can. 915.

Card. Ratzinger was nicknamed “God’s Rotweiller”.

Perhaps Card. Burke will be “God’s Pit Bull”."

This is a vitally crucial point. As civil government becomes more and more hostile to the Church we are, again, going to have to make decisions at the personal level that will have a cost. Every part of our lives as we move forward into the coming storm are going to be a series of divergence points, places in time where we make small and sometimes large decisions that will affect our soul and salvation. We will choose rightly or wrongly, each decision probably not climactic in itself but just part of an overall pattern that will either bring us closer to Christ or closer to the evil one.

I don't know how this will play out and I'm glad that Card. Burke is thinking about this and is going to give us some direction. I'm sure that it'll start with issues like insurance policies. Catholic organizations will be forced to carry coverage for abortions and contraception and God only knows what else. When they refuse the government will crack down, arresting the administrators and seizing assets.

The government will force Catholic schools to follow government guidelines regarding "the separation of church and state", forcing the removal of all religious objects and halting the teaching of the one, true faith in our own schools. When the schools refuse, the government will move in. What should our response be?

Catholic hospitals will be forced to preform abortions. When they refuse and the government forces nuns, whose orders have served for hundreds of years as medical professionals, to participate in murder they will refuse. What should we do to back them?

These are the kinds of questions that need to be addressed and quickly because all of this is coming our way. We need to present a strong and unified front against evil when the time comes and we need to be prepared for the suffering that will come our way.

It is in this preparation that the Church must lead.

DHS NO WORK LIST

And he shall make all, both little and great, rich and poor, freemen and bondmen, to have a character in their right hand, or on their foreheads. And that no man might buy or sell, but he that hath the character, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man: and the number of him is six hundred sixty-six.
Book of Revelation 13:16-18

"On the Alex Jones Show today, a caller pointed to information posted on a union website for ironworkers spelling out details on the Department of Homeland Security’s TWIC and SWAC programs.

TWIC is short for Transportation Worker Identification Credential and SWAC stands for Secure Worker Access Consortium.

TWIC “is a biometric credential that ensures only vetted workers are eligible to enter a secure construction site, unescorted,” Ironworkers Local 361 in Ozone Park, New York, explains. “Before issuing a TWIC, TSA must conduct a security threat assessment on the TWIC applicant. An applicant who, as a result of the assessment, is determined to not pose a security threat, will be issued a TWIC card.”

In other words, construction workers in New York will need permission from the TSA and DHS in order to practice their profession and earn a living. It was much the same in the former Soviet Union and authoritarian states such as China where the government determines all aspects of an individual’s life and where even the mildly rebellious are severely punished."
Info Wars

"This site has been created in an effort to keep the membership of Ironworkers Local 40 & 361 aware and informed about recent changes within our jurisdiction.

The Department of Homeland Security along with The Transportation Security Administration has issued a directive titled:

Transportation Worker Identification Credential or "TWIC".

It is a biometric credential that ensures only vetted workers are eligible to enter a secure construction site, unescorted. It is believed that several very large upcoming projects within Local 40 & 361's jurisdiction will be requiring workers on these projects to have TWIC credentials. Before issuing a TWIC, TSA must conduct a security threat assessment on the TWIC applicant. An applicant who, as a result of the assessment, is determined to not pose a security threat, will be issued a TWIC card.

The fee for a TWIC card will be $132.50 and the credential is valid for five years."
Local 361

H/T SHTF

Is this the mark of the beast? I don't know. It's close enough that I want nothing to do with it. The thing is, this is just the beginning unless we refuse, starting right now, all of this crap, from naked scanners at airports to sobriety checkpoints to i.d. cards. The problem is that to refuse to participate will have a cost and this is what they count on.

So you better think it through now, how you'll react and what the breaking point is. Eventually, we will all be presented with a choice and we need to know our answer ahead of time.

And by the way, for all you union guys, look just how quickly you're being sold down the road by your union, you know, the guys that you send money to for protection, the ones that are in bed with and giving it up to the government. Boy, they're sure watching out for you!

And you get to pay them a little extra something for the privilege!