Without millions more good jobs, the U.S. economy is simply never, ever going to recover.  But at this point, there is every indication that the U.S. economy is going to continue to bleed jobs.  In the past, employment would bounce up and down as the economy went through various cycles.  But today what we are witnessing is something much different.  Over the past 30 or 40 years, literally millions of good jobs have been shipped off to China, India and to dozens of third world nations where half-starving workers are more than happy to slave away for big global corporations for less than a dollar an hour.  In the new “global economy” that we were promised would be so good for us, the expensive American worker is obsolete.  The giant global predator corporations that now dominate our economy do not exist to provide you and your family with a nice home, two cars and college educations for all your children.  No, their goal is to keep costs as low as possible so that their profits will be as high as possible.  For many of these giant global predator corporations, that means that paying workers as close to zero as possible is the best decision for the bottom line.

The truth is that the American people were never told that “free trade” and a “global economy” would mean that they would soon be lumped into a giant global labor pool and would be forced to compete for jobs with people on the other side of the globe.

No, we were just told that we should enjoy all of the cheap plastic crap made overseas that all of the “big box” retail stores were pushing us to buy.

Well, the party was fun while it lasted.  Americans ran up unprecedented amounts of debt on their credit cards buying all this stuff, while our once great manufacturing cities degenerated into rotted-out war zones.

But isn’t it a good thing to get all these products at such a cheap price?

After all, who wants to pay substantially more for things?

Well, running an economy this way is kind of like tearing off pieces of your house in order to keep your fire going.  Sure the fire will burn brightly for a while, but eventually you will have torn down your entire house.

One way or another, we end up paying dearly for the jobs we have shipped overseas.

You see, the millions of Americans who are now chronically unemployed because of “free trade” have to be supported by the U.S. government.

That means that it is the U.S. taxpayers who end up footing the bill.

You didn’t think that we were going to let all of those unemployed workers starve in the streets, did you?

Without good jobs, an increasing number of Americans are becoming completely dependent on government handouts.

Already, state governments across the United States are going broke trying to pay out unemployment benefits to the hordes of Americans who don’t have a job and can’t find a job.

In addition, for the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.

Also, according to one new study, somewhere around 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010, which is the highest rate in 20 years.

The truth is that more Americans are dependent on direct payments from the federal government than ever before.

But how long can we afford to support the millions upon millions of Americans who have been impoverished by this new “global economy”?

The U.S. government budget deficit was a record $1.4 trillion in 2009.  Now the White House says that we will exceed that figure in 2010 and again in 2011.

So just how long can we afford to run deficits equivalent to 10 percent of GDP?

Anyone with half a brain knows that these kind of debts are not anywhere close to sustainable.

So where is the money going to come from to pay for these exploding government programs?

Well, from you of course.

Recently I dubbed 2011 “the year of the tax increase”.  A whole slew of new taxes is scheduled to go into effect starting next year that will impact every single American taxpayer.

It is almost enough to make you want to stop working and start collecting government handouts instead.

But the American people don’t need even more handouts.

Handouts are only a temporary solution to a long-term problem.

What the American people need are good jobs.

But where in the world are these jobs going to come from?

The reality is that in the new “global economy”, the United States is a very unattractive place to do business.

If you were a global corporation, would you rather open a new facility in the third world where there are very few rules and regulations and where people will work for less than a dollar an hour, or would you rather open a new facility in the United States where there are literally thousands of laws and regulations to comply with and where you are going to have to pay workers at least ten times as much?

It doesn’t take a genius to see where all of this is headed.

For decades, an increasing number of Americans have been forced into lower paying service jobs, but now there aren’t even nearly enough of those to go around.

But it isn’t just the jobs that have been shipped overseas that are depressing wages and causing unemployment to skyrocket.  The millions of illegal immigrants that have flooded unchecked across the border have depressed wages and fundamentally changed the employment picture in industries such as construction and food service.

Not only that, but in this environment not even high tech workers are safe.  In fact, there are some corporations in the high tech industry that have been openly abusing worker visas to ship in large numbers of foreign workers to replace more expensive American employees.

What all this means is that it is becoming much more difficult to live a middle class lifestyle in the United States.

Perhaps that is why one of my articles struck such a nerve recently.  An article that I originally wrote for The American Dream blog and adapted by Business Insider has gone mega-viral and has ended up on Yahoo Finance.  The article was entitled “The Middle Class In America Is Radically Shrinking – Here Are The Stats To Prove it” and it has received over 9000 comments on Yahoo.

So why did it provoke such an extraordinary response?

Well, because it hits people where they live.

Today, millions of American families are really struggling.  Record numbers of middle class Americans are receiving foreclosure notices and record numbers of middle class Americans are going bankrupt.

In fact, more Americans than ever find themselves just trying to survive.

According to a poll taken in 2009, 61 percent of Americans ”always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.

You see, the truth is that most American families are not concerned with saving for retirement or even with planning for next year.  In this economic environment, most American families are worried about how they are going to survive until next month.

So who has been doing well in the new global economy?

The very, very wealthy of course.

According to Harvard Magazine, 66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.

Now, the truth is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with making money, but by any reasonable standard an economic system that produces such skewed results is horribly broken.

So will “redistributing the wealth” solve things?

No, it won’t.

At best, “redistributing the wealth” is only a temporary solution and it always ends up creating a lot of long-term problems.

What the American people really need are millions more good jobs.

But as we have seen, the current imbalances in the new “global economy” make it more likely that the American people will continue to lose millions more good jobs rather than gaining them.

Unless something is done, the standard of living for middle class Americans will continue to be forced down as labor increasingly becomes a global commodity.

So are you just going to accept that, or are you going to start demanding that your representatives change things?

The choice is up to you.

I guess that it is more than likely that the ‘pro Jewish’, ‘pro war’ and ‘anti Muslim’  products appeal to more or less the same crowd.  I guess that you know who they may be.

And yet, I am slightly puzzled I may admit, I ask myself where in Britain one can hang around with a T-shirt carrying an image of the Koran being stepped upon?  Where in Britain one can go around with a T-Shirt calling to ‘bomb Iran’?

When I immigrated to Britain fifteen years ago it was  a very tolerant place.  The university I landed in was submerged in ‘post-colonial discourse’. Students and professors spent hours mourning Britain’s  crimes of the past. To a certain extent, Britain  is still a very tolerant place. The British public is still very open. Moreover, being a white  foreigner here is a very pleasant experience.  Yet,  looking at Cafepress’ anti Muslim collection, I assume that being Muslim, Arab or Asian in Britain must be a complicated experience, at least for some.  As it happens the Zio-centric ideological amalgam of moral interventionism, pro war, anti Muslim feelings and Israeli lobbying have planted some disastrous seeds of bigotry in British culture.

I think that it is our humanist duty to identify the proponent of pro war, pro Jewish and anti Muslim ideologies within our discourse. In order to do so, I will let some of our leading British Zionist and Neocons model Cafepress’ latest designs.

Look for instance at the Jewish Chronicle writer Nick Cohen, a man who advocated the war in Iraq, a pro war moral interventionist, a man who supported the criminal IDF operation Cast Lead, but more than anything, Cohen doesn’t really like Islam. He can do well with Cafepress’s latest designs.

Jack Straw supported the war in Iraq.  He told the Chilcot Inquiry  that “he could have stopped the invasion, had he wanted to.” Seemingly, he didn’t want to. More than 1.5 million Iraqis died. Straw also doesn’t like Muslim women wearing veils. Cafepress supports Straw’s line of thinking with a new line of anti veil products.

By the way,  Jack Straw is not a Jew, he is just partially Jewish.

Cafepress, made a shirt for half Jews, just to make sure these ‘half-breeds’ do not drift away and start ‘hate themselves’.

David Miliband was listed by an Israeli propaganda site as an Israeli Hasbara (propaganda) author. He was trying to amend British Universal jurisdiction just to help Israeli war criminals visiting this kingdom. Do not worry, The Conservative Friend of Israel seem to have succeeded where Miliband failed.   Just a few days before Israel launched its lethal genocidal Operation Cast Lead, Milband visited Sderot and suggested to Israelis that  “above all”, Israel should “seek to protect its own citizens.” David Miliband is also a moral interventionist. He would kill in the name of democracy. Thank God he is not in the Government.

David Aaronovitch is a Jewish Chronicle writer, a defiant fighter against anti Semitism and yet a very enthusiastic opponent of Islam. As you may guess he  was an advocate for the  Iraq war. He also thinks that we better do something with Iran before it is ‘too late’.

The list of pro war, pro Israeli and anti Muslim supporters is pretty long. I think that we better identify them all. Now when we can fit them into T-shirts and babysuits we better move fast before the stock runs out.

To read more about Cafepress. Follow Nahida the exiled Palestinian on http://uprootedpalestinians.blogspot.com/

Without knowing anything about the eternal Heaven, you believe it exists and is your destination when you die?

According to religious surveys (Gallop&Pew Research), belief in Heaven shows a steady 60-80 percent. When asked where Heaven is, usually the answer is “somewhere out there” in the sky or space (universe or parallel universe). If people are asked “what” Heaven is, most respond with their own personal desires.

My Aunt Evie once described Heaven as “boring” if we were just going to sit on clouds and play harps. Descriptive terms offered are “eternal bliss” or Utopia. We will supposedly be spirits (wandering ghosts or soul-spirits) where we will always be happy.

If you knew you were taking a trip to another country, wouldn’t you arrange for passports, plan how to get there, where you would stay, what interesting places you would like to visit, what clothes to take depending on the weather, etc? Yet most Christians don’t know much about Heaven. Shouldn’t believers’ highest desire be to know this place, God’s dwelling place, where they will spend eternity?

The Bible has plenty to say about Heaven. The eternal place is revealed to us in astounding words throughout God’s Word to mankind. Some wondrous particulars are given in the last chapters of Revelation.

So where and what is this eternal Heaven? God gives us plenty of clues. After God’s Great Wrath has fallen on the earth, the Earth and the Heavens fall away or flee from Jesus Christ who sits on the Great White Throne for the final Judgment of millennial nations (people). Those whose names are not in the Book of Life (passports) will join Satan and his minions in the eternal lake of fire.

The Earth and Heavens will be burned up, laid bare. As Dr. Donald Barnhouse described it: “There is to be an end of the material heavens (universe) and earth which we know. … They are to be uncreated.” There goes the Laws of Thermodynamics.

What will take the place of the old earth and heaven? John’s words, “Then I saw a New Heaven and a New Earth …. and there is “no longer any sea.” The word “new” means ‘brand new, never before seen.” The Capitol of this new earth will be … “the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven…” and “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.”

There is much more about the New Jerusalem merged with the New Earth (with no sea). To give you a glimpse of the size of this City, the angel, using a gold measuring rod to measure the city, its gates and its wall, shows John that the city is laid out in a square, its length as great as its width; each side measuring about 1500 miles — its length and width and height are equal. A HUGE CUBE.

The material of the City’s surrounding wall (estimated 216 feet thick) is jasper; the city is pure gold, like clear glass; the foundation consists of twelve massive stones each made of a precious stone and on them are the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. There are twelve gates, three on each side, each gate is a pearl (huge) estimated to be as high as the city. The names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel will be on the gates.

As Dr. Henry Morris noted: “Never, of course, was there ever a city like this! If it were to be superimposed upon the United States, its area would cover all the way from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic Ocean to Colorado.”

The best achievements of mankind over the centuries can not be compared to the New Heaven and New Earth merged as one; neither can God’s eternal place prepared for us be totally comprehended in the minds of men.

God has given us a destination to plan for and a beautiful word picture of our Hope. More to come.

Resources:

Heaven and Hell, Edward Donnelly, Banner of Truth Trust, 2001
Heaven, Randy Alcorn, Tyndale, 2004
Revelation 12-22 Commentary, John MacArthur, Moody Press, 2000
Scripture quotes: New American Standard Bible

The problem is that the reformers, populist outsiders, tea party candidates, surprise primary winners and others expecting to oust incumbents in the coming mid-term elections for members of Congress and state governors and other officials mostly suck. Why? They are nutty, ignorant, dishonest or racist.

Pathetic US Senate candidates like Alvin Greene on the left in South Carolina and Sharron Angle on the right in Nevada, for example, are intellectual nits and an insult to a once envied political system. And in Memphis, Tennessee Willie Herenton, who is African-American, sells black racism to oust two-term incumbent Congressman Steve Cohen in a primary, telling blacks to not vote for his white opponent.

Many ambitious candidates drained the economy to become super-rich. Is this any time to trust people who have taken advantage of our corrupt corporate system to run the government and serve those they have previously taken advantage of for personal gain? Will anger about the corrupt, dysfunctional government system be sufficient for voters to turn the government over to people who have nothing in common with most Americans?

Consider California. Meg Whitman, a Republican candidate for governor wants to beat the familiar, incumbent-like Democrat Jerry Brown, now attorney general, and was previously the chief executive of eBay. She has outspent all other self-financed candidates across the country by using $91 million of her own money to knock out Steve Poizner, who spent $24 million of his own money, in the Republican primary. California is big, but $91 million and likely even more!! She will greatly outspend Brown. And Carly Fiorina, a Republican who is challenging Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer in California, has the audacity to claim on her website that she will “fight for every job” if elected even though, as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard in 2003 she cut about 18,000 jobs and did little good for the company. She has already spent $5 million. Are these people worthy of public support?

Consider Florida. Republican Rick Scott, the former head of Columbia/HCA Healthcare — an awful large hospital chain that paid $1.7 billion in fines for fraudulently billing government programs like Medicare — has become the front-runner for Florida governor. He supposedly is worth about $200 million. He was ousted by his own board of directors in 1997 amid the nation’s biggest health care fraud scandal. He loaned his campaign $22.9 million during the period from April 9 through July 16 and spent $22.65 million of it. In contrast, he received only $415,126 in contributions. Bill McCollum, his Republican opponent, raised a little over $1 million during the reporting period and spent about $1.7 million. He has raised $5.7 million since he announced his campaign last year. He has less than $500,000 left. Democrat candidate Alex Sink, with no primary opponent, raised $1.1 million for the reporting period and has raised $7.3 million so far. Is Scott better qualified because of his wealth and ability to advertise more?

Also in Florida is Jeff Greene who wants to be US Senator, a Democrat who had been a Republican with a strange gang of friends like Mike Tyson and Heidi Fleiss. Incredibly, most of his fortune, estimated at $1.4 billion, came from derivatives that let him profit from the collapse of subprime mortgages which helped tank the US economy. He lives in an oceanfront mansion when he is not on one of his yachts or his plane with gold seat-belt buckles. He recently reported taking a paltry $3,036 in outside contributions, while lending himself — and spending — $5.9 million in the second quarter. Recent polls found Greene roughly even in the primary with Democrat Representative Kendrick B. Meek, who had been the party favorite and took 18 months to raise a similar amount. Incumbent-like candidate Governor Charlie Crist still leads as an independent in a three-way general election. Greene boasts that now is the moment for self-financed candidates. “If 2008 was the year of change, 2010 is the year of frustration,” he said. But does frustration justify voting for these characters?

And then there is Linda E. McMahon, a Connecticut Republican who made her fortune in professional wrestling before her Senate run. She has stated a willingness to spend $50 million of her own money to win the election, a lot of money for such a small state, and has already spent $21.5 million. A television ad declares “politicians have had their chance, and blown it” while her jobs plan “is backed by experience.” She became president of the WWF as a legal maneuver to save the company in 1993, because her husband was indicted for distributing steroids to his wrestlers. Cleverly, she blew the whistle and told regulators something few in the industry would admit: wrestling matches were scripted shows and not athletic competitions that required the kind of oversight that, say, boxing required. The financial benefit was that her wrestling business operates in 29 states without supervision by state athletic boards or commissions, saving the company licensing fees. She served only a few months on the state Board of Education and then became a candidate. She supports policies that favor the rich and advocates offshore oil drilling. She faces Democrat incumbent-like Richard Blumenthal, now attorney general of Connecticut. Is her wrestling business experience really the basis for being a great senator?

Voters should remember this: None of these characters are legitimate populists, progressives or reformers with a political record to show their true capabilities or positions. Why trust them? Would they perform better than incumbents? I don’t think so. More likely, they would serve elites and corporate interests. In the past very few rich candidates have won office (just 11 percent), but considering the anti-incumbency sentiment this year, big money may prevail.

Is the evil you don’t know really better than the evil you do know because of failed government experience? Are some incumbents worth support? Or will many Americans admit that voting no longer can fix and reform our battered democracy and stay home? I think I will. There are just too many fools and idiots voting that offset the votes of informed and intelligent citizens. Maybe if voter turnout was totally abysmal, say 20 percent, maybe then we would get the reforms or revolution we need by de-legitimizing our delusional democracy.

Housing demand has fallen off a cliff in spite of the historic low rates. Purchases of new and existing homes are roughly 25% of what they were at peak in 2006. Case/Schiller reported on Monday that June new homes sales were the “worst on record”, but the media twisted the story to create the impression that sales were improving. Here are a few of Monday’s misleading headlines:

“New Home Sales Bounce Back in June”–Los Angeles Times. “Builders Lifted by June New-home Sales”, Marketwatch. “New Home Sales Rebound 24%”, CNN. “June Sales of New Homes Climb more than Forecast”, Bloomberg.

It’s all bunkum. The media’s lies are only adding to the sense of uncertainty. When uncertainty grows, long-term expectations change and investment collapses. Lying has an adverse effect on consumer confidence and, thus, on demand. This is from Bloomberg:

The Conference Board’s confidence index dropped to a 5-month low of 50.4 from 54.3 in June. According to Bloomberg News:

“Sentiment may be slow to improve until companies start adding to payrolls at a faster rate, and the Federal Reserve projects unemployment will take time to decline. Today’s figures showed income expectations at their lowest point in more than a year, posing a risk for consumer spending that accounts for 70 percent of the economy.

“Consumers’ faith in the economic recovery is failing,” said guy LeBas, chief fixed-income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia, whose forecast of 50.3 was the closest among economists surveyed by Bloomberg. “The job market is slow and volatile, and it’ll be 2013 before we see any semblance of normality in the labor market.” (Bloomberg)

Confidence is falling because unemployment is soaring, because the media is lying, and because the Fed’s monetary policy has failed. Notice that Bloomberg does not mention consumer worries about “curbing the deficits”. In truth, the public has only a passing interest in the large deficits. It’s a fictitious problem invented by rich corporatists (and their think thanks) who want to apply austerity measures so they can divert more public money to themselves. In the real world, consumer confidence relates to one thing alone–jobs. And when the jobs market stinks, confidence plummets. This is from another article by Bloomberg:

“Consumer borrowing in the U.S. dropped in May more than forecast, a sign Americans are less willing to take on debt without an improvement in the labor market.

The $9.1 billion decrease followed a revised $14.9 billion slump in April that was initially estimated as a $1 billion increase, the Federal Reserve reported today in Washington. Economists projected a $2.3 billion drop in the May measure of credit card debt and non-revolving loans, according to a Bloomberg News survey of 34 economists.

Borrowing that’s increased twice since the end of 2008 shows consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the economy, will be restrained as Americans pay down debt. Banks also continue to restrict lending following the collapse of the housing market, Fed officials said after their policy meeting last month” (Bloomberg)

Consumer confidence is falling, consumer credit is shrinking, and consumer spending is dwindling. Jobs, jobs, jobs; it’s all about jobs. Budget deficits are irrelevant to the man who thinks he might lose his livelihood. All he cares about is bringing home the bacon. Here’s a quote from Yale professor Robert Schiller who was one of the first to predict the dot.com and the housing bubble:

“For me a double-dip is another recession before we’ve healed from this recession … The probability of that kind of double-dip is more than 50 percent. I actually expect it.“

There’s no need for the economy to slip back into recession. It is completely unnecessary. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke knows exactly what needs to be done; how to counter deflationary pressures via bond purchasing programs etc. He has many options even though interest rates are “zero bound”. But Bernanke has chosen to do nothing. Intransigence is a political decision. By the November midterms, the economy will be contracting again, unemployment will be edging higher, and the slowdown will be visible everywhere in terms of excess capacity. The Obama economic plan will be repudiated as a bust and the Dems will be swept from office. The bankers will get the political gridlock they seek. Bernanke knows this.

On Tuesday, a $38 billion Treasury auction drove 2-years bond-yields down to record lows. (0.665%) Investors are willing to take less than 1% on their money just for the guarantee of getting it back. Bond yields are a referendum on Bernanke’s policies; a straightforward indictment of the Fed’s strategy. 3 years into the crisis and investors are more afraid than ever. The flight to Treasuries is an indication that the retail investor has left the market for good. It is a red flag signaling that the public’s distrust has reached its zenith.

British economist John Maynard Keynes showed that the business cycle can be eased by government intervention, that the state can generate demand when consumers are forced to cut back on their spending. Presently, big business is awash in savings ($1.8 trillion) because consumers are on the ropes and demand is weak. The government’s task is simple; make up for worker retrenchment by providing more fiscal and monetary stimulus. If private sector and public sector spending shrink at the same time, the economy will contract very fast and recession will become unavoidable. So, Go Big; create government work programs, help the states, rebuild infrastructure and support green technologies. The economy is not a sentient being; it makes no distinction between “productive” labor and “unproductive” labor. The point is to keep the apparatus operating as close to capacity as possible–which means low unemployment and big deficits. When in doubt–keep spending.

Increasing the money supply does nothing when interest rates are already at zero and consumers are slashing spending. Bernanke has added over $1.25 trillion to bank reserves but consumer borrowing, spending and confidence are still in the tank. The problem is demand, not the volume of money. Bernanke knows what to do, but he refuses to do it. He’d rather line the pockets of bondholders, bankers and rentiers. This is from Calculated Risk:

“This report from the National League of Cities (NLC), National Association of Counties (NACo), and the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) reveals that local government job losses in the current and next fiscal years will approach 500,000, with public safety, public works, public health, social services and parks and recreation hardest hit by the cutbacks.

The surveyed local governments report cutting 8.6 percent of total full-time equivalent (FTE) positions over the previous fiscal year to the next fiscal year (roughly 2009-2011). If applied to total local government employment nationwide, an 8.6 percent cut in the workforce would mean that 481,000 local government workers were, or will be, laid off over the two-year period.”

The cutbacks will ravage local governments, state revenues and public services. Emergency facilities by the Fed provided $11.4 trillion for underwater banks and non banks, but nothing for the states. The GOP is helping the Fed strangle the states by opposing additional aid for Medicare payments and unemployment benefits. Many cities and counties will be forced into bankruptcy while Goldman Sachs rakes in record profits on liquidity provided by Bernanke. It’s a disaster.

On Wednesday, Moody’s chief economist, Mark Zandi and former Fed vice chairman, Alan Binder released the first in-depth analysis of the government’s emergency response to the financial crisis. The paper evaluates the effects of the TARP, Obama’s $787 billion fiscal stimulus, and the Fed’s liquidity facilities. Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times:

“We find that the effects on real GDP, jobs, and inflation are huge, probably averting what would have been called Great Depression 2.0. For example, we estimate that, without the policy responses, GDP in 2010 would be about 6½% lower, payroll employment would be about 8½ million jobs lower, and the nation would now be experiencing deflation.

When we divide these effects into two components, one attributable to the various rounds of fiscal stimulus and the other attributable to the panoply of financial-market policies (including the TARP, the bank stress tests, and the Fed’s quantitative easing), we estimate that the latter are substantially more powerful than the former. Nonetheless, our estimated effects of the fiscal stimulus policies alone are very substantial: In 2010, real GDP that is about 2% higher, an unemployment rate that is about 1½ points lower, and almost 2.7 million more jobs…. (“In Study, 2 Economists Say Intervention Helped Avert a 2nd Depression”, Sewell Chan, New York Times)

The bottom line? When Wall Street is hurting, money’s never a problem. But when the states are on the brink of default and 14 million workers are scrimping to feed their families, there’s not a dime to spare. Explain that to your kids.

As the war in Afghanistan enters its final chapter, Sean Smith’s brutal, uncompromising film from the Helmand frontline shows the horrific chaos of a stalemate that is taking its toll in blood.

Read Sean Smith’s extraordinary diary of his time on the Afghanistan frontline.

Ever worried about having an ugly baby? Fret not, a popular dating website exclusively for beautiful people has branched out to provide a fertility forum aimed at creating beautiful babies.

Criticized by some as narcissism gone mad, the project was launched in June, shortly after BeautifulPeople.com booted out 5,000 people who gained weight and were deemed too ugly to remain members.

Presented as a solution for parents who worry about having ugly children, the Fertility Forum is “like any charitable work,” according to managing director Greg Hodge, a good-looking Brit (left).

It’s “a noble cause for those going through the difficult experience of failing to conceive,” he told AFP, explaining that the site gets no payment for directing donors and recipients to professional clinics.

The forum is accessed through the BeautifulPeople.com website, which was founded in 2002 in Denmark and now has a presence in 190 countries, although only pretty people need apply.

Those wanting to join submit a photo for approval by their peers — some 600,000 people pay to be part of the network that proudly styles itself as the world’s largest community of beautiful people.

“It’s completely democratic — if you secure enough positive votes, you are accepted; if not, you are shown the door,” said Hodge, who manages from Los Angeles the website launched in the United States in 2005.

In a major departure for the BeautifulPeople.com founders, even ugly people are allowed to subscribe to the new forum, browsing for attractive sperm and egg donors to ultimately improve the gene pool.

Beautiful members can post if they want to donate their genetically blessed sperm or eggs to an unattractive person or couple who wants a baby.

“Initially, we hesitated to widen the offering to non-beautiful people,” explained BeautifulPeople.com founder Robert Hintze, an attractive blue-eyed Dane.

“But everyone — including ugly people — would like to bring good-looking children in to the world, and we can’t be selfish with our attractive gene pool.”

When Hodge unveiled the virtual sperm and egg bank in June, he said there was obviously a massive demand for attractive donors.

“Every parent would like their child to be blessed with many fine attributes, attractiveness being one of the most sought after. For a site with members who resemble Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Angelina Jolie, you can imagine the demand.”

At an interview in a Beverly Hills cafe, where most passers-by looked like Hollywood stars, Hodge sidestepped questions about ugly people and portrayed the initiative as a worthy cause to help those with fertility problems.

“We remain impartial, we’re a vehicle of information that eventual donors and recipients can get, but without any link to any fertility clinic,” he told AFP.

Egg donor Lisa Bluemel, 30, told AFP she initially joined BeautifulPeople.com to meet people and broaden her network, thinking that if a romance came then so much the better.

The Fertility Forum caught her attention because she had a friend who could not conceive. “I know the anguish she has gone through,” she said.

Bluemel said her decision to donate eggs was nothing to do with the money and wasn’t superficial or narcissistic in the slightest.

“It’s a deeply emotional decision and I have given it much thought, giving a couple the gift of a new life and helping in the creation of a loving family is perhaps the most special gift of all.

“It’s not about just seeking beautiful babies,” she added. “Naturally intelligence, health is the most important, but why can’t you try to secure all the best attributes? Who would not do that for their child?”

A Spanish woman, who had struggled for years to have children but is now eight months pregnant, pointed out that the principle behind Fertility Forum was nothing new.

“This has been done in clinics for some time, not with pictures but with a profile about donor characteristics: tall, blond, blue eyes, from a Nordic country,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Richard Paulson, a fertility expert at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California who has practiced reproductive medicine for 25 years, warned there were no guarantees of a beautiful baby.

“Making a decision about one’s future partner, whether it is a marriage partner, or partner for reproduction, on the basis of information posted on a website would be naive at best,” he said.

“I do not consider these types of websites to be dangerous, or threatening, but rather, simply amusing.”

Article from: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/100727/health/us_people_society_health_internet

The author served notice to his beloved France 30 years ago with that incisive novel. The French didn’t listen. The United States isn’t listening, either!

After the past dozen terror attacks around the world such as 9/11, Madrid train bombings, London bombings, nightclub bombings and Theo Van Gogh stabbed in the streets of Amsterdam—in December 2005, Paris, France burned. Their ‘fatalistic sloth’ rose up with Molotov cocktails that torched over 10,000 cars.

America’s own suicide stands SO self-evident through Raspail’s words when he talks about Europe proceeding toward its own peril when it allowed the rate of immigration to exceed the rate of assimilation. They swallowed the deadliest scorpion in the Middle Eastern desert by inviting a stone-age culture and religion into their advanced European culture.

Raspail said the immigrants were, “righteous in their loathing of anything and everything that smacked of present-day Western society, and boundless in their love of whatever might destroy it.”

His tale speaks of a million Third Worlders from India bound for Europe to save themselves from what they created in their own nation—utter misery and failure of their society. Failed societies lack law, morals, sustainability and civilized behavior. Raspail described the ragtag immigrant convoy, “Everywhere, rivers of sperm. Streaming over bodies, oozing between breasts, and buttocks, and thighs, and lips, and fingers — a welter of dung and debauchery.”

Does anyone catch the parallel with present day Mexico and Central America? Can you glimpse Felipe Calderon’s failed government and wretchedly miserable society procreating endless millions tramping across America’s borders in a desert armada exceeding Raspail’s novel? How about Africa and Asia’s starving millions? According to the World Health Organization, 18 million people starve to death worldwide annually.

In a sobering rendition of Raspail’s novel, an immigrant horde pours into American from Mexico. To be exact, America suffers over 10 million illegal alien Mexicans thus far with more streaming over the gunnels of the USS United States. In the past century, Mexico increased from 50 million to 104 million. It’s expected to hit 300 million in this century. Does anyone understand that Mexico cannot care for its 111 million today?

In his novel, Raspail said the French had given up their souls to multiculturalism and the façade that it ‘might’ work. Instead, he said the French had become nothing more than millions of sheep. If you look at the parallels, Americans have been duped into multiculturalism’s living nightmare now manifesting in Holland, Britain, Belgium, Norway, Spain, Italy and Germany.

“Man never has really loved humanity all of a piece,” he wrote. “It’s inherent that we like some more than others—and some not at all.”

Most in the U.S. realize what is happening in Los Angeles, Miami, Detroit, Atlanta, Houston, Chicago and most other enclaves of this 21st century illegal horde. However, Obama ignores it, disdains action and continues the dogs of war in other countries while our own country suffers invasion.

The fact remains that nations survive only if they unite around common emblems of nationhood. We’re giving our nation away today to legal and illegal immigrants whose governments and societies failed them. They arrive in massive armadas to sink our society.

Raspail gut wrenchingly tosses a dart-in-the-center with his depiction of the systemic guilt-tripping that afflicts America. We’re embarrassed into celebrating horribly incompatible ‘diversity’ and unworkable ‘multiculturalism’ being knifed down our throats while we either gag or die in our own quiet futility.

Who takes advantage of our pathetically unguarded borders? Calderon’s daily demographic invasion recaptures much of America for Mexico. While we battle in Iraq, Middle Eastern immigrants grab significant chunks of Detroit and other cities where they build mosques at breakneck speed—to date—1208 mosques in America.ca. Call them ‘markers’ and they proceed on course to add another one at 9/11 Ground Zero in New York City.

The irony of America’s demise stems from our inability to stand for our own beloved country, much like France. We watch Paris, France become Los Angeles, California—within a matter of months or years-yet most citizens won’t move a finger as their country heads into the Raspail’s social toilet.

From this journalist’s viewpoint having seen it in my travels in Asia and elsewhere in the Third World, it’s sickening to watch as it advances into our country at our government’s behest and our citizens’ disinterest. Why? We’re a nation of immigrants and most of us, like the French, think these massive hordes will finally come to their senses and “become Americans.” One look at our cities illustrates that they “ain’t becoming Americans.” Push ‘1’ for Spanish and ‘2’ for English and ‘3’ for Arabic.

France suffers unemployed Muslim youths with no citizenship in their home country, and no loyalty to their new digs, but America suffers 20 million illegal aliens from God knows where. It’s not ‘if’ our street riots will begin, but when.

With massive population onslaught from overloaded locations in Africa and Asia– France, as well as Europe, represents moribund countries as the gates of their borders suffer an endless invasion of out-of-control fecund societies.

Becoming frightened, Australia, last year, arrested a dozen Muslim-Australian citizen men involved in a terror-bombing conspiracy. They told a group of Muslim clerics if they wanted Sharia Law, they needed to “move back from where they came-we intend to keep democratic law in Australia..” The clerics quieted down but nodded knowing that their numbers will increase given enough time so they will prevail to force Sharia Law on their host country.

Will America escape this massive horde in Raspail’s novel? It’s possible if we call for a 10 year immigration moratorium. It’s possible when we force those overloaded and failed nations to deal with their own masses. It’s possible if all Americans step up to be heard at the local, state and national level. It’s possible if every state develops another D.A. King, Terry Anderson, Roy Beck, T.J. Bonner, Ray Haynes, William Gheen, Dr. Bill Herron, Jan Herron, Terry Graham, Chris Simcox, Bob Copely, Mike McGarry, Barbara Coe, Governor Richard Lamm, Peter Gadiel, Andy Ramirez, Barbara March, Bonnie Eggle, Glenn Spencer, Garrett Chamberlain, Buddy Bishop, Rob Luton, Tim Bueler, Ezola Foster, Brenda Walker, Don Collins, Peter Brimelow, Dan Stein, Dr. John Tanton, John Rohe, Jim Gilchrist, Lupe Moreno, Angie Morfin, Luca Zanna, Robert Vasquez, and Tom Tancredo. Patriots and statesmen will stand up for their country. Politicians pitiably will not.

It’s possible if the pundits and radio talk show hosts become the “21st Century Paul Reveres.” They need to write more and talk faster. They must create a ‘consciousness shift’ that creates ‘counter critical mass’ that forces our national leaders to change our Titanic-like course.

Will Mexico or any of the rest of the Third World such as China, India, Africa, the Middle East and Bangladesh all of a sudden develop stable, sustainable societies? Not a chance! They drown in hurricane accelerating Katrina human numbers increasing so fast—they can’t solve their problems. Their citizens flee to First World countries by any means possible.

Will unending millions be able to keep coming to the United States for a better life? Will our society survive their onslaught?

The grinding reality is: NO!

What’s to stop them? Our presidents, except Eisenhower in 1954, succumb to the dollar or their own faltering characters. For a chilling treatise on the fall of once vibrant civilizations, I leave you with the sobering research by Pulitzer Prize winner Jared Diamond’s latest book, COLLAPSE.

You can change the future by your actions today. If we don’t stop them-do we give up this nation as easily as France and most of Europe? Like cattle to the slaughter house, do we offer our country onto the butchering block of national suicide?

If we do, your phone choices in the future will be: Press ‘1’ for English; ‘2’ for Spanish; ‘3’ for Swahili, ‘4’ for Arabic, ‘5’ for Hmong, ‘6’ for Chinese or others crashing across our borders.

In fact, Stone’s apology confirms Stone’s argument. We are subject to constant assault by Jewish and Israeli gatekeepers who insist on controlling the political and historical discourse and defy any possible criticism of Jewish national affairs.

“In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret,” Stone said in a statement released late Monday, the day after his remarks were published in a British newspaper.

JTA reported today that Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, was among the Jewish organizations and Israeli officials to condemn the remarks.

Steinberg in a statement said Stone’s apology “was necessary and we accept it. But whether he acted out of sincerity or as a desperate response to the moral outcry at his comments is an open question,” he added. “He must be judged by his future words and deeds.”

Steinberg demands “sincerity” and future subservience. I would actually expect him to join Stone and be slightly more enthusiastic about historical research and contextual thinking.

Israel’s propaganda minister’, Yuli Edelstein, was also among those who had condemned Stone’s remarks early Monday. “They are nauseating, anti-Semitic and racist, Not only is he showing ignorance, he is demonizing Jews for no reason and returning to the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’

Interesting indeed. Stone doesn’t refer to race. There is nothing anti Semitic in his remark whatsoever unless telling the truth is a form of anti Semitism. Moreover, Stone didn’t demonize Jews for being Jews, he described some actions committed by Jewish institutional lobbies, actions that are now academically documented and studied. He did it for a good reason. Stone is probably patriotic or pragmatic enough to gather that peace is important.

“When a man of Stone’s stature speaks in this way”, said Edelstein, “it can bring waves of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment, and may even damage Jewish communities and individuals.” Edelstein is almost correct. Stone was brave enough to tell the truth about Jewish power, he probably wasn’t courageous enough to stand for it, which is understandable. However, Edelstein and other Jewish leaders better realise that Stone is far from being mad, anti Semitic or racist. Stone told the truth as we all see it.

Instead of silencing criticism, Edelstein, Steinberg and others better look in the mirror because the time is running out for Israel and its supporters

Update: Haim Saban to CBS: Cancel Oliver Stone’s Showtime Series

http://www.thewrap.com/media/column-post/exclusive-haim-saban-stone-should-join-mel-gibson-retirement-19614

The New Yorker reported last month that at a conference last fall, Saban described his pro-Israeli formula, outlining “three ways to be influential in American politics…make donations to political parties, establish think tanks, and control media outlets.” …

“These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

“The investigation’s other findings include:

*Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

*An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

*In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings–about 17 million square feet of space.

*Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.

*Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year–a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.”

On the surface, the Post report appears to be a valiant effort by a major mainstream newspaper (second in influence to only the New York Times) to expose widespread government abuse and chicanery. But don’t get too excited yet.

In Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (July 23, 2010), Skousen writes, “The [Post] series has just enough tantalizing information to sell a lot of papers, but almost nothing that exposes the illicit side of US operations–a large portion of which is involved in recruiting, training, and running covert agents–only a small portion of which are spying on real enemies. A lot of spying targets our allies and patriotic Americans who the government worries could someday provide a source of rebellion against the growing totalitarian state.”

Skousen further charges that there is a “dark side” to “each agency of [federal] law enforcement.” This “dark side” involves “a lot of compartmentalization, front activities, hidden budgets and false stories in order to keep honest government employees and agents from knowing what’s going on behind their backs.”

Skousen continues: “What few do get a glimpse into government’s dark side are warned off with threats, some subtle and some lethal–threats which send a chilling message to others to not ‘ask too many questions.’” Skousen then quotes the Post report as saying that since 9/11, the NSA (National Security Agency) has grown to where it now consumes “1.7 billion pieces of intercepted communications every 24 hours: emails, bulletin board postings, instant messages, IP addresses, phone numbers, telephone calls and cellular conversations.”

Concerning all those government organizations and private companies working on counterterrorism projects that the Post report refers to, Skousen writes, “Once again, the series tells us nothing about the substance of what they do, much of which is unsavory and illegal.”

Skousen goes on to say, “What [the Post report] won’t tell you is that almost a third of these [NSA] operations are dedicated to black operations against Americans and other Western governments who need to be surveilled in order to control them and keep them from resisting the agenda of the New World Order. Much expense is allocated to spying on the unsavory private behavior of Congressmen, and even State officials–building compromising dossiers on people who influence the political process so they can be coerced into compliance when necessary.”

Skousen also chides the Post report for failing “to show how connected certain companies are to the mercenary contractor explosion that is growing into a force that will eventually be used to threaten individual liberties at home. The Powers That Be don’t need to hire foreign armies to clamp down on American dissidents. They are training hundreds of thousands of mercenary Americans to do it and using foreign wars to sort out who is ruthless enough or unprincipled enough to take orders without questions–similar to the way the Nazis sorted and selected those who would form the Brownshirt and SS brigades.”

See Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief at:

http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com/

See The Washington Post report at:

http://tinyurl.com/washpost-hidden-world

In short, while claiming to expose the federal government’s “hidden world,” the Post report actually does little to uncover the illegal and dark activities that Washington employs against the US citizenry, and by so doing serves more to cover up this sinister activity. Even so, do you not find it more than a little interesting just how few media sources did anything to pick up the Post report? Did you read any of this in your local paper? Did you see anything of this on CNN or Fox News? Come on, folks! You are aware that most of the media outlets (including network television) in this country obtain the vast majority of their “news” from The New York Times and The Washington Post, are you not? So, how convenient is it that this report (such as it is) was virtually ignored?

As I’ve said in speaking engagements–both large and small–all over America, We have more to fear from Washington, D.C., than from Tehran or Baghdad, or from any other foreign entity. America’s founders understood this and tried to warn the American people accordingly. For example, Daniel Webster warned, “There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing.”

The protection of the people from the totalitarian tendencies of their own central government in Washington, D.C., is why the framers of the Constitution included the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment was never about duck hunting or target shooting; it was all about the American citizenry being prepared to defend itself against its own federal government. The founders’ distrust of the central government is why they attempted to divide the power and authority of government into three separate branches. They expected the three branches to compete against each other and to hold each other in check and balance against governmental abuse. And this is also why the individual states each maintained their own sovereignty and independence when creating the central government in 1787, because, at the end of the day, it is going to be the states that form the final fortress for freedom.

For all intents and purposes, the three branches of the federal government have done nothing to prevent the massive expansion of unconstitutional governance by Washington, D.C. The passage of the Seventeenth Amendment was the beginning of the end, as far as separated power was concerned. Neither has it made much difference which political party was in power in DC. The unlawful expansion of federal power has continued under both. This means that there are only two remaining protections against absolute federal tyranny: 1) strong, independent, and defiant State governments, and, 2) a determined and fully armed citizenry.

The Washington Post report (for all its failures) should serve to remind the American people of just how vulnerable we are (and have always been) to totalitarian government, how fragile liberty and freedom are, and how necessary it is that we remain eternally vigilant to resist the machinations of power-mad Machiavellians in Washington, D.C.