News_&_Current_Events_issue

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Black students and educators are denouncing a series of questions on the most recent global history Regents exam that they charge were racially biased and insensitive.

At least one student - Chantelle Jones, a junior at Bushwick Community High School in Brooklyn - said she was so outraged by the questions on the January test, she complained to the exam proctor.

She then ran out of time on the test's final essay, never finished it, and failed. She'll have to take the required test again in June.

"It makes me so upset," said Jones, 18. "It's disrespectful to me and my people."

The questions - which asked students to describe how Africa benefited from imperialism - were on a section of the exam that gave students historical passages to read, then asked them to describe the arguments made by the author.

The first was based on an 1893 passage from "The Rise of Our East African Empire," by Frederick Lugard, who, while working for the Imperial British East Africa Co. in the 19th century, helped colonize Uganda and other African countries.

On the exam, students were asked to read Lugard's account of British projects in Africa like digging wells and building irrigation systems, then to "state two ways British imperialism would benefit Africans."

Next up was a passage from Lugard's "The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa," from 1922. It described British efforts to end the slave trade and reduce famine and disease.

"We are endeavoring ... to teach the native races to conduct their own affairs with justice and humanity, and to educate them alike in letters and in industry," Lugard wrote.

Students were asked to name "two ways the British improved the lives of Africans."

"This is just beyond the pale," said Esmeralda Simmons, the executive director of the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College.

"It's basically asking students of African descent, and all students, to justify European or British imperialism as if Africans were either culturally or genetically inferior," added Simmons, who sent a formal letter of protest to the Regents.

Tom Dunn, a spokesman for the state Education Department, noted that the test was put together by educators of "diverse backgrounds."

But he added the Lugard portion of the exam "should have been worded in a way that clearly instructed students to respond based on the perspective of the author."

Still, he said, "In order to teach history, we have to use passages that reflect history's reality. ... Kids have to learn the skills of historical analysis, which includes the ability to investigate different and competing interpretations of the theories of history."

But that argument doesn't fly with Brian Favors, who teaches a course on slavery and counts Jones among his students.

He called the questions, "very racist," adding: "It's the equivalent of asking a Jewish child to state two ways the Holocaust benefited Jews."

Favors is a member of Black New Yorkers for Educational Excellence, which is sponsoring a rally to "end institutional racism" on Wednesday - the 52nd anniversary of the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. The rally will be at the city Education Department.

Simmons said she wants to see the Regents void students' answers on the controversial questions.

That wouldn't help Jones, though - she said she answered those questions correctly.

"I picked something out of all those lies and put it down," she said. "I was kind of sarcastic with my answer. I let it be known to whoever was grading the exam that I was upset, but I had to pass the exam."

After the controversial 2000 Presidential election, the U.S. embarked on a campaign to replace paper ballots and their infamous hanging chads with electronic voting. But the new systems, many based on touch screens similar to bank ATMs, have become the bane of computer experts and some political activists on the Left.

Critics say the systems are riddled with security leaks that could allow corrupt companies or polling officials to steal elections. Now the complicated ownership of one of the nation's top three voting-equipment companies has attracted a new cadre of doubters.

The company, Sequoia Voting Systems Inc., sells machines in California, Illinois, and 18 other states. It has come under fire because its majority shareholders are Venezuelan. In the colorful imaginations of some, the Sequoia story is a tale that ends with Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez, a foe of the Bush Administration, in a position to manipulate American elections.

In Washington, Representative Carolyn B. Maloney [D-N.Y.] has asked the Treasury Dept. to explain Sequoia's sale to the Venezuelans last year. "It doesn't seem like the deal...was vetted by our government, and I want to know why," she said in a May 5 letter.

Following a contentious Apr. 7 hearing on Sequoia's role in a recent Chicago primary, city Alderman Edward M. Burke, a relatively conservative Democrat, said: "We've stumbled on what we think could be an international conspiracy to subvert the electoral process in the United States." Burke offered no proof, and despite similar concerns expressed by other Chicago pols, the city and Cook County will continue to use Sequoia equipment.

Sequoia officials insist that neither Chavez nor the Venezuelan government has had any link to the company. "There is absolutely, unequivocally no connection," insists Sequoia Vice-President Michelle M. Shafer. But Sequoia's ownership is elaborate. The Oakland [Calif.] business was acquired for $16 million in March, 2005, by Boca Raton [Fla.]-based Smartmatic Corp. Smartmatic is owned by a Netherlands holding company, which in turn is owned by Smartmatic International Group, based in Curacao.

Sequoia says the Curacao company's principal shareholders are its Venezuelan chief executive, Antonio Mugica, and his family. A large minority stake is owned by other Venezuelans. "We were trying to make a fluid company that could operate internationally," says Shafer.

The Venezuelan connection has fueled speculation among bloggers and others in the anti-electronic-voting world about Smartmatic's role in a controversial 2004 election to recall Chavez. The company received a $91 million contract from Venezuela's national electoral council to conduct that vote, which Chavez eventually won. While Chavez opponents claimed fraud, no U.S. critics have linked Smartmatic to corruption, and the company strongly denies it engaged in any.

The U.S. criticism of Sequoia and its owners is just the latest spat in a nasty battle over electronic voting. Most of the conflict concerns security problems. "These major security holes have been there for a long time, and they are not going away," says Holly Jacobson, co-director of Voter Action. Her group has challenged electronic voting around the country in races won by both Republicans and Democrats.

Still, the new machines are catching on, thanks in part to more than $2 billion in federal funds. The number of counties using electronic systems has more than tripled since 2000, to 1,050. And public opinion surveys suggest that most voters like them.
DISPUTED ELECTION

Planned population control including genocide is a difficult concept for Americans to accept. Even though the U.S. government helps finance the Red Chinese program of forced abortion, sterilization and infanticide, and helps finance the United Nations "family planning program," most people find it impossible to believe that such programs are really part of a larger plan to kill off large segments of the world's population.

"How can you possibly believe that?" I am frequently asked. The answer is quite simple: I have read the writings of those who intend to depopulate large segments of the earth and I believe them. They have written of the necessity of reducing-by force if necessary-the world's population.

Our tax money finances Planned Parenthood, an organization founded by Margaret Sanger. In Planned Parenthood's 1985 Annual Report, its leaders proclaimed that they were, "Proud of our past, and planning for our future."¹

How could anyone claim to be proud of an organization when history records that its founder wrote of the necessity of "the extermination of 'human weeds'...the 'cessation of charity'...the segregation of 'morons, misfits, and the maladjusted' and...the sterilization of 'genetically inferior races?'"²

During the 1930s Margaret Sanger published The Birth Control Review, in which she openly supported Nazi Germany's "infanticide program" in the 1930s, and publicly championed Adolf Hitler's goal of Aryan white supremacy. Prior to World War II she commissioned Nazi Ernst Rudin, director of the dreaded German medical experimentation programs, to serve as an advisor to her organization.

In Killer Angel, George Grant chronicled the life and writings of Margaret Sanger, including her plans for genetically engineering the human race. Margaret Sanger's The Pivot of Civilization called for "the elimination of human weeds," and the "cessation of charity" because it prolonged the lives of the unfit. She called for the segregation of the unfit and prohibiting them to reproduce.

In 1939, Margaret Sanger organized the Negro Project, designed to eliminate members of what she believed to be an "inferior race." She justified her proposal because "the masses of Negroes... particularly in the South, still breed carelessly and disastrously, with the result that the increase among Negroes, even more than among whites, is from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit..."³

She then went on to reveal that she intended to "hire three or four colored ministers to travel to various black enclaves to propagandize for birth control...The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."⁴

As Margaret Sanger's organization grew, she wrote of the necessity of targeting religious groups for destruction as well, believing that the "dysgenic races" should include "fundamentalists and Catholics" in addition to "blacks, Hispanics, [and] American Indians."⁵ As the years passed, Sanger became increasingly obsessed with occult beliefs and hostile to Christianity and the American precept of individual freedom. Her distaste for America is evident in her writings:
"Birth control appeals to the advanced radical because it is calculated to undermine the authority of the Christian churches. I look forward to seeing humanity free someday of the tyranny of Christianity no less than Capitalism."⁶

Just like Adolf Hitler, Margaret Sanger was a disciple of Theosophy and its founder, Madame Blavatsky. Both Sanger and Hitler were involved in a religion that worshipped Lucifer and were energized by the same dark, spiritual forces.

Lucis Trust is a prominent modern day representative of Theosophy, an extension of the Lucifer Publishing Company, which is also a United Nations NGO. Lucis Trust was founded by Alice A. Bailey during the early 20th century. Bailey was a disciple of Madame Blavatsky and nominal leader of the Theosophical Society in the early 1900s.

Because the name "Lucifer" had such a bad connotation, Bailey changed the name of her organization from the Lucifer Publishing Company to Lucis Trust. The nature and beliefs of this organization, however, have always remained the same.

Lucis Trust is one of the major front groups through which Theosophy influences life in America. Publications from Lucis Trust regularly refer to "The Plan" for humanity that has been established by "The Hierarchy." Sanger's disciples are alive and functioning today, influencing national and international population control policy.

David Graber, a research biologist with the National Park Service, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times Book Review Section, October 22, 1989, as saying, "Human happiness and certainly human fecundity are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn't true...We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth...Until such time as homosapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the
right virus to come along." ⁷

In The First Global Revolution, published by the Council of the Club of Rome, an international elitist organization, the authors note that, "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine, and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention... The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."⁸

On April 5, 1994 the Los Angeles Times quoted Cornell University Professor David Pimentel, speaking to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, saying that, "The total world population should be no more than 2 billion rather than the current 5.6 billion."

In the UNESCO Courier of November 1991, Jacques Cousteau wrote, "The damage people cause to the planet is a function of demographics-it is equal to the degree of development. One American burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshes... This is a terrible thing to say. In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it's just as bad not to say it."⁹

In The Impact of Science on Society, Bertrand Russell said, "At present the population of the world is increasing...War so far has had no great effect on this increase... I do not pretend that birth control is the only way in which population can be kept from increasing. There are others...If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation, survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full...the state of affairs might be somewhat unpleasant, but what of it? Really high-minded people are indifferent to suffering, especially that of others."

Negative Population Growth Inc. of Teaneck, New Jersey recently circulated a letter stating their long-range goal: "We believe that our goal for the United States should be no more than 150 million; our size in 1950. For the world, we believe our goal should be a population of not more than two billion, its size shortly after the turn of the century."¹⁰

This amount is impossible to achieve by means of normal attrition and birth control and there is sufficient evidence to indicate other plans are afoot.

Speaking at Gorbachev's State of the World Forum in San Francisco in 1996, New Age writer and philosopher Dr. Sam Keen stated that there was strong agreement that religious institutions have to take a primary responsibility for the population explosion.

He went on to say that, "We must speak far more clearly about sexuality, contraception, about abortion, about values that control the population, because the ecological crisis, in short, is the population crisis. Cut the population by 90% and there aren't enough people left to do a great deal of ecological damage."

Dr. Keen's remarks were met with applause from the assembled audience of New Age adherents, Socialists, Internationalists and occultists.

Next month, we'll explore some specific cases of covert as well as blatant population control, including the link between abortions and breast cancer and what really happened during the Rwanda massacres.

   1.
   2. Killer Angel, George Grant, Reformer Press, p. 105, available from Radio Liberty, P.O. Box 13, Santa Cruz, CA, 95063. Ibid, p. 65.
   3. Woman's Body, Woman's Right, Linda Gordon, Penguin Press, New York, p. 332; see also Killer Angel, p. 73.
   4. Killer Angel, p. 74: see also Woman's Body, Woman's Right, pp. 229-334.
   5. Woman's Body, Woman's Right, pp.229-334; see also Killer Angel, p.73.
   6. Killer Angel, p. 104.
   7. Los Angeles Times, Book Review Section, October 22, 1989, p. 9.
   8. The First Global Revolution: Club of Rome, Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider, Pantheon Books, New York, 1991, p. 115.
   9. "The Population Controllers," New American Magazine, 6/27/94, p. 7.
10. Material is available from Radio Liberty, P.O. Box 13, Santa Cruz, CA, 95063.

The United States would not be able to launch military strikes on Iran because it is already overstretched on too many fronts, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tuesday.

Mottaki said he was not concerned about the prospect of military action if Iran fails to comply with US demands over its nuclear program, which it insists is only for peaceful purposes.

"They can't. The US is not in a position to impose another crisis on taxpayers. There are a lot of difficulties in Iraq and Palestine. They are not in a position to create a new crisis in the region," he said.

"The US position is that they would not like other countries to have nuclear technology. This is a double standard policy. This is not acceptable," he added.

Mottaki was speaking at a meeting of the 114-nation Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) which was set Tuesday to issue a declaration supporting Iran's right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

A draft statement obtained by AFP warned that any attack against nuclear facilities "poses a great danger to human beings and the environment, and constitutes a grave violation to international law."

"The ministers reaffirmed the basic and inalienable right of developing countries to engage in research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, without any discrimination," it said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that world powers are prepared to guarantee Iran's nuclear rights provided it eases international concerns over its intentions and cooperates fully with the UN atomic watchdog.

One European diplomat said the talks were being arranged to "fine-tune" an EU-drafted package of incentives to get Iran to guarantee it will not make nuclear weapons, as well as sanctions if Tehran does not comply.

The United States suspects Iran is working secretly toward building its own nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian drive for atomic power, and accuses Tehran of failing to cooperate with the IAEA.

Iran denies the charges, saying its nuclear work is confined strictly to generating energy and insisting that it has always cooperated with the IAEA.

Mottaki has said that any new incentive which did not acknowledge Iran's right to develop nuclear energy on its own would be a non-starter.

CHICAGO, June 4 — In the ballroom foyer of the Embassy Suites Hotel, the two-day International Education and Strategy Conference for 9/11 Truth was off to a rollicking start.

Tonya Miller Bailey, of Indiana, in the rally at Daley Plaza on Friday that served as the conference kickoff. "We've done a lot of solid research," one participant said.

David Kubiak, one of the speakers at the International Education and Strategy Conference for 9/11 Truth.

In Salon Four, there was a presentation under way on the attack in Oklahoma City, while in the room next door, the splintered factions of the movement were asked — for sake of unity — to seek a common goal.

In the foyer, there were stick-pins for sale ("More gin, less Rummy"), and in the lecture halls discussions of the melting point of steel. "It's all documented," people said. Or: "The mass media is mass deception." Or, as strangers from the Internet shook hands: "Great to meet you. Love the work."

Such was the coming-out for the movement known as "9/11 Truth," a society of skeptics and scientists who believe the government was complicit in the terrorist attacks. In colleges and chat rooms on the Internet, this band of disbelievers has been trying for years to prove that 9/11 was an inside job.

Whatever one thinks of the claim that the state would plan, then execute, a scheme to murder thousands of its own, there was something to the fact that more than 500 people — from Italy to Northern California — gathered for the weekend at a major chain hotel near the runways of O'Hare International. It was, in tone, half trade show, half political convention. There were talks on the Reichstag fire and the sinking of the Battleship Maine as precedents for 9/11. There were speeches by the lawyer for James Earl Ray, who claimed that a military conspiracy killed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, and by a former operative for the British secret service, MI5.

"We feel at this point we've done a lot of solid research, but the American public still is not informed," said Michael Berger, press director for 911Truth.org, which sponsored the event. "We had to come up with a disciplined approach to get it out."

Mr. Berger, 40, is typical of 9/11 Truthers — a group that, in its rank and file, includes professors, chain-saw operators, mothers, engineers, activists, used-book sellers, pizza deliverymen, college students, a former fringe candidate for United States Senate and a long-haired fellow named hummux (pronounced who-mook) who, on and off, lived in a cave for 15 years.

The former owner of a recycling plant outside St. Louis, Mr. Berger joined the movement when he grew skeptical of why the 9/11 Commission had failed, to his sense of sufficiency, to answer how the building at 7 World Trade Center collapsed like a ton of bricks. It was his "9/11 trigger," the incident that drew him in, he said. For others, it might be the fact that the air-defense network did not prevent the attacks that day, or the appearance of thousands of "puts" — or short-sell bids — on the nation's airline stocks. (The 9/11 Commission found the sales innocuous.)

Such "red flags," as they are sometimes called, were the meat and potatoes of the keynote speech on Friday night by Alex Jones, who is the William Jennings Bryan of the 9/11 band. Mr. Jones, a syndicated radio host, is known for his larynx-tearing screeds against corruption — fiery, almost preacherly, addresses in which he sweats, balls his fists and often swerves from quoting Roman history to using foul language in a single breath.

At the lectern Friday night, beside a digital projection reading "History of Government Sponsored Terrorism," Mr. Jones set forth the central tenets of 9/11 Truth: that the military command that monitors aircraft "stood down" on the day of the attacks; that President Bush addressed children in a Florida classroom instead of being whisked off to the White House; that the hijackers, despite what the authorities say, were trained at American military bases; and that the towers did not collapse because of burning fuel and weakened steel but because of a "controlled demolition" caused by pre-set bombs.

According to the group's Web site, the motive for faking a terrorist attack was to allow the administration "to instantly implement policies its members have long supported, but which were otherwise infeasible."

The controlled-demolition theory is the sine qua non of the 9/11 movement — its basic claim and, in some sense, the one upon which all others rest. It is, of course, directly contradicted by the 10,000-page investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which held that jet-fuel fires distressed the towers' structure, which eventually collapsed.

The movement's answer to that report was written by Steven E. Jones, a professor of physics at Brigham Young University and the movement's expert in the matter of collapse. Dr. Jones, unlike Alex Jones, is a soft-spoken man who lets his writing do the talking. He composed an account of the destruction of the towers (www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html) that holds that "pre-positioned cutter-charges" brought the buildings down.

Like a prior generation of skeptics — those who doubted, say, the Warren Commission or the government's account of the Gulf of Tonkin attack — the 9/11 Truthers are dogged, at home and in the office, by friends and family who suspect that they may, in fact, be completely nuts.

"Elvis and Area 51 — we're sort of lumped together," said Harlan Dietrich, a recent college graduate from Austin, Tex. "It's attack the messenger, not the message every time."

To get the message out, the movement has gone beyond bumper stickers and "Kumbaya" into political action.

There is a plan, Mr. Berger said, to create a fund to support candidates on a 9/11 platform. There is a plan to create a network of college campus groups. There is a plan by the British delegation (such as it is, so far) to get members of Parliament to watch "Loose Change," the seminal movement DVD.

It would even seem the Truthers are not alone in believing the whole truth has not come out. A poll released last month by Zogby International found that 42 percent of all Americans believe the 9/11 Commission "concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence" in the attacks. This is in addition to the Zogby poll two years ago that found that 49 percent of New York City residents agreed with the idea that some leaders "knew in advance" that the attacks were planned and failed to act.

Beneath the weekend's screenings and symposiums on geopolitics and mass-hypnotic trance lies a tradition of questioning concentrated power, both in public and in private hands, said Mark Fenster, a law professor at the University of Florida and author of "Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture."

As for the 9/11 Truthers, they were confident enough that their theories made sense that on Friday, as a kickoff to the conference, they met in Daley Plaza for a rally (though some called it Dealey Plaza). They marched up Kinzle Street to the local affiliate of NBC where, at the plate glass windows, they chanted, "Talking heads tell lies," as the news was being read.

"I hope you don't end up dead somewhere," a companion said to a participant, hours earlier as he dropped him at the Loop. "Don't worry," the participant said. "There's too many of us for that."

I believe that the world needs to do everything possible to avoid the madness that would be a military attack against Iran, the results of which are unforeseen. From here. we call upon the government of the United States to halt its warmongering, which intends to throw the world into an abyss of more wars, more terrorism, more death, and more desolation. I believe that Europe has a very important role to play in this, and instead of supporting this bent for war, it should help to halt it, Europe has the power to do it, the world has the power to do it.

You ask me if Venezuela would suspend oil exports to the United States in case of an attack against Iran. I cannot answer that question because that would depend on the circumstances.

I have said that we do not want to suspend oil delivery to any country of the world, because we are people that act responsibly: despite the aggressions by the American empire against us, we have never stopped delivering a million and a half barrels of oil per day to the people of the United States, to the economy of the United States; we have over there a large company which is Citgo, that refines 2 million barrels of crude and has 14 thousand gasoline stations where we provide gasoline to the people of the United States, this is a responsibility and we want to continue to meet this responsibility.

I have said that if the United States were to launch a military attack against Venezuela, then they can forget about Venezuelan oil, this is the same thing that Iran has said, Iran said that if there is aggression against them, the world can forget about their oil.

Now, I am going to tell you something, given the rising price of oil, if there were an attack against Iran, the price of oil is now around 70 dollars per barrel, well, the price could rise above 100 dollars per barrel! And Londoners, instead of paying I don't know how much is being paid for a gallon of gasoline, this would possibly double, and in all of Europe and the world.

In addition, in addition that we would come to a situation of greater world destabilization, this is why we have to avoid a new military aggression by the United States against anyone, we want peace and respect for international law.

"We Are Determined"
Der Speigel Interview With Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad discusses the Holocaust, the future of the state of Israel, mistakes made by the United States in Iraq and Tehran's nuclear conflict with the West.

SPIEGEL: Mr. President, we're talking about the Holocaust because we want to talk about the possible nuclear armament of Iran -- which is why the West sees you as a threat.

Ahmadinejad: Some groups in the West enjoy calling things or people a threat. Of course you're free to make your own judgment.

Ahmadinejad: Allow me to encourage a discussion on the following question: How long do you think the world can be governed by the rhetoric of a handful of Western powers? Whenever they hold something against someone, they start spreading propaganda and lies, defamation and blackmail. How much longer can that go on?

SPIEGEL: We're here to find out the truth. The head of state of a neighboring country, for example, told SPIEGEL: "They are very keen on building the bomb." Is that true?

One of the major problems America faces is a large population of religious fundamentalists who have become as fanatical in their own way as any Middle Eastern Ayatollah. At present, they are caught up in their own version of the myth of the end of the world, and hope that by working to bring it about, they'll get to sit at the right hand of their diety and to hell with everyone else. No doubt fistfights will break out over who gets to sit closest, but that is a subject for another article.

So fervent is the belief of the mythoholics that they are ready and willing to sacrifice money, children, civil rights, freedom, even life itself (so long as it is someone else's) to bring about the final rapture and end of the world. Never mind that the guy selling this belief is a child molester and makes money off of these fables, the seekers (and there is one born every minute) do so want to believe!

So, I thought it might be appropriate to list some of the many other times in history that religious fanatics of all kinds have decided the world was about to end, what they did about it, and what really happened to those who followed them when the world did not end as scheduled.

AD 30 Jesus. According to Matthew 16:28, Jesus himself predicted his second coming and the end of the world within the lifetime of his contemporaries.

AD 156 A man named Montanus declared himself to be the "Spirit of Truth," the personification of the Holy Spirit, mentioned in the Gospel of John, who was to reveal all truth. Montanus quickly gathered followers, including a pair of far-seeing "prophetesses", who claimed to have visions and ecstatic experiences supposedly from God. They began to spread what they called "The Third Testament, a series of revelatory messages which foretold of the soon-coming Kingdom of God and "The New Jerusalem," which was about to descend from heaven to land in Montanus' city of Pepuza, in Phrygia (modern-day Turkey), where it would be home for all "true" believers. The word was spread, and all were urged to come to Phrygia to await the Second Coming. The movement divided Christians into two camps, even after the New Jerusalem didn't appear. Whole communities were fragmented, and continuous discord resulted. Finally, in AD 431, the Council of Ephesus condemned Chiliasm, or belief in the Millennium, as a dangerous superstition, and Montanus was declared to be a heretic. Despite the failure of the prediction, the cult survived several centuries until it was ordered exterminated by Pope Leo I. --SSA pg 54

AD 247, Christian prophets declare that the persecutions by the Romans are a sign of the impending return of Jesus.

AD 300 Lactantius Firmianus (AD c260 - AD c340), called the "Christian Cicero", from his Divinae Institutiones: "The fall and ruin of the world will soon take place, but it seems that nothing of the kind is to be feared as the city of Rome stands intact." Rome would fall in AD 410. --TEOTW pg 27

AD 380, The Donatists, a North African Christian sect, predicted the world would end in 380.

AD 387 St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, identified the Goths with Ezekial's Gog. The Goths had just destroyed the Imperial army at Adrianople, prompting Ambrose to say, "...the end of the world is coming upon us." --TEOTW pg 27

AD 300 St. Martin, Bishop of Tours: "Non est dubium, quin antichristus...There is no doubt that the Antichrist has already been born. Firmly established already in his early years, he will, after reaching maturity, achieve supreme power." --TEOTW pg 27

AD 410 When Rome was sacked, some proclaimed, (as reported by St. Augustine of Hippo) "Behold, from Adam all the years have passed, and behold, the 6,000 years are completed." This alludes to the Great Week theory, held by many millennialists, that the God-alloted time of man on earth was 6,000 years, to be followed by a thousand years of peace under the earthly reign of Christ. --TIME pg 30

AD 500 At the mid-fifth century, Vandal invasions recalled calculations that the world would end in the year 500, 6000 years after Creation, and spurred new calculations to show that the name of the Vandal king Genseric represented 666: the number of the Beast. --Apoc pg 34

AD 500 Hippolytus of Rome, a third-century theologian supported the oft-accepted (for the day) view of the end of the world occuring sometime around the year AD 500. He used a mass of scriptural evidence, including the dimensions of the ark of the covenant. --TIME pg 31

AD 500 Roman theologian Sextus Julius Africanus (ca. 160-240) predicted the second coming of Jesus in the year 500.

AD 500 The theologian Irenaeus predicted the second coming of Jesus in the year 500.

AD 590 Bishop Gregory of Tours, who died in AD 594, calculated the Time of the End for sometime between 799 and 806. --Apoc pg 48

AD 793 Elipand, bishop of Toledo, accused Beatus, abbot of Liebana, of having prophesied the end of the world. Beatus made the prediction on Easter Eve, predicting the end of the world that very night, sparking a riot. --Apoc 49-50

AD 800 Sextus Julius Africanus predicted the second coming of Jesus in the year 800.

AD 800 Beatus of Liébana, not having learned anything from the riot he started in 793, wrote in his Commentary on the Apocalypse that the world would end in the year 800 at the latest.

AD 806 Bishop Gregory of Tours predicted the world would end between 799 and 806.

AD 900 Adso of Montier-en-lDer, a celbrated 10th-century apocalyptic writer, a Frankish emperor of Rome who was 'the last and greates of rulers' would, after governing his empire, go to Jerusalem and put off his sceptre and crown at the Mount of Olives; this would be the end and consummation of the Christian empire and the beginning of the reign of Antichrist. --TIME pg 53

AD 970 Lotharingian computists foresaw the End on Friday, March 25, 970, when the Annunciation and Good Friday fell on the same day. They believed that it was on this day that Adam was created, Isaac was sacrificed, the Red Sea was parted, Jesus was conceived, and Jesus was crucified.

AD 992 A rumour that the end would come when the feast of the Annunciation coincided with Good Friday. This happened in 992, when Easter fell on March 22, and eager calculators established that the world would end before three years had passed. --Apoc pg 50-51

AD 1000 Christian authority all over the known world predicted the second coming in the year 1000.

AD 1033 When the world did not end in 1000, the same Christian authorities claimed they had forgotten to add in the length of Jesus' life and revised the prediction to 1033. The writings of the Burgundian monk Radulfus Glaber described a rash of mass hysterias during the period from 1000-1033.

AD 1033 The roads to Jerusalem fill up with an unprecedented number of pilgrims. Asked why this is happening, the 'more truthful of that time...cautiously responded that it presaged nothing else but the coming of the Lost One, the Antichrist, who, according to divine authority, stands ready to come at the end of the age." --TIME pg 47

AD 1100 Guibert of Nagent (1064-1125) informed would-be crusaders that they should seize Jerusalem as a necessary prelude to its eventual capture by Antichrist. "The end of the world is already near!," he explained. --TIME pg 61-62

AD 1184 Various Christian prophets predicted the end of the world in the year 1184. Nobody seems to remember just why.

AD 1186 Certain prophecies, during the time of the Third Crusade, began circulating in 1184, telling of a "new world order." These were believed to have been written by astrologers in Spain, and one of them, the "Letter of Toledo," appearing in 1186, urged everyone to flee to caves and other remote places, because the world was soon to be devastated by terrible storms, famine, earthquakes, and more. Only a few true belivers would be spared. --SSA pg 55

AD 1260 The year, according to Joachim of Flores'(c1145-1202) prophecies, when the world was supposed to pass throught the reign of Antichrist and enter the Age of the Holy Spirit. Joachim was an Italian mystic theologian who wrote, in his Expositio in Apocalypsia, that history was to be divided into three ages: The Age of the Law (the Father), The Age of the Gospel (the Son), and the final Age of the Spirit. He had indicated at the end of the 12th Century that the Antichrist was already born in Rome. --DOOM pg 87, TEOTW pg 125

AD 1260 A Dominican monk named Brother Arnold gained a following when he wrote that the end was about to take place. According to his scenario, he would call upon Christ, in the name of the poor, to judge the Church leaders, including the Pope. Christ would then appear in judgement, revealing the Pope to be the heralded Antichrist. --SSA pg 56

AD 1297 Writing in 1297, the friar Petrus Olivi predicted Antichrist's coming between 1300 and 1340, after which the world would enter the Age of the Holy Spirit, which itself would end around the year 2000 with Gog and the Last Judgement. --Apoc pg 54

AD 1284 Pope Innocent III predicted the end of the world in the year 1284, 666 years after the founding of Islam.

Ad 1290 When Joachim of Fiore's predicted end of the world had not happened by 1260, members of his order (the Joachites) simply re-scheduled the end another 30 years later to 1290.

AD 1300 A Frenchman, Jean de Roquetaillade, published a guide to the tribulation. Imprisoned for most of his adult life, he predicted Antichrist in 1366, to be followed in 1369 or 1370 by a millennial Sabbath. Jerusalem, under a Jewish king, would become the center of the world. --Apoc pg 55

AD 1300 Many Germans were living in fearful expectation of the return of the Emperor Frederick II, who had been considered a century earlier as the Antichrist, the terrible ruler who was to chastise the Church before the return of Christ.

AD 1306 Gerard of Poehlde, believing that Christ's Millennium actually began when the emperor Constantine came to power,
predicts the end of the world 1000 years after the start of Constantine's reign, in 1306.

AD 1307 fra Dolcino founds a society, the Apostolic Bretheren, in 1260. He preached that authority had passed from the Roman Church to themselves. The Pope and clergy would soon be exterminated by the forces of the Last Empoeror in a tremendous battle leading to the age of the spirit. Dolcino and his followers perished in a battle at Monte Rebello in 1307. --TIME pg 68

AD 1335 The Joachites again re-scheduled the end of the world, this time to the year 1335.

AD 1348 Agnolo di Tura, called "the Fat," writing during the time of the Black Death: "And I...buried my five children with my own hands, and so did many others likewise...And nobody wept no matter what his loss because almost everyone expected death... People said and believed, 'This is the end of the world.'" --TEOTW pg 115

AD 1349 The group known as the Flagellants claimed that their movement must last thirty-three and a half years, culminating in the Second Coming. They persuaded many people that their assertions were true. One chronicle states: "Many persons, and even young children, were soon bidding farewell to the world, some with prayers, others with praises on their lips." --TEOTW 125-129

AD 1366 Jean de Roquetaillade, a French ascetic, predicted the Antichrist was to come in 1366, with the end of the world a few years after that.

AD 1367 Czech archdeacon Militz of Kromeriz claimed the Antichrist was alive and well and would show up no later than 1367, bringing the end of the world with him.

AD 1378 The Joachites again re-scheduled the end of the world, this time to the year 1378.

AD 1420 Martinek Hauska, near Prague, led a following of priests to announce the soon Second Coming of Christ. They warned everyone to flee to the mountains because between February 1 and February 14, 1420, god was to destroy every town with Holy Fire, thus beginning the Millennium. Hauska's band then went on a rampage to "purify the earth", ridding the world of, in their eyes, false clergymen in the Church. They occupied an abandoned fortress which was named Tabor, and defied the religious powers of the day, ultimately succumbing to the Bohemians in 1452 --SSA pg 56, TIME pg 75-77

AD 1476 Hans Bohm was burnt at the stake for heresy, after proclaiming the village of Nikleshausen the center of imminent world salvation. --Apoc pg 151

AD 1490 Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican visionary, attracted large crowds with his prophecies of Antichrist. He began preaching that his city of Florence would soon be "The reformation of all Italy..." and that its people would take on the mantle of God's elect, saved from destruction to play a glorious new role. This would only be accomplished, however, if Florence submitted peacefully to the invading Charles VIII of France. They did so, and for a short time became what has been called a 'proto-Messianic republic.' But when the corrupt Pope Alexander VI regained Florence, Savanarola was publicly executed in May, 1498. --TIME pg 79-81

AD 1496 Several 15th Century prophets predict the end of the world for the year 1496.

AD 1499 A mathemetician in Tubingen, Germany, had foretold of a coming alignment of the planets in 1524, which would bring a disastrous world-wide flood. This was generally rejected because such would violate God's covenant with Noah. the uneasiness, though, did not pass, and in 1523, printing presses in Germany churned out 51 pamphlets which added fuel to the speculative fire.

AD 1500 Martin Luther, Protestant reformer, stated: "I persuade myself verily, that the day of judgement will not be absent full three hundred years. God will not, cannot, suffer this world much longer... the great day is drawing near in which the kingdom of abominations shall be overthrown."

AD 1500 The Italian artist Botticelli captioned his painting, "The Mystical Nativity" with a message warning that the end of the world would occur within three years, based on the predictions of Girolamo Savonarola.

AD 1526 Anabaptists in St. Gallen, Switzerland, excited by various leaders and events, began running through the streets and shouting that the Last Day would arrive in exactly one week. Many were baptized, stopped work, abandoned their homes and set off into the hills, singing and praying in expectant furvor. After a week had passed with no sign of their returning Lord, they returned to their homes. --TEOTW pg 145-153

AD 1520 Nicholas Storch was a former weaver who was a self-proclaimed expert on the Bible. He began warning groups of workers that all of Christendom was about to be annihilated by the Turks. Not only did he quote from the Scriptures, but insisted that God spoke to him directly through dreams and visions. Ultimately rejected by reformer Martin Luther, Storch vanishes from history at the end of 1522. --TEOTW pg 155

AD 1520 Thomas Muntzer, another self-appointed prophet in Germany, who made bold predictions based upon the book of Daniel, and called for the overthrow by the peasantry of those in power. "The time of the harvest is at hand," he declared. "...I have sharpened my sickle." Muntzer proclaimed that is was the Last Days, and whoever resisted his preaching would be, "..slain by the Turks when they come next year." He was executed in 1525, after leading a peasant army in rebellion. TEOTW pg 153-158

AD 1520 Melchior Hoffman (c1498-1543/4) was one of the most influential of the self-appointed prophets. A Swabian furrier by trade, Hoffman had converted to Lutheranism in 1522 and became a wandering preacher. In 1526 Hoffman published a detailed pamphlet on the twelfth chapter of Daniel which proclaimed that the world would end in seven years, at Easter fo 1533. The seven year period was to be divided into two parts. The first part would see the appearance of Elijah and Enoch, who would overthrow the Pope. They would, however, be martyred and all the saints would then be persecuted. After forty-two months of tribulation, Christ would appear. Hoffman referred to himself as Elijah, and embarked on the fulfillment of his vision. He was imprisoned for his views, however, in Strasburg, later dying in the 1540s. --TEOTW pg 160-162

AD 1524 Prophets in England predicted a flood on February 1, 1524 (Julian) to strike at London. 20,000 people abandoned their homes in fear. Yet another prophet, citing an alignment of planets in the constellation Pisces, set the date for the flood for February 20th. Both days turned out to be sunny with not even a drop of rain.

AD 1525 Anabaptist Thomas Müntzer, thinking that he was living at the "end of all ages," in 1525, incited a spectacularly unsuccessful revolt of the peasantry.

AD 1527 A German bookbinder named Hans Nut said that he was a prophet of God sent by Christ to herald the Second Coming. This would occur exactly three and a half years after the start of the Peasant's War, in 1527. The Lord's arrival would be followed, according to Nut, by a thousand years of free food, love, and free sex. He amassed some followers, but was killed during an attempted prison escape in 1527. --SSA pg 56

AD 1528 Hans Romer insisted that Christ was coming within the year, so he organized his own rebellion to attack the city of Erfurt on New Year's Day of 1528. He was betrayed, however, and arrested. --TEOTW 159

AD 1528 Prophets in England, having failed in their February 20th, 1524 prediction for a massive flood, reschedule the prediction to 1528.

AD 1528 Reformer Hans Hut predicted the end would occur on Pentecost (May 27, Julian calendar) 1528.

AD 1532 Bishop Frederick Nausea (yes, that is his name), predicted that the world would end in 1532 after hearing a single report of bloody crosses appearing in the sky alongside a comet.

AD 1533 Anabaptist prophet Melchior Hoffman predicted the end of the world in 1533. he also predicted that Jesus would reappear in Strasbourg, to save 144,000 people from the world's end.

AD 1533 Mathematician Michael Stifel, a devout Christian, calculated that the Day of Judgement would begin at exactly 8:00am on October 19, 1533.

AD 1534 A message out of the besieged city of Munster, where fanatic Anabaptists, originally led by one Jan Matthys, self-proclaimed Enoch, second witness (after Hoffman's Elijah) to the coming end of all things, read: "God has made known to us that all should get ready to go to the New Jerusalem (Munster), the city of saints, because he is going to punish the world...flee out of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul...for this is the time of the Lord's vengeance." Matthys had also fancied himself a second Gideon, leading 30 followers out in an attack on the city's besiegers. He and his band of thirty were annhilated. The movement's new leader, Jan Beukels, or Bockholdt, known to history as John of Leyden, had declared himself King of the World, a position he would hold until Christ's return. Berhardt Rothmann published two pamphlets proclaiming the triumph of the saints at Munster, but the Catholic bishop whose town was held, eventually retook it, executing most of the rebels. --SSA pg 57, TEOTW pg 163-175

AD 1532 Michael Stiefel, mathematician and follower of Luther, published Apocalypse on the Apocalypse: A Little Book of Arithmetic about the Antichristwhich computed the Day of Judgement for 8AM on October 9, 1533. when nothing happened on that day, the local peasants siezed the minister and tookhim to nearby Wittenburg, where some sued him for damages. Stiefel survived this misadventure and, twenty years later, published a "recalculation." --Apoc pg 91-92

AD 1537 French astrologer Pierre Turrel, a devout Christian, wanting to avoid the Jaochites' embarrassment, hedges his bets and predicts the end of the world in 1537, 1544, 1801 or 1814.

AD 1555 French theologian Pierre d'Ailly predicted the end of the world in 1555. Christopher Columbus' own apocolyptic views were based on this prediction.

AD 1556 Rumors of the end of the world swept through the churches of Switzerland on Magdalene's Day in 1556, source unknown.

AD 1583 Several astrologers and clergy cite a conjunction of Jupiter with Saturn as a sign that the second coming of Jesus will occur in London at noon on Apr 28, 1583.

AD 1588 Philip Melanchthon, ally of Martin Luther, claimed that a divine numerical cycle, chiefly utilizing the numbers 7 and 10, would culminate in 1588, which was 10x7, years from Luther's 1518 defiance of the Pope. It was then that the seventh seal would be opened, Antichrist be would be overthrown, and the Last Judgement would occur. --The Armada pg 175

AD 1588 The sage Johann Müller (aka Regiomontanus) predicts the second comiong of Christ in 1588.

AD 1594 John Napier, mathemetician extraordinaire, published A Plaine Discoverie of the Whole Revelation of St. John, in which he predicted the Last Judgement either for 1688, according to Revelation, or 1700, according to Daniel. --Apoc pg 92

AD 1600 The Fifth Monarchy Men, an extreme Puritan sect in England, believed that the time of the monarchy which would succeed the Biblical Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman monarchies was at hand. During this time Christ would appear to reign on earth with his saints for 1000 years. After the fall of the Commonwealth, the sect first supported Oliver Cromwell, but later were at odds with the Lord Protector. Their extreme violence led to the arrest of their leaders. Despite attempted uprisings, the movement eventually died out. --Brit 1957, vol 9, pg 227

AD 1600 Martin Luther had predicted that the world would end no later than the year 1600.

AD 1603 Dominican monk Tomasso Campanella wrote that the sun would collide with the Earth in 1603.

AD 1623 Eustachius Poyssel used numerology to pinpoint 1623 as the year of the end of the world.

AD 1624 The same astrologers who failed in predicting a great flood in 1524, finally moved their predictions safely beyond their own deaths, to 1624.

AD 1648 Sabbatai Zevi, a rabbi from Smyrna, Turkey, predicted that the Messiah would come in 1648. When 1648 arrived, Zevi announced thet he was the Messiah.

AD 1651 The date selected for the end of the world by fifteenth century "prophet" Johann Hilten. --TIME pg 89

AD 1654 In 1578, physician Helisaeus Roeslin of Alsace, basing his prediction on a nova that occurred in 1572, predicted the world ending in 1654 in a blaze of fire.

AD 1656 The date the world would end, according to predictions put forth by Christopher Columbus in his "Book of Prophecies". Columbus held that his explorations were fulfillment of prophecy. he was to have led a Christian army in a great final crusade that would eventually convert the entire world to Christendom. The date weas chosen because supposedly 1656 years passed between the time of the creation and Noah's flood. --99R pg 13

AD 1657 The Fifth Monarchy Men, a group of radical Christians intending to force the British Parliament to base all laws on the Bible (much like Christians are trying to do to the United States) predicted the world would end in 1657.

AD 1660 Joseph Mede, whose writings influenced James Ussher and Isaac Newton, claimed that the Antichrist appeared way back in 456, and the end of the world would come in 1660.

AD 1666 During a period of strife, English clergy announce that the year 1666 will bring the end of the world, a prediction thought to be coming true when a great fire strikes London.

AD 1666 Few believe Rabi Sabbatai Zevi is the Messiah, so he changes his prediction for the appearence of the Messiah to 1666. He is arrested for disturbing the peace with his prophecies, and when given the choice between execution and conversion to Islam, eagerly converts.

AD 1673 Deacon William Aspinwall, a leader of the Fifth Monarchy movement, predicts the end of the world for 1673.

AD 1680 The supposed founder of Rosicrucianism, Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, told in his Proper Exposition of the Aspects of the Book of Revelation of the fall of the idolatrous Roman church and the establishement of Christ's Millennium in 1860. --Apoc pg 122

AD 1686 Frenchman Pierre Jurieu published his work L'Accomplissement des propheties, in which he predicted the end of the persecution of the Protestant Huguenots, and the fall of Babylon (the Roman Catholic Church, according to Jurieu) for 1689.

AD 1688 John Napier, the mathematician who discovered logarithms, applies his new mathematics to the Book of Revelations and predicts the end of the world for 1688.

AD 1689 Pierre Jurieu, a Camisard prophet, predicted that Judgement Day would occur in 1689. The Camisards were Huguenots of the Languedoc region of southern France.

AD 1694 Anglican rector John Mason and German theologian Johann Alsted both predict the end of the world for 1694. Another German prophet Johann Jacob Zimmerman, predicted that Jesus would reappear in America and organized an expedition of Christians to sail across the Atlantic and welcome their savior when he reappeared. Although Zimmerman himself died on the day of departure, his followers completed the journey and remained encamped in the wilderness of North America until it became obvious that Jesus had stood them up.

AD 1697 Notorious witch chaser Cotton Mather predicts the end of the world for 1697.

AD 1697 Henry Archer, a Fifth Monarchy Manpredicts the end of the world for 1697.

AD 1700 The Camisards were a radical movement of French peasantry that engaged in organised military resistance to the renunciation of the Edict of Nantes. They were supposedly accompanied by miracles, such as lights in the sky which guided them, and resistance to wounding. They also purportedly spoke in tongues and prophesied in ecstatic trances, foretelling the soon destruction of the Roman Catholic Church, the supposed Satan and Babylon. Due to pressures they fled to England where they became known as the "French Prophets," forcasting doom and a new world ahead. They gained large numbers of followers, and much attention. Their prophecies failed to materialize, however, and their numbers soon dwindled. Their movement influenced many later groups, though, including the Shakers. --SSA pg 57

AD 1701 The prophetic writer Mory Cary, writing in 1647, expected the conversion of theJews in 1656 and the Millennium in 1701, and thought that there would be a prophetic outpouring before then. "Not only men, but women shall prophesy...Not only superiors but inferiors; not only those that have university learning but those that have it not, even servants and handmaids." --TIME pg 90

AD 1700 Immanuel Swedenborg, though never claiming the desire to found a sect, said that dreams, visions, and direct communications from God had led him to believe he had been given a new, divine, interpretation of Scripture. Swedenborg claimed to have witnessed the Second Advent, which was manifested in the inauguration of his "New Church." --HOD pg 236-238, Brit 1957, vol 21

AD 1755 A sea captain witnessing the disaster of the Lisbon quake wrote: "...if one went through the broad places of squares, nothing to be met with but people wringing their hands, and crying 'the world is at an end.'" --TEOTW pg 179-189

AD 1700 Jonathan Edwards, premier evangelist, was fascinated by the Apocalypse, noted all signs of the times, and calculated and recalculated its coming. He concluded that Antichrist's rule would end when the papacy ended in 1866, and that old serpent, the Devil, would finally be vanquished in the year 2000, when the Millennium would begin. --Apoc pg 171

AD 1700 Sir Isaac Newton, the great scientist, was himself not immune to misprophecy. He developed a carefully constructed grand scenario which predicted that the Jews would return to reclaim Jerusalem in 1899, and that the second coming of Christ would occur precisely forty-nine years later.

AD 1785 Jean-Baptiste Ruere, a professed descendant of King David, claimed that heavenly sources assured him he was destined to rule as king in Jerusalem, and likewise foretold of revolution, kingdoms overthrown, the Jews returning to the Holy Land, and Jesus returning to launch the Third Age. --Apoc pg 107

AD 1789 The forecast year for the end of the world, or at least of Christendom, by Cardinal Pierre d-Ailly, Canon Roussart, Dijon Academy rector Pierre Turel, and the Londoner Peter Pearson. --Apoc pg 109

AD 1799 Esther Thrale Piozzi recorded how many found the First Consul of France, Napoleon Buonaparte to be "the Devil Incarnate," the Appolyon mentioned in Scripture. The name of Antichrist had become clear, and it was (in the Corsican dialect) N'Apollione, the Destroyer "coming forwards followed by a cloud of locusts from ye bottomless Pit." --Apoc pg 114-115

AD 1800 Mother Ann Lee, leader of the "Shaker" movement, claimed that in her the female principle of Christ was manifested, and the promise of the Second Coming fulfilled. Christ's kingdom on earth, according to Lee, began with the establishment of the Shaker Church.

AD 1800 The Rev Edward Bishop Elliot, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, provided a massive work in four volumes, wherein he stated that the French Revolution had been the "pouring out of the 1st vial (of Revelation)" There was to be a short time, he warned, before the end of all things. --TSOR pg 11

AD 1820 In England, Edward Irving preached on the imminent appearance of Christ as witnessed by the apparent revival of "apostolic gifts", and Irving's own intense study of prophetical books, especially Revelation.

AD 1832 Mormon founder Joseph Smith prophesied under "divine revelation" the gathering of the saints and the coming of the New Jerusalem, the temple of which would be built in Missouri and "reared in this generation." Smith added "Pestilence, hail, famine, and earthquake will sweep the wicked of this generation from off the face of the land, to open and prepare the way for the return of the lost tribes of Israel from the north country....there are those now living upon the earth whose eyes shall not be closed in death until they see all these things which I have spoken, fulfilled." --99R pg 120

AD 1840 Dr. John Cumming, eloquent preacher of apocalypse, drew audiences of many thousands to his lectures. Cumming, while preparing for the publications of these lectures, warned that the seventh and final vial of God's wrath was now being poured out. "We are about to enter on the Last Woe...and to hear the nearly-spent reverberations of the Last Trumpet." --TSOR pg 84

AD 1843 People stared in wonder and unneasiness at the parahelia, a great halo that circled the sun. They also looked with fear at the night sky where a giant comet with a fiery tail rushed through the darkness. Some said that the comet was racing toward mankind, bringing "the end of the world." --Thief pg 1

AD 1844 William Miller, a Massachussetts farmer, after a years-long study of the Bible, chiefly Revelation and Daniel, concurred that the Second Coming of Christ would take place between 21 March, 1843, and 21 March, 1844. When this time passed, Miller and his followers set up new dates, again with failure. Eventually the movement collapsed, but gave birth to Seventh Day Adventism, while also influencing the formation of several others, including the Jehovah's Witnesses. --SSA pg 58, TSOR pg 16, Doom pg 92-111

AD 1847Joseph Wolff, a converted Jew living in Palestine, predicted the Advent for 1847. --Thief pg 1

AD 1850 Chinese schoolteacher Hung Hsiu-ch'uan, failing a government job examination for the thrid time, suffered an emotional collapse during which he professed to have had visions of an old man in a golden beard, as well as a younger man. These two told Hung that the world was overrun by demons and that he, Hung, was to be the intrument in their eradication. Later, after returning to his home village, Hung reread a Chines Christian missionary's book and discovered the meaning for the vision which he had experienced. The old man had been God, and the younger man, Jesus. Hung further understood that he was the second Son of God, sent to save China. Eventually his charisma and teachings began to gather a following and he became the leader of a group known as the Pai Shang-ti Hui (God Worshipper's Society). By 1850 the movement had grown into open rebellion. In 1851 Hung proclaimed the new dynasty the T'ai-p'ing T'ien-kun (Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace), and assumed the title of Heavenly King. His ragtag group of thousands grew into a disciplined army of over a million. Full scale war erupted across the Chinese countryside. Chinese imperial troups were defeated in pitched battle on more than one occassion. Hung captured the city of Nanking, making it his capital. Eventually he fell ill, and committed suicide in 1864. Chinese forces lay seige to Nanking, and in taking it inflicted a terrible slaughter of over 100,000 people. The rebellion gradually faded across China. As many as 20,000,000 people died as a result of this, the T'ai-p'ing Rebellion, and Hung Hsiu-ch'uan's misprophetic delusions. --Brit 1977, vol 8

AD 1858 The Rev Richard Shimeall of New York identified Napolean III as the Beast of the Apocalypse. --TSOR pg 78

AD 1870 Cyrus Read Teed, a former corporal in the Union medical corps, said that he was the "seventh messenger of God", and adopted "Koresh" as his new surname. Teed claimed that an angel had visited him, giving him new spiritual awareness. He was now the reincarnated Messiah, and it was his job to gather the 144,000 faithful to await the Last Judgement. Teed's legacy would bear bitter fruit in the 1990s, with the rise of another Koresh, David, who would lead his followers into an apocalyptic death near Waco, Texas.

AD 1874 Charles Taze Russell, founder of what would become the Jehovah's Witnesses, first announced that the Last Days had definitely begun in 1874, then that the end would come in 1914. Succeeding Witnesses placed the date in 1925, 1936, 1953, 1973... --99R pg 20

AD 1881 A prophecy in rhyme by Mother Shipton: "The world to an end shall come,/in Eighteen hundred and eighty one." Purportedly written by a 15th century witch, it was actually penned by Charles Hindley of Brighton, who profitted greatly from the double false prediction. --TSOR pg 99

AD 1890 A native American known as Wovoka claimed to have received a certain divine revelation. Christ had returned to earth, given his followers a new spiritual magic, the "Ghost Dance", which they were to engage in until Christ came again to "take them up into the air," eventually to be set down among the ghosts of their ancestors on the new earth, where only Indians would live. The movement spread quickly among the various tribes on and off the reservations, especially among the Sioux. --Bury pg 431-435

AD 1897 Brazil -- Antonio Conselheiro (The Counsellor), a sixty-year old, half crazy ascetic, became spiritual leader of Canudos, a "New Jerusalem" of tumbledown shacks in the remote state of Bahia. The residents were largely peasants who fled the decline of the northeast coffee and sugar economies. They practiced a mixture of Catholicism, Indian rites, and witchcraft. conselheiro had seen the overthrow of the Emperor Pedro II as an act of disobedience to God, and a shattering of the patriarchal order so wicked that it must foreshadow the apocalypse. After several violent encounters with local police and government soldiers, in which the Canudos zealots inflicted severe defeats on their foes, an army of 10,000 men surrounded Canudos, and on October 5, 1897 took by force the last smoking huts. The defenders had died by enemy bullets and by fire, the latter set by their own hands.

AD 1900 Paris priest Pierre Lacheze published several apocalyptic works, and predicted the restoration of the Jerusalem temple for 1892 and Doomsday in 1900. --Apoc pg 136

AD 1900 Philosopher Vladimir Solovyev, eminent Russian theologian, foretold in his work, War, Progress, and the End of History, of a war with the Japanese in which the Japanese would win, conquering much of the world, but eventually being driven back by the Europeans. Then there would arise a brilliant writer and thinker who would unite the world and decree everlasting peace, ultimately summoning all religious leaders of the world, promising them everything they wanted if they would bow down and accept his sovereignty. The Jews would accept him as the Messiah, until they learn that he is not a Jew. Then would begin the revolt that would lead to the final battle north of Jerusalem, as well as the eruption of a volcano from the bottom of the Dead Sea. Said Solovyev: "The approaching end of the world strikes me like some obvious but quite subtle scent -- just as a traveller nearing the sea feels the sea breeze before he sees the sea." --TEOTW pg 221-227

AD 1901 In 1889, the Rev. Michael Baxter, editor of the London Christian Herald, announced in a book called The End of This Age about the End of This Century that 1896 would witness the Rapture of 144,000 devout Christians, and that the world would end in 1901. --TIME pg 120-121

AD 1901 Sergei Nilus, Russian magistrate, in a book titled The Great in the Small, prophesied "the coming of the Antichrist and the rule of Satan on earth." He later stated in 1905, "The king born of the blood of Zion -- the Antichrist is near to the throne of universal power." --TEOTW pg 234-237

AD 1906 H.G.Wells shows that apocalyptic fever was prevalent in his day: "Like most people of my generation...I was launched into life with Millennial expectations...it might be in my lifetime or a little after it, there would be trumpets and shoutings and celestial phenomena, a battle of Armageddon and the judgement." --TSOR pg 177

AD 1908 When a terrible explosion rocked Siberia, a newspaper correspondent present reported..."All the inhabitants of the village ran out into the streets in panic. The old women wept. Everyone thought the end of the world was approaching." --TEOTW pg 274

AD 1910 In Pittsburgh, a clergyman announced that the arrival of Haley's Comet would herald Armageddon and the Second Coming.

AD 1918 Clarence Larkin, in his book Dispensational Truth, writes, "...at no time in the history of the Christian Church have the conditions neccessary to the Lord's return been so completely fulfilled as at the present time, therefore his coming is imminent, and will not probably be long delayed...If the Millennium is to be ushered in in AD 2000, then the "Rapture" must take place at least 7 years before that...It may have been 4075 years, instead of 4004 (as generally given) from Adam to Christ. In that case we are living in the year 5993 from the creation of Adam, or on the eve of the Rapture." --Disp

AD 1940 William Marrion Branham, a pentecostal faith healer declared himself to be God's end-time prophet, and urged all Christians to come out of their corrupt denominations before the Lord's return. --99R pg 115-116

AD 1945 A Protestant minister in Hiroshima upon the dropping of the first atomic bomb: "The feeling I had was that everyone was dead. The whole city was destroyed...I thought all of my family must be dead -- it doesnt matter if I die...I thought that this was the end of Hiroshima, of Japan, of humankind...This was God's judgement on man." --TEOTW pg 337

AD 1973 The "Children of God" cult claimed that its leader, David Berg, was "God's end-time prophet to the world." They fled America in 1973 due to Berg's prediction that Comet Kohoutek would destroy the country. --99R pg 117

AD 1976 Prophecy teacher Doug Clark announced that President Jimmy Carter would be "the president who will meet Mr. 666 (the Antichrist) SOON!" A flier announcing Clark's new book that year claimed, "The Death of the United States and the Birth of One World Government under President Carter." --SSA pg 24 (Personal note: I was working at a TV station in Orange County California whose manager believed the Clark prediction, and transformed the station's output into 24 hour a day warnings of the end of the Earth, even to the point of abandoning the commercials rotation. The Earth did not end but the TV station went out of business. )

AD 1980 North Carolina prophecy teacher Colin Deal has set dates for the return of Christ for 1982 or 1983, 1988, 1989, and in a March 17, 1989 radio broadcast, "about eleven years away." If at first you don't succeed... --SSA pg 38

AD 1980 Prophecy promoter Charles Taylor predicted a 1988 rapture: "This new book (Watch 1988 - The Year of Climax) is being written with the expectation that it will be the last book I will ever write ...with the millennial reign of Christ due to begin in 1995, the rapture must surely occcur in 1988 to coordinate with many other prophecies!" Not surprisingly, Taylor also made similar predictions for 1975, 1976, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1987, and, of course, 1989. --SSA pg 134-142

AD 1981 May 25. About fifty members of a group called the Assembly of Yahweh gathered at Coney Island, NY, in white robes, awaiting their "Rapture" from a world about to be destroyed between 3PM and sundown. A small crowd of onlookers watched and waited for something to happen. The members chanted prayers to the beat of bongo drums until sunset. The end did not come.

AD 1982 Full-page advertisements in many major newspapers for the weekend of April 24-25, 1982, announced: "The Christ is Now Here!" and predicted that he was to make himself known "within the next two months." That date passed, but the Tara Centers that placed the ad said that the dalay was only because the "consciousness of the human race was not quite right..." --99R pg 154-155

AD 1980 Psychic Jeanne Dixon predicted a world holocaust for the 1980s, and the rise of a powerful world leader, born in the Middle-East in 1962. --99R pg 120-122

AD 1988 Edgar C. Whisenant, in his book 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988, gave a three day period in September for the saints to be "caught up with the Lord." When this failed, he issued another book claiming that he was a year off, and urging everyone to be ready in 1989. --SSA pg 28-33, DOOM pg 134

AD 1991 Reginald Dunlop, end-times author, stated that "The Antichrist would be revealed" around the year 1989 or 1990, perhaps sooner." The Rapture he predicted for 1991. Says dunlop, God verified this "through many prayers...I am MORE than positive that this is THE YEAR that the Rapture will occur." --SSA pg 36

AD 1990 Southwest Radio Church's David Webber and Hoah Hutching's book, "Prophecy in Stone" contained a chart which set dates for the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple in 1974-1978, and the Great Tribulation for sometime between 1981 and 1992. A later book, "New Light on the Great Pyramid," had another chart which revised these figures, tentatively setting dates of 1988, 1992, and 1996, for the Tribulation, the abomination of desolation, and Christ's return, respectively. --SSA pg 37

AD 1990 Elizabeth Clare Prophet predicted the end of the world by nuclear war in 1990. Her church has since seen a decline in membership.

AD 1992 "Rapture, October 28, 1992, Jesus is coming in the Air." Full page add in the October 20, 1991, issue of USA Today, placed by followers of the Hyoo-go (Rapture) movement, a loose collection of Korean "end-times" sects. When the prophesied events failed to pass, much turmoil broke out among the sects. Some believers were distraught, while others tried to attack their doomsday preachers with knives. The founder of one church was later charged with swindling four million dollars from his parishoners. --99R pg 11, 168-169

AD 1993 David Koresh, self-proclaimed little lamb of Isaiah 16, and the Second Coming of Christ, dies in a fiery conflagration with some 80 of his followers. These members of the Branch Dividians, an offshoot of the Seventh-Day Adventists had faced a botched ATF raid on their compound near Waco, Texas, and a subsequent 51-day siege by the FBI. A devastating fire broke out when the FBI attempted to fire gas into the group's buildings. --99R pg 122-124

AD 1994 Arab Christian prophet Om Saleem claimed that the antichrist was born November 23, 1933, that his unveiling would come in 1993 and the rapture in 1994. --99R pg 149

AD 1994 Harold Camping, a radio evangelist, wrote a book entitled "1994?" In it, Camping says, "if this study is accurate, and I believe with all my heart that it is, there will be no extensions of time. There will be no time for second guessing. When September 6, 1994, arrives, no one else can be saved, the end has come." Thousands believed Camping's distorted biblical teachings, but again, the end did not come as Camping had wished. --99R pg 12, 48-50

AD 1997 Mary Stewart Relfe wrote in 1983 that she had been praying to " know the year" of the Lord's coming, and that subsequently she received detailed "divine revelations" from God. She relaeased a chart showing World War III beginning in 1989, the Great Tribulation starting in 1990, and that Jesus Christ will come back in 1997, just after Armaggeddon." --SSA pg 35

AD 1997 On March 25, 1997, followers of Marshall Applewhite who were members of the Heaven’s Gate cult committed mass murder-suicide in Southern California. The cult members died in shifts, with some members “helping” others take a lethal mixture of Phenobarbital and vodka before drinking it themselves. Members believed that comet Hale- Bopp was the sign that they were supposed to shed their earthly bodies (“containers”) and join a spacecraft waiting behind the comet that would take them to a higher plane of existence.

AD 1998 Larry Wilson, a former Seventh-day Adventist pastor, predicted four massive global earthquakes beginning around 1994 and ending in 1998 with the Second Coming. --99R pg 77

The fact is that there is ALWAYS some con-artist in a robe, waving around portents, signs, and holy writ, claiming that the world is coming to an end and ofering to tell you what to do about it for only $19.95 (plus if you act now they'll throw in a free glow-in-the-dark plastic Jesus statue).

Now, if you really want to believe in these predictions, that's fine. This is a land of religious freedom and you are free to go hide in a cave and pull a rock in on top of you while you wait out the end of the world. And if you really want to,. you are free to turn over all your worldly goods to the guys in the funny robes and follow them off the edge of a cliff. But what you are NOT free to do is set fire to the planet the rest of us live on because you think this is going to win you an inside track to wings and a harp. That's selfish and rude.

Throughout history, every single idiot who bought into a prediction of the end of the world was made a total fool of. In worst cases, entire lives and even entire towns were wrecked by these con-artists. And the worst con-artists right now are those trying to get you to support wars in the Mideast on promises that it will bring about The Rapture and open up those pearly gates wide for you.

Bibliography
Thief = Thief in the Night by William Sears, George Ronald press, 1977
99R = 99 Reasons Why No One Knows When Christ Will Return by B.J. Oropeza, InterVarsity Press, 1994
SSA = Soothsayers of the Second Advent by William M. Alnor, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1989
Doom = Doomsday Delusions by C. Marvin Pate and Calvin B Haines, Jr., InterVarsity Press, 1995
TEOT = The End of Time by Damian Thompson, University Press of New England, 1996
Armada = The Armada by Garrett Mattingly, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1959
DISP = Dispensational Truth by Clarence Larkin, Rev. Clarence Larkin Est - publisher, 1918
Apoc = Apocalypses by Eugen Weber, Harvard University Press, 1999
Bury = Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970
TSOR = The Sleep of Reason by Derek Jarrett, Harper and Row, 1989
TEOTW = The End of the World by Otto Friedrich, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1982
Hand = Handbook of Denominations in the United States - New Eighth Edition by Frank S. Mead, Abingdon Press, 1985
Brit = Encyclopaedia Brittanica

A. Enron's chairman did meet with the president and the vice president in the Oval Office.

E.. The corporation had access to the administration at its highest level and even enlisted the Commerce and State Departments to grease deals for it.

F.. The taxpayer-supported Export-Import Bank subsidized! Enron for more than $600 million in just one transaction.

The idea to form the North American Union as a super-NAFTA knitting together Canada, the United States and Mexico into a super-regional political and economic entity was a key agreement resulting from the March 2005 meeting held at Baylor University in Waco, Tex., between President Bush, President Fox and Prime Minister Martin.

A joint statement published by the three presidents following their Baylor University summit announced the formation of an initial entity called, “The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” (SPP). The joint statement termed the SPP a “trilateral partnership” that was aimed at producing a North American security plan as well as providing free market movement of people, capital, and trade across the borders between the three NAFTA partners:

Following the March 2005 meeting in Waco, Tex., the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) published in May 2005 a task force report titled “Building a North American Community.” We have already documented that this CFR task force report calls for a plan to create by 2010 a redefinition of boundaries such that the primary immigration control will be around the three countries of the North American Union, not between the three countries. We have argued that a likely reason President Bush has not secured our border with Mexico is that the administration is pushing for the establishment of the North American Union.

The North American Union is envisioned to create a super-regional political authority that could override the sovereignty of the United States on immigration policy and trade issues. In his June 2005 testimony to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Pastor, the Director of the Center for North American Studies at American University, stated clearly the view that the North American Union would need a super-regional governance board to make sure the United States does not dominate the proposed North American Union once it is formed:

Pastor also proposed the creation of a Permanent Tribunal on Trade and Investment with the view that “a permanent court would permit the accumulation of precedent and lay the groundwork for North American business law.” The intent is for this North American Union Tribunal would have supremacy over the U.S. Supreme Court on issues affecting the North American Union, to prevent U.S. power from “irritating” and retarding the progress of uniting Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. into a new 21st century super-regional governing body.

Robert Pastor also advises the creation of a North American Parliamentary Group to make sure the U.S. Congress does not impede progress in the envisioned North American Union. He has also called for the creation of a North American Customs and Immigration Service which would have authority over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within the Department of Homeland Security.

Pastor’s 2001 book “Toward a North American Community” called for the creation of a North American Union that would perfect the defects Pastor believes limit the progress of the European Union. Much of Pastor’s thinking appears aimed at limiting the power and sovereignty of the United States as we enter this new super-regional entity. Pastor has also called for the creation of a new currency which he has coined the “Amero,” a currency that is proposed to replace the U.S. dollar, the Canadian dollar, and the Mexican peso.

If President Bush had run openly in 2004 on the proposition that a prime objective of his second term was to form the North American Union and to supplant the dollar with the “Amero,” we doubt very much that President Bush would have carried Ohio, let alone half of the Red State majority he needed to win re-election. Pursuing any plan that would legalize the conservatively estimated 12 million illegal aliens now in the United States could well spell election disaster for the Republican Party in 2006, especially for the House of Representative where every seat is up for grabs.

President Bush is pursuing a globalist agenda to create a North American Union, effectively erasing our borders with both Mexico and Canada. This was the hidden agenda behind the Bush administration's true open borders policy.

Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA politically, setting the stage for a North American Union designed to encompass the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. What the Bush administration truly wants is the free, unimpeded movement of people across open borders with Mexico and Canada.

President Bush intends to abrogate U.S. sovereignty to the North American Union, a new economic and political entity which the President is quietly forming, much as the European Union has formed.

The blueprint President Bush is following was laid out in a 2005 report entitled "Building a North American Community" published by the left-of-center Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR report connects the dots between the Bush administration's actual policy on illegal immigration and the drive to create the North American Union:

The North American Union plan, which Vincente Fox has every reason to presume President Bush is still following, calls for the only border to be around the North American Union -- not between any of these countries. Or, as the CFR report stated:

Why doesn’t President Bush just tell the truth? His secret agenda is to dissolve the United States of America into the North American Union. The administration has no intent to secure the border, or to enforce rigorously existing immigration laws. Securing our border with Mexico is evidently one of the jobs President Bush just won't do. If a fence is going to be built on our border with Mexico, evidently the Minuteman Project is going to have to build the fence themselves. Will President Bush protect America's sovereignty, or is this too a job the Minuteman Project will have to do for him?

Alabama 1901, Preamble . We the people of the State of Alabama , invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish the following Constitution.
Alaska 1956, Preamble. We, the people of Alaska, grateful to God and to those who founded our nation and pioneered this great land.
Arizona 1911, Preamble . We, the people of the State of Arizona, grateful to Almighty God for our liberties, do ordain this Constitution...
Arkansas 1874, Preamble.   We, the people of the State of Arkansas, grateful to Almighty God for the privilege of choosing our own form of government...
California 1879, Preamble . We, the People of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom.
Colorado 1876, Preamble. We, the people of Colorado , with profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of Universe.
Connecticut 1818, Preamble. The People of Connecticut, acknowledging with gratitude the good Providence of God in permitting them to enjoy.
Delaware 1897, Preamble . Through Divine Goodness all men have, by nature, the rights of worshipping and serving their Creator according to the dictates of their consciences.
Florida 1885, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Florida, grateful to Almighty God for our constitutional liberty, establish this Constitution...
Georgia 1777, Preamble. We, the people of Georgia, relying upon protection and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish this Constitution...
Hawaii 1959, Preamble. We, the people of Hawaii, Grateful for Divine Guidance .. Establish this Constitution.
Idaho 1889, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Idaho, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings.
Illinois 1870, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Illinois, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy and looking to Him for a blessing on our endeavors.
Indiana 1851, Preamble. We, the People of the State of Indiana , grateful to Almighty God for the free exercise of the right to choose our form of government.
Iowa 1857, Preamble. We, the People of the State of Iowa, grateful to the Supreme Being for the blessings hitherto enjoyed, and feeling our dependence on Him for a continuation of these blessings establish this Constitution.
Kansas 1859, Preamble. We, the people of Kansas, grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious privileges establish this Constitution.
Kentucky 1891, Preamble. We, the people of the Commonwealth are grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberties...
Louisiana 1921, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Louisiana, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberties we enjoy.
Maine 1820, Preamble. We the People of Maine acknowledging with grateful hearts the goodness of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe in affording us an opportunity ... And imploring His aid and direction.
Maryland 1776, Preamble.   We, the people of the state of Maryland, grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious liberty...
Massachusetts 1780, Preamble. We...the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging with grateful hearts, the goodness of the Great Legislator of the Universe ... In the course of His Providence, an opportunity and devoutly imploring His direction ..
Michigan 1908, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Michigan, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of freedom establish this Constitution.
Minnesota, 1857, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Minnesota, grateful to God for our civil and religious liberty, and desiring to perpetuate its blessings:
Mississippi 1890, Preamble. We, the people of Mississippi in convention assembled, grateful to Almighty God, and invoking His blessing on our work.
Missouri 1845, Preamble. We, the people of Missouri, with profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, and grateful for His goodness .. Establish this Constitution .
Montana 1889, Preamble. We, the people of Montana, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of liberty establish this Constitution ...
Nebraska 1875, Preamble. We, the people, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom .. Establish this Constitution.
Nevada 1864, Preamble. We the people of the State of Nevada, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom establish this Constitution ...
New Hampshire 1792, Part I. Art. I. Sec. V . Every individual has a natural and unalienable right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.
New Jersey 1844, Preamble. We, the people of the State of New Jersey, grateful to Almighty God for civil and religious liberty which He hath   so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing on our endeavors.
New Mexico 1911, Preamble. We, the People of New Mexico, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of liberty
New York 1846, Preamble. We, the people of the State of New York, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings.
North Carolina 1868, Preamble. We the people of the State of North Carolina, grateful to Almighty God, the Sovereign Ruler of Nations,   for our civil, political, and religious liberties, and acknowledging our dependence upon Him for the continuance of those
North Dakota 1889, Preamble. We, the people of North Dakota, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, do ordain...
Ohio 1852, Preamble. We the people of the state of Ohio, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings and to promote our common
Oklahoma 1907, Preamble. Invoking the guidance of Almighty God, in order to secure and perpetuate the blessings of liberty ... establish this ..
Oregon 1857, Bill of Rights, Article I. Section 2. All men shall be secure in the Natural right, to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their consciences..
Pennsylvania 1776, Preamble. We, the people of Pennsylvania, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, and humbly invoking His guidance
Rhode Island 1842, Preamble. We the People of the State of Rhode Island grateful to Almighty God for the civil and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing
South Carolina , 1778, Preamble. We, the people of he State of South Carolina grateful to God for our liberties, do ordain and establish this Constitution.
South Dakota 1889, Preamble. We, the people of South Dakota, grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious liberties .
Tennessee 1796, Art. XI.III.   That all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their conscience...
Texas 1845, Preamble. We the People of the Republic of Texas, acknowledging, with gratitude, the grace and beneficence of God.
Utah 1896, Preamble. Grateful to Almighty God for life and liberty, we establish this Constitution.
Vermont 1777, Preamble. Whereas all government ought to enable the individuals who compose it to enjoy their natural rights, and other blessings which the Author of Existence has bestowed on man ..
Virginia 1776, Bill of Rights, XVI. Religion, or the Duty which we owe our Creator can be directed only by Reason and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian Forbearance, Love and Charity towards each other.
Washington 1889, Preamble. We the People of the State of Washington, grateful to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe for our liberties, do ordain this Constitution
West Virginia 1872, Preamble. Since through Divine Providence we enjoy the blessings of civil, political and religious liberty, we, the people of West Virginia reaffirm our faith in and constant reliance upon God ...
Wisconsin 1848, Preamble. We, the people of Wisconsin, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, domestic tranquility
Wyoming 1890, Preamble. We, the people of the State of Wyoming, grateful to God for our civil, political, and religious liberties .. establish this Constitution.

After reviewing acknowledgments of God from all 50 state constitutions, one is faced with the prospect that maybe, just maybe, the ACLU and the out-of-control federal courts are wrong

"Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants." - William Penn

SAN FRANCISCO -- Jim Harper left his hotel early Thursday at 5:30 a.m. to give himself more than two hours to clear security at San Francisco International Airport. It wasn't that he was worried the security line would be long, but because he accepted a dare from civil liberties rabble-rouser John Gilmore to test whether he could actually fly without showing identification.

Gilmore issued the challenge at Wednesday's meeting of the Department of Homeland Security's privacy advisory committee in San Francisco, which otherwise lacked much in the way of controversy. An entrepreneur and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Gilmore recently lost a court battle seeking to unmask the government's secret regulations asking passengers to show identification when flying, and to have those rules declared unconstitutional.

Scolding the DHS committee for dithering over small matters, Gilmore said that it should be investigating the National Security Agency's eavesdropping program and that the committee's real job was to "protect the homeland from mean-spirited officials."

Gilmore then dared committee members to place their driver's licenses in the envelopes he had passed out, mail them to their home addresses and then attempt to fly home without identification.

While signs in the airport and on the Transportation Security Administration website insist that showing ID is mandatory, the official policy, as revealed by the judges' decision (.pdf) in Gilmore's case, is that "airline passengers either present identification or be subjected to a more extensive search." But Gilmore said that's not what really happens in an airport when one refuses to provide identification.

"You will find out what the real rules are," Gilmore said. "Are you afraid to? You have good reason."

Gilmore referred to his own experience when Southwest Airlines refused to let him fly in 2002 without identification, and a recent blog post by travel expert Edward Hasbrouck, chronicling his near-arrest for trying to figure out if the person checking identification at Washington Dulles International Airport was an airline or federal employee.

At the meeting's close, Harper, a committee member, said he'd take the challenge so long as he could hand his envelope to a reporter who accompanied him to the airport. He also challenged the other members to join him.

"We have influence," Harper said. "I challenge my colleagues to believe in the law."

None of the other committee members volunteered, but the committee's chair, former director of consumer protection for the Federal Trade Commission Howard Beales gave Harper a tongue-in-cheek blessing.

At 6 a.m. the next morning, Harper handed this reporter a green, self-addressed stamped envelope and entered the checkpoint line, which even at that early hour was filled with travelers facing a 20-minute crawl to the magnetometers.

Harper told the identification checker he had no ID, and the attendant quickly wrote "No ID" with a red marker on his ticket and shunted him off to an extra screening line -- generously allowing him to bypass the longer queue of card-carrying passengers.

There Harper was directed into the belly of a General Electric EntryScan puffer machine that shot bits of air at his suit in order to see if he had been handling explosives.

TSA employees wearing baby blue surgical gloves then swiped his Sidekick and his laptop for traces of explosives and searched through his carry-on, while a supervisor took his ticket, conferred with other employees and made a phone call.

Meanwhile, a TSA employee approached this reporter, who was watching the search through Plexiglas, and said, "It's pretty awkward you are standing here taking notes," but he did not ask for identification or call for a halt to the note-taking.

The TSA supervisor returned from her phone call and asked Harper why he didn't have identification and to where he was traveling. But she was satisfied enough with his answer -- that he had mailed his driver's license home to Washington D.C. -- that she allowed him to pass.

At 6:30 a.m., standing 50 yards away on the other side of the glass screen, Harper phoned to say he now had two hours to kill, having gotten through screening perhaps even faster than he would have if he'd shown ID. He guessed he was able to get through without much hassle by being polite and dressing well.

"Part of it was my concern with the growing use of identification checks to control access to society, such as buildings, stadiums and air travel," Harper said, referring to issues that are central to his recently published book called Identity Crisis.

"Yeah, I'm inclined to do it more and more and hopefully more people will follow my lead and it will become a clear option to not show government ID to fly," Harper said. "My identity has nothing to do with the real risk.

[It is interesting that the Star Tribune site has been removed from the the time Craig submitted the story till it was reproduced here. -- Tribble]

WASHINGTON - In a public health emergency, suspected victims would no longer have to give permission before experimental tests could be run to determine why they're sick, under a federal rule published Wednesday. Privacy experts called the exception unnecessary, ripe for abuse and an override of state informed-consent laws.

Health care workers will be free to run experimental tests on blood and other samples taken from people who have fallen sick as a result of a bioterrorist attack, bird flu outbreak, detonation of a dirty bomb or any other life-threatening public health emergency, according to the rule issued by the Food and Drug Administration.

In all other cases, the use of an experimental test still requires the informed consent of a patient, as well as the review and approval of an outside panel.

"To be candid, I hope it is a hypothetical problem. I hope we spent a lot of time creating a rule we never have to invoke," said Dr. Steve Gutman, director of the FDA's in-vitro diagnostics office.

Determining what constitutes a life-threatening public health emergency would be left up to the laboratories doing the testing. That creates the potential for conflicts of interest and other abuses, critics said.

"I don't like a rule like this because its most likely use is likely to be a form of abuse. The emergency exception it creates will be stretched to encompass non-emergency situations," said Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute.

The FDA said it published the rule to ensure the ability to identify quickly whatever chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear agent is involved in a terrorist attack or natural outbreak of disease. Doing so could save the lives of those being tested as well as of others exposed, the FDA said.

"Baloney," said Dr. Deborah Peel, chairwoman of the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation, a watchdog group. "This sounds like they're taking for themselves the right to test individuals every time they declare a public health emergency. There is no way getting consent would delay testing."

The FDA said that obtaining informed consent in those cases would be impracticable or unfeasible.

The rule lays out a scenario where a laboratory discovers what appears to be an unusual bug in a sample taken from a patient before a public health emergency was even suspected. With the apparent bug in the lab but the patient gone, going back for permission to use a confirmatory but experimental test — often the only type of test available — would introduce "unacceptable delays," the FDA said.

"They're basically overriding state informed-consent laws," said Sue Blevins, president of the Institute for Health Freedom. Blevins said her group advocates for informed consent but that in emergencies it could be sought after the fact.

"If they don't have the time to get it, at least inform them retroactively what's been done, so people can keep track of what information has been collected from them," Blevins said.

The rule took effect Wednesday but remains subject to public comment until Aug. 7. The FDA said it published the rule without first seeking comments because it would hinder the response to an outbreak of bird flu or other public health emergency.

"Nobody said two airplanes would fly into the World Trade Center, did they? We wouldn't have written the rule unless we thought it was a possibility," Gutman said.

The FDA said the lack of such an exemption impeded the public health response to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or
SARS, epidemic of 2003.

Russia became the latest country to shift a chunk of its central bank reserves out of the dollar, further eroding the standing of the greenback as the world's de facto reserve currency.

Sergei Ignatyev, chairman of the central bank, said 50 per cent of its forex reserves were now held in dollars, with 40 per cent in euros and the remainder in sterling. Previously it was believed that just 25-30 per cent of the reserves were in euros, with virtually all the remainder in dollars.

05/22/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- “If one day the world’s largest oil producers demanded euros for their barrels, it would be the financial equivalent of a nuclear strike”. Bill O’ Grady, A.G. Edwards

On May 10, Russian President Vladimir Putin ignited a firestorm that is bound to sweep across the global economy. In his State of the Nation speech to parliament,, he announced that Russia was planning to make the ruble “internationally convertible” so that it could be used in oil and natural gas transactions. Presently, oil is denominated exclusively in dollars and sold through the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMX) or the London Petroleum Exchange (LPE) both owned by American investors. If Russia proceeds with its plan, the ruble will go nose to nose with the dollar on the open market sending several billions of surplus greenbacks back to the United States. This could potentially send the American economy into freefall; triggering a deep recession and an extended period of hyper-inflation.

“The ruble must become a more widespread means of international transactions,” Putin said. “To this end, we need to open a stock exchange in Russia to trade in oil, gas, and other goods to be paid for in rubles."

Currently, the central banks around the world carry large stockpiles of dollars to use in their purchases of oil. This gives the US a virtual monopoly on oil transactions. It also forces reluctant nations to continue using the dollar even though it is currently underwritten by $8.4 trillion national debt.

Putin’s plan is similar to that of Iran, which announced that it would open an oil-bourse (oil exchange) on Kish Island in two months. The bourse would allow oil transactions to be made in petro-euros, thus discarding the dollar. The Bush administration’s belligerence has intensified considerably since Iran made its intentions clear. In fact, just yesterday, Secretary of State Condi Rice said that “security guarantees were not on the table” regardless of any Iranian commitment to stop enriching uranium. In other words, Washington will not provide Iran a “non-aggression pact” whether it follows UN Security Council guidelines or not.

The United States must protect its dollar-monopoly in the oil trade or it will lose the advantage of being the world’s “reserve currency”. As the reserve currency, the US can maintain its towering $8.4 trillion national debt and $800 billion trade deficit without fear of soaring interest rates or hyper-inflation. Trillions of greenbacks are constantly circulating in oil transactions just as hundreds of billions are stockpiled in foreign banks. In effect, the Federal Reserve is issuing bad checks with every dollar printed on the assumption that they will never reach the bank for collection. So far, they’ve been right, and as the price of oil continues to skyrocket, the Fed just keeps cheerily printing more worthless paper sending it to the 4 corners of the earth. Regrettably, if Russia or Iran goes ahead with their conversion plan, then the bad checks will flood back to their source and precipitate a meltdown.

America’s economic supremacy depends entirely on its ability to compel nations to make their energy acquisitions in greenbacks. If the flaccid dollar is not linked to the world’s most vital resource, then banks will dump it overnight. This extortion-racket is the system we are defending in Iraq, not “democracy”. It is a huckster’s scam designed to perpetuate American debt by forcing worthless currency on the developing world.

In a recent article by Dave Kimble, “Collapse of the petrodollar looming”, the author provides the details of Russia’s importance to the world oil market.

“Russia's oil exports represent 15.2% of the world's export trade in oil, making it a much more significant player than Iran, with 5.8% of export volumes. Russia also produces 25.8% of the world's gas exports, while Iran is still only entering this market as an exporter…. Venezuela has 5.4% of the export market.”

Obviously, it is not in Russia’s interest to trade with its European partners in dollars any more than it would be for the US to trade with Canada in rubles. Putin can strengthen the Russian economy and improve Russia’s prestige in the world as an energy superpower by transitioning to rubles. But, will Washington allow him to succeed?

A growing number of nations are now focusing on the empire’s Achilles’ heel, the dollar. Venezuela, Russia, Norway and Iran are all threatening to move away from the greenback. Is this a spontaneous uprising or is it a new type of asymmetrical warfare?

Whatever it is, Washington is bound to be reeling from the affects. After all, war maybe possible with Iran or Venezuela, but what about Russia? Would Bush be stupid enough to risk nuclear Armageddon to protect the drooping dollar?

The administration is exploring all of its options and is developing a strategy to crush Putin’s rebellion. (This may explain why Newsweek editor and undeclared spokesman for the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Fareed Zacharia, asked his guest on this week’s “Foreign Exchange” whether he thought Putin could be “assassinated”?!? Hmmm? I wonder if we’ll hear similar sentiments from Tom Friedman this week?)

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the secretive organization of 4,400 American elites from industry, finance, politics, media and the military (who operate the machinery of state behind the mask of democracy) has already issued a tersely worded attack on Putin (“Russia’ Wrong Direction”; Manila Times) outlining what is expected for Russia to conform to American standards of conduct. The missive says that Russia is headed in “the wrong direction” and that “a strategic partnership no longer seems possible”. The article reiterates the usual canards that Putin is becoming more “authoritarian” and “presiding over the rollback of Russian democracy”. (No mention of flourishing democracy in Saudi Arabia or Uzbekistan?) The CFR cites Putin’s resistance to “US and NATO military access to Central Asian bases” (which are a dagger put to Moscow’s throat) the banishing of Washington’s “regime change” NGOs from operating freely in Russia (“Freedom Support Act funds”) and Russia’s continued support for Iran’s “peaceful” development of nuclear energy.

America has never been a friend to Russia. It took full advantage of the confusion following the fall of the Soviet Union and used it to apply its neoliberal policies which destroyed the ruble, crushed the economy, and transferred the vast resources of the state to a handful of corrupt oligarchs. Putin single-handedly, put Russia back on solid footing; taking back Yukos from the venal Khordukovsky and addressing the pressing issues of unemployment and poverty-reduction. He is a fierce nationalist who enjoys a 72% approval rating and does not need the advice of the Bush administration or the CFR on the best path forward for his country.

The US has purposely strained relations with Russia by putting more military bases in Central Asia, feeding the turmoil in Chechnya, isolating Russia from its European neighbors, and directly intervening in its elections.

When the G-8 summit takes place next week, we should expect a full-throated attack from the corporate media on Putin as the latest incarnation of Adolph Hitler. Watch the fur fly as the forth estate descends on its newest victim like feral hounds to carrion. (Putin’s announcement that Russia would be converting to rubles HAS NOT APPEARED IN ANY WESTERN MEDIA. Like the Downing Street Memo, the firebombing of Falluja, or the “rigged” 2004 elections, the western “free press” scrupulously avoids any topic that may shed light on the real machinations of the US government)

Putin’s challenge to the dollar is the first salvo in a guerilla war that will end with the crash of the greenback and the restoration of parity among the nations of the world. It represents a tacit rejection of a system that requires coercion, torture and endless war to uphold its global dominance. When the dollar begins its inevitable decline, the global-economic paradigm will shift, the American war machine will grind to a halt, and the soldiers will come home. Maybe, then we can rebuild the republic according to the lost values of human rights and the rule of law.

While Washington dithers over exploiting oil and gas reserves off the coast of Florida, China has seized the opportunity to gobble up these deposits, which run throughout Latin America, the Caribbean and along the U.S. Gulf coast.

The Chinese have forged a deal with Cuban leader Fidel Castro to explore and tap into massive oil reserves almost within sight of Key West, Florida. At the same time, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who controls the largest oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere, is making deals to sell his country’s oil to China, oil that is currently coming to the United States.

Meanwhile, a new left-wing populist regime in Bolivia has nationalized the natural gas industry, threatening to cut off supplies to the United States.

There are new reports out circulating that Chinese firms are planning to slant drill off the Cuban coast near the Florida Straits, tapping into U.S. oil reserves that are estimated at 4.6 billion to 9.3 billion barrels. This compares with 4 billion to 10 billion barrels believed to be beneath the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, where drilling is held up in Congress due to the objections of environmental groups which warn of endangering caribou. Permission to drill in the refuge, which experts are certain will not present any environmental hazard, has failed by just two votes in the Senate.

As Chinese business increases its reach around the world, it is seeking oil, which it lacks domestically.

After elections in Mexico in early July, when a new regime hostile to Washington is expected to take power, the United States might be without supplies of Mexican crude oil. The United States gets about 40 percent of its imported oil from Mexico and Venezuela.

China is eager to tap into oil reserves in the Florida Straits and then make a deal with Castro to control it. The Chinese have already reopened an abandoned Russian oil refinery in Cuba. Much of the gas refined there is believed to be destined for Freeport in the Bahamas, where the Chinese, through front company Hutchison-Whampoa, has developed a massive port facility and airfield.

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has introduced legislation to ease U.S. restrictions that prevent dealing with Cuba to drill in the Florida Straits. It is hoped that Florida regulations that prevent U.S. oil drilling off the state’s coasts could also be eased.

The irony is that Chinese drilling could be even more of an environmental hazard since China is not as concerned about or equipped to deal with any potential ecological disaster as a result of a spill, said Craig.

Let me start by saying there is no way to stop what is happening in this country and the rest of the world. You are not going to get your liberty and freedoms back. We are too far gone and it is going to be a bumpy ride from here on out. God has spelled the whole thing out for us in the Bible if we will only open our eyes and see.

The USA is Babylon the great. The USA is also the king of the north which wages constant war with the king of the south (Iraq, Iran, etc). It is also one of the beasts.

The woman that rides the beast is organized religion. The 501c3 non-profit organizations created by the IRS or beast system. When God says "Come out of her" He is telling you to get your butt out of the organized 501c3 churches. This is where His judgment is going to fall first. The churches cannot serve two masters. They cannot serve God and be in bed with the beast for the almighty dollar. I don't care whose church it is! If your church is a 501c3 church, God is not there! You have been given a strong delusion that you might believe a lie. You think you are seeing God but you are seeing false lies and wonders. It doesn't matter if your church does good things. Even the heathen knows how to give good gifts to their children. In that day He will say, "depart from me I never knew you who work lawlessness".

There will be no "rapture" for the church. This is a doctrine straight from hell. Don't be fooled! Get out of the church. Get your family out of town if you can and prepare for the time of tribulation to come.

There, I've said it. The rest is up to you. We are to worship Him in spirit and in truth. You've just been feed some truth. If anyone would like to discuss this subject more, just let me know. If you wish me to remove you from my mailing list, just let me know and I will shake the dust from my sandals and move on.

Senate Minority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) calls this Congress the "most corrupt" in history.(1) U.S. Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) often uses the term "police state" to describe our national state of affairs. George Bush is making the most expansive claims to unbridled power since America's War for Independence, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT).(2) Former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who proved Bush/Cheney lied to launch us into war with Iraq, says "fascist forces have seized control of the levers of power."(3)

Americans are being told that their Republic has become a fascist police state-they just need ears to hear. In a fascist police state, the dictator secures his power with support from private corporations which are given special privileges and thus benefit from doing business with dictators.

Continuously bribed by 28,000 corporate lobbyists (4) in D.C., Congress is doing its part to build a fascist system in America. During President Bush's recent State of the Union speech, these tainted legislators perpetually rose to their feet to applaud the spewing of what a New York Times editorial called "misleading analogies, propaganda slogans and false choices."(5) Their bootlicking recalls a by-gone Soviet era when endless rows of robotic Central Party members applauded the likes of Stalin to ensure their next breath of oxygen.

After passage of the Patriot Act of 2001, Rep. Paul told Insight Magazine that the 2,200-page bill was not made available to Congress to read before the vote.(6) So the most corrupt Congress in history rubber-stamped the most fascist legislation they had never read. Our constitution enumerates inalienable rights that are emphatically restated in the first 10 amendments known as "The Bill of Rights." Under the Patriot Act, the "right" to free speech, peaceable assembly and security in one's person, papers and effects have been relegated to "privileges" that government can take away at whim. Patriot Act authority has suspended the right to due process and a prompt and public trial; it even cancels protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Agents serving the fascist state can freely wire-tap our phones, enter our homes/offices, search and seize without warrant and detain us indefinitely without charges-ostensibly to keep America safe.

The ink had barely dried on the Patriot Act when Congress passed the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Rep. Paul stated that Congress also did not read the 500-page bill that gave birth to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).(7) DHS, a creepy intelligence gathering apparatus reminiscent of the Nazi SS, has merged 22 federal agencies and their databases, employing nearly a quarter million workers. The New York Times columnist William Safire told the American people that, under DHS, "You are a suspect."(8) Rep. Paul confirms that "the Department represents a huge new increase in the size and scope of the federal government that will mostly serve to spy on the American people."(9)

Michael Chertoff was appointed by Bush in 2004 to head DHS. Chertoff appears to be an identical twin of founding Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin, giving us a stark flashback to the Russian Revolution of 1917. That lucrative Wall Street operation, which unleashed murderous communist tyranny upon hundreds of millions of people for nearly the entire 20th
century, was funded and directed from New York by a clique of Yale-graduated Skull and Bones members in business with the Averell Harriman family.(10) George Herbert Walker, great grandfather of the Skull and Bones fascist now occupying the White House, was a Harriman partner when Lenin granted to Harriman's Wall Street syndicate lucrative Russian resource concessions.(11) Lenin also made Harriman partner Max May of Wall Street's Guaranty Trust the first vice president of Russia's Soviet Ruskombank.(12)

Yale's powerful Skull and Bones network also has a predilection for fascism, as clearly illustrated by the Harriman-Bush involvement in secret funding of the German Nazis during the 1930s.(13) Our present commander-in-chief's grandfather, Prescott Sheldon Bush, was a Bonesman and a Harriman partner involved in business dealings with Hitler's war machine even after WWII began.(14) Prescott shamelessly failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued as late as 1951.(15)

As we witness the progression of runaway fascism under the administration of Prescott's grandson, we must recall that the Skull and Bones syndicate, so adept at bringing nations to heel with war and revolution, created the CIA in 1947 under direction of Bonesman Robert A. Lovett.(16) Kitty Kelley reveals in her Bush dynasty expose, The Family, that Bonesmen refer to the CIA as their "home office." Our burgeoning fascist state is a raging metastasis of the syndicate's obsession with power, made possible by it's ritualistic secrecy and iron-fisted control of U.S. intelligence for the last 60 years. Our present generation of ruling Bonesmen is now brazenly merging the hideous Soviet and Nazi models into a hybrid for the new U.S. Homeland Security state.

In 2004, a clueless and/or compromised Congress rubber-stamped the Intelligence Reform Act, a bill weighing in at over 3,000 pages. This Orwellian horror created the Department of National Intelligence (DNI). All 15 U.S. intelligence agencies now report to DNI mega-commissar John Negroponte, a veteran of the Iran-Contra scandal. This shady new law also establishes a counter-terrorism center and provides for a spy satellite network capable of monitoring private communications systems. It mandates that all drivers licenses and birth certificates be standardized, thereby creating a national ID system. Some provisions of the Intelligence Reform Act were classified "top secret" and congressmen were not allowed to read them.(17) Americans have yet to discover what malignant ramifications the DNI may hold for the future.

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | June 8 2006

Alex Jones and his team were detained by Canadian immigration on orders of the Bilderberg Group for a 15 hour nightmare of interrogation, accusations and threats of arrests in anticipation of the conference in Ottawa which starts today.

The group was detained at 11:45pm last night and only released after 2pm today.

Customs openly told Alex as soon as they brought him into custody that the Bilderberg Group was aware of his arrival and that this was the reason for his detainment. All three members of the team were instantly detained despite going through different immigration desks.

Officials knew everything about Alex, even the fact that George W. Bush had once had him arrested in 1998.

"I was screamed at, I was cussed at, I was interrogated," said Alex.

Jail threats were issued as officials seized and searched through Alex's equipment for 15 hours. He was told that if any trace of pornography was found on his three computers that he would be arrested.

"They were talking about how I was a criminal - they hooked our laptop computers up and said that if they found any porn, even mainstream porn, that it's illegal to take it across lines and that we'd be going to jail," said Alex, thanking God that no trace of any porn was found on his office computers.

Searches continued throughout the night and again in the morning.

Immigrations officials seemed to take a gleeful satisfaction in detaining the team, claiming they were liars and not part of the media despite one admitting to having seen an Alex Jones documentary. Accusations of drugs and weapons smuggling were thrown around without recourse.

"You Americans shit all over us Canadians think you can do anything you want to us," said one immigration official who was acting more like a drill sergeant.

Towards the end of the ordeal national media, including the Ottawa Citizen and CBC, got wind of what was unfolding and sent journalists to the airport to talk to Alex.

A CBC journalist vouched for the fact that Alex was in the media and that she was planning on interviewing him, after also being subjected to a barrage of questions by officials.

At this point immigration officials sharply changed their attitude, reversed a likely decision to deport the team and by the end were apologetic and conciliatory about the entire issue.

Alex would like to make it clear that the immigration officials on the whole were just doing what they were told in trying to prove who Alex was and they should not be the focus of any vitriol. Alex himself admits that his behavior was not perfect and he smarted off a couple of times when he should have remained quiet. The major element of this story is that the pressure was brought to bear by Bilderberg.

The point to emphasize again is that it was brazenly stated that the Bilderberg Group were behind the decision to detain Alex and his team. Bilderberg have acquired a notorious reputation of harassing journalists, including Jim Tucker and Daniel Estulin, who are simply trying to report on a meeting of the world's most influential powerbrokers.

The immigrations officials said that their reason for detaining Alex was because they feared he was in the country to infiltrate the Bilderberg meeting.

Since being allowed to enter the country the team have been watched and tracked by several nefarious individuals and also followed by car.

The team booked a decoy hotel in order fool Bilderberg security as to their real location. The decoy hotel has been receiving numerous calls from individuals within Bilderberg's Brooke Street hotel - despite the fact that Alex told no one he was staying there.

Further reports on this incident and developments from the Bilderberg conference itself will feature here over the next few days.

Jack the cat chases black bear up tree

WEST MILFORD, N.J. (AP) -- A black bear picked the wrong yard for a jaunt, running into a territorial tabby who ran the furry beast up a tree - twice.

Jack, a 15-pound orange and white cat, keeps a close vigil on his property, often chasing small animals, but his owners and neighbors say his latest escapade was surprising.

"We used to joke, 'Jack's on duty,' never knowing he'd go after a bear," owner Donna Dickey told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Friday's editions.

Neighbor Suzanne Giovanetti first spotted Jack's accomplishment after her husband saw a bear climb a tree on the edge of their northern New Jersey property on Sunday. Giovanetti thought Jack was simply looking up at the bear, but soon realized the much larger animal was afraid of the hissing cat.

After about 15 minutes, the bear descended and tried to run away, but Jack chased it up another tree.

Dickey, who feared for her cat, then called Jack home and the bear scurried back to the woods.

"He doesn't want anybody in his yard," Dickey said.

Bear sightings are not unusual in West Milford, which experts consider one of the state's most bear-populated areas.

What if he actually paid these helpers? If helpers would get a high 15.00 per hour and there might be around 30 (or less) helpers, for maybe 8 hours, this means the cost to Osteen would only be 3,600.00 per concert. I know the arenas get something too, but it is obvious that people like Osteen squeeze their followers for every drop of sweat.

The same website announces the following concerts for 2006.

1...	January 27, 2006 - Raleigh, NC, RBC Center
2...	January 27, 2006 - Minneapolis, MN, Target Center
3...	April 6, 2006 - Indianapolis, IN, Conseco Fieldhouse
4...	April 7, 2006 - Indianapolis, IN, Conseco Fieldhouse
5...	May 11, 2006 - Columbus, OH, Nationwide Arena
6...	May 12, 2006 - Columbus, OH, Nationwide Arena
7...	June 9, 2006 - Little Rock, AR, Alltel Arena
8...	July 21, 2006 - Sacramento, CA, Arco Arena
9...	September 1st - Boston, MA, TD Banknorth Garden
10...	September 8th - Phoenix, AZ, US Airways Center
11...	October 27th - Seattle, WA
12...	December 1st - Tampa, FL

Being the the Little Rock concert is probably the smallest (and the source of the numbers hereabove), the others are certainly larger. But, on concerts alone (not including the Lakewood circus revenue & book/video/audio sales), Osteen is averaging at least 3 million bucks per year. Business is very good.

The local businesses do the same thing, but their numbers are simply smaller.

More examples of "church" name changes are available at the link in the header of this story. -- Tribble]

These trendy nameplates sound more like upscale subdivisions than churches trying to lure suburban residents to Sunday morning worship. But church shopping has become an important part of American religious life. And some churches are changing their brand names to attract more members.

In the 1980s, evangelical congregations that sprouted in growing suburban areas pioneered this marketing trick of choosing generic names for their new churches. Now the trend is spreading as well-established Protestant churches change their traditional names to obscure their denominational histories.

"We describe our church as a shopping mall of spiritual opportunities," says the Rev. Brad Powell, pastor of a 4,000-member church in Plymouth Township that last month changed its name from Temple Baptist to NorthRidge Church. "We're offering ministry to everyone. We have a divorce-recovery ministry, a blended-family ministry, a grief-recovery ministry -- something for everyone's needs.

"Our old name was confusing to many people. People thought that the word "temple" meant that we were some kind of Jewish Messianic Baptist conglomeration. And the word 'Baptist'? A lot of people think that Baptists are very legalistic or that Baptists are political. We are not any of that. We're a nondenominational Bible-believing church."

NorthRidge is carefully positioning itself for maximum growth. Since moving from Redford Township to its new building three years ago, the congregation has swelled from 1,000 to 3,000. With the February name change, Powell says he hopes his congregation will grow even faster.

Many Protestant pastors point to a massive body of church-marketing data compiled by pollsters such as California-based church consultant George Barna.

"A century ago, the church that most Americans attended was virtually arranged for them at birth. Most people went to the church of their parents," says one Barna research report. "Although Americans do not change churches as regularly as they change the brand of gasoline they use, church loyalty is a modern casualty. More than one out of seven adults change their church each year."

Catholics tend to switch churches far less often than Protestants, and so far Catholic leaders have shown no interest in changing their parish names.

But among Protestants, a church's denomination is less important than good sermons, high-quality programs for children, a friendly atmosphere and programs to help poor people, according to Barna polls.

In March, a small Reformed Church in America congregation in booming Canton Township unveiled a sleek sign along Ford Road, proclaiming its new name as CrossWinds Community Church.

"It's part of our effort to be more inviting to anyone in the community who wants to be part of our church," says the Rev. Jon Beyer. While Reformed churches are common in western Michigan, the 20-year-old Canton church was struggling with only 45 members when Beyer arrived in 1998.

Some churches would never drop their denominational titles, says the Rev. E.L. Branch, pastor of Third New Hope Baptist Church in Detroit and the president of the Council of Baptist Pastors of Detroit and Vicinity.

"I couldn't change our church's name -- I'm a Baptist leader!" exclaims Branch with a chuckle. "We maintain our commitment to using the word 'Baptist.' And we're a growing congregation. So, I think it honors our past and celebrates our future to say we're Baptist."

But Branch admits that, among the pastors of long-established Detroit churches, Barna's research is becoming popular. "And some pastors aren't changing their churches' names, but they are using the word 'Baptist' a lot less when they talk about their churches."

That's the trend at Ward Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Northville. Receptionists answer the telephone, "Ward Church," and clergy tend to shorten the name as well.

"I am the pastor who tends to have the most contact with outsiders," says the Rev. Mike Gatliff, Ward's outreach pastor. "I generally say 'Ward Church,' because it's shorter and most of the people with whom I'm dealing don't care about our denomination. They want to know about our youth groups, programs for children, divorce recovery, single groups."

A similar compromise was made at North Hills Church in Troy, part of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. When the church replaced its sign on North Adams Road in 1992, big letters were used for "North Hills Church" and the denomination shrank into smaller print.

"We're keeping the denomination in small letters, because there still are some people looking for a Reformed church," says the Rev. George Vander Weit, "but the word 'Reformed' can be misleading for a lot of people in this part of the state. Some people may think we're bad people who belong in a reform school. They'll ask me: 'So what are you reformed from?' "

At NorthRidge Church, Powell argues that reaching people is more important than a name.

Before his church's name change, Powell says his members often had trouble inviting friends to church. "They perpetually came to me and said, 'Hey, people are interested in our message ...but we can't get them to step across the line and come to church, because of our name.'

"After years of hearing that, we finally decided that God was telling us: It's time to pull the trigger on that old name. And, in the weeks since that time, we've had hundreds of new people coming in our doors."

On May 12, 2006 in Peoria, Illinois, the attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) begged the court to dismiss all charges against IRS victim Robert Lawrence in federal District Court.

The motion for dismissal came on the heels of a surprise tactic by Lawrence’s defense attorney Oscar Stilley.

The tactic threatened exposure of IRS’s on-going efforts to defraud the public. The move put DOJ attorneys in a state of panic that left them with only one alternative: beg for dismissal, with prejudice.

Stilley’s tactic paid off. Sixty days earlier, the DOJ had indicted Lawrence on three counts of willful failure to file a 1040 form, and three felony counts of income tax evasion. The federal Judge dismissed all charges with prejudice, meaning the DOJ cannot charge Lawrence with those crimes again.

On Wednesday, May 10, Stilley mailed a set of documents to the DOJ in response to DOJ’s discovery demands. The documents revealed to DOJ for the first time that Lawrence was basing his entire defense on an act of Congress, 44 U.S.C. 3500 – 3520, also known as the "Paperwork Reduction Act" (PRA).

In Section 3512 of the Act, titled "Public Protection," it says that no person shall be subject to any penalty for failing to comply with an agency’s collection of information request (such as a 1040 form), if the request does not display a valid control number assigned by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in accordance with the requirements of the Act, or if the agency fails to inform the person who is to respond to the collection of information that he is not required to respond to the collection of information request unless it displays a valid control number.

In Section 3512 Congress went on to authorize that the protection provided by Section 3512 may be raised in the form of a complete defense at any time during an agency’s administrative process (such as an IRS Tax Court or Collection and Due Process Hearing) or during a judicial proceeding (such as Lawrence’s criminal trial).

In sum, the PRA requires that all government agencies display valid OMB control numbers and certain disclosures directly on all information collection forms that the public is requested to file. Lawrence's sole defense was he was not required to file an IRS Form 1040 because it displays an invalid OMB control number.

Government officials knew that if the case went to trial, it would expose the fraudulent, counterfeit 1040. They also must have known that a trial would expose the ongoing conspiracy between OMB and IRS to publish 1040 forms each year that those agencies knew were in violation of the PRA. That would raise the issue that the Form 1040, with its invalid control number, is being used by the Government to cover up the underlying constitutional tort -- that is, the enforcement of a direct, unapportioned tax on the labor of every working man, women and child in America.

Any information collection form, such as IRS Form 1040, which lacks bona fide statutory authority or which conflicts with the Constitution, cannot be issued an OMB control number. If a control number were issued for such a form, the form would be invalid and of no force and effect.

Under the facts and circumstances of the last 24 years, it is safe to say that IRS Form 1040 is a fraudulent, counterfeit, bootleg form. Government officials responsible for this fraud should be investigated and face indictment for willfully making and sponsoring false instruments.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, the DOJ and IRS decided not to let the Lawrence case proceed because it would reveal one critical and damning fact:

The DOJ knew that it stood a significant chance of losing the case, and if that happened, the press and others would quickly spread the word, and leave only fools to ever file a 1040 again. Oscar Stilley’s pleadings and documents made these points quite clear:

* IRS Form 1040 violates the federal Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) and is therefore a legally invalid form.

* Under the Public Protection clause of the PRA, no person can be penalized for failing to file a 1040 if the IRS fails to fully comply with the PRA.

* The PRA statutes explicitly provide that a PRA challenge is a complete defense and can be raised in any administrative or judicial proceeding.

* The IRS Individual Form 1040 has not and cannot comply with the requirements of the PRA because no existing statute authorizes the IRS to impose or collect the federal income tax from individuals. That lack of bona fide authority makes it impossible for IRS to avoid violating the PRA.

We The People Foundation has researched the facts, law and circumstances surrounding this case, and has determined that:

* A public trial would have opened a “Pandora’s Box” of legal evidence and government testimony under oath that would establish the IRS 1040 form as both fraudulent and counterfeit.

* The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) appears to have been complicit with IRS in deceiving the public and in helping perpetuate the 1040 fraud by promulgating federal regulations that negate the plain language of the PRA laws passed by Congress and by allowing the IRS to continually skirt the explicit requirements of those statutes

Accordingly, We The People Foundation has petitioned the U.S. Attorney General, the IRS Commissioner, and Director of the OMB, requesting an official explanation of their conduct in Peoria.

See the petition below. It includes links to all relevant statutes, regulations, court decisions, Federal Register publications, law review articles, Lawrence case pleadings, and the discovery documents sent by defense counsel Stilley to the DOJ.

[Some are gleefully proclaiming the visible end of the income tax fraud. The may be correct regarding its end, BUT, this is only because the elite are convincing people that a sales tax (or other tax) is better or more fair, and will be used to REPLACE the income tax (later to function along side it). As the elite plan, you IDIOTS are welcoming a replacement tax. DUH. -- Tribble

Dig a moat the length of the Mexican border, take the dirt and raise the levees in New Orleans, and then put the Florida alligators into the border moat!

So there I was, tooling my way down the road to get to work, listening to NPR as usual and keeping an eye on the morning rush hour traffic so as to avoid any mishaps when my mind was called to attention with a little piece they were doing about so called "starter interrupters".

If you're like me, at one point in your life, you might have experienced some problems with your credit rating. Each of us probably has our own set of circumstances that might have driven it into the toilet but we probably all know how hard it is to regain your good standing in the credit community. Naturally, any lenders that are willing to extend you credit are presumably exposing themselves to a higher degree of risk and to make up for that exposure, they jump up the amount of interest you'll have to repay. Sounds reasonable right?

Now let's suppose the jalopy you're currently driving around in is on its last legs and seems to cough and wheeze every time you try to start it. You offer up silent prayers to the car gods to please, please see you through this one last time, that you promise to take the bucket of bolts to your friendly neighborhood auto mechanic at your earliest convenience. After all, if you live in a city or town without a reliable mass transit system, this is your only mode of transportation. You rely on it to get to work, to run errands, and. God forbid if there was an emergency, to get you where you need to be. Without it, now you're screwed.

The mechanic you finally take it to quotes you an astronomical figure to have the beast overhauled and can't guaranty how long it'll last after that. Rather than pour good money into a losing cause, you decide it's time to make the dreaded trip to the local car dealership and get yourself a relatively new set of wheels.

Naturally, the honest salesmen at the dealership are more than willing to sell you something. After all, their livelihood depends on it and I'm sure they have mouths to feed too. Everything seems to be going smoothly. You pick out your new ride, haggle a bit over the price and strike a deal. The salesman disappears into the back room and comes out with a face that certainly didn't look as friendly as it did when you first wandered onto the lot.

Numbers don't lie to people who rely on them for a living. You can try explaining all you want to the once friendly salesman and they might even listen with a sympathetic ear. Your lack of a sufficient score on your credit rating was probably considered a deal breaker though...

That was in the old days. Thanks to the wizardry of modern technology, you can still get your sweet new ride if you're willing to have a little gadget called the starter interrupter installed.

Basically what the gizmo does is get back reports on your payment history from whoever fronted you the money to buy the car in the first place. You make your payments on time, no problem. Each month you make your payment on time, the friendly neighborhood finance company will send you a six digit PIN that you punch into the starter interrupter before you turn the key and presto - off you go. Should you fall behind on your payments, well, forget going anywhere. The starter interrupter will disable the ignition and basically you're stuck.

While I can see the benefits to the finance company for such an arrangement, I'm having trouble seeing how it benefits the consumer. Suppose the darn thing decides to shut itself off if you work out in the middle of nowhere or for that matter, even while you're laden with packages from the grocery store. Suppose there was an emergency that required you to get to a hospital? Suppose you had an important meeting or function to attend?

Although finance companies are reporting that the number of repossessions they need to do are down and that people who are going to be late with their payments actually contact them first rather than the other way around, mistakes are bound to made. After all, no system is perfect...

The Department of Homeland Security allowed a man to enter its headquarters last week using a fake Matricula Consular card as identification, despite federal rules that say the Mexican-issued card is not valid ID at government buildings.

Bruce DeCell, a retired New York City police officer, used his phony card -- which lists his place of birth as "Tijuana, B.C." and his address as "123 Fraud Blvd." on an incorrectly spelled "Staton Island, N.Y." -- to enter the building Wednesday for a meeting with DHS officials.

Mr. DeCell said he has had the card for four years and has used it again and again to board airliners and enter government buildings, without being turned down
once. But he said he was surprised that DHS, the agency in charge of determining secure IDs, accepted it.

The Mexican government has issued millions of Matricula Consular cards in the past few years, mostly to give illegal aliens a form of identification that banks and other institutions will accept.

The FBI, in testimony to Congress, has said that the cards are not secure. The General Services Administration ruled in 2003 that the Matricula Consular is not valid ID for entering a federal building.

In addition to being a forgery obtained for him from a street vendor in California, Mr. DeCell's card was modeled on an older version, which the Mexican government publicly acknowledges is not a secure document. The Mexican government says the old-style cards "are no longer valid."

Some members of Congress tried to crack down on use of the card, particularly as valid ID for opening a bank account, but the Bush administration opposed that effort.

Jarrod Agen, a spokesman for DHS, said the department shouldn't have allowed the ID to be used for entry to its headquarters.

"DHS is following up on these allegations and will take necessary actions to ensure there is not another occurrence of this type," he said.

Mr. DeCell had provided his name, birth date and Social Security number to be pre-cleared for entry to the building and had been vetted before, Mr. Agen said. The security guard accepted the ID to match Mr. DeCell's name to a name on her list of cleared visitors, he said.

The spokesman said Mr. DeCell's group went through metal detectors and other routine security screening and had an escort at all times while in the building.

The United States is the only country where a housewife hires a woman
to do her cleaning so she can do volunteer work
at the day care where the cleaning woman leaves her child . . .

Down through the years, I've attempted to warn my fellow Americans about the tyrannical precedent and template for further tyranny set by anti-tobacco zealots. The point of this column is not to rekindle the smoking debate. That train has left the station. Instead, let's examine the template.

In the early stages of the anti-tobacco campaign, there were calls for "reasonable" measures such as non-smoking sections on airplanes and health warnings on cigarette packs. In the 1970s, no one would have ever believed such measures would have evolved into today's level of attack on smokers, which includes confiscatory cigarette taxes and bans on outdoor smoking.

The door was opened, and the zealots took over. Much of the attack was justified by an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) secondhand smoke study that used statistical techniques, if used by an academic researcher, would lead to condemnation if not expulsion. Let's say that you support the attack on smokers. Are you ready for the next round of tyranny using tactics so successful for the anti-tobacco zealots?

According to a June 2 Associated Press report, "Those heaping portions at restaurants-and doggie bags for the leftovers-may be a thing of the past, if health officials get their way." The story pertains to a report, funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) titled, "Keystone Forum on Away-From-Home Foods: Opportunities for Preventing Weight Gain and Obesity."

The FDA says the report could help the American restaurant industry and consumers take important steps to successfully combat the nation's obesity problem. Among the report's recommendations for restaurants are: list calorie-content on menus, serve smaller portions, and add more fruits and vegetables and nuts. Both the Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA accept the findings of the report.

Right now, the FDA doesn't have the authority to require restaurants to label the number of calories, set portion sizes on menus or prohibit allowing customers from taking home a doggie bag. That's for right now, but recall that cigarette warning labels were the anti-tobacco zealots' first steps.

There are zealots like the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest who've for a long time attacked Chinese and Mexican restaurants for serving customers too much food. They also say, "Caffeine is the only drug that is widely added to the food supply." They've called for caffeine warning labels, and they don't stop there. The Center's director said, "We could envision taxes on butter, potato chips, whole milk, cheeses and meat." Visions of higher taxes are music to politicians' ears.

How many Americans would like to go to a restaurant and have the waiter tell you, based on calories, what you might have for dinner? How would you like the waiter to tell you, "According to government regulations, we cannot give you a doggie bag"? What about a Burger King cashier refusing to sell french fries to overweight people? You say, "Williams, that's preposterous! It would never come to that."

I'm betting that would have been the same response during the 1970s had someone said the day would come when cities, such as Calabasas, Calif., and Friendship Heights, Md., would write ordinances banning outdoor smoking. Tyrants always start out with small measures that appear reasonable. Revealing their complete agenda from the start would encounter too much resistance.

Diet decisions that people make are none of anybody else's business. Yes, there are untoward health outcomes from unwise dietary habits, and because of socialism, taxpayers have to pick up the bill. But if we allow untoward health outcomes from choices to be our guide for government intervention, then we're calling for government to intervene in virtually every aspect of our lives.

Eight hours' sleep, regular exercise and moderate alcohol consumption are important for good health. Should government regulate those decisions?

(Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Media Research Center's Free Market Project.)

On Tuesday, September 11th 2001, the twin towers of the World Trade Center came crashing to the ground as a result of two separate airplane crashes that we are being told by our government were the work of terrorists. On September 13th, Dan Rather of CBS News conducted an interview with Tom McKenney of FEMA's National Urban Search and Rescue Team.

The interview definitely occurred on Thursday, September 13th. On the Sweet Liberty broadcast that night I mentioned it, having received a phone call from a listener just after she heard it on CBS. I reviewed the tape to confirm.

Now... is it possible McKenney's statement was a slip of the tongue? Did he mean Tuesday night instead of Monday night? Possible... NOT PROBABLE. As Darren, our webmaster, pointed out:

"Jackie... I don't see how a person — just a day or two after arriving — would not know whether or not he arrived before the event or afterward. Indeed, if he had arrived Tuesday night, and swung into action on Wednesday morning, then I would suggest to you that he would have likely said that we went into action "yesterday," as this interview — according to your research — took place on Thursday."

And if the 'mistake' was in the telling of their deployment to N.Y.C. on late Monday evening, those FEMA rescue team workers will be carrying around a big load right now, along with their families who knew where they went before the bombing of the WTC occurred.

It is a well-known fact that people who know too much are silenced by death, threat of death, or — even more effective — the threat of death to family members. It brings to mind the Colorado judge who presided in the McVeigh trial. It was reported that his daughter 'accidentally fell into a volcano in Hawaii'.

I tend to believe McKenney meant what he said to Dan Rather. When you think about it, that's a lot of people to have to keep quiet, isn't it? Not impossible though when you consider the tentacles, money, power, and control the global elite have demonstrated time after time. We'll see. Time will tell and the TRUTH WILL OUT. It always does.

— Jackie —

Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn.

Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of America. The Mexican trucks will cross border in FAST lanes, checked only electronically by the new “SENTRI” system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, their new Smart Port complex, a facility being built for Mexico at a cost of $3 million to the U.S. taxpayers in Kansas City.

As incredible as this plan may seem to some readers, the first Trans-Texas Corridor segment of the NAFTA Super Highway is ready to begin construction next year. Various U.S. government agencies, dozens of state agencies, and scores of private NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have been working behind the scenes to create the NAFTA Super Highway, despite the lack of comment on the plan by President Bush. The American public is largely asleep to this key piece of the coming “North American Union” that government planners in the new trilateral region of United States, Canada and Mexico are about to drive into reality.

Just examine the following websites to get a feel for the magnitude of NAFTA Super Highway planning that has been going on without any new congressional legislation directly authorizing the construction of the planned international corridor through the center of the country.

A good reason Bush does not want to secure the border with Mexico may be that the administration is trying to create express lanes for Mexican trucks to bring containers with cheap Far East goods into the heart of the U.S., all without the involvement of any U.S. union workers on the docks or in the trucks.

None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will.

If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."

President Bush created a vast new marine sanctuary on Thursday, extending stronger federal protections to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and the surrounding waters with their endangered monk seals, nesting green sea turtles and other rare species.

The nation's newest national monument covers an archipelago stretching 1,400 miles long and 100 miles wide in the Pacific Ocean. It's home to more than 7,000 species, at least a fourth of them found nowhere else.

"To put this area in context, this national monument is more than 100 times larger than Yosemite National Park," Mr. Bush said. "It's larger than 46 of our 50 states, and more than seven times larger than all our national marine sanctuaries combined. This is a big deal."

Mr. Bush announced his creation of the nation's 75th national monument at a White House ceremony. The decision immediately sets aside 140,000 square miles of largely uninhabited islands, atolls, coral reef colonies and underwater peaks known as seamounts to be managed by federal and state agencies.

In introducing the president, first lady Laura Bush quoted Mark Twain, who once described Hawaii as "the loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean."

Conrad C. Lautenbacher, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which will manage nearly all of it, said the new protected area would dwarf all others.

"It's the single-largest act of ocean conservation in history. It's a large milestone," Lautenbacher said. "It is a place to maintain biodiversity and to maintain basically the nurseries of the Pacific. It spawns a lot of the life that permeates the middle of the Pacific Ocean."

It is only the second time that Mr. Bush has invoked the 1906 National Antiquities Act, which gives the president authority to create national monuments to preserve the nation's ancient cultural sites and unusual geological features. The law itself turned 100 this month.

The president had planned as late as Wednesday to use instead the National Marine Sanctuary Act, a law that would allow challenges from Congress and others to the decision, said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to upstage Mr. Bush.

"This means the area will get immediate protection rather than having to wait another year," the official said, adding that Mr. Bush opted at the last minute to create a national monument after realizing the process had gone on for five years and elicited thousands of comments.

With the national monument designation, the federal government can immediately begin a five-year phaseout of the eight commercial fishing permits in the area and impose strict prohibitions on any other extractive uses, the official said.

In February, Mr. Bush used the antiquities law for the first time when he declared part of the African Burial Ground in the lower Manhattan section of New York City a national monument. The site, covering less than half an acre, marks where an estimated 20,000 slaves and free blacks were buried in the 18th century.

President Clinton used the act to create 19 national monuments and expand three others to set aside 5.9 million acres of land, mainly in the West, and he drew widespread criticism from conservatives.

About 132,000 square miles of the marine area that is being set aside for the national monument already is designated either a coral reef ecosystem reserve or a national wildlife refuge. By making it a national monument, the government will have greater power to protect it.

Expanding the existing reserve and refuge to a monument of 140,000 square miles will make it the largest no-take marine conservation area in the world, just ahead of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Midway Atoll, one of the outermost points of the new monument, will retain an emergency landing strip for commercial and military trans-Pacific flights.

NOAA will develop regulations for managing all of the monument except for two national wildlife refuges within it that will still be overseen by the Fish and Wildlife Service. Last month, state and federal officials signed an agreement to manage the pristine islands jointly.

Administration officials say their intent is to preserve zoned access for native Hawaiian activities, educational and scientific expeditions. Recreational and tourist visits that are no more harmful than scuba diving or photography also will be allowed. Permits, however, will be required for all activities.

Joshua Reichert, who heads the private Pew Charitable Trusts' environment program which pushed for the sanctuary for eight years, said the region contains almost 70 percent of the tropical shallow water coral reefs in the United States.

"When you add it all up, it's a world-class ecological jewel," he said. "From both a national and global perspective, this really is a landmark conservation event."

On Monday, June 19, about 4,000 government workers representing more than 50 federal agencies from the State Department to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will say goodbye to their families and set off for dozens of classified emergency facilities stretching from the Maryland and Virginia suburbs to the foothills of the Alleghenies. They will take to the bunkers in an "evacuation" that my sources describe as the largest "continuity of government" exercise ever conducted, a drill intended to prepare the U.S. government for an event even more catastrophic than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The exercise is the latest manifestation of an obsession with government survival that has been a hallmark of the Bush administration since 9/11, a focus of enormous and often absurd time, money and effort that has come to echo the worst follies of the Cold War. The vast secret operation has updated the duck-and-cover scenarios of the 1950s with state-of-the-art technology -- alerts and updates delivered by pager and PDA, wireless priority service, video teleconferencing, remote backups -- to ensure that "essential" government functions continue undisrupted should a terrorist's nuclear bomb go off in downtown Washington.

But for all the BlackBerry culture, the outcome is still old-fashioned black and white: We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on alternate facilities, data warehouses and communications, yet no one can really foretell what would happen to the leadership and functioning of the federal government in a catastrophe.

After 9/11, The Washington Post reported that President Bush had set up a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work outside Washington on a rotating basis to ensure the continuity of national security. Since then, a program once focused on presidential succession and civilian control of U.S. nuclear weapons has been expanded to encompass the entire government. From the Department of Education to the Small Business Administration to the National Archives, every department and agency is now required to plan for continuity outside Washington.

Yet according to scores of documents I've obtained and interviews with half a dozen sources, there's no greater confidence today that essential services would be maintained in a disaster. And no one really knows how an evacuation would even be physically possible.

Moreover, since 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, the definition of what constitutes an "essential" government function has been expanded so ridiculously beyond core national security functions -- do we really need patent and trademark processing in the middle of a nuclear holocaust? -- that the term has become meaningless. The intent of the government effort may be laudable, even necessary, but a hyper-centralized approach based on the Cold War model of evacuations and bunkering makes it practically worthless.

That the continuity program is so poorly conceived, and poorly run, should come as no surprise. That's because the same Federal Emergency Management Agency that failed New Orleans after Katrina, an agency that a Senate investigating committee has pronounced "in shambles and beyond repair," is in charge of this enormous effort to plan for the U.S. government's survival.

Continuity programs began in the early 1950s, when the threat of nuclear war moved the administration of President Harry S. Truman to begin planning for emergency government functions and civil defense. Evacuation bunkers were built, and an incredibly complex and secretive shadow government program was created.

At its height, the grand era of continuity boasted the fully operational Mount Weather, a civilian bunker built along the crest of Virginia's Blue Ridge, to which most agency heads would evacuate; the Greenbrier hotel complex and bunker in West Virginia, where Congress would shelter; and Raven Rock, or Site R, a national security bunker bored into granite along the Pennsylvania-Maryland border near Camp David, where the Joint Chiefs of Staff would command a protracted nuclear war. Special communications networks were built, and evacuation and succession procedures were practiced continually.

When the Soviet Union crumbled, the program became a Cold War curiosity: Then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney ordered Raven Rock into caretaker status in 1991. The Greenbrier bunker was shuttered and a 30-year-old special access program was declassified three years later.

Then came the terrorist attacks of the mid-1990s and the looming Y2K rollover, and suddenly continuity wasn't only for nuclear war anymore. On Oct. 21, 1998, President Bill Clinton signed Presidential Decision Directive 67, "Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government Operations." No longer would only the very few elite leaders responsible for national security be covered. Instead, every single government department and agency was directed to see to it that they could resume critical functions within 12 hours of a warning, and keep their operations running at emergency facilities for up to 30 days. FEMA was put in charge of this broad new program.

On 9/11, the program was put to the test -- and failed. Not on the national security side: Vice President Cheney and others in the national security leadership were smoothly whisked away from the capital following procedures overseen by the Pentagon and the White House Military Office. But like the mass of Washingtonians, officials from other agencies found themselves virtually on their own, unsure of where to go or what to do, or whom to contact for the answers.

In the aftermath, the federal government was told to reinvigorate its continuity efforts. Bush approved lines of succession for civil agencies. Cabinet departments and agencies were assigned specific emergency responsibilities. FEMA issued new preparedness guidelines and oversaw training. A National Capital Region continuity working group established in 1999, comprising six White House groups, 15 departments and 61 agencies, met to coordinate.

But all the frenetic activity did not produce a government prepared for the worst. A year after 9/11, and almost three years after the deadline set in Clinton's 1998 directive, the Government Accounting Office evaluated 38 agencies and found that not one had addressed all the issues it had been ordered to. A 2004 GAO audit of 34 government continuity-of-operations plans found total confusion on the question of essential functions. One unnamed organization listed 399 such functions. A department included providing "speeches and articles for the Secretary and Deputy Secretary" among its essential duties, while neglecting many of its central programs.

The confusion and absurdity have continued, according to documents I've collected over the past few years. In June 2004, FEMA told federal agencies that essential services in a catastrophe would include not only such obvious ones as electric power generation and disaster relief but also patent and trademark processing, student aid and passport processing. A month earlier, FEMA had told states and local communities that library services should be counted as essential along with fire protection and law enforcement.

None of this can be heartening to Americans who want to believe that in a crisis, their government can distinguish between what is truly essential and what isn't -- and provide it.

Just two years ago, an exercise called Forward Challenge '04 pointed up the danger of making everyone and everything essential: Barely an hour after agencies were due to arrive at their relocation sites, the Office of Management and Budget asked the reconstituted government to identify emergency funding requirements.

As one after-action report for the exercise later put it in a classic case of understatement: "It was not clear . . . whether this would be a realistic request at that stage of an emergency."

This year's exercise, Forward Challenge '06, will be the third major interagency continuity exercise since 9/11. Larger than Forward Challenge '04 and the Pinnacle exercise held last year, it requires 31 departments and agencies (including FEMA) to relocate. Fifty to 60 are expected to take part.

According to government sources, the exercise will test the newly created continuity of government alert conditions -- called COGCONs -- that emulate the DEFCONs of the national security community. Forward Challenge will begin with a series of alerts via BlackBerry and pager to key officials. It will test COGCON 1, the highest level of preparedness, in which each department and agency is required to have at least one person in its chain of command and sufficient staffing at alternate operating facilities to perform essential functions.

Though key White House officials and military leadership would be relocated via the Pentagon's Joint Emergency Evacuation Program (JEEP), the civilians are on their own to make it to their designated evacuation points.

But fear not: Each organization's COOP, or continuity of operations plan, details the best routes to the emergency locations. The plans even spell out what evacuees should take with them (recommended items: a combination lock, a flashlight, two towels and a small box of washing powder).

Can such an exercise, announced well in advance, hope to re-create any of the tensions and fears of a real crisis? How do you simulate the experience of driving through blazing, radiated, panic-stricken streets to emergency bunker sites miles away?

As the Energy Department stated in its review of Forward Challenge '04, "a method needs to be devised to realistically test the ability of . . . federal offices to relocate to their COOP sites using a scenario that simulates . . . the monumental challenges that would be involved in evacuating the city."

With its new plans and procedures, Washington may think it has thought of everything to save itself. Forward Challenge will no doubt be deemed a success, and officials will pronounce the continuity-of-government project sound. There will be lessons to be learned that will justify more millions of dollars and more work in the infinite effort to guarantee order out of chaos.

But the main defect -- a bunker mentality that considers too many people and too many jobs "essential" -- will remain unchallenged.

** As the ‘Great And Powerful Oz' once said to Dorothy, "Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain!" because appearances can be deceiving. You HAVE TO look behind to curtain to learn the truth.
*** Red Herring. The name of this fallacy comes from the sport of fox hunting in which a dried, smoked herring, which is red in color, is dragged across the trail of the fox to throw the hounds off the scent. Thus, a "red herring" argument is one which distracts the audience from the issue in question through the introduction of some irrelevancy. This frequently occurs during debates when there is an at least implicit topic, yet it is easy to lose track of it. By extension, it applies to any argument in which the premisses are logically irrelevant to the conclusion.

goto top .....mailto: rockyview@tellme#&1st.net
The above addresss is NOT correct. For security reasons, the "#&" characters must be removed to be a correct address. This reduces the possibility of a hacker autosearching for address links.
Simply copy and paste this address in your mail program, BUT remember to delete the "#&" characters.

Alabama:		Alaska:	Stevens (R-AK), Yea
Arizona:	McCain (R-AZ), Yea	Arkansas:	Lincoln (D-AR), Yea Pryor (D-AR), Yea
California:	Boxer (D-CA), Yea Feinstein (D-CA), Yea	Colorado:	Salazar (D-CO), Yea
Connecticut:	Dodd (D-CT), Yea Lieberman (D-CT), Yea	Delaware:	Biden (D-DE), Yea Carper (D-DE), Yea
Florida:	Martinez (R-FL), Yea	Georgia:
Hawaii:	Akaka (D-HI), Yea Inouye (D-HI), Yea	Idaho:
Illinois:	Durbin (D-IL), Yea Obama (D-IL), Yea	Indiana:	Bayh (D-IN), Yea Lugar (R-IN), Yea
Iowa:	Harkin (D-IA), Yea	Kansas:	Brownback (R-KS), Yea
Kentucky:		Louisiana:	Landrieu (D-LA), Yea
Maine:		Maryland:	Mikulski (D-MD), Yea Sarbanes (D-MD), Yea
Massachusetts:	Kennedy (D-MA), Yea Kerry (D-MA), Yea	Michigan:	Levin (D-MI), Yea Stabenow (D-MI), Yea
Minnesota:		Mississippi:
Missouri:		Montana:	Baucus (D-MT), Yea
Nebraska:	Hagel (R-NE), Yea	Nevada:	Reid (D-NV), Yea
New Hampshire:	Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea Menendez (D-NJ), Yea	New Jersey:	Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea Menendez (D-NJ), Yea
New Mexico:	Bingaman (D-NM), Yea	New York:	Clinton (D-NY), Yea Schumer (D-NY), Yea
North Carolina:		North Dakota:	Dorgan (D-ND), Yea
Ohio:	DeWine (R-OH), Yea Voinovich (R-OH), Yea	Oklahoma:
Oregon:	Wyden (D-OR), Yea	Pennsylvania:	Specter (R-PA), Yea
Rhode Island:	Chafee (R-RI), Yea Reed (D-RI), Yea	South Carolina:	Graham (R-SC), Yea
South Dakota:	Johnson (D-SD), Yea	Tennessee:
Texas:		Utah:
Vermont:	Jeffords (I-VT), Yea Leahy (D-VT), Yea	Virginia:
Washington:	Cantwell (D-WA), Yea Murray (D-WA), Yea	West Virginia:	Rockefeller (D-WV), Not Voting
Wisconsin:	Feingold (D-WI), Yea Kohl (D-WI), Yea	Wyoming:

01	=Give Immigrants a Choice =Testing Boundaries. Regents Exam's Colonialism Questions Anger Black Students =One Man, One Vote, One Conspiracy Theory =Beyond Birth Control: The Population Control Agenda	02	=
03	=	04	=
05	=Senators Who Voted To Give Illegal Aliens Social Security Benefits =Iran says overstretched US cannot launch strikes =500 Conspiracy Buffs Meet to Seek the Truth of 9/11	06	=Interviews with Iran and Venezuela =Oh Rapture! =How Enron Worked the President .. =The Plan to Replace the Dollar With the 'Amero'
07	=North American Union to Replace USA? =50 Preambles & Declarations	08	=
09	=FBI Most Wanted Terrorists =The Great No-ID Airport Challenge	10	=Informed consent waived in public crisis = -Russia shifts FX reserves from dollar -Vladimir Putin and the rise of the petro-ruble -China Starts Oil Drilling Off Florida =Police State USA - Part One =Alex Jones Detained on Orders of Bilderberg Group
11	=Size Does Matter	12	=Business is Booming, with a New Name =DOJ Dismisses Felony Tax Prosecution -- With Prejudice
13	=More Public Recognition for Secret Societies =Father's Day? =Dig a Moat =Follow Up to -DOJ Dismisses Felony Tax Prosecution -- With Prejudice =Starter Interrupter =Homeland Security accepts fake ID	14	=
15	=Breaking the Barrier =Who is Working for Whom? =The Slippery Slope =Who Knew Ahead of Time =NASCO (North America's SuperCorridor Coalition)	16	=
17	=	18	=
19	=A Sign of the Times =David Rockefeller - "I am proud of it" =Bush Creates Vast Marine Sanctuary =Back To The Bunker	20	=
21	=	22	=
23	=	24	=
25	=	26	=
27	=	28	=
29	=	30	=
31	=	.	.