What in the world is up with all the earthquakes that we have been seeing lately?  Earthquakes are up dramatically in 2010 and there are no signs that the rate of large earthquakes is slowing down.  So is this increase in earthquakes significant?  Of course many of you already know that Jesus warned us in Matthew 24:7 that earthquakes would be one of the signs of the end times: "For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places."  In addition, many who have studied the 2012 phenomenon are warning that we will be seeing increased geological instability as we approach that date.  So should we be bracing for the end of the world as we know it?  Well, not yet, but certainly the dramatic increase in earthquakes in 2010 has got to be a real concern for all of us.

The reality is that it seems like there is a major earthquake somewhere in the world almost every single day now....

*According to a preliminary report by the U.S. Geological Survey, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake shook British Columbia, Canada on Monday.

*A strong 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Papua New Guinea on Sunday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, around 30 minutes after a similar quake shook the same area.

*A magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck off the coast of Northeast Taiwan’s Ilan County on Sunday.

*The U.S. Geological Survey says that a 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck near Alaska at 9:56 p.m. Saturday and was centered in the Bering Sea about 930 miles west of Anchorage.

*The largest earthquake ever recorded near the capital rattled Washington, D.C. early last Friday.

*It was reported that a magnitude 6.5 earthquake hit near the coast of central Chile last Wednesday.

Are you starting to get the picture?

Magnitude 6 earthquakes are happening so frequently now that they don't even really make headlines anymore.

The truth is that 2010 has been a really extraordinary year for earthquakes.

The massive quakes that caused so much damage in Haiti and Chile have captured most of the headlines this year, but those quakes are far from alone.  In fact, it was recently reported that earthquakes are up 151 percent in 2010.

That is a very substantial increase.  Earthquakes have been popping all over the "ring of fire", but they have also been occurring in some very unusual and diverse places around the world as well....

-A massive 7.5-magnitude earthquake recently struck under the Indian Ocean near India's Nicobar and Andaman Islands.

-At least 400 people died and thousands were injured by a huge magnitude 6.9 earthquake that hit western China's Qinghai province earlier this year.

-Thousands of unsettling "ice quakes" have been detected on Washington's Mount Rainier in 2010.

-A tsunami warning was issued for Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and New Caledonia in the Pacific Ocean after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck the area earlier this year.

-In just one week alone, there were over 2000 earthquakes in the region around California.

-There was one point when more than 100 earthquakes rattled the California-Mexico border region in just a few hours.

So could the "big one" strike the United States soon?

That is a legitimate question.

The truth is that scientists have been expecting the "big one" to hit California for a long time.  In fact, they say that California is actually overdue.

Other scientists are warning that we could soon see an absolutely massive earthquake along the New Madrid fault line in the center of the United States.

For much more on the threat that earthquakes pose to the U.S., please read the following articles that we published previously....

*Could The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill Cause A Massive Earthquake Along The New Madrid Fault Line?

*Will California Be The Next One To Be Hit With A Killer Quake?

Many skeptics are dismissing all of these earthquakes as a "coincidence" and are insisting that things will get back to "normal" very soon.

But will they?

Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion....

What in the world is causing all of these sinkholes in 2010?  While there have always been sinkholes, 2010 has truly been a banner year for them.  The colossal sinkhole in Guatemala made the most headlines, but the truth is that dozens of massive sinkholes have been appearing in China and giant sinkholes have even been opening up and swallowing cars in the United States.  So is all this a sign that something significant is happening?  Should we be preparing for the end of the world as we know it?  Will we see even more sinkholes and sudden geological changes as we approach 2012?

Nobody really knows, but what everyone can agree on is that 2010 has been an amazing year for sinkholes.  Just consider the following examples....

*The most famous sinkhole of 2010 of course was the one in Guatemala that was caused by Tropical Storm Agatha.  It was so massive that it swallowed not only a 3 story building, but also an entire street intersection.

*Sinking land has developed into a gigantic 80-meter diameter hole on a school playground in southern China.

*In China on June 4th, the road surface suddenly collapsed on the Zhejiang Huang Qu Nan highway heading towards Nanping.  A huge sinkhole measuring 8 meters in diameter and 10 meters in depth suddenly appeared right in the middle of the road.

*In fact, massive sinkholes have been popping up all over China in recent months.

*A massive sinkhole at a condominium complex in Florida has swallowed a car and authorities say that it is still growing.

*More than 100 sinkholes have been recorded this year in Hillsborough, Polk and Pasco counties by the Florida Geological Survey.

*Another stunningly large sinkhole recently swallowed a car in one St. Louis neighborhood.

*In Milwaukee, Wisconsin a utility truck recently fell into a huge sinkhole that suddenly developed in the middle of the street.

*The city council of Mobile, Alabama has approved an emergency expenditure to repair a sinkhole large enough to swallow a car.

*A massive sinkhole that recently appeared on the Trans-Canada Highway east of the Alberta-Saskatchewan border was so huge that it totally stopped traffic in both directions until it was repaired.

So could it just be a coincidence that we are seeing so many sinkholes around the globe?

Or is something else going on?

The truth is that earthquakes are up significantly in 2010, and all kinds of weird earth changes are going on.

So will we see even more earth activity as we approach 2012?

Nobody knows for sure, but it definitely looks like we are in for an interesting ride.

There is a very important aspect of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill crisis that hardly anyone is talking about.  You see, it is not just an "oil spill" that BP has unleashed on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico.  What BP has done is that they have uncorked an "oil volcano" that is violently spewing oil and gas out of the floor of the Gulf of Mexico so violently and with such pressure that it is beyond the capacity of human technology to control it.  Millions upon millions of gallons of oil have already been pumped into the Gulf of Mexico, and millions upon millions more will continue to be pumped into the Gulf before all of this is over.  So could all of this violent activity on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico spark seismic activity in the region that could potentially be absolutely catastrophic?  Could this "oil volcano" cause an earthquake along the New Madrid fault line that is so powerful that it could bring about "the end of the world as we know it" for those living in the area?

Those are legitimate questions.

Nearly 200 years ago, earthquakes rattled the New Madrid fault line that were so powerful that they are still talked about today.  Fortunately, at the time the areas impacted were not highly populated so the damage was minimal.  But similar earthquakes today would impact millions of people.

The truth is that there were four earthquakes in 1811 and 1812 along the New Madrid fault that were estimated to have been magnitude-7.0 or greater.  It was reported that those quakes opened deep fissures in the ground and that they were felt as far away as Boston.

There are even those who believe that someday an earthquake will strike the New Madrid fault that will be so powerful that it will rip a hole in the center of the United States and will allow the Gulf of Mexico to pour in and create a new body of water in the middle of the continental United States.

Now, let's hope that such a thing will not happen in our lifetimes, but according to scientists, the potential for a nightmarish earthquake in the area of the New Madrid fault is very real.

But what does that have to do with the Gulf of Mexico? 

Well, a retired Texaco geologist-geophysicist named Jack M. Reed who has been studying the geology of the Gulf of Mexico for over 40 years believes that the Gulf of Mexico is currently tectonically active.

In fact, Reed believes that it is the Gulf of Mexico that is the likely origin for New Madrid seismic activity.

According to Reed, there is evidence that the New Madrid seismic zone is directly connected with geological features in the Gulf of Mexico....

"This northeast trending earthquake zone appears to connect with the northeast trending Monroe Uplift, the LaSalle Arch and, possibly, to an active seismic zone located in and around Sabine Lake on the Texas-Louisiana border."

Not only that, but Reed believes that the key to unlocking the mystery behind the New Madrid fault zone lies in examining the "deeply buried tectonics" in the Gulf....

"This entire zone through the United States is suffering some type of tectonic activity that I believe is tied to the deeply buried tectonics in the Gulf of Mexico."

So has BP disturbed those "deeply buried tectonics" by drilling such a deep well?

Let's hope not.

Because if the "Big One" does hit the New Madrid fault, the cities of Memphis, Tennessee and St. Louis, Missouri will essentially be destroyed.  In addition, there would be devastation in a host of surrounding states including Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Indiana, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee.

So just how bad would the damage be?

Well, according to a study publicly released this week by the University of Illinois, it is projected that a 7.7-magnitude earthquake along the New Madrid fault would leave 3,500 people dead, more than 80,000 injured and more than 7 million homeless.

And that is just what a 7.7-magnitude earthquake would do.

If the "Big One" ever hit the New Madrid fault it would be "game over".

So let us hope that the "oil volcano" that BP's very deep drilling has unleashed will not cause any significant geological events.

Because it if does, the results could be absolutely catastrophic.

Even a weak earthquake on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico could send a tsunami hurtling towards the Gulf shore that could kill thousands and which could push oil and water miles inland.

The truth is that we have been monkeying with geological forces that we do not truly understand and that we cannot control.

Let us just hope that the damage that we have done is not too great.

***UPDATE***

We wanted to share with you this absolutely stunning eyewitness report about what is going on in the heart of the New Madrid fault zone area that was originally reported on another website....

I live on the new madrid fault. And I can tell you this.

The surface rupture of the roads and highways is out of control.

Also, everyday of the week the structure of my moms home is "cracking" and shifting. You can hear the walls and the surface crack.

Nearby is a dollar general store. In that parking lot there are 3 flagpoles that "vibrate" violently. (not shaking from wind) Each and everyday, the roads "blow" up potholes. U.S. 41 is ruptured severely.

Interstate 65 is also badly damaged. They keep trying to repave them but it doesn't work.

The cline ave bridge at points is closing.

This bridge and off ramps leads right into Inland steel and LTV steel and BP amoco.

So far, I believe 5-7 bridges have been shut down or are scheduled for closing because they are unsafe.

I monitor the earthquakes daily. And as you know there are far too many happening too quickly.

I believe the general public has been misled. In my opinion, the 2012 shift is happening now, but everyone has been conditioned to believe that they still have time to prepare for the main event.

Thats b.s. It doesn't happen all at once.

In Momence Illinois, some of the buildings are beginning to "sink".

In cedar lake Indiana, the same is happening.

The bottom line is this; Buildings are cracking, parking lots can't be fixed, roads and bridges are closing every week, sidewalks are sinking and sinkholes are opening everywhere. At time day or night, you can literally feel the earth "vibrate" below your feet.

I'm in Northwest Indiana, and I believe we are about to get hit with a earthquake of biblical proportions. We are surrounded by propane, natural gas and bp amoco refineries.

And, Im more than concerned what will happen when the new madrid erupts.

best regards

Bob

Is there a reason why the world is being hit with so many plagues lately?  Could someone be trying to tell us something?  In case you haven't noticed, some of the recent plagues around the globe have been rather "Biblical" in nature.  No, it isn't the end of the world as we know it just yet, but there has been a rash of really bizarre plagues all over the world in recent days.  There have been reports of massive outbreaks of frogs, locusts and rats.  Famine and drought are threatening tens of millions of people.  Unprecedented flooding has been devastating communities all over the globe, and the startling increase in earthquakes and volcanic activity have many people wondering exactly what in the world is going on.  Are these things happening because we are getting closer to 2012?  Could God be behind all of these plagues?  Is there some other explanation?  Well, what can't be denied is that things are starting to get really, really weird out there lately.

Of course most people are focused on the massive disaster in the Gulf of Mexico right now.  The fact that all the oil in the Gulf is turning the waters there red is drawing a lot of attention.  But that is not the only really strange plague that is happening in the world right now.... 

Frogs

In Turkey, the sudden influx of hundreds of thousands of frogs that forced authorities in neighboring Greece to close down a major highway is being seen by locals as a possible sign that a devastating earthquake may strike soon.

Locusts

Australian farmers are bracing themselves for what is being called the most devastating locust plague in almost 40 years.

Scientists in the United States are warning that the worst grasshopper outbreak in decades may sweep across the western states this summer.

Rats And Mice

A gigantic plague of rats is gobbling up vast portions of grasslands in north China.

Farmers are warning that much more needs to be done to cope with a terrible mouse plague in some agricultural areas of south Australia.

Famine

In Niger alone, more than half the population is in desperate need of food, and both Niger and neighboring Chad have officially declared states of emergency.

According to the aid organization Save The Children, one out of every eight children under the age of five in the African country of Niger is likely to die in the next month unless they get immediate assistance.

Drought

Drought warnings have been issued across the U.K. as the country suffers its driest start to the year in 46 years.

The horrifc drought in West Africa is making life incredibly difficult for tens of millions of people.

The ongoing drought in the state of Texas continues to get even worse.

Floods

Unusually heavy flooding in China has killed at least 155 people and has forced more than 1 million Chinese to flee their homes as some areas reached their highest water levels in more than a decade.

Unprecedented flooding has forced the evacuation of more than 600,000 people in the Asian nation of Sri Lanka.

Tens of thousands of people were displaced after torrential rains caused heavy flooding in the southern Philippines.

20 people recently died during a horrible flash flood at a popular rural campground in Arkansas.

A while back, massive storms dumped nearly 20 inches of rain on many areas of the southeast United States, killing at least 27 people and putting many areas of Nashville, Tennessee totally under water.  In fact, it is being reported that the damage to the city of Nashville alone was approximately a billion dollars.

Volcanoes

A volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula has shown signs of intensified activity and is throwing clouds of smoke into the air to a height of at least 1,000 meters.

The Philippine government insists that it is prepared for a possible eruption of the Taal volcano as it begins to show signs of life.

Scientists are warning that another much larger volcano in Iceland is showing indications that it may be about to erupt.

Earthquakes

We all know about the horrific earthquakes that struck Haiti and Chile earlier this year, but those were hardly isolated incidents.  In fact, it was recently reported that earthquakes are up 151 percent in 2010.

A 7.5-magnitude earthquake recently struck under the Indian Ocean near India's Nicobar and Andaman Islands.

Thousands of unsettling "ice quakes" have been detected on Washington's Mount Rainier.

But perhaps no region has been more active than southern California lately.  More than 100 earthquakes recently rattled the California-Mexico border region in just a few hours.

So what is causing all this?

Are all of these plagues and disasters related?

Is there a reason why all of these things are happening?

Please feel free to leave a comment with your opinion....

Could one massive burst of radiation from the sun cripple satellites in orbit and fry electronics all over the Earth?  Could a gigantic solar storm change life as we know it in an instant?  Well, if we are to believe what some scientists from NASA are saying, the answer to both questions is yes.  In fact, they are telling us that huge electromagnetic pulses from the sun could cripple our electrical grid for years, causing billions (if not trillions) of dollars in damages.  Now the truth is that the sun is not going to cause "the end of the world", but as our society continues to become increasingly dependent on high technology, scientists warn that there is a very realistic possibility that solar storms could cause a very serious disruption in our lifestyles - especially as we approach the next solar maximum in 2013.

So just what are solar storms?

Well, solar storms occur when eruptions from the Sun send massive amounts of charged particles and radiation in the direction of Earth.  But the level of activity on the sun is not constant.  Sometimes there is a lot of activity on the sun and sometimes there is very little.  Solar activity usually follows an 11 year cycle, and right now the sun is moving into a period of increased activity.

The funny thing is that there has been very little solar activity for most of the past two years.  In fact, the absence of sunspots has very much surprised scientists who study the sun.

So what exactly has been going on?  Why has there been such a lack of sunspots in the last couple of years?

Well, some scientists postulate that the sun's magnetic activity may be diminishing.  Other believe that our sun may actually be shrinking.

The reality is that something seems to be happening, and many are beginning to wonder if the weird activity on the sun has something to do with 2012.

This current solar cycle is just not going as scientists had predicted.  The sun began to calm down in late 2007 (as predicted), and there was not supposed to be much solar activity in 2008.

But just how low the level of solar activity was in 2008 was absolutely shocking to scientists.

In 2008, the sun was spot-free 73 per cent of the time, which was an extreme dip even for a solar minimum.

In fact, it represented the lowest amount of sunspots since 1913.

In 2009, scientists were expecting solar activity to get back to normal, but it still didn't happen.

Finally, in mid-December, the largest group of sunspots to emerge for several years appeared, but the overall number of sunspots has still been far below expectations.

So what does all of this mean?

Nobody is quite sure what to make of it.

In fact, David Hathaway, a physicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, seems as puzzled as the rest of us....

"This is solar behavior we haven't seen in living memory."

So will a much less active solar minimum also mean a much more active solar maximum once we get to 2012 and 2013?

That is what some scientists are beginning to warn us of.

In fact, NASA scientists recently warned that the Earth could be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes "from a deep slumber" as we approach 2012 and 2013.

So why are 2012 and 2013 years to watch?

Well, every 22 years the Sun’s magnetic energy cycle peaks, and every 11 years the number of sun spots hits a maximum.

It turns out that both of these events are going to take place in 2013, and scientists are warning us to brace ourselves for the massive amounts of radiation that the sun will produce at that time.

Just to give you an idea, one gigantic solar storm can unleash a billion times more energy than a nuclear bomb.

Scientists tell us that a really bad solar storm could devastate a vast array of equipment that we depend upon every day including communication satellites, emergency medical systems, electrical grids, air traffic control equipment, home computers, iPods and GPS units.

Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division says that the threat is very real and that we need to be ready....

"The Sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms."

According to The National Academy of Sciences, a "century-class" solar storm could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.

20 times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina?

Yes, the threat we face from solar storms is very real.

In fact, the U.S. Congress is so concerned about it that they are taking action.  The Energy and Commerce committee of the U.S. House of Representatives recently voted 47 to 0 to approve a bill allocating 100 million dollars to protect the U.S. energy grid from solar storms.

So how bad are things going to get?

Well, as we mentioned earlier, solar storms are not going to cause the end of the world, but things could get very interesting as we approach 2012 and 2013.  Considering how many other signs are pointing to those years as being significant, it may be wise for all of us to start making emergency preparedness more of a priority.  We could be in for quite a ride.

As the environmental nightmare that the ruptured BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico has unleashed upon humanity becomes more apparent, there are some burning questions that we desperately need answered.  The truth is that it has now become exceedingly obvious that BP has been lying to us all along.  Researchers have doubled their previous estimate and now say that up to 1.7 million gallons a day may have been escaping into the Gulf of Mexico ever since this disaster began.  If this new figure is correct, that means that over 90 million gallons of oil have gushed into the Gulf of Mexico in the 53 days since the rig exploded.  To put that in perspective, that would be eight times the amount spilled during the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989.  The truth is that we are looking at the end of the world as we know it for those living along the Gulf of Mexico.  It is hard to even put into words how horrific this nightmare is.  But the sad thing is that there is still a lot about this oil spill that we do not know.

The following are 17 questions about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that we desperately need answers to....

#1) Why is the FAA shutting down the airspace above the Gulf of Mexico oil spill?  Do they not want anymore pictures taken of the area?

#2) What is BP doing so much to keep the press away from the oil spill?

#3) Should we be concerned that birds are flocking north by the thousands?

#4) If the smell of the oil on some beaches is alrady so strong that it burns your nostrils, then what in the world is this oil doing to our wildlife?

#5) When BP officials say things like "we discovered things that were broken in the sub-surface" and when they say that the damaged well was leaking "out to the side, into the formation", what does that mean?

#6) Is there evidence of multiple oil leaks possibly coming from other rigs?

#7) Has the Gulf of Mexico oil spill caused additional ruptures in the sea floor?

#8) Why are scientists finding concentrations of methane at up to 10,000 times normal background levels in Gulf waters?

#9) About a third of all rescued birds have died so far - but what is the death rate for the birds that have not been rescued?

#10) BP is being accused of trying to manipulate the search results on sites like Google and Yahoo.  So what is it that they are trying so desperately to hide?

#11) If "70% or 80%" of the protective booms are doing absolutely nothing at all, then what is going to stop the millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf from eventually reaching shore?

#12) If BP starts burning a large amount of the excess oil, won't that be really bad for the air?

#13) Houston attorney Tony Buzbee claims that he has new evidence which shows that Deepwater Horizon’s managers knew that the oil rig had major problems before its explosion on April 20th.  Does that mean that there is clear negligence involved here?

#14) If Kevin Costner's oil-cleanup machines work so well and could have kept the oil from getting to the shores of the Gulf coast, then why did BP wait for so long before purchasing some?

#15) Why are three states along the Gulf of Mexico preparing for a massive call up of thousands of National Guard members?

#16) If the primary dispersant that BP has been using, Corexit 9527, ruptures red blood cells and causes fish to bleed, then why are they continuing to use it?

#17) Is there a serious risk that the entire Gulf of Mexico could become one gigantic dead zone if the oil is not completely stopped soon?

Well, the Bilderberg Group meetings have come and gone for another year, but there are some things that are fundamentally changing.  In years past, the Bilderberg Group was able to meet in almost complete secrecy and make decisions for the rest of the globe without the vast majority of the world population even being aware of what was going on.  But things are different now.  Thanks to the tireless efforts of those who have sought to expose the Bilderberg Group and other organizations like it, people around the world are waking up.  Once awakened, people all over the globe quickly realize that they don't really want a handful of super wealthy unelected power brokers meeting in secret to make policy decisions that affect the entire world.  This year's Bilderberg Group meetings, even though they were held in Spain, attracted more attention than ever before.  But attention is the last thing that the Bilderberg Group wants.  They want to meet in the shadows.  So is this "the end of the world" for their old way of doing things?  Would even more exposure mean that the Bilderberg Group meetings could be cancelled someday as top world leaders start shunning the event?

It could happen.  Exposure is like kryptonite to these people.  When stories about Bilderberg Group starting to pop up in major U.K. newspapers, you know that something fundamental has changed.  The truth is that people want honesty and transparency from their leaders, and they are willing to go to the streets to demand it.  Just consider the following protest of the Bilderberg Group meetings that was held in Barcelona....  

Things are changing for the better.  Average citizens are making a difference and are exposing things that the global elite wanted hidden.

In years past, it was very difficult sometimes to even find out who attended the Bilderberg conference.  But this year we know exactly who attended.  The following is the attendee list for the 2010 Bilderberg Group conference....

Bilderberg Meetings
Sitges, Spain 3-6 June 2010

Final List of Participants
Honorary Chairman BEL Davignon, Etienne Vice Chairman, Suez-Tractebel

DEU Ackermann, Josef Chairman of the Management Board and the Group Executive Committee, Deutsche Bank AG
GBR Agius, Marcus Chairman, Barclays Bank PLC
ESP Alierta, César Chairman and CEO, Telefónica
INT Almunia, Joaquín Commissioner, European Commission
USA Altman, Roger C. Chairman, Evercore Partners Inc.
USA Arrison, Sonia Author and policy analyst
SWE Bäckström, Urban Director General, Confederation of Swedish Enterprise
PRT Balsemão, Francisco Pinto Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA, S.G.P.S.; Former Prime Minister
ITA Bernabè, Franco CEO, Telecom Italia S.p.A.
SWE Bildt, Carl Minister of Foreign Affairs
FIN Blåfield, Antti Senior Editorial Writer, Helsingin Sanomat
ESP Botín, Ana P. Executive Chairman, Banesto
NOR Brandtzæg, Svein Richard CEO, Norsk Hydro ASA
AUT Bronner, Oscar Publisher and Editor, Der Standard
TUR Çakir, Ruşen Journalist
CAN Campbell, Gordon Premier of British Columbia
ESP Carvajal Urquijo, Jaime Managing Director, Advent International
FRA Castries, Henri de Chairman of the Management Board and CEO, AXA
ESP Cebrián, Juan Luis CEO, PRISA
ESP Cisneros, Gustavo A. Chairman and CEO, Cisneros Group of Companies
CAN Clark, W. Edmund President and CEO, TD Bank Financial Group
USA Collins, Timothy C. Senior Managing Director and CEO, Ripplewood Holdings, LLC
ITA Conti, Fulvio CEO and General Manager, Enel SpA
GRC David, George A. Chairman, Coca-Cola H.B.C. S.A.
DNK Eldrup, Anders CEO, DONG Energy
ITA Elkann, John Chairman, Fiat S.p.A.
DEU Enders, Thomas CEO, Airbus SAS
ESP Entrecanales, José M. Chairman, Acciona
DNK Federspiel, Ulrik Vice President Global Affairs, Haldor Topsøe A/S
USA Feldstein, Martin S. George F. Baker Professor of Economics, Harvard University
USA Ferguson, Niall Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History, Harvard University
AUT Fischer, Heinz Federal President
IRL Gallagher, Paul Attorney General
USA Gates, William H. Co-chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Chairman, Microsoft Corporation
USA Gordon, Philip H. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
USA Graham, Donald E. Chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company
INT Gucht, Karel de Commissioner, European Commission
TUR Gürel, Z. Damla Special Adviser to the President on EU Affairs
NLD Halberstadt, Victor Professor of Economics, Leiden University; Former Honorary Secretary General of Bilderberg Meetings
USA Holbrooke, Richard C. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan
NLD Hommen, Jan H.M. Chairman, ING Group
USA Hormats, Robert D. Under Secretary for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs
BEL Huyghebaert, Jan Chairman of the Board of Directors, KBC Group
USA Johnson, James A. Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC
FIN Katainen, Jyrki Minister of Finance
USA Keane, John M. Senior Partner, SCP Partners
GBR Kerr, John Member, House of Lords; Deputy Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc.
USA Kissinger, Henry A. Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.
USA Kleinfeld, Klaus Chairman and CEO, Alcoa
TUR Koç, Mustafa V. Chairman, Koç Holding A.Ş.
USA Kravis, Henry R. Founding Partner, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
USA Kravis, Marie-Josée Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, Inc.
INT Kroes, Neelie Commissioner, European Commission
USA Lander, Eric S. President and Director, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT
FRA Lauvergeon, Anne Chairman of the Executive Board, AREVA
ESP León Gross, Bernardino Secretary General, Office of the Prime Minister
DEU Löscher, Peter Chairman of the Board of Management, Siemens AG
NOR Magnus, Birger Chairman, Storebrand ASA
CAN Mansbridge, Peter Chief Correspondent, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
USA Mathews, Jessica T. President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
CAN McKenna, Frank Deputy Chair, TD Bank Financial Group
GBR Micklethwait, John Editor-in-Chief, The Economist
FRA Montbrial, Thierry de President, French Institute for International Relations
ITA Monti, Mario President, Universita Commerciale Luigi Bocconi
INT Moyo, Dambisa F. Economist and Author
USA Mundie, Craig J. Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft Corporation
NOR Myklebust, Egil Former Chairman of the Board of Directors SAS, Norsk Hydro ASA
USA Naím, Moisés Editor-in-Chief, Foreign Policy
NLD Netherlands, H.M. the Queen of the
ESP Nin Génova, Juan María President and CEO, La Caixa
DNK Nyrup Rasmussen, Poul Former Prime Minister
GBR Oldham, John National Clinical Lead for Quality and Productivity
FIN Ollila, Jorma Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc
USA Orszag, Peter R. Director, Office of Management and Budget
TUR Özilhan, Tuncay Chairman, Anadolu Group
ITA Padoa-Schioppa, Tommaso Former Minister of Finance; President of Notre Europe
GRC Papaconstantinou, George Minister of Finance
USA Parker, Sean Managing Partner, Founders Fund
USA Pearl, Frank H. Chairman and CEO, Perseus, LLC
USA Perle, Richard N. Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
ESP Polanco, Ignacio Chairman, Grupo PRISA
CAN Prichard, J. Robert S. President and CEO, Metrolinx
FRA Ramanantsoa, Bernard Dean, HEC Paris Group
PRT Rangel, Paulo Member, European Parliament
CAN Reisman, Heather M. Chair and CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc.
SWE Renström, Lars President and CEO, Alfa Laval
NLD Rinnooy Kan, Alexander H.G. Chairman, Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER)
ITA Rocca, Gianfelice Chairman, Techint
ESP Rodriguez Inciarte, Matías Executive Vice Chairman, Grupo Santander
USA Rose, Charlie Producer, Rose Communications
USA Rubin, Robert E. Co-Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations; Former Secretary of the Treasury
TUR Sabanci Dinçer, Suzan Chairman, Akbank
ITA Scaroni, Paolo CEO, Eni S.p.A.
USA Schmidt, Eric CEO and Chairman of the Board, Google
AUT Scholten, Rudolf Member of the Board of Executive Directors, Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG
DEU Scholz, Olaf Vice Chairman, SPD
INT Sheeran, Josette Executive Director, United Nations World Food Programme
INT Solana Madariaga, Javier Former Secretary General, Council of the European Union
ESP Spain, H.M. the Queen of
USA Steinberg, James B. Deputy Secretary of State
INT Stigson, Björn President, World Business Council for Sustainable Development
USA Summers, Lawrence H. Director, National Economic Council
IRL Sutherland, Peter D. Chairman, Goldman Sachs International
GBR Taylor, J. Martin Chairman, Syngenta International AG
PRT Teixeira dos Santos, Fernando Minister of State and Finance
USA Thiel, Peter A. President, Clarium Capital Management, LLC
GRC Tsoukalis, Loukas President, ELIAMEP
INT Tumpel-Gugerell, Gertrude Member of the Executive Board, European Central Bank
USA Varney, Christine A. Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust
CHE Vasella, Daniel L. Chairman, Novartis AG
USA Volcker, Paul A. Chairman, Economic Recovery Advisory Board
CHE Voser, Peter CEO, Royal Dutch Shell plc
FIN Wahlroos, Björn Chairman, Sampo plc
CHE Waldvogel, Francis A. Chairman, Novartis Venture Fund
SWE Wallenberg, Jacob Chairman, Investor AB
NLD Wellink, Nout President, De Nederlandsche Bank
USA West, F.J. Bing Author
GBR Williams, Shirley Member, House of Lords
USA Wolfensohn, James D. Chairman, Wolfensohn & Company, LLC
ESP Zapatero, José Luis Rodríguez Prime Minister
DEU Zetsche, Dieter Chairman, Daimler AG
INT Zoellick, Robert B. President, The World Bank Group

Rapporteurs
GBR Bredow, Vendeline von Business Correspondent, The Economist
GBR Wooldridge, Adrian D. Business Correspondent, The Economist

With each passing day, the environmental horror being caused by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill becomes more apparent.  Some of the most unique wildlife habitats in the world are being obliterated, entire species are being threatened with extinction and scientists are telling us that the Gulf of Mexico will never be the same again during any of our lifetimes.  This is not just another Exxon Valdez or Hurricane Katrina.  This is the end of an entire way of life for millions of people and for millions of birds, animals and fish.  It is impossible to even put a price tag on what we are all losing as a result of this spill.  BP will never make enough money to repay the damage that has been done already.  And yet the oil just keeps gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.  It is a nightmare that we can't wake up from and from which there is no escape. 

Each day the news just seems to get worse.  In fact, if you really dig into the news reports that are coming out about this spill it quickly becomes apparent that there is a whole lot more going on than we have been told.

The following are 9 horrific facts about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that will blow your mind....

#1) According to an iReport on CNN, "significant amounts of oil" are floating ashore in the Florida Keys.

#2) Some workers are now finding dead dolphins rotting in the shore weeds along the Gulf coast.

#3) Scientists are telling us that the primary dispersant that BP has been using, Corexit 9527, ruptures red blood cells and causes fish to bleed.

#4) Professor Prosanta Chakrabarty of Louisiana State University says that she believes that "every fish and invertebrate contacting the oil is probably dying".

#5) There are new reports that fishermen all over the Gulf of Mexico are becoming seriously ill from breathing the toxic brew being created by this oil spill and BP's response to it.

#6) Transocean, the firm hired by BP to operate the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig, recently announced that it will distribute $1 billion in dividends to shareholders even as oil continues to pour into the Gulf of Mexico.

#7) Not only that, but Transocean also has announced that it will make a $270 million profit on the insurance policy for the damaged oil rig.

#8) Matt Simmons, an energy adviser to former president George W. Bush, recently went on national television and claimed that "there's another leak, much bigger, 5 to 6 miles away" from the leaking riser and blowout preventer which everyone has been watching on the underwater cameras.

#9) Unfortunately, this disaster is far from over.  In fact, some experts are now warning that the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico may continue gushing until December.
 

What in the world is going on out there?  Is somebody trying to tell us something?  In 2010, there have been more plagues of "Biblical proportions" than during any other year in recent memory.  It is not quite the end of the world as we know it yet, but things are getting quite creepy out there.  So is there a pattern to all of this, or do we just happen to be in a very bad year? 

Whatever the explanation is, the truth is that 2010 is one of the most unusual years in ages.

The following are just some of the recent plagues and disasters that have been reported around the globe....

*It is being reported that earthquakes are up 151 percent in 2010.

*Costa Rica's Arenal volcano erupted on Monday, spewing geysers of lava, ash and toxic gases from its crater and forcing the evacuation of the national park where it is located.

*Scientists are warning that another much larger volcano in Iceland is showing signs that it may be about to erupt.

*A plague of rats has gobbled up vast swathes of grasslands in north China.

*Unprecedented flooding has displaced more than 600,000 people in the Asian nation of Sri Lanka.

*Scientists have identified four new strains of the Ug99 wheat-killing fungus that could wipe out the global wheat supply.

*A tsunami warning was canceled Friday for Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and New Caledonia in the Pacific Ocean after the threat from a 7.2-magnitude earthquake had passed.

*Gigantic storms recently dumped nearly 20 inches of rain on many areas of the southeast United States, killing at least 27 people and putting many areas of Nashville, Tennessee completely under water.  In fact, it is being reported that the damage to the city of Nashville alone is close to a billion dollars. 

*Motorists on a highway in northern Greece were recently brought to a standstill by "millions" of frogs that were attempting to cross a major road.

*The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now officially the worst oil spill in U.S. history and is turning vast areas of the Gulf of Mexico red.

Of course we all know about the horrific killer earthquakes in Haiti and in Chile earlier this year.

So just what in the world is going on?

Is there an explanation for why all of these things are happening?

Or is it just a coincidence that so many bad things are taking place?

Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion....

This article is especially for those who doubt that the global elite wish to impose global taxes and a global currency on all of us.  Once upon a time such notions were laughed at by the majority of the public.  But not anymore.  Now, top global organizations are coming right out and announcing that these are the things that they want.  It is right there in black and white for anyone who wants to read it.  The head of the IMF has come right out and said that he wants a global currency to be implemented.  Both the IMF and the World Health Organization have openly announced that they want global taxes to be imposed as quickly as possible.  Considering how powerful the IMF and the WHO are, it is time for everyone to sit up and take notice.  These increasingly powerful international organizations are openly proclaiming that they want to start digging into our wallets.  Alarm bells should be going off in your head about now.  A global currency and global taxes would mean the end of the world as we know it for national sovereignty.  But today most Americans are so apathetic that they don't care about anything.

Years ago, top international leaders would not dream of publicly calling for global taxes or for a global currency.  But it is a sign of just how far into the danger zone we have gotten that there seems to be no fear about talking about these things now.

Just consider these recent developments....

*During a recent speech, IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn called for the introduction of a global currency backed by a global central bank which would act as the "lender of last resort" in the event of a severe economic crisis.

*The World Health Organization recently announced that it is ready to impose global taxes on all of us.  The World Health Organization says that it needs a lot more money and that it has some creative ideas for how to get it.  Two of their main ideas for "raising revenue" are a global tax on Internet use and a global tax on paying bills online.  These taxes would go directly to the World Health Organization.

*The IMF is actually calling for two new global taxes.  One would be an international deposit insurance tax, and the other would be a tax on the profits of financial institutions worldwide.  The IMF says that the funds would be used by them to prevent another major financial crisis.

Do you want a world tax to be imposed on you every time you use the Internet?

Do you want a world tax to be imposed on you every time you pay a bill online?

If not, you better speak out now.

Later might be too late.

The truth is that we have to start electing people who are going to stand up for the national sovereignty of the United States.

The American people do not want global taxes.

The American people certainly do now want a global currency.

But the global elite are going to continue to try to push these things down our throats unless we say no.

On May 11th, Planned Parenthood officially opened their fourth abortion "supercenter". This new abortion supercenter is located in Houston, Texas and it is the largest abortion facility in the United States. It stands six stories tall, and it contains approximately 78,000 square feet of space.  Considering the fact that they charge anywhere between $500 to $2,500 per abortion procedure, this new center stands to make a whole lot of money.

But at what price?

Since 1973, more than 50 million babies have been murdered in abortion facilities across the United States.

We have wiped out an entire generation in the name of selfishness and convenience.

And the really sad thing is that so much government money has gone to support Planned Parenthood.

This is an organization that has had some of the most wicked leadership imaginable.

The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, actually said the following all the way back in 1922:

"The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."

Hopefully you are repulsed by that statement, but the philosophy of Planned Parenthood's founder is being carried out every single day in Planned Parenthood facilities across the United States.

What some of these abortion procedures entail is absolutely horrifying.

One particularly gruesome method of abortion is known as "partial birth" abortion.  The following are the five steps of a partial birth abortion....

1) Guided by ultrasound, the abortionist grabs the baby's legs with forceps.

2) The baby's leg is pulled out into the birth canal.

3) The abortionist delivers the baby's entire body, except for the head.

4) The abortionist jams scissors into the baby's skull. The scissors are then opened to enlarge the skull.

5) The scissors are removed and a suction catheter is inserted. The child's brains are sucked out, causing the skull to collapse. The dead baby is then removed.

Are you sickened yet?

You should be.

But the sad thing is that abortion has been legalized (at least to some extent) by most of the countries in the world.  It is being pushed by global elitists who are convinced that there are way too many people on earth and who are rabidly determined to control the population. 

But the truth is that there are not too many people in the world.

And the murder of innocent children is never the solution to anything.

By continuing to murder about a million babies each and every year, the United States is just inviting the judgment of God.

Take a moment to read the following portion of Scripture, and as you do, ask yourself what God must be thinking about us.... 

"They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters... and the land was polluted with blood. Then the anger of the lord was kindled against his people, and He abhorred his heritage; he gave them into the hands of the nations, so that those who hated them ruled over them. Their enemies oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their power." (See Psalm 106:37-43)

When we slaughter innocent babies we are just asking for the end of the world as we know it.  God is a very patient and merciful God, and He has given us decades to repent, but He will not hold back his judgment forever.

Yet when the judgment comes, many of those who will read this article will still not be convinced that God is punishing us for our great sins.

But it will be the truth.

We have piled up tens of millions of dead babies, and most Americans believe that we will never pay a price for it.

Most Americans seem to be convinced that we can openly defy God indefinitely and there will not be any consequences.

But that is not the way things work with God.

The Council on Foreign Relations is now making propaganda videos in an attempt to convince all of us how "good" and "noble" they are. In the video posted below, they portray themselves as just a simple "think tank" where individuals from diverse backgrounds can come together and openly discuss matters that are important to all Americans. Well, if that was all that the Council on Foreign Relations did, that wouldn't be too bad, would it? But the truth is much more complicated.

The Council on Foreign Relations is an invitation only membership group made up of approximately 4000 elitists. It is an organization that openly promotes a globalist agenda and that exerts extraordinary influence over the U.S. government. In fact, every single U.S. Secretary of State since the 1950s has been from this secretive organization. For decades, the cabinets of all U.S. presidents have been littered with members of the CFR and other globalist organizations such as the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group.

Is it "democratic" for a very small organization to have such a predominant role in American politics for over 50 years no matter what political party is in the White House?

Just consider a few of the names that have been or are currently members of the Council on Foreign Relations....

Bill Clinton

Dick Cheney

David Rockefeller

Timothy Geithner

Henry Paulson

Alan Greenspan

Zbigniew Brzezinski

World Bank President Robert Zoellick

Henry Kissinger

Condoleeza Rice

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsberg

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer

George Soros

Michael Bloomberg

Katie Couric

Brian Williams

Diane Sawyer

Tom Brokaw

George H.W. Bush

And the list could go on and on. 

The Council on Foreign Relations does not even try to hide the fact that it is slowly pushing the United States towards a "global economy", a "global marketplace", a "global religion" and "global governance".

But if the fact that large numbers of high ranking members of every single U.S. presidential administration since the end of World War 2 have been coming from a single organization that is pushing a radical globalist agenda doesn't bother you, then just go back to sleep. 

But if you actually care about what is going on in American politics, you might want to pay attention.

Meanwhile, the CFR is likely to put out even more propaganda videos like the following to convince us just how "good" and "wonderful" they really are....

Today a great awakening is going on throughout the United States and around the world.  More than ever before, people are starting to wake up to the New World Order that the global elite is gradually imposing on mankind.  The truth is that the vast majority of the people on this planet do not want a global government, a global currency, a one-world economic system or a one-world religion.  Thanks to those who have worked so hard to expose the sinister agenda of the internationalists who are seeking to construct a big brother control grid to enforce their futuristic scientific dictatorship, people all over the world are now voicing their objections to this coming world system.

But there is a problem.  In fact, there is a big problem.  You see, the "freedom movement" is horribly plagued by infighting.  Instead of focusing on the key issues and problems that should concern us all, many who have gotten involved are focusing most of their energy on fighting others in the freedom movement.  But the truth is that if we are all constantly infighting with one another, then we are not going to stand a chance against the scientifically-crafted tyranny that the globalists are imposing upon us.

But so many people feel that they have to be "right" about every little thing.  So many people want to be the "special one" that has it all figured out.  So many people are jealous of the "stars" in the freedom movement, when the truth is that the "stars" often end up making the biggest sacrifices on behalf of all of us.

It is really sad to see people who are supposed to be standing up for freedom relentlessly attacking men like Alex Jones or Steve Quayle who have sacrificed so much and have worked so hard and so long to expose the agenda of the globalists.  Most people in the freedom movement will never have any idea of what these men have been through. 

And yet almost daily you will find others who claim to be patriots just ripping them to shreds.  Well, you know what?  It is not the end of the world if someone does not agree with you on every single little point.  If you are waiting for someone who perfectly agrees with you 100 percent of the time on every little issue then you are going to be waiting a long, long time.

Nobody is perfect.  You are not perfect.  I am not perfect.  If you think that are so "special" that you have the right to criticize everyone else in the freedom movement, there is something I want you to think about.  What would it be like if the spotlight was suddenly turned on you?

Perhaps that is what you are looking for.  Perhaps you would be very excited about being in the spotlight.  But before you get too excited, I want you to read what we wrote  about what it means to "be in the spotlight" in an article on one of our other sites.... 

Take a moment and imagine this - one of the biggest television networks wants to do a huge 2 hour prime time special starring you.

Doesn't that sound great?

But instead of a two hour documentary about how wonderful you are, the network has discovered all of the most evil and horrible things that you have ever thought, said or did and they are going to broadcast them to millions of people all over the world for two hours during prime time.

What would you do if that happened?

That reality is that whoever that happened to would want to run away and never show their face to anyone ever again.

The truth is that none of us is perfect.

Not even close.

So why try to rip apart and tear down those who are trying to stand up for your freedom?

The freedom movement is ultimately not going to do much good if it does not learn how to stand together.

It would do us all well to heed the words of Jesus in Matthew 12:25....

Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand

And the truth is that a lot of the people who are causing all of this infighting are actually agents and infiltrators who are seeking to stir things up.

You see, there are two primary ways that you can identify infiltrators - they try to get people in the movement fighting with each other or they advocate violence against someone else.

Don't have anything to do with those kinds of people.

Instead, we need to learn how to love one another.

It's really that simple.

The words that Jesus spoke in John 13:34 are as true today as they ever have been....

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

So the next time you are tempted to criticize someone in the freedom movement, ask yourself first if you love them.

If you cannot honestly say that you are willing to love them, then perhaps you are the one who has the problem that needs to be corrected.

Everyone is not always going to agree with you on every little issue.  If you can only work with "perfect" people then you are not going to be able to work with anyone.  It should be enough that others are willing to stand up for basic human freedom just as you are.

The truth is that we are rapidly moving into the darkest times in all of human history.  A horrific worldwide big brother control grid is being constructed that threatens to take away all of our freedoms.  We are literally looking at the end of the world as we know it.  If those who love freedom cannot learn to love one another and stand with one another then this thing is going to steamroll right over us. 

It is time to wake up.  Time is running out.

The environmental horror caused by the massive oil spill spreading rapidly throughout the Gulf of Mexico is becoming more apparent by the day.  In fact, it would be very difficult to understate the damage that all of this oil is already doing to a very intricate ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico or the danger that this oil spill represents if it continues to spread.  Hundreds of species of animals and plants are at risk.  Millions of living things in the Gulf of Mexico are going to die.  The entire region is going to be an environmental nightmare for years - perhaps decades.  This really is "the end of the world as we know it" for hundreds of thousands of people living in the Gulf region who depend upon the Gulf of Mexico for their economic survival.  What we are witnessing is the death of an entire region of the planet - and perhaps more than that if this thing continues to spread. 

Yes, this disaster is really, really, really bad.  Just consider the following quote from Richard Charter of the Defenders of Wildlife....

"It is so big and expanding so fast that it's pretty much beyond human response that can be effective. ... You're looking at a long-term poisoning of the area. Ultimately, this will have a multidecade impact."

So just how much oil is flowing into the Gulf of Mexico at this point?

Well, BP spokeswoman Ayana McIntosh-Lee said on Monday that the damaged well is releasing 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico.  Barack Obama is calling this oil spill a potentially unprecedented environmental disaster.  In fact, federal officials have already closed a portion of the northern Gulf of Mexico to all fishing.

It would be hard to underestimate how serious this is for folks who live along the Gulf coast.  Residents of the Gulf region are starting to fear that the damage from this oil spill will be worse than the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina.

One Louisiana resident recently put it this way....

"A hurricane is like closing your bank account for a few days, but this here has the capacity to destroy our bank accounts."

But there are signs that this disaster is going to get even worse before it starts to get better.

It is being reported that a confidential government report on the disaster in the Gulf makes it clear that the Coast Guard now fears the damaged well could become an unchecked gusher shooting millions of gallons of oil per day into the Gulf.  One Alabama newspaper has posted excerpts from this alarming report....

"The following is not public," reads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Emergency Response document dated April 28th that was posted on . "Two additional release points were found today in the tangled riser. If the riser pipe deteriorates further, the flow could become unchecked resulting in a release volume an order of magnitude higher than previously thought."

If that report is even partially true, then we may not have even seen the worst of things yet.

Even if things remain as they are, it is already being projected that this could be the most costly environmental disaster in history.

Estimates vary at this point, but it is being reported that some analysts are already projecting that the costs related to the oil spill could exceed 14 billion dollars.  The cost to the fishing industry in Louisiana alone could top 3 billion dollars, and it is being projected that the tourism industry in Florida could lose even more than that. 

But the truth is that it is way too early for estimates, because as long as the damaged well keeps gushing oil the nightmare is only going to get worse.

So how long until things get better?

Well, U.S. Representative Charlie Melancon of Louisiana has made a couple of statements about this disaster which are extremely chilling....

"The best-case scenario is that this lasts for a couple of weeks."

"The worst case is that we've got several months to go."

In fact, the Obama administration and BP are both now indicating that the worst case scenario is more likely.  Officials said on Monday that it might take up to three months to completely seal off the leaking oil well.

That is not good news.

BP is certainly freaked out about all of this, and they are already trying to claim that it was not "their" accident that caused all of this.

Tony Hayward, the CEO of British Petroleum, told NBC's Meredith Vieira on Monday that his company was not responsible for creating the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico but that they are responsible for cleaning it up....

"It wasn't our accident, but we are absolutely responsible for the oil, for cleaning it up, and that's what we intend to do."

That sad thing is that this is the type of world we live in - a world where the lawyers are in charge and nobody takes responsibility for anything.

For once it would be really nice to see a CEO stand up and admit responsibility for something.

But that just isn't going to happen.

Meanwhile, the more we learn about this oil spill the more frightening it becomes.

The reality is that we simply do not know at this point just yet how incredibly destructive this disaster may become.  In his recent article, "The Oil Mess - The Takedown Of World Economy?", George Ure posted a message from one of his readers this is extremely troubling.  The reader is a very experienced engineer, and his diagnosis of the danger that we are facing from this oil spill is incredibly frightening.  If what he says is true, then we are headed for a complete and total nightmare....

A reader who is an engineer of considerable experience says watch this one evolve carefully because it is destined to continue to grow and he shares this long (but worthy) explanation why:

"Heard your mention of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico this morning, and you (and most everyone else except maybe George Noory) are totally missing the boat on how big and bad of a disaster this is.

First fact, the original estimate was about 5,000 gallons of oil a day spilling into the ocean. Now they're saying 200,000 gallons a day. That's over a million gallons of crude oil a week!

I'm engineer with 25 years of experience. I've worked on some big projects with big machines. Maybe that's why this mess is so clear to me. [and is so unclear to the millions without such knowledge]

First, the BP platform was drilling for what they call deep oil. They go out where the ocean is about 5,000 feet deep and drill another 30,000 feet into the crust of the earth. This it right on the edge of what human technology can do. Well, this time they hit a pocket of oil at such high pressure that it burst all of their safety valves all the way up to the drilling rig and then caused the rig to explode and sink. Take a moment to grasp the import of that. The pressure behind this oil is so high that it destroyed the maximum effort of human science to contain it.

When the rig sank it flipped over and landed on top of the drill hole some 5,000 feet under the ocean.

Now they've got a hole in the ocean floor, 5,000 feet down with a wrecked oil drilling rig sitting on top of is spewing 200,000 barrels of oil a day into the ocean. Take a moment and consider that, will you!

First they have to get the oil rig off the hole to get at it in order to try to cap it. Do you know the level of effort it will take to move that wrecked oil rig, sitting under 5,000 feet of water? That operation alone would take years and hundreds of millions to accomplish. Then, how do you cap that hole in the muddy ocean floor? There just is no way. No way.

The only piece of human technology that might address this is a nuclear bomb. I'm not kidding. If they put a nuke down there in the right spot it might seal up the hole. Nothing short of that will work.

If we can't cap that hole that oil is going to destroy the oceans of the world. It only takes one quart of motor oil to make 250,000 gallons of ocean water toxic to wildlife. Are you starting to get the magnitude of this?

We're so used to our politicians creating false crises to forward their criminal agendas that we aren't recognizing that we're staring straight into possibly the greatest disaster mankind will ever see. Imagine what happens if that oil keeps flowing until it destroys all life in the oceans of this planet. Who knows how big of a reservoir of oil is down there.

Not to mention that the oceans are critical to maintaining the proper oxygen level in the atmosphere for human life.

We're humped. Unless God steps in and fixes this. No human can. You can be sure of that."

What in the world is going on?  The number of earthquakes that we are seeing in the United States and around the world is getting scary.  In the past week alone, there have been over 2000 earthquakes in the region around California.  In fact, the whole area has been shaking like a leaf ever since a 7.2 earthquake rattled the western United States and Mexico on Easter Sunday.  In particular, the area from Los Angeles down through the Baja peninsula is just being hammered with quakes.

So is this an indication that the "Big One" is on the way soon?

Well, it isn't the end of the world just yet, but considering the number of big earthquakes that are hitting the rest of the world, we all need to start sitting up and paying attention.

What has happened already this year in Haiti and Chile could very well happen anywhere along the "Ring of Fire".

But it just isn't the Ring of Fire that is in the danger zone.  Massive earthquakes have started to pop up all over the place.

In fact, at least 400 people have died and thousands have been injured by a magnitude 6.9 earthquake that just hit western China's Qinghai province.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake stuck southern Spain on Monday approximately 14 miles to the southeast of the city of Granada.

It seems like almost every single week now there are reports of massive earthquakes happening somewhere in the world.

The earth is starting to shake.

Nobody seems to know why it is happening or if it will stop, but it is happening.

So what is going to happen next?

Is the shaking going to get even worse?

Is a devastating earthquake going to hit the United States?

We'll just have to wait and see.

Buckle up and get ready - this is going to be a very interesting ride.

Is 2012 going to be the end of the world as we know it? An increasing number of celebrities believe so.  If you do a search on the Internet, you will find a ton of celebrities who have offered up some really bizarre opinions about the year 2012. 

Others believe that in 2012 the earth will experience a pole shift, and there are yet others that believe that "Planet X" will arrive that year.  The following video that contains footage from the History Channel does a great job of summarizing some of the common beliefs about 2012....

So what will happen in 2012?

Will UFOs make open contact with humanity?

Will the earth experience a devastating pole shift?

Will our alignment with the center of the Milky Way galaxy cause natural disasters of unprecedented magnitude?

Will that be the year that Planet X is revealed?

Will it be the end of the world as we know it?

One thing seems certain - hysteria regarding the year 2012 is likely only to increase as we get closer to that date.

In fact, some people (including some very famous and well-known people) are likely to totally flip out about this whole thing.

So will some bad things happen in 2012?

Perhaps.  A lot of really bad stuff is going to happen in our future, and some of it very well could happen in 2012.

But it won't be the end of the world.

Once upon a time, the United States was a land of unparalleled freedom.  The rest of the world envied the freedom that ordinary Americans had to think, say and do what they wanted.  But all of that has changed.  Now Americans have to fear that they will be tackled by a squad of security goons and dragged off to a detention facility somewhere if they spill a Pepsi on a flight attendant or take a few too many pictures of a public building.  The United States used to be the polar opposite of totalitarian regimes like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, but now America is rapidly becoming very much like them.  Due to the fear of a boogeyman living in a cave somewhere or some guy with explosive powder in his underwear we are all being forced to give up our freedoms and learn to live in a Big Brother police state. 

But have things really changed so much that we have to give up all of the cherished freedoms that our fathers and grandfathers fought and died for?  Haven't there always been fanatics and crazies and criminals out there?  Why do we suddenly have to become so afraid of them? 

In the past, Americans would not let anyone make them live in fear.  If some unbalanced individual did something bad, it wasn't the end of the world, was it?  No, in the past Americans dusted themselves off and continued to live as free men and women.  You see, when we live in fear and radically alter our way of life just to feel a little more secure, we lose.  We have let someone else steal our freedom and our dignity.

But now in the name of "security" all kinds of bizarre proposals have been implemented on the local, state and national levels.  Somehow we think that if everything that we do is watched, monitored and analyzed we will all be safer somehow.

Maybe we are safer and maybe we aren't, but we are certainly a whole lot less free.

The following are 20 signs that the United States is rapidly becoming a totalitarian "Big Brother" police state....   

#1) A new bill being pushed by Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman would allow the U.S. military to round up large numbers of Americans and detain them indefinitely without a trial if they "pose a threat" or if they have "potential intelligence value" or for any other reason the President of the United States "considers appropriate".

#2) Lawmakers in Washington D.C. working to create a new immigration bill have decided on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would be required to obtain.

#3) Barack Obama is backing a plan to create a national database to store the DNA of people who have been arrested but not necessarily convicted of a crime.

#4) Just to get on an airplane, Americans will now have to go through new full-body scanners that reveal every detail of our exposed bodies to airport security officials.

#5) If that wasn't bad enough, the Transportation Security Administration has announced that airport screeners will begin roving through airports randomly taking chemical swabs from passengers and their bags to check for explosives.

#6) Starting this upcoming December, some passengers on Canadian airlines flying to, from or even over the United States without ever landing there, will only be allowed to board their flights once the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has determined they are not terrorists.

#7) Organic milk is such a threat that the FDA has been conducting military style raids on Amish farmers in Pennsylvania.

#8) An NYPD officer has broken his silence and has confessed that innocent citizens are being set up and falsely arrested and ticketed in order to meet quotas.

#9) A growing number of police departments across the U.S. are turning to mobile camera systems in order to fight motor vehicle theft and identify unregistered cars.

#10) For decades, Arizona has been known as "the sunset state", but lately many frustrated residents have started calling it "the surveillance state".

#11) Judges and police in Florida have been caught using "secret codes" on tickets in the state of Florida.

#12) An extensive investigation has revealed that between 2003 and 2007, that state of Texas quietly gave hundreds of newborn baby blood samples to a U.S. Armed Forces laboratory for use in a forensics database.

#13) A 6-year-old girl was recently handcuffed and sent to a mental facility after throwing temper tantrums at her elementary school.

#14) One 12-year-old girl in New York was recently arrested and marched out of her school in handcuffs just because she doodled on her desk.

#15) In Florida, students have been arrested by police for things as simple as bringing a plastic butter knife to school, throwing an eraser, and drawing a picture of a gun.

#16) When a mother on a flight to Denver spanked both of her children and cussed out a flight attendant who tried to intervene, she suddenly found herself handcuffed and headed for prison.  Why?  She was charged with being a domestic terrorist under the Patriot Act.

#17) A new global treaty may force U.S. Internet service providers to spy on what you do online.

#18) A leaked Obama administration memo has revealed plans for the federal government to seize more than 10 million acres of land from Montana to New Mexico.

#19) 56 percent of Americans questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll said that the U.S. government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.

#20) But one other recent poll found that 51 percent of Americans agree with this statement: "It is necessary to give up some civil liberties in order to make the country safe from terrorism."

Is the mainstream media news dying out?  For decades, the nightly news on the big 3 networks dominated the airwaves.  Tens of millions of Americans tuned in each night to find out what was happening in the world.  But now cable news has cannibalized a huge chunk of that audience, and the Internet is taking massive amounts of eyeballs away from both of them.  So are we now at a point when the way that Americans get their news has fundamentally changed forever?

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the Internet has surpassed newspapers as one of the primary ways that Americans get their news.

Perhaps that seems only natural to many of us now, but there was a time before the Internet was widely available that a very high percentage of the population would read a newspaper each day.

But now all of that has fundamentally changed.

According to the Pew survey, only 17 percent of Americans say that they read the print version of a national newspaper and only 50 percent say that they read local newspapers.

But that is only part of the story.

According to the survey newspapers were most likely to be read by people who were over the age of 50 or who don't own cell phones.

So as that generation dies out, newspapers will lose even more popularity.

But it isn't just newspapers that are suffering.

It appears that a day of reckoning has arrived for network news as well.

Both ABC News and CBS News have recently made announcements that indicate that they are experiencing deep financial woes.  Not that NBC News is doing well either.  NBC News has been struggling financially for quite some time. 

But it was still a shock when ABC News announced that it was cutting its news correspondent staff by 50 percent and that it will close all of its "brick and mortar" news bureaus except for the one in Washington D.C.

So why are so many diverse mainstream media outlets hurting so much?

There are a lot of reasons, but one of the key factors is that people are tired of not hearing the truth. 

More Americans than ever are waking up and are realizing that the mainstream media is very tightly controlled and is not telling them the whole truth.  Many are realizing that the "news" is increasingly becoming little more than thinly-disguised propaganda.

The reality is that as the alternative media has grown more prominent in recent years, the corporate-controlled mainstream media has lost tons of credibility.

Once credibility is gone, it is really hard to get it back.  In recent years it has become increasingly obvious that outlets such as the New York Times and CNN produce news that has been twisted and spun to fit a particular ideology and to promote a particular agenda.

And the American people are sick and tired of it.  

So the mainstream news outlets are going to continue to lose viewers and readers.

But that is a good thing.

Today the United States is facing environmental, social and economic problems that are absolutely unprecedented.  There is a crying need for the American people to pull together to work on these huge challenges, but instead of focusing on solutions to our problems, an increasing number of Americans are getting angrier and angrier and are looking for someone to blame.  Today we are increasingly becoming a divided nation.  Kindness and civility have been replaced with strife, discord, anger and hate.  Finding solutions to our problems has taken a back seat to making sure that "our team" wins and that the "other team" gets blamed for what is wrong.  But arguing with one another and hating one another is not going to solve the problems that America is facing. 

The following are 12 huge problems that Americans need to come together on and start facing before it is too late....

#1) The Great Pacific Garbage Patch - We are literally filling the Pacific Ocean up with our garbage.  In fact, there is one area of the Pacific that is so full of plastic and other garbage that it has become known as The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  This area of the Pacific Ocean is literally a "toxic soup" of plastic, trash and human waste that is about twice the size of the continental United States and that stretches from Hawaii to Japan.  The devastation that all of this garbage is causing to wildlife is unimaginable and we will likely never be able to completely clean up the mess that we have made so far, and yet our polluting of the oceans just keeps getting worse.  How will we ever be able to look future generations in the eye and tell them what we have done?

#2) Americans use more water than anyone else in the world and now the United States finds itself on the verge of a massive water crisis.  The number of states facing a water crisis is now far greater than the number of states without one.  In fact, a total of 36 states are projected to face severe water shortages in the next three years.

#3) Even the water that we do have is rapidly becoming highly polluted.  One stunning new study has found significant levels of both pharmaceutical drugs and illegal drugs in our water supplies despite "rigorous" efforts to remove them at water treatment facilities.

#4) By using nuclear waste (depleted uranium) to fight our wars, the United States military is causing one of the greatest environmental horrors in the history of the world.  In fact, not only have the air, water and soil in many areas of Iraq and Afghanistan been highly contaminated by depleted uranium, but also it has come out that depleted uranium munitions are slowly nuking our own troops.  Something must be done to address this environmental nightmare. 

#5) Unemployment in some areas of the United States has spiked to alarming levels.  In fact, the mayor of Detroit says that the real unemployment rate in his city is somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 to 50 percent.  If people are not put back to work soon, many cities in the U.S. could find themselves overwhelmed with homelessness and crime.

#6) The economic crisis is also causing a sharp rise in the number of Americans that are going hungry.  In fact, more than one out of every 10 Americans is now on food stamps and each month that number is increasing.

#7) Already, crime is at near epidemic levels in many areas of the United States.  Every year there are nearly 12 million crimes committed in the U.S. - that is by far the worst in the world.  But how many more people can the U.S. possibly put in prison?  There are already over 2.2 million people in prison in the United States, which is the most by far in the world.  In fact, the United States has just 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's incarcerated population.  Something needs to be done to find a sustainable solution to this massive problem.

#8) Law enforcement officials now estimate that approximately 600,000 Americans are trading dirty child pictures online.  In addition, there are now over 400,000 registered sex offenders in the United States.  How can a nation that is as great as ours produce so many people that are so dysfunctional?  Something must be done to fight this epidemic.

#9) Mortgage defaults have continued to hit record highs and housing prices have continued to fall.  Now, a gigantic "second wave" of adjustable rate mortgages is scheduled to reset beginning this year.  If the first wave of mortgage resets brought the U.S. housing market to a standstill, what will this second round do?

#10) A huge wave of Baby Boomers is on the verge of retirement and they are counting on collecting their pensions and drawing Social Security payments.  However, most pensions throughout the United States are now massively underfunded, and the Social Security system is a ticking timebomb.  In fact, many analysts are now forecasting that the Baby Boomers are going to bankrupt the entire Social Security system.

#11) This all comes at a time when the U.S. national debt is spiralling out of control.  The official debt of the U.S. government is now over 12 trillion dollars and it is rising at a rate of about 3.8 billion dollars per day.  So how much is a trillion dollars?  Well, if you spent one dollar every single second of every single day, it would take you over 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

#12) Lastly, one of the biggest problems is that an increasing number of Americans no longer treat their fellow citizens with civility and respect.  We are being taught that if we belong to one particular group or political party that we are to automatically view those from other groups or political parties as enemies.  Anger and hate is growing not only at the government but also at each other.  If we choose to hate each other instead of loving one another, then we will never be able to come together and solve all of the problems listed above. 

Let's make the right choice.

Let's decide that we are going to love one another.

It is already happening!  It is being reported that actor Shah Rukh Khan autographed printouts of his own body scanner image for airport workers at London's Heathrow airport.  This is yet more proof that images of our exposed bodies are not "immediately deleted" once we walk through the controversial new full body scanners that are being installed in airports all over the world.  So what will happen when people start smuggling images of celebrities out and start posting them all over the Internet?  How would you feel if someone took your body scanner image and started posting it all over the Internet?  This is a very big deal.  The truth is that this is the end of the world as far as airport privacy is concerned.

Fortunately for Khan, he was apparently not too offended.... 

"I was in London recently going through the airport and these new machines have come up, the body scans. You've got to see them. It makes you embarrassed - if you're not well endowed."

But not everyone is going to be comfortable with the idea of airport security printing out pictures of our exposed bodies.  The truth is that these new airport scanners produce "a ghostly naked image with curves and genitals eerily visible".

Eerily visible?

No thanks.

But it is bad enough for airport security officials to be able to get a passing glance at our exposed bodies.

It is another thing entirely for them to be able to print the images out and gawk at them for hours.

But according to Khan, airport security officials are printing these images out....

"Then I saw these girls - they had these printouts. I looked at them. I thought they were some forms you had to fill. I said 'give them to me' - and you could see everything inside. So I autographed them for them."

Is this what we have become?

Is this what we have to do to feel "safe" from terrorism?

What a sad day this is.

So what do you all think about this?

Are you ready for twisted airport officials to print out full body scans of you and your family and post them on the Internet?

Or should we all just get over it and be willing to laugh about it and autograph the images like the actor from India did?

It's a brave new world that we live in, and our humanity is slowly being stripped away from us.

Sometimes there are things in life that happen so suddenly that they take us completely by surprise.  But there are other things that happen so slowly over a period of so many years that you can see them happening from a mile away.  The collapse of the U.S. dollar falls into the second category.  For years, many observers have been warning that if we did not fundamentally alter our economic policies that the U.S. dollar would eventually collapse.  In fact, U.S. Representative Ron Paul has been warning about the demise of the dollar for decades.  We can all see it happening in slow motion, and yet the U.S. government still does not seem to have the will to do anything about it.

In fact, the financial crisis of 2008/2009 greatly accelerated the ultimate collapse of the U.S. dollar.  Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson says that the U.S. economy came "very close" to collapsing into a second Great Depression during that time, and he is actually correct.  If the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve had not stepped in with massive bailouts at that point, we would have had a financial apocalypse.

But while the bailouts helped stabilize the U.S. economy for the moment, they actually made our long-term problems much, much worse.

It turns out that instead of $700 billion, it was actually $23.7 trillion that the Federal Reserve gave banks access to during the financial crisis.  During the financial crisis, the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve flooded the U.S. financial system with dollars.

This helped the U.S. banking system weather the storm, but it also hastened the ultimate destruction of the dollar.

Why?

Because each time more dollars are introduced into the economy, the value of each existing dollar goes down.  Just check out the following chart from DollarDaze.org....

When the number of dollars goes up, the purchasing power goes down.  It is simple mathematics.

Every time the amount of money in circulation goes up, it destroys each dollar that you own by just a little bit more.

So did all of those bailouts put our economy back on the right track?

No.

In fact, those in charge of monitoring the TARP program are warning that it may have created an even bigger financial crisis to come.

The Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program recently released the Quarterly Report to Congress for the period ending 12/31/2009.  The executive summary of that report contains a frightening assessment of the impact of TARP.  You have got to read this....

The substantial costs of TARP — in money, moral hazard effects on the market, and Government credibility — will have been for naught if we do nothing to correct the fundamental problems in our financial system and end up in a similar or even greater crisis in two, or five, or ten years’ time. It is hard to see how any of the fundamental problems in the system have been addressed to date.

• To the extent that huge, interconnected, “too big to fail” institutions contributed to the crisis, those institutions are now even larger, in part because of the substantial subsidies provided by TARP and other bailout programs.

 

• To the extent that institutions were previously incentivized to take reckless risks through a “heads, I win; tails, the Government will bail me out” mentality, the market is more convinced than ever that the Government will step in as necessary to save systemically significant institutions. This perception was reinforced when TARP was extended until October 3, 2010, thus permitting Treasury to maintain a war chest of potential rescue funding at the same time that banks that have shown questionable ability to return to profitability (and in some cases are posting multi-billion-dollar losses) are exiting TARP programs.

• To the extent that large institutions’ risky behavior resulted from the desire to justify ever-greater bonuses — and indeed, the race appears to be on for TARP recipients to exit the program in order to avoid its pay restrictions — the current bonus season demonstrates that although there have been some improvements in the form that bonus compensation takes for some executives, there has been little fundamental change in the excessive compensation culture on Wall Street.

 

• To the extent that the crisis was fueled by a “bubble” in the housing market, the Federal Government’s concerted efforts to support home prices — as discussed more fully in Section 3 of this report — risk re-inflating that bubble in light of the Government’s effective takeover of the housing market through purchases and guarantees, either direct or implicit, of nearly all of the residential mortgage market.

Stated another way, even if TARP saved our financial system from driving off a cliff back in 2008, absent meaningful reform, we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car.

Wow.

Remember, this is an official government report.

For an official government report to say that "we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car" is absolutely stunning.

The truth is that the U.S. economy and the U.S. dollar are headed for big trouble.

The U.S. financial system will fail again, and more bailouts and more government cash will be needed.

So what will happen next time?

For the moment, though, life is good for companies that have been bailed out.  For example, AIG was scheduled to distribute about $100 million in bonuses to its employees on Wednesday.

Ouch.

It is time for the American people to wake up and realize what is happening to their economic system.  It is slowly dying, and in the short video below, Ron Paul actually warns that when the U.S. economy and the U.S. dollar do die, we may see a complete breakdown of law and order in society.....

Is debt going to be the means by which the global banking elite takes over Haiti?  While millions have been raised by various charities to help the people of Haiti, the truth is that Haiti is also getting millions and millions in new loans from the IMF, and these new loans are so massive that they threaten to imprison the population of Haiti literally for generations.  So how big are the loans?  Well, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last week agreed to 102 million dolars in new lending for Haiti to help provide emergency assistance and to help rebuild Haiti's shattered infrastructure.  But as always with the IMF, these new loans come with strings.

You see, whenever the IMF lends to the world's poorest countries, the loans always come with conditions attached.

So what could the IMF want in Haiti?

We'll get to that in a minute.

First let's examine how the mainstream media is suddenly reporting that the people of Haiti "want" the United States to "take over" Haiti and to "take care" of them.

In fact, MSNBC recently quoted some Haitians as saying that they literally want the United States to take over their country....

"I want the Americans to take over the country. The Haitian government can't do anything for us," said Jean-Louis Geffrard, a laborer who lives under a tarp in the crowded square. "When we tell the government we're hungry, the government says, 'We're hungry, too.' "

Here is another excerpt from the MSNBC article....

Added Canga Matthieu, a medical student whose school was destroyed: "The American government should take care of us."

"They're well organized. The United States is the richest country in the world, and they can help."

Certainly the U.S. should do whatever it can to help the people of Haiti.

But to say that the U.S. should "take over" Haiti is very dangerous indeed.

You see, when the U.S. sends troops somewhere, they have a really nasty habit of staying there.

Permanently.

Just check out the 47,000 troops that the U.S. still has stationed in Japan.

By my count, World War 2 ended in 1945.

That was 65 years ago.

So why do we still have 47,000 troops there?

Now that U.S. troops are pouring into Haiti, how soon do you think they will leave?

Especially considering how interested the U.S. and the IMF may be in getting their hands on the massive reserves of gold and oil in Haiti.

Yes, it is starting to come out that Haiti is actually brimming with gold, oil and other key natural resources, but because of the incredible violence and corruption in that nation (and due to other factors as well), those resources have never been exploited.

So will they now be exploited for the good of the Haitians, or will they be exploited for the benefit of the U.S. and the IMF?

That is a very good question.

But one thing to keep in mind is that the borrower always becomes the servant of the lender.

Now that Haiti has taken massive new loans from the IMF that they have no chance of repaying, how do you think this thing is going to play out?

The great tragedy of the 7.0 earthquake that essentially destroyed the nation of Haiti has many wondering if that nation can ever recover.  In fact, as you read this Haiti continues to be a disaster zone of unprecedented magnitude.  Lots of money has been raised by celebrities, but victims of the earthquake in Haiti are still absolutely desperate for food and water.  

But even as Haiti struggles to recover from the greatest disaster in that nation's history, information is coming to light that the key to a brighter future for the Haitians may have been lying under their feet all this time.  It turns out that there are massive reserves of gold and oil in Haiti.  These abundant natural resources could be used to rebuild Haiti and give those people an incredibly bright future - if someone else does not sweep in and steal those resources first. 

I'll have to admit when I first heard about oil in Haiti I was quite skeptical.

After all, why wouldn't we have heard about it by now if they had it?

Well, the reality is that there are vast untapped oil reserves in many areas of the globe, and Haiti's have not been developed due to the violence and political instability that have ravaged that nation for decades.  Not to mention the fact that Haiti does not possess the technical expertise to exploit those resources.

But apparently they do exist.

According to a report in the French newspaper Le Post, scientists Daniel and Ginette Mathurin say that  Haiti's oil reserves are larger than those of Venezuela.

In fact, Daniel Mathurin says that Haiti's oil reserves are so much larger that they are not even worth comparing....

"An Olympic pool compared to a glass of water that is the comparison to show the importance of oil Haitian compared to those of Venezuela."

That is an amazing statement considering the fact that Venezuela is one of the world's major oil producers.

But Daniel and Ginette Mathurin are not the only ones making these claims about oil in Haiti.

In a paper dated March 27, 2004, Dr. Georges Michel detailed the history of oil discoveries in Haiti and explained why they have not been exploited yet. 

According to Michel, the big oil companies know about the massive reserves of oil in Haiti but in the 50s and 60s there was almost too much oil to go around so they decided that those reserves were not needed at the time and that they would be kept in reserve until later....

[The attitude of these big multinational oil companies was] "We shall keep the Haitian deposits and other such layers of deposits in reserve for the 21st century when the Middle Eastern jackpot are depleted."

In fact, it was apparently known as far back as 1908 that Haiti has substantial reserves of oil.

But those poor people have been kept in abject poverty all this time when they could have been benefiting from all of this oil.

Not only that, but Haiti also apparently possesses a great deal of gold as well.

A United Nations study in the 70s indicated Haiti could be littered with gold and copper deposits.  However, the same political violence and recurring coups that have kept the oil in Haiti from being exploited have also kept the gold from being mined.

So how much gold does Haiti have?  Well, the former president of Dominican Petroleum Refinery recently said that Haiti has vast untapped reserves of gold and iridium (a little known and rare mineral that is vital for the construction of spacecraft) and that these resources should be used to pay off the Haitian foreign debt.

And he is not alone in his assessment.

Back in 2007 a geologist with 27 years of experience hunting for gold was asked what he thought the chances of discovering huge amounts of gold in Haiti were.  This is how he responded....

"I don't think there's a question of whether there's a good deposit here. It's a question of whether we can develop it here in Haiti."

In fact, analysts are predicting "a stampede into Haiti" if the existence of large gold deposits there can be confirmed.

So one of poorest nations in the world turns out to be just brimming with oil and gold....

Do you think that those resources will be used to rebuild Haiti and to give those people a truly bright future?

Don't count on it.

In fact, now that Haiti has essentially been destroyed, troops are pouring in and politicians are already talking about starting business ventures in the country.  To many in Washington, Haiti's natural resources are considered "strategic reserves" of the United States.

You see, for decades Haiti has been viewed by many as being essentially "owned" by the United States.  The U.S. government has done little to actually help the nation of Haiti get on the right path, but they maintain a huge presence there.  In fact,  the U.S. constructed its fifth largest embassy in the world in the nation of Haiti.

But perhaps that is just a coincidence.

The key will be to watch what happens to Haiti's natural resources as the rebuilding of that nation proceeds.

Will all of the gold and oil be used to help the people of Haiti, or will the gold and oil be exploited by ruthless foreigners?

The world will be watching.

As we have previously reported, the new full body security scanners going into airports across the United States can actually see through clothing and produce very clear and very detailed images of the exposed bodies of everyone who walks through them.  While many Americans are actually welcoming the new machines, the truth is that there are large number of protective fathers who are horrified at the thought of twisted airport security officials gawking at the exposed forms of their wives and children.  Today we thought that we would bring you the thoughts of three of our readers who deeply object to this extraordinary invasion of our privacy.... 

Brian:

Call me old-fashioned but the idea of multiple random strangers being able to see my wife and children as good as naked creates a severe sense of violation. When I consider the fact that already existing detection devices reinforced with additional K-9 units would not only be just as effective, less intrusive, and cost millions of dollars less to implement I have to wonder what practical reasons remain to push this new technology. It seems to me like the underwear bomber story is being used as just another excuse, in a long line of excuses, to once again relieve scared Americans of their freedom, privacy, and dignity.

Once upon a time there was a nation that was more afraid of losing their freedom than their lives; they were more scared of tyranny than terrorists; they did not hide behind their government every time calamity fell but united together as a people to overcome any establishment that dared to harm or oppress them. Whether or not this remains a fact or becomes a fairytale is up to us.

Jeremiah:

I’m certainly not okay with ANYBODY staring at my 9 year old niece’s naked body just because she wants to fly out with her parents to visit.

I’m also not okay with ANYBODY viewing my wife, mother, grandparents, children, friends, enemies, or YOU.

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” -Benjamin Franklin

Bob:

This country is filled with idiotic cowards.

Privacy issues aside, this scanner CANNOT detect the PETN explosive that the underwear bomber had.

I repeat, the PETN explosive CANNOT be detected by this machine.

I saw a poll saying about 80% of Americans are in favor of these scanners. Do Americans no longer have critical thinking skills? Are we all idiots? WTF

In order to require people to get a pat down or get seen naked required a Constitutional Amendment. The 4th Amendment is very clear, probably cause and a warrant are needed to search people. Airport procedures completely violate this Amendment.

Whether one wants or does not want these procedures, the fact remains that the Constitution has a process for changing Constitutionally protected rights. Pat downs and body scanners at airports require a Constitutional Amendment, not a normal Congressional bill along with a nod and a wink from the SCOTUS.

The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti a couple days ago is the biggest national disaster in the modern history of that nation.  Because most of Haiti's buildings were never designed to withstand an earthquake, the devastation has been multiplied.  The earthquake has transformed most hospitals, houses, schools, roads and grocery stores into piles of rubble.  At this point reports are coming in that virtually all vital infrastructure in Port au Prince appears to have been totally destroyed. 

One CNN reporter recently described the situation in Port au Prince this way....

"The vast majority of downtown Port-au-Prince is a mess of dead bodies, rebar and concrete."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is comparing the Haiti earthquake to the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 220,000 people five years ago.

So just how many are dead?

Nobody is going to have an official number for quite some time.  The truth is that there are so many bodies buried under the rubble that it could take weeks to dig them all out. 

Right now there is no place to put all the dead bodies that have already been recovered, so they are literally being piled in the streets.  Early estimates of 100,000 dead have now been dismissed as being far too low.  In fact, according to one report, up to half a million people are feared dead and another three million have been made homeless by the Haiti earthquake.

Half a million dead?

In a nation as small as Haiti, that would be a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.

The truth is that Haiti was already one of the poorest countries in the entire region.  Now that their capital has been essentially destroyed, the poverty and suffering for those who have survived is only going to multiply.

Fortunately it appears that the world is very eager to send aid to Haiti so hopefully the suffering can be minimized.

But the tragedy in Haiti is causing many to wonder what area will be hit next.

In particular, many of those who study earthquakes believe that California is way overdue for "The Big One".

Now, a flurry of recent earthquake activity all over the state of California is raising concerns that California could be next. 

A very large number of small earthquakes have been reported all over the state of California in the last 7 days.

So could we see a tragedy on the scale of what is happening in Haiti occur in the state of California someday?

Well, the truth is that we could see something far worse.

While a 7.0 would not do as much damage in most areas of California as it did in Haiti, the reality is that California is likely to see a much more powerful earthquake someday.

In fact, there are many who believe that we will see an earthquake that is so bad someday that it will cause a portion of California to actually slide into the ocean.

The belief that "The Big One" will one day hit California is so prevalent that even Time Magazine has done a major story about it.

So far the state of California has been relatively fortunate.  It has seen a couple substantial earthquakes over the past couple of decades, but the true "killer quake" has not struck yet.

When it does, it could make the situation in Haiti look like a Sunday picnic.

Americans have been used to having a seemingly endless supply of fresh, clean water for their entire lives.  For decades we have been able to waste it, pollute it and use as much as we wanted without ever thinking that we could run out of it.  But along the way something funny happened.  We did start to run out of it, and as of right now the United States is officially facing a very serious water crisis.

Today severe water shortages have become a way of life from Georgia to Texas to Nevada to California.  Reserves continue to dwindle as public officials scramble to try to find some solutions.

The truth is that Americans will not be able to continue to recklessly waste water the way that they always have in the past.

According to CBS News, the average American uses 150 gallons of water per day.  When compared to residents of the U.K. (40 gallons per day) and residents of China (22 gallons per day), the average American appears to be a huge water pig.

But those behaviors are going to have to change or America is simply going to run out of water....

*The number of states facing a water crisis is now far greater than the number of states without one.  In fact, a total of 36 states face severe water shortages in the next three years.

*A federal judge recently ruled that Georgia has few legal rights to Lake Lanier - the main water supply for Atlanta.  With 2 million more residents expected to move into Atlanta over the next couple of decades, officials there are scrambling to try to figure out how in the world everyone is going to be able to have enough water.

*In Texas, farmers and ranchers were absolutely devastated in 2009 as the ongoing drought cost the agricultural sector billions of dollars.

*Every single day Arizona and parts of New Mexico use 300 million gallons more water than they get in renewable supply.

*Lake Mead is the primary supply of water for the city of Las Vegas.  But since 1998, Lake Mead's capacity has plunged by more than 50 percent- down 5.6 trillion gallons.  Nobody is quite sure how Las Vegas is going to continue to have enough water.

*The water crisis became so serious in California this past year that Barack Obama actually requested that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger call state lawmakers into a special session just to deal with the situation.

*Other states are so concerned about the national water crisis that they are determined to hold on to the supplies that they have.  In fact, 8 states surrounding the Great Lakes have signed a pact banning the export of water to outsiders - even to other U.S. states.

The truth is that without enough water you cannot grow food.  Without enough water you cannot live a normal life.  Without enough water you cannot flush your toilet or take a shower or wash your clothes or make yourself a cup of coffee.

The United States does not have unlimited natural resources.  We are now bumping up against our limitations and we are bumping up against them hard.

If fundamental changes are not made quickly, the majority of states are simply going to run out of water.  When that happens, it will not be a pretty situation.

Urge your local officials to do what they can about the water crisis, but the truth is that all of us need to prepare individually as well.

It is imperative that we all make sure that we have a dependable source of clean, fresh water for our families.  As the U.S. economy continues to crumble and as water supplies get tighter there is going to be a scramble.  Don't let yourself end up in a situation where you are holding the short end of the stick.

The Christmas Day terror scare has reignited the debate over new airport security scanners that show security officers a very graphic image of the exposed bodies of every single passenger passing through a security checkpoint.  These new scanners reveal everything.  Yes, we know what you are thinking.  Everything means everything.  So far they have only been installed in a handful of airports.  Now advocates are clamoring for them saying that they are absolutely vital to national security.  In fact, they say that these new "next generation" scanners would have detected the explosives sewn into the underwear of a Nigerian man who tried to blow up his flight over Detroit on Christmas Day.  However, critics of the new technology are skeptical and say that other less intrusive methods would be just as effective and are warning that by allowing the government to look at our naked bodies we are losing our basic human dignity.

Right now the scanners are being utilized at a handful of U.S. airports, including Salt Lake City and Los Angeles International.  The Transportation Security Administration previously announced that it planned to install 150 of the scanning machines for primary security screenings at airports across the United States, but the program has been slowed down due to privacy concerns.

So why the concerns?

Well it turns out that these new scanners reveal extremely detailed graphic images of the exposed bodies of airline passengers.  These scanners even reveal intimate medical details such as colostomy bags and mastectomy scars.

Who wants an airport security screener to see that?

But former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff told the New York Daily News that it is time to quit worrying about privacy concerns and that the installation of the scanners is needed as soon as possible.

"Privacy advocates and the ACLU have slowed or stopped the deployment of the machines with a barrage of objections," Chertoff told the New York Daily News in an email. "The bad guys have figured out this vulnerability. Isn't it time we deployed these machines?"

Several airline passengers interviewed by the Daily News seem to agree with Chertoff....

"I don't mind [the scanner] because it would be in place for safety," said Samantha Day, 44, who flew into Kennedy Airport from London.

"It's no more invasive than someone touching every part of your body" during existing patdown security procedures, added Marni Blitz of Robbinsville, N.J.

But the truth is that many privacy advocates would like to see these new scanners banned.  They say that these new airport scanners are so incredibly accurate that that they produce better quality images of your exposed body than a high quality magazine photograph would.

So if you would feel uncomfortable posing for Playboy, then you would really feel uncomfortable with the level of detail you would be exposing to one of these machines.

The reality is that these new scanners produce the closest thing that you can get to viewing a person's exposed body without actually seeing their skin.

Security officials in Australia where they have already installed similar scanners confess that these machines DO very clearly show the exposed bodies of passengers.

For example, Cheryl Johnson, the general manager of the Office of Transport Security in Australia, had the following to say about the intrusive nature of these scanners: "It will show the private parts of people, but what we've decided is that we're not going to blur those out, because it severely limits the detection capabilities."

Up until now, the TSA has insisted that there would be measures in place to prevent security workers from gawking at the exposed bodies of passengers all day long, but the reality is that there are no laws or regulations that limit how the TSA uses these body scanners - only policies that the TSA "chooses" to adopt.  Any policy that they "choose to adopt" can be quickly discarded later.

And now after this latest episode with "the underwear bomber", there can be little doubt that homeland security officials will insist on seeing what is inside all of our underwear.

Isn't that wonderful?

So get ready for the new reality of airline travel in 2010 - where you have to let security officials look at your entire exposed body just to get on a flight.

If this is the "new America", it certainly does not seem as much fun as it was before.

And it certainly leaves us with a whole lot less dignity.

Radical Islam is on the march inside the United States.  At the same time that the U.S. government is spending billions trying to dig Islamic radicals out of basements and caves in Iraq and Afghanistan, radical Islam is making dramatic strides inside the United States and nobody seems to care much at all.  Not only has a brand new mosque been constructed just steps from Ground Zero in New York City, but now there are reports of Islamic child weddings in Nashville and of a network of militant Islamic training compounds across the United States that appear to operate with impunity.

New Mosque Just Steps From Ground Zero

A brand new mosque has been constructed just steps from where the World Trade Center towers fell on September 11th, 2001.  It resides in a five story building that is just two blocks north of the former World Trade Center site that used to hold a Burlington Coat Factory.  Now the plan is for the mosque to become a major Islamic cultural center. 

No matter how this is spun, the reality is that this building will be viewed by many as a symbol of the triumph of Islam out of the ashes of 9/11.  It is also a symbol of how powerful the Islamic movement has become in the United States.  30 years ago you could barely find any mosques at all in the U.S.  Today, Islam has become such a force that a prominent mosque stands just feet from where the World Trade Center towers used to stand.

Islamic Child Weddings In Nashville?

Pamela Geller over at Atlas Shrugs has posted some shocking audio-only videos that were given to her by a confidential source.  They reportedly reveal the content of conversations inside the Al-Farooq mosque in Nashville, Tennessee.  In the videos, a little girl is speaking, and in them she says that she is seven years old. She mentions Shelbyville, Tennessee (where the mosque is) and complains about how the teachers hit the children there.  In the final video that Geller features, the little girl refers to "my husband".

In her article, Geller also posted a portion of an interview with Dave Gaubatz, the Director of the Mapping Sharia Project and the owner of DG Counter-Terrorism Publishing.  Gaubatz has done an extensive investigation of the Al-Farooq mosque and is convinced that polygamy and child marriage is going on there....

FP: Do Islamic leaders distribute material in America encouraging Muslim men to violate U.S. laws in regards to ‘polygamy’ and to force children (6 -16 years old) to marry older men?

Gaubatz: Yes. Al Farooq has these materials and polygamy is being practiced.

But will anything be done about all of this?

Probably not.

Militant Islamic Training Camps All Over The United States

The truth is that there is an entire network of militant Islamic training camps all over the United States.  The U.S. government knows about them and yet allows them to operate with impunity.

The Christian Action Network has released a stunning video which shows militant members of the Muslims Of America participating in paramilitary training drills outside their compound in upstate New York, near the town of Hancock.  Watch the video posted below and take note of what your gut reaction is as you watch it....

So who are the Islamic militants that are training in this video?

They come from an organization known as the "Muslims of America", which is the name that Jamaat ul-Fuqra uses inside the United States. Jamaat ul-Fuqra is a militant Islamic organization based out of Pakistan. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned that Jamaat ul-Fuqra has "the capacity to attack" the United States. They are also believed to have been directly involved in the beheading of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl.

But they don't just have a training camp in New York.  They actually have a network of training camps that stretches from coast to coast.  Apparently they have much more freedom to train Islamic militants than organizations in Iraq or Afghanistan do.  So why is the U.S. government allowing this to take place?  After all, isn't this the kind of "suspicious activity" that we were all supposed to be concerned about?

British War Memorial Defaced

But it is not just in the United States where radical Islam is on the march.  A British war memorial was recently defaced with the following jihadist slogan: "Islam will dominate the world".

And Islam is dominating in many areas of the world.  Even in nations that have been "liberated", violence against Christians is so severe that their very survival is threatened.  For example, in the city of Mosul, Iraqi Christians say that Christians are being killed almost every day.

But radical Islam was supposed to have been defeated in that nation, right?

The truth is that radical Islam was not defeated in Iraq.

Rather, it is rapidly advancing in places such as the U.K.

Did you know that Sharia law has been instituted for Muslims in many areas of the U.K.?

The Times described the implementation of Sharia law in the U.K. this way....

The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

What do you think the odds are that Sharia courts will treat domestic violence cases the same way that other courts in the U.K. will?

Since when do western nations allow religious courts to openly operate within their borders?

The truth is that everywhere you look radical Islam is making advances.

As we discussed in a previous article, Christian persecution is dramatically rising all over the world.

What do you think is going to happen when militant Islam gains even more power around the globe?

It will be a total nightmare for Christians.

The truth is that radical Islamic militants will never surrender, they will never quit and they will never back off.  Radical Islam is growing stronger and it is on the march and it will not show any mercy to Christianity or to Christians.

Detroit has become ground zero for what is quickly becoming known as the American Nightmare. Hundreds of thousands of people in the Detroit metropolitan area are desperate for work, and there is no help in sight. The Detriot News is reporting that while the "official" unemployment rate in Detroit is 27 percent, the reality is that it should really be about 45 percent using a broader definition of unemployment.  And according to the Detroit News report, that 45 percent figure does not even include those who gave up searching for a job more than a year ago.  That would add about another 100,000 people to the unemployment figure in Detroit.

In other words, Detroit is a complete and total mess.

Even the mayor of Detroit acknowledges that the unemployment situation is a lot worse than official figures indicate.

At a jobs forum in Washington D.C. earlier this month, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing said that the unemployment rate in Detroit is actually "closer to 50 percent."

So what has happened in Detroit?

Detroit used to be the mecca of auto manufacturing.  But over the past couple decades factory after factory has been closed only to be reopened elsewhere in the world.

Now those jobs are gone forever.  For millions of people in Michigan, the American Dream has become the American Nightmare.

But what is going on in Detroit is just a microcosm of what is going on in the United States as a whole.

For decades everyone has stood by and watched as millions of jobs have been shipped off to China, India, Mexico and dozens of other nations.

Millions of Americans were all too glad to scoop up products made by slave laborers in places like China for a few pennies less than products made in America.

U.S. politicians were all too glad to sign one-sided trade agreements with other nations that closed the doors of other nations to American products while opening the doors of the United States to a flood of cheap imports.

Now the manufacturing base in the United States has been decimated and it is not coming back.

Millions of jobs have been lost forever.

Now blue collar workers all over the U.S. find themselves in direct competition with millions of workers in China and India and Mexico who are making only a small fraction of what they make.

How in the world can they compete?

The truth is that this is the end of the world for the blue collar worker of the United States.

There will be no recovery for factory workers.

In fact what we are seeing in Detroit will ultimately spread across the U.S.

The foolishness of decades of bad policies in Washington D.C. is now starting to hit home.

So pay close attention to what is happening in Detroit.

It will be hitting your hometown soon enough.

There is a widely quoted statistic that more Christians died for their faith in the 20th century than in the 19 centuries leading up to it.  But as bad as the 20th century was, the 21st century is starting to make that look like a Sunday picnic.  In every corner of the globe, Christians are being shot, burned, hanged, tortured and even stuffed into metal shipping containers.  Christian clergy are being marked for assassination around the world, hundreds of churches are being burned to the ground along with scores of homes and businesses owned by Christians.  Dozens of nations across the globe have now passed strict anti-conversion laws in an attempt to stifle the spread of Christianity.  In the countries where Christians are not yet facing physical persecution, they still must deal with open discrimination, lawsuits and increasing ridicule.  Christianity is now the most hated and most persecuted religion on the plant.  The reality is that the words that Jesus spoke in John 15:18 ring truer today than ever: "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first."

Keep those words in mind as you read the following shocking reports of Christian persecution from all over the world....

China

Chinese authorities have conducted a crackdown on "illegal" Christian churches in recent months that church leaders are calling the harshest in years.  Christians in China are required to worship in "churches" run by state-controlled organizations, and Christians who attempt to worship on their own are brutally persecuted.

Recently, hundreds of government police and hired thugs descended on a megachurch that served approximately 50,000 worshippers, smashing doors and windows, seizing Bibles and sending dozens of worshippers to hospitals with serious injuries.  The co-pastors of the church are in prison and police vehicles remain parked on virtually every corner of the neighborhood where the church is located.  Scenes such as this are regularly being repeated all over China as the Communist government seeks to eliminate all religion that is not government-sanctioned.

Eritrea

In a story that recently made headlines all over the world, thirty elderly women in Eritrea were arrested for simply praying together.  But the truth is that this is just the latest episode in an ongoing persecution of Christians that is beyond brutal.

The Pakistan Christian TV website recently described the horrifc persecution of Christians in Eritrea this way....

Today some 3,000 Eritrean Christians are imprisoned for their faith. Some are in underground and solitary cells whilst some are in 'secret' prisons for the 'disappeared'. However, most are herded into unventilated shipping containers in the desert where dysentery and infectious diseases go untreated. Torture is routine.

The truth is that these unventilated shipping containers are extremely uncomfortable.  The temperatures in these metal shipping containers can reach well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and in many instances Christians are not even let out of them to use the bathroom.

Assassinations Of Clergy

Increasingly, Christian clergy are being targeted for assassination all over the world.  The following are just a few of the recent examples....

*A Russian priest that had been highly critical of Islam has been assassinated inside his own church.

*Leftist guerrillas in Colombia brutally executed a Christian pastor just outside his own home.

*Two masked members of the al-Shabaab Muslim militia shot and killed a Christian pastor in Somalia as he drove home from a worship service.

India

Persecution of Christians in India is getting so bad that India actually made International Christian Concern's Hall of Shame.

According to the ICC, 2008 was particularly bad, with "wave after wave of highly coordinated Hindu raids" that resulted in "the worst outbreak of anti-Christian violence in its recent history."

The statistics that the ICC quotes regarding the outbreak of persecution in India are sobering....

"In all, more than 100 Christians are confirmed dead, 4,000 homes have burned down, and over 50,000 Christians have fled their homes."

The following is just one example of what is going on in India.  This story was originally posted by The Voice of the Martyrs....

----

On April 25, Pastor Mohan Babu and two other believers were severely beaten by 35 Hindu extremists for holding a Vacation Bible School (VBS) near Bangalore City, in Karnataka State. According to The Voice of the Martyrs contacts in India, the three-day VBS was organized by Ragigudda Baptist Church. VOM sources said, "Around 60 children from different backgrounds were attending the VBS. As they were worshiping, about 35 people belonging to a Hindu extremist group forcefully entered the hut chanting slogans and demolished the hut. The extremists mercilessly beat Mohan, Samuel and Krishna, alleging forceful conversion. The perpetrators chased the children without any courtesy and tore the Bibles. Mohan was severely injured on his lips and was profusely bleeding. The believers are living in fear and did not lodge complaint with the police."

----

Egypt

Hundreds of Muslim villagers in southern Egypt recently burned and looted scores of Christian-owned shops.  Christians in Egypt live in a constant state of fear and thousands are being forced to relocate.  In fact, the forced deportation of Egyptian Christians from their homes by the government in order to "protect" them is rapidly increasing.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia, of course, strictly forbids the conversion of any Muslim to Christianity.  The penalty for conversion is death.  Back in 2008, The daughter of a man who works for Saudi Arabia's religious police became a Christian after she joined an Internet chat group.  He responded by cutting out her tongue and burning her to death.

The United Kingdom and Europe

All across Europe, "anti-proselytising" laws are being passed.  Not only that, but other laws are being adopted that force Christians to deny their beliefs.  For example, the U.K. government is being forced by the European Commission to eliminate exemptions that allow churches to refuse to employ homosexual staff.

North Korea

North Korea is one of the most brutally repressive governments in the history of mankind.  Tonight more than 200,000 Christians will try to stay warm in horrific North Korean labor camps.

Christians there are considered little more than dogs as the following story from The Voice Of The Martyrs illustrates.....

----

The young brown-eyed girl looked up at her mother. What would she decide?

Earlier that morning, the young girl's mother, their pastor, and twenty-six others in her North Korean village of GokSan were bound and taken before a screaming crowd of Communists.

One of the guards ordered Pastor Kim and the other Christians, "Deny Christ, or you will die." The words chilled her. How could they ask her to deny Jesus? She knew in her heart he was real. They all quietly refused.

Then the Communist guard shouted directly at the adult Christians, "Deny Christ, or we will hang your children." The young girl looked up at her mother. She gripped her and knowing how much her mom loved her. her mother then leaned down. With confidence and peace she whispered, "Today, my love, I will see you in heaven."

All of the children were hanged.

The remaining believers were then brought out onto the pavement and forced to lie down in front of a huge steamroller. The Communists gave them one last chance. "Deny this Jesus or you will be crushed." The Christians had already given up their children; there was no turning back.

As the driver started the heavy piece of equipment, the singing from the villagers started softly. "More love, O Christ, to thee, more love to thee."

----

United States 

Even with everything that has happened, the United States still offers Christians more freedom than virtually anywhere else on earth.  But that is quickly changing as well.  Christians in the U.S. just do not have the same level of freedom that they used to experience. 

For example, school teachers in Florida say that they are being forced to hide in closets to pray after a controversial court ruling.  All expressions of Christian faith are being ruthlessly pushed out of the public sphere by very powerful interest groups.

Calls for government repression of Christianity in the United States have grown louder than ever before.  The Huffington Post even published a deeply disturbing article that calls evangelical Christianity the number one source of domestic terrorism in the United States and that calls on the Secret Service and the FBI to investigate and "infiltrate" pro-life and evangelical Christian groups.

Not only that, but many of the hottest best selling books in recent years have publicly mocked Christianity....

Just consider the titles of a few recent New York Times bestsellers.....

*"God is Not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything" by journalist Christopher Hitchens.

*"The End of Faith" by atheist author Sam Harris.

*"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins.

But this anti-Christian sentiment is just not held by a few elitists.  The reality is that it has spread to much of the general population.

For example, the following are the titles of just a few anti-Christian threads on one of the most popular political discussion forums on the Internet....

“Dirty, Filthy, Christians”: Treatise On The Most Dangerous Death Cult In Human History

How can we destroy Christians?

Christians should not participate in politics

Why Christians are so ******* lame...

Attention Heterosexuals! Repent! Jesus Can Finally Make You Gay!

Christian are sub-humans

The truth is that hatred for Christians and Christianity is rapidly increasing.

Jesus warned us that these days would come.

In Matthew 24:9, Jesus told us how the world will treat Christians in the end times....

"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me."

The times ahead of us are not referred to as "the Tribulation" for nothing.  It will be an absolute bloodbath for Christians.  The entire world system will be geared towards eliminating all traces of the true Christian faith.  Members of the same family will even betray one another to the authorities. 

The truth is that things are not going to get any easier for Christians from here on out.    Someday soon there will be no place to hide from Christian persecution.

When that day arrives, what will you do?

For more on the horrific persecution that Christians are experiencing all over the globe, check out the following video....