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."

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.

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.

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.

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.....

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.... 

Under a memorandum of joint understanding signed in July, deployed nuclear warheads for both the United States and Russia will be reduced to below 1,700 on each side within seven years of signing a new treaty.

The Start I Treaty expired on Friday, and in a joint statement, the presidents of the U.S. and Russia both expressed their desire to work out the final details on a new treaty as soon as possible: "We express our commitment, as a matter of principle, to continue to work together in the spirit of the Start treaty following its expiration, as well as our firm intention to ensure that a new treaty on strategic arms enter into force at the earliest possible date."

So what would reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal to less than 1,700 warheads mean?

It would mean that that U.S. nuclear arsenal would be less than 10 percent of what it was at the height of the Cold War.  Just check out the chart below....

This kind of radical reduction in the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal is a serious threat to national security.  The massive U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal has been one of the key factors in keeping America safe for the past 6 decades.  Now all of that is changing.  An arsenal of 1,700 warheads is far, far less of a deterrent than an arsenal of 20 or 30 thousand warheads is.

But Barack Obama seems absolutely determined to disarm America.  During one of the first major foreign policy speeches of his administration, Barack Obama openly called for a world free of nuclear weapons.

While most observers dismissed his comments as "wishful rhetoric" at the time, it turns out that Barack Obama was deadly serious.

At this moment, the U.S. nuclear arsenal consists of approximately 2,600 deployed nuclear warheads, with another 2,500 in reserve and 4,000 more that are scheduled to be dismantled.

But now the Obama administration is seeking a deal with the Russians that would reduce the nuclear arsenals of both the United States and Russia to less than 1,700 warheads.

However, there are reports that the Obama administartion views those cuts as only a first step towards even larger cuts.

You see, Obama is reportedly serious about pursuing an eventual goal of completely abolishing nuclear weapons altogether.

The Guardian recently quoted one anonymous European official as saying the following about Barack Obama's approach to nuclear disarmament....

"Obama is now driving this process. He is saying these are the president's weapons, and he wants to look again at the doctrine and their role."

Since when did the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal that has protected America for several generations become Barack Obama's weapons?

The reality is that the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal is the only thing that has been keeping the United States safe all this time.  During the Cold War, the Soviet Union had conventional military forces that were far larger than those the United States possessed.  Without the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal as a deterrent, it is almost a certainty that the Soviets would have invaded western Europe.

But hasn't that threat gone away?

No, it has not.

Russia is back in a big way.  They are nearly out of debt (while the U.S. is deeper than ever) and Russia is quickly modernizing and reorganizing its military.

In addition, China is now a superpower.  There is no getting around that.  China is more of a threat then ever before, and U.S. relations with both Russia and China are becoming increasingly strained.

In addition, Iran is racing towards becoming a nuclear power.  Once they do, they will not be satisfied with just a handful of nukes.  It just seems unimaginable that the U.S. and Iran could have similar numbers of nuclear weapons someday, but under Barack Obama it could happen.

Not only that, but leftist revolutions are sweeping South America.  The whole continent is turning hard to the radical left.  Most Americans simply do not realize the danger that represents.

But besides the massive cuts in nuclear arsenals that Barack Obama is seeking with the Russians, he also wants to disclose to them exactly where all U.S. nuclear weapons are so that the Russians can "verify" that the U.S. is keeping its end of the deal.

Do you know that what means?

It means that someday if the Russians want to hit the U.S. with a surprise first strike, they will know how many nukes the U.S. has and exactly where they are.

That makes a first strike SO much easier.

Once they take out our limited number of nukes they would be able to do with us pretty much what they please.

Please wake up conservatives.  The disarming of America is happening and you are asleep.

If Barack Obama is successful in his attempt to disarm America, it will set up a day of reckoning that will be incredibly painful.  The threat of nuclear war is very real, and anybody who does not think so is in complete denial.  It is time to wake up and to tell Congress that America must always have a strong nuclear deterrent.  If America disarms the results could be disastrous....

But what else should we expect from a nation that is the third fattest in the world?  The truth is that America has become a nation of gluttons who think that the good times will continue to roll.  But the cold reality is that all of us are about to face the end of the financial world as we know it.

The American consumer is tapped out.  The total number of bankruptcies filed in the third quarter in the United States surged 33%.  The seemingly endless ability of the American consumer to spend and spend powered the global economic engine for years, but now the party is over.

Why doesn't the American consumer have anything to spend?  Well, one factor is certainly that American consumers have gone so far into debt that there is just not much more room for more. 

But also, the truth is that the United States is experiencing a massive epidemic of unemployment.  In fact, CNBC is reporting that the real jobless rate in the United States is 17.5 percent.

That is nearly one out of every five workers.

They can't find work.  The work simply is not there.  For years and years U.S. corporations shipped jobs overseas while the U.S. government encouraged it.  Those jobs are not going to come back.  Those who still do have jobs are finding their incomes increasingly stretched as their dollars buy less than they did before.

Some U.S. citizens are now so desperate for work that they are heading over to street corners and home improvement store parking lots to find day-labor work usually done by illegal immigrants.

If you do not understand just how explosive the growth in unemployment has been over the past two years, we would encourage you to view this startling animated map which shows the stunning growth of unemployment in the United States.

So will things pick up soon?

Well, the FDIC is reporting the biggest drop in business loans on record.  That is really bad news for job seekers.  You see, most companies in the U.S. are extremely dependent on debt to fund their operations.  It will be extremely difficult for the vast majority of U.S. businesses to expand their businesses and hire more workers if they can't borrow money.

Meanwhile, mortgage lenders are also decreasing the flow of credit.  Fannie Mae has announced plans to raise minimum credit score requirements and limit the amount of overall debt that borrowers can carry relative to their incomes.

Do you understand what that means?

That means that less people will qualify for home loans.

That means less buyers for residential real estate.

If there are less buyers for homes that means that housing prices will go down.

In fact, they could go down a lot.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index has risen 5% from the April low, but the index is still predicting a massive 45% fall in home prices from today’s values.

A 45 percent decrease.

How will you feel if the value of your home goes down 45 percent?

Already, almost one out of every four U.S. homeowners owe more on their mortgages than the properties are worth.

Are you starting to get the picture?

So who is going to come to the rescue?

The U.S. government?

Well, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is openly saying that Americans will be willing to "absorb" higher deficits in exchange for more jobs.

Indeed, as we speak Congress is reportedly scrambling to write "Economic Jobs Stimulus 3.0".

Just what we need, eh?

Another stimulus bill?

After all, since the U.S. government has already put our children and grandchildren trillions of dollars into debt, what are a few trillion more?

How much money can the U.S. government possibly spend anyway?

Well, the U.S. federal government spent 3.5 trillion dollars during Barack Obama's first year in the White House. That far exceeds the spending for any other first-year president.

So is this money being spent wisely?

Of course not.

For example, the Pentagon has just awarded a $5,760,000 contract for men's undershirts.

Also, the U.S. government is reportedly spending 2.6 million U.S. tax dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job.

This is our money that is being spent.

The truth is that the debt of the U.S. government is spiraling out of control as the following chart reveals.....

All of this debt and borrowing is going to destroy the value of the American dollar.  By pumping billions upon billions of new dollars into the U.S. economy, the value of all existing dollars will be devastated.

The next chart shows the growth of the U.S. money supply.  In particular, pay attention to the very end of the chart where it shows how the growth of our money supply is absolutely exploding in 2009.....

So what will all of this money do?  It will destroy the value of all current dollars.   Inflation is going to go absolutely wild.  In fact, gold prices hit record highs above $1,190 an ounce last week as the dollar sharply declined.

But that is just the beginning.

What we are facing is the end of the world as we know it as far as the U.S. financial system is concerned.

The good days are over.

A financial apocalypse of unprecedented magnitude is on the way, but most Americans remain blissfully ignorant of this reality.  They will be caught totally unprepared by what is coming.

Don't let that happen to you.

Who is that expert?

His name is Yi Guan, one of the top virologists at Hong Kong University.  Back in 2003 he helped isolate the SARS virus.  In a stunning interview with Science Insider, Yi Guan described exactly what he would do if such a recombination takes place.... 

Q: Is it surprising how quickly H1N1 adapted?

Y.G.: All viruses, after interspecies transmission, will evolve fast. But why this H1N1 could become successful at efficient human-to-human transmission is still unknown. We have a knowledge gap about how influenza A viruses build up their pandemicity in humans. As swine H1N1 has being circulating in pigs since 1918, it has accumulated [many] differences from human H1N1 virus. So, for human beings, it looks like a novel subtype, as most human individuals lack immunity to this swine-like H1N1. This is one of the most important conditions for pandemic emergence. Whether the novel virus will develop into a more virulent strain—just like the Spanish flu did in the fall of 1918 to kill more people—we still don't have any idea.

Q: It depends on further mutations?

Y.G.: It depends on mutations and whether the virus further reassorts with other viruses—like H5N1. That could be a super nightmare for the whole world.

Q: You’re talking about the Armageddon virus?

Y.G.: The chance is very, very low that these two viruses will mix together, but we cannot rule out the possibility. Now, H5N1 is in more than 60 countries. It’s a panzootic, present everywhere except North America.

Q: If the nightmare comes true?

Y.G.: If that happens, I will retire immediately and lock myself in the P3 lab. H5N1 kills half the people it infects. Even if you inject yourself with a vaccine, it may be too late. Maybe in just a couple hours it takes your life.

Not only that, but Zhong Nanshan, the director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases in China's southern Guangdong province stated during an interview with Reuters television that China is a likely location for such a reassortment to take place....

"China, as you know, is different from other countries. Inside China, H5N1 has been existing for some time, so if there is really a reassortment between H1N1 and H5N1, it will be a disaster."

So just what is a reassortment?  Well, it is what occurs when the genes from two or more different types of flu mix in a host animal and form a completely new strain of the flu that is unfamiliar to humans.

Up until now the H5N1 bird flu has proven to be incredibly deadly but it has been very difficult for humans to catch.  However, the concern is that a reassortment could produce a flu virus that is as deadly to humans as H5N1 but that is as easy to spread as H1N1.

If that happens, tens of millions could die.

The only safe thing to do would be to lock yourself in your home.

So why has the World Health Organization published a press release about this?

Why now?

There are even very powerful international organizations that do nothing but sit around and think of ways to attack the "overpopulation" problem.

For example, the Optimum Population Trust bills itself as "the leading think tank in the UK concerned with the impact of population growth on the environment". Some really big names are involved in the Optimum Population Trust including Sir David Attenborough, Stanford Professor Paul Ehrlich and Dr. Jane Goodall. One of the stated goals of the organization is to "advance the education of the public in issues relating to human population worldwide and its impact on environmental sustainability".

In a recent press release, the Optimum Population Trust clearly linked the issue of overpopulation to the fight against climate change and the upcoming Cophenhagen treaty. In their statement, the OPT strongly urged nations across the globe to enact policies to "stabilize" population growth and to fund "family planning" programs in poorer countries.....

"The Optimum Population Trust says today (August 17, 2009) that the climate change talks which will culminate at Copenhagen in December must ensure that all countries adopt non-coercive policies to limit and stabilise population growth. Family planning programmes in poorer countries should be treated as “legitimate candidates for climate change funding."

Their site even includes a "Stop At Two" pledge in which they ask visitors to their site to take "another green step towards environmental survival for all" by making the following pledge:

I'm going to try not to have more than two children!

But unfortunately the Optimum Population Trust is far from alone on this issue.

At a recent roundtable discussion on "climate change" in India, Hillary Clinton noted that "one of the participants pointed out that it’s rather odd to talk about climate change and what we must do to stop and prevent the ill effects without talking about population and family planning."

"That was an incredibly important point," Clinton went on to add. "And yet, we talk about these things in very separate and often unconnected ways."

In fact, key Clinton adviser Nina Fedoroff was even more blunt when she recently told the BBC One Planet program the following:

"We need to continue to decrease the growth rate of the global population; the planet can't support many more people."

While it may be easy to dismiss the ramblings of Hillary Clinton and her advisers, the reality is that even the United Nations appears to be totally committed to reducing the population of the earth.

One incredibly disturbing example of this population reduction agenda is the recently discovered U.N. Population Division policy brief from March 2009.  This shocking document openly asks how fertility decline in the least developed countries can be accelerated.

The March 2009 U.N. Population Division policy brief can be found right here (it is a PDF document so you will need a PDF viewer to view it):

http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/UNPD_policybriefs/UNPD_policy_brief1.pdf

When you first open up the policy brief, you are greeted by this cheery headline:

What would it take to accelerate fertility decline in the least developed countries?

The report goes on to discuss how big a problem overpopulation is (especially in "poor" countries) and what can be done to make sure that fewer babies are born in the "least developed" nations.

So why do the global elite have such an obsession with population control?

Well, the truth is that many of them actually believe that overpopulation is going to destroy the environment and bring about the end of the world as we know it.

For example, in a recent interview for his new book, "Will Population + Technology = Armageddon?", Syracuse University professor Henry Mullins offers a chilling forecast for the future of the world if the population is not reduced.....

When a system gets knocked out of equilibrium, feedback within it brings it back, or the system collapses.

I have three story lines. We exceed the carrying capacity, the earth system adjusts, and we have an equilibrium number of people at our carrying capacity. Everything’s fine.

Another possibility is the catastrophe — nuclear winter, or pandemics, or runaway greenhouse effect, whatever. It causes a drastic reduction in our numbers. We go back to pre-industrial times, when we only had a few billion people on the planet.

Worst-case scenario is extinction. Most species before us — about 99.9 percent — are now extinct. We’ve only been here a short period of geologic time.

While most people simply cannot understand why the global elite are so incredibly obsessed with population issues, the inescapable reality is that they are. 

But now this obsession with population is spreading - particularly through colleges and universities.  You see, professors such as Henry Mullins get to spend all day shaping impressionable young minds in the classroom.  Inevitably, at least a few of them are going to become convinced of the need to reduce the population.

In particular, those who consider themselves to be "environmentalists" seem to be very willing to embrace the philosophy that humanity is a disease which is spreading too quickly.

For instance, there is actually a website entitled "One Less Child" that openly seeks to promote the idea that couples should have less children. Their mission statement says the following about the need to control the population.....

To have couples consider population reduction through less offspring. Having less offspring actually increases the quality of life of your current offspring, which is what every couple wants.

Not only that, but in a position paper published in November 2007, the Sierra Club made this stunning statement: "Given the grave implications of population growth, the Sierra Club urges greater effort to explain how population pressure is affecting the environment and stronger support for the programs – family planning, health care, and education and opportunity for women – that most effectively encourages smaller families."

This bizarre population control agenda is even represented in the White House. Barack Obama's "science czar", John P. Holdren, once co-authored a textbook entitled "Ecoscience" in which he advocated population control measures that are so extreme that it is hard to believe that a sane man came up with them.  The following are actual quotes from Holdren's textbook.....

Pages 787 and 788.....

“Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would haveto meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.”

Pages 786 and 787.....

“A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men.

The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.”

Page 838.....

“In today’s world, however, the number of children in a family is a matter of profound public concern. The law regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time. Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?”

Remember, Holdren is Barack Obama's top science advisor.

In addition, some of the wealthiest men and women in the world are also absolutely obsessed with overpopulation.  Back on May 5th, Bill Gates, David Rockefeller, Warren Buffett, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Ted Turner, Oprah Winfrey and several other of the wealthiest people in the world gathered for a clandestine meeting in Manhattan.  The meeting was supposed to be so absolutely secret that many of the billionaires’ aides were only told that they were at "security briefings".

So just what was the meeting about?

Fortunately some details from the meeting have emerged.

According to one major U.K. newspaper, one individual who attended this meeting confessed that "a consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat."

Once again we see another example of the absolute obsession that the global elite has with overpopulation.

The article quotes one attendee of the meeting as saying the following about the overpopulation problem.....

"This is something so nightmarish that everyone in this group agreed it needs big-brain answers."

Apparently they do not intend to include the rest of us as they come up with their "big-brain answers".

The truth is that most in the global elite consider overpopulation to be the number one problem in the world.  They are absolutely committed to trying to "solve" this "problem" in this generation.

So what will their "solutions" look like?

Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, the spreading obsession with population control is even reflected in comments by visitors to this site.  In our recent article about the coming global famine, two visitors made the following comments.....

Timothy J. Frohlick:

It means that we must reduce the human population by humane methods without recourse to war or starvation. On the other hand, if humanity stubbornly persists in overbreeding then we will probably lose one to three billion people in the next ten years.

Perhaps a mumps virus that induces sterility in all affected males would do the trick. It would certainly be better than being fried in wars or dying of nutrient deficiencies such as Kwashiokor or pellagra.

Fred:

The problem isn’t children about to be born, it is feeding the humans currently sucking air on the big blue marble. We are already overpopulated.

People actually believe this stuff.  But the truth is that there are vast tracts of land all over the world that are barely populated.  There is much more land that could be used for farming and for food production.  There would be more than enough food and resources for everyone - if the global elite were not so incredibly, incredibly greedy.

You see, the top 20 percent of the world's people who live in the highest income countries have access to 86 percent of world gross domestic product. The bottom fifth, in the poorest countries, have about one percent.

In addition, the assets of the world's three richest men exceed the combined gross domestic products of the world's 48 poorest countries.

The problem is not overpopulation.  The world could easily accommodate billions more.  The problem is greed.  The vast majority of the world's wealth is concentrated in the hands of a very few.  Now that they have accumulated so much of the wealth, they have decided that they do not need nearly as many slaves serving the system that they have created.

So in the name of fighting "climate change", these elitists plan to implement measures to address the "overpopulation problem" that they are determined to solve.  As these elitists pursue their sick obsession with population, it will have serious implications for every man, woman and child on earth.  May God have mercy on us all.

These are the latest official numbers out of Ukraine: 1,347,538 have reported catching the illness, 73,373 have been hospitalized and 282 are dead.  However, there are unconfirmed reports that the number of dead is significantly higher than that.  Meanwhile, the World Health Organization is being extremely evasive about the situation in Ukraine.  Many observers are baffled as to why the WHO is continuing to refuse to release the sequences from the samples taken from patients in Ukraine well over a week ago.

At the same time, there has been a substantial spike in flu cases in other nearby European nations such as Russia, Belarus, Serbia and Bulgaria. Also, a very serious increase in flu cases is being reported in Norway, India and Canada.  The most frightening thing is that in many of those nations there are reports that the flu is disintegrating the lungs of patients just like it is doing in Ukraine.

So just what in the world is happening in Ukraine?

Well, some Ukrainian health officials are convinced that parainfluenza is involved.

Ukrainian Professor Viktor Bachinsky recently expressed his opinion on this matter this way.....

"The virus, which causes death, is very aggressive, it does not strike the trachea, but immediately gets into the lungs and causes heavy swelling and solid hemorrhage. Mixed types of parainfluenza and influenza A/N1N1 lead to this state. This is a very toxic strain, which has not yet answered to the treatment of the Ministry of Health."

Wikipedia's description of parainfluenza certainly does sound quite a bit like what is going on in Ukraine..... 

The incubation period of all four serotypes is 1 to 7 days. In immunosuppressed people, such as transplant patients, parainfluenza virus infections can cause severe pneumonia, which is often fatal.

So is a combination of parainfluenza and H1N1 swine flu causing this outbreak in Ukraine?  Or could it be something even worse?

Could 1918 Spanish flu be involved?

Recombinomics recently posted a translation of an official announcement by the Ukraine Ministry of Health that graphically described exactly what is happening to the victims of this flu in Ukraine.  Pay particular attention to how their lungs are being absolutely destroyed by this flu virus.....

The symptoms are observed at different stages of disease - a fever with a temperature over 38 C, cough, respiratory disorders. When cough was characterized by negligible allocation phlegm or dry unproductive cough with blotches of blood. All the patients come to hospital on average by 3-7 days of onset, were in serious condition. Period of time from onset to death averaged from 4 to 7 days. In all patients during a hospital for signs of respiratory insufficiency of various degrees, which quickly rose and manifested accelerated respiration rate, shortness of breath and effectiveness of independent breathing. X-ray studies were performed on 1-2 day hospitalization. Most patients experienced a double-headed particles of lower lung lesion, followed by a trend towards total destruction.

This sounds chillingly similar to how people died from the 1918 Spanish flu.  That flu pandemic claimed the lives of between 50 and 100 million people across the globe.  When you read the following description of the 1918 Spanish flu from Wikipedia, ask yourself if it does not sound incredibly similar to what they are experiencing over in Ukraine right now.....

"One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, and intestine. Bleeding from the ears and petechial hemorrhages in the skin also occurred."

In addition, check out how Wikipedia describes the horrific deaths that were caused by the 1918 Spanish flu.....

The majority of deaths were from bacterial pneumonia, a secondary infection caused by influenza, but the virus also killed people directly, causing massive hemorrhages and edema in the lung.

Meanwhile, the WHO continues to insist that the mystery plague in Ukraine is simply the regular H1N1 swine flu that is found everywhere else in the world and that there is not much to worry about.  But if there is nothing to worry about, then why will they not release the sequences from the samples taken from patients in Ukraine?

But now there are fears that this is not just Ukraine's problem any longer.  Disturbing new reports about the flu are coming in from all over the globe.....

-35 patients with "swine flu-like symptoms" have died in the last 45 days at just one hospital in India, and not a single one of them tested positive for the H1N1 swine flu.

-The "flu" is spreading at an incredible pace in northern and central Europe.  It is being reported that almost 17 percent of the entire population of Norway has now contracted the flu.

-A sudden spike in H1N1 deaths over the past week in Canada is raising concerns that something has changed.  Most notably, there has just been a massive surge of swine flu deaths in Ontario, Canada.  In fact, over the past few days 24 residents of Ontario died from the "flu" in just a 72 hour period.

-Russian Chief Public Health Official Gennady Onishchenko recently announced to the public that most areas of Russia are on the verge of a major flu epidemic.

-It is also being reported that there are nearly a quarter of a million people seriously ill with the flu in Belarus, and there are rumors that patients there are dying the same kind of brutal deaths that we are seeing in Ukraine.

-Serbia's health ministry has now officially proclaimed an H1N1 swine flu epidemic in that country, as flu panic causes a surge of garlic sales at Belgrade's produce markets.

-Also, a national swine flu pandemic has been declared by the Health Ministry in Bulgaria. Symptoms of the "flu" there include temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius, severe pain in the bones and muscles, coughing, and the quick development of pneumonia.

While world health authorities continue to be evasive on the cause of the mystery Ukraine plague, one major U.K. news source is calling the Ukraine flu a "plague worse than swine flu".

That same U.K. news source quotes a spokesman for the World Health Organisation as saying this: "We do not have a time scale for the results of the tests in London, although some preliminary results have been obtained. I cannot tell you what they are".

He cannot tell us what the results are?

People are dropping dead and he "cannot" tell us what the results are.

Something does not smell right, that is for sure.

Meanwhile, one doctor in Western Ukraine was quoted as saying the following about the mystery plague: "We have carried out post mortems on two victims and found their lungs are as black as charcoal.  They look like they have been burned. It’s terrifying."

Lungs as black as charcoal?

Lungs that look like they have been burned?

Only a really serious virus can do that.

Perhaps the WHO does not want to "panic the public", but the truth is that we deserve some answers.

Something is viciously attacking the lungs of people in Ukraine and turning them them "as black as charcoal".  When a doctor is willing to say that the situation there is "terrifying", we all need to sit up and take notice.

Up to this point, the WHO has been unbelievably negligent for not disclosing what they have discovered about the mystery plague in Ukraine, and the western media has been incredibly negligent for mostly ignoring this story.  Let us just hope that this is not the beginning of a real worldwide pandemic.

Devastating droughts in India, China, Argentina, Australia, Texas and California are crippling harvests across the globe, and the prospect of an unprecedented food crisis is very real.  The truth is that the world food supply was just barely able to feed the world during good harvest years.  Now that the world has been hit by a serious of unprecedented droughts, it is becoming clearer by the day that there is simply not going to be enough food for everyone in 2010.

As technologically advanced as mankind is, the reality is that without rain crops fail.  If crops fail on a large scale, there will not be enough food for everyone to eat.  Things are getting really bad out there.....

-Droughts across southern China have absolutely devastated crops and brought water levels in reservoirs and rivers to a historic low.

-India has announced that it has suffered its worst drought in 37 years, absolutely devastating the 65 percent of India's farms that are unirrigated.

-The persistent drought affecting approximately 90 percent of Argentina has slain cattle in the hundreds of thousands and caused massive forest fires.

-The drought in Australia has gotten so extreme that it is being called the new "dust bowl".  A recent dust storm in Sydney was so severe that it actually turned the sky red and made headlines around the globe.

-In Texas, farmers and ranchers have been desperately hoping for more rain as the ongoing drought has cost the agricultural sector billions of dollars.

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

-Saudi Arabia had been producing enough wheat to be totally self-sufficient for over two decades, but back in 2008 they realized that the non-replenishable aquifer they had been pumping for irrigation purposes was nearly depleted.  So at that point Saudi Arabian made the decision to reduce their wheat harvest by one-eighth every year moving forward.  Wheat production in Saudi Arabia is scheduled to cease entirely in 2016.  After 2016 Saudi Arabia plans to import 100 percent of the wheat for their entire nation.  But what if the rest of the world does not have any wheat to spare?

As if all of this was not bad enough, now incredibly virulent crop diseases are exploding all over the world.  For example, a very serious disease known as "late blight" is absolutely devastating tomato and potato plants in the eastern half of the United States. 

In addition, Scientists fear that the Ug99 wheat rust, a horrifying wheat fungus also known as stem rust, could wipe out over 80 percent of the world's wheat crop as it spreads out from the African continent.

A disease that couple wipe out 80 percent of the world's wheat crop?

Why haven't we heard more about this in the news?

Instead the news is filled with fluff about "Jon and Kate", Michael Jackson and David Letterman.

While the world is obsessed with celebrities and politicians, the real problems are not being addressed and we could literally be facing an unprecedented global famine and the end of the world as we know it.

The truth is that the world is running out of food.  In decades past the U.S. kept huge amounts of food in reserve, but at this moment the U.S. only has enough wheat in storage to give each person in the United States a half a loaf of bread.

How long do you think you can last on a half a loaf of bread?

Hard times are coming.

It is time to get ready.

The truth is that the financial collapse of 2008 shook a whole lot of people up.  For decades we have enjoyed probably the most prosperous time in human history (at least for the western nations), but now the very foundations of the world economic system are coming apart.  World leaders are openly speaking of the need for a one world currency, a one world economic system and a one world government.  While the rich continue to get richer, the middle class is being destroyed and the poor are losing both their jobs and their homes.  People are hurting.

At the same time flu pandemics and other serious disease outbreaks are beginning to sweep the globe.  There are whispers that we are about to see tens of millions of people die around the world in a devastating global plague.  Certainly the Scriptures speak of great plagues during the last days.  Are we approaching those times?

Meanwhile, the world stands on the verge of a massive food crisis.  Crippling droughts across the globe coupled with horrible harvests are threatening to plunge the world into the type of food panic never seen in modern times.  Already some nations teeter on the edge of societal collapse as people trust each other less than ever and as they trust governments around the world less than ever.  Can society function without trust?

In the midst of all of this, there is the ever present threat of natural disasters.  Will the year 2012 see an explosion of natural disasters as some believe?  Are we about to see a pole shift?  Could we see earthquakes that will change the geography of whole continents?  Could sudden climate change alter coastlines and change life on earth permanently?

Already worldwide tensions seem at an almost all-time high.  Is war on the horizon?  Certainly the Middle East could explode at any moment.  Rumors of war with Iran seem ever present.  The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq never seem to end.  The Korean peninsula is always a powder keg.  Meanwhile, relations between the United States and Russia are in a serious state of decline.  Could an alliance of Russia and China one day attack the United States? 

Of course we have not even mentioned the ever present threat of terrorism.  Up until now, we have never seen a large scale attack that used chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.  How would the world change if that happens?  Is it not inevitable that someday terrorists will get their hands on such weapons?

The truth is that the world can change in a moment.  We live in what is perhaps the most interesting time in all of human history,  and the reality is that things are about to get a whole lot more interesting. 

Buckle up my friends - it is going to be a bumpy ride.