The End of the World in 2012?

Over 200 predictions and counting!
Yes the end is coming, but all human predictions are wrong!

Mathew 24:35-36 “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” Jesus Christ.

Finally something Christ said that makes sense. Only God knows when the end of the world will happen. Perhaps there will be no end.

Nostradamus is said to have had the most success in forecasting future events. The problem is that the observations of his accuracy are made after the events happen. That is said to be the result of his complicated style of writing that was done to keep his ideas a secret from the Catholic church. His forecast of the end is the year 3797. That means the end will not be 2012 as the Mayans predicted. After writing this piece I have learned there is a movie “2012” being promoted at a really fun web site titled “who will survive 2012.” It offers great computer graphics and sound.

—

October 17, 2009 Update: The Los Angeles Times has an article saying that scientists are trying to calm the ‘2012’ hysteria. What hysteria? The article itself is a great advertising piece for the movie.

—

We all thought everything would stop when the calendar turned to the year 2000. Remember? So many people said nothing would function because computers were programmed with only two digits for the year. Either all the systems were fixed or we were very lucky or the computers were smarter than we thought.

Perhaps none of this is real. Perhaps “I think therefore I am” is just a line in a script? My theory is we are just too small and too inconsequential in this universe. It’s a great disappointment to those who thought the Earth is the center of the universe.

The Constitution and the Cross

A New York Times editorial worth re-printing

Published: October 6, 2009

When the Supreme Court takes up a religion case, it often prompts overheated charges: There is a war against Christianity under way; or civil liberties groups are trying to turn this into a secular nation. The court is scheduled to hear arguments on Wednesday in a case that raises none of these issues — even though Americans may well be treated to another round of scare stories.

The narrow question is whether a large cross that has been placed on federal land violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment, the founders’ direction that there must be a wall of separation between church and state. The court should rule that it does.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars erected a cross in 1934 in San Bernardino County, Calif. — in what is now the Mojave National Preserve — to honor America’s war dead. Since then, the cross has been replaced several times, most recently around 1998. Its religious significance is clear, but the National Park Service has not allowed other religions to add symbols. In 1999, the park service denied a request by an individual to place a Buddhist memorial in the area. The cross has also been the site of Easter sunrise services for more than 70 years.

Frank Buono, a former assistant superintendent of the preserve who said that he still visits regularly, sued to challenge the display’s constitutionality.

The case comes to the Supreme Court in an unusual form. When a Federal District Court ruled that the cross violated the establishment clause, Congress transferred the property under it to a veterans’ group in exchange for other property. In a second round of litigation, a Federal District Court ruled that the land transfer continued the constitutional violation. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, affirmed.

The Supreme Court will first consider whether Mr. Buono has standing to challenge the cross. The cross’s supporters argue that he has not really been injured and, therefore, should not be able to sue. But as someone who was in contact with the cross and was offended by its presence, he was injured. More precisely, though, in this case, Mr. Buono has won a court injunction against the cross, and Congress’s land transfer interferes with his injunction. He has a right to challenge the transfer.

On the merits, the appeals court was right that the cross must come down. By allowing a Christian cross, and not symbols of other faiths, on federal land, the government was favoring one religion over others. Also, Congress has designated the cross as a national memorial, which means that it continues to have official government endorsement.

The land transfer was mere window-dressing. Bypassing normal procedures for disposing of government land, Congress gave the land to an entity it understood would keep up the cross, and it provided that the land would be returned if it was not used as a memorial.

Religious symbolism of this kind on government land is, by its very nature, exclusionary. Allowing only a cross to stand over the memorial sends a message to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and others that their sacrifices, and their family members’ sacrifices, are not appreciated or mourned.

It also sends a message that state and church are intertwined. A single cross does not, by itself, mean America has an established religion, but if the Supreme Court stops caring that the government is promoting a particular religion, we will be down the path toward having one.

The High Cost of American Health Care

I took a book out of the library on mutual fund investing titled “100 Best Mutual Funds.” Just inside the first few pages was the author’s argument for making investments in equities (another word for stocks) rather than bonds or CDs. The contention is that stocks are responsive to inflation thus are the better investment. To indicate the significance of inflation the author provided these startling facts on the costs of things we all want or need.

	Year	Amount
First-class stamp	1934	3 cents
	1980	15 cents
	2002	34 cents
	Increase	1,133%

A new car	1934	$1,436
	1980	$6,200
	2002	$19,175
	Increase	1,335%

A day in the hospital	1934	$12
	1980	$344
	2002	$2,854
	Increase	23,783%

Sources: U.S. Postal service, U.S. Census Bureau, and the Wall Street Journal, April 2002

I was astonished to see that the cost of hospitalization had inflated at a rate of 17 times faster than the cost of cars. There is no doubt that health care has become an extraordinary burden on our country. The question is how do we bring this ballooning expense under control?

The Los Angeles Times article about a woman’s need for surgery that would have taken a waiting time of 39 months in Canada as opposed to two days in the United States tells me that nationalized health care will not provide the solution we need.

Forget the plans for health care that have been discussed in the House and Senate. This nation has a serious problem. No single person and no political party has all the answers. We need people of good will and intent to meet together to stop this outrageous theft of income. The sad fact is that we do not have the kind of people in our congress that will sit together to find a reasonable solution. Is it the people we elected, the political parties, or the lobbyists who are stopping the process?

Political parties do not matter. Electing people to office that really care about America’s needs ought to be job one.

American Competitiveness – Are We Serious?

This was not an issue that I expected to hear about in the run for president. Surprisingly Lincoln Chafee, the newest candidate for president, has re-introduced a discussion about the U.S.A. converting to the metric system. I believe it is an issue because this nation refuses to accept the use of metric is a deterrent to America’s competitiveness.

The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not use the metric system as its predominant system of measurement. We use a modified form of the English system of weights and measures. The U.K. for the most part converted to the metric system in 1995.

Both Canada and Mexico are on the metric system. Mexico has an obligatory use of metric units established by law of June 19, 1895. Canada made the change in 1971.

The voluntary plan for conversion to metric has met a wall of refusal. The arguments are from those who say the change over will be too expensive and the change will be too confusing. Interestingly the United States has been making the change but very slowly. Soda bottles are now available in liter sizes, liquor is sold in metric sizes, and both prescriptive and non- prescriptive drugs are measured in metric weight. Cameras/photo supplies, car tires, and a few other items are measured partially in both systems.

American competitiveness would be enhanced by a total conversion. Still, neither The U.S. Chamber of Commerce nor The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) has the question of conversion on their list of issues. Why haven’t American manufacturers and scientists been more forceful in bringing the nation in compliance with the rest of the world? I cannot think of one good reason.

A Poll Asks “Should Obama be Killed?”

I am quite certain that protecting George W. Bush from an assassin was difficult when he was president. I personally thought he was the devil but I never thought about killing him. Today we have a Black man as president. That fact alone generates hatred. The killing of Martin Luther Kings Jr. proves that many will kill just because someone is not White. A minister in Arizona has asked his church’s membership to pray for Obama’s death.

Protection of Barack Obama and his family has to be far more difficult than the protection of any family that has ever lived in the White House.

So here we have an articulate man and a beautiful family. Why should he run for re-election? I cannot think of one really good reason. Freedom of press can cause many people to speak about horrible deeds.

I found this article on the Toronto Star web site

Sep 28, 2009 04:41 PM

The U.S. Secret Service is looking into the person behind a “Should Obama be killed?” poll on Facebook, according to a report on the Washington Post Company’s online publication Who Runs Gov.

“We are taking the appropriate investigative steps,” Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan told reporter Amanda Erickson of The Plum Line blog, housed on Who Runs Gov. “We are aware of it.”

The poll, first reported Sunday night by another blog, The Political Carnival, offers four choices to the question “Should Obama be killed:” 1) Yes. 2) Maybe. 3) If he cuts my health care and 4) No.

The application – created by an outside party, not Facebook – has since been disabled. It appears that at least 750 people had participated in the poll before it was taken down. (You can see a screen shot of what it looked like here:

http://bit.ly/4lUH0y

Users searching for the original poll are now greeted with the following message on Facebook:

“The application `Polls’ is temporarily unavailable due to an issue with its third-party developer. We are investigating the situation and apologize for any inconvenience.”Facebook’s spokesman for policy matters, Barry Schnitt, tells TalkingPointsMemo.com that the Secret Service asked Facebook on Monday to take down the poll, but that it had already been removed by then.

Meanwhile, TPM notes that a related poll subsequently surfaced: “Should the person who created the ‘Should Obama be Killed Poll’ be arrested?”

It, too, has been disabled.

Toronto Star

Sticking a Finger in Our Eye

To make it clear that Iran doesn’t care what the rest of the world thinks, they have test fired some missiles today as a follow up to Friday’s admission of a secret nuclear facility. Their behavior is that of a child who thinks he can continue his disobedience to an adult supervisor. The difference is that Iran is not a child and the consequences of their actions are too horrible to contemplate.

Iran’s action is a direct challenge to the United States and to our president. What will Barack Obama do in the face of his position as leader of the western world? I hope he continues his calm demeanor and quietly prepares for the worst. Vice President Joe Biden had predicted the president would be tested in his first six months in office. Now is the time the when Biden’s foreign affairs experience will be a most valuable input.

Our congress is slow to respond to threats from other nations. There has not been a declaration of war since the start of WWII. It’s unlikely there will be that kind of action to Iran’s saber rattling. However, behind the scenes the United States could quietly condone an air strike on Iran by Israeli aircraft. This morning’s statements by our Secretary of defense and state, on the TV talk shows, were not made with the knowledge of today’s missile tests.

When have sanctions deterred any nation? Unless the October 1 talks with Iran bring about real changes the time for military actions will have arrived.