Mexico's Fox openly calls for North American Union
Mexico's former President Vicente Fox is making no secret of his desire to promote a "North American Union" to compete economically with Europe and the Far East…Fox shocked many in the U.S. earlier in the week when he told CNN's Larry King that he and President Bush had agreed to work toward a common currency not only for North America but for Latin America as well…Fox explained that he and Bush intended to proceed incrementally, establishing FTAA [Free Trade Agreement of the Americas] as an economic agreement first and waiting to create an amero-type currency later – a plan he also suggested was in place for NAFTA itself…Recently, WND reported BankIntroductions.com, a Canadian company that specializes in global banking strategies and currency consulting, is advising clients the amero may be the currency of North America within 10 years…

From WorldNetDaily (dated October 12, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (US/LA/BR)

Bush U.N. ambassador says he's 'caving' on world court: Bolton sees blocking of death sentence for Mexican rapist-murderer 'ridiculous'
Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton says the Bush administration is caving in to global opinion by siding with Mexico and the International Court of Justice in their attempt to overturn the death penalty of an illegal alien convicted of raping and murdering two teenage girls…

From WorldNetDaily (dated October 11, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (US/GI/MO)

Threats to bumblebees fly under radar
[Entomologist Robbin Thorp] fears that the species — Franklin's bumblebee — has gone extinct before anyone could even propose it for the endangered species list. To make matters worse, two other bumblebee species — one on the East coast, one on the West — have gone from common to rare…If bumblebees were to disappear, farmers and entomologists warn, the consequences would be huge, especially coming on top of the problems with honeybees, which are active at different times and on different crop species. Bumblebees are responsible for pollinating an estimated 15 percent of all the crops grown in the U.S., worth $3 billion, particularly those raised in greenhouses. Those include tomatoes, peppers and strawberries. Demand is growing as honeybees decline. In the wild, birds and bears depend on bumblebees for berries and fruits…

Associated Press story at Yahoo News (dated October 8, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (US/ND)

9/11 Conspiracy Theories Gain Ground, Study Finds
[A new] poll, conducted by Zogby International for 911Truth.org and released last week, found that 31 percent of Americans do not accept the official explanation for Sept. 11 -- that "19 Arab fundamentalists executed a surprise attack which caught U.S. intelligence and military forces off guard." Among that 31 percent, around 26 percent agreed that the American government "knew the attacks were coming but consciously let them proceed for various political, military, and economic motives." Almost 5 percent believed that U.S. officials "actively planned or assisted some aspects of the attack"…

From Cybercast News Service (dated September 11, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (US/WT)

George W. Bush, Globalist
President Bush is about to take his country by the hand and make a great leap forward into world government. He has signed on to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), which transfers jurisdiction over the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans and all the oil and mineral resources they contain, to an International Seabed Authority. This second United Nations would be ceded eternal hegemony over two-thirds of the Earth. It is the greatest U.N. power grab in history and, thanks to George Bush, is about to succeed…The sea treaty grants us no rights we do not already have in international law and tradition -- it only codifies them. It siphons off national rights, national sovereignty and national wealth, however, and empowers global bureaucrats and Third World kleptocrats whose common trait is jealousy of and hostility toward the United States. Under LOST, if the United States wishes to mine the ocean or scoop up minerals from its floor, we would have to pay a fee and get permission from the Authority, then provide a subsidiary of the Authority called the Enterprise with a comparable site for its own exploitation with our technology. Eventually, the Authority would collect 7 percent of the revenue from the U.S. mining site, giving this institution of world government what the United Nations has hungered for for decades: the power to tax nations… U.S. warships today inspect vessels suspected of carrying nuclear contraband. In the Cold War, U.S. submarines entered harbors to tap into communications cables to protect our national security. Our subs routinely transit straits submerged. To do this, post-LOST, the Navy would have to get permission from an Authority composed of states most of which have an almost unbroken record of voting against us in the United Nations…

From columnist Patrick Buchanan at RealClearPolitics (dated October 12, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (US/GI)

U.S. LOST at sea?
It is inconceivable to this naval officer why the Senate would willingly want to forfeit its responsibility for America"s freedom of the seas to the unelected and unaccountable international agency that would be created by ratification of LOST [Law of the Sea Treaty]. The power of the U.S. Navy, not some anonymous bureaucracy, has been this nation's guarantee of our access to and freedom of the seas. I can site many maritime operations — from our blockade of Cuba in 1962, to the reflagging of ships in the Persian Gulf, to our submarine intelligence-gathering programs — that have been critical to maintaining our freedom of the seas and protecting our waters from encroachment. All those examples would likely have to be submitted to an international tribunal for approval if we become a signatory to this treaty. In a word, this is incomprehensible…The Treaty will impose a "globe-tax" to finance a pseudo "second United Nations," complete with its own committees and councils. LOST creates a bureaucracy that enforces a mandatory arbitration process that will by its nature be adverse to U.S. corporations and infringe on private property rights. LOST provides a forum for China and Russia to pursue threatening territorial claims. China has already manipulated LOST to claim sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, while Russia is pursuing its claim to the North Pole seabed by presenting its data to the LOST Continental Shelf Commission…

From U.S. Navy retired admiral James Lyons in The Washington Times (dated October 5, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (US/GI)

Mexico is here
"Mexico does not end at its borders. ... Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico." That astonishing claim by Mexican President Felipe Calderon, in his state of the nation address at the National Palace Sunday, brought his audience wildly cheering to its feet. Were the United States a serious nation, Calderon's claim that Mexico extends into the United States would have produced an instant demand from the U.S. ambassador for clarification. Failing to receive it, he would have packed his bags, and the United States would be on the verge of severing diplomatic relations. In an earlier time, U.S. troops would be rolling to the border. For this is not the first time an arrogant Mexican ruler has made a claim to extra-territorial rights inside the United States and, indeed, to U.S. territory. Mexico's presidents have gotten into a habit of suborning treason against the United States…

From columnist Patrick Buchanan at WorldNetDaily (dated September 6, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (US/LA)

Chlorine attacks in Iraq spur warnings in US
A spate of deadly chlorine bomb attacks in Iraq is prompting the Bush administration to urge nearly 3,000 municipal water treatment plants in the United States to make sure their chlorine gas is well protected -- spotlighting what Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has singled out as a "gap in our system of regulation"…

From the Boston Globe (dated July 24, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (US/WT)

Natl. Intel Director Worried About Terror Sleeper Cells in U.S.
The nation’s top intelligence official yesterday went farther than ever before in outlining what he described as a heightened threat of an al Qaeda attack on American soil…

From ABC News (dated July 22, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (US/WT)

Hindu prayer in Senate defies nation's founding, some say
Some Americans took offense when a Hindu chaplain led the morning prayer in the United States Senate July 12 because they said it defied the Judeo Christian heritage set forth by the nation's founders…Zed was the first Hindu to offer a Senate prayer since the formation of the governing body in 1789, and he was invited by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D.-Nev. But Zed was not the first Hindu to pray in Congress. That distinction belongs to a Hindu priest who prayed before the House in 2000. Also, a Muslim prayed before the Senate several years ago…

From Baptist Press (dated July 19, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (US/RE)

Asian Parasite Killing Western Bees - Scientist
A parasite common in Asian bees has spread to Europe and the Americas and is behind the mass disappearance of honeybees in many countries, says a Spanish scientist who has been studying the phenomenon for years.... Treatment for nosema ceranae is effective and cheap -- 1 euro (US$1.4) a hive twice a year -- but beekeepers first have to be convinced the parasite is the problem…

Reuters story at Planet Ark (dated July 19, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (US/EU/ND)

Secret Document: U.S. Fears Terror 'Spectacular' Planned
A secret U.S. law enforcement report, prepared for the Department of Homeland Security, warns that al Qaeda is planning a terror "spectacular" this summer, according to a senior official with access to the document. "This is reminiscent of the warnings and intelligence we were getting in the summer of 2001," the official told ABCNews.com…

From ABC News (dated July 1, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (US/WT)

Look who's holding hostages again
How do you feel about the American hostages in Iran? No, not the guys back in the Seventies, the ones being held right now. What? You haven't heard about them? Odd that, isn't it? But they're there…

From columnist Mark Steyn at Jewish World Review (dated July 23, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

How Empires End
Longtime critics of the [Iraq] war like Gen. William Odom say it is already lost, and fighting on will only further bleed the country and make the ultimate price even higher. The general may be right in saying it is time to cut our losses. But we should take a hard look at what those losses may be…

From columnist Patrick Buchanan at Human Events (dated July 20, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

What We Pre-Empted
Given the problems and U.S. casualties in Iraq, polls show a large majority of the American people believe the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. Yet if we imagine what the world would look like today if Saddam Hussein had not been deposed, it seems clear that almost no outcome in Iraq would be as adverse to the interests of the United States as today's world with Saddam still in power…

From American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Peter Wallison in The Wall Street Journal (dated July 11, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

Poll shows belief in evolution, creationism
Majorities of Americans in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll say evolution and creationism are both likely explanations for life on Earth — underscoring the complexities of an issue that has put Republican presidential candidates on the spot in recent weeks. Two-thirds in the poll said creationism, the idea that God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years, is definitely or probably true. More than half, 53%, said evolution, the idea that humans evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years, is definitely or probably true. All told, 25% say that both creationism and evolution are definitely or probably true…

From USA Today (dated June 7, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (US/RE)

LA residents told to cut showers as drought deepens
Los Angeles residents were urged on Wednesday to take shorter showers, reduce lawn sprinklers and stop throwing trash in toilets in a bid to cut water usage by 10 percent in the driest year on record… It is the driest year since rainfall records began 130 years ago…

From Reuters (dated June 6, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (US/ND)

One Third of Americans Say Bible is Literal Word of God
Do you believe the Bible is the literal word of God? Since 1991, the Gallup Organization has asked Americans that question, yet their answers remain remarkably unchanged. About 31% of people believe the Good Book is infallible. Frank Newport with Gallup says we still live in a country where God’s word is taken seriously… If you add together the people who think the whole Bible is the direct word of God and those who see it as divinely inspired, but not all parts are to be taken literally, you arrive at about 80% of the public believing it to be a major source of truth in their lives…

From Focus on the Family (dated June 4, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (US/RE)

Americans Remain Negative on State of Nation's Moral Values
Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs poll finds Americans are very pessimistic about the current state of moral values in the United States, as has typically been the case in recent years. Only about one in six Americans describe the state of moral values in the country in positive terms, and perceptions that moral values are "poor" in the country are at their highest point, edging closer to the 50% mark. More than 8 in 10 Americans think morality is getting worse, representing a slight increase in the past three years. The groups of Americans who are most negative about moral values in this country include senior citizens, blacks, women, conservative Republicans, Protestants, and weekly churchgoers…

From The Gallup Poll (dated June 4, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (US/RE/MO)

Three Arrested, 1 Sought In Terror Plot On New York City's JFK Airport
Federal authorities announced Saturday they had broken up a suspected Muslim terrorist cell planning a "chilling" attack to destroy John F. Kennedy International Airport, kill thousands of people and trigger an economic catastrophe by blowing up a jet fuel artery that runs through populous residential neighborhoods. Three men, one of them a former member of Guyana's parliament, were arrested and one was being sought in Trinidad as part of a plot that authorities said they had been tracked for more than a year and was foiled in the planning stages. "The devastation that would be caused had this plot succeeded is just unthinkable," U.S. Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf said at a news conference, calling it "one of the most chilling plots imaginable"…

From Fox News (dated June 2, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (US/LA/RE/WT)

North American union plan headed to Congress in fall
A powerful think tank chaired by former Sen. Sam Nunn and guided by trustees including Richard Armitage, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Harold Brown, William Cohen and Henry Kissinger, is in the final stages of preparing a report to the White House and U.S. Congress on the benefits of integrating the U.S., Mexico and Canada into one political, economic and security bloc. The final report, published in English, Spanish and French, is scheduled for submission to all three governments by Sept. 30, according to the Center for Strategic & International Studies. CSIS boasts of playing a large role in the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 – a treaty that set in motion a political movement many believe resembles the early stages of the European Community on its way to becoming the European Union…

From WorldNetDaily (dated May 24, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (US/LA)

American Christianity -- Laodicean church in the making, says Barna
More than 20 years of research, says The Barna Group, has revealed a disturbing trend among Americans' spiritual beliefs and behavior: their commitment to orthodox biblical perspectives is "slipping." The director of a recent Barna study says the findings reflect a "spiritual profile" among Americans similar to that of the early church at Laodicea -- a church which Jesus admonished for being "neither hot nor cold" and called to repentance…

From One News Now (dated May 23, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (US/RE/MO)

America's Insidious Descent Towards the Third World
America's future can be seen in the formerly tidy and wholesome town of Lexington, Nebraska, situated as it is in the prime of the Heartland. Over the years, it metamorphosed to a horrendous degree…In 1986, New Holland [tractor factory] outsourced, and the plant was subsequently sold and converted to a meat packing facility, whereupon the local workers were systematically supplanted by a massive importation of illegals. Initial changes to the character of the town were subtle…As the influx increased however, the degree to which the former charm of Lexington was eventually eradicated was astounding. Its fate should send shudders through the spine of any throughout the rest of the nation, who hope for a country to bequeath to their children. Much of the town now reflects the squalor not previously seen this side of the Mexican border…It is all but impossible for American youths to gain employment at the local fast food franchises, since virtually all business behind the counters is conducted in Spanish, making it difficult to avoid the disturbing notion that businesses might eventually post signs saying: "Americanos need not apply." The town has inarguably become Balkanized. Yet Lexington is hardly an isolated example. Nor is it among the most severe that has ravaged traditional America. Rather, it is striking only in that it so starkly represents the plight of much of America's southern border, while being vastly separated from that region. If this can happen in Nebraska, no part of the country remains immune to the ravages of such an incursion. A similar disaster looms over America's food supply, and may be much more far reaching since it is not confined to any geographical location…

From Christopher Adamo at Cybercast News Service (dated June 7, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (US/LA/MO)

Alleged plot: A potential threat seen in America's backyard
Officials think members of an extremist network in the Caribbean were part of the alleged plot… "That is what is most significant about this case. It demonstrates the evolving nature of the threat and how we need to be looking at areas of the world that have not been viewed by the general public as a terror threat," the official said. "It shows that the threat can come from anywhere. It is not just limited to the Middle East or South Asia"…

From the Los Angeles Times (dated June 3, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (US/LA/RE/WT)

Case of TB traveler reveals holes in global disease control
The U.S. health authorities failed to notify their Italian counterparts that an American tourist with an extremely dangerous form of tuberculosis was staying in a Rome hotel this month until he was leaving the country, Italian officials said Thursday. That time lapse allowed him to leave Rome and fly to Prague and Montreal, potentially exposing dozens of people to an often lethal germ…The episode revealed holes in international cooperation systems for detecting and isolating people with infectious diseases, experts said. Such deficiencies could be disastrous if the victim were more contagious, as would be likely in an influenza pandemic…

From the International Herald Tribune (dated May 31, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (GI/US/ND)

300,000 Supporters of Suicide Attacks in America
Some of the results of the Pew Research Center poll of Muslims in America were startling: twenty-six percent of Muslims between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine affirmed that there could be justification in some (unspecified) circumstances for suicide bombing, and five percent of all the Muslims surveyed said that they had a favorable view of Al-Qaeda. Given the Pew Center’s estimate of 2.35 million Muslims in America, and the total of thirteen percent that avowed a belief that suicide bombings could ever be justified, that’s over 300,000 supporters of suicide attacks. And 117,500 supporters of Al-Qaeda…

From Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer at FrontPage magazine (dated May 30, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (US/RE/WT)

Fort Dix Fix: Immigration policy in wartime
Mercifully, today we are not commemorating 100 soldiers killed at Fort Dix this month by a group of immigrant jihadis…Unfortunately, the Senate’s grotesque immigration bill ignores the lessons about the intersection of immigration and terrorism that we should have learned from the Fort Dix plotters and from dozens and dozens of their predecessors. That lesson is that normal, sustained immigration enforcement, conducted across the board and without apology, is an indispensable tool in preventing and disrupting terrorist plots against our people…The Senate bill…actually undermines security by ensuring, in Section 136(d), that “Nothing in this section may be construed to provide additional authority to any State or local entity to enforce Federal immigration laws.” This is especially pertinent regarding the Fort Dix plot. The three Duka brothers — illegal aliens all — were stopped by police on various New Jersey jurisdictions 75 times without any inquiry into their lack of immigration status…

From Center for Immigration Studies executive director Mark Krikorian at National Review Online (dated May 28, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (US/LA/WT)

America must not ignore a dangerous percentage
26 percent looms large when it describes the number of American Muslims, ages 18-29, who support suicide bombings "in defense of Islam" — one of the sensational, if sensationally underreported, findings of a recent Pew poll. According to Pew, the total Muslim population in America is 2.35 million, 30 percent of whom are between 18 and 29. By my figuring, the suicide-bomb-approving cohort works out to 183,000 people…

From columnist Diana West at Jewish World Review (dated May 25, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (US/RE/WT)

Towards a White Minority
It is quite possible that Americans alive today will live to see the nation become majority Hispanic. Did anyone ever think this would happen, prior to a few short years ago?... If there is any large general historical lesson to be taken from all this, it is that a population as prosperous, secure, well-employed, and well-entertained as the white Anglos of late 20th-century America, and as confident of its own cultural superiority, cannot be made to care much about matters of ethnic identity, and may altogether lose the habit of thinking in such terms. Whether this ethnic insouciance [i.e. nonchalance] will survive the coming great demographic changes, I don’t know. Things have gone so far now that there is very little we can do but wait and see…

From National Review columnist John Derbyshire (dated May 25, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (US/LA/MO)

Was Osama Right?
Islamists always believed the U.S. was weak. Recent political trends won't change their view…

From author Bernard Lewis in The Wall Street Journal (dated May 16, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (US/ME/RE/WT)

There is only one acceptable way to talk about homosexuality -- SILENCE!
Christians arrested merely for handing out pamphlets which call homosexuality a sin? Postal workers refusing to deliver mail they deem to be "homophobic?" A pastor forced to pay for police protection after gay activists threatened to picket a church event? What ever happened to free speech? More and more, in the U.S., Canada and Europe, homosexual activists and their straight sympathizers are trying to ensure that the only speech that's tolerated is the pro-gay kind…

From American Family Association Journal news editor Ed Vitagliano at One News Now (dated May 31, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (US/RE/MO)

Bush OKs 'integration' with European Union: Congress never asked about new obligation
President Bush signed an agreement creating a "permanent body" that commits the U.S. to "deeper transatlantic economic integration," without ratification by the Senate as a treaty or passage by Congress as a law. The "Transatlantic Economic Integration" between the U.S. and the European Union was signed April 30 at the White House by Bush, German Chancellor Angela Merkel – the current president of the European Council – and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso. The document acknowledges "the transatlantic economy remains at the forefront of globalization," arguing that the U.S. and the European Union "seek to strengthen transatlantic economic integration." The agreement established a new Transatlantic Economic Council to be chaired on the U.S. side by a cabinet-level officer in the White House and on the EU side by a member of the European Commission…As WND has reported, Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez repeatedly has pushed for North American integration, much as the April 30 agreement proposes closer U.S.-EU integration. Mexico's ambassador to the U.N., Enrique Berruga, has called for a North American Union to be created in the next eight years…

From WorldNetDaily (dated May 8, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (US/EU/LA)

6 men charged in plot to attack Fort Dix
Six foreign-born Muslims were arrested and accused Tuesday of plotting to attack Fort Dix and slaughter scores of U.S. soldiers — a scheme the FBI says was foiled when the men asked a store clerk to copy a video of them firing assault weapons and screaming about jihad. The defendants, all men in their 20s from the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East, include a pizza deliveryman suspected of using his job to scout out the military base. Their goal was "to kill as many American soldiers as possible" with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and guns, prosecutors said…

Associated Press story at Yahoo News (dated May 8, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (US/RE/WT)

Houses Passes 'Hate Crimes' Bill, Religious Leaders Praise Veto Threat
The U.S. House of Representatives Thursday passed a bill that would extend "hate crimes" protection to homosexuals and other specified groups, but religious leaders were already praising the White House for issuing a threat to veto the bill if it passes… The White House pointed out that "almost every state in the country can actively prosecute hate crimes under the state's own hate crimes law." It did not address concerns raised by religious leaders who fear that the law would have a chilling effect on their right to preach Biblical teachings, including opposition to homosexuality…

From Cybercast News Service (dated May 3, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (US/RE/MO)

Honeybee die-off threatens food supply
Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of the nation's honeybees could have a devastating effect on America's dinner plate, perhaps even reducing us to a glorified bread-and-water diet. Honeybees don't just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have. Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons. In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Even cattle, which feed on alfalfa, depend on bees. So if the collapse worsens, we could end up being "stuck with grains and water," said Kevin Hackett, the national program leader for USDA's bee and pollination program. "This is the biggest general threat to our food supply," Hackett said. While not all scientists foresee a food crisis, noting that large-scale bee die-offs have happened before, this one seems particularly baffling and alarming…

Associated Press story at Yahoo News (dated May 2, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (US/ND)

Germany Rediscovers the US as a Partner
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has reoriented Germany away from Russia and toward the United States. Expanded economic ties are just one area of renewed cooperation.... It is virtually unprecedented in German history for a chancellor to be so unreservedly aligned with the US…Merkel…wants to expand Germany's close ties with the United States and is on the verge of making a pact with America the cornerstone of her foreign policy…She, along with US President George W. Bush and President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso, will establish a "new trans-Atlantic economic partnership." The ultimate goal of this partnership is to fuse together what are still the world's two largest economic blocs into something Merkel calls "structures similar to a domestic market." Later, some sort of political structure may be added. Merkel is focused on "shaping globalization" -- not in opposition to, but together with the United States…

From Der Spiegel (Germany) (dated April 30, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (EU/US)

Ebola-like virus killing fish in Great Lakes
A deadly Ebola-like virus is killing fish of all types in the Great Lakes, a development some scientists fear could trigger disaster for the USA's freshwater fish…"VHS is the most important and dangerous fish virus known worldwide," [chief of fish health at the U.S. Geological Survey Jim] Winton says. "Its discovery in our fresh water is disturbing and potentially catastrophic"…

From USA Today (dated April 29, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (US/ND)

Gonorrhea ‘Superbug’ Spreads Across Country, Treatment Ineffective
In less than five years, gonorrhea cases jumped from below one-percent to more than 13-percent of the population. American’s affinity for taking antibiotics, whatever the reason, allows STDs like gonorrhea to develop resistance quickly. And that is just what’s happened…If the last remaining class of drugs doesn’t work, [Christian Medical Association Dr. David] Stevens says the problem may reach epidemic proportions…

From Focus on the Family (dated April 16, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (US/MO/ND)

German backing for US anti-missile shield
Europe as whole could profit from US plans to place anti-missile bases in Poland and the Czech republic, while in the long run the EU is heading towards a common army, Germany's defence minister has said. Warsaw and Prague on Thursday (12 April) received political backing from the German EU presidency for their controversial plans to host a US defence system aimed at intercepting possible ballistic missiles fired from states such as Iran…

From EUObserver.com (dated April 13, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (EU/US/WT)

Sarkozy’s victory
Are we in for a new day in U.S.-European relations? Sunday's convincing victory by Nicolas Sarkozy in France's presidential election suggests as much. Mr. Sarkozy has been unabashedly pro-American in his campaign and his victory speech… Then he went on to call for American leadership -- in a cause that unfortunately has by now just about achieved the status of religion in Europe [global warming]… A word of caveat will be in order, however, about Mr. Sarkozy. As Atlanticist as he is, he must be seen as also very European in outlook. Mr. Sarkozy is dedicated to the expansion of the European Union, has proposed a treaty revision that will allow the union to expand beyond its current 27 members and has promised to restore France to its leadership position within Europe. He has proposed withholding EU subsidies from new EU members that practice tax competition with "old Europe." And he opposes membership for Turkey of the European Union…

From Helle Dale in The Washington Times (dated May 9, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (EU/US)

Al-Qaida Sleeper Cells Await
Day in and day out, there are new revelations about terrorist sleeper cells in the United Kingdom and other European countries…The law of averages would indicate the near-certainty of terrorist sleeper cells in the United States…

By United Press International and Washington Times editor Arnaud de Borchgrave (dated May 3, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (US/BR/EU/RE/WT)

EU Constitution: Like it or not
British conservative Daniel Hannan writes that the superfatted EU "Constitution" is back, under a different name after the French and Dutch voters rejected it. The "Constitution" is of course an undemocratic juggernaut designed to empower the French-style upper class of Europe in a New Class autocracy. This is therefore crucial struggle between Europe's political elites and those who still believe in electoral democracy. The socialist ruling class wants total power, with elections as icing on the cake. The "Euroskeptics," like Hannan and a small number of others, still want elections to be meaningful choices by the voters. The Euroskeptics have been slowly losing ground for half a century, while the new ruling classes have been gaining. Europe is moving toward a soft version of the Soviet model…If the United States remains faithful to its heritage, there is likely to be a gradual ratcheting away from Europe. We may find more in common with Australia, India, and Japan. In any case, the United States should not become the foreign policy tool of Europe --- which is of course the goal of EU policy…

From James Lewis at American Thinker (dated April 18, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (EU/US)

The Crux of the Matter: Is America the EU’s Enforcer?
A truly horrifying possibility is emerging from this discussion, and it is so awful I have been slow to take it in. As a preface, I have always been utterly aghast at the American elites’ support for the unification of Europe. Why did Americans support the elimination of historic states and nations in this unaccountable, post-national, post-human, air-conditioned nightmare of the EU? It seemed the ultimate betrayal. It was also horrible that there was never any debate in America about this. No major voices in U.S. politics have opposed European unification or even questioned American support for it. But now a worse possibility – though it is only a possibility - appears on the horizon. It is that America is not merely the friend and cheerleader of the EU project, but its enforcer. Our troops and missiles and tanks are in Europe to prevent any uprising by European patriots and nationalists against the EU tyranny…

From Lawrence Auster at The Brussels Journal (dated April 17, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (EU/US/WT)

The Long Road to Victory
The US's difficulties with confronting Iran have little to do with the decision to invade Iraq. Rather, America's feckless diplomacy toward Iran to date is the result of the administration's early misunderstanding of Iraq and of Iranian and Arab interests. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration identified certain basic guiding realities and missed others. First there was the issue of Arab tyranny…Yet recognizing this basic reality did not lead the administration to adopt appropriate policies…By pushing fast elections, the US entrapped itself. It inadvertently empowered its enemies and so was unable to embrace the duly elected governments. In opposing the forces it expended so much energy getting elected, the US was perceived as weak, foolish and hypocritical…As for the Arab world, the administration believes that since the Arabs oppose Iran's quest to become a regional nuclear power, they will help the US both in stabilizing Iraq and in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Here too, the administration confuses common interests with common agendas. The fact that the Arabs share common interests with the US does not make them allies. As a young Saudi imam put it this week to The Wall Street Journal, "We are waiting for the time to attack [the US]. Youth feel happy when the Taliban takes a town or when a helicopter comes down, killing Americans in Iraq. It is a very dangerous situation for the US in the whole Muslim world"…

From Jerusalem Post deputy managing editor Caroline Glick at Real Clear Politics (dated April 14, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (US/ME/RE/WT)

President Bush Commemorates National Day of Prayer
Since the days of our founding, our nation has been called to prayer. That's exactly what our first President did, George Washington. "It's the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and to humbly implore his protection and favor." It's interesting that the first President said those words. For two centuries, Americans have answered this call to prayer. We're a prayerful nation. I believe that makes us a strong nation. Each day, millions of our citizens approach our Maker. We pray as congregations in churches and in synagogues, and mosques, and in temples. We welcome people of all faiths into the United States of America. We pray as families, around the dinner table, and before we go to sleep. We pray alone in silence and solitude, withdrawing from the world to focus on the eternal, spending time in personal recollection with our Creator. We pray for many reasons. First, we pray to give thanks for the blessings the Almighty has bestowed upon us. We pray to give thanks. We give thanks for our freedom. We give thanks for the brave men and women who risk their lives to defend it. We give thanks for our families who love and support us. We give thanks for our plenty. We give thanks for our nation. Second, we pray for the strength to follow God's will in our lives, and for forgiveness when we fail to do so. Through prayer, each of us is reminded that we are fallen creatures in need of mercy, and in seeking the mercy and compassion of a loving God, we grow in mercy and compassion ourselves. We feel the tug at our souls to reach out to the poor, the elderly, the stranger in distress. And by answering this call to care for our brothers and sisters in need, our hearts grow larger and we enter into a deeper relationship with God. Third, we pray to acknowledge God's sovereignty in our lives and our complete dependence on Him. This is probably the toughest prayer of all, particularly for those of us in politics. In the humility of prayer we recognize the limits of human strength and human wisdom. We seek the strength and wisdom that comes from above. We ask for the grace to align our hearts with His, echoing the words of Scripture, "Not my will, but thine be done." We ask the Almighty to remain near to us and guide us in all we do, and when He is near we are ready for all that may come to us. Finally, we pray to offer petitions, because our Father in heaven knows our cares and our needs. We trust in the promise of a loving God: Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and ye shall find. Inspired by this confidence we pray that the Almighty will pour out His blessings on those we love. We ask His healing for those who suffer from illness, for those who struggle in life. We ask His comfort for the victims of tragedy, and that the injured may be healed and the fallen may find comfort in the arms of their Creator. We implore His protection for those who protect us here at home and in far away lands. We pray for the day when His peace will reign in every nation and in every land until the ends of the earth. The greatest gift we can offer anyone is the gift of our prayers, because our prayers have power beyond our imagining. The English poet Tennyson wrote, "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." Prayer has the power to change lives and to change the course of history. So on this National Day of Prayer, let us seek the Almighty with confidence and trust, because our Eternal Father inclines his ear to the voice of his children, and answers our needs with love...

Text of U.S. President George Bush’s speech (dated May 3, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (US/RE/MO)

IDF intelligence: Iran, Hizbullah preparing for possible US strike
Head of military intelligence says Iran, Syria and Hizbullah preparing for possible confrontation with US this summer…

From Ynet News (dated April 1, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (ME/US/WT)

Los Angeles suffers longest dry spell in 130 years
Los Angeles is going through its longest dry spell in at least 130 years, the National Weather Service said Sunday, fueling fears of rampant wildfires which have plagued the US west coast in recent years… The worst earth-scorching year on record in the United States was in 2006, when fires burned nearly 15.5 thousand square miles (39,957 square kilometers) -- an area close to the size of Switzerland…

Agence France-Presse story at Breitbart.com (dated April 1, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (US/ND)

America unprepared for 'likely' nuke attack
Public awareness campaign is only hope, says 3-year University of Georgia study…

From WorldNetDaily (dated March 30, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (US/WT)

Commerce chief pushes for 'North American integration'
While the Bush administration insists the controversial Security and Prosperity Partnership is just a dialogue with Canada and Mexico, a State Department cable released to WND shows Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez pressing to implement major trilateral initiatives to help "capture the vision of North American integration." The cable was among some 150 pages of State Department SPP documents recently released to WND under a Freedom of Information Act request. Howard Phillips, who has formed a coalition to block development of a "North American Union" and formation of NAFTA superhighways, told WND the document "makes clear that the agenda of SPP is to pursue major economic integration that redefines U.S. businesses into a 'North American' definition"…

From author Jerome Corsi at WorldNetDaily (dated March 24, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (US/LA/BR)

EU-style union coming to a continent near you
A memo signed by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff implements a controversial program condemned by critics as a precursor to a European Union-style partnership with Mexico and Canada. The document shows the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP, is being directed at the highest level of the Bush administration, says the public interest group Judicial Watch, which obtained it and other documents through a Freedom of Information Act request…

From WorldNetDaily (dated March 21, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (US/LA/BR)

Americans get an 'F' in religion
Sixty percent of Americans can't name five of the Ten Commandments, and 50% of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were married. Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University, isn't laughing. Americans' deep ignorance of world religions — their own, their neighbors' or the combatants in Iraq, Darfur or Kashmir — is dangerous, he says…

From USA Today (dated March 8, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (US/RE)

The smell of irresolution
Here's a puzzle: Why would Al Qaeda choose the past several days, just as Democrats in Congress were voting to run up a white flag and commit the United States to defeat in Iraq, to launch a bloody wave of terrorist atrocities?... For that matter, why would Iran have chosen this moment to seize 15 British sailors and marines? One of the hostages was forced to write a letter urging the British government "to start withdrawing our forces from Iraq and let them determine their own future." But Britain has been withdrawing its forces from Iraq, reducing troop levels from 40,000 in 2003 to just 7,100 as of February. Prime Minister Tony Blair recently announced that 1,600 more troops will be pulled out this spring. So what was the point of Iran's unprovoked ambush? The answer in both cases is that this is how totalitarian aggressors react to faintheartedness… Six years after Sept. 11, and so many people still refuse to absorb this fundamental fact of life…

From Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby at Jewish World Review (dated April 2, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (US/BR/WT)

The Mid-Life Crisis of the EU
The EU's champions claim its great achievement is to have kept the peace of Europe. "Sixty years of peace means that the image of the EU as a bastion against war is losing its resonance," said Jose Manuel Barroso, head of the European Commission, the executive arm that sits in Brussels. Intending no disrespect to Barroso, it was not the EU that kept Europe secure and at peace. America kept the Red Army from the Elbe and the Rhine. America saved Western Europe from the fate of the Hungarians in 1956, the Czechs in 1968 and the Poles in 1981. America pulled the British and French chestnuts out of the Balkan fires of the 1990s. German-French amity is a product of statesmanship, but also of the defeat of France in 1940 and the reduction of Germany to rubble by the American, British and Soviet armies in 1944-1945. The 50th anniversary of the EU brought to the fore as many questions as telegrams of congratulations. Quo vadis? Where is Europe going?...

From columnist Pat Buchanan at RealClearPolitics (dated March 30, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (EU/BR/US)

Evil Americans, Poor Mullahs
Forty-eight percent of Germans think the United States is more dangerous than Iran, a new survey shows, with only 31 percent believing the opposite. Germans' fundamental hypocrisy about the US suggests that it's high time for a new bout of re-education…

From Der Spiegel Online Berlin bureau chief Claus Christian Malzahn (dated March 29, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (EU/US/ME/WT)

Honey Bee Disappearances Continue: Could Pesticides Play A Role?
Bees are still disappearing in massive numbers…Over the past six months, massive disappearances of honey bees have been reported in at least 24 states; internationally in Poland and Spain; and it’s still unknown how many more honey bees will be gone as more northern hives are opened this spring in North America and Europe. Right now, dozens of scientists are trying to find out what is causing what they call “colony collapse disorder,” or CCD. I talked with Penn State entomologist Diana Cox-Foster, Ph.D., who has analyzed some bees found in deserted hives. Dr. Cox-Foster has seen as many as five different viruses and unidentified fungi in the bees. She says that is two times more pathogens than she’s ever seen before in honey bees. The implication is that something has seriously damaged their immune systems, leaving the honey bees more vulnerable to disease than before. But what could that be? So far, there are still no answers, but there is a long list of possibilities, which include pesticides and genetically modified crops, also known as GMOs or GMs. Scientists say there is no direct evidence that genetically modified crops are linked to honey bee die-offs. But I have been learning that not much is known about the accumulating impact of pesticides on insects, animals and even people when you consider in this modern world how many combinations of pesticides are used. One pesticide by itself might not destroy honey bees. But what happens when farmers spray herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and rodenticides on land that also has genetically modified crops with pesticides built-in?...

From Linda Moulton Howe at Earthfiles.com (dated March 16, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (US/EU/ND)

Stocks Have Worst Day Since 9/11 Attacks
Stocks had their worst day of trading since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks Tuesday, hurtling the Dow Jones industrials down more than 400 points on a worldwide tide of concern that the U.S. and Chinese economies are stumbling and that share prices have become overinflated. The steepness of the market's drop, as well as its global breadth, signaled a possible correction after a long period of stable and steadily rising stock markets that had not been shaken by such a volatile day of trading in several years…

Associated Press story at My Way News (dated February 27, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (US)

HPV infections seen in over quarter of U.S. women
More than a quarter of U.S. girls and women ages 14 to 59 are infected with the sexually transmitted human wart virus, which causes most cases of cervical cancer, U.S. health officials estimated on Tuesday. That means human papillomavirus or HPV infection is more common than previously thought, particularly among younger age groups, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers said. Its prevalence was highest among those 20 to 24, with 44.8 percent infected, and nearly a quarter of teenagers aged 14 to 19…

From Reuters (dated February 27, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (US/ST/MO)

Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril
David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his boxes last month and found half of his 100 million bees missing. In 24 states throughout the country, beekeepers have gone through similar shocks as their bees have been disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate, threatening not only their livelihoods but also the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the nation’s most profitable…The sudden mysterious losses are highlighting the critical link that honeybees play in the long chain that gets fruit and vegetables to supermarkets and dinner tables across the country. Beekeepers have fought regional bee crises before, but this is the first national affliction… A Cornell University study has estimated that honeybees annually pollinate more than $14 billion worth of seeds and crops in the United States, mostly fruits, vegetables and nuts. “Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food”…

From The New York Times (dated February 27, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (US/ND)

Judge orders 'gay' agenda taught to Christian children
A federal judge in Massachusetts has ordered the "gay" agenda taught to Christians who attend a public school in Massachusetts, finding that they need the teachings to be "engaged and productive citizens." U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf yesterday dismissed a civil rights lawsuit brought by David Parker, ordering that it is reasonable, indeed there is an obligation, for public schools to teach young children to accept and endorse homosexuality. Wolf essentially adopted the reasoning in a brief submitted by a number of homosexual-advocacy groups, who said "the rights of religious freedom and parental control over the upbringing of children … would undermine teaching and learning"…

From WorldNetDaily (dated February 24, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (US/MO)

More Americans killed by illegal aliens than Iraq war, study says
Illegal aliens are killing more Americans than the Iraq war, says a new report from Family Security Matters that estimates some 2,158 murders are committed every year by illegal aliens in the U.S. The group says that number is more than 15 percent of all the murders reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the U.S. and about three times the representation of illegal aliens in the general population…

From One News Now (dated February 22, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (US)

Diss a 'gay'? Go to jail!
Two Christians in Australia have been indicted for criticizing Islam, and another for criticizing Zionism. A filmmaker has been threatened with arrest for using the word "homosexual" rather than "gay." Now a German priest faces jail time for publicly criticizing abortionists, and in Holland, "fornicators" and "adulterers" are protected classes and cannot be criticized. All courtesy of the concept of federal "hate crimes" legislation, which unless defeated soon could be mandatory in the United States, warns a rising chorus of critics…

From WorldNetDaily (dated February 15, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (BR/EU/US/RE/MO)

Parasitic infection plagues states along Mexico border
Federal researchers say neurocysticercosis, a brain infection caused by a pork tapeworm, is a "growing public health problem in the United States," especially in states bordering Mexico, where the disease is endemic…

From The Washington Times (dated February 8, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (US/ND)

Sexualizing girls
The American Psychological Association has discovered that too early sexualization of children, particularly girls, is damaging. How about that? Because I have well-developed views on this subject, I almost didn't read the long article about it in the Health section of The Washington Post this week. But I'm glad I did because just when you think you're up to date on cultural decline, you are surprised…

From columnist Mona Charen at Townhall.com (dated February 23, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (US/MO)

Watchdog Worried About U.S. Meetings With Canada, Mexico
A government watchdog is calling for more transparency in talks between U.S., Canadian and Mexican officials who are discussing a "vision of North America" that some critics worry are the first step toward a North American Union. Judicial Watch this week released documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request that include U.S. officials' notes from the North American Forum, a September 2006 meeting with Canadian and Mexican officials that explored ways to create "genuine partnerships." That meeting followed the March 2005 creation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), which the U.S. government calls a "trilateral effort to increase security and enhance prosperity among the United States, Canada and Mexico through greater cooperation and information sharing." Several points of discussion at the September meeting worried Judicial Watch, most notably a note in one set of documents referring to "evolution by stealth." The discussions also touched on integration of energy supply, easing immigration among the three countries and closing the "income gap" between Mexico and the U.S. and Canada. "I don't know that there's an appreciation or an understanding that this is what the American government is busy spending its time doing," Chris Farrell, Judicial Watch's director of research and investigation, told Cybercast News Service. "I think it's curious ... when they advocate in their own documents that a position of stealth should be adopted in trying to integrate the three countries," Farrell said. "That's rather extraordinary"…

From Cybercast News Service (dated February 2, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (US/LA/MO)

McCreevy backs plans for single EU-US market
Charlie McCreevy has backed a suggestion by German chancellor Angela Merkel that the EU and US should create a giant single market. “I think it is a good idea to extend the internal market to other countries such as the US,” the Irish internal market commissioner said on Thursday…

From TheParliament.com (dated February 1, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (US/EU)

View of US's global role 'worse'
The view of the US's role in the world has deteriorated both internationally and domestically, a BBC poll suggests…

From BBC News (dated January 23, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (US/GI)

Not This Time: Don't give up when victory is at hand
Certain parallels between Iraq and Vietnam are uncanny. A new general, David Petraeus, is taking over in Iraq with a credible new strategy, counterinsurgency. Four decades ago, General Creighton Abrams became the American commander in Vietnam, also with a new strategy. It called for taking and holding the villages and hamlets of South Vietnam. In a word, it was counterinsurgency, and it worked. Now in Iraq, Petraeus has as good a chance of success, starting with the pacification of Baghdad, as Abrams had. And the painful lesson of Vietnam applies in Iraq: Don't give up when victory is at hand. Those in Congress who advocate retreat in Iraq refuse to acknowledge this lesson. And they may have their way, whatever Petraeus accomplishes. With their calls for troop withdrawals and fund cutoffs and their antiwar resolutions, they have put America on a slippery slope in Iraq. And we know where it leads: to defeat while victory remains quite possible. This happened in six descending steps in Vietnam, and today's coalition in Congress of antiwar Democrats and vacillating Republicans has started pushing us down that dangerous slope…

From Weekly Standard co-editor Fred Barnes (dated February 5, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

Sleeper Cells in the United States and Canada
There is every reason to suspect that we will endure suicide missions by Islamist sleeper cells. They are already in place. They are waiting for the right time. I know this from experience. I have worked over 15 years as a U.S. Federal Agent, a U.S. State Department Arabic linguist, and the first civilian Federal Agent deployed into Iraq at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Since returning from Iraq I have been involved in terrorism analysis, specifically the mindset of terrorists. During my extensive research on sleeper cells I have talked with hundreds of people from the Middle East from all walks of life, and have talked with Iraqi Government officials, Iraqi military, and Iraqi police officers. In addition I have interviewed numerous counter-terrorism specialists in the U.S. and abroad. In the last year alone I have trained over 4000 U.S. Law Enforcement officers in Basic Investigative Arabic and counter-terrorism. The conclusion of my research is the title of this article…

From Dave Gaubatz at American Thinker (dated February 2, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (US/BR/RE/WT)

November 2008: America is nuked
Only two weeks after the elections in November of 2008, the United States of America, a nation of former greatness, lay in absolute desolate ruin. Within the previous 72 hours a series of eight successive, delayed nuclear devices had been detonated. Indescribably large portions of metro Washington, D.C., Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and two thirds of the island of Manhattan have been turned into steaming craters. Millions are dead. President George W. Bush is in intensive care; two-thirds of the Cabinet, including the vice president, are missing or dead. President-elect Barack Obama faces the most enormous challenge of any incoming president in the history of the nation. But why? How did it happen? Turn back the clock to the week of Feb. 5, 2007. With a courageous handful of dissenting votes against the measures, the two houses of Congress purposefully ignore the pleas of Gen. David Petraeus and both pass non-binding resolutions that condemn the president's call for victory. One comes from the Democratic controlled House condemning the president, his plan and by implications the troops, and the other from a U.S. Senate that ceases to even feign any faint resemblance of standing for victory…As a nation our leaders had taken us from the shadows of Churchill to the defeat of Chamberlain. And what's worse is we had let them…

From columnist and radio host Kevin McCullough (dated February 2, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

Talking Ourselves Into Defeat: Profligate self-doubt can exact a price
The United States is talking itself into defeat in Iraq. Its political culture is now in a downward spiral of pessimism. In the halls of Congress, across endless newspaper columns, amid the punditocracy and on Sunday morning talk shows--all emit a Stygian gloom about America. Yes, on any given day on some discrete issue (Prime Minister Maliki's bona fides, for example), the criticism of the American role is not without justification. But the cumulative effect of this unremitting ill wind is corrosive. We are not only on the way to talking ourselves into defeat in Iraq but into a diminished international status that may be harder to recover than the doom mob imagines…

From Wall Street Journal deputy editor and columnist Daniel Henninger (dated January 25, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

Teen Sex Leads to Depression and Drug Use
Researchers have long recognized that risky behavior and depression are linked for adolescents; prevailing theories assumed that depressed teens turned to drugs and sex for self-medication. Now there is solid evidence that teen girls who experiment with risky behaviors (i.e., sex and drugs) are more vulnerable to depression and that teen boys who engage in binge drinking and heavy marijuana use are prone to depression…

From Concerned Women for America think tank Beverly LaHaye Institute senior fellow Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse (dated January 30, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (US/MO)

Sabbath Wins in Cohen v. Seinfeld Ruling
American Jewish comedian Jerry Seinfeld was ordered by the [New York State Supreme Court] to pay a Sabbath-observant realtor her fee, which he withheld due to her not having answered her phone on Saturday…a ruling that is seen as a positive defense of religious worship for Sabbath observers…

From Arutz Sheva Israel National News (dated January 17, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 18, 2007 (US/RE)

Ahmadinejad's nukes for U.S, not for Israel
There is hardly enough American political will to sustain the fight in Iraq, let alone political capital for a pre-emptive strike against Iran. Instead, it appears the free world's one remaining hope of neutralizing Iran's nuclear arsenal by force is Israel – the nation that launched a pre-emptive strike against Saddam Hussein's nuclear bomb factory in 1981. It's a matter of survival for Israel, we're told. After all, everyone is familiar with the bellicose mutterings of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel. Right? Maybe. Perhaps. Could be. Iran might indeed strike Israel with nuclear weapons if it ever had the chance. But, I think it's more likely Iran's determination to develop nuclear weapons is based on its desire to destroy "the Great Satan," not "the Little Satan." There are several reasons to make this judgment…

From WorldNetDaily editor and CEO Joseph Farah (dated January 18, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 18, 2007 (US/ME/RE/WT)

Bush's ace up his sleeve
[President Bush is calling for] a "surge" of 21,500 troops, 15 percent of the U.S. forces already in Iraq, to pacify the capital. And even that troop commitment is "not open-ended." This is just not credible. For, if the situation is as dire as Bush says and the potential disaster as horrific as he describes, the logical course would be to treble the number of troops in Iraq and commit to fight indefinitely. How does one explain the disconnect? Is Bush absurdly exaggerating the consequences of a pullout? No…But Bush has to know the card he played is not going to save the pot into which he has plunged his legacy, the credibility of his country and America's standing as a superpower. Which leads me to believe Bush has yet another card to play, an ace up his sleeve. What might that be? Midway through his speech, almost as an aside, Bush made a pointed accusation at and issued a direct threat to – Tehran. To defend the "territorial integrity" of Iraq and stabilize "the region in the face of extremist challenge," Bush interjected, "begins with addressing Iran and Syria." "These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq." Now, any networks providing "advanced weaponry and training" to jihadists and insurgents are outside Iraq. Otherwise, they would have been neutralized by air strikes already. So, where are they? Answer: inside Syria and Iran. And Bush says we are going to "seek out and destroy" these networks. Which suggests to this writer that, while the "surge" is modest, Bush has in mind a different kind of escalation – widening the war by attacking the source of instability in the region: Tehran...

From columnist Patrick Buchanan at WorldNetDaily (dated January 12, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 18, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

The consequences of failure in Iraq
What would be the consequences of an American withdrawal from Iraq, or a failed Iraq? The Iraq Study Group's report didn't address this. Here is what would happen: A genocidal, Sunni-Shiite clash as American convoys flee south…

From Weekly Standard contributing editor Reuel Marc Gerecht in Insight magazine (dated January 12, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 18, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

The 800-Pound Guerrilla
Iran is fighting to defeat us in Iraq, and they have demonstrated time and again a determination to succeed. To top it all off, they are also seeking nuclear weapons. The only way to secure Iraq--and, more importantly, America--is to topple the Iranian regime. Tragically, nothing in Bush's new strategy indicates a plan to go as far as is needed…

From Allen Forkum at Cox & Forkum (dated January 11, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 18, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

Politics: The new religion
There is a sense that the Messiah…is rapidly being supplanted in the public consciousness by a new American religion called politics. Consider the number of "messiahs" who present themselves as redeemers and who claim the ability to deliver the masses from their "deplorable" conditions - conditions from which only government can save them…What puzzles me is why so many people put their hopes in politicians, when politicians (and politics) repeatedly let them down. Has politics become a God-substitute? Have political "messiah figures" become false gods?…

From columnist Cal Thomas at Townhall.com (dated December 20, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 18, 2007 (US/RE/MO)

Only four big U.S. cities ready for crisis: report
More than five years after the September 11 attacks, only four big U.S. cities have emergency communications allowing police, fire and medical officials to coordinate fully during a crisis, a federal report said. The Department of Homeland Security report, due to be released officially on Wednesday, listed Washington, D.C.; San Diego, California; the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area of Minnesota; and Columbus, Ohio, as the major urban areas that achieved "most advanced" status….New York City, which was hardest hit by the 2001 attacks that killed 3,000 people, did not appear among those with the most advanced systems. Neither did Chicago, another city seen as a potential target…

Reuters story at Yahoo News (dated January 2, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (US/WT/ND)

Most Americans have had premarital sex, study finds
Of those interviewed in 2002, 95% reported they had had premarital sex; 93% said they did so by age 30. Among women born in the 1940s, nearly nine in 10 did. At the same time, people are waiting longer to marry; 2005 data show median age at first marriage is just over 25 for women and 27 for men…

From USA Today (dated December 19, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (US/MO)

How the West Could Lose
After defeating fascists and communists, can the West now defeat the Islamists? On the face of it, its military preponderance makes victory seem inevitable. Even if Tehran acquires a nuclear weapon, Islamists have nothing like the military machine the Axis deployed in World War II, nor the Soviet Union during the cold war. What do the Islamists have to compare with the Wehrmacht or the Red Army? The SS or Spetznaz? The Gestapo or the KGB? Or, for that matter, to Auschwitz or the gulag? Yet, more than a few analysts, including myself, worry that it's not so simple. Islamists (defined as persons who demand to live by the sacred law of Islam, the Sharia) might in fact do better than the earlier totalitarians. They could even win. That's because, however strong the Western hardware, its software contains some potentially fatal bugs. Three of them – pacifism, self-hatred, complacency – deserve attention…

From Daniel Pipes in the New York Sun, reposted at The Middle East Forum (dated December 26, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (US/BR/ME/WT)

North American Union leader says merger just crisis away
Robert Pastor, a leading intellectual force in the move to create an EU-style North American Community, told WND he believes a new 9/11 crisis could be the catalyst to merge the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Pastor, a professor at American University, says that in such a case the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP – launched in 2005 by the heads of the three countries at a summit in Waco, Texas – could be developed into a continental union, complete with a new currency, the amero, that would replace the U.S. dollar just as the euro has replaced the national currencies of Europe. In May 2005, Pastor was co-chairman the Council on Foreign Relations task force that produced a report entitled "Toward a North American Community," which he has claimed is the blueprint behind the SSP declared by President Bush, Mexico's then-President Vicente Fox, and Canada's then-Prime Minister Paul Martin…

From author Jerome Corsi at WorldNetDaily (dated December 15, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (US/LA)

The End of Pax Americana?
With hindsight, we may see 2006 as the end of Pax Americana. Ever since World War II, the United States has used its military and economic superiority to promote a stable world order that has, on the whole, kept the peace and spread prosperity. But the United States increasingly lacks both the power and the will to play this role. It isn't just Iraq, though Iraq has been profoundly destabilizing and demoralizing. Many other factors erode U.S. power: China's rise; probable nuclear proliferation; shrinking support for open trade; higher spending for Social Security and Medicare that squeezes the military; the weakness of traditional U.S. allies, Europe and Japan…

From Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson at Real Clear Politics (dated December 13, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (US/GI/WT)

It's the worldview, stupid
I believe the main animating difference between conservatism and liberalism is that the former believes in the Biblically revealed sinful condition of mankind. Our Constitution's framers established a system of government around their belief that man-operated government had to be limited and held in check in order for freedom to flourish. Liberalism generally embraces a secular humanist (or enlightenment) faith in the general goodness, perhaps even perfectibility of man. Conservatives accept that government exists as a necessary evil, to prevent anarchy, establish order and maximize but not absolutize freedom. Human beings within this context will be freer to minimize, but never completely solve society's problems. By contrast, liberals place their secular faith in government to wholly eradicate societal problems…

From columnist David Limbaugh at Townhall.com (dated January 5, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (US/RE/MO)

Is the E.U. America's Friend or Foe?
The reality is quite different. As this hugely ambitious but flawed project has taken shape, pol­icy differences between Europe and the U.S. have both multiplied and deepened… The one state­ment that I predict you will not hear from a spokesman for the E.U. Commission in Brussels is: "We applaud American leadership, and we will back the U.S. all of the way." Indeed, we have now reached the point where E.U. policy gives every impression of having been defined in opposition to U.S. policy and where it is abundantly clear that the European aspiration is to be a rival, not a partner… The other horror is that, as EU competence increases, so the ability of member states to propose their own laws for their own people shrinks until it is extinguished. That is the ultimate goal of the ever-closer union: but it entails a stark and anti-democratic removal of sovereignty from this area which impacts directly on our most basic freedoms and liberties. Now all of this might strike you as being purely Europe's affair. But let me remind you that the prin­ciple that U.S. interests are most likely to be served by the extension of democracy wherever possible has been one of the foundations of U.S. foreign policy…But U.S. policymakers have been remarkably slow to grasp that the supranational institutions of the new top-down Europe (to which the once inde­pendent European states have ceded sovereignty) are remarkably undemocratic. In the judgment of a former E.U. commissioner, it is clear that if the E.U. applied to itself the criteria that it recently applied to all new members, it could not be admitted to the E.U. because it is insufficiently democratic!…The attempt to create an independent and inte­grated European defense capability—or what the French refer to as Defense Europe—has some extremely serious implications for the United States. Indeed, as matters stand now I doubt whether Britain will be an effective ally in 10 years time even if the British people want this…

From John Blundell, director general of the Institute of Economic Affairs, London, at The Heritage Foundation (dated December 22, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (US/EU/WT)

Pagan Christmas ritual pressed on young kids
Elementary-age children given handout pushing heathen 'Yule' ritual tomorrow…The celebration of Christmas is a major cultural battleground in the U.S., dating back to colonial America when Christians in New England outlawed Christmas, saying it was based more on ancient pagan traditions than instruction from the Bible. Today, followers of ancient paganism strive to remind the public about the heathen origins of traditions that many may never have questioned…

From WorldNetDaily (dated December 8, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends December 12, 2006 (US/RE/MO)

Baker Report Asks Israel to Give Up Land 'Vital To Survivability'
In exchange for Syrian help in calming the situation in Iraq, the Iraq Study Group is asking Israel to give up land "vital to its survivability," a senior Israeli lawmaker said Thursday…"The Golan Heights is extremely vital to Israel's survivability in the long term," he told Cybercast News Service…

From Cybercast News Service (dated December 7, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends December 12, 2006 (US/ME/WT)

First Comes Junior in a Baby Carriage
Four in 10 kids [in America] are now born to unmarried moms…

Newsweek story at MSNBC (dated December 4, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends December 12, 2006 (US/MO)

ISG must stand for, uh, Inane Strategy Guesswork
So there you have it: an Iraq "Support Group" that brings together the Arab League, the European Union, Iran, Russia, China and the U.N. And with support like that who needs lack of support?... Oh, but lest you think there are no minimum admission criteria to James Baker's "Support Group," relax, it's a very restricted membership: Arabs, Persians, Chinese commies, French obstructionists, Russian assassination squads. But no Jews. Even though Israel is the only country to be required to make specific concessions — return the Golan Heights, etc. Indeed, insofar as this document has any novelty value, it's in the Frankenstein-meets-the-Wolfman sense of a boffo convergence of hit franchises: a Vietnam bug-out, but with the Jews as the designated fall guys. Wow. That's what Hollywood would call "high concept"…

From columnist Mark Steyn at Jewish World Review (dated December 11, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends December 12, 2006 (US/ME/WT)

Capitulation to terrorism
The Iraq Study Group report is in – and it holds no surprises. What should we expect from a group chaired by James Baker… who single-handedly reversed America's pro-freedom policies in the Middle East during his tenure as secretary of state under the president's father?…The "Baker Commission," as it should rightfully be called, came up with two major recommendations as far as I can see: Engage Iran and Syria in resolving the Iraq conflict; Fast-track the creation of a Palestinian state by carving up tiny Israel. Let's talk briefly about these two wacky ideas…

From WorldNetDaily editor and CEO Joseph Farah (dated December 8, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends December 12, 2006 (US/ME/WT)

Withdraw to victory?
It is a time for truth. The strategic retreat recommended by Baker-Hamilton is not going to win this war, or end it well for the United States – it is going to advance the timetable of our impending defeat. When U.S. combat forces leave, Iraq is going to be lost to those who ran us out. Our friends there are going to endure what our abandoned friends in Vietnam and Cambodia endured. The forces of Islamic radicalism will be emboldened to take down our remaining allies in the Middle East. Our days as a superpower will be over. For it is the definition of a superpower that once it commits itself to a war, it does not lose the war…

From columnist Pat Buchanan at WorldNetDaily (dated December 8, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends December 12, 2006 (US/ME/WT)

Our Unceasing Ambivalence : Why it's so hard to define victory in Iraq
Fear of [a global superpower’s] responsibility is what makes us ambivalent toward the idea of victory. Because victory is hegemonic, it mimics colonialism. A complete American victory in Iraq would put that nation--at least for a time--entirely under American power and sovereignty. We would in fact "own" the society as a colony. In today's international moral climate this would both undermine the legitimacy of our war effort and make an ongoing demand on our blood and treasure. If we are already a good ways down this road, complete victory would only take us further. Is it any wonder, then, that we have failed to completely win this war? Since World War II, American leaders--left and right--have worked out of an impossible double bind: They cannot afford to win the wars they fight. Thus the postmodern American war in which the world's greatest power deconstructs its own motives for fighting until losing becomes a better option than winning…

From The Wall Street Journal (dated December 8, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends December 12, 2006 (US/ME/WT)

The threat from within
We are now less likely to be attacked by international terrorists than by homegrown American citizens, self-radicalized individuals who are members of groups inspired by al Qaeda propaganda. The threat is from second- and third-generation children of immigrants, fluent in English and accustomed to American society but using the legal rights of U.S. citizenship to rebel from within...

From US News & World Report editor and publisher Mort Zuckerman (dated December 6, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends December 12, 2006 (US/BR/WT)

Jim Baker doesn't understand the stakes in Iraq
According to the New York Sun, “An expert adviser to the Baker-Hamilton commission expects the 10-person panel to recommend that the Bush administration pressure Israel to make concessions in a gambit to entice Syria and Iran to a regional conference”…It would…be a particularly contemptible confirmation of a line I heard Bernard Lewis, our greatest Middle Eastern scholar, use the other day—that “America is harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.” To punish your friends as a means of rewarding your enemies for killing your forces would seem to be an almost ludicrously parodic illustration of that dictum. In the end, America would be punishing itself. The world would understand that Vietnam is not the exception but the rule…

From columnist Mark Steyn in Insight magazine (dated December 4, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends December 12, 2006 (US/ME/WT)

Sleeping giant
The United States has the most powerful army on the planet. But without the stomach for war, what good is it?...

From columnist Mark Steyn in the National Post (Canada) (dated November 18, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends December 12, 2006 (US/ME/WT)

Blair - we must work with 'Axis of Evil' states
The first cracks in the united front over Iraq between Tony Blair and President Bush appeared last night as the Prime Minister offered Iran and Syria the prospect of dialogue over the future of Iraq and the Middle East…

From The Times (London) (dated November 13, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 17, 2006 (US/BR/ME/WT)

Terrorists announce plans to attack U.S.
Four terror groups [in Israel], including militants from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, which the U.S. considers moderate, warned today America is now officially a target for attacks both in the region and abroad…

From WorldNetDaily (dated November 12, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 17, 2006 (US/ME/WT)

Charges Sought Against Rumsfeld Over Prison Abuse
lawsuit in Germany will seek a criminal prosecution of the outgoing Defense Secretary and other U.S. officials for their alleged role in abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo…Germany was chosen for the court filing because German law provides "universal jurisdiction" allowing for the prosecution of war crimes and related offenses that take place anywhere in the world…

From Time magazine (dated November 10, 2006)Posted to Current World News & Trends November 17, 2006 (GI/EU/US/WT)

Mexico ambassador: We need N. American Union in 8 years: U.S. 'investment,' EU-style merger key to better relations, says diplomat
There have been conferences, academic papers, mock student parliaments and secret meetings on a confederation of the U.S., Canada and Mexico into future North American Union, but, until now, few officials of any of the three countries have publicly called for the creation of a European Union-style merger. In a panel discussion on U.S.-Mexico relations last Tuesday at the University of Texas at San Antonio, Enrique Berruga, Mexico's ambassador to the United Nations, came right out and said a North American Union is needed – and even provided a deadline. Berruga said the merger must be complete in the next eight years before the U.S. baby boomer retirement wave hits full force…

From WorldNetDaily (dated November 5, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 17, 2006 (US/LA)

Sound the alarm – Nato is failing
Nato's job, according to a classic cold war dictum, was to "keep the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Russians out". As the Atlantic Alliance prepares to gather in Riga for the most miserable summit meeting in its history, it is losing on all three fronts…

Economist story in The Telegraph (London) (dated November 17, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 17, 2006 (US/EU/WT)

Blair's desperate new plan for the Middle East
Now Saddam has been displaced by his former allies in the West, and — with bizarre irony — the Iranian regime that was his old nemesis may be invited in with Syria to carve up the spoils of his country. This approach, in which two countries once branded by the Bush White House as unambiguously evil miraculously become "part of the solution", defies any credible logic except that of ignominious desperation. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Washington and London are now so eager for a face-saving formula that would enable them to wash their hands of Iraq and its apparently intractable problems that they are prepared to retreat from positions which they had declared, only weeks ago, to be principled and unflinching. Instead of delivering ultimatums to Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his nuclear ambitions, Britain and America are to offer him an invitation to play a larger and more influential role in global politics…

From The Telegraph (London) (dated November 14, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 17, 2006 (US/BR/ME/WT)

U.S. must prove it's a staying power
We’re in a very dark place right now. It has been a long time since America unambiguously won a war, and to choose to lose Iraq would be an act of such parochial self-indulgence that the American moment would not endure, and would not deserve to. Europe is becoming semi-Muslim, Third World basket-case states are going nuclear, and, for all that 40 percent of planetary military spending, America can't muster the will to take on pipsqueak enemies. We think we can just call off the game early, and go back home and watch TV. It doesn't work like that. Whatever it started out as, Iraq is a test of American seriousness. And, if the Great Satan can't win in Vietnam or Iraq, where can it win? That's how China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Venezuela and a whole lot of others look at it. "These Colors Don't Run" is a fine T-shirt slogan, but in reality these colors have spent 40 years running from the jungles of Southeast Asia, the helicopters in the Persian desert, the streets of Mogadishu. ... To add the sands of Mesopotamia to the list will be an act of weakness from which America will never recover…

From columnist Mark Steyn in the Chicago Sun-Times (dated November 12, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 17, 2006 (US/ME/WT)

Rumsfeld resigning
One day after Democrats took over the House and possibly the Senate, President Bush announced Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will step down and be replaced by former CIA chief Robert Gates…

From WorldNetDaily (dated November 8, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 8, 2006 (US)

Gay Marriage Ban Rejected in Arizona
In a triple setback for conservatives, South Dakotans rejected a law that would have banned virtually all abortions, Arizona became the first state to defeat an amendment to ban gay marriage and Missouri approved a measure backing stem cell research…

Associated Press story at My Way News (dated November 8, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 8, 2006 (US/MO)

Cloning human embryos becomes 'constitutional right'
A ballot initiative in Missouri written to enshrine in the state constitution the right to clone human embryos for "research" was approved by voters by a single percentage point, and pro-life organizations have said they expect a court challenge to the plan. The state's Amendment 2 was advertised as a human cloning ban, however, the 2,000-plus word document bans only the process of actually creating a live human being from cloning and inserts the right to clone human embryos in the constitution…

From WorldNetDaily (dated November 8, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 8, 2006 (US/MO)

Meet the new speaker
Pelosi served as leader of socialist-leaning Progressive Caucus…

From WorldNetDaily (dated November 7, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 8, 2006 (US)

Minnesota sends first Muslim to Congress
Voters elected a black Democrat as the first Muslim in Congress on Tuesday after a race in which he advocated quick U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and made little mention of his faith…

From Reuters (dated November 7, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 8, 2006 (US/RE)

UK al-Qaida man 'hoped to kill thousands'
The British al-Qaida terrorist Dhiren Barot plotted to carry out a series of "massive explosions" in the UK and US with the aim of killing thousands of people, a court was told today…Today - the first day of a two-day hearing prior to sentencing - the prosecution gave the court fuller details of the 34-year-old's plans to carry out attacks, including setting off a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the UK. Barot had made reconnaissance trips to the US in 2000 and 2001, before the September 11 attacks, and details of plans to attack financial institutions in New York, Newark and Washington were later found on a computer, the court heard. Another of his key plots involved detonating three limousines packed with gas cylinders and explosives in underground car parks at unspecified locations in Britain…

From The Guardian (Manchester, England) (dated November 6, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 8, 2006 (US/BR/WT)

Nearly half of Americans uncertain God exists: poll
Nearly half of Americans are not sure God exists, according to a poll that also found divisions among the public on whether God is male or female or whether God has a human form and has control over events. The survey conducted by Harris Poll found that 42 percent of US adults are not "absolutely certain" there is a God compared to 34 percent who felt that way when asked the same question three years ago…

Agence France-Presse story at Breitbart.com (dated October 31, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 8, 2006 (US/RE)

Resolution seeks to head off union with Mexico, Canada
A coalition spearheaded by Conservative Caucus Chairman Howard Phillips, author Jerome Corsi and activist Phyllis Schlafly is launching an effort…in support of a proposed congressional resolution that denounces any effort by the U.S. to enter into a North American Union with Mexico and Canada. The resolution – sponsored by Republican Reps. Virgil Goode Jr. of Virginia, Tom Tancredo of Colorado, Walter Jones of North Carolina, and Ron Paul of Texas – expresses "the sense of Congress that the United States should not engage in the construction of a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Superhighway System or enter into a North American Union (NAU) with Mexico and Canada"…[The day before] Corsi announced the Internet release of about 1,000 documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. He says the documents show the White House is engaging in collaborative relations with Mexico and Canada outside the U.S. Constitution…

From WorldNetDaily (dated October 25, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 8, 2006 (US/LA)

For first time, unmarried households reign in US
It is by no means dead, but for the first time, a new survey has shown that traditional marriage has ceased to be the preferred living arrangement in the majority of US households…

Agence France-Presse story at Yahoo News (dated October 15, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 8, 2006 (US/MO)

Europe Cheers: Europeans are thrilled: The Canadians of American politics are finally back
Today, Europeans are sighing in relief. Americans, they believe, have finally come to their senses and are beginning to put the Democrats back in charge…

From Ulf Gartzke in The Weekly Standard (dated November 8, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 8, 2006 (US/EU)

Space Supremacy: It's the goal of America's new space policy
Space supremacy is now the official policy of the United States government. Among the principles set forth in the new document is that the United States "rejects any limitations on the fundamental right of the United States to operate in and acquire data from space;" furthermore, "the United States will view purposeful interference with its space systems as an infringement on its rights." It goes on to assert that the United States will "preserve its rights, capabilities, and freedom of action in space . . . and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests." In an outright rejection of the sovereignty of the international community in space, the new policy also states that the United States "will oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit U.S. access to or use of space." This was big news in the foreign press, where headlines characterized the policy as a new imperialism…

From Weekly Standard deputy online editor Michael Goldfarb (dated November 2, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 8, 2006 (US/ST/WT)

An Interview With President Bush
He began the interview by looking ahead to what the Middle East will be in 25 years–and arguing that it will be in better shape than it might be because of what we are doing now. On the way out the door, I asked him what he had been reading lately. The answer: Andrew Roberts's A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900… Roberts's English-Speaking Peoples is an extension of Churchill's multicentury history that ends around 1900, and I expect that it will take Churchill's view: that the English-speaking peoples have over the centuries taken up the responsibility of expanding freedom and spreading democracy and the rule of law around the world. That is Bush's view as well, as I was reminded when I noticed the bust of Churchill as I was leaving the Oval Office…

From US News & World Report senior writer Michael Barone (dated October 25, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 8, 2006 (US)

Is America Becoming a Sick Society?
On this Halloween, the No. 1 movie in the USA is "Saw III," a sadistic slasher flick designed solely so its audience can enjoy graphic depictions of human suffering…Enough is enough with this dehumanizing trash. It is wrong, it is evil and it demeans America — period…

From Fox News host Bill O’Reilly (dated November 1, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 8, 2006 (US/MO)

The World We Leave Behind
Today, we live in a country that is obsessed with its economic prosperity. We are comfortable enough to spare ourselves the rigors of moral striving. Same-sex marriages, eroding family values, ambushing innocent children in class rooms, elected officials with a fetish for underage kids, absentee fathers—these things cause concern but little more. We proceed with the knowledge that American life will go on. We are confident that we are the greatest empire in the history of empires. This belief in the inevitability of our way of life breeds certain carelessness to the truly important stuff of life. This is the decadence that precedes the fall. We need to continue passing the torch of moral excellence to our children so that, down the road, they may realize something greater than violence, sexual promiscuity, making celebrities out of a former Governor who had secret and openly gay liaisons while married, and disintegrating family values. For the true measure of our success is the world we leave for our children...

From columnist Armstrong Williams at Townhall.com (dated October 9, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends November 8, 2006 (US/RE/MO)

Reporter: Don't underestimate al-Qaida nuke threat
Warning to Muslims to leave U.S. is serious, says Pakistani who met bin Laden…

From WorldNetDaily (dated September 21, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 22, 2006 (US/RE/WT)

North American merger topic of secret confab
Meeting on integration of U.S., Mexico, Canada brings together top officials…

From WorldNetDaily (dated September 21, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 22, 2006 (US/LA)

Hugo Chavez Calls Bush 'Devil' at U.N. [and Bush’s prior remarks]
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took his verbal battle with the United States to the floor of the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, calling President Bush "the devil." The impassioned speech by the leftist leader came a day after Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sparred over Tehran's disputed nuclear program but managed to avoid a personal encounter…Bush tried to advance his campaign for democracy in the Middle East during his address to the General Assembly on Tuesday, saying extremists were trying to justify their violence by falsely claiming the U.S. is waging war on Islam. He singled out Iran and Syria as sponsors of terrorism. Bush also pointed to Tehran's rejection of a Security Council demand to stop enriching uranium by Aug. 31 or face the possibility of sanctions. But he addressed his remarks to the Iranian people in a clear insult to the government. "The greatest obstacle to this future is that your rulers have chosen to deny you liberty and to use your nation's resources to fund terrorism and fuel extremism and pursue nuclear weapons," the U.S. leader said. "Iran must abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions," he said. "Despite what the regime tells you, we have no objection to Iran's pursuit of a truly peaceful nuclear power program." He said he hoped to see "the day when you can live in freedom, and America and Iran can be good friends and close partners in the cause of peace." Ahmadinejad took the podium hours later, denouncing U.S. policies in Iraq and Lebanon and accusing Washington of abusing its power in the Security Council to punish others while protecting its own interests and allies…

From NewsMax (dated September 20, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 22, 2006 (US/LA/ME)

'It smells of sulfur still today'
Text of Chavez speech at U.N. where Venezuelan dictator calls Bush 'the devil'…

From WorldNetDaily (dated September 20, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 22, 2006 (US/LA)

Al-Qaida warns Muslims: Time to get out of U.S.
Afghan terror commander hints at big attack on N.Y., Washington…

From WorldNetDaily (dated September 17, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 22, 2006 (US/WT)

Anti-U.S. allies back Iran nukes
Developing countries yesterday wrapped up a multinational summit with North Korea charging that U.S. threats drove it to acquire deterrent atomic weapons and Iran winning solid support for its nuclear ambitions. Iran, Venezuela and Cuba joined North Korea in leading efforts to forge an anti-U.S. alliance. Summit leaders, in a statement on Iran, "reaffirmed the basic and inalienable right of all states to develop research, production and use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes"…

From The Washington Times (dated September 17, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 22, 2006 (US/AP/ME/LA/WT)

Al-Qaeda (Teheran) Planning Nuclear Terror Attack During Month of Ramadan Beginning Sept. 24
AKI reports that Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir, when interviewed over al-Arabiya televison, stated that during his recent trip to Afghanistan he met with Taliban fighters and al-Qaeda (Teheran) members who spoke of a nuclear terror attack inside the United States during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan which begins on September 24…According to the Pakistani journalist explosives and nuclear material have been smuggled into the U. S. through the Mexican border…

Night Watch Information Service story at Crossfire War (dated September 12, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 22, 2006 (US/WT)

North America confab 'undermines' democracy
Attendee of high-level meeting says officials wanted to hide it from public…

From author Jerome Corsi at WorldNetDaily (dated September 21, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 22, 2006 (US/LA)

We the Sheeple? Why Conspiracy Theories Persist
Conspiracy theorists allege that the events of 9/11 are not adequately explained by the "official story" fingering Osama bin Laden and his network as the culprits…The problems with such theories have been pretty thoroughly exposed by now. Here is just a sample: If the aim of the conspirators was to motivate the American people to go to war, why wouldn't the crashing of airplanes into the World Trade Center suffice? What was the point of secretly placing explosives throughout the towers - no small task - and thereby risking exposure? If the government was really willing and able to orchestrate such a massive conspiracy here at home, why couldn't or wouldn't it also carry out the far easier task of planting evidence of WMD in faraway Iraq? If the cell phone calls made from the hijacked planes were faked, how did the government find people capable of so perfectly mimicking the voices of the victims, and how did they acquire the detailed knowledge of their personal lives that would enable the hoaxers to deceive so many of the victims' loved ones and friends? If it was really a cruise missile that hit the Pentagon, why do so many eyewitnesses report having seen an airplane crashing into it? If it was also really a missile, and not an airplane, that crashed in Pennsylvania, then why did eyewitnesses report seeing an airplane in that case too? And what really happened to the airplanes in question and their passengers? If even a third rate burglary like the one committed at the Watergate hotel couldn't be kept secret, why hasn't someone, anyone involved in this massive plot, or with knowledge of those who were involved, come forward to reveal what he knows? And so on and on. Of course, conspiracy theorists have tried to provide answers to some of these difficulties for their case, but the "answers" are even more ridiculously far-fetched and unfounded than the original theories themselves…

From Edward Feser at Tech Central Station (dated September 20, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 22, 2006 (US/MO)

Mexico’s manifest destiny
Were it not for a misguided immigration policy, Mexico could be more than twice as large as it is now and would include many American states. Hence, Mexican history includes a stern warning on the consequences of uncontrolled immigration. America should heed that warning… The English-speaking majority changed Tejas into Texas. In the same fashion, American colonists moved into other parts of Mexico. The doctrine of Manifest Destiny and American settlers provided Washington with the justification it needed to take the Southwest and California away from Mexico in 1848. The Manifest Destiny of America was to expand at the expense of Mexico. One and a half centuries later, Mexico is attempting to define a manifest destiny of its own. It is no coincidence that today the flow of immigration is reversed and, with it, the socio-political consequences…

From Joseph Beaudoin in Insight magazine (dated September 19-25, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 22, 2006 (US/LA)

Conspiracy nation
I am referring to the seditious dementia of conspiracy theories, the death of faith not in some mere administration or Congress but in America itself. Haven’t you heard? The U.S. government blew up the World Trade Center. Oh, sorry, that’s not right. The planes did knock down those buildings, but the White House was in on it. Oh, no, sorry again, that’s not what happened. It was the Jews. They razed it without leaving any fingerprints — save for the 4,000 Zionist co-conspirators who were tipped off in advance — in order to frame the peace-loving Muslims of al-Qaida…Here’s a question: How is a president willing — and able! — to bring down the World Trade Center, murdering nearly 3,000 Americans without inspiring a single whistle-blower or attracting a solitary eyewitness, somehow morally or logistically incapable of planting some exculpatory WMDs in Iraq?…

From National Review Online editor Jonah Goldberg (dated September 13, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 22, 2006 (US/MO)

Finding All Of 'The Good News' On Freebies
I will discuss one more indication of the sorry plight of The [New York] Times. This indication came to me while reading an article by Melvin Rhodes, entitled "Radical Islam: An Arc of Extremism That Threatens the Globe: In an Aug. 1 speech, British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned of an 'arc of extremism' that extends across much of the Islamic world posing a very real threat to Western civilization. How great is this threat, and where is it leading?" The article appeared in a magazine entitled The Good News: A Magazine of Understanding (September/October 2006). What struck me is that this magazine delivers more value, more insight and more honest reporting than The New York Times, which is quite expensive, and especially so considering it is so loaded with biased journalism that you can hardly believe a syllable of it. It is worthless to anyone except those who want to track and respond to its biased journalism, or write books on the subject (for example, Bob Kohn's Journalistic Fraud: How the New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted (2003)). But here's a magazine few of you have probably ever heard of, a magazine that is distributed free of charge, yet it easily outdoes The Times. It is easy to be better than the Times, but the bottom line is still quite remarkable - a freebie way outscoring an expensive daily. Let me tell you a little about that article in a free publication, which puts The Times to shame…

From journalist Herb Denenberg in The Evening Bulletin (Philadelphia)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 22, 2006 (US/ME/WT/RE)

Prayers for rain answered in West Texas – and how!: Reservoirs overflowing 1 month after officials made case to God
There was some snickering in certain parts of the country when city officials in the drought-stricken Texas towns of Lubbock and Rockwall took their case for rain to God in the form of resolutions calling for prayer. While the votes made national news – sometimes in the "quirky" sections of big-city dailies and news services – the results didn't, until now. Within seven days of the Lubbock vote, the rains started. And they haven't stopped. Some three and a half inches of rains fell in the town over the Labor Day Weekend alone, overflowing some reservoirs and spillways…

From WorldNetDaily (dated September 4, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 6, 2006 (US/RE)

Critic: Americans in danger of 'slavery': Multiple superhighway plans, illegal immigration could destroy Republic
Multiple NAFTA-related superhighways could slice the United States into economic and social regions, facilitate crime including drug trafficking and illegal immigration and shift huge amounts of money to the rich, critics of the paving plans have told WorldNetDaily. One leader even likens the prospects to "slavery" for the American people, because of the loss of control they would experience…

From WorldNetDaily (dated August 31, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 6, 2006 (US/LA)

Gov. Arnold tosses school moral codes: Bill forces condoning of homosexuality, critics say 'the gates of hell are prevailing'
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has tossed out all sexual moral conduct codes at colleges, private and Christian schools, daycare centers and other facilities throughout his state, if the institutions have any students who get state assistance. The governor yesterday signed a bill that would require all businesses and groups receiving state funding -- even if it's a state grant for a student -- to condone homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality. There is no exception for faith-based organizations or business owners with sincerely held religious convictions, critics note…

From WorldNetDaily (dated August 29, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 6, 2006 (US/RE/MO)

Britain 'is now biggest security threat to US'
Britain now presents a greater security threat to the United States than Iran or Iraq, an American magazine said yesterday. In an article on Islamists headlined "Kashmir on the Thames", the New Republic painted Britain's Muslim communities as a breeding ground for violent extremism. Citing recent opinion poll evidence suggesting that one in four British Muslims believed that last year's London Tube bombings were justified, the magazine said: "In the wake of this month's high-profile arrests, it can now be argued that the biggest threat to US security emanates not from Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan, but rather from Great Britain, our closest ally"…

From The Telegraph (London) (dated August 28, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 6, 2006 (US/BR/RE/WT)

Why abduct us? We cede our values for free
Did you see that video of the two Fox journalists announcing they'd converted to Islam? The larger problem, it seems to me, is that much of the rest of the Western media have also converted to Islam, and there seems to be no way to get them to convert back to journalism…For the Fox journalists and the Western media who reported their release, what's the big deal? Wear robes, change your name to Khaled, go on camera and drop Allah's name hither and yon: If that's your ticket out, seize it. Everyone'll know it's just a sham. But that's not how the al-Jazeera audience sees it. If you're a Muslim, the video is anything but meaningless. Not even the dumbest jihadist believes these infidels are suddenly true believers. Rather, it confirms the central truth Osama and the mullahs have been peddling -- that the West is weak, that there's nothing -- no core, no bedrock -- nothing it's not willing to trade…In the Muslim world, they watch the Centanni/Wiig video and see men so in love with the present, the now, that they will do or say anything to live in the moment. And they draw their own conclusions -- that these men are easier to force into the car than that 16-year-old girl in Sydney was. It doesn't matter how "understandable" Centanni and Wiig's actions are to us, what the target audience understands is quite different: that there is nothing we're willing to die for. And, to the Islamist mind, a society with nothing to die for is already dead…

From columnist Mark Steyn in the Chicago Sun-Times (dated September 3, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 6, 2006 (US/ME/RE/WT)

The very real NAFTA superhighway
There seems to be a concerted effort under way – from Washington to Salina, Kan. – to deny the very well-documented plans of the Bush administration and members of Congress to build a "NAFTA superhighway" from Mexico, through the U.S. heartland, into Canada… Let me take this opportunity to direct the man who oversees intelligence matters for the U.S. Senate to a speech by Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta of April 30, 2004, in Fort Worth, Texas, before North America's Superhighway Coalition. Read these words carefully and tell me if you think the "NAFTA superhighway" is a pipedream of those wearing tinfoil hats…

From WorldNetDaily editor and CEO Joseph Farah (dated August 29, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 6, 2006 (US/LA)

The NAFTA superhighway: Coming soon
This is a "mind-boggling concept," exploded Lou Dobbs. It must cause Americans to think our political and academic elites have "gone utterly mad." What had detonated the mild-mannered CNN anchor? Robert Pastor, vice chair of the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on North America, had just appeared before a panel of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to call for erasing all U.S. borders and a merger of the United States, Mexico and Canada in a North American union stretching from Prudhoe Bay to Guatemala. Under the Pastor-CFR plan, the illegal alien invasion would be solved by eliminating America's borders and legalizing the invasion…Speaking in Madrid in 2002, Mexican President Vicente Fox declared: "Our long-range objective is to establish with the United States ... an ensemble of connections and institutions similar to those created by the European Union, with the goal of attending to future themes as important as ... the freedom of movement of capital, goods, services and persons. The new framework we wish to construct is inspired in the example of the European Union"…The American people never supported NAFTA, and they are angry over Bush's failure to secure the border – but a shotgun marriage between our two nations appears prearranged. Central feature: a ten-lane, 400-yard-wide NAFTA superhighway from the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, up to and across the U.S. border, all the way to Canada. Within the median strip dividing the north and south car and truck lanes would be rail lines for both passengers and freight traffic, and oil and gas pipelines. As author Jerome Corsi describes this Fox-Bush autobahn, container ships from China would unload at Lazaro Cardenas…From there, trucks with Mexican drivers would run fast lines into the United States, hauling their cargo to a U.S. customs inspection terminal – in Kansas City, Mo. From there, the trucks would fan out across America or roll on into Canada. Similar superhighways from Mexico through the United States into Canada are planned. According to Corsi, construction of the Trans-Texas Corridor, the first leg of the NAFTA superhighway, is to begin next year…

From columnist Pat Buchanan at WorldNetDaily (dated August 29, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 6, 2006 (US/LA)

Five Years Later: 9/11 Attacks Show No Lasting Influence on Americans’ Faith
A new study by The Barna Group… shows that despite an intense surge in religious activity and expression in the weeks immediately following 9/11 the faith of Americans is virtually indistinguishable today compared to pre-attack conditions. Barna’s tracking surveys looked at 19 dimensions of spirituality and beliefs. Remarkably, none of those 19 indicators are statistically different from the summer before the attacks!…

From The Barna Group (dated August 28, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends September 6, 2006 (US/RE/MO/WT)