Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Remembering Twin Towers.

I received this in an e-mail. I think it's important none of us ever forget anything these sick bastards do. Live and learn. I also never forget about BALI either. This event touched me personally as my niece's partner was in Paddy's Bar. He survived...thank God.
I just am waiting for the day when something terrible like that happens here in OZ. I for one minute do not think it won't happen here, coz I reckon it will. Heaven help us.

By the way.... sheikyermami's site has been temporarily shutdown by some enemy, however, they are working on getting it back up and running.
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DO YOU KNOW THIS STORY?

Terrorist pilot Mohammad Atta blew up a bus in Israel in 1986. The Israelis captured, tried and imprisoned him. As part of the Oslo agreement with the Palestinians in 1993, Israel had to agree to release so-called 'political prisoners.'

However, the Israelis would not release any with blood on their hands, The American President at the time, Bill Clinton, and his Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, 'insisted' that all prisoners be released.

Thus Mohammad Atta was freed and eventually thanked us by flying an airplane into Tower One of the World Trade Center .. This was reported by many of the American TV networks at the time that the terrorists were first identified.
It was censored in the US from all later reports .

If you agree that the American public should be made aware of this fact, pass this on.

Do Not Break - it is 6 years strong


This is why I always say I love YOU....


This has not been broken since 9/11/01, please keep it going...
This has been kept alive and moving since 9/11. In memory of all those who perished this morning; the passengers and the pilots on the United Air and AA flights, the workers in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and all the innocent bystanders. Our prayers go out to the friends and families of the deceased.


Send this to at least 10 people to show your support


PLEASE DON'T BREAK IT!!!!!!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Aussie judge plays down jihad threat

Australia judge decrees that lesser jihad illegal

But still probably best to drop the problematic word, jihad, and just call it "violence," to be on the safe side. "Judge tells terror trial religiously motivated violence illegal," by Gary Hughes, for the Australian, August 18:
RELIGIOUSLY motivated violence was against the law, no matter which religious group was behind it, the judge in Australia's largest terrorism trial said today.
Hear that, all you would-be Buddhist mujahidin?

During his final directions to the jury, Justice Bernard Bongiorno said it did not matter whether the supposed justification for such violence came from the Bible or the Koran.

Read the full story at Jihad Watch

David Hicks & Dick Smith

HHMm, I just went to my letterbox and retrieved this months edition of Reader's Digest. And what do I see on the front cover?? well a story about Dick Smith supporting David Hicks. I have always had a level of respect for Mr Smith, but I feel he has gone belly up with his support of this particular muslim. Mr Smith is waiting for the day when hicks will be totally exonerated...just like Lindy Chamberlain was after many years of accusations that she murdered her baby at Ayers Rock...and of course it was a dingo that took her baby. I was a bit too young at the time and my head was filled with opinions of family members and what people were saying on Tv etc. But years later I formed my own belief that Lindy was innocent of those charges. However, today, I am a mature person who does not let other peoples opinions affect my own opinion or my judgement of people, and as far as I am concerned Hicks was not over in afghanistan selling tickets to a charity ball now was he. He converted to islam and took an islamic name...dawa something. And of course hicks is free to travel where he wants and where was one of the first places he headed to from SA....yep, you got it...right to a very heavily populated muso area in sydney.
I just can't believe he did not equate Sept. 11th with his terrorist training buddies. Or that he thought he was doing no wrong...except spewing such hatred in letters written home to mum and dad about his hate for Jews, and how osama was a great guy, and how he was finally accepted into al-qaeda. Yeah, real innocent huh.
He makes me sick to the stomach, and so do the other Australian people who have converted to islam, and they are starting to number up.

Same as mad mundine,another convert to islam, with his 'resort'/ 'retreat' for musos only....with a very high fence around it. There was a big write up about it in The Age recently. I think he is going to try to convert some of his Aboriginal clan into it by reminding them of how hard done by they are by us Aussies.

Well now, not that it will be any skin off of Mr Smith's nose, but he has just lost respect from me. I have also boycotted the olympic games because of the persecution of Christians and human rights issues. If it were possible, I would not purchase anything that came from China either, but this is becoming increasingly hard to do lately. It would be interesting to know how many others have boycotted the games, it is just something that is not in mainstream media.

Anyway, have a look at the pathetic story in Readers Digest. at
readersdigest.com.au

I have been receiving this magazine by subscription for a long time, and I really do enjoy it, and I have no intentions of never reading it again because of this story, after all, I do value the premise of free speech, and as far as I know, we are still allowed to practice it here in Oz, and besides, it is a story that I have looked at but don't really want to read every word of it, as I find lately that I am grinding my back teeth together a lot lately. However, it is a very good magazine and I love the feature articles.

Comments from Jihad Watch

this is a comment from a reader at Jihad Watch... makes perfect sense to me. Yes it is about time that we - who are concerned for our future as Australians - and anywhere else in the world - take heed and start lobying our politicians.

Ben said: Now is the time, in the primary season, to disrespectfully demand explicit veracity concerning Islam. Email your favorite aspirant for the nomination and tell him or her that you don't want to see or hear any adjectives applied to Islam. Tell them that there is no moderate, extremist or fundamentalist Islam, there is only Islam, which Moe preached and practiced. Point your candidate to the Qur'an, Hadith & Fiqh. Demand that they be read, understood and referred to in speeches, advertisements and campaign literature. While you are at it, make the same demands of your Representatives & Senators. Tell them "I'll remember in November!". For the damnable details, refer to my blog post: "Four Blind Fools". January 13, 2008 6:17 PM

and this sparked an interest...yes I just wonder how many such incidences are NOT being reported and are instead being covered up so as not to alarm anyone. I would not know half of what I do know if it werent for newsletters from Jihad Watch, Islam in Action, Dhimmi Watch, sonsofapesandpigs, Prophecy Watch, and a few other very good sites in USA, UK, etc.


Always On Watch said: Many Westerners would rather think about anything other than the "clash between life and death" (Perfect phrasing, BTW). The more I learn about Islam and the more I look at world events, many not being covered at all by the mainstream media, the more foreboding I feel. January 14, 2008 6:09 AM

I plead with people out there to start learning about islam, and I don't mean from ridiculous books like New International guide to islam... I mean from people at the above sites. They are the ones who will tell it like it is.

BEAUSEANT!!!!

Royals under threat from terrorists

Well well well... why am I not surprised by this next story. I wonder what has taken so long. I also wonder why they are even targeting the royal family, seeing as the royals are bending over backwards to appease the muslims. And as for the bit in the story about the boy being the grandson of the head of the sharia court in Dewsbury in Yorkshire... well I hope our Australian gov. is taking all this down. They just might stop to think that to have sharia courts here in Oz is only gonna invite more trouble than what we already have.

U.K.: Jihadist cell may have been plotting to attack Queen, other royals »

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022276.php


Jihadist cell may have been plotting to attack Queen, other royals Aabid Khan Update. "Islamic terror cell 'may have been plotting to attack Queen'," by Duncan Gardham for the Telegraph, August 18: A terror cell caught with details of bomb-making and suicide vests may have been plotting to attack the Queen... Full article:


I must say regarding Dumbledores Army comments.... I luv them.. I think she is from Australia and She quite often takes the words right out of my mouth, then puts them in a form that makes perfect sense. I would like to meet the lady. One day we all might have to meet up together if things get too bad, after all, we are going to have to get as many people together as possible to put plans in motion if we are to survive.

We will NEVER submit.

Come on Aussies, wake up before it is too darn late and things get to the point of no return.

No More MUSLIM immigration, and start closing down those mosques...aka training grounds.

BEAUSEANT!!!!!

interfaith rubbish.

While I was reading through one of my many newsletters...this one from Christian Post says a lot about this so called multi-faith stuff that will, in my humble opinion, just never will work.

Ministry Finds Fault with Yale Christian-Muslim Declaration

A ministry that works with the persecuted church found parts of a declaration recently adopted by Christian and Muslim leaders troubling because it did not emphasize the differences between the two religions enough and gave too much credit to Islam.


Related
Influential Theologian Troubled by Christian-Muslim Dialogue
Influential Evangelicals Withdraw from Christian-Muslim Statement
Christian-Muslim Statement Among First Fruits of 'Common Word' Gathering


When are people going to wake up and smell the roses... NO-ONE, NO RELIGION can ever survive alongside the muslim political/ideology mindset. Isn't it about time governments call it for what it really is, a political group...or are they too gutless to put a ban on them?

Beauseant!!!!

Persecution in China...Still

Well so much for the Chinese authorities saying that there is religious FREEDOM...What a lot of crap, when 4 visiting American Christians with 300 Bibles in English to distribute...FREE...of charge, had all but 4 Bibles confiscated and will be returned on their way out of China. Also, 'underground church leader Hua Huiqi was detained by police while on his way to the church service before escaping and going into hiding. Chinese police deny the allegations.'

Freedom of Religion - yeah right! Only the booklets etc. that were produced by the Chinese are permitted and we can be assured that they contain only what the Chinese want others to know, and not what they don't want people to know...in other words...nothing but propaganda.
My prayers go to the many people in China and all over the world who choose to live a Christian life (or even a decent life of freedom) but are persecuted because of it. Truly a disgusting situation.

Read the full story from The Christian Post.

Chinese Officials Seize Bibles from US Missionaries

Sometimes I have to wonder about communist countries...when I compare them to the islamists who want a sharia run world....I shudder to think about life under either one of them. Well this little Aussie duckie will never submit to either way of life. While there is blood running through my veins, I will continue to live my Christian way of life. With freedom to practice my religion and freedom to have free speech.

BEAUSEANT!!!!!

Sunday, August 17, 2008

What sort of Christian are you?

I got this Prophecy Watch, and it struck me that we can sometimes lose sight of where we are in our lives...sometimes we can get so busy and distracted that we lose sight of our sense of Christianity. Where are you in the scheme of things?

Are you a kind-of Christian?How can you tell a no-doubt Christian from a maybe Christian? Answer: There will be spiritual results, or hard evidence, in his or her life. In fact, I propose that what is considered Christianity by many in the United States today would not even qualify as conversion in the first-century church. And what is considered normal as far as a Christian was concerned in the first century would be considered radical by today's standards. There are a lot of people running around today who could be described as kind-of Christians. Now, that is not a theologically correct term, because according to the Bible, you either are or are not a Christian. But I am talking about people whom you are not really sure about. He or she is sort-of a Christian or maybe a Christian or could be a Christian or almost is a Christian. You see some things in their lives that make you believe they might be followers of Christ. They attend church regularly and talk about God periodically. Maybe they pray before their meals. But then there are other things in their lives that seem to contradict this behavior. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people today who believe they are Christians yet probably are not. And one of the reasons for that is a lot of shallow and anemic preaching in our churches today. I fear there may be a generation of people running around who believe they really know God when, in fact, they don't really know him at all. One recent poll indicated that seven out of 10 American adults have no clue as to the meaning of John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." And barely one-third of all adults know the meaning of the expression "the Gospel." I question whether most Americans have ever heard the authentic Gospel message. I know we have heard a lot of preaching. I know we have heard a lot of sermons. But have most Americans really heard the Gospel? And do they have a basic understanding of it? In their book, "unChristian," David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons identify behaviors that so-called Christians share with non-Christians. When asked to identify their activities over the last 30 days, those identifying themselves as born-again Christians were, according to the book, just as likely to gamble, visit a pornographic website, take something that did not belong to them, consult a medium or psychic, consume enough alcohol to be legally drunk, use an illegal drug, or lie about someone to retaliate. My question is not whether these people are Christians who are ignoring God's commands. My question is whether these people are really Christians at all............ read more

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

so the tsunami and earthquakes is coz of naughty people huh????
Saudi Arabia Saudi Cleric Muhammad Al Munajid Slams Beijing Olympics: Nothing Makes Satan Happier Than The "Bikini" Olympics




Sheikh Muhammad Al-Munajid is a well-known Saudi Islamic lecturer and author. He frequently appears on Saudi TV channels and is known for issuing controversial fatwas. He previously worked in Washington, D.C. at the Saudi Embassy Islamic Affairs Department but was stripped of his diplomatic credentials.(1) In an August 10, 2008 interview with Al-Majd TV, Al-Munajid was highly critical of the Beijing Olympics, which he called the "bikini Olympics," referring to them as "satanic." Al-Munajid is known for his criticism of other sporting events. In a January 2005 interview, he said that soccer games "reveal nakedness," adding that women must not exercise in public because they wear "tight fitting, short" outfits to do so, and also that women are forbidden from participating in the Olympics.(2) Al-Munajid also discussed, in a July 2007 interview, how Western "beasts" use public toilets and wear colored underwear "to conceal all that filth."(3) Following the December 2004 Southeast Asia earthquake and tsunami, in January 2005 Al-Munajid called the disaster "punishment" for sex tourism on New Year's Eve and for drunkenness on Christmas,(4) and said that Allah had "finished off the Richter scale" in vengeance against the infidel criminals. (5) Before that, in April 2004, Al-Munajid discussed jihad, the U.S., and Iraq, calling America "Heretica" and assuring viewers that "the big explosion will come." (6) To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1832.htm. To visit the MEMRI TV page for Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid, go to http://www.memritv.org/subject/en/517.htm.

This poisonous vitriol that spews out of this guys mouth is totally obscene to me. When are our governments gonna wake up and stop this madness from spreading throught our western world?

Poisoned water

MEMRI Islamist Websites Monitor Project.
Islamist Forum Member Proposes Poisoning Water Systems of Major European Cities


On August 9, 2008 a member of the Islamist forum Al-Boraq proposed poisoning the water systems of major European cities. The forum member began his message by reminding "monotheists [i.e. Muslims] who yearn to support the Prophet" that Ramadan is coming, and explained that poisoning the water systems of major European cities is just one of many options – some of them "more powerful and more damaging" – but that his posting is meant to "prompt the mind [to generate] innovative [ideas]."

To view the full dispatch, visit
http://www.memriiwmp.org/content/en/report.htm?report=2829.

Best we all start buying bottled water, unless they have a plan to get to that first.... I wonder what little tricks they have planned for us here in OZ????? hhmm

House church pastor

House Church Pastor Hua Huiqi arrested and escapes from police custody as President Bush visits officially-staged Church service.
As President Bush visited and attended a service at the Three Self Patriotic Movement's (TSPM)Kuanjie Church established by the government on Sunday, a renowned Christian social activist in Beijing was arrested once again by the Chinese police, but has since eluded authorities. more

saudi womens rights

Are these women being hunted down for their comments.....Gee, I thought women had no rights in islam.

Memri… August 6, 2008 No. 2016
Saudi Women's Rights Activist Wajeha Al-Huwaider's New YouTube Video: On the Saudi Ban of Women Competing in the Beijing Olympics
The video shot and pics are not here.
The following are screen shots from the new YouTube video by Saudi women's rights activist Wajeha Al-Huwaider [1] titled "No to Women’s Oppression," on the Saudi ban on women competing in the Beijing Olympics. In the video, Wajeha Al-Huwaider writes, "participating in the Olympics is the impossible dream for Saudi women, until they lift the ban on sports for women in public schools and government universities."
Al-Huwaider heads the Society for Defending Women's Rights (saudiwomenvoice.com ).

protestors in China

From ABC NewsProtesters accuse China of illegal organ harvesting
Youth Day pilgrims seek asylum
Religious leaders call for Pacific climate change action

Four Corners The End of the World CultABC1, 11 AugustInside a Doomsday Cult... an unprecedented insight into

Phallic Cucumbers..

This is just too bloody funny.
Cucumbers broke Al-Qaeda's power in Iraq! »

They include a ban on women buying suggestively-shaped vegetables, according to one tribal leader in the western province of Anbar.
"They regarded the cucumber as male and tomato as female. Women were not allowed to buy cucumbers, only men."
Does this include veggies like carrot, parsnip, zucchini, and fruit like bananas. If only men are permitted to buy phallic shaped fruit and veg, then what’s to stop one of his wives or daughters from raiding the pantry at home when mr mo is out and about.
If this was not so funny, it would be insane. Now I think I have read, heard and seen it all.
However, the rest of the story is not at all funny, it is as sick as….a female goat killed coz of it’s tail in the air….. ice-cream banned coz it was not known of in pubahs time, more to the point that muslimas would have to stick their tongue out to lick up the ice cream…. And how would they be able to eat an ice-cream out side in the first place…. Would be an almighty mess under their tents yeah.

And this little snippet….. is this what we can all look forward to… my God, what bloody barbarians they are.
Most seriously, Sheikh al-Hayyes said: "I saw them slaughter a nine-year old boy like a sheep because his family didn't pledge allegiance to them."...

Another comment…. The herdsman were expected to "DIAPER" their goats????? Oh come on....lol. Just when I thought it couldn't get any more ridiculous....Demented, paranoid, evil idiots. Posted by: gymgal at August 11, 2008 10:05 PM
Oh and the other comments from the readers of JIHAD WATCH from where this story came just cracked me up, I have not laughed so much for a long time……

Thankyou Jihad Watch….. as usual my education into the muslim mind just keeps growing.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Italy a big winner

A Big CONGRATULATIONS To Italy!!!!!!

It is so good to see a country standing up for itself and putting the PC crap out of the equation.
Now to get the do-gooders here to start to see reason and reality. When are they and the current pollies gonna stand up and be counted. Can't they see we are headed down a road of no return if this lunacy is not stopped. Stop muslim imigration, stop the building of madrassa and mosques, stop the pathetic mouth-pieces from protecting people who are guilty of consorting with terrorists. Learn from what other countries are going through because of their misguided generosity. BEAUSEANT!!!!!

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Italy Declares State of Emergency over Illegal Immigration Invasion
Posted: 27 Jul 2008 01:21 PM CDT
We can all see that the Western world is being overrun by illegals from the 3rd world. But most of our countries leaders just do not have the guts to do anything about it. Except for one, our friends in Italy. Our countries are being financially drained by illegals, entire neighbourhoods being taken over and many of them are trying to impose an ideology on us that is completely opposite from life as we know it. Now the government of Italy which has bulldozed a Mosque site, closed a major Mosque, and deported dozens of Egyptians, has declared a state of emergency because of illegal immigration. Our countries are like a life raft to some coming from the 3rd world, but even life rafts sink if overcrowded.Italy Declares State of Emergency over Illegal Immigration Invasion ⋅ July 26, 2008Britain is not the only country which is being subjected to a Third World immigration invasion - almost every other Western European country is struggling under the same burden. Italy is however, unusual in one respect - it now actually has a government with enough guts to tackle the issue head-on.Yesterday, the Italian government declared a “national state of emergency” over illegal immigration. A Cabinet statement said that the Government had to confront a “persistent and exceptional influx” of non-EU citizens and it had approved a proposal from Roberto Maroni, the Interior Minister, to declare a state of emergency “throughout the national territory”.The state of emergency was earlier in effect only for the southern provinces of Sicily, Puglia and Calabria. Italy’s long shoreline and proximity to Africa make it a popular entry point into Europe for thousands of Africans who make hazardous journeys in flimsy boats each year.Mario Morcone, a senior official at the Interior Ministry, said that the decision had been prompted by the continuing arrival of illegal immigrants in ramshackle boats run by people-smugglers at the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, just off the North African coast. Many such boats capsize and their passengers drown.Mr Morcone said that 9,342 immigrants had arrived between the start of the year and the end of June - double the figure for the previous year - and there were at present more than 1,000 at the overcrowded refugee camp in Lampedusa. Some are repatriated but many are sent to immigrant camps on the Italian mainland.Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, won final parliamentary approval this week for a security package under which illegal immigrants convicted of crimes will face jail sentences a third longer than those for Italians.Italy has also started a controversial census of Roma which involved the fingerprinting and photographing of all adults and children over 14 years old. Roma - sometimes referred to as gypsies - are often blamed in Italy for the rising crime rate across the country.Minister Maroni said that fingerprinting Roma gypsy children would ensure that those parents who sent their children out to beg instead of school could be traced and punished.Link to Article

Friday, August 8, 2008

Saudi's deport Christians

A couple of articles from Australian Christian Channel.
The first one disturbed me more so than the 2nd. Bloody hell, a few Christians get together for prayer and song in praise of God, and they get this treatment...... Mabye countries like ours should reciprocate the treatment.... burst into a few muslim homes and confiscate their koran and other religious books, and charge them with being terrorists etc and deport them back from whence they came. Gee, I thought I have been reading about all this interfaith bullcrap from the ROP.... yeah right, and pigs fly yeah. Hmm How fitting to equate that saying with the musos.
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Saudi Arabia to deport 15 Christians.
Saudi Arabia is set to deport 15 Christians on Tuesday, August 5, for holding private worship meetings in a house in the city of Taif. International Christian Concern (ICC) www.persecution.org says that on Friday, April 25, twelve Saudi Arabian police raided a house where 16 Christians were holding a prayer meeting. more

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God is ok - it is just the Religion bit we don’t like.
Australia is one of the least devout countries in the Western world, although two-thirds of its population identifies itself as Christian, an international survey has found. Religion does not play a central part in the lives of many Australians: 48 per cent of Australians surveyed said they did not partake in personal prayer and 52 per cent said they rarely attended a place of worship. The survey questioned 21,000 adults. It found that levels of religious identity in Australia were on par with Germany and Switzerland, significantly less than the US but greater than Britain. more
More Persecution News
More General News

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Violent Demonstration

17 injured as demonstrations turn violent at theological school in Indonesia
For a second consecutive night some 580 students from the Arastamar Evangelical School of Theology (SETIA) in East Jakarta slept in the lobby of Indonesia's parliament yesterday following demonstrations against the school that left at least 17 students injured. Hundreds of protestors shouting "Allahu-Akbar ["God is greater]", urged on by announcements from a mosque loudspeaker to "drive out the unwanted neighbor." more

Sex without strings, relationships without rings

Here's another article from The Real truth... I put the entire article here as it is a subject close to my heart. There is so much truth in here that it almost mirrors my own life. It is only as I have reached the age I am now that I can really see what's happening in society as I witness my daughter and my grandchildren in the way they live their lives with no real sense of Christianity to live by.
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Why Marriage Goes Wrong Before It Even Begins
Personal From David C. Pack, Publisher/Editor-in-Chief
All of this would have been unthinkable just 50 years ago. Virtually everyone back then planned and expected to “grow up, get married and have children.” And marriage was for life! Entire communities—and nations—functioned on this premise!

David C. PackPublisher/Editor-in-Chief
If dating and courtship were practiced correctly today, they would form the foundation of a beautiful relationship between a husband and wife as God ordained it. The two would spend a lifetime together enjoying much happiness and joy. This God-plane relationship would include expanding the family to children who would experience more productive and abundant lives, because their home and family would provide a strong, positive environment, capable of nurturing them to adulthood and into their own successful marriages with children. Parents would teach children all they need to know, and the process would continue through successive generations.

Contact Us
Does this sound like a fairytale—a children’s bedtime story? Today it does! This is because modern society is shot full of wrong education, misinformation, hollow opinions, pop psychology, ignorance, bad advice—or no advice—all of which virtually prevents young people from having any hope for true happiness in marriage.
The following are revealing statistics, trends and facts derived from census data, and what sociologists, psychologists, marriage planners/counselors and others report. While shocking, this is only the briefest thumbnail—a very tiny sampling—of all that could have been included. Take the time to consider the enormous implications of these statistics. Make them personal, and imagine the individual lives behind them:
50% of married women and 66% of married men in the U.S. commit adultery (combined, these statistics indicate that five out of six marriages—over 80%—involve at least one adulterous partner).

Divorces per 1,000 marriages: 1969—140; 1990—380 (up 171%); 1996—451 (up 222% since 1969).
Compared to first marriages, remarriages are 50% more likely to end in divorce during the first five years, and tend to be unstable, break up more often, and more quickly (Statistics Canada).
Divorced status in America is the fastest growing marital category. Between 1970 and 1996, the number of divorcees more than quadrupled, going from 4.3 million to 18.3 million.
The National Institute for Healthcare Research says that divorce now ranks as the number one factor linked with suicide in major U.S. cities, ranking above all other physical, financial, and psychological factors.
More than 50% of people in their 20s, interviewed in a Gallup survey, agreed to the statement, “One sees so few good or happy marriages today that one questions it as a way of life.” Among single young adults, more than half stated that one of their biggest concerns about marriage is “the possibility that it will end in divorce.” Incredible!
About half of all marriages fail! How can this be? Try to imagine the pain, suffering and frustration that so many experience. Is there a reason for all of this? Is it merely because many people just cannot get along? Most have no idea—no realization—that if they follow the correct way—God’s way—they could avoid all the misery and unhappiness!
But divorce is not the only sad and shocking effect of wrong dating and courtship. Improper dating and courtship practices carry the side effect of leading the large and growing ranks of wounded, jaded, cynical people to decide to just live together—or, more accurately, share a bed together—instead of committing to marriage.
Consider just these statistics from Britain: In 1972, there were 480,000 couples who chose to marry. By 2001, less than three decades later, only 286,000 weddings took place, even though the population had grown by seven percent. In 2005, the number of UK marriages fell to 244,710, a stunning decrease of ten percent compared to 2004—this drop in just one year. Just since 1986, the number of women choosing to cohabitate has more than doubled, going from 13 to 28 percent. The figures for men are only slightly lower. (Correspondingly, in America, the number of unmarried couples cohabiting increased tenfold from 1960 to 2005.)
All of this describes a world in revolt against the institution of marriage!
The Young Victims
Cohabitation is not the only bad side effect resulting from divorce. It is important to stop and look at the children—the most painful fruits—of these failed marriages. Again, you will be shocked by the far-reaching implications of the telling statistics below, describing the United States, and reflecting the disintegrating fabric of what is considered the most powerful nation in the world:
75% of children of divorced couples go through divorce.
The school dropout rate among children from divorced families is twice that of those from intact families.
Among teenage and adult females, parental divorce is linked to daughters’ lower self-esteem, earlier sexual activity, greater delinquency, and difficulty establishing fulfilling, lasting adult heterosexual relationships. Yet, their parents’ divorce usually occurred years before any difficulties were observed.
50% of children today will spend at least part of their childhood in single-parent homes.
In 2000, 33% of babies were born to unmarried women, compared to only 3.8% in 1940. (More than 1/3 of children never experience a married home!)
The high divorce rate directly affects one million children every year.
In a recent survey, 62% of men agreed that “while it may not be ideal, it’s okay for an adult woman to have a child on her own if she has not found the right man to marry.”
Studies show that children from broken families are twice as likely to have emotional and physical health problems. Again, these are also more likely to suffer from low self-esteem, with this leading to difficulties in friendships.
Many children today are victims of their parents’ ignorance of the correct way to date and court. If their parents had only taken the time to study God’s principles on the subject, these children would not suffer in the way that they do—both during childhood and later in their own unhappy marriages.
Will your children, or future children, become statistics? Will they suffer in uncounted ways? Will you wait until you experience all the wrong effects of improperly dating, courting and preparing for marriage before addressing the gaping wounds you and your children will experience? Or will you deal with the cause now—before it is too late?
Other Shocking Statistics
Let’s return to the subject of unmarried couples who live together. Over half of all first marriages today are preceded by cohabitation, compared to virtually none in the early part of the twentieth century, just 100 years ago.
Young adults now so often postpone marriage until their late 20s to early 30s. While most men and women are choosing to establish themselves in jobs and careers before marriage (which can be good), they also most often spend a long period unmarried but sexually active. This newer phenomenon has been described as “sex without strings, relationships without rings.”
Yet, looking at destroyed marriages, wounded children and broken families does not paint the full picture of the effects of wrong dating habits today. Sadly, dating today directly leads—almost universally—to premarital sex. “Leads to” is probably not even the right term, because “dates” today often involve sex on the first date! Actually, more often than not, sex is the expected norm as part of the first date, and most of the “dates” that follow. Millions do this.
(To learn more, read my book Dating and Courtship – God’s Way.)

The Real truth

Here are some articles from The Real truth. They make for some very interesting reading, at least another perspective than what we read in the giggle...aka...bullshit papers.

ASIAChina Unveils Itself to the WorldFor decades, communist China has kept to itself, keeping travelers, reporters and other countries at arm's length. However, the nation has made sweeping changes, focusing its resources into modernizing its cities, economy and global image. With the 2008 Olympic Games, Beijing is poised to reveal 21st-century China to the world.

and this.

ASIAChina's Regional InfluenceAn Emerging SuperpowerThe rapidly developing Chinese industrial machine is increasingly influencing the Asian-Pacific region, forcing smaller surrounding nations to take notice.

and this.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGYEvolution Exposed: Deconstructing False SciencePart 3The origin of the universe is usually avoided in evolutionary theory. However, if evolution is real, then the arrival of the cosmos cannot be ignored!

and this.

GEOPOLITICSU.S.-Pakistani Relations StrainedU.S. government officials confirmed that intercepted communications are "direct proof" of Pakistan's military intelligence agency, the ISI, being involved in the planning and execution of a suicide bombing attack against the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 58 people.

and finally.


PROFILEProfile: Nicolas SarkozyBeyond the gossip columns, tabloid drivel, peering paparazzi, unceasing rumors-who is French President Nicolas Sarkozy? Where will his ambitions take France?

Happy Reading..

Emergency Planning

This might be of interest to some of you, and then again some of you might already have seen this or have a plan. In my case, as far as I know, we here in Victoria, Australia do not have any PUBLIC plans such as this. And as far as hospitals are concerned, for goodness sakes, they could not even cope with winter's flu, let alone a full scale emergency. Dr's and nurses are forever complaining about staff shortages, and lack of bed care. And as I have done voluntary work in an emergency department, I absolutely dread the thought. So in the meantime, I am starting to stock up on as many things as I can....things that are not perishable, and food stuffs that do not need cooking. Medical items, winter clothing, bottled water, long-life products that do not need refrigeration, batteries, etc.. And for some of those things that do have a useby date then I use them but buy more of the same item.
__-----------

Emergency Planning Guide
June 5, 2008 - 3:56pm
Has your family discussed what it will do in case of a large-scale emergency? What if you are at work, your spouse is stuck in traffic, your children are in school ... and you can't communicate? Will you know what to do? There is no way to completely plan for every emergency, but there are definite steps you can take now to make sure you are as well prepared for the unknown as you can be.
WTOP Radio is committed to being your emergency notification station, and your connection to the information you need in the event of a crisis. We continue to work hard behind the scenes to make sure that WTOP Radio will stay on the air through any emergency, natural or otherwise. We have backup transmitting facilities and studios well outside of Washington, D.C. Remember, you can tune in to WTOP on the following frequencies: 103.5 FM and 103.9 FM (Frederick, MD). You can also listen online here.
This page is not meant to alarm anyone. We want to make sure you have thought about what you can do BEFORE an emergency happens.
Below and to the right are links and resources to help you prepare for an emergency:
FEMA's Guide to EmergenciesThe Federal Emergency Management Agency's "Are You Ready? A Guide to Citizen Preparedness" includes facts on disaster survival techniques, disaster-specific information, and how to prepare for and respond to both natural and man-made disasters. • National Response PlanTornado Preparedness TipsFrequently Asked Questions
Red Cross Guide to Preparing for EmergenciesBeing prepared for emergencies is crucial at home, school, work and in your community. Disaster can strike quickly and without warning. It can force you to evacuate your neighborhood, workplace or school or can confine you to your home.• Prepared at HomePrepared at WorkPrepared at School
District of ColumbiaBe informed. Be prepared. In an emergency, this site will provide real-time instructions to District residents and visitors.• Get Emergency AlertsEvacuation Routes
Montgomery CountyThe County, in collaboration with state and federal health and public safety agencies, is actively engaged in terrorism surveillance, detection and other safety activities on a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week basis. • Get AlertsMake a Plan
Fairfax CountyFairfax County provides valuable phone numbers, resources and other information to help its citizens prepare themselves for an emergency of any kind. • Calling for Help
also on the web
§ FEMA suspends TopOff procurement
§ Evacuation Order In Cameron Parish
§ Congress must lead on immigration
§ Officials urge precautionary evacuation in parts of Vermilion
§ Congress must show leadership on immigration


Has your family discussed what it will do in case of a large-scale emergency? What if you are at work, your spouse is stuck in traffic, your children are in school ... and you can't communicate? Will you know what to do? There is no way to completely plan for every emergency, but there are definite steps you can take now to make sure you are as well prepared for the unknown as you can be.
WTOP Radio is committed to being your emergency notification station, and your connection to the information you need in the event of a crisis. We continue to work hard behind the scenes to make sure that WTOP Radio will stay on the air through any emergency, natural or otherwise. We have backup transmitting facilities and studios well outside of Washington, D.C. Remember, you can tune in to WTOP on the following frequencies: 103.5 FM and 103.9 FM (Frederick, MD). You can also listen online here.
This page is not meant to alarm anyone. We want to make sure you have thought about what you can do BEFORE an emergency happens.
Below and to the right are links and resources to help you prepare for an emergency:
FEMA's Guide to EmergenciesThe Federal Emergency Management Agency's "Are You Ready? A Guide to Citizen Preparedness" includes facts on disaster survival techniques, disaster-specific information, and how to prepare for and respond to both natural and man-made disasters. • National Response PlanTornado Preparedness TipsFrequently Asked Questions
Red Cross Guide to Preparing for EmergenciesBeing prepared for emergencies is crucial at home, school, work and in your community. Disaster can strike quickly and without warning. It can force you to evacuate your neighborhood, workplace or school or can confine you to your home.• Prepared at HomePrepared at WorkPrepared at School
District of ColumbiaBe informed. Be prepared. In an emergency, this site will provide real-time instructions to District residents and visitors.• Get Emergency AlertsEvacuation Routes
Montgomery CountyThe County, in collaboration with state and federal health and public safety agencies, is actively engaged in terrorism surveillance, detection and other safety activities on a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week basis. • Get AlertsMake a Plan
Fairfax CountyFairfax County provides valuable phone numbers, resources and other information to help its citizens prepare themselves for an emergency of any kind. • Calling for Help

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Refugee Camp in Your City

Refugee Camp In Your City
Starting on August 27 2008, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Australia is launching the first Australian tour of Refugee Camp In Your City, an outdoor, interactive event that re-creates a refugee camp and its facilities on your doorstep. It is open to the public - entrance is free - and fully interpreted by Australian returned field workers. It sounds like a great weekend excursion for the family or for a school class. Tour dates are listed here.
Pitched in the heart of Australian and New Zealand cities (see schedule), REFUGEE CAMP IN YOUR CITY brings humanitarian assistance within reach of the everyday lives of all Australians, young and old.
MSF’s most successful public awareness event around the world (read more about this global event), the CAMP aims to create a better understanding of the vulnerability of life for displaced people and refugees who have fled their homes, and the ways MSF responds to provide healthcare and other vital assistance.

From The New Internationalist.

I would hate to ever be needing to live in a refugee camp...for years. I really feel so sorry for genuine refugees and the conditions they endure. So can someone explain to me why...when illegal refugees and sometimes legal enter Australia that they complain about the living conditions. Housing, food, welfare, medical, legal, at least $50 per week, mobile phones etc.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

alqaeda figure reported killed

Senior al Qaeda figure reported killed in strike
Updated Tue. Jul. 29 2008 9:57 AM ET
The Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan investigated reports Tuesday that a senior al Qaeda figure was among six people killed in a suspected U.S. missile strike amid anger that the attack had violated the Islamic nation's sovereignty.
Pakistan's army said it had not confirmed that Monday's strike killed al Qaeda operative Abu Khabab al-Masri, described by Washington as an expert who trained terrorists in the use of poisons and explosives. click on link for story.

Senior al Qaeda figure reported killed in strike

Ahmadinejad: Iran won't give up nuclear rights



Taliban denies al-Zawahri hurt in missile attack
A spokesman for Pakistan's top Taliban leader denies a U.S. media report that Ayman al-Zawahri, al Qaeda's number-two leader, has been seriously injured or killed.
02/08/2008 10:31:30 PM

Taliban denies al-Zawahri hurt in missile attack


Why do these cretins always complain about being hit illegally??
I mean, it seems okay for them to go around blowing up innocent people, then when they are hit with a tactical strike they say they are being violated. Excuse me!!!!

Columbus

I am currently reading a book: THE TEMPLAR LEGACY by Steve Berry.
It is a rather fascinating read...fiction, but with a lot of actual fact in it...as are most book I read. Anyway, I came across an article in Christianity Today.

http://lists.christianitytoday.com/subscribe/nltool.html.


Why Did Columbus Sail?What your history textbooks may not have told you. By Kevin A. Miller, from The bright noon sun beat down on the stone walls of the Church of St. George in Palos, Spain. Inside, in the cool quiet, knelt Cristóbal Colón, captain general of three small ships anchored in the town's inlet below. With Columbus saying confession and hearing mass, were some ninety pilots, seamen, and crown appointed officials. Later that day they would row to their ships, Colón taking his place on the Santa María, a slow but sturdy flagship no longer than five canoes.Finish this article from the Christian History & Biography website.


It's an interesting article, if you like this sort of thing. Me, well I like anything that is history, and link it in with Christianity and it holds a fascination for me.

Have a look.

Social services

I received the following in an email...as a joke. But as I read it and read it again I started to think of what a lot of people are saying about women and even young girls 'breeding' and remaining single. I love to see people having babies and I can even understand a single mum having a baby out of wedlock and not remaining in a relationship with the baby's father. But what does it become if this same woman goes on to have more babies with the same father of her 1st? But, never getting married and so remains on welfare while at the same time continuing a relationship with this man? Furthermore, if a woman continues to have children to multiple men and receives welfare, shouldn't there be some mandate to stop people from this practice? Now as we see muslos are already getting multiple wives pregnant, time and time again, although illegal here in OZ, and mostly they will be living in government housing and receiving welfare....
And as we all are aware, their prime objective is to have many children so they can raise them in order to increase their numbers, whilst being taught the art of taggiyah... Now we have them wanting to have their polygamous ways recognised by law. Even more so if they come here already in polygamous relationships then the lefty govt is thinking about allowing it. And all the while receiving your tax dollars. When Mr. Howard was the PM he was going to put a stop to immigration of certain parts of Africa...now we see MR Rudd is gonna open the floodgates, and of course we have the do-gooder advocates having their way on children not being kept in detention centres and others are receiving a lot of publicity....like Villawood, and the drugs scandal.... Oh I can see this totally smacks of pending lawsuits against the govt, with some massive payouts to boot... and of course the legal eagles will be lining up to take on the cases to further their own publicity. The poor darlings got themselves addictied to drugs whilst in custody.... whatever happened to 'Just Say No'.... like all our kids are taught. Does that leave the way open for men and women in the prison system to start sueing because of the drug addiction acquired whilst being incarcerated.? A lot of the drugs are killing our kids and do we get to sue through being driven to depression because of losing a loved one to drugs...which come from countries where a lot of our so called refugees come from.... Hmm, I could go on but I'll let you read the "JOKE" for yourself... and as we know a lot of jokes have a lot of truth to them.


A woman walks into the Sunshine Centrelink office, trailed by 15 kids...
'WOW,' the social worker exclaims, 'Are they ALL yours?'Yeah they are all mine,' the flustered mother sighs, having heard that question a thousand times before.She says, 'Sit down Terry.' All the children rush to find seats.'Well,' says the social worker, 'then you must be here to sign up. I'll need all your children's names.'
'This one's my oldest - he is Terry.'
'OK, and who's next?'
'Well, this one he is Terry, also.'
The social worker raises an eyebrow but continues. One by one, through the oldest four, all boys, all named Terry.Then she is introduced to the eldest girl, named Terri.
'All right,' says the caseworker. 'I'm seeing a pattern here. Are they all named Terri?'
Their Mother replied, 'Well, yes-it makes it easier. When it is time to get them out of bed and ready for school, I yell 'Terry!' An' when it's time for dinner, I just yell 'Terry!' an' they all come runnin.' An' if I need to stop the kid who's running into the street, I just yell 'Terry' and all of them stop. It's the smartest idea I ever had, namin' them all Terry.'The social worker thinks this over for a bit, then wrinkles her forehead and says tentatively, 'But what if you just want ONE kid to come, and not the whole bunch' ?'I call them by their last names!'

Friday, August 1, 2008

The coming death shortage.

Now here is something that made me stop and think..... I have a couple of family members who would like to stay young forever, and they are just waiting for when those magic pills, potions and lotions are in the shops. They already have fake boobs and panic if they gain 50grams in weight. Oh and they can't let a grey hair come into view!! They certainly have the vanity to go along with all of this too. Some people can be really shallow in their brain contents coz nothin' matters except what they look like. I'm all for looking good and all the rest of it, but some people go a bit to the extreme and forget what is really important in their life. They wait eagerly for scientific advancements so their personality is forever, even if it is in a computer program....poor misguided fools they are. They have a very selfish outlook on life and I feel very sorry for them. Ha! and they think they feel sorry for me....absolutely no need for them or anyone to be feeling sorry for me as I have a good outlook on my life...and death. Yeah they can laugh behind their hands at my Christian outlook on life and my belief in Jesus and God and a Heavenly existence - and my full belief that The Saviour - Jesus Christ will come again and the new world will happen...I have no doubt. Well anyway, I came across this article from Atlantic review, and I thought, wow, now this is worthy of some discussion. Feel free to leave your comments about the article, I'd love to know what others feel about this article and subject. People can not play around with nature or try to alter the future course. Our lives have been planned out and I think it is something that people should sit up and take notice of. I for one, do not want to be around watching my 5th & 6th generational grandchildren having children...could you imagine the line of Grandmothers at the Mothers Day luncheons????? I am almost 54 and already a grandmother of 3 and soon to be great grandmother....No thanks, I will age gracefully and go peacefully when The Lord wants to call me home, and just keeping my usual pharmaceuticals to keep my cholesterol under control, and pills for migraines and pain meds etc....


The Coming Death Shortage. Why the longevity boom will make us sorry to be alive.
by Charles C. Mann
Anna Nicole Smith's role as a harbinger of the future is not widely acknowledged. Born Vickie Lynn Hogan, Smith first came to the attention of the American public in 1993, when she earned the title Playmate of the Year. In 1994 she married J. Howard Marshall, a Houston oil magnate said to be worth more than half a billion dollars. He was eighty-nine and wheelchairbound; she was twenty-six and quiveringly mobile. Fourteen months later Marshall died. At his funeral the widow appeared in a white dress with a vertical neckline. She also claimed that Marshall had promised half his fortune to her. The inevitable litigation sprawled from Texas to California and occupied batteries of lawyers, consultants, and public-relations specialists for more than seven years. Even before Smith appeared, Marshall had disinherited his older son. And he had infuriated his younger son by lavishing millions on a mistress, an exotic dancer, who then died in a bizarre face-lift accident. To block Marshall senior from squandering on Smith money that Marshall junior regarded as rightfully his, the son seized control of his father's assets by means that the trial judge later said were so "egregious," "malicious," and "fraudulent" that he regretted being unable to fine the younger Marshall more than $44 million in punitive damages. [See a correction]
In its epic tawdriness the Marshall affair was natural fodder for the tabloid media. Yet one aspect of it may soon seem less a freak show than a cliché. If an increasingly influential group of researchers is correct, the lurid spectacle of intergenerational warfare will become a typical social malady.
The scientists' argument is circuitous but not complex. In the past century U.S. life expectancy has climbed from forty-seven to seventy-seven, increasing by nearly two thirds. Similar rises happened in almost every country. And this process shows no sign of stopping: according to the United Nations, by 2050 global life expectancy will have increased by another ten years. Note, however, that this tremendous increase has been in average life expectancy—that is, the number of years that most people live. There has been next to no increase in the maximum lifespan, the number of years that one can possibly walk the earth—now thought to be about 120. In the scientists' projections, the ongoing increase in average lifespan is about to be joined by something never before seen in human history: a rise in the maximum possible age at death.
Stem-cell banks, telomerase amplifiers, somatic gene therapy—the list of potential longevity treatments incubating in laboratories is startling. Three years ago a multi-institutional scientific team led by Aubrey de Grey, a theoretical geneticist at Cambridge University, argued in a widely noted paper that the first steps toward "engineered negligible senescence"—a rough-and-ready version of immortality—would have "a good chance of success in mice within ten years." The same techniques, De Grey says, should be ready for human beings a decade or so later. "In ten years we'll have a pill that will give you twenty years," says Leonard Guarente, a professor of biology at MIT. "And then there'll be another pill after that. The first hundred-and-fifty-year-old may have already been born."
Critics regard such claims as wildly premature. In March ten respected researchers predicted in the New England Journal of Medicine that "the steady rise in life expectancy during the past two centuries may soon come to an end," because rising levels of obesity are making people sicker. The research team leader, S. Jay Olshansky, of the University of Illinois School of Public Health, also worries about the "potential impact of infectious disease." Believing that medicine can and will overcome these problems, his "cautious and I think defensibly optimistic estimate" is that the average lifespan will reach eighty-five or ninety—in 2100. Even this relatively slow rate of increase, he says, will radically alter the underpinnings of human existence. "Pushing the outer limits of lifespan" will force the world to confront a situation no society has ever faced before: an acute shortage of dead people.
The twentieth-century jump in life expectancy transformed society. Fifty years ago senior citizens were not a force in electoral politics. Now the AARP is widely said to be the most powerful organization in Washington. Medicare, Social Security, retirement, Alzheimer's, snowbird economies, the population boom, the golfing boom, the cosmetic-surgery boom, the nostalgia boom, the recreational-vehicle boom, Viagra—increasing longevity is entangled in every one. Momentous as these changes have been, though, they will pale before what is coming next.
From religion to real estate, from pensions to parent-child dynamics, almost every aspect of society is based on the orderly succession of generations. Every quarter century or so children take over from their parents—a transition as fundamental to human existence as the rotation of the planet about its axis. In tomorrow's world, if the optimists are correct, grandparents will have living grandparents; children born decades from now will ignore advice from people who watched the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. Intergenerational warfare—the Anna Nicole Smith syndrome—will be but one consequence.
Trying to envision such a world, sober social scientists find themselves discussing pregnant seventy-year-olds, offshore organ farms, protracted adolescence, and lifestyles policed by insurance companies. Indeed, if the biologists are right, the coming army of centenarians will be marching into a future so unutterably different that they may well feel nostalgia for the long-ago days of three score and ten.
The oldest in vitro fertilization clinic in China is located on the sixth floor of a no-star hotel in Changsha, a gritty fly-over city in the south-central portion of the country. It is here that the clinic's founder and director, Lu Guangxiu, pursues her research into embryonic stem cells. Most cells don't divide, whatever elementary school students learn—they just get old and die. The body subcontracts out the job of replacing them to a special class of cells called stem cells. Embryonic stem cells—those in an early-stage embryo—can grow into any kind of cell: spleen, nerve, bone, whatever. Rather than having to wait for a heart transplant, medical researchers believe, a patient could use stem cells to grow a new heart: organ transplant without an organ donor. The process of extracting stem cells destroys an early-stage embryo, which has led the Bush administration to place so many strictures on stem-cell research that scientists complain it has been effectively banned in this country. A visit to Lu's clinic not long ago suggested that ultimately Bush's rules won't stop anything. Capitalism won't let them. During a conversation Lu accidentally brushed some papers to the floor. They were faxes from venture capitalists in San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Stuttgart. "I get those all the time," she said. Her operation was short of money—a chronic problem for scientists in poor countries. But it had something of value: thousands of frozen embryos, an inevitable by-product of in vitro fertilizations. After obtaining permission from patients, Lu uses the embryos in her work. It is possible that she has access to more embryonic stem cells than all U.S. researchers combined.
Sooner or later, in one nation or another, someone like Lu will cut a deal: frozen embryos for financial backing. Few are the stem-cell researchers who believe that their work will not lead to tissue-and-organ farms, and that these will not have a dramatic impact on the human lifespan. If Organs 'Я' Us is banned in the United States, Americans will fly to longevity centers elsewhere. As Steve Hall wrote in Merchants of Immortality, biotechnology increasingly resembles the software industry. Dependence on venture capital, loathing of regulation, pathological secretiveness, penchant for hype, willingness to work overseas—they're all there. Already the U.S. Patent Office has issued 400 patents concerning human stem cells.
Longevity treatments will almost certainly drive up medical costs, says Dana Goldman, the director of health economics at the RAND Corporation, and some might drive them up significantly. Implanted defibrillators, for example, could constantly monitor people's hearts for signs of trouble, electrically regulating the organs when they miss a beat. Researchers believe that the devices would reduce heart-disease deaths significantly. At the same time, Goldman says, they would by themselves drive up the nation's health-care costs by "many billions of dollars" (Goldman and his colleagues are working on nailing down how much), and they would be only one of many new medical interventions. In developed nations anti-retroviral drugs for AIDS typically cost about $15,000 a year. According to James Lubitz, the acting chief of the aging and chronic-disease statistics branch of the CDC National Center for Health Statistics, there is no a priori reason to suppose that lifespan extension will be cheaper, that the treatments will have to be administered less frequently, or that their inventors will agree to be less well compensated. To be sure, as Ramez Naam points out in More Than Human, which surveys the prospects for "biological enhancement," drugs inevitably fall in price as their patents expire. But the same does not necessarily hold true for medical procedures: heart bypass operations are still costly, decades after their invention. And in any case there will invariably be newer, more effective, and more costly drugs. Simple arithmetic shows that if 80 million U.S. senior citizens were to receive $15,000 worth of treatment every year, the annual cost to the nation would be $1.2 trillion—"the kind of number," Lubitz says, "that gets people's attention." The potential costs are enormous, but the United States is a rich nation. As a share of gross domestic product the cost of U.S. health care roughly doubled from 1980 to the present, explains David M. Cutler, a health-care economist at Harvard. Yet unlike many cost increases, this one signifies that people are better off. "Would you rather have a heart attack with 1980 medicine at the 1980 price?" Cutler asks. "We get more and better treatments now, and we pay more for the additional services. I don't look at that and see an obvious disaster."
The critical issue, in Goldman's view, will be not the costs per se but determining who will pay them. "We're going to have a very public debate about whether this will be covered by insurance," he says. "My sense is that it won't. It'll be like cosmetic surgery—you pay out of pocket." Necessarily, a pay-as-you-go policy would limit access to longevity treatments. If high-level anti-aging therapy were expensive enough, it could become a perk for movie stars, politicians, and CEOs. One can envision Michael Moore fifty years from now, still denouncing the rich in political tracts delivered through the next generation's version of the Internet—neural implants, perhaps. Donald Trump, a 108-year-old multibillionaire in 2054, will be firing the children of the apprentices he fired in 2004. Meanwhile, the maids, chauffeurs, and gofers of the rich will stare mortality in the face. Short of overtly confiscating rich people's assets, it would be hard to avoid this divide. Yet as Goldman says, there will be "furious" political pressure to avert the worst inequities. For instance, government might mandate that insurance cover longevity treatments. In fact, it is hard to imagine any democratic government foolhardy enough not to guarantee access to those treatments, especially when the old are increasing in number and political clout. But forcing insurers to cover longevity treatments would only change the shape of the social problem. "Most everyone will want to take [the treatment]," Goldman says. "So that jacks up the price of insurance, which leads to more people uninsured. Either way, we may be bifurcating society."
Ultimately, Goldman suggests, the government would probably end up paying outright for longevity treatments: an enormous new entitlement program. How could it be otherwise? Older voters would want it because it is in their interest; younger ones would want it because they, too, will age. "At the same time," he says, "nobody likes paying taxes, so there would be constant pressure to contain costs." To control spending, the program might give priority to people with healthy habits; no point in retooling the genomes of smokers, risk takers, and addicts of all kinds. A kind of reverse eugenics might occur, in which governments would freely allow the birth of people with "bad" genes but would let nature take its course on them as they aged. Having shed the baggage of depression, addiction, mental retardation, and chemical-sensitivity syndrome, tomorrow's legions of perduring old would be healthier than the young. In this scenario moralists and reformers would have a field day.
Meanwhile, the gerontocratic elite will have a supreme weapon against the young: compound interest. According to a 2004 study by three researchers at the London Business School, historically the average rate of real return on stock markets worldwide has been about five percent. Thus a twenty-year-old who puts $10,000 in the market in 2010 should expect by 2030 to have about $27,000 in real terms—a tidy increase. But that happy forty-year-old will be in the same world as septuagenarians and octogenarians who began investing their money during the Carter administration. If someone who turned seventy in 2010 had invested $10,000 when he was twenty, he would have about $115,000. In the same twenty-year period during which the young person's account grew from $10,000 to $27,000, the old person's account would grow from $115,000 to $305,000. Inexorably, the gap between them will widen.
The result would be a tripartite society: the very old and very rich on top, beta-testing each new treatment on themselves; a mass of the ordinary old, forced by insurance into supremely healthy habits, kept alive by medical entitlement; and the diminishingly influential young. In his novel Holy Fire (1996) the science-fiction writer and futurist Bruce Sterling conjured up a version of this dictatorship-by-actuary: a society in which the cautious, careful centenarian rulers, supremely fit and disproportionately affluent if a little frail, look down with ennui and mild contempt on their juniors. Marxist class warfare, upgraded to the biotech era! In the past, twenty- and thirty-year-olds had the chance of sudden windfalls in the form of inheritances. Some economists believe that bequests from previous generations have provided as much as a quarter of the start-up capital for each new one—money for college tuitions, new houses, new businesses. But the image of an ingénue's getting a leg up through a sudden bequest from Aunt Tilly will soon be a relic of late-millennium romances.
Instead of helping their juniors begin careers and families, tomorrow's rich oldsters will be expending their disposable income to enhance their memories, senses, and immune systems. Refashioning their flesh to ever higher levels of performance, they will adjust their metabolisms on computers, install artificial organs that synthesize smart drugs, and swallow genetically tailored bacteria and viruses that clean out arteries, fine-tune neurons, and repair broken genes. Should one be reminded of H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, in which humankind is divided into two species, the ethereal Eloi and the brutish, underground-dwelling Morlocks? "As I recall," Goldman told me recently, "in that book it didn't work out very well for the Eloi."
When lifespans extend indefinitely, the effects are felt throughout the life cycle, but the biggest social impact may be on the young. According to Joshua Goldstein, a demographer at Princeton, adolescence will in the future evolve into a period of experimentation and education that will last from the teenage years into the mid-thirties. In a kind of wanderjahr prolonged for decades, young people will try out jobs on a temporary basis, float in and out of their parents' homes, hit the Europass-and-hostel circuit, pick up extra courses and degrees, and live with different people in different places. In the past the transition from youth to adulthood usually followed an orderly sequence: education, entry into the labor force, marriage, and parenthood. For tomorrow's thirtysomethings, suspended in what Goldstein calls "quasi-adulthood," these steps may occur in any order. From our short-life-expectancy point of view, quasi-adulthood may seem like a period of socially mandated fecklessness—what Leon Kass, the chair of the President's Council on Bioethics, has decried as the coming culture of "protracted youthfulness, hedonism, and sexual license." In Japan, ever in the demographic forefront, as many as one out of three young adults is either unemployed or working part-time, and many are living rent-free with their parents. Masahiro Yamada, a sociologist at Tokyo Gakugei University, has sarcastically dubbed them parasaito shinguru, or "parasite singles." Adult offspring who live with their parents are common in aging Europe, too. In 2003 a report from the British Prudential financial-services group awarded the 6.8 million British in this category the mocking name of "kippers"—"kids in parents' pockets eroding retirement savings." To Kass, the main cause of this stasis is "the successful pursuit of longer life and better health." Kass's fulminations easily lend themselves to ridicule. Nonetheless, he is in many ways correct. According to Yuji Genda, an economist at Tokyo University, the drifty lives of parasite singles are indeed a by-product of increased longevity, mainly because longer-lived seniors are holding on to their jobs. Japan, with the world's oldest population, has the highest percentage of working senior citizens of any developed nation: one out of three men over sixty-five is still on the job. Everyone in the nation, Genda says, is "tacitly aware" that the old are "blocking the door."
In a world of 200-year-olds "the rate of rise in income and status perhaps for the first hundred years of life will be almost negligible," the crusty maverick economist Kenneth Boulding argued in a prescient article from 1965. "It is the propensity of the old, rich, and powerful to die that gives the young, poor, and powerless hope." (Boulding died in 1993, opening up a position for another crusty maverick economist.)
Kass believes that "human beings, once they have attained the burdensome knowledge of good and bad, should not have access to the tree of life." Accordingly, he has proposed a straightforward way to prevent the problems of youth in a society dominated by the old: "resist the siren song of the conquest of aging and death." Senior citizens, in other words, should let nature take its course once humankind's biblical seventy-year lifespan is up. Unfortunately, this solution is self-canceling, since everyone who agrees with it is eventually eliminated. Opponents, meanwhile, live on and on. Kass, who is sixty-six, has another four years to make his case.
Increased longevity may add to marital strains. The historian Lawrence Stone was among the first to note that divorce was rare in previous centuries partly because people died so young that bad unions were often dissolved by early funerals. As people lived longer, Stone argued, divorce became "a functional substitute for death." Indeed, marriages dissolved at about the same rate in 1860 as in 1960, except that in the nineteenth century the dissolution was more often due to the death of a partner, and in the twentieth century to divorce. The corollary that children were as likely to live in households without both biological parents in 1860 as in 1960 is also true. Longer lifespans are far from the only reason for today's higher divorce rates, but the evidence seems clear that they play a role. The prospect of spending another twenty years sitting across the breakfast table from a spouse whose charm has faded must have already driven millions to divorce lawyers. Adding an extra decade or two can only exacerbate the strain.
Worse, child-rearing, a primary marital activity, will be even more difficult than it is now. For the past three decades, according to Ben J. Wattenberg, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, birth rates around the world have fallen sharply as women have taken advantage of increased opportunities for education and work outside the home. "More education, more work, lower fertility," he says. The title of Wattenberg's latest book, published in October, sums up his view of tomorrow's demographic prospects: Fewer. In his analysis, women's continuing movement outside the home will lead to a devastating population crash—the mirror image of the population boom that shaped so much of the past century. Increased longevity will only add to the downward pressure on birth rates, by making childbearing even more difficult. During their twenties, as Goldstein's quasi-adults, men and women will be unmarried and relatively poor. In their thirties and forties they will finally grow old enough to begin meaningful careers—the worst time to have children. Waiting still longer will mean entering the maelstrom of reproductive technology, which seems likely to remain expensive, alienating, and prone to complications. Thus the parental paradox: increased longevity means less time for pregnancy and child-rearing, not more.
Even when women manage to fit pregnancy into their careers, they will spend a smaller fraction of their lives raising children than ever before. In the mid nineteenth century white women in the United States had a life expectancy of about forty years and typically bore five or six children. (I specify Caucasians because records were not kept for African-Americans.) These women literally spent more than half their lives caring for offspring. Today U.S. white women have a life expectancy of nearly eighty and bear an average of 1.9 children—below replacement level. If a woman spaces two births close together, she may spend only a quarter of her days in the company of offspring under the age of eighteen. Children will become ever briefer parentheses in long, crowded adult existences. It seems inevitable that the bonds between generations will fray.
Purely from a financial standpoint, parenthood has always been a terrible deal. Mom and Dad fed, clothed, housed, and educated the kids, but received little in the way of tangible return. Ever since humankind began acquiring property, wealth has flowed from older generations to younger ones. Even in those societies where children herded cattle and tilled the land for their aged progenitors, the older generation consumed so little and died off so quickly that the net movement of assets and services was always downward. "Of all the misconceptions that should be banished from discussions of aging," F. Landis MacKellar, an economist at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, in Austria, wrote in the journal Population and Development Review in 2001, "the most persistent and egregious is that in some simpler and more virtuous age children supported their parents." This ancient pattern changed at the beginning of the twentieth century, when government pension and social-security schemes spread across Europe and into the Americas. Within the family parents still gave much more than they received, according to MacKellar, but under the new state plans the children in effect banded together outside the family and collectively reimbursed the parents. In the United States workers pay less to Social Security than they eventually receive; retirees are subsidized by the contributions of younger workers. But on the broadest level financial support from the young is still offset by the movement of assets within families—a point rarely noted by critics of "greedy geezers."
Increased longevity will break up this relatively equitable arrangement. Here concerns focus less on the super-rich than on middle-class senior citizens, those who aren't surfing the crest of compound interest. These people will face a Hobson's choice. On the one hand, they will be unable to retire at sixty-five, because the young would end up bankrupting themselves to support them—a reason why many would-be reformers propose raising the retirement age. On the other hand, it will not be feasible for most of tomorrow's nonagenarians and centenarians to stay at their desks, no matter how fit and healthy they are.

The case against early retirement is well known. In economic jargon the ratio of retirees to workers is known as the "dependency ratio," because through pension and Social Security payments people who are now in the work force funnel money to people who have left it. A widely cited analysis by three economists at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimated that in 2000 the overall dependency ratio in the United States was 21.7 retirees for every 100 workers, meaning (roughly speaking) that everyone older than sixty-five had five younger workers contributing to his pension. By 2050 the dependency ratio will have almost doubled, to 38 per 100; that is, each retiree will be supported by slightly more than two current workers. If old-age benefits stay the same, in other words, the burden on younger workers, usually in the form of taxes, will more than double.
This may be an underestimate. The OECD analysis did not assume any dramatic increase in longevity, or the creation of any entitlement program to pay for longevity care. If both occur, as gerontological optimists predict, the number of old will skyrocket, as will the cost of maintaining them. To adjust to these "very bad fiscal effects," says the OECD economist Pablo Antolin, one of the report's co-authors, societies have only two choices: "raising the retirement age or cutting the benefits." He continues, "This is arithmetic—it can't be avoided." The recent passage of a huge new prescription-drug program by an administration and Congress dominated by the "party of small government" suggests that benefits will not be cut. Raising the age of retirement might be more feasible politically, but it would lead to a host of new problems—see today's Japan. In the classic job pattern, salaries rise steadily with seniority. Companies underpay younger workers and overpay older workers as a means of rewarding employees who stay at their jobs. But as people have become more likely to shift firms and careers, the pay increases have become powerful disincentives for companies to retain employees in their fifties and sixties. Employers already worried about the affordability of older workers are not likely to welcome calls to raise the retirement age; the last thing they need is to keep middle managers around for another twenty or thirty years. "There will presumably be an elite group of super-rich who would be immune to all these pressures," Ronald Lee, an economic demographer at the University of California at Berkeley, says. "Nobody will kick Bill Gates out of Microsoft as long as he owns it. But there will be a lot of pressure on the average old person to get out."
In Lee's view, the financial downsizing need not be inhumane. One model is the university, which shifted older professors to emeritus status, reducing their workload in exchange for reduced pay. Or, rather, the university could be a model: age-discrimination litigation and professors' unwillingness to give up their perks, Lee says, have largely torpedoed the system. "It's hard to reduce someone's salary when they are older," he says. "For the person, it's viewed as a kind of disgrace. As a culture we need to get rid of that idea."
The Pentagon has released few statistics about the hundreds or thousands of insurgents captured in Afghanistan and Iraq, but one can be almost certain that they are disproportionately young. Young people have ever been in the forefront of political movements of all stripes. University students protested Vietnam, took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran, filled Tiananmen Square, served as the political vanguard for the Taliban. "When we are forty," the young writer Filippo Marinetti promised in the 1909 Futurist Manifesto, "other younger and stronger men will probably throw us in the wastebasket like useless manuscripts—we want it to happen!" The same holds true in business and science. Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak founded Apple in their twenties; Albert Einstein dreamed up special relativity at about the same age. For better and worse, young people in developed nations will have less chance to shake things up in tomorrow's world. Poorer countries, where the old have less access to longevity treatments, will provide more opportunity, political and financial. As a result, according to Fred C. Iklé, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "it is not fanciful to imagine a new cleavage opening up in the world order." On one side would be the "'bioengineered' nations," societies dominated by the "becalmed temperament" of old people. On the other side would be the legions of youth—"the protagonists," as the political theorist Samuel Huntington has described them, "of protest, instability, reform, and revolution." Because poorer countries would be less likely to be dominated by a gerontocracy, tomorrow's divide between old and young would mirror the contemporary division between rich northern nations and their poorer southern neighbors. But the consequences might be different—unpredictably so. One assumes, for instance, that the dictators who hold sway in Africa and the Middle East would not hesitate to avail themselves of longevity treatments, even if few others in their societies could afford them. Autocratic figures like Arafat, Franco, Perón, and Stalin often leave the scene only when they die. If the human lifespan lengthens greatly, the dictator in Gabriel García Márquez's The Autumn of the Patriarch, who is "an indefinite age somewhere between 107 and 232 years," may no longer be regarded as a product of magical realism.
Bioengineered nations, top-heavy with the old, will need to replenish their labor forces. Here immigration is the economist's traditional solution. In abstract terms, the idea of importing young workers from poor regions of the world seems like a win-win solution: the young get jobs, the old get cheap service. In practice, though, host nations have found that the foreigners in their midst are stubbornly … foreign. European nations are wondering whether they really should have let in so many Muslims. In the United States, traditionally hospitable to migrants, bilingual education is under attack and the southern border is increasingly locked down. Japan, preoccupied by Nihonjinron (theories of "Japaneseness"), has always viewed immigrants with suspicion if not hostility. Facing potential demographic calamity, the Japanese government has spent millions trying to develop a novel substitute for immigrants: robots smart and deft enough to take care of the aged.

According to Ronald Lee, the Berkeley demographer, rises in life expectancy have in the past stimulated economic growth. Because they arose mainly from reductions in infant and child mortality, these rises produced more healthy young workers, which in turn led to more-productive societies. Believing they would live a long time, those young workers saved more for retirement than their forebears, increasing society's stock of capital—another engine of growth. But these positive effects are offset when increases in longevity come from old people's neglecting to die. Older workers are usually less productive than younger ones, earning less and consuming more. Worse, the soaring expenses of entitlement programs for the old are likely, Lee believes, "to squeeze out government expenditures on the next generation," such as education and childhood public-health programs. "I think there's evidence that something like this is already happening among the industrial countries," he says. The combination will force a slowdown in economic growth: the economic pie won't grow as fast. But there's a bright side, at least potentially. If the fall in birth rates is sufficiently vertiginous, the number of people sharing that relatively smaller pie may shrink fast enough to let everyone have a bigger piece. One effect of the longevity-induced "birth dearth" that Wattenburg fears, in other words, may be higher per capita incomes.
For the past thirty years the United States has financed its budget deficits by persuading foreigners to buy U.S. Treasury bonds. In the nature of things, most of these foreigners have lived in other wealthy nations, especially Japan and China. Unfortunately for the United States, those other countries are marching toward longevity crises of their own. They, too, will have fewer young, productive workers. They, too, will be paying for longevity treatments for the old. They, too, will be facing a grinding economic slowdown. For all these reasons they may be less willing to finance our government. If so, Uncle Sam will have to raise interest rates to attract investors, which will further depress growth—a vicious circle.
Longevity-induced slowdowns could make young nations more attractive as investment targets, especially for the cash-strapped pension-and-insurance plans in aging countries. The youthful and ambitious may well follow the money to where the action is. If Mexicans and Guatemalans have fewer rich old people blocking their paths, the river of migration may begin to flow in the other direction. In a reverse brain drain, the Chinese coast guard might discover half-starved American postgraduates stuffed into the holds of smugglers' ships. Highways out of Tijuana or Nogales might bear road signs telling drivers to watch out for norteamericano families running across the blacktop, the children's Hello Kitty backpacks silhouetted against a yellow warning background.
Given that today nobody knows precisely how to engineer major increases in the human lifespan, contemplating these issues may seem premature. Yet so many scientists believe that some of the new research will pay off, and that lifespans will stretch like taffy, that it would be shortsighted not to consider the consequences. And the potential changes are so enormous and hard to grasp that they can't be understood and planned for at the last minute. "By definition," says Aubrey de Grey, the Cambridge geneticist, "you live with longevity for a very long time."

islam subway ad

you have just got to be kidding with this...... I really have to ask the people of New York (and other places in the Western world...normal people I mean)...how on God's given earth do you all put up with this crap that is in your faces day in day out... never seems to be a let up. Is this what us Aussies have got to look forward to? As if we aren't pissed off enough with certain mo activities and tent covered people, and I say people coz we never really know what is under the tents that are floating down the street or entering banks and shops. Oh come on Crusades!! BEAUSEANT!!!

Islam Subway Ad Should be Tolerated, Says Theologian

Islam Subway Ad Should be Tolerated, Says Theologian.

Authorities should tolerate an initiative to place ads about Islam in New York subway cars, said a Christian theologian with expertise in Islamic strategies.
Several Muslim groups, including main sponsor Islamic Circle of North America, are supporting a campaign to feature 1,000 ads promoting Islam in New York’s subway trains in September to coincide with the Islamic holiday of Ramadan. The ads feature phrases associated with Islam such as “Head Scarf?” or “Prophet Muhammad?” and the phrase “You deserve to know” along with the Web site address WhyIslam.org, according to CNN.
Critics of the ads have accused its backers of having ties with terrorists, and urged the Metropolitan Transit Authority to reject the ads.
But Dr. William Wagner, author of the book How Islam Plans to Change the World and president of Olivet University International in San Francisco, believes the American principles of freedom of religion and innocent until proven guilty give a “broad level of protection” to the Islamic groups that want to run the ads.
“I think that they have this right,” said Wagner, who was an International Mission Board missionary with the Southern Baptist Convention for 31 years in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, to The Christian Post. “In America we must tolerate these acts even if this would never be accepted in Islamic societies.”
But he quickly switched gears and expressed concerns about Muslims becoming increasingly more aggressive in drawing Americans to their faith.
During the last 20 years, the scholar on Islamic strategies noted that Muslims have been studying Christian mission methods and have become “very effective” in applying most of these techniques.
“In fact, they have become very effective missionaries for Islam in the Western World,” Wagner stated. “We will see much more of this in the future.”
He added that some Islamic leaders proclaim that the whole world will be Muslim by the year 2080.
“This advertising blitz is only one of an expected barrage of missionary advertising in the future,” Wagner said.
Regarding the allegation of the ad sponsors being linked to terrorists, Wagner responded that this is to be expected. Based on his studies of Islam in America, he contends it is “very difficult” to completely separate Muslim groups from terrorists, especially groups with more aggressive Muslim missionaries.
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, has urged the Metropolitan Transit Authority to not run the ads because of what he believes to be its connection to terrorists.
Siraj Wahhaj, imam of a Brooklyn mosque, is among the backers of the ad campaign. Wahhaj was a character witness for convicted 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman. He was also on a list of 170 potential unindicted co-conspirators for the bombing.
"I have no problem with the ad itself, but I have a very, very real problem with those behind it," King said to CNN.
Wahhaj, however, defended himself saying that he knew Abdel-Rahman as a “scholar in Islam” and “a great reciter of the Quran.”
"People try to make the connection as if I'm endorsing some bad deeds that [were] done by Sheik Abdel-Rahman," he said. "That had nothing to do with it."
The Islamic advertising campaign is scheduled to run for a month and costs about $48,000.