Distant Rumblings of Pandemic

A recent article in a local newspaper alerted me to the rumblings of a future pandemic that would make the swine flu seem like a walk in the park.

The bacteria are equipped with a gene that enables them to produce an enzyme that disables antibiotics. The enzyme is called Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenamase, or KPC. It disables carbapenam antibiotics, last-ditch treatments for infections that don't respond to other drugs.

"We've lost our drug of last resort," Fishman says.

Doctors say the bacteria are more worrisome than another well-known superbug, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), because more drugs are available to treat MRSA, Fishman says. "When MRSA started to develop 15 years ago, the industry started producing antibiotics now coming onto the market," he says. "We're in the same position with KPCs as we were with staph aureus 15 years ago, except that the pharmaceutical industry isn't rushing to produce new drugs."

These strains of bacteria have been around for about a decade. Make no mistake though. The only way for these bacteria to have developed a resistance to this class of drugs is for them to have survived treatment by this class of drugs. Much like what I observed with Cipro, here in the US, after the attacks using Anthrax sent through the mail. Once the public learned about this new antibiotic, uncontrolled use of it soon followed.

There is no mechanism in medicine or government to control the use of new antibiotics. There used to be, but I think it has long since been abandoned, a victim of unlearned people screaming about class warfare and doing the work of the evil men who have been trying to destroy our civilization for the past 70 or so years. Now, because of the entrenched evil in our government, no program will succeed at keeping new drugs from being abused.

On a grander scale, this was forecast in Christan Prophesy about 1980 years ago.

Current State of our National Economy

The Treasury Bill interest rates dropped to an all time low a couple of weeks ago, but then President Obama began talking about giving business a tax break on equipment depreciation, and they, along with some other indicators recovered by 10% to 20%. McCain called it a death bed conversion (but, he said, too little, too late), since Obama was now endorsing a tax cut that the liberals had been fighting against for a couple of years. And even this tax cut is only one small slice of the sweeping tax reforms needed to begin undoing the damage from the Obama administration.

Other good news, solid gains in private sector employment numbers were the opposite of the news that the unemployment rate had climbed again. Let me be clear: the superficial numbers of this week's or this month's unemployment rate are useless. The numbers that count are private sector payroll and manufacturing payroll.

Some banks and credit card companies raised their rates just before the final provisions of the CARD Act went into effect. No big deal, unless you owe a lot on your credit card. The long term effect of the CARD Act will encourage banks and credit card companies to be more open and honest in their dealings. This is a good thing, in spite of what many Republicans say.

The reason the T-Bill interest rates are so low is the same reason Gold prices are so high and oil prices have not gone up. Many of the people controlling large quantities of money are in a holding pattern. By this, I mean investment houses and banks. They are buying T-Bills and gold, instead of putting it back into the economy, where they might not get any return, since business has been at the mercy of coming tax hikes beginning in a few months. They are afraid of a "double dip" recession, and they still might get one. I say this, because I recently heard the markets in Europe are so unstable that now banks are buying up gold as a hedge against a collapse of the Euro.

Is inflation right around the corner? Well, if the European Union doesn't go into collapse, and the US gets its tax cuts (and gets its spending in line), the economy is chomping at the bit to accelerate. And that will bring a round of robust inflation. Some banks are already starting to get the tools in place to handle that round of inflation.

Is it time to buy gold as a hedge? I don't think so, but it is time to begin talking about it. Looking at the third chart (Gold recent with 200 day exponential average), I would begin looking seriously at it when the blue line drops below the red line. In the mean time, I am keeping a closer eye than I probably should, at the November elections. The "right wing" is very sure that they will replace the Leftists in congress, and thereby put the brakes on our slide into liberal despotism. Notice, I said put the brakes on, not stop or reverse. If they are over confident, and don't get the brakes on, it might be time to invest in guns and ammo.

How to make money

There are, to oversimplify things, Three good ways for an individual to make money in this world

1. Do a job no one else wants to do. There are jobs that no one is lining up to do. Roofing work, cleaning and housekeeping in motels and nursing homes, servicing (cleaning and moving) porta-potties all come to mind.
2. Work in a location that no one else wants to work. Personally, I work about 15 miles out of town in a field, night or day, rain or shine. Jobs in Kuwait pay a lot more than jobs in Indiana.
3. Get some education and training. The truth is, most people are not willing to spend 6 months or more in a college (or trade school) classroom, doing "book work" for "no pay"


Similarly, there are basically three activities that nearly all wealth in society comes from.
1. Agriculture - in this, I include anything that grows food or changes animals or plants into an edible product
2. Manufacturing - in this, I include anything that changes a raw material into a product for sale to the consumer
3. Mining - in this, I include anything that removes materials from the ground for our use.


The rest of the economy is just moving wealth around
professional services
management
communications
service
security
consumer
transportation


And that is all for today's lesson.

Border Security Situation

As I begin to write this, National Geographic is beginning a series "Border Wars," the Federal Executive Branch is actively fighting against Arizona's attempts to control illegal aliens. Multiple other states and cities around the country are instituting controls on illegal aliens, many drawing fire from LEFTIST, liberal and insurgent front groups, using disingenuous arguments to make the defenders look like the bad guys.

All the while that these forces are fighting the efforts of law abiding citizens to defend themselves and their properties, the drug lords and insurgents are pouring into our country, murdering our people, and spreading more disinformation.

Our federal government, while making great pretense, is doing little to stem the flow of illegals and smugglers into the country. The National Guard troops sent to the border areas are not there to apprehend of process illegals or smugglers, but merely to serve as lookouts, in case there are any of them coming across (never mind it is like a 6 lane highway).

And the disingenuous statistics they publish to confuse the issues are a dangerous for of subversive activity. Like the former governor of Arizona telling how the crime rate went down from 1994 to 2004, at the end of which, there were actually no-go areas where the police and citizens were not safe to enter. Tells me her policy was to not prosecute a lot of crimes, in order to make it look like things were better than the reality of the situation. And recently a graph in the newspaper show "illegals on the decline," ending at the end of 2009, while the economy is still in a shambles doesn't mean we are winning at all, but rather, might show that our government givaways were just about tapped out at that time.

I often liken this problem to a boat with a big hole (incomplete border fence) in it. You can plug all the little holes (the check points) and pump (deport) like mad, but until you plug the big hole, it won't make any difference. You can also liken it to a porch. You can close the screen-door and swat flies like mad, but if the rest of the porch isn't screened in, it won't work.


The highest priority must be given to these things:
1. Build the fence. All of the fence. And currently that includes Corpus Christy to San Diego, and about 300 miles or so of the Canadian border near Seattle.
2. Prosecute those hiring illegal aliens. And that means prison time for corporate executives. And remove from government, those who insist on giving aid such as a driver's license and resident rate tuition to them.
3. Insure the integrity of those securing the border. Find ways to ferret out those taking bribes for helping the the smugglers. And that includes the mayors or other officials of certain border cities.

After that, we can start talking about deportations and such. If that day ever comes, I would also be willing to discuss legal immigration, and refugees from South of the Border. In the mean time, though, Arizona is doing the next best thing, which is making their state less inviting to the illegal aliens and smugglers, but that draws the ire of the LEFTIST's in the Obama administration, who still seem to want to maintain an undocumented underclass for exploitation.

more good definitions

Post Modern
- a disingenuous philosophy that denies the existence of truth
(There are no absolute truths? Hmmmm, is that absolutely true?)


Disingenuous
- promoting, as true, a viewpoint one knows is false,
for personal or political gain


Politically Correct
Belief or behavior commonly held to be true or good
at one particular time, but ultimately wrong.
Often used to prevent the truth from being told about some
subculture or insurgent group engaged in untoward practices.


Insurgent
- member or members of a group or or a subgroup of society,
working to destroy that group or society, from within.


The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off. ~Gloria Steinem
(So she said at least one thing right)
Hat Tip: http://truthparlor.com/

Days of Apostasy

We live in an Apostate Nation, and are seeing many of the traditional Protestant Churches struggle with Apostasy in their governing bodies.

What is Apostasy?
The word apostasy means to revolt against what you have previously believed in. Our nation, once founded on the teachings of the Bible (including the biblical understanding that faith in God must be voluntary, which leads to the First Amendment, freedom of religion), has largely turned away from Biblical teachings, in pursuit of Narcissism, Naturalism, Environmentalism, Socialism, Relativism, and Globalism.

These days were spoken of, in general terms, by the Apostle Paul and more specifically by the Apostle Peter:

there will be false teachers among you,
who will secretly bring in destructive heresies,

Signs of the Times
Old Line Protestant Churches, many of which were founded for the very reason, that the Roman Catholic Church had decided the Bible was not the ultimate authority, have now turned away, and declared, either implicitly, or in some cases explicitly, that the Bible is not the ultimate authority.

The Evangelical Lutheran Churches of America
The Presbyterian Church (USA)

This has, in recent years led to the "Emergent" Churches, and now "Purpose Driven" Churches, which are far from true Bible based theology.

This, in turn, leads to boldness in the media, in misrepresenting the Bible
Pretty much the whole day on Easter of 2010, the History Channel ran item after item of things aimed at trying to undermine the faith of Christians in the true historical accounts of what happened in, and to, the Scriptures.

And the History channel produced their own disinformation DVD's "Banned from the Bible", a "study" of the history of our Bible, by those who don't believe and who don't want you to believe.

The real story of how the above fiction came about and a good rebuttal.

Something I heard on Christian Talk Radio is very important in the fight against apostate teachings. "Bank tellers are not given training on how to recognize counterfeit money, they learn by handling the real thing daily."


Persecution soon to come
As apostasy becomes the norm, our society will, more and more, become intolerant of true Biblical teaching, as it has already, labeling the preaching of the Gospel as a hate crime, first in Canada, then in England, and soon if not already in the USA.


What will be the next wars
As a footnote. These are undoubtedly the "end times," althought I don't know if that means we have a day, a year, or a decade till the Lord returns. Recently I have been looking into two wars that are supposed to happen in the end times. One is listed in Psalm 83, and the other in Ezekiel chapters 37 through 39. They may or may not be the same war, but some think they will occur withing months, or even days or minutes before the return of our Savior. Again, I don't know the timeframe, but the order of events seems right.