Food troubles are here to stay

Another dimension of Israel. It’s hard to grasp the extent to which oil is a part of our lives until the reality starts to hit us in the face and pocketbooks. And even then, some of us still don’t grasp it, or don’t care because they’re fine now.

Christians, let’s use our greatest resource – the church – to start addressing some of the problems people – whether the average American, or those in Haiti or Indonesia or Israel – are running into and try our best to raise awareness and develop plans of action, because they’re going to get worse.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/980076.html

The government sends calming signals and says no dramatic shortages are expected. The Economist says do nothing, market forces will sort it all out. But as the global food-price crisis hit Israel this week, something told us we are not being told the whole story.

Around the world food prices are soaring. Since January 2006, the price of rice has risen by 217 percent. Wheat, corn and soybean prices have more than doubled, and in several countries, milk and meat prices have also doubled.

Food prices and falling wages have sparked riots in more than 30 countries from Bangladesh to Egypt to Haiti – where the prices of rice, beans, fruit and condensed milk have gone up 50 percent over a few months, while the price of fuel has tripled.

Nearly 1 in 5 troops has mental problems after war service

Hopefully most of you have been aware of the prevalence of PTSD in Iraq war veterans. Those who need the most help are most always going to be on the margins. By miracle or simply persistence, I believe Christ can help them. Let’s live the life of service and freedom together!

link

By PAULINE JELINEK – 2 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Roughly one in every five U.S. troops who have survived the bombs and other dangers of Iraq and Afghanistan now suffers from major depression or post-traumatic stress, an independent study said Thursday. It estimated the toll at 300,000 or more.

Riots, instability spread as food prices skyrocket

Does anyone honestly think that we’re going to engineer ourselves out of this mess? That 2012 apocalypse prediction is really not looking so out of the question after all, is it?

This blog has been repeating the same old theme: a coming apocalypse from a confluence of anthropological, economic, and natural factors, which seems interminably headed towards the direction of a die-off, global war, or any other of the major disasters mankind has faced in its short history. Christian brothers, how can we honestly sit here doing nothing? Has your church made you that out of touch, that you would ignore the suffering of those around you? Examine yourself and see if your faith is tried and true.

(CNN) — Riots from Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt over the soaring costs of basic foods have brought the issue to a boiling point and catapulted it to the forefront of the world’s attention, the head of an agency focused on global development said Monday.

Oil Prices Pass Record Set in ’80s, but Then Recede

The era of Cheap Oil is over. (And has been for a couple years now).

All there’s left to see is how far down and how long.

(Sorry this wasn’t longer, currently working on senior thesis paper. Right-click => View Image to see the full graph)

Happy 2008 everybody!

The decade of our doom draws closer (half kidding. And the alliteration was just by happenstance).

In the meantime, I’ve been reading a book called “The Fourth Turning” by Strauss and Howe describing the cyclical pattern of history, roughly divided into 4 “quarters”: High, Awakening, Unraveling, and Crisis. They say with conviction that the US is approaching a Crisis in the next four years, and characterize US Turnings as roughly 70 years long. Great news, eh?

I’ll be praying for both me and all of you out there. May God be glorified through our lives in these tough times.

Financial News: Crisis soars as fraud and scandal collapse

The level of crisis in the securities and investment banking industry is at its highest since records began, according to the Financial News annual Crisis Index.

The unique Financial News family of indices measures references to collapse, crisis, fraud and scandal in articles in Financial News and on Financial News Online each year. To create each index, the frequency of mentions is rebased to 100 starting in 1998 to reflect the three-and-a-half fold increase in the number of articles published by Financial News in the past decade.

Energy Crunch Threatens South American Nations

By now the talk about global warming on this site amounts to beating a dead horse, as the granting of the Nobel prize to Al Gore should demonstrate. Clearly, because we fail to take necessary action now as well as in the immediate (as in, the next 3-5 years) future, we are headed towards some catastrophic changes in the way the ecosphere functions to support our main life support systems. There are irreversible changes occurring all around the planet due to the chain of events started by industrialization, the least of which are the opening up of the Northwest passage, the melting of the Siberian permafrost (releasing massive amounts of methane, a far more potent source of pollution than carbon dioxide), rapid melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, and increases in chaotic weather (and I’m putting it mildly – like the recent 40 degree drop in temperature from 90 to 50 in the past few days here in Chicago), to name a few.

Melanie Stephan thread

Hi “Melanie” (an explanation on the quotes coming further down the post),

I’ve decided to move your four last “responses” here, as well as copy your earlier ones to create an exclusive post. My responses are quoted (you can tell by the date following them) or interspersed.

This is not a Lie or a Joke. Jesus returned in Spirit in the Spring of 2006. He talked to only one person. Again this is not a lie.
Jun 30, 11:09 AM

… and, where did this “contact” occur?
Jun 30, 5:33 PM

Hi Albert, God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost came to North America. Not to far from where Joseph Smith’s alleged talk with God happened. Maybe God just likes this place.
Jul 12, 9:19 AM

Vatican: Non-Catholics ‘wounded’ by not recognizing pope

As horrible as such a decree might sound, I think it actually brings the true catholic “Church” nearer to truth – in terms of orthopraxis – although it’s clearly offset by its person/institution of origin. The bare fact is that the Church is to be as a united and uniformly pure gathering of individuals after the return of Jesus, not as some arbitrary decree from a “recognized” (that is, recognizably flawed) institution like that of the Vatican.

That said, as a follower of the Way, our identity is formed and dictated by our relationship to God and one another, not to any earthly institutions.

Vatican: Non-Catholics ‘wounded’ by not recognizing pope

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) — The Vatican on Tuesday said Christian denominations outside the Roman Catholic Church were not full churches of Jesus Christ.

Daylight Saving Time friendly reminder

Remember to “Spring Forward” at 2AM today.

Global Warming Is Being Seriously Underestimated

I know I haven’t been posting in awhile. The workload at school has become unexpectedly large, and it has unfortunately caused me to detract from writing anything of significance on this blog, which I think to both your and my detriment.

That said, there have been a number of things I wanted to comment on but haven’t gotten around to doing. I was (and am still) locked in conversation with my last thread-mate, sianamech, but our exchanges have gotten unmanagably longer, which I am trying (unsuccessfully) to parcel out time for (sorry sianimech).

If anything, though, the time I’ve spent in my return to school has been revealing in that it’s shown me how entrenched people really are to this idea of “sustainable growth,” and things essentially staying the same way they are. I think that’s farcical (click on some of the topics under “apocalypse” to see why), and this latest article just serves to underscore that in an unbelievably major way. May God’s people be a light in these dark times ahead.

Global Warming Is Being Seriously Underestimated
By John James

03 February, 2007
Countercurrents.org

“One of the hardest tasks we face in life is to be the bearer of seriously bad news … I now have to bring the worst of news … that civilisation is in grave danger.”

James Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia.

A number of simply gigantic reserves of greenhouse gasses that nature has stored for our benefit are now beginning to flood back into the atmosphere, as described in www.planetextinction.com.

In addition to what nature gives back to us, our own greenhouse pollution has almost doubled since 2001. There are a number of major natural sources, besides our own. We are beginning to have some idea of the total on the planet, but the speed at which these ancient stores will be released is still completely uncertain.