When I completed Monday’s article “In My Tent Leadership” on Gen. McChrystal and the war in Afghanistan, I couldn’t help thinking that to do this thing right we could have the makings of a 30 year war, in a country that no one thinks it truly is worth the bother. To my surprise when I opened my emails Tuesday morning I was hit with the headline “The 30 Year War in Afghanistan.” As I read the article from Stratfor, I began to understand that their analysis believed that our war in Afghanistan began in 1980, when we offered support to the mujahideen to block Soviet advances. With President Obama’s decision to escalate American involvement when he took office, the war entered Phase 4. It is now Obama’s war. This opens the question will this be Obama’s Vietnam?

Over the weekend reports say that the Canadians spent a billion dollars to protect the G20 leaders from anarchists riots in Toronto, where 900 people were arrested. Maybe Afghanistan is not such a bad investment in that context.

In a developing story ten deep cover Russian spies were arrested in America just like in the good old days of the Cold War. We could go on, but rather than focus on war as and end, perhaps a better description of war is an attempt to control chaos. Chaos however begets chaos, and in the common sense definition of what is happening in the world, the change we were told we could believe in, is really chaos seemingly feeding upon itself.

Since the end of the Korean Conflict, for the United States our wars have been defined in terms of either insurgencies or counterinsurgencies. In Vietnam we were engaged in a counterinsurgency with the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese. In the Gulf War we fought a traditional war, and abandoned the war efforts before either term really applied. With the true Iraq War a similar result was quickly obtained, but pacifying the country quickly became counterinsurgency, against indigenous militias, foreign mercenaries, Al-Qaeda, Iran, and others.

It seems that the Iraq counterinsurgency is finally working, but many problems still remain. Afghanistan is still a very open and troubling question. Historically, the only truly decisive counterinsurgency victory was the British success in then Burma, where Black ops personnel basically hunted down the communist bad guys and killed them. Half a century later Burma is now Myanmar, one of the most oppressive communist régimes in history.

Our Redux Rendezvous emphasis today however, is not to promote or even describe warfare, but rather to focus upon major current worldviews that seem to be either insurgencies or counterinsurgencies in a world in which we all hope will return to order, rather than deepening chaos. In the broader picture this is currently not so much a guns and bullets war, but rather an economic war, or wars.
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Tags: Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, Redux Rendezvous, Laissez Faire Scoundrels, Collectivist Elitists, Radical Islamists, Tradtional Independents, Complacent Agnositics, Alan Greenspan, Al Qaeda, Social Darwinism, Barack Obama, tea party

This last week, where unflattering remarks by the staff of Gen. Stanley McChrystal found their way into Rolling Stone magazine, and led to his subsequent resignation from being the commander of forces in Afghanistan, I have reflected upon my military service in Europe during Vietnam. Even though I was a reluctant volunteer, compared with the reluctant draftee, I have always looked at that time as a tremendous growing experience, that in many ways I see as a Divinely controlled adventure, giving me priceless insight into strategic world events that could have not been gained in such a brief encounter anywhere other than that time and place.

I read the Rolling Stone article, which is quite long and detailed for what passes for twenty-first century journalism. It sounded to me to be a relatively good assessment of a highly motivated general officer with a very tight staff. All good things, when you have a mission to bring a war action in Afghanistan to a reasonable conclusion as rapidly as possible.

My dad was not a military person, he was 4-F when asked to serve in WWII, he had a strong heart murmur, but he was a very successful school administrator. I can say he only had one absolute rule when it came to people management. That rule was, “Always support your staff, no matter whether they are right or wrong. Always support your staff and let the chips fall where they may.” It seems that Gen. Stanley McChrystal lives by the same absolute.

When I was in ROTC in college, we had the opportunity to be taught the science behind the art of military leadership. Many of the questions we were tested upon, outlined a role, mission, or objective to be obtained, and a number of different means to obtain the required results. Maybe to keep things light, somewhere in the options was the always wrong response generally following the line “give and order and say, if you need me I will be in my tent.” In the Rolling Stone article you find out quite rapidly that Gen. McChrystal was and is not a, “I will be in my tent kind of leader.”
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Tags: Stanley McChrystal, Rolling Stone, ROTC, Army Security Agency, Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Charles Denholm, David Petraeus

Well, we really don’t know what happened, but when we went to post this Sunday’s Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon, we discovered that all the posts from Monday, 14 June — yesterday 25 June, had disappeared from the server. Since they were also gone from our saved copy, we tried to pin it on Brute’. He denied anything to do with the happening unless it might help to get him on “The cover of Rolling Stone.”

So if you tried to read any of those four major article in that time frame, they have been restored. Those Special Reports were, “The Summer of Progressive Ferment” and “The Chaos of American Energy.” “Redux Rendezvous IV” dealt generally with the Gulf Oil Spill and “Redux Rendezvous V” dealt with the Gen. McChrystal affair and a new model for startup company funding.

Morning
Only ye shall not go very far away.
Exodus 8:28

This is a crafty word from the lip of the arch-tyrant Pharaoh. If the poor bondaged Israelites must needs go out of Egypt, then he bargains with them that it shall not be very far away; not too far for them to escape the terror of his arms, and the observation of his spies. After the same fashion, the world loves not the non-conformity of nonconformity, or the dissidence of dissent, it would have us be more charitable and not carry matters with too severe a hand. Death to the world, and burial with Christ, are experiences which carnal minds treat with ridicule, and hence the ordinance which sets them forth is almost universally neglected, and even contemned. Worldly wisdom recommends the path of compromise, and talks of "moderation." According to this carnal policy, purity is admitted to be very desirable, but we are warned against being too precise; truth is of course to be followed, but error is not to be severely denounced. "Yes," says the world, "be spiritually minded by all means, but do not deny yourself a little gay society, an occasional ball, and a Christmas visit to a theatre. What's the good of crying down a thing when it is so fashionable, and everybody does it?" Multitudes of professors yield to this cunning advice, to their own eternal ruin. If we would follow the Lord wholly, we must go right away into the wilderness of separation, and leave the Egypt of the carnal world behind us. We must leave its maxims, its pleasures, and its religion too, and go far away to the place where the Lord calls His sanctified ones. When the town is on fire, our house cannot be too far from the flames. When the plague is abroad, a man cannot be too far from its haunts. The further from a viper the better, and the further from worldly conformity the better. To all true believers let the trumpet-call be sounded, "Come ye out from among them, be ye separate."

Evening
Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called.
1 Corinthians 7:20

Some persons have the foolish notion that the only way in which they can live for God is by becoming ministers, missionaries, or Bible women. Alas! how many would be shut out from any opportunity of magnifying the Most High if this were the case. Beloved, it is not office, it is earnestness; it is not position, it is grace which will enable us to glorify God. God is most surely glorified in that cobbler's stall, where the godly worker, as he plies the awl, sings of the Saviour's love, ay, glorified far more than in many a prebendal stall where official religiousness performs its scanty duties. The name of Jesus is glorified by the poor unlearned carter as he drives his horse, and blesses his God, or speaks to his fellow labourer by the roadside, as much as by the popular divine who, throughout the country, like Boanerges, is thundering out the gospel. God is glorified by our serving Him in our proper vocations. Take care, dear reader, that you do not forsake the path of duty by leaving your occupation, and take care you do not dishonour your profession while in it. Think little of yourselves, but do not think too little of your callings. Every lawful trade may be sanctified by the gospel to noblest ends. Turn to the Bible, and you will find the most menial forms of labour connected either with most daring deeds of faith, or with persons whose lives have been illustrious for holiness. Therefore be not discontented with your calling. Whatever God has made your position, or your work, abide in that, unless you are quite sure that he calls you to something else. Let your first care be to glorify God to the utmost of your power where you are. Fill your present sphere to His praise, and if He needs you in another He will show it you. This evening lay aside vexatious ambition, and embrace peaceful content.

In Monday’s “The Chaos of American Energy” we used a Vietnam era construction that said: We the unwilling, led by the incompetent, to do the impossible, for the ungrateful, have struggled so long, with so little, we are now able to create anything out of nothing.

Sticking with the Vietnam motif today we use another term from those bygone days that pretty much describes what is happening to the Obama Administration. That historic expression is Buzzard Luck, Can’t kill nothing, nothing will die. Perhaps a more contemporary definition brings fuller meaning. Everything that happens turns into a disaster.

My personal take on the subject is that there is no such thing as luck, even Buzzard Luck, and everything happens for a reason, including disasters. Since there is no such thing as a previous state of existence, karma does not apply either.

However before noon Pacific time, a soon to be published article in Rolling Stone in which Afghanistan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal made comments that were not all that flattering to the President, his staff, and related support in theater. As a consequence the general is being summoned to Washington to explain his actions today and maybe get the opportunity to retire early.

Then a federal judge in New Orleans blocked the President’s off shore drilling moratorium. U. S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman stated that the moratorium was arbitrarily imposed because continued drilling posed no imminent danger. Arbitrary and capricious two wonderful legal terms which are almost impossible to prove the negative. Outstanding!

Who would have believed that just eighteen months into his Administration it seems like the Obama team continues to shoot itself in the foot. It kind of makes you nostalgic for the good old days of George W. Bush and even perhaps Bill Clinton. But alas, that is just ancient history.

We should however ask ourselves the question, “Is all this Obama’s fault, or is he just the man who volunteered to be the messenger?
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Tags: Buzzard Luck, Gen McChrystal, Barack Obama, Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway, PREFER Ltd, Moola

Liebig’s law of the minimum, states crop yields are proportional to the amount of the most limiting nutrient. However that is just a subclass of a more universal natural law, in that productivity of any entity is limited to the extent of the limiting contributor. Broadening that into the fields of human enterprise it could read, wealth creation is limited by the applications of energy, financial liquidity, and information all functioning within the limits of natural laws.

Now plug that concept into a Vietnam era saying:

We the unwilling, led by the incompetent, to do the impossible, for the ungrateful, have struggled so long, with so little, we are now able to create anything out of nothing.

That needs to be modified in the early twenty-first century to conclude: create nothing out of everything. The limiting factor? Basically human knowledge and wisdom! Put in an enlightened Green Street context, “The blowhards that are in charge, or think they know what is happening, are so full of themselves, that they are in the process of exploding human civilization with their excreted methane gas.”

Last week as I watched President Obama’s address to the nation concerning the Gulf oil catastrophe, I ended up yelling that the television screen. Then while watching all the commentators after the President’s address I yelled even more. In that illumination I refer you to the Green Street context above!

One of the two things that I found worth repeating was Sarah Palin’s comment that, “You can’t trust oil industry information, you must verify it yourself.” Having spent the first years of my professional career embedded in the intelligence culture, that truth must become a Kantian universal law. In the Vietnam context, the industry spokesmen are relying on information provided by the unwilling, which they are incompetent to understand. Furthermore many times these unwilling don’t know the answer demanded of them, and for a multitude of reasons, they create something out of nothing.

The other speech rebuttal statement worthy of development is, “The United States doesn’t have a comprehensive energy policy even though we have been trying for over forty years.”

“Yep! The difficult we do right away, the impossible takes a little longer.”

So where do we begin?
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Tags: Lebigs Law, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, USA, oil companies, ethanol, ObamaCare, ObamaParalysis, hybrid vehicles, NIMBY, Environmental Imperialism, Chernobyl disaster, Gulf oil spill

Morning
For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.
Amos 9:9

Every sifting comes by divine command and permission. Satan must ask leave before he can lay a finger upon Job. Nay, more, in some sense our siftings are directly the work of heaven, for the text says, "I will sift the house of Israel." Satan, like a drudge, may hold the sieve, hoping to destroy the corn; but the overruling hand of the Master is accomplishing the purity of the grain by the very process which the enemy intended to be destructive. Precious, but much sifted corn of the Lord's floor, be comforted by the blessed fact that the Lord directeth both flail and sieve to His own glory, and to thine eternal profit.

The Lord Jesus will surely use the fan which is in His hand, and will divide the precious from the vile. All are not Israel that are of Israel; the heap on the barn floor is not clean provender, and hence the winnowing process must be performed. In the sieve true weight alone has power. Husks and chaff being devoid of substance must fly before the wind, and only solid corn will remain.

Observe the complete safety of the Lord's wheat; even the least grain has a promise of preservation. God Himself sifts, and therefore it is stern and terrible work; He sifts them in all places, "among all nations"; He sifts them in the most effectual manner, "like as corn is sifted in a sieve"; and yet for all this, not the smallest, lightest, or most shrivelled grain, is permitted to fall to the ground. Every individual believer is precious in the sight of the Lord, a shepherd would not lose one sheep, nor a jeweller one diamond, nor a mother one child, nor a man one limb of his body, nor will the Lord lose one of His redeemed people. However little we may be, if we are the Lord's, we may rejoice that we are preserved in Christ Jesus.

Evening
Straightway they forsook their nets, and followed Him.
Mark 1:18

When they heard the call of Jesus, Simon and Andrew obeyed at once without demur. If we would always, punctually and with resolute zeal, put in practice what we hear upon the spot, or at the first fit occasion, our attendance at the means of grace, and our reading of good books, could not fail to enrich us spiritually. He will not lose his loaf who has taken care at once to eat it, neither can he be deprived of the benefit of the doctrine who has already acted upon it. Most readers and hearers become moved so far as to purpose to amend; but, alas! the proposal is a blossom which has not been knit, and therefore no fruit comes of it; they wait, they waver, and then they forget, till, like the ponds in nights of frost, when the sun shines by day, they are only thawed in time to be frozen again. That fatal to-morrow is blood-red with the murder of fair resolutions; it is the slaughter-house of the innocents. We are very concerned that our little book of "Evening Readings" should not be fruitless, and therefore we pray that readers may not be readers only, but doers, of the word. The practice of truth is the most profitable reading of it. Should the reader be impressed with any duty while perusing these pages, let him hasten to fulfil it before the holy glow has departed from his soul, and let him leave his nets, and all that he has, sooner than be found rebellious to the Master's call. Do not give place to the devil by delay! Haste while opportunity and quickening are in happy conjunction. Do not be caught in your own nets, but break the meshes of worldliness, and away where glory calls you. Happy is the writer who shall meet with readers resolved to carry out his teachings: his harvest shall be a hundredfold, and his Master shall have great honour. Would to God that such might be our reward upon these brief meditations and hurried hints. Grant it, O Lord, unto thy servant!

Tags: Barack Obama

A few years ago while looking for a place to develop The Creation Leadership Center, my travels took me to the small hamlet of Loomis, Washington. Loomis sits in a long riff valley next to the eastern slope of the Cascade Mountains and west of the Okanogan River. Today the place consists of a general store, a few houses, a small church, and at the time of my visit a second hand store. In the back room of that store in the used book section I found a small saddle stitched booklet that caught my eye. The title of the pamphlet was: “A comparison of two primitive apples from two continents” authored by one Vladimir Sekerfreevich.

From the description of the author on the back cover I found out that Dr. Sekerfreevich was a professional botanist and geneticist from the Soviet Union, who had defected in 1929 and purchased a small orchard on the shores of Palmer Lake a few miles north of Loomis. At the time Palmer Lake was one of the area’s prime orchard areas, but today being off the beaten track from the Okanogan Valley its contribution is diminished.

According to the owner of the thrift store, Sekerfreevich was essentially a hermit, who lost is family somehow related to a Stalin purge, but still was well liked in the community and help generously the other orchardists improve their orchards. So I gave the thrift store owner a dollar and purchased the booklet, probably the only one still in existence, took it home and promptly put it away, only to discover it recently while looking for something else.

In his little book Sekerfreevich said that when coming to America he was able to bring a small tin of apple seeds from the research center where he worked in central Russia. When he purchased his orchard he planted the seeds and grew them to the point where they began to produce fruit. Because of the difference in climate some of the seeds didn’t produce any fruit, but one particular tree looked very promising, so he grafted it to other rootstocks and rooted some of the canes. As a play on words he called the apples by the common name Russian Red.

Searching an expanded area around his home, on an abandoned homestead up in the Similkameen Valley near the Canadian border, he found a very unusual apple seedling quite different than any he knew back in Russia, or those that grew from his imported seeds, or any that grew in the commercial orchards in the Okanogan Valley. Like what he did with his Russian seeds, Dr. Sekerfreevich, grafted and rooted canes from this variety, defining the variety as Liberty Bell. Read More...

Tags: Collectiva maximus, Independenceus arduous, Thoreau, Glenn Beck, Bill O Reilly, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, USA

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi was heckled Tuesday at the America’s Futures Now conference in Washington, DC. So the third person in line to the Presidency, the queen of the attempted remake of the nation into a warm fuzzy progressive utopia, was hissed continually by what we normal folks would believe should be her strongest supporters. Where’s the love?

What we are beginning to see, not only with the Speaker, but also with the whole Obama team, is that their renaissance plans to transform American into the leader of a new universe of Oz, has been defeated by the natural law of inertia. All the lofty rhetoric, back room political deals, and hope in vapor, can’t do the heavy lifting. So the alternative is attempting to elevate the angst into chaos to see if any of the stress will create some composted material that may stick to the wall.

I have long stated if I had a donkey I would name her Patience, fully recognizing that patience is part of the human condition to know what we want, and we want it now. So while I can understand the impatience in the hecklers of the Speaker, I also realize that hope naturally becomes reality by persistence and hard work. Furthermore true miracles are impossible in the natural world of these Social Darwinists.

Over the last couple of months we have mentioned the present plight of the Social Darwinists and in the “The Social Darwinist Conundrum,” we explained the juxtaposed views of the religion, especially as it related to the formation of the Soviet Union. In that context we see communist collective as being the true antithesis of the views of Ayn Rand. Rand being the author of “Atlas Shrugged” and the philosophy of Objectivism, all behind the laissez faire tenure of Alan Greenspan at the Fed.

So in the struggle of worldviews within the evolving religion of the Social Darwinists, it doesn’t really seem to be that difficult to choose a winner between the academy gene pool of collectivists and the wild west greedy speculators. Show me the money will win out all the time, especially in the United States where our culture has always been tensioned, through design, between selfish self determination and the common good.

A common good defined as even a European social democracy is not part of the American subspecies of humanity. Furthermore it seems totally absurd, if not insane, to attempt a radical transformation into collectivism, when really the only true believer nations that remain are Cuba and Venezuela. Even more importantly nothing in Social Darwinism allows for the existence of God, or even gods for that matter. While I disagree with many that the United States was formed as a Christian nation, I would submit that the Founding Fathers definitely miraculously created a secular nation based upon Godly created natural law and Judeo-Christian moral values. They also further understood that that God centered reality was a necessity for the continued prosperity of the culture they created.
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Tags: Nancy Pelosi, Social Darwinism, Alan Greenspan, Ronald Reagan, U S Constitution, energetics, sin cosmos, Glenn Beck, Soviet Union

Morning
Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
Revelation 22:17

Jesus says, "take freely." He wants no payment or preparation. He seeks no recommendation from our virtuous emotions. If you have no good feelings, if you be but willing, you are invited; therefore come! You have no belief and no repentance,--come to Him, and He will give them to you. Come just as you are, and take "Freely," without money and without price. He gives Himself to needy ones. The drinking fountains at the corners of our streets are valuable institutions; and we can hardly imagine any one so foolish as to feel for his purse, when he stands before one of them, and to cry, "I cannot drink because I have not five pounds in my pocket." However poor the man is, there is the fountain, and just as he is he may drink of it. Thirsty passengers, as they go by, whether they are dressed in fustian or in broadcloth, do not look for any warrant for drinking; its being there is their warrant for taking its water freely. The liberality of some good friends has put the refreshing crystal there and we take it, and ask no questions. Perhaps the only persons who need go thirsty through the street where there is a drinking fountain, are the fine ladies and gentlemen who are in their carriages. They are very thirsty, but cannot think of being so vulgar as to get out to drink. It would demean them, they think, to drink at a common drinking fountain: so they ride by with parched lips. Oh, how many there are who are rich in their own good works and cannot therefore come to Christ! "I will not be saved," they say, "in the same way as the harlot or the swearer." What! go to heaven in the same way as a chimney sweep. Is there no pathway to glory but the path which led the thief there? I will not be saved that way. Such proud boasters must remain without the living water; but, "WHOSOEVER WILL, LET HIM TAKE THE WATER OF LIFE FREELY."

Evening
Remove far from me vanity and lies.
Proverbs 30:8

"O my God, be not far from me." Psalm 38:21. Here we have two great lessons--what to deprecate and what to supplicate. The happiest state of a Christian is the holiest state. As there is the most heat nearest to the sun, so there is the most happiness nearest to Christ. No Christian enjoys comfort when his eyes are fixed on vanity--he finds no satisfaction unless his soul is quickened in the ways of God. The world may win happiness elsewhere, but he cannot. I do not blame ungodly men for rushing to their pleasures. Why should I? Let them have their fill. That is all they have to enjoy. A converted wife who despaired of her husband was always very kind to him, for she said, "I fear that this is the only world in which he will be happy, and therefore I have made up my mind to make him as happy as I can in it." Christians must seek their delights in a higher sphere than the insipid frivolities or sinful enjoyments of the world. Vain pursuits are dangerous to renewed souls. We have heard of a philosopher who, while he looked up to the stars, fell into a pit; but how deeply do they fall who look down. Their fall is fatal. No Christian is safe when his soul is slothful, and his God is far from him. Every Christian is always safe as to the great matter of his standing in Christ, but he is not safe as regards his experience in holiness, and communion with Jesus in this life. Satan does not often attack a Christian who is living near to God. It is when the Christian departs from his God, becomes spiritually starved, and endeavours to feed on vanities, that the devil discovers his vantage hour. He may sometimes stand foot to foot with the child of God who is active in his Master's service, but the battle is generally short: he who slips as he goes down into the Valley of Humiliation, every time he takes a false step invites Apollyon to assail him. O for grace to walk humbly with our God!

Tags: integrity

In our Monday response to the question “Is the world broke?” posed by Fox Business, the Wonder Springs conclusion was that the world economic system was basically broken. We believe the reason for this is that there has been various conscious efforts by increasingly enlightened governance, in the United States following the rest of the world to replace the Invisible Hand of capitalism created by Adam Smith, with the visible hand of various collective régimes. This collectivism contrived to replace essentially the hand of God, with simplistic human planning, empowered by wishful thinking.

This broken worldview has led to a series of schemes in which the ability of human enterprise to create wealth has been greatly limited by simple gross negligence. In order for the world to continue to function, money created almost exclusively through debt has as been utilized as energetics behind economic growth.

What none of these self-righteous elitists seem to understand is that wealth and money are not synonyms for the same thing. Wealth is basically transcendent and in our time space continuum it can be converted into money. Money is simply a convenient medium of exchange from one form of wealth into another or to exchange goods and services. Especially in our twenty-first century money is a commodity like a whole lot of other things.

This brings up an interesting question and that is why humans seem to hoard money when they don’t stockpile much of anything else, with perhaps the exception of property? Perhaps it is simply the illusionary mystic that money is wealth.

It is not rocket science, but basic common logic to understand if the Invisible Hand of God creates wealth, and if we make a conscious choice to deny the reality of God, then our ability to create true wealth will disappear. Perhaps that makes money, once in coins and paper, and now in electronic bytes, a simple easy to understand idol of something that was once a true reality, and that was real wealth.
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Tags: USA, money, wealth, Social Darwinism, Natural Law, Redux Rendezvous, revivalism

Updated 07/June/2010 11:00

Late last week I tuned into the Fox Business Channel and at the bottom of the screen was the tag, “Is the world broke?” What little time I listened to the discussion, it seemed that the participants were questioning the broke concept as in bankrupt. However when you consider the concept of bankruptcy you generally link the term with being or running out of money. In a world in which nations print their own money either individually as in the case of the United States, China, and most other nations of the world, they can always print more money and devalue their currency, so broke in their literal sense is impossible.

For the Eurozone going broke makes a little more sense in the fact that certain countries may run out of Euros and other countries or financial institutions fail or refuse to give them anymore. In that sense the Euro only will continue to work, if its support is linked to the willingness of all parties to adopt a somewhat consistent approach as far as spending and taxes.

In the United States we are told that it is impossible for the states to go broke literally, as in bankrupt. Since they cannot create their own currency however, that makes for the between a rock and a hard place a reality that many states now face, but as of yet are unwilling to create the austere conditions to bring into harmony unsustainable spending and limited revenues. This means that eventually they will come to the Federal government for funding not all that different from what is now faced by Eurozone countries.

However, there is another definition of broke, that as of yet none of the world’s political leaders, business moguls, spin merchants, or any other group that claims some sort of elitist power or authority, will admit. That is the world in which they say they created, know what is going on, or hope again to set on the right path is truly broke, like broken, it no longer works.

Last December in “Humpty Dumpty in a New Century” we describe Humpty Dumpty in American terms, but now we see that good old Mr. Dumpty has returned to his continental roots as well. Just as in the American story, the refrain remains pretty much the same. “If we, all the kings horses and all the kings men, all come together and work diligently we can surely put Humpty Dumpty back together again!”

The question no one is asking today is, “Could the reason Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall in the first place, is all the kings horses and all the kings men are responsible?” If that is the case and you just replace Humpty Dumpty on a shaky wall of the world’s financial condition, even if for the short term, things might get a little better, but there are really only two alternatives for a long lasting solution.
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Tags: Euro, USA, Humpty Dumpty, wealth, Adam Smith, Natural Law, symbiosis

Morning
Behold, I am vile.
Job 40:4

One cheering word, poor lost sinner, for thee! You think you must not come to God because YOU are vile. Now, there is not a saint living on earth but has been made to feel that he is vile. If Job, and Isaiah, and Paul were all obliged to say "I am vile," oh, poor sinner, wilt thou be ashamed to join in the same confession? If divine grace does not eradicate all sin from the believer, how dost thou hope to do it thyself? and if God loves His people while they are yet vile, dost thou think thy vileness will prevent His loving thee? Believe on Jesus, thou outcast of the world's society! Jesus calls thee, and such as thou art.

Not the righteous, not the righteous;
Sinners, Jesus came to call.

Even now say, "Thou hast died for sinners; I am a sinner, Lord Jesus, sprinkle Thy blood on me"; if thou wilt confess thy sin thou shalt find pardon. If, now, with all thy heart, thou wilt say, "I am vile, wash me," thou shalt be washed now. If the Holy Spirit shall enable thee from thy heart to cry

Just as I am, without one plea But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that thou bidd'st me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come!

Thou shalt rise from reading this morning's portion with all thy sins pardoned; and though thou didst wake this morning with every sin that man hath ever committed on thy head, thou shalt rest to-night accepted in the Beloved; though once degraded with the rags of sin, thou shalt be adorned with a robe of righteousness, and appear white as the angels are. For "now," mark it, "Now is the accepted time." If thou "believest on Him who justifieth the ungodly thou art saved." Oh! may the Holy Spirit give thee saving faith in Him who receives the vilest.

Evening
Are they Israelites? so am I.
2 Corinthians 11:22

We have here A PERSONAL CLAIM, and one that needs proof. The apostle knew that His claim was indisputable, but there are many persons who have no right to the title who yet claim to belong to the Israel of God. If we are with confidence declaring, "So am I also an Israelite," let us only say it after having searched our heart as in the presence of God. But if we can give proof that we are following Jesus, if we can from the heart say, "I trust Him wholly, trust Him only, trust Him simply, trust Him now, and trust Him ever," then the position which the saints of God hold belongs to us--all their enjoyments are our possessions; we may be the very least in Israel, "less than the least of all saints," yet since the mercies of God belong to the saints AS SAINTS, and not as advanced saints, or well-taught saints, we may put in our plea, and say, "Are they Israelites? so am I; therefore the promises are mine, grace is mine, glory will be mine." The claim, rightfully made, is one which will yield untold comfort. When God's people are rejoicing that they are His, what a happiness if they can say, "So AM I!" When they speak of being pardoned, and justified, and accepted in the Beloved, how joyful to respond, "Through the grace of God, SO AM I." But this claim not only has its enjoyments and privileges, but also its conditions and duties. We must share with God's people in cloud as well as in sunshine. When we hear them spoken of with contempt and ridicule for being Christians, we must come boldly forward and say, "So am I." When we see them working for Christ, giving their time, their talent, their whole heart to Jesus, we must be able to say, "So do I." O let us prove our gratitude by our devotion, and live as those who, having claimed a privilege, are willing to take the responsibility connected with it.

The Wonder Springs Chronicle in cooperation with PREFER Ltd, have launched a new Redux Rendezvous website. The site is very much under construction, but the enterprise model we are using for the design indicates the Redux Rendezvous could make a significant contribution to small enterprise wealth creation and growth.

Tags: Redux Rendezvous

Negative metaphors, metaphors everywhere, and all of them seem to work. Into such a simplistic worldly description, we continue treading water this week. Just like where do we begin?

News that the United States is about to become a model of a failing European state are grossly optimistic or pessimistic, depending upon your point of view. The reason behind all of this hoopla is simply the fact that the vast majority of the American people are unwilling to play the game. The importance of this gaming the people punditry is being broadcast into our homes and offices by those needing to sell ideas, but also products deemed to make the world better.

If you seriously look beyond the hype and hyperbole however, you see that life goes on. Furthermore a realistic look at the present vibrantly illustrates, that in a realistic context the present isn’t all that bad, and generally Americans may not control the future, but they still have a faith in the God who does. In that context, the plans by the mice who say they know what they are doing in that land back where the sun rises, doesn’t seem to relate to the men and women who daily go about their lives out here in the hinterland.

So in that context of American development, we all have truly become a nation of Native Americans, some of them we call Indians, in that respect the Canadian term First Nations, seems more appropriate, but only on the surface of the current progressive spin. A deeper look shows that the old concept of unity in diversity, or “Out of Many, One,” is still very appropriate. The reality is if the immigrants to these United States had wanted to be and remain Europeans, or Asians, Latin Americans, or even Africans, they could have stayed where they were, even if they died trying, or returned later.

The continents we call the Americas were the last place that people settled and we are all immigrants to these shores, with the time frame measured in thousands of years at most, no matter how you spin the origin.

On Memorial Day I had the opportunity that I had wanted to do for a very long time, that was to attend the service at a church in Sherman, about seven miles northeast of the town a Wilbur (population 914 in 2000). Sherman today consists of a small church, built in 1888, an old grange hall, now converted into a storage shed, one singlewide manufactured home, a couple of other farms within line of site, and a cemetery.
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Tags: USA, Memorial Day, Sherman Church, Jump Canyon, Denmark, Wilbur, American Dream, Barack Obama, BP Oil, Redux Rendezvous