The news this week was again dominated by the outbreak of the swine flu, especially in light of the fact that for the first time an infected human passed the virus back to pigs. The consistently stated opinion by “experts” that eating pork–even from infected pigs–is safe sounds shallow, untrustworthy and irresponsible in the light of such developments. Fear has also been expressed that those suffering from AIDS might be highly susceptible to the swine flu virus, while others warn that a politically induced mass hysteria advocating or even demanding universal vaccinations might do more harm than good.
While an increasing number of Americans is now considering abortion illegal in most or all cases, the House wasted no time to expand federal hate crimes–an action which might very well be unconstitutional and which will restrict the free exercise of religion–especially of churches and their ministers. This action may have to be seen as part of a bigger picture–namely, the exertion of pressure by gay activists on President Obama to fight their cause. Equally troubling are some of President Obama’s nominations of extremely liberal judges to certain Courts of Appeals. The public is also finally recognizing that responsibility for current actions lies with President Obama and his staff, and can no longer be “excused” by blaming the Bush Administration.
Optimistic viewpoints of some financial “experts” notwithstanding, that the worst is over and that our economy is on its way to recovery, the opposite is true. These financial “experts” have been wrong before, and, sadly, they are wrong again. The facts are that, for example, General Motors posted a $6 billion loss for the first quarter (Los Angeles Times, May 7); the number of unemployed workers getting benefits jumped to a new record (The Associated Press, May 7, 2009); a new proposal includes record deficits in its $3.55-trillion budget (Los Angeles Times, May 6, 2009); and the Federal government directed at least seven of the nation’s biggest banks to bolster their capital levels by $65 billion (The Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2009). In each case, some twist of “positive news” was included by the media–such as the concept that President Obama wants to cut the budget deficit by a “minute fraction” (The Washington Times, May 7, 2009) of $17 billion or “less than one-half of one percent of the total budget” (USA Today, May 7)–but all these devastating facts speak for themselves.
In Germany, demonstrations, in part prompted by the bad economy, have become violent, while news surfaced how the Catholic Church protected a convicted pedophile priest in that country for years.
Violence broke out again in the Gaza Strip; Israel is unhappy with European condemnation; and fear was expressed that the Taliban might acquire the bomb even before Iran will. And President Peres suggested to hand over the Holy Sites to the Vatican.
The Czech Senate approved the Lisbon Treaty, and pressure is building on Ireland to approve it as well.
The highly secretive and enormously influential Bilderberg Group is meeting again in May, whose apparent goal it is to “emphasize a globalist agenda and dismiss national sovereignty.”
Finally, Russia is again up to their old tricks. While illegally taking control of the borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russia accuses Europe and NATO of provocation. There has been some concern for quite a while that Russia will resume war against Georgia and begin a new war against other former Soviet provinces, and they might have already tried by provoking an uproar within portions of the Georgian army.
