In a little more than two weeks, out-of-control wildfires in California have scorched about 800 square miles statewide and destroyed at least 69 homes. At present, the blazes continue to threaten another 10,000 homes, as well as several hundred commercial buildings. Today’s Los Angeles Timeswrites,

Firefighters who have converged on California from throughout the nation face an ominous weather forecast as a large swath of the state is expected to be enveloped in severe heat beginning Monday. Forecasters predict erratic winds and the possibility of more fire-igniting lightning strikes.

We recently wrote about this most unusual development of lightning strikes touching off fires in northern California. We have also written extensively over the years about the many California curses. For more, go here and here.

Where Did Britain Go?

Columnist Michael Coren left Britain 22 years ago. Today, he writes in the Toronto Sun, Britain’s decay is obvious. For the first time in its history, Coren writes, more people are leaving the country than are moving in. The primary reasons for the trend are especially interesting because of how little they have to do with the economy. “Working families are wealthier, more financially secure and have better material prospects than ever before,” Coren writes. “Yet polls reveal they are less happy and content than were their parents or grandparents, many of whom never owned a car or went abroad.”

He describes a Britain today with worse crime rates than some of America’s most violent cities. Gangs rule city squares over the weekend and liberal drinking laws have made matters worse—particularly in youth culture.

Young girls, covered in vomit and unconscious in the street, are common at weekends and the enormous number of police cameras all over the United Kingdom record inebriated youths fighting and vandalizing to such a degree that the authorities are largely powerless to intervene.

Not surprisingly, Coren attributes this alarming escalation of immoral behavior to the breakdown of the family. In Britain today, the number of “illegitimate births, single and teen mothers and the rate of promiscuity” is higher than in any other European nation.

Taxes are high, soccer is a narcotic, violence is fun, drinking is liberating, national identity is vulgar strutting, religion is for the Yanks, reading books is for losers and reality television and cell phone monologues matter more than mom and dad and self-respect.

Of course, God has a lot to say about this shameful condition, as we have often pointed out. For God’s perspective, read what Ron Fraser wrote about “Britain’s Final Decline.”

Occupation Day?

Judging by the host of spectacular fireworks displays that erupted across America’s skies on Friday, it would appear patriotism and independence remain central and valued principles of the American way of life. But that’s not the case in some parts of America, argued Mark Cromer in the Washington Times on Friday. “In school districts from Tucson to Los Angeles,” Cromer wrote, “advocates of a radically ethno-centric agenda are expanding their reach into the student body and the curriculum, teaching a core message that holds the United States as a racist police-state that is bent on the oppression of Latinos and other ethnic minorities” (emphasis mine throughout).

Just ask John Ward, a Mexican-American former history teacher in the Tucson Unified Schools District:

Mr. Ward, who is of Latino heritage, was tapped to teach a history course at Tucson High Magnet School. Mr. Ward said he was comfortable that the course featured a Mexican-American perspective, but what he didn’t know was that he was expected to only assign grades—a bureaucratic loophole that allowed the students to be lectured by advocates without teaching credentials.The coursework was steeped in hard-edged anti-American rhetoric. “They declared students were living in an occupied, colonized land,” Mr. Ward recalled. A central tenet of the instruction was that white Americans oppress Latinos, and that the education system is a tool of white oppression. The impact on students, Mr. Ward said, was dramatic.”By the end of the class, they were very pessimistic and angry about America,” he said. “They were convinced that anyone who isn’t brown is out to get them, to oppress them.”

Despite his Latino heritage, Mr. Ward was ridiculed when he challenged the one-dimensional, hate-inciting instruction being imposed on students. Mr. Ward was shocked and maddened to learn that he would receive no support from administrators in the Tucson Unified Schools District. “They didn’t want to pick this battle,” he said. “They were white administrators that could see the writing on the wall if they tried to defend me. They’d immediately be tarred as racists.”

America is in the midst of a great transformation, where millions of its citizens despise the traditional values and freedoms the Founding Fathers held dear.

Syria Inching Away From Iran?

Today’s Sunday Telegraph in London says, “Syria is ready to break off its close links with Iran if America gives it financial and military backing.” According to an Israeli official involved in “second track” discussions with Syrian representatives, Syria not only wants the Golan Heights back, it wants a “change in Washington that will break the Syrian isolation internationally,” said Alon Liel, a former director of Israel’s Foreign Ministry. “But I also think they will not do it unless they are assured they have an alternative to Iran.”

All eyes will be on next weekend’s meeting in France, where Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Syrian President Bashar Assad will sit across from each other at the same table. The gathering may soon lead to a face-to-face meeting between the two.

The reason this development is important is that the Bible prophesies of a split between two distinct camps in the Islamic world. One will be headed by the Islamic Republic of Iran—the number-one state sponsor of terror. The other camp is separate from this Iran-led “king of the south” and later forms an alliance with the German-led European Union. The Bible indicates that Syria may well be in this latter camp of so-called moderate Arab states.

For a recent article we wrote on this subject, go here. Also read our booklet The King of the South.

Musharraf Was In on It, Khan Now Says

Pakistan’s infamous A.Q. Khan recently said his admission of personally supplying Iran, North Korea and Libya with nuclear technology was made under duress, in response to pressure by Pervez Musharraf, then head of the army. In doing so, Khan implicated Pakistan’s military (and rightfully so) in nuclear proliferation. Now, Khan has told Associated Press that Musharraf himself supervised a shipment of uranium to North Korea and that the army had complete knowledge of the shipment.

This is not good news for the U.S., whose alliance with Pakistan is already in jeopardy (see “An Ally Slips Away” from the May Trumpet), nor Musharraf, whose power has already been gutted, nor the Pakistani Army—the only real force ensuring Pakistan’s unity and continuance as a nation state.

Regarding Khan’s recent comments, the Chicago Sun-Times wrote yesterday,

The claim is the most controversial leveled by Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has been agitating for an end to house arrest and backing off his 2004 confession that he was solely responsible for spreading Pakistan’s nuclear arms technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.Pakistan has repeatedly denied that the army or government knew about Khan’s proliferation activities. His allegations could become awkward for Washington, which supports Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in the region.

British Judge: Britain Should Adopt Islamic Law

Britain’s most senior judge, Lord Chief Justice Lord Philips, believes Islamic law should be employed to resolve disputes among Britain’s Muslims. The Daily Mail reported on Friday,

Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips said that Islamic legal principles could be employed to deal with family and marital arguments and to regulate finance.He declared: “Those entering into a contractual agreement can agree that the agreement shall be governed by a law other than English law.”In his speech at an East London mosque, Lord Phillips signalled approval of sharia principles as long as punishments—and divorce rulings—complied with the law of the land.

Lord Philips agrees with the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who said back in February that it was “unavoidable” for Britain to adopt elements of sharia law in order to maintain social cohesion.

Britain continues to slip further toward status as a dhimmi culture—a non-Muslim group living in subservience to Islam in order to benefit from its protection. Read “The Sickness in Britain’s Heart” for more understanding on this prophetically significant subject.

Terrorist Sympathizers at the bbc

Last Wednesday’s terrorist attack in Jerusalem exposed some revealing bias in the media. The most outrageous was the bbc’s initial headline. The bbc published an article about the event on its website under the heading “Israel bulldozer driver shot dead.” The bbc had no excuse for not knowing the facts of the attack. It happened right outside its offices. Honest Reporting, which caught the bbc before it amended the headline, wrote, “This example offers further evidence of the bbc ‘s mindset—the initial instinct to portray Israel as an aggressor and a Palestinian as a victim even if that Palestinian was actively involved in a terrorist attack against innocent civilians.”

Honest Reporting’s analysis of bbc headlines over the past year found a consistent bias against Israel. Palestinians, for example, are never directly named as aggressors. Even their amended headline “Bulldozer rampage hits Jerusalem,” cites an impersonal piece of equipment, rather than a Palestinian terrorist, as the perpetrator.

The bbc is not the only news organization guilty of such an anti-Israel bias in its coverage of Wednesday’s attack. Sky News did not once use the words terror, Arab, or Palestinian in its broadcast of the bulldozer incident. The only use of the word terrorist came from a sound bite from the Israeli police.

For more information on bias in the media, see our articles “The Media War Against the United States” and “Gaza Darkness Sheds Light on Western Bias.”

The Olympic Plagues

The preparations for this year’s Olympics in China have faced an onslaught of natural disasters, ranging from earthquakes to locusts. Bloomberg writes,

So far this year, the world’s most populous nation has faced the worst winter snowstorms in 50 years, riots in Lhasa, violent protests about government policies toward Tibet along the Olympic torch relay route in Europe and North America, an earthquake and flooding.China is still recovering from the Sichuan earthquake that killed more than 69,000 people in May, tempering the run-up to an Olympics billed as the country’s coming-out party.

That list doesn’t include the smog problem in Beijing—which is five times worse than what the World Health Organization considers safe—or the algae in Olympic sailing waters that 10,000 people are still trying to remove in advance of the games. Now the northern province of Mongolia has assembled 33,000 people to combat locusts: 5,000 square miles’ worth of them headed toward the capital city.

For more about why God allows “natural” disasters, read what we wrote in our most recent print version of the Trumpet newsmagazine.

Elsewhere on the Web

Ahead of the G-8 summit this week in Japan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote a six-page letter to other G-8 leaders saying the sudden rise in food prices might “endanger democracy, destabilize nations and lead to international security problems.” According toDer Spiegel, “Merkel organized a working group last April to analyze the recent rise in world food prices and to recommend solutions.”

Government ministers in the UK are talking with shops and supermarkets in Britain about stockpiling food reserves. They want to be sure retailers can still sell basic necessities such as meat, bread and milk in the case of a continued lorry strike. The government no longer stockpiles food, and supermarkets operate on a “just in time” delivery to cut costs. If trucks stop, so does the food.

Despite the fact that it cost them a murderer of five in return, a recent poll shows that 60 percent of Israelis support the prisoner swap with Hezbollah agreed to last week. We wrote more about this in last week’s Weekend Web.

And Finally …

This weekend, take a moment to remember the steep price of America’s independence. You might read this moving account by George Will of the job of a casualty assistance calls officer, the man whose duty is to inform a spouse or parents that their Marine has been killed.