For Such a Time as This

Posted by Lorren on August 6, 2010

I read the book of Esther yesterday. It’s a pretty small book. The challenges that Esther faced brought to my mind something that Glenn Beck quoted from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Silence is an action. Doing nothing is doing something. Doing nothing and staying silent in the face of evil is allowing evil to perpetuate.

Esther was in a position to speak up when her people were threatened with genocide. Haman had chosen to do the right thing, no matter what (which I wrote about last night); he didn’t have a voice with the king, but he did have a voice with Esther.

It wasn’t easy for Esther to speak up. She faced death when she approached the king uninvited. When she accused Haman of trying to kill her people, she could have angered the king, and again faced danger. She did speak up, because it was the right thing to do.

We might not have the voice that Esther does. I don’t have a radio show; I don’t have influence. We might be more like Haman, who could convince Esther to talk to the king on their behalf. Whatever our role, we may face difficulties and danger. We need to do the right thing and speak up in whatever capacity we have been placed into. There are no coincidences. God has us here, for such a time as this, to face whatever difficulties that come our way, without compromising or wavering on God’s word.

 Pre-Determining to be a Christian

Posted by Lorren on

I’ve always wondered what would happen if the things that I believe are coming to pass came true before the Rapture of the Church. What would happen if I was carted off to a death camp and given the option of renouncing old-fashioned American liberty or death. Would I choose the easy route? Would I compromise on my morals. If it came down to it, would I renounce the Lord?

I don’t think that we can know for sure unless we are ever in that situation. To think that we are strong and that we could never fall is a way of setting ourselves up for failure. There is, however, something that we can do right now, to help move us in the right direction when difficult circumstances arise. We can pre-determine to do the right thing, no matter what the cost.

Think of the story of Abraham. He decided that he was going to follow God, no matter what. When God told him to go sacrifice Isaac, he didn’t argue. He woke up the next morning, took his kid and some servants, and went to do the job. He decided to do the right thing, and fortunately, he didn’t have to make the painful sacrifice. Similarly, Daniel and his friends pre-determined to not eat the king’s meat. Daniel pre-determined to continue praying, even though it sent him to the lion’s den.

We need to choose right now to do the right thing, no matter what. What awaits the believer in Heaven pales in comparison to anything that we would have to go through in this life. It might not be easy now, but one day, it will be worth it. We might even fail in our plans to do the right thing, but if we don’t decide to do the right thing, we probably won’t. We will most likely cave into the pressure if we don’t ingrain the concept of doing the right thing, right down to our very souls.

 Deflation/Inflation – How to Prepare

Posted by Lorren on August 3, 2010

100 Trillion Reasons by LSDmeCom

As early as January 2008, I was talking about hyperinflation. I don’t know much about the Weimar Republic… I’ve been looking at books, but I’m not sure which would have the information I’m looking for. Many of the books focus on Hitler’s rise, but I’m more interested in how people lived. I once read a web site where gold was going for a trillion marks or more an ounce, but I can’t find that site any more.

The word of the day, however, is deflation. I’ve been hearing the word for about a month or two as I drive to church on Sunday mornings. I know that the government has been printing way too much money, so I’ve been preparing for hyperinflation. The truth is, we should be preparing for both.

So how do you prepare for both? You need to be in the best financial shape that you can be. Now, don’t tell me that you can’t… I’ve written before about my finances. I do realize that there are people in worse financial shape than me… homeless people, many illegal immigrants, many drug addicts, many alcoholics, and a few hard-working families that are down on their luck. My friends lived in a place for a while where people with income lower than ours lived; many of my friends’ neighbors were in those situations. We’re in a difficult situation because my husband, the breadwinner, is in college.

First comes deflation. This is where your loans are going to be super expensive. Stop using credit cards! Let’s say you bought a 16GB iPad today for $599 with your credit card. Credit cards are generally a ripoff anyway, in the best circumstances you’re going to pay way too much in interest for it, even with a slight bit of inflation. When deflation hits, that credit card bill will be harder to pay for. First, the iPad’s value will sink like a rock. Let’s say it halves in value, so it’s worth $300. Secondly, deflation causes your wages to fall. I’ve experienced that before: I once had an income which would amount to maybe $100k a year (I had free housing and utilities so it’s a little difficult to guage), and overnight our family started making about $30k. Bills that were once no sweat kept me up at night wondering how they were going to get paid. That $300 iPad that you still owe $550 on, with half your salary, won’t have easy payments any more.

Same thing comes for cars. Now, we do have a car payment at my house; I wish that we didn’t. We have one car that we bought about four years ago for $1400 cash; the door is falling apart, but it runs and it’s paid for. Our other car we have payments on. Fortunately, it’s 2/3 paid for, but if you ran out and bought a car on credit right now (let’s say you got that great new Chevy Volt), you might pay $35k after tax credits. Deflation kicks in, your car is eventually worth $20k; you still owe $34k on it, and suddenly you’re making half of what you used to (because you have to take a pay cut at your job). Not a pretty picture.

So to prepare for deflation, try to get out of debt. If you don’t have the money to buy something, don’t. Cash is worth a lot more during deflation, so saving is good, if you can manage it. If you have a car that runs, save your money until you can pay cash for one. The same goes true for buying a house. You might not be able to pay cash for one, but if you’re going to buy one, put a sizable down payment down.

But then inflation kicks in. The rules are a little bit different. If you knew how to time the bottom, you could get rich. Unfortunately, that’s very risky to do.

I once remember reading a story about a man who borrowed money to buy a herd of cattle in the period of the Weimar Republic. He paid off his debt with one of the cows after inflation set in. You could do this with gold if you could time it right. Unfortunately, most people who tried this would get killed by deflation.

However, if you can buy gold, silver, or junk silver, that’s one way to prepare for hyperinflation. While the dollar will lose value during hyperinflation, the actual value of gold will stay fairly constant. If you can buy a hamburger with the value of a junk silver coin today, you’ll be able to buy a hamburger with the value of a junk silver coin five years from now. Theoretically, the value of silver and gold should fall during deflation; however, there are plenty of people that know that hyperinflation is next, so I’m not sure if the value will go down. I cashed out my kids’ savings bonds a year ago and bought silver with the money; they’ve made about 25% profit in the last year. Gold has gone up about $50 an ounce since earlier this year as well. When hyperinflation kicks in, coins with actual value will still be worth something… that is, unless Obama outlaws the private ownership of gold. Then things like food will be worth something. You might want to stock up on food just in case.

No matter where you are financially, it’s time to get prepared. You don’t have to be George Soros to get in a better financial position. Pay off your debts, try to save a little, and don’t buy anything that you can’t afford unless it’s an absolute necessity.

 A New Way to Make Money Online

Posted by Lorren on August 1, 2010

There’s a new way to make money online, called Sidetick.com. It’s an interesting site. You can get $1 for signing up, and you can get $1 if you invite a friend. Plus, you can earn money by blogging, having people look at the blog posts that you write, and visiting different areas of the site. They have a question of the day that they ask via a daily email; if you answer it, you can earn up to $15 a month just by doing that.

They have discussion boards, and they even have a conservative community on the site. You can earn money for any activity that you do there.

Is their business model feasible? I’m not sure. I know that sites like Associated Content, which I also write for, generally are going to make a profit off what they pay me. Redgage is another site that looks like it will generally make money from what you put into it. Maybe Sidetick is one of those sites that has a profitable business model, or maybe it’s one of those programs like the old pay to view sites where they would pay you money to have a toolbar set up on your computer. Either way, you can make money from it now. It’s pretty easy to earn just by talking to other people.

It’s free to set up, and they will pay you via PayPal. Why not take a look?

 School is in the Air

Posted by Lorren on July 31, 2010

School is just around the corner, although we won’t be starting in our house for another month yet. Others around me are starting though. Some in my area have already started. Seems a little crazy and early to me… that’s why we’re not starting until after labor day.

All the great deals on school supplies are on. Yesterday, I finally got around to inventorying all our school and office supplies. I bought so many pencils for cheap last year, I didn’t need any. I didn’t need pens either. I had plenty of mechanical pencils too (the pens and mechanical pencils are for me and dh; dd uses pencils). I still had four boxes of crayons from last year; dd isn’t using crayons as much as she used to, and ds was still not using too many last year. So what I really needed was markers, a couple rulers, college ruled 1-subject notebooks (for me), and colored pencils. I could use a few more crayons and a few file folders too.

So I went shopping for school and office supplies for the upcoming year. Wal-Mart had a great deal on 1″ notebooks; our choir needed some, so I picked up 10. The aisles were busy with parents getting supplies for their kids.

Today, I had to go register dd for soccer. There were tons of other sports teams registering today too. As I pulled up, I saw a crowd of kids in football gear standing outside.

Getting ready for another school year and registering dd for soccer, watching all the other parents registering their kids for sports and buying school supplies, struck me as odd. On one hand, the country is going to hell in a hand basket. The people that want to see this country destroyed are in power. The prophecies regarding the last days are lining up to be fulfilled. Yet we are all buying school supplies and signing up our kids for sports like nothing is going on.

I guess you have to do that. There’s not much else you can do. It just seems a little weird planning for the future when it might not even arrive.

 Nobody Likes the New FBI Law

Posted by Lorren on July 30, 2010

Earlier this week, I decided to start watching the leftist sites to see what they’re up to. After all, if Obama’s friends at Netroots are going to be watching people like me, I might as well be watching them. I can probably find new insights about what’s going on by watching the other side as well.

One thing that I learned today is that nobody likes the new FBI law. If you haven’t heard about what’s going on lately, the FBI can now request your electronic records… or at least that is what is being proposed. I’m not sure if it has actually passed or not. They can examine your records, and you can’t legally tell anyone that they came to look at them. Now, Glenn Beck said last night that you couldn’t tell anybody that they took your records, but what is going to stop you? If the FBI shows up on my door and copies all of my electronic records, I will publish it far and wide (that is, of course, until they haul me off to prison for violating that law and telling people).

So in one of my first ventures into the world of the other side, I decided to visit The Daily Kos. I discovered that they do not like the new FBI law either. 8ackgr0und N015e pointed out that “I don’t trust the FBI”. Well, that makes two of us. I do realize that there’s a place for intelligence gathering and crime control, but I certainly don’t think that they should be able to act without judicial oversight.

It’s very tragic, because I think that there are many things that most Americans do agree on, but the powers that be are succeeding in keeping people divided on minutiae. For example, the other day I had a conversation with someone on the left who was against the crooks in big business. Well, what do you know, so am I! So are many people I know. If someone is a crook, they need to be prosecuted and go to jail.

It is too bad that we can’t unite on the things that many of us can agree upon, like allowing the FBI to seize our electronic records without a warrant, and without being able to legally tell others that they did come and take our records.

 What Happens to the Useful Idiots?

Posted by Lorren on July 29, 2010

If you haven’t watched the video that I posted the other day containing the interview with the former KGB agent, I highly recommend it. It is 16 minutes long, but it will really show you where we are today and how fragile what we have currently is.

The question of the useful idiots is discussed in the interview, but I wanted to bring it up here.

First, what is a useful idiot? The term “useful idiot” was used in the old days of Soviet Russia. I hadn’t even heard of the term until the past year. It refers to people that support the cause of the Communist takeover, but aren’t in the power establishment.

People might choose to become useful idiots because they see the radicals winning, and figure that they better be on the winning side when the battle ends. They make this calculated move to further their own careers. For example, journalists, politicians, teachers, actors and directors tend to support the overhaul of America en masse. There are very few that stand with the Constitution and with the Founding Fathers.

So what happens to these useful idiots when Obama and his Weather Underground pals get their way and take over the country? Will they get the positions of power that they are hoping for?

Probably not, in many cases. It won’t be up to the masses to determine who gets the prime positions in this new society. It will be up to the people in power, like Bill Ayers, the Clintons, Obama, Al Gore, Van Jones, and the like. If you are not in with this group now, there is no assuming that you will have any part in leading the new Communist America. Dissent and complaining will not get you anywhere you want to be. It will get you into the modern-day gulag.

Years ago, my now-husband introduced me to the Dragonlance series of books. In the books, there is one recurring theme: “evil turns in upon itself”. Over the past several years, I have learned how true that theme is.

Think about drug dealers, the mafia, or gangsters. Do they peacefully interact? Or do they fight among each other, competing to see who will be top dog? Has one mafia member ever hurt or killed another in order to advance among the ranks? In my very backyard of Arizona, people end up kidnapped or killed because something goes wrong in their human trafficking operations. Heads literally roll through nightclubs right across the border because somebody is not happy with what is going on.

I know that I probably will end up in a death camp or something if/when this government takeover finally happens. I am way too stubborn. I can’t pledge allegiance to a godless government, nor can I renounce all that I believe in with all my heart. We already have people being denied degrees unless they renounce certain Christian principles, like the belief that homosexuality is wrong. I am thinking of one case in particular, but I think I also remember hearing of cases where scientists that didn’t believe in evolution were denied degrees (even if they were able to clearly articulate the theory… they not only had to know it, they had to believe it). I’m just going off the top of my head there.

The people that will survive will be the people that keep their head down and are willing to accept the new order. That’s not me. It also will probably not be most of the people that are supporting a Communist America, if they are expecting a reward for their efforts today.

 Barack Obama… Just Like Me?

Posted by Lorren on July 28, 2010

The Obama family, evidently, is taking their fourth vacation in a month. Maybe he read my Ultimate Road Trip web page and was inspired. Did he drive in a car and stay at relative’s homes like I did? He probably worked on vacation like I did…

Obama says that he’s just like me. “We’re just not that far removed from what most Americans are going through. I mean, it was only a few years ago when we had high credit card balances…”

Really? Is that supposed to make you like me? Is that how you relate to the dregs of society like me?

Perhaps Barack Obama hasn’t heard of Dave Ramsey. I have to tell you, people of my income level can’t afford to have high credit card balances. It takes most of my income to pay for the food, rent, the car payment, and electric bill. I don’t have money left over to waste on credit card payments too. That’s why I don’t buy crap I can’t afford.

Wait, I take that back. I do have one discretionary item that I pay for. I send my kids to gymnastics class. Although the 3-bedroom house that we live in does cost $500 less than the average 3-bedroom apartment in Phoenix, and we don’t pay for cable, trash, or water, so I guess that’s okay.

Wait… I forgot… I’m an oppressor, according to the Weather Underground… because I don’t believe in being a victim. I believe in hard work. That must be why I don’t have those high credit card bills the Obamas once had. Poor Obama and his family are oppressed by me, the non-credit card owning people. Mwa ha ha!

I know lots of people that don’t have credit cards. Having high credit card bills (once upon a time) doesn’t make you like the people. Wait… most of my friends believe in working hard too… maybe they’re also oppressors.

 Oakland and the Goals of the Weather Underground

Posted by Lorren on

Lock & Chain by captainifr

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a story about how Oakland was cutting police services. My take on the story at the time was that it would be helpful to learn some skills, because the government won’t necessarily be there for you (self-defense, anyone?). I wrote this page on The Weathermen last month, but it’s been getting more hits lately, as Glenn Beck has been going over their manifesto “You Don’t Need A Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows“, so I’ve been updating the page. Perhaps there’s more to Oakland’s police cuts than just a call to self-sufficiency.

The Weathermen do not believe in private property rights like wealthy oppressors like myself do (now if you’ve read my posts about my vast financial empire you’ll know that I’m being sarcastic about the wealth part). What are some ways that they have been trying to overcome that problem? Well, perhaps that is one of the strategies behind all the eminent domain rulings in the past decade or so (while many focus on Obama, Bush and Clinton had many of the same strategies). If you don’t like private property rights, why not take private property away from someone whose family has been living some place for 50 years and give it to a shopping mall?

Glenn Beck proposed that one of the strategies of the left was to redefine crime… for example, ACORN has repossessed some homes that have been foreclosed. What do the banks (who own the properties) need with them anyway? Empty properties attract rodents and small animals, you know (seen news reports on animal invasions in foreclosed homes recently?).

What came to my mind regarding this portion of the Weather Underground report was that news article on Oakland. Oakland police won’t respond to property crimes. They won’t respond to embezzlement or even grand theft. You’re on your own, buddy. If the police won’t enforce property rights, then we’re basically in the situation that the Weather Underground wanted. Where everything belongs to the public. Far out, man.

So in a way, the Weather Underground are winning on this front. At least in Oakland. Soon also at a city near you.

 Welcome Leftists :-)

Posted by Lorren on July 27, 2010

I am ready to give out more details on the visit that I received yesterday from the Democratic philanthropist from DC. I had to go over some of my notes, because I wasn’t seeing any of this on Google from anybody else. I thought that I might have misheard what Obama’s friends were saying.

Anyway, James Rucker was the person that was calling for going after Beck supporters. He said during the Netroots conference over the weekend: “Let’s go look at Beck supporters, let’s see what they say online.”

My visitor from yesterday was someone at the Joshua P. and Elizabeth D. Darden home. They run a foundation called the Joshua P. and Elizabeth D. Darden Foundation. Perhaps it was a maid… I don’t know. Maybe they have kids… they are older though, so their children, if they have any, are likely to be adults. The Dardens are evidently Democrats. According to an article on Hampton Roads.com, Joshua Darden is quite a player behind the scenes in Norfolk politics. He helped several Democrats get into office. He is also the nephew of a former governor of Virginia. Hampton Roads says that he was involved in Norfolk’s “shadow government,” but Darden finds the term a little amusing.

Perhaps they took a wrong turn at Google. At any rate, it was interesting to have a minor political celebrity visiting my site, whatever the reason for the visit. Although it is mighty suspicious that this visit came within days of Rucker’s proposal to watch Beck supporters. Hmmm… perhaps I should be watching the left supporters in return. Then maybe I’ll have a heads up before they come to cart me away to the concentration camps .