.

British Yachtsman who Counted on Global Warming to Cross Arctic Now Trapped by Ice
NewsBusters ^ September 4, 2007 P.J. Gladnick

Posted on 09/04/2007 5:08:45 AM PDT by PJ-Comix

In one of the most hilarious cases of being tripped up by dubious scientific hype, British yachtsman Adrian Flanagan attempted to be the first to sail across the arctic north of Russia. He based his hope on the fact that he believed in the Global Warming propaganda that the arctic is rapidly losing its ice thus making his trip possible. One little problem. Cold cruel reality has crushed the Global Warming hype and now Flanagan's boat is trapped by ice in the arctic. To add to the irony, Flanagan who seems to be destined to go down in history as Wrong Way Flanagan, is now pleading with Russian authorities to provide him with the services of a nuclear powered icebreaker to get him out of his embarrassing situation.

As recently as August 18, Wrong Way Flanagan's hopes were still high that he could sail across the arctic north of Russia. Moscow News announced his trip in an article ironically titled, Global Warming is Here.

A British yachtsman, Adrian Flanagan, is due shortly to head off from Chukotka to attempt the first solo sail through the Northern Sea Route.

While one Chukotka port official described this as "kamikaze," Flanagan too is optimistic. Contacted by AFP he said that the ice looked set to recede at least as far as in 2005, which was a record year. But while some see opportunities, others are already counting the costs of climate change.

Flash forward to today and we can see the sticky situation that Wrong Way Flanagan put himself into by placing his faith in Global Warming to clear his path in the arctic as chronicled by Australia's Herald Sun in  an article with the sobering title of Ice blocks British solo sailor:

A BRITISH yachtsman attempting the first solo Arctic sea passage across northern Russia was examining his options after heavier than expected ice blocked his route, his manager said.

Adrian Flanagan is discussing with Russian authorities the possibility of using a nuclear-powered icebreaker to lift his boat out of the water and carry it round the most icebound stretch of Russia's Northern Sea Route.

...He had hoped that his 11m reinforced yacht would be able to get all the way to Europe due to lighter ice conditions observed in recent years, thought to be a result of global warming.

But after making his way through the Chukchi, East Siberian and Laptev Seas, Flanagan has been forced to a halt by heavy ice at the most difficult point in the route, the Vilkitsky Strait.

...Flanagan is now anchored by an island just east of the Vilkitsky Strait, still hoping for the ice to clear but working on the backup plan, his manager said.

She described the yachtsman's mood as “pretty fed-up”.

Besides the arctic ice, Wrong Way Flanagan now appears to have another problem. Remember those polar bears that Global Warming activists were warning us were endangered? Well, it now seems that the tables have been turned and those endangered polar bears are now endangering Flanagan:

Ostrov Peschanyy is a bleak, featureless island that is little more than a sand spit rising a few metres above sea level. It's a resting place for walrus and Western Arctic Marine Operations HQ have advised Adrian to keep a careful watch for polar bears hunting walrus there.

So as Wrong Way Flanagan, who has turned himself into a Global Laughingstock on the altar of Global Warming, remains trapped in the arctic perhaps someone would be kind enough send him a copy of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth for him to pass the time while waiting for the ice to melt and for the endangered polar bears to go away.

GREAT GLOBAL WARMING SWINDLE:

44 min - Apr 21, 2007 - No ratings yet   (564 ratings)

Dear Dubya: Call Ahmadinejad’s Bluff!

by Tom Chartier
by Tom Chartier

Hey George, word on the street is that you have your heart set on blowing up Iran. Well who can blame you since you have all those GI Joes and Cherry Bombs to play with?

Before I get into the liquid meat and carbon fiber potatoes, I just wanted to say what a fine job you’ve done in Iraq. You should be proud. How many world-historical leaders have careened through time with your legacy? Beyond a shadow of a doubt you are "Destined for Destiny."

You see… the gig is up in Iraq. One cannot improve on perfection. Oh sure there are people left alive; but you want to leave a few stragglers to tell the tale.

Even as you blew your nose on that piece of paper known as the US Constitution and converted America into a sub-prime borrower, you destroyed the fragile statehood and economy of Iraq and inspired Afghanistan to produce a bumper crop of opium. That’s one big salami for any dictator to bite off in six-and-a-half years.

Just four years after you invaded, there are four million Iraqis homeless and another million Iraqi dead. And these were the people you were trying to "liberate!" Heaven help the ones you want to punish.

So what are you going to do for an encore? Who am I kidding? Folks are lined up around the Veteran’s Hall to see the Bomb Iran Show. I know you’ve got a hard-on for this but… well… maybe there’s a better way.

Give Iraq to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Let’s face it; this guy has been a bee up the presidential butt just like Saddam. That Iranian is making you look silly. (It ain’t hard). ’Fess up: That’s the real reason you have a hankerin’ to nuke Iran.

Having announced that the U.S. forces have lost control of Iraq, Ahmadinejad has offered to step in to fill the power vacuum. Hmm… Did you ever have any control to lose… Oh well, not to quibble, let Mahmoud have the Tar Baby.

Ahmadinejad is bluffing! Time to call.

And I’m not just talking in poker terms. Call Mahmoud on the damned phone. Here’s his number. That’s right! Ahmadinejad’s operators are waiting around the clock to take your telephone call. In an August 17^th article for The First Post, entitled Tehran sets up hotline to quell dissent, Philip Jacobson reports: "…in an attempt to re-establish his credentials as a listening politician ahead of elections due next spring, Ahmadinejad authorized the introduction of a hotline to the presidential office. Ordinary Iranians who dial 111 will be free to grumble to their hearts' content… Whether this will achieve much in restoring the president's standing remains to be seen: his office is currently struggling to cope with some 7m letters that followed his invitation to voters to write to him about their problems."

Phew… seven million letters and now phone complaints too! I guess I can’t expect Ahmadinejad to get to my complaint about a defective Persian rug. But you’re the President of the United States. A call from POTUS might… just might… get patched through. It’s worth a shot… uh, bad analogy.

You see how busy Ahmadinejad is reading his own mail; I bet he hasn’t got the time let alone the inclination to read that of his countrymen. He’s stressed out and overworked. Imagine what the conflagration in Iraq will do to his schedule. "Hey Mahmoud! It’s al-Sadr again! You wanna take it or are you busy with that Oak Ridge Alloy?"

Next thing you do? Remove all US military personnel – Snap! – just like that. Oh… you can leave the "private contractors," they deserve everything that’s coming to them. But please stamp each solider of fortune with an official disclaimer: Private contractors do not represent the policy of the American People. Alberto Gonzales (you’ll find him in the petunia bed, Laura hired him to take care of your garden), will confirm that this would not be a lie because of the sly omission of any reference to the US government or yourself.

So, let Iran have the place. Call it a "good will" gesture. What have you got to lose?

Not so fast, you bleat. What about the reasons for the war: Oil, Democracy, and Greater Israel?

Well, I hate to break it to you but you ain’t never gonna get the oil by force. Remember the Rumanian and Russian oil fields during WW II? Did Hitler keep any of the oil fields he stole? You’re just going to end up blowing it up too. Strange as it may seem, peace and a free market usually work best in such matters.

Israel will do just fine. They’re building a wall! What’s it made of, dollar bills? Yeah, I know, that’s all the dollar is good for – that and toilet paper.

As for democracy… what can I say? You’re funnier than Soupy Sales!

But wait, you squeal. What would happen if you pulled out all the troops? It would be another Vietnam slaughter fest? Whoa there cowpoke! You say we can’t have another situation like that. Some people would say that there was no analogy between Vietnam and Iraq.

Remember that April 13, 2004 Press Conference?

Question: "Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, April is turning into the deadliest month in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad, and some people are comparing Iraq to Vietnam and talking about a quagmire. Polls show that support for your policy is declining and that fewer than half Americans now support it. What does that say to you and how do you answer the Vietnam comparison?"

POTUS: "The analogy is false."

You’re not trying to make up your own reality again, are you?

Who would run the place, you whine? Stop clowning around! You’re killing me! Nobody runs it now so why bring up that little detail? Could Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government start to function? You will never know unless you give Maliki a chance. If you’re such a big al-Maliki fan cut him lose. Let him do his job. And if he gets toasted by some "radical" freedom fighters… well… that’s democracy! That’s one way to make sure your "vote" gets counted!

Oh but, what about the Shi’ite clerics, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr? Heaven forefend that people who believe in God should have a role in government!

What your advisors won’t tell you, probably because they don’t know is that devout Shi’ites pledge their loyalty to individual clerics. Ponder that. Are the Iraqi followers of Sistani, al-Hakim or al-Sadr going to follow Ahmadinejad or the Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei? That would be like offering a double Black Russian (vodka and Kahlua, so it’s got alcohol and caffeine) to Brigham Young. No way.

When it comes to considering loyalties, let’s not forget the 1980–88 Iran-Iraq War. Oh… I’m sorry George. You probably didn’t know about that since in those years you were… uh… how shall I put this delicately? Drunk as a skunk. In a nutshell, US policy was to play each side off the other while selling weapons to both. Ask your Dad about it.

On Dec. 20, 1983, the Washington Post reported that Donald Rumsfeld, then Ronald Reagan's Special Envoy to the Middle East, "visited Iraq in what U.S. officials said was an attempt to bolster the already improving U.S. relations with that country." Greasing Saddam’s palm with gifts of medieval spiked hammers, a few pistols and some golden cowboy spurs, Rumsfeld also gave Saddam the official US handshake of approval.

But then, in 1987, there was this teenatchee scandal where US arms were smuggled through Nicaraguan Contra rebels to Israel and on to guess who? Iraq’s greatest enemy: Iran.

Saddam must have been mighty impressed by that pageant of two-faced Yankee ingenuity – Grandpa Prescott Bush would have been proud! Writes Jim Lobe, Saddam developed a " ‘complicated’ view of the U.S. While he derived ‘prestige’ from being an enemy of the U.S., he also considered it to be ‘equally prestigious for him to be an ally of the United States – and regular entreaties were made… to explore this alternative’."

With all that fancy American footwork, no wonder that in 1993 a confused Saddam tried to bump off Bush the First.

Looking back, a lot of folks died in those years. I’ll bet you a dinner for two at Sodolak’s Country Inn the memory is fresh in the minds of Iranians and Iraqis alike. So do you really think the Iraqis are going to welcome an Iranian occupation with open arms? Guess again. Hey they don’t like your occupation!

So it’s time to declare: "Mission Accomplished!" Bring our boys and girls home now. Let Iran fill the power vacuum in Iraq created by America’s departure. Give Ahmadinejad the heady sensation of spending Iran’s lifeblood and treasure on a country run by people whom once Woodrow Wilson called "ungrateful."

Let’s double dog dare Ahmadinejad to see if he can do a better job. This will save you the trouble of having to blow up Iran… oh I know, it won’t be as much fun. C’mon, we can watch Apocalypse Now instead.

Elizabeth Gyllensvard contributed to and edited this story.

September 3, 2007

Tom Chartier [send him mail] played lead guitar in legendary Los Angeles punk band The Rotters for 26 years until their final appearance in January of 2004. He has lived in Tokyo and Los Angeles. Currently he resides somewhere in the Caribbean.

Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com

One piece of evidence is Bush's funneling billions of dollars to "faith-based" organizations. Faith offices making grants are now so widespread inside government agencies that federal watchdog officials have serious difficulties accounting for how much money has actually been spent. (Goldberg, "Kingdom Coming" 121). Marvin Olasky, a devotee of end-time theology, designed Bush's faith-based welfare concept. See also Goldberg, "Kingdom Coming," 110.

Further evidence is the Bush administration's transformation of the military. Until complaints forced its removal, a religious recruitment video made by a group called the Christian Embassy appeared on the Department of Defense web site. The video included interviews made inside the Pentagon with seven high-ranking military officers, congressmen, other federal officials and even the Christian Ethiopian ambassador to the US about their personal relationship with Christ. Army Lt. General William "Jerry" Boykin made headlines in 2003 when he said he believed America was engaged in a holy war as a "Christian nation" battling Satan. Adversaries can be defeated, he said, "only if we come against them in the name of Jesus." Despite his highly publicized rhetoric, Boykin remains Bush's deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

Beneath Bush's benign-sounding words, "faith" and "Christian," lies the deeper reality of the authoritarian, doomsday religious beliefs of the ministers and spiritual counselors that surround him, say experts. Officially he has been at pains to show an openness traditionally expected of an American president. Typical is his assertion in a speech at a National Prayer Breakfast found on the White House website: "There's another part of our heritage we are showing in Iraq, and that is the great American tradition of religious tolerance. The Iraqi people are mostly Muslims, and we respect the faith they practice." However, experts point out the particular brand of Christianity that permeates Bush's environment is anything but tolerant. For example, Bush's own personal minister, Franklin Graham, has called Islam "evil and very wicked." He has said, "Let's use the weapons we have, the weapons of mass destruction if need be, and destroy the enemy."

Respected journalist Bill Moyers says that for the religious figures around Bush "a war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared, but welcomed - an essential conflagration on the road to redemption." Scholars calculate that the group, which religion author Lynne Bundesen has dubbed "end-time Christians," has up to 40 million followers. Though not all may fully subscribe to the doomsday theology, they are inundated with it in books, megachurches, and on Christian broadcasting stations that reach millions upon millions of the faithful and are almost entirely dominated by end-time preachers. The messages come from "dispensationalists," who believe that true believers are close to the time of being "raptured," or drawn up into heaven by God, in the days before the final battles. They also emanate from various stripes of "dominionists" pushing to erect an American theocracy for the end-of-the-world wars against the anti-Christ. Read "Who Are The End-Time Christians?"

A potent example of the influence of end-time Christians in the White House developed in early May 2007 when the president invited dominionist James Dobson and 12 or 13 other "family value" ministers for a special meeting. They were called in to discuss the "disturbing threats Iraq, Iran and international terrorism posed to US, Israel and other democracies around the world. Dobson is best known as the founder of Focus on the Family, an end-time lobby. Dobson opposes homosexual rights and abortion, and advocates the "submission of women." He has backed candidates who call for the execution of abortion providers, and works to establish an American theocracy. Dobson was careful not to quote the president in his radio address. He declined a Truthout interview request about his influential relationship with Bush, including what his radio broadcast said involved many meetings in the past with the president. Dobson told his listeners that Bush "appeared upbeat and determined and convinced that his mission is to protect this great nation from those who have threatened us." He said Bush wanted "to let history be his judge for the way he has dealt with this crisis in the Middle East.... He laid out the challenge before us."

On the same program, Dobson pointedly discussed the president and the Iranian "threat" with bestselling author and dispensationalist Joel Rosenberg. Rosenberg is an end-time "prophecy expert" who claims he makes frequent visits to the White House to help them "understand what will happen next in the Middle East." He informed Dobson's listeners that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - the latest in a long line of end-time anti-Christ candidates that recently included Saddam Hussein - is "telling people inside Iran that he believes that the end of the world is just two or three years away." Dobson, referring to Ahmadinejad, said: "We didn't take Hitler very seriously either. I just see the parallel. The president, it seems to me, does understand this."

In "American Theocracy," historian Kevin Phillips, a former Republican strategist, explores the question of Bush's professed sense of "divine mission." "I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job," the president told a gathering in 2004. Phillips concludes that "the president of the United States may for some years have wandered into what we could describe as a period of personal theocracy, and he may have shaped US policy in the Middle East around a personal and radical interpretation of the Bible." (Phillips, "American Theocracy," XLII)

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey told the BBC World Service in 2002 that he believed the president subscribed to end-time prophecies when "the whole world goes through a difficult time during those days of Tribulation."

Stephen Zunes, Middle East editor of the Foreign Policy in Focus project, observes that "Iraq has become the new Babylon" for Bush. In biblical Revelation, Babylon is the "great whore" representing human sin and corruption that will be destroyed to allow Jerusalem's rise and Jesus's return.

In an unscripted moment talking to the troops in April 2007 - as Iraq descended into chaos and the Democrats pressed him to pull the troops out - Bush seemed to offer a view of biblical Babylon and prophetic Tribulations. He said of Iraq: "It makes me realize the nature of the enemy that we face, which hardens my resolve to protect the American people. The people who do that are not people - you know, it's not a civil war; it is pure evil. And I believe we have an obligation to protect ourselves from that evil."

A spokeswoman for the White House did not respond to nine requests by email and telephone for the president's answers to a series of questions about that influence. But when Phillips's "American Theocracy" came out in March 2006, a questioner at a Bush speech referred to the historian's book and asked whether the president believed in the Apocalypse. The Washington Post reported that Bush stammered and laughed nervously as he responded: "The answer is - I haven't really thought of it that way.... The first I've heard of that, by the way. I guess I'm more of a practical fellow." Phillips writes in the new introduction to his book that Bush then went on with his answer for "four and a half minutes without ever mentioning the Apocalypse, Armageddon, the end-times, or the Book of Revelation." (Phillips, "American Theocracy," XL).

One of the most influential end-time Christian ministers with entree to the president is John Hagee. Recently, Hagee updated his book, "Jerusalem Countdown," to highlight a coming war with Iran. It promises: "There will soon be a nuclear blast in the Middle East that will transform the road to Armageddon into a racetrack. America and Israel will either take down Iran or Iran will become nuclear and attempt to take down America and Israel." Hagee claims Iran is producing nuclear "suitcase bombs." In 2006, Hagee assembled a large number of end-time Christian groups into an umbrella organization, Christians United for Israel. When CUFI met for the first time in Washington, Israel had just invaded Lebanon. The British Telegraph newspaper reported that Hagee's "claim of political clout is no idle boast. The president sent a message of support praising him for 'spreading the hope of God's Love and the universal gift of freedom.'"

During the invasion period, www.raptureready.com, the website for those anticipating ascension into heaven before the final battles, excitement mushroomed. Responders thought the war in Lebanon signaled the start of the Tribulations. "This is so exciting," one commenter offered. "I have been having rapture dreams and I can't believe that this is really it! We are on the edge of eternity!" said another.

Meanwhile, other websites noted the curious echo of prophecy from a statement by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that clearly grated on foreign diplomats' nerves: "What we're seeing here are the birth pangs of a new Middle East," she said, even as she refused to call for a cease fire to end the killing and destruction going on in Lebanon. The echo was a core prophetic verse in Matthew: "And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs." Was it a coincidence of language from a woman who has described herself as born again and evangelical? Rice denied any such reference.

This spring, AIPAC, with the help of its end-time supporters, succeeded in removing language from a military appropriations bill that would have required Bush to get Congressional approval before using military force against Iran. So again, Iran policy provides the example - here for how end-time religion, the politics of Israel and neocon strategies converge. And how end-time thinking entangles George W. Bush.

At about the same period that Bush was meeting with Dobson and Dobson was touting a war with Iran, Vice President Dick Cheney, the consummate neocon (no sign on his horizon of end-time religious views), stood on the deck of an American aircraft carrier just off Iran's coast. He warned that the United States was prepared to use its naval power to keep Tehran from disrupting oil routes or "gaining nuclear weapons." But, a Cheney spokesperson cited his remarks on the aircraft carrier, as mentioned word-for-word on the White House Internet site, to suggest there is no warning to use naval power against Iran. The Kuwait Times reported that Cheney had visited the region to forge an alliance among the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Egypt "in support of a possible US strike against Iran over its controversial nuclear program, according to Jordanian politicians and academics." Cheney was apparently unsuccessful, the newspaper said.

In the spring of 2006, Pulitzer prize journalist Seymour Hersh reported Bush had ordered his generals to begin planning for an air assault on Iran's nuclear facilities using "bunker-busting" tactical nuclear weapons. When generals tried to remove the nuclear option from the plans, they were "shouted down," Hersh wrote. Said a former senior intelligence official, "Bush and Cheney were dead serious about the nuclear planning." There were also reports the administration was trying to convince the Israelis to do the bombing.

Then in late February this year, new word came on Bush's Iran war planning. The London Times reported: "Some of America's most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defense and intelligence sources. Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learned that up to five (US) generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack. 'There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,' a source with close ties to British intelligence said. 'There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.'"

In May 2007, the Inter Press Service reported that Admiral William J. Fallon, who was slated to become the Central Command chief on March 16, had sent a message to the Defense Department in mid-February, opposing any further US naval buildup in the Persian Gulf. The news article said Fallon squelched an administration effort to send a third carrier strike group to the Gulf. That would have brought the US naval presence up to the same level as during the US air campaign against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, the report said. It continued: "A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran 'will not happen on my watch.' Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, 'You know what choices I have. I'm a professional.' Fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, "There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."

Bundesen's sources within the religious community and in the military around the president tell her that end-timers are "crawling all over the White House and Camp David." These are men who purvey what Hedges calls a "theology of despair" that "feeds dark fantasies of revenge and empowerment." Bundesen says she is not being cynical when she observes that end-time ministers like the late Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, Tim LaHaye and James Dobson have used their dark theology to increase their followers, pump up their power and fill their coffers. And it's clear that Bush, in turn, has used end-time Christian leaders and their ideas for political and moral support. So isn't it just about politics?

No. Experts say that whether anybody even believes the violently apocalyptical scenarios shouldn't obscure the stark fact that Bush's policies have emerged in an atmosphere saturated with these dark ideas. Journalist Ron Suskind reported in 2004 that the administration prided itself on not being "reality-based," and the end-time vision may be one way to understand what that pride is about.

JP Briggs II, Ph.D. is a Distinguished CSU professor at Western Connecticut State University, specializing in creative process. A former reporter for the Hartford Courant and coordinator of the journalism program at WCSU, he is currently senior editor of the intellectual journal "The Connecticut Review." His books include "Fire in the Crucible" (St. Martins Press); "Fractals, the Patterns of Chaos" (Simon and Schuster), and "Trickster Tales" (Fine Tooth Press), among others. Email: profbriggs@comcast.net.

Thomas "Dennie" Williams is a former state and federal court reporter, specializing in investigations, for the Hartford Courant. Since the 1970s, he has written extensively about irregularities in the Connecticut Superior Court, Probate Court systems for disciplining both judges and lawyers for misconduct, and failures of the Pentagon and the VA to assist sick veterans returning from war. (He can be reached at denniew@optonline.net.)

Christian Embassy - Journalist Chris Hedges describes the group as dedicated to building a "Christian America" and says it has "burrowed deep inside the Pentagon. It hosts weekly Bible sessions with senior officers, by its own count some 40 generals, and weekly prayer breakfasts each Wednesday from 7 to 7:50 a.m., in the executive dining room."

Paul and Jan Crouch - Televangelist owners of Trinity Broadcasting Network. Paul Crouch has said on his broadcast, "God, we proclaim death to anything or anyone that will lift a hand against this network and this ministry that belongs to You, God."

John Darby - Nineteenth century British churchman who formulated a series of signs for the end of days. Historian Paul Boyer writes that Darby's signs were "wars, natural disasters, rampant immorality, the rise of a world political and economic order, and the return of the Jews to the land promised by Abraham." The 1948 founding of the state of Israel was a key sign in Darby's system and set up the end-time expectation that the last era, or dispensation, had arrived. Darby's scenario was popularized in 1909 by the Scofield Reference Bible, which annotated and explained the biblical passages that contained Darby's apocalyptic signs.

James Dobson - A licensed psychologist, author of numerous books on childrearing and chairman of Focus on the Family. Dobson's program is broadcast on over 7,000 stations worldwide. He is currently one of the most influential figures in the Dominionist movement.

The Federalist Society - According to Theocracy Watch, a project of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy at Cornell University, "The Federalist Society formed 20 years ago in reaction to the powers the Supreme Court was granting the federal government. It is hostile to civil rights, environmental protections, worker safety laws, a separation between church and state and more. Former president of the Christian Coalition Donald Hodel is a board member. Twenty four of President Bush's top cabinet members and most of his court nominations are members of the Federalist Society. The list includes John Ashcroft, former attorney general; Spencer Abraham, secretary of energy; Gail Norton, secretary of the interior, and Theodore Olson, solicitor general. Other notable members are Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, Orrin Hatch, Kenneth Starr."

Franklin Graham - President George W. Bush's personal minister, has called Islam "evil and very wicked." He has said, "Let's use the weapons we have, the weapons of mass destruction if need be, and destroy the enemy."

John Hagee - Major figure pushing for bellicose Middle East policy through his Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Author of a best-selling book calling for war with Iran. He sympathized with the assassin of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the grounds that it was "an abomination against God" for Rabin to contemplate the transfer of land in the West Bank to the Palestinians.

Sun Myung Moon - South Korean leader of the Unification Church. Calls for an "autocratic theocracy to rule the world." A long-time patron of the Bush family, especially Bush senior. In 1995, Moon financed the bail-out of Falwell's Liberty University. Moon owns The Washington Times, which claims editorial independence but regularly uses end-time Christian leaders and politicians as key sources. Washington Times reporters often appear as experts on mainstream TV news shows. Moon calls himself humanity's savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent.

Erick Prince and the Blackwater Security Army - Prince is CEO of Blackwater, a huge "security firm" with facilities across the US and contracts in the hundreds of millions from the State Department, the Pentagon and domestic agencies. Prince is associated with an evangelical group engaged in the Christian/Muslim conflict in the Sudan, according to author Jeremy Scahill in "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army." Scahill says that Prince, a former Navy Seal converted to a fundamentalist Catholicism, has connections to James Dobson and that "the Prince family was deeply involved in the secretive Council for National Policy" founded by Tim LaHaye. Hedges thinks Blackwater may become the SS of an intended Christian Fascism and that "we may be further down this road than we care to admit."

Ronald Reagan - A half a dozen times during his presidency, Reagan indicated his conviction that the world would end very soon in a fiery Armageddon.

Ralph Reed - Christian Coalition political mastermind determined to create an American theocracy. Reed told a Virginia newspaper that his political strategy for getting Dominionists elected was, "I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night." (Goldberg, "Kingdom Coming" 14)

Pat Robertson - Founder of the Christian Coalition, 1988 Republican presidential candidate, televangelist and founder of Christian Broadcasting Network seen in 180 countries and broadcast in 71 languages. His show, The 700 Club, immensely popular. Despite strong Christian Zionist positions, Robertson's book "The New World Order" propagated theories about a worldwide Jewish conspiracy, and his statements are regarded by leading Jewish intellectuals as anti-Semitic. Called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and described the war in Iraq as "a righteous cause out of the Bible." Has said there will be a nuclear attack on the US in 2007.

Southern Baptist Convention - Historian Kevin Phillips describes the SBC as "preeminent in the South, an eight-hundred ton dinosaur in the parlor of American Protestantism, and over the last century the fastest-growing major church in the United States." ("American Theocracy," 149) Dominated in recent years by end-times Christians such as Jerry Falwell. In 2000, former President Jimmy Carter, a third-generation Southern Baptist, and the first president to call himself a born-again and evangelical, severed his ties with the SBC, saying that its "increasingly rigid" dogmas violated the "basic premises of my Christian faith."

US Congress members - A number of members of Congress, recent and current, have been explicit about their end-time views. High-profile end-time politicians include: former House Majority Leader Tom Delay; former Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey; former Senate Majority leader Bill Frist; current Republican Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell; former House Speaker Dennis Hastert; current Republican presidential candidate Senator Sam Brownback. Before the last elections, 186 members of the House of Representatives had earned an 80 to 100 percent approval rating from end-time Christian groups, including Robertson's Christian Coalition.

In late 2004, Bill Moyers - journalist, former Lyndon Johnson White House press spokesman and Baptist minister - told a Harvard audience: "I'm not making this up - I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious, and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelation where four angels 'which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man.'" He more recently observed that "even though some critics believe the influence of the religious right is waning as Bush's popularity sinks, many prospective candidates for his job are pledging their allegiance to ... his powerful base" - those same end-time Christians.

Scholars say the president presents himself as a "born-again Christian" and the public assumes it knows what that means. However, a recent dustup over James Dobson's assertion that former senator and presidential candidate Fred Thompson isn't a Christian illustrates the problems with language in the realm of end-time philosophy. Dobson's spokesman explained, "We use that word - Christian - to refer to people who are evangelical Christians." But there was an additional layer. Some evangelicals are beginning to rebel against the presumption by end-timers such as Pat Robertson and James Dobson that they represent all who call themselves "evangelical." For Dobson, the terms "Christian" and "evangelical" appear to be coded to mean a dominionist end-time Christian. George W. Bush may be using this coding as well.

David S. Domke, associate professor of communication at the University of Washington and author of "God Willing? Political Fundamentalism in the White House," has pointed out how Bush and his speechwriters have regularly employed coded language. This coding communicates to the faithful the president's secret agreement about the construction of an American theocracy and what scholars call an historical "exceptionalism" that ordains the US with a special mission in God's plans. When Bush says, "I believe freedom is not America's gift to the world. It is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman," it requires close attention to penetrate the double think of the message. When the linkages between the Almighty and freedom involve a US mission to democratize the Middle East, then the patriotic ideals pushed by the neocons have merged with the exceptionalism idea of the American theocrats to justify war. (see also Phillips, American Theocracy 206)

Bush's facility with religious coded language may have helped in his close - and to many surprising - relationship with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Critics say Blair seriously damaged his own political legacy with his apparently unquestioning support of Bush's Mideast policies. Though it has not been reported on this side of the Atlantic, Blair is considered by many of his own countrymen as "one of the most religious prime ministers in the past century," one web site explains. Britain had its troubles with religious controversies in earlier centuries, and these days the British electorate expects a rigorously secular government. Blair is a member of the Church of England, but attends the Roman Catholic church and may be intending to convert to Catholicism once he leaves office. The National Secular Society in England claims, "Tony Blair has done more to undermine the secular nature of British society than anyone in recent history. But many people haven't woken up to what will be regarded by coming generations as Tony Blair's worst legacy - encouraging single-faith schools." Blair has no obvious connections to end-of-days beliefs. Like Bush's White House, his government offices issue strong statements affirming solidarity with "the vast majority of decent Muslims." But, given his background and behavior, it is not unreasonable to think that Blair has sympathized with the coded political-religious language Bush uses and with Bush's attempt to entwine religion and government.