UNI Blog - From the Washington Bureau

That bold warning came from the nation’s top intelligence officer, James Clapper, last year. He uttered that warning during an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee.  Clapper explained, “Certainly, the Russians still have a very formidable nuclear arsenal, which does pose potentially a mortal threat to us.”  But Clapper also said that he doesn’t think they have the intent to do that.

He added that China “is growing in its military capabilities. It has a full array of conventional and strategic forces, and they are continually strengthening them. So, they too, pose a mortal threat to the U.S,” said Clapper. He based his assessment strictly on the strategic nuclear capabilities of nation-states that have the potential to be mortal dangers to the U.S.

He continued, saying that terrorist strikes would be limited compared to nuclear war.  Which country might have the intent to be our greatest adversary?  In Clapper’s opinion, it is,  “probably China.”  Clapper said that he came to his conclusions because there is a strategic nuclear reduction agreement between the U.S. and Russia, while none exists with China. But, the top U.S. intelligence expert qualified his assessment, saying,  “I don’t think either country today has the intent to mortally attack us.”

Iran has been doing a lot of saber rattling, as has North Korea.  Both have a fanatical hatred of the U.S, but only North Korea has nuclear weapons. However,  they still don’t have ballistic missiles to deliver them.  So, if America is attacked, it’s likely to come from a smaller nation instead of another superpower. And, it probably will not fare well in a conflict with the U.S.

This is Carl Ramsey and that’s Another View of the News.

Let us know how God is blessing you! Please share your comments below.

A 24-year-old Georgia student clings to life at Augusta Burn Center in after contracting a flesh eating bacteria.  Aimee Copeland’s mother Donna says they are keeping hope alive by staying positive.  She told NBC’s “Today” show they are visiting her as much as possible and they play music to keep Aimee’s spirits up.

Aimee came in contact with the a rare and even more deadly  form of the bacteria when she gashed her leg in a stream.  Doctors say she is essentially being eaten alive.  She has already lost her leg and part of her abdomen to the bacteria.  Doctors say her organs are failing and she will likely lose some of her fingers in the next few days.  Still her father, Andy, says he is looking forward to what he calls “Aimee Day,” when his daughter can talk and breathe on her own again.

There are about 750 cases of the normal strain of this bacteria  however, Aimee Copeland’s infection was a very rare and very deadly strain.  One expert knew of only a few reported cases over the past few decades.  But even the milder strain of the bacteria kills one in five people who become infected.

I’m sure there are some people who will question why God created such a deadly disease.  The famous scientist Albert Einstein believed in God but not Christianity. He observed that the dear God is subtle but not malicious.  Death is our inheritance because of the sin nature.  For the Christian the suffering in this world is nothing compared to the ecstasy of heaven.

This is Carl Ramsey and that’s Another View of the News.

Let us know how God is blessing you! Please share your comments below.

A new Barna Group study examined how pastors of Protestant churches plan to improve their ministry and reach out to others. Barna asked pastors all across the nation about the ways they are likely to improve their churches in the next year. These critical church leaders were asked to rate the priority of 12 possible activities.

Looking at the big picture of the research findings, pastors revealed that constant assessment is a priority. It turns out that pastors are extremely interested in the vision and mission of their ministry.  When it came to improving  their church, the most common priorities of pastors were, “focusing on safety and security issues.” David Kinnaman, who directed the research study, says, most pastors are open to changing their ministries, yet many of them are struggling with the foundational question of mission and vision.

I started attending a new church at Christmas time.  I was impressed with every aspect of the church. It’s a large church with close to 1500 people a week attending.  They have four different weekend services.  There’s one on Saturday evening for those who have to work on Sunday.  There are three services Sunday morning — two are traditional and one is contemporary. And, the pastor preaches at all four services. There’s a separate service for the deaf.  There are Sunday school classes all morning long.  There’s a vibrant youth ministry with a full time pastor. There are a few lay pastors who minister to different needs.  And the church focuses on the downtrodden and the needy.

Perhaps your pastor and other leaders need to dream bigger on how they can make people be blessed each week.  Could it be just that simple?

This is Carl Ramsey and that’s Another View of the News.

Let us know how God is blessing you! Please share your comments below.

There’s a 205,000-square-mile region that spreads out from Southern New York to Northern Mississippi. It includes all of West Virginia and parts of 12 other states.  In 2008, the region’s poverty rate was 18 percent. The number of counties considered economically distressed was 223 in 1965. In fiscal year 2012, that number is 96. I’m talking about the area around the  Appalachian Mountains. And there’s coal in them there mountains.

Generations of coal miners have toiled away at back-breaking labor to power American homes and industry. You probably know that coal mining is a very dangerous job. Now, as many as 200,000 workers who dig, process, transport and burn America’s most abundant fuel are threatened by the EPA’s latest coal rule.

It imposes a standard for emissions that is all but impossible for many plants to meet. It requires coal-fired plants to release no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour. The only means for many older plants to attain that standard is to install what is known as carbon capture and storage technology. But that’s expensive and it is not even commercially available.

As one measure of the disdain in West Virginia for the Obama administration’s crackdown on coal, a federal prisoner doing 17 years for extortion got 41 percent of the vote in last Tuesday’s democratic primary to President Obama’s 59 percent.  Doesn’t it seem like it makes sense for environmentalists and miners to start talking to each other. Maybe a little understanding would help find some realistic answers to what has become a very dirty problem.

This is Carl Ramsey and that’s Another View of the News.

Let us know how God is blessing you! Please share your comments below.

At least 858 U.S. soldiers have died in the Afghanistan War since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009. That equals 60 percent of the 1,427 American soldiers killed so far in that 10-year war.

But an estimated 32,310 people died in motor vehicle crashes just last year.  However the largest number of non-sickness deaths last year was from the increasing abuse of opiate pain killers, like oxycontin and percocet.  Prescription drugs now cause more accidental deaths in the United States than car crashes, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

The number of people dying from prescription drug use however, keeps going up while the number dying in car accidents is dropping.  Still, there is a lot of dangerous driving on our highways.  Several times just this week I’ve had other drivers cut right in front of me while traveling at 65 miles an hour. There wasn’t a reason for it in any of the incidents.  There was plenty of room ahead for them to go a little further and then switch back to the lane that I was in.

How about joining me in a simple safety check. I’m going to really watch the way I drive carefully for the next week. I am going to look for bad habits that may have crept into my driving technique. Cars have gotten a lot safer. Maybe we should focus on another aspect of safety… how we drive.

This is Carl Ramsey and that’s Another View of the News.

Let us know how God is blessing you! Please share your comments below.

We all say we have to love to have a good marriage. But what is love? Real, true love is unconditional. Anything else isn’t really love.

The following definition of love isn’t mine.  I borrowed it from the ultimate expert on love. Here it is: “Love is patient, love is kind. It doesn’t envy, it doesn’t boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” Who’s the expert who issued that definition. God! It’s found in the Bible, in First Corinthians Chapter 13.

That definition, when practiced, leads couples to know each other intimately.  Such couples are well versed in eachother’s likes and dislikes, personality quirks, hopes and dreams. Truly happily married couples are friends. There aren’t any perfect marriages, but there are many that usually operate with all the qualities mentioned so far.

With that in mind, happily married couples aren’t smarter or more beautiful than others.  What they have done is let any negative feelings about their spouse be overridden by positive feelings.

Remember, happily married people are true friends. Such marriages are the closest thing to a little foretaste of heaven right here on earth.

This is Carl Ramsey and that’s Another View of the News.

Let us know how God is blessing you! Please share your comments below.

We have a government that is so determined and sophisticated that it’s intelligence agencies continue to protect us from terrorists.  On top of that, we’ve struck the big blows in the war on terrorism since 9-11.  Last year we did what many thought was impossible.  We found al-Qaeda’s mastermind, Osama bin Laden, and carried out a precision raid, killed him and buried his body at sea so their be no grave for his followers to make into a shrine.

Unmanned U.S. drones continue to sneak up on terrorist leaders in al-Qaeda and kill them.  On top of those accomplishments we’ve tied the hands of the most terrorist government in the world, Iran.  We’ve led the world in a financial blockade that has brought the Iranian financial system to such a disastrous level that we’ve crippled their ability to stir up more trouble. Iran talks big but it carries a little stick.

Then just yesterday, we stopped an al-Qaeda attempt to sneak explosives on a U.S. bound airliner to destroy it and those on board.  But are we satisfied with that victory. No! The President orders even more efforts to thwart al-Qaeda attempts to terrorize us and the western world.

Sure, America has financial problems that will take drastic efforts to solve.  But when it comes to protecting our citizens from foreign attacks we’ve been extremely successful. That is reason enough for now to thank God that we live in the USA.

This is Carl Ramsey and that’s Another View of the News.

Let us know how God is blessing you! Please share your comments below.

The answer has to be yes!  There’s no doubt that moral values have taken a huge tumble since the 1950’s. The Gallup Poll shows that church attendance is a little higher today than in the 1950’s. But, it seems to me that the Bible is either being ignored more now or is under direct attack.

Here is the lie that the world tries to push on us: the Bible is unreliable and untrustworthy, and it cannot be the Word of God. But, the truth is that the Bible can be demonstrated to be accurate and trustworthy.  Let’s compare it to another ancient text. Let’s take a look at everything that we know about Julius Caesar for example. His personal history is in your textbooks, not as theory but as historical fact!

Yet, what is known about Caesar was written in approximately 50 BC, and, the first appearance of these documents in the archeological record is not until 900 AD! That means that nearly 1000 years went by before we have the first existing document about Caesar. How do we know that the truth about him was not altered in those 1000 years? There are  only have 10 copies of the documents about Caesar.  The fewer the existing documents, the less able we are to verify what we have!

But when it comes to the Bible, we have a huge amount of documentation that first appears very close to the time of its original writing!  The latest documentation of biblical writings goes back to only to 1947.  That’s when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in eleven caves along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea.  The major intact texts come from caves 1 and 11 . They give us verification of biblical accuracy that dates back thousands of years.  More about what that means, tomorrow.

This is Carl Ramsey and that’s Another View of the News.

Let us know how God is blessing you! Please share your comments below.

There’s been an explosive growth in federal government spending on health care.  The main cause is mostly due to the explosive growth in federal entitlements. That’s a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract.  Medicare promises benefits to future retirees without the money in the treasury to make those payments.

The Heritage Foundation places the shortfall at $31.8 billion in this year alone.  To put that number in perspective a billion is a thousand million. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Medicare spending will jump from $560 billion in 2012 to over a trillion by 2022. Each year we delay makes reform that much harder.

The senior population in America is the most diverse in the world. The diversity begins with age. While Medicare coverage begins at age 65, the fastest growing segment of the population is in the over-80 segment. The health care needs of a 65-year-old and 85-year-old differ dramatically. American seniors, however, differ not only by age but also by race, ethnicity, culture, and geographic region; and, some of these have different health care systems.

The current Medicare system attempts to cram all these seniors into a centrally planned system. As our senior population becomes more diverse, and medical care changes and advances, the more outdated and unfair to seniors the system becomes.

We are already so far in debt, as a nation, that we will never be able to pay off our national debt. The USA “Ship of State” is sinking, so we’d better patch up the hole before it’s too late.

This is Carl Ramsey and that’s Another View of the News.

Let us know how God is blessing you! Please share your comments below.

American Muslims now outnumber Jews for the first time in most of the Midwest and part of the South.  A recently released census of American religions also showed that most mainline churches have lost members.  The study from the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies shows that Christians are still the largest group in every state.

But another interesting finding in the poll was the growth of the Mormons, who reported the largest numerical gain in 26 states. The number of Mormons, whose Utah-based church’s formal name is, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, grew by 45 percent to 6.1 million in 2010.

According to another poll, roughly 55 percent of Americans attend services with enough regularity to be counted as regular church goers. But the startling  fact is disbelief now rivals the great faiths in numbers and influence. Some 158 million Americans were classified as “unclaimed” by any religion in the survey. Never before has religion faced such enormous levels of disbelief or atheism. Doesn’t it seem strange that a nation with a godly foundation like America has grown so skeptical about the Creator since 1776?

But disbelief is growing all across the western world.  The thing that puzzles me is how can people look at the marvelous earth, all the creatures that inhabit this planet and the great expanse of the universe and think all of this just popped into existence out of nothing.

This is Carl Ramsey and that’s Another View of the News.

Let us know how God is blessing you! Please share your comments below.