Days of Noah | Ain't Complicated

Slavery USA?

I’ll admit it. That this goes on in the USA boggles my mind.

What do you think of when you hear the phrase “sex trafficking?” Brothels in Cambodia? Abducted women in South Africa? The 2008 film “Taken”? Whatever your thoughts may be, they are likely focused in impoverished countries filled with women who have no other options.

Yet, this heinous crime and organized trade goes daily unnoticed when it occurs in the United States. That is: unnoticed or unrecognized for what it is.

[…]

The United States is no virgin when it comes to the exploitation of its own children. Modern-day abolitionist York Moore with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship says, “We’re all seeing the evolution here in the United States. Ten years ago, when we talked about human trafficking, we were primarily talking about a phenomena that existed outside of the United States. Back in 2001, there was an estimated only 45,000 – 50,000 slaves in the United States.”

As shocking as those numbers were ten years ago, they are not nearly as disturbing as the rate at which the crime has grown. Pat McCalla of a ministry to sexually enslaved minors known as “Streetlight” in Phoenix, Arizona says the problem in the U.S. has grown to “anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 underage women being trafficked every year.”

Human trafficking is now the second-largest criminal industry in the world after drug trafficking, and it has become the fastest-growing criminal movement. The United States is no exception.

Not only is the degradation climbing higher in sheer numbers, but the ages of victims seem to be getting lower by the year. “We’re definitely seeing an evolution in the United States not only in terms of the raw numbers, but also in terms of the appetite for young flesh,” says Moore. “It’s very disturbing.”

[…]

Whether minors are used by family members, abducted by clever traffickers, taken from their suburban beds on a nightly basis, or blackmailed into a life of unending agony, the problem exists all over. “In the last three years, I’ve visited Boston, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis, St. Paul, San Diego, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Denver. Every one of those cities has a problem,” explains McCalla.

Source: The U.S. sex trade flourishes: number of enslaved minors increasing

My Memo to PayPal

I have (very gratefully) used your services for many years. I date back to your early days when you gave us a $5 referral fee for each new account we sent your way.

Anyway, I want you (and/or everybody else reading here, naturally) to get this message:

(click to read something I wrote a long time ago)

Do couples really do PayPal in bed like that?

If so, how many have had their computers fall off the end?

And why not have them trade places so the gal appears less immodest?

But maybe your service wouldn’t sell so well then. 😯

(I assume you think your service sells better with an inward view such as you presently offer. If so, I guess I should change my post title to PayPal Uses Revealing Marketing Tactics.)

Oh, and I freely admit to doing “corrective surgery” on the above image.

And now, for a “commercial” for a book we sell on our site for Rod and Staff Publishers:

Keep Yourself Pure

Empty Cups at the World Cup

I know this is far away. And about people we don’t know. And we have enough cares and woes and responsibilities close by.

But still….

With an increase in people comes an increase in demands. South Africa has discovered this firsthand as they’ve upped the ante on transportation, hotel space, and shopping for the World Cup. In an attempt to meet every need, however, there has been one disturbing consequence.

Human trafficking has increased immensely in South Africa in preparation for the international tournament, mostly but not exclusively for the purport of prostitution. There have been several reports of an influx in human trafficking since the games began, but business moves swelled long before the June 11 kick off. Many of these dealings have been in the works for years.

“[Traffickers] started the trafficking of people in 2004 as soon as they found out the World Cup would be in South Africa,” says Martha Richards, a missionary for International Mission Board in South Africa. “That’s when the traffickers started organizing official trafficking for this event.”

There is a common misconception–even by South African police, who turn their heads from prostitution because it brings revenue into the country–that women prostituting themselves at these sorts of events are earning money and have chosen their profession on their own. But these lies are not reality. Many men, women and children as young as 10 have been enticed into this lifestyle having no idea they would soon be enslaved, and they don’t keep a penny of the money they make.

I excerpted less than half of The lesser-known sport of the World Cup. You really should read the whole thing.

And pray?

Survival: USA, President Obama, Israel

Can they all survive these perilous times?

I got to pondering that question on Tuesday of this week (ie April 6, 2010).

My conclusions?

I do not see how President Obama can survive to complete his first term in office.
Nor do I see how the United States can survive almost three more years of what it has experienced in the first year plus of the Obama Presidency.
About Israel, well, take man’s measuring rod and she’s doomed also.

I should remind you at this point that I am a two-separate-kingdoms Christian. I am apolitical and my comments are likewise.

I believe we are in a period of intense peril for the USA, for President Obama, and for Israel. I believe this great peril exceeds anything any of those three have experienced before (at least if we limit the scope of that comment to the modern nation-state of Israel and not historical Israel).

The course presently charted for the US will hasten its collapse or at least the collapse of her system of government (which would be catastrophic enough). I will not elaborate on why I think that.

President Obama surely has more than the usual potential assassins plotting his destruction. Again, I’ll not take the time to elaborate. I don’t see how the Secret Service can keep him safe.

Israel need only look at the radical change this week in the American nuclear posture to doubt her own survivability. The US has just declared it has taken a nuclear counterstrike off the table as a response to a non-nuclear WMD attack. If the US will not retaliate that way to such an attack on itself, why should Israel think the US will stick its neck out for her when she’s attacked with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons? Couple that with other developments of late, and Israel appears dangerously alone.

Well, I have taxes to do. And a Sunday School class to prepare to teach in the morning. And missionary reports from Mexico to get ready for tomorrow afternoon’s Mission Board meeting. And other pressing matters pressing me. I already spent too much time on this. I shall have to forego the pleasure of expanding my points.

In closing, these points:

As I understand the Scriptures, Israel survives, thanks only to dramatic divine intervention.
About the United States and about President Obama, I don’t know. I’m not that kind of prophet.
I just don’t see how they survive another three years.
I pray they do.

I call on God’s faithful people to pray that way as well.

PS: Am I going off the deep end?

PS, Jr: I’m not fearful nor paranoid. Nor am I a kook. 😉

Loopy Virginia

This isn’t just loopy. It’s sick. Evil, actually.

A loophole in state law is preventing Campbell County investigators from charging a woman they say killed her newborn baby.

Deputies were called to a home in the 1200 block of Lone Jack Road in Rustburg around 11:00a.m. Friday. The caller said a woman in her early 20s was in labor. When deputies arrived, they discovered the baby had actually been born around 1:00a.m., about ten hours earlier. Investigators say the baby was already dead when deputies got there.

Investigators tell WSLS the baby’s airway was still blocked. They say the baby was under bedding and had been suffocated by her mother. Investigators say because the mother and baby were still connected by the umbilical cord and placenta, state law does not consider the baby to be a separate life. Therefore, the mother cannot be charged.

“In the state of Virginia as long as the umbilical cord is attached and the placenta is still in the mother, if the baby comes out alive the mother can do whatever she wants to with that baby to kill it,” says Investigator Tracy Emerson. “She could shoot the baby, stab the baby. As long as it’s still attached to her in some form by umbilical cord or something it’s no crime in the state of Virginia.”

The Campbell County Sheriff’s Office and Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office worked unsuccessfully to get the law changed after another baby died in the county in a similar case. Emerson says they asked two delegates and one state senator to take the issue up in the General Assembly. He says the three lawmakers refused because they felt the issue was too close to the abortion issue.

Can’t touch infanticide because it’s too close to abortion. 😯

So what are they lacking? A spine? A heart? A conscience?

Maybe it’s a moral compass.

And compassionate morality.

Truly we live in depraved, perilous times.

The full article might interest you: Mother won’t be charged with baby’s death because of law loophole

Pepsi’s Score

I don’t know what it is.

But I say they’ve hit a new low with their latest effort to amp up the debasement of the culture:

Amp, an energy drink made by Pepsi, has an application (app, for short) for the iPhone called “Before You Score.” It’s billed as a “roadmap to success with your favorite kinds of women—24, in all.” Choose your type and get suggestions on how to “score.”

Here’s a boast from the online commercial for it: “If you’re anticipating a successful night, the Before You Score app gives you up-to-the minute information, feeds, lines, and much more to help you amp up and talk to 24 different types of ladies.” By “lines” they mean pick-up lines. As for “types,” you can choose from “businesswoman,” “foreign exchange student,” “sorority girl,” “rebound girl,” “nerd,” “treehugger,” “cougar,” “twins,” even “married.”

Have they no shame?

Have they no decency?

Apparently not:

Pepsi issued an apology via Twitter that said, in part: “We apologize if it’s in bad taste.”

You’ve got to be kidding me! 🙄

Well, read the rest of Marcia Segelstein’s post over at WorldMagBlog.

“Just as Real and Admirable”

Frankly, I was astounded to read this earlier this morning.

Furthermore, it happened Saturday night. I didn’t learn about it till this morning. Lemme see — Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday — six days later. And I don’t exactly stay isolated from the news.

Has this story been buried?

President Obama delivered an unprecedented message to the Human Rights Campaign Saturday night. Sounding more like a homosexual activist than a sitting president, Obama went well beyond his expected message of “I’m here with you” on the homosexual agenda.

“My expectation is that when you look back on these years, you will see a time in which we put a stop to discrimination against gays and lesbians — whether in the office or on the battlefield,” Obama told an estimated audience of 3,000. “You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman.”

Even Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese was stunned at the breadth of Obama’s statement, calling it “something quite remarkable.”

“This was a historic night when we felt the full embrace and commitment of the President of the United States,” Solmonese said in a post-speech statement. “It’s simply unprecedented.”

Sounds like the folks at Human Rights Campaign got far more hope and change than they dared expect.

Oh, America!

“Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.

“Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

“If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

“But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it” (Isaiah 1:10,16,19,20).

Here’s my source: Obama: Homosexual Relationships ‘Just as Real and Admirable’ as Heterosexual Marriage