Up to this point in the year, the stock market is off to the best start that we have seen since 1987. Of course we all remember what happened toward the end of 1987. Our largest corporations are going hundreds of billions of dollars in debt to pump up their own stock prices. It is a Ponzi scheme of epic proportions, and when things start to go bad there is going to be a race to bankruptcy court. But for the moment the Ponzi scheme continues, and a lot of people are becoming exceedingly wealthy as a result.

For average Americans, it is absolutely imperative to remember that the stock market is not the economy. Yes, the stock market has been soaring, but the US economy has not had a full year of 3 percent growth since the middle of the Bush administration. This has been the longest stretch of sub-three percent economic growth in our history by a very wide margin, and now all of the numbers are telling us that economic activity is slowing down once again.

Instead of partying, most people should be using this time to prepare for what is ahead, but we know that is simply not going to happen.

At the same time, the dense web of alliances that has characterised German foreign policy for decades — and that underpinned the country’s postwar success — is under strain as never before: NATO has descended into bitter recriminations over burden-sharing, leading many Germans to wonder how much longer the US will remain committed to the defence of Europe. The EU itself, meanwhile, is riven by splits between north and south and east and west, and exhausted from the never-ending struggle over Brexit.

The UK no longer counts as a reliable ally, and the relationship with France is going through a phase of barely-concealed irritation. One by one, the fixed stars that have guided German foreign policy for generations have started to dim. Mr Maas admits that the challenges for German foreign policy are both numerous and complex — from Chinese attempts to split the EU and Russian intervention in eastern Europe to the conflicts in Syria, Libya and Yemen. None, however, looms larger than the deepening rift with the US, the guarantor of German security since 1945.

“We know that wild bees are greatly at risk and not doing well worldwide,” Rehan, assistant professor of biological sciences and the senior author on the study, said in a prepared statement. “This status assessment of wild bees shines a light on the exact species in decline, besides the well-documented bumblebees. Because these species are major players in crop pollination, it raises concerns about compromising the production of key crops and the food supply in general.”

Rehan warned as wild bee populations collapse so will crop yields, which could produce food shortages across the country. She says wild bees are facing similar threats that have also caused honeybee populations to plunge – including the overuse of pesticides and herbicides, a lack of seasonal wild plant diversity and volatile weather.

Mexico City was literally built on a former lakebed, and the unique geology of the area means that Mexico City feels earthquakes more acutely than other major cities would.

A 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit the central Philippines on Monday, sparking evacuations from offices in Manila. Frightening footage shows skyscrapers swaying back and forth as debris falls nearby.

Over the weekend there were four substantial earthquakes in Alaska, and the largest of the four was a magnitude 5.1 quake… Any large earthquakes that happen along the Cascadia Subduction Zone are of particular concern, because the Cascadia Subduction Zone is capable of producing a seismic event that could kill millions of people in the Pacific Northwest.

Back in the year 1700, an enormous earthquake alone the Cascadia Subduction Zone triggered a tsunami so massive that it crossed the Pacific Ocean and damaged coastal towns in Japan.  FEMA has warned that if such a thing happened today, “everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast”.  The mainstream media is not talking much about it, but the truth is that our planet is becoming increasingly unstable. At this point seismic events are happening in such rapid fire fashion that it is really difficult to keep up with them all.

Why does the mainstream media have to be so politically-correct all the time? Most churches around the world are very “soft targets” with absolutely no security whatsoever. And these days, there is literally nowhere that is safe.  Attacks on churches are happening literally all over the globe, and sometimes they happen right in the middle of a worship service. By a very wide margin, churches are the number one target for hate attacks, and it is only going to get worse.

Sadly, churches in the US are increasingly being attacked as well.  You may not have heard about it in the news, but three churches in Louisiana were recently destroyed by arson …Christian persecution is on the rise all over the world, and it is likely to intensify greatly in the years ahead.

But of course most of the time the mainstream media attempts to ignore this growing trend as much as possible.  When there are spectacular attacks with large numbers of deaths like we just witnessed in Sri Lanka they will cover the story, but other than that they try very hard to avoid any stories that would put Christians in a sympathetic light. They can try to ignore what is happening all they want, but it doesn’t change the fact that hatred for the Christian faith is growing, and what we have been witnessing in recent weeks is just the beginning.

While the pope kept silence regarding the identity of the perpetrators of the attacks, another Vatican cardinal spoke out strongly, calling out the radical Islamist ideology that motivated the targeted bombings. The head of the Vatican’s liturgical department, Cardinal Robert Sarah, denounced the “barbaric Islamist violence” behind the Easter attacks.

“As we celebrate the resurrection of the son of God, the terrible attacks in Sri Lanka once again show how the followers of Christ are all over the world the victims of wild and foolish deeds,” wrote the Guinean cardinal, the highest-ranking African prelate in the Catholic Church. “I condemn this barbaric Islamist violence. Pray,” he wrote in a tweet.

But Monbiot was just getting started. Next up, he took us down the intellectual river, into the heart of activist darkness. “We have to overthrow this system which is eating the planet: perpetual growth,” Monbiot declared. And the writer pulled no punches. Annual economic growth targets of 3% represent “madness,” he said. The columnist reached his crescendo. “We can’t do it by just pitting around at the margins of the problem; we’ve got to go straight to the heart of capitalism and overthrow it.”

In a way, I’m glad Monbiot said what he did. With this interview, Boyle, a terrorist sympathizer and champagne socialist, unwittingly gave us a rare window into the malicious faux-humanitarianism that motivates many climate change ideologues. I don’t exaggerate when I say it’s malicious.

Monbiot and his comrades, in seeking to overthrow the modern way of life, are proud servants of moral darkness. They seek to impose socialism, communism, or some other defective ideology precisely because these will limit economic growth and human flourishing.

Electric vehicles in Germany account for more CO2 emissions than diesel ones, according to a study by German scientists. When CO2 emissions linked to the production of batteries and the German energy mix – in which coal still plays an important role – are taken into consideration, electric vehicles emit 11% to 28% more than their diesel counterparts, according to the study, presented on Wednesday at the Ifo Institute in Munich.

Mining and processing the lithium, cobalt and manganese used for batteries consume a great deal of energy. A Tesla Model 3 battery, for example, represents between 11 and 15 tonnes of CO2. Given a lifetime of 10 years and an annual travel distance of 15,000 kilometres, this translates into 73 to 98 grams of CO2 per kilometre, scientists Christoph Buchal, Hans-Dieter Karl and Hans-Werner Sinn noted in their study.

The CO2 given off to produce the electricity that powers such vehicles also needs to be factored in, they say. When all these factors are considered, each Tesla emits 156 to 180 grams of CO2 per kilometre, which is more than a comparable diesel vehicle produced by the German company Mercedes, for example. The German researchers therefore take issue with the fact that European officials view electric vehicles as zero-emission ones.

Obama’s stewardship of our national finances was truly obscene, but George W Bush was nearly as bad. He has even less of an excuse, in fact, because he had a Republican Congress to work with for most of his eight years. During that time, Bush took us from USD $5.8 trillion to USD $10 trillion, something that seemed reckless at the time. Of course, in light of the Obama USD $10 trillion spending extravaganza, Bush looks prudent by comparison.

How is it that we supposedly elect the best and the brightest to represent us in Washington, DC, people with law and medical degrees and MBAs from Ivy League universities, people that come from the finest law practices and accounting firms and consultancies and banks and financial institutions in the country… and our end result is the debt avalanche we now have before us?

Why do we believe politicians of either party when they tell us that they will make our national debt a top priority? Why is it that the American people seem to fail to understand how ruinous our national debt truly is and what an astounding percent of our national budget we are now spending on servicing that debt?

“It is an open issue that must be resolved,” Greece’s deputy foreign minister, Markos Bolaris, told the Guardian, hitting back at German insistence that compensation claims had been conclusively settled.  “For matters of this kind there is international justice,” he said on Friday. “In all disputes the EU abides by it, on principle. Germany may say it has been resolved but what counts is international law.” 

Greeks suffered hugely at the hands of Hitler’s forces, enduring what Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, recently described on a visit to Greece as “unimaginable” horrors.  Tens of thousands were killed in reprisals as Greeks mounted what historians would later hail as a heroic resistance against the Wehrmacht [German army], with entire villages being wiped out between 1941 and 1944.  By the time the occupation ended, an estimated 300,000 people had died from famine and the country’s Jewish community had been almost entirely obliterated.

Indicative of the emotions Nazi-era crimes are still prone to elicit, within hours of the vote in the Greek parliament, the MP in charge of Warsaw’s reparations campaign announced that Poland should follow suit.  Greek compensation claims pale by comparison. Warsaw was razed to the ground by the Nazis after an abortive uprising in which 200,000 civilians died. The lives of 6 million Poles – including 3 million Polish Jews – were lost. Poland, which also faces parliamentary elections this year, has since demanded €800 billion in war debts it insists it is still owned by Germany.