Implosion (42 page)

[262]
See “Some Republicans Press for End to Afghan War after bin Laden’s Death,” FoxNews.com, May 24, 2011,
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/24/republicans-press-end-afghan-war-bin-ladens-death/
; see also Josh Rogin, “Grover Norquist Calls for Discussion on Right about Leaving Afghanistan,”
Foreign Policy
, January 12, 2011,
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/12/grover_norquist_calls_for_discussion_on_right_about_leaving_afghanistan
.

[263]
John McCain, interview by Chris Wallace, “9/11, Then and Now,”
Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace
, Fox News, September 11, 2011,
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-news-sunday/2011/09/11/fox-news-sunday-911-then-and-now#ixzz1XyNsV8rt
.

[264]
Eric S. Blake et al., “The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Tropical Cyclones from 1851 to 2010,” NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS NHC-6, National Weather Service/National Hurricane Center, August 2011, p. 9,
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/nws-nhc-6.pdf
.

[265]
“2011 Record Year for Weather Disasters,” UPI, August 19, 2011,
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/08/19/2011-record-year-for-weather-disasters/UPI-57581313783153/
.

[266]
Marty Roney and Carolyn Pesce, “Dozens of Tornadoes Kill At Least 297 People in South,”
USA Today
, April 29, 2011,
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/storms/tornadoes/2011-04-28-deadly-tornado-south_n.htm?loc=interstitialskip
.

[267]
See “Worst Fires on Record Ravage Texas,” Voice of America, September 7, 2011,
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Worst-Fires-on-Record-Ravage-Texas-129366213.html
; see also “Worst Drought in Texas History Ravages Crops, Livestock,” PBS
NewsHour
, August 31, 2011,
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/weather/july-dec11/texasdrought_08-31.html
.

[268]
Katharine Q. Seeyle, “Above All Else, Eastern Quake Rattles Nerves,”
New York Times
, August 23, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/24/us/24quake.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
.

[269]
John Wesley, “The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes,” first published in 1750, included in a series of sermons of John Wesley posted on the Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church website,
http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/129/
.

[270]
“Rare 5.8-Magnitude Earthquake Jolts East Coast, Causing Various Disruptions,” PBS
NewsHour
, August 23, 2011,
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/08/rare-59-earthquake-jolts-virginia.html
.

[271]
Ker Than, “Rare Earthquake Hits Virginia, Rattles U.S. East Coast,”
National Geographic
, August 23, 2011,
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/08/110824-earthquakes-today-washington-dc-richmond-virginia-science/
.

[272]
Ibid.

[273]
Kirk Johnson, “Rare Strong Earthquake Hits Colorado,”
New York Times
, August 23, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/24/us/24earthquake.html?_r=1&hpw
.

[274]
Ben Tracy, “Haiti Revives Fears of ‘Big One’ in Calif.,” CBS News, January 14, 2010,
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/14/eveningnews/main6097974.shtml
.

[275]
William M. Welch et al., “Chilean Earthquake Hints at Dangers of ‘Big One’ for USA,”
USA Today
, March 1, 2010,
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2010-03-01-chile-quake-lessons_N.htm
.

[276]
For more on the 1906 San Francisco quake, see “The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake,” U.S. Geological Survey website,
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/nca/1906/18april/
.

[277]
Wayne R. Thatcher, Peter L. Ward, David J. Wald, James W. Hendley II, and Peter H. Stauffer, “When Will the Next Great Quake Strike Northern California?” U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 094-96,
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1996/fs094-96/
.

[278]
Ibid.

[279]
“Significant Earthquakes and Faults: Northridge Earthquake,” Southern California Earthquake Data Center, California Insititute of Technology,
http://www.data.scec.org/significant/northridge1994.html
.

[280]
“Forecasting California’s Earthquakes—What Can We Expect in the Next Thirty Years?,” U.S. Geological Survey fact sheet 2008-3027, 2008,
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3027/fs2008-3027.pdf
.

[281]
John Roach, “‘Supercities’ Vulnerable to Killer Quakes, Expert Warns,”
National Geographic
, May 2, 2003,
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/0502_030502_killerquakes.html
.

[282]
Ibid.

[283]
Ibid.

[284]
Stefan Lovgren, “Tsunamis More Likely to Hit U.S. than Asia,”
National Geographic
, January 3, 2005,
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/66796484.html
.

[285]
Ibid.

[286]
Ibid.

[287]
“Hurricane Irene Kills 10, Prompts Largest Mass Evacuation in U.S. History,”
Haaretz
/Reuters, August 28, 2011,
http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/hurricane-irene-kills-10-prompts-largest-mass-evacuation-in-u-s-history-1.381123
.

[288]
“Over 5 Million
Still without Power after Irene: DOE,” Reuters, August 29, 2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/29/us-storm-irene-outage-idUSTRE77S5TQ20110829
.

[289]
Michael Cooper, “Hurricane Cost Seen as Ranking among Top Ten,”
New York Times
, August 30, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/31/us/31floods.html?pagewanted=all
.

[290]
Mike Wall, “Hurricane Irene vs. Hurricane Katrina: How They Stack Up,” Live Science, August 29, 2011,
http://www.livescience.com/15813-hurricane-katrina-irene-comparison.html
.

[291]
Nate Silver, “A New York Hurricane Could Be a Multibillion-Dollar Disaster,”
FiveThirtyEight
(blog),
New York Times
,
August 26, 2011
,
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/new-york-hurricane-could-be-multibillion-dollar-catastrophe/
.

[292]
Ibid.

[293]
Ibid.

[294]
Ibid.

[295]
Ibid.

[296]
Eric Blake et al., pp. 7, 9.

[297]
Ibid., p. 6.

[298]
Wall.

[299]
Robert Lee Holtz, “Northern Landfall Puts Storm on Map,”
Wall Street Journal
, August 29, 2011,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903352704576536790143615646.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories
.

[300]
Ibid.

[301]
See “Explore Mount St. Helens” history page, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service,
http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/mountsthelens/home/?cid=stelprdb5199437
.

[302]
“Economic Impact of the May 18, 1980 Eruption,” U.S. Geological Survey fact sheet,
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/May18/description_economic_impact.html
.

[303]
Natalie Wolchover, “Keeping an Eye on Yellowstone’s Supervolcano,” MSNBC, June 8, 2011,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43329798/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/keeping-eye-yellowstones-supervolcano/
.

[304]
Daniel Bates, “Could Yellowstone National Park’s Caldera Super-Volcano Be Close to Eruption?”
Daily Mail
, January 25, 2011,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1350340/Super-volcano-Yellowstones-National-Park-soon-erupt.html
.

[305]
See “Supervolcano Docudrama on Yellowstone Volcano—Questions and Answers on Supervolcanoes, Volcanic Hazards,” Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, U.S. Geological Survey,
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/publications/2005/docudrama.php
.

[306]
See “Steam Explosions, Earthquakes, and Volcanic Eruptions—What’s in Yellowstone’s Future?” U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2005-3024, 2005,
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2005/3024/
.

[307]
See
Strong’s Concordance
,
harpaz
ō
s.v.,
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G726&t=KJV
.

[308]
Mark Hitchcock and Thomas Ice,
The Truth Behind Left Behind
, (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 2004), pp. 22–23.

[309]
For updated total population, see U.S. Population Clock, created by the U.S. Census Bureau,
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
. For the figure 234 million people age 18 or older, see latest U.S. Census figures (2010) in U.S. Department of Commerce, “Age and Sex Composition: 2010,” May 2011,
http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf
.

[310]
William J. Bennett,
The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators: American Society at the End of the Twentieth Century
(New York: WaterBrook Press, 1999), p. 4.

[311]
See Steven Ertelt, “New Zogby Poll: Americans Are Pro-Life on Numerous Abortion Issues,” LifeNews.com, March 22, 2006,
http://www.lifenews.com/2006/03/22/nat-2164/
.

[312]
See Lydia Saad, “Doctor-Assisted Suicide Is Moral Issue Dividing Americans Most: Pornography, Gay Relations Produce Biggest Generational Gaps,” Gallup, May 31, 2011,
http://www.gallup.com/poll/147842/Doctor-Assisted-Suicide-Moral-Issue-Dividing-Americans.aspx
. See also Steven Ertelt, “New Poll: 55% of Americans Say Abortion Morally Wrong,” LifeNews.com, August 26, 2011,
http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/26/new-poll-55-of-americans-say-abortion-morally-wrong/
.

[313]
“Abortion Statistics: United States Data and Trends,” National Right to Life, January 27, 2011,
http://www.nrlc.org/Factsheets/FS03_AbortionInTheUS.pdf
.

[314]
Saad.

[315]
Jerry Ropelato, “Internet Pornography Statistics,” Internet Filter Software Reviews,
http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics-pg2.html
.

[316]
Ibid.

[317]
Saad.

[318]
“Estimated Crime in the United States—Total,” Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice,
http://www.ucrdatatool.gov/Search/Crime/State/RunCrimeStatebyState.cfm
. It should be noted that the number of forcible rapes in the U.S. peaked in the early- to mid-1990s, hitting a high of 109,062 in 1992 and remaining over 100,000 per year until 1994.

[319]
As of June 17, 2011, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children listed 739,853 sexual predators in the U.S.; see “Map of Registered Sex Offenders in the United States,”
http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/sex-offender-map.pdf
. This is up from 603,000 in 2007. See John Gramlich, “The Ever-Growing Sex Offender Registry,” Stateline, April 12, 2010,
http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=476264
.

[320]
Some have expressed that caution should be used in assessing the true number of sexual offenders and predators, as there are cases of people who might not truly qualify but end up on the list anyway. Experts and government officials should be extremely careful to make sure no one is put on such a national registry for reasons other than convictions of sexual crimes. Still, few question that we have seen an epidemic of sexual crimes over the past few decades.

[321]
“Sex Offenders Getting Younger, More Violent,” Associated Press, June 9, 2007,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19143411/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/sex-offenders-getting-younger-more-violent/
.

[322]
Ibid.

[323]
Frank Newport, “For First Time, Majority of Americans Favor Legal Gay Marriage,” Gallup, May 20, 2011,
http://www.gallup.com/poll/147662/first-time-majority-americans-favor-legal-gay-marriage.aspx
.

[324]
“Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions, and Domestic Partnerships: Quick Facts on Key Provisions,” National Conference of State Legislatures, July 14, 2011,
http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=16430
.

[325]
For examples, see Psalm 1:1, Psalm 34:8, Psalm 40:4, Psalm 112:1.

[326]
George Barna,
Futurecast
(Carol Stream, IL: BarnaBooks/Tyndale House Publishers, 2011), p. 124.

[327]
Ibid., p. 132.

[328]
Ibid.

[329]
Ibid., p. 35.

[330]
These numbers were reported in the “Pastor’s Family Bulletin,” Focus on the Family, March 2000, cited in “Archive of Statistics on Internet Dangers,” Enough Is Enough,
http://www.enough.org/inside.php?tag=stat#9
.

[331]
Ibid.

[332]
See editorial, “The Leadership Survey of Pastors and Internet Pornography,”
Leadership Journal
, January 1, 2001,
http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2001/winter/12.89.html
. Admittedly, these statistics are ten years out of date. I wonder if today they would be higher. However, I have not been able to find more recent data. Indeed, in an August 2010 article on “Protecting Churches from Porn,”
Christianity Today
again cited the 2001 statistics:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2010/summer/protectingchurches.html
.