The Federal Reserve announced a $1.2 trillion plan three months ago designed to push down mortgage rates and breathe life into the housing market. But this and other big government spending programs are turning out to have the opposite effect. Rates for mortgages and U.S. Treasury debt are now marching higher as nervous bond investors fret about a resurgence of inflation.

Fret! Fret you say? Be very serious about what's been started that can't be reversed very easily at all.

The Catch-22 threatening to make an awful housing market potentially worse and keep the economy stuck in a funk is also making the 2010 elections a nightmare for the Democrats! Kick-starting the economy requires higher spending, but rising rates mean fewer Americans will be able to refinance their home loans. And some potential buyers will be shut out of the market by higher monthly payments they won't be able to afford.

We simply can't make the natural cycles go away!

To understand how this is all connected, you have to think like a bond trader. Inflation is their enemy because it means the purchasing power of the dollars they receive when bonds eventually are paid off will be diminished. The only question is by how much. Yields on 10-year Treasury notes, a benchmark for home mortgages and other consumers loans, jumped from 2.5 percent in March around the time of the Fed announcement to as high as 3.7 percent in recent days as signs that efforts to stabilize the financial system and economy were starting to pay off. And 30-year mortgage rates jumped more than a quarter-point this week to 5.29 percent, the highest level since December, Freddie Mac reported.

"If the meltdown continues in the bond market, then mortgage yields will soon be at levels that choke off refinancing activity," said economist Ed Yardeni, who runs his own investment firm. "Even worse, they could abort any necessary recovery in home sales and prices." Yardeni coined the term "bond vigilantes" in 1983 to describe how traders took matters into their own hands when they felt the Fed wasn't doing enough to fight inflation, which was running at an annual rate of more than 3 percent at that time.

So what has set off the vigilantes this spring?

Bond investors anticipate a greater supply of government debt being sold to fund federal spending. Investors are also increasingly fearful that the trillions of dollars the government will need to borrow in the coming years to finance the various stimulus programs will lead to a new bout of inflation. The White House estimates that the government will rack up an unprecedented $1.8 trillion budget deficit this year - more than four times last year's all-time high.

"The bond market is calling the Federal Reserve out," said Mike Larson, a real estate analyst at Weiss Research Inc. in Jupiter, Fla. "Investors are saying that the Fed can't just print money out of thin air to finance a massive deficit." Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged Wednesday in congressional testimony that large budget deficits could threaten financial stability by eventually eroding investor confidence and endangering the economy's prospects for long-term health.

But now, surging mortgage rates are threatening to undermine everything. Seventy percent of refinancing activity could be knocked out as rates close in on 5.5 percent, according to Mark Hanson, a managing director at the independent research firm Field Check Group of Menlo Park, Calif. Homeowners wouldn't get much of a benefit if a refinancing only reduces monthly payments a tiny bit while they are stuck paying closing costs that typically run about 2 percent of the loan amount.

Also, many homeowners who wanted to refinance didn't lock in the super-low rates in April when the refi boom took off. "Half the deals in the pipeline are dead," Hanson said. "People were applying to refinance to improve their situation, but now they are seeing it won't be much improved."

Bottom line! We've stepped in a pile of crap that we never should have gone near. Now the question is, how do we get this stuff off our shoes?

Because the classical position by the church as been one of embracing POWER and CONTROL, we somehow have projected that upon this monotheistic God. God's a control freak, but, because he's God, it's somehow okay. In the same breath, we say that Jesus is the EXPRESS IMAGE of God. Jesus himself said that when we see him, we're seeing God, the Father.

So, let me ask you a question then.

Was Jesus a control freak? Did Jesus exercise POWER or did he exemplify LOVE? You know the answer! But our EGO wants to embrace and use the POWER!

There's a big difference in HAVING power and EXERCISING power. Once again, look at Jesus. He said that he could call upon a dozen legions to demonstrate his power; however, he chose to exercise his love and show us what unconditional love can do- CHANGE THE FRICKIN WORLD BABY!

Thus, let me answer the questions posed in the title. Is God limited? You bet your booty! But, He chose to limit himself and thus in a sense he's limited only by his choice to be limited. Can God fail? Duh! Look at the world around us. is this what God would want? When God chose to give us FREE WILL he was not only taking a RISK (love has choices or it's not love), but he was risking failure.

The GOOD NEWS is that the FAILURES are only temporal.

In the end God wins! We win- we ALL win! God takes that which was meant for evil and makes it damn good! We're not diminishing God in any form of fashion by saying that God is limited because it's his own will that's doing the limiting. God's omniscience knew the risks, saw the failures, but ultimately because God is LOVE, he had to hold back his POWER (omnipotence) until the two minute drill.

Hail Mary!

I’ve had God in so many different boxes in my life time that it’s amazing that God has any freedom at all- in my life.

I’m not sure of all the reasons that God created me, let alone you, but somewhere around the top of the list has been because God wanted a RELATIONSHIP with me. If God is anything He’s relational. How is that that we’ve made the word PRAYER something other than a relationship?

Granting that no human can define God completely (and no where close to that), let’s explore God OUTSIDE

+of time and space, and God INSIDE them. The God of everything is And-Also in the time and space paradigm. Classical Christianity has God outside of time- timeless. But, could He be both? Have you ever pondered that question?

What about Jesus?

Didn’t God participate in TIME through Jesus? Can you say INCARNATION? And didn’t God also participate in something totally antithetical to His nature when He entered humanity with all it’s junk? Are you ready to go deeper with that question? The incarnation isn’t limited to an event 2,000 years ago. You and I are living that incarnational life now (to whatever degree).

While God, the Creator, Consciousness, Father is OUTSIDE of time He is also living IN time through you and me. God is “experiencing” our lives on a daily basis. We’re co-laborers, we’re co-reigning (regardless of how small that might be) with an upside potential beyond imagination. We AM!

The Word became flesh. Flesh is spirit materialized.

I don’t know about you, but that makes me want to BE more than my ego and humanity thinks I can be. I AM becoming more and more ONE as the desire of Jesus for us unfolds in an increasing higher level of consciousness, vibrational resonance, and frequency. Okay then, as we live MORE by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16).

It’s so easy to underestimate the infinite, so why not try to overestimate what we can be, what we already ARE, but have yet to awaken to and embrace. There’s so much more to live for than what’s we’ve been settling for, and I submit to you that IF we’d get a picture of the Christos in us, the hope of glory, the adventure of life would rock our every lovin’ boats!

Ready to swim?

Either candidate could have beaten McCain; however, the allure of a black president with an Islamic background, and one of the world's best orators (with a teleprompter of course) was just what the PRESS loved. Ah, but now the prince has become king and STUFF is hitting the fan!

While I embrace many of the social and humanitarian pillars in the Obama presidency, his first four months in office have left me shaking my head.

The economic policies being followed by the Obama economic team are disastrous and the long-term "unintended consequences" are yet to be known. He's destroying the capitalistic system (which has been in need of repair but not total destruction) and replacing it with a social hybrid that's proven UNWORKABLE in many other societies. The little man has been forsaken in the capitalistic system, but neither will he-she be helped in the SOCIAL format that's being pursued.

As American heads LEFT, the rest of the world, with a few exceptions, is now moving RIGHT!

Senior Chinese leaders have privately voiced fear over the soaring US budget deficit and are increasingly looking to diversify from the dollar, a Republican congressman said. "We heard across the board -- in private -- substantial, continuing and rising concern," Representative Mark Kirk said after a trip to China that included talks with government officials and central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan.

Unemployment is headed to DOUBLE DIGITS and at some point Obama and his team, (and the PRESS) will have to quit blaming everything on George Bush. I mean, who even thinks about that name any more? Taking over one US corporation after another, getting involved where no federal government should is going to take it's toll. The honeymoon is over for "Joe Blow", and soon the PRESS will have to grudgingly admit it as well.

Seriously Chavez did ban Coke Zero!

And, California's government risks a financial "meltdown" within 50 days in light of its weakening May revenues unless Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers quickly plug a $24.3 billion budget gap, the state's controller said on Wednesday. Underscoring the severity of California's cash crisis, Controller John Chiang, who has previously warned the state's government risks running out of cash without a budget deal, said revenues in May fell by $1.14 billon, or 17.7 percent, from a year earlier.

Seventeen percent drop in one month! Not good at all!

And, revenues of the government of the most populous U.S. state fell short of estimates in Schwarzenegger's budget plan by $827 million, Chiang said. He warned California's state government is speeding toward a financial disaster unless officials act urgently to balance its books. "Without immediate solutions from the governor and legislature, we are less than 50 days away from a meltdown of state government," Chiang said in a statement.

Maybe Texas could bail California out, or better yet, don't we still have some TARP money left? Or, Obama could set up a "California czar" and print more money, and BUY California! We can't let all those avocado ranches go to waste!

California's revenues have been on a dramatic slide as a result of recession, rising unemployment and its lengthy housing downturn. The state's revenues from personal income taxes tumbled by 39.3 percent in May from a year earlier while revenues from corporate taxes fell by 52.1 percent and revenues from sales taxes sagged by 7.6 percent, according to a report released by Chiang's office. "A truly balanced budget is the only responsible way out of the worst cash crisis since the Great Depression," Chiang, a Democrat, said.

What's a "balanced budget"
We've gone from California Dreamin to California Nightmares!

Depending upon the tribe or culture that you're talking about the window that we're in, or the door that we're about to enter has been called the Age of Aquarius, Age of Enlightenment, or Exponential Consciousness.

Regardless of the name, the common theme is LOVE and our ability to transcend the egoic desires that we all embrace to some degree or another. Shedding the victim consciousness doesn't come easily. Transcendence of any ilk is a feat extraordinaire. One of my favorite early-life mystics was Joseph Chilton Pearce.

Remember the Crack In the Cosmic Egg? Maybe you're not old enough for that one; however, on of his more recent books (he's still going strong at near 90- I think), The Biology Of Transcendence, he writes, "Transcendence is our biological IMPERATIVE, a state we have been moving toward for a millennia."

So, how is it that one CONSCIOUSLY EVOLVES?

As I look back on my life, most of my coming of age has been subconsciously, if at all. But, thanks to Bruce Lipton, we now have the biological-scientific evidence that we can indeed rewrite the software of our being (DNA).

Another lesser known cell biologist, Glen Rein, has demonstrated the direct connection between life affirming emotions and torsion energy. And then Barbara Marciniak took it a step further by writing, "The ability to both give and receive love holds the true key to healing because it is the most life sustaining and affirming form of emotional expression."

Torsion energy is unconditional love.

If there's anything that I hope to see come out of this once in 25,625 year shift (generally known as 26,000 years), it's that we enter into a "turn the other cheek" mentality. While I understand and can embrace most of the teaching of Jesus, who became the Christ, I must confess that the line between self defense and allowing very dark evil to pursue you is a most difficult concept.

We ARE the children of LIGHT- ALL of us! And it's beginning to dawn upon us that we are- that I AM!

North Korea may be preparing for its third nuclear test, a show of defiance as the United Nations considers new sanctions on the dictatorship for conducting an underground nuclear explosion in May, according to a U.S. government official. North Korea conducted an underground explosion on May 25, its first since a 2006 atomic test. The official, who spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the unreleased information, would not provide details regarding the assessment.

A draft U.N. resolution proposed Wednesday would impose tough sanctions on North Korea's weapons exports and financial dealings and allow inspections of suspect cargo in ports and on the high seas. North Korea has threatened to retaliate if new sanctions are adopted. North Korea already is a pariah to many countries and has been under tough economic sanctions for years. Last month's reported test defied a Security Council resolution adopted after the North's first underground atomic blast in October 2006.

Who knows? We'll just wait and see.

Binyamin Netanyahu is expected to endorse a “two-state solution” in a much-heralded speech this weekend, but he may stall on American demands to freeze Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Feeling the squeeze between the US Administration, which wants a moratorium on settlement growth and a commitment to a Palestinian state, and his national-religious coalition, which favours neither, the Israeli Prime Minister appears likely to try to steer a middle course.

Iranians vote in an election that could decide whether the country opens up to the West or deepens its isolation. Four candidates are running but the race is between the hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Picking a winner is very difficult and the vote is likely to go to a run-off election next week.

Thus what happens in Israel and Iran over the weekend could very likely have a major impact on where the Mid-east goes for the rest of the year.

North Korea may be preparing for its third nuclear test, a show of defiance as the United Nations considers new sanctions on the dictatorship for conducting an underground nuclear explosion in May, according to a U.S. government official. North Korea conducted an underground explosion on May 25, its first since a 2006 atomic test. The official, who spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the unreleased information, would not provide details regarding the assessment.

A draft U.N. resolution proposed Wednesday would impose tough sanctions on North Korea's weapons exports and financial dealings and allow inspections of suspect cargo in ports and on the high seas. North Korea has threatened to retaliate if new sanctions are adopted. North Korea already is a pariah to many countries and has been under tough economic sanctions for years. Last month's reported test defied a Security Council resolution adopted after the North's first underground atomic blast in October 2006.

Who knows? We'll just wait and see.

Binyamin Netanyahu is expected to endorse a “two-state solution” in a much-heralded speech this weekend, but he may stall on American demands to freeze Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Feeling the squeeze between the US Administration, which wants a moratorium on settlement growth and a commitment to a Palestinian state, and his national-religious coalition, which favours neither, the Israeli Prime Minister appears likely to try to steer a middle course.

Iranians vote in an election that could decide whether the country opens up to the West or deepens its isolation. Four candidates are running but the race is between the hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Picking a winner is very difficult and the vote is likely to go to a run-off election next week.

Thus what happens in Israel and Iran over the weekend could very likely have a major impact on where the Mid-east goes for the rest of the year.