Just another day: I'm all shook up

• RUMBLE. It made the news web-sites this morning, but you know, other things happened during the day so it's fallen off the page. What's 'it'? The earth moved. Again. And again. And still again.
  
  The earth's shaking like mad. Today alone, world-wide, the earth fidgeted at a magnitude greater than 5.0 twenty times. Two-zero. Four of those readjusts topped 6.0. Yesterday, in the South Pacific, site of last weeks major burbles, they cleared 7.o three times with a near miss at 6.7.
  
  The world's weaving more than a teen texting while driving (here). Were I merely a student of geology, I would find this unsettling, but I'm a student of theology. Jesus Christ declared with sober certainty that he would return to the earth. The intro to this event?
  

  "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs."

  Is Jesus Christ's return to the earth imminent? That I can't say with certainty. I believe it to be so. What I do know for sure is that we are one day closer than when Jesus spoke to his disciples and the earth won't stop shaking.
  


• ONE IN FOUR. Another article hit the cyber-news sites this morning and disappeared shortly after lunch. Pew research indicates that over one-quarter of the world's population (1.57 b-b-b-b-billion) is now Muslim (here). This is groovy so long as those Muslims are your run-of-the-mill neighbor who doesn't mind going to the pool, bagging your pork at the grocery store, toting your St. Bernard in his cab, or leaving your head on your shoulders.
  
  Conservative estimates, though, indicate that ten percent of Muslims are of the more irritable variety, the kind whose fashion includes vests lined with C4 and a matching belt with detonator buckle. Ten percent of 1.57 b-b-b-b-billion is (math in public...carry the five...) 157 million. That's just under half the population of the United States. Hmmm...
  
  The AP article linked above makes it seem that many of these Muslims aren't just of Arab heritage. They note that more Muslims now live in Germany than in Lebanon. In itself that's an impressive stat, but paltry few of those German Muslims are named Hans or Fritz. You see, Germany has an enormous population of Muslims (as does most of Europe) because of immigration. From the Middle East. So just because the Muslims are German Muslims, they're still named Abdul and Mohammed.

Just thought you'd like to know. 'Til next time, eyes to the east.