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Bible Conversations

Every Tuesday and Thursday I go to exercise class an hour early and teach 3 - 4 ladies the Bible using English.

One thing we do at the very beginning is read a paragraph or two from Wesley Simon's Denominational Doctrines series, so that when they do get serious about christianity, they know they can't walk into the first group that calls itself christian unless the church is actually doing things according to the Bible, or what's the point in calling yourself a christian?

I think it was this paragraph we were reading the other week:

Now, let’s notice first of all that the Bible speaks of a falling away. See, this did not catch God by surprise. Old Satan is not dumb. Satan is very slick. For instance, in the garden, when God put Adam and Eve there, told them what to do, what not to do, I want you to notice Old Satan came along and what does he do? He changes God’s Word. That’s what he’s doing now with all these different religious groups. He’s changing God’s Word.

先注意聖經有提到離開正道這件事,這並沒有嚇到上帝。撒但不笨,他很狡猾。例如說,當上帝放亞當、夏娃在伊甸園,告訴他們要做什麼、而不要做什麼時,我要你注意撒但來了而他做什麼呢?他改變上帝的話,他現在也對所有不同教會團體做這樣的事,改變上帝的話。

(Watch the whole lesson here.)

And to make it real simple I said, "Look, the fewer rules the better, right? Who wants more and more rules? But if we have too few rules society would descend into chaos. So God has already given us the perfect amount of rules, suitable for all generations and we can't add to or take away from that."

what I've been reading - December 2009 2nd Week

This is why you shouldn't keep all your savings in cash or in a bank:

From Bob Chapman's The International Forecaster 2009.12.05:

How could they exploit those accounting rules? Let's suppose that Central Bank A wants to decorate its balance sheet by building up its gold reserves and purchases 10 tons of gold in the gold market (perhaps from a producer, another central bank or a bullion bank) and then immediately leases the same 10 tons of gold to Bullion Bank A, which then sells the gold to Central Bank B, which then leases the gold to Bullion Bank B, which then sells the gold to a jewelry corporation, which turns out to be nothing more than a front company for an Illuminist crime family's gold accumulation schemes. They make a few pieces of jewelry and then send the rest to the smelters to make special bars for the Illuminist crime family. So now both Central Bank A and Central Bank B show the same 10 tons of gold as reserves on their books, even though neither one has possession of the gold, which has been sold into the Illuminist's private stash via its front company, which sale the GFMS treats as a jewelry sale when it was really for investment purposes. The chain of central and bullion banks that purchase, then lease, then sell, then lease again, then sell again could theoretically go on ad infinitum until a non-bank party like the "jewelry company" buys the gold and takes it off the market. You could say that the gold has been "ping-ponged."

(Note: We'll discuss the lease issues a little further down).

Now let's change the example a little. Let's say that the Fed gave Deutsche Bank a gold swap IOU for 10 tons of Fort Knox US gold in exchange for its cash value, and that Deutsche Bank sold 10 tons of their own gold to Central Bank A at the request of the Fed. This swap arrangement is used so no one knows that it is really the Fed that is dumping gold on the market instead of Deutsche Bank. Note that Deutsche Bank's cash position has not changed, as the money it gave the Fed for the gold IOU has been replaced by the proceeds of sale, or perhaps the proceeds from the bullion sale were used to pay the Fed for the gold IOU. In any case, the Fed and Treasury Department still carry the gold bullion backing the 10 ton gold IOU to Deutsche Bank on their books because the gold has been swapped instead of sold (yet another fiction) with a promise to redeem the gold IOU given to Deutsche Bank in the future, or to cough up the gold instead, while Deutsche Bank shows no change in its gold reserves because the Fed IOU for 10 tons of paper gold is now carried instead of its 10 tons of physical gold bullion which was sold to Central Bank A. Deutsche Bank can get away with this because IMF rules do not require central banks to distinguish between physical gold and paper gold on their balance sheets, but allow them to carry both types of gold reserves as one line item. Note that as per our example, the gold is now in an Illuminist crime family's coffers after being "ping-ponged."

Fascinating? Click "Read More" to read the next 4 paragraphs.

favorite quotes

Here are all the quotes that are randomly rotated at the top of my sidebar. I'll update this page every time I add a quote:

"As the desert first teaches men to love water, or as absence first reveals affection there rose up against this background of the sour and the crooked some kind of vision of the sweet and the straight. Something else - something he vaguely called the Normal apparently existed.... But there it was - solid massive, with a shape of its own, almost like something you could touch, or eat, or fall in love with. It was all mixed up with Jane and fried eggs and soap and sunlight and the rooks cawing at Cure Hardy and the thought that, somewhere outside, daylight was going on at that moment." (That Hideous Strength, C.S.Lewis)

"So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom." (Ps 90:12) 求 你 指 教 我 們 怎 樣 數 算 自 己 的 日 子 、 好 叫 我 們 得 著 智 慧 的 心 。(詩 篇 90:12)

"But we will meet them in battle nonetheless." (Theoden, ROTK)

"... the preposterous truth that all really depended on their actions; and far away in time Horatius stood on the bridge, and Constantine settled in his mind whether he would or would not embrace the new religion, and Eve herself stood looking on the forbidden fruit and the Heaven of Heavens waited on her decision." (That Hideous Strength)

"One joy was expected and another is given. But this I had never noticed before - that the very moment of the finding there is in the mind a kind of thrusting back or setting aside. The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for a moment, before you. And if you wished ... you could keep it there. You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other." (Perelandra)

"Some women assume that child care is mind-numbing, spirit-killing drudgery, and that only work outside the home is fulfilling. These are not necessarily statements that women would come up with spontaneously, in the absence of feminist tutoring....It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that my two children needed me at home more than they needed anything my income would buy for them. It took even longer for me to realize that placing my intellect at the service of my family was a greater challenge than my ordinary life as a university professor. I had accepted far more feminist premises than I had realized."(Why the Market Can't Raise Our Children for Us, The American Enterprise, May/June 1998)

"If I might lend a machete to your intellectual thicket ... " (Jack Sparrow)

"I never look at you but there's some new virtue born in me, some new courage. Do you begin to understand a little? Can you feel my soul, there in the darkness, breathe on you?" (Cyrano de Bergerac)

"Talent does what it can; genius does what it must." (Edward Bulwer-Lytton)

"The crocodile passed him, but not another living thing, not a sound, not a movement; and yet he knew well that sudden death might be at the next tree, or stalking him from behind. He swore this terrible oath: 'Hook or me this time.' Now he crawled forward like a snake, and again erect, he darted across a space on which the moonlight played, one finger on his lip and his dagger at the ready. He was frightfully happy." (Peter Pan)

"Peter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last. A tremour ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea ... Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again, with that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, 'To die will be an awfully big adventure.'" (Peter Pan)

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." (Gandalf)

"... a soul clothed in shining armor, hung with deeds for decorations, twirling--thus--a bristling wit, and swinging at my side courage, and on the stones of this old town making the sharp truth ring, like golden spurs!" (Cyrano de Bergerac)

"... too often, 'as long as we both shall live' is replaced with 'as long as we both shall love.'" (Michael Ross)

"A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day." (Aragorn, ROTK)

"Not well? What is illness to the body of a knight-errant? What matter wounds? For each time he falls, he shall rise again, and woe to the wicked." (Don Quixote, Man of La Mancha) This is the movie, not the book.

"When life hands you a lemon, just suck on that lemon and say, 'Oh, yes, lemons. I love lemons. What else have you got?'" (Henry Rollins)

"My arrogance, sir, extends just as far as my conscience demands." (Chariots of Fire)

"JACK SPARROW: One question about your business, boy, or there's no use going: This girl... how far are you willing to go to save her? WILL TURNER: I'd die for her. JACK SPARROW: Oh good. No worries then."

"RITTER: You are SUCH a Boy Scout! You see everything in black and white! JACK RYAN: No, no, no! Not black and white, Ritter, RIGHT and WRONG!" (Clear and Present Danger)

"Stephen is my name. I'm the most wanted man on my island, except I'm not on my island, of course. More's the pity." (Braveheart)

"BUTTERCUP: We'll never survive. WESTLEY: Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has." (Princess Bride)

"INIGO MONTOYA: .... Let me sum up. Buttercup is marry Humperdinck in a little less than half an hour. So all we have to do is get in, break up the wedding, steal the princess, make our escape... after I kill Count Rugen. WESTLEY: That doesn't leave much time for dilly-dallying." (Princess Bride)

" ... a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again ... " (Proverbs 24:16) 為義人雖七次跌倒 、仍必興起 - 箴言 24:16

"People are not born in an infant-school, anymore than they die in an undertaker's shop." (G. K. Chesterton)

"The weather doesn’t stop drag queens from wearing skirts or dresses; it only stops women." (www.womenandmarriage.org)

"BUTTERCUP: You're the Dread Pirate Roberts, admit it. WESTLEY: With pride. What can I do for you? BUTTERCUP: You can die slowly, cut into a thousand pieces. WESTLEY: Tsk, tsk. That's hardly complementary Highness. Why loose your venom on me? BUTTERCUP: You killed my love. WESTLEY: It's possible. I kill a lot of people." (Princess Bride)

"Now, I know some men are abusers and women will benefit from the ability to stay away from them. But most men don't abuse their wives, never did and never will! I have a wonderful husband, but suppose in theory there's a chance he will abuse me, or walk out on me. Should I invest in career and earn my own income, and be proudly self-supportive? Maybe in a few years indeed some terrible tragedy will happen in our family and I will say, oh, good that at least I have my career to fall back on. However I think it's more probable I'll wake up in twenty years and realize I have given up on my dream of giving my all to my family and living a peaceful life at home - for no good reason... " ("Domestic Felicity" ccostello.blogspot.com)

The choice isn't, "Rules or no rules?" The choice is, "Rules made and enforced by voluntary contractual arrangements, or rules made and enforced by coercive agencies that can't go out of business?" (Robert P. Murphy)  http://mises.org/daily/3946

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. Tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace-makers for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. (Nazi leader Herman Goering)

“Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms of govt, those entrusted with power have, in time, & by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny”—Thomas Jefferson.

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