Tracy and I got on the train the next day and met up with Sister Wang, Dorcas, Jane3, Bing Bing and Blanchard; all of us taking the train with Roger Campbell to Taichung, the next city where he was scheduled to preach - all different sermons, too.
The preacher's home in Taichung, John and Michelle Yo's apartment, where we've stayed many times before:
The guys getting ready to go play basketball with my brother. Back when he was 11, the preacher's son Ben (far left) stayed with us for a year when he had to go to school in Kaohsiung. He is such a happy-go-lucky sweet kid all our neighbors loved him too:
Joyce (far right) arrived from Kaohsiung - this was the first chance her college schedule had allowed her to attend the gospel meetings:
Sister Wang. So many interesting discussions have happened at this table:
Brother Yo and Tracy talking with Joyce:
That night, I think most of the young people hung on Brother Campbell's lesson, "Love Before Marriage 婚前的愛", and he certainly got some questions afterward. All in Chinese: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, or you can click on the videos below:
We went to one of the nursing homes in the morning. While the men went off to study Bible with some of the other residents, Sister Wang and the others stood ready with blowdryers as the ladies came out of the shower and I was able to help with getting their socks on their feet, which was surprisingly quite a workout. Later, I was glad to sink my teeth into one of the sweet black sesame pastries Sister Wen-Yi had brought.
At lunch afterward - my brother and the Wangs:
Brother and Sister Wang and Tracy:
Brother Zao:
You can just barely glimpse Justine in this next photo. I have so few pictures of her because we were always sitting together as I shot the scene in front of me. The few photos I have of her do not capture her kind happy spirits and lively banter whenever we got together:
Roger Campbell, and the Zao's who made it all possible - lunch was their treat - and I wanted the recipe of a particularly memorable seafood soup with Chinese sauerkraut in it:
Justine had to catch the train home to Taipei right after lunch and there was a mad rush when she found out she had mixed up her backpack with someone else's.
Roger Campbell before he came had said to schedule as many Bible studies for him as possible because he could always rest in heaven:
The time on that photo reads 1:48 PM Taiwan Time (2:48 PM Japan Time, since they're an hour ahead). We had no idea it was just 2 minutes after Japan's worst earthquake in 100-300 years, causing a 33 foot tsunami traveling over 6 miles inland, taking out at least one of Japan's towns and starting a chain of events that would decimate their economy and leave us with radiation fallout all around the globe by the next month.
Wen Yi's mother and father, her brother and his family, and her sister and her family all worship with us down in Kaohsiung. They had all recently left their respective denominations after one of them found the booklet "The Church of the Bible" in a train station the year before and began discussing it with Brother Wang and my dad, and asking questions of their various denominational leaders.
Wen-Yi still had things she wanted to discuss, and since Roger Campbell and his "What does the Bible say?" logic was there, she wanted to pick his brain:
My brain was taking a short break after lunch so I didn't think to video the Bible Study until we were halfway into it. Thankfully Tracy got some of it on both her camera and mine:
Here's where Tracy started shooting with my camera. She wasn't familiar with the microphone placement on my camera and accidentally covered it from time to time. Thankfully, my camera has supersensitive audio, and the words can still be heard, though not with crystal clarity.
Sorry for the video quality. I was shooting on the lowest setting (320x240) to eke the most time out of my 8G camera card, and it was still blurry from "fixing" the lens after a smash.
Pei-Rong, on the left, came with Wen-Yi out of the denomination and had just been immersed the week before. Tracy and I were staying at her house.
By this time I think the Wangs had started getting calls from friends all over Taiwan telling about the earthquake in Japan and warning them that the news said there was a tsunami headed straight for us in Hualien, due at 5:30 PM. The trains on the east coast had been stopped and the schools let out early. (The train Justine was on would have already left the coast.)
The Wangs continued talking for a while and then we had a prayer. They turned on the TV for a bit. I called my mom and and transferred my photos to my laptop, freeing up my camera card to either film our last moments or the sermon that night.
The Wangs decided to go ahead with the gospel meeting, set for 7 PM that night, and took us back to the church building to continue getting ready for it.
I was wondering why we weren't high-tailing it up the mountains ringing Hualien or at least planning to greet 5:30 PM from the roof of the church building, 5 floors up, but Sister Wang still had obligations, children to help take home from school, and they'd had so many false alarms in the past 30 years. They also felt here was Roger Campbell working so diligently for God, and God had opened up so many doors for them in the past few weeks, they would just trust him about the tsunami and if it came, well, we'd either be around to help with the aftermath or just get to heaven that much sooner.
If we had gone to the mountains, traffic jams would have kept us from getting back in time for the gospel meeting. I figured if God had provided me with a five story building, the least I could do was be on its roof. So, at 5:30 that's where I was, looking down at a steady stream of cars all headed toward the mountains. The opposite lane was empty of traffic.
Standing in the drizzling twilight and seeing nothing but concrete buildings as far as I could see, I felt we were too far from shore for anything like the 10 foot wave I imagined the Indonesian tsunami of 2004 to have been. (This was before I got home a few days later, saw the videos on youtube, and found out the tsunami in Japan had been a 33 foot wave sweeping at least 6 miles - 10 km - inland. When I located the Hualien church building on Google Maps it was only about 3 km from shore.)
Down below, Brother Wang, Roger Campbell, and my brother, were in the neighborhood passing out fliers for the gospel meeting, and after a while to make sure nothing was going to happen, I went down.
It turned out Taiwan was in a sweet spot and the tsunami rolled in on the north coast only a few inches high, though it caused a lot of damage in Hawaii and reached South America.
Roger Campbell preached that night on "The Worship of the Church". If you have only a few minutes, at least listen to the 4th one to whet your appetite; it's only 2 minutes and 44 seconds long. (In Chinese.)
Clicking on any of the photos will open that video in a new tab:
That night after class we drank tea at the Wangs, enjoying fellowship and Brother Campbell's dry flashing humor. We left at midnight but Tracy fondly remembers staying up till 2 AM on Roger Campbell's prior visits.
Jared and I went to the gospel meetings Brother Roger Campbell 甘罗杰 held around Taiwan. You can share these videos with any Chinese friends you have.
Thursday, 10 March 2011 (Day 2 of 6)
Roger Campbell preached some basic lessons (all in Chinese, with Brother Wang Yung Hsiung translating for him into Taiwanese) at two of the nursing homes in Hualien. The morning class can be seen here: Part 1 and Part 2
The afternoon class seems to have been somewhat of an extension of the Who Is Jesus? sermon, covering "Lamb of God", "Light of the World", and "Our Lord and God", and can be seen here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3
After the morning class, Brother and Sister Zao ...
... took Jared and I sight-seeing with our sister-in-law's sister, Justine! (who took half these pictures) ...
We had a fabulous lunch (alas not pictured), clams in almost every dish, and then they took us to see a milky lake in a misty grove by the mountains:
(first photo by Brother Zao and the second by Justine)
Back at their hotel Justine played the piano for us (though she never took formal piano lessons before) ...
... and showed us her photos of working as French translator for the building of a hospital in Ghana:
That night Roger Campbell spoke on "Recognizing the church of Christ" (all in Chinese):
After the lesson we got takeout for supper and took it back to the Wangs' house to eat with everybody. Brother Wang is the preacher for the church of Christ in Hualien and somebody started him telling stories of his childhood when he was still NOT a christian and very naughty. Since I love watching his wife Sister Wang laugh here is a short clip of one of the stories.
Brother Wang was telling how in the terribly hot summer, the neighborhood kids would sneak into the local fishpond to go skinny-dipping when the owner had gone home to rest. One afternoon the owner came back unnoticed and quietly took their pile of clothes away, before appearing again to confront them. They scrambled for their clothes, couldn't find them and had to race all the way back to the village stark naked, trying to stay hidden all the way.
Jared and I went to the gospel meetings Brother Roger Campbell 甘罗杰 held around Taiwan. He's famous for his brilliant concise logic, never a wasted word it feels like. I finally got the first day of sermons up on youtube (see below). Unfortunately you must understand Chinese to enjoy them. Very sorry to everyone who doesn't speak Chinese. Or share them with your Chinese friends.
Pictures after the videos!
Wednesday, 9 March 2011 (Day 1 of 6)
Questions After the Meeting
... an informal discussion of music in the church:
A second informal discussion ... on miracles and faith healing:
I couldn't sync the sound on that last video, even though I was careful to put the time segment after the name of the file I was trying to cut. "-async 1" didn't work either no matter where I put it. If you can tell me what to do to keep it from happening again, please let me know in the comments. Here's the code I used in the command line:
Now for the few good pictures I ended up with after finding out only after this trip that the smashed camera we had taken apart and fixed still seemed to be a cog off in the focus when zooming and affected some of the vids as well.
Here we are catching a quick bite with Tracy after taking the 5 hour train to Hualian:
Catching a quick bite late at night after the lesson and two discussions - Roger Campbell and Brother Zao who preaches in Taipei:
Brother Wu, my brother, and Dorcas:
Sorry Blanchard, I couldn't resist:
This next picture shows Dorcas and her parents, Brother and Sister Wang. Brother Wang not only preaches for the church there in Hualian but he also preaches every week at the two nursing homes in town and members of the church go 2 or 3 times a week to help care for the residents there. People are always coming and going in the Wang's lively home.
Not pictured: Sister Wu, Sister Zao, and my sister-in-law's sister
Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. (Revelation 3:17-18)
Rescue me, O Lord, from evil men; Preserve me from violent men who devise evil things in their hearts; they continually stir up wars. (Psalms 140:1-2)
“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
“Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:60)
If it's linked in here, I read the entire article, or watched the entire video.
---- Everything below this point will me playing catch up with my reading stream since I paused my blog a few months ago, but at least they will be links I'm still interested in this many months later. ----
[“The Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.” (Genesis 11:6 NASB)
Thank. You. God. I have had nothing but positive feelings toward that verse for a long time now.
But it's only today I caught the “And this is what they began to do.” Did you catch that? “Here they are with all this ability and THIS is what they choose to do with it.” So, what was so heinous about building a tower? Is God threatened by skyscrapers?
Nothing's wrong with towers except that only 4 generations back when they got off the boat, “God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth'” (Genesis 9:1) and in the time that it took Shem's son (born 2 years after the flood) to become a great grandfather, society was already off to the dogs again and saying, “'... OTHERWISE we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:4)
God said scatter, and in 4 generations they are saying, don't scatter.
Yes, I seem to have an obsession with freedom, scattering and the amount of time and number of generations it takes for society to go bad, but ... I got that from the Bible ;)
We ARE a human experiment ... for the humans and the angels I take it, not for God. Is it a coincidence that Bible-influenced societies built on “You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free” are interested in stories like The Matrix and The Maze Runner.
Backing out of that tangent...
God pays them a little visit and says, Mm-hm, this is what they're doing with it, let's get them separated up for a few thousand years so they can't destroy themselves completely, at least until they're smart enough to invent Google Translate, and do the Cultural Revolution on steroids. And then... well the end of that story hasn't been written yet.
(Most of my western readers may not know what the Cultural Revolution was, but maybe you can google it, along with “struggle sessions” and “self-criticism” and read China: Alive In the Bitter Sea by Fox Butterfield and Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China which you can read for free here.)
Backing out of that tangent...
I was talking with my friends in the park and I said, A lot of people think that God is strict, but one day it really sunk in on me that it's really about his protection of the defenseless.
Update 2020.03.16: I'll never know what the rest of my comment was going to be because it was this point I decided to turn these comments into a post which I eventually posted months later (Microchipping and the Tower of Babel) and somehow this part never got included.]
Vitamin C Lowers Mortality in Severe Sepsis Favorite paragraphs: “In 2017, news emerged about a critical care physician who claimed to have discovered a simple and inexpensive way to treat sepsis using an intravenous (IV) cocktail of vitamin C and thiamine (vitamin B1) in combination with the steroid hydrocortisone.
The precise protocol used was 200 mg of thiamine every 12 hours, 1,500 mg of ascorbic acid every six hours, and 50 mg of hydrocortisone every six hours.”
In Defense of Rural America A transcript of the Lew Rockwell Show with James Howard Kunstler. [Started getting interesting after the 22nd paragraph or so.]
Afghanistan and the CIA Heroin Ratline [Is it christian to join the military or CIA or any secret government agency and participate in propping up this kind of stuff?
Why post these articles? As long as there are people alive who are considering joining the CIA, or any organization like it, then they need to know what they will be helping out. Say nothing, more people will join.
As long as I continue to hear a couple of my favorite preachers tell people it's OK to join the military, that's how long I have to post these articles. They need to know what they are condoning.]
God says, “Don't lie” and “Don't follow a multitude to do evil.” Don't participate or support in any way (except where God has expressly mandated, i.e. paying taxes), don't join any organization that has to hide its doings in darkness.
A few years ago, a young teenager I had seen grow up from a child joined the military, and I didn't know how to explain to her why I thought that was a bad idea. I also have relatives in the military.
This stream of articles is for all the times I had no voice to explain, and a hope that it might prevent further friends or relatives from walking up to me one day with the news that they too are joining the military or any other organization that loves darkness.
Be a Bible teacher instead. “For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1 Corinthians 1:25)
“This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (John 3:19-21)
'Old girl,' says Mr. Bagnet, 'give him my opinion. You know it. Tell him what it is.' It is, that he cannot have too little to do with people who are too deep for him, and cannot be too careful of interference with matters he does not understand; that the plain rule, is to do nothing in the dark, to be a party to nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never to put his foot where he cannot see the ground.' ~~~ Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Edward Snowden Prepares To Release Memoir Saying the US Intelligence Community ‘Hacked the Constitution’ and the 18 years since 9/11 have been a ‘litany of American destruction.’
[I don't agree with the last sentence of that article. If anything it should read something like “Let the one foot in another country begin.” Did the early Christians join a revolution? No, they scattered, taking the gospel with them. (Acts 8:4)
Want scattering not to be such a hardship? Take baby steps before you have to. Are you retired? Even better. Research how you can volunteer to help teach Bible classes, taking students through a Bible course for instance, in other mission fields around the world for a few months at a time. Enlarge your comfort zone. It'll help stave off dementia. And you might even find that your retirement check goes further in another country.
Want to brush up on your Bible knowledge? Check out https://thebible.net/video/ and WVBS. Even more ambitious? Go to Bible school. That'll really sharpen your brain.
Revolution just gives the government a chance to try out its most horrifying weapons. Keeping enough of your savings out of the country and feeling free to move to wherever freedom is, lets you vote with your feet.]
[This article made me think of a related subject: IF the CIA knew about this for decades and did nothing about it, to say nothing of using it, is it Christian to join the CIA?
Frankly, is it Christian to join ANY agency that has dark sections where you are never allowed to know what is going on, so as to decide whether or not you should participate in their deeds.
If you knew and still joined them, God will hold you accountable.
If you could know but choose not to, and join them, God will hold you accountable.
If you say, “I'm willing to know, but they will never tell me” and join them, when they already have a terrible track record of declassified documents on public record, God will still hold you accountable.]
“Those who learn don’t seek to rule. Those who seek to rule don’t learn.” Read more...
“In mid-2017, the US decided to impose sanctions against Russia, and, of course, the US has every right to diminish its trade with Russia if it sees fit.
But for the sanctions to work, Europe would have to endorse and enforce the sanctions as well, so the US government announced to the EU that its countries would be expected to fully participate in the sanctions....” Read more...
From her position as a member of the Armed Services Committee, she watched as the al-Qaeda enemy she’d fought in Iraq morphed into ISIS and spread its influence into Syria.
Over the next few years, Gabbard saw how the Obama administration began, in her words, “funneling weapons and money through Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and others who provide direct and indirect support to groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda” in an effort to overthrow the Assad regime. “If you or I gave money, weapons or support to al-Qaeda or ISIS,” Gabbard declared via Twitter, “we would be thrown in jail. Why does our gov get a free pass on this?”
For someone who watched her fellow soldiers die fighting al-Qaeda in 2005, the Obama policy of supporting terrorists, whether directly or indirectly, as part of a new regime change war against Syria was a betrayal of that sacrifice....
If the U.S. succeeded in overthrowing Assad, Tulsi knew, the very terrorists she’d fought against in Iraq would end up ruling Syria. Meeting with Assad to discuss the prospects of defeating a common enemy was the most meaningful way she could honor the service and sacrifice of her fellow soldiers. Read more...
“... The Federalists thought the Bill of Rights was superfluous because they argued that no American government would knowingly restrict freedom. The Anti-Federalists thought constitutional restraints were vital to the preservation of personal liberty because no government can be trusted to preserve personal liberty... If the government can impair Second Amendment-protected liberties on the basis of what a person might do, as opposed to what a person actually did do, to show that it is doing something in response to a public clamor, then no liberty in America is safe.
Which liberty will the government infringe upon next?” Read more...
A good paragraph from this article: “And who can forget the fatuous “integrity initiative” that preceded it, whose lofty ambitions aimed to ‘defend democracy against disinformation’? This is elite code for limiting free speech, already happening at a rate of knots, with the powers that be ‘setting up new perimeters’ online and offline. The prevailing efforts by a range of people to make it a crime to criticise Israel or boycott the country is arguably the most insidious, egregious example. As well, the attempts by the MSM to designate genuine, independent analysis by alternative media as “fake news” is another one.”
“integrity initiative” link best paragraphs:
“At midday on June 7, 2018 the Spanish cluster "hears" that Pedro Banos, a purported "pro-Kremlin voice" is to be appointed to the key position of National Security Department. Within two hours, the cluster "activates the network" to discredit the appointment. Trusted voices send out dozens of tweets, media editorials appear, the main parties are alerted. By 8pm the same day, Banos, a senior military official with decades of experience has his reputation ruined, and is later denied the appointment.
The entire operation constituted a host of ethical violations: from the undeclared interests of the colluding participants appearing as innocent concerned journalists and academics in the media, to the smearing of a public figure, to foreign meddling in sovereign countries' affairs. This is military intelligence using public tools to deceive the population at large – not just the actions of a Deep State, but a foreign one, closer to what is known in military terms as Black Psyop....
Nor is there anything revolutionary in the work that Integrity Initiative does. The Soviet Union cultivated influential sympathetic figures in the West as part of its active measures policy, while the CIA during the decades-long Operation Mockingbird was able to literally place any story it wanted with dozens of the leading US media outlets, under the names of the nation's most esteemed journalists.”
[My point in posting these links? God says, “Don't lie” and “Don't follow a multitude to do evil.” Don't participate or support in any way. Don't join the military. Don't join any of the many organizations that have to hide their doings in darkness. A few years ago a young teenager I had known for years joined the military, and I essentially stood there with my mouth hanging open not knowing how to explain to her why I thought that was a bad idea. I have relatives in the military. This stream of articles is for all the times I had no voice to explain. This stream of articles is a hope that it will prevent further friends or relatives from walking up to me one day with the news that they too are joining the military or one of these lovers of darkness.
Be a Bible teacher instead. “For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1 Corinthians 1:25)
“This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (John 3:19-21)]
The CIA and the Media: 50 Facts the World Needs to Know [This is why I hope no teenager ever comes up and says their dream in life is to join an organization like this. But those things you don't want to happen, do. So I put this article here for for the time when it does.]
“The simple explanation is that U.S. doctors operate as a cartel to restrict trade and reduce competition. The American Medical Association (AMA) artificially limits the number of doctors, which drives up salaries for doctors and reduces the availability of care. This has been the story of the AMA since it started, and now it has become deadly.....
Today, there is no market-based system controlling the supply of and demand for doctors. The licensing of doctors is directly controlled by the medical establishment. Public policy has been outsourced to insiders who determine the number of graduates.”
[American medicine is not free as in freedom, so not fair to say socialized healthcare is better compared to "free-market" American healthcare, because it never was free-market, at least since the time of the AMA.]
I liked this one paragraph: “Carabini released his new book Liberty, Dicta, and Force very recently. It is indeed a masterpiece. A truly “red pilling book”, so to speak, it connects the libertarian conscience to our daily acts of volition and voluntarism, and to the workings of the human mind. What the book fundamentally asserts is that it is foolish to have faith in the political process. All politics does is turn us against each other when in our everyday lives, we get along fine. When government is factored into the equation, using force against each other is justified. In our personal lives, we would never justify using force against our neighbors, even if it were for benevolent causes.”
Fractional Reserves and the Fed [Sapphireslinger: A tough read, but if you put even three-quarters of your mind to it, awesome! So what does it have to do with my daily life? Almost every single day I think about it because I have to do the grocery shopping for my family, and every time I see something I would dearly love to eat, and notice that it is now 4x the price it used to be, in my mind I lay that squarely at the door of whoever is printing up the money supply, but whenever I sigh and say, "Inflation :P" to the clerk, I have not met one person who does anything but stare at me blankly. Anyway back to fruit, I remember when durian cost 30-something (TWD, not USD, LOL) a jin and how one year I refused to buy it when it went up to 40-something a jin, and today it is 139 a jin. Yes, the Fed is responsible for me not having durian to eat, and so am I for not finding a way to step outside that game.
So why read the article? What can I do about it? So that (1) when I hear about the State of Texas thinking about making it's own gold-backed currency, I realize what a huge deal that would be ... so that (2) I don't contribute to the morass of ignorance that might kill a deal like that ... so that (3) did I ever find a way to use an alternate form of currency in my daily life with impunity, I would do my part to step outside the game, the game beauracrats play with what I think of as my money but in reality is a pile of fiat money, paper that can lose half its power with a flip of the switch on the printing press.
But I wouldn't even be thinking those things or be ready for those things, if I didn't know what that article was talking about.
So yes, I feel a deep CONNECTION to this article, right in the area of my stomach, every time I see durian no less.]
The failures of America have occurred precisely when we’ve incorrectly assessed the dangers of government and when we’ve departed from that vision and failed to control or counteract the growth of government power.
If Americans have grown distrustful (cynical) about the operations of corporations, lobbyists, the deep state, the military-industrial complex, and governments, it’s not because of any “intellectually superior attitude”, something some shallow columnist might say. Distrust has real roots in real failings. We’ve failed our Constitution and our Constitution has failed us. We interpreted it loosely and its flaws allowed us to do that, both to our detriment. The Articles of Confederation would have served us well, or a Constitution that made only minor modifications to the Articles. This was not to be, and we must now deal with it as best we can.
Ocasio-Cortez has no remedy for American failures by offering us a much-enlarged government that further abandons decentralized freedom, individual property rights, civic virtue and limited government. America stands no chance of surviving its failures and no chance to regenerate its correct vision by extending marxism further into American life. The alternative is to extend the libertarian vision.
“Democratic socialism is marxism, and as marxism it condemns private property. It condemns private ownership of capital, or the means of production, which is everything that goes into producing the goods that keep us alive, sheltered, clothed, healthy, fed, entertained, and other such values. In marxism, everyone is called upon to work to the extent they can for a common good or a common pool of goods. One doesn’t work directly for oneself. One doesn’t try to progress, because it gets you nowhere. The more you try to build up your wealth, the more that it’s taken away from you.
Marxism promotes freeloading and shirking. Everyone has an incentive to let others do the work and to draw goods from the common pool. This never works to promote the production of goods. Starvation is the result. Marxism of any type always fails because its incentives are totally perverse.
Imagine working and your pay goes all to the government or the “democracy”. The “democracy” decides what you will get. The “democracy” turns out to be an impossible way to make the countless decisions that have to be made in order to get people to work effectively and economically to produce what other people need, and then to distribute these goods when, where and how to make people happy. The attempts at democracy as a substitute for prices and markets fail. Invariably, a bureaucracy of power-seekers accumulates power and dictates. Marx conjured up such concepts as the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, a kind of democracy of the working class. Instead, every attempt at socialism either fails because it doesn’t deliver the goods, or else it’s transformed into command-and-control by bureaucrats, administrators, managers, politicians, none of whom themselves face the control by those they claim to be feeding, clothing, housing, etc. The consumer is definitely not king in any marxist system.”
Sleeping is Now a Crime [What about all those awesome youtubers living in their cars and blogging about it? What about people who can't afford a Tiny House but do just fine in their cars? Even my uncle who has a house will sometimes study and nap in his car in the beautiful outdoors.
[This is connected to the false doctrine of pre-mellenialism which says that Jesus got “surpisingly rejected” and failed to set up his kingdom the first time he came, but he will succeed when he returns. Problems: This theory says God is not omniscient nor omnipotent, neither all-knowing nor all-powerful. If he failed the first time, he might fail the second time too. In reality, the Bible says the cross was in the mind of God before he created the world, and the prophets prophesied that he would be rejected. ]
.... In her book, Peeke also talks about the role of epigenetics, noting there’s a “sweet spot” between the ages of 8 and 13 when your genome is particularly vulnerable to epigenetic influence....
Fortunately, there are solutions to unhealthy junk food cravings. Two of the most effective strategies I know of are intermittent fasting and a cyclical ketogenic diet focused on real, whole foods. These strategies will effectively help reset your body’s metabolism and boost your body’s production of healing ketones, and your cravings for sugar will dramatically diminish, if not vanish altogether, once your body starts burning fat instead of sugar as its primary fuel.
The federal government’s biggest trick is to tax wage earners in valuable dollars during your income earning years and give it back to you in worth-less dollars in retirement. It is the mother of all shell games. The dollar you get back in retirement via a Social Security check looks the same, but it has diminished purchasing power.
If one of your kids became a millionaire via a lottery ticket and received $1,000,000 after taxes in the year 2000 and they hid it under a rock, they would need $5,440,531 to equal the purchasing power of that money today! (2018). (Data: Inflation Calculator, ShadowStats.com). The true rate of inflation is 6-8% (source: ShadowStats.com) so a worker needs to ask their boss for a 6-8% annual pay raise just to keep up with inflation. (Nobody ever tells young people this.).....
Most doctors don’t earn large incomes any more. But if they open satellite offices and sell them to young graduate doctors who want to start their own practices, they will earn passive income...[Read more]
As vaccination programs ramped up, the age of onset shifted from school-age (5-19) to children under 5 years of age. The CDC report notes that susceptibility of infants younger than age 1 increased due to their mothers who developed weak antibodies from vaccination rather than from a virus encountered in circulation in the population. Mothers who had higher antibody counts from natural infection transferred immunity across the placenta to their fetus and this immunity lasted until children reached 5-9 years of age, which Dr. Tenpenny says is the desirable time for children to get the measles and develop their own enduring antibodies.
Yes, unvaccinated individuals are more likely to get measles, but they are also most likely to develop life-long immunity, something vaccination doesn’t achieve. This is why adult measles vaccination is being promoted, to the glee of vaccine makers.
When industry controls government to mandate vaccination, as is now happening, this is out of control fascism. An overly fearful public can’t see the objective is corporate profits, not health. Let’s vaccinate the whole world – 7 billion people and then add booster shots. Then make it a law that kids get vaccinated. But measles has a 2-to-3-year cycle that will cyclically erupt with measles cases regardless of vaccination. Dr. Tenpenny says the same cyclical outbreaks will occur every 2-to-5 years for whooping cough (pertussis). And the outbreaks are all inappropriately being blamed on anti-vaxxers.
Dr. Tenpenny teaches viral-induced fever is desirable. Measles can induce fevers of 103-105-degrees F. Just control fever to 102-degrees F by use of vitamins A & D says Dr. Tenpenny and make sure kids are hydrated.
Dr. Tenpenny says: Measles virus infects different organs, induces a fever and wakes up the immune system (B cells, macrophages) and disseminates immunity to all tissues with accompanying fever at the age appropriate time which is age 7 to 9 years of age. Fever locks-in membranes in gut, kidneys and the blood brain barrier and teaches the body to activate immunity against “non-self” agents. She teaches, over time more infants will be susceptible to measles infections at younger ages due to mothers being vaccinated.
Measles is important for female children to have to protect their own offspring later in life. Her 21-minute instructional videotape presentation on measles can be viewed on FACEBOOK (if they don’t censor her). Read more...
“When government-guaranteed checks keep rolling in, there’s no incentive for colleges/universities to lower their prices. In fact they do the opposite.”
... Police and prosecutors had initially tried to conceal from the public that Madou had decapitated the baby, but a commuter — Ghanaian citizen Daniel J., a gospel singer at an evangelical church in Hamburg — who happened to arrive at the subway station moments after the attack filmed the scene on his phone. "Oh my God," Daniel J. can be heard saying in English. "It's unbelievable. Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus. They cut off the head of the baby. Oh my God. Oh Jesus."
Heinrich Kordewiner, a blogger from Hamburg who discovered the video on Daniel J.'s Facebook page, uploaded it to YouTube. Hamburg police subsequently arrived at Kordewiner's apartment with a search warrant, and confiscated his computer, mobile phone and other electronics, allegedly to find "evidence" of the "crime" of uploading the video.
German prosecutors also pursued Gatestone author Stefan Frank for quoting verbatim from the search warrant, which included details of the murder, including that the child was beheaded. The fact of the decapitation was not only omitted from public reports, but also denied. District Attorney Lars Mahnke claimed that "speculation" about the beheading was false. Frank, however, knew about the beheading because it was mentioned in the search warrant. His "crime" was informing the public. The case against Frank was dropped in January 2019 after he agreed to pay a fine of 300 euros ($340).
Police and prosecutors have insisted that their silence about the child's decapitation has been out of respect for the dignity of the dead. Others, however, have accused German authorities of censoring information about growing lawlessness — including spiraling knife violence — to "preserve civil peace." Read More
.... Since artificially created rights are just that — artificial — the only way to implement them is through government’s never-fail trump card: force. Delusions aside, government is nothing more than a criminal organization held together by the threat of brute force — and actual force, if that becomes necessary.
Political power does, indeed, grow from the barrel of a gun. Millions of Americans delude themselves about this reality, but the cold, hard fact is that government can do anything it damn well pleases to you, your family, and your property through the threat of force — and, when necessary, the actual use of force. If you doubt it, I would suggest you check with Roger Stone or Paul Manafort.
Sadly, most people tend to ignore what government’s essentially unrestricted use of force means in real terms. Their normalcy bias tells them that we have checks and balances in place via our three branches of government, thus a Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Castro, or Maduro could never happen in today’s America.
Alas, they are hopelessly naïve. Whether it’s Waco, Ruby Ridge, taxation, the silencing of free speech, or the regulation of consenting-adult activities, government force is always the trump card. Government doesn’t need to be morally, or even legally, correct. All it needs to be is ruthless, and it has never shied away from meeting that challenge.... Read More
China and the (supposed) loss of manufacturing jobs? Even a slightly more libertarian US economy, with a somewhat lighter regulatory, tax, and tariff monkey on its back, would walk away not only from China but the rest of the world too. Foreign policy and defense spending? Immediate troop withdrawals and radical reductions in military projection, along with real cuts to the military state. Immigration? Private sponsorship and vetting of immigrants, with legal and financial liability residing with sponsors for a term. Rent seeking and cronyism in industries like Big Pharma? Radically slash regulatory and approval processes, eliminate patents, and let generics flourish. Entitlements? Immediate means testing, coupled with a thirty-year phaseout of benefits and immunity from federal payroll taxes for younger workers. As for Islam, why not worry about what’s killing Christianity instead? Is the rise of modern western welfare states and the abject decline of Christianity just a strange coincidence to McCarthy, or does he understand progressive state religion? A robust Christianity, one that serves as a counterbalance to Islam, can’t exist when it’s in direct competition with the state that has far greater control over education, culture, and resources than any Christian group could ever dream of attaining. Read More
