Month: January 2015

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Our Daily Thread 1-31-15

Good Morning!

I took the header photo at the Pet Expo. 🙂

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On this day in 1606 Guy Fawkes was executed after being convicted for his role in the “Gunpowder Plot” against the English Parliament and King James I. 

In 1865 the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. The amendment abolished slavery in the United States. It’s also the day General Robert E. Lee was named general-in-chief of the Confederate armies.  

In 1876 all Native American Indians were ordered to move into reservations. 

And in 1982 Sandy Duncan gave her final performance as “Peter Pan” in Los Angeles, CA. She completed 956 performances without missing a show.

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Quote of the Day

“Love grows more tremendously full, swift, poignant, as the years multiply.”

Zane Grey

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 Today is Franz Schubert’s birthday.

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Anyone have a QoD?

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Prayer Requests 1-31-15

Anyone have something to share?

Psalm 46

¹God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

3 Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.

4 There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.

5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.

6 The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.

7 The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

8 Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth.

9 He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.

10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

11 The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

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Our Daily Thread 1-30-15

Good Morning!

It’s Friday!!!

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On this day in 1649 England’s King Charles I was beheaded. 

In 1844 Richard Theodore Greener became the first African American to graduate from Harvard University.  

In 1933 Adolf Hitler was named the German Chancellor. 

And in 1948 Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi was murdered.

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Quote of the Day

“In passing, we should note this curious mark of our own age: the only absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute.”

Francis Schaeffer

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 On this day in 1956 Elvis recorded this….

And on this day in 1969 the Beatles made their last public appearance as a group, on a rooftop.

The performance was for the movie “Let It Be.”

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Anyone have a QoD?

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Prayer Requests 1-30-15

It’s Friday, so don’t forget to pray for Mumsee, Mike, and everyone at The Nest.

Anyone else?

Psalm 45

¹My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.

2 Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips: therefore God hath blessed thee for ever.

3 Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty.

4 And in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things.

5 Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies; whereby the people fall under thee.

6 Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre.

7 Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

8 All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.

9 Kings’ daughters were among thy honourable women: upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir.

10 Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house;

11 So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him.

12 And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift; even the rich among the people shall intreat thy favour.

13 The king’s daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold.

14 She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework: the virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought unto thee.

15 With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought: they shall enter into the king’s palace.

16 Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.

17 I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations: therefore shall the people praise thee for ever and ever.

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News/Politics 1-30-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Obama’s Israel problem.

From TheWeeklyStandard  “The Obama administration is angry with Israel. Here’s the administration’s house organ, the New York Times, this morning:

The Obama administration, after days of mounting tension, signaled on Wednesday how angry it is with Israel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted Republican leaders’ invitation to address Congress on Iran without consulting the White House.

The outrage the episode has incited within President Obama’s inner circle became clear in unusually sharp criticism by a senior administration official who said that the Israeli ambassador, Ron Dermer, who helped orchestrate the invitation, had repeatedly placed Mr. Netanyahu’s political fortunes above the relationship between Israel and the United States.

The official who made the comments to The New York Times would not be named…

Of course, the official who last summer called Prime Minister Netanyahu a “coward” and a “chickens–t” would not be named either. But there is no reason to think those unnamed angry officials do not speak for an angry president.

The Obama White House usually prides itself on not getting angry. Its self-image is that it’s cool, calm, and collected. And it doesn’t get angry at, for example, the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Obama White House understands and appreciates the complexities of the Islamic Republic’s politics and history. It is only with respect to the Jewish state that the Obama White House is impatient, peremptory, and angry.”

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2. Here’s more on what he and his friends are doing about it.

From WND  “Asked directly whether his group’s intention is to topple Netanyahu, Dweck replied, “Our goal is to do change.”

Dweck said V15 aims to mobilize voters who are “more likely to support our cause,” including by getting left-leaning young residents of central Israel to sign pledge cards to vote for “change” in the upcoming election.

“We’re calling homes, going door-to-door in central Israel in places we marked as potential voters of the center-left,” he said.

If Dweck’s call for “change” sounds familiar to a U.S. audience, that may be because the chief consultant for the anti-Netanyahu election effort is 270 Strategies founder and ex-Obama campaign staffer Jeremy Bird.

Bird served as a data analyst and a deputy director for Obama’s 2008 campaign and was the national field director for the president’s massive re-election machine.”

Initial reports said there were a few former Obama staffers working on the effort. There’s actually 15 or more. No small effort here.

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3. The EPA fudged the numbers. Anybody shocked?

From TheDailyCaller  “The Environmental Protection Agency inflated the monetized benefits of a major air quality rule to justify imposing a harsher smog standard on U.S. counties, according to a new report by Energy In Depth (EID).

“EPA’s ozone rule could very well be the costliest regulation in U.S. history,” said Steve Everley, spokesman for the petroleum industry-backed EID. “If a rule of this magnitude is to be imposed, then the EPA should consider providing a far more scientifically robust ‘public health’ basis — one that doesn’t rely on inflated health benefits or a lack of appreciation for the very real economic costs.”

 The EPA proposed its costly smog, or ozone, standard the day before Thanksgiving 2014. The agency mandated that ambient smog levels be lowered from 75 parts per billion (pbb) to levels between 70 ppb and 65 ppb. The EPA also solicited comments for an even lower standard at 60 pbb — one which could put almost the entire country out of compliance with the rule and cost $3.4 trillion by 2040.

The EPA said its new smog standard was based on “1,000 studies” published since 2008. The agency argued the rule would also bring $23 billion in monetized net benefits. But EID found that EPA’s monetized benefit calculation is 3,100 percent higher than what the agency calculated in 2011 for the same smog standard.

In 2011, the agency estimated the “net benefits” of a 65 ppb smog standard were only $700 million, which included the “co-benefits” of reducing fine particulate matter. This means that the benefits of reducing smog alone were less than advertised.”

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4. Senator Ted Cruz is going to introduce a bill banning the political targeting of citizens.

From HotAir  “A pair of measures which failed to reach daylight when the Democrats were in charge of the upper chamber should be seeing new life this year. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex) will reintroduce legislation intended to prevent another partisan debacle like the IRS scandal and to remove certain powers from the tax agency. Cruz’s office released the details this week.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today announced his intent to file two bills to protect Americans from partisan abuses and political targeting by the IRS. Both bills will be cosponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-IA, Sen. James Inhofe, R-OK, and Sen. David Vitter, R-LA.

“In May 2013 President Obama declared the IRS’s illegal targeting of conservative groups ‘intolerable and inexcusable,’ yet to this date no one has been held accountable for it,” Sen. Cruz said. “The IRS has no business meddling with the First Amendment rights of Americans. Rather than further stifling free speech, the IRS and the Department of Justice should provide the American people with all the facts surrounding the IRS’s targeting of certain organizations based on their political activity.”…

The first measure would prohibit IRS employees from intentionally targeting individuals or groups based on their political views. The legislation would make it a crime for an IRS employee to willfully discriminate against groups based solely on the political beliefs or policy statements held, expressed, or published by that organization. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-MO, will also cosponsor this measure.

The second measure would amend the tax code to use the bipartisan, independent Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) definitions to determine whether an organization is engaging in political activity, rather than allowing the IRS to continue making that distinction. The IRS should focus on taxation, not on determining what constitutes political activity.”

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5. Interesting… Thoughts?

From TheGuardian  “Hipster churches in Silicon Valley: evangelicalism’s unlikely new home- Netflix fasts, coffee vouchers, plaid-wearing worshippers is what it takes for ‘church transplants’ to make their home in the affluent Bay Area”

“Like many San Franciscans, overpriced coffee is a considerable portion of my weekly budget. One day in Soma, the industrial district home to many start-ups, I came across a flier advertising a free gift card to Philz, a nearby coffee shop. All that was required was to show up for service at a local church called Epic. I hadn’t been to church in months, and decided to give it a try.

The Bay Area has never been perceived as religious: a 2012 Gallup poll found that fewer than a quarter of residents identify as “very religious” (defined as going to church weekly), as opposed to 40% of the nation as a whole. High salaries have drawn droves of well-educated millennials to the booming tech sector, which correlates with lower religious sentiment. So far afield from the Bible belt, the region is in fact seen as hospitable to all forms of old testament abominations: fornication, paganism – even sodomy.

If you look around, however, you’ll notice a bumper crop of newer Christian ministries that, upon superficial glance, could pass for any other Bay Area start-up: glossy web design, well-curated social accounts and yes, free coffee promotions. County-level statistics substantiate this: numbers from the Association of Religion Data Archives show that several large Protestant denominations have grown in San Francisco County in recent years.

How does one even start a church in the land of $3,000 studio apartments, transient tech workers and rationalist tendencies? The answer lies in a mix of organized efforts by large religious bodies, coupled with messaging that speaks to the tastes, needs and neuroses of ambitious young Bay Area residents.”

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Our Daily Thread 1-29-15

Good Morning!

On this day in 1845 Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” was published for the first time.

In 1850 Henry Clay introduced in the Senate a compromise bill on slavery that included the admission of California into the Union as a free state. 

In 1856 Britain’s highest military decoration, the Victoria Cross, was founded by Queen Victoria. 

In 1916 Paris was bombed by German zeppelins for the first time during WWI. 

And in 1940 the W. Atlee Burpee Seed Company displayed the first tetraploid flowers at the New York City Flower Show. 

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Quote of the Day

“Character is much easier kept than recovered.”

Thomas Paine

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 Today is Daniel François Esprit Auber’s birthday.

And it’s Ferdinand Ries’ too. From Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society of Wisconsin 

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Anyone have a QoD?

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Prayer Requests 1-29-15

It’s Thursday, so please remember to pray for the folks in PNG.

And for Jo, as she leaves for Hawaii.

Anyone else have something to share?

Psalm 44:1-8

¹We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old.

2 How thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand, and plantedst them; how thou didst afflict the people, and cast them out.

3 For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them.

4 Thou art my King, O God: command deliverances for Jacob.

5 Through thee will we push down our enemies: through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us.

6 For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me.

7 But thou hast saved us from our enemies, and hast put them to shame that hated us.

8 In God we boast all the day long, and praise thy name for ever. Selah.

 

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News/Politics 1-29-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Meet the new AG, same as the old AG.

From Breitbart  “President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Eric Holder as Attorney General of the United States, Loretta Lynch, said on Wednesday during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing that she thinks illegal aliens have the same right to work in America as American citizens do.

“Senator, I believe the right and the obligation to work is one that is shared by everyone in this country, regardless of how they came here,” Lynch said when asked by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) who has a greater right to work: Illegal aliens, or lawful immigrants and American citizens?

“Certainly, if someone is here—regardless of status—I would prefer that they be participating in the workplace than not participating in the workplace,” Lynch said.”

I think millions of unemployed American citizens who could fill those jobs would disagree.

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2. If you like your plan….

That’s too bad, because you might not be able to keep it.

From HotAir  “The new CBO projection on ObamaCare’s impact has a couple of counter-narrative epiphanies, and the impact on employer-based insurance is just one of them. When Democrats pushed the ACA through Congress on a party-line vote and with plenty of legislative chicanery — remember “reconciliation”? — they insisted that ObamaCare would do three things:

  1. It would not force any changes to individual-market plans already in place, nor to choices of providers.

  2. It would not reduce employer-based health insurance at all, and would slightly improve it.

  3. It would be deficit neutral for the first decade, starting in 2011.

The first became known as Politifact’s 2013 Lie of the Year. Not only did ObamaCare force millions of people out of their plans in the first year of enrollment, it’s doing the same thing in the second year with its recalculation of subsidies and the premium shocks that creates. Investors Business Daily points out that the CBO demolishes the second argument too:

“But the CBO report also shows that ObamaCare will be far more disruptive to the employer-based insurance market, while being far less effective at cutting the ranks of the uninsured, than promised.

Thanks to ObamaCare, the CBO now expects that 10 million workers will lose their employer-based coverage by 2021.”

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3. Well…. PA. voters did vote for the “progressive” candidate, so you asked for it.

From NewsMax  “A transgender physician will soon become Pennsylvania’s new physician general, the Washington Blade reported.

Dr. Rachel Levine, an expert in adolescent eating disorders and behavior health, was nominated for the Commonwealth’s highest medical post by progressive Gov. Tom Wolf.

She made her transition from man to woman five years ago, and with her appointment will become “the highest-ranking transgender person to ever hold a position within state government,” the Blade said.”

“”Dr. Rachel Levine is well-respected in the fields of pediatrics, psychiatry, and behavioral health, where she has practiced for close to three decades,” the governor said in statement about her selection.

He added: “She has been a leading voice in efforts to treat teens with medical and psychological problems, as well as adults and children with eating disorders. It is important to me that we place equal emphasis on behavioral and physical health issues.””

Looks like the doctor has issues of his own.

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4. Sex Ed instruction, Planned Parenthood style.

From TheDailyMail  “Parents with students at one California high school recently learned that two Planned Parenthood employees who taught their impressionable children sex education also held down some controversial side jobs.

One of the sex-ed instructors at Acalanes Union High School in Lafayette also taught a class on sex toys at a nearby shop while the other identified herself as a ‘pleasure activist’ on her now-deleted Twitter profile.

The job history of the two teachers was revealed after parents learned about the school’s partnership with Planned Parenthood and demanded the curriculum be changed.”

“‘Planned Parenthood is a business. It’s a business that sells sex. It’s a way to get clientele and to sexualize young people and turn them into lifelong clients,’ parent Camille Giglio told CBS San Francisco in November.”

At least someone finally figured it out.

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5. I think some of you were just talking about this, and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The Obama admin just loves the Muslim Brotherhood.

From TheFreeBeacon  “The State Department hosted a delegation of Muslim Brotherhood-aligned leaders this week for a meeting about their ongoing efforts to oppose the current government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, who rose to power following the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi, an ally of the Brotherhood, in 2013.

One member of the delegation, a Brotherhood-aligned judge in Egypt, posed for a picture while at Foggy Bottom in which he held up the Islamic group’s notorious four-finger Rabia symbol, according to his Facebook page.

That delegation member, Waleed Sharaby, is a secretary-general of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council and a spokesman for Judges for Egypt, a group reported to have close ties to the Brotherhood.

The delegation also includes Gamal Heshmat, a leading member of the Brotherhood, and Abdel Mawgoud al-Dardery, a Brotherhood member who served as a parliamentarian from Luxor.”

““The State Department continues to speak with Muslim Brothers on the assumption that Egyptian politics are unpredictable, and the Brotherhood still has some support in Egypt,” he said. “But when pro-Brotherhood delegations then post photos of themselves making pro-Brotherhood gestures in front of the State Department logo, it creates an embarrassment for the State Department.””

Oh please…. The State Dept. IS the embarrassment….

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