Morning! Oh what a joy to see this photo upon venturing to the blog!! I am certain Burt Lancaster will have something to say about it all 😊 (I have been awake since 2 am )
Good morning. I was wishing we could have had Chas & Elvera with us on Zoom last night — but how delightful that we get to see them this morning, upon opening up to the blog page! 🙂
Enjoy your day, everyone. I’ll be doing the usual Tuesday thing: homeschool and four piano lessons, maybe a project or two as time permits. 3rd Arrow will be home all day until at least Friday — she got sent home from work yesterday after developing a sore throat, which went away by evening, but she still needs to be symptom-free for three days before returning — so we might tackle some undone things around home if she’s feeling alright.
The photo made me smile.
Perhaps next time we do a Zoom I can fix the camera on my Surface Pro. I am still not a fan of it, but it was $500 instead of $1,000.
I couldn’t see the gallery of everyone on my phone and some people’s faces were covered by a green circle spinning and telling me it was “waiting”.
Kizzie has the nicest sounding voice, but I never did see her face because of the above spinning circle.
The picture:
I will never look any better than that.
But when Elvera gets fixed up for church, or some such, I tell her that she is the prettiest 88 year old in Guilford County.
I may be correct.
Mumsee- Coordinated Universal Time is what we used to call Greenwich Mean Time, or the time along the Prime Meridian (London – 0° longitude). The military uses it and calls it Zulu. (See what you learn watching shows like JAG?) So 12 (or 00:00 UTC) is 5:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time in the US.
This probably belongs on the New/Politics thread but I am putting it here. It first appeared in the Wall Street Journal but I found it here. He isn’t one who is afraid to speak up.
So happy to see Chas and Elvera at the park. It is a great way to begin the day, indeed.
Right before our Zoom I was on another Zoom call with the Christian Author’s Guild. I was the only one doing it by phone without video with that group, too. Hopefully I can soon get Xfinity set up. I did not try to make an appointment with them yet because of Art’s procedure (that is not happening today!) looming over us.
An author was presenting at the other Zoom meeting on Instagram last night.
I use it a lot so I wanted to hopefully learn more. I did not realize you can sell off of it by linking it directly to Amazon. Or some people use Linktree for the one link Instagram allows, and the landing page allows for more links.
After spending almost an hour last night learning more about Instagram, I was surprised by a news story this a.m. about three female teenagers who had been shot here in Atlanta because of a dispute over Instagram. There were two groups of four young ladies involved in a fight. A young man associated with one group pulled out a gun and shot three of the other group’s ladies.
Speaking of pictures- Did anyone think to take a screen shot of our meeting? Then those who had issues (like Janice or Kim) or those who couldn’t be there (like Chas and Kevin) can see what it was like.
So why did I get this invitation? Is it a zoom hack? Did the rest of you get one? Oh, I think I see. 12 gMt is five PM yeterday. Got it. Thinking while holding baby is not my strong suit. Or any other time apparently.
Re: Peter’s 9:07
In the Air Force, when you entered the plane, you set your watches, etc. to “Zebra Time” in those days. Everything worked of GMT.
It is a great system, that presumably still works.
Of course, if they used GMT all over it would be fine. Just a little odd for people to be getting up at four in the afternoon or whenever, when the sun is coming up.
Re: Kim’s 9:08
I am convinced more and more that shutting down the government was a big mistake.
We, I.E. the country, would be much better off to let this thing play out on it’s own.
I think it’s a scheme to take control of the country from Trump. Washington cannot abide a non-politician running the country.
Very strange about that invite, Mumsee. It’s been happening for me with my stars work Zoom call, too. I get invitations after the meeting and then 8 hours later.
Ah, I bet I forgot to send you a personal invitation. Very sorry.
Chas, except, other countries besides the US also shut down, both rich and poor. India even shut down. Russia is shutting down now, because it delayed doing so while Europe shutdown and is paying the price. The UK delayed shutdown, and its government babbled of producing herd immunity, until several members of government became ill, including the PM, but the delay in shutdown was deadly, and the UK official death toll has already surpassed Italy’s. Brazil’s president has refused to acknowledge the gravity of the situation, even while the governors of his states have tried to, and the medical system is breaking down under the strain, with over a 100,000 diagnosed cases and undoubtedly far more, as many regions, including the densely populated favelas, have no healthcare to speak of.
Chas, yesterday on the political thread toward the end I posted a link to a pastor’s address about this virus being an attempt by the globalists to take over the world and set the stage for antichrist. It is a conspiracy theory but it seems to use a timeline of accurate facts that lead to a logical conclusion. It was sent to me by someone at church. You might want to listen to the whole thing. It’s about Gates and other billionaires who are globalist/elitists. I think if you click on the link that you need to back it up to the beginning.
Ah, Elisabeth Elliot weighs in (I’m in Genesis 2):
i. If men and women are different, are they equal? Elisabeth Elliot said: “In what sense is red equal to blue? They are equal only in the sense that both are colors in the spectrum. Apart from that they are different. In what sense is hot equal to cold? They are both temperatures, but beyond this it is almost meaningless to talk about equality” (cited in Boice).
hi, all, I listened to Janice’s link yesterday and enjoyed it. In fact, I intend to listen to it again today. I would be interested in hearing about what the rest of you think. The church is Northlake Baptist in Gainesville, GA. I went to the church web site and listened to this week’s sermon. He is doing a series on Revelation and it was a well thought out and Biblical message.
I was texting my elder last night and he said this about these times of quarantine, taken from some advice he gave to his grandchildren:
~ Think about Noah and his family who were in the ark for 40 days. But when it stopped raining they couldn’t get out, what was it another 90 days or six months until there was dry land. Much for us to learn. Granted it would’ve been much easier back then with God directly giving instructions as opposed to it coming through the mouth of our governor… ~
The last time I saw a recent picture of Bill Gates, I was struck be how old he looked. Gates is going to die, Soros is going to die, one of the Koch brothers has already died. Billionaires are merely mortal and their money alone is insufficient to be able to control the world. To quote the modern church historian, Carl Trueman: “Conspiracy theories don’t hold up, though. Nobody is that competent and powerful to pull them off. Even giant bureaucracies are made up of lots of small, incompetent units fighting petty turf wars, a fragmentation which undermines the possibility of the kind of coordinated efforts required to pull off, say, the fabrication of the Holocaust. History, humanly speaking, is a tale of incompetence and thoughtlessness, not of elaborate and sophisticated cabals. Evil catastrophic evil, is not exceptional and brilliant; it is humdrum and banal; it does not involve thinking too much; it involves thinking too little.”
In any case, more evidence is emerging that the virus did not originate in Wuhan, and furthermore, intelligence agencies and scientists are both agreed the virus was not manmade. The French medical researchers have been going back and retesting samples of those who were hospitalized with respiratory illnesses and have discovered they had a case of the new coronavirus back in December, before the first cases were reported in Wuhan, and what is more, the French patient had not traveled: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52526554. As I mentioned earlier, geneticists have found evidence the outbreak may have originated in Guangdong province, further south in China in September, three months before the first cases identified in Wuhan. Guangdong was also the province where SARS originated in 2002 and where, in 2017 and 2018, a coronavirus bearing similarities to SARS was reported as having been passed from bats to pigs: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2018/04/new-sars-virus-bats-implicated-china-pig-die. From pigs to human is a relatively small genetic jump, as, oddly, pigs and humans have a close genetic resemblance.
My suspicion? The God of the universe, who holds all things together by the power of his will, allowed nature to decay and mutate enough to produce yet another plague (this is neither the first nor the worst plague to afflict man) and his purposes in doing so we’re many, as he directs the course not only of each individual, but also of every country, society, and the whole world. We do know this much if this purpose, because the Sin, by whom all things consist, revealed this much to his disciples on earth when they told him of disasters, that disaster is a reminder to all, that unless we repent, we will all perish in the same way (Luke 13:3).
“Legal Insurrection has been closely following the news related to the start of the Wuhan Coronavirus pandemic from the beginning of January.
In February, we covered the report from China on the probable laboratory origin of the virus. In March, we noted that there was a report that Chinese officials ordered the destruction of coronavirus laboratory samples in December.
Now, a dossier compiled by the so-called “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance asserts that China intentionally hid or destroyed evidence of the coronavirus outbreak.
The 15-page document from the intelligence agencies of the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, was obtained by Australia’s Saturday Telegraph newspaper and states that China’s secrecy amounted to an “assault on international transparency.”
The dossier touches on themes that have been discussed in media reports about the outbreak of the virus, including an initial denial by China that the virus could be transmitted between humans, the silencing or “disappearing” of doctors who tried to speak up, the destruction of evidence in laboratories and refusal to provide live samples to international scientists working on a vaccine.
Specifically, the file notes that China began censoring news of the virus on search engines and social media beginning Dec. 31, deleting terms including “SARS variation,” “Wuhan Seafood market” and “Wuhan Unknown Pneumonia.””
“Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said “enormous evidence” exists indicating the coronavirus pandemic began in a lab in Wuhan, China and that the ruling Communist Party did everything it could to keep the outbreak under wraps.
“There’s enormous evidence that that’s where this began. We’ve said from the beginning that this was a virus that originated in Wuhan, China. We took a lot of grief for that from the outset. But I think the whole world can see now,” he said on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday.
“Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories. These are not the first times that we’ve had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab.”
After the first cases were reported in Wuhan in December, Pompeo said Beijing began a “disinformation” campaign that “created enormous risk” around the world.
“China behaved like authoritarian regimes do, attempted to conceal and hide and confuse. It employed the World Health Organization as a tool to do the same. These are the kind of things that have now presented this enormous crisis, an enormous loss of life and tremendous economic cost, all across the globe,” Pompeo said.”
The incompetence of spellcheck really underscores what Trueman says about the limitations of human networks. When humanly produced artificial intelligence cannot even figure out the right word to use, and substitutes glaringly wrong ones, we can rest assured that technology is not about to take over the world. All it takes is one little piece of data in the wrong place to utterly scramble programming.
I read something else the other day (in World?) that God was probably up “millions of things in all of this and I thought that was probably very true. Lessons abound. Our pastor often brings us back to asking what we are learning about ourselves in all of this. Do we lack patience? Discipline in prayer? Trust in God? Concern for our neighbor? Are churches being attentive?
Our government leaders are in positions of authority only by God’s sovereignty; we are to respect them and pray for them.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t times for civil disobedience, although I don’t think we’re at that point, personally. If numbers were receding and there appeared to be little reason to continue to “stay at home,” then yes; but numbers and deaths, at least in our county, continue to rise for now, although it appears to be more of a zig-zag pattern than steady spikes. We hope that means we are at least seeing a plateau develop.
Some leaders overreach and are being heavy-handed in their authority. But most I would say are not doing so. In California this week, we are moving into a phase 2 of re-opening that, barring any sudden changes in the data, will see some small mom-and-pop retail reopen for curbside pickups and some incremental relaxation of public recreation space guidelines, including a reopening of the beaches.
There will be a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking when this is over — and some needed, level-headed analysis of what worked and what didn’t. This has been unprecedented in our time and place and culture and coming back from it (politically, economically, culturally) will be difficult.
Culturally and politically (and spiritually) we in the U.S. already were in a horrendously big mess, with enough blame to go around for all sectors — it didn’t take a virus for all of that to happen; now, however, the economy is added to that downward spiral.
I guess I’m not expected on the morning staff call as my editor, late last night, asked if I could work a later shift today as I may have to pinch hit to cover, via live stream, the Long Beach City Council meeting tonight. Long Beach isn’t really my beat, of course, but with so few staffers to go around anymore …
I attended one LB council meeting (in person, those were the days) maybe 6 months ago — but otherwise am not very conversant in terms of knowing either the players or issues on that side of the harbor. I lived there for about 10 years from the late 80s into the late 90s, but never followed the local politics very much as a renter (and thus fairly temporary) citizen.
The Real, the Five Eyes report does not think that the virus was due to a lab release. Those links are worded very muskeadingly. The documents that the Telegraph used were open source material, and nobody has tried to deny China attempted to cover up the outbreak initially: Five Eyes concluded was that China tried to cover up the outbreak initially, as the reports about the physicians who were disciplined for warning about the virus were reported about in mainstream media from the beginning coverage of this outbreak. None of the other Five Eyes have confirmed US speculation about a lab release: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/04/coronavirus-lab-leak-trump-five-eyes/
I remember hearing Bret Baier on Fox (but Baier is on the news team and is usually pretty solid) announcing, maybe 2 weeks ago, they had multiple (unnamed) sources confirming an accidental lab ‘escape’ by an individual involved in some testing, that there were ‘documents’ but Baier had not seen them personally, they were working on that.
I never heard any followup (but don’t watch that newscast regularly) that answered my questions, mainly about who the sources were and whether the documents had ever been seen.
So the story seemed to lack some of the confirmations that would take it to the next level.
Were any more details ever nailed down and reported by Fox or another (independent, main and trustworthy) news source?
I kind of assume not.
What exactly is Pomeo’s “enormous evidence”? No time to read links today; in my mind the jury is still out on all of this, the lab connection remains an open question — we may never know for sure, or it may be one of those things that finally gets clarity after this is all over.
I think the “manmade” speculation has been shot down effectively; the question Baier was pursuing was a scenario in which routine research was ongoing in this lab on a naturally occurring virus that was “let out” accidentally by carelessness or accident.
Our state is starting to open (our church was open this past Sunday). We have a Republican Governor and Lt Governor. Interestingly, a bar/restaurant owner decided to open despite direction to be in the second or fourth wave, depending on if her business was deemed an eatery or a bar. She is breaking the Governor’s order. But the Lt Governor attended the opening.
She, the Lt Gov, said she also is a bar owner. She had to let twenty employees go. Of those, fifteen applied for unemployment. Of those fifteen, one had received a check. She believes we need people to get back to work. So does the Governor but he is more cautious. Interesting to see how things are working.
DJ, the thing about an accidental lab release of an animal virus that then infects the human population is that it is highly improbable. Viruses do not leap from species to species all at once, it takes repeated exposures over many months, even years, for the jump to be made. So, even in a lab with protocol breaches, there are statistically not enough exposures happening for the leap to be made. Remember, these labs generally only have a handful of researchers working on a given project, so only a handful of people would have been working on bat viruses in the lab. On the other hand, Guangdong province has large bat caves and extensive pig farms, where such repeated exposures can be made, and have been shown to have been made in the past. Logically and scientifically, it makes a lot more sense.
Janice, the 11:12, I listened to several minutes of it, and then skipped ahead and listened to other passages. Is it supposed to be a sermon? It looks like he is standing behind a pulpit dressed in a suit and tie, with a church’s name on the YouTube page, but the portion I heard never mentioned Scripture. It was just a “one-world order” rant. This is not the purpose of a sermon, nor a pastor’s calling, not a pastor’s specialty.
PS I’m not judging whether or not it’s useful information, but if it’s in the guise of a sermon, a man should be saying “Thus says the Lord,” and in the portion I listened to, it was all current events, and it didn’t make me want to listen to more. And the comments were all the right-wing fundamentalists getting excited, which usually isn’t a good sign.
I also have a deadline today, which limits my time on other things.
Cheryl, it appears the pastor is talking about the question: is the virus God’s ending of the times. He says he does not know, but we need to be looking into God for our salvation. Lots of Scripture. But he is trying to still the fear, trust God. He does put forth some interesting facts that we all know.
Thanks roscuro (1:12); as I said, Baer (how do you spell his name?) only had “unnamed sources” (though “multiple” sources whom he said had direct knowledge of what happened) and he hadn’t personally seen the written documentation that he said did also exist. So the story was intriguing but definitely needed more backup at the time, and this was reported at least 2 weeks ago. I don’t know that they were ever able to advance it beyond those initial reports.
(Unnamed sources can be invaluable, but journalists avoid relying on them — our organization has very strict and limited circumstances in which they can even be used; it weakens the report by not having an on-the-record source — ideally more than one — who can then be independently vetted & questioned by other outlets.)
Cheryl, I don’t know if this was a speaking engagement or a sermon of sorts. I listened because a person I am friends with at church shared it without saying anything else except that there could be some truth in it.
My thoughts along what Roscuro offered is to remember the Tower of Babel. God only allowed them to go so far . . . we know Who has the upper hand. (Not W.H.O.) Even should there be some kind of conspiracy, God allows for it in His ultimate plan.
Roscuro 12:27 – All it takes is one little piece of data in the wrong place to utterly scramble programming.
Mrs L was a computer science major and had a poster showing a man with a sledge hammer standing in front of a computer. It said: “To err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer.”
I decided to read in The Songs of Jesus by Timothy and Kathy Kellor, A Year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms which I recently acquired. I read Psalm 2:1-4 in the book, “Why do the nations conspire and the people plan in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the LORD and against his anointed saying, ‘Let us break their [believer’s] chains and throw off their shackles.’ The one enthroned in heaven laughs; the LORD scoffs at them.”
Yep! That about sums it up. Nothing gets past Him. He has it all covered. The whole devotion is so appropriate for what we are encountering. Here is one line I especially appreciated, “So to be intimidated by the world (Psalm 2) is as spiritually fatal as being overly attracted to it (Psalm 1).” I think God is working out Psalm 1 in the lives of the believers as we are fasting from those things that tempt us to idolize things we have taken for granted in our lifestyles, things that sometimes we have given too much thought to instead of thinking about God and His word with our whole hearts and minds.
Mumsee, in 4:20 you said the book that came with World. I assumed you meant a paperback book was packaged with the magazine, and Janice is asking do you mean a link to the e-book? Or did you mean something else?
They don’t think it was man-made, that’s not the same as saying it didn’t escape from a lab.
No one except a few outliers has ever claimed it was man-made. I’ve repeatedly said the escaped the lab theory sounds plausible, not that it was man-made.
Just jumping in scanning most of the posts but not quite caught up yet! I ran some errands then decided to stop in at the local antique mall which opened Monday. Hardly any shoppers at all…perhaps 5? Employees wore masks as did I but the other shoppers were sans the mask. It was sad walking around there as most of the vendors had vacated…so many empty booths! I wondered if the mall will survive all of this. I managed to find a small antique watering can ( I needed one for my porch flowers, husband took my other three bigger ones for watering plants on the property) I then found a set of old Christian Herald books that a friend had in her booth. They are first editions printed in 1896 and in great shape! I then headed over to the Baptist church in the forest to have a “circle the wagons” meet up with my precious friends. There we were in the parking lot with our cars in a circle, our car windows down or doors open and we spent almost 4 hours catching up, praying, crying, laughing….oh how we have missed our weekly coffees!! We didn’t solve all the problems of the world but we think we may have made a dent and we all left feeling encouraged and stronger! ❤️
How can you tell a politician is lying?
Do their lips move?
Does anyone remember that joke in response to Elder Bush’s comment , “Read my lips.”
In this case we must read between the lines of what Mumsee wrote. Sometimes with my poor eyesight I can read between the lines!👀😳
I really like the colors of the clothing that is in the header. When I saw that my immediate thought was “Spiffy.”
This week I was wearing a blue t-shirt and blue capris. That prompted Art to ask where his similarly colored blue polo shirt was. He always wants what he can’t find. That is one of those endearing habits that show a desire for attention, but it can be maddening at the same time. It was behind the shirt that I had just repaired which had a too loose buttonhole. That was the one I had hoped he’d wear since I took the time to repair it. But the blue one had short sleeves and the weather has been warmer for a couple of days.
Chas, when you say not to put your picture up with Elvera, I don’t think you realize how much that picture of your faithfulness inspires the rest of us.
I love the picture of Chas and Elvera. I tell everyone about my 80 something boyfriend and his wife. You are an inspiration and we have grown to love Elvera through you.
I love ship lap, it’s what’s on my patio overhang in back.
Very frustrating night filling in to cover a Long Beach City Council meeting — the main item was a THREE-HOUR presentation and discussion that had me venting a fair amount (behind my computer watching from home). I whined, I yelled at them twice, threw my arms in the air.
Of course, it didn’t speed the meeting up at all.
Filed the story a little while ago (at around 9 p.m. our time), editor was happy with it.
But making things worse, it was a very warm day and the house was too hot in that back room. By the time I emerged, I realized none of the other house lights had even been turned on as the meeting started before it got dark.
The meeting is still going on, but I told my editor I’d “hit the wall,” the one story would be it — he was fine with that, said I did a good job, thanked me and told me to start a little later tomorrow.
But I still have 5 stories to do before the weekend.
I’m grateful to be working, I need the income. But seriously, sometimes it’s just a bit “much.” And I’m so tired of writing about this virus. Can someone please find a vaccine? The city is facing some serious shortfalls for the next two years as a result, so the ripple effects of this will go on for some time.
The state still says it has no record my income tax forms were turned in. But I did get a call from the accountant’s office today about my “overdue” bill. Sheesh.
I’m thinking I may be looking for someone new next year.
Wandering Views 
You can’t trust anyone anymore.
LindaS took that picture at a park here in Greensboro.
Thanks for the pictures, Robert.
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Morning! Oh what a joy to see this photo upon venturing to the blog!! I am certain Burt Lancaster will have something to say about it all 😊 (I have been awake since 2 am )
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I know we have several Jeopardy fans here, so I thought you might like this story.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/02/the-true-story-of-how-i-met-my-sister/
“The True Story Of How I Met My Sister On ‘Jeopardy’”
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Yes, Linda was the little bird. She knows we love you two too, so she shared it knowing we would enjoy it too. 🙂
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Good morning. I was wishing we could have had Chas & Elvera with us on Zoom last night — but how delightful that we get to see them this morning, upon opening up to the blog page! 🙂
Enjoy your day, everyone. I’ll be doing the usual Tuesday thing: homeschool and four piano lessons, maybe a project or two as time permits. 3rd Arrow will be home all day until at least Friday — she got sent home from work yesterday after developing a sore throat, which went away by evening, but she still needs to be symptom-free for three days before returning — so we might tackle some undone things around home if she’s feeling alright.
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The photo made me smile.
Perhaps next time we do a Zoom I can fix the camera on my Surface Pro. I am still not a fan of it, but it was $500 instead of $1,000.
I couldn’t see the gallery of everyone on my phone and some people’s faces were covered by a green circle spinning and telling me it was “waiting”.
Kizzie has the nicest sounding voice, but I never did see her face because of the above spinning circle.
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The picture:
I will never look any better than that.
But when Elvera gets fixed up for church, or some such, I tell her that she is the prettiest 88 year old in Guilford County.
I may be correct.
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Beautiful pic! Great way to start my computer time.
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Why did I get an invitation to a zoom meeting from Michelle for whirled views for 12 to 1 this morning? Universal time?
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I just showed the picture to Elvera.
She said it was nice of Linda to do that.
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Mumsee- Coordinated Universal Time is what we used to call Greenwich Mean Time, or the time along the Prime Meridian (London – 0° longitude). The military uses it and calls it Zulu. (See what you learn watching shows like JAG?) So 12 (or 00:00 UTC) is 5:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time in the US.
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This probably belongs on the New/Politics thread but I am putting it here. It first appeared in the Wall Street Journal but I found it here. He isn’t one who is afraid to speak up.
https://altoday.com/archives/34126-bradley-byrne-nancy-pelosis-coronavirus-power-grab
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So happy to see Chas and Elvera at the park. It is a great way to begin the day, indeed.
Right before our Zoom I was on another Zoom call with the Christian Author’s Guild. I was the only one doing it by phone without video with that group, too. Hopefully I can soon get Xfinity set up. I did not try to make an appointment with them yet because of Art’s procedure (that is not happening today!) looming over us.
An author was presenting at the other Zoom meeting on Instagram last night.
I use it a lot so I wanted to hopefully learn more. I did not realize you can sell off of it by linking it directly to Amazon. Or some people use Linktree for the one link Instagram allows, and the landing page allows for more links.
After spending almost an hour last night learning more about Instagram, I was surprised by a news story this a.m. about three female teenagers who had been shot here in Atlanta because of a dispute over Instagram. There were two groups of four young ladies involved in a fight. A young man associated with one group pulled out a gun and shot three of the other group’s ladies.
The good, bad, and ugly of Instagram.
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Speaking of pictures- Did anyone think to take a screen shot of our meeting? Then those who had issues (like Janice or Kim) or those who couldn’t be there (like Chas and Kevin) can see what it was like.
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So why did I get this invitation? Is it a zoom hack? Did the rest of you get one? Oh, I think I see. 12 gMt is five PM yeterday. Got it. Thinking while holding baby is not my strong suit. Or any other time apparently.
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We need more like him to speak up Kim…we seem to be going down fast! What ever happened to integrity and goodwill towards our fellow man?……😞
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Re: Peter’s 9:07
In the Air Force, when you entered the plane, you set your watches, etc. to “Zebra Time” in those days. Everything worked of GMT.
It is a great system, that presumably still works.
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Unless it involves me.
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Of course, if they used GMT all over it would be fine. Just a little odd for people to be getting up at four in the afternoon or whenever, when the sun is coming up.
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Good morning! It was great to see all of your lovely faces.
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Re: Kim’s 9:08
I am convinced more and more that shutting down the government was a big mistake.
We, I.E. the country, would be much better off to let this thing play out on it’s own.
I think it’s a scheme to take control of the country from Trump. Washington cannot abide a non-politician running the country.
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I took a picture of the screen. Will send.
Very strange about that invite, Mumsee. It’s been happening for me with my stars work Zoom call, too. I get invitations after the meeting and then 8 hours later.
Ah, I bet I forgot to send you a personal invitation. Very sorry.
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No. That’s not true.
Mystery.
At least the electricity returned, sometime in the middle of the night.
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Chas, except, other countries besides the US also shut down, both rich and poor. India even shut down. Russia is shutting down now, because it delayed doing so while Europe shutdown and is paying the price. The UK delayed shutdown, and its government babbled of producing herd immunity, until several members of government became ill, including the PM, but the delay in shutdown was deadly, and the UK official death toll has already surpassed Italy’s. Brazil’s president has refused to acknowledge the gravity of the situation, even while the governors of his states have tried to, and the medical system is breaking down under the strain, with over a 100,000 diagnosed cases and undoubtedly far more, as many regions, including the densely populated favelas, have no healthcare to speak of.
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Interesting article on homeschooling.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/will-covid-19-usher-in-a-new-era-of-homeschooling/
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Chas, yesterday on the political thread toward the end I posted a link to a pastor’s address about this virus being an attempt by the globalists to take over the world and set the stage for antichrist. It is a conspiracy theory but it seems to use a timeline of accurate facts that lead to a logical conclusion. It was sent to me by someone at church. You might want to listen to the whole thing. It’s about Gates and other billionaires who are globalist/elitists. I think if you click on the link that you need to back it up to the beginning.
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kTd1R72Maaw&feature=youtu.be
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If we all went by UTC/GMT/Zulu we wouldn’t have the twice-a-year daylight saving time problems.
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Oh, and teens would think it’s bedtime at 02:00 UTC, so it wouldn’t be a problem getting them to bed at 9 or 10 PM, until they figured it out.
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And sleeping until 12:00 UTC would seem odd to those of us who like to get up at 6 AM. Oh, well. 😕
I better quit before I get accused of talking to myself.
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Ah, Elisabeth Elliot weighs in (I’m in Genesis 2):
i. If men and women are different, are they equal? Elisabeth Elliot said: “In what sense is red equal to blue? They are equal only in the sense that both are colors in the spectrum. Apart from that they are different. In what sense is hot equal to cold? They are both temperatures, but beyond this it is almost meaningless to talk about equality” (cited in Boice).
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hi, all, I listened to Janice’s link yesterday and enjoyed it. In fact, I intend to listen to it again today. I would be interested in hearing about what the rest of you think. The church is Northlake Baptist in Gainesville, GA. I went to the church web site and listened to this week’s sermon. He is doing a series on Revelation and it was a well thought out and Biblical message.
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Janice, good piece on homeschooling. Thanks. And thanks for plugging Casting Crowns. I haveenjoyed listening to them lately.
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Janice, my cousin sent me that link Sunday and I listened to it. Interesting points. What is God up to?
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I was texting my elder last night and he said this about these times of quarantine, taken from some advice he gave to his grandchildren:
~ Think about Noah and his family who were in the ark for 40 days. But when it stopped raining they couldn’t get out, what was it another 90 days or six months until there was dry land. Much for us to learn. Granted it would’ve been much easier back then with God directly giving instructions as opposed to it coming through the mouth of our governor… ~
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The last time I saw a recent picture of Bill Gates, I was struck be how old he looked. Gates is going to die, Soros is going to die, one of the Koch brothers has already died. Billionaires are merely mortal and their money alone is insufficient to be able to control the world. To quote the modern church historian, Carl Trueman: “Conspiracy theories don’t hold up, though. Nobody is that competent and powerful to pull them off. Even giant bureaucracies are made up of lots of small, incompetent units fighting petty turf wars, a fragmentation which undermines the possibility of the kind of coordinated efforts required to pull off, say, the fabrication of the Holocaust. History, humanly speaking, is a tale of incompetence and thoughtlessness, not of elaborate and sophisticated cabals. Evil catastrophic evil, is not exceptional and brilliant; it is humdrum and banal; it does not involve thinking too much; it involves thinking too little.”
In any case, more evidence is emerging that the virus did not originate in Wuhan, and furthermore, intelligence agencies and scientists are both agreed the virus was not manmade. The French medical researchers have been going back and retesting samples of those who were hospitalized with respiratory illnesses and have discovered they had a case of the new coronavirus back in December, before the first cases were reported in Wuhan, and what is more, the French patient had not traveled: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52526554. As I mentioned earlier, geneticists have found evidence the outbreak may have originated in Guangdong province, further south in China in September, three months before the first cases identified in Wuhan. Guangdong was also the province where SARS originated in 2002 and where, in 2017 and 2018, a coronavirus bearing similarities to SARS was reported as having been passed from bats to pigs: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2018/04/new-sars-virus-bats-implicated-china-pig-die. From pigs to human is a relatively small genetic jump, as, oddly, pigs and humans have a close genetic resemblance.
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My suspicion? The God of the universe, who holds all things together by the power of his will, allowed nature to decay and mutate enough to produce yet another plague (this is neither the first nor the worst plague to afflict man) and his purposes in doing so we’re many, as he directs the course not only of each individual, but also of every country, society, and the whole world. We do know this much if this purpose, because the Sin, by whom all things consist, revealed this much to his disciples on earth when they told him of disasters, that disaster is a reminder to all, that unless we repent, we will all perish in the same way (Luke 13:3).
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Now there is a really in appropriate spellcheck blooper
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*Son
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And counter-point…..
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/05/leaked-intelligence-dossier-allegedly-reveals-chinas-deceptions-over-coronovirus-pandemic-start/
“Report: Majority of 17 international intelligence agencies believe COVID-19 started as accidental release from Wuhan lab.
Leaked intelligence dossier reportedly reveals China’s deceptions over coronovirus pandemic start”
“Legal Insurrection has been closely following the news related to the start of the Wuhan Coronavirus pandemic from the beginning of January.
In February, we covered the report from China on the probable laboratory origin of the virus. In March, we noted that there was a report that Chinese officials ordered the destruction of coronavirus laboratory samples in December.
Now, a dossier compiled by the so-called “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance asserts that China intentionally hid or destroyed evidence of the coronavirus outbreak.
The 15-page document from the intelligence agencies of the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, was obtained by Australia’s Saturday Telegraph newspaper and states that China’s secrecy amounted to an “assault on international transparency.”
The dossier touches on themes that have been discussed in media reports about the outbreak of the virus, including an initial denial by China that the virus could be transmitted between humans, the silencing or “disappearing” of doctors who tried to speak up, the destruction of evidence in laboratories and refusal to provide live samples to international scientists working on a vaccine.
Specifically, the file notes that China began censoring news of the virus on search engines and social media beginning Dec. 31, deleting terms including “SARS variation,” “Wuhan Seafood market” and “Wuhan Unknown Pneumonia.””
—————-
https://nypost.com/2020/05/03/pompeo-enormous-evidence-shows-coronavirus-began-in-wuhan-lab/
“Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said “enormous evidence” exists indicating the coronavirus pandemic began in a lab in Wuhan, China and that the ruling Communist Party did everything it could to keep the outbreak under wraps.
“There’s enormous evidence that that’s where this began. We’ve said from the beginning that this was a virus that originated in Wuhan, China. We took a lot of grief for that from the outset. But I think the whole world can see now,” he said on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday.
“Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories. These are not the first times that we’ve had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab.”
After the first cases were reported in Wuhan in December, Pompeo said Beijing began a “disinformation” campaign that “created enormous risk” around the world.
“China behaved like authoritarian regimes do, attempted to conceal and hide and confuse. It employed the World Health Organization as a tool to do the same. These are the kind of things that have now presented this enormous crisis, an enormous loss of life and tremendous economic cost, all across the globe,” Pompeo said.”
————-
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The incompetence of spellcheck really underscores what Trueman says about the limitations of human networks. When humanly produced artificial intelligence cannot even figure out the right word to use, and substitutes glaringly wrong ones, we can rest assured that technology is not about to take over the world. All it takes is one little piece of data in the wrong place to utterly scramble programming.
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I read something else the other day (in World?) that God was probably up “millions of things in all of this and I thought that was probably very true. Lessons abound. Our pastor often brings us back to asking what we are learning about ourselves in all of this. Do we lack patience? Discipline in prayer? Trust in God? Concern for our neighbor? Are churches being attentive?
Our government leaders are in positions of authority only by God’s sovereignty; we are to respect them and pray for them.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t times for civil disobedience, although I don’t think we’re at that point, personally. If numbers were receding and there appeared to be little reason to continue to “stay at home,” then yes; but numbers and deaths, at least in our county, continue to rise for now, although it appears to be more of a zig-zag pattern than steady spikes. We hope that means we are at least seeing a plateau develop.
Some leaders overreach and are being heavy-handed in their authority. But most I would say are not doing so. In California this week, we are moving into a phase 2 of re-opening that, barring any sudden changes in the data, will see some small mom-and-pop retail reopen for curbside pickups and some incremental relaxation of public recreation space guidelines, including a reopening of the beaches.
There will be a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking when this is over — and some needed, level-headed analysis of what worked and what didn’t. This has been unprecedented in our time and place and culture and coming back from it (politically, economically, culturally) will be difficult.
Culturally and politically (and spiritually) we in the U.S. already were in a horrendously big mess, with enough blame to go around for all sectors — it didn’t take a virus for all of that to happen; now, however, the economy is added to that downward spiral.
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roscuro, 12:19
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I guess I’m not expected on the morning staff call as my editor, late last night, asked if I could work a later shift today as I may have to pinch hit to cover, via live stream, the Long Beach City Council meeting tonight. Long Beach isn’t really my beat, of course, but with so few staffers to go around anymore …
I attended one LB council meeting (in person, those were the days) maybe 6 months ago — but otherwise am not very conversant in terms of knowing either the players or issues on that side of the harbor. I lived there for about 10 years from the late 80s into the late 90s, but never followed the local politics very much as a renter (and thus fairly temporary) citizen.
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The Real, the Five Eyes report does not think that the virus was due to a lab release. Those links are worded very muskeadingly. The documents that the Telegraph used were open source material, and nobody has tried to deny China attempted to cover up the outbreak initially: Five Eyes concluded was that China tried to cover up the outbreak initially, as the reports about the physicians who were disciplined for warning about the virus were reported about in mainstream media from the beginning coverage of this outbreak. None of the other Five Eyes have confirmed US speculation about a lab release: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/04/coronavirus-lab-leak-trump-five-eyes/
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And US intelligence agrees the virus was not manmade: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/spy-agencies-evidence-coronavirus-man-200430142921360.html
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I remember hearing Bret Baier on Fox (but Baier is on the news team and is usually pretty solid) announcing, maybe 2 weeks ago, they had multiple (unnamed) sources confirming an accidental lab ‘escape’ by an individual involved in some testing, that there were ‘documents’ but Baier had not seen them personally, they were working on that.
I never heard any followup (but don’t watch that newscast regularly) that answered my questions, mainly about who the sources were and whether the documents had ever been seen.
So the story seemed to lack some of the confirmations that would take it to the next level.
Were any more details ever nailed down and reported by Fox or another (independent, main and trustworthy) news source?
I kind of assume not.
What exactly is Pomeo’s “enormous evidence”? No time to read links today; in my mind the jury is still out on all of this, the lab connection remains an open question — we may never know for sure, or it may be one of those things that finally gets clarity after this is all over.
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I think the “manmade” speculation has been shot down effectively; the question Baier was pursuing was a scenario in which routine research was ongoing in this lab on a naturally occurring virus that was “let out” accidentally by carelessness or accident.
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Our state is starting to open (our church was open this past Sunday). We have a Republican Governor and Lt Governor. Interestingly, a bar/restaurant owner decided to open despite direction to be in the second or fourth wave, depending on if her business was deemed an eatery or a bar. She is breaking the Governor’s order. But the Lt Governor attended the opening.
She, the Lt Gov, said she also is a bar owner. She had to let twenty employees go. Of those, fifteen applied for unemployment. Of those fifteen, one had received a check. She believes we need people to get back to work. So does the Governor but he is more cautious. Interesting to see how things are working.
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DJ, the thing about an accidental lab release of an animal virus that then infects the human population is that it is highly improbable. Viruses do not leap from species to species all at once, it takes repeated exposures over many months, even years, for the jump to be made. So, even in a lab with protocol breaches, there are statistically not enough exposures happening for the leap to be made. Remember, these labs generally only have a handful of researchers working on a given project, so only a handful of people would have been working on bat viruses in the lab. On the other hand, Guangdong province has large bat caves and extensive pig farms, where such repeated exposures can be made, and have been shown to have been made in the past. Logically and scientifically, it makes a lot more sense.
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Janice, the 11:12, I listened to several minutes of it, and then skipped ahead and listened to other passages. Is it supposed to be a sermon? It looks like he is standing behind a pulpit dressed in a suit and tie, with a church’s name on the YouTube page, but the portion I heard never mentioned Scripture. It was just a “one-world order” rant. This is not the purpose of a sermon, nor a pastor’s calling, not a pastor’s specialty.
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PS I’m not judging whether or not it’s useful information, but if it’s in the guise of a sermon, a man should be saying “Thus says the Lord,” and in the portion I listened to, it was all current events, and it didn’t make me want to listen to more. And the comments were all the right-wing fundamentalists getting excited, which usually isn’t a good sign.
I also have a deadline today, which limits my time on other things.
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Cheryl, it appears the pastor is talking about the question: is the virus God’s ending of the times. He says he does not know, but we need to be looking into God for our salvation. Lots of Scripture. But he is trying to still the fear, trust God. He does put forth some interesting facts that we all know.
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Thanks roscuro (1:12); as I said, Baer (how do you spell his name?) only had “unnamed sources” (though “multiple” sources whom he said had direct knowledge of what happened) and he hadn’t personally seen the written documentation that he said did also exist. So the story was intriguing but definitely needed more backup at the time, and this was reported at least 2 weeks ago. I don’t know that they were ever able to advance it beyond those initial reports.
(Unnamed sources can be invaluable, but journalists avoid relying on them — our organization has very strict and limited circumstances in which they can even be used; it weakens the report by not having an on-the-record source — ideally more than one — who can then be independently vetted & questioned by other outlets.)
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Cheryl, I don’t know if this was a speaking engagement or a sermon of sorts. I listened because a person I am friends with at church shared it without saying anything else except that there could be some truth in it.
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My thoughts along what Roscuro offered is to remember the Tower of Babel. God only allowed them to go so far . . . we know Who has the upper hand. (Not W.H.O.) Even should there be some kind of conspiracy, God allows for it in His ultimate plan.
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Oh, look! 57!
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Roscuro 12:27 – All it takes is one little piece of data in the wrong place to utterly scramble programming.
Mrs L was a computer science major and had a poster showing a man with a sledge hammer standing in front of a computer. It said: “To err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer.”
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I decided to read in The Songs of Jesus by Timothy and Kathy Kellor, A Year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms which I recently acquired. I read Psalm 2:1-4 in the book, “Why do the nations conspire and the people plan in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the LORD and against his anointed saying, ‘Let us break their [believer’s] chains and throw off their shackles.’ The one enthroned in heaven laughs; the LORD scoffs at them.”
Yep! That about sums it up. Nothing gets past Him. He has it all covered. The whole devotion is so appropriate for what we are encountering. Here is one line I especially appreciated, “So to be intimidated by the world (Psalm 2) is as spiritually fatal as being overly attracted to it (Psalm 1).” I think God is working out Psalm 1 in the lives of the believers as we are fasting from those things that tempt us to idolize things we have taken for granted in our lifestyles, things that sometimes we have given too much thought to instead of thinking about God and His word with our whole hearts and minds.
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Amen, Janice.
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Peter L, I cross stitched that one for husband when he was first starting out with computers. He kept it up for years.
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Peter L claimed 57. Do I get 62 with this?
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Anyone wonder how many comments there were on the Zoom meeting last night? Maybe Peter made the 57th comment and I the 62nd?
And that Mumsee… parades in fashionably late and — maybe, just maybe? — grabs 100?
Some things never change. 🙂
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I am happy every time I see the header today.
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Me, too, Janice.
Anybody else reading the John Piper book that came with World this time?
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Janice is happy with the header. I am amazed at the technology that makes that happen.
You would bee to if you realized that nobody is safe anymore.
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Mumsee, I let my mail sit for awhile before opening. I have not opened the most recent one. Does it include a link to the ebook?
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Aj, I think you should either leave that picture up or put it up at least once a week to inspire us all.
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Janice, I don’t see one. Maybe at the Desiring God website. It is called Coronavirus and Christ.
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Mumsee, in 4:20 you said the book that came with World. I assumed you meant a paperback book was packaged with the magazine, and Janice is asking do you mean a link to the e-book? Or did you mean something else?
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Correct, Cheryl.
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Roscuro,
They don’t think it was man-made, that’s not the same as saying it didn’t escape from a lab.
No one except a few outliers has ever claimed it was man-made. I’ve repeatedly said the escaped the lab theory sounds plausible, not that it was man-made.
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Just jumping in scanning most of the posts but not quite caught up yet! I ran some errands then decided to stop in at the local antique mall which opened Monday. Hardly any shoppers at all…perhaps 5? Employees wore masks as did I but the other shoppers were sans the mask. It was sad walking around there as most of the vendors had vacated…so many empty booths! I wondered if the mall will survive all of this. I managed to find a small antique watering can ( I needed one for my porch flowers, husband took my other three bigger ones for watering plants on the property) I then found a set of old Christian Herald books that a friend had in her booth. They are first editions printed in 1896 and in great shape! I then headed over to the Baptist church in the forest to have a “circle the wagons” meet up with my precious friends. There we were in the parking lot with our cars in a circle, our car windows down or doors open and we spent almost 4 hours catching up, praying, crying, laughing….oh how we have missed our weekly coffees!! We didn’t solve all the problems of the world but we think we may have made a dent and we all left feeling encouraged and stronger! ❤️
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Mumsee, which of those three options is correct? You just answered “true” to a multiple-choice question! 🙂
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Ah, an old trick
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I learned it from the politicians.
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AJ @ 5:05
Please don’t.
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How can you tell a politician is lying?
Do their lips move?
Does anyone remember that joke in response to Elder Bush’s comment , “Read my lips.”
In this case we must read between the lines of what Mumsee wrote. Sometimes with my poor eyesight I can read between the lines!👀😳
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I really like the colors of the clothing that is in the header. When I saw that my immediate thought was “Spiffy.”
This week I was wearing a blue t-shirt and blue capris. That prompted Art to ask where his similarly colored blue polo shirt was. He always wants what he can’t find. That is one of those endearing habits that show a desire for attention, but it can be maddening at the same time. It was behind the shirt that I had just repaired which had a too loose buttonhole. That was the one I had hoped he’d wear since I took the time to repair it. But the blue one had short sleeves and the weather has been warmer for a couple of days.
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We are getting closer to 100. Who is up for the race?
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That 7:27 was me.
I was in a hurry.
Chas
This is dumb. I forgot how to sign in
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Sorry, Janice. Too tired to race.
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Chas, when you say not to put your picture up with Elvera, I don’t think you realize how much that picture of your faithfulness inspires the rest of us.
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I appreciate the comment, but I hope I don’t have to look at Burt Lancaster every time I sing in.
LOL
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I love the picture of Chas and Elvera. I tell everyone about my 80 something boyfriend and his wife. You are an inspiration and we have grown to love Elvera through you.
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Every time I open the blog today I smile. What a lovely picture of one of the most amazing couples I know.
Painted some ship lap today. I love the colour I picked. It will be the back wall of my new laundry room. 🙂
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Chas will be 80-something for less than 3 1/2 more months.
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Love the picture, too.
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Yes, it is a lovely picture. Makes me smile. 🙂
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I love ship lap, it’s what’s on my patio overhang in back.
Very frustrating night filling in to cover a Long Beach City Council meeting — the main item was a THREE-HOUR presentation and discussion that had me venting a fair amount (behind my computer watching from home). I whined, I yelled at them twice, threw my arms in the air.
Of course, it didn’t speed the meeting up at all.
Filed the story a little while ago (at around 9 p.m. our time), editor was happy with it.
But making things worse, it was a very warm day and the house was too hot in that back room. By the time I emerged, I realized none of the other house lights had even been turned on as the meeting started before it got dark.
The meeting is still going on, but I told my editor I’d “hit the wall,” the one story would be it — he was fine with that, said I did a good job, thanked me and told me to start a little later tomorrow.
But I still have 5 stories to do before the weekend.
I’m grateful to be working, I need the income. But seriously, sometimes it’s just a bit “much.” And I’m so tired of writing about this virus. Can someone please find a vaccine? The city is facing some serious shortfalls for the next two years as a result, so the ripple effects of this will go on for some time.
The state still says it has no record my income tax forms were turned in. But I did get a call from the accountant’s office today about my “overdue” bill. Sheesh.
I’m thinking I may be looking for someone new next year.
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But that is such a peaceful photo, and such a beautiful park from the looks of it.
I remember parks.
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