Numbering Our Days

12 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

13 Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.

14 O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

15 Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.

16 Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.

17 And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

Psalm 90:12-17 (KJV)

Columnist Charles Krauthammer, 68, will probably die of abdominal cancer. He’s a medical doctor

and has been a quadriplegic since having an accident during his first year in medical school.

Designer Kate Spade and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain committed suicide in the past week. I’ll let others talk about depression and the present state of their souls.

The deaths and impending death of these public figures has, naturally, provoked a great deal of sadness. But what it has magnified to me is how little time they and the rest of us have to accomplish whatever it is that God put us here to do.

I've been thinking of and talking to God about this for a number of months, ever since I discovered that an old boyfriend died last year of colon cancer. He was 57.

When we broke up, I was the bad guy.

I hadn’t seen him in many years, so after I read his public obituary which named his employer, I took a chance and wrote to them just to see if they would give me a sense of his work life. It was like hitting the jackpot. They sent me a very personal obit with much more info than the public one. These people loved him and are grieving very much for him.

My old love had retired from a very accomplished Cold War era USAF career and ended up as a math teacher and an accountant for an organization that helps teenagers and young adults get their GEDs. Some of his students were prisoners.

Like Krauthammer, he played the hand he was dealt and played it well. The two men made other people’s lives better and did it in less than seven decades using the personal gifts that God gave them.

I am in awe of this.

In Genesis, we read about Adam and his pre-flood descendants who lived hundreds of years, many close to 1000. We live 100 and change at best and what do we do with it? Even Spade and Bourdain used a portion of their very few years to bring a certain amount of enjoyment to others. That they became rich doing so is irrelevant, unless one remembers that the ability to get wealth is a blessing from God.

And so what are observers to take from this? It’s this: that each of us has some gift from God that we are to exercise to His purposes. It might not be a public purpose of which millions or even hundreds of people are aware. It might be a task known only to Him, but each of us “instinctively” knows what it is. We may have to plow through the circumstances of a broken body – or a broken heart – but the key word is through.

This is simple. And hard. But this is what I believe that God wants from each one of us.

UPDATE: Charles Krauthammer passed away on June 21.

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June's Bills (Pinned until Goal Reached; Scroll down for recent posts)

UPDATED: Thank you for keeping the hounds at bay!

UPDATED: 6/11/2018 at 9:00 AM PT -- $1300.  200 to go.

ORIGINAL: I'm a slow learner, too, in some areas.

As I've said before, I try not to get jealous of those who have their efforts -- have the thing that they love doing -- fully funded seemingly at the snap of a finger and have their cups running over to boot. Thousands and, sometimes, millions of dollars.

Psalm 37.

For me, this month is the same as every month: good, loyal readers and donors -- and falling short.

Usually when I do this, I ask for the minimum to keep me housed and to keep services from being discontinued. But I'm going to do something different this time: I'm going to ask for it all. So here it is.

Needed:

Rent: $238 (June)
Electric Bill: $150 (June)
Car Insurance: $80 (June)
Food and Coffee: $150 (for the rest of this month)
Phone Service (which I don't have): we'll see.

Minimum: $1,500. That's what I need. Thanks.

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What Respect Means to Don Lemon

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*****
It’s amazing how many ways that we human beings find to usurp the position of God.

In response to the report that black unemployment is the lowest it has ever been since the metric began to be measured, CNN reporter Don Lemon said this:

There’s no question today’s job report is good news, including the news that we’re as closest we’ve ever been to full employment in the black community. But what’s full employment without full respect?

Of course, I’m reminded of the hit song by Aretha Franklin, but even she didn’t tell her man what R-E-S-P-E-C-T meant to her. He had to “find out” which makes me suspect that the goalposts got

John Cazale (1935-1978) as Fredo Corleone

moved often.

I’m also reminded of The Godfather, Part II in which the dumb-as-a-brick Fredo Corleone demands respect after his brother confronts him for his betrayal. (Did anyone else notice that, except for Michael, Vito Corleone's children were morons? It was just like King David and his children: all stupid except for Solomon.)

This is what Lemon gets wrong: he believes that the "black community" deserves (gah! I hate that word) respect from those outside the group just for existing.

God is the only one who is due respect for who and what He is, and for that alone.

Everyone else is due respect for who they are combined with 1) the things they do/have done, and/or 2) for some authority acquired by them from an external source.

No human being or group of human being is due respect for who they are and for that quality alone.

And, without getting into the specifics of the respect which Lemon thinks is due to the "black community," you can bet that there are some moving goalposts for that, as well. It's the perfect application of Leftist thought.

This is the essence of pride or, as I’ve coined it, Carcass Worship.

It’s insidious.

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Why I Was Hesitant to Blog About Obama When He Was President

As conservative activist Candace Owens is finding out right now, it’s a dangerous thing to provide personal information – even to a friend. Though I have been blogging for some time under the nom de guerre 'baldilocks,' I’ve never concealed my real name. But, even when I have revealed personal stuff, I took some comfort in the fact that each member of the American side of my family has a different last name than I do. Even considering that, I did ask Mom’s permission before posting this story.

It’s a matter I consider over and over again whenever I talk about personal matters – much more so than when I first started blogging. There’s a specific reason for this.

Yesterday, President Trump say that he would pardon conservative writer and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza. That made me happy and it made me think about the fact that I’m slightly acquainted with Dinesh because I was slated to appear in his documentary 2016: Obama’s America.


Why? Because I am a mirror image of a president.

I started this blog 2003. Then, in 2004, an Illinois state senator named Barack H. Obama gave the Democrat National Convention keynote address. I had never heard of him before that, so I did a little reading and discovered something amazing: his father was Kenyan – of the Luo tribe -- and his mother was American.

What was so amazing about that?

That is my exact same ethnic make-up and, before he came along, I had never met anyone else who had that same parentage. But that “coincidence” barely scratched the surface of those to follow.

• I was born in August of 1961.
• My biological father is Kenyan and of the Luo tribe; my mother is American.
• My parents met when both were attending the same American college.
• My parents divorced when I was very young; afterward, my father returned to Kenya.
• For half of my childhood, I was raised by older relatives of my mother.
• My mother suffered from ovarian cancer.
• My maternal grandmother died in 2008.
• One of my "half" sisters is nine years younger than I am. She is married to a man of a different race than she.
• I am left-handed.

Barack Obama and I have all these things in common.

And then there are all the disparities.

• I am a woman.
• I am a conservative.
• I was raised by my great-aunt and great-uncle in the first half of my childhood. President Obama was raised by his grandparents in the last half of his minor years.
• Barack Obama’s mother, and, therefore, his grandmother, were white. My maternal grandmother was “one-drop-rule” black. (In reality, Grandma had a white appearance, but both of her parents had some black ancestry.)
• My mother survived ovarian cancer; Former President Obama’s mother did not.
• My mother, biological father, and “step” father are all living; his have all passed away.

One might call some of these symmetric disparities.

And then there was the discovery that my biological father -- Philip Ochieng-- and Barack Obama Sr. had been friends. This was something that was all over the news in 2008 and, therefore, Dinesh flew to Kenya to interview my father for a segment in Obama’s America. And it’s the reason that Dinesh reached out to me and asked me to appear as well.

My part was filmed but ended up on the cutting room floor. Dinesh said that test audiences were confused about who I was.

Honestly? I was relieved.

Why? Because I knew that Barack Obama was perfectly capable of taking down anyone he or his handlers deemed threatening. I wasn’t worried about myself, but I do have a large family on two continents that I love.

The persecution and prosecution of Dinesh D’Souza confirmed my conclusion and there are several other examples of the former president’s vindictiveness, including his weaponization of the IRS against conservative not-for-profit groups

Many who knew about the Obama parallel suggested that I write a book about it, but I resisted that notion and I’m glad I did. I find the whole thing a tad boring now – it was hard enough to get motivated to compose this post. I’m over myself … mostly.

But Dinesh's impending pardon and the slow reveal that the Obama Administration probably okayed the spying operation on the Trump candidacy reminded me of my fear.

Besides, when he got elected, I figured that my job was done and that I had failed. But I also had this in mind:
 
“You’ll see.” (I'm old enough to remember being called racist -- against white people -- for surmising that, if Barack Obama became president, America wouldn't elect another black president for 100 years. Ah, the good old days!)

And we did see. We all saw what Barack Obama tried to do to this country and we are still seeing it.

Am I afraid now? No, but the new administration has little to do with my lack of fear.

I am much further along in my relationship with Christ and I have experienced things which I would have never thought I could handle without losing my mind, including the loss of nearly all material possessions and homelessness. I found out that the promises outlined in Psalm 91 are valid.

When one hangs his/her being out into the public anything can happen to your body, your personal belongings and your reputation. But if you ask for God's protection, your soul is unreachable and you have nothing to fear.

If there's anything for which I am grateful to Barack Obama, it's that. 
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My May 2018 Post Digest From Da Tech Guy Blog

Fundraiser still going.

Kanye Has Them Shaking in Their Boots-- Linked by Instapundit

And this is what makes long-time Trump supporter Kanye West different from the rest of us who refuse to toe the Democrat line. His hip-hop-composed platform was already built. All he had to do is climb up and begin to speak.

Special Needs Placard Not Needed

To liberals/leftists, black people are a crippled class that can never be made whole just as long as they can never be made not-black. What’s this notion called?

Dirty Windows

I would not want to see eyes like that looking back at me – especially not from my pillow or my mirror.

Starbucks Handles Its Business ... PoorlyWhen Your Enemy Tells You What He Will Do, Believe Him

Ms. Pelosi demonstrates a dim vestige of cunning, but we call all figure out what will happen if the Democrats regain the House, the Senate or both.

Inside the Gates: the Enemy

The CIA and all of the other intelligence agencies exist to Keep the Gates. Gathering them all under the DNI banner made that easier.

We Averted Our Eyes

I and many of my oldest and closest friends are also old enough to remember when open allegiance to communism was a huge disqualifier for any intelligence service position, much less DCI.

Good Candidate For Mercy

President Trump should commute this man’s sentence and, perhaps, keep him on a list of potential pardons.

CNN Sure Can Pick 'Em

We all know that this guy’s ideological forebears would have called the man a NAZI even if they did know that he was wearing the uniform of the US military. That’s what actually happened 48 years ago – and even 13 years ago.

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Memorial: No More Forgetting

 

1 The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. 

2 He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.

-- Isaiah 57:1-2 (KJV)

For a long time, I pushed you out of my mind and I thought I had pushed you out of my heart. But I have thought of you every day since I found out that you were gone. Since then, some days are better than others.

Because now I remember ...

But every time sorrow threatens to drown me -- and despair tries to enter in -- I also remember where you are now. And I remember that God showed it to me.

I saw you crowned with His Glory and His Word resting on your shoulders!

And I am comforted. I won't forget again.

I love you, Bobby. And I’ll see you when I get there.

The Tactic of Floating Outrageous BS (UPDATE: Old Baldilocks Links From Ten Years Ago)

"Let's see if this one gets by them."

As a recovering dissembler – the lies I told were mostly to myself – I have a unique perspective on lies and liars, at least from afar. (In personal relationships, however, I have been taken in once or twice.)

A couple of days ago, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had this to say about his former bailiwick, the Department of Justice, and how it should operate in relation to the President of the United States.

Trump demand for DOJ investigation is dangerous/democracy threatening. DOJ response
is disappointing.There is no basis/no predicate for an inquiry. It’s time to stand for time honored DOJ independence.That separation from White House is a critical part of our system.

— Eric Holder (@EricHolder) May 21, 2018

Twitter king Thomas Wictor -- whose every utterance you should consider, especially when the topic is the situation in the Middle East -- pointed out the obvious. Well it's obvious to those who read the U.S. Constitution every now and then.

HOLY CRAP.

The Department of Justice is part of the EXECUTIVE BRANCH.

It's not separate from the White House.https://t.co/daVEE8ffQB https://t.co/ocWKMfUA7j

— Thomas Wictor (@ThomasWictor) May 22, 2018

To which I replied:

He knows. He's just counting on rallying those who don't know. And they are legion.

— baldilocks (@JulietteAkinyi) May 22, 2018

Those who won't read even something as short as the U.S. Constitution are indeed everywhere and they have been created on purpose via our often and justly maligned educational systems. Heck, people don't know the names of the three branches of government, much less the executive branch's hierarchy.

But, remember my first and second assertions. I'll try to explain how it works.

Many public figures in politics and the media use the tactic that Mr. Holder demonstrated: run an outrageous lie up the flagpole and see how many salute. There will always be a great number who, without question, will believe what he and his ideological brethren say. And now that Former President Obama's first attorney general has said that a president of the United States has no authority over the DOJ, he has planted seeds in the minds of like-minded citizens who will never bother to check to see if what he says is true.

And why should they? He was the head of the DOJ and, therefore, knows what he's talking about. Right?

Remember the "animals" uproar? It was just a few days ago. That was another perfect example of this tactic and, in that case, a huge chunk of the mainstream media and the Twitter Blue Check Mark Mafia pretended that President Trump referred to illegal immigrants as animals, when he was actually referring to the demonic gang MS-13.

And here's the intended aftereffect of the tactic: even after the truth comes out, there will still be a significant segment of the public who believes the falsehood. And there will be nothing you can do to show them that they are wrong.

That's the beauty of floating outrageous BS. Call it weaponization of disinformation.

I noticed this pattern long ago and now, with instant communication, it happens so much, I don't usually bother to comment on it. But I did find out that a lot of honest people are shocked that people do this. Honest people expect other people to be honest.

So it is that Eric Holder would pretend that the DOJ is an independent agency. And so what if people like me or Mr. Wictor stare open-mouthed at his ridiculous assertion? His job is done; the weapon is deployed.

Take it from a former sneak, you will see this happen over and over again, if you're paying attention.

UPDATE: Thanks, as always, to the Instapundit, for the link!

FYI, new visitors: I was talking about the explicit Marxism of the Obama edifice before the 2008 election and afterward.

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Guests Still Guesting

Still weird that Russians are flooding my stats.

Привет!

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Which Guns Do They Want? All of Them

In the wake of tragedy, two gun-control advocates keep it real.

Lauren Shippen

Dave Holmes at Esquire Magazine: Okay, Now I Actually Do Want To Take Your Guns.

At the end of a list of falsehoods and non sequiturs, the bottom line:

So now I’m angry. Now I’m finished trying to reason with you. So now I, a guy who was ambivalent about guns just a few years ago, want to take your guns away. All of them. I want to take them all and melt them down and shape them into a giant sphere and then push it at you so you have to run away from it like Indiana Jones for the rest of your lives. (…)

I want to end this thing once and for all, so that all of you who have prioritized the sale of guns over the lives of children have to sit quietly and think about what you’ve done. God help me, I want to take all of your guns out of your hands, by myself, right now. (…)

It’s happening. We tried it your way, and it really did not work. The ground is shifting. Get ready.

I really do appreciate the honesty of these two people and that of the thousands, perhaps millions, who are willing to co-sign in public to this desire.

Any fan of the TV series Firefly and the movie Serenity knows that the quest for a perfect world has consequences and, like feces, those consequences always roll downhill.

No person, group of persons or government can stop every single bad thing from happening into eternity. We can only reduce the chances of bad things happening using proven methods and, in a free republic that explicitly acknowledges the existence of individual rights in its constitution, those methods should be subordinate to individual freedom. Should be.

The gullible, however, believe that freedom includes freedom from bad things ever happening and freedom from bad people making bad things happen. These also believe that if we take away the tools used by people who do bad things, that such people will never again want to do said bad things, much less find new ways of doing those same bad things.

Thus, do the gullible believe that taking away guns from the entire American populace will permanently prevent incidents like Parkland, Santa Fe, Sandy Hook and so on. This reasoning is the

Old friend. Sad victim of a boating accident.

one that the Organized Left sells to the gullible, who, for some reason, think that guns emit Bad-Things Mind Control.

Of course, we know that, in response to mass gun confiscation, mass shootings, robberies, kidnappings, rapes, burglaries, gang warfare, etc. with targeting expanded to every home, school and business in the nation – except for those of the rich -- will explode, simply because bullied psychotic teenagers won’t be the only ones freed up by the reduced chances of being riddled with holes while committing, say, a home invasion robbery. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of street gangs and drug/human-trafficking cartels just salivating at the thought of a disarmed America.

And this leads to the true reason that the Organized Left wants us disarmed. 

It's this: any real attempt at confiscation will lead to a lot of death: of gun owners and of confiscators. And after that dies down – no pun intended – there will be only a terrorized remnant, beset on every side by tyrants, thieves, murderers, rapists and child molesters.

And that’s just in the government.

The Organized Left and its gullible minions don't really want to protect school children from mass shooters, because if they did, they'd be calling for controlled egresses in every public school -- something that has been the norm in inner-city schools for decades -- instead of whining about their sweet little darlings having to go to school in "prison-like" conditions. Dead white kids are the means to the end. (Black and brown kids were already disappearing fast enough for the OL -- mostly courtesy of their neighbors. Or their mothers.)

Remember, the Organized Left is always looking to shrink populations and almost everything they advocate leads to some version of early death for existent generations and/or nonexistence for future generations. Everything that happens before the endgame? Details.

They want to keep the physical targets soft, not to mention the mental and emotional ones.

Get ready, indeed.

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Why Some People Think That the Earth is Flat

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I’ve been hesitant to address the Flat Earth phenomenon and resistant about wading into their Social Media oceans. I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll sell my few belongings, log off the Internet for good and go build that bunker I’ve been talking about for years.

But, the other day, I looked on as a woman tried to explain to a man that the earth was not flat and why it made no sense to believe that. Following the explanation, the woman pointed out that the prophet Isaiah conversationally observed the spherical nature of this planet.

It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

-- Isaiah 40:22

Job also observed the sphericality of the earth in passing. He had other things on his mind.

When the man pointed out that the word used in the King James Version of the Bible is ‘circle’ and that it “proved” that the earth is flat, I asked if he knew which Hebrew word was used. No response.

And when there was no response after the woman pointed out that a sphere is a 3-dimensional circle, the problem became evident.

The man had no idea that most of the Old Testament had been originally composed in Hebrew, nor did he understand what a dimension is, much less the ramifications of basic spatial dimensionality, that is, length, width, and depth. Related: time is considered the fourth dimension and I’ve noticed that there are an alarming number of people who cannot grasp the passage of time, and I’m not referring to chronic tardiness. For these people, every moment is right now; ten years ago is right now. 1955 is right now.

Therefore, we have people who cannot take what is right in front of their eyes and apply it to larger things which are not immediately visible. (Let’s leave aside those of us who have flown internationally and have actual seen the earth’s curvature.)

These are people who hear an unfamiliar word or concept and discard it as irrelevant. These are people who think that others who use uncommon words and expand on complex concepts are “trying to make themselves look smart.”

There it is, our old nemesis: projection.

These are people who have been stupid all their lives and who now feel empowered with new information -- information that the smart people don’t have.

The stupid want to make themselves look smart to observers and onlookers. They don’t understand and have never understood that most so-called smart people didn’t come out of the womb as fully-formed geniuses but had to work at it.

The stupid also don't understand that basic error leads one down the path to gigantic error. Ever gotten lost when walking or driving?

The smart gather information, analyze it, see if there are any connections between bits of information, discard falsehood, build new information on top of the old, and so on. But the stupid believe that the first step – gathering information -- is the only step to becoming smart. And, in doing that, the stupid think they have made themselves “look smart,” especially smarter than you who “believe” that the earth is a sphere.

Essentially, flat-earthism is the result of removing the basic educational ground which was seeded in most of us Americans who are over 50. In that group, even those who weren’t National Merit Scholar material can take the basic seeds of knowledge and logic and apply them.

The Internet, of course, exacerbates the boldness of the stupid. When you find out that there are others who think like you, it can cement your opinion on anything – especially if you’re not in the habit of introspection and re-thinking old views.

So, there’s my opinion on the Flat Earth phenomenon. Will I re-think this opinion? Certainly. And when I do, I might walk out to the edge and see what’s down there!

Just kidding.

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International Guests

So, this is affecting my blog post numbers.

Welcome, Germany, Russia, France, et al.! If you like my old missives that much, you should donate! Yellow button below.

Hey, it can't hurt to ask.

UPDATE: One donation from China! Disclaimer: a friend and a regular donor.

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Lock Your Doors

 

It's cheaper to funk than it is to pay attention.

-- "Funkentelechy" (Parliament-Funkadelic, 1977)

When you see something like this in the New York Times, you can bet that the technology is already much more advanced.

Over the last two years, researchers in China and the United States have begun demonstrating that they can send hidden commands that are undetectable to the human ear to Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant. Inside university labs, the researchers have been able to secretly activate the artificial intelligence systems on smartphones and smart speakers, making them dial phone numbers or open websites. In the wrong hands, the technology could be used to unlock doors, wire money or buy stuff online — simply with music playing over the radio. 

A group of students from University of California, Berkeley, and Georgetown University showed in 2016 that they could hide commands in white noise played over loudspeakers and through YouTube videos to get smart devices to turn on airplane mode or open a website. (…) 

[Fifth-year Ph.D. student in computer security at U.C. Berkeley Nicholas] Carlini added that while there was no evidence that these techniques have left the lab, it may only be a matter of time before someone starts exploiting them. “My assumption is that the malicious people already employ people to do what I do,” he said.

Emphasis mine.

I removed Alexa from my Amazon Wishlist a while back. Call it a hunch. And I bet there are many other digital methods already being used to steal -- and to plant suggestions into consciousnesses. What about WiFi, especially the public variety?

Consider this.

Occasionally, I have experienced crazy, twisted and horrible images in my head -- concepts very foreign to my thinking and proclivities -- when I am almost asleep. It’s as if there are spirits bouncing against my soul and spirit to see if they can penetrate. In these individual instances, I banish them by calling on God’s protection in Jesus’ name. Some else I’ve been doing for years: daily praying Psalm 91, which I memorized back in 2012. I don’t just recite it; I pray it. When I find myself just saying the words and not meditating on what the Psalm means, I stop and go back to the beginning.

At first the images were frightening, but I've had enough experience with the supernatural to quickly figure out what was happening. It wasn’t the first time that enemy forces tried to invade the Juliette network.

Am I paranoid? Perhaps. And I’m at peace with my paranoia. And I don’t doubt that many of the two types of forces -- physical and spiritual -- are in cahoots.

There are several substance-free things I have used to increase the likelihood of much deeper, more peaceful, and invader-free sleep: specific prayer beforehand; shutting down all devices and unplugging the WiFi or if I keep the WiFi and a device on, streaming a trusted source of the Word of God. Of course the invaders still knock on the windows, as it were. That's the reason to stay armed, asleep or not.

But there are those who scoff at such protection or ignore it. Then they wonder at the proliferation of mass shooters, serial killers, rapists, child molesters, etc. who say they hear voices.

It’s all unprotected networks out there, ripe for the intrusion. Unlocked doors and open windows.

What about yours?

(Thanks to Stephen Green)

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The Pope, Weapons, and Your Heart

For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:

 -- Matthew 15:19 (KJV)

I’ve caught a lot of flak from one Catholic former friend due to sharing conspiracy theories about Pope Francis, but this statement is no theory. What to make of it?

Do we really want peace? Then let’s ban all weapons so we don’t have to live in fear of war.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) April 29, 2018

Raymond Ibrahim uses the Tweet to remind us that, without physical weapons, the West would be dead and that many parts of it are dead already.

[T]he Pope seems to forget that violence and the things that motivate it—hate, envy, rapacity, and plain old evil—do not need weapons. (...) 

Decades of enforced cultural emasculation has does its job, leaving many men in the West helpless and paralyzed against any would-be aggressor. 

This is especially on display in the West’s interaction with Islam. One need only look to Western European nations, where the interplay of emasculated Western males and aggressive Muslim migrants are on constant display. Thanks to the latter, Sweden has become the rape capital of the world. That is not because Muslims use weapons, are stronger, or more numerous—they are still a tiny minority—but because many Swedish men have been so indoctrinated in passivity that they are not even able to protect their womenfolk. (...) 

As I document in my new book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, the perennial jihad against the West proceeded with advanced weapons (firearms), basic weapons (spears and knives), and no weapons at all. As tools, these were never the origins of the jihad; rather hate, envy, and rapacity fueled it. In boats or atop horses, Muslim hordes would appear anywhere unguarded—Constantinople held out as long as it did thanks to its insurmountable walls—and fight tooth and nail in the name of Allah. If not for weapons—and more importantly, men willing to wield them—the West and Christianity would have long ago ceased to exist.

The thing that’s so jarring about the Pope’s statement, however, are the implications of those assertions coming out of the mouth of the Vicar of Christ.

• That the hearts of mankind can be changed by mankind’s own efforts – in this case, the banning of physical weapons
• That physical weapons are the source of fear 
• That mankind's enemies are those who own and use physical weapons
• That mankind's most lethal Enemy can be killed by physical weapons
• That physical weapons are the only weapons in existence

In several passages of the Bible, Paul asserts that the weapons available to mankind – through faith in and allegiance to Jesus the Christ – are not carnal (physical) but spiritual and mighty. These weapons are meant to defeat a spiritual and mighty Adversary – the Devil.

Now, the Pope may not have meant that those weapons should be banned, but who can tell? Any of Christ’s representatives here on earth know that God is the only one who can effect a change of heart, that He is the protector of the place(s) in which our souls and spirits dwell, and that He provides the weapon.

In short, what I’m getting from Pope Francis is in direct contradiction to the Word of God.

I have many Catholic friends; two  several are especially dear to me. But I can’t look at what this Pope says and not feel sympathy for the quandary in which Catholics who love Jesus find themselves.

Guard your hearts. This means all of you.

(Thanks to Instapundit)

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Principalities and Powers

Facade

During the 2016 presidential campaign and since Donald Trump’s inauguration, many observers have postulated that the president has the “Nebuchadnezzar anointing” or the “Cyrus anointing.” I have given and continue to give both theories the side-eye. A more valid theory is that President Trump might have some sort of “Naaman anointing.” Naaman was a rough, rude, immoral and leprous gentile who gets healed through the prophet Elisha and ends up worshiping the true God.

However, do we really want to continue to paste Old Testament narratives onto American heads of state? That might not work out so well for us, since godly OT monarchs were in the minority.

But here’s an interesting thing that says a lot about the spiritual forces coming against President Trump:

School in CA has graphic mural depicting the President being killed by an Aztec warrior

Zero outrage from the mainstream press

If an artist distastefully depicted Obama like this there would be protests in the streets

The left no longer just hates Trump. They want him dead pic.twitter.com/vg8tyMcKal

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) May 7, 2018

The school is question is MAAC Charter School in Chula Vista. They have already covered the mural up. Unmistakably, this depiction was one of a demon murdering Donald Trump.

Speaking of Old Testament, I also recall this:

There was much fanfare when witches across the world - and singer Lana Del Rey - pledged to stand together and cast a spell on President Donald Trump on Friday night. (…) 

There was only a handful of people gathered outside the president's Manhattan Midtown penthouse as witches worldwide prepared to cast a magic spell at midnight. 

Men and women had pledged to cast spells under the crescent moon in a bid to stop Trump from doing harm while also possibly banishing him from office. 

The first one was scheduled for Friday night and is set to be followed by similar spells cast on March 26, April 24 and May 23.

While the New York turnout may not have lived up to the hype, social media was flooded with photos of witches posting photos of their set up, with many using the hashtags #bindtrump and #feb24. 

Lana del Rey had earlier tweeted a photo of herself with the caption: 'At the stroke of midnight Feb 24, March 26, April 24, May 23... Ingredients can b found online.'

Her tweet appeared to be referencing the spell being shared by the witchcraft community online as they prepared to hex Trump.

Demons and witches against Trump? Not exactly a winning slogan, but I may underestimate the number of constituents.

A lot of people – even some Christians -- discount the existence of satanic spiritual forces and ridicule the material-world advocates of these forces. The latter count on this. For the record, I’ve seen some of those forces in action.

I remain a Trump-skeptic, though I heartily approve of many of his actions as president. The reason for my stance is this: any worship of a human being and any hatred of a human being are forms of idolatry.

Either extreme demonstrates the failure to trust in God; this is something I learned from being overly fearful of Barack Obama’s presidency.

I can’t discount, however, that the Devil’s advocates are so fearful of Donald Trump that they continue to intercede to their father regarding the man. My enemies’ enemies aren’t necessarily my friends, but there is no way I’m going to agree with a bunch of Devil worshipers.

I will pray to the Living God for President Trump just I did for President Obama: that he comes to Christ and is wise in his leadership. This was and is the codicil: that any damage a president does to the country – whether accidentally or intentionally -- will be averted. I never pray for the harm or injury of anyone; that tends to bite the pray-er on the backside and, in the case of wishing that on any president of the United States, it would bite this country on its collective backside, regardless of the president’s ideology.

But the Enemy doesn’t care about this and his advocates are fooled into thinking that they are doing good. The Devil, however, always sows chaos, and will abandon his followers after his goals are reached. He does this every time.

I do recall, however, that many Christians prayed that President Obama be removed from office before his maximum eight years were completed, and I'm also betting that some are praying this about President Trump. Well, all is fair in love and spiritual warfare, but ...

Be careful with whom you agree.

UPDATE: Thanks, Glenn! Welcome visitors! Hits to the tip jar would be much appreciated!

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Liberty and Death

Edwin Starr

War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.

On this, both Edwin Starr and Quark were wrong.

Just a random thought. Okay, what it really is: an excuse to quote a 70s R&B star and a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine character at the same time.

Kanye West’s public support of Donald Trump is far from new, but people began to take notice when West tweeted agreement with popular conservative activist Candace Owens. I talked about this on Saturday.

So, now the online public is paying close attention to everything West says, including this line, spoken during a TMZ interview:

400 years [of slavery] sounds like a choice.

I haven’t listened to the interview, so I don’t know the context but, guess what: he’s correct.

The choice was enslavement or death.

Now, before you decide that you already know where I’m going with this, keep in mind that I am often not going where you’re going and that I have a load of personal commentary to draw from to make my points.

On my Facebook feed, I have several people who are agreeing with West for all the wrong reasons. “The slaves should have gotten together and fought back. Look at Nat Turner,” I swear, these people think slaves could have sent out mass text messages to surrounding plantations and bought their equipment on Amazon.

And Nat Turner? There were close to 2 million slaves – obviously including women and children -- in the United States of 1831, the year of the Nat Turner Rebellion. That rebellion lasted for two days and consisted of a force that grew to 75 people before it was stopped dead in its tracks. And I do mean dead.

I’m retired from the USAF, so I haven’t experienced war up close and personal. But I have read a book or 20 about wars and violence. Off the top of my head, I know that, for a war to have any chance of success – especially a war of rebellion -- requires:

• Clear chain of command
• Training
• Planning
• Weapons
• Ammunition
• Food
• Water
• Shelter
• Secure communication
• Supply lines
• Allies

These are the bare bones, but the bottom line is that a combat force seeking to free itself and its related non-combatants against a better-trained and better-armed foe needs to know WTF it’s doing in the short-term and have long-term goals – like what to do and where to go if victory is achieved.

Think about what slavery was back then. Most slaves could not read, much less read a map, and, of course, the whole reason for keep slaves illiterate was to reduce the likelihood of this very thing.

War against the master-class and other whites? Please.

So, it is that most slaves chose to live. Good thing, too, because dead people cannot procreate. Don’t believe me? Ask the descendants of the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade – if you can find any.

A comparison of the Islamic Slave Trade to the American Slave Trade reveals some extremely interesting contrasts.

While two out of every three slaves shipped across the Atlantic were men, the proportions were reversed in the Islamic Slave Trade: two women for every man were enslaved by the Muslims.

While the mortality rate of slaves being transported across the Atlantic was as high as ten percent, the percentage of slaves dying in transit in the Trans-Sahara[n] and East African Slave market was a staggering eighty to ninety percent. (...) 

While many children were born to slaves in the Americas--the millions of their descendants are citizens in Brazil and the United States of today--very few descendants of the slaves that ended up in the Middle East survived. 

While most slaves who went to the Americas could marry and have families, most of the male slaves destined for the Middle East were castrated and most of the children born to the women were killed at birth. 

– John Alembillah Azumah

Most of those slaves had no choices.

Personally, I’m glad that those on my mother's side of the woodpile chose to live. Their descendants received liberty anyway -- and those descendants include those who are still mad at Kanye West for being freer than they are and for taking advantage of it.
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That Time I Rhymed About Peacocks

Shut up.

He struts his stuff with gait like few
Azul and green complete his hue

Shows majesty and gifted-Grace
Can be no other in his place

Solomon's Glory? But mere sham
Against lush raiment from I Am

"Look here!" he says to all with eyes
His subjects gain a glad surprise

Vice she who wears black, tan and brown
And seems to live in his background

None look upon her marked bland
Nor seek to mimic mundane bans

But she still wears a smile inside
If asked, her secret she'll confide

Holds no will to plumage flaunt
For she holds what he really wants

"Hey Baby! Look at THIS!"

Copyright © 2010 by Luo American, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Weapon of War (UPDATE)

This was originally posted in 2010 at my old blog. I share the old link often, but I think this story needs a presence here.

In 2008, I had a dream.

Before I explain what type of dream it was, I should mention that my dreams are very vivid—almost like being awake; like short visits to worlds yet unexplored.  Sometimes, I can remember them immediately upon waking, but they will usually be forgotten if I fail to write them down.  (As an aside, I think that the ability to remember one’s dreams goes hand-in-hand with having a well-developed imagination -- something essential to a novelist.)

My subconscious will even, on occasion, incorporate sounds from the waking world and build a dream around it if the sound isn't loud and piercing enough to disrupt my sleep.  Such was the case when Dan Gillerman's melodious, accented baritone memorably penetrated my dreams as it wafted from my television.  In that dream, the voice seemed to be emanating from the throat of the man I loved and who seemed to pontificate about a war with Gaza.

However, for the dream mentioned at the beginning of this essay, there was never any need to write the details, and, whenever I reconsider it, it always looms large and has capital letters: The Dream.

At first, The Dream was a nightmare -- the only nightmare ever in my nearly fifty [sic] years.  I couldn’t see anything at first; I could only feel -- and the feeling in question was pure terror.  I’ve never come close to being that afraid when awake and I hope that I never do.

There was something -- a living thing -- in the room with me. Evil itself is the only way to describe this entity.  The room was my own bedroom, except that it had no windows and no doors.

I lay on the floor, paralyzed and curled up in a ball like a potato bug.  My eyes -- my dream-eyes -- were slammed shut for fear of seeing the thing.  It seemed to menace my back with fire, incinerating the skin.  In the manner which dreams unfold, I could “see” chunks of flesh fall from my back. I saw my spinal column. Then my flesh would reintegrate and the process would start again.

I wanted to uncurl and turn to face the being, but fear stopped me.  I could feel my chest heaving; it seemed as though the mere sight of It would stop my heart forever.

Then I cried out to God and He answered, reminding me that He had not given me the spirit of fear; that the particular emotion had a different source.  This reassurance seemed to slow my breath and un-paralyze my body.  I stood up and opened my eyes but I still wasn’t quite able to face the Creature.

“Stretch out your arms,” God said.  I did so and opened my right hand.  In it was a handgun, then a sword (they seemed interchangeable) and, as is so in myth and in fantasy, my weapon had a given name.

Its name was “the Word of God.”

So, with weapon in hand, I “screwed my courage to the sticking-place” and turned to face my enemy, steeling myself to view its ugly face.

It was gone.

*****
Weeks later, I was sitting in church and very much awake.

My pastor--learned in the languages of the Bible: Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek—was expounding on the two Greek terms for "word of God."  One is a term with which most English-speakers are familiar—logos.  The other, however, is one I had heard before but had no idea what it meant until my pastor began to expound upon it: rhema[i]. 

The difference?  People far more theologically learned than I are still discussing it but the difference seems to be in scope.  A rhema is more of a short aphorism, rather than a long sermon or the Word in its entirety, and it is intended to counter the Adversary quickly when he’s trying to induce doubt and/or fear.  For example, Jesus the Christ used a quick succession of rhema on Satan when the latter tried to induce doubt about God the Father.

In short, when you hear preachers talk about “a word from God,” most of the time they are talking about a rhema.

“What does this have to do with your dream,” I hear you ask.  My mouth literally dropped open when my pastor mentioned the other definition of rhema….

The Sword of the Spirit[ii].

Whenever I feel anxious about anything, I think of this dream.

---

[i] James Strong, The Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2001),1641

[ii] Strong's,1626

UPDATE: I've made this the beginning of a series on the supernatural.

NEXT:

Shift in Focus

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Prison Break

In the world of Chaos
Camouflaged poison
And diaphanous oaths

Are the Dinner of death
Purchased with 30 pieces
Of not-silver

Simmered in fear
One seasoning: bitterness

Carnal men lust for evil women
As both avenge their tears
On each other
And move on

"People come and they go
"It's just the way that it goes"
Says Chaos's Prince
Channeled by a singer

The walls are high
In the Prison made of nothing
Where the Warden wields
An Air-Powered baton

But...

In the unbroken circle
Hopes are fulfilled
Beauty equals Truth
And Forgiveness is the gift
Received by the Giver

"I am the Way, the Truth
"And the Life"

Carved in the Cornerstone
Of the lone refuge

The meat is sweet
The Water Lives
And the Comfort is endless

Love is the specialty of the house

So...

Battered and fried
By Chaos
The prisoner returns to the Circle
Where the Door stands
Unguarded

And where the King of the Unseen bids her to stay

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Lap of Luxury

Green living. Not unless I have to.

I'm still receiving donations and will be up-to-date with my landlord tomorrow.

Here's one of the things I don't talk about often because it gives people an idea of my level of penury. I still struggle with pride, which is, of course, why I talk about the sin of pride so much; I know it well.

When I get donations in excess of being able to pay my bills, I'm able to do one thing that greatly increases my quality of life. And that one thing is ...

Go to the laundromat.

I moved into this apartment building in 2015 and it's the first time in a long time that I haven't had in-building access to a washer and a dryer.

Air Force dormitories always have washing facilities -- at least when I was in. And, when I had my house, I had an awesome stacked washer-dryer. The washer motor sounded like Serenity running from the Alliance po-po. Even when I lived in homeless housing, there were washers and dryers, though they were not free.

It's amazing the things we take for granted.

To save money, I have been handwashing almost all of my clothes and have developed a system of washing a few at a time. But sometimes I let that system lag because handwashing clothes is a huge pain for a First World girl.

My life could be worse in many ways, which is what I constantly remind myself when I need to do something that I hate.

So, because I have a few extra dollars, I'm going to the laundromat today. It's smaller and cleaner than most. The attendant always greets me happily, though I get by there only every couple of months. And there's wi-fi.

You've allowed me to skip the handwashing clothing system for a bit.

I just thought you should know.

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