Prophet's Possible Perspective

Coming from a family of nobility I guess it kind of hard to notice how things really are here in Jerusalem. Many of us profess to know the Lord, but we just walk on by the suffering and the hurting enjoying our little trinkets of jewelry, silver, gold and precious gems.

Walking through the Sheep gate today, though it is a place where the lambs for slaughter are brought into the city, I noticed a lot of pride. The women walking with their heads held high as though they had no problem in the world and the men no better. The women, at least more than a good majority of them, are full of haughtiness, thinking that beauty is the main thing of life. They call attention to themselves with jangling jewelry. They cry out for men’s attention; even men who are not their husbands.

One day this arrogance and pride will be judged by the Lord. He will take away the finery; The jingling anklets, the scarves and the cresents…will he do away with. What will these “pretty” women do then. LORD help us.

The sweet fragrance of their perfumes will turn to a stench of death. Rather than having well kept hair, they will be bald. O that the people of God would hear; O that we would obey His voice, and turn from our sins. God, the LORD of hosts, will brand them rather than give them beauty. What will become of the men they lure and chase after then? They will perish.

The women of Jerusalem, Judah, and all Israel will find themselves without enough men for husbands to go around. They will be slaughtered. There will be a great lamentation throughout all the land. There will be desolation.

When will people learn that the way of the LORD is through faith in Him? Faith is turning from the life of sin and death to live in Him.

O, the time is good, but Oh such darkness. There is a darkness that many do not see. There is light. O, come to the Light. Come that you might see.

That is, until the offense rang beyond the Obama corridor.  And magically, the post was scrubbed.  No surprise.  They do that quite often.

Take a look and see the glory Obama's supporters adorn themselves with lovingly.

Image courtesy of http://uppitywoman08.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/screen-shot-sarah-palin-is-a-c-t-shirts-at-mydisgustingbarackobama/.

As Uppity Woman so succinctly said,

Congratulations girl! You’re all over the net! Your parents must be soooooo proud!

See:

• http://uppitywoman08.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/screen-shot-sarah-palin-is-a-c-t-shirts-at-mydisgustingbarackobama/

]]> http://quipster.wordpress.com/?p=4278 Tue, 14 Oct 2008 09:12:46 +0000 thetownecrier http://quipster.fr.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/obama-to-females-register-for-draft/
"I need your skill in a WAR JOB!"
Image courtesy of http://drwill.com/2007/09/page/2/.

In a previous post, Get Ready For Obama To Draft You!, Senator Barack Obama's plans for the military draft were discussed loud and clear at the ServiceNation Presidential Forum at Columbia University in New York on September 11, 2008.  Little fanfare was given at that time.

But it’s also important that a president speaks to military service as an obligation not just of some, but of many. You know, I traveled, obviously, a lot over the last 19 months. And if you go to small towns, throughout the Midwest or the Southwest or the South, every town has tons of young people who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s not always the case in other parts of the country, in more urban centers. And I think it’s important for the president to say, this is an important obligation. If we are going into war, then all of us go, not just some.

How about again.  OBAMA WANTS THE MILITARY DRAFT!  An all volunteer armed forces is not good enough anymore.

And guys, you are not alone.  OBAMA WANTS THE MILITARY DRAFT FOR FEMALES TOO!

That got your attention.   Good.

Now see Obama believes women should register for draft. Also would consider opening combat positions to females.

[Obama] he does believe that America's young women should be eligible for the military draft and possibly combat duty.

Now despite the interpretation at the World Daily taken from a NY Times transcript of the Fourth Democratic Debate July 24, 2007, that Obama at that time was not interested in the draft, we see Obama's stance now, on September 11, 2008 as above, which is pretty clear: "If we are going into war, then all of us go, not just some."

"I Want You For The Draft Because We fucked up in Iraq.  Sorry, no Rich White Guy exemptions, either."
Image courtesy of http://www.mlcsmith.com/graphics/warped/assets/uncle_sam_draft.jpg.

See:

• http://quipster.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/get-ready-for-obama-to-draft-you/
• http://www.clipsandcomment.com/2008/09/11/transcript-servicenation-presidential-forum-at-columbia-university/.  Transcript: ServiceNation Presidential Forum at Columbia University.  September 11, 2008.
• http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=77875
• http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/us/politics/24transcript.html?_r=1&pagewanted=12&oref=slogin
  

Moral relativism states that nothing is inherently good or bad; therefore, saving a life and murdering someone are of equal benefit to the world, and the ends justify the means.

The other interpretation doesn't imply moral relativism and grant everybody the automatic right to do anything. Instead, it grants everybody the right to unconditional forgiveness. It says, "You're free to do whatever you want, but there's a direction you'll like and a direction you won't like. Choose the latter as much as you want to, the former will always be there for you, but be warned."

Instead of specific actions or things being good or bad, good and bad are directions; only they're not called 'good' and 'bad'. The directions are 'toward God' and 'away from God', or 'for the good of the limited, imaginary self' and 'for the good of the infinite, real self'. So instead of specific actions or deeds being inherently bad and rendering them spiritually off-limits (which would disrupt the law of free will), it is not the action that contracts or expands you, but the motive.

There is only one moment in which experience happens.

Let's say, at this moment, you're here:

Limited self/illusion/ego<---------------|---------------->Infinite self/reality/God

Click the image for the Barack Obama Test to see if Barack Obama really speaks for you!

See:

• http://www.barackobamatest.com/

In part one, I argued that an essential task of the genuine prophet is to show us the poetry in the universe by shaping the chaos of the void into something beautiful.  The authentic seer/sayer knows that the divine revelation is perfection and that everything good and perfect reveals the divine.  In the ultimate sense, the prophet holds with Keats: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty."  Caricatures of the prophet as a barbarian are understandable, but unfortunate.  The true prophet's central preoccupation is beauty.  To capture and articulate that beauty is what makes him a poet.

This passion for beauty is not only a creative force; in the prophet it also forges a keen critical eye.  By this I mean—and this is a crucial distinction—that the prophet's is essentially an aesthetic judgment.  His concept of truth and the holy is inextricably linked to divine beauty.  Even his moral pronouncements are fundamentally aesthetic, based on his idea of justice, which is, for him, a form of symmetry, that is, the divine character mirrored in human society: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In fact, all the prophet's considerations—spiritual, ethical, moral—are founded in a sense of cosmic symmetry; and symmetry, if it is anything, is an aesthetic predilection.  Thus it is that a profound concern for beauty constitutes the prophetic critique.

The main task of the prophet as critic is to weigh the artifacts of human industry and imagination against the standard of divine beauty and intention.  To the degree he finds correlation, he affirms and protects; what he sees falling short he unwaveringly rejects.  It is the prophet who winnows out the chaff of culture and religion which obscure the divine, the truly beautiful.  He is like Michelangelo who defined sculpture as the art of "taking away" to reveal the form he sees beneath the surface of crude stone.  Unlike the sculptor, however, the prophet gouges and chips away at the spiritual and cultural accretions which, through neglect of the divine beauty in the first place, have accumulated around it.  In his role as critic, the prophet is not trying to create; he is trying to recover.

What sets the prophet apart from the conventional critic is hard to formulate.  Perhaps it is only his point of reference or his conviction that aesthetic standards are neither relative nor founded in human preference.  That's enough to get him into trouble anyway.  Maybe the greatest irritant is that the prophet's critique assumes that every human endeavor, by nature, falls short of transcendence.  This perspective doesn't sit well in the shadow of the Tower of Babel.

Even so, the prophet is convinced that what is transcendent is among us and that human constructs can reflect its glory.  His job as critic is to keep the lenses of our brief lamps clear.

Manhattan's City Journal's Obama’s Boys of Summer.  A Who’s Who of 1968 radicals supports the candidate from  June 29, 2008, and Sweetness and Light's highlighting of the same article in the SDS/Weathermen Support Barack Obama from June 29, 2008, reveals the Socialist past and present history between Senator Barack Obama and his closest campaign advisors.   William Ayers and Benardine Dorhn are only the surface. 

This article serves as a good introduction to Obama's radical advisors.

Backing a major-party candidate for president would have been anathema to Michael Klonsky 40 summers ago, when the organization he led, Students for a Democratic Society, urged young people to spurn elections. “By ’68, our line was ‘Vote in the Streets,’” Klonsky told me last spring. “We thought we had to fight with Eugene McCarthy and those people.” In August 1968, protesters clashed with police outside the Democratic Party’s national convention in Chicago—but far from being political innocents who took to the streets to protest Vietnam War hawks’ capture of the Democratic presidential nomination, many of them never supported antiwar candidates McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. “Those of us who have been in the streets for the past five days didn’t give a flying fuck whether McCarthy would win or lose,” SDS declared in posters around Chicago, “and now that he’s lost, still don’t.” On the eve of the general election of that year—in which less than 1 percentage point would separate the popular-vote totals of Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey—Klonsky’s SDS bluntly proclaimed: “The elections don’t mean shit.”

Klonsky, whose disgust for mainstream politics led him to launch a new, Maoist Communist Party in the 1970s, today supports Barack Obama so enthusiastically that until recently he was blogging on the Illinois senator’s campaign website. And boycotting this November’s election, Klonsky maintains, would be a “tragic mistake.” He notes that Barack Obama isn’t Hubert Humphrey, 2008 isn’t 1968, and the strong movement he served back then is “relatively weak” now. “My own support for Obama is not a reflection of a radically changed attitude toward the Democratic Party,” Klonsky recently explained to me. “Rather, it’s a recognition that the Obama campaign has become a rallying point for young activists and offers hope for rebuilding the civil rights and antiwar coalitions that have potential to become a real critical force in society.”

Michael Klonsky is hardly the only ’68 radical supporting Obama this year. In 1968, when Mark Rudd organized the student strike that shut down Columbia University, the SDS chapter that he chaired ridiculed Kennedy and McCarthy as “McKennedy,” claimed that “neither peace candidate offers an alternative to the war policies of Lyndon Johnson,” and suggested “sabotage” as an alternative to voting. Rudd succeeded Klonsky as national SDS leader, presiding over the organization’s metamorphosis into Weatherman and performing “a liaison function” for the plot to bomb a Fort Dix soldiers’ dance that instead killed three Weathermen, including two of Rudd’s Columbia SDS colleagues. Today, Rudd renounces bombs, embraces ballots—and supports Obama. “Probably the biggest difference between Columbia SDS people in 1968 and in 2008 is forty years,” Rudd explained in an e-mail. “Most of us have lived with compromise our whole lives. As kids we were raving idealists who thought that ‘The elections don’t mean shit’ was a slogan that meant something to somebody. It didn’t.”

Then there’s Carl Davidson, who was one of SDS’s three elected national officers in 1968, when the organization first urged young people to refrain from voting. His disillusionment with traditional politics became so pronounced that, in the post-sixties hangover that followed, Davidson joined Klonsky in rejecting traditional politics for fringe Marxist movements. More recently, he helped organize the 2002 rally in which Obama first spoke out against the Iraq War and now serves as the webmaster of Progressives for Obama. “The last thing we need is a simple repeat of 1968, which saw Nixon and the new Right as an outcome, as well as the defeat of [Humphrey],” Davidson contends. “One thing I’ve learned. Social change is not made by elections, but it certainly proceeds through them, not by ignoring them or chasing the illusion of end runs around them.”

Former SDS president Tom Hayden is also in the Obama camp. Hayden organized the made-for-TV protest outside the 1968 Chicago convention. But the catharsis of throwing debris at the Chicago police, the purer-than-thou sanctimony that tolerated no distinction between Lyndon Johnson and Eugene McCarthy, and the exhilaration of “voting in the streets” instead of in election booths combined to ensure liberal defeats. Hayden’s orchestrated anarchy proved more damaging to Humphrey’s presidential aspirations than any dirty trick Nixon’s henchmen could have dreamed up. Klonsky remembers Hayden plotting to spread nails on a highway; another SDS leader recalls Hayden encouraging activists to firebomb police cars. If the Democrats couldn’t run a convention, many Americans wondered, how could they run the country? “Did the radicalism of Chicago elect Richard Nixon?” Hayden asked, clearly pained, in his 1988 memoir. “Having struggled with that question for twenty years, I find there is no ‘neat’ answer.”

Now Hayden is one of the organizers of Progressives for Obama. “The difference is that back then the Democratic Party was directly carrying out the Vietnam War, which meant there was no anti-war critic to vote for after Kennedy was assassinated and McCarthy defeated by the establishment,” he offered in an e-mail last month. “Today the Republican Party is directly carrying out the war, which obviously will make a lot of people favor changing the presidency despite the uncertainty of what the Democratic candidate will do when in office.”

Progressives for Obama resembles a Who’s Who of SDS luminaries. In addition to Hayden, Rudd, and Davidson, the group includes Bob Pardun, SDS’s education secretary during the 1966–67 school year; Paul Buhle, a radical professor who has recently attempted to revive SDS; Mickey and Dick Flacks, red-diaper babies who helped craft 1962’s Port Huron Statement, a seminal New Left document; and SDS’s third president, Todd Gitlin. Age and experience have mellowed some of the SDSers in Obama’s camp. Gitlin, for instance, has evolved into a respected Ivy League professor and milquetoast liberal. But others still glory in a past that can only damage Obama’s future. The aging New Left still practices a therapeutic politics that places a higher value on feelings of personal liberation than on restrained pursuit of political aims.

Obama has already taken political hits for his connection to Weathermen Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. In the sixties, Ayers advocated that young people kill their parents, and Dohrn praised the Charles Manson murders. Alongside their Weather Underground cohorts, the pair declared war on the United States and participated in a bombing campaign that hit the Capitol, the Pentagon, and numerous law enforcement agencies. The couple eventually reinvented themselves—first as academics, then as players in Chicago-area Democratic politics. Obama praised Ayers’s book in the Chicago Tribune, sat with him on a foundation’s board, and benefited from a fundraiser held at the couple’s home. Ayers spoke at events organized by Michelle Obama; Barack Obama spoke at events organized by Ayers.

With the public revelation of this unseemly relationship—between unrepentant terrorists and the man who now seeks to oversee America’s war on terror—and the impact it’s already had on voter attitudes, one would think that other sixties extremists might be more reserved in proclaiming their support for Obama, knowing the damage such associations can do to his candidacy. As for Obama, he’ll need to do some distancing of his own. He protested that he was only eight when Ayers, Dohrn, Rudd, and company embarked on their bombing campaign, and that’s reasonable enough. But he’ll need to go further.

Fortunately for him, the Left has a long history of cold-shouldering predecessors to perpetuate its ideology, cleanse it from past failures, and make it appear fresh. The New Left dissociated itself from the Old Left’s Russophilic dogmatism through the Port Huron Statement and other declarations of independence. Even the phrase “New Left” was adopted to divorce the Left from its history.

SDS’s history offers a template for eliminating the embarrassing past. Jack London, Upton Sinclair, and others founded the Intercollegiate Socialist Society (ISS) during the Progressive era, but by World War I the word “socialist” had fallen from favor. So, with the Left seeing labor unions as the agent of societal change, the ISS became the League for Industrial Democracy (LID). Then, by the end of the 1950s, theorists Herbert Marcuse, C. Wright Mills, and Norman O. Brown scoffed at the idea of blue-collar workers—often violently hostile to the Left’s aims—as transformative agents, and the LID’s student arm, the Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID), rechristened itself Students for a Democratic Society. Just as SDS killed SLID as the fifties became the sixties, Weatherman killed SDS as the sixties became the seventies: SDS’s spirit of “participatory democracy” could not peacefully coexist with the vanguardism of Weatherman. And now, completing the circle, the SDS alumni of “progressives” for Obama resurrect a term that would have been more familiar to their distant forebears in the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. On the Left, everything old is eventually new again.

In 1968, the Left served as unwitting allies of Republicans, costing the Democrats the White House by rioting at their convention and withholding votes from Hubert Humphrey. In 2008, it is their vocal support that may cost Barack Obama the presidency. Obama can take a page from the early days of the New Left, which—initially, at least—refused to allow discredited radicals to discredit it. Either Obama publicly divorces himself from radical supporters whose association does more for them than it does for him, or he faces the prospect of Bill Ayers as his Willie Horton.

For more information, see Loudon: Toxic Trio! Ayers, Davidson, Klonsky Linked to Pro-Obama Organisation from September 27, 2008; and Loudon: Even More Weathermen For Obama — Connections, Connections, Connections on Ocotber 9, 2008.  These are the real eye openers and can be found through The Real Barack Obama. 

"Bring The War Home.  Chicago.  Octo. 8-11.  SDS."
"Days of Rage poster."
Image courtesy of http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/weatherunderground/film.html.

See:

•  http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0629df.html.  Obama’s Boys of Summer.  A Who’s Who of 1968 radicals supports the candidate.  June 29, 2008. 
• http://sweetness-light.com/archive/whos-who-of-1968-radicals-support-obama.  SDS/Weathermen Support Barack Obama.  June 29, 2008.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Rage
• http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/loudon-even-more-weathermen-for-obama-connections-connections-connections/.  Loudon: Even More Weathermen For Obama — Connections, Connections, Connections.  October 9, 2008 
• http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/2008/09/27/loudon-toxic-trio-ayers-davidson-klonsky-linked-to-pro-obama-organisation/.  Loudon: Toxic Trio! Ayers, Davidson, Klonsky Linked to Pro-Obama Organisation.  September 27, 2008.

Guilt By Participation

Republican National Committee
October 12, 2008

Despite repeated attempts to disassociate himself, Senator Barack Obama and William Ayers have a long history of knowing one another, working together on boards, and sharing similar political and ideological ideas of socialism espoused by the organizations they served. 

As for Ayers's wife Bernardine Dorhn, The Real Barack Obama brings up this information.

Is it coincidence or significant that Bernardine Dohrn (left, with Bill Ayers, 1981), after serving seven months in jail on a felony for refusing to cooperate with the 1981 Brinks robbery investigation, was employed from 1984-1988 at the prominent Chicago law firm, Sidley Austin, where both Michelle Robinson in 1988 and Barack Obama in 1989 would serve as summer interns, and where Barack Obama met his future wife? Is it coincidence or significant that Bernardine Dohrn supervised the interns at Sidley Austin and that this duty passed to Michelle Robinson after Bernardine Dohrn left to an associate professorship at Northwestern University? Is it coincidence or significant that Bill Ayers's father Tom Ayers (1915-2007) was a major client of Sidley Austin and long a significant proponent of progressive causes in Chicago?

"William Ayers and Bernardine Dorhn"
Image courtesy of http://thisdistractedglobe.com/2007/03/24/the-weather-underground-2002/.

See:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E3Vhnfhk-c
• http://thisdistractedglobe.com/2007/03/24/the-weather-underground-2002/
• http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/2008/10/05/batchelor-questions-about-ayers-dohrn-obama/

Though David sinned before God when his eyes looked in a direction outside the will of His Creator, God had blessed him with the kingship, blessed him with the respect of all who followed, lacking in nothing.  Yet like us all, within David's heart, a thorn of lust took root in his heart.  Sin began to grow with only a thought.  The Bible tells us, "for as a man thinks in his heart, so is he."  The very seed in his heart now bore the fruit of his tree in his actions, deeds, and words.  The country was at war and while David's forces fought for the lives of the people, David sat home.  Have you heard the old saying, "an idle mind is the devil's playgound?" 

While his men fought, David remained home.  Relaxing up on the rooftop, David glances across the way and what do you think happened? David's eye catches sight of the most beautiful of women.  It was all over for him now?  The devil had planted the seed of lust.  Here, a decision or choice had to be made.  Unfortunately, David chooses to give life to the seed by dwelling on the desires of his heart.  Just as a thorn pierces the very thing it touches, so too does the fleshly desires of this man affect others.

In his weakness, sin took root and began to grow.  David, however, knowingly pursued the very thing he knew wasnt his, for this prize belonged to another man.  Knowing that did not deter him though.  The seed of the sin was already growing in his heart and had begun to show up in his actions.  Blinded by his fleshly desires, he plans an innocent man's death to have this man's wife.  How many of you know that what's done in the dark will eventually come out in the light?  David's plan may have suceeded, but at who's expense?  Who would know the better?  Do you know nothing is free?  Lives were lost that day! What value is a man's life?  Had David considered the cost to achieve his end goal?  Everyday, many people attempt to achieve a goal, never considering the cost, much less consider how their actions may affect others.  David's actions may have brought about the end goal, but the lives of Uriah and his own men were the means to David's end.

Do you know for every action there is a consequence for that action?  Here sin brought about death to innocent lives not to mention David's spiritual separation from God.  If David only knew what was to come.  Upon hearing of Uriah's death and mourning, David takes Bathsheba as his wife.  She, already pregnant, later bears a son to the king, an heir to his throne, but not every blessing brings about good results.

David's union was not blessed by God. Lives were wrongly lost to bring about this union. Though God's judgment wasnt immediate, judgment was inevitable and imminent.  Nothing would stop what was about to come to pass.  Through judgment, God teaches David that there are consequences to every action.  What was meant to be a time of joy and blessing, now becomes a time of sadness and loss.  Though the child dies just as Nathan prophesies, David accepts God's judgment. 

How would you react to God telling you that the death of your child is your judgment? What would be running through your mind as you watch judgment unfold?  Would your attitude change toward God?  Would you reject Him?  Would you accept the consequences of your actions and go on, or would you harden your heart toward God?

David sinned. He experienced the pain of his actions.  Yet he remained true to God, reconciling himself to the One Who gave him life. David didn't let the consequences of his life change his heart toward serving God.  Will you like David rise above the occasion?  Will you look inside yourself placing blame where blame is due or would you blame God for your actions?  David recognized his sin, took responsibility for his actions, accepted God judgment and lifted his head to continue serve him.

Senator Joe Biden sure can spin a tall one.  From the Associated Press via the Arizona Republic, we hear the following. 

In a Baltimore speech last week, Biden said: "If you want to know where al-Qaida lives, you want to know where (Osama) bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me. Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."

Two days later, in Cincinnati, he said al-Qaida has re-established a safe haven and it's not in Baghdad. "It's in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said, "where my helicopter was recently forced down."

At a Sept. 9, fundraiser, Biden addressed his national security credentials by talking about "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan where my helicopter was forced down.

The facts however reveal a different story altogether.

THE FACTS: In February, Biden and fellow senators John Kerry and Chuck Hagel were flying in a helicopter over Afghanistan in a fact-finding trip when a snowstorm closed in.

"It went pretty blind, pretty fast and we were around some pretty dangerous ridges," Kerry told The Associated Press afterward. "So the pilot exercised his judgment that we were better off putting down there, and we all agreed."

He said the group waited for about three hours until a convoy with U.S. troops took them to Bagram Air Base.

"We sat up there and traded stories," Kerry joked. "We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to do it."

He added: "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."

Then of course there is the Vice Presidential debate at The News Junkie.

BIDEN: Can I respond? Look, all you have to do is go down Union Street with me in Wilmington or go to Katie's Restaurant or walk into Home Depot with me where I spend a lot of time and you ask anybody in there whether or not the economic and foreign policy of this administration has made them better off in the last eight years. And then ask them whether there's a single major initiative that John McCain differs with the president on. On taxes, on Iraq, on Afghanistan, on the whole question of how to help education, on the dealing with health care.

Look, the people in my neighborhood, they get it. They get it. They know they've been getting the short end of the stick. So walk with me in my neighborhood, go back to my old neighborhood in Claymont, an old steel town or go up to Scranton with me. These people know the middle class has gotten the short end. The wealthy have done very well. Corporate America has been rewarded. It's time we change it. Barack Obama will change it.

 Just one tiny little problem with that story, Joe. Much like your tall tale of being forced down in Afghanistan and about a million others you tell on the campaign trail (let's not forget the ‘I'm a coal miner' line, that was hilarious!) it's just a bit off the mark. In this case, Biden wanted you to believe that he's some sort of ‘everyman'. Biden's the guy who wanders through his neighborhood and hangs out a places like ‘Katie's Restaurant' and ‘Home Depot' (seriously, who spends ‘a lot of time' in Home Depot?). The problem: This Katie's Restaurant that Joe frequents? It hasn't existed in more than 10 years. It folded while Bill Clinton was in office.

Oh well, I guess there's always Home Depot.

Still amazed?  See Joe Biden's Mouth: 'If the Sparks Fly, So Be It' for more Biden-isms!

"Bush is brain-dead.  Should a man with 2 brain surgeries, who gives speeches about imaginary coal-mining ancestors, bring up the subject of brains?  Biden Abbyormal.  [Biden] Twist to open.  Property of Happy Dale.  Vote Joe Biden.  Screw-top logic for America."
Image courtesy of Jerry Breen (c) 2007 at www.newbree.com via http://robertsteely.blogtownhall.com/?tag=Joe%20Biden.

See:

• http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/election08/articles/2008/10/02/20081002biden1002factcheck.html
• http://wjnoblog.com/2008/10/joe-bidens-latest-tall-tale/

Here is the doctrine as most commonly stated…

WE BELIEVE IN: The final judgment of those who have not accepted Christ as Savior, with the devil and his angels in the Lake of Fire. (Assembly of God)

WE BELIEVE THAT: The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell, the place of everlasting punishment. (Southern Baptist Convention)

One very well respected Christian scholar, R.C. Sproul, makes this statement at the conclusion of his article on the subject: “Hell, then, is an eternity before the righteous, ever-burning wrath of God, a suffering torment from which there is no escape and no relief. Understanding this is crucial to our drive to appreciate the work of Christ and to preach His gospel.

Sproul’s Summary

1. The suffering of hell is beyond any experience of misery found in this world.
2. Hell is clearly included in the teaching of Jesus.
3. If the biblical descriptions of hell are symbols, then the reality will be worse than the symbols.
4. Hell is the presence of God in His wrath and judgment.
5. There is no cruelty in hell. Hell will be a place of perfect justice.
6. Hell is eternal. There is no escape through either repentance or annihilation.

Here is the link to Dr. Sproul’s website: http://www.bible-researcher.com/hell6.html

So what is it that I believe about Hell and why do I reject these common held beliefs? It is because I am convinced that even if Hell is a very real place of everlasting torment, the cross of Christ made it a moot point. So, in that sense, I can say that my belief is closer to the simple doctrinal statement quoted above by the Southern Baptist Convention… “The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell…”

The only thing I would add to that is the reality that there are no “unrighteous” around to qualify. And there hasn't been for over two thousand years! Just as Paul wrote, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” (Romans 5:19)

Just a note here: if you are inclined to add that this verse only says “shall many be made righteous” and not “all”… I will agree with you that it is an unfortunate translation. Several other mainline English translations add the article “the” before “many”, making it “the many”. Strong’s says this is communicate: “much, many great…”

What should not be overlooked is the fact that Paul is making a direct comparison between the result of Adam’s disobedience, which made all people sinners, and Christ’s obedience which has at least the same result, but unto righteousness. Can we seriously read this passage and believe Paul was saying that Adam’s transgression continues with greater power than Christ’s redemption of the human race?

Now, if that comparison is inadequate for you to entertain the possibility that Hell no longer matters, here’s more. Writer Gary Amirault has put together a very thorough piece entitled: The Hell Test. If you can read his thesis and still hold to the doctrine of Hell for everyone who is not a Christian, than have at it. It’s all yours!

You know who I feel the worst for in all of this? Governor Palin's youngest daughter, who was paraded out onto the ice with her mom like a prop. There's a reason Bill Clinton never carted Chelsea around. Or that the Obamas keep their children on a low profile. It's just not cool to subject your kids to that kind of pressure and public scrutiny.

To sum up this scatter shot post, here's my big epiphany for the day: If you're found unethical by independent state investigators and you parade your youngest daughter into an arena with the potential of being booed by thousands of the NHL's harshest hockey fans - and then YOU ARE BOOED - you're a bad hockey mom. A very bad hockey mom. I'm blowing the whistle and calling 5 in the penalty box for poor judgment.

Quote..

In the history of mankind, there have been times when man's rebellion has rolled in and advanced against decency and order. Then there have been times when man's rebellion has receded. I refer to those times of reformation and revival when, under the preaching of the gospel in the power of God, standards of behaviour within the nations affected have been raised and there has been a forcing back of the flood of iniquity that threatened to swamp the nation.

But it must be noted that overall there is to be seen an incoming tide of sinfulness that is advancing inexorably higher and covering the world.

In Paul's description of the last days, please note that he calls them perilous times. The word perilous means fierce ; it is so translated in Matthew 8:28. And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way . That which made the men fierce was the dominance of the devil and that which will make the last days perilous will be the devil's increasing power and influence in the affairs of men.

Notice the features of these days as stated by Paul in II Timothy 3:1-5.

1. This rebellion has its roots in self-love . Self-loathing and shame over sin is in God's eyes a precious thing. Whenever the sinner sees his sin and mourns brokenly over it and loathes himself for it, then God calls him blessed, Matthew 5:3-4. Consult Psalm 34:18, 51:17; Isaiah 66:2; Jeremiah 31:18-20 for further proof of what I say. But Paul says that men shall be lovers of their own selves . From this self-love spring covetousness, boasting, pride, evil speaking of others and of God (blasphemers). It reminds us of Absalom. But in all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him , II Samuel 14:25. His love of himself led him to despise his father David, and go on to rebel against him and expel him from the kingdom for a time, before being defeated and killed by his father's loyal soldiers. Absalom is a very clear type of the antichrist of the last days and the lawlessness and rebellion that will be a feature of his government.

2. The defying of authority begins with a defying of parents. It begins in the home, the foundation of all order in society. When order breaks down in the home then it is inevitable that it will break down in society generally. I need hardly point out to you that just such a trend is to be seen at work today. Paul makes this point clear in verse 2. The word disobedience comes from a Greek word that means anti-obedience . It is not occasional disobedience but an attitude of disobedience. Again it reminds us of Absalom. The attitude that is encouraged today through television and various publications, aimed at the young, is that of disrespect for parents. Confrontation with parents is frequently featured in young people's programmes. Invariably the parents are depicted as out of touch and vindictive and the young as victimised and, in the end, proved right. Young people today have been encouraged to set up their own kingdoms within their homes. Many have responded to the encouragement so that their room becomes a "no-go area" for Mum and Dad! There they listen to what they like, watch what they like, read what they like and cover the walls of the room with posters and pictures which depict just where their hearts lie and what they consider as the important people and things of life.

This is the spirit of an age that is moving ever closer to out and out rebellion against God, the author of all authority.

3. The rebellion spreads. Paul shows that from a love of self, man moves to oust all rivals to his love. His rebellion spreads from the home to society generally until it reaches the throne of God, 2-4. Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God is the description of many today.

4. Attitudes that are the opposite to that which is required of God are manifested. See what is loved -- self, pleasure, other people's property. See what is hated -- that which ought to be naturally loved, parents, neighbours, the good.

5. The rebellion becomes a religion. Having a form of godliness , verse 5. It is not a formless rebellion but it will seek to replace true religion. It is the rebellion of Cain and of the Tower of Babel revived. This is what is said of the antichrist in II Thessalonians 2:4. Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God .

Such then is the trend that will develop in the last days under the influence of the devil who is also called Satan -- the adversary, the opposer of good and God.

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision , Psalm 2:1-4

(complete message at link)

Palin violated state ethics law by trying to get her former brother-in-law fired from the state police, a state investigator's report for the bipartisan Legislative Council concluded Friday.

"Gov. Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda," the report states.

Technically, Gov. Palin didn't break the law when she fired Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan - which she is quick to point out in trying to defend herself.  What she did do is, in a blatant conflict of interest, try to influence Monegan to fire her former brother in law. UNETHICAL in her position.

So, before the Gov. gets back on the stump about executive experience, judgment and ethics, she should examine her own. Most certainly, the American people should ...as well as Senator McCain. You know what they say about people in glass houses.

"Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you." Jude 2 (NKJV).

Three words which are related to Christianity, and living a life that magnifies the Lord Jesus Christ.

"Mercy" is what God gives those who are deserving of justice, and judgment. Mercy is what the world receives from its Creator each and every day. The world is reeling, and moaning in torment crying out for redemption (Romans 8:19-22). There are storms, from which are spawned tornadoes, straight winds of destruction. Earthquakes cause us to feel the tremors of this earth, and economics and health. God is merciful, and calls for the repentance of those who are against Him. Many refuse, but He still gives them a breath of air, a beat of the heart, one more step. That is mercy. As Christians we extend mercy as well, by calling for our friends, relatives, associates and neighbors to come to Christ by faith.

"Peace" is not necessarily the absence of conflict. Peace is mostly an attitude in one’s heart and mind. If one is not at peace with God, there will not be peace in one’s self. There will be conflict, torment, and war. Most of the reasons for marriage failures is due to a lack of peace within one or both individuals - the man or the woman, or both. Most of the time it is both. God desires to give peace to all people. However, when the rulers of nations plot to overthrow the throne of heaven, there will not be peace. Paul the apostle wrote, "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…" (Romans 5:1). Without faith there can be no peace in the heart of individuals or on earth.

"Love" is of God. The love spoken of here is a God-trait or character. It comes exclusively from Him. As John the apostle wrote, "God is love". Someone added to this and said, "So, love is God". That is complete heresy. The love God is, is unconditional. His love requires nothing from us. His love in us does however, change those who have received it. We have not only been changed, but we also want to express it, give it, and a like spirit is found among those who are likeminded in Christ Jesus. We tend to move toward one another. We are not told by the apostle that we will one day love one another, but that we "love each other" (1 John 3:13-15). It is in the present tense. And we will continue loving one another.

-Tim A. Blankenship

There in all of his glorious glow, sits Illinois Senate candidate Carack Obama with ACORN members, in 2004.

According to the Cleveland Leader's Obama Campaign Involved in More over-Ups in ACORN Scandal

On Thursday we revealed the connection between Barack Obama and Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), and uncovered a 2004 article that discussed his involvement with the organization which had recently been removed from the web. Today, the cover-ups continue and language on Obama's fightthesmears.com website has been altered in order to make it look like he has been telling the truth about his ACORN associations all along.

Obama and his campaign continue to deny the truth.  Thanks to Barack Obama’s Involvement with ACORN Unearthed, Missing Articles Recovered at Audacity of Hypocrisy, and  Insight Analytical's Picture of IL Sen. Candidate Obama with ACORN Members FOUND… .

Read the rest of the story here.

See:

• http://insightanalytical.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/picture-of-sen-candidate-obama-with-acorn-member-found/
• http://www.audacityofhypocrisy.com/2008/10/09/barack-obamas-involvement-with-acorn-unearthed-missing-articles-recovered/
• http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/7231

I had a dream of tarot about a week ago.  I don't have them often.  In the dream, I was in a room filled with people I knew from an earlier stage in my life--classmates from high school.  I was passing out to each person - from a standard deck (though not a specific deck) - a tarot card which was associated with his or her personality.  I did not actually take notice of which card I was passing out to which person, but it was assumed that the tarot knew the answers and the appropriate card would be assigned to the right person.  Afterward, we were all trying to decide which card we might consider indicative of the term "drama queen."

In reality, I might suggest the Queen of Cups for her abundance of watery emotion, but in the dream we agreed upon the Devil.  An interesting, and rather telling, choice.  So who might have the Devil card, according to his or her personality?  Well, I could only think of one person, and she wasn't there, and no one else had the card.  I, being the only one not holding a card at the time, wondered if rather it should have been me - the Devil still resting somewhere in the pile.

Interestingly enough, I have a nontraditional tarot deck (The Tarot of Transformation) with a card that is termed/keyworded "The Drama Queen" (pictured above).  Strange, considering the card is neither the Devil nor Queen of Cups, but the 7 of Cups, a card most often associated with an overwhelming number of choices, or abundance/excess, or perhaps confusion.  Hmm...it's beginning to make some sense.

These are all issues I'm dealing with right now.  But pray tell, how am I being a drama queen?  True, I'm becoming outwardly frustrated at times, but I'm not throwing temper tantrums like a two-year-old (I hope).  The young woman pictured in this card is dressed in her finest, quite like a princess, or queen (complete with crown) and gazing at herself in a floor-length mirror (okay, this is ringing more than a few bells).  So she may be vain - I won't lie, I am! - but the drama?  Notice she is on a stage of sorts, in front of a crowd, her self-scrutiny and vanity not only mirrored to herself but on display for an audience of people.  They could be anyone - peers, co-workers, family, friends, strangers.  The point is they are witnesses, and she is center-stage and most conspicuous in her opulence, her overstatedness.  Anything not outwardly obvious or superficial can also be seen - all her actions, emotions and thoughts (to any extent that they show) will be witnessed by everyone around her.  As if she weren't more than capable of passing judgment on herself.

I'll admit, this sounds familiar.  And it might to many of you, as well.  Perhaps we don't mean to be drama queens, and can't help it.  We are not all attention-grabbers (though I'll admit I tend to wear eye-catching clothing, but that is not why I do it).  For some of us, very few parts of our personalities scream "attention-whore, ho!" or beg to be gawked at.  But some of us are drama queens by nature, rather than by choice.  Some of us dress to impress not because we want the attention, but because we want the look; some of us emote when we're trying not to, or overreact when we're trying to remain stable.  We cry at the drop of a hat when no one's looking, and are over-sensitive to even the tiniest hint that someone we respect is upset with us.  We earn social stigma for being shy as opposed to being loud, because others think we are being exclusive.  And when we make mistakes, people notice and judge - or at least, we trick ourselves into thinking they do, when it is us who can't handle the pressure, the workload, the confusion, the abundance, the emotion.

So what to do?  Well, if you're like me lately, you snap - deciding you no longer want to live like this - and start reorganizing your life from top to bottom: schedules, calendars, devotion to your favourite hobbies, time set aside for anything and everything you need or want to do, in the hopes you'll be more productive and happier.

You find a more tangible dream.  One that answers the questions you find your subconscious grasping at.  My dream is not simple - in fact, it is a series of dreams, all bound into the perfect life, one that perhaps I will never ever truly grasp or attain.  But I am trying.  A drama queen can't fully escape her drama, but she gets tired of waiting for the dust to settle.

There are many small dreams I am beginning to follow, but my tarot dreams are as follows: I plan to spend at least one hour per day engaging in tarot-related activities, two hours each week drafting a blog post in my tarot blog (that means one post here per week), and an undetermined number of hours per week promoting my tarot skills by any means necessary, so that I can finally start reading the cards professionally with a frequency that leaves me satisfied (and hopefully, financially better).

I drew two more cards from the Tarot of Transformation regarding this whole drama queen/tarot dreams situation and came up with the Teacher of Disks (Passionate Play) and the Six of Wands (Inner Seeing).

These are the kinds of cards that help us in our dreams, tangible or otherwise.  A leopard is agile and filled to the brim with force, a master of its element, but it knows when to stop, when to use that energy for play.  Disks are the suit of earth, of tangible things, of money and health and the physical body we live in and use for all our important tasks - handling and crafting and building.  This card  teaches us to know when to rest our bodies, to know when to work them for other people and when to work them for ourselves.  Similarly, the 6 of Wands deals with personal success, and teaches us the difference between pushing ourselves for the sake of others and doing so for ourselves.  This particular rendition stresses the importance of self-love, of inner passion and wisdom, of the knowledge and respect we give and earn of ourselves by looking inward instead of outward.   These are the tools we need to define, process and execute our dreams.

I am using my energy to realize and actualize those dreams.  What will you do with yours?

According to the Transcript: ServiceNation Presidential Forum at Columbia University on September 11, 2008, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama were interviewed by Judy Woodruff of PBS and Rick Stengel of Time.  In a nutshell, the World Socialist Web Site, Obama calls for US Military Mobilization, September 13, 2008, noted.

In remarks that clearly pointed toward the restoration of the military draft under an Obama administration, the Democratic candidate said Thursday night that his job as president would include demanding that the American people recognize an "obligation" for military service. "If we are going into war, then all of us go, not just some," Senator Barack Obama declared.

McCain... rejected the restoration of the draft, voicing support for maintaining an all-volunteer army.

The Freedom Platform via Best Internet News and Politics.

Obama said "when young people come in we work them like dogs"..referring to volunteers in his campaign. So now we have a picture of the CHANGE mantra Obama wants to implement. It seems he thinks parents would want their children to participate in this 'draft' type environment, and turn off TV's and video games. This is what "Michelle Obama" was referring to when she said "he will make sure you participate in his programs." So what do you think of being drafted into a social program to be active in your own democracy? The difference between Obama and McCain is that McCain believes in less government involvement in volunteering and Obama's forced participation in volunteer organizations. The biggest difference is that Obama believes in a draft that includes both a civilian and military side, and McCain believes in an all volunteer military.

"Future Obama Military Draftees"

Image courtesy of http://s3.amazonaws.com/apache.3cdn.net/45949c34cc0aa502bd_4rm6iipl7.jpg.

"Firefight"
Image courtesy of http://www.beloblog.com/KGW_Blogs/afghanistan/2006/07/panjawi_part_i_1.html.

See:

• http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/obam-s13.shtml.  Obama calls for US military mobilization.  September 13, 2008.
• http://www.clipsandcomment.com/2008/09/11/transcript-servicenation-presidential-forum-at-columbia-university/.  Transcript: ServiceNation Presidential Forum at Columbia University.  September 11, 2008. 
• http://www.bestnewspolitics.com/2008/10/08/do-young-americans-understand-what-obama-means-by-mandatory-service-plan/.  Do Young Americans Understand What Obama Means by Mandatory Service Plan?  October 8, 2008
• http://thefreedomplatform.blogspot.com/2008/09/obama-favors-civilian-and-military.html.  Obama Favors A Civilian And Military Draft.  September 11, 2008.

• .

"All In The Family"
Image courtesy of http://www.xanga.com/soleobsession_sg.

"Corsi, Odinga, Obama...Why Corsi was deported?"  From Live Leak via Pat Dollard, we hear the real reason Jerome Corsi was deported from Kenya, just before he was about to launch his expose on Senator Barack Obama and first cousin Raila Odinga.  Seems like Odinga, whom Barack campaigned for in Kenya in 2006, and who is also in the running to rule his country, may have had something to do with sending Kenyan armed immigration officials after Corsi.  Don't forget Odinga's father led the Communist opposition during the Cold War, and was educated in Communist East Germany.   How nice to have Communist thug connections in another country working on your behalf!  Read more about Odinga at the NY Sun and briefly at Free Republic.  See World Net Daily and McNorman's Weblog for Obama's United States Senate official email communications with his terrorizing cousin, and how Obama told his cousin to to communicate with him by that email anymore.

See video here.  Very good.

From World Net Daily (click to read whole story).

NAIROBI, Kenya WND senior staff reporter Jerome Corsi today was refused permission to hold a scheduled news conference about his investigation into Barack Obama's Kenyan links by Kenyan immigration officials and soldiers armed with automatic weapons who then took him to his departure fl More..ight and made it clear he was not welcome to return.

"Don't ever come back. See you in hell," Corsi reported an unidentified official told him as the author of the No. 1 best-selling book "The Obama Nation" was delivered to a flight departing from Nairobi for London.

"Barack Obama with cousin Raila Odinga, campaigning for his cousin in August 2006, Kenya."
Image courtesy of http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2099848/posts.

As for Raila Odinga, he has plenty to fear from an expose of his own behavior and atrocities in Kenya, despite first cousin Barack's support.  From Corsi and his book, "The Obama Nation," we learn,

• Raila Odinga is a socialist who as presidential candidate for the Orange Democratic Movement, or ODM, signed a memorandum of understanding with Sheik Abdullah Abdi, the chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum, or NAMLEF, to win Muslim support in the Kenyan presidential election of December 2007. [pages 107-109]
• Odinga supporters expressed their anger at losing the December 2007 election by engaging in a wave of tribal and religious violence in which machete-wielding Luo mobs killed 1,000 people and displaced approximately 350,000 more. [pages 103-107]
• The post-election violence included massacres of Christians in which Luo mob supporters of Odinga damaged more than 300 churches, including burning to death 50 people who sought refuge in a Christian church in the town of Eldoret. [page 104]
• Prior to the December 2007 election, U.S. political consultant Dick Morris showed up in a press conference with Raila Odinga in Kenya, announcing he was going to work on a pro bono basis for Odinga's election as president. [pages 114-115]

Now that we know a little about Odinga, maybe that does not help Barack either.

Image courtesy of http://cityencounters.blogspot.com/2007/08/terrorize-tourists.html.

See:

• http://patdollard.com/2008/10/corsi-odinga-obama-why-corsi-was-deported/
• http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c30_1223478281
• http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=77291
• http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2099848/posts
• http://www.nysun.com/opinion/kenya-connection/69273/
• http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=77508
• http://mcnorman.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/oh-look-cousin-odinga-stays-in-touch-via-email-with-obama/
• http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=75478

Liberal Outrage: A Pro-McCain March In Manhattan

September 23, 2008

"Dissent Protects Democracy"
Image courtesy of http://www.digitaldigressions.net/blog/2006/04/.

See:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQalRPQ8stI