Who is to blame for the water in Flint, Michigan?

Candidates for the highest office in the land were finger pointing about the lead in the water supply of Flint, MI at the Democrat debate Sunday. It appears to be a collection of problems and decisions shared by the local, state and federal (EPA) governments over many years. Since they’ve been in government their entire adult lives and are progressives/socialists, they need to look at the fingers pointing back at them as they conclude more government solves everything.

Some would say, no use assigning blame, let's just clean it up.  Of course, that's a given. There are children suffering and some will be damaged for life.  After Cher and other celebs move on to a new cause with which to get publicity, the townspeople will still need water.  But unless we also realize that bigger, more bloated and richer government bureaucracies are not the answer to all our problems, the next time it will be a building blown up, or a virus released, or baby tissue sold to the highest bidder (oh, wait. . . .)

 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-michigan-water-epa-idUSKCN0UX2KZ

 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/us/obama-set-to-meet-with-mayor-of-flint-about-water-crisis.html?_r=0

 http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/01/19/flint-epa/79007918/

I just walked by the sink

Pray for the Pro-life marchers!

Here's what's in store for the thousands heading for Washington, DC for the annual pro-life march.

" The snowstorm targeting the I-95 corridor from Richmond to Boston late this week has the potential to rank among the most memorable on record, according to the National Weather Service’s Paul Kocin."

These brave people only get a few minutes on national cable or broadcast news, but EWTN usually covers several hours.  There are many speakers, some from the government, and special events for young people and mass.

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/01/19/weather-service-textbook-east-coast-snowstorm-could-resemble-all-time-greats/

http://marchforlife.org/mfl-2016/rally-march-info

 https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/babies-lives-matter-thousands-converge-in-chicago-for-pro-life-march

Happy Birthday, Heidelberg Catechism

"One of the best known catechisms of all time is the Heidelberg Catechism. It is named for a German city, where it was prepared by theologians of the University of Heidelberg at the request of Elector Frederick III, a friend of the Protestant Reformation. Frederick hoped the new catechism would secure harmony among Protestants in his territories and strengthen the hold of the Reformed faith on his provinces. He wrote the preface of the Catechism himself, which is dated this day, January 19, 1563. The Heidelberg Catechism is used by the Reformed Church. Hundreds of thousands of people have memorized it and lived by its teachings over the years since then."

Of course, his plan to unite Protestants didn't go well--today there are about 35,000 different denominations and non-denominations or "just the Bible" churches, which if it weren't for the pro-life movement probably would have little to agree on.

 http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1501-1600/questions-and-answers-the-heidelberg-cat

Rate of increase in immigration

From 2010-2014 there has been 0% increase in immigration growth to the U.S. from Mexico and only 3% for all of South America, so the Donald is spouting for nothing. But it's 25% from South Asia; 36% from Iraq; 25% from Egypt; and 93% from Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, there has been a -1% increase in growth of immigration from Europe. North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Kentucky have had the largest percentage of increase in growth of immigrants. Bernie Sanders' state and Hillary Clinton's state were among the smallest increases--Vermont was actually -7.2%. [American Fact Finder, Census.gov]

 http://cis.org/us-immigrant-pop-hit-record-42-million-2014#frontpage

Chasing the millennial generation--a how to

 

Just Google "church attract millennials" and you'll find

• 5 ways, 
• 10 ways, 
• why they don't,
•  how to attract, 
• what they want, 
• why we need them, and 
• where are they. 

And you'll also read nonsense, and appeals to buy a how-to book. 

• First, you need a very loud band, 
• second, casual attire like torn jeans and t-shirts, then
• no (apparent) theology (although it's there), 
• dramatic presentations highly entertaining, 
• something called transparency (which usually isn't there), and 
• if your church is growing, you probably have post modern architecture, or a repurposed building that doesn't look like a church, and 
• very important to pull it all together is a minister/pastor with a terrific personality who has no discernible credentials or ties to any church of the past or recognizable to their boomer grandparents because "non-denominational" sounds better to them. 
• And even though there are thousands of service/ministry opportunities already asking for their help, start something new they can support.

That's a quick summary, and I just skimmed the highlights. The Gen-X generation has hit 55 and the boomers are in their 70s, so every church is looking for millennials.

Imagine Jesus' apostles starting off with this check list.

Increase in anti-police violence

City Journal's Heather Mac Donald writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Reaction to anti-cop vitriol is the biggest driver of the crime increase in Los Angeles and nationally. None of the factors usually blamed for crime — poverty, income inequality, the availability of illegal guns — have significantly worsened over the last year and a half. The one thing that has changed is the relentless, virulent discourse about the police."

LA Times

Tertullian's letter to his wife on marriage, 202 a.d.

How beautiful, then, the marriage of two Christians, two who are one in hope, one in desire, one in the way of life they follow, one in the religion they practice.

They are as brother and sister, both servants of the same Master. Nothing divides them, either in flesh or in Spirit. They are in very truth, two in one flesh; and where there is but one flesh there is also but one spirit.


They pray together, they worship together, they fast together; instructing one another, encouraging one another, strengthening one another.

Side by side they face difficulties and persecution, share their consolations. They have no secrets from one another, they never shun each other's company; they never bring sorrow to each other's hearts… Psalms and hymns they sing to one another.


Hearing and seeing this, Christ rejoices. To such as these He gives His peace. Where there are two together, there also He is present, and where He is, there evil is not.

(Crossroads Initiative)
Tertullian is considered an early church father, but later in life he broke away from the church and disagreed with the Pope on forgiveness of sins. He later embraced the Montanists known for their ascetical lifestyle.

Why can't we be like Europe?

Immigrants are flooding into Europe. A generation or two ago immigrants helped their falling birthrates as their empires broke up and they felt an obligation. They were hard workers, fertile, and wanted a future for their children. Not so much today. Those 2nd generation from immigrant families want to join ISIS; and the new ones want the social benefits pay off, don't want to work at all, and didn't bring women with them. And the birthrate is below replacement due to abortion and contraception and good times. Next? Well, looks like they'll have to pass some euthanasia laws for the old.

Yes, these are the countries Bernie wants us to imitate.

http://nypost.com/2015/05/03/bernie-sanders-us-should-be-more-like-socialist-scandinavia/


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/03/bernie-sanders-campaign_n_7199546.html

When people get what they ask for

 

Today's Old Testament lesson is from 1 Samuel 8 and should be a lesson for Americans.  The people are unhappy with Samuel and tell him they want a King.  He warns them, but they insist.  Really, it sounds like the American voters who think ever expanding statism in the form of Hillary or Bernie, or a bombastic loud mouth "boss" like Trump is OK.  So he prayed to the LORD, who replied:

"The Lord answered Samuel, “Comply with the people’s request—everything they ask of you—because they haven’t rejected you. No, they’ve rejected me as king over them.  They are doing to you only what they’ve been doing to me from the day I brought them out of Egypt to this very minute, abandoning me and worshipping other gods.  So comply with their request, but give them a clear warning, telling them how the king will rule over them.”

Then Samuel explained everything the Lord had said to the people who were asking for a king.  “This is how the king will rule over you,” Samuel said:

• “He will take your sons,

• and will use them for his chariots

• and his cavalry

• and as runners for his chariot.

• He will use them as his commanders of troops of one thousand and troops of fifty,

• or to do his plowing and his harvesting,

• or to make his weapons

• or parts for his chariots.

• He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, or bakers.

• He will take your best fields, vineyards, and olive groves and give them to his servants.

• He will give one-tenth of your grain and your vineyards to his officials and servants.

•  He will take your male and female servants,

• along with the best of your cattle^[c] and donkeys, and make them do his work.

• He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and then

• you yourselves will become his slaves!

• When that day comes, you will cry out because of the king you chose for yourselves, but on that day the Lord won’t answer you.” " (CEB)

Abbott and Costello- "Who's on unemployment?" (Stuart Sullivan)

COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America.
ABBOTT: Good Subject. Terrible Times. It’s 5.6%.
COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?
ABBOTT: No, that’s 23%....
COSTELLO: You just said 5.6%.
ABBOTT: 5.6% Unemployed.
COSTELLO: Right 5.6% out of work.
ABBOTT: No, that’s 23%.
COSTELLO: Okay, so it’s 23% unemployed.
ABBOTT: No, that’s 5.6%.
COSTELLO: WAIT A MINUTE. Is it 5.6% or 23%?
ABBOTT: 5.6% are unemployed. 23% are out of work.
COSTELLO: If you are out of work you are unemployed.
ABBOTT: No, Obama said you can’t count the “Out of Work” as the unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.
COSTELLO: BUT THEY ARE OUT OF WORK!!!
ABBOTT: No, you miss his point!
COSTELLO: What point?
ABBOTT: Someone who doesn’t look for work can’t be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn’t be fair.
COSTELLO: To whom?
ABBOTT: The unemployed.
COSTELLO: But ALL of them are out of work.
ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work. Those who are out of work gave up looking and if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.
COSTELLO: So if you’re off the unemployment roles that would count as less unemployment?
ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!
COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don’t look for work?
ABBOTT: Absolutely it goes down. That’s how it gets to 5.6%. Otherwise it would be 23%.
COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means there are two ways to bring down the unemployment number?
ABBOTT: Two ways is correct.
COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?
ABBOTT: Correct.
COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?
ABBOTT: Bingo.
COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to have people stop looking for work.
ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like a Democrat.
COSTELLO: I don’t even know what I just said!
ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like Hillary.

It's Ratification Day!

Happy Ratification Day, January 14. On this day in 1784, the United States of America was established as a sovereign entity.

• A proclamation was issued by the Confederation Congress on April 11, 1783, “Declaring the cessation of arms” against Great Britain.
•   Congress approved the preliminary articles of peace on April 15, 1783.
•   The Treaty of Paris was ratified on January 14, 1784.

The empty chair at the SOTU

At the State of the Union on Tuesday, Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) said that the empty chair President Barack Obama left in the first lady’s box for victims of gun violence should have been left for “those who’ve had their heads cut off or killed through ISIL, because that was the true cause of the problem in San Bernardino.”

Story here.

 
Why did this dress cost $2,000?  Even if it was donated by the designer.

The perpetual virginity of Mary

Two years ago I was in a Beth Moore Bible study with some former Catholics (now Lutherans) who were very puzzled to hear that Jesus had brothers, which they had never heard in Catholic school or attending Mass for decades.  And I was equally puzzled by the idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary, which I didn't know about. But as it turns out Luther, Calvin, Wesley and Zwingli also believed in the traditional church teaching on Mary. Who knew?

 http://aleteia.org/2013/10/10/a-protestant-defense-of-marys-perpetual-virginity/?

State of the Union Happy Talk

While telling us what a great job his administration was doing in the SOTU, the mayors of 22 cities had a different story. "MAYORS’ HUNGER AND HOMELESSNESS REPORT CITES INCREASED DEMAND IN EMERGENCY SERVICES AS ECONOMIC RECOVERY LAGS." 66% of the survey cities reported requests for emergency food assistance increased over the past year. Among people requesting, low wages were cited as the biggest reason for hunger. 58% of the cities reported an increase in homelessness. How can this be when the recession was "over" in June 2009 and unemployment is about 5%?

 http://usmayors.org/pressreleases/uploads/2015/1222-release-hhreport.pdf

I avoided Tuesday night's fantasy spin called the SOTU by the POTUS, and I avoided turning on the TV and radio in the morning so I wouldn't have to hear the analyses and audio clips. But while I was at the supermarket, I glanced down at the newspaper rack. There was his smiling face with headlines positive, but the other papers had front page stories about ISIS, Iran, and an 11.5% increase in health care for Ohio government workers, record high.

He lies, he lies. If his eyes are darting side to side and he is stammering, he's lying.

These 10 sailors, 9 men and 1 woman

got no mention during the State of the Union address.  But then neither did North Korea.  Huge PR win for Iran.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/13/politics/iran-us-sailors/

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35300019

Let's turn all those billions over to Iran. They can be trusted, right?

What if you actually won the Powerball?

Lots of us have been playing this mind game. . . "what if. . . how would I use it?" This is a good article. As a Christian, I'm daughter of the King, so I'm already rich, I have my inheritance, but even materially, as an American I'm very rich. "Did you know that according to the website, The Global Rich List, if you earn $50,000 a year you are in the top 0.31% of the world? You are richer than 7.38 billion of the world’s 7.4 billion people. If you earn just $11,700 a year – the poverty line in the United States – you are still richer than 6.8 billion people in the world. In other words, the poorest people of the United States are richer than 84% of the world." Caution: there are people who want to redistribute your peace of mind and faith in Christ, and your material wealth and give you nothing in return.

http://364daysofthanksgiving.com/lottery/

The Virtue Continuum

The microscopic world within us

"Thousands of species of microbes—bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa—inhabit every internal and external surface of the human body. Collectively, these microbes, known as the microbiome, outnumber the body’s human cells by about 10 to 1 and include more than 1,000 species of microorganisms and several million genes residing in the skin, respiratory system, urogenital, and gastrointestinal tracts. The microbiome’s complicated relationship with its human host is increasingly considered so crucial to health that researchers sometimes call it “the forgotten organ.”

Disturbances to the microbiome can arise from nutritional deficiencies, antibiotic use, and antiseptic modern life. Imbalances in the microbiome’s diverse microbial communities, which interact constantly with cells in the human body, may contribute to chronic health conditions, including diabetes, asthma and allergies, obesity and the metabolic syndrome, digestive disorders including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and autoimmune disorders like multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, research shows." 

Read at AACC (American Association for Clinical Chemistry)

This article says that 10 to 1 figure is a myth.  If you have 30 trillion cells, you'll only have 39 trillion bacteria.
Nature.

   

Tools.

Of particular interest is fecal transplantation, a procedure in which stool is transferred from a healthy donor to an unhealthy recipient (perhaps the same person, in the case of autologous stool transplant). This procedure has been 90–95% effective for treating Clostridium difficile-associated disease versus only 20–30% efficacy for antibiotics. Understanding which other diseases associated with dysbiosis of the microbiome could be corrected remains a major goal of microbiome research. The current regulatory framework in the United States, regulating stool as a drug and requiring an investigational new drug (IND) application for any application other than C. difficile, however, is a substantial barrier to research. Understanding more generally how various therapies including antibiotics, probiotics, prebiotics (essentially, fertilizer for the microbiome), phage therapy, etc. can reshape the microbiome remains a major technological and theoretical challenge.

Another bargain

I went out and bought 40 lbs of kitty litter this morning, and in pushing the cart to the cashier I saw a rack of clothing, $10, 50% off.  So of course, I had to stop and look.  I picked up something that looked like floppy yoga pants, but the tag was missing. They were the right size and a nice subtle dark color that I could at least wear around the house. I took them to the register where the clerk had to flag down someone to go check.  She came back with a skirt that was $6.50.  I told her that wasn't what I wanted, but they needed the tag.  They took 50% off the skirt and gave me the pants.

Now the problem is these $2.75 pants are covering my shoes.  Debating whether to just cut off 4" or take the time to hem them.  What would you do?