I'm doing something new at work with the "least of these".
There are a few students in our classroom that are not in the school choir or dance troop. So, I'm in charge of teaching them how to play in a bell choir!
We're going to play "Jingle Bells" at the holiday concert.
😉
Last Monday I walked into school and one of the secretaries was waiting by the door to talk to staff as they came in. One of the students had passed away over the weekend.
He was in my classroom this year and took his turn as one of my favorite students (all of the students are my favorites, but sometimes at different times). The student was medically - well, he didn't take solid food by mouth and had a permanent feeding tube. He had a lot of digestive problems and was totally deaf with a cochlear implant.
Two weeks ago he was fine. His mom kept him home from school on Thursday to have two wisdom teeth pulled. The autopsy results are not back yet, but all we know is that he got some sort of infection, it got into his digestive system (which has always been compromised) and within a couple of days he was gone.
This young man had two things going on. The first was ebay. Our students get a small check for piece work they do and he spent his on ebay. I took a trip last year and was in the town where ebay has their international headquarters. So I went and got my photo taken in front of the ebay sign and gave it to this student. He carried it everywhere! He would see me and say (in the stilted way of the deaf)..."Ellen...ebay...California...airplane...whoosh!"
The other thing was Coke. That was unfortunate because of the stomach issues, but it was calories that he had a hard time getting. After his funeral on Friday afternoon his family sent everybody home with a can of Coke in his memory.
There are no guarantees in life.
This student was adopted. We have a large percentage of students who are adopted - some of the families families thought they were going to get a perfect little child and couldn't (for a variety of reasons) gave the child they got for adoption. Other students were taken away from families because while babies should have a loving family, there are no guarantees.
But he was adopted into a loving family with three other children - also impaired.
It was a beautiful service and I will most likely write more on that later.
The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!"
When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?"
They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"
"Come," he replied, "and you will see."
So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour.
John and his two followers saw Jesus. "Look!" says John and they do. Put yourself in the sandals of one of those followers - trying to catch up - your attention is fixed on this "Lamb".
Suddenly, He turns around and looks you in the eye. Can you tell there's something "other worldly" about Him? He holds your eye and draws you in.
You are hooked.
Imagine that you move closer to Jesus until you are standing face to face with Him. You know, although you don't know how you know, that this is a turning point and that you will never be the same.
What is it like for Jesus to look at you?
What do you do when He gazes into your eyes?
When I feel Christ watching me, I am so very aware of how far I fall short. And yet, when I look to Him, I know that I am covered.
Not because I am good, but because HE is good.
It is not my righteousness, but His.
My "goodness" only gets in the way; it is when I am aware of my "badness" that I can fully fall on Him.
From the Witherspoon Institute:
Nearly half of all African-American pregnancies end in abortion
The abortion rate for African-American pregnancies is nearly five times the rate for European-Americans.
It turns out that half of ObamaÂ’s haul in 2008 has come in contributions of $200 dollars or less. These small donations do not require public disclosure under FEC guidelines, and the Obama campaign refuses to make public its list of contributors.
It turns out that half of ObamaÂ’s haul in 2008 has come in contributions of $200 dollars or less. These small donations do not require public disclosure under FEC guidelines, and the Obama campaign refuses to make public its list of contributors.
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From PowerLine
I've read recent reports of the Obama campaign receiving donations from dubious names and foreign locales and it got me wondering: How is this possible?
I run a small Internet business and when I process credit cards I'm required to make sure the name on the card exactly matches the name of the customer making the purchase. Also, the purchaser's address must match that of the cardholders. If these don't match, then the payment isn't approved. Period. So how is it possible that the Obama campaign could receive donations from fictional people and places? Well, I decided to do a little experiment. I went to the Obama campaign website and entered the following:
Name: John Galt
Address: 1957 Ayn Rand Lane
City: Galts Gulch
State: CO
Zip: 99999Then I checked the box next to $15 and entered my actual credit card number and expiration date (it didn't ask for the 3-didgit code on the back of the card) and it took me to the next page and... "Your donation has been processed. Thank you for your generous gift."
This simply should not, and could not, happen in any business or any campaign that is honestly trying to vet it's donors. Also, I don't see how this could possibly happen without the collusion of the credit card companies. They simply wouldn't allow any business to process, potentially, hundreds of millions in credit card transactions where the name on the card doesn't match the purchasers name.
In short, with the system set up as it is by the Obama camp, an individual could donate unlimited amounts of money by simply making up fake names and addresses. And Obama is doing his best to facilitate this fraud. This is truly scandalous.
Our reader was not yet done. He tried the experiment on the McCain site: "I tried the exact same thing at the McCain site and it didn't allow the transaction." He then repeated the experiment at the Obama site:
I went back to the Obama site and made three additional donations using the names Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Bill Ayers, all with different addresses. All the transactions went through using the same credit card. I saved screenshots of the transactions.
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From the NextRight
I just contributed $5 to Barack Obama.
I didn't want to. Ideally, I could have contributed $0.01 and cost them money. But it was the only way to confirm the root cause of the fraudulent micro-donations to the Obama campaign ("Doodad Pro" for $17,300 and "Good Will" for $11,000).
The Obama campaign has turned its security settings for accepting online contributions down to the bare minimum -- possibly to juice the numbers, and turning a blind eye towards the potential for fraud not just against the FEC, but against unsuspecting victims of credit card fraud.
The issue centers around the Address Verification Service (or AVS) that credit card processors use to sniff out phony transactions. I was able to contribute money using an address other than the one on file with my bank account (I used an address I control, just not the one on my account), showing that the Obama campaign deliberately disabled AVS for its online donors.
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DISCLAIMER: I'VE SEEN A NUMBER OF THESE "EXPERIMENTS" SO I'M HESITANT TO SAY THAT THEY'RE ALL AUTHENTIC. AT THE SAME TIME I HAVE NO DESIRE TO DONATE TO OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN TO PROVE THEM RIGHT.
It's not the pretty softly and gently flakes drifting out the sky...
It's the big wet globs that splatter on the windshield. But it still counts.
There's that time of year when a few red, yellow and orange leaves are still clinging to the trees, covered with frost in the morning.
And that means...
it's the end of fall allergy season!
Update:Â Instapundit notes that "if you split the tip between two homeless guys, they can outvote the waiter.
Yesterday on my way to lunch at Olive Garden, I passed one of the homeless guys in that area, with a sign that read "Vote Obama, I need the money."
Once in Olive Garden my waiter had on a "Obama 08" tee shirt. When the bill came, I decided not to tip the waiter and explained to him while he had given me exceptional service, that his tee shirt made me feel he obviously believes in Senator Obama's plan to redistribute the wealth. I told him I was going to redistribute his tip to someone that I deemed more in need--the homeless guy outside. He stood there in disbelief and angrily stormed away.
I went outside, gave the homeless guy $3 and told him to thank the waiter inside, as I had decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy looked at me in disbelief but seemed grateful. As I got in my truck, I realized this rather unscientific redistribution experiment had left the homeless guy quite happy for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pissed that I gave away the money he did earn. Well, I guess this redistribution of wealth is going to take a while to catch on, with those doing the work.
The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!"
When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?"
They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"
"Come," he replied, "and you will see."
So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour. (John 1:35-39)
Put yourself in the shoes of one of those disciples of John the Baptist. In the middle of town, the hustle and bustle of the marketplace, John says, "look".
What do you see? There is nothing special about the way He looks. But you follow.
He asks, "What do you want?"
~~
What do I see in Jesus that catches my attention today?
What do I want?
I see peace in the time of turmoil. Shelter in the storm. A refuge and strength; an ever present help in trouble.
I am drawn to Him like a moth to the flame; I cannot help but believe.
Now more than ever, as Reformed, I understand that there is nothing in me that would make me search out Him. The power, the sovereignty, the sacrifice all catch my attention.
That HE LOVES ME - not because of what I am, but because of who HE is.
I want...to know Him better.
Obama on FOCA"The Bad Old Days of Abortion"
What did pre-legalization abortions look like in practice? There were physicians who ran abortion mills, physicians who did selected abortions on their own patients, physicians who worked patients in through loopholes in the law. In addition to physician abortionists, there were the professional non-physicians, often operating with training, equipment, medications, and back-up provided by physicians. Here are more representative stories of pre-legalization abortions:
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Who performed abortions before they were legal?
(hint:Â doctors)
~~~
The bombing of abortion clinics
The last murder of an abortion clinic worker was 10 years ago Thursday.
~~~
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What is FOCA?
A government may not
(1) deny or interfere with a woman’s right to choose –
(A) to bear a child;
(B) to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; or
(C) to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman; or(2) discriminate against the exercise of the rights set forth in paragraph (1) in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.
Section 6 adds:
This Act applies to every Federal, State, and local statute, ordinance, regulation, administrative order, decision, policy, practice, or other action enacted, adopted, or implemented before, on, or after the date of enactment of this Act.
The section highlighted above in bold italics means that FOCA, if passed, will accomplish two things:
The National Organization of Women says that FOCA "would sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws, policies." Planned Parenthood says FOCA "would invalidate existing and future laws that interfere with or discriminate against the exercise of the rights protected."
What are some of these state laws? The Family Research Council has complied the following list:
From Between Two Worlds
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Heart, Mind, Soul and Strength
Do you know what you get if you run a DNA test on an embryo, a fetus, and a baby? Human, I expect, and I would be very shocked to hear anyone even try to maintain otherwise. Too easy to take samples to labs and have the matter settled once and for all. I mean, you could hardly screen for Down Syndrome in utero if you didn't know where in the human DNA sequence to look for the genetic problem, could you? In the case of a human pregnancy, "embryo" is an early stage in human development. "Fetus" is a later stage in human development. "Baby" is, in Abortion Rights terms, a still later stage in human development. What cannot be so easily escaped at this point is that we are talking about an early stage in human development: the developing human being is not fully developed but is fully human. The Abortion Rights supporters have long confused the two issues, equating "human" with a certain developmental stage. This is the ground on which they are, factually, simply wrong. We have some options in bringing this to light. We could factually call that which is aborted:
- human life in the early stages of development
- the embryonic (or fetal) stage of human development
- developing humans at the embryonic (or fetal) stage.
~~~
From Slice of Laodicia
Note: At 4:48pm central, a call was made to the Clarion Hotel in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The clerk was asked to confirm whether a discount was offered to patients at the Cherry Hill Women’s Center (abortion clinic). The female clerk answered, “Yes. The rate would be $59 dollars a night instead of $109.” The caller than said: “Let me get this straight, if I KILL my baby, I get a discount from your hotel. If I KEEP my baby, I don’t.”
The clerk answered, “Yes.”
Wow. Just wow.
~~~
On the "Born Alive" act
Obama's case against the bill did not revolve around existing state law, as he seemed to suggest last night. The law Obama referred to in the debate was the Illinois abortion statute enacted in 1975. But at the time of the debate about the Born Alive Act, the Illinois Attorney General had publicly stated that he could not prosecute incidents such as those reported by nurses at Christ Hospital in Chicago and elsewhere (including a baby left to die in a soiled linen closet) because the 1975 law was inadequate. It only protected ''viable'' infants-and left the determination of viability up to the ''medical judgment'' of the abortionist who had just failed to kill the baby in the womb. This provision of the law weakened the hand of prosecutors to the vanishing point. That is why the Born Alive Act was necessary-and everybody knew it. Moreover, the Born Alive Act would have had the effect of at least ensuring comfort care to babies whose prospects for long-term survival were dim and who might therefore have been regarded as ''nonviable.'' As Obama and the other legislators knew, without the Born Alive Act these babies could continue to be treated as hospital refuse. That's how the dying baby that Nurse Jill Stanek found in the soiled linen closet got there.
This is the bill that Obama voted against even allowing the bill to leave committee and be voted on by the full Senate and voted "present" when it was voted on.
~~~
How many late term abortions are elective?
In the middle of 1998, the state of Kansas instituted a mandatory reporting policy that required Tiller to submit information about the abortions that he performs. Â The Kansas Department of Health and Environmental Statistics has recently published this information: http://www.kdhe.state.ks.us/hci/absumm.html.
The information sends a clear message: the majority of late-term abortions are purely elective.  They typically involve healthy babies and healthy mothers.  If you are inclined to disagree, or if you have a hard time believing that mainstream abortion practitioners would be willing to kill babies that are months from being born, then I ask that you continue reading.  You will be amazed—and hopefully outraged—when you see the data for yourself.
~~~
