Fox News reporting that a year before the Benghazi Massacre, consulate staff requested sandbags and a belt-fed machine gun to bolster security at the State Department facility. Those requests were denied, the Obama administration citing they would not be “aesthetically pleasing” and might “upset the neighbors.”
“We warned D.C. about the guys who moved in next door, but nobody knew what to do, and nothing was done.”
Month: July 2014
Federal Appeals Court Deals Major Blow Against Obama-Care!
The above is older video explaining the case (from 2013). Below is the most recent info on the case:
(Libertarian Republican) …That power rests with the Congress. Specifically, ACA requires people to spend up to 8 percent of their income to buy health insurance meeting the standards set by the federal government. But, the cost of such insurance is higher than 8 percent for tens of millions of people. So, the subsidies bring the cost down to 8 percent. The subsidies make Obamacare affordable and also mandate its purchase. But, says the DC Court, the federal government cannot overlook the plain wording of the ACA in providing these subsidies because that would expose people of modest income to a penalty….
Fed Appeals Court Panel Says Most Obamacare Subsidies Illegal
In a potentially crippling blow to Obamacare, a top federal appeals court Tuesday said that billions of dollars worth of government subsidies that helped 4.7 million people buy insurance on HealthCare.gov are not legal under the Affordable Care Act.
In its decision, a three-judge panel said that such subsidies can be granted only to people who bought insurance in an Obamacare exchange run by an individual state or the District of Columbia — not on the federally run exchange HealthCare.gov. Plaintiffs in the case known as Halbig v. Burwell argued that the ACA, as written, only allows that often-significant financial aid to be issued to people who bought insurance on a marketplace set up by a state.
The decision is certain to be challenged by the Obama Administration, and does not immediately have the effect of law. But if it is ultimately upheld, it would cause insurance rates for those people who lost the subsidies to dramatically rise.
HealthCare.gov serves residents of the 36 states that did not create their own health insurance marketplace. About 86 percent of its 5.45 million customers received a subsidy to offset the cost of their coverage this year because they had low or moderate incomes.
See Also Reason.org
Also, National Review’s Corner has this breaking headline that quotes Obama’s law professor:
Obama’s Law Professor: “I Wouldn’t Bet on Obamacare Surviving Next Legal Challenge”
President Obama’s old Harvard Law professor, Laurence Tribe, said that he “wouldn’t bet the family farm” on Obamacare’s surviving the legal challenges to an IRS rule about who is eligible for subsidies that are currently working their way through the federal courts.
“I don’t have a crystal ball,” Tribe told the Fiscal Times. “But I wouldn’t bet the family farm on this coming out in a way that preserves Obamacare.”
The law’s latest legal problem is that, as written, people who enroll in Obamacare through the federal exchange aren’t eligible for subsidies. The text of the law only provides subsidies for people enrolled through “an Exchange established by the State,” according to the text of the Affordable Care Act. Only 16 states decided to establish the exchanges.
The IRS issued a regulation expanding the pool of enrollees who qualify for the subsidies. Opponents of the law, such as the Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon and Jonathan Adler, argue that the IRS does not have the authority to make that change. (Halbig v. Burwell, one of the lawsuits making this argument, is currently pending before the D.C. Circuit Court; the loser will likely appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.)
“There are specific rules about when and how the IRS can deviate from the plain language of a statute,” Cannon explained to National Review Online, arguing that the subsidies regulation fails to comply with those rules.
Marines On Funeral Detail Ran Into “Sergeant Major” Douchebag
Via The Blaze!
A new video posted on Facebook Sunday appears to show two U.S. Marines confronting a man who they believe to be impersonating a military veteran. In the video, the Marines are friendly at first as they ask the man where he served as well as other details about his military service. The man identifies himself as a “sergeant major,” a military policeman, and a special forces operator. However, the Marines grew very suspicious with his answers and eventually called the guy out.
“You know that’s called false valor? It is a federal crime for you to be wearing that uniform,” one of the Marines tells the alleged impersonator.
“No it’s not,” the man shoots back. “You can get out my face right now… because I’m a military officer as well.”
When the Marines asked him where his “MP” card is, he claimed it was in his car. He never concedes that he is not who he says he is.
Source: U.S Army W.T.F! moments
Harvard Business School Professor Asks: How You Measure Your Life?
“It’s actually really important that you succeed at what you’re succeeding at, but that isn’t going to be the measure of your life.”
Too often, we measure success in life against the progress we make in our careers. But how can we ensure we’re not straying from our values as humans along the way? Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School professor and world-renowned innovation guru, examines the daily decisions that define our lives and encourages all of us to think about what is truly important.
Just How Much Have Democrats Changed in 20-Years? (Mark Steyn)
Mark Steyn (http://www.steynonline.com/) responds to the question of how far the Democrat Party has moved in 20[+] years in regards to its extremism. Senator Ted Cruz notes how far, for example, the Democrats have moved leftward from Ted Kennedy on the First Amendment (below).
For more clear thinking like this from Hugh Hewitt… I invite you to visit: http://www.hughniverse.com/
If you asked a student to listen to Kennedy’s inaugural speech — without letting them know who was giving it, do you think they would say it was a Republican or Democrat?
Atheists Challenge to Biblical Ethics (2 Kings 2:23-25)
~ See near the bottom, Joshua and the Canaanites.
“Cursed them – Nor was this punishment too great for the offence, if it be considered, that their mocking proceeded from a great malignity of mind against God; that they mocked not only a man, and an ancient man, whose very age commanded reverence; and a prophet; but even God himself, and that glorious work of God, the assumption of Elijah into heaven; that they might be guilty of many other heinous crimes, which God and the prophet knew; and were guilty of idolatry, which by God’s law deserved death; that the idolatrous parents were punished in their children; and that, if any of these children were more innocent, God might have mercy upon their souls, and then this death was not a misery, but a real blessing to them, that they were taken away from that education which was most likely to expose them not only to temporal, but eternal destruction. In the name – Not from any revengeful passion, but by the motion of God’s Spirit, and by God’s command and commission. God did this, partly, for the terror and caution of all other idolaters and prophane persons who abounded in that place; partly, to vindicate the honour, and maintain the authority of his prophets; and particularly, of Elisha, now especially, in the beginning of his sacred ministry. Children – This Hebrew word signifies not only young children, but also those who are grown up to maturity, as Genesis 32:22, 34:4, 37:30, Ruth 1:5.”
~ Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible by John Wesley [1754-65] (Source)
I was in a recent [now not so recent] debate about Biblical cruelty/ethics and the person brought up a verse that has not been brought up in conversation with me yet. It provided a fun learning curve on a specific verse and topic that opened up culture and manners of the early Biblical leaders and prophets of Israel. Mind you the person — involved in the debate — could not ground his presumed premise that this act would be morally wrong. In other words, without a Divine Law that both he and I can access to know an act was truly wrong, so I pointed to the idea that rape is really [if this skeptics position was correct] a natural outgrowth of a species surviving. I speak to this a bit in a chapter from my book:
How does the “carnal” person deal with the unnatural order of the homosexual lifestyle? Since it is a reality it is incorporated into their epistemological system of thought or worldview.[1] Henry Morris points out that the materialist worldview looks at homosexuality as nature’s way of controlling population numbers as well as a tension lowering device.[2] Lest one think this line of thinking is insane, that is: sexual acts are something from our evolutionary past and advantageous;[3] rape is said to not be a pathology but an evolutionary adaptation – a strategy for maximizing reproductive success.[4]
[….]
Ethical Evil?
The first concept that one must understand is that these authors do not view nature alone as imposing a moral “oughtness” into the situation of survival of the fittest. They view rape, for instance, in its historical evolutionary context as neither right nor wrong ethically.[5] Rape, is neither moral nor immoral vis-à-vis evolutionary lines of thought, even if ingrained in us from our evolutionary paths of survival.[6] Did you catch that? Even if a rape occurs today, it is neither moral nor immoral, it is merely currently taboo.[7]
[1] Worldview: “People have presuppositions, and they will live more consistently on the basis of these presuppositions than even they themselves may realize. By ‘presuppositions’ we mean the basic way an individual looks at life, his basic worldview, the grid through which he sees the world. Presuppositions rest upon that which a person considers to be the truth of what exists. People’s presuppositions lay a grid for all they bring forth into the external world. Their presuppositions also provide the basis for their values and therefore the basis for their decisions. ‘As a man thinketh, so he is,’ is really profound. An individual is not just the product of the forces around him. He has a mind, an inner world. Then, having thought, a person can bring forth actions into the external world and thus influence it. People are apt to look at the outer theater of action, forgetting the actor who ‘lives in the mind’ and who therefore is the true actor in the external world. The inner thought world determines the outward action. Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society the way a child catches measles. But people with more understanding realize that their presuppositions should be chosen after a careful consideration of what worldview is true. When all is done, when all the alternatives have been explored, ‘not many men are in the room’ — that is, although worldviews have many variations, there are not many basic worldviews or presuppositions.” Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1976), 19-20.
[2] Henry M. Morris, The Long War Against God: The History and Impact of the Creation/Evolution Conflict (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1989), 136.
[3] Remember, the created order has been rejected in the Roman society as it is today. This leaves us with an Epicurean view of nature, which today is philosophical naturalism expressed in the modern evolutionary theories such as neo-Darwinism and Punctuated Equilibrium.
[4] Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000), 71, 163. See also: Dale Peterson and Richard Wrangham, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 1997).
[5] Nancy Pearcy, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004), 208-209.
[6] Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (New York: Penguin, 2002), 162-163.
[7] Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004), 176-180.
Scientism, materialism, empiricism, existentialism, naturalism, and humanism – whatever you want to call it… it is still a metaphysical position as it assumes or presumes certain things about the entire universe. D’Souza points this a priori commitment out:
Naturalism and materialism are not scientific conclusions; rather, they are scientific premises. They are not discovered in nature but imposed upon nature. In short, they are articles of faith. Here is Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin: “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a priori commitment, a commitment — a commitment to materialism [matter is all that exists, nothing beyond nature exists]. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”
Dinesh D’Souza points to this in his recent book, What’s So Great about Christianity (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2007), 161 (emphasis added).
The debater never engaged his a priori assumptions. This being said, I want to deal with the verse at hand we discussed. The important presumptive idea behind dealing with any literary work is to understand how one is to approach a text of antiquity. I deal with this quite well in a paper on the matter, and any apologist should become familiar with this idea (click the latte). Using the principles involved in the Aristotelian dictum, let us try and figure this seemingly horrid verse.
2Kings 2:23-25
He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys. From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.
Here the skeptic posits God’s wrath on 42 children, presumably innocent in that their greatest offense was calling someone a “bald-head.” It would be similar to a guy being called “four-eyes” by a bunch of kids and then whipping out an AK-47 and mowing them down… and then expecting you to view him as a moral agent. In accessing the following books,
✦ The New Manners & Customs of Bible Times;
✦ Manners and Customs in the Bible: An Illustrated Guide to Daily Life in Bible Times;
✦ An Introduction to the Old Testament;
✦ The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament;
✦ Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form, and Background of the Old Testament;
✦ A Popular Survey of the Old Testament;
✦ New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties;
✦ Hard Sayings of the Bible;
✦ When Critics Ask: A Popular Handbook on Bible Difficulties.
I noticed something was missing. That is, a bit more of what is not said in the text, but we can assume using and accessing what any historical literary critic would with the principles that predate Christ — mentioned in the above “latte” link. Mind you, many of the responses in my home library that I came across were great, and, in fact they made me dig a bit further. (I do not want the reader to think that I place myself on a higher academic level that these fine theologians and professors.)
The word Hebrew translated here as “children” (na’ar) often means official or servant and doesn’t necessarily even refer to age at all. Mephibosheth’s servant Ziba is referred to as na’ar (2 Samuel 16:1), yet he has fifteen sons. The man that Boaz has positioned as boss over his fieldworkers is na’ar—not a position one grants to children (Ruth 2:5-6). The word na’ar is translated as “servant” over fifty times (roughly a fifth of the times it appears in Scripture).
(Source)
Three big points stuck out from texts I reviewed:
1) “LITTLE KIDS”
“Little children” is an unfortunate translation. The Hebrew expression neurim qetannim is best rendered “young lads” or “young men.” From numerous examples where ages are specified in the Old Testament, we know that these were boys from twelve to thirty years old. One of these words described Isaac at his sacrifice in Genesis 22:12, when he was easily in his early twenties. It described Joseph in Genesis 37:2 when he was seventeen years old. In fact, the same word described army men in 1 Kings 20:14-15…these are young men ages between twelve and thirty.” (Hard Sayings of the Bible)
2) HARMLESS TEASING/PUBLIC SAFETY
A careful study of this incident in context shows that it was far more serious than a “mild personal offense.” It was a situation of serious public danger, quite as grave as the large youth gangs that roam the ghetto sections of our modern American cities. If these young hoodlums were ranging about in packs of fifty or more, derisive toward respectable adults and ready to mock even a well-known man of God, there is no telling what violence they might have inflicted on the citizenry of the religious center of the kingdom of Israel (as Bethel was), had they been allowed to continue their riotous course. (Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties)
The harmless “teasing” was hardly that–they were direct confrontation between the forces of Baal and the prophet of YHWH that had just healed the water supply (casting doubt on the power and beneficence of Baal!). This was a mass demonstration (if 42 were mauled, how many people were in the crowd to begin with? 50? 100? 400?):
“As Elisha was traveling from Jericho to Bethel several dozen youths (young men, not children) confronted him. Perhaps they were young false prophets of Baal. Their jeering, recorded in the slang of their day, implied that if Elisha were a great prophet of the Lord, as Elijah was, he should go on up into heaven as Elijah reportedly had done. The epithet baldhead may allude to lepers who had to shave their heads and were considered detestable outcasts. Or it may simply have been a form of scorn, for baldness was undesirable (cf. Isa. 3:17, 24). Since it was customary for men to cover their heads, the young men probably could not tell if Elisha was bald or not. They regarded God’s prophet with contempt….Elisha then called down a curse on the villains. This cursing stemmed not from Elisha pride but from their disrespect for the Lord as reflected in their treatment of His spokesman (cf. 1:9-14). Again God used wild animals to execute His judgment (cf., e.g., 1 Kings 13:24). That 42 men were mauled by the two bears suggests that a mass demonstration had been organized against God and Elisha.” (Bible Knowledge Commentary)
3) ELISHA’S MISSION-HELPING NEEDY
The chapter closes with two miracles of Elisha. These immediately established the character of his ministry–his would be a helping ministry to those in need, but one that would brook no disrespect for God and his earthly representatives. In the case of Jericho, though the city had been rebuilt (with difficulty) in the days of Ahab (1 Kings 16:34, q.v.), it had remained unproductive. Apparently the water still lay under Joshua’s curse (cf. Josh 6:26), so that both citizenry and land suffered greatly (v. 19). Elisha’s miracle fully removed the age-old judgment, thus allowing a new era to dawn on this area (vv. 20-22). Interestingly Elisha wrought the cure through means supplied by the people of Jericho so that their faith might be strengthened through submission and active participation in God’s cleansing work. (Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties)
MORE CAN BE FOUND HERE:
- Elisha and the Lads of Bethel
- Question…wasn’t Elisha very cruel when he sent those bears against those little kids who were teasing him about being bald?
- Positive Atheism – Cliff Walker: Weak Bible Week Poster, part 4 of 7.
All good stuff, but something is missing. During the course of the debate I pieced together some truths, using culture and history as keys to a “crime scene.” Again, I want to stress what some of the habits were in this small town where this group of people came from:
Molech was a Canaanite underworld deity represented as an upright, bull-headed idol with human body in whose belly a fire was stoked and in whose arms a child was placed that would be burnt to death. It was not just unwanted children who were sacrificed. Plutarch reports that during the Phoenician (Canaanite) sacrifices, “the whole area before the statue was filled with a loud noise of flutes and drums so that the cries and wailing should not reach the ears of the people.”
Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow, Is God Just a Human Invention? And Seventeen Other Questions Raised by the New Atheists (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2010), 177.
This crowd of persons was older than what is typically posited by skeptics. Secondly, this group was a very bad lot. But didn’t explain why bald-head was egregious enough for God to call 42 scurvy bastards to judgement. To be fair, I sympathize with the skeptic here. That being said, there is more to the story.
I want us to view some artistic drawings of historical figures from Israels history: priests, prophets, spiritual leaders, and even Flavius Josephus.
What did you notice above in the cover to an A&E documentary? Yup, a turban as well as a cloak which covers the heads of the priests and prophets. “Biblical Dress” is mentioned pretty well in these few sentences: “The Bible tells how fine linen was wrapped around the head of the High Priest as a turban or mitre — the saniph or kidaris (Exodus 28:39). Ordinary people wore a kerchief over the head, held tight by a cord reminiscent of the Arab headdress commonly worn today, the ‘aggal.”
Christian Standard Bible [CSB], Exodus 28:1–5
And this:
- In public the Jews always wore a turban, for at certain seasons of the year it is dangerous in Palestine to expose the head to the rays of the sun. This turban was of thick material and passed several times around the head. It was somewhat like our handkerchief and was made of linen, or recently of cotton. The patriarch Job and the prophet Isaiah mention the use of the turban as a headdress (Job 29:14, A. R. V. margin; Isa. 3:23, A. R. V.). In place of the turban, the Palestinian Arabs today, for the most part, wear a head veil called “Kaffieh” which hangs down over part of their garment.
— Fred H. Wight, Manners and Customs of Bible Lands (Moody Press, 1953 | PDF)
-
Head Covering. Something used to cover one’s head either for protection or for religious reasons. Men wore either a cap, turban, or headscarf to protect against the sun. The cap was similar to a modern skullcap and was sometimes worn by the poor. The turban (Isaiah 3:23) was made of thick linen wound around the head with the ends tucked inside the folds. The priest’s turban had a plate strapped to it bearing the inscription “Holy to the Lord” (Ex 28:36). The head-scarf was made from a square yard of cloth, folded in half to form a triangle. The sides fell over the shoulders and the V-point down the back, and it was held in place by a headband made of cord. About the 2nd century BC. male Jews began to wear phylacteries on their foreheads, small leather boxes containing special scripture passages, at morning prayers and at festivals, but not on the Sabbath.
— Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Head Covering,” in Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 936.
Take note of the below as well.
I posted multiple images to drive a point home in our mind. The prophet Elisha would have had a couple cultural accoutrements that changes this story from simple name calling to an assault. He wouldn’t have been alone either, in other words, he would have had some people attached to him that would lay down their lives to protect him. And secondly, he would have had a head covering on, especially since he was returning from a “priestly” intervention. So we know from cultural history the following:
- He would have had a head dressing on — some sort of turbin;
- and he would have had an entourage of men to dissuade any attack or mistreatment of a priest of Israel on a journey.
One last point before we bullet point the complete idea behind the Holy and Rightful judgement from the Judge of all mankind. There were 42 persons killed by two bears. Obviously this would require many more than 42 people. Why? What happens when you have a group of ten people and a bear comes crashing out of the bushes in preparation to attack? Every one will immediately scatter! In the debate I pointed out that freezing 42 people and allowing the bears time to go down the line to kill each one would be even more of a miracle than this skeptic would want to allow. So the common sense position would require a large crowd and some sort of terrain to cut off escape. So the crowd would probably have been at least a few hundred.
Also, this holy man of God was coming back from a “mission,” he would have had an entourage with him ~ as already mentioned, as well as having some sort of head-covering on as pictured above ~ as already mentioned.
QUESTION:
So, what do these cultural and historical points cause us to rightly assume?
ANSWER:
That the crowd could not see that the prophet was bald.
Which means they would have had to of gotten physical — forcefully removing the head covering. Which means also that the men with the prophet Elisha would have also been overpowered. So lets bullet point the points that undermine the skeptics viewpoint.
✔ The crowd was in their late teens to early twenties;
✔ they were antisemitic (this is known from most of the previous passages and books);
✔ they were from a violently cultic city;
✔ the crowd was large;
✔ the crowd had already turned violent.
These points caused God in his foreknowledge to protect the prophet and send in nature to disperse the crowd. Nature is not kind, and the death of these men were done by a just Judge. This explains the actions of a just God better than many of the references I read.
I do want to end this post by inviting you to read an excellent treatment of this topic over at TrueFreeThinker: “Positive Atheism – Cliff Walker : Weak Bible Week Poster, part 4 of 7.“
Joshua and the Canaanites
This is an update of sorts, and it deals with the idea that God ordered ALL persons to be destroyed (men, women, and children) in the book of Joshua. But is this the directive from God? Scripture does not support this idea as a whole, and we shall take this journey together to find a solution to a seemingly tough subject.
There is a very important principle involved with reading the Bible… it is one of the first things taught to seminarians as well as layman. And it is this:
- “The Bible interprets the Bible.”
It is that simple. Now of course there are some other basics one must account for as they mature as a Christian, see my post on hermeneutics for instance. But let’s start with that simple sentence above. We will take a short quote from the larger portions that will end this small caveat. The book is by Paul Copan, and is entitled: Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God.
(May I also recommend this article, a summary of Copan’s three chapters from his book: “How Could God Command Killing the Canaanites?“)
Here is the excerpt with the portion highlighted:
The books of Joshua and Judges suggest that taking the land included less-than-dramatic processes of infiltration and internal struggle. Israel’s entrance into Canaan included more than the military motif. Old Testament scholar Gordon McConville comments on Joshua: we don’t have “a simple conquest model, but rather a mixed picture of success and failure, sudden victory and slow, compromised progress.”
Likewise, Old Testament scholar David Howard firmly states that the conquest model needs modification. Why? Because “the stereotypical model of an all-consuming Israelite army descending upon Canaan and destroying everything in its wake cannot be accepted. The biblical data will not allow for this.” He adds that the Israelites entered Canaan and did engage militarily “but without causing extensive material destruction.”
I will repeat that: “The Biblical data will not allow for this.” Another short excerpt taken from pages 170-171 reads thus:
Notice first the sweeping language in Joshua 10:40: “Thus Joshua struck all the land, the hill country and the Negev and the lowland and the slopes and all their kings. He left no survivor, but he utterly destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded.” Joshua used the rhetorical bravado language of his day, asserting that all the land was captured, all the kings defeated, and all the Canaanites destroyed (cf. 10:40-42; 11:16-23: “Joshua took the whole land . . . and gave . . . it for an inheritance to Israel”). Yet, as we will see, Joshua himself acknowledged that this wasn’t literally so.
Scholars readily agree that Judges is literarily linked to Joshua. Yet the early chapters of Judges (which, incidentally, repeat the death of Joshua) show that the task of taking over the land was far from complete. In Judges 2:3, God says, “I will not drive them out before you.” Earlier, Judges 1:21, 27-28 asserted that “[they] did not drive out the Jebusites”; “[they] did not take possession”; “they did not drive them out completely.” These nations remained “to this day” (Judg. 1:21). The peoples who had apparently been wiped out reappear in the story. Many Canaanite inhabitants simply stuck around.
Some might accuse Joshua of being misleading or of getting it wrong. Not at all. He was speaking the language that everyone in his day would have understood.
As you read on you will notice that God seems to contradict Himself, so does Joshua. UNLESS there is a cultural explanation that 21st century geeks do not notice. Again, I write more in-depth on this here.
That all being said, here are a few pages from the selected chapter. And may I say that the three chapters on the Canaanites were so enlightening. Why? Because they opened up the Scriptures more by dealing with what seem to be inconsistencies in Scripture but are explained well by Scripture. the following few pages show this to be the case, that is, exegesis (click each page to enlarge… if you right click your mouse and choose, “Open Lin In New Tab,” you will be able to enlarge the text dramatically — for older eyes):
(AGAIN, click to enlarge)
Where Do You Live, Mark Zuckerberg? ~ FIREWALL & More
This first video is another wonderful Trey Gowdy anthem. Click his name in the “TAGS” to see other “music to your ears” speeches:
Video description: Rep. Gowdy’s floor speech in favor of H.R. 4138 the ENFORCE the Law Act.
And this is a recent Jonathan Turley statement before Congress (do the same, check out Turley in the “TAGS”):
Video description:
Via The Blaze ~ I did turn the volume up from the original file… so prep your volume control.
A constitutional law expert warned Congress during a hearing Wednesday that America has reached a “constitutional tipping point” under the watch of President Barack Obama.
Jonathan Turley, professor of public interest law at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., said the legislative branch of the U.S. government is in danger of becoming irrelevant in the face of continued executive overreach.
“My view [is] that the president, has in fact, exceeded his authority in a way that is creating a destabilizing influence in a three branch system,” Turley said. “I want to emphasize, of course, this problem didn’t begin with President Obama, I was critical of his predecessor President Bush as well, but the rate at which executive power has been concentrated in our system is accelerating. And frankly, I am very alarmed by the implications of that aggregation of power.”
“What also alarms me, however, is that the two other branches appear not just simply passive, but inert in the face of this concentration of authority,” he added….
Democrats Creating a Health Crisis (Tuberculosis, H1N1, Chicken Pox)
An illegal immigrant infected a Maryland class of kids who were forced to get TB shots.
This from Gateway Pundit:
Dr. Elaina George, an ear, nose, throat and chest specialist from Atlanta, told Charles Payne on FOX News today that the US could be facing a health crisis as the thousands of newly illegal children enter the classrooms this fall.
“There’s an example in Maryland, where parents got a letter from the school that there children had been exposed to an illegal child who had TB who was one of their classmates. So this fall it is potentially possible that these children entering the school systems could be carrying all sorts of things, diseases that are not on the radar.” 
ABC News likewise notes the issue. I do take notice with their claim this will have no impact on the greater population… as they fly these illegals all over the country on confined — air recycled — planes.
The federal government is so overwhelmed by the current tide of migrants crossing the border it can’t provide basic medical screening to all of the children before transporting them – often by air – to longer-term holding facilities across the country, ABC News has learned.
[….]
Inside the government, officials are sounding alarms, fearing that they and their teams who come in contact with the sick children face potential exposure to infectious diseases from chicken pox to influenza, including rare cases of H1N1, more commonly called swine flu.
Two unaccompanied children were flown from Nogales to California despite having 101-degree fevers and flu-like symptoms, according to the Department of Defense memo. Those children had to be hospitalized.
The memo said pointedly that officials in charge of moving the immigrants from Border Patrol processing centers to Health and Human Services facilities are “putting sick [fevers and coughing] unaccompanied children on airplanes inbound for [Naval Base Ventura County] in addition to the chicken pox and coxsackie virus cases.”
And this note from Lonely Conservative:
This can’t be repeated enough. The illegal immigrants surging across the southern border are not being properly screened for diseases. While they wait to be processed and sent to communities all around the country they live in extremely unsanitary conditions, making the problem even worse. This is a public health threat that could affect every citizen and legal immigrant living in the United States.
[….]
…Border Patrol agents in Murrieta, Calif., have tested positive for tuberculosis. Hand and foot disease and Chagas disease, a tropical parasitic illness, both previously eradicated from the area, are on the rise.
The possibility also exists in these conditions for diseases such as dengue fever to hit the U.S.
“We had one get bacterial pneumonia a couple days ago,” Border Patrol union vice president Chris Cabrera told host Martha MacCallum on Fox News Channel’s America’s Newsroom Monday. “A lot of our guys are coming down with scabies or lice.”
Read the whole thing. This is scary.
“Waters World” Goes to the Deep-End of the Obama Pool
Gay Patriot says of the above:
These representatives of the Reality-Based Community wish to share the wisdom of the typical Obama voter. Yes, these are the people who decide American elections.
VICE News Footage of MH17 Aftermath: Russian Roulette (GRAPHIC)
On Thursday, July 17, 2014, a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet carrying 298 people was shot down over eastern Ukraine — allegedly by pro-Russia separatists. Residents in the area described bodies falling from the sky and landing in their own backyards.
VICE News travels to the still-gruesome scene of the crash and speaks to residents who witnessed firsthand a tragedy that promises to dramatically alter the terms of the conflict.
- Follow @simonostrovsky on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/SimonOstrovsky
- Watch all of VICE News’ coverage of the conflict in Ukraine here: http://bit.ly/1j0tCKk
- Check out the VICE News beta for more: http://vicenews.com
Dr. William Lane Craig Discusses the Documentary, “Unbelievers”
William Lane Craig takes on Richard Dawkins’ and Lawrence Krauss’ documentary movie The Unbelievers.
Sarah Palin Talk with Two “Boisterous” Ladies At A Bar (Mantras)
“I can see Russia from my porch!”
FYI, people travel to this spot to see Russia from Alaska.
Some ladies were very boisterous and making grandiose claims about many thing. one being that [and they even quoted the exact phrase that Snopes quotes below] that SNL soo popularized. When I finally had enough, I turned around, gave an example of the loss of insurance in my own work place: two people losing their insurance… one being able to pay more money (the business owner), and a young man who has lost his insurance because he cannot afford to pay for the higher costs under Obama-Care.
These women were previously going on about all sorts of things, people being entitled to social programs, them willing to pay more in taxes, etc. (overwhelming the young Republican gal with them surely). But I chose my battles well, with a personal story (noted above), and correcting them on a phrase attributed to Sarah Palin.
The phrase?
Yep, that one.
I politely corrected the phrase attributed to Sarah Palin (“I can see Russia from my house”) as not being said by Sarah Palin but by Tina Fey via SNL… but I actually got the Snopes response, which is: “I saw it in a debate.”
Snopes? You ask.
Yeah, that site you got to when friends (conservative or liberal) send you those “pass along” [forwarded] emails that make claims about politicians. Here is the Snopes claim:
- Claim: During the 2008 presidential campaign, Sarah Palin said: “I can see Russia from my house.”
Snopes then rates this as FALSE! Which really goes to show how many a persons make important decisions based on political [or religious for that matter — see bottom] misunderstandings by forgoing any serious introspection. The “bumper sticker mentality” is what I call it. But as Ex-Liberal’s Blog notes, even The Times misquoted the substance of the quote, that is how powerful pop-culture is.
I was honestly trying to help the women not announce their ignorance to the whole bar (although I doubt many know that SNL gave birth to the phrase, exclusively). Again, this woman told me — and I believe she believed it — that she heard it in a debate… to my face.
Here is a very recent example of this myth via PETA’s pop-culture followers:
Wild!
I didn’t press the issue too much, I just encouraged them to Google it. I then proceeded to hand my card over to the Republican gal at the table, whom, I hope becomes a fan of the blog.
Here is the real quote [BELOW], and she is both a) literally correct, as the photo at the top notes; as well as making b) a metaphorical/figurative statement basically saying (truthfully), “we are close.” But the left see’s things in black-and-white, and makes no room for small talk from their politicians… well… politicians from the side that disagrees with them.
One commentator on the YouTube account of the video below that goes well with the one directly above noted the CONTEXT in which Sarah Palin was talking about the close proximity of the U.S. to Russia:
…Palin was being interviewed and was discussing America’s Alaska based missile defense system, she was speaking of Russia and their proximity to Alaska. As an aside she stated that you van actually see Russia from parts of Alaska…which is true. Saturday Night Live then did a skit, using Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, and stating that she could see Alaska from her front porch. Because of that skit, which was intended to belittle Palin, many uninformed idiots believed that Palin did say that. (Emphasis added)
See a previous post where Palin is spot on on issues the “legacy” media and Democratic politicians railed her for: Democrats Now Admit Sarah Palin Was Right ~ Death Panels
I was trying to stop people in a public place from being LOUDLY “uninformed idiots.” But we all do this, we do not define meanings often times to words we use to refute ideas/ideals. For instance, defining properly the word “hypocrite” when stating “there are hypocrite’s in the church” when people give reasons why they reject “religion” (i.e., Christianity). Or rarely do they ferret out the opposite or logical conclusions of a statement, like, “I do not like organized religion.” The very next question to them should be, do you like disorganized religion? And if yes, which one?” History is rarely accessed to check up on one’s position. Another example of this would be that “the Bible has been changed throughout the years because it has been copied and copied over-and-over again (like the game of telephone).” As one can see from the first 11-and-a-quarter pages of my refutation of a professor at CSUN, and a chapter in my book, this is another false argument made ad-infinitum when I talk to people.
You see, people do not afford themselves the respect and dignity to know “that which they reject.” Instead, they cackle proudly about untruths in a public place creating straw-men arguments to be easily torn down by their own hands which just erected this untruth. This allows them to feel superior that they do not believe in such “dumb” people or ideas… all the while making fools of themselves. It is really sad.