Protect our traditional rights to farm
October 30, 2011
Government bureaucrats are overreaching their authority, attacking farmers without even having warrants or court orders to backup their actions. The latest attack, sent to me by many alert NoNAIS readers, comes at a Farm-to-Fork on-farm dinner at Quail Hollow Farm.
Farm-to-Fork Dinner Fiasco
By Laura Bledsoe October 24, 2011
When an over-zealous regulator shows up at a farm dinner demanding that food be destroyed as hungry guests await, who do you call? Here’s Laura’s account written as a letter to her guests who had come to Quail Hollow Farm expecting a meal of foods harvested from local small family farms.
-Farm-To-Consumer, -FoodRenegade, -ShanonBrooks & -LewRockwell
Of interest, Nevada, where Quail Hollow Farm is located, is one of the more restrictive states. In the federal and many state regulations about meat slaughter and butchering it says:
Animals slaughtered and processed for animal owner may be slaughtered without inspection as long as the meat is consumed by the owner, members of the family, and non-paying guests.
-AMS.USDA.GOV, -APPPA.org
In Vermont we have:
Exempt - No inspection required:
Slaughter animals of your own raising for your own personal use, members of your household and non-paying guests
-Vermont Dept of Agriculture
The rules and regulations are so complex that there are things that can easily trip you up. Whether s it that way on purpose (government conspiracy) or by ineptitude (government stupidity) is often hard to tell. Many government officials are very helpful - get to know them ahead of time and work with them.
The problem comes when you get an over zealous, antagonistic government official hell-bent on sanctimoniously using their power. Using their power makes them feel like their existence is justified. They are afraid of losing their jobs if they don’t do something. Sometimes they have political motivations for higher office that they’re looking to promote by setting examples of how good they are at doing their job. Don’t let them climb the political ladder on your back.
http://nonais.org/2011/10/30/government-overreach/
The religion of peace is at it again just killing and stuff again. I'm glad i have a saviour and not a religion i depend on. Religion will let you down everytime. This is a taste of what will happen when they take over here like they have in Europe and the middle east. Good stuff
Islamic Extremists Kill Another Church Leader
Bantu woman shot after wife of militant confirmed she had Bibles.
NAIROBI, Kenya, October 1 (CDN) — Islamic militants in Somalia this week killed a woman who led an underground Christian movement in the war-torn country.
Sources told Compass that a leader of Islamic extremist al Shabaab militia in Lower Juba identified only as Sheikh Arbow shot to death 46-year-old Mariam Muhina Hussein at 2 p.m. on Monday (Sept. 28) in Marerey village after discovering she had six Bibles. Marerey is eight kilometers (five miles) from Jilib, part of the neighboring Middle Juba region.
Local sources said that on Sunday (Sept. 27) Arbow sent his wife to the house of Hussein, a Somali Bantu, to confirm the presence of the Bibles. Pretending to be interested in Christianity, the militia leader’s wife confirmed the existence of the Bibles.
The sources said Hussein readily agreed to discuss Christianity with Arbow’s wife and read parts of the Bible with her. When Arbow’s wife requested one of the Bibles, however, Hussein demurred.
“She told her that it might not be safe for her, preferring instead that she could visit her regularly for discussions,” said one source. “She then left and promised to visit again soon.”
The next day, Arbow arrived at Hussein’s house with other men and, in a friendly manner, claimed that he wanted to check something in the Bible. Knowing only that Arbow was a fellow ethnic Somali Bantu and having met his wife the previous day, Hussein innocently gave one to him, sources said.
“Immediately, Arbow told her that their mission was to look for Christians who have defiled the Islamic religion,” a source said. “There and then she lacked words to say. She was ordered to get the other Bibles out, and she did.”
Upon receiving the Bibles, sources said, Arbow fired three bullets at Hussein, who died instantly.
The Bibles were published in Swahili; besides this East African lingua franca, Bantus in Lower Juba also speak Kiswahili.
Compass has confirmed the killing with various sources in Nairobi and Somalia who cannot be identified for security reasons.
Hussein’s death comes a few weeks after the rebel militants killed another one of the leaders of Somalia’s Christian movement for distributing Bibles. Al shabaab militants shot 69-year-old Omar Khalafe on Sept. 15 at a checkpoint they controlled 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Merca, a Christian source told Compass.
Al Shabaab, said to have links with al Qaeda terrorists, controls much of southern parts of Somalia, as well as other areas of the nation. Besides striving to topple President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed’s Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu, the militants also seek to impose sharia (Islamic law).
In August al Shabaab extremists seeking evidence that a Somali man had converted from Islam to Christianity shot him dead near the Somali border with Kenya, sources said. The rebels killed 41-year-old Ahmed Matan in Bulahawa, Somalia on Aug. 18.
In Mahadday Weyne, 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of the Somali capital of Mogadishu, al Shabaab Islamists on July 20 shot to death another convert from Islam, Mohammed Sheikh Abdiraman, at 7 a.m., eyewitnesses told Compass. The militants also reportedly beheaded seven Christians on July 10. Reuters reported that they were killed in Baidoa for being Christians and “spies.”
On Feb. 21 al shabaab militants beheaded two young boys in Somalia because their Christian father refused to divulge information about a church leader, according to Musa Mohammed Yusuf, the 55-year-old father who was living in a Kenya refugee camp when he spoke with Compass.
http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/somalia/10010
Islamic Extremists in Somalia Behead 17-year-old Christian
Al Shabaab militants monitored home Bible studies of boy’s family.
NAIROBI, Kenya, October 19 (CDN) — Militants from the Islamic extremist al Shabaab beheaded a 17-year-old Somali Christian near Mogadishu last month, a journalist in the Somali capital told Compass.
The militants, who have vowed to rid Somalia of Christianity, killed Guled Jama Muktar on Sept. 25 in his home near Deynile, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Mogadishu. The Islamic extremist group had been monitoring his family since the Christians arrived in Somalia from Kenya in 2008, said the source in Mogadishu, who requested anonymity.
The Islamic militants, who are fighting the transitional government for control of the country, knew from their observations of the family that they were Christians, the source said.
“I personally know this family as Christians who used to have secret Bible meetings in their house,” he said.
Based on talks with the boy’s parents and their neighbors, the source said al Shabaab members arrived at Muktar’s home at 6 a.m., when his parents, whose names are withheld for security reasons, were already at work at their retail space at the Hamarweyne market on the outskirts of Mogadishu.
The extremists found Muktar as he was preparing to go to school, he said.
"The neighbors heard screaming coming from the house, and then it immediately stopped,” the source said. “After awhile, they saw a white car leaving the homestead.”
The neighbors informed the parents, who hurriedly returned home from their market stall. They buried their son’s body quickly, fearing the militants would kill them as well, returned to their market space and then fled to an unknown destination, the source said.
“When the incident happened, the parents called to tell me that their son had been killed and that they feared for their lives,” the source said. “Since then, I have not heard from them.”
On the outskirts of Hudur City in Bakool region in southwestern Somalia, a kidnapped Christian convert from Islam was found decapitated on Sept. 2. Juma Nuradin Kamil was forced into a car by three suspected Islamic extremists from the al Shabaab terrorist group on Aug. 21, area sources said. After members of his community thoroughly combed the area looking for him, at 2 p.m. on Sept. 2 one of them found Kamil’s body dumped on a street.
Muslim extremists from al Shabaab, which has ties to al Qaeda, control the area some 400 kilometers (249 miles) from Mogadishu.
A Christian who saw Kamil’s body said it bore the marks of an al Shabaab killing, according to a leader in Somalia’s underground church who lives in another city.
"It is usual for the al Shabaab to decapitate those they suspect to have embraced the Christian faith, or sympathizers of western ideals,” the leader said.
With estimates of al Shabaab’s size ranging from 3,000 to 7,000, the insurgents seek to impose a strict version of sharia (Islamic law), but the government in Mogadishu fighting to retain control of the country treats Christians little better than the al Shabaab extremists do. While proclaiming himself a moderate, President Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed has embraced a version of sharia that mandates the death penalty for those who leave Islam.
Al Shabaab was among several splinter groups that emerged after Ethiopian forces removed the Islamic Courts Union, a group of sharia courts, from power in Somalia in 2006. Al Shabaab has been designated a terrorist organization by several western governments.
In the Lower Shabele region of Somalia earlier this year, two Muslim extremists murdered a member of a secret Christian community, sources said. An area source told Compass two al Shabaab militants shot 21-year-old Hassan Adawe Adan in Shalambod town after entering his house on April 18.
In Warbhigly village on the outskirts of Mogadishu, a mother of four was killed for her Christian faith on Jan. 7 by Islamic extremists from al Shabaab, a relative said. The relative, who requested anonymity, said Asha Mberwa, 36, was killed when the Islamic extremists cut her throat in front of villagers who came out of their homes as witnesses.
Following the Oct. 13 kidnapping of two Spanish aid workers from a refugee camp in Dadaab, on the Kenyan border with Somalia, and the kidnapping and murder of foreigners at tourist sites, Kenya on Sunday (Oct. 16) began air strikes on al Shabaab territory in southern Somalia. Kenya Television reported yesterday that Kenyan armed forces had killed more than 100 al Shabaab militants in Kismayo in southern Somalia.
http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/somalia/article_122124.html
MUSLIM HONOR KILLING CASE GOES TO TRIAL IN CANADA (Friday Church News Notes, October 28, 2011, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In 2009, Mohammad Shafia was charged with murdering his three teenage daughters (Zainab, 19; Sahar, 17; Geeti, 13) and his first wife, Rona, in Montreal, Canada. Also charged was Mohammad’s son. The women were found in a car submerged in a canal. Rona’s brother and sister said that it was an honor killing (“More on the Canadian Honor Killings,” Atlas Shrugged, July 24, 2009). When the case came to trial this month, the National Post observed: “It’s the Canadian Maple Leaf that flies high over the picturesque locks at Kingston Mills near this historic city, but on the night of June 30, 2009, it might just as well have been the black-red-and-green flag of Afghanistan, with its sacred line proclaiming the greatness of Allah. What happened at the locks that night, Crown prosecutors alleged in Ontario Superior Court Thursday, was a so-called ‘honour killing’” (“Afghan Custom behind Canal Killings,” Oct. 21, 2011). After the bodies were discovered, Mohammad Shafia cursed their memory, saying that the women had “betrayed our religion.” In a conversation captured by a police recording device in the family car, Shafia said, “I say to myself, ‘You did well.’ Were they to come to life, I would do it again.” The sisters had feared for their lives and had sought protection from the police. Rona’s diary described beatings at the hands of her husband and cruel treatment by his second wife, who told Rona, “Your life is in my hands. You are not his wife; you are my servant.”
Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Sunday 10-30-11
No one should be surprised and this is the norm and not the exception, imo
Two abortion clinic employees plead guilty to murder
Two employees of a Philadelphia abortion clinic where live, viable babies were allegedly killed and a patient died after being given on overdose of painkillers pleaded guilty on Thursday to murder.
Guilty pleas to third-degree murder were entered by Adrienne Moton, 34, and Sherry West, 52, who both worked for Dr. Kermit Gosnell at what prosecutors have described as a decrepit and unsanitary clinic known as Women's Medical Society in West Philadelphia.
Due to a court-issued gag order, attorneys declined to comment on reports that no plea agreement was reached in the case.
Sentencing was set for December 2 by Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner. The maximum penalty for third-degree murder is 40 years in prison.
Seven more defendants face charges in the case, including Gosnell, who a grand jury in January said, "killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy -- and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors."
The grand jury said that a clinic co-worker of Moton's testified that a woman gave birth to a large baby at the clinic, delivering the child into a toilet. The jurors identified the newborn as "Baby D."
The jurors said the co-worker told them that the baby was moving and looked like it was swimming.
"Moton reached into the toilet, got the baby out and cut its neck," the grand jury said in its report.
West was accused of murder in the death of a 41-year-old patient, Karnamaya Mongar.
"The evidence presented to the grand jury established that Karnamaya Mongar died of cardiac arrest because she was overdosed with Demerol," the grand jurors said.
The grand jury said West and another employee administered the drug at Gosnell's direction and that Mongar died as a result of "wanton reckless conduct."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/27/us-crime-abortion-pennsylvania-idUSTRE79Q7GK20111027
THE JOKING PREACHER
( Friday Church News Notes, October 21, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is adapted from Heads Up! August 19, 2011: “Preachers telling jokes to ‘warm up the crowd’ is one of the most offensive things to be found in Baptist churches. I once heard an American preacher begin his sermon by telling fifteen minutes of jokes. I told him afterward that since we had 30 people there that day, he had wasted 15 minutes for each of the 30 people in attendance. That equalled 450 minutes of our time and the Lord’s time he had wasted. Seven and a half hours he had wasted telling us silly jokes instead of using those precious minutes to preach the Word of God to a needy people living in a desperately need time.” NOTE FROM BROTHER CLOUD: There is not a hint in Scripture that it is proper to turn the pulpit into a forum for telling jokes. We cannot imagine John the Baptist or the Lord Jesus or the apostle Paul doing such a thing. The preacher’s solemn charge to “reprove, rebuke, exhort” is not a description of levity.
Two abortion clinic employees plead guilty to murder
Two employees of a Philadelphia abortion clinic where live, viable babies were allegedly killed and a patient died after being given on overdose of painkillers pleaded guilty on Thursday to murder.
Guilty pleas to third-degree murder were entered by Adrienne Moton, 34, and Sherry West, 52, who both worked for Dr. Kermit Gosnell at what prosecutors have described as a decrepit and unsanitary clinic known as Women's Medical Society in West Philadelphia.
Due to a court-issued gag order, attorneys declined to comment on reports that no plea agreement was reached in the case.
Sentencing was set for December 2 by Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner. The maximum penalty for third-degree murder is 40 years in prison.
Seven more defendants face charges in the case, including Gosnell, who a grand jury in January said, "killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy -- and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors."
The grand jury said that a clinic co-worker of Moton's testified that a woman gave birth to a large baby at the clinic, delivering the child into a toilet. The jurors identified the newborn as "Baby D."
The jurors said the co-worker told them that the baby was moving and looked like it was swimming.
"Moton reached into the toilet, got the baby out and cut its neck," the grand jury said in its report.
West was accused of murder in the death of a 41-year-old patient, Karnamaya Mongar.
"The evidence presented to the grand jury established that Karnamaya Mongar died of cardiac arrest because she was overdosed with Demerol," the grand jurors said.
The grand jury said West and another employee administered the drug at Gosnell's direction and that Mongar died as a result of "wanton reckless conduct."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/27/us-crime-abortion-pennsylvania-idUSTRE79Q7GK20111027
THE JOKING PREACHER
( Friday Church News Notes, October 21, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is adapted from Heads Up! August 19, 2011: “Preachers telling jokes to ‘warm up the crowd’ is one of the most offensive things to be found in Baptist churches. I once heard an American preacher begin his sermon by telling fifteen minutes of jokes. I told him afterward that since we had 30 people there that day, he had wasted 15 minutes for each of the 30 people in attendance. That equalled 450 minutes of our time and the Lord’s time he had wasted. Seven and a half hours he had wasted telling us silly jokes instead of using those precious minutes to preach the Word of God to a needy people living in a desperately need time.” NOTE FROM BROTHER CLOUD: There is not a hint in Scripture that it is proper to turn the pulpit into a forum for telling jokes. We cannot imagine John the Baptist or the Lord Jesus or the apostle Paul doing such a thing. The preacher’s solemn charge to “reprove, rebuke, exhort” is not a description of levity.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Saturday 10-29-11
John Mica Attacks TSA 'Chat-Downs' As 'Idiotic,' Says Screening Failures Are 'Off The Charts'
The chairman of the House committee that oversees the Transportation Security Administration blasted the agency's recent test of "chat-downs" of airline passengers, calling the pilot program "idiotic."
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) told reporters during a briefing Monday that the TSA's experiment at Boston's Logan International Airport -- in which officers engaged passengers in brief conversations to help detect suspicious behavior -- is "a mess."
"This is no joke," said Mica, who has pummeled the TSA as a bloated bureaucracy with a mission he believes could be carried out more efficiently and cheaply by private companies under federal government supervision.
Mica laced into the pilot program, slated to be tested next in Detroit before rolling out to airports nationwide, as a pale imitation of the interrogations routinely conducted by Israeli security at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. He noted that the expanded behavior detection pilot builds on an existing program that the Government Accountability Office said lacked scientific validity and has cost "a quarter billion" to hire thousands of screening officers.
During a recent visit to Logan to observe the pilot, Mica said he watched about a dozen officers quiz passengers in the terminal. "I put my ear up and listened to some idiotic questions," he said of the questions that delved into where travelers were coming from, why they'd been there and where they were going.
"I talked to them about their training, which was minimal," he said of his conversations with security personnel. He went on to say that even though passengers selected for further screening were supposed to go through hi-tech scanners, on the day he visited the machines were out of service because there weren't enough trained personnel to run them.
"It's almost idiotic," Mica said. "It's still not a risk-based system. It's not a thinking system."
This isn't the first time Mica has denounced the agency he helped to create in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- on Monday he even trashed the TSA's blue uniforms and badges. But his latest harsh criticisms offered a preview of an upcoming committee report on the TSA's first decade.
The assessment will likely recount TSA's controversial record of using imaging technology that has raised the hackles of privacy advocates and has proven less than effective in spotting the dangerous materials they were designed to detect.
"The failure rate (for imaging equipment) is classified but it would absolutely knock your socks off," Mica told reporters. The number of times TSA pat-downs failed to detect contraband is also secret but, according to the chairman, is "off the charts."
Mica said the report, due out in the next couple of weeks, would be "sort of like the record of the Marx Brothers."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/24/john-mica-tsa_n_1028898.html
Of course have to keep a scert of all the things we do, i thought this administration was about change, not the same old smae old. They want to just continue to lie like normal?
Justice Department Proposes Letting Government Deny Existence of Sensitive Documents
A longtime internal policy that allowed Justice Department officials to deny the existence of sensitive information could become the law of the land -- in effect a license to lie -- if a newly proposed rule becomes federal regulation in the coming weeks.
The proposed rule directs federal law enforcement agencies, after personnel have determined that documents are too delicate to be released, to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests "as if the excluded records did not exist."
Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, says the move appears to be in direct conflict with the administration's promise to be more open.
"Despite all the talk of transparency, I can't think of what's less transparent than saying a document does not exist, when in fact, it does," Sekulow told Fox News.
Justice Department officials say the practice has been in effect for decades, dating back to a 1987 memo from then-Attorney General Edwin Meese.
In that memo, and subsequent similar internal documents, Justice Department staffers were advised that they could reply to certain FOIA requests as if the documents had never been created. That policy never became part of the law -- or even codified as a federal regulation -- and it was recently challenged in court.
Earlier this year, in a case involving the Islamic Council of Southern California brought against the FBI after the plaintiffs learned about the existence of documents denied by the FBI, a federal judge in California expressed great concern about the agency using the internal policy not only in response to the FOIA but to mislead the court.
"The government, cannot, under any circumstance, affirmatively mislead the court. … The court simply cannot perform its constitutional function if the government does not tell the truth," the judge wrote in a stinging rebuke.
A final version of the proposal could be issued by the end of 2011. If approved, the new rule would officially become a federal regulation with the force of law.
But the Justice Department got so much pushback in response to the proposal that it took the unusual step of re-opening the public comment period after it had already been closed. That second comment period closed last week.
When the new comment period began, the American Civil Liberties Union became one of the most vocal critics of the proposal. Mike German, Policy Counsel with the ACLU, authored a lengthy letter in opposition.
"It's shocking that you would twist what is supposed to be a statute -- that's supposed to give people access to what the government is doing -- in a way that would allow the government to actually mislead the American public," German told Fox News.
Melanie Ann Pustay, director of the Justice Department's Office of Information Policy, said the entire consideration process for the proposal "has been open and transparent."
She also notes that sensitive information requires special consideration.
"To ensure that the integrity of the exclusion is maintained, agencies must ensure that their responses do not reveal the existence of excluded records," Pustay said.
Sekulow says he is not buying that argument, and argued that FOIA requesters who get a response telling them that officials can neither confirm or deny the existence of documents now can at least go to court to sue for more information.
If they're told that no documents exist, there is no basis for a legal challenge at all, Sekulow said.
"The real concern is here is it changes the entire dynamic of what the law was intended to do, and really gives the Department of Justice the upper hand in area where they shouldn't have it."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/26/justice-department-proposes-letting-government-deny-existence-sensitive/#ixzz1c3mxFuTP
The chairman of the House committee that oversees the Transportation Security Administration blasted the agency's recent test of "chat-downs" of airline passengers, calling the pilot program "idiotic."
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) told reporters during a briefing Monday that the TSA's experiment at Boston's Logan International Airport -- in which officers engaged passengers in brief conversations to help detect suspicious behavior -- is "a mess."
"This is no joke," said Mica, who has pummeled the TSA as a bloated bureaucracy with a mission he believes could be carried out more efficiently and cheaply by private companies under federal government supervision.
Mica laced into the pilot program, slated to be tested next in Detroit before rolling out to airports nationwide, as a pale imitation of the interrogations routinely conducted by Israeli security at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. He noted that the expanded behavior detection pilot builds on an existing program that the Government Accountability Office said lacked scientific validity and has cost "a quarter billion" to hire thousands of screening officers.
During a recent visit to Logan to observe the pilot, Mica said he watched about a dozen officers quiz passengers in the terminal. "I put my ear up and listened to some idiotic questions," he said of the questions that delved into where travelers were coming from, why they'd been there and where they were going.
"I talked to them about their training, which was minimal," he said of his conversations with security personnel. He went on to say that even though passengers selected for further screening were supposed to go through hi-tech scanners, on the day he visited the machines were out of service because there weren't enough trained personnel to run them.
"It's almost idiotic," Mica said. "It's still not a risk-based system. It's not a thinking system."
This isn't the first time Mica has denounced the agency he helped to create in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- on Monday he even trashed the TSA's blue uniforms and badges. But his latest harsh criticisms offered a preview of an upcoming committee report on the TSA's first decade.
The assessment will likely recount TSA's controversial record of using imaging technology that has raised the hackles of privacy advocates and has proven less than effective in spotting the dangerous materials they were designed to detect.
"The failure rate (for imaging equipment) is classified but it would absolutely knock your socks off," Mica told reporters. The number of times TSA pat-downs failed to detect contraband is also secret but, according to the chairman, is "off the charts."
Mica said the report, due out in the next couple of weeks, would be "sort of like the record of the Marx Brothers."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/24/john-mica-tsa_n_1028898.html
Of course have to keep a scert of all the things we do, i thought this administration was about change, not the same old smae old. They want to just continue to lie like normal?
Justice Department Proposes Letting Government Deny Existence of Sensitive Documents
A longtime internal policy that allowed Justice Department officials to deny the existence of sensitive information could become the law of the land -- in effect a license to lie -- if a newly proposed rule becomes federal regulation in the coming weeks.
The proposed rule directs federal law enforcement agencies, after personnel have determined that documents are too delicate to be released, to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests "as if the excluded records did not exist."
Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, says the move appears to be in direct conflict with the administration's promise to be more open.
"Despite all the talk of transparency, I can't think of what's less transparent than saying a document does not exist, when in fact, it does," Sekulow told Fox News.
Justice Department officials say the practice has been in effect for decades, dating back to a 1987 memo from then-Attorney General Edwin Meese.
In that memo, and subsequent similar internal documents, Justice Department staffers were advised that they could reply to certain FOIA requests as if the documents had never been created. That policy never became part of the law -- or even codified as a federal regulation -- and it was recently challenged in court.
Earlier this year, in a case involving the Islamic Council of Southern California brought against the FBI after the plaintiffs learned about the existence of documents denied by the FBI, a federal judge in California expressed great concern about the agency using the internal policy not only in response to the FOIA but to mislead the court.
"The government, cannot, under any circumstance, affirmatively mislead the court. … The court simply cannot perform its constitutional function if the government does not tell the truth," the judge wrote in a stinging rebuke.
A final version of the proposal could be issued by the end of 2011. If approved, the new rule would officially become a federal regulation with the force of law.
But the Justice Department got so much pushback in response to the proposal that it took the unusual step of re-opening the public comment period after it had already been closed. That second comment period closed last week.
When the new comment period began, the American Civil Liberties Union became one of the most vocal critics of the proposal. Mike German, Policy Counsel with the ACLU, authored a lengthy letter in opposition.
"It's shocking that you would twist what is supposed to be a statute -- that's supposed to give people access to what the government is doing -- in a way that would allow the government to actually mislead the American public," German told Fox News.
Melanie Ann Pustay, director of the Justice Department's Office of Information Policy, said the entire consideration process for the proposal "has been open and transparent."
She also notes that sensitive information requires special consideration.
"To ensure that the integrity of the exclusion is maintained, agencies must ensure that their responses do not reveal the existence of excluded records," Pustay said.
Sekulow says he is not buying that argument, and argued that FOIA requesters who get a response telling them that officials can neither confirm or deny the existence of documents now can at least go to court to sue for more information.
If they're told that no documents exist, there is no basis for a legal challenge at all, Sekulow said.
"The real concern is here is it changes the entire dynamic of what the law was intended to do, and really gives the Department of Justice the upper hand in area where they shouldn't have it."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/26/justice-department-proposes-letting-government-deny-existence-sensitive/#ixzz1c3mxFuTP
Friday, October 28, 2011
Friday 10-28-11
Untapped energy lies just below the U.S.
There might be more untapped potential energy underground in the United States than you think.
In this case, we're not talking about oil or any other fossil fuel, for that matter.
The energy is geothermal, harnessing the heat from molten rock beneath the Earth's crust and converting it into electricity.
Right now, the United States leads the world in geothermal generation, producing more than three million megawatts of electricity from 77 plants.
But a new map created by Southern Methodist University's Geothermal Lab, with help from a grant from Google's philanthropic arm Google.org, may reveal yet more untapped energy lying underneath this nation's surface.
The map estimates the U.S. could potentially generate nearly three million megawatts using the Earth's heat, or about ten times the installed capacity of coal power.
"I do think that's in our future, and there are new technologies out there that are changing the energy dynamic, the way we thought about technology just five or ten years ago," says Phil Flynn, senior energy analyst at PFG Best.
He also notes that changes in technology have made it easier to extract natural gas from shale, using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. He sees geothermal as just one component of an expanded, more independent energy future for the United States.
"It's a very nice map to show you, not only are we the Saudi Arabia of natural gas now with these new technologies, we may be the Saudi Arabia of the Earth's crust heat," says Beutel.
Learn more about the SMU Geothermal Lab map here.
http://wtop.com/%3Chttp://www.google.org/egs/%3E
http://wtop.com/?nid=41&sid=2608911
There might be more untapped potential energy underground in the United States than you think.
In this case, we're not talking about oil or any other fossil fuel, for that matter.
The energy is geothermal, harnessing the heat from molten rock beneath the Earth's crust and converting it into electricity.
Right now, the United States leads the world in geothermal generation, producing more than three million megawatts of electricity from 77 plants.
But a new map created by Southern Methodist University's Geothermal Lab, with help from a grant from Google's philanthropic arm Google.org, may reveal yet more untapped energy lying underneath this nation's surface.
The map estimates the U.S. could potentially generate nearly three million megawatts using the Earth's heat, or about ten times the installed capacity of coal power.
"I do think that's in our future, and there are new technologies out there that are changing the energy dynamic, the way we thought about technology just five or ten years ago," says Phil Flynn, senior energy analyst at PFG Best.
He also notes that changes in technology have made it easier to extract natural gas from shale, using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. He sees geothermal as just one component of an expanded, more independent energy future for the United States.
"It's a very nice map to show you, not only are we the Saudi Arabia of natural gas now with these new technologies, we may be the Saudi Arabia of the Earth's crust heat," says Beutel.
Learn more about the SMU Geothermal Lab map here.
http://wtop.com/%3Chttp://www.google.org/egs/%3E
http://wtop.com/?nid=41&sid=2608911
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Thursday 10-27-11
This is absolutely mind-boggling. Put your mouse on any one of the thousands of
people and click twice. Keep the mouse on the person and keep clicking twice. (or
use scroll wheel ) Face Recognition in a Crowd This is the crowd before the
riot. Put your cursor anywhere in the crowd And double-click. Keep double
clicking and see what happens. This is a great tool for law enforcement. This
is the photo taken by Port Moody photographer Ronnie Miranda that Appeared in our
Tri-City News last Friday (24-June). When you open this up, check the left hand
side where you can upsize the Photo, and click on the Yellow print "view with
GigaTag".This is actually scary. You can see - perfectly - the faces of every
single Individual - and there were thousands! Privacy? Just think what the police
and the military have at their Disposal.
http://www.gigapixel.com/image/gigapan-canucks-g7.html
If you could trust them to do only for the reasons they say, i would still not think it was good idea, but...
'Rogue websites' bill introduced in US House
US lawmakers introduced a bill on Wednesday that would give US authorities more tools to crack down on websites accused of piracy of movies, television shows and music and the sale of counterfeit goods.
The Stop Online Piracy Act has received bipartisan support in the House of Representatives and is the House version of a bill introduced in the Senate in May known as the Theft of Intellectual Property Act or Protect IP Act.
The legislation has received the backing of Hollywood, the music industry, the Business Software Alliance, the National Association of Manufacturers, the US Chamber of Commerce and other groups.
But it has come under fire from digital rights and free speech organizations for allegedly paving the way for US law enforcement to unilaterally shut down websites, including foreign sites, without due process.
House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas, said the bill "helps stop the flow of revenue to rogue websites and ensures that the profits from American innovations go to American innovators.
"Rogue websites that steal and sell American innovations have operated with impunity," Smith said in a statement.
"The online thieves who run these foreign websites are out of the reach of US law enforcement agencies and profit from selling pirated goods without any legal consequences," he said.
"The bill prevents online thieves from selling counterfeit goods in the US, expands international protections for intellectual property, and protects American consumers from dangerous counterfeit products," Smith said.
Howard Berman, a Democrat from California who co-sponsored the legislation, said it is "an important next step in the fight against digital theft and sends a strong message that the United States will not waiver in our battle to protect America's creators and innovators."
The House Judiciary Committee is to hold a hearing on the bill on November 16.
The Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) said the House bill "raises serious red flags.
"It includes the most controversial parts of the Senate's Protect IP Act, but radically expands the scope," the CDT said in a statement. "Any website that features user-generated content or that enables cloud-based data storage could end up in its crosshairs.
"Internet Service Providers would face new and open-ended obligations to monitor and police user behavior," the CDT said. "Payment processors and ad networks would be required to cut off business with any website that rightsholders allege hasn't done enough to police infringement.
"The bill represents a serious threat to online innovation and to legitimate online communications tools," it said.
The Obama administration has come in for some criticism for shutting down dozens of "rogue websites" over the past year as part of a crackdown known as "Operation in Our Sites."
US authorities in November, for example, shut down 82 websites selling mostly Chinese-made counterfeit goods, including golf clubs, Walt Disney movies, handbags and other items.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.64f335a63a0a239e61cf0891c65a0c44.a81&show_article=1
Don't particularly link this site, but usually it has truth behind what they say
New Street Lights To Have “Homeland Security” Applications
UPDATE: Presumably in response to this article being linked on the Drudge Report, the company behind ‘Intellistreets’, Illuminating Concepts, has now pulled the video from You Tube entirely, presumably nervous about the negative publicity that could be generated from concerns about street lights being used for “Homeland Security” purposes – their words, not ours. We have added an alternative version of the clip below, but it may be subject to removal at any time. The video is still available on the company’s website.
RELATED: Promo Video For DHS-Backed ‘Spy Street Lights’ Pulled From You Tube
New street lights that include “Homeland Security” applications including speaker systems, motion sensors and video surveillance are now being rolled out with the aid of government funding.
The Intellistreets system comprises of a wireless digital infrastructure that allows street lights to be controlled remotely by means of a ubiquitous wi-fi link and a miniature computer housed inside each street light, allowing for “security, energy management, data harvesting and digital media,” according to the Illuminating Concepts website.
According to the company’s You Tube video of the concept, the primary capabilities of the devices include “energy conservation, homeland security, public safety, traffic control, advertising, video surveillance.”
In terms of Homeland Security applications, each of the light poles contains a speaker system that can be used to broadcast emergency alerts, as well as a display that transmits “security levels” (presumably a similar system to the DHS’ much maligned color-coded terror alert designation), in addition to showing instructions by way of its LED video screen.
The lights also include proximity sensors that can record both pedestrian and road traffic. The video display and speaker system will also be used to transmit Minority Report-style advertising, as well as Amber Alerts and other “civic announcements”.
With the aid of grant money from the federal government, the company is about to launch the first concept installation of the system in the city of Farmington Hills, Michigan.
Using street lights as surveillance tools has already been advanced by several European countries. In 2007, leaked documents out of the UK Home Office revealed that British authorities were working on proposals to fit lamp posts with CCTV cameras that would X-ray scan passers-by and “undress them” in order to “trap terror suspects”.
Dutch police also announced last year that they are developing a mobile scanner that will “see through people’s clothing and look for concealed weapons”.
So-called ‘talking surveillance cameras’ that use a speaker system similar to the Intellistreets model are already being used in UK cities like Middlesborough to bark orders and reprimand people for dropping litter and other minor offenses. According to reports, one of the most common phrases used to shame people into obeying instructions is to broadcast the message, “We are watching you.”
The transformation of street lights into surveillance tools for Homeland Security purposes will only serve to heighten concerns that the United States is fast on the way to becoming a high-tech police state, with TSA agents being empowered to oversee that control grid, most recently with the announcement that TSA screeners would be manning highway checkpoints, a further indication that security measures we currently see in airports are rapidly spilling out onto the streets.
The ability of the government to use street lights to transmit “emergency alerts” also dovetails with the ongoing efforts to hijack radio and television broadcasts for the same purpose, via FEMA’s Emergency Alert System.
The federal government is keen to implement a centralized system of control over all communications, with the recent announcement that all new cell phones will be required to comply with the PLAN program (Personal Localized Alerting Network), which will broadcast emergency alert messages directly to Americans’ cell phones using a special chip embedded in the receiver. The system will be operational by the end of the year in New York and Washington, with the rest of the country set to follow in 2012.
The notion of using the street lights as communication tools to broadcast “alerts” directly from the federal government is also consistent with Homeland Security’s program to install Orwellian ‘telescreens’ that play messages by Janet Napolitano and other DHS officials in Wal-Mart stores across the country.
The fact that the federal government is funding the implementation of ‘Intellistreets’ comes as no surprise given that the nation’s expanding networks of surveillance cameras are also being paid for with Department of Homeland Security grants.
http://www.infowars.com/new-street-lights-to-have-homeland-security-applications/
Update on one of the latest perverts at the TSA (from Drudge), but was not fired, just moved to another job, probably with a raise.
TSA removes security screener for note telling passenger to 'get your freak on'
A Transportation Security Administration airport security worker has been removed from checking baggage because of a note with sexual implications he left for a passenger at Newark's Liberty International Airport.
Jill Filipovic, a New York blogger who is also a lawyer, tweeted Monday that a note was left in her bag — which contained a sex toy, according to reports — that said "get your freak on." The note was written on a TSA notice of inspection form, leading Filipovic to believe it was written by someone at airport security.
TSA said on its blog Tuesday that it had conducted an investigation into the incident and removed the employee that was responsible from duty. ...
(excerpt)
http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/tsa/189991-tsa-removes-screener-for-telling-passenger-to-get-your-freak-on-
people and click twice. Keep the mouse on the person and keep clicking twice. (or
use scroll wheel ) Face Recognition in a Crowd This is the crowd before the
riot. Put your cursor anywhere in the crowd And double-click. Keep double
clicking and see what happens. This is a great tool for law enforcement. This
is the photo taken by Port Moody photographer Ronnie Miranda that Appeared in our
Tri-City News last Friday (24-June). When you open this up, check the left hand
side where you can upsize the Photo, and click on the Yellow print "view with
GigaTag".This is actually scary. You can see - perfectly - the faces of every
single Individual - and there were thousands! Privacy? Just think what the police
and the military have at their Disposal.
http://www.gigapixel.com/image/gigapan-canucks-g7.html
If you could trust them to do only for the reasons they say, i would still not think it was good idea, but...
'Rogue websites' bill introduced in US House
US lawmakers introduced a bill on Wednesday that would give US authorities more tools to crack down on websites accused of piracy of movies, television shows and music and the sale of counterfeit goods.
The Stop Online Piracy Act has received bipartisan support in the House of Representatives and is the House version of a bill introduced in the Senate in May known as the Theft of Intellectual Property Act or Protect IP Act.
The legislation has received the backing of Hollywood, the music industry, the Business Software Alliance, the National Association of Manufacturers, the US Chamber of Commerce and other groups.
But it has come under fire from digital rights and free speech organizations for allegedly paving the way for US law enforcement to unilaterally shut down websites, including foreign sites, without due process.
House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas, said the bill "helps stop the flow of revenue to rogue websites and ensures that the profits from American innovations go to American innovators.
"Rogue websites that steal and sell American innovations have operated with impunity," Smith said in a statement.
"The online thieves who run these foreign websites are out of the reach of US law enforcement agencies and profit from selling pirated goods without any legal consequences," he said.
"The bill prevents online thieves from selling counterfeit goods in the US, expands international protections for intellectual property, and protects American consumers from dangerous counterfeit products," Smith said.
Howard Berman, a Democrat from California who co-sponsored the legislation, said it is "an important next step in the fight against digital theft and sends a strong message that the United States will not waiver in our battle to protect America's creators and innovators."
The House Judiciary Committee is to hold a hearing on the bill on November 16.
The Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) said the House bill "raises serious red flags.
"It includes the most controversial parts of the Senate's Protect IP Act, but radically expands the scope," the CDT said in a statement. "Any website that features user-generated content or that enables cloud-based data storage could end up in its crosshairs.
"Internet Service Providers would face new and open-ended obligations to monitor and police user behavior," the CDT said. "Payment processors and ad networks would be required to cut off business with any website that rightsholders allege hasn't done enough to police infringement.
"The bill represents a serious threat to online innovation and to legitimate online communications tools," it said.
The Obama administration has come in for some criticism for shutting down dozens of "rogue websites" over the past year as part of a crackdown known as "Operation in Our Sites."
US authorities in November, for example, shut down 82 websites selling mostly Chinese-made counterfeit goods, including golf clubs, Walt Disney movies, handbags and other items.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.64f335a63a0a239e61cf0891c65a0c44.a81&show_article=1
Don't particularly link this site, but usually it has truth behind what they say
New Street Lights To Have “Homeland Security” Applications
UPDATE: Presumably in response to this article being linked on the Drudge Report, the company behind ‘Intellistreets’, Illuminating Concepts, has now pulled the video from You Tube entirely, presumably nervous about the negative publicity that could be generated from concerns about street lights being used for “Homeland Security” purposes – their words, not ours. We have added an alternative version of the clip below, but it may be subject to removal at any time. The video is still available on the company’s website.
RELATED: Promo Video For DHS-Backed ‘Spy Street Lights’ Pulled From You Tube
New street lights that include “Homeland Security” applications including speaker systems, motion sensors and video surveillance are now being rolled out with the aid of government funding.
The Intellistreets system comprises of a wireless digital infrastructure that allows street lights to be controlled remotely by means of a ubiquitous wi-fi link and a miniature computer housed inside each street light, allowing for “security, energy management, data harvesting and digital media,” according to the Illuminating Concepts website.
According to the company’s You Tube video of the concept, the primary capabilities of the devices include “energy conservation, homeland security, public safety, traffic control, advertising, video surveillance.”
In terms of Homeland Security applications, each of the light poles contains a speaker system that can be used to broadcast emergency alerts, as well as a display that transmits “security levels” (presumably a similar system to the DHS’ much maligned color-coded terror alert designation), in addition to showing instructions by way of its LED video screen.
The lights also include proximity sensors that can record both pedestrian and road traffic. The video display and speaker system will also be used to transmit Minority Report-style advertising, as well as Amber Alerts and other “civic announcements”.
With the aid of grant money from the federal government, the company is about to launch the first concept installation of the system in the city of Farmington Hills, Michigan.
Using street lights as surveillance tools has already been advanced by several European countries. In 2007, leaked documents out of the UK Home Office revealed that British authorities were working on proposals to fit lamp posts with CCTV cameras that would X-ray scan passers-by and “undress them” in order to “trap terror suspects”.
Dutch police also announced last year that they are developing a mobile scanner that will “see through people’s clothing and look for concealed weapons”.
So-called ‘talking surveillance cameras’ that use a speaker system similar to the Intellistreets model are already being used in UK cities like Middlesborough to bark orders and reprimand people for dropping litter and other minor offenses. According to reports, one of the most common phrases used to shame people into obeying instructions is to broadcast the message, “We are watching you.”
The transformation of street lights into surveillance tools for Homeland Security purposes will only serve to heighten concerns that the United States is fast on the way to becoming a high-tech police state, with TSA agents being empowered to oversee that control grid, most recently with the announcement that TSA screeners would be manning highway checkpoints, a further indication that security measures we currently see in airports are rapidly spilling out onto the streets.
The ability of the government to use street lights to transmit “emergency alerts” also dovetails with the ongoing efforts to hijack radio and television broadcasts for the same purpose, via FEMA’s Emergency Alert System.
The federal government is keen to implement a centralized system of control over all communications, with the recent announcement that all new cell phones will be required to comply with the PLAN program (Personal Localized Alerting Network), which will broadcast emergency alert messages directly to Americans’ cell phones using a special chip embedded in the receiver. The system will be operational by the end of the year in New York and Washington, with the rest of the country set to follow in 2012.
The notion of using the street lights as communication tools to broadcast “alerts” directly from the federal government is also consistent with Homeland Security’s program to install Orwellian ‘telescreens’ that play messages by Janet Napolitano and other DHS officials in Wal-Mart stores across the country.
The fact that the federal government is funding the implementation of ‘Intellistreets’ comes as no surprise given that the nation’s expanding networks of surveillance cameras are also being paid for with Department of Homeland Security grants.
http://www.infowars.com/new-street-lights-to-have-homeland-security-applications/
Update on one of the latest perverts at the TSA (from Drudge), but was not fired, just moved to another job, probably with a raise.
TSA removes security screener for note telling passenger to 'get your freak on'
A Transportation Security Administration airport security worker has been removed from checking baggage because of a note with sexual implications he left for a passenger at Newark's Liberty International Airport.
Jill Filipovic, a New York blogger who is also a lawyer, tweeted Monday that a note was left in her bag — which contained a sex toy, according to reports — that said "get your freak on." The note was written on a TSA notice of inspection form, leading Filipovic to believe it was written by someone at airport security.
TSA said on its blog Tuesday that it had conducted an investigation into the incident and removed the employee that was responsible from duty. ...
(excerpt)
http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/tsa/189991-tsa-removes-screener-for-telling-passenger-to-get-your-freak-on-
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Wednesday 10-26-11
I used to say this guy was smart, i hope he is as smart as i thought he was.
World power swings back to America
The American phoenix is slowly rising again. Within five years or so, the US will be well on its way to self-sufficiency in fuel and energy. Manufacturing will have closed the labour gap with China in a clutch of key industries. The current account might even be in surplus.
Assumptions that the Great Republic must inevitably spiral into economic and strategic decline - so like the chatter of the late 1980s, when Japan was in vogue - will seem wildly off the mark by then.
Telegraph readers already know about the "shale gas revolution" that has turned America into the world’s number one producer of natural gas, ahead of Russia.
Less known is that the technology of hydraulic fracturing - breaking rocks with jets of water - will also bring a quantum leap in shale oil supply, mostly from the Bakken fields in North Dakota, Eagle Ford in Texas, and other reserves across the Mid-West.
"The US was the single largest contributor to global oil supply growth last year, with a net 395,000 barrels per day (b/d)," said Francisco Blanch from Bank of America, comparing the Dakota fields to a new North Sea.
Total US shale output is "set to expand dramatically" as fresh sources come on stream, possibly reaching 5.5m b/d by mid-decade. This is a tenfold rise since 2009.
The US already meets 72pc of its own oil needs, up from around 50pc a decade ago.
"The implications of this shift are very large for geopolitics, energy security, historical military alliances and economic activity. As US reliance on the Middle East continues to drop, Europe is turning more dependent and will likely become more exposed to rent-seeking behaviour from oligopolistic players," said Mr Blanch.
Meanwhile, the China-US seesaw is about to swing the other way. Offshoring is out, 're-inshoring' is the new fashion.
"Made in America, Again" - a report this month by Boston Consulting Group - said Chinese wage inflation running at 16pc a year for a decade has closed much of the cost gap. China is no longer the "default location" for cheap plants supplying the US.
A "tipping point" is near in computers, electrical equipment, machinery, autos and motor parts, plastics and rubber, fabricated metals, and even furniture.
"A surprising amount of work that rushed to China over the past decade could soon start to come back," said BCG's Harold Sirkin.
The gap in "productivity-adjusted wages" will narrow from 22pc of US levels in 2005 to 43pc (61pc for the US South) by 2015. Add in shipping costs, reliability woes, technology piracy, and the advantage shifts back to the US.
The list of "repatriates" is growing. Farouk Systems is bringing back assembly of hair dryers to Texas after counterfeiting problems; ET Water Systems has switched its irrigation products to California; Master Lock is returning to Milwaukee, and NCR is bringing back its ATM output to Georgia. NatLabs is coming home to Florida.
Boston Consulting expects up to 800,000 manufacturing jobs to return to the US by mid-decade, with a multiplier effect creating 3.2m in total. This would take some sting out of the Long Slump.
As Philadelphia Fed chief Sandra Pianalto said last week, US manufacturing is "very competitive" at the current dollar exchange rate. Whether intended or not, the Fed's zero rates and $2.3 trillion printing blitz have brought matters to an abrupt head for China.
Fed actions confronted Beijing with a Morton's Fork of ugly choices: revalue the yuan, or hang onto the mercantilist dollar peg and import a US monetary policy that is far too loose for a red-hot economy at the top of the cycle. Either choice erodes China's wage advantage. The Communist Party chose inflation.
Foreign exchange effects are subtle. They take a long to time play out as old plant slowly runs down, and fresh investment goes elsewhere. Yet you can see the damage to Europe from an over-strong euro in foreign direct investment (FDI) data.
Flows into the EU collapsed by 63p from 2007 to 2010 (UNCTAD data), and fell by 77pc in Italy. Flows into the US rose by 5pc.
Volkswagen is investing $4bn in America, led by its Chattanooga Passat plant. Korea's Samsung has begun a $20bn US investment blitz. Meanwhile, Intel, GM, and Caterpillar and other US firms are opting to stay at home rather than invest abroad.
Europe has only itself to blame for the current “hollowing out” of its industrial base. It craved its own reserve currency, without understanding how costly this “exorbitant burden” might prove to be.
China and the rising reserve powers have rotated a large chunk of their $10 trillion stash into EMU bonds to reduce their dollar weighting. The result is a euro too strong for half of EMU.
The European Central Bank has since made matters worse (for Italy, Spain, Portugal, and France) by keeping rates above those of the US, UK, and Japan. That has been a deliberate policy choice. It let real M1 deposits in Italy contract at a 7pc annual rate over the summer. May it live with the consequences.
The trade-weighted dollar has been sliding for a decade, falling 37pc since 2001. This roughly replicates the post-Plaza slide in the late 1980s, which was followed - with a lag - by 3pc of GDP shrinkage in the current account deficit. The US had a surplus by 1991.
Charles Dumas and Diana Choyleva from Lombard Street Research argue that this may happen again in their new book "The American Phoenix".
The switch in advantage to the US is relative. It does not imply a healthy US recovery. The global depression will grind on as much of the Western world tightens fiscal policy and slowly purges debt, and as China deflates its credit bubble.
Yet America retains a pack of trump cards, and not just in sixteen of the world’s top twenty universities.
It is almost the only economic power with a fertility rate above 2.0 - and therefore the ability to outgrow debt - in sharp contrast to the demographic decay awaiting Japan, China, Korea, Germany, Italy, and Russia.
Europe's EMU soap opera has shown why it matters that America is a genuine nation, forged by shared language and the ancestral chords of memory over two centuries, with institutions that ultimately work and a real central bank able to back-stop the system.
The 21st Century may be American after all, just like the last.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8844646/World-power-swings-back-to-America.html
Kids Bible classes are compared to the Klan (it was in another quote in a simular article), come on, what an idiot . Hope they sue the school and get the idiot fired, if he is that dumb he should be running a school, but what do you expect out of public school. This policy will probably be changed before i post this.
Christian Club Sues School Over Media Restriction
An Oklahoma school district is facing a lawsuit for allegedly forbidding organizers of a Christian club from promoting events on campus.
“This is a simple matter of a school district targeting a Christian organization,” said Matt Sharp, an attorney representing the “Kids for Christ,” a community-led Christian group suing the Owasso Public Schools.
Sharp, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, said the school district told the club it could no longer publicize its events – including discouraging organizers from spreading the word in the community and local media.
“They have a specific policy on the books that targets religious expression by community organizations,” he told Fox News.
School officials confirmed Monday afternoon they had received the lawsuit – but said they have not had time to review the contents.
Sharp said the club meetings are held at the local elementary school before school and are open to students in kindergarten through the fifth grade. Other groups, including the Boy Scouts and YMCA, are allowed to promote activities at the school, but the Christian group is not.
“The superintendent said they were religious and couldn’t have the same access as other clubs,” he said.
The club was organized last year, and Sharp said the “Kids for Christ” initially was given permission to promote activities through flyers and announcements. But that changed with the new semester.
Their ultimate goal with the lawsuit?
“We want equal access,” he said.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/24/christian-club-sues-school-over-publicity-restriction/?test=latestnews
Why are they floating this again. They only have the right to mint coin, but it will not take off, maybe if it were $5, $10 and $50 dollar coins, but a dollar is a waste of time. As long as they are either backed in gold or silver and
Replacing $1 bill with coin could save $5.6 billion
A proposal to phase out the $1 bill and replace it with a $1 coin could be gaining currency as the "supercommittee" looks to find ways to save the government money.
Lobbying interests on both sides are ramping up their efforts in the expectation that Congress could decide the issue after more than 25 years of debate. Mining interests, vending companies and mass transit agencies support the coin. Paper and ink producers and some small retailers oppose it.
"You have this gigantic deficit. You have this supercommittee, and Congress is looking for savings anywhere they can," says former representative Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., a longtime coin advocate.
The move to a coin would cost money in the short term, but eventually save money because paper currency lasts about 42 months — while coins theoretically last forever. Moving to a coin could save $5.6 billion over 30 years, according to the Government Accountability Office.
"You're not going to find that kind of savings that involves no tax increase and no cut to anybody's program," Kolbe says.
The 12-member Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction, created under the debt-limit deal in August, has held few public hearings. Its members are tight-lipped about what proposals are on the table, even as they approach a Nov. 23 deadline. But the savings from a $1 coin are miniscule compared to the committee's $1.5 trillion goal.
When Kolbe first started introducing $1 coin proposals in Congress in 1986, it was a way to help Arizona mining interests, he admits. Those proposals never got out of committee. Now, with most other Western economies replacing their lowest paper bill with coins, the time is right to modernize the currency system, he says.
Kolbe is honorary chairman of the Dollar Coin Alliance. The group has enough momentum that just this month supporters of the paper dollar formed a rival group, Americans for George. They're worried a $1 coin provision could sneak into the supercommittee's proposals.
"We've never been through a situation with the supercommittee before. It was always an issue that was looked at on its face as an individual issue," says Tom Ferguson of Americans for George, the former head of the Bureau of Engraving & Printing.
"A nation's currency is more than just paper. It is iconic. It is emblematic. It signifies the economy," he says.
The armored-car industry also opposes the coin. "It's primarily based on weight," Larry Sabbath of the National Armored Car Association says. "If you think of all our trucks carrying around that weight, that's obviously higher fuel costs for us, and more breakdown of trucks."
There's at least one supercommittee member on each side: Co-chairman Jeb Hensarling, a Republican congressman from Texas, is a sponsor of the $1 coin proposal. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a committee member, has introduced a competing bill to stop production of the dollar coin. Paper for U.S. currency is made by Crane & Co. of a Massachusetts.
Hensarling would eliminate the Susan B. Anthony $1 coin, whose size and color is often mistaken for the quarter, and gets rid of the $1 bill in four years — or earlier if $600 million in $1 coins are circulating.
That's important because just minting the coins is no guarantee people will use them. About $1.1 billion in $1 coins sit unused in vaults, the GAO says.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2011-10-24/dollar-enters-deficit-debate/50898164/1
Debate of the absurd, the unit weighs what it weighs, to protect the people inside, what a farce, as soon as they go to a lighter vehicle, someone will get killed and the they will be back where they started, just billions of dollars poorer. I bet if you look someones cousin or uncle is making money from this. And why are they having a UK based company do it? I guess Walmart has won and buy American is dead, even in the Army.
Army looks for more fuel-efficient Humvee replacement
excerpt
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/10/army-looks-for-more-fuel-efficient-humvee-replacement/1
World power swings back to America
The American phoenix is slowly rising again. Within five years or so, the US will be well on its way to self-sufficiency in fuel and energy. Manufacturing will have closed the labour gap with China in a clutch of key industries. The current account might even be in surplus.
Assumptions that the Great Republic must inevitably spiral into economic and strategic decline - so like the chatter of the late 1980s, when Japan was in vogue - will seem wildly off the mark by then.
Telegraph readers already know about the "shale gas revolution" that has turned America into the world’s number one producer of natural gas, ahead of Russia.
Less known is that the technology of hydraulic fracturing - breaking rocks with jets of water - will also bring a quantum leap in shale oil supply, mostly from the Bakken fields in North Dakota, Eagle Ford in Texas, and other reserves across the Mid-West.
"The US was the single largest contributor to global oil supply growth last year, with a net 395,000 barrels per day (b/d)," said Francisco Blanch from Bank of America, comparing the Dakota fields to a new North Sea.
Total US shale output is "set to expand dramatically" as fresh sources come on stream, possibly reaching 5.5m b/d by mid-decade. This is a tenfold rise since 2009.
The US already meets 72pc of its own oil needs, up from around 50pc a decade ago.
"The implications of this shift are very large for geopolitics, energy security, historical military alliances and economic activity. As US reliance on the Middle East continues to drop, Europe is turning more dependent and will likely become more exposed to rent-seeking behaviour from oligopolistic players," said Mr Blanch.
Meanwhile, the China-US seesaw is about to swing the other way. Offshoring is out, 're-inshoring' is the new fashion.
"Made in America, Again" - a report this month by Boston Consulting Group - said Chinese wage inflation running at 16pc a year for a decade has closed much of the cost gap. China is no longer the "default location" for cheap plants supplying the US.
A "tipping point" is near in computers, electrical equipment, machinery, autos and motor parts, plastics and rubber, fabricated metals, and even furniture.
"A surprising amount of work that rushed to China over the past decade could soon start to come back," said BCG's Harold Sirkin.
The gap in "productivity-adjusted wages" will narrow from 22pc of US levels in 2005 to 43pc (61pc for the US South) by 2015. Add in shipping costs, reliability woes, technology piracy, and the advantage shifts back to the US.
The list of "repatriates" is growing. Farouk Systems is bringing back assembly of hair dryers to Texas after counterfeiting problems; ET Water Systems has switched its irrigation products to California; Master Lock is returning to Milwaukee, and NCR is bringing back its ATM output to Georgia. NatLabs is coming home to Florida.
Boston Consulting expects up to 800,000 manufacturing jobs to return to the US by mid-decade, with a multiplier effect creating 3.2m in total. This would take some sting out of the Long Slump.
As Philadelphia Fed chief Sandra Pianalto said last week, US manufacturing is "very competitive" at the current dollar exchange rate. Whether intended or not, the Fed's zero rates and $2.3 trillion printing blitz have brought matters to an abrupt head for China.
Fed actions confronted Beijing with a Morton's Fork of ugly choices: revalue the yuan, or hang onto the mercantilist dollar peg and import a US monetary policy that is far too loose for a red-hot economy at the top of the cycle. Either choice erodes China's wage advantage. The Communist Party chose inflation.
Foreign exchange effects are subtle. They take a long to time play out as old plant slowly runs down, and fresh investment goes elsewhere. Yet you can see the damage to Europe from an over-strong euro in foreign direct investment (FDI) data.
Flows into the EU collapsed by 63p from 2007 to 2010 (UNCTAD data), and fell by 77pc in Italy. Flows into the US rose by 5pc.
Volkswagen is investing $4bn in America, led by its Chattanooga Passat plant. Korea's Samsung has begun a $20bn US investment blitz. Meanwhile, Intel, GM, and Caterpillar and other US firms are opting to stay at home rather than invest abroad.
Europe has only itself to blame for the current “hollowing out” of its industrial base. It craved its own reserve currency, without understanding how costly this “exorbitant burden” might prove to be.
China and the rising reserve powers have rotated a large chunk of their $10 trillion stash into EMU bonds to reduce their dollar weighting. The result is a euro too strong for half of EMU.
The European Central Bank has since made matters worse (for Italy, Spain, Portugal, and France) by keeping rates above those of the US, UK, and Japan. That has been a deliberate policy choice. It let real M1 deposits in Italy contract at a 7pc annual rate over the summer. May it live with the consequences.
The trade-weighted dollar has been sliding for a decade, falling 37pc since 2001. This roughly replicates the post-Plaza slide in the late 1980s, which was followed - with a lag - by 3pc of GDP shrinkage in the current account deficit. The US had a surplus by 1991.
Charles Dumas and Diana Choyleva from Lombard Street Research argue that this may happen again in their new book "The American Phoenix".
The switch in advantage to the US is relative. It does not imply a healthy US recovery. The global depression will grind on as much of the Western world tightens fiscal policy and slowly purges debt, and as China deflates its credit bubble.
Yet America retains a pack of trump cards, and not just in sixteen of the world’s top twenty universities.
It is almost the only economic power with a fertility rate above 2.0 - and therefore the ability to outgrow debt - in sharp contrast to the demographic decay awaiting Japan, China, Korea, Germany, Italy, and Russia.
Europe's EMU soap opera has shown why it matters that America is a genuine nation, forged by shared language and the ancestral chords of memory over two centuries, with institutions that ultimately work and a real central bank able to back-stop the system.
The 21st Century may be American after all, just like the last.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8844646/World-power-swings-back-to-America.html
Kids Bible classes are compared to the Klan (it was in another quote in a simular article), come on, what an idiot . Hope they sue the school and get the idiot fired, if he is that dumb he should be running a school, but what do you expect out of public school. This policy will probably be changed before i post this.
Christian Club Sues School Over Media Restriction
An Oklahoma school district is facing a lawsuit for allegedly forbidding organizers of a Christian club from promoting events on campus.
“This is a simple matter of a school district targeting a Christian organization,” said Matt Sharp, an attorney representing the “Kids for Christ,” a community-led Christian group suing the Owasso Public Schools.
Sharp, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, said the school district told the club it could no longer publicize its events – including discouraging organizers from spreading the word in the community and local media.
“They have a specific policy on the books that targets religious expression by community organizations,” he told Fox News.
School officials confirmed Monday afternoon they had received the lawsuit – but said they have not had time to review the contents.
Sharp said the club meetings are held at the local elementary school before school and are open to students in kindergarten through the fifth grade. Other groups, including the Boy Scouts and YMCA, are allowed to promote activities at the school, but the Christian group is not.
“The superintendent said they were religious and couldn’t have the same access as other clubs,” he said.
The club was organized last year, and Sharp said the “Kids for Christ” initially was given permission to promote activities through flyers and announcements. But that changed with the new semester.
Their ultimate goal with the lawsuit?
“We want equal access,” he said.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/24/christian-club-sues-school-over-publicity-restriction/?test=latestnews
Why are they floating this again. They only have the right to mint coin, but it will not take off, maybe if it were $5, $10 and $50 dollar coins, but a dollar is a waste of time. As long as they are either backed in gold or silver and
Replacing $1 bill with coin could save $5.6 billion
A proposal to phase out the $1 bill and replace it with a $1 coin could be gaining currency as the "supercommittee" looks to find ways to save the government money.
Lobbying interests on both sides are ramping up their efforts in the expectation that Congress could decide the issue after more than 25 years of debate. Mining interests, vending companies and mass transit agencies support the coin. Paper and ink producers and some small retailers oppose it.
"You have this gigantic deficit. You have this supercommittee, and Congress is looking for savings anywhere they can," says former representative Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., a longtime coin advocate.
The move to a coin would cost money in the short term, but eventually save money because paper currency lasts about 42 months — while coins theoretically last forever. Moving to a coin could save $5.6 billion over 30 years, according to the Government Accountability Office.
"You're not going to find that kind of savings that involves no tax increase and no cut to anybody's program," Kolbe says.
The 12-member Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction, created under the debt-limit deal in August, has held few public hearings. Its members are tight-lipped about what proposals are on the table, even as they approach a Nov. 23 deadline. But the savings from a $1 coin are miniscule compared to the committee's $1.5 trillion goal.
When Kolbe first started introducing $1 coin proposals in Congress in 1986, it was a way to help Arizona mining interests, he admits. Those proposals never got out of committee. Now, with most other Western economies replacing their lowest paper bill with coins, the time is right to modernize the currency system, he says.
Kolbe is honorary chairman of the Dollar Coin Alliance. The group has enough momentum that just this month supporters of the paper dollar formed a rival group, Americans for George. They're worried a $1 coin provision could sneak into the supercommittee's proposals.
"We've never been through a situation with the supercommittee before. It was always an issue that was looked at on its face as an individual issue," says Tom Ferguson of Americans for George, the former head of the Bureau of Engraving & Printing.
"A nation's currency is more than just paper. It is iconic. It is emblematic. It signifies the economy," he says.
The armored-car industry also opposes the coin. "It's primarily based on weight," Larry Sabbath of the National Armored Car Association says. "If you think of all our trucks carrying around that weight, that's obviously higher fuel costs for us, and more breakdown of trucks."
There's at least one supercommittee member on each side: Co-chairman Jeb Hensarling, a Republican congressman from Texas, is a sponsor of the $1 coin proposal. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a committee member, has introduced a competing bill to stop production of the dollar coin. Paper for U.S. currency is made by Crane & Co. of a Massachusetts.
Hensarling would eliminate the Susan B. Anthony $1 coin, whose size and color is often mistaken for the quarter, and gets rid of the $1 bill in four years — or earlier if $600 million in $1 coins are circulating.
That's important because just minting the coins is no guarantee people will use them. About $1.1 billion in $1 coins sit unused in vaults, the GAO says.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2011-10-24/dollar-enters-deficit-debate/50898164/1
Debate of the absurd, the unit weighs what it weighs, to protect the people inside, what a farce, as soon as they go to a lighter vehicle, someone will get killed and the they will be back where they started, just billions of dollars poorer. I bet if you look someones cousin or uncle is making money from this. And why are they having a UK based company do it? I guess Walmart has won and buy American is dead, even in the Army.
Army looks for more fuel-efficient Humvee replacement
excerpt
Specifically, the Army is working with Ricardo, an engineering firm based in the U.K. but with U.S. offices, on building improved new troop carriers. The goal is "to improve military vehicle technology, reduce fuel consumption on the battlefield and reduce the nation's dependence on oil," according to Ricardo's website.
Beating the fuel economy of a Humvee shouldn't be too hard: the M1114 Humvee gets in the neighborhood of 4 miles per gallon. Of course, 70% better than that is not very competitive — it's about 7 mpg — for an average consumer truck, much less a car. Another demonstrator is also being developed that runs on a hybrid-electric drive. Testing for that version is scheduled for later this year.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/10/army-looks-for-more-fuel-efficient-humvee-replacement/1
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Tuesday 10-25-11
This will come eventually in the future, so it is not really a surprise
Vatican calls for global authority on economy, raps “idolatry of the market”
The Vatican called on Monday for the establishment of a “global public authority” and a “central world bank” to rule over financial institutions that have become outdated and often ineffective in dealing fairly with crises. The document from the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department should please the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators and similar movements around the world who have protested against the economic downturn.
“Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of a Global Public Authority,” was at times very specific, calling, for example, for taxation measures on financial transactions. “The economic and financial crisis which the world is going through calls everyone, individuals and peoples, to examine in depth the principles and the cultural and moral values at the basis of social coexistence,” it said.
It condemned what it called “the idolatry of the market” as well as a “neo-liberal thinking” that it said looked exclusively at technical solutions to economic problems. “In fact, the crisis has revealed behaviours like selfishness, collective greed and hoarding of goods on a great scale,” it said, adding that world economics needed an “ethic of solidarity” among rich and poor nations.
“If no solutions are found to the various forms of injustice, the negative effects that will follow on the social, political and economic level will be destined to create a climate of growing hostility and even violence, and ultimately undermine the very foundations of democratic institutions, even the ones considered most solid,” it said.
It called for the establishment of “a supranational authority” with worldwide scope and “universal jurisdiction” to guide economic policies and decisions.
Asked at a news conference if the document could become a manifesto for the movement of the “indignant ones”, who have criticised global economic policies, Cardinal Peter Turkson, head of the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department, said: “The people on Wall Street need to sit down and go through a process of discernment and see whether their role managing the finances of the world is actually serving the interests of humanity and the common good. “We are calling for all these bodies and organisations to sit down and do a little bit of re-thinking.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/24/idUS264245887020111024
More preverts found at the tsa. TSA stands for Toomuch Sex Advice? Makes you just want to trust them more and more.
TSA Sex Advice? Woman Finds 'Freaky' Note In Luggage
Frequent travelers may be used to finding an official note from the Transportation Security Administration alerting them that their checked bags have been searched, but rarely does the TSA take the opportunity to get a little more -- or a lot more -- personal with travelers.
But that's what one blogger said a TSA officer did based on an unusual note she found in her luggage today. Jill Filipovic, a blogger at Feministe.us, tweeted a picture of the TSA notification on which, alongside the official form, someone had scrawled "GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL" in big capital letters.
"Just unpacked my suitcase and found this note from TSA," Filipovic tweeted. "Guess they discovered a 'personal item' in my bag. Wow."
Attempting to discreetly explain the "personal item" to commenters on Feministe, Filipovic wrote it was "the most basic lady-thing you can imagine."
Jill Filipovic said she discovered a personal note written on a TSA form in her checked bags that urged her to "get [her] freak on."
Filipovic had traveled from Newark, New Jersey, to Dublin, Ireland, over the weekend and had just this morning opened her luggage. She said that except for when the bag was checked -- from the time she packed to the time she unpacked -- she had been with the bag, meaning it was unlikely an elaborate practical prank by a friend. She said the fact that the note was left on the TSA notice led her to believe a TSA officer had written it.
A spokesperson for the TSA said that they are "one of several entities" that handle checked bags and that at this time there is "no concrete evidence who wrote the note."
Still, the TSA said that "if inappropriate conduct is discovered, TSA [will take] appropriate disciplinary action."
Initially, Filipovic wrote on her blog that the note was "total violation of privacy, wildly inappropriate and clearly not OK, but I also just died laughing in my hotel room."
But upon further reflection, Filipovic told ABC News she believed it to be "offensive" and said she'd likely be filing a complaint with the TSA once she returns to the U.S.
"I hope they do see the complaint, they'll look into it and remind their staff that going through people's personal belongings is a responsibility that should be treated with some modicum of professionalism," Filipovic said.
The TSA said it opens checked bags for hand inspections if any alarms are sounded during the screening process and the TSA inserts the inspection card after the search.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/tsa-sex-advice-woman-finds-freaky-note-luggage/story?id=14803656
Drivers face drug checkpoints on highways near Flint
Motorists driving on expressways around Flint are getting surprised by a stunning tactic that the Genesee County sheriff has been using to fight the flow of illegal drugs -- one that legal experts said will not withstand a court challenge.
At least seven times this month, including Tuesday, motorists have said they have seen a pickup towing a large sign on I-69 or U.S.-23 that depicts the sheriff's badge and warns: "Sheriff narcotics check point, 1 mile ahead -- drug dog in use."
The checkpoints are part of a broad sweep for drugs that Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell and his self-titled Sheriff's Posse said are needed, calling Flint a crossroads of drug dealing because nearly a half-dozen major roads and expressways pass in and around the city. Pickell said he decided to try checkpoints when he learned that drug shipments might be passing through Flint in tractor-trailers with false compartments.
"We're doing everything by the book," Genesee County Undersheriff Christopher Swanson said. "We think there's major loads (of drugs) coming through here from all over, every day. And this is one of the tools we use -- narcotics checkpoints."
He said the dogs are used to sniff around the vehicles to check for drugs.
The practice has legal experts on searches and seizures at two law schools in Michigan, a constitutional law expert in Lansing and the American Civil Liberties Union calling the practice out of bounds and out of touch with state and U.S. Supreme Court rulings that ban such practices.
Based on a case out of Indianapolis, the U.S. Supreme Court held in 2000 that narcotics checkpoints where everyone gets stopped on a public road are not legal and violate Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches and seizures, professor David Moran at the University of Michigan Law School said.
Wayne State University Law School professor Peter Henning said police can set up roadblocks to search all who pass by, but only if a crime has just been committed.
And Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton, who said he was not consulted by Pickell about the checkpoints, said that after a court challenge, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in 1990 that so-called "sobriety check lanes," put in place to nab drunken drivers, were illegal.
The new practice of narcotics checkpoints "certainly brings up probable-cause issues," Leyton said Thursday.
Leyton said he has no power to stop the practice, however. That, he said, would require someone arrested at a checkpoint to contest the evidence in court.
The checkpoints have caused an uproar, officials said. And, as a result, the sheriff's office has altered its methods: Instead of using the checkpoints daily -- even Sundays when they started at the beginning of the month -- they are used sporadically. And instead of stopping everyone, law enforcement has been putting the signs out and waiting for a motorist to make an illegal U-turn in the freeway median to try to avoid the checkpoint, thus giving them cause to pull the driver over and search the vehicle.
But even that method raises question, U-M professor Moran said. The technique has not been tested in Michigan courts, he said. But judges would take a dim view of it because "it's perilously close to entrapment," he said.
"It's just the kind of shabby treatment that the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent," Moran said.
Among the groups of motorists most stunned by the checkpoints are state-registered medical marijuana users and caregivers. Pickell and Swanson said the checkpoints weren't meant to target medical-marijuana users, but word of the new tactic spread quickly through that community.
Many registered users and caregivers told the Free Press they now fear driving near Flint, even when they possess their medical-marijuana registry cards.
At a checkpoint Tuesday afternoon just west of Flint on I-69, officers pulled over only those who saw the checkpoint sign, then made an illegal U-turn on the freeway, Jamie Fricke, 31, of Lapeer said.
"But my buddy went through this on Monday and he said they were pulling over all enclosed trailers. They had drug-sniffing dogs out that day," on I-69 east of Flint, in Burton, she said.
Fricke, a state registered medical-marijuana user, said she had a small amount of the drug with her, but her car was not searched.
Larry and Diane Foster, both of Muskegon, said they saw a checkpoint Oct. 5 in which officers were stopping every motorist on eastbound I-69.
"We were going in the opposite direction or we would've been stopped," said Diane Foster, 55, a state-registered medical-marijuana user and caregiver. "I had medication (marijuana) on me, so I don't know what the outcome would've been."
http://www.freep.com/article/20111021/NEWS06/110210365/Drivers-face-drug-checkpoints-highways-near-Flint?odyssey=tabtopnewstextFRONTPAGE
More stupidity from our government
NASA SWAT Team Terrifies Woman
Woman’s dead husband leaves her a speck (about the size of a grain of rice) of moon dirt. She wants to sell it. Apparently that’s against the law. So much so that NASA and Sheriff’s Officers storm a Denny’s in California to retrieve the speck from her. Full details here. Talk about overkill; there must have been a better way to handle this, especially since lax security and record keeping by NASA allowed a whole lot of moon dust specks to wander into the general public.
After all, it’s not like she was dealing in cocaine or — you know — facilitating in the sale of so-called “assault weapons” and allowing them to cross the border to fall into the hands of the murderous Mexican drug cartels.
http://www.alphecca.com/?p=887
Vatican calls for global authority on economy, raps “idolatry of the market”
The Vatican called on Monday for the establishment of a “global public authority” and a “central world bank” to rule over financial institutions that have become outdated and often ineffective in dealing fairly with crises. The document from the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department should please the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators and similar movements around the world who have protested against the economic downturn.
“Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of a Global Public Authority,” was at times very specific, calling, for example, for taxation measures on financial transactions. “The economic and financial crisis which the world is going through calls everyone, individuals and peoples, to examine in depth the principles and the cultural and moral values at the basis of social coexistence,” it said.
It condemned what it called “the idolatry of the market” as well as a “neo-liberal thinking” that it said looked exclusively at technical solutions to economic problems. “In fact, the crisis has revealed behaviours like selfishness, collective greed and hoarding of goods on a great scale,” it said, adding that world economics needed an “ethic of solidarity” among rich and poor nations.
“If no solutions are found to the various forms of injustice, the negative effects that will follow on the social, political and economic level will be destined to create a climate of growing hostility and even violence, and ultimately undermine the very foundations of democratic institutions, even the ones considered most solid,” it said.
It called for the establishment of “a supranational authority” with worldwide scope and “universal jurisdiction” to guide economic policies and decisions.
Asked at a news conference if the document could become a manifesto for the movement of the “indignant ones”, who have criticised global economic policies, Cardinal Peter Turkson, head of the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department, said: “The people on Wall Street need to sit down and go through a process of discernment and see whether their role managing the finances of the world is actually serving the interests of humanity and the common good. “We are calling for all these bodies and organisations to sit down and do a little bit of re-thinking.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/24/idUS264245887020111024
More preverts found at the tsa. TSA stands for Toomuch Sex Advice? Makes you just want to trust them more and more.
TSA Sex Advice? Woman Finds 'Freaky' Note In Luggage
Frequent travelers may be used to finding an official note from the Transportation Security Administration alerting them that their checked bags have been searched, but rarely does the TSA take the opportunity to get a little more -- or a lot more -- personal with travelers.
But that's what one blogger said a TSA officer did based on an unusual note she found in her luggage today. Jill Filipovic, a blogger at Feministe.us, tweeted a picture of the TSA notification on which, alongside the official form, someone had scrawled "GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL" in big capital letters.
"Just unpacked my suitcase and found this note from TSA," Filipovic tweeted. "Guess they discovered a 'personal item' in my bag. Wow."
Attempting to discreetly explain the "personal item" to commenters on Feministe, Filipovic wrote it was "the most basic lady-thing you can imagine."
Jill Filipovic said she discovered a personal note written on a TSA form in her checked bags that urged her to "get [her] freak on."
Filipovic had traveled from Newark, New Jersey, to Dublin, Ireland, over the weekend and had just this morning opened her luggage. She said that except for when the bag was checked -- from the time she packed to the time she unpacked -- she had been with the bag, meaning it was unlikely an elaborate practical prank by a friend. She said the fact that the note was left on the TSA notice led her to believe a TSA officer had written it.
A spokesperson for the TSA said that they are "one of several entities" that handle checked bags and that at this time there is "no concrete evidence who wrote the note."
Still, the TSA said that "if inappropriate conduct is discovered, TSA [will take] appropriate disciplinary action."
Initially, Filipovic wrote on her blog that the note was "total violation of privacy, wildly inappropriate and clearly not OK, but I also just died laughing in my hotel room."
But upon further reflection, Filipovic told ABC News she believed it to be "offensive" and said she'd likely be filing a complaint with the TSA once she returns to the U.S.
"I hope they do see the complaint, they'll look into it and remind their staff that going through people's personal belongings is a responsibility that should be treated with some modicum of professionalism," Filipovic said.
The TSA said it opens checked bags for hand inspections if any alarms are sounded during the screening process and the TSA inserts the inspection card after the search.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/tsa-sex-advice-woman-finds-freaky-note-luggage/story?id=14803656
Drivers face drug checkpoints on highways near Flint
Motorists driving on expressways around Flint are getting surprised by a stunning tactic that the Genesee County sheriff has been using to fight the flow of illegal drugs -- one that legal experts said will not withstand a court challenge.
At least seven times this month, including Tuesday, motorists have said they have seen a pickup towing a large sign on I-69 or U.S.-23 that depicts the sheriff's badge and warns: "Sheriff narcotics check point, 1 mile ahead -- drug dog in use."
The checkpoints are part of a broad sweep for drugs that Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell and his self-titled Sheriff's Posse said are needed, calling Flint a crossroads of drug dealing because nearly a half-dozen major roads and expressways pass in and around the city. Pickell said he decided to try checkpoints when he learned that drug shipments might be passing through Flint in tractor-trailers with false compartments.
"We're doing everything by the book," Genesee County Undersheriff Christopher Swanson said. "We think there's major loads (of drugs) coming through here from all over, every day. And this is one of the tools we use -- narcotics checkpoints."
He said the dogs are used to sniff around the vehicles to check for drugs.
The practice has legal experts on searches and seizures at two law schools in Michigan, a constitutional law expert in Lansing and the American Civil Liberties Union calling the practice out of bounds and out of touch with state and U.S. Supreme Court rulings that ban such practices.
Based on a case out of Indianapolis, the U.S. Supreme Court held in 2000 that narcotics checkpoints where everyone gets stopped on a public road are not legal and violate Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches and seizures, professor David Moran at the University of Michigan Law School said.
Wayne State University Law School professor Peter Henning said police can set up roadblocks to search all who pass by, but only if a crime has just been committed.
And Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton, who said he was not consulted by Pickell about the checkpoints, said that after a court challenge, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in 1990 that so-called "sobriety check lanes," put in place to nab drunken drivers, were illegal.
The new practice of narcotics checkpoints "certainly brings up probable-cause issues," Leyton said Thursday.
Leyton said he has no power to stop the practice, however. That, he said, would require someone arrested at a checkpoint to contest the evidence in court.
The checkpoints have caused an uproar, officials said. And, as a result, the sheriff's office has altered its methods: Instead of using the checkpoints daily -- even Sundays when they started at the beginning of the month -- they are used sporadically. And instead of stopping everyone, law enforcement has been putting the signs out and waiting for a motorist to make an illegal U-turn in the freeway median to try to avoid the checkpoint, thus giving them cause to pull the driver over and search the vehicle.
But even that method raises question, U-M professor Moran said. The technique has not been tested in Michigan courts, he said. But judges would take a dim view of it because "it's perilously close to entrapment," he said.
"It's just the kind of shabby treatment that the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent," Moran said.
Among the groups of motorists most stunned by the checkpoints are state-registered medical marijuana users and caregivers. Pickell and Swanson said the checkpoints weren't meant to target medical-marijuana users, but word of the new tactic spread quickly through that community.
Many registered users and caregivers told the Free Press they now fear driving near Flint, even when they possess their medical-marijuana registry cards.
At a checkpoint Tuesday afternoon just west of Flint on I-69, officers pulled over only those who saw the checkpoint sign, then made an illegal U-turn on the freeway, Jamie Fricke, 31, of Lapeer said.
"But my buddy went through this on Monday and he said they were pulling over all enclosed trailers. They had drug-sniffing dogs out that day," on I-69 east of Flint, in Burton, she said.
Fricke, a state registered medical-marijuana user, said she had a small amount of the drug with her, but her car was not searched.
Larry and Diane Foster, both of Muskegon, said they saw a checkpoint Oct. 5 in which officers were stopping every motorist on eastbound I-69.
"We were going in the opposite direction or we would've been stopped," said Diane Foster, 55, a state-registered medical-marijuana user and caregiver. "I had medication (marijuana) on me, so I don't know what the outcome would've been."
http://www.freep.com/article/20111021/NEWS06/110210365/Drivers-face-drug-checkpoints-highways-near-Flint?odyssey=tabtopnewstextFRONTPAGE
More stupidity from our government
NASA SWAT Team Terrifies Woman
Woman’s dead husband leaves her a speck (about the size of a grain of rice) of moon dirt. She wants to sell it. Apparently that’s against the law. So much so that NASA and Sheriff’s Officers storm a Denny’s in California to retrieve the speck from her. Full details here. Talk about overkill; there must have been a better way to handle this, especially since lax security and record keeping by NASA allowed a whole lot of moon dust specks to wander into the general public.
After all, it’s not like she was dealing in cocaine or — you know — facilitating in the sale of so-called “assault weapons” and allowing them to cross the border to fall into the hands of the murderous Mexican drug cartels.
http://www.alphecca.com/?p=887
Monday, October 24, 2011
Monday 10-24-11
More from the religion of peace
Star of David Carved on Infidel’s Back in St. Louis
A certain Arab author by the name of Mr. Alaa Alsaegh, an immigrant to the U.S. from Iraq, was attacked on August 14, 2011, by Muslims in the streets of St. Louis, Missouri. They stabbed him and carved a Star of David onto the flesh of his back. His crime? He published an Arabic language poem titled “Tears at the Heart of the Holocaust” on the website ArabsForIsrael.com. The poem expressed his love for the Jewish people and his sorrow over their fate in the Holocaust. The Muslim community in which he lived was outraged by this thought crime. He was called an infidel and received many threats for articulating his taboo feelings for the Jewish people. Alienated from the Muslim community, he continued to write his poetry, which contained the same themes which so upset his fellow Muslims.
In broad daylight and heavy traffic on Aug. 14, Alsaegh paid the price for expressing love for the Jews. And it happened in the streets of St. Louis, right here in the heart of America. Author and courageous freedom fighter Nonie Darwish describes the horrific event:
As he was driving at 10:30 in the morning on Compton St. near Park Ave., a small white car cut him off and hit his car, while another car stopped behind him. The occupants of the cars, some of whom wore security guard-type uniforms, quickly entered Alsaegh’s car, pointing a gun at him. They pushed his upper body down against the steering wheel, stabbed him and pulled off his shirt to expose his back. Then, with a knife, they carved the Star of David on his back while laughing as they recited his pro-Jewish poem.
Alsaegh thought that the perpetrators were Somalis; he was taken to the hospital and the photo of his injury was taken there.
The FBI has concluded that this was a hate crime. Question: apart from the Nonie Darwish article, and a handful of other reports, where exactly is this horrific story of Sharia street justice in America being reported? It is nowhere in the media.
Rodney King became a household name. The inhabitants of one American city rioted over what happened to that man. President Obama quickly reacted to the arrest of Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates and, without knowing the incident’s specifics, accused the police of acting “stupidly.”
Will Alaa Alsaegh become a household name? Will the inhabitants of an American city riot over his case? Will Obama say something? Henry Louis Gates didn’t have his flesh violated by the police. Might Alsaegh prove worthy of one ounce of Obama’s moral indignation?
We know the answers to these questions.
Three more questions:
[1] What if Alaa Alsaegh was a Muslim who was attacked by Christians in St. Louis who carved a cross on his back? Do you think this story would make it into the media?
[2] What if Alaa Alsaegh was a black man who was attacked by skinheads who carved KKK or a swastika onto his back? Do you think this story would make it into the media?
[3] What if Alaa Alsaegh was a Jew who expressed love of Muslims and was attacked for that by Jews who carved a crescent moon and star, a recognized symbol of Islam, onto his back? Do you think the story would make it into the media?
We know the obvious answer to those three questions. We also know that not only would these scenarios lead to mass media coverage worldwide and spark anti-American hysteria, but that scenarios 1 and 3 would most certainly lead not just to U.S. congressional committee investigations, but also to entire UN commissions.
Why is our media silent when a Muslim infidel has a Star of David carved on his back in a hate crime perpetrated by Muslims? Why is the literary culture silent? Where is Hollywood? Why is even our own president silent?
The answer is because of a monstrosity called the Left. The Left shapes and controls the boundaries of our society’s discourse. The Left’s mantle of multiculturalism and the belief that all religions and cultures are equal (except the ones it hates) have been internalized by our society, and there are severe punishments for crossing the boundaries of permitted speech. For example, if you condemn the Muslims for inflicting violence on Alsaegh, then you would have to accept that, in terms of the ingredients of their crime, that they are clearly acting out of the mandates of their Islamic faith (i.e., the obligation to hate infidels and Jews etc. is irrefutable). But to condemn their acts and the teachings on which they are based violates the sacred cow of leftist beliefs (i.e., Islam is a Religion of Peace) and, therefore, makes one an Islamophobe, something that, thanks to the Left’s victory in our culture, most people are now terrified of being accused of.
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/07/star-of-david-carved-on-infidel%E2%80%99s-back-in-st-louis-1/
We can not even get them to follow it, and they are debating wether it is legal or not, come on, quit, your making me laugh
Is the US Declaration of Independence illegal?
19 October 2011 Last updated at 13:14 ET Share this pageEmail Print Share this page
12,187ShareFacebookTwitter.Is the US Declaration of Independence illegal?Comments (431) By Matt Danzico and Kate Dailey
On Tuesday night, while Republican candidates in Nevada were debating such American issues as nuclear waste disposal and the immigration status of Mitt Romney's gardener, American and British lawyers in Philadelphia were taking on a far more fundamental topic.
Namely, just what did Thomas Jefferson think he was doing?
Some background: during the hot and sweltering summer of 1776, members of the second Continental Congress travelled to Philadelphia to discuss their frustration with royal rule.
By 4 July, America's founding fathers approved a simple document penned by Jefferson that enumerated their grievances and announced themselves a sovereign nation.
Star of David Carved on Infidel’s Back in St. Louis
A certain Arab author by the name of Mr. Alaa Alsaegh, an immigrant to the U.S. from Iraq, was attacked on August 14, 2011, by Muslims in the streets of St. Louis, Missouri. They stabbed him and carved a Star of David onto the flesh of his back. His crime? He published an Arabic language poem titled “Tears at the Heart of the Holocaust” on the website ArabsForIsrael.com. The poem expressed his love for the Jewish people and his sorrow over their fate in the Holocaust. The Muslim community in which he lived was outraged by this thought crime. He was called an infidel and received many threats for articulating his taboo feelings for the Jewish people. Alienated from the Muslim community, he continued to write his poetry, which contained the same themes which so upset his fellow Muslims.
In broad daylight and heavy traffic on Aug. 14, Alsaegh paid the price for expressing love for the Jews. And it happened in the streets of St. Louis, right here in the heart of America. Author and courageous freedom fighter Nonie Darwish describes the horrific event:
As he was driving at 10:30 in the morning on Compton St. near Park Ave., a small white car cut him off and hit his car, while another car stopped behind him. The occupants of the cars, some of whom wore security guard-type uniforms, quickly entered Alsaegh’s car, pointing a gun at him. They pushed his upper body down against the steering wheel, stabbed him and pulled off his shirt to expose his back. Then, with a knife, they carved the Star of David on his back while laughing as they recited his pro-Jewish poem.
Alsaegh thought that the perpetrators were Somalis; he was taken to the hospital and the photo of his injury was taken there.
The FBI has concluded that this was a hate crime. Question: apart from the Nonie Darwish article, and a handful of other reports, where exactly is this horrific story of Sharia street justice in America being reported? It is nowhere in the media.
Rodney King became a household name. The inhabitants of one American city rioted over what happened to that man. President Obama quickly reacted to the arrest of Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates and, without knowing the incident’s specifics, accused the police of acting “stupidly.”
Will Alaa Alsaegh become a household name? Will the inhabitants of an American city riot over his case? Will Obama say something? Henry Louis Gates didn’t have his flesh violated by the police. Might Alsaegh prove worthy of one ounce of Obama’s moral indignation?
We know the answers to these questions.
Three more questions:
[1] What if Alaa Alsaegh was a Muslim who was attacked by Christians in St. Louis who carved a cross on his back? Do you think this story would make it into the media?
[2] What if Alaa Alsaegh was a black man who was attacked by skinheads who carved KKK or a swastika onto his back? Do you think this story would make it into the media?
[3] What if Alaa Alsaegh was a Jew who expressed love of Muslims and was attacked for that by Jews who carved a crescent moon and star, a recognized symbol of Islam, onto his back? Do you think the story would make it into the media?
We know the obvious answer to those three questions. We also know that not only would these scenarios lead to mass media coverage worldwide and spark anti-American hysteria, but that scenarios 1 and 3 would most certainly lead not just to U.S. congressional committee investigations, but also to entire UN commissions.
Why is our media silent when a Muslim infidel has a Star of David carved on his back in a hate crime perpetrated by Muslims? Why is the literary culture silent? Where is Hollywood? Why is even our own president silent?
The answer is because of a monstrosity called the Left. The Left shapes and controls the boundaries of our society’s discourse. The Left’s mantle of multiculturalism and the belief that all religions and cultures are equal (except the ones it hates) have been internalized by our society, and there are severe punishments for crossing the boundaries of permitted speech. For example, if you condemn the Muslims for inflicting violence on Alsaegh, then you would have to accept that, in terms of the ingredients of their crime, that they are clearly acting out of the mandates of their Islamic faith (i.e., the obligation to hate infidels and Jews etc. is irrefutable). But to condemn their acts and the teachings on which they are based violates the sacred cow of leftist beliefs (i.e., Islam is a Religion of Peace) and, therefore, makes one an Islamophobe, something that, thanks to the Left’s victory in our culture, most people are now terrified of being accused of.
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/07/star-of-david-carved-on-infidel%E2%80%99s-back-in-st-louis-1/
We can not even get them to follow it, and they are debating wether it is legal or not, come on, quit, your making me laugh
Is the US Declaration of Independence illegal?
19 October 2011 Last updated at 13:14 ET Share this pageEmail Print Share this page
12,187ShareFacebookTwitter.Is the US Declaration of Independence illegal?Comments (431) By Matt Danzico and Kate Dailey
On Tuesday night, while Republican candidates in Nevada were debating such American issues as nuclear waste disposal and the immigration status of Mitt Romney's gardener, American and British lawyers in Philadelphia were taking on a far more fundamental topic.
Namely, just what did Thomas Jefferson think he was doing?
Some background: during the hot and sweltering summer of 1776, members of the second Continental Congress travelled to Philadelphia to discuss their frustration with royal rule.
By 4 July, America's founding fathers approved a simple document penned by Jefferson that enumerated their grievances and announced themselves a sovereign nation.
“
When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security”
The Declaration of Independence
Called the Declaration of Independence, it was a blow for freedom, a call to war, and the founding of a new empire.
It was also totally illegitimate and illegal.
At least, that was what lawyers from the UK argued during a debate at Philadelphia's Ben Franklin Hall.
American experiment
The event, presented by the Temple American Inn of Court in conjunction with Gray's Inn, London, pitted British barristers against American lawyers to determine whether or not the American colonists had legal grounds to declare secession.
For American lawyers, the answer is simple: "The English had used their own Declaration of Rights to depose James II and these acts were deemed completely lawful and justified," they say in their summary.
To the British, however, secession isn't the legal or proper tool by which to settle internal disputes. "What if Texas decided today it wanted to secede from the Union? Lincoln made the case against secession and he was right," they argue in their brief.
A vote at the end of the debate reaffirmed the legality of Jefferson and company's insurrection, and the American experiment survived to see another day.
It was an unsurprising result, considering the venue - just a few blocks away from where the Declaration was drafted. But did they get it right? Below are some more of the arguments from both sides.
The American case for the Declaration
Did the Founding Fathers have any respect for the law? The Declaration is unquestionably "legal". Under basic principles of "Natural Law", government can only be by the consent of the people and there comes a point when allegiance is no longer required in face of tyranny.
The legality of the Declaration and its validity is proven by subsequent independence movements which have been enforced by world opinion as right and just, based on the fundamental principles of equality and self-determination now reflected in the UN Charter.
The British case against it
The Declaration emerged from the second Continental Congress The Declaration of Independence was not only illegal, but actually treasonable. There is no legal principle then or now to allow a group of citizens to establish their own laws because they want to. What if Texas decided today it wanted to secede from the Union?
Lincoln made the case against secession and he was right. The Declaration of Independence itself, in the absence of any recognised legal basis, had to appeal to "natural law", an undefined concept, and to "self-evident truths", that is to say truths for which no evidence could be provided.
The grievances listed in the Declaration were too trivial to justify secession. The main one - no taxation without representation - was no more than a wish on the part of the colonists, to avoid paying for the expense of protecting them against the French during seven years of arduous war and conflict.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15345511
We still are nation building, but whjich nation are we building now? At least in the past we said we were trying to build democracy's, but now we are helping build the islamic countries instead. We the womans groups raise up? They had a lot of privledges before, not they won't.
Libya's liberation: interim ruler unveils more radical than expected plans for Islamic law
Libya's interim leader outlined more radical plans to introduce Islamic law than expected as he declared the official liberation of the country.
Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council and de fact president, had already declared that Libyan laws in future would have Sharia, the Islamic code, as its "basic source".
But that formulation can be interpreted in many ways - it was also the basis of Egypt's largely secular constitution under President Hosni Mubarak, and remains so after his fall.
Mr Abdul-Jalil went further, specifically lifting immediately, by decree, one law from Col. Gaddafi's era that he said was in conflict with Sharia - that banning polygamy.
In a blow to those who hoped to see Libya's economy integrate further into the western world, he announced that in future bank regulations would ban the charging of interest, in line with Sharia. "Interest creates disease and hatred among people," he said.
Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates, and other Muslim countries, have pioneered the development of Sharia-compliant banks which charge fees rather than interest for loans but they normally run alongside western-style banks.
In the first instance, interest on low-value loans would be waived altogether, he said.
Libya is already the most conservative state in north Africa, banning the sale of alcohol. Mr Abdul-Jalil's decision - made in advance of the introduction of any democratic process - will please the Islamists who have played a strong role in opposition to Col Gaddafi's rule and in the uprising but worry the many young liberal Libyans who, while usually observant Muslims, take their political cues from the West.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8844819/Libyas-liberation-interim-ruler-unveils-more-radical-than-expected-plans-for-Islamic-law.html
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Sunday 10-23-11
The Christian Worker's Outfit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I QUALIFICATIONS
1. Knowledge of the Scriptures
The Christian Workman is to win his Lord's approval by RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE WORD OF TRUTH (2 Tim. 2:15). The Word of God is a "HAMMER" to knock down and build up; a "FIRE" to consume and warm (Jer. 23:29); a "SEED" to furnish seed to the sower and bread to the eater (Luke 8:11, 1 Pet. 1:23); a "SWORD" for destruction and defense (Eph. 6:17). It is also a "LAMP", a "LIGHT", etc.
1. Use markers, which make a transparent line, to draw over the lines of a verse of scripture. Use scarlet for the "promises", green for "condemnation", brown for death and resurrection", etc. Draw a red ellipse around the word BLOOD all through. the Bible and fill it with red.
2. Underscore, or draw a circle, ellipse, or rectangle around emphatic words, using liquid India Ink as it is black and will not show through the paper. Mark marginal notes and draw lines from them to the passage. Connect verses or words by lines, for neatness use a ruler. [f skilled in the use of a pen, draw in margin opposite Ex. 12:7, a doorway and make red ink marks on sides and lintel; Opposite Num. 21:8, a red serpent on a black pole; opposite Dan. 3:19 draw a fiery furnace. Draw a triangle for Trinity, a circle for Eternity, an anchor for Hope, a little b in large C (little believer in big Christ) for Assurance; a sun for Sonship, etc. These symbols, and others that will suggest themselves, will strike the eye and enable you to quickly find the passage.
3. Print in large black block letters over the different books their title. Over Exodus, "Book of Redemption"; over Leviticus, "Book of SACRIFICE"; over Ro mans, "JUSTIFICATION". Mark chapters. in the same way, Jeremiah 3, "Backslider's" chapter; John 6, "Bread" chapter; 1 John 3, "Love" chapter.
2. A Bible Concordance
Take some of the great words of Scripture as "Sin", "Faith", "Redemption", "Love", "Holy Spirit" and turn to the Concordance an (John 3:36); and that the WAGES of sin is death, (Rom. 6:23). Or try another way and show them the LOVE of God, (John 3:16); that Jesus was wounded for THEIR transgressions (Isa. 53:5); and bore THEIR sins in His own body on the tree (1 Pet.. 2: 24); and that by rejecting him they are committing the most damning sin of all, (Heb. 10:28-29).
II How to Lead to Christ
Turn to Isa. 53:6. There are TWO things that a sinner needs to KNOW, and ONE thing he needs to DO in order to be saved. He needs to KNOW, first, that he is a LOST sinner, and this verse tells him that; second, Christ is an all-sufficient Saviour and this verse tells him that. What he needs to DO is simply accept this all-sufficient Saviour whom God has provided. John 1 : 1 2 brings out this thought very clearly, also John 3:16 and John 5:24.
Show from Rom. 1:16 whom it is that the "Gospel" saves - "everyone that believeth". "Believeth what?" "The Gospel." "What is the Gospel?" Answer - 1 Cor. 15:1-4. "What is the promise if you believe?" Answer Rom. 10:9. "Do you believe?" Then let us kneel and tell God so.
III. I Do Believe But I Don't Feel Saved
Feeling is the "FRUIT", not the "ROOT" of Salvation, (Gal. 5:22, 1 Pet. 1:8). The Bible nowhere says we are to trust in our "feelings" for salvation but in the PROMISES" of God. It does not say he . that "FEELETH" shall be saved, but he that "BELIEVETH." 'What was it that made the slaves free?" "Was it their feeling?" No, it was the proclamation of President Lincoln.
It is AFTER we receive the testimony of God's Word that we are "SEALED with the Holy Spirit" (Eph. 1:13). The Natural order is:
Resting on God's Word (John 20:30-31).
Public Confession (Rom. 10:9-10).
Witness of the Spirit (Rom. 8:16-17).
We cannot reasonably expect the "Witness of the Spirit" from the Father until we are confessed BEFORE the Father, and this Christ tells us he will not do until we have confessed Him BEFORE MEN (Matt. 10:32).
HOW does the Holy Spirit WITNESS? Just the same as others witness, by WORDS.
Can you conceive of a wits 1 John 3:2 say?" "NOW are ye the SONS OF GOD?
Turn to John 3 : 36. "Who does this verse say has everlasting Life?" "He that BELIEVETH on the Son". "Do you believe on the Son?" "Yes." "What have you then?" "EVERLASTING LIFE." Use John 5:24 and 1 John 5:12 in the same way. Turn to Acts 13:39. "What does this verse say that all who believe are?" "JUSTIFIED." "Do you believe?" "Yes." "What are you then?" "JUSTIFIED." "What does Rom. 5:1 say?" "They, who have been justified by faith, have PEACE with God." Notice it is not the peace OF God, (Phil. 4:7), but peace WITH God. That is we are NOW, reconciled to God. "Put that in black and white," says the merchant, when a good offer is made to him. God has put His offer in black and white, (1 John 5:1., John 20:31).
VI What Will Become of Our Sins?
REMITTED - Acts 10:43.
CLEANSED -1 John 1:7-9.
BLOTTED OUT - Isa. 44:22.
CAST BEHIND GOD'S BACK - Isa. 38:17.
CAST INTO THE SEA - Micah 7:19.
REMOVED AS FAR AS EAST FROM WEST - Psa. 103:12.
FORGOTTEN - Heb. 10:17.
VII. How to Treat Special Cases
1. The Moralist
Turn to Isa. 64:6 and show them all their righteousness is but filthy rags. If they say they have NO sin, they "deceive themselves", (1 John 1:8-10). If they keep the whole law and "offend in one point", they are guilty of ALL, (James 2:10). God "Knoweth their HEARTS", (Luke 16:15). They MUST be "born again", (John 3:5-6). The parable of the Pharisee and Publican (Luke 18:9-14) may be used with good effect.
2. Trusting to "Works"
Show them men are not saved BY works (Titus 3:5, Eph. 2:8-9, Rom. 4:5), nor JUSTIFIED by "the law" (Rom. 3:19-20). If they quote Phil. 2:12 and say God commands us to "Work OUT our own salvation", show them that that is addressed to Christians (Phil. 1:1) and we must first HAVE this salvation before we can work it out. [1 we can be saved BY works, then Christ's death was useless (Gal. 2:21).
3. Trusting to the "Mercy" of God
Show them in John 3 :18-36, that they are "ALREADY condemned"; that God has "no pleasure in the death of a sinner" (Ex. 33: 11); that they are "despis ins" God's goodness towards them (Rom. 2:4-5); that if they are finally lost it will be because they "WILL NOT come to Him" (John 5:40); and while God IS merciful He exercises that mercy through only one channel, JESUS CHRIST (Acts 4:12).
4. Those Who Doubt the Bible
Show them that to doubt the Bible does not alter the Fact (Rom. 3:3-4); that by doing so they make God a liar (1 John 5:10); that it proves they are not of God (John 8:47); that Satan has blinded their eyes (2 Cor. 4:3-4), and because they receive not the "love of the truth", they are given over to delusion and damnation (2 Thess. 1:10-12); that if the preaching of the cross is foolishness to them, it is because they are PERISHING (1 Cot. 1:18) and the NATURAL man cannot receive it (1 Cor. 2:14) and if they will "DO God's will" they shall know of the doctrine (John 7:17, 5:39; Acts 17: 11, 12).
5. Those Who Doubt Future Punishment
Show by Luke 16:23-24 that when the wicked die the soul goes to a place of CONSCIOUS torment; that the day is coming when the wicked as well as the "righteous" shall RISE FROM THE DEAD (John 5:28, 29). After this the JUDGMENT (Heb. 9:27, 2 Pet. 3:7). Their doom will be to be cast into the "Lake of Fire" (Rev. 20:12-15), where they will be tormented FOREVER AND EVER (Rev. 20:10, Matt. 25:41, 46, Mark 9:44).
6. Those Who Doubt the Divinity of Christ
Show by 1 John 2:22, that he who denies the 'Divinity o Christ" is a liar and an anti-christ and, if he continues to deny, he shall die in his sins (John 8:24). John wrote his Gospel to PROVE that Jesus was the Christ (John 20:30-31). Get them to read it carefully.
Jesus claimed that he was EQUAL WITH GOD (John 5:18, 10:30), and that he was the SON OF me to save the "CHIEF" of sinners; and though their sins "be as scarlet" (Isa. 1:18), that Jesus is able to save to the "uttermost" ( Heb, 7 : 2 ) and will not "cast t" any who comes t Him (John 6:37).
8. "I am Afraid I Can't Hold Out"
Show them that God will Not permit us to be tempted above what we are "able to bear" (1 Car. 10: 13). We are not to keep ourselves but are KEPT "by the POWER OF GOD (1 Pet. 1:5). Christ is "ABLE to keep us" (Jude 24) and no man CAN pluck us "out of His hand" (John 10:27-29). He who has begun a good work in us will continue it "un'o the END" (Phil. 1:6).
9. "1 Will be Persecuted"
Yes, that is the path to glory. All who will live Godly shall suffer persecution (2 Tim. 3:12) and if, for Christ's sake, it is a blessed token (Matt. 5:10-12). Jesus suffered persecution for us (1 Pet. 2:20, 21) and we must
not let even those of our own household keep us from Christ (Matt. 10:34.39). It is the "fear of Man" that bringeth a snare (Prov. 29:25.).
Show them from Rom. 8:18 that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the Glory which shall be revealed in us.
10. "I am Seeking, but Cannot Find Him"
The reason is you do not search with "all your heart" (Jer. 29:13). As Christ is seeking you (Luke 19: 10), if you are really seeking Him, it won't take long for a seeking Saviour and a seeking sinner to find each other.
11. 1 am Trying to be a Christian"
It is not "trying" but "RECEIVING" (John 1: 12). Never instruct a sinner to pray, or continue to seek, or use the means of grace", or wait for mercy but press him to yield and trust Christ AT ONCE. When the Phillippian Jailor asked what he should DO to be saved, Paul did not say, "Get down and pray, "but, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved", and he believed and was baptized the same hour. (Acts 16:30-34). Zaccheus was converted between the bough of the tree and the ground (Luke 19:6). Conversion is no tedious process, but is INSTANTANEOUS.
12. "I've Tried Before"
Tried and failed!" Whose fault was it? Not God's, for He says "when ye search for me with ALL your heart ye shall find me". (Jer. 20:13) and "him that COMETH to me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37).
13. 1 Can't Believe"
In most cases the reason is, an unforgiving spirit (Matt. 5:22 & 24, 6:15), some daring sin (Matt. 18:8), love of the world (1 john 2:15), business or social entanglements (Mark 8:36, 2 Cor. 6:14-17) being ashamed (Luke 9:26). Isa. 55:7 will show them what they must DO and Gal. 6:7-8 will show them the consequences if they don't. Show them how FAITH COMES (Rom. 10:17).
14. "I Haven't Conviction Enough"
The AMOUNT is not essential, if there be enough to make one feel his need o forgiveness. In fact conviction of sin comes largely AFTER conversion, As one's conscience becomes enlightened by the Holy Spirit) things which once were not thought sinful come to appear as sins. A man cannot have "godly sorrow" for sin (2 Cor. 7:10), until there is something "Godly" in him.
15. "It is Too Late"
If they mean they have sinned away "the day of grace", or fear they have committed the "Unpardonable Sin", show them what that is (Matt. 12:31, 32). If they have not blasphemed against the Holy Ghost (and one who has done that is indifferent to the gospel), then show them John 6:37 and 2 Pet. 3:9. If they mean that it is "too late" to think about it, use the 'Dying Thief" (Luke 23:39-43).
16. Inconsistencies of Christians
Christ says "What is that to Thee? Follow thou me". (John 21:22). Show them from 2 Cor. 10:12 that it is not WISE to compare ourselves with one another; that we are not to judge one another; that we are not to judge another man's servant (Rom. 14:4), for by so doing we judge ourselves (Rom. 2:1); that every one of us shall give a PERSONAL account to Christ (Rom. 14:10-12); that we s Him if you show them His time, and then turn to 2 Cor. 6:2.
19. Backsliders
Ask them "What INIQUITY they found in the Lord" (Jer. 2:5), that they forsook Him. Show them that they have forsaken "the fountain of LIVING WATERS" for broken cisterns (Jet. 2:13); that their own backslidings reprove them (Jer. 4 2:19); that they are NOT FIT for the kingdom of God (Luke 9:62) ; that God invites them to return to their "first Love" (Rev. 2:4-5); and that, if they will confess their sin, he will forgive them (1 John 1:9). The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-24) may be used with effect.
20. Worldly Christians
Show them that the FRIENDSHIP OF THE WORLD is enmity with God (Jas. 4:4) ; that the LOVE OF THE WORLD is proof that the love of the Father is NOT IN THEM (1 John 2:15); that they ARE DEAD while they so live (1 Tim. 5:6); that we are NOT TO ENTANGLE ourselves (2 Tim. 2:4); but COME OUT and BE SEPARATE (2 Cor. 6:14.18), and BE TRANSFORMED (Rom. 12:12).
21. Spiritualists
Show them that intercourse with "Familiar Spirits" is FORBIDDEN in the Scriptures (Lev. 19:31); that they are to TRY the spirits (1 John 4:1, 3); that they are in danger of DELUSION (2 Thess. 2:9-12); that such a manifestation will NOT convert them (Luke 16:30-31) and will cause them to be CUT OFF (Lev. 20:6, 1 Chron. 10:13-44).
22. Roman Catholics
Turn to John 3:5-7 and show them the NECESSITY of the "new Birth". Many Roman Catholics understand the "new birth" to be baptism. Show them it is not. In 1 Cor. 4:15, Paul says to the Corinthian Christian, "I have begotten you though the gospel". If the "new birth" is baptism, he must have baptized them, but in 1 Cor. 1:14 he declares he did not. Show them from Section VIII, what the "new birth" is. Acts 8:13-21 will show that a man may be baptized and yet his heart not be right in the sight of God. Show them the evidences of "New birth" (2 Cor. 5:17, 1 John 2:29, 3:9, 14, 15, 5: 1, 4, 5). Roman Catholics lack assurance. Show them from Section V, that we may KNOW we are saved and HOW we may know it.
23. Jews
Show them that the Old Testament points to Christ. The most helpful passages to use are Isa. 53; Psa. 22; Zach. 12:10. There are also useful passages in the New Testament; Heb. 9th & 10th chapters and Heb. 7: 25-28. The Gospel by Matthew was written for the Jews.
24. Probation After Death
Show them from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19.26) that there is a "BRIDGELESS GULP" between the righteous and the wicked in the world to come. We are to be rewarded in the next world according to the things done in the BODY (2 Cor. 5:10). "As a tree falleth so shall it lie" (Ecc. 11:3) and there is such a thing as FIXEDNESS OF CHARACTER (Rev. 22;11).
VIII. THE STEPS IN SALVATION
CONVICTION (Acts 2:37).
CONVERSION (Matthew 18:3).
REPENTANCE (Acts 2:38).
FAITH (John 3:36).
CONFESSION (Rom. 10:9-10).
REGENERATION (John 3:3,5).
JUSTIFICATION (Acts 13:39).
SANCTIFICATION (1 Thess. 4:3).
RESURRECTION (Rorn. 8:23).
GLORIFICATION (Rom. 8:17).
DEFINITION OF TERMS
"Conversion" is a change of OPINION.
"Repentance" is a change of PURPOSE.
"Faith" is a PERSONAL TRUST in Jesus as YOUR Saviour.
"Regeneration" is a change of DISPOSITION or NATURE.
"Justification" is the result of Christ's work FOR us.
"Sanctification" is the Holy Spirit's work IN us.
The New Birth
Men are NOT by nature the "Sons of God" (Eph. 2:1-3). They are ALREADY CONDEMNED (John 3:18-36). There is a RESTRICTED Fatherhood of God (John 1:12-13, 8:38-44, 2 Cor. 6:1718, 1 John 3:10). They MUST be born again (John 3:3-5) to become GOD'S sons.
What IS this "new birth"? It is the COMMUNICATION of a "New Life" and the IMPLANTATION of a "new nature" BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD.
HOW is it communicated: How was the "Son of God" BORN? (Luke 1:30-35). The Holy Ghost was his FATHER, and as the WOMB OF THE VIRGIN was his birthplace, so the HUMAN HEART is the womb in which is conceived by the agency of the Holy Spirit, the "new Life". The "SEED" which contains the germinating power, and which is deposited in the womb of the human heart by the Holy Spirit, is THE WORD OF GOD (1 Pet. 1:23, James 1:18, Luke 8:11). Born of WATER (John 3:5) is NOT Baptism, but water stands for the WORD of God (John 15:3, Eph. 5:26, I Pet. 1:23). Unless the SEED (the word) be VITALIZED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, it is BARREN (John 6:63). Similarly SIN is generated in the heart by SATAN, the "Father of Lies" (Acts 5:3.4).
How We May hnow We Are Born Again:
A new CREATURE (2 Cor. 5:17). Everything about us will put on a new aspect.
A new TONGUE. Not swear or blaspheme, and love to talk of the things of the kingdom.
New FOOD. Trashy literature, etc., will not satisfy. Read the Bible and good books.
New SONG. Sacred song will take the place of worldly music.
New SOCIETY. Will love God's house and God's people (20a "DUAL NATURE" (Rom. 7:18-25). While his "STANDING" is that of a "SON" (1 John 3:2), and he is no longer under condemnation (John 5:24), yet his STATE will be variable, and he must not be disheartened and think he is not converted if he fails into sin, but must confess his sin (1 John 1:9) and be more careful.
The New Testament speaks of THREE ways in which we may rid ourselves of our FLESHLY appetites and tendencies.
By AMPUTATION (Matt. 18:8-9).
BY MORTIFICATION (Col. 3:5-10, Rom. 8:13).
BY LIMITATION (Heb. 12:1).
Sins we must amputate; tendencies we must "slough off" or mortify; and weights we must limit ourselves in.
X. SHOULD I JOIN A CHURCH?
Yes. Why? Because Christ commands it.
1. His command to DISCIPLES (Matt. 28:19-20). What things did Christ Command that we should OBSERVE?
A. BAPTISM (water). Matt. 28:19
There is both a WATER baptism and a SPIRIT baptism. The former is to precede the latter. There is but one instance in the New Testament where the order was reversed (Acts 10:44-48) and that was to satisfy some Jews that the Gentiles were entitled to Christian privileges.
Jesus did not receive SPIRIT baptism until AFTER He had received WATER Baptism, (Luke 3:2122) and it was because of His submitting to WATER baptism that the Father said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am WELL PLEASED."
WATER baptism is symbolical of the "New Life" (Rom. 6:3-4) and is the way God has appointed to publicly profess Christ. SPIRIT baptism is a baptism of the Holy Spirit for SERVICE (Luke 24:48-49, Acts 1:8, Acts 2:4, Acts 10:44-46, Acts 19:6). The way to obtain the latter is to submit to the former. (Acts 2:38).
B. LORD'S SUPPER (Luke 22:19-20)
This can only, be observed by some organized body which in the New Testament is known as "THE CHURCH". (Acts 2:47, Col. 1:18, Eph. 5:25-27).
" THE CHURCH" is ONE BODY, but has many members, sects and denominations (1 Cor. 12:1214).
2. His command to BELIEVERS. If you LOVE ME, do these things (John 14:15, 23, 15:14, 1 John 2:4).
EXAMPLE demands it. Your refusal to join a church is used by others as an argument or excuse for their not joining.
The development of your Christian life REQUIRES it, for you need to engage in some organized work and Bible Study. Then again belonging to church will help you to overcome temptation and worldliness.
It is the TEST of the SINCERITY of your conversion. If your conversion is REAL, you will not hesitate to do what Christ commands (Luke 9:26).
Practical Methods
1. Of Work
Invite the unsaved to Church
Have a prayer list
Give them a timely tract.
Write a letter about their salvation.
Sit with them and rise with them for prayer.
Go with them to the inquiry room or altar.
Ask them to go with you to see the pastor.
Quietly watch for those who are affected by the sermon and speak to them
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE SERVICE.
Start a prayer meeting or Bible class in your home, or a Sunday School in the vicinity. Give Bible Readings, visit the sick and the poor, and read and pray with them.
2. Revival Meetings
Commence sometime before by getting a few together and praying for them. Then appoint committees to visit the homes of the people and invite them to attend. Advertise them. Let the order of exercises be; first, a thirty minute song service of attractive and inspiring music. Be sure the words are free. from errors of doctrine and evangelistic; second, follow the singing with a thirty minute sermon of a scriptural and awakening character and then hold an after meeting.
The After Meeting
After the sermon, ask all who desire to remain, and all who desire to become Christians, to retire to the chapel or lecture room. Send some before to start the singing and have some one stand at the door and invite people in. Then after prayer and testimony, "pull the net."
Where there is no adjoining room to adjourn to, sing a hymn after the sermon, all rising, and let those who wish to go, do so during the singing. Then proceed as above. If the spirit of the meeting has reached a high pitch during the sermon, it is best to "pull the net" at once.
How To Pull The Net
Have the WHOLE congregation bow their heads and, while the choir is singing or someone is praying, get those who desire to be Christians to RISE or lift their hand.
Have all the CHRISTIANS bow their heads in prayer and all those who wish to be prayed for bow their heads with them.
Have the WHOLE congregation bow their heads, then get the CHRISTIANS to rise and sing, "Almost Persuaded", inviting those who desire to be saved to rise and stand with them.
Ask all who have been Christians for 40 years to rise, then 30 years, then 20 years, and so on down to 6 months, 3 days, etc. Invite those who desire to be Christians to rise and stand with them.
While all heads are bowed in prayer, get them to rise and say "I take Christ".
Ask all who have decided to become Christian to rise and say "I have" or "I will".
While the WHOLE congregation is standing and singing, ask all who have risen for prayer, or will accept Christ, to come forward to the front seats. They can be talked with and instructed after the meeting. Workers ought to be present with their Bibles to instruct them.
While singing two or three verses of a hymn, have the Christians rise one or two at a time, and have those who desire to be Christians rise with them.
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0, Rom. 8:13).
BY LIMITATION (Heb. 12:1).
Sins we must amputate; tendencies we must "slough off" or mortify; and weights we must limit ourselves in.
X. SHOULD I JOIN A CHURCH?
Yes. Why? Because Christ commands it.
1. His command to DISCIPLES (Matt. 28:19-20). What things did Christ Command that we should OBSERVE?
A. BAPTISM (water). Matt. 28:19
There is both a WATER baptism and a SPIRIT baptism. The former is to precede the latter. There is but one instance in the New Testament where the order was reversed (Acts 10:44-48) and that was to satisfy some Jews that the Gentiles were entitled to Christian privileges.
Jesus did not receive SPIRIT baptism until AFTER He had received WATER Baptism, (Luke 3:2122) and it was because of His submitting to WATER baptism that the Father said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am WELL PLEASED."
WATER baptism is symbolical of the "New Life" (Rom. 6:3-4) and is the way God has appointed to publicly profess Christ. SPIRIT baptism is a baptism of the Holy Spirit for SERVICE (Luke 24:48-49, Acts 1:8, Acts 2:4, Acts 10:44-46, Acts 19:6). The way to obtain the latter is to submit to the former. (Acts 2:38).
B. LORD'S SUPPER (Luke 22:19-20)
This can only, be observed by some organized body which in the New Testament is known as "THE CHURCH". (Acts 2:47, Col. 1:18, Eph. 5:25-27).
" THE CHURCH" is ONE BODY, but has many members, sects and denominations (1 Cor. 12:1214).
2. His command to BELIEVERS. If you LOVE ME, do these things (John 14:15, 23, 15:14, 1 John 2:4).
EXAMPLE demands it. Your refusal to join a church is used by others as an argument or excuse for their not joining.
The development of your Christian life REQUIRES it, for you need to engage in some organized work and Bible Study. Then again belonging to church will help you to overcome temptation and worldliness.
It is the TEST of the SINCERITY of your conversion. If your conversion is REAL, you will not hesitate to do what Christ commands (Luke 9:26).
Practical Methods
1. Of Work
Invite the unsaved to Church
Have a prayer list
Give them a timely tract.
Write a letter about their salvation.
Sit with them and rise with them for prayer.
Go with them to the inquiry room or altar.
Ask them to go with you to see the pastor.
Quietly watch for those who are affected by the sermon and speak to them
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE SERVICE.
Start a prayer meeting or Bible class in your home, or a Sunday School in the vicinity. Give Bible Readings, visit the sick and the poor, and read and pray with them.
2. Revival Meetings
Commence sometime before by getting a few together and praying for them. Then appoint committees to visit the homes of the people and invite them to attend. Advertise them. Let the order of exercises be; first, a thirty minute song service of attractive and inspiring music. Be sure the words are free. from errors of doctrine and evangelistic; second, follow the singing with a thirty minute sermon of a scriptural and awakening character and then hold an after meeting.
The After Meeting
After the sermon, ask all who desire to remain, and all who desire to become Christians, to retire to the chapel or lecture room. Send some before to start the singing and have some one stand at the door and invite people in. Then after prayer and testimony, "pull the net."
Where there is no adjoining room to adjourn to, sing a hymn after the sermon, all rising, and let those who wish to go, do so during the singing. Then proceed as above. If the spirit of the meeting has reached a high pitch during the sermon, it is best to "pull the net" at once.
How To Pull The Net
Have the WHOLE congregation bow their heads and, while the choir is singing or someone is praying, get those who desire to be Christians to RISE or lift their hand.
Have all the CHRISTIANS bow their heads in prayer and all those who wish to be prayed for bow their heads with them.
Have the WHOLE congregation bow their heads, then get the CHRISTIANS to rise and sing, "Almost Persuaded", inviting those who desire to be saved to rise and stand with them.
Ask all who have been Christians for 40 years to rise, then 30 years, then 20 years, and so on down to 6 months, 3 days, etc. Invite those who desire to be Christians to rise and stand with them.
While all heads are bowed in prayer, get them to rise and say "I take Christ".
Ask all who have decided to become Christian to rise and say "I have" or "I will".
While the WHOLE congregation is standing and singing, ask all who have risen for prayer, or will accept Christ, to come forward to the front seats. They can be talked with and instructed after the meeting. Workers ought to be present with their Bibles to instruct them.
While singing two or three verses of a hymn, have the Christians rise one or two at a time, and have those who desire to be Christians rise with them.
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I QUALIFICATIONS
1. Knowledge of the Scriptures
The Christian Workman is to win his Lord's approval by RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE WORD OF TRUTH (2 Tim. 2:15). The Word of God is a "HAMMER" to knock down and build up; a "FIRE" to consume and warm (Jer. 23:29); a "SEED" to furnish seed to the sower and bread to the eater (Luke 8:11, 1 Pet. 1:23); a "SWORD" for destruction and defense (Eph. 6:17). It is also a "LAMP", a "LIGHT", etc.
1. Use markers, which make a transparent line, to draw over the lines of a verse of scripture. Use scarlet for the "promises", green for "condemnation", brown for death and resurrection", etc. Draw a red ellipse around the word BLOOD all through. the Bible and fill it with red.
2. Underscore, or draw a circle, ellipse, or rectangle around emphatic words, using liquid India Ink as it is black and will not show through the paper. Mark marginal notes and draw lines from them to the passage. Connect verses or words by lines, for neatness use a ruler. [f skilled in the use of a pen, draw in margin opposite Ex. 12:7, a doorway and make red ink marks on sides and lintel; Opposite Num. 21:8, a red serpent on a black pole; opposite Dan. 3:19 draw a fiery furnace. Draw a triangle for Trinity, a circle for Eternity, an anchor for Hope, a little b in large C (little believer in big Christ) for Assurance; a sun for Sonship, etc. These symbols, and others that will suggest themselves, will strike the eye and enable you to quickly find the passage.
3. Print in large black block letters over the different books their title. Over Exodus, "Book of Redemption"; over Leviticus, "Book of SACRIFICE"; over Ro mans, "JUSTIFICATION". Mark chapters. in the same way, Jeremiah 3, "Backslider's" chapter; John 6, "Bread" chapter; 1 John 3, "Love" chapter.
2. A Bible Concordance
Take some of the great words of Scripture as "Sin", "Faith", "Redemption", "Love", "Holy Spirit" and turn to the Concordance an (John 3:36); and that the WAGES of sin is death, (Rom. 6:23). Or try another way and show them the LOVE of God, (John 3:16); that Jesus was wounded for THEIR transgressions (Isa. 53:5); and bore THEIR sins in His own body on the tree (1 Pet.. 2: 24); and that by rejecting him they are committing the most damning sin of all, (Heb. 10:28-29).
II How to Lead to Christ
Turn to Isa. 53:6. There are TWO things that a sinner needs to KNOW, and ONE thing he needs to DO in order to be saved. He needs to KNOW, first, that he is a LOST sinner, and this verse tells him that; second, Christ is an all-sufficient Saviour and this verse tells him that. What he needs to DO is simply accept this all-sufficient Saviour whom God has provided. John 1 : 1 2 brings out this thought very clearly, also John 3:16 and John 5:24.
Show from Rom. 1:16 whom it is that the "Gospel" saves - "everyone that believeth". "Believeth what?" "The Gospel." "What is the Gospel?" Answer - 1 Cor. 15:1-4. "What is the promise if you believe?" Answer Rom. 10:9. "Do you believe?" Then let us kneel and tell God so.
III. I Do Believe But I Don't Feel Saved
Feeling is the "FRUIT", not the "ROOT" of Salvation, (Gal. 5:22, 1 Pet. 1:8). The Bible nowhere says we are to trust in our "feelings" for salvation but in the PROMISES" of God. It does not say he . that "FEELETH" shall be saved, but he that "BELIEVETH." 'What was it that made the slaves free?" "Was it their feeling?" No, it was the proclamation of President Lincoln.
It is AFTER we receive the testimony of God's Word that we are "SEALED with the Holy Spirit" (Eph. 1:13). The Natural order is:
Resting on God's Word (John 20:30-31).
Public Confession (Rom. 10:9-10).
Witness of the Spirit (Rom. 8:16-17).
We cannot reasonably expect the "Witness of the Spirit" from the Father until we are confessed BEFORE the Father, and this Christ tells us he will not do until we have confessed Him BEFORE MEN (Matt. 10:32).
HOW does the Holy Spirit WITNESS? Just the same as others witness, by WORDS.
Can you conceive of a wits 1 John 3:2 say?" "NOW are ye the SONS OF GOD?
Turn to John 3 : 36. "Who does this verse say has everlasting Life?" "He that BELIEVETH on the Son". "Do you believe on the Son?" "Yes." "What have you then?" "EVERLASTING LIFE." Use John 5:24 and 1 John 5:12 in the same way. Turn to Acts 13:39. "What does this verse say that all who believe are?" "JUSTIFIED." "Do you believe?" "Yes." "What are you then?" "JUSTIFIED." "What does Rom. 5:1 say?" "They, who have been justified by faith, have PEACE with God." Notice it is not the peace OF God, (Phil. 4:7), but peace WITH God. That is we are NOW, reconciled to God. "Put that in black and white," says the merchant, when a good offer is made to him. God has put His offer in black and white, (1 John 5:1., John 20:31).
VI What Will Become of Our Sins?
REMITTED - Acts 10:43.
CLEANSED -1 John 1:7-9.
BLOTTED OUT - Isa. 44:22.
CAST BEHIND GOD'S BACK - Isa. 38:17.
CAST INTO THE SEA - Micah 7:19.
REMOVED AS FAR AS EAST FROM WEST - Psa. 103:12.
FORGOTTEN - Heb. 10:17.
VII. How to Treat Special Cases
1. The Moralist
Turn to Isa. 64:6 and show them all their righteousness is but filthy rags. If they say they have NO sin, they "deceive themselves", (1 John 1:8-10). If they keep the whole law and "offend in one point", they are guilty of ALL, (James 2:10). God "Knoweth their HEARTS", (Luke 16:15). They MUST be "born again", (John 3:5-6). The parable of the Pharisee and Publican (Luke 18:9-14) may be used with good effect.
2. Trusting to "Works"
Show them men are not saved BY works (Titus 3:5, Eph. 2:8-9, Rom. 4:5), nor JUSTIFIED by "the law" (Rom. 3:19-20). If they quote Phil. 2:12 and say God commands us to "Work OUT our own salvation", show them that that is addressed to Christians (Phil. 1:1) and we must first HAVE this salvation before we can work it out. [1 we can be saved BY works, then Christ's death was useless (Gal. 2:21).
3. Trusting to the "Mercy" of God
Show them in John 3 :18-36, that they are "ALREADY condemned"; that God has "no pleasure in the death of a sinner" (Ex. 33: 11); that they are "despis ins" God's goodness towards them (Rom. 2:4-5); that if they are finally lost it will be because they "WILL NOT come to Him" (John 5:40); and while God IS merciful He exercises that mercy through only one channel, JESUS CHRIST (Acts 4:12).
4. Those Who Doubt the Bible
Show them that to doubt the Bible does not alter the Fact (Rom. 3:3-4); that by doing so they make God a liar (1 John 5:10); that it proves they are not of God (John 8:47); that Satan has blinded their eyes (2 Cor. 4:3-4), and because they receive not the "love of the truth", they are given over to delusion and damnation (2 Thess. 1:10-12); that if the preaching of the cross is foolishness to them, it is because they are PERISHING (1 Cot. 1:18) and the NATURAL man cannot receive it (1 Cor. 2:14) and if they will "DO God's will" they shall know of the doctrine (John 7:17, 5:39; Acts 17: 11, 12).
5. Those Who Doubt Future Punishment
Show by Luke 16:23-24 that when the wicked die the soul goes to a place of CONSCIOUS torment; that the day is coming when the wicked as well as the "righteous" shall RISE FROM THE DEAD (John 5:28, 29). After this the JUDGMENT (Heb. 9:27, 2 Pet. 3:7). Their doom will be to be cast into the "Lake of Fire" (Rev. 20:12-15), where they will be tormented FOREVER AND EVER (Rev. 20:10, Matt. 25:41, 46, Mark 9:44).
6. Those Who Doubt the Divinity of Christ
Show by 1 John 2:22, that he who denies the 'Divinity o Christ" is a liar and an anti-christ and, if he continues to deny, he shall die in his sins (John 8:24). John wrote his Gospel to PROVE that Jesus was the Christ (John 20:30-31). Get them to read it carefully.
Jesus claimed that he was EQUAL WITH GOD (John 5:18, 10:30), and that he was the SON OF me to save the "CHIEF" of sinners; and though their sins "be as scarlet" (Isa. 1:18), that Jesus is able to save to the "uttermost" ( Heb, 7 : 2 ) and will not "cast t" any who comes t Him (John 6:37).
8. "I am Afraid I Can't Hold Out"
Show them that God will Not permit us to be tempted above what we are "able to bear" (1 Car. 10: 13). We are not to keep ourselves but are KEPT "by the POWER OF GOD (1 Pet. 1:5). Christ is "ABLE to keep us" (Jude 24) and no man CAN pluck us "out of His hand" (John 10:27-29). He who has begun a good work in us will continue it "un'o the END" (Phil. 1:6).
9. "1 Will be Persecuted"
Yes, that is the path to glory. All who will live Godly shall suffer persecution (2 Tim. 3:12) and if, for Christ's sake, it is a blessed token (Matt. 5:10-12). Jesus suffered persecution for us (1 Pet. 2:20, 21) and we must
not let even those of our own household keep us from Christ (Matt. 10:34.39). It is the "fear of Man" that bringeth a snare (Prov. 29:25.).
Show them from Rom. 8:18 that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the Glory which shall be revealed in us.
10. "I am Seeking, but Cannot Find Him"
The reason is you do not search with "all your heart" (Jer. 29:13). As Christ is seeking you (Luke 19: 10), if you are really seeking Him, it won't take long for a seeking Saviour and a seeking sinner to find each other.
11. 1 am Trying to be a Christian"
It is not "trying" but "RECEIVING" (John 1: 12). Never instruct a sinner to pray, or continue to seek, or use the means of grace", or wait for mercy but press him to yield and trust Christ AT ONCE. When the Phillippian Jailor asked what he should DO to be saved, Paul did not say, "Get down and pray, "but, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved", and he believed and was baptized the same hour. (Acts 16:30-34). Zaccheus was converted between the bough of the tree and the ground (Luke 19:6). Conversion is no tedious process, but is INSTANTANEOUS.
12. "I've Tried Before"
Tried and failed!" Whose fault was it? Not God's, for He says "when ye search for me with ALL your heart ye shall find me". (Jer. 20:13) and "him that COMETH to me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37).
13. 1 Can't Believe"
In most cases the reason is, an unforgiving spirit (Matt. 5:22 & 24, 6:15), some daring sin (Matt. 18:8), love of the world (1 john 2:15), business or social entanglements (Mark 8:36, 2 Cor. 6:14-17) being ashamed (Luke 9:26). Isa. 55:7 will show them what they must DO and Gal. 6:7-8 will show them the consequences if they don't. Show them how FAITH COMES (Rom. 10:17).
14. "I Haven't Conviction Enough"
The AMOUNT is not essential, if there be enough to make one feel his need o forgiveness. In fact conviction of sin comes largely AFTER conversion, As one's conscience becomes enlightened by the Holy Spirit) things which once were not thought sinful come to appear as sins. A man cannot have "godly sorrow" for sin (2 Cor. 7:10), until there is something "Godly" in him.
15. "It is Too Late"
If they mean they have sinned away "the day of grace", or fear they have committed the "Unpardonable Sin", show them what that is (Matt. 12:31, 32). If they have not blasphemed against the Holy Ghost (and one who has done that is indifferent to the gospel), then show them John 6:37 and 2 Pet. 3:9. If they mean that it is "too late" to think about it, use the 'Dying Thief" (Luke 23:39-43).
16. Inconsistencies of Christians
Christ says "What is that to Thee? Follow thou me". (John 21:22). Show them from 2 Cor. 10:12 that it is not WISE to compare ourselves with one another; that we are not to judge one another; that we are not to judge another man's servant (Rom. 14:4), for by so doing we judge ourselves (Rom. 2:1); that every one of us shall give a PERSONAL account to Christ (Rom. 14:10-12); that we s Him if you show them His time, and then turn to 2 Cor. 6:2.
19. Backsliders
Ask them "What INIQUITY they found in the Lord" (Jer. 2:5), that they forsook Him. Show them that they have forsaken "the fountain of LIVING WATERS" for broken cisterns (Jet. 2:13); that their own backslidings reprove them (Jer. 4 2:19); that they are NOT FIT for the kingdom of God (Luke 9:62) ; that God invites them to return to their "first Love" (Rev. 2:4-5); and that, if they will confess their sin, he will forgive them (1 John 1:9). The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-24) may be used with effect.
20. Worldly Christians
Show them that the FRIENDSHIP OF THE WORLD is enmity with God (Jas. 4:4) ; that the LOVE OF THE WORLD is proof that the love of the Father is NOT IN THEM (1 John 2:15); that they ARE DEAD while they so live (1 Tim. 5:6); that we are NOT TO ENTANGLE ourselves (2 Tim. 2:4); but COME OUT and BE SEPARATE (2 Cor. 6:14.18), and BE TRANSFORMED (Rom. 12:12).
21. Spiritualists
Show them that intercourse with "Familiar Spirits" is FORBIDDEN in the Scriptures (Lev. 19:31); that they are to TRY the spirits (1 John 4:1, 3); that they are in danger of DELUSION (2 Thess. 2:9-12); that such a manifestation will NOT convert them (Luke 16:30-31) and will cause them to be CUT OFF (Lev. 20:6, 1 Chron. 10:13-44).
22. Roman Catholics
Turn to John 3:5-7 and show them the NECESSITY of the "new Birth". Many Roman Catholics understand the "new birth" to be baptism. Show them it is not. In 1 Cor. 4:15, Paul says to the Corinthian Christian, "I have begotten you though the gospel". If the "new birth" is baptism, he must have baptized them, but in 1 Cor. 1:14 he declares he did not. Show them from Section VIII, what the "new birth" is. Acts 8:13-21 will show that a man may be baptized and yet his heart not be right in the sight of God. Show them the evidences of "New birth" (2 Cor. 5:17, 1 John 2:29, 3:9, 14, 15, 5: 1, 4, 5). Roman Catholics lack assurance. Show them from Section V, that we may KNOW we are saved and HOW we may know it.
23. Jews
Show them that the Old Testament points to Christ. The most helpful passages to use are Isa. 53; Psa. 22; Zach. 12:10. There are also useful passages in the New Testament; Heb. 9th & 10th chapters and Heb. 7: 25-28. The Gospel by Matthew was written for the Jews.
24. Probation After Death
Show them from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19.26) that there is a "BRIDGELESS GULP" between the righteous and the wicked in the world to come. We are to be rewarded in the next world according to the things done in the BODY (2 Cor. 5:10). "As a tree falleth so shall it lie" (Ecc. 11:3) and there is such a thing as FIXEDNESS OF CHARACTER (Rev. 22;11).
VIII. THE STEPS IN SALVATION
CONVICTION (Acts 2:37).
CONVERSION (Matthew 18:3).
REPENTANCE (Acts 2:38).
FAITH (John 3:36).
CONFESSION (Rom. 10:9-10).
REGENERATION (John 3:3,5).
JUSTIFICATION (Acts 13:39).
SANCTIFICATION (1 Thess. 4:3).
RESURRECTION (Rorn. 8:23).
GLORIFICATION (Rom. 8:17).
DEFINITION OF TERMS
"Conversion" is a change of OPINION.
"Repentance" is a change of PURPOSE.
"Faith" is a PERSONAL TRUST in Jesus as YOUR Saviour.
"Regeneration" is a change of DISPOSITION or NATURE.
"Justification" is the result of Christ's work FOR us.
"Sanctification" is the Holy Spirit's work IN us.
The New Birth
Men are NOT by nature the "Sons of God" (Eph. 2:1-3). They are ALREADY CONDEMNED (John 3:18-36). There is a RESTRICTED Fatherhood of God (John 1:12-13, 8:38-44, 2 Cor. 6:1718, 1 John 3:10). They MUST be born again (John 3:3-5) to become GOD'S sons.
What IS this "new birth"? It is the COMMUNICATION of a "New Life" and the IMPLANTATION of a "new nature" BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD.
HOW is it communicated: How was the "Son of God" BORN? (Luke 1:30-35). The Holy Ghost was his FATHER, and as the WOMB OF THE VIRGIN was his birthplace, so the HUMAN HEART is the womb in which is conceived by the agency of the Holy Spirit, the "new Life". The "SEED" which contains the germinating power, and which is deposited in the womb of the human heart by the Holy Spirit, is THE WORD OF GOD (1 Pet. 1:23, James 1:18, Luke 8:11). Born of WATER (John 3:5) is NOT Baptism, but water stands for the WORD of God (John 15:3, Eph. 5:26, I Pet. 1:23). Unless the SEED (the word) be VITALIZED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, it is BARREN (John 6:63). Similarly SIN is generated in the heart by SATAN, the "Father of Lies" (Acts 5:3.4).
How We May hnow We Are Born Again:
A new CREATURE (2 Cor. 5:17). Everything about us will put on a new aspect.
A new TONGUE. Not swear or blaspheme, and love to talk of the things of the kingdom.
New FOOD. Trashy literature, etc., will not satisfy. Read the Bible and good books.
New SONG. Sacred song will take the place of worldly music.
New SOCIETY. Will love God's house and God's people (20a "DUAL NATURE" (Rom. 7:18-25). While his "STANDING" is that of a "SON" (1 John 3:2), and he is no longer under condemnation (John 5:24), yet his STATE will be variable, and he must not be disheartened and think he is not converted if he fails into sin, but must confess his sin (1 John 1:9) and be more careful.
The New Testament speaks of THREE ways in which we may rid ourselves of our FLESHLY appetites and tendencies.
By AMPUTATION (Matt. 18:8-9).
BY MORTIFICATION (Col. 3:5-10, Rom. 8:13).
BY LIMITATION (Heb. 12:1).
Sins we must amputate; tendencies we must "slough off" or mortify; and weights we must limit ourselves in.
X. SHOULD I JOIN A CHURCH?
Yes. Why? Because Christ commands it.
1. His command to DISCIPLES (Matt. 28:19-20). What things did Christ Command that we should OBSERVE?
A. BAPTISM (water). Matt. 28:19
There is both a WATER baptism and a SPIRIT baptism. The former is to precede the latter. There is but one instance in the New Testament where the order was reversed (Acts 10:44-48) and that was to satisfy some Jews that the Gentiles were entitled to Christian privileges.
Jesus did not receive SPIRIT baptism until AFTER He had received WATER Baptism, (Luke 3:2122) and it was because of His submitting to WATER baptism that the Father said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am WELL PLEASED."
WATER baptism is symbolical of the "New Life" (Rom. 6:3-4) and is the way God has appointed to publicly profess Christ. SPIRIT baptism is a baptism of the Holy Spirit for SERVICE (Luke 24:48-49, Acts 1:8, Acts 2:4, Acts 10:44-46, Acts 19:6). The way to obtain the latter is to submit to the former. (Acts 2:38).
B. LORD'S SUPPER (Luke 22:19-20)
This can only, be observed by some organized body which in the New Testament is known as "THE CHURCH". (Acts 2:47, Col. 1:18, Eph. 5:25-27).
" THE CHURCH" is ONE BODY, but has many members, sects and denominations (1 Cor. 12:1214).
2. His command to BELIEVERS. If you LOVE ME, do these things (John 14:15, 23, 15:14, 1 John 2:4).
EXAMPLE demands it. Your refusal to join a church is used by others as an argument or excuse for their not joining.
The development of your Christian life REQUIRES it, for you need to engage in some organized work and Bible Study. Then again belonging to church will help you to overcome temptation and worldliness.
It is the TEST of the SINCERITY of your conversion. If your conversion is REAL, you will not hesitate to do what Christ commands (Luke 9:26).
Practical Methods
1. Of Work
Invite the unsaved to Church
Have a prayer list
Give them a timely tract.
Write a letter about their salvation.
Sit with them and rise with them for prayer.
Go with them to the inquiry room or altar.
Ask them to go with you to see the pastor.
Quietly watch for those who are affected by the sermon and speak to them
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE SERVICE.
Start a prayer meeting or Bible class in your home, or a Sunday School in the vicinity. Give Bible Readings, visit the sick and the poor, and read and pray with them.
2. Revival Meetings
Commence sometime before by getting a few together and praying for them. Then appoint committees to visit the homes of the people and invite them to attend. Advertise them. Let the order of exercises be; first, a thirty minute song service of attractive and inspiring music. Be sure the words are free. from errors of doctrine and evangelistic; second, follow the singing with a thirty minute sermon of a scriptural and awakening character and then hold an after meeting.
The After Meeting
After the sermon, ask all who desire to remain, and all who desire to become Christians, to retire to the chapel or lecture room. Send some before to start the singing and have some one stand at the door and invite people in. Then after prayer and testimony, "pull the net."
Where there is no adjoining room to adjourn to, sing a hymn after the sermon, all rising, and let those who wish to go, do so during the singing. Then proceed as above. If the spirit of the meeting has reached a high pitch during the sermon, it is best to "pull the net" at once.
How To Pull The Net
Have the WHOLE congregation bow their heads and, while the choir is singing or someone is praying, get those who desire to be Christians to RISE or lift their hand.
Have all the CHRISTIANS bow their heads in prayer and all those who wish to be prayed for bow their heads with them.
Have the WHOLE congregation bow their heads, then get the CHRISTIANS to rise and sing, "Almost Persuaded", inviting those who desire to be saved to rise and stand with them.
Ask all who have been Christians for 40 years to rise, then 30 years, then 20 years, and so on down to 6 months, 3 days, etc. Invite those who desire to be Christians to rise and stand with them.
While all heads are bowed in prayer, get them to rise and say "I take Christ".
Ask all who have decided to become Christian to rise and say "I have" or "I will".
While the WHOLE congregation is standing and singing, ask all who have risen for prayer, or will accept Christ, to come forward to the front seats. They can be talked with and instructed after the meeting. Workers ought to be present with their Bibles to instruct them.
While singing two or three verses of a hymn, have the Christians rise one or two at a time, and have those who desire to be Christians rise with them.
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0, Rom. 8:13).
BY LIMITATION (Heb. 12:1).
Sins we must amputate; tendencies we must "slough off" or mortify; and weights we must limit ourselves in.
X. SHOULD I JOIN A CHURCH?
Yes. Why? Because Christ commands it.
1. His command to DISCIPLES (Matt. 28:19-20). What things did Christ Command that we should OBSERVE?
A. BAPTISM (water). Matt. 28:19
There is both a WATER baptism and a SPIRIT baptism. The former is to precede the latter. There is but one instance in the New Testament where the order was reversed (Acts 10:44-48) and that was to satisfy some Jews that the Gentiles were entitled to Christian privileges.
Jesus did not receive SPIRIT baptism until AFTER He had received WATER Baptism, (Luke 3:2122) and it was because of His submitting to WATER baptism that the Father said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am WELL PLEASED."
WATER baptism is symbolical of the "New Life" (Rom. 6:3-4) and is the way God has appointed to publicly profess Christ. SPIRIT baptism is a baptism of the Holy Spirit for SERVICE (Luke 24:48-49, Acts 1:8, Acts 2:4, Acts 10:44-46, Acts 19:6). The way to obtain the latter is to submit to the former. (Acts 2:38).
B. LORD'S SUPPER (Luke 22:19-20)
This can only, be observed by some organized body which in the New Testament is known as "THE CHURCH". (Acts 2:47, Col. 1:18, Eph. 5:25-27).
" THE CHURCH" is ONE BODY, but has many members, sects and denominations (1 Cor. 12:1214).
2. His command to BELIEVERS. If you LOVE ME, do these things (John 14:15, 23, 15:14, 1 John 2:4).
EXAMPLE demands it. Your refusal to join a church is used by others as an argument or excuse for their not joining.
The development of your Christian life REQUIRES it, for you need to engage in some organized work and Bible Study. Then again belonging to church will help you to overcome temptation and worldliness.
It is the TEST of the SINCERITY of your conversion. If your conversion is REAL, you will not hesitate to do what Christ commands (Luke 9:26).
Practical Methods
1. Of Work
Invite the unsaved to Church
Have a prayer list
Give them a timely tract.
Write a letter about their salvation.
Sit with them and rise with them for prayer.
Go with them to the inquiry room or altar.
Ask them to go with you to see the pastor.
Quietly watch for those who are affected by the sermon and speak to them
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE SERVICE.
Start a prayer meeting or Bible class in your home, or a Sunday School in the vicinity. Give Bible Readings, visit the sick and the poor, and read and pray with them.
2. Revival Meetings
Commence sometime before by getting a few together and praying for them. Then appoint committees to visit the homes of the people and invite them to attend. Advertise them. Let the order of exercises be; first, a thirty minute song service of attractive and inspiring music. Be sure the words are free. from errors of doctrine and evangelistic; second, follow the singing with a thirty minute sermon of a scriptural and awakening character and then hold an after meeting.
The After Meeting
After the sermon, ask all who desire to remain, and all who desire to become Christians, to retire to the chapel or lecture room. Send some before to start the singing and have some one stand at the door and invite people in. Then after prayer and testimony, "pull the net."
Where there is no adjoining room to adjourn to, sing a hymn after the sermon, all rising, and let those who wish to go, do so during the singing. Then proceed as above. If the spirit of the meeting has reached a high pitch during the sermon, it is best to "pull the net" at once.
How To Pull The Net
Have the WHOLE congregation bow their heads and, while the choir is singing or someone is praying, get those who desire to be Christians to RISE or lift their hand.
Have all the CHRISTIANS bow their heads in prayer and all those who wish to be prayed for bow their heads with them.
Have the WHOLE congregation bow their heads, then get the CHRISTIANS to rise and sing, "Almost Persuaded", inviting those who desire to be saved to rise and stand with them.
Ask all who have been Christians for 40 years to rise, then 30 years, then 20 years, and so on down to 6 months, 3 days, etc. Invite those who desire to be Christians to rise and stand with them.
While all heads are bowed in prayer, get them to rise and say "I take Christ".
Ask all who have decided to become Christian to rise and say "I have" or "I will".
While the WHOLE congregation is standing and singing, ask all who have risen for prayer, or will accept Christ, to come forward to the front seats. They can be talked with and instructed after the meeting. Workers ought to be present with their Bibles to instruct them.
While singing two or three verses of a hymn, have the Christians rise one or two at a time, and have those who desire to be Christians rise with them.
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