YET ANOTHER person leaving Facebook!

A timely post from www.freedomfeens.com about why someone left Facebook. This follows this post about mysticsim, Dr. Strange, and Star Wars. This follows this post about rap songs referencing Donald Trump.
You can follow me here.

Why I Left Facebook, and where to find me online

by MWD

I’ve always thought it was pathetic when people scream “I’m leaving Facebook!”….or MySpace, or however far you want to take it back….I even saw this before the World Wide Web, on newsgroups, in 1990. But it’s only pathetic when people’s reasons for leaving are the usual “No one likes me! And people are mean to me!” Those are not my reasons for leaving Facebook. In fact, a lot of people like me on Facebook. I have 2200 “friends” on there. And a lot of them are people I enjoy talking with.
I find it interesting that you can’t just delete your Facebook account. It takes 14 days. Reminds me of a nanny waiting period to buy a gun. Facebook knows how annoying it is, and like the drug dealer giving out free samples to a junkie who gets off junk, Facebook says “You’ll be back…..” and tries to entice you not to leave. Sort of how some states make you be separated for a while before they’ll “grant” you a divorce. Anyway, if you do want to leave Facebook, here’s how to do it. (Skip step one there, and before you delete your account, delete all your photos. Who knows if Facebook will decide they own those at some point.)
So, if you’d like to know why I’m leaving Facebook, and where you can find me, read on…..

WHY I’M LEAVING FACEBOOK, EFFECTIVE NOON TOMORROW (12/19/2012):
1. Facebook is starting to act like The State. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, has updated their “user agreement” to say that they can sell any of your photos and not pay you. And they can use photos of your face. They could sell a photo of you smiling with a gun to an anti-gun campaign. If you’re overweight, you could end up in the “before” photo for a weight loss pill. etc. etc.
In saying that they can change their user agreement this drastically, and that you’ve already agreed by being a member, they are acting like The State with its “Social Contract.” That is, Facebook is acting like the government. Even though Facebook has backtracked due to public outrage, that sounds to me like what politicians do right before an election. Do I really wanna trust someone who figuratively says “Well, we were gonna rape you, but you complained and people are watching, so we’ll wait and rape you later”? (It’s ironic that so many statists are among the outraged, because they don’t realize this is EXACTLY how all governments behave.)
2. I waste a lot of time on Facebook. I used to write books that I was paid to write, but I spend so much time on Facebook that I’ve stopped writing books. You could say “Why not just spend less time on there?” but that’s like giving a junkie a brick of drugs and saying “just use this once in a while.” While this is my problem, not Facebook’s problem, my solution is to leave. I’ll probably go through “withdraw” for a little while, but then I’ll go back to actually producing things instead of wasting time on Facebook.
3. Facebook is censoring people. They are suspending accounts of people who do not tow the mainstream media line on current events.
4. Facebook is hypocritical. They are suspending accounts of people who post political ideas that Facebook does not like. Then they tell those people “Facebook is not a place for politics”, when in fact, Facebook was spamming me for Obama right before the election.
5. Facebook is spying on you. Of course these days, you are being spied on everywhere, all the time, by governments and corporations, but Facebook is the worst of the worst. And their privacy settings are useless.
6. I don’t want to talk to a lot of the people on Facebook. But they want to talk to me, and foist their opinions on everything at me, and they’re usually wrong. It’s annoying. But it goes beyond annoying sometimes. I’ve had death threats simply for my political beliefs from strangers who would never have even heard of me if I weren’t on Facebook. Like I said in one of my books ten years ago, “The great thing about the Internet is that everyone in the world can talk to you. The horrible thing about the Internet is that everyone in the world can talk to you.” This is more true on Facebook than anywhere. It’s set up for that. None of those people would bother trying to find my e-mail and bug me, but on Facebook, that’s just part of what people do. It’s part of the business model.
7. FACEBOOK USERS AS A WHOLE SEEM FAR MORE INTERESTED IN SPREADING FEAR THAN DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT. This statement isn’t singling out any individual users, and there are exceptions. But as an entity, the collective mind of Facebook is far more into yelling “THE SKY IS FALLING!” than putting on a hard hat to protect their head from falling sky pieces. The final straw, for me, was when I posted two things on the same day…The first was a link to an article about new ways the government is planning to read your e-mail. The second was a link to an article we wrote on setting up encrypted e-mail so the government can’t read your e-mail. The thing about government reading your e-mail got 170 likes and 76 shares. The piece about actually DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT got ten likes and 3 shares. To me, that says all you need to know about Facebook and why you shouldn’t be on there. Most people on Facebook would rather live in a fear-spiral echo chamber than actually DO ANYTHING to protect themselves. I call it “Fear porn”, and it’s not a type of porn I’m interested in consuming.
8. I’d rather spend my time and effort building my own sites than building someone else’s business model for free. Especially when that “someone else” is a company like Facebook that has no respect, and apparently has absolute contempt, for its “customers.”
WHERE TO FIND ME:
I’m not leaving the Internet. I love the Internet. I’ve been on it since 1990 (before the World Wide Web), and I’m still going to be around. I just hate Facebook. You can find me on Twitter, here. You can find Freedom Feens, my thrice-weekly podcast with Neema Vedadi, here. You can subscribe to that via RSS or iTunes, and post comments on the site, and I sometimes comment back. You can subscribe to the torrent link here. (Please seed Feens episodes for when the Central Scrutinizer declares free speech illegal, deletes our website, and throws us in camps.) You can find my interview podcast, Anarchy Gumbo, here.
You can find my past media here, and my e-mail address here. (Though please submit news items for the Feens here, rather than via e-mail.) You can find my encrypted e-mail and PGP key here. If I know you well and you use private i.m. via Pidgin, you probably already have my Pidgin address. I don’t give it out to many people.
Only about five people have my phone number, and I don’t talk to people much on the phone, but you can call the Feens number during our live shows, info is here. During Feens Live shows, I’m also on the Feens chat page (my user name is MichaelFeen), and I occasionally pop in there at other times. I write for the Freedom Feens blog (the thing you’re reading right now), and you can comment on here, and I sometimes comment back. I’ll also start posting photos of my cats here sometimes, that was always a favorite on Facebook, and I know it helps power the Internet and keeps the tubes from getting slow.
Skype is not a good way to find me except during the Feens live shows. I never turn Skype on unless I’m doing a show, and I never check my Skype messages. I am on YouTube, but that’s a bad way to contact me. I rarely answer on there, but you can enjoy my videos. I have a Google+ account, but I never check it and will probably be deleting that too.
You can listen to us 24/7 (and occasionally live) on Freedom Feens Radio.
Even with all the above, that’s much more manageable than being on Facebook. Facebook is a time suck.
There is a Freedom Feens Facebook page that’s run by fans, but not by me. Apparently there will be some Feens updates there.
So anyway, that about covers it. Enjoy Facebook if you stay. It’s useful for some people. But I’ve got things to do, and roads to build.
–Michael W. Dean

Editorial: Is it #FakeNews, or is it #Censorship?

Editorial

Recently, there has been an attempt by Facebook, Twitter, Google, and others to censor out what they consider "Fake News." Of course, there can occassionaly be some of that, but it seems more like they are censoring out viewpoints that the MSM disagrees with.

These sources ALREADY have a demonstrated Leftist bias. Notice that most of the "Fake News" is that which comes from non-MSN sources, the VERY ones the MSN is already censoring!

 From http://www.alipac.us/ :

Google and Facebook recently announced an effort to crack down on "Fake News" but their targets appear to be the conservative publications that helped elect Donald Trump such as InfoWars, Breitbart, Daily Caller, and World Net Daily. (View Source) Facebook and Google have not mentioned any efforts to silence the fake news coming out of Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and CBS all of which claimed it was statistically impossible for Donald Trump to win the Presidency!

From http://www.vdare.com about President-Elect nominee Jeff Sessions:

Making things easier for the character assassins, Senator Jeff is a white guy from Alabama, which is practically a hate crime all by itself. And making things even easier will be the willingness of the anti-Trump Main Stream Media to believe any kind of story about something the Senator was overheard saying back in 1976, however unsubstantiated.

http://www.vdare.com/articles/dawn-of-the-trumpening-jeff-sessions-for-attorney-general-steve-bannon-for-pope 


From  www.ucg.org :

The Media's Alternative Gospel

 by Good News

The major media news organizations and outlets, says journalist William Proctor, have their own lists of rights and wrongs that they support or condemn through their editorials and reporting.

The major media news organizations and outlets, says journalist William Proctor, have their own lists of rights and wrongs that they support or condemn through their editorials and reporting. Most follow the lead of the media heavyweight The New York Times , which, he says, has its own list of “sins” that the paper regularly criticizes and attacks. Detailed in his 2000 book The Gospel According to The New York Times , these include, but are not limited to:

• Religious certainty-especially that rooted in Christianity.
• Political conservatism in any form.
• Capital punishment for any reason.
• Placing any restrictions on freedom of the press, speech or expression.
• Limiting abortion rights. Conversely, the newspaper's “gospel” is essentially the opposite of these-that is, it continually pushes the viewpoint that:
• There are no absolutes, particularly when it comes to religious beliefs. We must be tolerant of all other beliefs and behavior (except those based on biblical standards or conservative beliefs).
• Liberalism is enlightened; conservatism and conservatives are selfish, bigoted and uncaring.
• Society as a whole is at fault for criminal behavior; therefore the death penalty is inherently unjust.
• Freedom of the press, expression and speech is virtually absolute and trumps virtually all other rights and restrictions
• Sexual freedom, including freedom from unwanted consequences such as pregnancy, is an absolute right for everyone.

Lest you think Mr. Proctor's assertions are overstated, carefully examine the news coverage, editorial positions and even the political cartoons in your local newspaper. Odds are you'll find them advocating, subtly or not so subtly, the same editorial and social positions.
You'll see reporting that favors positions such as homosexual rights, diminution of parental discipline and authority, lack of personal responsibility and greater government growth and social spending-all designed to shift your thinking from the standards found in the Bible and toward the alternative gospel such sources want you to believe.
Collectively, today's mass media have become one of the most committed instruments of antibiblical bias that can be found in our world. Their influence in that direction is enormous.

https://www.ucg.org/the-good-news/the-medias-alternative-gospel 

https://www.ucg.org/the-good-news/should-you-believe-all-the-news-you-hear 

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about control of the Internet. This follows this post about the Feast of Trumpets. For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.

Major Change in Internet Control

 by Darris McNeely Estimated reading time: 1 minute

 I had a recent post where I mentioned the European Union's attempt to wrest control of the internet from the United States. It appears it will happen. This article from The Guardian reports that this week in Geneva a group of nations, some not too friendly toward America, supported a move to put control of the world wide web into the hands of an international consortium.

The U.S. was resisting the move but it appears the final decision was taken out of its hands. Here is a key paragraph from the article:

A number of countries represented in Geneva, including Brazil, China, Cuba, Iran and several African states, insisted the US give up control, but it refused. The meeting “was going nowhere”, Hendon says, and so the EU took a bold step and proposed two stark changes: a new forum that would decide public policy, and a “cooperation model” comprising governments that would be in overall charge.

You probably won't hear much about this. But as the article concludes, with international governments controlling the future of the internet things will not be the same again. Read the whole article here.

Geneva The Guardian European Union Internet News and Prophecy Governments

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  Darris McNeely

  Beyond Today Presenter

  Darris McNeely works at the United Church of God home office in Cincinnati, Ohio. He and his wife, Debbie, have served in the ministry for more than 43 years. They have two sons, who are both married, and four grandchildren. Darris is the Associate Media Producer for the Church. He also is a resident faculty member at the Ambassador Bible Center teaching Acts, Fundamentals of Belief and World News and Prophecy. He enjoys hunting, travel and reading and spending time with his grandchildren.
  

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An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about Apple Computer. This follows this post about Labor Day. This follows this post about Zika. For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.

Can Apple Make You Happy?

  Darris McNeely, Steve Myers Listen

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Video of BT Daily: Can Apple Make You Happy?

Can happiness be found in an electronic gadget?

Transcript

[Darris McNeely] So I’ve got my latest iPhone here. No, wait a minute. It’s not the latest iPhone. Just a few months after I bought this iPhone, the next one came out, and then another one. You know, the gadget game is one that when you get into, there’s always going to be something newer even after you’ve spent hundreds of dollars on what is, you think at that moment the latest. I was reading an article about Apple computer, and recently people have been complaining that Apple hasn’t come out with anything in recent years, or recent months that’s new and a whole game changer when it comes to electronics. And the article is saying it’s as if people want Apple to unveil a happiness device, and otherwise they won’t be happy until it does, which raised the question do things make us happy?
[Steve Myers] There’s always the latest, the greatest, the next thing. Same thing with computers, whatever it may be. Buy one and it seems the day you walk out of the store it’s already obsolete. The next one is coming. And so if that’s what makes us happy, then there’s always something else just beyond our reach that we can never quite get to.
[Darris McNeely] I’ll be the first to admit, I’m a gadget freak and I do like new gadgets. And I am sold on Apple and I usually buy, try to buy the latest that I can or keep up fairly current with their products. But it’s also caused me over the years to step back and realize, hey, these things don’t really make me completely happy. I enjoy them and they make life very convenient in many ways, but happiness deep down, that’s another issue.
[Steve Myers] Absolutely, and Jesus Christ Himself taught that very things. Now He didn’t mention iPhones, but over in Luke 12:23 He said, “Life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.” And you could substitute iPhones or computers or gadgets or videogames or whatever it might be. Those things do not make life happier. We can get some enjoyment out of them, that sort of thing. But if we’re counting on them to make us happy, Christ says we’ve got our priorities out of line.
[Darris McNeely] A good way to look at what Christ said in this statement is to ask yourself the question, how many things do you need to be happy? That’s probably the most important question to answer, and then you will know what and where true happiness comes from.
[Steve Myers] Absolutely. In fact He concludes, “Seek the Kingdom of God.” Seek the Kingdom of God because that’s really where the true happiness lies - in a spiritual relationship with God.
[Darris McNeely] That’s BT Daily . Join us next time.

Christian Living

• 

  Darris McNeely

  Beyond Today Presenter

  Darris McNeely works at the United Church of God home office in Cincinnati, Ohio. He and his wife, Debbie, have served in the ministry for more than 43 years. They have two sons, who are both married, and four grandchildren. Darris is the Associate Media Producer for the Church. He also is a resident faculty member at the Ambassador Bible Center teaching Acts, Fundamentals of Belief and World News and Prophecy. He enjoys hunting, travel and reading and spending time with his grandchildren.
  
• 

  Steve Myers

  Beyond Today Presenter, United Church of God Pastor

  Steve is pastor of the Cincinnati congregation. He is also an instructor at Ambassador Bible College as well as a host on the Beyond Today television program. Together, he and his wife Kathe have served God and His people for over 25 years.
  

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A timely post about from www.jihadwatch.org about Google and Islam. This follows this post about the Clinton Foundation. This follows this article about American energy independence and preventing money from going to hostile countries. For more, you can read two very interesting books HERE.You can follow me here.

How Google’s search engines use faked results to manipulate people’s views of jihad

By Robert Spencer 92 Comments

This post by Jihad Watch tech expert Marc offers extraordinary insight into how Google skews its presentation of information in order to manipulate people into accepting half-truths and falsehoods that serve the Left’s agenda. He explains how Google deliberately manipulates its results when one searches for the word “jihad” — and doubtless this is just one of countless examples of how Google advances the Leftist/Islamic supremacist line while burying the truth.

“How Google’s Search Engines use faked results for social engineering,” FreeSpeechDefense.net, September 4, 2016:

So how does it work, I’ll use one example, a simple Google search for the word “Jihad”, but first I’d like to give you some background on how Google search is understood and intended to work. My knowledge comes from a variety of sources, but is in line with the well known public authority on the subject of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), an employee and till recently the public voice of Google and its search engine, Matt Cutts, he now works for the Pentagon (yeh, I know). Google has published an “overview” of how it all works, but that’s a lot to get through.
So in a nutshell, Google is looking for the freshest, most authoritative, easiest to display (big screen and mobile) content to serve its search engine users, it crawls them, caching (grabbing) content, looking at the speed of download, the textual content, counting words to find the relevance, checking what it looks like on different sized devices. It also looks at what other sites link to it, both number of and “quality” of those links. When I say quality, it wants to see how authoritative the linking in sites are. They also have a number of algorithms in place that block the listing of “spammy” sites, but spam would not be relevant here. Additionally they also have recently claimed to boost sites using HTTPS to promote security and privacy (fox, henhouse – lol).
There are a few exceptions which I don’t think anyone could have issue with, a search for a single word might bring up a dictionary or encyclopedia, but more often, they add Wikipedia to the list of results, especially if it’s a busy wiki page with constant updates.
There is a way to beat these results and get to the top, and that’s by paying for the Google Adwords service, these ads at the top are clearly identified with a little “Ad” button, that is not the case here.
I am not in the US, so used a VPN to proxy my research from the US, as searches from other locations provide different results.
So search the word “jihad”, and you will see at the top of a list of 32 million results a list as this:

1. A dictionary definition
2. Wikipedia
3. A link to a page of the “Islamic Supreme Council”
4. A link to “Jihad Watch”

So we know how the dictionary definition and Wikipedia got there, but how did the “Islamic Supreme Council” and “Jihad Watch” get 3^rd and 4^th place? JihadWatch.org I know well, I do the server and site management, following SEO best practice, here are the major pertinent reasons for its high listing in such a competitive search, 32 million is huge in this game:

• Robert Spencer, an accomplished author is a prolific blogger, adding a minimum of 10 posts of current jihad related news stories of the day.
• It’s part of the domain name, that always gives a massive boot (searching “free speech defense”, my tiny, low volume blog always comes top).
• Doing a jihad site:jihadwatch.org shows that the word “jihad” is mentioned on the site 35,000 times, proving its main focus of discussion is “jihad”.
• A search for just jihadwatch.org shows that it is mentioned on 631,000 other sites pages (linking in), proving it is very authoritative and often referenced.
• Jihadwatch.org is currently the 10,488^th most popular website in the US, this fluctuates, but not much.
• The site uses HTTPS and a responsive (mobile friendly) theme, so it looks great on any device.

So how about the “Islamic Supreme Council”, I’d never heard of them. I asked a few people who have studied Islam, they hadn’t either, so lets look at the comparative statistics:

• The site is run by Sheik Kabbani, a Naqshbandi Sufi. It has additional posts added a couple of times a year, the latest news panel lists an event in 1996.
• It has “Islamic” in the domain name, understandable that Google maybe has confused the two words. /sarc off
• Doing a jihad site:islamicsupremecouncil.org shows that the word “jihad” is mentioned on the site 123 times, whereas searching the word “Sufi” brings up over 200 results proving it’s main focus of discussion is not “jihad”.
• A search for just islamicsupremecouncil.org shows that it is mentioned on 79,000 other sites pages (linking in), showing it is as 1/10th as popular/authoritative as jihadwatch.org.
• This is confirmed with an Alexa popularity search, showing it is the 307,832^_th most popular site in the US.
• The site does not use HTTPS, and it is very mobile unfriendly, using technology from a previous millennium (I’m not kidding, it’s using web standards from 1999 if you look at the source files).

So what’s up? How does the site get this boost, if you search the word Sufi, the “Islamic Supreme Council” isn’t even listed in the top 10 pages. Funny thing about the meaning of the word “Jihad”, to the fast majority of Muslims they themselves know of two meanings, the Google dictionary definition at the top of the results is correct:

1. (among Muslims) a war or struggle against unbelievers.
2. the spiritual struggle within oneself against sin.

Often differentiated as the greater and lesser Jihad, but Sunni and Shia Muslims, who make up the vast majority of Muslims, understand when the word Jihad is used alone they mean the violent kind, world conquering imposing of Sharia law, blowing stuff up and cutting heads of infidels, and they accept the lesser Jihad as a false construct, but that’s another debate, you can read more here at wikiislam.
But what is unique about Sufis, a tiny minority of Muslims, if in fact they are Muslims, as the vast majority of Muslims do not accept Sufis as such, and many Sufis themselves do not identify with being Muslim, is that they are unique in only having this peaceful, lesser Jihad, being somewhat pacifists, ironically often violently targeted for their beliefs in Muslim majority countries.
So in conclusion, how are you being socially engineered by Google? Anyone doing a search for Jihad will think they are seeing an opposing, authoritative view of Jihad Watch’s, but the “Islamic Supreme Council” is of no authority, it’s poor in every way. Nonetheless, the Googler will read all about all this peaceful unrepresentative Jihad, trusting Google will live by their moto “Don’t be evil”. Former Google CEO and current executive chairman Eric Schmidt once said, “it was a dumb rule merely because the word ‘evil’ isn’t really defined, and Google doesn’t quite know what evil is.”
So how about another site which might be more of an authority on Jihad in the US, cair.com (Council on American-Islamic Relations) is constantly being updated, is far more popular at 146,590th place, actually probably even more so, as it has a vast network of sites. A search for jihad site:cair.com gives 342 results, and is mentioned and linked to a whopping 60 million times, it’s mobile friendly and has HTTPS enabled, and it’s not even on the top 10 pages of results for a search on Jihad. Odd, that except their own political agenda is for Americans to believe the Sufi understanding of Jihad is a common Muslim understanding, rather than their own aggressive one, with proven ties between CAIR, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Some would say “a war or struggle against unbelievers” Jihad was CAIR’s main purpose, advertising that fact doesn’t help their agenda, much better American Googlers read the Sufi version for them. I think I have described in detail how this subtle manipulation works.
It’s not a secret. Facebook has been at it also. The connections with the Obama administration and now Hillary Clinton are well documented. My enemy’s enemy is not my necessarily my friend, but here is what Julian Assange has to say on the collusion between the US administration and Google.

DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson addresses ISNA, Muslim group linked to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood

UK journo: Syrian kidnapper who shot me twice is now a CIA-vetted "moderate"

Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ about Alex Rodriguez. This follows this post about Blockbuster video.This follows this post about some of the movies from last week and THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed! This all follows this post about guidelines to choosing good movies to watch yourself!

It’s Official: A-Rod Now a Trophy Wife – “Men, the New Women” Alert

By Debbie Schlussel

A-Rod & His New SugarDaddy Anne Wojciki You may think this is a trivial topic. But when a multi-zillionaire playboy pro athlete voluntarily assumes the position and becomes a trophy wife, you know that America has collectively lost its collective balls.
Sometimes I get sick of writing about ISIS, Islam, amnesty, and the Presidential race. And many times discussion of other things–changing American lifestyle cues–gives us a much bigger clue of why we are losing America. This is one of those times.
A-Rod f/k/a Alex Rodriguez used to be a ‘roid-using, masculine Major League Baseball player who liked to “date” (euphemism) hot blonde actress types. Kate Hudson, Cameron Diaz, Madonna (okay, not hot, but still peroxided blonde), etc.
But, now, Rodriguez, wealthier than most with a net worth of $252 million, is the new trophy wife/bimbo for ex-Mrs. Google, billionaire Anne Wojciki, who is, well, um . . . not hot. Not super-ugly, but nothing special. As they say, “she has a GREAT personality.” Pointing this out is not a mere shallow, sexist, Mean Girls observation. It’s an observation of a trend: formerly masculine men who could have anyone . . . willingly assuming the position of the gold-digging chick. (Maybe the ‘roid damage to a certain region was permanent?)
Follow Me on Twitter . . .
And like most gold-digger chicks, A-Rod is now dating the unattractive woman in this relationship strictly because of the size of her wallet. That’s sad. Men used to be men. Especially pro athlete men. No longer. If A-Rod is doing it, a ton of less wealthy men are doing it: transforming into the chick in the relationship and dating women for their money. He went from alpha male to beta girlfriend. Men–The New Women. It’s never a good thing when American culture delves deeper and deeper into the the feminizing of men and the masculinization of women.
You know what they say about the power of the purse strings. I don’t care what you say about the liberation of men and women in relationships where the woman makes or has more money than the man. Thou doth protest too much. It’s all BS. There is no such thing as egalitarianism in romantic relationships. One party always has more power than the other–the upper hand. And that party is almost always the one with more money. It’s just the way it works in our society.
So, basically, A-Rod has ceded that power. He’s now the Mr. Mom to ex-Mrs. Google. Nobody knows just how much exactly Wojciki, recent ex of Google founder Sergey Brin, is worth. But the new divorcee is certainly a billionaire. At the time of her divorce (which was finalized last year), the Brins were worth about $30 billion. It’s a good bet that she got a significant fraction of that.
Yup, A-Rod picked one of the few women in the world who would have the power of having more money than A-Rod. That’s what a guy who’s given up his testicles does. Or a broken man. Or a liberal wimp proud of being a vegan Mr. Mom who knits with the LGBTQABCDEF knitting community.
And if multi-millionaire A-Rod is willing to give up his masculinity and being a man in exchange for the company and wallet of an unattractive rich lady, it’ll take a lot less to lead regular guys to do the same. Men used to “keep women.” Now, they want to be the kept . . . and, frankly, they want to be the women. We’ll see this more and more as economic and employment situations continue to get worse and those of women continue to get better.
While that’s going on, ISIS and Al-Qaeda are laughing at us all the way to the next terrorist attack.
It’s not just A-Rod who eagerly gave up his balls. It’s America, too.
Hint: you never saw Bin Laden dating a chick richer than himself. And you won’t see Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi doing that either. Just sayin’.
***
Yeah, it would be nice if we lived in a world where people weren’t so vain and didn’t judge people by their looks. But we don’t. We live in the world that is more shallow, vain, and looks-focused than ever. So, don’t romanticize A-Rod’s relationship with this plain Jane billionaire chick as “awww, love before looks.” That ain’t what’s happenin’ here. A-Rod has a track record of only “dating’ (euphemism) lookers. And now he’s playing the hooker.

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An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about Google Glass. This follows this post about the rape crisis in post-apartheid South Africa.  This follows this post about the commercialization of Thanksgiving and Christmas. For a free magazine subscription or to get the book shown for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.

Google Glass and Studying the Bible

by Aaron Booth

Google Glass invite

Source: Google

Is there any use for a pair of wearable electronic glasses in church or in your personal Bible study?
As the Internet manager for the United Church of God, I am always looking for ways technology could be used to study the Bible and enhance that learning experience. Earlier this year, Google introduced their optical head-mounted display device called “Glass.” It allows the wearer to take photos and videos, connect to their personal Google+ account and interact with the Internet via voice commands. This week I received an email invitation to become part of Google’s Glass Explorer program.
This got me thinking on how a wearable device like this could be used to study the Bible and what possibilities it could have in a church service or worship setting. Wearable computer devices are not new and have been available but they have not been widely accepted and functionable in daily life. That may change with devices like Google Glass and other wearable Internet connected devices.
Here are three ideas on how something like Google Glass could be used to enhance Bible learning:

1. Scripture recognition

Since Glass has a built in camera it could recognize various word patterns in the real-world and translate that information to its display screen. Imagine being able to scan words in your physical Bible and have it display various other Bible related resources to view. This could be definitions, translations, images, videos, audio and more. Maybe a popular Bible app such as YouVersion could open in the display and connect you to other Bible translations or read the verse to you. This type of application already exists in Glass to help in realtime translation of words from one language to another.

2. Visit Biblical and historical locations

Maybe you can access an interactive video that allows you to walk through Jerusalem and immerse yourself in that location and visit historical landmarks. With the use of augmented reality you can blend a real-world visit to a museum featuring Biblical artifacts with interactive information from the web. Just point your device’s camera toward the displayed QR code and the display screen shows relevant information or plays audio about what you are looking at.

3. Online Bible classroom setting

While taking an online class, a Biblical instructor in Jerusalem can give a personal tour of ancient sites via a live video feed and show the online class what they see and take questions from the class. This can already be done via a Google Hangout.
I believe there are many more day-to-day ease of technology use applications that could be developed which would assist those with mobility limitations or even sight limitations (read the online article from USA TODAY - "Beyond a gadget: Google Glass is a boon to disabled "). I would guess that in the next 5 to 10 years or even less, that wearable Internet devices will be more common and integrated into daily life somehow. Technology like this will become the everyday device for my kids when they are adults - as much as smartphones and tablets are for us today.
This makes me think of scripture in Revelation 11 that talks about how the whole world will see the bodies of the two witnesses:

And for three and a half days, all peoples, tribes, languages, and nations will stare at their bodies. No one will be allowed to bury them. (Revelation 11:9And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.
See All... NLT)

With every advance of technology we can see how this future Biblical event will become a reality.
But till that time, I will keep searching (as well as our UCG.org staff) in how to best use technology to fulfill the mission of the United Church of God of preaching the gospel to the whole world.
If you are curious about Google Glass and would like to learn more - here are some online resources.
What Can You Do with Glass?
Glass - What It Does
Glass Support
Glass Quick Start Guide

Weekend Box Office: The Purge, The Internship, The Kings of Summer

Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post about some of the movies from last week and THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed! This all follows this post about guidelines to chosing good movies to watch yourself!

Weekend Box Office: The Purge, The Internship, The Kings of Summer


By Debbie Schlussel



Another mediocre weekend of new movies at theaters this weekend–well-suited for an ever more mediocre nation. *** SPOILER ALERT *** – If you don’t want certain things given away for the very predictable, “The Purge,” only read the first two sentences of my review:


* “The Purge“: I absolutely hated this very obvious, predictable far-left “social commentary” denouncing rich White people (especially those who are still in married, nuclear families) and mocking American patriotism as something akin to supporting murder. Samantha Power–Obama’s America-hating UN Ambassador nominee–would LOVE this. The only good guy in this movie is a Black homeless veteran, who saves everyone, including the family that tortured him and was going to help him get murdered. And while the movie is entertaining, it’s mostly a racist (anti-White) exercise in torture porn, killing porn, and other brutal savagery. That’s how it gets its “thrills.” I saw almost every “twist” and plot point in this movie a million miles away–that the Black guy was gonna save the day, that the rich people are evil, self-absorbed Whites (they threw on one Black chick with the evil Whites at the end to make it seem balanced, but it wasn’t), that the daughter’s boyfriend was gonna try to kill the dad, etc.



The story: It’s the future–the year 2022, to be exact. Crime is near zero and unemployment is under 1% in America, where things are doing very well, economically. Ethan Hawke plays a wealthy, successful salesman of home security systems, which he’s sold to his entire gated neighborhood. His McMansion is the largest and nicest in the neighborhood. And it’s the night of “The Purge,” an annual 12-hour event, once a year, in which everyone is allowed to commit any crime, including murder, against anyone else, and they won’t be arrested for it. There are no police, firemen, hospitals, or EMT’s available from 7:00 p.m. on that night until 7:00 a.m., the next morning. It’s a “holiday” the “new founding fathers” of the “new America,” established so that everyone can take out their hate (“purging” it) from themselves by perpetrating violence against the homeless, weak, poor, and other “undesirables,” who cannot afford expensive home security systems, something apparently only rich White people have. Those rich White (married nuclear family) people all support this savage “Purge” holiday and put out lavender and white flowers on the night of the Purge to signal to purgers that this is a house that supports the purge and it should be left untouched.



Hawke is the father of a young son and a teen daughter and has a beautiful wife (Lena Headey). The whole neighborhood is jealous of their success. When the Purge begins, they are locked down in their McMansion, supporting the Purge, with Hawke and his wife lecturing the liberal kids about how good the Purge is for America and its economy. But no security system is really 100% failsafe, and you know at the beginning of the movie, there’s gonna be trouble. First, the daughter’s “older” boyfriend sneaked into the house before it was locked down. He tells the daughter that he is going to speak with her father and “resolve” things, but predictably, he has a gun and tries to kill the dad (Hawke).



Then, the son sees video from outside the house of a Black homeless man running from Purgers down the street. He begs for help, and the son shuts off the security system and lets him in. Then, the upper-class White Purgers who were trying to kill the Black man (who is wearing dog tags and a military-style green jacket, apparently to show us he’s a military vet) come to the house and threaten to kill Hawke and his family if he doesn’t release the Black man to them to be killed. So Hawke and his wife capture and torture the Black man into submission and prepare to throw him to the “wolves,” where they know he’ll be killed.



The rest of the movie is spent on the family trying to fight off the Purgers. And, again, they are ultimately saved by the Black guy they were going to send to his certain death at the Purgers’ hands.



Just horrible. And, like I said, anti-American, anti-White, anti-nuclear-family, racist class warfare propaganda.



FOUR MARXES PLUS FOUR OBAMAS

* “The Internship“: This is billed as a reunion of “The Wedding Crashers” lead actors Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. But it’s no “Wedding Crashers.” Not nearly as funny. Not even close. Instead, it’s a love letter to and about Google, and a somewhat annoying one at that. It’s also a lie–there are several scenes with interns training to man the Google “helpline,” for example, but one of the most frustrating things about Google is that it, in fact, refuses to have a “helpline,” because that would cost money. Instead, if you have a problem with any of your Google products (as I occasionally have–I use some Google products for my site), you are stuck searching the help section and participating in useless forums, where you’ll mostly never get help or find the answers you need. Hey, Google, thanks for untruth in advertising. I wish Google DID have a helpline.



I also found this movie to be very self-absorbed and–per usual with Hollywood liberals a/k/a hypocrites–it’s full of ethnic stereotypes against “smart-but-square” Indians, Asians, etc. No Muslim stereotypes, though, ‘cuz they’d NEVER do that.



The story: Vaughn and Wilson are very successful, very effective salesmen for a watch company. But their company went out of business, and they need to find new jobs. So they apply for internships at Google, which they get, despite the fact that they are not genius college students from Harvard and Stanford (which is pretty much the rest of the Google internship population). The interns are divided into teams to compete in various tasks (including the fake Google “helpline”), with the winning team members getting actual jobs at Google. At first, Vaughn and Wilson seem like idiots and out of their league. They are outgunned by the young geniuses, but, predictably, they soon start helping their team win. Oh, and did I mention that they do this by taking their team of interns (who are mostly underage) to a strip club to get drunk and receive and/or perform lap dances? Ick. That’s “team bonding” and the “socialization” of geeks, these days, sadly. A terrible message for the many kids who will end up seeing this movie, which–by the way–is NOT for kids. It’s rated PG-13, but should really have an R-rating.



Yes, there were funny lines and scenes in this movie, and I laughed. But not as much as I expected to. And not nearly as much as I did when watching “The Wedding Crashers.” This was just okay. But I’d be lying if I said it was not entertaining. It was, but it was also dumb and predictable, including the silly, improbable, and hardly believable “love story” between Wilson and a top Google exec.



HALF A REAGAN



* “The Kings of Summer“: In this coming of age movie, three teen boys who are fed up with their strict parents (who later become crazy and immature) run away from home and live in the woods in a house they’ve built from junk. While their parents are working with police to find them, they are “hunting” and “fishing” for their own food (a good deal of it bought by them from the nearby Boston Market just outside and across the street from the woods). They also learn about love and jealousy and test their friendship in the process. There are several VERY scary and creepy scenes involving a poisonous copperhead snake. And there is a gross bloody scene of a rabbit being killed and skinned. Plus the language is not for kids–it’s rated “R” for a reason (several of them).



This is one of those quirky, artsy movies I usually hate and I could have done without the melodrama. But there are funny lines and it’s entertaining. And, while one of the three boys is a very weird quasi-gay character (who is very funny), it’s mostly about boys becoming men (despite having parents who don’t necessarily foster that), which I liked.



ONE-AND-A-HALF REAGANS

I'm back?? or am I CENSORED AGAIN?

UPDATE: After SIX WEEKS, it finally happened. Of course, I've lost most of my followers since then. Also, I began posting at http://briansnewone.blogspot.com  and I might attempt to get a wordpress account at www.WordPress.Org. I'll let you know if that happens.




My postings had stopped recently for one reason. This was that blogspot at www.blogger.com deleted my previous account without warning. I have been trying to reinstate it, but so far it hasn't happened.


During the past year, my facebook account at www.facebook.com  has also been temporarily suspended for a few days at a time.



Thankfully twitter at https://twitter.com/  has been very lenient in allowing me to post there.



Also, I've heard that hotmail at www.hotmail.com  is threatening to move many accounts to

www.outlook.com  whether the users want to or not.



All of this shows that there is a LOT of internet censorship. Accounts can be deleted without warning at the whims of the provider. This does mean that if you don't hear from someone for a long time on the internet, they may be censored by their account holder. Anyway for now, I'm going to publish while I can, but I realize that any account may be deleted so if you don't hear from me again for a while, this might be the case again!