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The Bible In Paintings 2 ENCOURAGEMENT FOR APPRECIATING AND APPLYING GOD'S MESSAGE COURTESY NOTICE:I AM TAKING A BRIEF BREAK To both Ping-Listers and Casual Commenters: This brief note explains why I have stopped posting for awhile. It would be inconsiderate of me to leave you wondering why the Bible-art series has suddenly disappeared. Having completed 192 threads portraying the Old Testament, we can turn now—God willing—to the New, beginning of course with a thorough exploration of the four Gospels. In real time it was 400 years between the two testaments—but I shouldn’t need much more than a couple or...

Nine-year-old students' reading and math scores have dropped dramatically over the last two years, according to a new report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the Department of Education. In 2022 the average reading score for nine-year-old students declined 5 points from 2020, the largest drop since 1990. Average math scores for 2022 fell for the first time in the program's history, dropping 7 points from 2020. The NCES's nationally representative report specifically examined student achievement during COVID-19 lockdowns. The center is expected to release a broader report later this year as part of the...

President Joe Biden delivered an impassioned speech about the state of American democracy and the Republican Party. While there was merit to some of it, his remarks were marred by contradictions. Is this a nonpartisan defense of democracy or a partisan political exercise to win the midterm elections? Biden called on all Americans to join together “regardless of your ideology” to reject extremism, violence, and the refusal to accept election results when the opposition wins. The president asked “Democrats, independents, and mainstream Republicans” to “be stronger, more determined, and more committed to saving American democracy than MAGA Republicans are to...

British author Michael Dobbs’s novel House of Cards is about a conniving Chief Whip’s plan to become Prime Minister following Margaret Thatcher’s term as PM. Dobbs had been Thatcher’s Chief of Staff and became disillusioned with the whole process of governing. He invented Francis Urquhart (FU), a power mad Chief Whip and his Machiavellian, thoroughly unscrupulous and murderous rise to power. The BBC produced three series based on Dobbs’ book and the two subsequent books, To Play the King and Final Cut. House of Cards is a gritty political thriller that proves the rule; all politics are corrupt but perhaps...

On August 25, the 5th Forum on China-Africa Media Cooperation (FOCAC) took place in Beijing. According to an official press release, Xi Jinping and Macky Sall, the Senegalese president and co-chair of FOCAC, sent letters of congratulations to the forum’s members. Huang Kunming, a key member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Political Bureau, read both letters and delivered a keynote speech. As per the press release, Huang emphasized the importance of deepening cooperation and collaborative efforts between China and Africa. Why is the CCP so interested in Africa? The world’s fastest growing continent, Africa is home to an abundance of...

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6 (King James Version) We get it Pedo Joe, you are angry because all those racist, sexist, homophobes made you mad. You are just a saint who is standing up for the little girl and if you can make a few hundred million in the process, all the better. Your schtick is getting older than your teeth Joe. Go scream at the moon you decrepit fool but don't you call hardworking Americans terrorists. In one of the worst...

(Reuters) - Federal and local officials are scrambling to locate close to a dozen unaccompanied migrant children, after Houston police raised concerns about a trend of migrant children reported missing in the Texas city, according to U.S. government officials and related emails reviewed by Reuters. The cases underscore the challenges for U.S. President Joe Biden's administration as it faces a record number of unaccompanied kids arriving at the southwest border it must safely and quickly release to sponsors in the United States. Earlier this summer, a Houston police detective alerted the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) after...

“They were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). The scribes and Pharisees offered a religion that only added burdens instead of lifting them. For them, the common people were the object of disdain, not compassion; individuals to be exploited, not served. In that sense the scribes and Pharisees were true descendents of the false shepherds against whom the Lord railed centuries earlier through Ezekiel (34:2–4). Many religious leaders today are still endeavoring to keep people out of the kingdom by distorting and contradicting God’s Word and perverting the way of salvation. By telling people they are...

One after another, people who spread information unfavorable to the Biden family, or to Biden Administration policies, get banned or suppressed on social media. It actually started even before Biden got elected, with Twitter in October 2020 banning any re-tweet of the New York Post’s reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop, and Facebook suppressing dissemination of the same story. But after Biden took office the examples are legion. To name just a few: James O’Keefe of Project Veritas (pursuing the Ashley Biden diary story) was banned by Twitter in April 2021; noted climate and Covid vaccine skeptic Tony Heller got...

Tonight Joe Biden [sic] incited violence against Republicans with his pounding dehumanization of conservatives. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” As he spoke, he was occasionally distracted by hecklers who shouted “fuck Joe Biden” through a bullhorn. Check out the Nazi background. With attendant Marines. Nothing to lower inflation. Nothing to reduce crime. Nothing to secure the southern border. Nothing on skyrocketing crime.

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has hit out over the UN visit to Europe's largest nuclear power plant. He's upset the nuclear watchdog inspecting the Zaporizhzhia facility, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has not yet called for the demilitarisation of the site, which has been occupied by Russian troops since early on in the six-month war. Zelenskyy also scolded Russia for allegedly obstructing journalists from accompanying the IAEA on its visit to the plant. "The key thing that should happen is the demilitarisation of the territory of the plant," said Zelenskyy. "This is exactly the goal of Ukrainian and international...

On Thursday afternoon, White House reporters rallied from the embarrassing effort many gave the day prior in lobbying softballs to inept Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and showed skepticism that President Biden’s Thursday night address on how the American right poses a threat to the country wouldn’t be political. Reuters’s Jeff Mason was one of those reporters who redeemed himself, starting with a short, Doocy-like question: “Is tonight a political speech?” Jean-Pierre sowed her fate when she immediately show back: “No. It’s not a political speech. This is an opportunity — again for the President to directly have a conversation with...

Chicago is one of the nation's gun violence hotspots and a seemingly ideal place to employ Illinois' "red flag” law that allows police to step in and take firearms away from people who threaten to kill. But amid more than 8,500 shootings resulting in 1,800 deaths since 2020, the law was used there just four times. It's a pattern that's played out in New Mexico, with nearly 600 gun homicides during that period and a mere eight uses of its red flag law. And in Massachusetts, with nearly 300 shooting homicides and just 12 uses of its law. An Associated...

Pray For The Peace of JerusalemExodus 15The Song of Moses and Miriam 15 Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord: “I will sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea. 2 “The Lord is my strength and my defense[a]; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. 3 The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name. 4 Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he has hurled into the sea. The...

In the latest blow to Australia’s ambitious plans to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, overstretched US and UK shipyards may not be able to supply Canberra with the boats within the decade as outlined in the three sides’ AUKUS agreement, according to reports in late August. At a recent Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies seminar, US Navy Rear Admiral Scott Pappano was asked if the AUKUS arrangement to supply Australia with nuclear subs would burden or draw crucial resources away from the US’ own sub-building plans. “If you are asking my opinion, if we were going to add additional submarine construction to...

A picture of scattered files on the floor of Mar-a-Lago isn’t helping make the regime’s case that this is a serious investigation undertaken by serious people. It is the picture that launched a thousand memes. Attached to the government’s 36-page response to Donald Trump’s request for a third party to review the materials stolen from Mar-a-Lago on August 8, the Department of Justice included a photo of documents seized by FBI investigators during the raid. Several papers, concealed by either a white sheet or cover page alleging the document contained secret or top secret information, are seen scattered on the...

President Joe Biden threw away his governing mandate on Thursday evening with a prime time address that described his political opponents as enemies to democracy, and demonized half the country as violent extremists. It was an act of unprecedented dishonesty and demagoguery, made worse by the fact that the news networks gave Biden time to spew his propaganda as if it were a genuine matter of national interest.

… From a political stagecraft standpoint, the scenery for Mr Biden on Thursday night couldn't have been more picturesque in person.The president's lectern was set in a tree-dotted park, with a fully lit Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, as the backdrop. A Marine band playing patriotic tunes off to one side. On television, however, the mood came across a bit differently. The close focus of the camera meant the president was only framed in the dark red portions of the building. It made it look as though he were delivering his speech from the gates of...

In another step aimed at stifling China’s technological advance, the US Department of Commerce has decided to restrict shipments of advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) designed by American companies NVIDIA and AMD to China. The US government says it is worried about potential military applications of these products. GPUs are a type of integrated circuit used in graphics and video image generation, high-performance computing and the acceleration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. NVIDIA and AMD, both based in California, are the 9th and 10th largest semiconductor companies in the world as ranked by revenue in 2021. The stock...

Many thought it was odd that during the entire time leading up to the last election, Joe Biden rarely campaigned and refused to come out of his "basement," while President Trump held huge rallies with more than 50,000 in attendance. Whenever Biden did step out of his basement, the numbers in attendance could be summed up as a few dozen here and there. Anyone with eyesight could see that Trump was on his way to victory which made Biden's invisibility was incomprehensible. With hindsight, Biden, and the cabal behind him, had no need to campaign because his selection was smugly...