Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
I just saw that word in three headlines over at Drudge:
| White House Warns Critics: Should Be ‘exceedingly careful’…
China warns Fed over ‘printing money’… COLUMBUS SCARE: Police chief warns of deep cuts without tax increase… |
So I got to wondering it what other headlines it was appearing today:
OK. You get the picture.
Sleep well.
And beware! 😯
OK, so the expression every dime has been featured of late. So I’ll contribute to the FOL project. I Googled the phrase and what follows came up in the top ten results. Click the link to see what I left out. Or what has changed since I did my search.
| Details thin on stimulus contracts
Although President Obama has vowed that citizens will be able to track “every dime” of the $787 billion stimulus bill, a government website dedicated to the spending won’t have details on contracts and grants until October and may not be complete until next spring — halfway through the program, administration officials said. Recovery.gov now lists programs being funded by the stimulus money, but provides no details on who received the grants and contracts. |
Yup. That was at the top, though not surprisingly.
Among the remaining nine of the Top Ten:
| Fafsa in time saves every dime
Renovated Boshamer worth every dime it cost The Porsche Boxer Is Worth Every Dime |
Oh, and by the way, how many dimes do you see in the photo above? (Remember to click the image for a larger view.)
Special teddy bears blessed by church
| A morning service last weekend at the First United Church of Christ in Hollywood took a cute and cuddly turn with a bunch of sweet-faced visitors staring back at worshipers from their place of honor next to the altar.
The batch of about 35 stuffed toy animals were warmly welcomed as special guests when the Rev. Jack Branford presided over the congregation’s annual Blessing of the Bears. The critters received an inspirational send-off before going to their new home, into the arms of elderly residents at the Hollywood Hills Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center. |
Blessed by Giving – Spiritually
| Yet, it is a spiritual act that we perform in worship to God. When we give generously we are honoring His name, giving Him first place, and extending His Kingdom. Giving is grace.
Today, seek ways to be full of grace to others – find ways that you can give generously. |
President’s Political Protector Is Ever Close at Hand
| There are few words that come across the president’s lips that have not been blessed by Mr. Axelrod. He reviews every speech, studies every major policy position and works with Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, to prepare responses to the crisis of the day. |
| I am blessed by the realization that God knows me as well as knowing about me. I am encouraged also by the assurance that He knows the course of my life even before I experience it. As Job put it, “He knoweth the way that I take” (Job 23:10). |
Pastor to the deaf blessed by his calling
| Armstrong officially kicked off his ministry on Sunday with a special event for deaf people in the congregation and other invited guests.
Executive Pastor James Scudder Jr. says Armstrong’s work is more significant than it looks. “This is so much more than just providing sign language interpretation for the sermon,” he said. “David’s ministry works to keep the deaf fully included in the life of the church. They are part of our family, not a subgroup.” |
So what have you been blessed by today?
Alternate question: Who has been blessed by you today?
So I followed a Google Alert for Anabaptist to someone’s blog. And I noticed in the blog’s sidebar a link to a 72-hour kit. That got me curious. So I did a little further (re)searching.
How to Make a 72-Hour Survival Kit, Whatcom County Washington
| When a disaster strikes, your community emergency services and government agencies may not be able to respond to your needs immediately. Their buildings, equipment, personnel, communications, and mobility may be severely hampered by the event. They will be overwhelmed.
Experts warn that you should be prepared to be on your own for a minimum of three days after a disaster. One of the most important elements of this preparedness is the 72-hour kit for your home or office. The contents of this kit will vary, but in every case it should contain the things you need to survive for three days on your own. |
Well, maybe not anymore. 😀
| Study secretly tracks cell phone users outside US
Researchers secretly tracked the locations of 100,000 people outside the United States through their cell phone use and concluded that most people rarely stray more than a few miles from home. The first-of-its-kind study by Northeastern University raises privacy and ethical questions for its monitoring methods, which would be illegal in the United States. It also yielded somewhat surprising results that reveal how little people move around in their daily lives. Nearly three-quarters of those studied mainly stayed within a 20-mile-wide circle for half a year. The scientists would not disclose where the study was done, only describing the location as an industrialized nation. Researchers used cell phone towers to track individuals’ locations whenever they made or received phone calls and text messages over six months. |
If there’s no big uproar from the masses, will “they” do this more and more to us?
| Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control
A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November. […] Under the terms of the new treaty, the Americans would retain the long-term use of more than 50 bases in Iraq. American negotiators are also demanding immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government. |
I can hardly imagine that plan surviving.
| Bilderbergers set to meet in D.C.
The annual secretive gathering of representatives from West European and North American countries, known as the Bilderberg Group, is scheduled to begin [today] in the Washington, D.C., area. […] The Bilderberg Group is an elite invitation-only conference of influential members of the business, media and political communities. Past attendees have included Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. […] While the group claims its purpose is to facilitate discussion among Western powers, many see the group as a means toward globalization. The highly secretive conference is off limits to press, but past reports from sources that have managed to penetrate the high-security venues have stated the meetings emphasize a globalist agenda and dismiss national sovereignty as regressive. |
Will the Trilateralists and the Illuminati and the Jesuits and the Rothschilds be there as well? Hey, just asking!
And, in closing, this:
| A leading anti-aviation activist has secretly flown to New York to hold meetings with American airport protesters – and see the sights. |
Over the last two or three months, I’ve had reason to think about that.
And how easily we forget it. Or purposefully ignore it. Even when we know it. And maybe even believe it.
Oh the foolishness (stupidity, if you will) of planting something that will bring us a heart-breaking harvest later!
• contempt and scorn
• mockery and disrespect
• deceit and hypocrisy
• pride and cockiness
• ungodliness and impurity
• wrong example and unwise counsel
So stop and think and analyze and look to the future.
(Yes, this applies to you, believe it or not!)
Elsewhere you can find more I wrote on this subject: here and here.
Well, I ask you right now — do you want to harvest what you planted earlier today?
If not, maybe it’s too late. (Though it certainly isn’t too late to confess and abandon the wrong planting.)
And for sure it isn’t too late to start planting something better — something that you can look forward to harvesting.
For myself, my harvesting continues to this very day. Too much of it is quite wretched. (Yes, I’ve been in some kind of a downer of late.)
Now, having written all that, I urge you to hope! You reap what you sow works for the good harvests just as well as it does for the bad ones.
Anyway, eventually it dawned on me that this might make an interesting search term: you reap what you sow.
So I tried it and among the top 10 (of 208,000) Web-search results are these:
| What You Do Comes Back To You
The words “What you do comes back to you” are an excellent paraphrase of the Biblical truth, “You reap what you sow.” You plant the seeds (sow), and then later you gather the resulting harvest (reap). The harvest that you reap depends on the kind of seeds you sow. If you sow corn, you will not reap olives. 1 Way Only–You Reap What You Sow …what you sow in life has a direct relationship to what you’ll receive in your life. In other words, your actions all have consequences. Good actions result in good consequences, and bad actions result in bad consequences. …But don’t ever be fooled into thinking that your actions don’t have consequences. Don’t think you can get away with bad choices even if you don’t seem to get caught. Remember verse seven tells us that God cannot be mocked. He sees it all. You reap what you sow. Another so-called exception to the rule is the belief that time alters the reap-and-sow principle. That is, if the penalty or reward for an act doesn’t come quickly, it isn’t coming at all, and hence the law of cause and effect is broken. |
And among the top 10 (of about 35) news-search results are:
| Frost Illustrated: Morality in Media leader offers explanation for mass killings
“There is a saying, ‘You reap what you sow,’ and the American people are reaping what the entertainment media have sowed and we have bought for more than forty years.” allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe: Govt Distributes 535 Ploughs to Farmers “Let us take heed of the saying ‘you reap what you sow’ and make use of the ploughs given to you today. Sow the seed that will give us a bumper harvest,” he said. Moultrie Observer – Rants and Raves for Dec 11 “If we are not careful, nobody will want to come here to coach. No true support, no participation, and we expect to win. After what happened to Coach Singletary, you reap what you sow boys! Football is not king anymore! Queen at best! |
And among the top 10 (of about 14,440) blog-search results are:
| Everyday Woman Radio Show with Vicki Hinze: Stealing Religion
But first it’ll be a long look into a harsh mirror in which nothing is hidden and all that is true is exposed. Then the thief will learn the penalty of his/her actions, and then s/he will suffer the utmost consequences. Because in the very symbols stolen are promises that remain intact: you reap what you sow. And from that, the thief cannot hide. I wonder. When the thief sows, feels the full weight of the consequences of his/her actions, how will s/he feel about stealing then? Because the truth is, the thief(s) might have stolen and damaged and destroyed that family’s property. But s/he did far more lasting damage to him/herself. The kind self-inflicted that requires far more than mere repayment to be satisfied. It requires forgiveness, and that requires divine grace. It is said that we reap what we sow. In fact, it could be argued that even the most fertile soil throughout the world is barren unless time and effort is expended to take seeds and have them properly planted, cultivated and nurtured. |
OK, so on this day in 1903 the Wright brothers did the first successful manned, self-propelled airplane flights.
But what else happened on December 17 down through the years?
1777 — France recognized American independence.
1843 — Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was first published.
1862 — General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order No. 11 expelling Jews from Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi.
1944 — Japanese-Americans are released from detention camps.
1947 — The Arab League announced it will use force to resist partition of Palestine.
1948 — “Operation Magic Carpet” begn to take Yemenite Jews to Israel.
1969 — The US Air Force closed its Project “Blue Book” by concluding that there was no evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships behind thousands of UFO sightings.
1992 — US President H. W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari signed the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Is that all? Nope. There were nuclear tests hither and yon. And other stuff, including this strange one:
1967 — Prime Minister of Australia Harold Holt disappeared while swimming near Portsea, Victoria, and was presumed drowned.
Do your own search if you’re that interested in what else happened on December 17. 🙂