Israel: Appeasement or Surrender?

September 2nd, 2010 at 5:29 pm

Under this headline, Israel concedes Jerusalem before negotiations even begin, a story that begins thus:

Ahead of the start of today’s Mideast summit in Washington, the Israeli government publicly conceded sections of Jerusalem will become part of a Palestinian state while holy sites would be governed by a “special regime.”

Speaking in an interview with Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, Defense Minister Ehud Barak outlined a deal with the Palestinians: “West Jerusalem and 12 Jewish neighborhoods that are home to 200,000 residents will be ours. The Arab neighborhoods in which close to a quarter million Palestinians live will be theirs.

“There will be a special regime in place along with agreed upon arrangements in the Old City, the Mount of Olives and the City of David,” added Barak.

Barak told the newspaper what is needed “is courage to make historic, painful decisions. I’m not saying that there is certainty for success, but there is a chance. This chance must be exploited to the fullest.”

Courage? Courage?! Other words fit far better.

Furthermore, another spit-in-the-wind observation: Only Jews need make “historic, painful decisions.”

To think anything good will come of this requires a willing suspension of disbelief.

These have not been good years for Israel.

And they will get worse.

Far worse.

The Bible tells me so.

August 31

September 1st, 2010 at 6:53 am

Doesn’t it seem like it was just yesterday...?

1939 — Germany invades Poland, marking the beginning of World War II.

1969 — Muammar al-Qaddafi (27) launches a coup against Libya’s King Idris I.

1983 — Korean Air Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter. All 269 on board perish.

1985 — Some French and American guys (and gals?) find the RMS Titanic about 400 miles east of Newfoundland.

2010 — President Obama declares an end to US combat operations in Iraq.

Happy Birthday #5, Trey!

August 27th, 2010 at 7:33 am
Grandpa and Juli, waiting for Trey to be born
I’m waiting with Juli in the hospital parking lot.
Sister holding brother again
“Hi, Little Brother. I’m your Big Sister!”
Trey up close
Up close
Mommy and Sister
“I’ll help you, Mommy!”
Trey with Roth Grandparents
Trey finds his thumb with his Roth Grandparents.
Sister holding brother again
Sister Juli is holding Brother Trey again!

Happy Birthday, Trey!

Love, Grandpa and Grandma Roth

Has a Tracking Device Been Planted on Your Car?

August 26th, 2010 at 7:24 pm

No, very likely not.

But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled the government may do so. All sneaky-like. Legally.

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn’t violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn’t tracking your movements.

That is the bizarre — and scary — rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants — with no need for a search warrant.

It is a dangerous decision — one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell.

[...]

Fortunately, other courts are coming to a different conclusion from the Ninth Circuit’s — including the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That court ruled, also this month, that tracking for an extended period of time with GPS is an invasion of privacy that requires a warrant. The issue is likely to end up in the Supreme Court.

[...]

Plenty of liberals have objected to this kind of spying, but it is the conservative Chief Judge Kozinski who has done so most passionately. “1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it’s here at last,” he lamented in his dissent. And invoking Orwell’s totalitarian dystopia where privacy is essentially nonexistent, he warned: “Some day, soon, we may wake up and find we’re living in Oceania.”

Source: The Government’s New Right to Track Your Every Move With GPS

Now don’t go getting paranoid, OK?

Just live as though somebody were tracking you all the time.

Because Somebody is.

“The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3).

“Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD” (Jeremiah 23:24).

I am blessed and thankful to realize again that God wants to watch over me for good. I needn’t fear His omniscience; rather, I can be comforted and encouraged by it.

“The Years They Have Wasted”

August 26th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
“People who do not know the Lord
ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries.
They forget that they too are expending their lives ...
and when the bubble has burst,
they will have nothing of eternal significance to show
for the years they have wasted.”
–Nate Saint

Nate Saint (missionary pilot), Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, and Pete Fleming were martyred in 1956 at the hand of Waorani (Auca) tribesmen they sought to reach with the Gospel. In 1958 Jim’s widow Elisabeth, along with Rachel Saint (sister of Nate Saint), went to live with the same Waorani tribe.

HT: The Berean Call

Through Gates of Splendor, Elisabeth Elliot

Private