Thankful | Ain't Complicated

Has a Tracking Device Been Planted on Your Car?

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 Grocery Depot

The Grocery Depot — Albany, Oregon

We shopped there yesterday afternoon. We are thankful for the good deals we got there.

Here’s a little blurb from their Web site, which I found just this morning:

We are a growing business that is here to serve the community by providing the quality grocery items your family needs at prices that won’t break your bank account. When you shop at The Grocery Depot, you will find the best deals around, friendly service and prices that you can afford.

We hope they eventually grow a third store…and put it in Woodburn or Molalla.

We would be thrilled to shop there.

In fact, we would even consider working there. Hey, maybe we could manage it! 😯

For now, I’m offering to do some needed proofreading on their Web site. 😉

If you think any of the above are good ideas, go to their site and let them know. 🙄

Or you could tell them in person the next time you shop at their Lebanon or Albany stores. 😆 For sure, tell them “Hi!” from Mark Roth. Thanks.

Hazy Sun

Yesterday morning I went out to unchain the dog.

I saw the sun rising on the just and on the unjust.

I shot the sun.

And the van and the door and me and the floor and the boxes.

Hazy early-morning sun reflects off our van

It also reflects off my pate!

Here it is, sneaking in through the somewhat-ajar door.

Having sneaked in, it climbs boxes from Rod and Staff Publishers.

Many cheers for sunshine!

Mozambique Bleak

If you think life has given you a health care lemon, remember Mozambique:

Some 6.4 million people in northern Mozambique, Africa, have little or no access to medical care. They live in a largely-Muslim area of the country and suffer needlessly from malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, and numerous medical conditions made worse by poverty and poor sanitation.

Many haven’t even heard the Gospel.

But now, Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) is helping make the critical difference. Like the spreading dawn, hope and healing are coming to these afflicted people. The story of transformation has just begun.

The Program Manager for MAF Mozambique is Warren Veal. He said MAF is teaming up with Dr. Pim de Lijster, a Dutch physician who is known as “Doctor Pim,” and a Brazilian dentist, Dr. Ida de Carvalho, “Doctor Ida,” to form MozMed, a ministry that is bringing life, hope, and relief from suffering.

Veal says, “The three of us work together to provide health care in one of the rural districts in Mozambique.”

He said the health care needs are great. “There [are] about 33,000 people for every doctor in the country. Actually, here in the north, that statistic is a little bit worse because there are even fewer doctors.”

MAF flies these doctors into an area on a Monday, they set up a clinic, and treat those in need. Veal says it’s not just about seeing patients; they’re also training untrained health care workers to care for those in need when the doctors aren’t in town.

MAF overcomes barriers of terrain by flying this dedicated team to eight isolated villages for a recurring schedule of half-day clinics. Each clinic is staffed by a government-sponsored health worker.

I only quote a few of the opening paragraphs of the story: Mozambique desperate for doctors

I am thankful to have all manner of health care options around me.

Long Hair at Church

And bald, too.

(His color wasn’t so hot either.)

He came with a friend.

And went home with a friend.

Then the next day (ie, today) two of the latter friend’s children took Long Hair to the Molalla Post Office! 😯

Read it all

The Fly in Your Ointment

With a title like that, I don’t mean to make light of this:

“Because David did that which was right
in the eyes of the LORD,
and turned not aside from
any thing that he commanded him
all the days of his life,
save only in the matter of
Uriah the Hittite.”
1 Kings 15:5

David repented.

God forgave.

But the record remained.

I’m grateful for forgiveness.

And cleansing.

So I can enjoy the ointment again.

(Does any of this make sense to you?)

Survivor: Urie Sharp

I am amazed that the Mennonite Blogosphere doesn’t seem to be reporting this. Well, a correction to that: Google isn’t turning up any blog references to the matter.

State troopers of the Ohio Highway Patrol post at New Philadelphia are investigating the possibility that a car might have caused a single-truck crash that injured a 74-year-old Bolivar area resident Monday night.

Urie J. Sharp of 7995 St. Peters Church Rd. was reported in satisfactory condition in Aultman Hospital at Canton Tuesday night.

Troopers said Sharp was hurt when his northbound 1994 Ford Ranger pickup truck went off the right side of I-77 and hit a guardrail in Goshen Township at about 8:20 p.m. His vehicle then slid into and crossed the median, coming to rest in the southbound lanes of I-77 about a half mile north of the New Philadelphia exit.

Sharp told troopers that he was driving in the left lane to avoid a car that was entering I-77 from the on-ramp when the car came up fast behind his truck and a passenger yelled at him. He said that when he moved into the right lane, the other vehicle “flew past” him.

The driver then got in front of his vehicle and slammed on the brakes. Sharp said that when he also applied his brakes, his truck slid into the guardrail then went into the median.

He described the other vehicle as being a newer model, gray in color. He said the passenger was a white female in her 40s, with blonde hair.

Sharp initially was taken to Union Hospital at Dover and later transferred to Aultman.

Source: Troopers looking for driver of car that motorist says caused crash

We learned about this last night from our daughter LaVay who learned about it on Facebook from Urie’s wife herself. Her report at the time was that Urie has a broken back — a shattered 4th vertebra. I haven’t heard any amendments to that report.

May God bring about full restoration to Urie.