You’ve Been Warned

Driving in Arizona

No, this isn’t to let you know where I am. Nor is it to post photos taken on an drive through Arizona.

The masked speeder: Photo-radar scofflaw is a beast at the wheel

Speed-camera photos of the man in the monkey and giraffe masks have generated lots of chuckles. But the cops aren’t laughing.

Dave VonTesmar, 47, started getting the $181.50 tickets last year, but it took Department of Public Safety officials several months to realize the same driver was repeatedly triggering speed cameras and refusing to pay the fines. By the time they did, more than 50 of the tickets had become invalid because the deadline for prosecution had passed.

[…]

In Arizona, people who get photo-enforcement tickets in the mail have four options: agree they were driving and pay the fine; say they weren’t driving and send in their driver’s license photo as proof; request a court date and fight the ticket; simply ignore the ticket because law enforcement can’t prove alleged violators received it. The ticket becomes invalid if a violator who ignores it isn’t served in person within three months.

That last provision is extremely interesting (and amazing) to me. So if I’m driving home to Oregon from a visit to Mexico and get in photo speeding ticket while transiting Arizona, I don’t have to pay it…unless they serve me the ticket in person?

And that’s the way their photo radar law is set up?

Well, anyway, the story continues:

VonTesmar, who said he simply drives with the flow of traffic, said that if the DPS does have surveillance photos of him on the road, it proves he’s not a danger to other drivers. If he were, the DPS would have pulled him over, he said.

Because the speed cameras begin snapping photos of drivers going 11 mph or more over the limit, the backlash against them has been fairly constant. Arizonans have used sticky notes, Silly String and even a pickax to sabotage the cameras.

I am very picky about staying within the speed limit. I believe that’s how Christians should drive. So the presence of photo radar cameras doesn’t affect my driving. Even so, something about their use just doesn’t seem right.

Oh. And if you were a law breaker and got a ticket, pay it.

PS: This guy works as a flight attendant for which airline? Southwest? Their stewards tend to be clowns. I think.

Oh…and another thing: To get to the full story, you’ll need to go to

Military Internment Camps

In the USA???

American concentration camps…for American citizens???

In his piece More On Internment Camps, Chuck Baldwin (whoever he is), quotes some other guy:

“When I first heard the FEMA Prison Camp conspiracy story, it seemed ridiculous and paranoid at face value. But when I finally dug in to research it, I started by searching for the origins of the rumors, and found to my surprise that nearly all of the legal foundation and precedent for such a plan does in fact exist.”

That other guy (as I recall) had this to say at the end of his own piece on the subject of FEMA concentration camps:

FEMA Prison Camps

We choose to elect politicians who don’t want us to bring water bottles onto planes, because (for better or for worse) that’s what’s important to our society right now. I don’t remember anyone electing a politician who wants to throw millions of Americans into prison camps. To make effective electoral decisions, you need to maintain a healthy skepticism, and not go off the deep end and suppose that every Halliburton contract is a slippery slope leading to Americans being gassed in military concentration camps. If you see barbed wire around a train yard, consider the possibility of other explanations (like the train company doesn’t need stuff being stolen) before you conclude that the Illuminati are out to kill you.

So what’s the truth?

How should I know?!

But, if nothing else, it’s an interesting story that includes a conspiracy theory, American concentration camps, and the Illuminati.

We report; you deride. 😆

Pitching Pitiful Passwords

So how do you protect all your accounts online?

How do you go about making up passwords for all those accounts?

I just got one of Clark Howard’s emails with a link to a post on that subject. So here you go:

With all the talk of high-level hacking, it’s easy to forget that it is we who make ourselves most vulnerable on a very individual level. PC Magazine recently compiled a list of the 10 most common passwords in the United States today. Do not use these on confidential e-mail accounts! Read it all

Orwell and Huxley Revisited

I got this in my email. So I found the site so I could quote it (with customized links added by me):

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions”. In 1984, Huxley added, “people are controlled by inflicting pain.” In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

–Neil Postman (Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business)

The Berean Call adds as a footnote:

While Orwell and Huxley had competing versions of the ongoing deterioration of humanity, the Scriptures have always pointed out how these times will be. “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy” 2 Timothy 3:1-2.

           

Update: Fathima Rifqa Bary

We start with the first paragraph of a post at Christianity Today’s blog:

Fathima Rifqa Bary’s story is quickly circulating on blogs and Christian media as proof of Islam’s violent roots and the cost of following Christ. While the latter is true no matter who’s doing the following, the former is disputable in the case of the Ohio teen who fled her home two weeks ago to meet up with Blake and Beverly Lorenz, Florida pastors she had met on Facebook.

If you want to read the full post, of course you’ll have to click the link above. (As I recall, the writer is not entirely sympathetic toward Rifqa.)

The above post is referenced over at Barth’s Notes:

A blog at Christianity Today sounds a note of caution over the case of Fathima Rifqa Bary, a Sir Lankan teenager living in Ohio who recently fled to Orlando claiming that her parents planned to kill her for converting to Christianity….

Frankly, I’ve been wondering about this whole deal, but not to the point of believing Rifqa is lying.

Whatever the case may be, this case raises (yet again) the issue of when the State may intervene in family affairs.

When??!! Did I just say that?

That accepts the premise that the State has such moral authority.

Better to substitute if for when.

If one of my children goes to CSD and says I’m being abusive, is that sufficient cause for the State to take all my children?

So, putting myself in Rifqa’s father’s shoes, well…never mind.

What do you have to say?

If the State comes for a conservative Anabaptist Mennonite’s children, that’s wrong?

But if the States takes a Muslim’s child, not only is that understandable, it’s also justifiable?

Oh, wait…here’s a piece from the Pakistan Daily:

A very disconcerting video is being shown by the Christan church. A minor Sri Lankan girl belonging to well to do parents has been kidnapped by a church in Ohio and being kept away from the legal guardians and parents of the girl. The family maintains that the girls was into drugs, promiscuous behaviour and raunchy messages on facebook. She was discussing sex with multiple older married men. When the parents tried to control her behaviour she refused to do so. On her return to the home she conjured up a story of conversion to Christianity. There are serious accusations against the church on holding a minor girl in custody against the will of her guardians and parents. How many more girls will the church kidnap?

Media reports indicate that the Muslim father denies his daughter’s charge that he plans to take her life in an “honor killing” because of her conversion to Christianity. And certainly he could have no intention of committing such a heinous act.

😯

Now what shall we believe?!

Are You a Fishing Spot?

Or to put it another way, did you cause anyone’s flag to wave?

Still not getting my drift?

Facts are stubborn things: Flag the fishy spots!

Facts are stubborn things, indeed. 😯

OK, so maybe Macon Phillips will end up resigning or being fired over that Facts Are Stubborn Things, If You Smell Something Fishy, Be An Informant post at the White House blog. Or maybe we will end up losing some of our trust in those with whom we interact, as we wonder whether they will find us fishy in some way. Or maybe freedom of press and informants will co-exist just fine

But, really, what about what we say?

How did your speech and/or email communications qualify today? Or Facebook or Twitter or MySpace or Xanga or Blogger or WordPress or other online forums?

Something fishy?

Will you and your writing/speaking make a good fishing spot?

Would you want someone to inform on you?

Look. What the White House is thinking and opining is important enough.

But what God opines and thinks is infinitely of greater importance and consequence.

“In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips is wise” (Proverbs 10:19).

“He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life: but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction” (Proverbs 13:3).

“Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles” (Proverbs 21:23).

“But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Matthew 12:36,37).

“I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me” (Psalm 39:1).

“Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer” (Psalm 19:14).

Oh, you’re wondering why I would file this under Endangered Christians? Hmmm. If this fishing expedition sticks, do you really think it will be remain under its publicly posted limitations?

Now chew on that one, will ya?

After all, facts are stubborn things!

Above all, love God!
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