[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDi8XoZ4puo]

Once you come to understand the symbolism built into the Jewish Feast Days, you may never view the Bible the same way again. The Feast of Pentecost arrives this year in early June and provides a perfect picture of the Rapture of the Church. Gary Stearman and Jack Langford discuss this feast—described by Jewish sources as a complete mystery.

We all know the church was born on Pentecost, but the Jewish sages believed that the heavens open for a brief instant on this day—a day they claim the fruit of the trees is judged! In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye! Will we be raptured on a future Pentecost.

Copyright © 2018 Prophecy Watchers.com–All rights reserved

One hundred eighty one years ago (February 5, 1837), there was born of poor parents in a humble farmhouse in Northfield, Massachusetts, a little baby who was to become the greatest man, as I believe, of his generation or of his century—Dwight L. Moody.

After our great generals, great statesmen, great scientists and great men of letters have passed away and been forgotten, and their work and its helpful influence has come to an end, the work of D. L. Moody will go on and its saving influence continue and increase, bringing blessing not only to every state in the Union but to every nation on earth. Yes, it will continue throughout the ages of eternity.

My subject is “Why God Used D. L. Moody,” and I can think of no subject upon which I would rather speak. For I shall not seek to glorify Mr. Moody, but the God who by His grace, His entirely unmerited favour, used him so mightily, and the Christ who saved him by His atoning death and resurrection life, and the Holy Spirit who lived in him and wrought through him and who alone made him the mighty power that he was to this world.

Furthermore: I hope to make it clear that the God who used D. L. Moody in his day is just as ready to use you and me, in this day, if we, on our part, do what D. L. Moody did, which was what made it possible for God to so abundantly use him.

The whole secret of why D. L. Moody was such a mightily used man you will find in Psalm 62:11:

God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that POWER BELONGETH UNTO GOD

I am glad it does. I am glad that power did not belong to D. L. Moody; I am glad that it did not belong to Charles G. Finney; I am glad that it did not belong to Martin Luther; I am glad that it did not belong to any other Christian man whom God has greatly used in this world’s history. Power belongs to God. If D. L. Moody had any power, and he had great power, he got it from God.

But God does not give His power arbitrarily. It is true that He gives it to whomsoever He will, but He wills to give it on certain conditions, which are clearly revealed in His Word; and D. L. Moody met those conditions and God made him the most wonderful preacher of his generation; yes, I think the most wonderful man of his generation.

But how was it that D. L. Moody had that power of God so wonderfully manifested in his life? Pondering this question it seemed to me that there were seven things in the life of D. L. Moody that accounted for God’s using him so largely as He did.

1. A Fully Surrendered Man

The first thing that accounts for God’s using D. L. Moody so mightily was that he was a fully surrendered man. Every ounce of that two-hundred-and-eighty -pound body of his belonged to God; everything he was and everything he had, belonged wholly to God. Now, I am not saying that Mr. Moody was perfect; he was not. If I attempted to, I presume I could point out some defects in his character. It does not occur to me at this moment what they were; but I am confident that I could think of some, if I tried real hard. I have never yet met a perfect man, not one. I have known perfect men in the sense in which the Bible commands us to be perfect, i.e., men who are wholly God’s, out and out for God, fully surrendered to God, with no will but God’s will; but I have never known a man in whom I could not see some defects, some places where he might have been improved.

2. A Man of Prayer

The second secret of the great power exhibited in Mr. Moody’s life was that Mr. Moody was in the deepest and most meaningful sense a man of prayer. People oftentimes say to me:  “Well, I went many miles to see and to hear D. L. Moody and he certainly was a wonderful preacher.” Yes, D. L. Moody certainly was a wonderful preacher; taking it all in all, the most wonderful preacher I have ever heard, and it was a great privilege to hear him preach as he alone could preach; but out of a very intimate acquaintance with him I wish to testify that he was a far greater pray-er than he was preacher.

3. A Deep and Practical Student of the Bible

The third secret of Mr. Moody’s power, or the third reason why God used D. L. Moody, was because he was a deep and practical student of the Word of God. Nowadays it is often said of D. L. Moody that he was not a student. I wish to say that he was a student; most emphatically he was a student. He was not a student of psychology; he was not a student of anthropology—I am very sure he would not have known what that word meant; he was not a student of biology; he was not a student of philosophy; he was not even a student of theology, in the technical sense of the term; but he was a student, a profound and practical student of the one Book that is more worth studying than all other books in the world put together; he was a student of the Bible. 

4. A Humble Man

The fourth reason why God continuously, through so many years, used D.L. Moody was because he was a humble man. I think D. L. Moody was the humblest man I ever knew in all my life. He loved to quote the words of another:

Faith gets the most; love works the most; but humility keeps the most.

He himself had the humility that keeps everything it gets. As I have already said, he was the most humble man I ever knew, i.e., the most humble man when we bear in mind the great things that he did, and the praise that was lavished upon him. Oh, how he loved to put himself in the background and put other men in the foreground.

How often he would stand on a platform with some of us little fellows seated behind him and as he spoke he would say: “There are better men coming after me.” As he said it, he would point back over his shoulder with his thumb to the “little fellows.” I do not know how he could believe it, but he really did believe that the others that were coming after him were really better than he was. He made no pretence to a humility he did not possess. In his heart of hearts he constantly underestimated himself, and overestimated others.

5. His Entire Freedom from the Love of Money

The fifth secret of D. L. Moody’s continual power and usefulness was his entire freedom from the love of money. Mr. Moody might have been a wealthy man, but money had no charms for him. He loved to gather money for God’s work; he refused to accumulate money for himself. He told me during the World’s Fair that if he had taken, for himself, the royalties on the hymnbooks which he had published, they would have amounted, at that time, to a million dollars. But Mr. Moody refused to touch the money. He had a perfect right to take it, for he was responsible for the publication of the books and it was his money that went into the publication of the first of them.

Mr. Sankey had some hymns that he had taken with him to England and he wished to have them published. He went to a publisher (I think Morgan & Scott) and they declined to publish them, because, as they said, Philip Phillips had recently been over and published a hymnbook and it had not done well.

However, Mr. Moody had a little money and he said that he would put it into the publication of these hymns in cheap form; and he did. The hymns had a most remarkable and unexpected sale; they were then published in book form and large profits accrued. The financial results were offered to Mr. Moody, but he refused to touch them. “But,” it was urged on him, “the money belongs to you”; but he would not touch it.

6. His Consuming Passion for the Salvation of the Lost

The sixth reason why God used D. L. Moody was because of his consuming passion for the salvation of the lost. Mr. Moody made the resolution, shortly after he himself was saved, that he would never let twenty-four hours pass over his head without speaking to at least one person about his soul. His was a very busy life, and sometimes he would forget his resolution until the last hour, and sometimes he would get out of bed, dress, go out and talk to someone about his soul in order that he might not let one day pass without having definitely told at least one of his fellow-mortals about his need and the Saviour who could meet it.

7. Definitely Endued with Power from on High

The seventh thing that was the secret of why God used D. L. Moody was that he had a very definite endowment with power from on High, a very clear and definite baptism with the Holy Ghost. Moody knew he had “the baptism with the Holy Ghost”; he had no doubt about it. In his early days he was a great hustler; he had a tremendous desire to do something, but he had no real power. He worked very largely in the energy of the flesh.

But there were two humble Free Methodist women who used to come over to his meetings in the Y.M.C.A. One was “Auntie Cook” and the other, Mrs. Snow. (I think her name was not Snow at that time.) These two women would come to Mr. Moody at the close of his meetings and say: “We are praying for you.” Finally, Mr. Moody became somewhat nettled and said to them one night: “Why are you praying for me? Why don’t you pray for the unsaved?” They replied: “We are praying that you may get the power.” Mr. Moody did not know what that meant, but he got to thinking about it, and then went to these women and said: “I wish you would tell me what you mean”; and they told him about the definite baptism with the Holy Ghost. Then he asked that he might pray with them and not they merely pray for him.

Auntie Cook once told me of the intense fervour with which Mr. Moody prayed on that occasion. She told me in words that I scarcely dare repeat, though I have never forgotten them. And he not only prayed with them, but he also prayed alone.

Not long after, one day on his way to England, he was walking up Wall Street in New York; (Mr. Moody very seldom told this and I almost hesitate to tell it) and in the midst of the bustle and hurry of that city his prayer was answered; the power of God fell upon him as he walked up the street and he had to hurry off to the house of a friend and ask that he might have a room by himself, and in that room he stayed alone for hours; and the Holy Ghost came upon him, filling his soul with such joy that at last he had to ask God to withhold His hand, lest he die on the spot from that very joy!

He went out from that place with the power of the Holy Ghost upon him, and when he got to London (partly through the prayers of a bedridden saint in Mr. Lessey’s church), the power of God wrought through him mightily in North London, and hundreds were added to the churches; and that was what led to his being invited over to the wonderful campaign that followed in later years.

R.A. Torrey, Why God Used D.L. Moody First published 1923-All rights reserved

What’s to be done about the West’s plummeting birth rate?

It is now largely common knowledge – and not before time – that birth rates in Western and other developed nations are well below the rate of replacement, leading to ageing and declining populations, and storing up serious social and economic problems for the future.   Source: Wikipedia/Supaman89

In Britain, as in a number of other Western nations, the situation is even worse than the national figures suggest, since these include the higher birth rate amongst more recent immigrant arrivals.

The idea that Europe should look to large-scale immigration to make up for its dire birth rates has been proffered by various public figures in recent years, but such a ‘solution’ can only store up ethnic and cultural tensions for the future, and at worst, risks the final erosion of traditional Western culture and values.

So what is the alternative? To answer this, first we need to ask what lies behind Europe’s declining birth rate.

It’s not ignorance about the best chances for fertility. According to the Fertility Education Initiative, women here are fully aware that they are best off having children in their 20s, and surveys in the US suggest most women want to have children. So what’s stopping them?

The common explanation is cost. People simply can’t afford to have more children, not least because of rising house prices and rental costs. Fertility rates follow closely the fortunes of the economy, rising during the boom years of the 1950s, late 1980s and 2000s, and dipping during the recessions of the 1970s and early 1990s, the 2001 dotcom crash and the 2008 credit crunch and ensuing Great Recession:Source: Institute for Family Studies

Yet many of the costs associated with children, such as education and medicine, are socialised. Initiatives such as childcare subsidies, parental leave and direct payment have not so far succeeded in appreciably lifting the fertility rate in any country where they have been tried.

It is noteworthy that none of these measures advantages marriage or one-breadwinner-couple families. Arguably current policy is funding family breakdown.

Is the decline of religion a key driver? If so, it is not consistent since some of the more religious countries, such as Poland, are no better off than the least religious.

Many point the finger at modern men: self-absorbed and wary of commitment. But what about modern women – are they really all ready to settle down and have their 2-3 children before the biological clock ticks out, if only men would do their bit?

Since the introduction of the contraceptive pill in the early 1960s, birth rates in all countries affected by the cultural and social changes associated with the sexual revolution have nosedived:Source: The Journal of Population and Sustainability 

These cultural changes go a long way towards explaining the changes in the behaviour and attitudes of modern men. Without any social obligation to marry a woman to have a sexual relationship with her, or even a family with her, a large part of the incentive for men to marry and settle down has evaporated.

When it is socially respectable to remain in a state of permissive sexual liaisons and semi-committed domestic arrangements, a great many more men (and indeed women, who should not universally be assumed to be instinctive lovers of commitment and settled family life) will take advantage of that.

Marriage too has been in consistent decline the lowest rate ever between opposite sex couple on record in 2015.

Male fertility is another issue. The average sperm count of men in the U.S. drops 1.5 per cent every year; one in five young men are not fertile.

The post-war baby boom was a relatively short-lived trend running counter to a much larger decline (from 4-6 births per woman to 1-3) that began in most countries around the 1870s, reaching a low in the UK of around 2 in 1940:

Source: Demography Resources 

The causes are widely disputed, but chief amongst them is the shift from children being regarded primarily as family assets (especially sources of income, though also family stature and legacy) to being regarded primarily as family costs (to be educated and set up for life). This was driven by many factors, including the suppression of child labour and the advance of universal education.

Simply to discourage contraception would not revive the birth rate. Widespread contraceptive use predated the 1960s, but it did not prevent the baby boom. Not until around 1980 did the fertility rate fall below replacement level. Having said this, it is hard not to see a link between the pill, which effectively places women in a persisting infertile state, and the intensely permissive sexual revolution and continuing rock-bottom fertility.

Additionally abortion ‘reform’ has led to the termination of around a fifth of UK pregnancies since 1967. Finally, the effect of women’s education and workforce participation which increased sharply in the 1970s and has grown consistently since, depressing both men’s pay and deferring childbirth, except amongst the poorer benefit dependent classes, cannot be ignored.

So what’s to be done?

This is a vexed question in a culture saturated with feminism and with the main political parties seemingly indifferent to encouraging married family formation, maternity and supporting children through the tax system.

On the contrary, Mrs May’s liberal-progressive priority is gender parity – making men and women more equal in the home. Studies suggesting that the birth rate among working women may be increased by their husbands or partners assisting more with child rearing and domestic duties have not however worked out in practice.

A sharp drop in the birth rates of some of the more domestically egalitarian countries such as Norway, Denmark and Finland in very recent years makes this theory look pretty shaky.

Couples who try to balance family commitments with holding down a demanding job each are unlikely to have capacity for more than two children. Yet families having three children or more is what is needed to push the birth rate up to replacement level and above. As the former Australian Treasurer Peter Costello pithily put it: ‘One for mum, one for dad and one for the country.’

Progressive policies of the past 50 years, from easy divorce to on-demand abortion, from sexual liberation to anti-man and anti-motherhood feminism, have all undermined a culture of marriage, family formation and fertility.

That this cultural and demographic shipwreck could be salvaged by yet another progressive policy, domestic equality, rather than a wholesale reversal in the direction of travel, is a clear example of inability to see when a prized project has failed and needs to be abandoned.

Whatever the details, the only solution is to be a lot less ‘progressive’ and a lot more ‘conservative’ in family and social policy than we have been accustomed to since the 1960s. That would be real progress.

Copyright © 2018 Will Jones, The Conservative Woman where the featured image was sourced-All rights reserved.

Men want to earn a living – women want to marry them and look after the kids

‘We need attitudes to change over paternity leave’ apparently, if you take orders from Lorraine Candy at the Sunday Times. High on emotion, low on logic, Candy is concerned that ‘dads are doomed for ever to be seen as secondary parents, hovering in the wings of their kids’ childhoods’. Clearly, she has not seen a middle-class family operate for some days. Either that or it was wine o’clock when she wrote this piece.

Britain is so rich that soon we could be paying fathers to be at home with the kids instead of at work for at least 12 weeks. The government has already spent £1.5million highlighting the not-so-popular shared parental leave policy, but it seems the pesky fathers will still not leave the office to take up full-time caring of infants.

It is as if something innate is telling them that they are not that suited to looking after tiny children full-time on their own. Who knew?

I have no doubt that due to this stubbornness of the British father, a ‘use it or lose it’ paternity leave will be just around the corner. Goodness knows how much it will cost, but you know as a country we can totally afford it.

Candy has many concerns. She wants to fight for ‘equality for dads’ and bust the ‘unhelpful myth of the male as the breadwinner’. Only it is not a myth. Most women do want men to win the bread, so they know they can eat something when the kids come along. They will work too, usually, because they have to and want to, but the breadwinning male isn’t a myth.

Men want to earn a living and provide for their families. This is something men aspire to still. The reason for this is that women aspire to marry these men, despite what the feminists tell you.

In fact, ‘female breadwinners, especially those who didn’t set out to make most of their family’s income, have been found to feel less satisfied about their lives’. Gosh, that’s a little awkward.

The best bit is when Candy drags out the socialist dream – sometimes Sweden, sometimes Finland but in this case Iceland. It is frequently Iceland. ‘In Iceland, they seem to be making progress on this front: they have a “use it or lose it” system whereby both parents are paid 80 per cent of their earnings to take three months off. The result: most dads take pat leave.’ I have no doubt.

My quick internet search tells me that Iceland had a population of 334,252 as of 2016.

So, yes, I am sure you can implement any socialist policy you want with those kinds of numbers. But transferring this to a UK population of 66million might prove tricky.

Copyright © 2018 The Conservative Woman–All rights reserved

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBc8ZQQG85o]

Technology didn’t come about by accident, it’s a reflection of human will, or so claims the intriguing documentary, “Stare Into the Lights My Pretties.” Yet, with the rate of technological development continuing to grow exponentially, it’s unclear if anyone envisioned how society would become obsessed with staring at screens, such that our waking hours are dominated by them in one form or another.

In the beginning, there were only a few ways to get new technology funded, known as the ABCs. “A,” for armed forces, included ARPA, the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which commissioned the work that started the internet. “B,” for bureaucracy, refers to innovations such as government sites intended to deliver information and services, including online tax returns. “C,” or corporate power, made up the third arm, which drove the development of new products to draw in new markets.

According to Lelia Green, a professor and senior lecturer at the school of communications at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia, who is featured in the film, “Google would offer many examples of corporate power driving development.”¹ Yet, social engagement is the new driver of technology that has taken off more so in recent years. Green notes that distributed collaborators and everyday innovators are now an important driver of technology.

“The acknowledgement of distributed networks of collaborators allows recognition of the creative power of ‘harnessing the hive;’ the community of people engaged in a shared activity,” she says. “We see these alliances of enthusiasts working creatively and productively in gaming contexts, in wikis and on fan fiction sites — to name but a few,” but what does all of this mean, and what will happen if this technological culture is left to continue unchecked?

Are Machines Running Our Lives?

At the foundation of the documentary is the unsettling question of who’s really in control: the machines or us? The film gives some unsettling statistics of how integrated technology has become in our 21st century lives:

• Over 3.8 billion people have access to the internet
• There are 2 billion active Facebook users every month
• The average adult spends more than eight hours a day with screens (more time than sleep)
• Within the first 15 minutes of waking up, 4 out of 5 smartphone users check their phones
• By the time the average person reaches 70, they will have spent the equivalent of 10 to 15 years of their life watching television, more than four years of which was just for the ads

What does this mean for your brain? “As a neuroscientist, I know that the human brain is changing. I know that it’s highly plastic … it’s very dynamic, it will adapt to the environment,” says Susan Greenfield in the film. But the environmental stimuli that come through screens may be keeping us permanently distracted. You read an article online, then see an instant message pop up or go to check an email.

Then you click on an advertisement, and suddenly are watching a video about an entirely unrelated topic. It’s easy to get swept away into the internet bubble, which can have both benefits and risks. Greenfield explained:

I’ve often spoken about the benefits of screen culture being one of agile processing, but how that mustn’t be confused with content … it could be linked to high IQ, because the skills that you rehearsed when you play video games are similar to the skills required to do well on an IQ test.

You don’t need a lot of facts or infrastructure … but you have to be very agile at looking at patterns and connections and getting to an answer in a very fast time frame … just because, as many claim, we’re seeing an increase in IQ scores in many societies, we’re not seeing an increase in empathy and understanding.

In a meta-analysis of 116 studies published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience,² for example, which set out to determine what effects gaming has on your brain, the evidence suggests that video games may benefit attention, and video game players show improvements in selective attention, divided attention and sustained attention, as well as areas of cognitive control and visuospatial skills.

The downside may be their effects on reward processing areas of your brain. Many such areas have been shown to be affected in people with video game addiction, “an impulse-control disorder with psychological consequences, not unlike other addictive disorders, especially nonsubstance addictions such as pathological gambling,” the study noted.³ “On the one hand, yes it’s very good for mental processing, fluid intelligence,” Greenfield said, “ … but that’s not the same as understanding. Information is not knowledge.”

Are Screens Leaving Us Incapable of Deep Thinking, Addicted to Constant Scrolling?

Nicholas Carr, author of the books, “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains” and “Utopia Is Creepy,” has found that with rising use of digital devices, millennials are experiencing even greater problems with forgetfulness than seniors.⁴ This is the “dark side” of neurological plasticity that allows your brain to adapt to changes in your environment.

This type of plasticity is one way your brain recovers after a stroke has permanently damaged one area. However, the consequences to children growing up in the digital era could be devastating. Carr said in the film:

The human brain is particularly malleable when you’re young. If a person is brought up looking at screens … and being bombarded by information, then the question is will the brain circuitry necessary to do things like deep reading and deep thinking, will they ever come into being … or will they be wired for internet type of thinking?

I think the big fear is that we will end up with a generation of people who are very good at using the net and finding information very quickly but don’t really have a capacity for contemplativeness, concentration or deep engagement with information.

There are concerns about addiction as well, with 40 percent of the participants in one study admitting they had some level of an internet-related problem and acknowledging they spent too much time online.⁵ Participants reportedly spent an average of five hours each day on the internet and 20 percent spent over six hours a day. By far the most common reasons for engaging online were social media and shopping.

Yet, overall social media use, and especially nighttime use, has been associated with poorer sleep quality, lower self-esteem and higher levels of anxiety and depression among 12- to 18-year-olds, according to research presented at a British Psychological Society conference.⁶ Greater social media use among young adults (those aged 19 to 32 years) was also significantly associated with disturbed sleep in a Preventive Medicine study.⁷

Further, a study of more than 1,000 people in Denmark further revealed causal evidence that “Facebook affects our well-being negatively.”⁸ Facebook users who took a one-week break from the site reported significantly higher levels of life satisfaction and a significantly improved emotional life, the study revealed.

Is Technology Amplifying the Voice of Corporate Control?

While the internet is viewed as a way to bring the world to our fingertips, there are those who say it’s actually a tool for amplifying the voice of corporate control. We tend to think about the internet as this medium where we can connect to everything and anyone, but in actuality most of the information is flowing through a couple of major gatekeepers, such as Google.

You can customize and filter what you see, but how these things are architected actually may keep you in a carefully constructed bubble. By customizing and individualizing your feed, you won’t even know what’s being kept out. But what happens to our communities, our relationships and our culture if we’re all existing in this “filter bubble,” this world of screens, designed primarily to get people to click more and view more pages?

It’s important to understand that, online, you are the product and corporations are seeking to gain more views of their content. Facebook, for instance, isn’t content to have the average user spend “just” 50 minutes a day. They’d rather it become a platform that’s on all day to become basically a background for your life. As The New York Times reported:⁹

Facebook, naturally, is busy cooking up ways to get us to spend even more time on the platform. A crucial initiative is improving its News Feed, tailoring it more precisely to the needs and interests of its users, based on how long people spend reading particular posts

For people who demonstrate a preference for video, more video will appear near the top of their news feed. The more time people spend on Facebook, the more data they will generate about themselves, and the better the company will get at the task.

Facebook actually uses a sophisticated algorithm to track your interests, who you talk with and what you say, and includes information about your age, gender, income level and a phenomenal number of other specifics that allow advertisers to target exactly who they believe will click on their ads.¹⁰ In the case of smartphone devices, these companies are contributing to programing your actions, and how you think and feel.

This is how companies satisfy their advertisers, who are paying for the privilege of your eyes on their ads. Some programmers call this process “brain hacking,” as they incorporate more information from neuropsychology into the development of digital interfaces that increase your interaction with the program.

For instance, getting likes on Facebook and Instagram, the “streaks” on Snapchat or cute emojis on text messaging, are all designed to increase your engagement and desire to return. Technology companies are in the business of manipulating your behavior, and there are privacy concerns as well.

Rebecca MacKinnon of Global Voices Citizen Media Network said in the film, “Surveillance is much more present in our online than our offline lives, and I think most people in the United States … are not aware of that because when police officers come into your house … and go through your cabinets and desk, it’s obvious. If they do the equivalent in your email, your online storage systems or your Facebook … you don’t even know. So you’re not going to raise a fuss about it.”

The fact remains that people are putting intimate details of their lives online without regard for those who could be using that information negatively. The film also points out that personal details you share online — from religious affiliations to sexual preferences to information about your family — could one day be used against you or in a way that could bring you harm.

Screens Expose You to Blue Light

Another little talked about variable when it comes to exposure to screens is blue light. Exposure to LED-backlit computer screens or TVs at night significantly suppresses melatonin production and feelings of sleepiness. When your brain “sees” blue light at night, the mixed message can add up to serious health issues.

In 2011, for instance, researchers found that evening exposure to LED-backlit computer screens affect circadian physiology. Among 13 young men, exposure to five hours of an LED-lit screen at night significantly suppressed melatonin production along with sleepiness.¹¹

The issue extends far beyond sleep, however. LEDs have virtually no beneficial infrared light and an excess of blue light that generates reactive oxygen species (ROS), harming your vision and possibly leading to age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is the leading cause of blindness among the elderly in the U.S. LED lights may also exacerbate mitochondrial dysfunction leading to chronic conditions ranging from metabolic disorders to cancer.

If you view screens at night, it’s therefore essential to block your exposure to blue light while doing so. In the case of your computer, you can install a program to automatically lower the color temperature of your screen. Many use f.lux to do this, but I prefer Iris software for this purpose. In addition, when watching TV or other screens, be sure to wear blue-blocking glasses after sundown.

Are Machines More Important Than the Real World?

Ultimately, the documentary forces you to take a step back and think about the way technology has inevitably invaded your life. On the upside, it also offers the chance to make changes in how much it influences your daily activities. For some, taking a social media break may be the eye-opening change that’s needed, particularly if you find you feel worse after a browsing session.

You may also want to keep track of how much time you lose while getting distracted online — and devote that time to offline endeavors instead. If you find your life has become more focused on technology than relationships, now’s the time to make changes for the better, before it’s too late. As stated in the film, the risks can be steep:

Do you touch plastic or human flesh more often? How many machines do you have daily relationships with, compared to how many wild animals do you have relationships with? If you have relationships with machines, you can come to think that they’re more important than the real world.

Sources and References

Robert Mueller’s team members are the people who destroyed Arthur Anderson. When the firm finally got to the Supreme Court, they overruled Mueller’s team for what they had done was unconstitutional. Well, they are back at it. This is what is wrong with our legal system.

Prosecutors act with immunity and can do whatever they want FIRST and it is the burden of the great unwashed to go to court to argue what they have done was illegal. Then you cannot sue them. They are always ABOVE the law. That has to change if we are to go on and pretend we are a nation of free people and the rule of law.

This time they are once again acting unconstitutionally and destroying the Attorney-Client Privilege. They think they are slick and going after Trump’s lawyer for paying a hooker to keep quiet. What they are really trying to do is see if Trump paid the $130,000 payoff. This is clearly a vendetta for this has nothing to do with Russia preventing their chosen leader Hillary from ruling the world.

Mueller is part of the Deep State and he is now running lose with the power to destroy the country going far beyond the intended investigation. This is how they operate in the Department of Just Us. If they cannot prove a case against someone for what they thought they did, then comes phase two – prosecute them on anything else they can find. The mindset is that nobody is innocent – they just lack the evidence to prove they were right all along. So they then prosecute people for anything else they can find.

In the United States, the rule of law is one of the worst in the world despite the propaganda they fill children’s head with equal protection and justice for all. There are only privileges against testifying that are limited to your clergy–penitent privilege, spouse, and your lawyer. They routinely will torture your family and threaten your children with contempt imprisonment for life if they refuse to testify against a parent or a parent against their own child.

The US government comes before God and family. There are no ethics or morality when you look into the eyes of a prosecutor like Mueller. They are just inhuman people who see themselves as God and jury. There is a coldness in their eyes as if they have no soul for they know they have absolute immunity and are above all laws.

If you are divorced, then there is no longer a spouse privilege.  The Supreme Court refused to take a case in 2015 where a priest could be forced to testify against someone confessing their sins. The Louisiana Supreme Court refused to recognize any clergy–penitent privilege.

The hatred of religion among many Democrats was exposed in the email leaks during the campaign. Hillary’s staff said Catholics are “severely backwards” and further demeaned them saying they don’t know “what the hell they’re talking about.”Then you have Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi who recently said: “They pray in church on Sunday and then prey on people the rest of the week.” Neither Pelosi nor Hillary have any respect for the law, the country, no less religion.

It is no wonder why Mueller is doing what he is doing. Mueller wanted to be a prosecutor when he left law school. He was rejected and joined the San Francisco firm of Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro out of law school. He later became an assistant US Attorney (prosecutor). Mueller joined the DOJ, or Department of Just Us, in 1989 and spearheaded the prosecution of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, which many saw as a cover-up since Noriega was working with drugs and the CIA.

Then Mueller took charge of the DOJ’s criminal division in 1990, where he oversaw the Lockerbie bombing case and formed the agency’s first cyber-dedicated unit. He then returned to private practice in 1993 as a partner at Hale and Dorr to make some serious money. After lining his pockets based on influence, which is why such firms hire former prosecutors, he returned to prosecuting people. Mueller loved prosecuting people. Perhaps he gets a rush from going after people.

Mueller then returned to the Department of Just Us taking on a lower-level job in the homicide division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia in 1995. He quickly advanced to the chief of homicide and then moved to the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California from 1998 to early 2001. He then took the position of deputy attorney general under George Bush.

That is when he worked hand-in-hand with Ashcroft and denied prosecutors any credit for their work unless someone goes to jail. Mueller and Ashcroft converted the USA into the largest prison system in the world surpassing all of Europe combined, China, and Russia. Nobody has more people in prison for non-violent crimes than the USA where people are supposed to be free.

What Mueller has done with Trump’s lawyer is no different from what the Louisiana Supreme Court did commanding a priest must reveal what people say in confession. They can already turn parents against children or the other way around and a divorce eliminates any privilege of a spouse. No doubt, they will even use separation agreements for that one as well. So what is left? It is starting to look like you cannot talk to anyone from your spouse and children to a priest or lawyer about anything and you better just pray silently in the backyard and do not even go to church. There is nothing left with any respect whatsoever.

The Superior Court of Pennsylvania held that a company waived the attorney-client privilege when it forwarded an email containing legal advice to one of its consultants, a public relations firm; see BouSamra v. Excela Health, 167 A.3d 728 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2017). That means if you ever forward any email from a lawyer to anyone else, they will claim you “waived” all privileges and now the attorney can be coerced to testify against you.

There is no privilege with your accountant. They can threaten them with contempt imprisonment if they refuse to testify against you for any reason. Government comes before everything and anyone. We live not in some mythical free society, but we have been reduced to the great unwashed to be here as economic slaves to exploit for the amusement of the rulers who pretend to be elected.

This is the true definition of absolute tyranny. Mueller protected the Deep State in the Noriega case. It looks like he is the main secret agent of the Deep State in an all-out war against the Trump Administration. To accomplish that goal, Mueller will destroy the family, the legal privilege, and God. Anyone who stands in his way he will destroy with absolute immunity.

Copyright 2018 Martin Armstrong-All rights reserved

Home education has always been common among the country’s elite. The Royal Family have all in the past been educated at home, including the current Queen, though more recently royalty have attended various public schools.

Prior to the mid nineteenth century there were few schools open to average families. Some churches and the occasional enlightened employer provided primary education, but provision was patchy at best. However, since the advent of compulsory education in the UK in the 1870s and secondary education in the twentieth century, home education became increasingly rare among the population at large.

For the last few years those offering advice to home educators have strongly suggested that an initial submission to a local authority should include a statement of the family’s educational philosophy. Why?

Section 7 of the 1996 Education Act covering England and Wales states that parents have a duty to cause their children to receive an efficient education suitable to age, ability and aptitude and any special needs. Efficient is not defined by the Act but a senior judge created case law when he said that efficient in this context means, “that which achieves what it sets out to achieve”.¹

What should education achieve? Firstly it must be ‘suitable’, i.e. suit the child for the society in which she finds herself, providing that this would not prevent living in wider society².

Who gets to determine the form of education which should be employed to achieve this?

To understand the answer to this question one must look to European law. The second sentence of Protocol 2 Article 1 of the European Convention of Human Rights says:

In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.³

Here “philosophical convictions” includes any parental convictions relating to education. This was itself part of a decision made by the European courts:

The second sentence of Article 2 (P1‐2) implies … The State is forbidden to pursue an aim of indoctrination that might be considered as not respecting parentsʹ religious and philosophical convictions. That is the limit that must not be exceeded.⁴

But what is meant by philosophical and can this extend to pedagogy? In another ruling relating to the use of corporal punishment in a Scottish school prior to it being outlawed in the UK the European courts ruled that ‘convictions’:

Is more akin to the term ʺbeliefsʺ (in the French text: ʺconvictionsʺ) appearing in Article 9 (art. 9) ‐ which guarantees freedom of thought, conscience and religion ‐ and denotes views that attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance.⁵

From this context it emerges that “philosophical convictions” means any serious, cohesive belief held to be important by parents must be taken as the primary measure by which education is determined as efficient. This includes their educational and parental philosophies as well as religious and world view beliefs.

An educational philosophy would however be viewed deficient in law if it failed to offer a suitable education and neither would it be acceptable to claim that the family’s educational philosophy was not to offer any education to their children at all since the first sentence of Protocol 2 Article 1 says:

No person shall be denied the right to education.⁶

An educational philosophy should therefore make it clear that the child’s right to an education is paramount.

Having done so, by offering a cohesive, thought out educational philosophy as part of a submission to the local authority parents then establishes control of the way any assessment of their provision should take place. The parents’ educational philosophy becomes the context within which any assessment of provision is made.

Claims by some local authorities that a suitable education must include various listed subjects may contravene the parents’ human rights should the list be in contradiction to the parents’ philosophy providing that the parents’ philosophy is consistent with Article 7 of the 1996 Education Act.

For example in a recent submission to the DfES Cambridgeshire LEA stated that:

It is difficult to conceive of an education being deemed adequate unless the premises are equipped to a particular standard, work is marked, and detailed plans are made in advance.⁷

It is highly likely that such a presumption contravenes the human rights of many parents within Cambridgeshire LEA and, by providing an LEA with a parental philosophy of education home educators can take the first and crucial step towards preventing LEAs from wrongfully prejudging what is acceptable education; this is not the remit of LEAs.

Final Thoughts

The dissatisfaction with the state school system in the United Kingdom is growing, and more parents have concluded that homeschooling is the only alternative. After all, it was good enough for Princess Elizabeth!

References

¹ Harrison & Harrison V Stevenson Worcester Crown Court 1981

² R v The Secretary of State for Education and Science ex parte Talmud Torah Machzikei Hadass School Trust Queenʹs Bench Division, (Crown Office List) 3 April 1985

³ Sentence 2 of Protocol 2, Article 1 of the European convention of human rights quoted in Paragraph 36 of CAMPBELL AND COSANS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM ‐ 7511/76;7743/76 [1982] ECHR 1 (25 February 1982) www.worldlii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/1982/1.html

⁴ Kjeldsen, Busk Madsen and Pedersen judgment states (p. 26, par. 53): quoted in CAMPBELL AND COSANS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM ‐ 7511/76;7743/76 [1982] ECHR 1 (25 February 1982) www.worldlii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/1982/1.html

⁵ Paragraph 36 of CAMPBELL AND COSANS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM ‐ 7511/76;7743/76 [1982] ECHR 1 (25 February 1982) www.worldlii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/1982/1.html

⁶ The first sentence of protocol 2 article 1 quoted in Paragraph 36 of CAMPBELL AND COSANS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM ‐ 7511/76;7743/76 [1982] ECHR 1 (25 February 1982) www.worldlii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/1982/1.html

7 unpublished submission to the DfES consultation on guidance for LEAs on home education from Cambridgeshire LEA obtained by the author using the Freedom of Information Act

I would like to acknowledge the help of Joke Sperling in directing me to the European case files.

Copyright © 2005 Mike Fortune‐Wood-This article originally appeared in Journal of Home Education

Videos that show the striking similarities between the scripts used by local TV anchors and reporters are nothing new, but a recent compilation has taken the Internet by storm as it shows dozens of news stations coming together to warn about the dangers of “fake news” with an eerily identical script.

The video started with news clips from four different stations across the country in which each anchor read from a teleprompter that appeared to say, “Our greatest responsibility is to serve our [insert location here] communities. We are extremely proud of the quality, balanced journalism that [insert station here] produces.”

Then nine stations were featured on the screen and they all said in unison, “But we’re concerned about the troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing our country. The sharing of biased and false news has become all too common on social media.”

“More alarming, some media outlets publish these same fake stories… stories that just aren’t true, without checking facts first,” the videos continued, as at least 36 stations filled the screen at one time.

“Unfortunately, some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control ‘exactly what people think.'”

Then the video highlighted one important line that was parroted by each station:

This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.

The one major thing that each of these local stations has in common is that they are all owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, a media conglomerate that is the largest television station operator in the United States with around 200 stations in more than 100 markets.

The segments were filmed as promotional videos, and multiple local anchors who participated told CNN that in addition to scripts, they also received direct instructions from their corporate bosses.

“Please produce the attached scripts exactly as they are written. This copy has been thoroughly tested and speaks to our Journalistic Responsibility as advocates to seek the truth on behalf of the audience,” the instructional document said, according to the anchors.

The document then went into detail on how the anchors should dress and the colors they should wear to appear politically unbiased:

Talent should dress in jewel tones. However, they should not look political in their dress or attire. Avoid total red, blue and purples dresses and suits. Avoid totally red, blue and purple ties, the goal is to look apolitical, neutral, nonpartisan yet professional. Black or charcoal suits for men…females should wear yellow, gold, magenta, cyan, but avoid red, blue or purple.

The anchors reciting the scripts in the promo videos state that they believe “it’s our responsibility to pursue and report the truth. We understand truth is neither politically ‘left nor right.’ Our commitment to factual reporting is the foundation of our credibility, now more than ever.”

They then acknowledge that “we are human and sometimes our reporting might fall short,” and they encourage viewers to visit the station’s website and submit their concerns, “if you believe our coverage is unfair.” However, the instructional document reportedly states that “corporate will monitor the comments and send replies to your audience on your behalf.”

Local TV stations are often looked at as different and set apart from the major mainstream media networks because they focus on a single community, instead of tackling the realm of national politics.

However, each local station is owned by a much larger corporation like Sinclair Broadcast Group and when the owner demands that hundreds of its employees make identical promotional videos, they follow orders.

As The Free Thought Project has reported, while there was once a time when the mainstream media was run by dozens of companies, it is now controlled by six corporations, which all have ties to the Council on Foreign Relations, and as is the case with this report,

The narrative created by CFR and its cohorts is picked up by their secondary communicators, also known the mainstream media, who push it on the populace with no analysis or questioning.

Watch the full video below:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI?rel=0]

Copyright © 2018 Prophecy News Watch Originally published by Free Thought Project –All rights reserved



Homeschooling families used to be the guaranteed outcast, often enduring a never ending stream of probing questions and funny looks.

But the tide seems to be turning. Homeschooling is now “soaring” in popularity, as more options become available, more families seem to be taking the plunge.

ABC took a closer – and quite honestly refreshing – look at homeschooling. Good Morning America host and former NFL star Michael Strahan revealed he had homeschooled his children for a period of time, while ESPN’s Jessica Mendoza, a homeschooling mom, joined the segment to provide an in-depth look.

Normally, homeschooling is chastised and derided in the national discussion. The debunked myths such as homeschooled children will not be socialized properly continue to persist, making a glowing segment such as this one a welcome departure from the norm. This report featured an interview with Tim Tebow, who was homeschooled as a child. While they definitely covered some of the challenges homeschooling families face, it largely focused on the positives such as flexibility, closeness with family, and being able to add family values – such as religion – to your child’s education.

But now, people are seeking out homeschooling as an option for even more than just religious and value reasons. Some, as the report covers, believe they will be able to provide a better education for their child.

There are approximately 1.7 million families across the country who homeschool their children in one way, shape or form. Some choose to do it completely on their own while others use community based approaches such as the model Classical Conversations uses.

Tim Tebow spent his childhood working on the farm and being taught by his mother and father, telling ABC that his family had something more important in mind than purely academics.

“They wanted us to learn reading, writing and arithmetic, but it wasn’t No. 1. It wasn’t the most important thing… They wanted to instill love in our hearts, love for God, love for one another. They wanted us to be able to learn a work ethic, a dedication.”

“We were waking up, doing chores. Doing Bible study. And then we would break up into our individual studies. The whole process was always something I knew had a great purpose.”

Between 1999 and 2012, the percentage of homeschooled students has doubled.

Copyright 2018 Faithwire-All rights reserved