I ended the year eating two of my favorite meals. Virtually everyday, beginning about 11:00 a.m., I have raw oats with skim milk and cut up fruit and almonds mixed in, along with a toasted corn tortilla with peanut butter. The fruit I have is usually two apples, a pear, an orange (including the peel), a banana, red grapes, and whatever else might be in season. 10-second slideshow I think everyone here is planning to have champagne around midnight. Although I rarely ever drink alcohol, I may have a small glass to celebrate the end of the first decade of the 21st Century. I hope Yeshua comes during the second decade. It will really be worth celebrating when that happens. |
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I have enjoyed hanging out with family members for Christmas. I even prepared four things for our Christmas dinner: whole wheat cornbread, cornbread dressing, whipped potatoes, and a chocolate cake. 8-second slideshow Of course, for the most part, Christmas is “just another day” to me. I have seen too much evidence to convince me that Jesus was not born in December. |
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There was a total eclipse of the moon very early this morning. The last one of these that I saw was on Feb. 20, 2008. Interestingly, today is the winter solstice, and the shortest day of the year, in the northern hemisphere. There hasn’t been a lunar eclipse on the winter solstice for 372 years, since 1638. It will not take place on the winter solstice again until 2094. 15-second slideshow The eclipse began at about 1:33 a.m. EST. The totality phase began at 2:41 a.m. EST and continued until 3:53 a.m. EST (72 minutes), with the maximum eclipse (minimum brightness) at 3:17 a.m. There was intermittent cloudiness (which reminded me of Job 26:9), so the shots I got were not nearly as good as the ones almost three years ago. For instance, I was unable to capture any of the totally eclipsed moon. Oh well, maybe next time. |
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It has been a month since something very interesting happened in a mall, as I posted in my Nov. 13 entry. Some of you may not have seen the video, though. If not, I feel that it is worth watching: I find it almost electrifying seeing and hearing a bunch of ordinary people standing up and singing, “King of kings and Lord of lords!” as they are doing by the end of the video. One day, everyone will acknowledge, whether voluntarily or otherwise, that Jesus is Lord. I, for one, am waiting in eager anticipation for that to happen. |
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Tonight is the last night of Hanukkah, which began on Dec. 1. All of the candles have been lit. I even got around to making some matzo balls and potato latkes (pancakes). 25-second slideshow Although I made the matzo balls from a box mix, I made the potato latkes from scratch. The latkes look very different from the ones I made last year, on Dec. 14, 2009. I think I kind of like the ones from scratch better; they have more texture. Also, I prefer mine plain, although some like to dip them in sour cream or applesauce. Here’s the recipe I used: Potato Latkes. |
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Today, Congressman J. Randy Forbes (VA-04), along with 42 bipartisan members of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, sent a letter to President Barack Obama. They called on him to issue a correction to a speech he gave in Jakarta, Indonesia, in which he inaccurately referred to our national motto as being “E Pluribus unum.” However, the official national motto is “In God We Trust.” Congressman Forbes said, “For the President of the United States to incorrectly state something as foundational as our national motto in another country is unacceptable. The President is the primary representative of our nation to the world, and whether mistake or intention, his actions cast aside an integral part of American society.” I agree completely with his words and with the words in the letter. |
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The largest wildfire in Israel’s modern history is burning out of control today, east of Haifa. It seems that negligence is the cause of the fire. Forty-two people died when a bus in which they were traveling was trapped by the fire. Haifa University, Denya neighborhood There also have been several arson-caused fires breaking out throughout the north of Israel. I bet these are “copy-cat” fires. Pray that all the fires will be extinguished soon. |
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NASA announced today that a species of life has been discovered, and it is different from any other life that we know about. It is a bacterium, discovered in Mono Lake, California, that utilizes arsenic, rather than phosphorus, in its metabolism. Some have suggested that it has adapted to its environment through evolution. "Alien life" found on Earth by Nasa scientists Besides the possibility of evolution, of which I have seen no proof, something else in TV news reports about this discovery caught my attention even more. This was the implication that if life that we never thought was possible actually exists here on earth, then that logically should cause us to broaden the expanse of locations where we would look for life in outer space. |
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I observe Hanukkah, which began at sunset. Jesus observed it as well, when He came to the temple, spoke about His miracles, and affirmed that he was the Christ or Messiah and the Son of God (John 10:22-26,36). It also is known as the Feast of Dedication or the Festival of Lights, and it is observed for eight nights. 10-second slideshow Hanukkah commemorates the rededication of the second temple, in Jerusalem, in 165 B.C. Here is a brief history prior to that point: In 330 B.C., the Medo-Persian Empire was conquered by the Grecian Empire (the “ram” and the “goat,” respectively, of Daniel 8:5-7). The Greek army was led by Alexander the Great, the “large horn” (8:8a), which was “broken off” when he died in 323 B.C. Eventually, he was succeeded by “four prominent horns” or rulers (8:8b). |
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A good friend, Barry, likes to scuba dive in the ocean. He’s done it at various places in the world. He also has a very nice underwater camera to record the animals, plants, and other things he sees. It truly is another amazing world down there. He is planning to return to the Philippines in a few months. Most likely, I will add more photos then, at which time the slideshow will extend beyond 6 minutes. |
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Here is an interesting article on the history of Thanksgiving: Here is another account, by Rush Limbaugh, who brings an interesting focus on Genesis 41 into the mix: Happy Thanksgiving to all of you Americans out there. Don’t forget to thank Yahweh for all of the abundant blessings He has bestowed upon you and yours. |
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Circumstances are difficult, and are getting tougher, for many. The spiritual and socio-economic systems of the world are crumbling around us. But if Yahweh is our Lord, and if we serve and obey Him steadfastly, we can feel secure in many promises that He has made to us. Here are a few: I don’t know how I could keep going sometimes if I didn’t have the blessed assurances of His promises and pledges to me. |
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I received a brochure from the United States Postal Service (USPS) about the “Warning Signs of Fraud.” I think it has some good information, so I am including it here: The brochure refers to this website: http://www.deliveringtrust.com. It has eight pretty good videos on the following topics:
This information might help some avoid some unpleasant scams, which seem to abound everywhere around us. |
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An interesting thing happened at a food court today. I don’t know where it was located, but the video is fun to watch. Basically, some people in a “flash mob” began singing the Hallelujah Chorus, and then almost everyone in the place stood up and joined in. It think it would have been pretty cool to be there. The whole thing was planned and arranged by Alphabet Photography, Inc. |
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A small park near downtown San Diego has a white boat anchor sitting in it. I have wanted to photograph it for quite some time. |
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A friend has some nice tomato plants. Whenever I’m there, I pick the bite-sized spheres right off the plants and eat them like candy. Today, I have eaten at least 20 of them; I’ve lost count. That included some on my salad tonight. 10-second slideshow She has two very cool cats who love catnip. They also love each other. Can you tell? 13-second slideshow This evening, there was an awesome sunset. It reminded me of sunrise yesterday, Nov. 6. Of course, they appeared in opposite directions (sunrise in the east, sunset in the west). 13-second slideshow I wonder why the clouds at sunrise were more orange, while those at sunset were more pink. In any case, they were memorable. |
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I happened to be up early enough this morning, at a little after 7:00 a.m., to catch a nice sunrise. Buildings and wires spoiled any outstanding views. With my camera’s zoom, though, I was able to eliminate everything but a few wires. 8-second slideshow Tomorrow, sunrise will take place a little after 6:00 a.m., instead, due to the time change. I like gaining an hour overnight, but I don’t like the fact that sunset will be an hour earlier because we will have switched to Pacific Standard Time here. I’d just as soon stay on Daylight Saving Time year-round. |
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It was 100° in San Diego today, setting a record here for the highest temperature ever in November. On the right is a snapshot of my dashboard as I was driving on the 5 Freeway. You can see the 100° external temperature reading at the lower/right (click on the photo to see an enlarged version). I was listening to AM 600 KOGO talk radio, San Diego, which I like a lot. Grips San Diego Area It was awesome. I loved every minute of it, especially since we still are on Daylight Saving Time (which changes this weekend; move your clocks one hour back before bed on Saturday night). |
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Today, I returned to San Diego, CA, from Birmingham, AL. However, it was not on the route that I originally had scheduled. It was better.
The first photo below shows the plane crackers and spicy tomato juice I was served on the plane. The next one is my plane flying from Houston to Albuquerque. The last one might have been my original flight crashing into the Gulf of Mexico, had I been on it. 8-second slideshow My flight actually landed 12 minutes early in San Diego, which was over 1 hour earlier than I originally was scheduled to land. When I went outside, I was happy to discover that it was 95°, so I enjoyed an extra hour in the sun. It was great!
Yahweh is great, and He is good. His goodness often comes at the last minute, but it always is with perfect timing. I love that He does nice things for me, even though I am unworthy of any of them. |
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Today is election day in the USA. It is a very important election, and many seats in the U.S. Congress are expected to change from Democrat to Republican. I hope that both the House and Senate becomes significantly more conservative. In other news, I watched a car chase on TV for awhile. It was in Long Beach, CA. It seems that the Los Angeles area is the “car chase capital” of the USA. I can’t even count the number of car chases I’ve seen in Los Angeles County over the decades, although not so many in San Diego. 15-second slideshow What were they thinking? Who knows, but I bet they both voted “Yes” on California Proposition 19, the Marijuana Legalization Initiative. I hope the voters defeat that initiative today. Otherwise, it may be that stoned people driving through the streets like that nutcase in Long Beach will become the rule rather than the exception. |
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Boo. That’s about the extent of my Halloween sentiment, although I think the cartoon at the right is pretty funny (click on it to see a larger view).
If any trick-or-treaters come around, they might get some fresh vegetables in their bags. |
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I have been taking some colorful autumn pictures in Alabama. In many places in the northern USA, most or all of the foliage has changed color. But here, many trees are still partly green and partly red, orange, or yellow, since they are in the process of changing. The colors in some places are like walking through a bowl of Fruit Loops. 30-second slideshow Recent hail and hard rain zapped the leaves off of some of the trees, causing the trees to be less colorful. I played around with one photo in my graphics program and made the following modifications:
Click on the photo at the right to see the original photo. Then click on that original photo to see the changes I made. You can click on each of those photos to go back and forth between the original photo and the modified photo. If you want to see larger versions of those photos (which will take a little longer to load in your browser), click here. |
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At the Middle East synod of Catholic bishops, Archbishop Cyril Salim Bustros called on the United Nations to “end Israeli occupation of Arab lands.” More of what he said can be read here: I completely disagree with every word that came out of this man’s mouth. |
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I like to eat healthfully. For me, that means a daily intake of several fresh fruits and vegetables. Today, for instance, I ate this: 5-second slideshow Typically, I eat nothing before noon. During the afternoon, it takes me a few hours to eat the following, mixed in a bowl: raw (uncooked) oats (or six grains, when I can get them), along with a sliced up apple, banana, orange, peach, pear, grapes, raisins, and skim milk. I also mix in crushed almonds and some flax seeds. |
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Juan Williams has been fired from National Public Radio (NPR), where he was a news analyst for over a decade. According to NPR, this happened because Williams’ remarks on Bill O’Reilly’s show on Fox News Channel, three nights ago, “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.” People who do not know Juan Williams may not be aware of what he said and what led up to this. On Oct. 14, on the TV show “The View,” Bill O’Reilly was answering Whoopi Goldberg’s question about why he thought 70% of Americans felt it was inappropriate for a mosque to be built near Ground Zero in Manhattan. He replied, “Because Muslims killed us on 9/11!” This caused a firestorm of controversy, beginning with Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar’s walking off the set. One thing I find quite “revealing” is the fact that, yesterday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) pressured NPR to get rid of Juan Williams. Within a few hours, Williams was fired. I feel that this is an extraordinarily flagrant and egregious violation of Mr. Williams’ right to freedom of speech, as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Any American, whether liberal or conservative, who is not seriously concerned by this, has his/her head buried in the sand. I like Pamela Geller’s summation of all of this here (and I also recommend exploring Pamela’s website further): Demand for Action: Juan Williams Fired On that page is a video, which I watched live on Fox News Channel today, of an interview by Megyn Kelly of Ibrahim Hooper, spokesperson for CAIR. After all of the uproar today, if there is not a reversal of NPR’s action against Juan Williams (or, at the very minimum, an apology), I feel that NPR’s credibility with the American public—at least, with those who are paying any attention—may be critically damaged. At least, I certainly hope it is. They have exhibited a blatant disregard of the right to freedom of speech, and they should be penalized for that, perhaps by severing all of their funding from federal tax dollars. |
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Every so often, I visit the Botanical Building at Balboa Park. I like to see what new plants and flowers are on display. The vast collection of hot peppers (third photo on the top row) made my mouth water. It was all I could do not to pick a few and eat them on the spot. 30-second slideshow Those hot peppers reminded me of the restaurant (Taste of Thai) where I ate lunch a few days ago. I ordered my red curry “ped mak mak”—that is, as hot and spicy as they could make it. On a scale of 0 to 10 of spicy, it was about an 8½...not bad. 10-second slideshow I hope they didn’t already have names. Initially, I was thinking they were chipmunks, so I named each of them “Chippy.” Then my perceptive friend pointed out to me that they were squirrels, so really I should have called them “Squirrely.” I hope that I didn’t confuse them; maybe that’s why a couple of them were looking at me funny. |
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I needed a “seagull fix,” so I went to Seaport Village. There’s a bird in all five of these pics, although the second one isn’t so obvious, and the last one isn’t a real bird. Oops. While walking around there, I watched Rabindra Sarkar—The Rock Star of San Diego for awhile. He has an amazing talent for balancing rocks atop one other. 38-second slideshow I wonder if any birds ever land on those columns of rocks and...nah, I don’t want to think about it. |
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What an amazing day this has been for the 33 miners in Chile who have been stranded, almost half a mile underground, since August 5. All of them were brought to the surface safety in a perfectly executed operation lasting 22½ hours. No one in recorded history has survived as long trapped underground. Here is a video of the youngest miner, Jimmy Sanchez, being rescued and hugging his dad: It reminds me of Jesus’ parable about the lost son (Luke 15:11-32). That father said the following: “For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So they began to celebrate. (Luke 15:24) Indeed, figuratively speaking, all of these miners were raised from a tomb of death and back to life. It was an incredible miracle. |
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Today’s date is 10/10/10. That happens only once a century. Make it count. |
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Today, radical Islamic terrorist Faisal Shahzad was sentenced to six life sentences plus 20 years. He demonstrated no regret at what he had attempted to do detonate a car bomb in Times Square on May 1. rant as he gets life in jail Every American should read the statements made by Shahzad in court (included in the report above). It is one of the few times that we will hear about the true goals and intentions of Islam, spoken publicly by a Muslim in America, as Muslims wish for Americans to be totally ignorant about how they really feel. |
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The mid-term elections in the USA are a month from today. I know that many conservatives are hoping and expecting that, following the election, Republicans will gain the majority in both the House and the Senate. It is looking more and more as though this will be the case. |
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I have been asked a few times if I have seen another time line, similar to the one I pointed out in my European Neighbourhood Policy and Daniel 9:27 commentary, that potentially could work, since that one evidently did not. |