Michael Lewis On 60 Minutes: Stock Market Rigged By HFTs

RICH KIDS OF BEVERLEY HILLS: FACEBOOK DEAD, OVER FINDING MH 370 IN SEA OF DEBRIS: INDIAN OCEAN LIKE A SWIRLING TOILET THAT NEVER FLUSHES NOT NEWS, BUT STUNNING NONETHELESS: Gaming the system through legal front-running market orders. Stuart Schneiderman has more.

3 Reasons Global Warming Has Fizzled

THREE GOOD, COMPELLING REASONS. Plus a fourth: the science is not there, never been there.

1 World Trade Center Daring 1776' Jump Off Freedom Tower Last September As Seen From Skydiver's Helmet Camera

STUNNING JUMP WITH BEAUTIFUL VIEWS MUST HAVE HAPPENED VERY LATE AT NIGHT WITH NO TRAFFIC IN SIGHT

THIS WILD STORY WHICH actually took place last September 30 is reported today in the NY Daily News: 

The trio of skydivers and their lookout surrendered to authorities on Monday — and one of them was revealed to be a hardhat who formerly worked at 1 World Trade Center. The Daily News reported exclusively in its Monday editions the identities of the men who parachuted off the tower on Sept. 30, an act that initially sparked fears of terrorism at the nation’s tallest building.

Andrew Rossig, 33, James Brady, 32, Marco Markovich, 27, and the lookout, Kyle Hartwell, 29, were charged with burglary, reckless endangerment and jumping from a structure, cops said. The skydivers say that if the video becomes popular on YouTube and pulls in some money, they will donate the proceeds to a charity for families of 9/11 victims, Rossig’s attorney, Timothy Parlatore, told The News.

Excerpts From 'Real Christianity' By William Wilburforce, Published in 1797

SUNDAY LENTEN REFLECTION:  ED MORRISSEY @ HOTAIR ON JOHN 4: 5-42

REAL AS OPPOSED TO NOMINAL (SOCIAL) CHRISTIANITY

IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE, PUBLIC SPIRIT WAS THE EQUIVALENT OF THE LOVE OF GLORY, both for the empire and for its heroes.  The result was an insatiable hunger for conquest that eventually led to Rome's downfall.  When public vitality depends on conquest, vitality languishes when conquest is gone. Wealth and luxury produce stagnation,  and stagnation terminates in death..... 

....Nor can a society long survive whose basis of existence is the misery of other cultures. It, like Rome, becomes the enemy of its neighbors and the  scourge of the human race.  All these outcomes are examples of what happens when man attempts to be God.  All efforts turn out to have faults in their execution and fail to achieve their purposed goals.....Christianity is in every way opposed to the very enemy of political communities: selfishness... 

We could say that the primary purpose of true Christianity is to root out natural selfishness and all that comes with it in order to help us develop a proper sense of who we are and what our obligations are to our fellow human beings.  Benevolence is the driving force of authentic Christianity.  It is the direct result of developing a lifestyle of moderation in the pursuit of pleasure and affluence, a degree of indifference to the things culture has decided are important, diligence in the performance of personal and civil responsibilities, a commitment to doing the will of God, and a patient and trusting attitude toward the providence of God in one's response to the unpredictable and often discouraging events of life.  A life of authentic faith will produce humility in our lives.  Humility is essential if a man or woman is to develop a spirit of genuine benevolence. 

In whatever sector of society Christian faith exists, it sets out to fight against the cost to human dignity that selfishness has exacted. It teaches the wealthy the wealthy to be generous and to have a proper view of the privileges and responsibilities that come with  financial success. When wealth is used properly and those who have it demonstrate humility, the inequities of life are less bitter to those who do not possess it.  On the other hand, for those who live in less affluent circumstances,  authentic faith teaches diligence, patience, industry and a recognition that the faithful execution of their responsibilities is to be done with out envy of the rich or bitterness toward their own state. 

Contentment is a product of recognizing that the way things are is not the way that they should be and that one day they will be as God intended. The amount of energy put into the pursuit of worldly wealth, power and fame is not worth the ultimate value of the pursuit.  The   great benefit of authentic faith is that it produces a state of inner peace that gives much greater satisfaction than the most expensive pleasure it can provide.  It is not limited by any social, economic or racial barrier.  In some ways, it is a benefit not to have to deal with the variety of temptations that wealth affords.  There is much to be said for a simple life.  The true treasure for people of faith is the inheritance that Christ now keeps for them that will one day be their. 

It is important to note that the requirement for all these benefits to occur is a real, deep, authentic faith.  Nominal or superficial Christianity does not have the ability to create such outcomes.....

----Real Christianity, William Wilberforce,  pages 154-156

RELATED:  TOO MUCH OF THE GOOD LIFE TRAGICALLY IS NEVER WHAT IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE
Fortunate is the man and woman who discovers this great truth sooner rather than later in life and can walk away from the worldly promises that never fulfill.

Obama-Putin Conversation

THE COOL WAR AND CRIMEA. Jimmy Fallon does the parody. Well done,  very well done.

Way cool, Stuart.  Thanks for the laughs.

Debris Spotted, Missing FH 370

SUN IS FINALLY SHINING HERE---WARMING THINGS UP--- AND I PLAN TO BE OUT IN IT, GRATEFULLY, ALL DAY.   Can't begin to image what the families and loved ones of those on MH 370 are going through in this extremely prolonged search.  What a state of limbo!  However, they need our continuing prayers for whatever information this large debris conveys.

It does seem like it's time there's a break in this mysterious disappearance.  When there is, we still may not know what actually happened, or why. We may never know.

Going Local: Should Jack Daniels Have A Monopoly On What's Called 'Tennessee Whiskey'?

A HEATED DEBATE IS COOKING HERE IN TENNESSEE RIGHT NOW: Newer distillers just getting in the business don't want to have to make their made-in-Tennessee whiskey the ole fashioned way Jack Daniels does.   Black Jack distillers haven't liked the smell of this competition for some time, preferring instead to keep it contained by specifying in state legislation passed last year how real whiskey that can be called real whiskey can and must be made in Tennessee.

To wit:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The owner of the Full Throttle moonshine distillery wants to add Tennessee whiskey to his product list. But Michael Ballard doesn't want to have to make his spirits in the style of Jack Daniel's, the world's most famous Tennessee whiskey.

Ballard, star of the cable reality show "Full Throttle Saloon," said a state law enacted last year prevents him from exploring his own style of Tennessee whiskey, and he is urging lawmakers to dial back some of the new regulations.

"We don't want to make our whiskey like Jack Daniel's makes their whiskey," said Ballard, who built his distillery in his home town of Trimble in rural northwestern Tennessee. "Why put us all in one box together?"

Ballard and Jesse James Dupree, who is building a distillery next to the Full Throttle facility, plan to attend legislative hearings Tuesday on scaling back the Tennessee whiskey rules. They include proposals to do away with provisions requiring charcoal filtering and storing whiskey only in new oak barrels.

We'll see what happens. Personally, if I were a whiskey drinker or were giving a gift of good whiskey, I'd go for the best, the highest quality and industry standard.

Nonetheless, I don't think government mandating to the inth degree how inferior whiskey has to be made is right either. There can and should be some standards, but not necessarily standards that exactly mirror how Brown Foreman distills and ages its brand.

 I ask you, would you rather sip a little Black Jack or take a slug of Full Throttle Moonshine Whiskey? I report, you decide.....

Tamny: Rejoice In Big Government's Myriad Failings---A Review Of Recent History For GOPers Obsessing Over Obama, Clinton

JIMENEZ: JASON COLLINS,THE NO 98 AND MATTHEW SHEPHARD ********************** WITHOUT DEFENDING OBAMA'S FAILED PRESIDENCY for even a second, Republican obsession with him that includes the assertion that he's "ruining the country" gives a charitably average politician and thinker way too much credit, is an insult to Americans for presuming someone so second rate could reduce them to prostrate supplicants of the State, and it ignores the myriad GOP policy failures up to 2008 that made Obama's presidency possible in the first place.  Forbes.com. Republican Obsession With Obama and Clinton Is An Impoverishing Attitude of Thought By John Tamny To read, listen to, or watch much Republican commentary today is to be told that President Obama is ruining the country. About Obama, it should be said up front that he's very much a failed president. That said, for Republicans to say with such certainty that Obama is ruining the U.S. is for them to pay him quite the compliment. They should be a little bit more circumspect. The fortunes of countries rise and fall all the time. China almost literally committed suicide after World War II with its rush into the murderous horrors of communism, and then England's post-war lurch toward socialism tragically impoverished a once great nation. But at present China is booming, and England too is alive with economic activity. For Republicans to say that Obama is doing un-fixable damage to the U.S. is for them to ascribe otherworldly charisma and powers to him, and that plainly don't exist. Worse, they're saying that a less than impressive politician can in six years wreck the richest and most entrepreneurial nation ever formed. That's not likely, and it's an insult to Americans for Republicans to presume they're so weak as to let someone of Obama's ilk bring them down. If China can rebound from Mao, the U.S. can and will surely rebound from Obama. Part of the Republican line about Obama is that he's imposed the biggest deficits in history on the U.S. Actually, he hasn't. Presidents per the Constitution can't spend money, rather Congress allocates funds. In that case, the Democrats controlled the purse from 2006 until 2010, but since then the Republican Party has managed spending. Democrats were notorious for labeling Ronald Reagan's relatively austere budgets as "Dead on Arrival," so why don't the Republicans do the same to Obama, only in reverse? And while deficits obscure the much bigger economic problem that is spending, the Republicans have been in control of Congress the majority of the time since 1994, including some years under a Republican president in George W. Bush. Where was the spending restraint then, and budget "surpluses," when Bush was in office? As for Obamacare, Republicans should be thanking President Obama every night for foisting this disaster on the nation. It's failing before our eyes due to its myriad contradictions, and in collapsing it's vividly exposing the fatal conceit of big government programs to voters. Obamacare is the best thing that ever happened to the freedom movement, so rather than bemoan this obnoxious bit of government overreach, Republicans should enjoy its implosion while talking loudly about how the federal government should have no role in the provision of healthcare in the first place. Most comical of all, Republicans like to claim that Obama wouldn't be president today if he weren't black. If by that they mean that Americans are generous in spirit, that's fine. But it doesn't seem to be what many mean. Instead, Republicans seem to be saying that absent Obama's skin color, the electorate would have put John McCain into the White House while revealing their preference for a continuation of Republican policies that had prevailed up to 2008. This is dangerous and rather foolhardy thinking. The Republicans lost big in 2008 because the Party of Growth and entrepreneurial capitalism in the '80s had by the 2000s morphed into something quite different. Lest we forget, it was President Bush who signed the business-sapping Sarbanes-Oxley law (at the time he bragged it was the toughest anti-business "crime" law since the days of FDR), a McCain-Feingold bill that restricted free speech, and with a Republican Congress largely in control of the purse, it was Bush who never vetoed obnoxiously large budgets, not to mention his signing of a rather expensive prescription drug benefit. It was also Bush who foisted on us a brutally cruel economic "blessing" in the form of Ben Bernanke, imposed tariffs on steel, shrimp and softwood lumber all the while bashing China, promoted with great gusto an economy-crushing devaluation of the dollar that authored an economy-strangling rush into the consumption of housing, and then when the markets revealed the horrors of Bush's policies with bank failures, rather than allow the capitalist system to fix his myriad errors, Bush, working with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Bernanke, decided to blame the markets for not working right such that they bailed out banks that the free markets had decided were not worth saving. In committing their egregious bailout errors Bush and Bernanke fostered a wholly unnecessary "financial crisis" that had nothing to do with capitalism, and everything to do with them running away from it. And in blocking the infinite and very curative wonders of the marketplace, they robbed our economy of a substantial recovery. We don't suffer a presidency today that is an affront to good governance because of President Obama's ethnicity, rather we have a lousy president because the Republicans proved in the 2000s that they could easily match the Democrats when it came to obtuse policymaking. Until the Republicans realize this and acknowledge just how poorly their own party governed while in control, they won't be credible. Of course, that's what's so concerning about their whining about Hillary Clinton. It says here that she won't run for president as is, and that if she doesrun she won't get the nomination, but it's been suggested on the right that Clinton will get the nomination, and that the mainstream media will give her a free pass in terms of coverage all the way to the White House. Ok, it's probably fair to say that the mainstream media will be easier on her assuming she runs, but so what? As an aged USA Today piece by Peter Johnson noted about Ronald Reagan's campaign in 1984, coverage of him was over 90 percent negative. Despite this, the electorate wasn't fooled such that Reagan won 49 states out of 50; his success coming without Fox News,Rush Limbaugh, and all manner of alternative media sources that we enjoy today, and that tell us what the mainstream media does not. To be blunt, if the Republicans can't field a candidate in 2016 to beat Hillary Clinton and all her baggage, or another Democratic Party candidate carrying the heavy weight of President Obama's numerous failings on his or her shoulders, they'll only have themselves to blame. Logic dictates a Republican victory in light of Obama's implosion, and if not, a logical answer for why will be the ongoing failure on the part of the GOP to look in the mirror, and wake up to the fact that the electorate got it right in firing an aimless, increasinglystatist, and largely anti-growth party in 2006 and 2008. The late great free-market columnist Warren Brookes long ago wrote that envy "is the single most impoverishing attitude of thought." The Republicans thankfully aren't the Party of envy as their reliably dense competitors in the Democratic Party are, but as evidenced by all their wailing about President Obama and Hillary Clinton, their thinking is similarly impoverishing. Rather than spending so much time obsessing about their opponents, and elevating them in the process, they should rejoice in their failures that are discrediting big government with each passing day, and that will reward the Republicans if they develop a clue about how economies grow.

Sunday: The Millennial Generation's Most Acceptable Sin

 PASTOR LON SOLOMON:  PT 2 ON PAUL'S EPISTLE TO GALATIANS AND WHEN TO AND NOT TO EXERCISE CHRISTIAN LIBERTY

******************************************************

READING THIS WEEK ABOUT FEMALE 'ROLE MODEL' BEYONCE'S GHASHTLY, SEXUALLY EXPLICIT LYRICS from her latest CD, and hearing  Bill O'Reilly call her out about it on David Letterman---Letterman of course defending this low-life, degenerate, exhibitionist singer----has caused me to think a lot this week about the continuing moral decline in our country and dearth of morally chaste women who set the bar higher  for the upcoming generations of girls and women.

Anytime sex is so well-established in our culture, even in our churches, one can only wonder if we've gone past the point-of-no-return into the depths of moral decay.

Saw this article by Bryan Gingerich of Patrick Henry College and thought it well-worth posting in light of that.  It bears repeating again and again:

EVERY HUMAN INSTITUTION AND SOCIETY  its own list of sins and virtues that contradict the law of God. With the rise of the Millennial generation in evangelical churches, a vice is creeping up into the realms of acceptance, indifference, or at least resignation:  extramarital sex or unchaste living. 

A few decades ago, it was one of the main issues that evangelicals hammered in their social witness. The skeptical news cycle and entertainment industry mocked this often; they saw pleas for chastity as a laughable result of pietistic sexual repression and no small bit of hypocrisy. Theological leaders and other influential voices chided their fellow believers for obsessing over a select set of sexual taboos.

Now, however, the exhortations have eased off.Commentary from Tim Keller at the latest Q Conference in New York is quite telling. "We're not doing well on the sex side," he confessed. Talking about his church, Keller said, "We're just like the rest of the city. If I preach like that [on sexual ethics], everybody gets real quiet."

Similarly, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy discovered 80 percent of unmarried evangelicals between the ages of 18 and 29 had engaged in sex. Using a more stringent definition of "evangelical," the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) recently reported that 44 percent of millennial evangelicals had sex outside marriage. Of course, just because Christians oppose sexual immorality does not mean they never struggle with it. Nevertheless, in this sort of moral environment, harping on moral sex lives is analogous to starting an abolitionist church in the antebellum South. Thanks to the public liturgy of Hollywood and our own human inclinations, fornication has been normalized and poses a massive obstacle to effective pastoral ministry.

Shut Up and Stay Out of Sex Lives

More disturbingly, many young evangelicals are trying to loosen the standards of the moral law to fit their desire to become sexually active before committing to marriage. Some are direct, telling the church to shut up and stay out of their sex lives. They say that Jesus wants his followers to pursue justice, provide for the poor, minister to the outcasts, and otherwise love their neighbors as themselves. They claim Christ did not send his disciples out to be the sex police, and the early church focused instead on counter-cultural community-making.

Of course this argument is contradicted by the historical evidence. For example, Polycarp (student of St. John the Apostle) instructed women to be "loving all [others] equally in all chastity." Likewise, he urged young men to be "especially careful to preserve purity." Speaking of Valens (a man estranged from church discipline by his indiscretions), Polycarp taught, "I exhort you . . . that ye be chaste and truthful. 'Abstain from every form of evil.'" In the Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus, the author famously describes Christians: "They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh." The Apostolic Fathers and their standards for the ancient church are clear. We must not form the past and its teaching to suit our wants.

Costly Toll on the Soul

Other young evangelicals, however, are truly struggling with sexual morality---and often losing. I refer especially (but not solely) to pornography, in which one commits adultery in the heart. The toll this battle takes on the soul is costly. Perhaps this is why the popular folk band Mumford and Sons's music resonates so strongly with Christians. The group's lyrics often explore fall, redemption, grace, and love. For instance, band leader Marcus Mumford asks in "White Blank Page":

Can you lie next to her
And give her your heart, your heart
As well as your body
And can you lie next to her
And confess your love, your love
As well as your folly
And can you kneel before the king/And say I'm clean, I'm clean.

For too many young men, wracked with regret over their defeats and struggles, the answer is an ashamed "no."

Beware Acceptable Sins

Young evangelicals must choose their master. Right now, too many follow their appetites and desires. They are bending God's own standards to satiate their libido. Perhaps fear and repentance would not be amiss here---numerous portions of sacred Scripture indicate that sexuality expresses God's character as carried out in his image-bearers. The cost of trespassing providential limits is too high. Beware your acceptable sins---they are the ones that will kill you. When a society caves in to one particular sin and twists the gospel to defend it (e.g. the antebellum South with slavery) that vice will become a canker on the soul and will eventually bring it to ruin.

Christ Jesus lived a pure, spotless, and (notably) chaste life to buy his Bride on the cross. He proved his authority and victory in the resurrection. At Pentecost, he sent the Holy Ghost to empower and enliven his apostles to carry out a very special work. His disciples would be instruments to make a people for himself.

To this end, the single soul as well as the called-out community are sanctified. They war with the Devil, the world, and (especially relevant) the flesh. God grants his enabling grace to the saints that they might instantiate the renewed creation: husbands and wives bound in perfect unity or the celibate set apart for special kingdom service. This involves everypart of human life, manifested in appropriate ways: the economy, alms giving, kind acts, pursuit of political justice, and---yes---even sexuality.

Barton Gingerich is a research assistant at the Institute on Religion and Democracy. He holds a BA in history from Patrick Henry College and is a member of Holy Trinity Church in Fairfax, Virginia. You can follow him on Twitter at @bjgingerich.

Radical Hijacker Pilots Of MH 370 Flew Plane 7 Hours Or More

LATEST SATURDAY UPDATE---IT'S BACK TO PAKISTAN AND HOMEMADE FLIGHT SIMULATOR FOUND IN ONE OF PILOT'S HOME

SATURDAY UPDATES HERE  AND HERE.

LET'S TAKE ANOTHER STAB: INDONESIA  DUH!  WORLD'S LARGEST MUSLIM COUNTRY (AN ARCHIPELAGO WITH OVER 17,000 ISLANDS!) WOULDN'T  HAPPEN TO HAVE ANY RADICAL TERRORIST CELLS THERE, WOULD IT?

BRIDGET JOHNSON @ PJM REALLY BRINGS HOME THE BACON HERE: INDONESIAN TERROR GROUP, CLOSE ZAWAHIRI ALLY, PREVIOUSLY PLOTTED REGIONAL HIJACKINGS

Remember ole Ayman al-Zawahiri?  Refresh your memory.

Her piece connects some of the dots in the global terrorist networks, puts things in historical perspective and suggest motives for this current attack.  It is well-worth a careful read. Some highlights:

WASHINGTON — An Indonesian terrorist organization that a senior defense official said this week posed a “serious transnational threat” has previously been caught planning hijackings in the region where Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared.

U.S. military assets participating in the search and recovery efforts confirmed they were asked to relocate to the west side of Indonesia in the Indian Ocean as pings indicated the plane turned away from its route to China and turned back over the Malaysian peninsula. ABC News also reported Thursday that the data-reporting system on the flight shut down before the transponder, from 1:07 a.m.to 1:21 a.m., raising suspicions that the plane was at the hands of someone nefarious. 

Jemaah Islamiyah has long had designs on roping Malaysia and the Philippines into an Islamist state along with Indonesia, and was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government after the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing. The group has traditionally used Malaysia for fundraising and as a home base for trainees fresh from the Af-Pak region. 

JI plotter Mas Selamat Kastari, who escaped from custody in Singapore in 2008 and was recaptured in Malaysia the following year, was accused of orchestrating a plot earlier in the decade to hijack a plane out of Bangkok’s airport and crash it into Singapore’s airport.
Jemaah Islamiyah had been considered a shadow of its former self in recent years, but the terror group’s name has been occasionally dropped on Capitol Hill as a jihadi movement getting a new lease on life in a post-Osama world.

Read the whole thing to get up to speed.

 But wait! There's more. In the comments section of Johnson's piece there's a fascinating comment written by a tjking connecting even more dots. Another must-read which I will quote it in full:

There are a number of reasons the White House responds to terror attacks with, "There's no proof yet it is a terror attack", "Lets not jump to conclusions", and "We don't comment on an ongoing investigation". The primary reason is Obama's and Kerry's 9/10 idea that we go back to the day when terror was a mere nuisance like prostitution and stains on blue dresses. This time it might be more personal. 

 http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/26/rep-peter-king-asks-for-explanation-of-terrorists-visa-white-house-visit/

In the midst of Obama's re-election Rep. Peter King and other Republicans asked why the President allowed a visa and a White House meeting with a known member of Gamal Islamiya, the terror group mentioned in this article.

Why, Indeed. This terror group bombed the WTC in 93, funded by KSM, once run by the blind sheik, and while continuing to operate under Rahman's sons, was kept in communication with the Sheik and AQ through liberal attorney Lynne Stewart, who was linked to Michelle Obama and the President's Chicago law firm. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm only saying these are embarrassing images. Also embarrassing, when Morsi's MB took over in 2011, Obama compared them to MLK and Ghandi. When the elections came around, Rahman's AQ affiliated Gamal Islamiya formed a political wing and won enough seats to form a Radical Islamic coalition (read terrorist) to control Morsi. The amount of power they wielded swayed Obama to allow their spokesperson to come to the WH.. 

When Rep. King complained, the MSM argued that this was the "political wing of Al Qaeda....err...Gamal Islamiya, not the World Trade Center bombing sub-department, their office is down the hall way and to the left. They also argued that Gamal Islamiya had sort of shrugged their shoulders and given up on their holy Jihad which was ordered by God himself.
Now we discover that might have only been true to the MSM who said, "Don't jump to conclusions".  

The final paragraph of the above article that mentions the 2006 video and meeting announcing the merging of AQ and GI. In the video, Abdul Rahman's sons appear and kiss the hand of fellow Egyptian Zawahiri. Also, in 2012, more than 40 days before the release of the video Obama claimed started the riot in Cairo that supposedly inspired the spontaneous protest in Benghazi, the sons of Rahman and the brother of Zawahiri appeared on TV and called for a protest on 9/11 at the US embassy to call for the release of Abdul Rahman. 

This was the same request that was delivered in person at the WH.  

The result was a military style terrorist attack with accompanying high level American casualties. The US survivors are still being muzzled. A US president allowing AQ to walk in to the WH and ask for one of their terrorist masterminds, the Blind Sheik, to walk. Just to even allow the topic to be discussed? How does that not scream weakness? How does that not invite an attack on our embassies?  

So Putin is not the only one waiting in line to oblige the "Kick me" sign. 

If as the above article claims that Gamal Islamiya had something to do with this, it makes sense that Obama would like to "Cool the mark" and let the story trickle. If China is releasing intel, you know ours is more extensive. 

Believability in your own government is the coin of the realm. If Obama is willing to drag a film maker off the street and openly lie repeatedly about a terror attack in Benghazi, then it is a far easier thing to believe that he would sit on intel for a time under the auspices of discretion, operational security and an ongoing investigation.  

 When in fact, It's only Obama looking out for Obama. Planes fly, people die, the Obamas sigh.

This is clearly a thick and thickening plot. If we're not nervous enough about who's in the White House, we should be now more than ever.

IN ADDITION: SIX OTHER PLANES THAT VANISHED, SOME NEVER TO BE FOUND

Could Passengers on Malaysia Flight 370 Be Alive, Now Held Someplace In India's Andaman Islands?

FRIDAY UPDATE:  SABOTAGE?

YES, THOUGH U S INTELLIGENCE SAYS IT THINKS JET  CRASHED IN INDIAN OCEAN

IT'S LOOKING MORE LIKE A SILENT DELIBERATE ACT OF HIJACKING AND COMMANDEERING---IF EVEN BY ITS OWN ROGUE PILOTS--- INSTEAD OF JUST A CRASH.  PERHAPS IT'S BOTH.

It makes for a most intriguing and frightening flight of fancy.

Could the well-seasoned pilots have stayed on course during the first hours of the flight, said goodnight to air traffic controllers, then turned off its data signal and transponder devices---except for intermittent pings---before taking nosedive to a much lower altitude, flying under all radars that could pick it up, and drastically changing course and heading to an unknown destination, even a suicide crash into the deeper Indian ocean?  Did pilots have enough fuel and prior flight plan knowledge to get it to another location where it landed?  It's wild, but starting to look unimpossible.

What an amazing story. Whoever planned and executed this brilliant heist must have taken years to carry it out, if it's true. They precisely calculated the time of day for takeoff and flight for needing to land before or at dawn.  And they must have strategically chosen Malaysia because of its unsophisticated government  officials and investigative facilities.

I'm sure family members of the lost passengers on board the plane are praying that their loved ones are alive----even if it's in Pakistan or India.  All these people need our prayers. They must be stressed beyond the limit.

Meanwhile,  back on the ground in Houston....

Sunday On Monday

PASTOR LON SOLOMON PREACHES PART 1 ON THE BOOK OF GALATIANS, This is Paul's first New Testament letter (epistle) written in 48 A.D. to the church in Galatia after he completed his first of three missionary journeys establishing churches in several southeast Turkey cities.  Paul was writing to correct the false teaching of the Judaizers who came behind him,  teaching converts that salvation did not come from faith in Christ alone, but in Christ plus human works and following the Old Testament Mosaic laws.  This incensed Paul. He wrote Galatians to correct this glaring theological error.

This series is one of my all-time favorites from McLean Bible Church in Tyson's Corner, Virginia where I visit every chance I get.  Every time I listen to Lon preach,  I learn so much.

Sorry to have dropped off the radar this past week.  Been busy, happily occupied with kids and family and trying to stay warm in brutally cold weather while traveling for the past 10 days.  Plan to get back to a more normal schedule.  Thanks for coming by.

******

Did you know the missing Malaysian Airline jet was involved in a prior collision with another plane two years ago? In spite of the many conspiracy theories and stolen passport suspicions, I can't help but think this news is probably very significant.

Lego Man

MM GRACEFULLY GIVES CREDIT WHERE CREDIT'S DUE

FORGET EVERY OTHER TOY ON THE MARKET NO MATTER THE COST....NOTHING COMPARES TO A LITTLE GUY MAKING LEGOS in every conceivable shape and form...G-Boy is a regular Lego-making machine and yesterday we taxied down to Mary Arnold and he picked out this log hauler without a word of suggestion from me. I told him I had a really big log hauler to show him one of these days, though I doubt he will like it any better than the one he just made! Girly-G even gets into the act before going to pre-school.

Sunday---True Purpose of Worship

PASTOR LON SOLOMON @ MCLEAN BIBLE TALKS ON PAUL'S SECOND LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF SUFFERING

Coming Soon To An Asylum Near You---Another Mid-Atlantic Snowstorm, Massive Traffic Jams and Attempting To Cross the GW Bridge

DEAR GOVERNOR CHRISTIE..... I HAVE A VERY SMALL BLADDER....PLEASE DON'T CLOSE......

NOT THERE YET, BUT IT SURE LOOKS LIKE ANOTHER WINTER WEATHER MESS IN THE MAKING BY MONDAY.  What kinda great timing.

Just got to D.C. to rest and visit for a day or two, but may have to forge on to Manhattan earlier than planned. This winter is really something, with no end in sight.  Next year, God willing,  I'm going to somewhere warm for part of the winter.  In the meantime,  I might just have to stash a tiny bottle of Irish whiskey and a good blanket in my car in case I get bogged down on the NJ Turnpike----and I don't even drink whiskey.  Still it's starting to sound like a wonderful idea.