For those of you who love westerns there's a 24 hour western station. I never watch it but see it while scrolling. The station (s) as there are three of the exact same viewing is called GRIT.
If you are interested there is a really good movie been on for a half hour. A heist movie with charlise Theron and many headliners on BOUNCE

I’ve always been a big movie guy so a few years back I decided to try to start my own podcast for reviewing movies and tv shows.

My first friend I asked never seemed all that interested and was always too busy to keep up with it.

And the other guy who is a friend of a friend always wanted to do horror movies, which I’m not a fan of. Unfortunately I could never find anyone else who was a good fit. And my podcast has been pretty much dead in the water.

It’s hard to find good movie podcasts out there that don’t either A) swear constantly or B) just talk about horror movies.

Does anyone here have their own movie review podcast or have some good recommendations?

I havent talked about this for over a year but I want to share this story to bless other people going through the same thing. Last year I had to be hospitalized for three weeks because I had a blood clot in my right leg, both lungs, and most concerning of all my heart. I didn't know this at the time but apparently the blood clot in my heart was over 12 inches long. I had to immediately be brought down from New York to New Hampshire for emergency surgery. I was VERY scared that i was going to die.

I should have died, I was dying and yet for some reason, it wasn't my time to go home yet. Get this. I was put under for a good 5 hours before they started the surgery. They could tell that I was nervous and they told me to relax but I couldn't until I fell asleep and woke up 6 hours later. When I woke up a nurse was in my hospital room and I asked her how the surgery went.

She was like "get this, you're not going to believe this but they couldn't find the blood clot in your heart and they checked for it for about an hour and it's well... it's gone,"

I started to freak out again and I said "so they cut me open for nothing?" And she said "no they didn't cut you open they were looking for the blood clot before they started the surgery and well... it's gone. God healed you. The doctors are baffled as to how this could have happened and they're going to try to think of some scientific way to explain this but. God healed you."

I couldn't believe it. I was stunned when I told my wife she didn't believe me until they called her and told her. About 2 hours after I woke up a pastor visited me because I was in the ICU and he was visiting everyone in the ICU that wanted to talk to him. I got to talking to him asking him whether or not God loves me and I broke down and cried. He told me "I can't say I know nothing about you," but I got to talking to him for about 30 minutes and the pastor asked me all kinds of questions like "how did you become a Christian?" "I'm reformed and follow the teachings of Calvin too which is why I don't want to be so quick to tell somebody that God loves them. He abhors the wicked."


Eventually he asked me how I got to be in the ICU and i said "you're not going to believe this." And I told him everything the nurse had just told me and I was like "God healed me." And he paused for a moment and w a s like "well there's your answer." And I was like "huh?" And he was like "God healed you. It takes a great amount of love to make God heal in supernatural ways like that. He loves you." Then he left to visit the next room in thee ICU.


I tell you, that made me cry. My nurse made me cry. All this time I thought I was hated by God and he not only saved my life but he saved my life on multiple occasions in miraculous ways. This morning mh pastor got to talking about how we belong to the family of God and how Jesus isn't afraid to call us brother or sister. It reminded me of the time the pastor visited me in the ICU and i just bawled my eyes out.

I'm living proof that God still heals today. I should have died but God saved my life.


About 5 months later I had to follow up with a cardiologist and he couldn't believe that I didn't suffer a stroke or at the worst, died. He told me straight out 99% of people that were in my situation suffered a stroke later. I've seen hundreds of cases where people have died. "You're the only case I've seen that walked away from a coronary thrombosis, DVT, and pulmonary embolism completely unscathed". The doctors in New Hampshire also couldn't believe it yet and probably to this day have no clue how it happened and how my heart healed itself. They checked me for several days for a stroke. There was none. I just needing physical therapy for a while afterwards and have to walk with a cane now. Praise the Lord!


I hope you gain inspiration from this story. I've got plenty of them lol.

So my home church is connected with a real, strong, authentic Christian-based rehabilitation program that houses over 100 men at a time, many of whom are addicts from off the street and out of prison in some cases. This program has been around for years and I can personally attest by my slight involvement that many lives have been turned around, cleaned up, and many people have been converted to Christ due to this ministry. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.

Unfortunately recently, the owner is now being audited or something like that, to ensure that the running of such a program is in line with government regulations. Richard, the founder, is dealing with a person who is completely unsympathetic to this cause, who is making things difficult and is intent on putting a strain on the program's finances. The program is nonprofit and apparently will be receiving less support due to the audit.

I am asking for prayers for this important ministry that has led many, many men to faith in Christ. Please pray that the program receives funding. Please pray that the auditors are fair in their assessments of said program. And please pray for the salvation of the men who cycle through the program. In Christ's name. Thank you

In court this week, one of its organisers admitted fraud, after £30,000 in donations from Black Lives Matter supporters went missing.

Lawrence Alma-Tadema - The Death of the Firstborn: 1872

Gaetz said Sunday that he plans to introduce a motion to remove McCarthy from his leadership position, marking a dramatic escalation of the long-simmering tensions between the men. Once Gaetz does so, the House would have 48 hours to vote on the matter. The Florida Republican did not say when he would introduce the motion.

“I think we need to rip off the Band-Aid. I think we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy,” Gaetz said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Hard-right obstructionists in the House GOP have made clear for weeks that McCarthy would be removed if he relied on Democrats to pass any funding legislation.

On Sunday morning, Rep. Michael Lawler (R-N.Y.), one of the most vulnerable moderate Republicans in the conference, told “This Week” that Gaetz’s decision is a “diatribe of delusional thinking.” Lawler noted that while Gaetz is complaining about how slowly the House has moved to advance appropriations bills, the Florida Republican himself is one of the reasons the process has been so slow.

“By putting this motion to vacate on the floor, you know what Matt Gaetz is going to do? He’s going to delay the ability to complete that work over the next 45 days,” Lawler said. [just as he had in the weeks leading up to Saturday's last-minute vote.]

If you’re pregnant in Bonner County, Idaho, you’ll likely spend a lot of time on Route 95.

Bonner General Health, a 25-bed hospital, discontinued obstetrics, labor and delivery services this year. So for residents, Route 95 is the way to the closest in-state hospital with obstetrics care, which is at least an hour’s drive south — or longer in the snowy winter.

The hospital, which staffed the county’s only OB-GYNs, cited the state’s “legal and political climate” as one of the reasons it shuttered the department. Abortion has been banned in Idaho, with few exceptions, since August 2022.

The four OB-GYNs who previously worked at Bonner General, meanwhile, have left Idaho to practice in states where abortion is legal. All four told NBC News that the state’s ban contributed to their decisions to move.

Drs. Amelia Huntsberger, Kristin Algoe and Lindsay Conner — former Bonner OB-GYNs who now work in Oregon, New York and Colorado, respectively — each said some of their Sandpoint patients had to start strategizing about whose car they could borrow or how they would pay for gas to travel for maternity care after the department closed.

Huntsberger, who was on the Idaho Health and Welfare Department’s now-disbanded Maternal Mortality Review Committee, emphasized that poverty and maternal mortality are intertwined. In Idaho, she said, Medicaid recipients accounted for the majority of pregnancy-related deaths in recent years. Despite the committee’s recommendations to expand postpartum Medicaid coverage to last 12 months, Idaho was one of just three states where legislators finished this year’s session without doing so.

--

Bradish said her biggest fear is about the timing of her due date in January — what she calls “blizzard time,” given that Sandpoint can get more than 30 inches of snow that month.

She has already stocked up on “shower curtains and some rubber gloves for the car,” Bradish said, in case she winds up delivering on the drive to Spokane [90 minutes away].

“That may sound like a joke, but it’s not,” she said.



See also: from earlier this year

Asking for prayers for the two above things. My aunt had a stroke last year and I can testify that prayers to God have helped her regain the use of her legs. Thank you Lord Jesus!

resort
intransitive verb
1. To turn to or make use of a person, strategy, or course of action for help or as a means of achieving something.
2. To go, especially customarily or frequently; repair.
noun
1. A place frequented by people for relaxation or recreation.

Ancient Trait, The Power of Blindness


Lord of glory said to 'Let them alone", but not by word.

Once upon a time, us kids were raised to know with varying regularity certain catchphrases. One of those at the top of the list was said of poorly conducted business types riddled as a Fly-by-Nights to be avoided whenever possible.

Today, things have changed the way unscrupulous folks conduct themselves as well as the way they think. The old “Fly-by-Night” has finally flown and come to achieve its ultimate purpose which is to fly-by-day.

Have they succeeded to shed every sign of integrity? It appears they have for the most part. Because they too are part of that ancient stack of unreliable “blind leads the blind”. Blind means lack of understanding, thereby, inability for living within everything upright, including, a way out of error by healthy correction. When healthy shame takes its last breath among all children of fly-by-night life-choices, the loss of shame now enables to enrich their craft of deflection in the ample light of day, saying,

‘We see no truth, nor world of proof you have placed before us. We have long-fashioned, effortlessly invigorate our own godless/utopian vision, by means of a logic seared from good-conscience till a perpetual evil refusal is accomplished, now armed to walk lockstep in a diabolical cult.’

Is that the full intent of their rush for the “ditch”? No, something founded on lust is never finished, because blindness isn’t content with others who are blind, but for all to be parasites to draw light and life away, including yours.

Daniel 7 is that Daniel had a dream that night. Verse 1 is that Daniel wrote the dream down, of all that he saw and was told.

The dream, if we correctly analyze, can be divided up into three sections.

The first section was the vision about the four beasts in verses 2-12.

The second section was the vision about Jesus in verses 13-14

The third section was the angel (we can assume) standing nearby, who gave insight to all that Daniel had previously saw, verses 15-28.

Are songs like "Father Stretch My Hands" and "Follow God" considered Godly?
Considering the fact that he sang it with a choir

A listener-supported radio station in North Carolina, WCPE, is planning to withhold the broadcast of six contemporary operas this season from New York's Metropolitan Opera, because of the station management's objections to the operas' content. It is a classical music controversy that echoes larger, nationwide culture war debates.

In the NPR interview, Proctor called WCPE's programming "a safe refuge from the horrors of life." Repeatedly, Proctor also appealed to the sensibilities of any children who might tune into her station or come across it online and said that her personal values were integral to her decision-making. Breaking into tears on the phone, Proctor said: "I have a moral decision to make here. What if one child hears this? When I stand before Jesus Christ on Judgement Day, what am I going to say?"

In speaking to NPR, Proctor called Jake Heggie's 2000 opera Dead Man Walking, which is reportedly the most performed opera written in the 21st century, a "shock opera" that had not proven that it could withstand "the test of time." Dead Man Walking was already known as a popular book by Sister Helen Prejean and a movie before Heggie and the late librettist Terrence McNally turned it into a stage work. The opera has been produced more than 70 times worldwide over the past nearly quarter century.

In her conversation with NPR, Proctor contrasted Dead Man Walking with other, much older operas in which sexual violence, rape, suicide and murder are major plot points. Dead Man Walking, she argued, is based on a true story, while other operas that are canonical repertoire but violent as well, are fictional and therefore less potentially traumatizing. Such operas — all scheduled as part of the Met's 2023-24 broadcast season, and all of which Proctor still plans to broadcast — include Bizet's Carmen and Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, as well as Puccini's Turandot and Madama Butterfly.

I don't normally care for science fiction/fantasy, but there are two exceptions that actually turns out are my favorites. First and foremost, Frank Herbert. His Dune series I must have read a dozen times all through school. I also read JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings during that time as well. Of course these guys were and still are very popular writers. For a number of years now I have ever so gradually, when I have time, still read their works free online. Links below.

Read Herbert free online. Read Tolkien free online.

The academic was fired after almost 20 years of his data — including figures used in an explosive study, which claimed the legacy of. lynchings made whites perceive blacks as criminals, and that the problem was worse among conservatives — were found to be in question.
College authorities said he was being fired for “incompetence” and “false results.”
Among the studies he has had to retract were claims that whites wanted longer sentences for blacks and Latinos.


I actually dug into this story after coming across research by other academic "experts" that got retracted for being fake. Unsurprisingly, the professor here had made his career with research showing how awful and racist whites are...and how that affects the outcomes of blacks and latinos both in the justice system and educational system...and he made up all his data. It wasn't only faked, it was obviously faked, and when he finally was under investigation he claimed that his hard drives that held all the data got one of those data erasing viruses (like the one in the Wuhan lab that erased all their covid 19 data). Basically, he made a career selling fake stories of racial hatred and discrimination that were politically convenient.
One might think that the university that he was a professor at earning 190k$ a year would be embarrassed by this and take his investigation seriously, but they actually tried to cover for him back when it was suspected that he only faked data on a couple of different studies. When it came to light he may literally have faked all his research, the university started taking his investigation seriously.
If you're wondering why a university would initially cover for him...well, it largely has to do with how research grants are awarded and the broken nature of academia. The reason why students are saddled with decades of debt for degrees that are worthless has everything to do with professors like this who prefer to cater to ideological/political narratives about "systemic racism" then actually search for truth and do the difficult work of real research.
Thoughts?

‘No enemies to the right’: DeSantis ally hosts debate hedging white nationalism​

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who is a close ally [and New College board appointee] of Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, hosted a social media debate in which one participant argued that conservatives should cooperate with a hypothetical white nationalist dictator “in order to destroy the power of the left”.

Participating in the debate was Charles Haywood, a former shampoo magnate who the Guardian previously reported is a would-be “warlord” who founded a secretive, men-only fraternal society, the Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR).

The debate concerned Haywood’s promotion of a strategy he calls “no enemies to the right”, which urges people on the right to avoid any public criticism of others in their camp, including extremists.

Early in the Rufo-hosted discussion last Tuesday, Haywood raised the hypothetical possibility early in the discussion: “Let’s say a real white nationalist arose who had real political power … and therefore [could] be of assistance against the left.”

Responding to the hypothetical, Haywood said: “I think that the answer is that you should cooperate with that person in order to destroy the power of the left.”

[Later:] “When we’re talking about people like Franco or Pinochet or even Salazar … they did kill people. ... that’s just a historical fact.”

“But,” Haywood added, “they saved a lot more people than they killed.”

1 Oct 2023

Trump calls for store robbers to be shot in speech to California Republicans​

Former president and frontrunner for GOP nomination also warns ‘this country will die’ if Joe Biden wins election,

Donald Trump called for shooting store robbers on Friday in a bleak speech to California Republicans –and warned “this country will die!” if Joe Biden remained president.

During the address to GOP members, Trump also railed that wealthy Beverly Hills residents smell because of water denials, and repeated election fraud lies, according to the Associated Press.

“We will immediately stop all of the pillaging and theft. Very simply: If you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store,” Trump said, spurring applause. “Shot!”

The rhetoric is in keeping with Trump’s tough-on-crime mantra but signified a ramped up emphasis on punishment. Trump has previously pitched shooting migrants to keep them from entering the US.

The former defense secretary Mark Esper has said that Trump asked about shooting George Floyd protesters. He also floated imposing the death penalty on convicted drug dealers, cop-killers and human traffickers, AP said.

More;

Trump calls for store robbers to be shot in speech to California Republicans

Former president and frontrunner for GOP nomination also warns ‘this country will die’ if Joe Biden wins election

www.theguardian.com

Republicans in the House had been pushing for border security measures -- particularly the House GOP’s signature border security and asylum reform legislation — to be included in any stopgap funding bill. A vote on a bill that included most of the "Secure the Border Act" failed on Friday after 21 hardline Republicans joined Democrats in voting against it.

As I've said, Joe won't budge on the border (and thus a government shutdown) until enough Democrats stand up.

Sept 28 (Reuters) - Roving groups of young people broke into retail stores in Philadelphia and grabbed merchandise in the early hours on Thursday, as a beefed-up police presence failed to bring a halt to a looting spree that began the previous night.

The two-night rampage, which resulted in dozens of arrests on Tuesday and Wednesday, targeted an auto dealership, an Apple (AAPL.O) electronics store, liquor stores and other retailers. The break-ins prompted all state-run liquor stores in the city to close indefinitely on Wednesday, according to local news reports.


Philadelphia's looting spree comes amid a nationwide surge in organized retail crime, compounding the financial losses that big box U.S. retailers are experiencing as a result of weakening consumer demand, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF) trade group.

CMS rescinds its ban on ‘Banned Books Week’ activities​

CMS Communications Chief Shayla Cannady [sent this message to principals]

It has come to our attention that some schools have planned events next week October 1-7, to mark the American Library Association’s “Banned Book Week.” If this is the case, all principals are requested to cancel all events and messaging associated with this observance.

“Banned Book Week” is not aligned with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools academic curriculum or our pillars of excellence.

Please do not (send) out any communication on “Banned Book Week” or use school resources to promote or communicate about this observance. This includes but is not limited to daily announcements on the loudspeaker, visuals on screens, bulletin board displays, book displays in the media center or in classrooms. Additionally, please do not hold any book readings or offer suggestions for resources for staff and students.

Under the Parents’ Bill of Rights, any attempts to share material in relation to Banned Book Week could be seen as a violation of the measure.

--

A later message said it was up to individual schools to decide.

We are not taking a position on banned book week as it is a site-based decision. It is not a violation or in any way associated with Parents Bill of Rights.

Another demonstration that these vaguely/poorly written 'parents rights' laws are having a chilling effect on free speech.

Hi everyone,

I'm really discouraged and confused.
I've been exchanging about christian issues with a christian pastor and some of the things he said or which he brought up
really confused me.

We were talking about healing and wether God wants to heal and why christians don't get healed and he brought up the example
of the blind man about whom Jesus said that he was born blind so that God would be glorified through his healing.

How do we interpret this? Does this mean that God PURPOSEFULLY made a human being to be born blind ONLY so that later on He (Jesus)
could heal him and glorify God?

I'm sorry, but to me this sounds really perverted.

I can't deal with this. It's simply disturbing. Is this really what Jesus meant? I hope not, but at the same time I worry what if God really is like
that?

What if God is simply "different" and we simply cannot understand His heart? To me this is totally depressing.

Is it possible that God does things which I think are perverted and simply disturbing?


Another example which my friend brought up is Job. I know Job but I haven't really thought about him for a long time. It's not a story which
I enjoy. When he mentioned Job I automatically got all my questions back which I struggled with in the past, when thinking about the book of Job.

I simply can't make sense of it and interpret Job in a way which does not disturb me.

When I imagine that God more or let made a bet with satan about wether Job would stick to his faith or not and what was at stake was Job's relatives
who all lost their lives, then this is totally disturbing to me.

Would God really do this? Would God allow people to get killed ONLY to prove something and win a bet?!


I don't know, all of this is so dragging me down. I just don't know how God really is and I hate being torn between opinions of others and my own
thoughts.

But can you really feel close to God and really trust God when AT THE SAME TIME you struggle with such thoughts and worry that God could do
things which are disturbing to you?

This only scares me and makes me feel alienated from God.

Can one be a Christian and decide to use nuclear weapons against an earthly enemy?