loveofourlord said:

hey without the department of education they won't need to worry about having any education.

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That why they have trade school.

Poor guy. Another victim of fascism.

tonychanyt said:

Dr Carl Sagan said:
The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.

That depends on the definition of cosmos. The statement has not been proved scientifically. It was a claim that Sagan made without proof.

Ge 1:


As a Christian, I believe that God existed before he created the cosmos.

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Correct. In fact, if Cosmos is by definition NOT God, then there is less reason to believe it has always existed, than there is that God was first.

And if Cosmos is considered by definition, God, then whoever is considering it has a self-contradiction on their hands, even if they want to insist that Cosmos is 'with intent'. God does not fit to form. He is not comprised of mechanical fact.

"The ultimate goal of theology isn't knowledge, but worship." (Sam Storms)

"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another." (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Learn to Endure

“Jesus, I Surrender My Life To You
Take Care of Everything”


After my heart surgery, they had to keep me loaded up on some strong drugs, for pain, of course. I have never liked drugs; in fact when I was very young in the Navy, I was surrounded by men who were highly addicted, but I wanted nothing to do with it. Not because I was better than them, but they had no attraction. Alcohol was not quite so strong an aversion. I liked getting slightly high while on dates because it made dancing more fun. However, at a certain point, I did not like it at all. It shut me down in a way that I do not quite understand. I got drunk three times in the Navy, and they were all bad experiences for me.

So my experience in the hospital with a boatload of strong painkillers was a real nightmare that lasted for a week and a half. One of the doctors told me that it was mostly because of my age, but then he said he never heard anything like it. Lucky me.

I remember closing my eyes, and suddenly, I was in a different world. I would open them, and I was back in my bed. The problem was it was a landscape from hell. There were great monsters that looked like demons, and they were fighting each other, destroying everything in sight……yes, a bad trip. I would open my eyes and again I was back.

After I returned home, I thought they would end, but every night there they were. For about a week I could not sleep, so it was me and me getting a tour of hell, perhaps my own inner hidden place of anger and pain.

So on the second night home, I was being led from one scene to another. Finally, I prayed, “Lord, please stop this, it is driving me crazy”. So I got an answer, “Mark, learn to endure. Not the answer I was looking for, but I took to heart.

St. Paul talks about patient endurance (fortitude), so I endured, prayed, and because I could not rest or sleep, tried not to go crazy. I did not lose my mind, well, I hope so.

I have learned that as I age, I simply have to allow the process to continue, while at the same time doing what I can to keep going and stay healthy. It is not an easy lesson, but I am slowly growing in my faith and trust in God’s care.

Why should it surprise me that old age is about letting go over time? We are pilgrims after all, on a journey that ends in our entering the eternal mystery we call death.

Death is not an exit, but an entry into a broader reality.- Br.MD

Pop D. said:

Heavenly Father, Holy is Your Name, we pray You will protect Carmen and her family from the storms, in the Name of Jesus, as only You can do. Amen and Amen.

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Thank you!

I bet an awful lot of retired Canadians own winter condos in Florida. They're expensive now, but a few years ago you could get some really nice ones for under $150K.
Since there are plenty of seniors whose homes are paid off, a winter place with investment potential is probably tempting.
If I were a Canadian senior I'd just be concerned about health care. They probably get medevac plans.

White House Correspondents’ Association Cancels Plans to Feature Comedian Amber Ruffin at Annual Dinner​

“The WHCA board has unanimously decided we are no longer featuring a comedic performance this year. At this consequential moment for journalism, I want to ensure the focus is not on the politics of division but entirely on awarding our colleagues for their outstanding work and providing scholarship and mentorship to the next generation of journalists,” WHCA president Eugene Daniels wrote to members in a statement.

“For the past couple of weeks, I have been planning a re-envisioning of our dinner tradition for this year,” he added.

Daniels, who is about to a launch a career as an MSNBC anchor, seemed very supportive of Ruffin just a few weeks ago. “When I began to think about what entertainer would be a perfect fit for the dinner this year, Amber was immediately at the top of my list,” he said in February, when the decision to have Ruffin host the dinner was announced.

Phil G said:

I’m Irish, a born & bred Dubliner. I still live here & love my country. I love my people, especially the wit, the Irish humour and our beautiful countryside. But we have a lot of problems here too. And we don’t need any more!

To that end, I appreciate the wit in the op. I certainly don’t take offence as I don’t believe it was intended in any way to be disrespectful to the horrible things that have happened to my country & my people.

Others may disagree but I see it more as a satire about the O’Donnell woman. And I don’t want to see her here either! If she moved here because of Trump, then she has a severe case of TDS. We’ve seen cases like hers here, and it’s not pretty!

But be assured I appreciate you standing up for us too. May you be blessed in the Lord!

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Nobody is offended on the behalf of others quite like a female liberal, especially the white ones.

Before this launch on Sunday, Isar Space had stated that it had little hope of reaching orbit on its first attempt.

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A satanic leader has been arrested at the Kansas state Capitol after punching a Catholic protester during a heated religious demonstration in the rotunda.

The altercation erupted when the protester attempted to grab a booklet from the satanic leader, who was calling out to Satan during the rally.

The incident, captured on video Friday, capped a tense morning of demonstrations involving about 30 members of the Satanic Grotto and hundreds of counter-protesters, primarily Catholics, who gathered outside the Capitol.

Continued below.

Perhaps she was just overcome by the message of the party of joy?

'We owe it to the victims to set down the ghastly, unvarnished truth," Lord Roberts says​

A Holocaust survivor murdered at age 91 and a baby killed just 14 hours after birth are among the victims named in the U.K.'s October 7 Parliamentary Commission Report, the most detailed Western investigation to date into the Hamas-led attack on Israel.

The 318-page report, chaired by British historian and peer Lord Andrew Roberts, documents the deaths of 1,182 people in a 48-hour period and provides extensive evidence of atrocities committed against civilians.

The report describes the assault as "a meticulously planned operation designed not only to kill but to terrorize through extreme brutality, looting and humiliation." It includes testimonies of group rapes of women and girls, some of whom were murdered, as well as evidence of sexual violence committed against corpses. It details the targeting of children, including infants shot in strollers or burned alive.

Continued below.

Tellyontellyon said:

I live in Wales and, particularly in the 19th century there have been significant revival movements in Christianity, with hundreds and hundreds of chapels being built.

These days many of these old chapels are still around but with few members, and as the older members die off, so these old chapels are closing on a weekly basis.

I like these old buildings that seem so much part of Wales. It's so sad to see them fall into disrepair.

Some have been bought and converted into dwellings. Some into Sikh and Buddhist temples. Some have been converted to mosques.

But some have been revitalised by new, energetic churches with electric guitars and lots of arms in the air stuff. Good luck to them.

But by and large the modern revival that many Christians hope for seems a long way off, certainly here in the UK. The trend seems to be in the other direction overall, even though some of the newer groups are very enthusiastic and do seem to be having success... it's still limited.

My opinion based on what I've seen is that it's a bit happy clappy and seems a bit shallow and too upbeat, lacking in the real depth that carries people through the really difficult times. Though that is just an impression, I'm sure that is not always the case. But people do need more than fun and being uplifted.

The revival that I have noticed in the UK at least, has been that of the pagans, that seems to have been steadily growing since the 16th century, albeit in a low key fashion.. in recent years it's really becoming mainstream. Christianity can't seem to keep up.

What is happening with Christianity? What are they getting wrong?
What's lacking?

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That sounds a pity that these ancient churches are being lost and neglected. I love Christian history and archeology. Even going way back before Christ and discovering ancient worship sites, alters and stuff like that. I remember a doco on the discovery of an old church outside Jerusalem which is said to be built over the campsite of Abraham and also used by his son Jacob. Many Christian sites have churches built over them.

I think a revival is overdue. As society is less Godly today and the church has become more secularised than in just about any time in our history from Christ I think there will be some sort of response. God doesn't allow His word and the Gospel to be drowned out by modern noise for too long.

If the world is heading down a path of Godlessness and God desires that everyone should be saved then because the noise of secular ideologies is is loud at the moment its going to take a pretty big and power statement to that will need to be made to get through to those who are being decieved and those who are yet to be saved.

The west which was more or less the church from the cross has lost its way from the teachings and church that came after Christ and the one He taught the diciples to establish. This lived Christs teachings to the point of persecution and death. It was this church that rose to become the church of its oppressors the Roman Empire. Which shows the power the cross had on the church in the early times.

But unfortunately this was also the beginning of its decline and tday the west is Rome again as Peter referred to as the New Babylon.

So I think we may be coming full circle in a way. Because the west has rejected God there needs to be a reminder of the power of Gods word and truth.

Every so often when things get really bad and people stray from God a revival happens. The monks of the 15rg century was is one example in how they placed great importance on going back to the basic of Christs teachings and the early church.

I think bold Christians will rise up and speak Gods truth in a way that cuts through the noise of modern society. Whether thats the Catholic church or parts thereof selling off all their riches and coming back to the flock as servants like Christ to the people. Or individuals across various places people will riseup.

The time seems ripe and I think its a natural response to how society and even the churches have strayed so much that a response form God is needed.

I think if the church really stood on the teachings then we should be seeing a church that makes peoples heads turn to God and see Christ. They should be sacrificing their lives and moving mountains. They should be persecuted like the early church for standing with Christ. Especially now the world is becoming anti God and Christ as well as Jews by the way.

Christ said if we stand with Him we will be persecuted. But this doesn't seem to be happening in churches. Rather they are trying to be relevant to modern society.

DrGoblin said:

You can sin against a human as well for example murder

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Which is [also] a sin against God because 1) "Thou shalt not murder" and 2) that human is God's sacred Image.

-CryptoLutheran

One notable aspect of the Christian moral revolution was its insistence that women are equal to men in dignity and worth. The earliest Christians took seriously the declaration in the book of Genesis that both men and women are created in God’s “image and likeness” (Gen 1:27). As the Gospel spread around the Mediterranean world, so did the biblical truth that men and women “are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28; cf. 1 Cor 11:11-12).



The Church’s advocacy on this point became so well known that her pagan critics frequently accused her of promoting an effeminate religion suitable only for women and slaves. In the derisive words of the philosopher Celsus, who lived in the second century: “[Christians] manifestly show that they desire and are able to gain over only the silly, and the mean, and the stupid, with women and children” (Contra Celsum, Bk III, Ch 44).



Celsus’s critique was echoed by another pagan, Caecilius, who features in a dialogue called Octavius, written by a Christian apologist named Minucius Felix. In the dialogue, written at the end of the second century, Caecilius describes Christianity as being guilty of “having gathered together from the lowest dregs the more unskilled, and women, credulous and, by the facility of their sex, yielding” (Ch VIII).



These samples suffice to show something of the rampant misogyny which characterized the ancient world. Within this milieu, it is all the more remarkable that the New Testament should provide so many examples of holy and heroic women. Here we shall consider seven such role models.

1. Elizabeth​

Continued below.

On the surface, religious statistics look kind of static, but dig a bit deeper!​

It’s a question that I hear several times a year: If Protestants join Eastern Orthodox parishes, did they “convert” to Orthodoxy? To state the matter another way, did they “change religions”?

That question is at the heart of a new Pew Research poll that we discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast, along with yet another recent Pew poll that led to this New York Times headline: “Christianity’s Decline in U.S. Appears to Have Halted, Major Study Shows.”

While we were recording this week, I told Lutheran Public Radio listeners that I was well aware that much of the information I was sharing was complex if not downright confusing. That was kind of the point. When it comes to statistical trends in religion, we live in a confusing age.

Let’s go back to the “conversion” issue. In the online version of the latest blast of numbers from Pew — “Around the World, Many People Are Leaving Their Childhood Religions” — the researchers explained:

Continued below.

Doctor discusses his medical findings as new exhibit opens at St. John Paul II Shrine.

Throughout Lent this year, the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., is hosting an exhibit on the Shroud of Turin that suggests a startling observation: The imprint made on what tradition tells us is the burial cloth of Jesus shows an “upright man” suspended in midair.

The exhibit is based in part on research and analysis conducted by Dr. Gilbert Lavoie, author of The Shroud of Jesus: And the Sign John Ingeniously Concealed, published by Sophia Press in 2023.

According to Lavoie, his observations about the bloodstains and image on the shroud not only bolster the case for the relic’s authenticity but show that it was a miraculous “sign” alluded to in the Gospel of John.

It is fitting that the exhibit on the Shroud of Turin is being held at the St. John Paul II National Shrine since the late Pope did much to boost the credibility of the shroud as an object worthy of veneration.

Continued below.

Multifavs said:

We have a lot of negative threads and pointless debates here on CF. It's not good for positive relationships with one another or our mental and emotional health, and it doesn't exactly make us look good. I'd like to see more threads about fellowship and creative topics, which don't seem to be very common anymore. Does anyone else feel this way?

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Good point.

When Jesus Christ gave himself up for us on that cross, and he put our sins to death with him, so that by faith in him we might die with him to sin and now live to him and to his righteousness, in walks of obedience to his commands, it was not just our sins that he bore. He took upon himself our griefs, our sorrows. And that brings comfort to my heart knowing that he cares about what we are going through. He knows our pain for he suffered for us. He can empathize with us, because he went through it, too.

But Jesus didn’t die that horrible death on that cross just to forgive us our sins and to promise us eternal life with God when we die. He died so that we would die with him to sin and so that we would walk with him (in conduct, in practice) in obedience to his commands. He died and rose from the dead so that by faith in him we can now live free from the control of sin and Satan, and that we can live holy lives, pleasing to God, in the power of God, by the grace of God, and so that we can serve him with our lives.

But this isn’t just about freedom from slavery to sin and walks of obedience to his commands. This is about a love relationship between us and God. For faith in Jesus Christ is a covenant of marriage to Christ, not in a physical sense, but in a spiritual sense. We are to see our relationship with him as we would a covenant of marriage to our spouses, if we are people who literally take those covenants of marriage and fidelity and devotion to our spouses seriously, to forsake all others and to cleave only to our spouses.

We are to think of him as a marital partner, and our intimacy of relationship with him in a spiritual, and not in a physical sense. We should want to be close to him, and to spend time with him, and to share with him in what he desires for our lives, and to do the things that he wants us to do because we love him, and we want to please him, and we want to be near him. We should consider that he is right beside us at all times, and that he is fully aware of everything that is going on in our lives. And he feels our pain.

Believing in Jesus, and in what he did for us on that cross, should not be just so that we can escape hell and go to heaven when we die. Our faith in him should be about developing a love relationship with him. And we should want to go with him wherever he calls us, and wherever he leads us in doing what he planned for our lives even before he laid the foundations of the earth. Our lives should be about him and his purpose for our lives and no longer about self, living to do just what pleases us. And this is all the time, every day.

And worship of Jesus is not just about singing “worship songs” in a “worship service” and moving our hands and bodies back and forth to the music. All the time I am seeing images of people doing this and it is always called “worship of God/Jesus.” But true worship of God/Jesus is us denying self, dying with him to sin, and walking in obedience to his commands, in conduct, in practice, daily, and following him in doing whatever he has called us to do according to his will and purpose for our lives, by his Spirit.

Now all of us were born into this world with sin natures, in the image of Adam, the first man to sin against God, and the first he created. In our unregenerated state of mind we were separate from God, unable within ourselves to meet with God’s divine approval. For not one of us can be saved and on our way to heaven via our own works. It is only by the grace of God, through divinely persuaded faith in the Lord Jesus, that any of us can be saved from our sins and on our way to heaven (Ephesians 2:8-10).

But God’s grace sent Jesus to that cross to put our sins to death with him so that, by faith in him, we will die with him to sin and now live to him and to his righteousness in walks of obedience to his commands. And God’s grace, which is bringing us salvation, is training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives while we wait for our Lord’s soon return. For Jesus “gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds” (see Titus 2:11-14).

[Isaiah 53:1-12; Matt 7:21-23; Matt 26:26-29; Lu 9:23-26; Lu 17:25; Jn 1:1-36; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 8:24,58; Jn 10:27-33; Jn 20:28-29; Rom 5:8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 9:5; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 11:23-32; 1 Co 15:1-8; 2 Co 5:15,21; Eph 4:17-24; Php 2:5-11; Col 2:9; Tit 2:11-14; Heb 1:8-9; Heb 2:14-15; Heb 4:15; 1 Pet 2:24; 2 Pet 1:1; 1 John 3:4-10]

As the Deer

By Martin J. Nystrom
Based off Psalm 42:1

As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after You
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You

You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You

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Our Sorrows He Carried
An Original Work / March 30, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Isaiah was a prophet of old who foretold the coming of Jesus, our Lord and Messiah (the Christ). The more that I read this entire book of the Bible, the more I began to realize how much of this book is dedicated to prophesying Jesus Christ and the Messianic age. So, the subject matter of Isaiah 53 is Jesus Christ, of his life, his death, and of his sacrifice on the cross for the sins of the world. And I think, in the book’s wording, as a whole, we can picture that Jesus did not stay dead, but that he came back to life.

So, who was and is Jesus Christ? He is the second person of our triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He always existed with God, he is God, and he is our creator God – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But from the very beginning God had a plan that a woman named Mary would bear a son, Jesus, conceived of the Holy Spirit, and not of man, who while he lived on the earth would be both fully God and fully man, but without a sin nature, for he was not conceived of man, but of God, of the Holy Spirit.

Now when Jesus Christ lived on the earth, during his years of ministry, he healed the sick and afflicted, he raised the dead back to life, he delivered people from demons, and he performed miracle after miracle, even feeding thousands of people with just a little bit of bread and a few fish. And he preached repentance and obedience to God for the salvation of sin and for eternal life with God. And all this got him hated by many of the Jewish rulers in the temple, who then plotted and carried out his death on a cross.

But while he was still alive, many who had been following him deserted him, for they said that his teaching was “too hard.” For he taught that coming to him meant death to sin, suffering for the sake of righteousness, and for the sake of the gospel, and walks of faithful obedience to our Lord and to his commands. He let them know that a profession of faith in him alone would not secure them salvation from sin, and that if they did not obey him, he would say that he never knew them and they were to depart from him.

And he confronted the hypocrites in their hypocrisies, many of whom were men of power and influence in the temple who had positions of authority over the people, but who put on a show of righteousness while inside they were full of wickedness and evil deeds. And he told the Jews who wanted him dead, and who would not receive him as their Lord, that God the Father was not their Father, and that Abraham was not their father, but that their father was the devil, and that they did the works of the devil.

For all who do not believe in Jesus Christ to be Lord of their lives, who do not bow to him in submission to his will, who are unwilling to die with him to sin and to now walk in obedience to his commands, they do not know God, because Jesus is God, and because God demands death to sin and walks of obedience to his commands as evidence that genuine faith in him exists. So all who deny that Jesus is the Christ, and who refuse to bow to him as Lord, and to forsake their sins, and to obey his commands, are not of God.

So, Jesus’ teachings did not sit too well with the majority of the people. And the rulers were also threatened by his temporary popularity among the people, because of all the miracles he was performing, concerned that their own positions of power over the people could be at risk. They also hated that he healed people on the Sabbath, and that he didn’t follow all their customs, and that he claimed to be God, which is who he was and is. And so the majority called for his death on a cross, and they had him put to death.

I think they then thought that would be the end of it, that his followers would scatter, and that the message of the gospel of our salvation would die out and would no longer be a matter of concern to them. But it didn’t go down like they had hoped. On the third day God the Father resurrected his Son Jesus Christ from the dead, and brought him back to life. He appeared then to many people, including his remaining disciples, and then he returned to be with the Father in heaven, from where he sent us the Holy Spirit.

And those who were his followers continued in his ministry and in teaching the people that faith in Jesus Christ must result in us dying with Christ to sin and in walks of obedience to his commands, or it is not genuine faith which saves, but it is of the flesh, instead. But this message has been altered quite a bit by the majority over the years to where so many are teaching salvation as the result of a profession of faith in Jesus, but absent of dying with Christ to sin and walking in obedience to his commands. This cannot be!

So, please know that Jesus died on that cross to put our sins to death with him so that, by God-gifted and God-persuaded faith in Jesus Christ, which is of the Spirit, and not of the flesh, we will now die with him to sin, putting sin to death daily, by the Spirit, and so that we will walk (in conduct, in practice) in obedience to the Lord and to his commands. He died so that we would now live for him and no longer for ourselves, and to deliver us out of slavery to sin so that we will now become servants of God and of his righteousness.

[Isaiah 53:1-12; Matt 7:21-23; Matt 26:26-29; Lu 9:23-26; Lu 17:25; Jn 1:1-36; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 8:24,58; Jn 10:27-33; Jn 20:28-29; Rom 5:8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 9:5; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 11:23-32; 1 Co 15:1-8; 2 Co 5:15,21; Eph 4:17-24; Php 2:5-11; Col 2:9; Tit 2:11-14; Heb 1:8-9; Heb 2:14-15; Heb 4:15; 1 Pet 2:24; 2 Pet 1:1; 1 John 3:4-10]

Lead Me Gently Home, Father

By Will L. Thompson, 1879

Lead me gently home, Father,
Lead me gently home;
When life’s toils are ended,
And parting days have come,
Sin no more shall tempt me,
Ne’er from Thee I’ll roam,
If Thou’ll only lead me, Father,
Lead me gently home.

Lead me gently home, Father,
Lead me gently home, Father,
Lest I fall upon the wayside,
Lead me gently home.

Lead me gently home, Father,
Lead me gently home;
In life’s darkest hours, Father,
When life’s troubles come,
Keep my feet from wand’ring,
Lest from Thee I roam,
Lest I fall upon the wayside,
Lead me gently home.

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Who Has Believed Our Message?
An Original Work / March 30, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Shalom, dear brothers and sisters,
May the Lord bless you abundantly (Luke 6:38, Job 42:10) and bless Israel in Jesus' name. Amen!
I ask for prayers for our precious sister Barbara, a faithful servant of the Lord Jesus:
She is currently experiencing financial difficulties (debt, lack of work) and is often lonely.
She is currently in the process of quitting smoking and needs much strength and wisdom in this regard as well. (John 8:36)
God's Word says:
"My love, I wish above all things that you prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers" (3 John 2).
And the Lord Jesus rejoices when she is truly well again (Psalm 35:27).
Thank you for your prayers!!!
Sole Deo Gloria
PS: And I pray that the Lord will send out harvesters into His harvest (Matthew 9:38).

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Meester-Chung said:

i am writing a letter to my local christian radio station that have his radio show, hoping to hsave his "grace to you" radio ministry cancelled and removed i will print it and mail it because their contact us form has character limits. defender child abusers and wife beaters John Macathur has no business airing on a Christian radio station. what kind of a message does that send to believers especially new believers?

it is joy radio 1250 AM here in the Toronto area

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They aren't going to cancel MacArthur in liberal Toronto, smiles