Isaiah 13 : Judgement Against Pagan Nations

      Today, in our study of the Book of Isaiah, we move into  a new phase regarding God's judgement. In the previous chapters, from one to twelve, Isaiah speaks of judgement against the southern kingdom and, albeit to a lesser extent, the northern kingdom. Chapters thirteen to twenty-three  are about God's judgement on other nations, starting in Chapter 13 with the judgement against Babylon, situated in modern-day Iraq. Long before Babylon became a world power and threatened Judah, Isaiah prophesied its destruction. He prophesied that although Babylon might shine for a time, it's ultimate destruction would be so complete that the land would never be fit for habitation ever again. Today it lies in total ruin, buried under mounds of sand and dirt. 
      Babylon was the rallying point of rebellion against God after the Great Flood. You can read the story in Genesis Chapter 11 about how the Babylonians built the tower of Babel as a monument to their own greatness, an act of direct rebellion against God. How often people do similar things today, building great monuments to their own glory, whether it's a massive statue of themselves or some edifice which bears their name. Perhaps they let the world know of their achievements by more of a show of their wealth with such things as expensive cars, stately homes, swimming pools, expensive clothes and jewellery. In themselves, of course, these things are not wrong, but when people use them in order to create an identity and self-evaluation, then they are used to take God's place in their lives. No matter how successful anyone might become, it is sinful to think that we can replace God in our lives by thing to reflect our achievements.
      At the time of God's message which we read of in Chapter 13, Babylon was still part of the Assyrian empire. The message relayed by Isaiah was a message both of challenge and hope. He warns them not to rely on other nations but on God alone, and lets them know that God would punish their enemies as they deserved.
¹ A prophecy against Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw:

 ² Raise a banner on a bare hilltop,
   shout to them;
beckon to them
   to enter the gates of the nobles.
³ I have commanded those I prepared for battle;
   I have summoned my warriors to carry out my wrath—
   those who rejoice in my triumph.

 ⁴ Listen, a noise on the mountains,
   like that of a great multitude!
Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms,
   like nations massing together!
The LORD Almighty is mustering
   an army for war.
⁵ They come from faraway lands,
   from the ends of the heavens—
the LORD and the weapons of his wrath—
   to destroy the whole country.

 ⁶ Wail, for the day of the LORD is near;
   it will come like destruction from the Almighty.
⁷ Because of this, all hands will go limp,
   every heart will melt with fear.
⁸ Terror will seize them,
   pain and anguish will grip them;
   they will writhe like a woman in labor.
They will look aghast at each other,
   their faces aflame.

 ⁹ See, the day of the LORD is coming
   —a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger—
to make the land desolate
   and destroy the sinners within it.
¹⁰ The stars of heaven and their constellations
   will not show their light.
The rising sun will be darkened
   and the moon will not give its light.
¹¹ I will punish the world for its evil,
   the wicked for their sins.
I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty
   and will humble the pride of the ruthless.
¹² I will make people scarcer than pure gold,
   more rare than the gold of Ophir.
¹³ Therefore I will make the heavens tremble;
   and the earth will shake from its place
at the wrath of the LORD Almighty,
   in the day of his burning anger.

 ¹⁴ Like a hunted gazelle,
   like sheep without a shepherd,
they will all return to their own people,
   they will flee to their native land.
¹⁵ Whoever is captured will be thrust through;
   all who are caught will fall by the sword.
¹⁶ Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes;
   their houses will be looted and their wives violated.

 ¹⁷ See, I will stir up against them the Medes,
   who do not care for silver
   and have no delight in gold.
¹⁸ Their bows will strike down the young men;
   they will have no mercy on infants,
   nor will they look with compassion on children.
¹⁹ Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms,
   the pride and glory of the Babylonians,
will be overthrown by God
   like Sodom and Gomorrah.
²⁰ She will never be inhabited
   or lived in through all generations;
there no nomads will pitch their tents,
   there no shepherds will rest their flocks.
²¹ But desert creatures will lie there,
   jackals will fill her houses;
there the owls will dwell,
   and there the wild goats will leap about.
²² Hyenas will inhabit her strongholds,
   jackals her luxurious palaces.
Her time is at hand,
   and her days will not be prolonged.

Memory, Attention: "The True

Memory, attention: "The true

Apple to unveil iCloud, iOS 5 on Monday, June 6.

Apple® CEO Steve Jobs and a team of Apple executives will kick off the company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address on Monday, June 6 at 10:00 a.m. At the keynote, Apple will unveil its next generation software - Lion, the eighth major release of Mac OS® X; iOS 5, the next version of Apple's advanced mobile operating system which powers the iPad®, iPhone® and iPod touch®; and iCloud®, Apple's upcoming cloud services offering.

WWDC will feature more than 100 technical sessions presented by Apple engineers. Mac® developers will see and learn how to develop world-class Mac OS X Lion applications using its latest technologies and capabilities. Mobile developers will be able to explore the latest innovations and capabilities of iOS and learn how to greatly enhance the functionality, performance and design of their apps. All developers can bring their code to the labs and work with Apple engineers.

For more details, visit the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2011 website at developer.apple.com/wwdc.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

First Amendment Trumps Sharia in Dearborn

Andrew Bostom, one of the featured speakers at our upcoming national conference, posted some great news over the weekend (see below).

Thanks to the efforts of our friends at the Thomas More Law Center, a judge ruled the free speech rights of a Christian evangelist trumped the efforts of Dearborn, Michigan to, in effect, impose sharia law’s suppression of free speech.

Note especially the highlighted portion below regarding attitudes among Detroit-area Muslims regarding the imposition of sharia law.

Time is running out to register for our June 22 – 24 National Conference and Legislative Briefing. The conference is now over 95% sold out. Visit here to register today!

---

http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2011/05/29/first-amendment-trumps-sharia-in-dearborn/

First Amendment Trumps Sharia in Dearborn
Posted By Andrew Bostom On May 29, 2011

^[1]

Robert Muise, Senior Counsel for the Thomas More Law Center: Teaching us how to solve the problem of Sharia

A seminal, if ominous report ^[2] released May 17, 2011 by the Center for Security Policy described fifty appellate court cases from 23 states which involve conflicts between Islamic law—Sharia ^[3]—and American state law. Nothwithstanding the delusive mindslaughter ^[4] on display across America’s political spectrum which denies Sharia ^[5] encroachment in the US, the CSP analysis revealed ^[2] that,

Sharia has been applied or formally recognized in state court decisions, in conflict with the Constitution and state public policy.

But the grim, seemingly inexorable, progressive acceptance of Sharia-based mores in the US—despite this totalitarian ^[3] religio-political “law” being antithetical to American law—was at least temporarily reversed late last week, in of all places, Dearborn, Michigan. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled ^[6] 2:1 on Thursday May 26, 2011 (in GEORGE SAIEG, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF DEARBORN; RONALD HADDAD, Dearborn Chief of Police ) that Dearborn, and its police department, violated the free-speech rights of a Christian evangelist by barring him from handing out leaflets at an Arab-American street festival last year. The court’s two judge majority opinion concluded ^[6],

On the free speech claim, we REVERSE the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the defendants and its denial of summary judgment to the plaintiffs. We thereby invalidate the leafleting restriction within both the inner and outer perimeters of the Festival.1 The restriction on the sidewalks that are directly adjacent to the Festival attractions does not serve a substantial government interest. The City keeps those same sidewalks open for public traffic and permits sidewalk vendors, whose activity is more obstructive to sidewalk traffic flow than pedestrian leafleting is. Moreover, the prohibition of pedestrian leafleting in the outer perimeter is not narrowly tailored to the goal of isolating inner areas from vehicular traffic. The City can be held liable because the Chief of Police, who instituted the leafleting restriction, created official municipal policy.

Elaborating on the issue of Dearborn’s liability for depriving George Saieg, an American Christian pastor of Sudanese descent, of his first amendment rights, the judges opined ^[6],

The City may be held liable for the restriction of Saieg’s free speech rights that the leafleting restriction caused. A municipality is liable if a constitutional injury results from a policy or custom “made by its lawmakers or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy.” Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694–95 (1978). In this case, the City approved the Festival “subject to . . . the rules and regulations of the Police Department.” R. 47-13 (Ex. M: Council Resolution)…Chief Haddad described the leafleting policy as his department’s policy, subject only to the approval of the city council and the mayor. R. 47-11 (Ex. K: Haddad Dep. at 95–96) (stating that “the police department will supply the standards that must be met,” such as the “prohibition of individuals handing out . . . materials on the public sidewalk”). The police department’s leafleting policy, made with the authority that the City Council delegated to it, fairly represents official City policy. Therefore, Saieg may hold the City liable for violating his First Amendment right to free speech.

Most remarkably, the majority opinion of Justices Moore and Clay included a salient observation ^[6] revealing how these judges understood the Sharia-based objections to non-Muslim proselytization which motivated Dearborn’s attempt to abrogate Pastor Saeig’s freedom of speech—mainstream Islam’s ^[7] continued rejection of freedom of conscience:

Saieg also faces a more basic problem with booth-based evangelism: “[t]he penalty of leaving Islam according to Islamic books is death,” which makes Muslims reluctant to approach a booth that is publicly “labeled as . . . Christian.” R. 48 (Ex. A: Saieg Dep. at 75). Saieg believes that evangelism is more effective when he can roam the Festival and speak to Muslims more discreetly.

Roberta Aluffi Beck-Peccoz ^[8], Associate Professor of Comparative Law at the University of Turin, made this rather understated assessment of contemporary Islamdom’s strict opposition to the proselytization of Muslims by non-Muslims—rooted in the Sharia, and ultimately, the grave offense of “ridda,” or apostasy from Islam, deemed “treasonous” against the Muslim community, and punishable by death ^[7] under Islamic Law—published ^[8] in 2010:

Islamic States have always strongly opposed this specific freedom [i.e., freedom of conscience as per the first amendment of the US Bill of Rights, or more specifically article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights], claiming that it contravenes Islamic Law. [Note: It does, and that is why the 57 Muslim nation Organization of the Islamic Conference drafted and ratified the antithetical Cairo Declaration which insists upon having Sharia exert supremacy over all “manmade” law!]…Moreover they express fear that proselytism represents a kind of foreign interference in their internal affairs. Consistently, Islamic States do not favor proselytism; they sometimes tend to restrict it even in its lightest forms, such as the simple expression of one’s intimate beliefs…Proselytism is perceived as a major threat to the coherence and cohesion of the umma [i.e., the global Muslim community]: it can lead to ridda [apostasy from Islam] the paradigm of political treason, or fitna, the temptation, the civil war involving doctyrinal dissensions…

Even in moderate, pseudo-secular Arab Tunisia—prior to the “Jasmine revolution” which may have already empowered ^[9] the formerly banned Tunisian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood under Rachid Ghannouchi ^[10]—according to a 2010 US State Department report ^[11],

It was illegal to proselytize to Muslims as the government viewed such efforts as disturbing the public order.

Neighboring Morocco ^[12], also deemed “moderate,” aggressively deports Christians who dare proselytize to Muslims. The globally representative Sharia-based penal law (circa1982) of Comoros ^[13] (the Muslim archipelago island nation in the Indian Ocean, located off the eastern coast of Africa, on the northern end of the Mozambique), for example, defines the “criminal” proselytizer as one who, “…indulges, promotes, or teaches Muslims a religion other than Islam.”

The attempt by Dearborn’s large Muslim population to enforce Sharia-based injunctions against non-Muslim proselytism confirms local attitudes documented via polling data collected in 2003, and reported during 2004. “The Detroit Mosque Study: Muslim Views on Policy and Religion,” was conducted by Ihsan Bagby an Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Kentucky and a fellow at the Institute for Social Policy Understanding—a Muslim organization. Data were gathered during the summer of 2003 and published online in 2004.

These alarming results were described on page 37 of the report ^[14]:

Mosque participants were asked, whether they agree or disagree with the statement, “Shari’ah should be the law of the land in Muslim countries?”

Apply Islamic Law in Muslim Lands
Strongly Agree — 59%
Somewhat Agree — 22%(i.e., collectively = 81%)

Somewhat Disagree — 8%
Strongly Disagree — 3%
Don’t Know — 8%

Such data supposedly reflected the Detroit area (read Dearborn) Muslims views of “Islamic countries,” only. But given the intrinsic, universally supremacist nature of Islam and the global umma (i.e., as stated in Koran 3:110 ^[15], and the Orwellian-named Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Islam ^[16], “Ye are the best community that hath been raised up for mankind. Ye enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency; and ye believe in Allah”), once an area has a Muslim majority it is assumed by Muslims that Islamic Law should prevail—hence the “enclave” phenomenon, now evident in the United States.

Following the issuance of the verdict, Pastor Saeig’s intrepid attorney, Robert Muise of the Thomas More Law Center, made these apposite remarks ^[17], which all who cherish our unique Western freedoms must heed, and support:

Everybody should be pleased. Dearborn is getting a pretty strong reputation as being the enemy of the First Amendment. As long as they keep passing these draconian restrictions that violate the rights of everyone, we’re going to challenge them.

Is it still safe to Drink BUBBLE MILK TEA?

Of late, I have been reading tweets from my friends about this craze on the bubble milk tea. This guy above... drinks a lot of that tea... here's the proof on Twitter!

Anyways, I read this news article... and I thought I need to share this...

Authorities are now monitoring some food products from Taiwan that may contain a Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), an ingredient that may have potential harmful effects on health. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cited reports that DEHP was illegally added to some food products in Taiwan to improve its emulsification. "FDA is currently monitoring high-risk products from Taiwan (sports drinks, fruit juices and soft drinks) to ensure that they are safe for customers," FDA head Suzette Lazo said in Advisory 2011-006. Lazo said DEHP is used widely as a plasticizer in making articles such as medical devices, intravenous bags and tubing, blood bags and infusion tubings and nasogastric tubes.

She said that while low doses of DEHP are "generally safe," high doses or prolonged exposure can have "harmful effects," and exposure should thus be limited. "Children are especially prone to the harmful effects of high doses of DEHP or to repeated exposure, which can lead to testicular defects, fertility problems and toxicity to kidneys," she said. Lazo also said Taiwan has informed the Department of Health that the implicated material may have been imported to the Philippines by a company. "Efforts to trace the local counterpart of this company are currently in progress," she said.

Product recall

Taiwan-based news site Taipei Times reported some 167 food ingredient suppliers face recalls because of toxic contamination in connection with DEHP. A Taipei Times report quoted Hsu Ming-neng, deputy director-general of the department’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as saying DEHP has been detected in the products of 47 local manufacturers of food and drinks that unknowingly used the tainted ingredient, all of which have to be recalled.

Hsu urged other manufacturers to send their products for tests to prove that they are free of the harmful chemical. Taiwan health officials confirmed on Monday that DEHP had been found in an emulsifier that is commonly used in fruit jelly, yogurt mix powder, juices and other drinks. According to the Taipei Times report, investigations showed the tainted emulsifier products were either produced by Yu Sheng Chemical Co. or came from intermediaries supplied by the company.

Hsu said the FDA should be able to track most of the contaminated items within the next couple of days, when the department will again write to the International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN) under the WHO to report the details. Hsu said he told INFOSAN officials of the incident while attending the World Health Assembly in Geneva earlier this week. The department later also wrote to INFOSAN via e-mail to provide further information, but the group has not yet responded, he said.

Food ingredient exporter Poss-mei Corp. said it has notified its clients in more than 20 countries to stop selling its concentrated juice products and await test results. Possmei said it will further inform its clients if the products are safe as soon as the results are available. Some juice products produced by Possmei were on the DEHP -contamination-related recall list announced by the New Taipei City’s Health Bureau on Wednesday, the report said. The company also supplies bubble milk tea ingredients. Among its most well-known overseas clients is Bubbleology tea house in London, which has also expressed concern over the DEHP contamination in Taiwan.

Possmei, however, said that the emulsifier is usually not added when making tapioca balls — a main ingredient of bubble milk tea — making contamination unlikely.

Source

Errr.... these are the other bloggers who also love their bubble milk tea. =)

Yap Chuan Bah Kut Teh Restaurant, Bandar Puchong Utama.

Awhile back, I went to this bak kut teh place in Puchong - called Yap Chuan Bah Kut Teh Restaurant, which serves the original soup-based bakuteh, as well as the dry type. =) Okay, I'm not gonna write too much, just see the pictures ok!

Yap Chuan Bah Kut Teh Restaurant
53, Ground & 1st Floor,
Jalan BPU,
Bandar Puchong Utama,
47100 Puchong, Selangor,
Malaysia.
Tel No : 6012-674 4440 or 6019-328 5392.
Opens daily from 9.30am until 9.00pm.

Basketball Wives Season 3 Premieres Tonight!

Errr.... Basketball Wives is a reality television series that premiered on the VH1 cable television network on April 11, 2010. Created by Shaunie O’Neal, the ex-wife of NBA center Shaquille O’Neal, the series follows the lives of a group of women who have all been somehow romantically linked to professional basketball players. The show is filmed in Miami, Florida.

....and the Basketball Wives returns tonight for a third season, and they say that it is with a big bang. We've seen how shocking the ending of the second season was with all those that were revealed. Now followers of this series are eager to see how the wives are after the tension and anger that became flames at the end of season 2.

Season 3 brings in the drama queen Shaunie O’Neal, who wants to avoid all the drama. Really? She wants to avoid the drama and the best place to be in that is away from all the drama is Miami. But I guess we will be in for more drama this time. These women live on drama and they just could not help but be in the middle of it all. We will be seeing in season 3 how Ms. O'Neal tries to juggle love life, family outings, and here shoe line. What would be the effect if she mismanages the juggling? That will make Season 3 very exciting.

Evolving Technium Landscapes of Mind

Just because we are conscious does not mean we have the smarts to make consciousness ourselves. Whether (or when) AI is possible will ultimately depend on whether we are smart enough to make something smarter than ourselves. We assume that ants have not achieved this level. We also assume that as smart as chimpanzees are, chimps are not smart enough to make a mind smarter than a chimp, and so have not reached this threshold either. While some people assume humans can create a mind smarter than a human mind, humans may be at a level of intelligence that is below that threshold also. We simply don't know where the threshold of bootstrapping intelligence is, nor where we are on this metric. _KevinKelly

Technium
Kevin Kelly has created a "Taxonomy of Minds" as a way of classifying different types of minds and what they might be able to do.

Precisely how a mind can be superior to our minds is very difficult to imagine. One way that would help us to imagine what greater intelligences would be like is to begin to create a taxonomy of the variety of minds. This matrix of minds would include animal minds, and machine minds, and possible minds, particularly transhuman minds, like the ones that science fiction writers have come up with.

Imagine we land on a alien planet. How would we describe or measure the level of the intelligences we encounter there -- assuming they are greater than ours? What are the thresholds of superior intelligence? What are the categories of intelligence in animals on earth? _Read the rest...TaxonomyofMinds

Technium
The actual development of superior minds is more likely to occur via evolutionary mechanisms, rather than from straightforward design from principle. The adaptive landscape graphic above provides a small portion of an evolutionary adaptive landscape. Creatures that achieve the higher peaks may be capable of achieving greater feats, but also may be more subject to extinction when the environment shifts -- or when the adaptive landscape is enlarged by merging with a previously separate adaptive landscape (building a bridge between islands, tunneling through a mountain chain, digging a canal through an isthmus, or the emergence of an intergalactic wormhole).

Rather than waiting until our minds become capable of creating other minds, it is more likely that humans will create an evolutionary landscape from which a more intelligent mind than human minds might emerge.

Recently, in conversations with George Dyson, I realized there is a fifth type of elementary mind:

5) A mind incapable of designing a greater mind, but capable of creating a platform upon which greater mind emerges.

This type of mind cannot figure out how to birth an intelligence equal to itself, but it does figure out how to set up conditions of evolution so that a new mind emerges from the forces pushing it. _Technium

This is the approach to AI which Al Fin cognitive scientists have been promoting and utilising. It would be fooling one's self to imagine that it will be easy to evolve a smarter mind. But at least it is not impossible, as most conventional approaches to AI are proving themselves to be. (conventional AI researchers are attempting quantitative solutions where qualitative solutions apply)

There is something quite amusing here: The human mind itself can flit among the taxonomy of minds, at any given time. Because of how the human brain evolved, and the paths we have taken in development, each one of us is multitudes. Without a doubt, we all need better training in using our minds.

More: An interesting set of links to sources which expect or assume the imminent creation of a super-human machine intelligence (and a consequent "singularity") and a few sources which are critical of such a "hard take-off" to singularity superintelligence

Al Fin is among the skeptics of the "techno-singularity" concept. Rather, Al Fin expects any near-term singularity to be of the "bio-singularity" variety.

Organising Community Riots: Revolutionary Without a Clue

... Those who run up debt in good times can borrow only so much more when a recession strikes. And heavily indebted governments postpone fiscal stabilization at their peril. If you wait to reform until the bond market calls time, you are—to use a technical term from economics—screwed. _NiallFerguson

Revolutionary Riots Spill Over from Arabs to Europe to US?
If you are US President Obama, you are ready to blame almost anyone else for the economic despair settling over the American population. As a community organiser, President Obama's instinct is to call out the shock troops, take to the streets, and pin the blame on big banks and capitalism. In fact, billions of US$ were recently diverted from Obama's stimulus moneys to community organising groups, for just that contingency -- among others.

In three short years, Obama has added over $3 trillion to the US national debt. And rather than curtailing the deficit as the president had promised, it is getting much worse. Debt is a killer, but it is easy for the politicians who are responsible for the debt to point to everyone but themselves.

Riots in Europe are occurring as European governments look into the abyss of massive debt and cautiously tinker with a few timid spending reforms. But the people of Europe have come to feel entitled, and will not tolerate even the hint of a retreat from the wet nurse nanny state toward a more firm and responsible oversight government.

Americans are beginning to feel the same sense of blanket entitlement as the Europeans, thanks in part to having elected a community organiser as US President. Due to this massive growth of entitlement sense, the same type of riots seen in Arab countries and in Europe could easily spread to the large central cities of the US and Canada.

Risk of systemic fallout from Eurozone crisis

More from Mish on European abyss

The Obama path to collapse

More Great Christian Quotes

NEW AMAZING GRACE - The Stroms

This is not meant to "replace" the old hymn in any way - but simply to bring its powerful message to a whole new generation. The video contains some of the most famous Biblical pictures ever painted - from the Sistene Chapel. The song itself comes from The Stroms' new album Healing Songs 2.

Alan Watson's new CD, 'Taking it Easy', to be released tomorrow

      The long-awaited new CD from Alan Watson is released tomorrow by Runcorn-based Sheer Joy Music. Taking it Easy  showcases a new batch of songs from the stable of Greg Scheer & Colin Gordon-Farleigh, and features the musical backing of the late Eric Pim. 

      Featured on the 5-track EP are hit songs like 'Forever Friend' and 'When I'm With You', in addition to which the first track is a song written especially for Alan, 'Anniversary Serenade', and the hum-along song 'The Happy Song'. The track-listing is completed by the evocative 'Listen to the Rain'. All in all, a great new addition to the music library of all of Alan's fans, new and old.

     Taking it Easy will be available to download, either as an album or by track, on CD Baby and iTunes in a few days time.

The photograph below shows Alan Watson in the SJM recording studio. Now in his 70's, Alan has been singing for over fifty years, professionally and semi-professionally, and continues to perform at concerts in the Cheshire and Merseyside area.

Joanne Lowe's Meditations

DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT

"And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, and having favour with all the people.  And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved."

Acts 2:46, 47 (King James Version)

      I believe if we would encourage each other every day it would be a lot easier to keep serving Jesus when satan hurls his vicious poisonous darts of discouragement and lies at us.  Nothing would make satan any happier than if he could discourage us so much that we would stop serving Jesus.

      Over the last six years, I have received emails from pastors who were so discouraged they were tempted to stop pastoring their churches.  Our pastors and their families not only need our prayers, they also need encouragement.  They are human just like we are and they need to know that we appreciate them.

      If you are serving Jesus, I'm sure that you too get discouraged like I do.  We need to be encouraged every day.  Our precious Saviour has feelings and He also gets discouraged when people reject Him.  Are you encouraging someone every day?  Are you encouraging Jesus every day by your service to Him? 

      It is time we shut off the television set and get out of our comfort zones and become a daily encouragement to Jesus and to one another.  Jesus left His home and His Father for us.  Are you willing to give your life in full time service to Jesus?  He died for you.  What are you doing for Him?

Joanne Lowe

joannelowe8@cox.net

www.joanne-ourprecioussaviour.blogspot.com

'All for Jesus, Great redeemer' : New Hymn for Today

All for Jesus, Great Redeemer  87 87

TUNE: Beecher

All for Jesus, great Redeemer,

I surrender heart and soul;

All for Jesus, all for Jesus,

He’s restored me, made me whole.

All for Jesus, all for Jesus,

I am His throughout my days;

All for Jesus, all for Jesus,

I will live a life of praise.

All for Jesus, gracious Saviour,

Till I meet Him face to face;

All for Jesus, all for Jesus,

Stand restored by divine grace.

All for Jesus, all for Jesus,

Voice and hands to Him I raise;

All for Jesus, all for Jesus,

I will sing eternal praise!

© 2011 :  Colin Gordon-Farleigh

If This Cartoon

If this cartoon

Isaiah 12 : Songs of Praise

Following on from Chapter 11 in which Isaiah prophesied the golden age which is yet to come, this chapter is a great song of praise which describe the joy of the people when Jesus Christ comes to reign over all the earth. Every day we should express our gratitude to God, thanking Him for all that He has done and does, and praising Him because He is the One who is worthy of praise. We must also do as Christ has commanded and share the message of the Gospel with others so that they might know of His saving grace.


¹ In that day you will say:
   “I will praise you, LORD.
   Although you were angry with me,
your anger has turned away
   and you have comforted me.
² Surely God is my salvation;
   I will trust and not be afraid.
The LORD, the LORD himself, is my strength and my defense;
   he has become my salvation.”
³ With joy you will draw water
   from the wells of salvation.
⁴ In that day you will say:
   “Give praise to the LORD, proclaim his name;
   make known among the nations what he has done,
   and proclaim that his name is exalted.
⁵ Sing to the LORD, for he has done glorious things;
   let this be known to all the world.
⁶ Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion,
   for great is the Holy One of Israel among you.”

The Pangkor Laut Resort - the Awesome Villa.

When you're at Pangkor Laut Resort - very likely you'll be staying in the villas. Those beautiful villas. I'm not going to talk too much - but just enjoy the pictures ok.

A private pool.

Errr..... toilet?

The bed.

The entrance; with a little mirror on the wall for vain ladies.

The view from the bed.

...and then there's a sofa there too - with a miserable looking TV though LOL.

Sex and drug parties in Singapore chalets?

While it is usual to see teenagers in Singapore gathering in chalets for barbecues or birthday celebrations, some of their peers get together only to engage in sex and drug parties. Once intoxicated after a cocktail of alcohol and illegal drugs, some of these teens, which include girls as young as 14, engage in sexual intimacy -- from heavy petting to intercourse.

It is understood that such chalets stays are organised by some members of gangs in Singapore, and that they are getting more common. An 18-year-old former gangster who wanted to be known as John told The New Paper, "We would tell our parents that we were going for a barbecue, but we didn't even take any charcoal or chicken wings with us." While he had attended such sex-and-drug orgies twice, John — who left the gang last year after he was arrested for theft — claimed that he has not taken part in such vices.

"I don't do drugs, so I would go home when the rest got too 'high' and became violent or started taking their clothes off," said John, adding that most of the gang members at these parties were in their teens. Speaking in a mixture of Mandarin and Hokkien, John described the girls who take part in the parties as either "lor kway" (Hokkien for streetwalker) or some of them "ah dai" (fools). The former are girls considered to have loose morals, while "ah dai" refers to newbies who attend the chalet parties without knowing that drugs and sex are involved.

As they were under the influence of drugs such as ketamine and "ice", some of the teens have no recollection of their experiences the night before. The parties would usually have more males than females, said former gangsters. Such situations occasionally lead to several men sharing one woman and can even result in gang rape. When morning comes, they pack their bags and check out of their unit. The guys may go through the same routine a few months later with new girls, or "fresh meat" as they are called. A 28-year-old former gang member turned social worker, who wanted to be known as Peter, said he has not seen such a gang rape before, but he has heard of four or five such incidents among his former circle of friends.

"It is not just happening in chalets...such activities can also take place in pub shophouses or in the homes of the gang members," he added. However, John pointed out that not all chalet outings organised by his gangster friends involved sex and drugs.

Parents to be blamed?

Meanwhile, social workers said they have counseled those who have engaged in such vices as part of their gang activities. Those involved may not necessarily come from broken or low-income families, a common stereotype in the past, they said. But they noted that such teens usually suffer from an emotional emptiness at home. "Some parents give too little affection and neglect their children because they are busy, while others give too much attention because they are authoritative," said Faith Png, 39, a social worker with YouthReach. "Both will drive their children to seek freedom and love outside of the family and sometimes, the children befriend gangsters."

Executive director of Singapore Children's Society Alfred Tan, 50, blamed the media's portrayal of casual sex and easy access to pornography as resulting in the country's youth to become more promiscuous than in the past. "This is a worrying trend as there may be peer pressure to have sex. Instead of being harsh to their children, parents should get to know their friends," he told TNP. On the other hand, chalet operators said that they have not come across sex-and-drug-parties on their premises. Manager of Goldkist Beach Resort at East Coast Park Vikas Gupta, 22, said that the management has not encountered any such incidents thus far.

Steven Tang, director of Costa Sands Resort — which has two outlets in Pasir Ris and one in Sentosa — echoed the same thing, adding that it has always been its practice to increase security presence during peak hours. "It has always been our practice to step up our security presence during our peak periods, such as the June school holidays, to deal with the additional visitors," he said. The frequency of security patrols in GoldKist Beach Resort will also increase by 50 percent during peak periods, said Vikas. It is illegal to have sex with children under the age of 16. If the victims are between 12 and 14 years old, it is considered statutory rape and offenders can be jailed up to 20 years and fined or caned.

If the victim is above 14 but below 16, offenders can be jailed up to five years and fined $10,000 for carnal connection. The maximum penalty for rape is 20 years' jail with possible caning.

Source

Gangster Fighting at Giant Hypermarket?

Someone posted up this video and claimed that it is a gang fight at the Bukit Jalil Giant Hypermarket. Err... I am not sure where this is, but it certainly dont look like a gang fight to me - looks more like a group chasing/beating up one person.

The Lady In Red on Thursdays @ The Hill, Damansara Heights.

The Hill introduces a night for the lovely ladies. Every Thursday, ladies dressed in RED attire, drink special cocktails for FREE all night long. At the stroke of midnight - THE HILL will chose the 'best dressed' lady in red! She will win a bottle of Chandon Champagne. So make your way up The Hill to the lounge, invite your female friends & bring your cameras! It's going to be a beautiful sea of RED.

cheer me up

systematic and encouraging slogans by a cheerleading team are kind of spirit which quite essential for a team..

I love to see how ōendan playing their external advices to cheer up their favourite team, especially their costume..

before fuminized (front)

after fuminized (back)

most of them included red and blue in the cheerleading outfit, it's pretty eye-catching and full of spirit..

what I have in mind about the red and blue, I think it's not only represent the brighter colour but..

cutting sleeves

sewing stud on the pocket

stud at the pocket.. done^^

both of them symbolize two different theme.. red is more towards spiritual, prosperity and easy to grab attention.

and the blue symbolize the calm, steady and strong.. combine both of it.. I think it's the spirit behind cheerleading.

cutting trim

 

puzzle-alike trim.. done^^

I redesign a plaid shirt to become a vest with rocker style, sewing some studs on the collar and pocket..

cutting the trims like puzzle-shaped to create more layer on it.

after fuminized

---

wearing my redesign vest with the cheerleading-inspired colour theme.. red + blue

want to fullfill the positive spirit which I always emphasize as the cheerleading ..

never give up

pom-pom cheering for those who posses the similar spirit like me on the dreams in life^^

blue sleeve shirt from Converse; plaid shirt from Fumiko Kawa Redesign; tiered lace-trimmed denim skirt from Taiwan; 

belt from Taiwan; nerd glasses from Korea; 

black bracelet from Giordano, Hong Kong; white bracelet from my friend; red+white studs bracelet from Japan; 

black ring from Japan; net-socks from Lolita store, Japan; lace-up boots from Dr.Martens