Random links of interest, concern or curiosity from the past week or so, that deserve at least a SHORT mention:

 
Turns Out Trump’s Nominee to Head CIA Did Not Oversee Waterboarding in Thailand ~ Oops. More #FakeNews ~

Haspel was the chief of base in Thailand, but “she did not arrive until later in 2002, after the waterboarding of Zubaydah had ended.”

(To their credit, ProPublica – the site that originally got this wrong – has retracted and apologized.)

 
As if we don’t have enough to worry about, Daniel Greenfield says ~ Forget Russia, What about Qatar? That country’s subversive activities include influence peddling to media and non-profit think tanks as well as spying/hacking ~

(I)f the latest allegations are true, Qatar’s terror backing and fake news operations have been supplemented by a domestic spying and blackmail operation against Americans […]
 
Qatar is tiny compared to Russia. It’s a slave state of 200,000 masters and large numbers of foreign workers, many of them worked to death and treated little better than slaves. But yet it’s enormously wealthy and beneath its façade of moderation, it seeks to export Islamic supremacism around the world […]
 
Qatar, like Russia, is an ally of Iran. Like Russia, it arms and trains Islamic terror groups, seeks to undermine America, Israel and the West, and represents a major geopolitical threat.

 
FBI testimony confirms Obama DOJ ordered 500,000 fugitives purged from background check database ~ Why? Just to increase the chances of more crimes being perpetrated on the public? To further erode the civil society?
Considering all the damage inflicted by the O’Ministration, America’s got a long, long way to go to try and restore the rule of law in this country.
 
Let’s not forget, there’s still the Clinton’s evil empire to dismantle ~ Clinton Charity Fraud Biggest Scandal in US History ~ According to Former CIA Officer and whistleblower Kevin Shipp, for years, Hillary’s been running a global financial criminal syndicate – worth at least $100 billion. All the usual suspects (Soros, Obama, Lynch, assorted congress creatures) are part of the cabal. Shipp seems confident the truth will eventually come out ~

This is probably going to be the biggest scandal in U.S. history–once it’s busted. I think they are quietly working on it now, and I think they have been for the last year. It is so huge the arrests and indictments could cause a Constitutional crisis with some people being removed. Maybe that’s why they are moving slowly. It all comes back down to the Clinton Foundation and the criminal syndicate.”

HuffPo Normalizes Bestiality, Talks ‘Acceptance’ With Man Who Had Sex With Dolphin ~ Why not? It’s apparently the next brave new frontier. Can we get much sicker? ~

Malcolm Brenner was the feature of a documentary called “Dolphin Lover,” wherein Brenner was “courted” by a dolphin named Dolly he eventually has sex with […]
 
Brenner has previously compared the taboo surrounding sex with an animal to interracial sex: “I’m hoping that in a more enlightened future, zoophilia will be no more regarded as controversial or harmful than interracial sex is today,” he said in “Dolphin Lover.”

 
US Niger ambush: Mali militia says it has American vehicle and weapons ~ We lost four troops that day; one of them, probable turncoat Sgt. La David T. Johnson. No doubt this is the Land Cruiser that he ran off with! ~

“As we came under heavy fire, I looked up and saw Johnson jump into one of the Land Cruisers and speed off in the other direction. That Land Cruiser was manned by the Nigerian soldiers who were with us, so I thought it was weird that he would do that instead of providing covering fire.”

 
Remembering a Dissident: Yuri Glazov ~ Jamie Glazov with a tribute to his father. All SJWs (social justice warriors) should be required to read this moving account of a true freedom fighter. It will give them an eye-opening glimpse into the world they’re hoping to create (no guns and all).
 

People Want Me Fired For What I Wrote About Video Games. Here’s My Response To The Critics ~ Matt Walsh, writing at the Daily Wire reiterates his position that video games aren’t harmless ~

A video game that has some elements of violence in it, but where the violence is not the whole point or the main attraction, and the violence is not gratuitous or shocking or exploitative, could be perfectly fine for the right age group. Not fine enough to play for six hours a day (no video game, or TV show, or movie is fine enough for that). But fine. There are plenty of games that fall into this category. There are plenty of games that fall well outside of it. Games where you are beating prostitutes to death or shooting up an airport or anything else in that vein definitely fall outside of it. They have no constructive value and whatever effect they have on you will not be positive. They are the very definition of gratuitous.

 
Tillerson Fired Over Rogue Bid to Save Iran Nuke Deal ~ Rex had to go. And in the end, that will be good news for regular Iranians ~

While Trump had prescribed a range of fixes that he viewed as tightening the deal’s flaws, Tillerson recently caved to European pressure to walk back these demands and appease Tehran while preserving the deal, according to these sources […]
 
White House allies warned Tillerson’s senior staff for weeks that efforts to save the nuclear deal and balk on Trump’s key demands regarding the deal could cost Tillerson his job, a warning that became reality Tuesday when Trump fired Tillerson by tweet.

Meanwhile, LGBT Activists Are LIVID About Trump Naming CIA Director Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State ~ Oh good grief. Just stop ~

HRC (Human Rights Campaign) listed Pompeo’s sins against the LGBT movement. “Pompeo’s attacks on LGBTQ equality is long and well-documented: he opposes marriage equality, and, as a member of Congress, co-sponsored efforts to allow states to not recognize same-sex marriage and to allow nonprofit businesses and organizations using taxpayer dollars a license to discriminate against LGBTQ people,” the organization said.
 
“Equally as troubling, his political career has been funded by anti-LGBTQ hate groups, including the Family Research Council,” HRC’s update concluded.

As Secretary of State, Pompeo won’t be in a position to ban same-sex marriage any time soon. Why is it that the “hate” always seems to come from the angry activists on the Left?

 
EU report accuses Israel of using archaeology to legitimise settlements ~ Because of course the Jews have no historical claim to the land that God gave them! Revisionist history of biblical proportions ~

Leaked document slams the Jewish state for using excavations ‘as political tools to modify the historical narrative’
 
Among the examples listed was that of the City of David, where 450 Jewish settlers who provide archaeological tours live under heavy security near a government-funded archaeological park in the area of Silwan, home to 10,000 Palestinians.

 
What did Jesus Mean When He Said, ‘Judge Not’? Probably Not What You Think ~ Don’t buy progressives’ out-of-context claptrap ~

Not only have we forgotten when Jesus really meant when He said, “Judge not.” We’ve also forgotten many of His other words.

Re-post from 3-17-14 ~

“…you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.” ~ Joseph
 
Genesis 50:20

 
 
 
 
There are many similarities between the life of Joseph and that of St. Patrick of Ireland. Kidnapped and sold into slavery in their youth, friendless and alone in a foreign land, neither had anyone to turn to but God. Placing all their faith and trust in Him, they were each able to accomplish amazing things.
 
From the High Calling ~

Patrick’s story reads like an Indiana Jones-type adventure. Raised in Britain (yes, not Ireland), Patrick was captured by pirates in A.D. 405 when he was only sixteen years old. The kidnappers whisked him away to Ireland and sold Patrick into slavery. He spent eight years as a captive in this pagan land.
 
During his captivity, Patrick embraced the Christian faith of his upbringing, something that had mattered little to him beforehand. In his own words, Patrick explained: “And there the Lord opened the sense of my unbelief that I might at last remember my sins and be converted with all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my abjection, and mercy on my youth and ignorance, and watched over me before I knew Him, and before I was able to distinguish between good and evil, and guarded me, and comforted me as would a father his son” (from The Confession of St. Patrick).
 
Inspired by a dream, Patrick finally escaped from Ireland and made his way back to his home in Britain. But, in time, he sensed God’s call to return to Ireland, of all places, in order to share the good news of Christ with the pagans there. Even though he feared he wasn’t sufficiently learned to be a missionary, Patrick returned to Ireland, where he found unprecedented success in his evangelistic endeavors. His experience of Irish language and culture during his years as a slave enabled Patrick to communicate the Christian gospel with unusual effectiveness.
 
Though we can’t be sure when Patrick died, tradition holds that he lived into his seventies and died on March 17 in the latter half of the fifth-century A.D. In twenty-five or thirty years of evangelistic work, he led thousands of Irish pagans to Christ and was responsible for Ireland’s becoming one of the most Christian nations in Europe. For this reason he is called “the apostle of the Irish.”

 
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Related:
Up-dated: 3-18-18
Added: St. Patrick Ended Child Sacrifice in Ireland. Will Fine Gael Bring It Back? ~ International pro-aborts are trying to force Ireland to overturn its ban on abortion (Amnesty International even took an illegal €137,000 grant from George Soros to liberalize Ireland’s abortion laws). There will be a referendum on repealing the country’s Eighth Amendment by the end of summer ~

This St. Patrick’s Day, let us pray that Christ would be remembered in all those who labor for life in Ireland. Let the Irish be inspired by the spirit of St. Patrick to fight against child-sacrifice in their great country. And with the same courage that Patrick drew upon to confront the evil of his time, let us rise to confront the evils of ours, armed with the Word of our testimony and the blood of Lamb, so that Christ’s name is proclaimed over all.

This story from the UK Daily Mail is a bit disconcerting…

A huge solar storm is heading for Earth, and it’s likely to hit tomorrow.
 
The storm could knockout satellites, disrupt power supplies and spark stunning displays of the Northern Lights.
 
It was created last week by an enormous explosion in the sun’s atmosphere known as a solar flare, and charged particles from that flare are now on their way to our planet.
 
 
The arrival of the solar storm coincides with the formation of ‘equinox cracks’ in Earth’s magnetic field, which some scientists believe form around the equinoxes on March 20 and September 23 each year.
 
These cracks weaken our planet’s natural protection against charged particles and could leave commercial flights and GPS systems exposed to the incoming storm…

Read the rest HERE.
 

Other news outlets are playing the storm down though, so not to worry. 😆
Either way, there are likely to be some impressive Aurora Borealis displays.

Random links of interest, concern or curiosity from the past week or so, that deserve at least a SHORT mention:

 
Iranian Supreme Leader Demands Americans Disarm ~ Oh, well there you go. The Left must love this tyrant ~

(Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei, who has instructed his government to spend billions of dollars on military hardware and ballistic missiles, lashed out at the United States over the weekend, calling on America to ban all guns in light of a series of domestic shootings.

 
Meanwhile ~ Defiant Iran says missile production has tripled ~

“In the past we had to explain our actions to various bodies, but not any more,” he said. “The law of the world is the hands of the United States, Britain, France and the Zionist regime and they have written these laws with arrogance. But if they want they change them.” ~ Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force

 
The worthless, fanboyish, clickservative culture of pitiful drama ~ While Donald Trump’s actions with regard to the economy, government regulations, judicial appointments and foreign relations have certainly been commendable from a conservative perspective, the downside with this president has been a crude coarsening of the culture. Chris Pandolfo at Conservative Review laments that…

… the movement has become driven by personality rather than by principle. Our leaders are fundraisers, managers, organizers, or hucksters — not statesmen. We are obsessed with the present and fail to put ourselves in perspective with the past and the future. And our movement is consumed by ambition, greed, and the self-serving desires of some to write the next vapid book and get the next shallow appearance on cable news, while others point, and scorn, and mock, and lecture from the ivory towers of their own inflated egos.

Unfortunately,

While the conservative movement is distracted by nonsense, Americans are losing their liberty (Too true!) […]
 
Should loyalty to the president take precedence over loyalty to the Constitution? Should conservatives permit the media and the Left to bully us into surrendering the liberties of our progeny?

[True conservatives instinctively know the answers.]

 
Why Turkey Wants to Invade the Greek Islands ~ Under Islamist President Erdoğan, the Turks believe that the Greek islands are occupied Turkish territory and must be reconquered ~

In 2016, Erdoğan said that Turkey “gave away” the islands that “used to be ours” and are “within shouting distance.” “There are still our mosques, our shrines there,” he said, referring to the Ottoman occupation of the islands.

 
Washington State Passes Bill Requiring Insurance Companies to Cover Abortion ~ Tyrannical actions like this – forcing people to pay for procedures that violate their deeply-held religious beliefs – is why I’m so grateful we switched, a couple years ago, to a non-insurance alternative: (Christian) healthcare sharing.

 
The Abolition of Manhood ~ An excellent article by a very wise young man. If only we had thousands more millennials like him ~

(T)he true crux of manliness lies in ones integrity to hold true to what he believes and stand firm in justice against the tyranny of relativism.

 
Targeted for Believing in Jesus, Russell Vought Barely Confirmed as Pence Casts Tie-Breaker ~ Castigated by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for having the temerity to hold to Christian values, Vought barely squeaked in as Deputy Director of the Office of Management ~

“I’m a Christian, and I believe in a Christian set of principles based on my faith,” Vought said at his confirmation hearing […]
 
“It was a shocking moment to watch a United States Senator (Sanders) declare that holding to a central tenet of Christianity that Jesus is the only way of salvation is enough to render a well-qualified nominee unfit for public service. Vought’s biblical view of salvation is no different than what Billy Graham preached for more than six decades.” ~ Tony Perkins, president, Family Research Council

 
Tiny Irish town taking in a 33% population increase in migrants had no say, locals fear being called racist ~

A concerned local, Michael Walsh, said that Ireland has become a “slave state” of the EU.

 
Even worse is that residents are afraid to ask questions for fear of being accused of being “racist.” This pattern is everywhere: Westerners surrendering to indiscriminate immigration for fear of being called “racist” and “Islamophobic.” In the UK, that fear became irrational — in keeping with a real phobia — when girls were being sexually abused in large numbers by Muslim grooming gangs. The attacks were covered up by police, social workers, and politicians, all phobic about being called “racist.”

 
Meanwhile, Italians are fed up with the hijrah too ~ Italy stuns Euro establishment by voting for its own freedom and security ~

Italian voters have flocked to anti-establishment, Eurosceptic parties and rejected mainstream, traditional political parties, the latest predictions from the country’s election indicated on Monday.
 
The populist Five Star Movement, founded by stand-up comedian Beppe Grillo as a bombastic challenge to the established order, emerged as the big winner of the general election, in a result that will be viewed with trepidation in Brussels.

Everywhere in western countries now – regular citizens have had enough of being bossed around by their betters in the ruling class.
 
The Victor Marx Story ~ An amazing tale of transformation. “All things work together for good to them that love God.” ~ Romans 8:28 ~ All Things Possible Ministries
 
Hollywood Promotes Sex with a Minor ~ In this short video Dr. Michael Brown discusses the hypocrisy not just of the La-La Land culture, but of the Christian culture as well.
 
Why Did It Take Two Weeks To Discover Parkland Students’ Astroturfing? ~

In seemingly no time, the magical (Parkland) kids had organized events ranging from a national march to a mass school walkout, and they’d brought in a million dollars in donations from Oprah Winfrey and George Clooney.

It was all Social Justice Organizing 101 ~

Rep. Debbie Wassermann Schultz aiding in the lobbying in Tallahassee, a teacher’s union organizing the buses that got the kids there, Michael Bloomberg’s groups and the Women’s March working on the upcoming March For Our Lives, MoveOn.org doing social media promotion and (potentially) march logistics, and training for student activists provided by federally funded Planned Parenthood.

Former slave and two-time Olympian becomes an airman Wonderfully inspiring story about Guor Maker, who – having fled war and slavery in South Sudan almost 20 years ago – truly appreciates America’s freedoms and opportunities ~

“All of the things I’ve accomplished have derived from the opportunities the U.S. has afforded me,” said Maker. “When I first came to America, I didn’t have hardly anything, but with the support and opportunity this country has given me, I’ve been able to completely change my life.”