194 St Michael and All Angels: This is Dignity
"All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, to such as keep His covenant and His testimonies." ~ Psalm 25
This is Dignity
How did we get here? What went wrong? How do we fix it? How does it end? There are only four primary questions, and their answers are the root system to your religion. Where did you come from? How did evil get here? Can good win? Then, when? Already. Soon. Not yet. “Jesus Christ is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation.” Again. Today. Now. Say it out loud. Say it damned proud. Because you’re not, and “they” are. They are going down. You, stand firm. This is dignity. It tastes best when shared. Till angel cry and trumpet sound, The Mad Christian
Odds and Ends
Politics
House Republicans began their impeachment inquiry into President Biden last week, presenting evidence that the President pedaled influence through his son for money. Corporate media insist there is nothing to see. (The Federalist)
An IRS contractor has been charged with stealing and leaking thousands of tax documents from some of America's wealthiest people, including Donald Trump. (The Federalist)
A Georgia bail bondsman and co-defendant of Donald Trump has agreed to a plea deal which will have him testify against others. (ABC News)
Presidential hopeful Robert F Kennedy Jr is reportedly completing his run as an independent. An insider said that RFK believes the Democrats are changing the rules to exclude his candidacy. (The Guardian)
Economy, Markets and Jobs
The US Senate has averted a government shutdown by passing a "clean" stopgap bill which will fund Capitol Hill for 45 days. The continuing resolution "notably lacks any funding for Ukraine, spending cuts or border policy changes." Bizarre news emerged that Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) attempted to delay voting on the bill by pulling a fire alarm. Bowman says he did so accidentally. (The Hill, New York Post, Red State)
The United Auto Workers have expanded strike action once again, with thousands more workers set to walk out at Ford's facility in Chicago and a GM plant in Michigan. (Politico)
Meta will spend $181m to end a rental contract on a building that it has never occupied. The property on London's Regent Park was leased right before the pandemic, but with layoffs all over the tech industry and tussles about returning to in-person work, it looks like Meta is cutting its losses. (Business Insider)
A California law will raise fast food worker wages to a $20/hr minimum. Labor unions have been organizing workers for some time, picketing over pay and conditions. (AP)
Border
Elon Musk took himself to Eagle Pass, Texas, to scope out the US-Mexico border situation for himself. He said he wanted to bring light to the crisis due to lack of coverage in corporate media. He raised concerns that “extreme individuals” were entering the country unchallenged. Musk went on to encourage more citizen journalism, saying on-the-ground reporting could "change the world." (Not the Bee)
Various journalists have raised concerns that military-aged Chinese men are crossing the southern US border in large numbers. Observers say the men all wear similar clothing and make themselves eligible for entry to the US by taking a circuitous route through South America. A former MI-6 operations director joined the Spectator podcast to explain how China’s government is gathering scads of intelligence by placing people in low-level jobs with access to seemingly unimportant data. With no lack of manpower, Chinese Secret Services are happy to play a long game, having spies work their way into more critical positions. (PJ Media, Spectator)
Transgender
Dead non-binary people tell no tales? A panel discussion entitled, "Why biological sex remains a necessary analytic category in anthropology" has been cancelled after it was deemed that such talk is transphobic. How can you know from skeletal remains how the person identified? The event was to be jointly hosted by American and Canadian anthropological societies in Toronto next month. Apart from the event being "harmful" to "vulnerable members" of "our community,” spokespeople said that stating that gender and sex are simple binaries is assuming the proposition you are setting out to prove, a "cardinal sin of scholarship." (Retraction Watch, Not the Bee)
It can take a very smart person to believe something very silly. During a recent interview, astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson doubled down on his unscientific views on transgenderism. DeGrasse Tyson suggested that transgender participation in sports is a "solvable problem" – we just need more athletic divisions. When it comes to the sexual revolution, it would seem that the propaganda must keep flowing to distract from the real world evidence all around. (Spiked)
California Governor, Gavin Newsom, seems to be making up for lost time after vetoing a transgender bill, signing three bills to shore up the LGBTQ agenda. (The Hill)
A federal appeals court has ruled that Kentucky and Tennessee may implement bans on transgender interventions for children. So that is good news! (Just the News)
Marriage and children
A circuit judge has changed the wording of a Missouri ballot initiative on abortion. Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft wrote the original summary asking voters if they "allow for dangerous, unregulated and unrestricted abortions, from contraception to live birth, without requiring a medical license or potentially being subject to medical malpractice." Critics said the language was triggering and misleading. Ashcroft is appealing. Pray for people to see the reality of what abortion is and for those who know to keep speaking boldly. (Fox 2)
Michigan has become the tenth state to ban marriage for under 18s, even with parental consent. (Not the Bee)
Crime and policing
JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay $75 million to settle a lawsuit brought against it by the U.S. Virgin Islands. The territory alleges that the American bank "facilitated and benefited from" Epstein's sex trafficking. This is not the first Epstein-related suit raised by the Caribbean archipelago where the pedophile owned his notorious private island. (CNBC)
A teacher, a few immigrants, and some Disney employees are among hundreds arrested during a Florida sex trafficking operation. (The Blaze)
A suspect in the fatal 1996 shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur has been taken into custody. (AP)
The US Supreme Court’s new term begins today, with a number of important cases on the docket including second amendment challenges, abortion, and gender mutilation bans. The Court has also agreed to take two cases that tackle content moderation and free speech online. Pray for wisdom for the Justices as they carry out their vocation. (Axios, The Hill)
Science and Technology
US astronaut Frank Rubio returned to earth last week after his six month stay turned into a year. Rubio had to stay longer on the ISS after his original ride home was damaged by space debris. (Sky)
Computer science degrees are no longer a "safe major"according to one tech blog. Developers are using AI to "speed up more routine parts of their work, like debugging lines of code." Automation could expand the candidate pool by lowering barriers to entry into a degree program. The author concludes that the creativity that drives innovation will always begin with curiosity, which is something humans do well. (Biz)
Is Google doctoring searches for presidential candidates? Or do some just have better SEO? (ZeroHedge)
The Arts
How English evolved in the early days of America. (Lapham’s Quarterly)
Two heroic friends who saved Shakespeare’s works from the Globe Theater fire. (Lit Hub)
Having books in your Zoom background makes you seem more trustworthy. (New Scientist)
Anne Geddes on why she stopped publishing her signature baby photographs. "Once a new calendar is released, the images are instantly available on the internet for free—which is totally out of my control…most people simply have no idea of the cost involved, nor the amount of work that goes into each series of images." (My Modern Met)
The natural world
Danish toymaker, Lego, has decided against using recycled plastic to make its bricks, concluding that changing up their whole production line would mean their "carbon footprint would have been higher" not lower. (Not the Bee)
A Kansas coal factory which was slated for closure will now remain open and be expanded to meet the immense energy requirements of an electric vehicle battery plant. Japanese company, Panasonic, is building the plant with mass production of batteries expected to begin in 2025. (The Blaze)
Efforts have begun to elevate the Mississippi River's saltwater barrier, as seawater is slowly traveling through the system after low rainfall has resulted in the end of the river becoming increasingly salty. (Nola)
A new desalination system could produce freshwater cheaply. (MIT)
Dramatic footage of New York City’s rainstorm. (ZeroHedge)
Stories from far away
The American soldier who walked into North Korea has arrived back in the USA.(WNG)
French and German defense contractors are setting up munitions production within Ukraine as global stocks continue to run down. (Politico)
Indonesia has banned purchases through social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok, saying that an influx of imported goods harms local industry. (CNBC)
Almost the entire population of ethnic Armenians have now fled the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave in Azerbaijan. (BBC)
A teenage boy and an older man have been arrested for cutting down an iconic sycamore tree, which was a popular attraction along Hadrian’s wall in England. (AP)
China's Evergrande Group, a huge real estate developer, is facing liquidation after a restructuring plan fell through. The company holds hundreds of billions of dollars of international debt and its collapse would be felt worldwide. Chinese authorities have detained the company’s chairman. (Forbes, AP)
Taiwan has unveiled its first domestically-manufactured submarine. Only a handful of nations produce subs, making this an impressive achievement for the island nation. A Chinese military spokesmen ridiculed the announcement, saying they will not be deterred from the “trend” toward reunification of Chinese people. (OCAC, ABC)
Promo of Friends
Dr. Koontz will be speaking at the Christian Faith & Life Conference 2023 in Sycamore, Illinois, Saturday, 18th November. He will be taking up the theme, "Strong under Pressure: The Church’s Life in Paul’s First Letter to Timothy." More information can be found at EventBrite.
Your favorite pixelated hero will return when EDH has returned from a well-earned rest..
John Michael Jones Gets a Life is produced for Mad ⳩ Mondays by E. Darwin Hartshorn. Episodes can also be found on Tuesday, along with previous episodes, on Bunny Trail Junction at bunny-trail.com.
Quick Hits for the Eyebuds
💰 A $10k note from 1934
🇯🇵 High-speed entertainment: sumo wrestlers on a bullet train
🍂 Fancy leaf-raking
⛈️ Eye in a storm: pilot takes spectacular photos from the flight deck of his 767
✂️ Making a non-electric Super Mario game
🔎 British Museum enlists public help to recover missing items
🏃♂️Runners: should you tune in or tune out?
👀 A ten year-old and a stolen bobcat
📏 For this ride, you must be shorter than a Lamborghini
🧠 How to stop your amygdala from hijacking your emotions
A Good Word: Links from the Show Notes
This week's Stop the White Noise covered Nazirite vows, differences in WELS and LCMS and the wonder of the inspiration of Scripture. Recs were top to bottom Bible verses and here’s what we caught:
for contemplating the inspiration of Scripture: 2 Peter 1:21, 3:15-16, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Proverbs 8:8-9 and 3:5
The sayings of Agur in Proverbs 30
Choose one Psalm and pray it everyday!
Sweetness You May Have Missed
This Week Preached: Angels and Demons - The Invention of Lucifer and Other Sundry Theodicies
Podcast Release: BHoP#165 Outsourcing Formula 1 – AI and Original Sin
Let us pray. Everlasting God, You have ordained and constituted the service of angels and men in a wonderful order. Mercifully grant that, as Your holy angels always serve and worship You in heaven, so by Your appointment they may also help and defend us here on earth; through Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
From the Mad☧Tank
Grey ClericKnight’s second in a series on the Templar Paradigm:
And Dr Allan Carlson on the radicalizing character of the Christian family:
👉 If you would like to submit your writing to be published by Mad☧Mondays, please reply to this email.