People come to this blog seeking information on Albinism, the Miller kidnapping saga, the Duggar adultery scandal, Tom White's suicide, Donn Ketcham's philandering, Arthur and Sherry Blessitt's divorce, Michael Pearl's hypocrisy, Barack Obama's birth, or Pat and Jill Williams; I've written about each of these at least twice. If you agree with what I write here, pass it on. If not, leave a comment saying why. One comment at a time, and wait for approval.
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Tuesday, 31 May 2011
President Obama's fraudulent Social Security Number
Normally the White Man would not give out the Social Security Number of a living person, due to the likelihood that it would be used for identity theft. Ironically, though, President Obama obtained his number 042-68-4425 in exactly that way: taking over the social security number of a Connecticut resident who was born in 1890 and obtained the number in March 1977. This was, as nearly as anyone can tell, after Barack had already begun working in Hawaii, using a Social Security number that he has managed to keep secret ever since, presumably by switching to another one sometime in the mid-'80's.
There is one document on which Barack probably did use his valid number, though: his Selective Service Registration, which he allegedly completed on July 30, 1980. But there's something fishy about that registration, implying that he's had the computer record altered to contain his 'new' social security number.
And look what happens if you try to run an incognito search on Barack Obama II's Selective Service File:
Error.
Sorry, your request cannot be processed at this time because you have exceeded the daily limit for the verification of these credentials.
It's unlikely that the truth about Obama's fabrications will come out during his political career. We may have to wait for a book from Sasha entitled "My Father was Dreaming," a report of her exhaustive attempts to find out just who her father really was.
Friday, 27 May 2011
Zero Tolerance: Another Case of Unintended Consequences
It's yet another sign that America is descending into chaos, a would-be West Point Graduate was expelled from school for shooting spit wads, under Spotsylvania High's "Zero Tolerance Policy."
What these social architects don't seem to realise is that when the punishment is way disproportionate to the crime, it doesn't deter crime, but only encourages even greater crime the next time. As the old English saying goes, "In for a penny, in for a pound." Another way of putting it, more chillingly, is "The first you have to pay for. All the rest are free."
Thursday, 26 May 2011
Fourth Amendment: RIP
In what could easily become a weekly series of posts called "One More Step in the Descent to a Police State," I here note that the TSA has nullified a bill in the Texas legislature that would make it a felony for TSA workers to sexually molest travelers, by threatening to ban all flights to Texas if it were passed.
And the Indiana Supreme Court has already banned citizens from protecting themselves against such assault.
Obama said he'd bring change.
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
Barack Hussein Obama's birth certificate: still missing--and always will be
In my previous post, I wrote that more information would be forthcoming on the contested birth date of Barack Hussein Obama. We can't ever expect to know exactly when he was born, as the tribal peoples of Kenya did not reckon time in that way back then. Nonetheless, in his interactions with the US government, Barack had to give a birth date. He finally settled on one, but as I show here, it took a while.
I have compiled a list of 40 entries from his INS file and arranged them chronologically. Much of that information has now been incorporated into this post. What I excerpt here are just those dated entries containing a field for his birth date:
2/19/1959 UH Certificate of Eligibility Date of Birth 1934
8/9/1959 Form I-94 Birthdate 18/6/1934 (British notation)
9/21/1959 UH Report of Registration June 18, 1934
1959 several forms: date left blank by Barack Hussein Obama
7/24/1960 UH Certificate of Eligibility 6/18/1934
7/28/1960 Visa extension application June 18, '34
8/18/1960 Alien Registration Fingerprint Card 6/18/1934
8/31/1961 Form I-539 Visa extension application 18 June 1934
6/27/1962 Form I-20B June 18, 1934
8/17/1962 Form I-20A June 18, 1936
9/26/1962 Form AR-11 Change of address card June 18, 1934
6/16/1963 Form I-539 Visa extension application June 18, 1936
4/21/1964 Form I-539 Visa extension application June 18, 1936
6/9/1964 Form I-530 Extension denial card 6/18/34
7/22/1964 INS Report of Investigation 6/18/36
Thus we see that the switch in Obama's birth date occurred sometime in the summer of 1962, with the new date not quite firmly fixed in Barack's mind by the end of September, and not reflected in the INS' internal records until two years later. While expressing bewilderment as to the exact number of his wives, INS officials never appear to have noticed the multiplicity of birth dates.
Note, moreover--and this is significant: The Long Form Certificate of Live Birth pseudofacsimile released by Barack Obama II gives his father's age as 25 on August 4, 1961, giving Barack The First a birth date in 1936--and this was a whole year before said father stopped telling the INS that he was born in 1934.
Furthermore, 1936 is also the date given for his birth on the Kenyan Birth Certificate of his son. Oh boy. This basically leaves us with the likelihood that EVERY known facsimile of Barack Hussein Obama II's birth certificate is fraudulent. And, as it turns out, one electrocodicologist has found damning evidence that they all came from the same source.
I can find no evidence whatsoever for the reason Barack Hussein Obama gave false information regarding his birth, but whatever it is, it appears to be hereditary.
Monday, 23 May 2011
The most pro-abortion President and his aborted sibling
Barack Hussein Obama's Immigration File has been released following a request under the Freedom of Information Act. It contains some pretty damning information in and among such tidbits as:
- Barack Obama was deported from the US in 1964 after overstaying his student visa.
- He claimed to have been legally separated from his wife Ann in February 1964.
- He listed Barack II as a US citizen, even though no one disputes that he had Kenyan citizenship at the time.
- He was officially suspected of bigamy, as "no one could figure out how many wives he had."
- He alternately gave his birth date as June 18 in 1934 and 1936. See this post for details.
- He was considered "to be a slippery character."
- His Kenyan girlfriend flew to London in January 1964, presumably to have the child she was carrying for Barack legally killed. After this time, Barack "had money problems." Harvard was so disgusted with his behavior, they recommended he be deported.
- His address while at Harvard was The Koinonia Foundation. He also received stipends from the African American Institute, the Laubach Literacy Fund, and the Phelps-Stokes Fund--in addition to scholarships from the universities he attended.
- On some forms, he did not admit to being married. On one of these, he named his child as Roy Obama, with no wife listed.
- At the time his son Barack was born, he was in possession of a valid British passport.
- And, perhaps the most important of all: As far as the Immigration & Naturalization Service was concerned, Barack and his US citizen wife "Ann S. Dunham" had a child born in Honolulu on August 4, 1961. And they had been married since Feb 2, 1961.
- The INS considered deporting him as early as April 1961 for bigamy but he explained that he had verbally divorced his wife in Kenya before coming to the US, and planned to give up his then-unborn child for adoption. He was cautioned about "his playboy ways."
- His race upon entry to the US was listed as "Kenya."
We can tentatively draw some conclusions from this data:
1) Barack H. Obama I impregnated a girl while at Harvard and sent her off to London for an abortion. Due to his several sources of income, he was probably able to pay for it.
2) Ann Dunham was not the only girl Barack impregnated while at college, but apparently the only one who refused to have their child killed.
3) Barack, Ann, and Barry never lived together as a family. Barack was simply a baby-daddy and never supported Ann or Barry financially.
4) During the time period that his son Barry was born, Barack Obama I was not visiting Kenya, but working on a Dole pineapple plantation for $1.33 an hour (pretty good wages in 1961).
5) The INS has no record of Barack Obama leaving the US between his arrival in 1959 and his expulsion in 1964.
Finally:
Either President Obama's Kenyan Birth Certificate is a fraud, or someone has stolen information from his father's INS file regarding a trip back to Kenya in the summer of 1961. Given the two generations of slippery characters, either scenario is possible, although the latter is highly unlikely, given the information that remains in the file. But given the documented distance between Barack and Ann almost from the beginning of their relationship, it's highly unlikely he would have taken her back home for a visit right when she was expecting their illegitimate child.
In other words, it appears that Barack Hussein Obama II was born in America, after all. But that doesn't necessarily make him a Natural Born American Citizen, by his own definition as a presidential candidate.
- Barack Obama was deported from the US in 1964 after overstaying his student visa.
- He claimed to have been legally separated from his wife Ann in February 1964.
- He listed Barack II as a US citizen, even though no one disputes that he had Kenyan citizenship at the time.
- He was officially suspected of bigamy, as "no one could figure out how many wives he had."
- He alternately gave his birth date as June 18 in 1934 and 1936. See this post for details.
- He was considered "to be a slippery character."
- His Kenyan girlfriend flew to London in January 1964, presumably to have the child she was carrying for Barack legally killed. After this time, Barack "had money problems." Harvard was so disgusted with his behavior, they recommended he be deported.
- His address while at Harvard was The Koinonia Foundation. He also received stipends from the African American Institute, the Laubach Literacy Fund, and the Phelps-Stokes Fund--in addition to scholarships from the universities he attended.
- On some forms, he did not admit to being married. On one of these, he named his child as Roy Obama, with no wife listed.
- At the time his son Barack was born, he was in possession of a valid British passport.
- And, perhaps the most important of all: As far as the Immigration & Naturalization Service was concerned, Barack and his US citizen wife "Ann S. Dunham" had a child born in Honolulu on August 4, 1961. And they had been married since Feb 2, 1961.
- The INS considered deporting him as early as April 1961 for bigamy but he explained that he had verbally divorced his wife in Kenya before coming to the US, and planned to give up his then-unborn child for adoption. He was cautioned about "his playboy ways."
- His race upon entry to the US was listed as "Kenya."
We can tentatively draw some conclusions from this data:
1) Barack H. Obama I impregnated a girl while at Harvard and sent her off to London for an abortion. Due to his several sources of income, he was probably able to pay for it.
2) Ann Dunham was not the only girl Barack impregnated while at college, but apparently the only one who refused to have their child killed.
3) Barack, Ann, and Barry never lived together as a family. Barack was simply a baby-daddy and never supported Ann or Barry financially.
4) During the time period that his son Barry was born, Barack Obama I was not visiting Kenya, but working on a Dole pineapple plantation for $1.33 an hour (pretty good wages in 1961).
5) The INS has no record of Barack Obama leaving the US between his arrival in 1959 and his expulsion in 1964.
Finally:
Either President Obama's Kenyan Birth Certificate is a fraud, or someone has stolen information from his father's INS file regarding a trip back to Kenya in the summer of 1961. Given the two generations of slippery characters, either scenario is possible, although the latter is highly unlikely, given the information that remains in the file. But given the documented distance between Barack and Ann almost from the beginning of their relationship, it's highly unlikely he would have taken her back home for a visit right when she was expecting their illegitimate child.
In other words, it appears that Barack Hussein Obama II was born in America, after all. But that doesn't necessarily make him a Natural Born American Citizen, by his own definition as a presidential candidate.
Thursday, 19 May 2011
Copasetic
I first heard the word "Copasetic" used about 25 years ago. It was immediately clear from its context what the word meant: satisfactory. Linguists have puzzled for years, though, over where the word came from.
I would suggest that the word ultimately originated from the Greek phrase κομψός ἔχεις, which means 'getting along well'. There are several other Greek words with similar sounds and meaning, such as κοπάζω and especially its form κοπάσει.
I would suggest that the word ultimately originated from the Greek phrase κομψός ἔχεις, which means 'getting along well'. There are several other Greek words with similar sounds and meaning, such as κοπάζω and especially its form κοπάσει.
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
One More Step toward a Police State
The Indiana Supreme Court has today ruled 3-2 in Barnes v. Indiana that a homeowner has no right to resist the unlawful entry of someone claiming to be a policeman into his home.
So there. The Fourth Amendment no longer applies in Indiana, if just over half the judges on the State Supreme Court say it doesn't.
And remember, in the case of a no-knock warrant, the police don't have to say anything at all before they burst through the door with guns blazing.
"We believe however that a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence."
Shepard, C.J., and Sullivan, J., concur.
Dickson, J. dissents with a separate opinion.
Rucker, J. dissents with a separate opinion in which Dickson, J. concurs.
So there. The Fourth Amendment no longer applies in Indiana, if just over half the judges on the State Supreme Court say it doesn't.
And remember, in the case of a no-knock warrant, the police don't have to say anything at all before they burst through the door with guns blazing.
Four hundred thousand litres of wheat: The NIV and Luke 16:7
Iver Larson writes in the Better Bibles Blog (apparently misquoting the actual figures):
I have seen an NIV that was obviously changed from imperial to metric with a quick search and replace, and any numeric references that didn’t have the unit afterwards were not converted. This turns the parable of the unjust steward in Luke 16 into something quite different:
“How much do you owe my master?” “3 kilolitres of wheat” “Well, take your bill and write 400″.
Consulting an imperial NIV showed that it was actually meant to go from 800 gallons to 400 gallons, which made some amount of sense.
I’d also add that we here at least would rarely use kilolitres in ordinary speech, and would probably say 3,000 litres of wheat (if we even measured wheat in litres). You may well use 3,000 and 1,500 in preference to 3 and 1.5 anyway.
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
Guess which Obama Birth certificate shows the most signs of forgery?
Well, it's not the Kenyan one. Nor even the one released by the Obama campaign before the election.
This report by an electrocodicologist shows that Barack Hussein Obama II's long-form birth certificate is not a genuine copy; it has been electronically manipulated, with several different layers where information was replaced--including the signatures. And the registration number, which is out of chronological sequence, has also been tampered with. Furthermore, there's no raised seal certifying that it's genuine. Even the authenticating officer's stamp is altered, reading TXE instead of THE.
It gets curiouser and curiouser. At the rate the White House releases this sort of information, is it any wonder that those demanding he meet constitutional minimums for holding the nations' highest office are still not convinced that he does?
Update May 26: It appears that the Obama campaign pulled a trick from the illegal-identity handbook and altered a dead baby's birth certificate. It appears that Obama is only one senate election away from impeachment proceedings, on the grounds that he never qualified to be president in the first place, and used fraud to pretend that he did. Looks like Herman Cain might turn out to be America's first actual African-American president.
State take your kids? Submit to their oversight program, or they'll give them to somebody "more qualified."
Stand by for the next "kidnapping" arrest: a Michigan couple who flee to Canada with their 7-year old son who is wanted by CPS for drinking the wrong kind of lemonade at a ball game.
Posted: 05/05/2011
(WXYZ) - All parents make mistakes, but in Michigan, one mistake could cost you your child. Critics say it’s happening all too often because we have one of the worst laws in the country when it comes to how and when the state can take your children.
“It was an unbelievable nightmare! Far worse than the death of my first child,” said Claire Zimmerman. Zimmerman’s son was taken from her for only three days but it was a harrowing experience her family will never forget.
It started as a night out with dad at a Tiger’s game and ended with their 7-year old boy in foster care.
“I felt totally helpless, I felt desperate,” Zimmerman told Action News Investigator Heather Catallo.
* * *
Experts say a child’s time in foster care is often prolonged because DHS requires the parents who are not even accused of abuse or neglect to comply with something called a “service plan” or “service agreement.” It’s a list of requirements that can include psychological evaluations and parenting classes, which often conflict with parents work hours. If you fail to follow the plan you may not get your kids back.
Steinberg and other lawyers say there’s another major flaw with the system: the state fails to place children with family even though Michigan law requires DHS to try to do that. In Leo’s case, Steinberg says DHS refused to release him to his aunts and even his own mom, who had nothing to do with what happened at the ballpark.
“What’s happening in Michigan is a pattern of kids being taken away from parents against whom no allegations are made, simply based on the other parent’s conduct,” said University of Michigan Law Professor Vivek Sankran. Sankran challenges DHS decisions in the court daily and he’s alarmed by what he calls the “guilt by association” problem. Sankran says both DHS and the courts are equally to blame for perfectly “fit” parents losing their children.
“We are one of two states in the country that have this type of doctrine. Most states have clear case law that unless you make allegations against a parent, that parent gets their kids back immediately,” said Sankran.
Sankran points to another troubling case. Bryson Stone’s mom abused drugs and willingly gave up the baby to his biological father, Milton Stone, right after Bryson was born.
“They said I would be able to take him home, and I was there at his birth,” said Stone.
Instead of allowing Milton to take his own son home, Wayne County DHS workers had Bryson put in foster care, even though Milton was never accused of abuse or neglect.
Milton is currently the foster parent to his cousin Antonio. This means Michigan DHS approved Milton to foster parent his cousin, but refuses to let him parent his own son.
Comments
Donita Sanders FOR 3 YEARS NOW I HAVE BEEN GOING THRU THE SAME THING..I AM THE AUNT OF NAPOLEON MOORE'S DAUGHTER...MY SISTER IS THERE MOTHER, AND BECAUSE MY AT THE TIME 7 YEARS OLD NIECE FATHER HAD SEXUALLY MOLESTED HER, SHE RIGHT ALONG WITH MY NEPHEWS WERE TAKING, I UNDERSTAND THAT THEY HAD TO INVESTIGATE..BUT WHAT I DON'T UNDERSTAND IS HOW THEY CAN JUST TAKE MY SISTERS RIGHT FROM HER 4 CHILDREN WHEN SHE WAS NEVER CONVICTED OR ACCUSED OF ANYTHING...THE MAN WHO DID IT WAS CONVICTED AND SENTENCED TO PRISON..THEY NEVER GAVE MY SISTER A CHANCE...THE TOOK HER NEW BORN CHILD WHO AT THE TIME WASN'T EVEN BORN..THEY TOOK MY NEPHEW WHEN AT THE TIME HE WAS OUT OF STATE VISITING HIS FATHER..AND TOOK MY OLDEST NEPHEW, WHEN HE WAS NEVER AROUND TO EVEN WITNESS ANY OF THIS HAPPENING...THE STATE CLAIMED THEY TOOK THE KIDS BECAUSE OF MY SISTER FAILURE TO PROTECT HER KIDS.
In related news . . .
In November of 1925, the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling of the Amherst County Circuit Court. A petition for certiorari was filed, briefs were submitted and on May 2, 1927, the United States Supreme Court upheld Virginia's eugenical sterilization law by a vote of 8 to 1 [274 U.S. 200 (1927)].
In his opinion, Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. relied on an earlier case, [Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1904)], which upheld a Massachusetts law requiring school children to be vaccinated against smallpox in support of the Court's decision. The assertions of the expert witnesses at Carrie Buck's original trial laid the groundwork for Chief Justice Holmes' resounding statement, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
On October 19, 1927, Carrie Buck was the first person in Virginia sterilized under the new law.
Heaven-sent lightning, then and now
When James Otis died of a lightning strike in 1783, his eulogy ended with the following:
Yes, when the glorious work which he begun
Shall stand the most complete beneath the sun –
When peace shall come to crown the grand design,
His eyes shall live to see the work divine –
The heavens shall then his generous spirit claim,
In storms as loud as his immortal fame.
Hark! the deep thunders echo round the skies!
On wings of flame the eternal errand flies;
One chosen, charitable bolt is sped,
And Otis mingles with the glorious dead.
It had been several decades since Ben Franklin had proved that lightning was merely the discharge of electricity, but the centuries-old scientific theory, that lightning was specifically sent from heaven to a designated target, obviously still influenced the thinking of the educated class.
How far have we come in another 230 years?
Just last week, someone I know with an advanced degree joked about 'getting struck by lightning' for visiting church as an atheist.
Old ways of thinking die hard.
Monday, 9 May 2011
Kids--ever tempted to run away from home? Don't do it--just sue for an increase in allowance.
Spanish courts recently have awarded several 20-something sloths hundreds of euros a month in child support--from their married parents.
Yes, that's right. You have a constitutional right to be supported financially by your parents as an adult, provided they're suckers enough to let you keep living with them.
What can I say.
Yes, that's right. You have a constitutional right to be supported financially by your parents as an adult, provided they're suckers enough to let you keep living with them.
What can I say.
Friday, 6 May 2011
Monowi, Nebraska: Requiem for the small town
Monowi had always been a small town. But it contained, within living memory, a school, a church, and a general store. And a tavern, of course--the only business still operating. Elsie Eiler, the proprietor, is also the town's mayor. This gives her the unique privilege of renewing her own liquor licence every year.
You see, in addition to being Monowi's mayor, she's also the town treasurer and tax collector. As well as being the only resident taxpayer. She is, in short, the sole resident of Monowi, and has been ever since her husband died several years ago.
What happened to the thriving town of Monowi to shutter its store, its church, and its school? Why are all its streets overgrown with grass? Why have all of its houses been left to collapse, many of them still containing the possessions of their last inhabitants? And why is the only business still standing a tavern?
We can trace the demise of this town back to the excessive regulations that have gradually made everything in town unprofitable, except getting people drunk. And oh--by the way--state regulations make it so unprofitable to transfer Elsie's liquor licence that she's stuck with running the tavern herself until the day she dies. So when she dies, so dies the town. The irony is that her tavern has no lack of customers; they just, for one reason or another, don't happen to live in Monowi.
Nebraska can be a hard place to make a living--especially for farmers. The Amish who followed Yost Yoder from Juniata County, Pennsylvania out to Gosper County, Nebraska 130 years ago found that out. The dry plains just didn't yield the kind of harvests they were used to, and within 25 years they had all packed up and moved back to Pennsylvania, where even to this day their hard-working and simple-living descendants are known as "Nebraska Amish."
They were the first Amish to leave Nebraska, but they weren't the last.
More farmers moved into Nebraska in the years leading up to World War One. Railroads crisscrossed the state, making it possible for farmers to sell their harvests to consumers thousands of miles away. Those who could hang in there through the lean years would make it all back, and more, when they harvested a bumper crop with the latest machinery. But the War brought many changes to Nebraska, including the first in a series of regulations that drove hard-working farmers and merchants from the rural areas, and from the state as a whole.
It started with the decree from the Nebraska State Council of Defense that banned teaching foreign languages in all schools in the state. This draconian measure, unthinkable today, was intended to inspire patriotism in the populace. A year later, they even banned the use of foreign languages in churches.
The Amish had the unfortunate distinction of not only using German in their church services, but also teaching it in their schools (so that their children would know how to read their German Bibles). Despite the fact that they had come to America for the very reason of escaping service in the Kaiser's armies, they were now labeled--for purely linguistic reasons--as enemy sympathisers. When the government moved in to shut down their parochial schools, the peace-loving Amish had had enough. To a man, they left the state--and have never returned, except to visit the graves of their ancestors. No one noticed it at the time, but the depopulation of rural Nebraska had already begun.
The War was now over; the State Council of Defense disbanded--but the regulations, as they always do, continued to mount. With the Amish gone, tractors began moving in. Mechanization now made it possible for one man to do the work of dozens. Children were no longer indispensable farm hands, but liabilities. The country schools that the Amish had left the state to avoid attending withered and died for lack of students to fill them. And as the schools closed, it was no longer feasible for families to live in the rural areas. Commutes to school stretched out to fifty, sixty, even seventy miles.
Back in Washington, D.C., legislators were reaching deeper and deeper into the pockets of Americans across the country, but spending that money disproportionately in urban districts. At the same time, legislators in Lincoln continued, year after year, to add to the ever-burdening list of regulations that everyone in the state, urban or rural, had to follow. It just wasn't cost-effective anymore to operate small stores and groceries. Selling raw milk became illegal, putting small dairies and the farms that supplied them out of business. Before long there was hardly anything that could be done profitably in the sparsely settled rural areas, except for getting people drunk. The demand for that never went away--not even in the cities, where the growing populations depended more and more on the largesse of the population at large. Driven from downtown by the rising crime rate, business and employed citizens moved to the suburbs.
Such is the foreseeable end of the overregulated populace: abandoned, decaying small towns and city centers, inhabited by hopeless drunks. EDIT SEPT 2024: Here is a rare YouTube video featuring Elsie, still the only resident of Monowi.
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
Where did all that water go? The NIV and Luke 14:1-4
In John chapter two, we read of Jesus turning water into wine. In Luke chapter fourteen, we read of Jesus making water disappear into thin air. Or do we?
KJV, ERV
And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy.
New American Standard Bible (©1995)
And there in front of Him was a man suffering from dropsy.
New International Version (©1984)
There in front of him was a man suffering from dropsy.
New Revised Standard Version (1995)
Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had dropsy.
Contemporary English Version (1995)
All of a sudden a man with swollen legs stood up in front of him.
New and Improved International Version (2001, 2004, 2011)
There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body.
New Living Translation (©2007)
There was a man there whose arms and legs were swollen.
International Standard Version (©2008)
A man whose body was swollen with fluid suddenly appeared in front of him.
Although the versions disagree as to the extent of the swelling, they are all agreed that the person afflicted with swelling is a man--despite the use here of the Greek word anqrwpos, which carries no innate connotation of gender, even though it is in the masculine form grammatically. Something happened here to prevent the TNIV from effecting the global change from 'man' to 'person;' perhaps it was the use of masculine pronouns throughout the rest of this short account. At any rate, there is no more indication in the Greek that this was an adult than that it was a boy of five years. But 'man,' as they have used it here, excludes that meaning in contemporary English.
Now one thing for which I can commend the CBT is their belated removal of this singular use of the word 'dropsy;' it really has no business in an English Bible. Google Ngram shows that the word was replaced by 'swelling' as far back as 1700 (other than in Bible commentaries, which perpetuated the word for another 200 years past its obsolescence), both words yielding to 'edema' in a medical context by 1900. Yet, interestingly, although 'edema' finds current usage in commentaries on Luke, it has not yet found its way into the text itself, even as recently as the 2011 NIV.
So, this person, whoever he was, had edema. The Greek word `udrwpikos basically means 'watery-looking' and refers to the puffiness of retained lymphatic fluid. It is sheer speculation on the part of the translators and even commentators who tried to specify which parts of his body were retaining fluid--simply using 'edema' could have held such speculation in rein. Now let's look at verse four:
King James Bible
And they held their peace. And he took [him], and healed him, and let him go;
New Revised Standard Version (1995)
But they were silent. So Jesus [Gk he] took him and healed him, and sent him away.
New International Versions
But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him away.
New Living Translation (©2007)
When they refused to answer, Jesus touched the sick man and healed him and sent him away.
. . . and so on. Once again, virtually all the modern versions add 'man' to the text; the KJV is the only one of the lot to allow for the age ambiguity of the Greek!
But one has to ask: from a medical perspective, what exactly happened? The medical treatment for edema is what are commonly called "water pills;" anti-edemics which release the extra fluid from the extremities into the bladder. This results, as you can imagine, in a copious flow of urine until the excess fluid is finally excreted. If Jesus immediately healed this person of his edema, one of two things must have happened:
1) The man left behind a huge puddle when he walked away.
2) Jesus caused all that extra fluid to disappear into thin air.
It would appear from the nonchalance with which Dr. Luke relates his account that the second is what occurred. But the NIV and virtually all other modern translations, in mistranslating `udrwpikos as some vague form of swelling, leave the reader unsuspecting of the true nature both of the disease, and of its cure.
Monday, 2 May 2011
Air France finds both of Flight 447's Black Boxes
http://whitemail.blogspot.com/2010/12/flight-447-conclusion.html
In related news, the Navy Seals find Osama bin Laden--and promptly bury him at sea. But will he stay buried? Obviously, no corner of the earth, sky, or sea is now safe from the prying eyes of anyone with enough time and money to spend looking.
I should add, before everyone forgets, that when this news first broke late in the evening of May 1, 2011, it was announced that Osama had been killed a week earlier, by a bomb, and had just now finally been identified. This was all a lie. He'd been killed that day, by a bullet, and they knew who he was when they shot him.
And of course, he was buried in full accordance with Islamic custom, which--ironically enough--requires burial within 24 hours. Since his native land refused to accept his remains, it was appropriate that he was laid to rest midway between the lands of his birth and his death, in the Arabian Sea of the Indian ocean.
Some random thoughts on Osama, while he's still in the news . . .
According to the FBI, Osama's complexion was "olive." Interestingly enough, Zeituni is a common Arabic name, and means "olivey."
According to the FBI, Osama's nationality is "Saudi Arabian." This is not a nationality, it is a political affiliation. It would be like saying my nationality is "Republican American."
His nationality is actually Yemeni.
In related news, the Navy Seals find Osama bin Laden--and promptly bury him at sea. But will he stay buried? Obviously, no corner of the earth, sky, or sea is now safe from the prying eyes of anyone with enough time and money to spend looking.
I should add, before everyone forgets, that when this news first broke late in the evening of May 1, 2011, it was announced that Osama had been killed a week earlier, by a bomb, and had just now finally been identified. This was all a lie. He'd been killed that day, by a bullet, and they knew who he was when they shot him.
And of course, he was buried in full accordance with Islamic custom, which--ironically enough--requires burial within 24 hours. Since his native land refused to accept his remains, it was appropriate that he was laid to rest midway between the lands of his birth and his death, in the Arabian Sea of the Indian ocean.
Some random thoughts on Osama, while he's still in the news . . .
According to the FBI, Osama's complexion was "olive." Interestingly enough, Zeituni is a common Arabic name, and means "olivey."
According to the FBI, Osama's nationality is "Saudi Arabian." This is not a nationality, it is a political affiliation. It would be like saying my nationality is "Republican American."
His nationality is actually Yemeni.
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