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http://sumdumgai.wordpress.com/

An Inspiring Video

Privacy Ain't What it Used to Be

This wonderful article from the Associated Press shows that the government is set to discard all of our privacy rights, except for Abortion probably.  

According to Donald Kerr "principal deputy director of national intelligence":

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity . . . [i]nstead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.

Mr. Kerr also:

finds concerns that the government may be listening in odd when people are 'perfectly willing for a green-card holder at an (Internet service provider) who may or may have not have been an illegal entrant to the United States to handle their data.'

So, because you willingly give information to a private company who may or may not have hired trustworthy people, you should have no problem just letting the government take that information from you as long as they are not abusing the information.

This is stupid.  There has not yet been a power granted to government that has 
not been abused.  Simply handing over our privacy rights without a fight will
open us up to even more abuse in the future.

Comments Welcome

Environmental Enslavement

"And the Gentiles are lifted up in the pride of their eyes, and have stumbled, because of the greatness of their stumbling block, that they have built up many churches; nevertheless, they put down the power and miracles of God, and preach up unto themselves their own wisdom and their own learning, that they may get gain and grind upon the face of the poor."

-- 2 Nephi 26:20

This page has written about Global Warming before. The first was a rebuttal to a "documentary" about global warming called 'An Inconvenient Truth'. Then about how Al Gore personally benefits financially from the purchase of carbon credits and a third post about environmental activism reaching out to force everyone to change how they live.

Since then, Al Gore's movie won an Oscar and Al Gore has been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize apparently for all of the peacefulness caused by whipping up environmental activists into a frenzy about how we are killing the planet. Al Gore is in good company with others who have won the Nobel Peace Prize. Former winners include:

1- President Jimmy Carter whose efforts as president laid the foundation for our current conflict with Iran including the 400+ day hostage crisis and also to the theft of atomic bomb secrets by the Chinese Army.

2- Kofi Annan and the United Nations that led a world class effort to make as much money as possible from the Iraq Oil for Food program.

3- Yasser Arafat that led the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) for many years. The PLO had as one of its' stated goals the complete elimination of the State of Israel. The PLO was not a country and did not have any defined geographical organization and was still given a place in the U.N. (birds of a feather and all).

4- United Nations Peace Keeping Forces also received the award. This was before the "sex for food" scandal and wide spread allegations of rape perpetrated by the U.N. Peace keepers.

[/rant]

Now that Al Gore is even more of a media darling and people are seeking to recruit him to run for President in 2008, it seems one more global warming post is in order.

Carbon credits are making life more difficult for people in developing countries. 200 years ago, industrialized nations would manufacture items and produce things and then have colonies to have markets to sell their wares. This was true for the 13 Colonies of the United States, early Chinese-Western relations and in many other situations in modern history. Often, the technology was held back so that the colonies would remain in their comparatively backward state and the industrial leaders would continue to lead.

If you lived in a third world country but had access to a diesel powered water pump to irrigate your fields, it is not likely that you would voluntarily give up the engine and start pumping the water on your own power with a stair-master like device would you? That is what is potentially being forced on villages in rural India for carbon credits. Also, would you prefer to heat your home and cook your food by burning wood, or by burning manure? That is another measure that may be forced on villagers.

These foot powered pumps are called treadle pumps and what is even worse about them is:

These pumps were abolished in British prisons a century ago. It seems that what was considered an unacceptable form of punishment for British criminals in the past is looked upon as a positive eco-alternative to machinery for Indian peasants today.

It is unconscionable for people to be thinking in terms of carbon credits when every single purchase of them is causing more difficulty and problems for other people. "Grind upon the face of the poor" indeed.

Comments Welcome

True Patriotism and Idol Worship

On Sunday, the Priesthood Quorum lesson was about putting God first and getting rid of our other competing interests.

Some of the material was taken from a June 1976 First Presidency Message from Pres. Spencer W. Kimball. You can read the whole message here.

The lesson addressed our reliance and desire for money and more creature comforts and how they get in the way of our relationship with God. Part of the address spoke of other matters.

After describing how monkeys were captured by their own greed for a tasty nut, Pres. Kimball had this to say:

And so it often seems to be with people, having such a firm grasp on things of the world—that which is telestial—that no amount of urging and no degree of emergency can persuade them to let go in favor of that which is celestial. Satan gets them in his grip easily. If we insist on spending all our time and resources building up for ourselves a worldly kingdom, that is exactly what we will inherit.

In spite of our delight in defining ourselves as modern, and our tendency to think we possess a sophistication that no people in the past ever had—in spite of these things, we are, on the whole, an idolatrous people—a condition most repugnant to the Lord.

This is all true, but the part that may be hard to swallow is this:

We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel—ships, planes, missiles, fortifications—and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become antienemy instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan’s counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior’s teaching:

“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

“That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 5:44–45.)

So, going to war at the expense of seeking to build up the Kingdom of God is the problem. So what do you do when under attack? If we were living right, we wouldn't be under attack and God would do the fighting for us.

We forget that if we are righteous the Lord will either not suffer our enemies to come upon us—and this is the special promise to the inhabitants of the land of the Americas (see 2 Ne. 1:7)—or he will fight our battles for us (Ex. 14:14; D&C 98:37, to name only two references of many). This he is able to do, for as he said at the time of his betrayal, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt. 26:53.) We can imagine what fearsome soldiers they would be. King Jehoshaphat and his people were delivered by such a troop (see 2 Chr. 20), and when Elisha’s life was threatened, he comforted his servant by saying, “Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them” (2 Kgs. 6:16). The Lord then opened the eyes of the servant, “And he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” (2 Kgs. 6:17.)

Enoch, too, was a man of great faith who would not be distracted from his duties by the enemy: “And so great was the faith of Enoch, that he led the people of God, and their enemies came to battle against them; and he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command; and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness; and all nations feared greatly, so powerful was the word of Enoch.” (Moses 7:13.)

What are we to fear when the Lord is with us? Can we not take the Lord at his word and exercise a particle of faith in him? Our assignment is affirmative: to forsake the things of the world as ends in themselves; to leave off idolatry and press forward in faith; to carry the gospel to our enemies, that they might no longer be our enemies.

We must leave off the worship of modern-day idols and a reliance on the “arm of flesh,” for the Lord has said to all the world in our day, “I will not spare any that remain in Babylon.” (D&C 64:24.)

And THAT is the rub. As this discussion mentioned, sometimes the answer is self defense, but only when moved upon by the spirit. Nephi did not kill Laban until prompted by the spirit three times. The Saviour drove people out of the temple with a whip. The biggest problem is our reliance on such measures instead of our reliance on God.

Comments Welcome