Psalm 22

No one should pretend that faith is pretty.

6 But I am a worm, and not human;

scorned by others, and despised by the people.

7 All who see me mock at me;

they make mouths at me, they shake their heads;

8 “Commit your cause to the LORD; let him deliver -

let him rescue the one in whom he delights!”

9 Yet it was you who took me from the womb;

you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.

10 On you I was cast from my birth,

and since my mother bore me you have been my God.

11 Do not be far from me,

for trouble is near

and there is no one to help

via PC(USA) – Devotions.

Worry.

This is a time of fear and worry. Many in America have lost their jobs: thousands of factories have closed in China, and the unions are desperately fighting to keep the conditions for workers — as unemployment climbs — in Europe.

The governments are borrowing. And people want bread they have not earned. From today’s reading… Paul says “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” We worry about what we cannot control. We should make it our concern to deal with what we can control.

John 6:41-51

41Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. 44No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. 45It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’

via PCUSA – Devotions.

Great-grandson of legendary missionary to China dies

James Hudson Taylor III was born on August 12, 1929, in China’s ancient city of Kaifeng, located in Henan province on the south bank of the Yellow River. His parents served as missionaries there for the Free Methodist Church.

Having been born and raised in China, Taylor “thought forms and literature like the Chinese themselves”, said OMF.

In 1935, his family briefly returned to the United States as tension flared between China and Japan. They went back to Kaifeng in 1936, and just a year later the Nanking massacre occurred as Japan began to invade more cities.

Under mounting danger, James Hudson Taylor II was able to secure a sea passage back to the United States in 1939. But Taylor one day asked the then nine-year-old James Hudson Taylor III if he would like to accompany him to the shipping office. It was not, as the younger Taylor expected, to pick up the tickets but to cancel them.

“His parents had resolved that this was no time for missionaries to leave China, instead they would move to the North West to train church leaders; the cost would be high as they would need to leave their four children as boarders at the China Inland Mission’s Chefoo School in eastern China,” said OMF in a statement, noting that this event left a deep impression on James Hudson Taylor III.

The parents and four children were separated for five years by 700 miles, during which time Japan bombed Pearl Harbour in December 1940. Taylor’s mother often recalled scenes from the Nanking massacre and questioned if they should return to the United States for the children’s safety.

But she read Matthew 6:33 and remembered her pastor in Virginia saying, “If you will take care of the things that are dear to God, He will take care of those that are dear to you.”

In 1942, the Taylor children and their grandfather, Herbert Taylor, moved, along with the whole Chefoo school, into an internment camp in Weihsien, north China. The younger Taylor remembers his grandfather’s unshaking faith despite the trialling times.

“I saw in Grandpa how the patterns of life had been set. Every day began with praise,” Taylor wrote in his book God’s Grace to Nine Generations.

The whole family reunited on September 11, 1945, after the camp was liberated.

He returned to the United States for college and earned divinity degrees at Asbury Theological Seminary and Yale University Divinity School. He met his wife Leone Tjepkema, a fellow student, at Spring Arbor College in Michigan and Greenville College in Illinois where he earned his bachelor degree.

The couple served as missionaries in Taiwan and co-worked with Taylor’s parents to teach at Holy Light Bible School, founded by James Taylor II. During his time in Taiwan, Taylor held various leadership roles in theological education and met with Chinese church leaders worldwide to share the need for graduate theological education.

In 1979, he accepted an unexpected invitation to be the seventh general director of then named Overseas Missionary Fellowship. In 1980 he became the first descendant of the mission founder to serve in this position. He turned over leadership of the mission agency to David Pickard in 1991, and with Leone moved to Hong Kong to work with the Chinese people there.

Just two years later, Taylor and several friends in Hong Kong formed Medical Services International (MSI). Later that same year, his son Jamie married Ke Yeh Min from Taiwan, bringing Chinese blood into the family line.

While in Hong Kong, Taylor loved teaching Bible stories and New Testament Greek to his grandchildren James Hudson Taylor V (known as JT) and his sisters, Selina and Joy, according to OMF.

Taylor’s dedication to the Chinese people touched the Chinese government’s heart and on April 4, 2007, he was awarded an honorary citizenship by a county of the Sichuan province

via Great-grandson of legendary missionary to China dies.

Ron Silver, vale atque ave

Ann C. writes about a friend who lost his status by being — a republican. One of her better pieces, and more personal than most. Ron Silver, dead from esophageal cancer.

As Ann said, he will be rewarded for bravery not “Bravery”.

via Welcome to AnnCoulter.com.

On Sundays when we had communion, Ron would pop the host in his mouth as soon as the tray passed him, approvingly observing that matzo was served at church.

He’d often come to church with me on Sundays — while insisting he favored the “Original Testament,” as if the New Testament were an act of judicial activism. He just liked to hear an intellectual lecture on the Bible — and always perked up when the minister began discussing the “Original Testament.”

Today’s reading

7Although our iniquities testify against us, act, O LORD, for your name’s sake; our apostasies indeed are many, and we have sinned against you. 8O hope of Israel, its saviour in time of trouble, why should you be like a stranger in the land, like a traveller turning aside for the night? 9Why should you be like someone confused, like a mighty warrior who cannot give help? Yet you, O LORD, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name; do not forsake us!

10Thus says the LORD concerning this people: Truly they have loved to wander, they have not restrained their feet; therefore the LORD does not accept them, now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins.

11The LORD said to me: Do not pray for the welfare of this people. 12Although they fast, I do not hear their cry, and although they offer burnt-offering and grain-offering, I do not accept them; but by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence I consume them.

13Then I said: “Ah, Lord GOD! Here are the prophets saying to them, ‘You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you true peace in this place.’” 14And the LORD said to me: The prophets are prophesying lies in my name; I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds. 15Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name though I did not send them, and who say, “Sword and famine shall not come on this land”: By sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed. 16And the people to whom they prophesy shall be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem, victims of famine and sword.

via PC(USA) – Devotions.

Heather Roy’s Diary | ACT New Zealand

The last gov’t tried to turn the police into a socail agency. They are not. They are civilian version of the army — mainly because they keep the peace (and the army, which used to have to do this, is bad at it as any effective army specializes in breaking and killing, not preserving and saving).

I’d argue for incompetence. Perhaps due to spending too much time filling in forms for the various bureaux (Te Puni Kokori, Women’s Affairs, PM office etc) and not enough time on the streets.

The next day it was revealed that, while investigating gang intimidation in the area, it seems police left classified information relating to the HNZ eviction in a Mongrel Mob house.

The document also detailed the investigation into the intimidation case, and the eviction of 10 members of an allegedly gang-related family from five State houses in Lower Hutt.

Even worse, the document – labelled “restricted” – contained the names and responsibilities of 50 officers working on the case, a risk assessment of the street, details of how raids would be carried out and the radio call signs police used to identify themselves. It also included details of the woman whose original complaint sparked the investigation, and details on the HNZ staffer who was under police protection.

Police Minister Judith Collins was right when she described the incident as embarrassing, and said it is important for police to take care to ensure that internal documents don’t fall into the wrong hands

via Heather Roy’s Diary | ACT New Zealand.

New York Times sends legal threats to blogs – Boing Boing

Last gasp of a liberal dinosaur: get the suits.

Reminds me of SCO.

Or Hollywood.

Or Obamaborg… o hell, that was his first gasp.

Pop quiz: You’re a troubled media dinosaur struggling to find your way on the Web. What steps can you take to actively discourage people from linking to you, thus reducing your pageviews and revenue?

DMCA Take Down Notice: The NYTimes Goes to War & Wants to Shut us Down (Thanks, Scott!)

via New York Times sends legal threats to blogs – Boing Boing.

We are a soveriengn nation: The UN is a corrupt kleptocracy.

I saw this in the paper and confirmed it in O’Herald. The whale is getting stuck in appropriately to this.

I’m not an internationalist. I consider the ethical and appropriate stance for a small sovereign nation to take is armed neutrality, free trade, British commericail law and property law, and swiss banking regulations.

However, some people like to sign us up to treaties…

Foreign Affairs officials are warning the Government that its hardline sentencing and non-parole policy risk damaging New Zealand’s international reputation.

They say National’s “no parole for the worst murderers” policy and the proposed “three strikes and you’re out” law could breach international obligations on torture and civil rights.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade says such breaches would affect New Zealand’s ability to influence other countries.

The ministry’s advice, obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act, says passing the laws “would pose reputational risks to New Zealand by resulting in international criticism”.

The ministry has told the Government that no parole for the worst murderers – a National election policy – would enable “indefinite detention without the possibility of release”, and would probably violate two human rights conventions monitored by the United Nations.

Act’s “three strikes” policy, which imposes a life sentence with a minimum non-parole period of 25 years on the third “strike” offence, “may result in disproportionate sentences that could also breach the human rights obligations assumed by New Zealand (and most other countries)

via Advisers: Crime laws will hurt NZ’s image – Politics – NZ Herald News.

I’d argue that some things should be dismantled. This is an abrogation of the obligation of the crown to protect the peace — internally and externally. If that requires long sentences, so be it: short and liberal sentences were a fad from the 1960s that failed. (And I am not talking about rehabilitation here. I’m talking about keeping dangerous men (and women) off the streets until they are middle aged or older).  I consider the queen in parlaiment is the final arbiter of this, not some effete francophilic official who is in the pocket of the corrupt kleptocracies that outvote the democracies in New York.

The UN is corrupt. It should be ignored.

Global warming’s no longer happening

We have had a cold summer. We have an early autumn. The North has had a cold winter. And Greenpeace bleats about global warming, just as they did about global cooling in the 1970s.

Global warming is not only no longer happening, it is not likely to resume until 2025 or later, if then. So why are we continuing to hear so much doomsaying about climate change?

There are a lot of people in every age who think they know better than everyone else and, therefore, have a right to tell everyone how to live. In the 1950s, it was country-club and parish council busybodies with their strict moral codes. In the 1970s, it was social democrats with their fanciful economic theories. Today, it’s environmentalists.

via Global warming’s no longer happening.

Yep, it’s about fear and control. Instead of “Let not your hear be troubled…” we are told to be troubled, and make the puritans look like pikers to save the earth.

Which does not need saving.

Scientific Commons | A Community for Scientific Information

Found this site tonight. It is publically available, and very useful if you are trying to find your was around CVz.

Scientific Commons

Details at a Glance

Publications

26,107,635

Repositories

980

via Scientific Commons | A Community for Scientific Information.

They also can generate proper reference (BibTex) codes from any paper there — or end note (de gustibus non disputandem)

@article{
location = {http://www.scientificcommons.org/26403540},
title = {Guidelines, process and ethics with the New Zealand Mental Health (compulsory assessment and treatment) Act: striking a balance},
author = {Gale, Christopher and Mullen, Richard and Shue, Lily},
year = {2007},
abstract = {No abstract available.},
publisher = {BioMed Central Ltd.},
url = {http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/7/S1/S102},
institution = {BioMed Central [http://www.biomedcentral.com/oai/2.0/] (United Kingdom)},

Quite useful.