politics – Page 27 – Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment.

Winston Churchill’s bust resurfacing at the joint press conference in London. A Limerick.

On today’s joint press conference between the British PM David Cameron and President Barack Obama one reporter asked about why the bust of Winston Churchill was returned.

Obama answered that he loved Winston Churchill, but he appeared to admit that he had been involved in the decision to remove a Churchill bust from the Oval Office when he became president. It was more important to have a bust of Martin Luther King there, he said.

That is not exactly how it happened. Obama replaced the bust of Winston Churchill with a New Yorker Magazine cover of him walking on water. That was to him a more fitting image to have on display in the Oval Office.

Decisions have consequences. This is “A Period of Consequences.” The phrase is taken from a speech in the House of Commons in late 1936 in which Winston Churchill warned: “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”

The British economist and businessman Josiah Charles Stamp is said to have remarked, “It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.”

The Limerick:

Obama shows signs that fer sure he can’t hack it.

Our country: The consequence starts to attack it.

But Winston was right,

We must face the fight.

On Churchill’s old bust Barry blurted: Take back it!

Earth Day 2016. Let’s clean the air! A Limerick.

It’s time for the annual Earth day

to celebrate Lenin’s old birthday.

Less “carbon pollution”

is not the solution.

Plant trees and clean up! Ban all hairspray!

The very last sentence is meant as a joke. Unfortunately it isn’t. Most countries have switched out ozone-depleting propellants with non-depleting forms because they signed 1987’s Montreal Protocol, a landmark international agreement signed by 191 countries with the goal of phasing out the production and use of CFCs and other ozone depleting chemicals.It is reported that the phase out of the chemicals is now about 90 percent complete.

Just because those hairspray and shaving cream cans aren’t depleting the ozone layer doesn’t mean they are actually good for the environment. They still contain hydrocarbons and/or compressed gases, much more efficient greenhouse gases than CO2. Every time you hit the button, then, you are raising your “carbon footprint”, albeit ever so slightly.

Modern-day, CFC-free aerosol sprays also emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that contribute to ground-level ozone levels, a key component of asthma-inducing smog. The state of California is now regulating consumer products that contain VOCs—and aerosol sprays are not the only targets: Fingernail polish, perfumes, mouthwashes, pump hair sprays, and roll-on and stick deodorants also emit them.

Meanwhile, back in Sep 22, 2011 FDA ruled: Over-the-counter asthma inhalers containing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) will cease to be made or sold after Dec. 31, 2011

Users of Primatene Mist then had to switch to a prescription product to treat their asthma. Asthma accounts for one-quarter of all emergency room visits in the U.S. each year, with 2 million emergency room visits. Each day 11 Americans die from asthma. There are more than 4,000 deaths due to asthma each year, many of which are avoidable with proper treatment like over-the-counter asthma inhalers.

The reason for their phase out is U.S. in complying to a U.N. mandate to phase out all CFC’s since they burn up the ozone layer over Antarctica, and to a lesser degree over the North Pole.

During the heydays of CFC production the world produced about one megaton annually of all types of CFC combined. This led to an increase in CFC of about 25 parts per trillion in the atmosphere per year. After 1994 the CFC’s were phased out and replaced with HCFC’s. The total amount of CFC’s in the air is now decreasing by about 1 percent per year.

A quick calculation shows that over the counter inhalers release maybe 100 tons of CFC’s per year. This would increase the level in the atmosphere by 0.002 parts per trillion per year. Since CFC’s now are decreasing by 20 parte per trillion /year it would speed up the decrease by 1/10000.

So this banning of CFC inhalers will decrease the time to return to previous levels from 100 years to 99 years and 361 days. And for this we are banning $10 inhalers and forcing asthma sufferers to use prescription devices at more than 40 dollars, and increase the number of emergency room visits, and even asthma related deaths. For four days in a hundred years?

And the replacement propellants contains VOC’s, which increases the ground level ozone levels, leading to more asthma inducing smog.

In the meantime the Ozone hole is closing again by itself, maybe due to actions already taken.

FDA and EPA gone mad.

Trig Palin is eight. Sarah Palin has plenty of time to enter national politics. A Limerick.

Trig Paxton von Palin is eight.

Good things come to those who can wait.

Sarah Palin has time;

fifty-two, in her prime;

but Hillary is sixty-eight.

A thought came to me. Suppose Donald Trump became president for two terms, followed by Sarah Palin for two terms; after sixteen years with Sarah Palin she will still be younger than Hillary Clinton would be at her inauguration.

here is a loving tribute to Sarah Palin from none other than Glenn Beck, from a few years ago:

One more verse to the Hillary Clinton nursery rhyme: Crooked Hillary.

Trump unveiled his new nickname for Clinton, “Crooked Hillary” at a Saturday rally in Watertown, New York. It’s the latest in a long list of catchy names aimed at undermining his rivals: “Lyin’ Ted” for Ted Cruz, “Little Marco” for Marco Rubio, and “Low Energy Jeb” for Jeb Bush.

“He can say whatever he wants to say about me, I really could care less,” Clinton said on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” “I don’t respond to Donald Trump and his string of insults about me.”,

Since she could care less, this adds one more verse to the Hillary Clinton nursery rhyme:

Hillary, Hillary, where have you been?

“It’s none of your business, for I am the Queen.”

……………… more ……………..

Hillary, Hillary, are you a crook?

“I make the rules and couldn’t care less, it’s not in MY book.”

The whole nursery rhyme: https://lenbilen.com/2015/05/17/hillary-clinton-as-a-nursery-rhyme/

On Fasting: Fasting for a time or fasting for a purpose?

In his role as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, General George Washington acknowledged a day of “fasting, humiliation and prayer” proclaimed by the Continental Congress to be held on Thursday, May 6, 1779. This has since been shortened to The National Day of Prayer and is an annual day of observance held on the first Thursday of May, designated by the United States Congress, when people are asked “to turn to God in prayer and meditation“. Each year since its inception, the president has signed a proclamation, encouraging all Americans to pray on this day.

Gone is the humiliation aspect. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds nowadays, to Abraham Lincoln in 1863 it meant: Whereas it is fit and becoming in all people at all times to acknowledge and revere the supreme government of God, to bow in humble submission to His chastisements, to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and to pray with all fervency and contrition for the pardon of their past offenses…

On May 15, 1776, Gen. George Washington ordered:

“The Continental Congress having ordered Friday the 17th instant to be observed as a Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, humbly to supplicate the mercy of Almighty God, that it would please Him to pardon all our manifold sins and transgressions, and to prosper the arms of the United Colonies, and finally establish the peace and freedom of America upon a solid and lasting foundation; the General commands all officers and soldiers to pay strict obedience to the orders of the Continental Congress; that, by their unfeigned and pious observance of their religious duties, they may incline the Lord and Giver of victory to prosper our arms.”

Times have changed: The 2015 National day of prayer can be simplified to Obama asking for God’s continued guidance, mercy, and protection as we seek a more just world.

Today, the aspect of humiliation is gone. Well, not altogether.

During a speech to Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, Hillary Clinton lamented that white Americans have a long way to go in realizing all the ways they’ve been given unfair advantages over the nation’s minority populations.

“White Americans must do a much better job of listening when African-Americans talk about the seen and unseen barriers you face every day,” she said. “We need to recognize our privilege and practice humility rather than assume our experiences are everyone else’s experiences.”

So, I guess humility is not totally dead, it seems to be one of her strong points.

But I wanted to discuss fasting.

Do we fast, and if so, why do we fast?

Let us see what scripture says about the subject. In Zechariah 7:4-5 the prophet wrote: “ Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, “Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me—for Me?

This was a fast for a time. The Muslim world holds a hard fast every Muslim year during the month of Ramadan, their 9th month, and since Islam is a lunar based religion with 12 lunar months making one year, Ramadan occurs 11 days earlier every year. This fast is to commemorate the revelation of the giving of the five mandatory contact prayers to be prayed by everybody at very specific times. As an example, the noon prayer must be started 2 min after the sun is in its zenith. To start it any earlier might offend Allah. This is not really a true fast, it is corporate mind control.

So, what is a true fast? In Isaiah 58:3-6 the prophet writes:

‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and You have not seen?
Why have we afflicted our souls, and You take no notice?’

“In fact, in the day of your fast you find pleasure,
And exploit all your laborers.
Indeed you fast for strife and debate,
And to strike with the fist of wickedness.
You will not fast as you do this day,
To make your voice heard on high.
Is it a fast that I have chosen,
A day for a man to afflict his soul?
Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush,
And to spread out sackcloth and ashes?
Would you call this a fast,
And an acceptable day to the Lord?

“Is this not the fast that I have chosen:
To loose the bonds of wickedness,
To undo the heavy burdens,
To let the oppressed go free,
And that you break every yoke?
⁷Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out;
When you see the naked, that you cover him,
And not hide yourself from your own flesh?

Jesus adds a new dimension to fasting. I Matthew 6:16-18 Jesus says:

“Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

Jesus says, when you fast, not if. We are urged to fast, individually, not as part of a group fasting in solidarity, but to seek God’s face, in other words, fast for a purpose.

As we fast, let us fast and pray for a purpose as is stated in 2 Chronicles 7:14

If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Negative publicity cancels the Apr 19 entrance arch of Baal in Times Square.

Update: the New York Times, Snopes and a whole host of other mainstream news sources reported last month that everything was on track for reproductions of the giant 48-foot-tall arch that stood in front of the Temple of Baal in Palmyra, Syria, to be put up simultaneously in Times Square in New York City and Trafalgar Square in London during the month of April. But now that will not be happening.

When the Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) revealed last December that it was intending to use its data and expertise to build not one but two replica Palmyra arches – to be unveiled simultaneously in Trafalgar Square in London and Times Square in New York – it generated headlines across the world.

Since then there has been some backtracking on the original idea. There will be no simultaneous unveiling in New York – they may transport the London arch there later, or build another one – and the Palmyra arch that is being reconstructed is no longer the entrance to the Temple of Bel (which survived an attempt to blow it up in August 2015) but the Arch of Triumph (partially destroyed in October) formerly located at one end of the Great Colonnade. ( Excerpt of an article from the Telegraph, Apr 8 2016)

This is an update to my earlier blog entry https://lenbilen.com/2016/03/31/sign-of-the-times-back-to-baal-worship/

One more verse to the Hillary Clinton nursery rhyme, lies and lies.

Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is viewed as the least honest and trustworthy of all Democratic and Republican candidates, according to a YouGov poll.

Asked whether they think Clinton is honest and trustworthy, 56 percent of respondents say she is not. A little more than a quarter of those polled think Clinton is honest and trustworthy.

This adds one more verse to the Hillary Clinton nursery rhyme:

Hillary, Hillary, where have you been?

“It’s none of your business, for I am the queen.”

……………… more ……………..

Hillary, Hillary, can you tell truth?

“I’m better at lies, I have lied since my youth.”

The whole nursery rhyme: https://lenbilen.com/2015/05/17/hillary-clinton-as-a-nursery-rhyme/

Verse 83 of the Obama Impeachment song: Global Warming drives us crazy.

Here is the link: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/04/04/fact-sheet-what-climate-change-means-your-health-and-family

The White House claims are alarmism at its worst, mostly complete nonsense.

On Obama’s visit to Cuba, he said in the joint press conference with Raúl Castro:

Our governments will (…) work together to protect the beautiful waters of this region that we share. And as two countries threatened by climate change, I believe we can work together to protect communities and our low-lying coasts.”

This brings us to verse 83 of the Obama Impeachment song (as if sung by President Barack Hussein Obama to the tune of “Please release me, let me go”)

Global Warming drives me mad

I said to Castro, my comrade.

Common sense is gone, too bad.

I can only say: You have been had.

Here is the complete impeachment song: https://lenbilen.com/2015/02/25/the-complete-obama-impeachment-song/

Hillary Clinton: An unborn child, or person does not have constitutional rights! A Limerick.

Who has constitutional rights?

Yes, Hillary knows to pick fights.

Not a child, if unborn,

or a person, if scorn.

In Roe vs. Wade she delights.

In Meet the Press, aired Apr 3 the following exchange took place:

Chuck Todd: When or if does an unborn child have constitutional rights?

Hillary Clinton: Well, under our laws currently, that is not something that exists. The unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights. Now, that doesn’t mean that we don’t do everything we possibly can in the vast majority of instances to, you know, help a mother who is carrying a child and wants to make sure that child will be healthy, to have appropriate medical support. It doesn’t mean that, you know, don’t do everything possible to try to fulfil your obligations. But it does not include sacrificing the woman’s right to make decisions. And I think that’s an important distinction that under Roe v. Wade we’ve had refined under our Constitution.

Hillary Clinton stands firmly with the abortion on demand crowd.

The United States of America stands with China, North Korea, Vietnam and Canada to allow elective abortion up to the point of natural birth.

The Netherlands and Singapore prohibit abortion after 24 weeks, the rest of the world prohibit abortion after 20 weeks or earlier.

Remain-Silent-600-LA

Concrete evidence China has cemented its position as world leader.

We now have concrete evidence China has cemented its position as world leader!

This simple pie chart shows China’s cement production is eight times larger than India’s and 30 times larger than United States’.

Stating it another way China has produced more cement in the last 3 years than United States has produced in the last 100 years!

I also realize India is building its infrastructure as fast as they can, and we are not.

Which country is fourth in cement production?
If you guessed Iran, you are right. Iran’s cement production is about 5% less than U.S. They are building bunkers.

What is China doing with all its cement?

For one thing they are building artificial islands in the South China Sea. Their goal is to annex the whole South China Sea.

But that is not all. They are also building ghost towns in areas where nobody lives.

This is the Chinese model. Growing 7 to 10% per year, financing major construction projects. This is a pre-war mentality.

Cement production is also a very energy intensive process. For those worried about CO2, cement production is responsible for about 5% of all CO2 emissions in the world, more than half of it from China.

China also burns half of the world’s coal, and do it with marginal scrubbing releasing soot in the atmosphere causing the air in Beijing to be hazardous about 150 days per year.

china-bad-pollution-climate-change-7__880 — A woman wearing a mask walk through a street covered by dense smog in Harbin, northern China, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. Visibility shrank to less than half a football field and small-particle pollution soared to a record 40 times higher than an international safety standard in one northern Chinese city as the region entered its high-smog season. (AP Photo/Kyodo News) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT

This brown cloud goes out in the Pacific Ocean, then up in the Arctic, settling on the snow and ice, causing the show and ice to have a faster spring ans summer melt.

This is at least partly why the Arctic ice is shrinking while the Antarctic ice is growing.

217380main_May9_fires_label_500

This chart was made in 2003. Since then Chinese cement production has tripled. Notice the southern hemisphere is by comparison pollution free. The CO2 levels are the same for the northern and southern hemisphere, but the temperature trends over the poles go in opposite direction.

ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/graphics/tlt/plots/rss_ts_channel_tlt_southern%20polar_land_and_sea_v03_3.png