Thoughts for Saturday, November 18, 2017

"Whenever you run a clandestine operation, you run two things at the same time: you prepare the team for the hit, and you keep it so small there's nobody to spread it all around. And across the hall is a big staff working on what we call special plans. They're preparing the cover story. The cover story is what they want people to believe and to talk about, and to argue about." - From a 1992 speech by Col. Fletcher Prouty, former chief of special operations, Joint Chief of Staff (as quoted in Deep Truth: The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein)
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More recomended reading:

Recommended podcast and sermon:

When Government Tries to Be God, by Dr. David P. Murray
Racial Justice Vs. Biblical Justice - Fighting and Losing the Wrong Battles, by Pastor Swanson

Thoughts for Friday, October 27, 2017

"Whenever you run a clandestine operation, you run two things at the same time: you prepare the team for the hit, and you keep it so small there's nobody to spread it all around. And across the hall is a big staff working on what we call special plans. They're preparing the cover story. The cover story is what they want people to believe and to talk about, and to argue about." - From a 1992 speech by Col. Fletcher Prouty, former chief of special operations, Joint Chief of Staff (as quoted in Deep Truth: The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein)

Recommended podcast and sermon:

When Government Tries to Be God, by Dr. David P. Murray
Racial Justice Vs. Biblical Justice - Fighting and Losing the Wrong Battles, by Pastor Swanson

Misc. Quotes for Saturday, June 11, 2016

"Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade public life." - Lord Melbourne (1779-1848) (opposing the abolition of the slave trade) - as quoted in Kingdoms in Conflict, by Charles Colson

"The greatest thing is to be found at one's post as a child of God, living each day as though it were our last, but planning as though our world might last a hundred years." - C S.  Lewis, as quoted in Kingdoms in Conflict, by Charles Colson

"We all need more than God and a best friend. We need a group of supportive relationships. The reason is simple: having more than one person in our lives allows our friends to be human. To be busy. To be unavailable at times. To hurt and have problems of their own. To have time alone. Then, when one person can't be there for us, there's another number to call. Another person who may have something to offer. And we aren't enslaved to the schedule conflicts of one person. This is the beauty behind the Bible's teaching on the church, the body of Christ. We are all a group of lumpy, bumpy, unfinished sinners, who ask for help and give help, who ask again and give again." - Boundaries, by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend

"Whenever you run a clandestine operation, you run two things at the same time: you prepare the team for the hit, and you keep it so small there's nobody to spread it all around. And across the hall is a big staff working on what we call special plans. They're preparing the cover story. The cover story is what they want people to believe and to talk about, and to argue about." - From a 1992 speech by Col. Fletcher Prouty, former chief of special operations, Joint Chief of Staff (as quoted in Deep Truth: The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein)

“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.” Adlai Stevenson, speech, Detroit, 1952.(Source)

" DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.”
― Bill Gates, The Road Ahead

“To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity.”
― Michael Denton, Evolution: Still A Theory in Crisis (2016)

Misc Quotes for Thursday, June 9, 2016

[Dr. Thomas] Goodwin, having heard much of Mr. Rogers of Dedham [an early Puritan Boanerges] took a journey ...to hear him preach on his lecture day...Mr. Rogers was ...on the subject of...the scriptures. And in that sermon he falls into an expostulation with the people about their neglect of their Bible; ... he personates God to the people, telling them, 'Well, I have trusted you so long with my Bible; you have slighted it, it lies in such and such houses all dust and cobwebs; you care not to listen to it. Do you use my Bible so? Well, you shall have my Bible no longer.' And he takes up the Bible from his cushion, and seas as if he were going away with it, and carrying it from them. But, immediately turns again and personates the people to God, falls down on his knees, cries and pleads most earnestly, 'Lord, whatever Thou dost to us, take not Thy Bible from us; Kill our children, burn our houses, destroy our goods; only spare us Thy Bible, only take not away Thy Bible.' And then he personates God again to the people, 'Say you so? Well, I will try you a while longer; and here is my Bible for you. I will see if you will use it, whether you will love it more...observe it more...practice it more, and live according to it.'" - A Quest for Godliness - the Puritan Vision for the Christian Life, by J. I. Packer

"A defense attorney doesn't have to be brutal...to tie a child witness up in knots. Most of them are not brutal at all, since browbeating a child on the witness stand is not likely to win points with the jury. If the lawyer is smart, his questions are gentle and patient, even kindly. 'Now Susie,' the lawyer may begin. 'Tell me. Have you ever told a lie?...Have you ever told any little lies? A big lie? What's the difference between a big lie and a little lie? What's the biggest lie you ever told? Have you ever told a lie where your mother didn't find out? If your best friend said please don't tell your mother about something, would you lie for your best friend? Do you ever do this?'...Once it has been established that the child is capable of lying, the first seeds of doubt have been planted in the jurors minds." - By Silence Betrayed - Sexual Abuse of Children in America, by John Crewdson

"America, being in danger of being controlled by a few families, was in need of social reform. It could have gone the way of South American 'democracies' without the changes wrought by the articles and books of a wide-open press. In 1900, 10 percent of the [American] population owned 90 percent of the nation's wealth.  The new journalism at the beginning of the twentieth century may have prevented America from becoming the domain of a rich minority ruling a majority of citizens enslaved by poverty. The Standard Oil monopoly was broken up. The graft and bribes of city governments were diminished although not irradiated. The country was no longer apathetic nor overly trusting of its elected leaders. The muckraking movement thrived just over a decade before dying out. The public began to tire of an endless diet of articles on corruption and government injustices. Advertisers in the magazines began complaining of the environment in which they were forced to appear. The magazines began to get regular pressure from corporations that paid the ad bills..." - Deep Truth - The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

Misc. Quotes for Monday, May 23, 2016

"The income tax created more criminals than any single act of government." -- Barry Goldwater (1909-1998) (Source)

"Today we call a person who continually rescues another person a codependent. In effect, codependent, boundaryless people, "co-sign the note" of life for the irresponsible person. Then they end up paying the bills  - physically, emotionally and spiritually - and the spendthrift continues out of control with no consequences. He continues to be loved, pampered, and treated nicely. Establishing boundaries helps codependent people stop interrupting the Law of Sowing and Reaping in their loved one's lives. Boundaries force the person who is doing the sowing to also do the reaping." - Boundaries, by Cloud/Townsend

"Whenever you run a clandestine operation, you run two things at the same time: you prepare the team for the hit, and you keep it so small there's nobody to spread it all around. And across the hall is a big staff working on what we call special plans. They're preparing the cover story. The cover story is what they want people to believe and to talk about, and to argue about." - From a 1992 speech by Col. Fletcher Prouty, former chief of special operations, Joint Chief of Staff (as quoted in Deep Truth: The Lives of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein)