Session Notes

Calgary’s Child – The EIGHT SECRETS To Family Happiness:

“One of the most important keys to family happiness is maintaining a positive attitude and helping encourage positive attitudes among the children and your spouse. Negativity breeds negativity. Whether you begin exercising or spend a half hour each day meditating (which ever way you prefer to ‘meditate’), finding a way to reduce the amount of stress you bring into a household is essential. ”

This is an good article on focusing on the positive and relaxing to minimize conflicts. We can choose to see our child as demanding or determined. The positive reframe and seeing them in the Finished Work of Jesus, may encourage a positive identity in Christ.

Music – Creative Kids:

“Freely dance a celtic jig, a lively polka, or a steamy salsa while developing rhythm, coordination, and beat. Let your child refine what they already do naturally, and come and have fun”

No right or wrong. It is just letting a kid’s imagination develop so they are not black and white thinkers.

charlotte.com

The Rev. Creflo Dollar disclosed the World Changers Church International’s financial information to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, but said the money he spends is his own.

Dollar said his income comes from personal investments, including businesses and real estate ventures. But the church gave him a Rolls Royce, which he mainly uses for special occasions, he said.

“Without a doubt, my life is not average,” he said. “But I’d like to say, just because it is excessive doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong.”

Remember the story of the day where Jesus stormed into an area the size of a city block, braided up a flog of cords and spent a good hour and a half driving out the gays and the hookers??? Oh, uhh, ya, never mind…

Maybe the federal government of the United States can braid up a flog of their own and take over for Jesus — starting with the rather aptly named Rev. Dollar?

No need for panic, doctors say after Toronto child contracts drug-resistant ailment:

“Yaffe said the child had been otherwise healthy before coming down with the bug and had received all the recommended vaccinations, according to hospital officials. The child had not travelled outside of Ontario before becoming ill more than two weeks ago.”

This is an interesting article because this bacteria was a new strain that could not be vaccinated against. I pray all are protected.

calgary.ctv.ca – Calgary news from CTV:

“Even though most Albertans have been vaccinated when they’re young doctors are learning one dose may not be enough.

Most Canadians born after 1990 did receive two doses of the vaccine, one as an infant and another a few years later and they shouldn’t be affected by the outbreak.

In the second phase of the initiative, all Albertans aged 17 to 26 years who may be at risk of the disease will be targeted for a mumps vaccination.
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Mumps is generally a mild viral illness that results in fever, swelling and tenderness of one or more salivary glands, located at the angle of the jaw.

But officials say some people can be infected but show no symptoms and thereby unknowingly infect others.

Complications of mumps can include inflammation of the testes or ovaries, meningitis and more serious infections of the brain.”

Even though I have given the fear/confusion that my girls could get meningitis, He seemed to say it will be allright whatever we decide for boosters. I have peace at this point rather than terror when we vaccinated before. I pray so for all He lives out His faith/protection for us to trust Him in our choices.

Pew Research Center

The public is losing confidence in itself. A dwindling majority (57%) say they have a good deal of confidence in the wisdom of the American people when it comes to making political decisions. Similarly, the proportion who agrees that Americans “can always find a way to solve our problems” has dropped 16 points in the past five years.

Americans feel increasingly estranged from their government. Barely a third (34%) agree with the statement, “most elected officials care what people like me think,” nearly matching the 20-year low of 33% recorded in 1994 and a 10-point drop since 2002.

Young people continue to hold a more favorable view of government than do other Americans. At the same time, young adults express the least interest in voting and other forms of political participation.

We’ve known for years that the opinions of the American people have been slipping when it comes to the state of their government — that’s not news. What’s striking about this study is more what it doesn’t say then what it does.

The commentary of the study is focused on the loss of support for the leadership and the cynicism about those officials ability to solve the problems before them. Yet, the statistics of the study paint a totally different picture: A loss of confidence in democracy as a functional system.

The public has finally woken up and realized that the country no longer holds elections — it holds popularity contests. They are media driven games wherein the person who manages to most throughly sell his or her soul to and thus raise the most money from corporate and other interests launches the most elaborate media blitz and wins the game. The moment that person takes office, it’s time to pay the piper with a series of decisions that, to the average person, are nearly always destructive.

The official no longer represents the people — the official represents the corporation. Thus even young idealistic men and women, who still trust government, won’t stir themselves to vote.

If the media was actually the watch dog they are supposed to be, they’d be crying out in rage for the cancellation of any person’s ability to raise funds or use personal funds to run a campaign — mandating a simple government payout for advertising purposes. Finally, that would really make it to be about the issues. But no, they are at the trough themselves…

It’s easier to simply distract the public with, oh, I don’t know — perhaps racism? Ya, cool. There’s a plan. Even though, apparently, the same study found that the public is mostly no longer racist…

Interpersonal racial attitudes continue to moderate. More than eight-in-ten (83%) agree that “it’s all right for blacks and whites to date,” up six percentage points since 2003 and 13 points from a Pew survey conducted 10 years ago.

But, never mind that. Let’s devote most of the news coverage this week to some ex-con bounty hunter (Dog) who swore and used racial epithets in a private conversation with his son. That’ll throw them off the issues that really matter…

I just got this one today. It’s a classic example of the new marketing systems now being employed via the web…

We may as well just admit it. The preceding has been a paid advertisement for Britax Regent and is a chief marketing system for the following site…

And, it includes just a few inconsistencies…

The CDC reports that the average age for an 80lb child is between 10 and 12 yrs of age. Apparently, they plan to keep some children in a car seat until they are teens? How to transform your child into a permanent social outcast in his or her Jr. High in one easy lesson…

The stats on seat belt failure date from cars manufactured on cars before the 70′s and even lawyers will admit it. (Getting truth out of them should be cause for national celebration…)

The accident type is a roll over — yet the video demonstrates an accident type mostly caused by seat belt misuse (and unrelated to the video subject) as proof of the danger.

The other booster seat worked — the death was caused by a rare seat belt failure — so buy a new car seat???

Video claims it is recommended — by who? Definitely not the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or the US government…

Finally, there have been aggressive attempts for years to mandate 5pt harness systems in all vehicles. The Federal governments of both the US and Canada have refused them. Reason? They are a pain in the butt, no one will wear them. Seat belts that are worn are worth a lot more then the small increase in safety offered by the 5pt systems no one will bother with wearing.

In years gone by, you had to have accurate ads or someone would sue. In an age of user generated content, who is there to sue?

Classic FUD — Fear, Uncertainty and Despair. It’s the marketing currency of our brave new world — and there is no watch-dog…

waterboarding.org

The confirmation vote for Michael Mukasey, nominee for United States Attorney General, is scheduled for Tuesday, November 6. In his confirmation hearing Judge Mukasey was asked for his opinion on waterboarding as a constitutionally valid technique for interrogation. Mukasey replied, “I don’t know what’s involved in the technique. … I think it would be irresponsible of me to discuss particular techniques with which I am not familiar.”

Waterboarding.org would like to offer to help the nominee become more familiar with water-based coercive interrogation techniques. Using unclassified sources, news reports, and historical records we are attempting to put together as clear a picture as possible of this technique, its history, its legality, and the scope of its use. We are also attempting to organize a group of doctors, paramedics, lawyers, and volunteers to allow anyone who remains confused or unclear on the details of waterboarding to safely subject themselves to as much of the technique as they are willing to endure.

We look forward to advising, educating, and assisting Michael Mukasey, future candidates, public figures, and anyone else who professes ignorance of our nation’s most controversial coercive interrogation technique.

I suspect the proper subtext under this is a line from Lord Acton:

“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Or to put it in other terms:

The person who uses political power to force others to conform to his ideas seems inevitably to become corrupted by the power he holds. In due course, he comes to believe that power and wisdom are one and the same, and since he has power, he must also have wisdom. At this point he begins to lose his ability to distinguish between what is morally right and what is politically expedient.

Christian Right, meet the, “God fearing,” man who promised he would not let you down: Your president. (He’s a man so holy he likely has never even read that ungodly work of pagan thought called the Geneva Convention.)