When Jesus told His closest followers, “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), He wasn’t just talking about the one-time event of Salvation; He was referring to the life-long process of “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded” (Matthew 28:20).

The process of discipleship begins prior to Salvation as we are taught the truth of the gospel message, and it continues as we are “conformed to the likeness of His Son” (Romans 8:29). The need for discipleship is made clear as Jesus explains the parable of the soils.

Mark 4:14-20
“The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop.”

Praise God for those who are sowing seed! The Word of God will never be received if there are not those willing to sow into the lives of others. However, receiving the word, or even initial growth, is not Salvation! Receiving, and being initially excited about the Word, can occur without conviction and certainly without a change of heart. Without proper nourishment and protection - without some form of discipleship - the received word will die and never produce fruit.

Discipleship prepares the soil and leads those who receive the Word to a true understanding of words like, “Whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Discipleship then helps our roots go deep and provides water for sustained growth; it teaches how to recognize and eliminate the thorns which choke and kill; it provides the necessary nutrients to produce a crop. We must commit to being discipled through reading God’s Word, seeking Him in prayer, receiving biblical teaching, and being in fellowship with other believers. We must also search for other young plants who are beginning to grow, and disciple them as they “come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

A true relationship with the Living and Holy God is not a one-time event or prayer, it’s a lifetime commitment. Let’s reach up to our Heavenly Father and reach out to those He places in our path.

The world is searching and the precious life-giving seed is being sown — nurture and encourage at every opportunity. The planted seed will only produce fruit and live to bring Him glory and honor as each of us commits to a life of discipleship.

Americans have record credit-card debt and banks are starting to sweat an uptick in default rates, reports Fortune’s Peter Gumbel. Why some fear this could be the next subprime. Credit card companies concerned about excessive debts being racked up by customers. You have been pre-approved to PANIC!

By Peter Gumbel, Fortune - October 30 2007

(Fortune Magazine) – This past summer’s subprime meltdown involved about $900 billion in now-suspect securitized debt, reckless lending, and consumers who buckled under the weight of loans they couldn’t afford. Now another link in the consumer debt chain - credit cards - is starting to show signs of strain. And the fear that the $915 billion in U.S. credit card debt (an uncannily similar figure) may blow up has major financial institutions like Citigroup, American Express, and Bank of America strapping on their Kevlar vests.

Last month, as banks reported their worst quarterly results since 2001, concerns about rising credit card delinquencies began to make their way onto earnings announcements alongside mentions of subprime woes.

SSgt Yatahey’s comments — Personally, I think credit cards are a necessary evil … I don’t own any credit cards and don’t want them — if I can’t pay cash for something, I simply don’t need it!

Here’s the new rules of the credit crunch

Apparently realizing the dollar is a poor substitute for toilet paper, the Fed may not cut rates this week after all.

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Federal Reserve interest rate cut this week is no sure thing and officials are not seriously considering a half-point reduction in overnight rates, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday without citing sources.

The article by Greg Ip, the Journal’s Fed watcher who is known for sometimes reflecting the views of senior central bankers, said policymakers view this week’s decision as a choice between a quarter-point cut to 4.5 percent and not moving at all.

Investors have widely expected the Fed to cut rates at a two-day meeting ending on Wednesday, following a half-point slash in September, to limit the economic damage from the housing market’s incessant slide.

While the housing market has deteriorated further

If that were not enough, here’s another very interesting twist to the same story by Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post…

Time to Stand Up to Wall Street

Lying about the 44 blocks

When Tom Burnett Sr. came out against the Flight 93 Memorial, the press asked architect Paul Murdoch if there were really going to be 44 inscribed translucent blocks emplaced along the flight path (equaling the number of passengers, crew, AND terrorists). Murdoch acknowledged 43 of the blocks, but denied knowing about a 44th:

[T]here are 40 inscribed marble panels listing the names of the passengers and crew at the gateway to the Sacred Ground, where their remains still rest.

There is then an opening in the wall, Mr. Murdoch said, and three additional panels, which would include the date, Sept. 11, 2001.

“Where the other one is being fabricated, I don’t know,” he said.

Yes he does. Paul Murdoch is fully aware of the large dedicatory glass block at the end of the Entry Portal Walkway:

Man and child stand in front of the 44th block, which forms the railing at the end of the Entry Portal Walkway. The glass block will be inscribed: “A field of honor forever.” This Walkway provides visitors with their first view of the inside of the giant crescent. (From the Entry Portal page of the original design PDFs. Click pic for wider view.)

The flight path

The Entry Portal Walkway is built along the flight path. It signifies, in Paul Murdoch’s own description, the terrorists breaking the circle and turning it into a giant crescent. The flight path then continues down to the crash site, which sits in the middle of the mouth of the giant crescent (in roughly the position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag).

Just before the impact point is the Memorial Wall, also built along the flight path. This two part wall is where the other 43 blocks will be placed (the ones described by Paul Murdoch above):

The forty translucent blocks that run horizontally through the left hand section of wall (closest to the impact crater) will be inscribed with the names of the forty murdered heroes. The three on the right will be inscribed with the 9/11 date. (From the Sacred Ground Plaza page of the original design PDF’s. Click pic for larger image. The alternating white and gray depicts the zig zag layout of the translucent blocks.)

Challenged by the father of one of our murdered heroes, Murdoch told a desperate lie, feigning ignorance of one of the most prominent features of his own design: the huge glass block that dedicates the entire site. This should have been the end of his hijack attempt, but Murdoch’s deception was abetted by both the Memorial Project and the press.

The abettors

“That has been disproved so many times,” said Bill Hayworth, the Memorial Project’s PR flack, when asked about the 44 blocks. Would it have been too much for reporters to ask for this proof?

In fact Murdoch is the first one to ever even deny that there are 44 glass blocks on the flight path. The only earlier Memorial Project statement about the 44 blocks was from Project Manager Jeff Reinbold, who told Alec Rawls in an April 2006 conference call that the giant glass block can’t be counted with the small glass blocks because it is bigger: “If we are going to count the big glass block with the small glass blocks,” he said, “then we have to count the windows in the visitor center too.” (Crescent of Betrayal, download 3, p. 146.)

“The windows in the visitor center are not on the flight path,” Rawls replied. He never said they were all the same size, and he never said there are no other panes of glass in the Memorial. Reinbold’s silly dodges do not contradict Rawls’ 44 glass blocks claim in any way.

The press was also in on the deception. Kecia Bal, the reporter who quoted Hayworth’s dismissal of the 44 blocks claim had already verified the block count for herself. Mr. Rawls had earlier sent her close ups of all 44. She responded with a request for copies of the original design PDFs, so she could check the veracity of these close-ups for herself.

When Bal quoted Hayworth, she knew he was wrong, and allowed him to mislead the public by suppressing her own fact checking of the 44 blocks. People can think that the 44 blocks are innocuous if they want, but lying about the block count certainly is not innocuous. Similarly for many the other lies that are being told in defense of the crescent design.

Memorial Project members insist that it is just coincidence that a person facing directly into the giant crescent will be facing almost exactly at Mecca, but that isn’t what they are telling the public. They are telling the newspapers that the Mecca-orientation claim is false, while acknowledging amongst themselves that the Mecca orientation is real.

Again and again Murdoch, the Memorial Project and the press are lying in concert to cover up the facts of the design. Some people will be unsure what to make of the many suspicious features of the crescent design but no one should doubt the need to expose and condemn those who lie about the facts.

So what can we do? Write, phone or fax the memorial project.

Flight 93 National Memorial

109 West Main Street

Suite 104

Somerset, PA 15560

(814) 443-4557 Phone

(814) 443-2180 Fax

Memorial Project Chairman, John Reynolds

jreynoldsparks@comcast.net

click here to email John Reynolds

Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley at joanne_hanley@nps.gov

click here to email Joanne Hanley

Project Manager Jeff Reinbold at jeff_reinbold@nps.gov

click here to email Jeff Reinbold

Chief Ranger Jill Hawk (who conducted the phony internal investigation) at jill_hawk@nps.gov

click here to email Jill Hawk

Park Service spokesman Phil Sheridan at Phil_Sheridan@nps.gov

click here to email Phil Sheridan

Director, Northeast sector of Park Service (oversees Memorial Project) Mary Bomar at mary_bomar@nps.gov

click here to email Mary Bomar

Communications officer, National Park Service Gary Gaumer at Gerry_Gaumer@nps.gov

click here to email Gerry Gaumer

To emailing all of them at once:

click here to email all of the above

Be respectful, use your own words, but clearly send the message that you agree with Tom Burnett, Sr., that they should respect his wishes that his son’s name should be kept off the memorial, and that a more appropriate memorial should be constructed on the crash site; one that doesn’t memorialize the terrorists because in Flight 93 National Memorial Act, Pub. L. No. 107-226, the purpose of the memorial is spelled out: it is to honor the passengers and crew of the flight, and the last section of the law excludes the terrorists from the definition of passengers and crew.

If you need more to write about, watch this movie.

If you want to join the growing list of bloggers:

1. in objecting to planting an Islamic symbol instead of an American one on the crash site,
2. in objecting to its pointing to Mecca and the terrorists’ intended target,
3. in objecting to dishonoring the memory of the people who fought the terrorists on Flight 93
4. in pointing out how Paul Murdoch cleverly and symbolically cast the passenger and crew out of the Islamic heavens in the design while the terrorists are inside the Islamic heavens
5. in pointing out how the date and the site are dedicated to the terrorists
6. in pointing out the numerous redundant mosque design features
7. in pointing out the terrorist memorializing features
8. and post along with us on Wednesdays,

please contact caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com with your website url. She will, in turn, add you to the email list, send you the blogroll code (if you want to put it in your sidebar), and will send you the prewritten text to post. You should receive the email from Cao a day or two prior to the Wednesday it should be posted, and tracked back to Cao’s blog and Error Theory, if your blog has that capability. This will help us track who in the blogroll is posting the blogburst.

Stop the Memorial Blogburst

Cheers to Wednesday–what some folks call “hump day” because once you’ve reached the afternoon, you’re over the hump on the way to the weekend!

Trackback with one of your posts that you think deserves some special attention from this past week.

Watch for Open Trackbacks here on Fridays, Sundays and Wednesdays.

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One other thing.

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there’s human rights watch, media watch, and a number of “watches”…now we’re launching meatwatch, in honor of one of our devoted trolls who continues to assail us in comments and from his pathetic blog, flinging ‘liar’ around as if he’s the only one who determines what a lie is.

To celebrate one of the most idiotic rivisionists of recent memory whose marching orders come from CAP (Center for American Progress) and Media Matters.

From Discover the Networks:

Established in May 2004, Media Matters for America is a “web-based, not-for-profit … progressive research and information center” seeking to “systematically monitor a cross-section of print, broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet media outlets for conservative misinformation.” But in addition to “news or commentary that is not accurate, reliable, or credible,” the organization’s concept of “misinformation” includes anything that “forwards the conservative agenda.” Thus political differences of opinion are often portrayed by Media Matters as lies or worse.

Now we have an explanation for Meatbrain’s existence and complete devotion to us. lol

It was revealed that there is a new virus being transmitted by people like Meatbrain on the internet, called TNSTAAL (There is no such thing as a lie) virus.

Everyone knows there IS such a thing as a lie; but a tactic people like Meatbrain use is to make sure their lies go undetected by purposely confusing what the truth is. If you accuse someone else of lying first, you have the advantage, or at least THAT’S WHAT HE THINKS. The seeds of deception can easily be sown in fertile grounds of confusion.

This is why there is MEATWATCH.

Wanna join us? Email MeatyWatch at gmail dot com

Happy Halloween, Meatbrain…mwahahahaha! Sleep well tonight…

Thanks to Raven and Bushwhack.

This salute is paying homage to those that went before them; their ideological brothers.

Speaking of which, I received another note from Shahid the other day. He’s making it a regular event.

Shahid Zafar to me:

I will give you pictures since you have mocked me and my quest for the destruction of your filthy country. Allahu Akbar !!!

Previous on Shahid here, here, here, here.

I responded with a picture of a dead terrorist and told him to be a good little Shahid and blow himself up. Idiot.

This is devastatingly stupid…

OTTAWA - John Manley’s Afghanistan panel is setting up a website to take written submissions from the public, the head of a Canadian development group said Saturday.

The panel has said it had no plans for public hearings, but Gerry Barr, president of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, said the website will allow for public input.

Barr and representatives of about a dozen other Canadian aid groups met Manley and his panel on Saturday. They were told an Internet site will be running soon and will accept comments and recommendations.

“Plainly, if they put their address on the website and ask for submissions, they’re going to get them from the general public,” Barr said.

Barr said the aid groups had a lively two hours behind closed doors with Manley and his four fellow committee members.

Well isn’t that nice? The NGOs of Canada that are in Afghanistan are meeting to decide the demise of a military presence in Afghanistan…BEHIND CLOSED DOORS.

Manley, a former Liberal cabinet minister and one-time leadership contender, was appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper earlier this month to look at the future of Canada’s commitment in Afghanistan.

Okay now you know some insanity is coming…

At the time, Harper said he wanted the panel to consider four options:

-Keep training Afghan troops and police to be self-sustaining when Canadian troops withdraw.

-Focus on reconstruction in Kandahar with another NATO country taking over security.

-Shift Canadian security and reconstruction to another region of Afghanistan.

-Withdraw the main body of Canada’s troops in February 2009.

Hmmm. Help Afghanistan to take over its own security operations. Shift security and reconstruction to another region, and withdraw Canada’s troops. huh.

Barr said he urged Manley and the panel to look beyond those choices.

“The options . . . that were given to them at the front end all had to do with . . . the Canadian military in Afghanistan,” Barr said. “We were there to say to them that you need to put in your option category actively the search for a political consensus in Afghanistan, a national peace process and how Canada could support that kind of process.”

Watch what happens when you separate the military from reconstruction efforts…if the Afghans see these two things separately; which they don’t now, disaster will surely strike.

Barr also said it’s important to break perceived linkages between the military and development, which can become intertwined in people’s minds.

And why shouldn’t it? Only in the mind of a liberal should you take the sheepdogs away from the flock and expect no wolves to take advantage of the situation.

“If there is a sort of military signature on aid . . . then the projects themselves can become targets in an insurgency war. As projects become targets, citizens and civilians are targeted themselves . . . and we do the opposite of what we intend with aid.

That evil military. We must do away with it in order to advance our ‘peaceful efforts’.

“We have to stop any confusion between the aid and the military effort.”

It seems clear at least to me that one is protecting the other, and in the terrorist environment, I think it’s smart that they’re thought of as synonymous.

He agreed, though, that security can’t be ignored:

“Plainly, security and development do relate to one another. It’s important to have security in order to have development, but that does not mean they are Siamese twins.”

Riiiight.

Aid workers killed in Afghanistan shooting

UN: 34 Aid Workers Killed in Afghanistan

AFGHANISTAN: Seven aid workers killed

German Aid Worker Killed in Afghanistan Ambush

When the answer why they’re siamese twins is sitting in front of your nose in the form of headlines, you don’t have to wonder why a policy like this, determined by NGOs raking in the cash for their ‘reconstruction efforts’ will definitely suffer if the military withdrawal takes place.

Plus, as it was said by a commenter, if the two are divided from one another, that makes the military nothing more than oppressors.

In the movie about Islam’s violent oppression of women at Frontpage Magazine (you can click on the front page and see it since youtube took it down), there was one phrase that stayed with me…”our fear is stronger than our will to be free”.

And that is why this picture of Laura Bush makes me not only angry, but very sad.

Robert Spencer has a post up about this at Dhimmi Watch, quoting Carolyn Glick at the Jeruselum Post:

TO THE extent that women in Saudi Arabia are allowed leave their homes, they are prohibited from actually being seen by anyone through the rigid enforcement of Islamic dress codes. As the State Department 2006 report explains, “In public, a woman was expected to wear an abaya (a black garment that covers the entire body) and also to cover her head and hair. The religious police generally expected Muslim women to cover their faces and non-Muslim women from other Asian and African countries to comply more fully with local customs of dress than non-Muslim Western women. During the year religious police admonished and harassed citizen and noncitizen women who failed to wear an abaya and hair cover.”

Perhaps it is because it is so offensive to the Western eye to see women covered like sacks of potatoes, the abaya has become a symbol of Islamic oppression and degradation of women. Although outlawing their use, as the French have attempted to do in recent years, is itself a form of religious oppression, the sentiment informing their ban is certainly understandable. The fact is that a free society should not be able to easily stomach the notion that women should be encouraged, let alone obliged to wear degrading garments that deny them the outward vestiges of their humanity and individuality.

Due to the fact that the abayas convey a symbolic message of effective enslavement of women, Mrs. Bush’s interaction with women clad in abayas was the aspect of her trip most scrutinized. In the United Arab Emirates, Mrs. Bush was photographed sitting between four women covered head to toe in abayas while she was wearing regular clothes. The image of Mrs. Bush sitting between four women who look like nothing more than black piles of fabric couldn’t have been more viscerally evocative and consequently, symbolically meaningful.

The image told the world that she - and America - is free and humane while the hidden women of Arabia are enslaved and their society is inhumane.

But then Mrs. Bush went to Saudi Arabia and the symbolic message of the previous day was superseded and lost when she donned an abaya herself and had her picture taken with other abaya-clad women. The symbolic message of those photographs also couldn’t have been clearer. By donning an abaya, Mrs. Bush symbolically accepted the legitimacy of the system of subjugating women that the garment embodies, (or disembodies). Understanding this, conservative media outlets in the US criticized her angrily.

Sunday morning, Mrs. Bush sought to answer her critics in an interview with Fox News. Unfortunately, her remarks compounded the damage. Mrs. Bush said, “These women do not see covering as some sort of subjugation of women, this group of women that I was with. That’s their culture. That’s their tradition. That’s a religious choice of theirs.”

It is true that this is their culture. And it is also their tradition. But it is not their choice. Their culture and tradition are predicated on denying them the choice of whether or not to wear a garment that denies them their identity just as it denies them the right to make any choices about their lives. The Saudi women’s assertions of satisfaction with their plight were no more credible than statements by hostages in support of their captors.

As the First Lady, Laura Bush is an American symbol. By having her picture taken wearing an abaya in Saudi Arabia - the epicenter of Islamic totalitarian misogyny - Mrs. Bush diminished that symbol. In so doing, she weakened the causes of freedom and liberty which America has fought since its founding to secure and defend at home and throughout the world.

I had very mixed feelings about this when I read that the Bush Administration was forcing women who serve in the military in Saudi Arabia to wear the abaya. It may be Saudi tradition, and ‘when in Rome do as the Romans do…’ but where do you draw the line?

And particularly, shouldn’t you be making a statement instead of declaring to the world your dhimmi status like the British hostages of Iran did when they appeared in public cheering Imadinnerjacket and young Leading Seaman Faye Turney appeared in Islamic dress?

What Laura Bush did is unforgivable and ignorant considering she represents all of us. You could argue that at least Turney had an excuse; she was being held hostage and was probably fearing for her life.

“The enemy has killed hundreds of civilians this year, but surprisingly, almost the same number of civilians have been killed by American and allied forces.”

Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes, quoting an inflated anti-American anti-military statistic from Human Rights Watch.

By CHRISTINE HAUSER CONCORD, NH, Oct. 29

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton came under pointed attack Monday by her two main rivals for the Democratic nomination, who said she was not being direct on Social Security and also suggested she was too cozy …

The rivals, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, in campaign appearances in Iowa and here, took on Mrs. Clinton by name, escalating their attacks on her a day before they were to share a stage at the Democratic debate in Philadelphia.

Mr. Obama, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, said Mrs. Clinton had evaded a direct answer on the politically delicate question of how to strengthen Social Security.

“You might remember this came up at the last presidential debate,” Mr. Obama said. “And when Senator Clinton was asked about it, she wouldn’t say what she thinks we should do. And the other day, here in Iowa, she skipped another chance to give a direct answer on this.”

She’s not alone in ducking the issue, of course

By Jim Davenport, Associated Press Writer - October 29, 2007

COLUMBIA, S.C. – A Grammy-winning singer whose role in a Barack Obama campaign event riled gay activists served as master of ceremonies of a gospel concert promoting the Democratic presidential hopeful Sunday night.

Barack Obama is defending himself amongst the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) community. Obama has to choose between keeping his gospel singer and oppose Gays or ditching the singer and angering Black Christians.

Obama did not attend the event, but in a video played for more than 2,000 at the Township Auditorium he called the evening’s acts “inspirational talent” that were among his favorites.

How could you possibly want this IDIOT as a President?

(AP) Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo said Monday he will not seek re-election to his Colorado seat in the House in 2008.

Long-Shot GOP Presidential Contender Will Retire From Congress After Term Is Up

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., voted in 2006 for 700 miles of fencing along the US-Mexican border. He has questioned other candidates’ commitment to border security.

He will continue his long-shot bid for the White House.

The five-term lawmaker said illegal immigration, his core issue, now has national prominence and he doesn’t need to remain in Congress to promote it.

“The issue now has a life of its own and it doesn’t need one particular person to champion it,” he said.

“I feel my job, my task, has been completed. And I am very much at peace with the idea that if I’m not elected president then I won’t be running” for another term in Congress, he said.

CBS News carries the story

If you have an account at youtube, you can subscribe to these. Pretty funny.

Brought to you by Newsbusters.

Don’t buy anything from “Best Buy”!!!

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday October 29, 2007

Best Buy sells person bathroom tiles instead of hard drive. Buyer complains. Best Buy’s position? Sucks to be you!

Best Buy is in the wrong — it’s not legal for a store, no matter how huge and multinational, to go around selling boxes of bathroom tile as hard drives.

Yes, Best Buy was hit with a scam, but that doesn’t mean they should get to pass the loss along to you.

“The employee and assistant manager were more than willing to help, saying that it happens. So they set up the return and I repurchased the drive and while I was checking the contents to ensure it was a hard drive this time, the store manager came up, took the box from me and said to take it up with the manufacturer. Now to my surprise, I argued with the guy saying that they have already accepted the return and I have now purchased the new one. He said I was shit out of luck. I followed up with the manufacturer today and they said they would get the complaint to the Best Buy Purchasing department. Best Buy corporate said that they stand by their manager’s decision.”

>>> Sam, we think you did the exact right thing by stopping payment! <<<