Merkabah

[Skarekrow]

Just a quick update.
Blood work - My alkaline phosphatase is irregularly elevated - which means I probably need my gallbladder out.
Damn ultrasound lady wouldn’t let me see the screen and refused to tell me if she saw any stones (it makes her liable).
Ugh.
Still...that’s what that enzyme signifies.
Eating almost totally vegetarian currently, though I successfully ate some irresistible chicken curry last night.
I suppose the Doctor will call me tomorrow...if they aren’t gallstones then I probably have some type of biliary cancer which would just mean - fuck it all.
But...I think there would have been some other symptoms if that were the case...this is pretty typical for cholelithiasis/itis.
I’ll let you all know when I know...just feeling a bit run down...no energy, but that could be from changing my diet too.
Much love!

 

[Wyote]

Best of luck to you my friend

 

[James]

@Skarekrow I'm sending you my best vibes for a good diagnosis and swift recovery.

I think what we're all most afraid to say is, how much we really do care about each other. It transcends, politics, religion, money. All of it.

I guess it's our fear of loss. Bah. Tldr. Get well soon. *fistbump

 

[Littlelissa]

Sounds awesome!
Are you going to try and attend any of the meetings yourself??

That'd be great but adults are only allowed if they are taking a young person, they want more youth than adults attending . I'm just chanting for the success of the meeting as I have not personally invited a young person along.

 

[Littlelissa]

@Skarekrow I'm sending you my best vibes for a good diagnosis and swift recovery.

Same here.

 

[Skarekrow]

Best of luck to you my friend

@Skarekrow I'm sending you my best vibes for a good diagnosis and swift recovery.

I think what we're all most afraid to say is, how much we really do care about each other. It transcends, politics, religion, money. All of it.

I guess it's our fear of loss. Bah. Tldr. Get well soon. *fistbump

Same here.

Thanks...it’s always a bit unsettling to have wonky blood work and have all weekend to play every scenario in your head while you wait to find out what’s going on.
I suppose if it were that bad they would have called me regardless of the weekend, so I haven’t been letting my imagination run too wild...lol.
Now I’m more worried about potential surgical bills hahahaha.
JK
But there is still some truth to that statement, lol.
Thank you all very much...I’m sure it will all work out fine.
At least you can only get it out once right?

Much love to you all!

 

[Tin Man]

Thanks...it’s always a bit unsettling to have wonky blood work and have all weekend to play every scenario in your head while you wait to find out what’s going on.
I suppose if it were that bad they would have called me regardless of the weekend, so I haven’t been letting my imagination run too wild...lol.
Now I’m more worried about potential surgical bills hahahaha.
JK
But there is still some truth to that statement, lol.
Thank you all very much...I’m sure it will all work out fine.
At least you can only get it out once right?

Much love to you all!

You should have come to me first krowy. I'd get those balls out no problem. And you'd get the friends of Tin Man discount.

Y'know what, I'll do it anyway. I'll wait until the spiked OJ takes effect, and then work on you tonight. It was the testicles you wanted out, right?

 

[WonkyOracle]

it’s always a bit unsettling to have wonky blood !

It's powerful stuff, not for everyone.

 

[Wildfire]

Thinking of you @Skarekrow

 

[Skarekrow]

Hmmmm?

Declassified Military Video Shows Fast-Moving UFO Tracked By Navy Fighter Pilots

​

A newly declassified video obtained by a research company shows a fast-moving UFO off the East Coast as it was tracked by two U.S. Navy pilots in 2015.

It’s unclear what the object is, and the pilots are heard laughing and shouting as they attempt to track it.

“Wow! What is that, man?” one of the pilots says in the video. “Look at that flying!”

The footage was released late last week by To The Stars Academy Of Arts And Science, a private research and media firm, which also provided analysis of the clip.

The company said:

“This footage was captured by a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet using the Raytheon ATFLIR Pod that was being operated by a highly trained aerial observer and weapons system operator whom the government has spent millions of dollars to train.”

The organization notes that the object has no wings or tail, and leaves no exhaust plume.

To The Stars Academy Of Arts And Science was founded by Tom DeLonge, the rock star formerly of Blink 182 and currently in the band Angels & Airwaves.

Other co-founders include Jim Semivan, formerly a senior intelligence member of the CIA, and Hal Puthoff, who has advised NASA and the Defense Department.

Navy Times said the Defense Department had no comment on the video.

Last year, The New York Times revealed the existence of a secret Pentagon UFO program that ran from 2007 until it was reportedly shut down in 2012.

The report included similar footage of unknown fast-moving objects tracked by pilots.

“My personal belief is that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone,” Luis Elizondo, who ran the program, told CNN in December.

Elizondo is also now part of the TTS Academy.

“These are just three videos now that have come out that everybody’s looking at,” Elizondo told CNN Monday. “But there is far more compelling evidence that I was privy to that ― you know, I think you’re looking at the tip of the iceberg.”

The new video has led to calls for a more concerted effort to track and study UFOs.

“Is it possible that America has been technologically leap-frogged by Russia or China?”
Chris Mellon, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, wrote in an editorial in The Washington Post on Friday.

“Or, as many people wondered after the videos were first published by the New York Times in December, might they be evidence of some alien civilization?”

He serves as an adviser to To The Stars Academy Of Arts And Science.

“Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers,” he wrote.

Related: Pentagon confirms they've been investigating UFOs (2017)

​

 

[Skarekrow]

What are your thoughts on this controversial article??

The article removed from Forbes,
“Why White Evangelicalism Is So Cruel”
By Chris Ladd

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 20:
Diana Martinez, 18, an undocumented student was arrested with a dozen other undocumented students refusing to leave their sit-in in the Hart Senate Office building.
Photographed on July 20 in Washington, DC.
​

**This was originally posted to Forbes on Sunday, Mar 11. ​

Forbes took it down today.
​

This is the explanation I received from the editor.
An explanation from Forbes - ​

****
​

We took down your evangelical piece.
It was way out of bounds — painting the entire evangelical movement with a broad brush.​

We also have a policy of not talking about social issues like abortion at Forbes Opinion — only economic policy and politics.
We try to keep things data driven.​

Also, given your criticisms of Robert Jeffress, you should have reached out to him for comment.
As I noted in a recent email, it is extremely important to reach out for comment from anyone you personally criticize in your work.
Let me know if you have any questions about these points.​

***​

Here is the original article in full:​

Robert Jeffress, Pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas and an avid supporter of Donald Trump, earned headlines this week for his defense of the president’s adultery with a porn star.

Regarding the affair and subsequent financial payments, Jeffress explained, “Even if it’s true, it doesn’t matter.”

Such a casual attitude toward adultery and prostitution might seem odd from a guy who blamed 9/11 on America’s sinfulness.
However, seen through the lens of white evangelicals’ real priorities, Jeffress’ disinterest in Trump’s sordid lifestyle makes sense.

Religion is inseparable from culture, and culture is inseparable from history.
Modern, white evangelicalism emerged from the interplay between race and religion in the slave states.

What today we call “evangelical Christianity,” is the product of centuries of conditioning, in which religious practices were adapted to nurture a slave economy.

The calloused insensitivity of modern white evangelicals was shaped by the economic and cultural priorities that forged their theology over centuries.

Many Christian movements take the title “evangelical,” including many African-American denominations.
However, evangelicalism today has been coopted as a preferred description for Christians who were looking to shed an older, largely discredited title: Fundamentalist.

A quick glance at a map showing concentrations of adherents and weekly church attendance reveals the evangelical movement’s center of gravity in the Old South.

And among those evangelical churches, one denomination remains by far the leader in membership, theological pull, and political influence.

There is still today a Southern Baptist Church.
More than a century and a half after the Civil War, and decades after the Methodists and Presbyterians reunited with their Yankee neighbors, America’s most powerful evangelical denomination remains defined, right down to the name over the door, by an 1845 split over slavery.

Southern denominations faced enormous social and political pressure from plantation owners.
Public expressions of dissent on the subject of slavery in the South were not merely outlawed, they were a death sentence.

Baptist ministers who rejected slavery, like South Carolina’s William Henry Brisbane, were forced to flee to the North.
Otherwise, they would end up like Methodist minister Anthony Bewley, who was lynched in Texas in 1860, his bones left exposed at local store to be played with by children.

Whiteness offered protection from many of the South’s cruelties, but that protection stopped at the subject of race.
No one who dared speak truth to power on the subject of slavery, or later Jim Crow, could expect protection.

Generation after generation, Southern pastors adapted their theology to thrive under a terrorist state.
Principled critics were exiled or murdered, leaving voices of dissent few and scattered.

Southern Christianity evolved in strange directions under ever-increasing isolation.
Preachers learned to tailor their message to protect themselves.

If all you knew about Christianity came from a close reading of the New Testament, you’d expect that Christians would be hostile to wealth, emphatic in protection of justice, sympathetic to the point of personal pain toward the sick, persecuted and the migrant, and almost socialist in their economic practices.

None of these consistent Christian themes served the interests of slave owners, so pastors could either abandon them, obscure them, or flee.

What developed in the South was a theology carefully tailored to meet the needs of a slave state.
Biblical emphasis on social justice was rendered miraculously invisible.

A book constructed around the central metaphor of slaves finding their freedom was reinterpreted.
Messages which might have questioned the inherent superiority of the white race, constrained the authority of property owners, or inspired some interest in the poor or less fortunate could not be taught from a pulpit.

Any Christian suggestion of social justice was carefully and safely relegated to “the sweet by and by” where all would be made right at no cost to white worshippers.

In the forge of slavery and Jim Crow, a Christian message of courage, love, compassion, and service to others was burned away.

Stripped of its compassion and integrity, little remained of the Christian message.
What survived was a perverse emphasis on sexual purity as the sole expression of righteousness, along with a creepy obsession with the unquestionable sexual authority of white men.

In a culture where race defined one’s claim to basic humanity, women took on a special religious interest.
Christianity’s historic emphasis on sexual purity as a form of ascetic self-denial was transformed into an obsession with women and sex.

For Southerners, righteousness had little meaning beyond sex, and sexual mores had far less importance for men than for women.
Guarding women’s sexual purity meant guarding the purity of the white race.

There was no higher moral demand.

Changes brought by the Civil War only heightened the need to protect white racial superiority.
Churches were the lynchpin of Jim Crow.

By the time the Civil Rights movement gained force in the South, Dallas’ First Baptist Church, where Jeffress is the pastor today, was a bulwark of segregation and white supremacy.

As the wider culture nationally has struggled to free itself from the burdens of racism, white evangelicals have fought this development while the violence escalated.

What happened to ministers who resisted slavery happened again to those who resisted segregation.
White Episcopal Seminary student, Jonathan Daniels, went to Alabama in 1965 to support voting rights protests.

After being released from jail, he was murdered by an off-duty sheriff’s deputy, who was acquitted by a jury.
Dozens of white activists joined the innumerable black Americans murdered fighting for civil rights in the 60’s, but very few of them were Southern.

White Evangelical Christians opposed desegregation tooth and nail.
Where pressed, they made cheap, cosmetic compromises, like Billy Graham’s concession to allow black worshipers at his crusades.

Graham never made any difficult statements on race, never appeared on stage with his “black friend” Martin Luther King after 1957, and he never marched with King.

When King delivered his “I Have a Dream Speech,” Graham responded with this passive-aggressive gem of Southern theology, “Only when Christ comes again will the little white children of Alabama walk hand in hand with little black children.” & nbsp; For white Southern evangelicals, justice and compassion belong only to the dead.

Churches like First Baptist in Dallas did not become stalwart defenders of segregation by accident.
Like the wider white evangelical movement, it was then and remains today an obstacle to Christian notions of social justice thanks to a long, dismal heritage.

There is no changing the white evangelical movement without a wholesale reconsideration of their theology.
No sign of such a reckoning is apparent.

Those waiting to see the bottom of white evangelical cruelty have little source of optimism.
Men like Pastor Jeffress can dismiss Trump’s racist abuses as easily as they dismiss his fondness for porn stars.

When asked about Trump’s treatment of immigrants, Jeffress shared these comments:

Solving DACA without strengthening borders ignores the teachings of the Bible.
In fact, Christians who support open borders, or blanket amnesty, are cherry-picking Scriptures to suit their own agendas.

For those unfamiliar with Christian scriptures, it might helpful to point out what Jesus reportedly said about this subject, and about the wider question of our compassion for the poor and the suffering:

Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.

What did Jesus say about abortion, the favorite subject of Jeffress and the rest of the evangelical movement?
Nothing.

What does the Bible say about abortion, a practice as old as civilization?
Nothing.

Not one word.
The Bible’s exhortations to compassion for immigrants and the poor stretch long enough to comprise a sizeable book of their own, but no matter.

White evangelicals will not let their political ambitions be constrained by something as pliable as scripture.

Why is the religious right obsessed with subjects like abortion while unmoved by the plight of immigrants, minorities, the poor, the uninsured, and those slaughtered in pointless gun violence?

No white man has ever been denied an abortion.
Few if any white men are affected by the deportation of migrants.

White men are not kept from attending college by laws persecuting Dreamers.
White evangelical Christianity has a bottomless well of compassion for the interests of straight white men, and not a drop to be spared for anyone else at their expense.

The cruelty of white evangelical churches in politics, and in their treatment of their own gay or minority parishioners, is no accident.
It is an institution born in slavery, tuned to serve the needs of Jim Crow, and entirely unwilling to confront either of those realities.

Men like Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy group, are trying to reform the Southern Baptist church in increments, much like Billy Graham before him.

His statements on subjects like the Confederate Flag and sexual harassment are bold, but only relative to previous church proclamations.
He’s still about three decades behind the rest of American culture in recognition of the basic human rights of the country’s non-white, non-male citizens.

Resistance he is facing from evangelicals will continue so long as the theology informing white evangelical religion remains unconsidered and unchallenged.

While white evangelical religion remains dedicated to its roots, it will perpetuate its heritage.
What this religious heritage produced in the 2016 election, when white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump by a record margin, is the truest expression of its moral character.

You will know a tree by its fruit.

 

[Wyote]

What are your thoughts on this controversial article??

What this religious heritage produced in the 2016 election, when white evangelicals voted for Donald Drumpf by a record margin, is the truest expression of its moral character.

You will know a tree by its fruit.

Sums it up pretty well

 

[Stu]

Hmmmm?

Declassified Military Video Shows Fast-Moving UFO Tracked By Navy Fighter Pilots

​

A newly declassified video obtained by a research company shows a fast-moving UFO off the East Coast as it was tracked by two U.S. Navy pilots in 2015.

It’s unclear what the object is, and the pilots are heard laughing and shouting as they attempt to track it.

“Wow! What is that, man?” one of the pilots says in the video. “Look at that flying!”

The footage was released late last week by To The Stars Academy Of Arts And Science, a private research and media firm, which also provided analysis of the clip.

The company said:

“This footage was captured by a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet using the Raytheon ATFLIR Pod that was being operated by a highly trained aerial observer and weapons system operator whom the government has spent millions of dollars to train.”

The organization notes that the object has no wings or tail, and leaves no exhaust plume.

To The Stars Academy Of Arts And Science was founded by Tom DeLonge, the rock star formerly of Blink 182 and currently in the band Angels & Airwaves.

Other co-founders include Jim Semivan, formerly a senior intelligence member of the CIA, and Hal Puthoff, who has advised NASA and the Defense Department.

Navy Times said the Defense Department had no comment on the video.

Last year, The New York Times revealed the existence of a secret Pentagon UFO program that ran from 2007 until it was reportedly shut down in 2012.

The report included similar footage of unknown fast-moving objects tracked by pilots.

“My personal belief is that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone,” Luis Elizondo, who ran the program, told CNN in December.

Elizondo is also now part of the TTS Academy.

“These are just three videos now that have come out that everybody’s looking at,” Elizondo told CNN Monday. “But there is far more compelling evidence that I was privy to that ― you know, I think you’re looking at the tip of the iceberg.”

The new video has led to calls for a more concerted effort to track and study UFOs.

“Is it possible that America has been technologically leap-frogged by Russia or China?”
Chris Mellon, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, wrote in an editorial in The Washington Post on Friday.

“Or, as many people wondered after the videos were first published by the New York Times in December, might they be evidence of some alien civilization?”

He serves as an adviser to To The Stars Academy Of Arts And Science.

“Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers,” he wrote.

Related: Pentagon confirms they've been investigating UFOs (2017)

​

we gotta get Fox and Friends on this...The Donald is the only President who can lead the nation to figuring this out.

 

[Littlelissa]

Just let me know if and when you want me to send you a healing.

 

[Skarekrow]

Sums it up pretty well

My thoughts on it as well.
I think someone at Forbes got a bit butthurt.
lol

we gotta get Fox and Friends on this...The Donald is the only President who can lead the nation to figuring this out.

He would probably declare war on the UFOs and have to cut Medicaid and SS by at least 3/4 to pay for UFO defense spending.

Just let me know if and when you want me to send you a healing.

Thank you I appreciate it!
I may need that soon!


Update:
So far I have elevated liver enzymes - ALT and ALP...ALT means your liver is stressed or pissed or full of cancer, and ALP has to do with your biliary system - i.e. your hepatic ducts, biliary ducts, pancreas, gallbladder, bile ducts, etc. are pissed off...though certain bone diseases can elevate it too.
I likely have stones considering the symptoms.
Had the ultrasound last Friday and have been trying to find out from my Doctor what the fuck he wants to do...along with those results that I still haven’t gotten!
I have now called twice and emailed stating that I am still having symptoms and transient abdominal pain - albeit mild and not like before.
Getting quite perturbed by the whole situation now.
If I don’t hear back by the end of the work day today I am going to write a not so nice email and consider seeing someone else who will fucking do SOMETHING besides leaving me in the dark.
Assholes.
Tried to meditate and got like 8 phone calls all from BS unrelated to the whole thing...fucking telemarketers still call even being on the national do not call registry...argh.
Anyhow...the “ignore it and hope it goes away” tactic has already been tried by myself...so the Doctor’s office is wasting their time...lol.
Really frustrating.

 

[Stu]

@Skarekrow i don't know...Personally i have been waiting for real evidence of non earth technology to be presented to the public for some time. Here is what Trump said today
“I was saying it the other day, because we’re doing a tremendous amount of work in space, I said, maybe we need a new force, we’ll call it the space force. And I was not really serious, and then I said what a great idea, maybe we’ll have to do that,”
So it seems to me that perhaps he was getting briefed "the other day" on verifiable evidence.....

 

[Sandie33]

You will know a tree by its fruit.

Truth.

Getting quite perturbed by the whole situation now.

Breathe dear friend, my appoligies for not seeing this sooner. Hopeful the docs fix you up soon. Pain on the top of pain is doubly hard. You'll be in my thoughts and prayers, big love hugs.

 

[Skarekrow]

@Skarekrow i don't know...Personally i have been waiting for real evidence of non earth technology to be presented to the public for some time. Here is what Trump said today
“I was saying it the other day, because we’re doing a tremendous amount of work in space, I said, maybe we need a new force, we’ll call it the space force. And I was not really serious, and then I said what a great idea, maybe we’ll have to do that,”
So it seems to me that perhaps he was getting briefed "the other day" on verifiable evidence.....

He would be the one to accidentally spill the beans if anyone was actually that stupid...which he certainly is.
It would be cool to see disclosure!

 

[Skarekrow]

Truth.


Breathe dear friend, my appoligies for not seeing this sooner. Hopeful the docs fix you up soon. Pain on the top of pain is doubly hard. You'll be in my thoughts and prayers, big love hugs.

Thanks!
It’s more frustrating than anything...knowing something isn’t right and sitting here doing nothing!
That isn’t my style.
lol

 

[Skarekrow]

Only one more post...