IMHO VBG

IMHO=In My Humble Opinion VBG=Very Big Grin

This blog is devoted to topics that interest me and perhaps I'll post information that "the mainstream media" chooses to ignore or deemphasize. The point here is not to debate what I post, just consider it another point of view if you disagree with it, you know, be "open minded" and "tolerant."

Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."

Friday, January 06, 2006

January 6th- Twelfth Day of Christmas

January 6th- Twelfth Day of Christmas
In 567 AD, the Council of Tours ended a dispute.

Western Europe celebrated Christmas, December 25, and Eastern Europe celebrated Epiphany, January 6, recalling the Wise Men's visit and Jesus' baptism.

The Council made all 12 days from December 25 to January 6 "holy days" or "holidays," thus the "Twelve Days of Christmas."

A song from 1625, "In Those Twelve Days," assigned meanings to each day:"What are they that are but one? We have one God alone...What are they which are by two? Two testaments, Old and New...What are they which are but three? Three persons in the Trinity...What are they which are but four? Four sweet Evangelists there are...What are they which are but five? Five senses...What are they which are but six? Six days to labor...What are they which are but seven? Seven liberal arts hath God sent down...What are they which are but eight? Eight Beatitudes...What are they which are but nine? Nine Muses...with sacred tunes...What are they which are but ten? Ten statutes God to Moses gave...What are they which are but eleven? Eleven thousand virgins...suffered death for Jesus' sake.What are they which are but twelve? Twelve attending on God's son."

Endnotes can be found at www.AmericanMinute.com

Artifacts with links to Bible unearthed
January 2, 2006
JERUSALEM -- Israeli archaeologists, screening tons of rubble scooped out of this ancient city's sacred Temple Mount, have discovered hundreds of artifacts and coins, as well as jewelry, some with biblical links dating back more than three millennia.

...Among the unusual finds extracted by Bar-Ilan University's Gabriel Barkai and his team of students and volunteers is a "bulla," or seal impression, thought to be used to close cloth sacks of silver.

"It bears the name Gedalyahu Ben Immer Ha-Cohen, suggesting that the owner may have been a brother of Pashur Ben Immer, described in the Bible [Jeremiah 20:1] as a priest and temple official," Mr. Barkai said.

That verse says: "Pashur, the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the House of the Lord, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things."

...One of the finds is a stone weight equivalent to four shekels (an ancient Hebrew measure, about 2 ounces), marked with words written in the ancient Hebrew alphabet.

...Some finds reflect the Temple Mount's unique and dramatic history. An example of this is an iron arrowhead with a shaft used by the Roman legions during the siege of the Second Hebrew Temple 2,000 years ago.

Presumably belonging to the 10th Legion, Mr. Barkai said, "it was launched from catapults exclusive to the Roman army." He told of "scores of coins, many of them Jewish and minted by the Hasmonean and Herodian dynasty." This find might help explain why Jesus Christ drove the money-changers out of the Temple, as described in the New Testament...
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20060102-123421-5168r.htm

Black & Gus Cows
http://www.joe-ks.com/MultiMedia/Black&Gus.wmv

'FINDME' Plate Dooms Bank Robber
Jan 05 NORFOLK, Neb. Arlie Bichlmeier's personalized license plate reads "FINDME." Thanks to the plate, authorities did find him about 90 minutes after he allegedly tried to rob the Security National Bank branch in Laurel on Wednesday…
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/05/D8EUSIV89.html

Man Arrested in 'Goofy' Jewelry Theft
Jan 05 FARGO, N.D. Diamond earrings stolen from a college fundraiser were recovered when a Minnesota man tried to have them appraised at the jewelry store that donated them, authorities said…
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/05/D8EUT02O0.html

Why we need tough judges, not do-gooders, whether appointed or elected…
Brought to you by the same court system that defied the majority will of Vermont's citizens and unleashed gay marriage.
Vt. Judges Hands Outs 60 Days Sentence for Man Who Repeatedly Raped a Child
According to a Vermont judge, serious crime should not be subject to punishment. “The one message I want to get through is that anger doesn't solve anything. It just corrodes your soul.” So said Judge Edward Cashman who then gave a 60-day jail sentence to a man who raped a little girl repeatedly for four years starting when the girl was six and ending when she was ten.

The judge says that after 25 years on the bench he no longer believes in punishment and he wants to speed the rapist's entry into a rehabilitation program.

...several defense lawyers toldChannel 3 the judge's decision was "fair", "brilliant" and "beautifully reasoned."

Mark Hulett, 34, pleaded guilty in District Court in Burlington to two counts of aggravated sexual assault and one charge of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child, all felonies. The law allowed for him to face up to life in prison on the charges, but the judge decided that he should be let go after 60 days, since the state Corrections Department would not offer Hulett sex-offender counseling until after his release.

...The state prosecutors, along with the girl’s family were seeking the maximum sentence of 8 to 20 years in a federal prison.

...After ruling that the self-confessed child rapist should be back in the community, Cashman told the family, “This is not a situation where I'm doing this for the family”

...Cashman added that a lengthy prison term “will accomplish nothing but to harden this fellow.”
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jan/06010511.html
http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=4325804&nav=4QcS
Only in the world of liberals is a rapist considered the victim.

Oh yeah, one more thing, Judge Cashman once threw out a case against a drunk driver because the police who arrested him were U of Vermont police and the street the driver was driving drunk on was not a campus street.


Man who admitted to plotting to blown up Brooklyn Bridge to sue Bush for “illegally” wiretapping him
Kathleen Parker- I've been trying for several days now to get upset about the National Security Agency's eavesdropping program…the privilege of debating our constitutional rights requires first that we be alive. If federal agents want to listen in on suspected terrorists as they plot their next mass murder, please allow me to turn up the volume.…It is our nature to project onto others the principles, values and qualities we hold dear. But it is our enemies' nature -- and their strategy -- to take advantage of those same principles…

… Maybe people didn't die because federal agents acted in the moment and wiretapped someone they thought might be a threat to U.S. security. Maybe thousands didn't get blown up on the Brooklyn Bridge as Iyman Faris had plotted because agents wiretapped Faris' phone.Now we learn that Faris, who pleaded guilty in October 2003 to working with al-Qaeda, is prepared to sue Bush for “illegally” wiretapping him. The crux of his case would be that Bush's NSA policy violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires a warrant from a special court before an American citizen can be wiretapped.That, at least, is his attorney's position.

…In theory, I don't want to be wiretapped without due process, no matter how unlikely it is that anyone would want to know the shade of my highlights.But in practice, the task of getting scores or hundreds of warrants to wiretap terrorism suspects mid-conversation seems impossible to imprudent.… I want the government to connect all the little dots it can in order to prevent another slaughter on American soil. How rich that Bush should be treated as a criminal for trying to prevent another 9-11 attack, while a known al-Qaeda terrorist could be set free on a technicality.Our decency may kill us yet.http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/kathleenparker/2005/12/31/180759.html

Global Warming Proof:
Snow blankets many areas in Europe
In Poland heavy snowfall blocked roads in Poland's Katowice and Bielsko-Biala area in the south, and blanketed the Baltic coastal city of Gdansk, causing traffic jams and blocking city streets.

With snow falling steadily in France, the national weather service issued road and weather warnings for 70 of the country's 80 regions...

Italy had swirling snow and thick fog enveloping most of the country, and Florence recorded 25cm of snow - the most it has seen in two decades...

Hungary had 40 vehicles piled up on icy asphalt their busiest motorway...

Slovakia had a 40-vehicle accident on a highway in neighboring Slovakia killed one person and left 22 injured, the TASR news agency reported.

Blizzards, ice and high winds prompted a nationwide weather warning in the Netherlands...

Wind-driven snow in Austria piled high drifts onto railway tracks and left motorways treacherous, causing train delays and dozens of traffic accidents...

...To the east, swirling, drifting snow led Czech authorities to contemplate closing several border crossings into Poland...

In Berlin, most streets were buried in snow leaving residents picking their way though drifts and snow banks...

In Switzerland, skies were clear - and temperatures icy. The mercury plummeted to -35,9°C overnight in the town of La Brevine in the Jura mountains for the country's coldest temperature this year.

In Britain, the mercury moved upward after days of sub-freezing weather, and heavy snow turned to rain...http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=qw1136012040788R131

Japan struggles to cope with record snowfall
... Japan was bracing for more snow on Friday after some of the heaviest snowfall on record that has left 57 people dead and paralysed transport...Almost 4 metres (13 ft) of snow has piled up in the worst-hit areas of Niigata near the Japan Sea coast, though the snowiest season of the year is yet to come....This is a phenomenon that occurs on a regular basis, but has lasted longer than usual this winter, an agency official said. Japan's heaviest snowfall usually comes in January and February.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2006-01-06T114914Z_01_MCC637299_RTRUKOC_0_UK-WEATHER-JAPAN-SNOW.xml

Heavy snow in west China
Heavy snowfall in the far western Chinese region of Xinjiang and temperatures as low as minus -45 degrees Fahrenheit have forced the evacuation of almost 100,000 people, the state weather bureau said on Friday...Snow has blanketed the eastern province of Shandong too, cutting off roads and grounding aircraft, as China chills in what the China Daily said this week was the coldest winter in 20 years...http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2006-01-06T113559Z_01_ROB636947_RTRUKOC_0_US-CHINA-WEATHER.xml

Jobless Claims Plunge to Five-Year Low
The number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in more than five years last week, providing strong evidence that the labor market is shaking off the effects of a string of devastating hurricanes.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/05/D8EUI2AO0.html

Gas Futures Drop to 4 1/2-Month Low
Jan. 6, 2006 Natural gas futures fell to a four and a half month low on Thursday, beaten down for the third consecutive day because of a mild start to winter in the U.S. that has tempered traders' supply concerns…

…Crude-oil and heating-oil futures also declined, though prices in the petroleum complex have been in an uptrend since mid-December and analysts are cautioning that the cost of refined products such as gasoline are likely to rise as the year progresses... http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/1/5/164433.shtml

Service Sector Grows Rapidly in December
Jan. 5, 2006 The nation's service sector grew more rapidly in December than in the previous month, an industry group reported Thursday.

The Institute for Supply Management said its index of nonmanufacturing activity increased to 59.8 last month from 58.5 in November. The new figure was above the 59 reading forecast by analysts.... The service sector's growth in December marked the 33nd straight month of its expansion.

...A reading of 50 and above points to a growing service sector, while a figure below that signals contraction. The index fell as low as 53.3 in September when businesses were struggling to deal with sharply higher energy prices after Hurricane Katrina... http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/1/5/103936.shtml

In 1995 Secret Service took thousands of phone records
Project after Oklahoma City tragedy part of Nichols, McVeigh probe
January 5, 2006- A series of internal documents from the U.S. Secret Service obtained by the McCutain Daily Gazette provide details of a project involving the transfer of thousands of telephone and bank records to a government database with the help of U.S. telephone and financial company executives...

...The documents, legally obtained by the newspaper, reveal the transfer of thousands of individual telephone records into a special database the Secret Service created during the first frantic days after the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing.

...Under wraps for a decade now, these Secret Service memos reveal an important behind-the-scenes role the Secret Service played in unraveling some 688 phone calls made using a debit card purchased by Terry L. Nichols and Timothy J. McVeigh, using a fake name, Daryl Bridges.

Federal prosecutors would, over a year later, use the roadmap created by the so-called Daryl Bridges calling card to obtain convictions in the Denver federal trials of McVeigh and Nichols. However, during each trial there was scant mention of any role played by Riley or the Secret Service in obtaining the phone records.

...At no time did the government admit that federal agents were able to obtain thousands of unsuspecting Americans' phone and bank records without their knowledge, nor did the government show a court any evidence that these citizens had done anything illegal.

In a step-by-step fashion, details contained in these Secret Service documents provide insight into a project that over a few days' time enabled the FBI and other federal agencies access to a database containing several thousand U.S. citizens' telephone records swept up and then stored in computer mainframes operated by the Secret Service in Washington, D.C...

...The documents show that within 24 hours of the Oklahoma City bombing, Special Agent Riley began contacting telephone company executives in Oklahoma, and eventually across the nation, searching for telephone records.

...26 million numbers...Soon this database search was expanded to all WCT debit card users in Kansas.
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48223