02.05.12

Plutonium: A History of the World’s Most Dangerous Element

Posted in Book Reviews, Church Issues and Bible Interpretations, History at 10:47 am by Administrator

Plutonium:  a History of the World’s Most Dangerous Element by Jeremy Bernstein is another informative book for anyone interested in nuclear issues.  This book is rather short (only 171 pages), but still full of interesting information.  It primarily deals with the discovery of plutonium and the many key scientists involved in its discovery.   Often times we read about scientists like Oppenheimer, Curie, Rongent, Becquerel, Fermi, Szilard, Seaborg, Teller, and Ulam, etc when discussing the discovery of radiation and the development of the A-bomb.  But Bernsteins’s book reveals many more scientists who’s paths crossed and thus contributed to the discovery of plutonium.  While the book is short, at times it’s a bit challenging to read for lay people like me because Bernstein is a physicist, so along with explaining the history of plutonium’s discovery, he gets a little more detailed about the properties and behavior of atoms and elements than the average non-scientific author.  It does make the history much more interesting, though, because it helps to explain the quandaries and dilemmas the scientists were faced with and had to overcome.  Bernstein also briefly describes the climate of the time and why some felt the urgency to develop the bomb first.  I was particularly surprised to learn of the several other women involved that we don’t commonly hear about when discussing the invention or development of the atomic bomb.   Women like Ida Noddack and Lise Meitner, while they weren’t involved with the development of the atom bomb, were involved with the discovery of fission.

Another notable aspect of Berstein’s book deals with the millions and billions of dollars spent on developing nuclear bombs along with the millions and billions of dollars needed to “clean up” the mess that’s left behind, which unfortunately, much of the mess left behind is still not cleaned up, and the price tag for cleaning those sites up is still increasing each year.  For example, Bernstein writes about the Hanford site in Washington State that was the facility used to make the plutonium for the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.  That site cost about $350 million to build and operate.  After WWII and the cold war the site was supposed to be decommissioned.  In 1989, about 45 years after it’s construction, discussion and debate raged as to how to clean up the site which stored 54 million gallons of radioactive waste in 177 underground tanks, some of which were leaking.  This is not to mention the concern of contamination to the Columbia River where the plant was built alongside, or the downwind contamination from the venting of the reactors.  In 1991, the plan to vitrify the waste tanks into glass were abandoned because it wouldn’t be fast enough.  In 1995, the DOE decided to privatize the project by contracting British Nuclear Fuels to do it.  That contract was canceled five years later, and a $4.3 billion contract was awarded to Bechtel to complete the project, which increased to $5.8 billion in 2002 as an incentive to complete the project by 2011.   Then it was decided that it would not be completed by 2015, and the plans were delayed further due to concerns of earthquake safety, etc.  Bernstein wrote that the present estimate to clean up the site is $9.65 billion and will require the further man-hour equivalent of 2,300 engineers working full-time for a year.  His book was copyrighted in 2007, more than 60 years since the construction of the Hanford site.  Some progress has been made, but there’s still a lot of clean up to do.  Now consider that Hanford is only one site.  The U.S. has about 100 other nuclear plants in operation, and a few other sites that have been decommissioned.  How many billions of dollars and contaminated soil will all this amount to?  Who will pay this price for both environmental clean up and medical expenses due to the deleterious health effects of radiation?  The above mentioned clean up price tag doesn’t include medical expenses or pain and suffering.

It’s staggering to me to think of how many billions of dollars is invested in the nuclear industry, which is not as clean as many tout it to be.  Nuclear energy still uses much non-nuclear energy to operate because for example, the mining of the uranium requires the use of a large amount of fossil fuels.  Consider uranium 238 only contains about seven tenths of a percent of natural uranium 235, one would have to mine a ton of U238 to get a pound of U235, the grade commonly used for nuclear fuel.  I still haven’t read of any calculation of how much fossil fuel energy that amounts to in comparison to the calculation that nuclear plants in the U.S. provides 20% of our energy needs.  If they subtract the amount of fossil fuel consumed to provide the fuel for nuclear plants, I wonder if that 20% would go down?  My primary peeve is the contamination issues of nuclear energy.  The monetary costs alone are daunting, but the contamination cost is what really blows me away.  I think of the miles of contaminated lands that are no longer habitable by people, and I think of the thousands of people who have been displaced due to nuclear contamination, and I wonder what God thinks of us.   He originally put us here to tend the land, to be fruitful and multiply.  I think of when God came to Cain after Cain murdered Able and asked him, “What have you done?”   When God comes back as He said He would, there will be no hiding what we have done.

Marlakins

P.S.  Two thumbs up to Jeremy Bernstein’s Plutonium:  A History of the World’s Most Dangerous Element.

01.23.12

The Plutonium Files

Posted in Book Reviews, Church Issues and Bible Interpretations, History, quotes at 12:23 pm by Administrator

For anyone interested in nuclear issues and the history of it’s discovery, I recommend reading The Plutonium Files by Eileen Welsome.  I actually finished reading this book back in November, but was too busy to sit down and give it a proper review.  Now that I’m currently reading another book called, Plutonium by Jeremy Bernstein, I figured I’d better pound out my comments on Welsome’s book before I forget about it.  That would be a shame because her book is very informative and an excellent commentary on how our government has operated.  It also exposes the blatant disregard of peoples’ lives for the sake of science.  Another reason I’ve held off on commenting on Welsome’s book is because it is so full of information, I didn’t know where to start.  What particularly struck me was that her book tied in a lot of information that I had read in previous books, so The Plutonium Files helped to put many things in order in my mind.

The Plutonium Files is a 489-page book dealing with America’s secret medical experiments in the cold war.  Welsome explains how plutonium was once so rare that the largest stock of plutonium in our laboratories was too small to be seen by the naked eye.  As more plutonium was produced, it was held in a beaker the size of a sewing needle.  Now we have hundreds of tons of the stuff that we don’t know what to do with.  According to Bernstein, author of Plutonium, “aside from making nuclear weapons, plutonium is good for nothing else.”  Basically, it’s a deadly poison that is now here with us for the rest of lives.

While I have read about secret programs such as Operation Paperclip where after WWII German scientists were brought to the U.S. and allowed to continue their work here like Von Braun on the V2 rocket and others that helped with mind control experiments later revealed as MKUltra, and even other medical experiments such as those described in Acres of Skin on prisoners,  I had not realized the extent to which secret medical experiments were carried out.  Sure I had read about G.I. guinea pigs, which I actually read a book years ago by that same name, which described how our military was exposed to harmful chemicals such as Agent Orange and also purposely exposed to radiation in the many nuclear bomb tests such as Operation Crossroads and the others that followed.  But Welsome reveals experiments that were performed on unsuspecting and uninformed U.S. citizens, including children and pregnant women.  Sure I realize it was a time when medical ethics codes were not strongly enforced (think the Tuskegee experiments), but just the fact that they did these experiments in secret shows that they knew it was not right.  Yet it was done at the hands of professional scientists and medical personnel using government funding.  Experiments such as feeding plutonium to young boys in their oatmeal and having pregnant women drink radioactive “cocktails,” on the pretense that they were having a nutritional drink were among these secret experiments that lasted for decades.

As I type this, I realize again why I have put off writing my comments on this book–it’s very disturbing to me and really wears me out emotionally.  It saddens me to think how people treat each other.  I find it ironic that these discoveries and inventions (i.e. nuclear bombs) were said to have been necessary for our safety, but yet, the safety of our soldiers and civilians is compromised by those very forces behind trying to protect us with these nuclear devices.  The same forces that have developed bombs to protect us has endangered all of us from the threat of nuclear war to the contamination of our environment–soil and water.  We are left today with highly contaminated areas and tons of radioactive wastes that they “still” don’t know what to do with.  With the Chernobyl accident and now the Fukushima accidents, which is still not contained, our world is being blanketed with radioactive particles contaminating our food and water.  And yet, they continue to march on creating more and more radioactive waste every day, every minute.  The silence in our media reflects the U.S.’s disregard for our true safety and well-being because less information to it’s public translate into less opposition to nuclear technology.  The more sane countries such as Austria, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Belguim, and Spain have at least acknowledged the dangers of nuclear power and are phasing them out.

The nuclear issue is so complicated that I don’t even want to start into that subject right now.  However, I do find it upsetting that many of us have no say in what happens or if nuclear projects get funded.  The secrecy is astounding.  An example is that even the Manhattan Project, which cost billions of taxpayers’ dollars, was so secret that even Truman, the vice president at the time, wasn’t even aware of the project until Roosevelt died.  It appears this is the way our government operates, with many highly secret plans and operations.  For a supposedly Christian society, this culture of secrecy is contrary to the Bible–John 3:20 states that,

“For everyone who doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.”

So many government operations are secret, and for the most part, the public is completely kept in the dark.  This secrecy ensures no outcry or opposition to these projects.  Strangely enough, this secrecy creates the “in” groups vs. the “out groups.”  Those who are “in” (who know of these secret projects) feel privileged and possibly superior to the “out groups,” who don’t know of these projects.  So they convince themselves that they have a right to “experiment” on others for their “higher cause” (commonly patriotism is the name of that higher cause).  This is again contrary to the Bible regarding treating others as you would like to be treated.  Or even contrary to the biblical concept of caring for those who are poor or needy (many secret experiments are carried out on the underprivileged like prisoners or lower income groups).  It’s contrary to the biblical concept of not participating in evil so that good will come from it.  But light will eventually shine as the bible does tell us in Luke 12:2-3 that,

“For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed;  neither hid, that shall not be known.

“Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoke in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.”

This post is turning out to be a book  in itself, so I’ll wrap it up here.  But first, one last point I want to bring up is Welsome’s title of chapter 20–Shields Warren:  ”Patriotic Enough to Lie.”  This chapter documented how some of the scientists were being questioned by ethics groups regarding their participation in some plutonium experiments.  Many of these scientists covered their butts  with lies or acted like they didn’t know about these projects.  One such scientist was Shields Warren of who fellow scientist Merril Eisenbud once wrote, “some people are patriotic enough to lie.”  Again, another contradiction to the bible wherein we are told not to lie, patriotism is not an exception.

Welsome’s book is excellent, and especially insightful as it ties in so many other books I’ve read such as the Radium Girls and Yellow Dirt and others.  Definitely two thumbs up!

Marlakins

11.02.11

Mining in the USA

Posted in Church Issues and Bible Interpretations, Historical Trivia, History, Uncategorized at 8:00 pm by Administrator

Back in 1999, I was diagnosed with Very Severe Idiopathic Aplastic Anemia.  Idiopathic basically meant that they didn’t know what caused my aplastic anemia.  But that didn’t stop me from wondering what might have caused it, and so one of the things I did was take a minerals test to see if I had any heavy metals problem.  The one metal that stood out was uranium.  My level was off the chart.  My naturopath remarked that all the people he had seen with levels that high pretty much all had cancer.  He also remarked that there was a woman he knew who got uranium exposure through tailings from the uranium mines.  I didn’t think about it back then because I really didn’t know anything about uranium and what it was.  So I had no idea where any uranium mining was done.  Since then I have read quite a bit on it.  And recently when Borders went out of business, I purchased a bunch of books, several about the topic of nuclear energy and/or nuclear arms.  I’m currently reading one of those books, which is entitled Yellow Dirt by Judy Pasternak.

I’m only half way through Pasternak’s book, but I can definitely say that she is an excellent writer.  As usual, I never know at first if anything I’m reading is true or not, so I do like to look up other sources to see what they say about the topic.  In particular, Pasternak’s book deals with uranium mining in Navajo territory.   For anyone who may not know where Navajo territory is, it’s in the four corners region of where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah meet, thus it’s name, four corners.  Now, I’ve been to Taos, New Mexico, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park in Utah, and the Grand Canyon in Arizona, but I’ve only been to the airport in Denver, Colorado.   I’ve always thought it would be nice to one day visit Four Corners.  After reading about the uranium mining done on the Navajo reservation and how it was never cleaned up properly, I don’t think I want to go there anymore, sigh.  It’s a really sad thing to think about how the Navajo reservation was poisoned like that considering the Navajo were trying to help with the cold war effort of mining for uranium and earlier for vanadium.  Not only were the Navajo “not” informed of the dangers of radiation exposure, then were purposefully monitored (in secret) to see how the human body reacted to radiation exposure.  Basically, they were used as both slave (they only got a small portion of what the uranium was worth) and guinea pig (according to Pasternak, the Manhattan Project was interested in understanding the risks their scientists were taking with radiation exposure).  To add insult to injury, it was the Navajo Code Talkers that helped the U.S. take Iwo Jima, yet their land and people were knowingly exposed to dangerous levels of radiation through their mining.  The Japanese were never able to crack the code because they didn’t know the Navajo language.

So I wanted to see what other sources there were regarding the uranium mining in Navajo territory.  I found videos such as this one on the subject.

returnofnavajoboy

While Pasternak’s book hasn’t discussed it (I’m only half way through the book, so she might mention it later), it seems there were other Indian reservations that were involved with uranium mining.  Here’s another video on the subject.

uraniummining

Frankel mentioned Crow Butte, so I’m assuming that’s in Washington State.  But I’ve seen other videos mentioning mining with the Lakota Indians, so I think that’s also South and North Dakota.  The rush for uranium was during the 40’s to 70’s, but some mines continued on longer.  Yet, to this day, it seems that those sites have never been properly cleaned up and people continue to be exposed to unsafe levels of radiation.

After watching some of these videos, I came across this one wherein McCain and several other politicians are trying to continue uranium mining in Arizona.  Either McCain is mistaken about his information regarding the safety of uranium mining or he is just out-right lying, I don’t know, but he’s definitely pushing to commence uranium mining.   They mention the Arizona Strip, which sounds like it’s along the Arizona-Utah border.

arizonastrip

I know that the nuclear issue is very controversial, but after Fukushima, after Chernobyl, after Three Mile Island, after Windscale, after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the multitude of studies showing the dangers and harmful effects of radiation, when will we learn?  I don’t understand how anyone can think nuclear power is safe.  From the mining of uranium ore to the spent fuel rods that they don’t know what to do with, nuclear power is dangerous.  They talk about opening uranium mines for jobs, but are we willing to pay our lives for those jobs?  Many, if not most, of those guys who mined uranium didn’t even know they were in danger until it was too late.  What people do to each other is really appalling.  If we only followed God’s golden rule to love one another, we wouldn’t be deceiving people into working in dangerous conditions.  Instead of loving one another, we love money and power.  But God sees everything.

Matthew 25:40

“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Since you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”

Marlakins

09.22.11

Mutually Assured Respect

Posted in Church Issues and Bible Interpretations, History at 11:18 am by Administrator

While I don’t agree with everything Ron Paul believes in, he definitely makes much more sense to me than any other politician I’ve heard thus far.   His recent video regarding MAD vs MAR is one of the reasons I respect Ron Paul.  It’s another example to me about how much more honest and informed this man is. Paul’s video message also aligns with some of the issues Mohammed  Elbaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), wrote about in his book, The Age of Deception.  I don’t mean to imply that ALL of the U.S. is disrespectful and antagonistic toward foreign countries and their peoples, but rather the U.S. does harbor a faction (if I may call is that) that  promotes and advances antagonistic behavior around the world.  Unfortunately, this faction includes some very influential people who have control and thus use of our military.

ronpaulmarespect

Click here to listen to Paul’s message Mutually Assured Destruction vs Mutually Assured Respect.

Thank you, Ron Paul, for your intellectual honesty, clarity, kindness, and bravery.  We need more great minds and people like you!

Marlakins

09.17.11

Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum

Posted in Church Issues and Bible Interpretations, History at 7:41 pm by Administrator

Aaron’s American history teacher recommended visiting the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum for his class.  Since I love museums and anything having to do with history, I tagged along (much like the time I tagged along with Andrew when he went to the Wende Museum for his history class).  :D   It was a small museum, but very informative!  Actually both museums were small, but both very interesting!

Unfortunately, when we went to the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum, we only had about an hour to spend there.  It definitely takes a lot more time than that to soak it all that they have.  So, basically I didn’t soak up all I wanted to soak up.  So, I’ll blog  just a short run down of what we saw.  First of all the museum is now housed in what used to be a court house.   They have preserved a couple court rooms, which is still used today for movie shoots.  This particular court room was used in the recent movie, The Lincoln Lawyer.

maymeoldcourtroom

Gee, this reminds me that I was able to watch a few movies while in the Philippines, but haven’t gotten around to giving my movie critique.  Hmmm.  Will I remember what happened in the movies?  Ha!

Anyway, moving right along, here are a few of the items on display.

maymenegros4sale

Right next to the “For Sale” sign were these. . .

maymefigurines

I felt like we kinda rushed through this room and didn’t get to read all the explanations of what each item was.  And one of these days I’ll have to look up what the deal is with African Americans and watermelon.  I mean I love watermelon and can’t get enough when they’re in season.  There’s one waiting for me in my fridge right now. . .

There were a good number of photos of African American actors, musicians, and athletes.  Here’s one of Sammy Davis, Jr. in his younger days.

maymesammydavisjr

It’s hard sometimes to get the shot right when the items are behind glass.  However, just the fact that they allow photos is good enough for me.  There are a lot of places that don’t allow photos, so I really appreciate this.  Aaron’s reflection is visible in the glass on that shot.

I should mention that many of the items in this museum was taken from the collection of Mayme A. Clayton.  Her original intent was to show children that African Americans have done great things.   Hence all the pictures and books of and from African Americans.  And of course with our tumultuous history of racism, this museum has a section devoted to parts of the civil rights movement, in particular the “Freedom Ride.”

maymefreedomriders

I have to admit that this is where I was taken aback.  I went to school here in Los Angeles, and we were taught about Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and such, however I do not recall ever being taught about these freedom riders.  Only recently a few months ago this year did one of my friends mention to me that she saw a documentary on cable regarding the freedom riders.  If anyone is like me and is just learning about this, here’s a little explanation of what the freedom riders were about.

maymefreedomridersplaccard

There was a replica of a burnt out bus reminiscent of one of the freedom ride buses that was burned in Alabama.  It’s mind boggling to me how people can be so mean to each other.

maymebus

There were pictures along the walls of the various encounters of the freedom riders as well as a running video of interviews and historical footage and pictures of the bus that didn’t make it through Alabama.  Apparently they were met with a mad crowd who tried to kill them and/or scare them to death.  The mod surrounded the bus, taunted the passengers, and subsequently burned it while they were still inside.  The occupants were only able to get out of the bus because the mob thought the bus was going to blow up and ran away.  It was a really disturbing video to watch.    There are several videos on Youtube such as this one that helps describe the risks and dangers involved with participating in those freedom rides.

Here’s another replica in the museum of one of the diners used for the “sit-ins.”

maymediner

There was more literature to read within the counter cases, but we had to go, so hopefully I can go back again and take a more thorough look through this museum.  The museum library is also available upon request.  While I know there are a lot of good things about America to celebrate, I think it’s important that we never forget the bad things in our history as well.  I think if we don’t lose sight of our past, both the good and the bad, we can move forward as a more humble nation better equipped to deal with the rest of the world with all it’s cultural complexities.  As the Bible says, “pride comes before a fall.”  We Americans should be careful about being too proud to be American.  Let’s not lose sight of our past, so that we understand who we are today and how we got here.

It’s important that we not only preserve our history, but learn it, so that things like this don’t happen again.

maymewhitewaitingroom

Marlakins

09.03.11

My Boyfriend Wants a Threesome

Posted in Church Issues and Bible Interpretations at 8:01 am by Administrator

This in not my normal topic. . . Just the other day I was reading someone else’s blog wherein the author was describing personal emotional feelings she was having.  As a somewhat private person, I found it surprising that some people can express so much online  so that everyone and anyone on the net could read.  I guess I could see if she was posting completely anonomously, but no, this was “her” blog with pictures and all.  Granted she was only discussing her personal life-long feelings of inadequacy due to her physical appearance, so in a way, her post was refreshing because she shared a common frailty that all of us have to some extent–insecurity.   The gist of her post was her struggle and attempt to free herself of that insecurity and to learn to be comfortable in her own skin.  Now I can admire that.  At 46, I’m learning to get comfortable in my  own skin, too, but still have issues that are hard to shake from time to time.  But that’s life, right?  We all go through that.  It’s a lesson I try to teach my boys so that they don’t hang on to old hurts and hangups.  And also so that they will be kind to others so that they don’t “give” others hurts and hangups that they’ll carry throughout their life-times.

In light of discussing personal thoughts, I’ll go out a little on a limb today with this topic.  So, this morning I was going through my usual web searching and came across this article, My Boyfriend Wants a Threesome.  Why did that catch my attention you ask?  No, thankfully, that’s not an issue for me right now!  However, it is an issue for someone I know, and while it was being revealed to me, I just kept my mouth shut because I was told it was “helping” her relationship, and who am I to tell her it wasn’t?  I read the “question” and the subsequent answers in the article, and couldn’t help but agree.  Now I’m debating on whether to forward that article to the person or not.  I mean the “deed” is already being done. . . won’t the result be the same whether I forward the article or not?  I thought finding the article was timely, until I realized this.  Too bad I didn’t see the article sooner or known about the problem earlier.  Sigh.  But I do believe everything happens for a reason.  Not sure if it’s a good idea, but I “think” I’m gonna sit this one out. . .

I’ve never been much into “self-help” books and articles (part of the reason I don’t think I could stand being a shrink), but more recently, I can see how it can help some people.  There may not be anything “new under the sun” as Solomon claimed, but we really do seem to learn something new every day, anyway.  But this I can say, I have learned a long time ago not to ask my partner about his “fantasies”.  I don’t think it matters how confident you are, either.  I’ve seen and heard about a lot of crazy things, to know that not everything is all sweet and innocent.  None of us are perfect and we can’t escape life with all it’s wild cards, yet we all have memories that can burn us for a lifetime.  My conclusion?  Better to not know everything . .

Marlakins

07.01.11

Quote Friday

Posted in Church Issues and Bible Interpretations, quotes at 12:33 am by Administrator

“9Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.”

Proverbs 31:9

I think of the above verse when considering whether our Presidents are doing their job as leaders of our nation because that passage deals with what the job of a king is.  So when thinking of our President, does he protect the poor and needy?  That was one of the concerns of King Lemuel, who some believe was actually King Solomon.  And this is why during the Presidential elections back in 2008 where claims were being made that Obama “only” worked on charities, thus was unqualified for the position of U.S. President, I thought it odd.  Because I thought the fact that he worked for charity showed that he cared for the needy– an “essential” trait for a leader.  I found that hardly a point to hold against him.  But how is he doing now? Is he still advocating for the needy or is he succumbing to the pull of  corporate interests?

Marlakins

05.25.11

My Purpose In Life

Posted in Church Issues and Bible Interpretations, Hmmm Moments, Uncategorized, family stuff at 1:04 am by Administrator

Yesterday I spent time sorting through my “things.”  We all have hobbies in this house, so there tends to be lots of “things” to sort and organize here.  And it made me start to think (again) about all the people who have been displaced from their homes with hardly any of their personal possessions.  I was just looking up info on the millions of displaced people in Pakistan due to the 2010 flood.  And of course I thought of the Japanese who have been displaced due to the tsunami and nuclear disaster.  I thought of the hundreds of thousands of people displaced in the Ivory Coast, and now of the hundreds of people affected by the floods in the Mississippi region and thousands in Joplin, Missouri. . .  There are so many people now who are out without their usual comforts.  I know I thought about it when we had fires here in the Los Angeles county as well and that really spurred me to organize my stuff because if there were a warning to leave the house, I wanted to be able to grab stuff quickly and go.  But a lot of my “things” would be left behind.  I am reminded of how these things are not that important.

I’m not really sure what I want to say.  I guess I’m just wondering again about why things are and why God does things or allows things.  Why is it that some people have had to endure so much suffering?  I guess we all suffer to some degree, but I have never had a day go by where I have not had sufficient food to eat.  I’ve never lived through a war zone.  I’ve never been displaced. I’m not rich or anything, but I do live very comfortably.   It’s not that I feel guilty or anything because it’s not like I did anything knowingly wrong to live this way.  It’s just that it makes me wonder what my purpose in life is.  Do I have a purpose?  Brian has told me that my purpose is to serve my family.  The Bible says that women will be preserved in child bearing.  I know not all women have children or can have children, but it does seem to imply taking care of children.  As I type this Micah 6:8 comes to mind:

8He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

I think back again to the thousands and even millions of people who have been displaced.  Is there anything a Christian gal like me can do for them?  I can’t possibly help millions of people, so what do I do with that knowledge?  How can I apply Micah 6:8 to that?  I’m thinking that it’s my job then is to teach my children to know these things.  I need to teach them to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.  And hopefully that will spread as they grow and live their lives so that everyone they come in contact with will share those things.  And maybe in that way some needy people will be reached.  We can’t all be Rambos or Florence Nightingales.  But then again, the Bible doesn’t require that of all of us.  But it does require all of us to be just, merciful, and humble.

Marlakins

05.24.11

Time-Lapse Map of Nuclear Explosions from1945 to 1998

Posted in Church Issues and Bible Interpretations, History, quotes at 1:08 pm by Administrator

My youngest son found this time-lapsed video of all the nuclear explosions from 1945 to 1998.  It starts out a bit slow in the beginning as the a-bomb comes into development.  The first being detonated in New Mexico, the Trinity test followed by Hiroshima (Uranium) and then Nagasaki (Plutonium).  A few months later all the other testings follow starting with Able and Baker as part of Operation Crossroads in the Bikini Atoll.  It gets crazy with all the subsequent nuclear tests, literally thousands.  I believe the first underground test was done in 1951, and in 1963 above ground testing was banned and only underground testing was done.  But other countries were not included with that agreement, so I think India, Pakistan, and later North Korea tested their nuclear bombs above ground.  The video only covers up to 1998, so North Korea doesn’t show up.

timelapsedmap

Enjoy watching your tax dollars at work!   The video can be viewed here.  Gives us a little peak as to why nuclear reactors are so dear to the establishment (nuclear reactors are essential for the development of nuclear bombs because it’s through nuclear reactors that plutonium and tritium, etc. are developed for the making of nuclear bombs.  We are a warmongering country after all, so we need this shit).  The B Reactor at Hanford, Washington was the site where plutonium was made for the first bomb test (Trinity), and the bomb used on Nagasaki (Fat Man).  The site left a lot of radioactive contamination today and has cost billions of dollars to clean up.  The clean up is ongoing and runs to the tune of about 2 billion a year from some sources I’ve read.

20Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

~Isaiah 5:20

Marlakins

05.22.11

Judgment Day?

Posted in Church Issues and Bible Interpretations, God at 12:47 am by Administrator

Well, it’s May 22, 2011, and we’re still here.  Surprise, surprise, the world didn’t end. . . In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out this link.

Not that I believed it, but it’s just one of those things where I would rather wait before commenting.   When I heard that some guy was claiming Judgment Day on May 21, 2011, I didn’t believe it because the Bible tells us that no one will know the day or the hour, Matthew 24:35-36.

“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. 36But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”

Now having said that, apparently, this guy wasn’t claiming that the world was going to end on May21, but that it was going to be the beginning of Judgment.  That’s actually a big difference from the end of the world as the media is presenting it.  But even so, so far, I can’t see any “judgment” yet.  I’m guessing he was referring to the “bowls of wrath” mentioned in Revelation 16.  And it doesn’t look like that’s happened, yet, either.  As far as I know, the first bowl involves sores on those who have taken the mark of the Beast.  Uh, first there has to be a Beast and people will have taken the mark.  I don’t think that’s happened yet.  You know, “no one can buy or sell unless they taken the mark of the beast”.   So the beast hasn’t presented himself, yet, and thus people haven’t taken his mark because he’s not yet made known for us to take the mark, then the conditions for the first Judgment isn’t ready.  I wonder why those people who follow that guy would even believe him.  I’m guessing they don’t really read their Bibles, or if so, they don’t really understand what they read.  I’m not claiming that I know everything in the Bible, but that one seems pretty clear.

As a Christian, I do believe that Christ will come again, and we are to be ready at any time, anyway.  But since the Bible tells us that no one will know the time or the day, then as soon as someone puts a date on it, I figure that’s not the day, ha!

Thanking God for His patience so that more can come to know Him,

Marlakins

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