In The Image of God

God has many attributes. The one that is most obvious is that God creates. The statement of "Let there be light" is simple, but the more we know, the more interesting and complex the creation becomes. Job had this to say about God in chapter 26: 

Err ... Wrong Creation Story! He spreads the skies over unformed space,

    hangs the earth out in empty space.

He pours water into cumulus cloud-bags

    and the bags don’t burst.

He makes the moon wax and wane,

    putting it through its phases.

He draws the horizon out over the ocean,

    sets a boundary between light and darkness.

Thunder crashes and rumbles in the skies.

    Listen! It’s God raising his voice!

By his power he stills sea storms,

    by his wisdom he tames sea monsters.

With one breath he clears the sky,

    with one finger he crushes the sea serpent.

And this is only the beginning,

    a mere whisper of his rule.

    Whatever would we do if he really raised his voice!”

The more one contemplates the creation and how everything fits together, the more one appreciates the creativity of the Master Builder.  We need to stand in awe. No, that is not right--we need to fall in awe before the creativity of the Creator.  

But even though that is true, yet the creation hymn reveals to us something worth meditation.  

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

As the Apostle Paul said quoting the Greek poet, "We are God's offspring." We are made in God's image. We have a job to do. We are creators, or at least we are designed to be creators as we are made in the image of the ultimate Creator. I have been meditating on this, and when I do I ask myself a question,"What have I created?" I do not get the answer I want when I honestly answer this question. 

To a degree we create the world we live in. As the proverb attributed to Goethe says, "If everyone swept in front of his own door, the whole world would be clean." 

So let me boldly ask you, "What have you created?" 

Carmen Miranda In Space

I like novelty songs. If you want to purchase this song click on Hits from Outer Space. If the thought of Carmen Miranda fills you with nostalgia, you can purchase her greatest hits as well. As always, I recieve a modest commision if you use this link, and it does not effect your price. 

Chaos Spreads

Yes, chaos is spreading and I blame the US.

Alexander Lobodenko, a 34-year-old district court judge, was shot several times in the back by two assailants on a street near his home in central Ukraine late Tuesday night, the country’s Interior Ministry said. 

This is the judge that jailed protestors in the Ukraine. 

Why do I blame the US? It is not in dispute that the US is financing and controlling the protestors:

In the tapes, Nuland and Pyatt discuss the upheavals in Ukraine, and President Viktor Yanukovych’s offer last month to make opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk the new prime minister and Vitali Klitschko deputy prime minister. Both men turned the offer down.

Nuland, who in December went to Independence Square in Kiev in a sign of support for the demonstrators, adds that she has also been told that the UN chief, Ban Ki-moon, is about to appoint a former Dutch ambassador to Kiev, Robert Serry, as his representative to Ukraine.

“That would be great I think to help glue this thing and have the UN glue it and you know, fuck the EU,“ she says, in an apparent reference to differences over their policies. 

Yes they discuss the "upheavals," but they did more than that. In the call they planned out what the protestors will do in the future. In other words, the diplomats cannot tell the protestors what to do unless they control them. I do not watch network news anymore as I want to not be influenced by Babylon the Great, as I call it, so I am not sure how much play this intercepted call was given. But based on a google search, not much as much as it deserves; an obscure site like Zero Hedge is way too high in the rankings. 

The response of the US government was to be shocked, shocked that phone tapping was occurring. Do I really have to say how dumb this is? 

Note that the US supporting these protestors is in direct conflict with signed treaties. 

Sergei Glazyev, an adviser to President Vladimir Putin with responsibility for relations with Ukraine, told a newspaper that U.S. "interference" breached the 1994 treaty under which Washington and Moscow jointly guaranteed Ukraine's security and sovereignty after Kiev gave up its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal. 

The Ukrainian government is trying to keep things calm:

Under intense pressure from Ukraine’s political opposition, Yanukovych signed a bill declaring amnesty for protesters and canceling unpopular anti-demonstration laws on January 31. 

Call me a right-wing nut if you wish, but this will just encourage more protests. 

Ukraine is tightly balanced between two opposing groups, one in the west and north of the country, the other in the east and south. A likely outcome is a partition of the country. 

So if chaos does ensue in Ukraine, the one to blame lives on Pennsylvania Avenue in a big White House, the current seat of Babylon the Great.  

Facebook Fraud?

One of the main attributes of Babylon is the rather rampant fraud that is a basic part of its heart. The whole political system is based on campaign "contributions." I remember reading years ago that the reason that Microsoft had anti-trust problems was that it was not contributing enough to the powers that be. Other companies, almost as monopolistic as Microsoft, seem to get a pass. I am not sure if the lack of contributions was a factor, but Microsoft does make more contributions now and they no longer have the same issues.

The food industry in no exception to this. I wonder how many industry executives actually eat the products they sell? Do they feed them to their children? 

Advertising, while technically not fraud, is designed to build artificial demand for the product. I advertise my business, so I am not against it in an absolute way. It is the whole system that is bad. I had even considered advertising on Facebook to promote this blog. 

Ultimately my distaste for looking at ads myself decided for me. Why would I impose something I hate on someone else? After watching the following video, I have another reason to be glad I decided not to advertise. How much of Facebook's "click throughs" are actual people? 

Watch and see if you are interested. If I had Facebook stock, this video would make me sell it. 

The Markets Are Rigged

This is an interesting presentation on the difficulty of making investment decisions given in Australia.