The Mystery of Iniquity

Paradise Lost, Gustave Doré

"They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate, With dreadful forces thronged, and fiery arms Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide; They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way."

Paradise Lost, Book XII.






The Wall Street Journal‎ reports; "The National Security Agency’s targeting of Israeli leaders and officials also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers." The report continues: "Soon after, Israel’s lobbying campaign against the [Iran nuclear] deal went into full swing on Capitol Hill, and it didn’t take long for... [Congressional] intelligence officials to realize the NSA was sweeping up the content of conversations with lawmakers."

The WSJ further suggests that the NAS’ covert surveillance presents world leaders an insurmountable hurtle: “The NSA was so proficient at monitoring heads of state that it was common for the agency to deliver a visiting leader’s talking points to the president in advance. “Who’s going to... say, ‘No, I don’t want to know what world leaders are saying,’ ‘ a former Obama administration official said.’” So in the international card game of diplomacy, "one" man "literally" holds all the cards.

The President has appropriated for himself the ultimate power, a power revealed in the Snowden chronicles, that comes from knowing the thoughts and intents of the heart of every cyber-connected soul on earth. Something a "Watergate" world could never conceive in it wildest dream.

As the year draws to a close it is difficult not be amazed by the grandiose national and international subterfuge, intimidation, and blackmail consummated by "one" man. A "prototype" of what is yet to be:

"The mystery of iniquity": a man of sin, "the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God" (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:3-7).

The Coup

Via Sen. Jeff Sessions:

In the dead of night after 2am this morning, Congressional leadership unveiled a more than 2,000 page 'omnibus' year-end funding bill which would, among other things: fully-fund the President's refugee expansion; fully-fund sanctuary cities; fully-fund the resettlement of illegal aliens youth and their families crossing the border; lock-in tax credits for illegal aliens; and quadruple the highly controversial H-2B foreign worker visa being used to replace Americans as truck drivers, construction workers, theme park employees, and in blue collar jobs across the nation.

Sessions, the Chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee, issued a statement about the bill as it speeds to a vote before it can be read, observing in part that GOP voters: "have come to believe that their party’s elites are not only uninterested in defending their interests but – as with this legislation, and fast-tracking the President’s international trade pact – openly hostile to them." On the floor today, Sessions further reminded his colleagues that their duty is the American people - not special interests, immigration advocacy groups, or lobbyists for narrow business concerns.

Sessions observed that - as the omnibus paves the way for a huge immigration increase beyond today's record-breaking highs - that more than 8 in 10 American voters want the level of immigration in American frozen or cut, and yet the GOP-led Congress is about to surge it even higher.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau - even without these increases - immigration will add the population equivalent of 1 new Los Angeles to the country each 3 years.

The U.S. has admitted 59 million immigrants since 1965. As historical context, after the numerically-smaller 1880-1920 immigration wave, future immigration was reduced to promote wage growth for US-born and immigrant workers: there was zero net growth in the foreign-born population over the course of the next half-century (in fact, it declined markedly). Now, after five decades of unprecedented immigration, the U.S. is on path to add another five decades of unprecedented immigration on top of that - setting new all-time records every single decade to come.

Sinatra Turns 100

“I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened...” and what will be Frank’s "case" before the Lord of all the earth?

And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.
My friend, I'll say it clear,
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain.
I've lived a life that's full.
I've traveled each and every highway;
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way....

Paul Anka, “My Way”


"Frank Sinatra" by Diagram Lajard - Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frank_Sinatra.jpg#/media/File:Frank_Sinatra.jpgFrank Sinatra

The Demon Core

The Demon Core (a facsimile)

The "criticality accident" that occurred in San Bernardino yesterday was the consequence of an uncontrolled chain-reaction of "immigration embedded" Islam. It is sometimes also referred to as a "critical excursion" and represents the unmitigated accrual of a critical mass of "hate." Though dangerous and frequently lethal within an immediate area, the critical mass formed has yet to reach "supercriticality." However, as the unrestrained influx continues, the inevitable consequence is just basic physics!

On August 21, 1945, physicist Harry Daghlian, during a Los Alamos laboratory experiment to determine the fission threshold (criticality) of a radioactive mass, stacked neutron-reflective bricks around a subcritical plutonium core. Unfortunately, he accidentally dropped one on the metallic sphere. It went "supercritical"! He was 24. A year later physicist Louis Slotin, experimenting with the same plutonium sphere, also experienced a criticality accident. He was 35. Consequently, the plutonium sphere came to be known as "the demon core."

The demon core no longer exists; unfortunately, the same cannot be said for America's ever-accruing critical mass of "immigration embedded" Islam."

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

Amanda Blackburn's "last will and testimony"
was published today.

Amanda Blackburn, during an invasion of her home, was shot multiple times as she tried to protect her toddler son, her husband was not present.

Amanda's "last will and testimony":
"I love you Lord. Glory and praise to You."

Written the day before she and her unborn child
were looking full in "His wonderful face."







Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free!

Refrain:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
O’er us sin no more hath dominion—
For more than conqu’rors we are!

His Word shall not fail you—He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well:
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!

Helen H. Lemmel, 1922

A “Yellow” Star of David

The Kaufhaus des Westens 1

As the genocide in Mali progressed on Friday, an insidious collusion was initiated in the "Fatherland." The Kaufhaus des Westens, the European Union's largest department store on Friday, began pulling Israeli products from its shelves as a consequence of the EU mandated boycott of Israeli products from the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.




The Jerusalem Post reported Netanyahu's trepidation: "what began with the labeling of products has evolved into a full-blown boycott of those products."

On April 1, 1933, Germany’s newly elected chancellor initiated the "1000 year millennium of the Third Reich" with a nationwide boycott of Jewish businesses including , Herman Tietz's Berlin department store now known as the Kaufhaus des Westens which was seized by the Nazis.

"The Star of David was scrawled in yellow and black across doors and windows: our studio, like the other Jewish businesses in Karlsruhe, was plastered with signs during the anti-Jewish boycott: ‘Don't buy from Jews’” (Johanna Hirsch, child Holocaust survivor, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.).


"KaDeWe von Nordosten (2008)" by Jochen Teufel - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KaDeWe_von_Nordosten_(2008).jpg#/media/File:KaDeWe_von_Nordosten_(2008).jpg

Jonathan Pollard

Jonathan Pollard, walked out of prison at dawn this Sabbath morning after 3 decades, a victim of appalling and reprobate American justice.

Jonathan Pollard was a civilian American Naval intelligence analyst. In the mid 1980's (circa 1983-1984), Pollard discovered that information vital to Israel's security was being deliberately withheld by certain elements within the U.S. national security establishment.

Israel was legally entitled to this vital security information according to a 1983 Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries. The information being withheld from Israel included Syrian, Iraqi, Libyan and Iranian nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare capabilities - being developed for use against Israel. It also included information on ballistic missile development by these countries and information on planned terrorist attacks against Israeli civilian targets.

When Pollard discovered this suppression of information and asked his superiors about it, he was told to "mind his own business", and that "Jews get nervous talking about poison gas; they don't need to know."

He also learned that the objective of cutting off the flow of information to Israel was to severely curtail Israel's ability to act independently in defense of her own interests.

Pollard was painfully aware that Israeli lives were being put in jeopardy as a result of this undeclared intelligence embargo. He did everything he possibly could to stop this covert policy and to have the legal flow of information to Israel restored. When his efforts met no success, he began to give the information to Israel directly.

Jonathan Pollard was an ideologue, not a mercenary. The FBI concluded after nine months of polygraphing that Pollard acted for ideological reasons only, not for profit. This fact was recognized by the sentencing judge who declined to fine Pollard. (See the addendum for further details.)

Furthermore, on May 11, 1998, Israel formally acknowledged Jonathan Pollard had been a bona fide Israeli agent. This fact wiped out any remaining doubt about Jonathan Pollard's motives. Being an official agent is, by definition, the polar opposite of being a mercenary.

In 1985, his actions were discovered by the U.S. government. His instructions from Israel were to seek refuge in the Israeli embassy in Washington. When Pollard and his former wife sought refuge there, they were at first received and then summarily thrown out into the waiting arms of the FBI.

Jonathan Pollard never had a trial. At the request of both the U.S. and Israeli governments, he entered into a plea agreement, which spared both governments a long, difficult, expensive and potentially embarrassing trial.

Jonathan Pollard fulfilled his end of the plea agreement, cooperating fully with the prosecution.

Nevertheless, Pollard received a life sentence and a recommendation that he never be paroled - in complete violation of the plea agreement he had reached with the government.

Jonathan Pollard was never indicted for harming the United States.

Jonathan Pollard was never indicted for compromising codes, agents, or war plans.

Jonathan Pollard was never charged with treason. [Legally, treason is a charge that is only applicable when one spies for an enemy state in time of war.]

Jonathan Pollard was indicted on only one charge: one count of passing classified information to an ally, without intent to harm the United States.

Justice for Jonathan Pollard

A Homogeneity of Hatred

The American SAFE Act was so named to reassure Americans that they would not be endangered by the Obama mandated influx of more Syrians refugees, i.e., a Trojan horse of ISIS terrorists (Let's suppose for a moment that is true motivation of those who wrote and support the bill).

However, as Sen. Jeff Sessions correctly asserted, the bill is based on the “flawed premise” that government has the capability to “vet Syrian refugees.” Sessions' justification: “Just over a month ago, officials from the Department of Homeland Security admitted before the Immigration Subcommittee that there is no database in Syria against which they can run a check” and “they have no way to enter Syria to verify the applicants’ personal information. And we know the region is being flooded with false documents.”

How then will it be possible to filter an ISIS "homogeneity of hatred"? There is only one way. During a precursor to the current insurgency, Cruz alluded to the only possible means of bifurcation of the "sheep from the goats."

"If you do not stand with Israel, I will not stand with you."

"When the Son of man shall come in his glory.... And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.... the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.... Then shall the righteous [on his right hand] answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall they [on the left hand] also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me" (cf. Matthew 25:31-40).

The rationale for bifurcation? "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren." The eternal destiny of each individual in this gathering of all nations will be adjudicated on the basis of "as ye have done it unto one of the least of these MY BRETHREN." The JEWS!


BREAKING : The US House passes American Safe Act of 2015 [#HR4038] 289-137 (Security Against Foreign Enemies Act). House Speaker Paul Ryan just christened his speakership with a classic euphemisticlly deceptive acronym: "SAFE"! A bill that would leave the entire refugee program unchanged, i.e., much ado about nothing!

DIY Terror

Tower Eiffe, First drawing, Maurice Koechlin 

The latest regrettable domino in our spiraling out of control "reality" has just fallen: "DIY Terror"!

Aaron F. Brantly, a counterterrorism analyst at the Combating Terrorism Center, an independent research organization at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, briefed NBC News on the existence of a 24/7 "jihadi help desk"

A resource for answering "questions from the technically mundane to the technically savvy to elevate the entire jihadi community to engage in global terror," and more alarming, "they are now operating at the speed of cyberspace rather than the speed of person-to-person communications."





Brantly further advises that the Jihadi Help Desk is "a fairly large, robust community" utilizing both "social networking sites," and "encrypted" platforms." "They also post YouTube Videos, going step by step over how to use these technologies," "Imagine you have a problem and need to solve it and go to YouTube; they have essentially established the same mechanism."

How many more dominos will it take before the world admits that the reality recently documented by AFP and Getty Images is out of their control and prepares for the "Unseen Reality" of eternal significance?

"I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened... 

I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed" (Daniel 7:9-14).

How can I be saved?

Classic Historical Revision

“Don’t try to force me as a black man who knows his history to honor something that goes against my heritage” reads the caption under a photo of a black man in today’s The New York Times.

 The article that followed was a media-based initiative by NYT to to supersede the will of the vast majority of the people of Mississippi who voted on Tuesday to keep their state flag depicting the Confederate battle flag's saltire that draped the casket of Confederate Lieutenant General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.

What the New York Times has given us today is a "classic" example of historical revision, when compared with the journal's previous documentation:

The New York Times, July 30, 1906:

Erected in Negro Church by Contributions from Negroes.

ROANOKE, Va., July 29 -- A memorial window of Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson was unveiled in the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church today. The congregation is composed of negroes. The window was erected by the pastor, the Rev. L. L. Downing, the money for its purchase coming wholly from negroes.

The Exercises were largely attended by both races, the Confederate camps of Roanoke and Salem and the chapters of the Daughters of the Confederacy. There were addresses by white citizens of Roanoke.

Downing's father and mother were members of a Sunday school class of negro slaves taught by Jackson at Lexington before the war, and to-day's exercises marked the realization of an ambition Downing has had since boyhood, to pay fitting tribute to the Confederate commander.

The picture presented on the window is that of an army camping on the banks of a stream, the inscription underneath being Jackson's last words: "Let us cross over the river and rest in the shade of the trees."

Anarchy Then and Now

The Stranger that Sojourneth Among You

As the mixed multitude of "asylum" seekers from the Near and Middle East continue to pour into Europe essentially unabated. The Dar al-Harb (Arabic: "house or abode of war") dispersed among them continue to press teary eyed women and children to the perimeters of the perpetual photo opt. Forgotten are existential realities: religious, political, and cultural, that "inclusivity" must not mitigate, existential realities that were anticipated before the foundation of the world pertaining to "the stranger that sojourneth among you." The "principles" still apply today:

"The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself" (cf. Leviticus 19:34). HOWEVER:

"One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you" (Exodus 12:49).

"Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law" (Deuteronomy 31:12).

"No uncircumcised person shall eat thereof [the Passover]" (cf. Exodus 12:48).

Only Aaron and his sons, could "wait on their priest's office" (cf. Numbers 3:10).

"Thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother" (cf. Deuteronomy 17:15).

And there is the inevitable consequence:

"The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low. He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail" (Deuteronomy 28:43-44).

In Just About One Second

Frontispiece to the 1761 edition of The Book of Martyrs

"And they would stand up, and he said, 'Good, because you're a Christian, you're going to see God in just about one second,' "

So it should come as no surprise what self-professed "Christian" Dr. Ben Carson would have done if he had been at the Umpqua Community College massacre, where a lone gunman serially shot students and teachers after first determining that each one was a Christian.

If Carson is a believer, wouldn't his natural inclination be to affirm the testimony and martyrdom of his brethren who died that day rather than maligning them. Carson has forever lost the opportunity to say: "I would have seen God in just about one second."

Are You a Christian?

Jerusalem 2000

"We Love Death”

Israeli tank in the Sinai¹

As Yom Kippur, begins with today's sunset, so does the remembrance of another sunset in 1973 when 13 Islamist nations had every intent of affirming that Israel was "not only incompatible with modern human life, but with life itself."

Outnumbered and outgunned by staggering proportions, Israel was going "down"! In the Sinai, exactly 450 Israeli troops faced a force of 100,000 Egyptians, with superiority in artillery of 40-1 and a force of 1,350 tanks to Israel’s 91. On the Golan, the Syrians had eight tanks for every Israeli tank.

Golda Meir later recalled, "They fought and fell like lions." It was at that point that Moshe Dayan secured her authorization to arm 13 intermediate-range Jericho missiles with nuclear warheads as well as Eight F-4 Phantom fighters with nuclear arms... and Israel came close to fulfilling the passion of the jihadist confraternity: "We love death more than you love life!"

“And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field. Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand… that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD'S” (cf. 1Samuel 17:44-47).

1"Destroyed m60" by Sherif9282 at en.wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia by SreeBotOriginal caption: “Military Battles on the Egyptian Front by Gammal Hammad”. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons

Sunday Circuses

VLadimir Lenin reading Pravda, Circa 1918

The Russian newspaper Pravda, predicted "the American descent," three years ago. In "American Capitalism Gone With a Whimper" Stanislav Mishin writes:

"... the American decent (sic) into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple [people]....





the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then (sic) the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights....

Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.... The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker."

But why?

"... their faith in God was destroyed... their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then (sic) Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then (sic) happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power."

Why do I feel more at peace with my enemy then with those in the once hallowed halls of Washington, gathered to deliver our Constitution the "coup de grâce"? But it is just a formality, for a nation already convulsed by a death rattle convoluted in talking points and "argumentum ad nauseam."

“For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” (1 Peter 4:17).

National Geographic

The "Archaeoraptor" pseudo-fossil¹  

The timing of National Geographic's publication "This Face Changes the Human Story... " is suspect in that it occurred within hours of the sale of National Geographic magazine and other publishing operations to Murdoch-controlled 21st Century Fox!

It appears to be the last feeble salvo of the Society's century-plus "evolutional" propaganda war.

National Geographic’s “sensationalistic, unsubstantiated, tabloid journalism” was challenged some years ago by one of the world's foremost avian paleontologists. in an “OPEN LETTER TO” Dr. Peter Raven regarding the Society’s November 1999 publication of "Feathers for T. rex?" by Christopher P. Sloan. The letter concludes:






… The idea of feathered dinosaurs and the theropod origin of birds is being actively promulgated by a cadre of zealous scientists acting in concert with certain editors at Nature and National Geographic who themselves have become outspoken and highly biased proselytizers of the faith. Truth and careful scientific weighing of evidence have been among the first casualties in their program, which is now fast becoming one of the grander scientific hoaxes of our age---the paleontological equivalent of cold fusion. If Sloan's article is not the crescendo of this fantasia, it is difficult to imagine to what heights it can next be taken. But it is certain that when the folly has run its course and has been fully exposed, National Geographic will unfortunately play a prominent but unenviable role in the book that summarizes the whole sorry episode.

The complete article follows:

National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D. C. 20560
1 November 1999

OPEN LETTER TO:
Dr. Peter Raven, Secretary PRaven@nas.org
Committee for Research and Exploration
National Geographic Society
Washington, DC 20036

Dear Peter,

I thought that I should address to you the concerns expressed below because your committee is at least partly involved and because you are certainly now the most prominent scientist at the National Geographic Society.

With the publication of "Feathers for T. rex?" by Christopher P. Sloan in its November issue, National Geographic has reached an all-time low for engaging in sensationalistic, unsubstantiated, tabloid journalism. But at the same time the magazine may now claim to have taken its place in formal taxonomic literature.

Although it is possible that Mr. Czerkas "will later name" the specimen identified on page 100 as Archaeoraptor liaoningensis, there is no longer any need for him to do so. Because this Latinized binomial has apparently not been published previously and has now appeared with a full-spread photograph of the specimen "accompanied by a description or definition that states in words characters that are purported to differentiate the taxon," the name Archaeoraptor liaoningensis Sloan is now available for purposes of zoological nomenclature as of its appearance in National Geographic (International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, Article 13a, i). This is the worst nightmare of many zoologists---that their chance to name a new organism will be inadvertently scooped by some witless journalist. Clearly, National Geographic is not receiving competent consultation in certain scientific matters.

Sloan's article explicitly states that the specimen in question is known to have been illegally exported and that "the Czerkases now plan to return it to China." In Washington, in June of 1996, more than forty participants at the 4th International Meeting of the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution, held at the Smithsonian Institution, were signatories to a letter to the Director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences that deplored the illegal trade in fossils from China and encouraged the Chinese government to take further action to curb this exploitation. There were a few fossil dealers at that meeting and they certainly got the message. Thus, at least since mid-1996 it can hardly have been a secret to anyone in the scientific community or the commercial fossil business that fossils from Liaoning offered for sale outside of China are contraband.

Most, if not all, major natural history museums in the United States have policies in effect that prohibit their staff from accepting any specimens that were not legally collected and exported from the country of origin. The National Geographic Society has not only supported research on such material, but has sensationalized, and is now exhibiting, an admittedly illicit specimen that would have been morally, administratively, and perhaps legally, off-limits to researchers in reputable scientific institutions. Prior to the publication of the article "Dinosaurs Take Wing" in the July 1998 National Geographic, Lou Mazzatenta, the photographer for Sloan's article, invited me to the National Geographic Society to review his photographs of Chinese fossils and to comment on the slant being given to the story. At that time, I tried to interject the fact that strongly supported alternative viewpoints existed to what National Geographic intended to present, but it eventually became clear to me that National Geographic was not interested in anything other than the prevailing dogma that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Sloan's article takes the prejudice to an entirely new level and consists in large part of unverifiable or undocumented information that "makes" the news rather than reporting it. His bald statement that "we can now say that birds are theropods just as confidently as we say that humans are mammals" is not even suggested as reflecting the views of a particular scientist or group of scientists, so that it figures as little more than editorial propagandizing. This melodramatic assertion had already been disproven by recent studies of embryology and comparative morphology, which, of course, are never mentioned.

More importantly, however, none of the structures illustrated in Sloan's article that are claimed to be feathers have actually been proven to be feathers. Saying that they are is little more than wishful thinking that has been presented as fact. The statement on page 103 that "hollow, hairlike structures characterize protofeathers" is nonsense considering that protofeathers exist only as a theoretical construct, so that the internal structure of one is even more hypothetical.

The hype about feathered dinosaurs in the exhibit currently on display at the National Geographic Society is even worse, and makes the spurious claim that there is strong evidence that a wide variety of carnivorous dinosaurs had feathers. A model of the undisputed dinosaur Deinonychus and illustrations of baby tyrannosaurs are shown clad in feathers, all of which is simply imaginary and has no place outside of science fiction. The idea of feathered dinosaurs and the theropod origin of birds is being actively promulgated by a cadre of zealous scientists acting in concert with certain editors at Nature and National Geographic who themselves have become outspoken and highly biased proselytizers of the faith. Truth and careful scientific weighing of evidence have been among the first casualties in their program, which is now fast becoming one of the grander scientific hoaxes of our age---the paleontological equivalent of cold fusion. If Sloan's article is not the crescendo of this fantasia, it is difficult to imagine to what heights it can next be taken. But it is certain that when the folly has run its course and has been fully exposed, National Geographic will unfortunately play a prominent but unenviable role in the book that summarizes the whole sorry episode.

Sincerely,

Storrs L. Olson
Curator of Birds
National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC 20560


¹"Archaeoraptor" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Archaeoraptor.jpg#/media/File:Archaeoraptor.jpg

"Feathers for T. rex?"

“This Face Changes the Human Story" Again!

Java Man (artistic depiction)

Today's National Geographic editorial¹ begins with the credulous assertion "This Face Changes the Human Story." The announcement is the latest edition of the “the Rosetta stone” of human origins complete with with requisite artistic depictions. Here is the remarkably similar "first" edition:









A skullcap and a femur uncovered a year and twelve meters apart, was the "quintessential evidence" for Java Man on the Indonesian island of that name. Eugène Dubois, the self-assured discoverer, immediately christened his find Pithecanthropus Erectus (erect ape man).

Imaginative artistic reconstructions, based on a single bone and a skull fragment, appeared in newspapers, magazines, and academic journals arresting the 1892 public’s attention.

The creditability of the discovery was immediately challenged, and the “brute” was generally dismissed as the jumbled combination of "human and ape remains." Although Dubois contested that the relics were from a single individual, decades later it was reported that his Pithecanthropus collection contained an additional left femur, i.e., Java Man had “two left feet.”

However, despite the hominid’s dubious authenticity, the “evidence” came just in time to rescue Darwin’s waning theory of evolution, a theory that had been increasingly discredited due to a lack of transitional fossil evidence.

Eugène Dubois

The real intrigue of the Java narrative is not the revelation of some primeval “brute” but rather the humanity of its “evolved” counterpart who, compelled by arrogance and ambition, coerced his family to leave the familial setting of his professorship in Amsterdam and live among the danger, pestilence, and stagnant malaria infested waters of the impenetrable jungles of Java. Dubois buried four children there (American Scientist, Vol: 87, Num: 6, p504). And as the desperate ship’s captain, on the itinerant paleontologist’s eventual return to Europe, readied the lifeboats during a violent storm, Dubois instructed his wife: “If the lifeboat is lowered, you see to the little ones, for I shall have to look after this [Pithecanthropus]."









“For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day” (cf. Exodus 20:11).


¹The timing of National Geographic's publication "This Face Changes the Human Story... " is suspect in that it occurred within hours of the sale of National Geographic magazine and other publishing operations to Murdoch-controlled 21st Century Fox! It appears to be the last feeble salvo of the Society's century-plus "evolutional" propaganda war.

How can I be saved?

The Death of Israel?

The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by David Roberts 1850

Today, in a contrived display of emotion Democratic Party Chair, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz gushed:"There's nothing that's more important to me, as a Jew, than to ensure Israel's existence is there throughout our generations" then she cast her lot in league with those who negotiated the “deal” that left the normally reserved Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif literally dancing for joy on his balcony.

The time is coming when two thirds of the Jews of Eretz-Israel will die:

“And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God” (Zechariah 13:8-9)

How can I be saved?

Eagles cut Tim Tebow

Tim Tebow¹

Since when was quarterbacking NOT about getting POINTS? SINCE TEBOW!

“If the world hate you, know that it has hated me before you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, on account of this the world hates you” (John 15:18-19).

How can I be saved?

¹This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

The Criminalization of the Bible

Black Lives Matter?

Do red lives matter? Do brown lives matter? Do yellow lives matter? Do black lives matter? Do white lives matter? It all depends on the person under that infinitesimal facade of pigmentation. Will he chose to make his life "matter" or will he be the "chaff which the wind driveth away"?

"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish" (Psalms 1:1-6).

Against All Odds

An evening some years ago I was reading letters to my father, old letters my mother had written. His eyes brightened as he recognized her voice in each one. Then as I reached for another from among the tightly packed envelopes, I found this coarse piece of tablet paper wedged between. As I read, his eyes riveted on the long lost remembrance, and as mine questioned, latent thoughts and memories forbidden the light of day for almost 70 years, came gushing forth in a torrent.


That late September 1942 evening, Company M, 128th Infantry, 32D was ordered to gather their few archaic munitions, strip, and toss their fatigues, if they could be called that, into vats of green dye. As they jettisoned everything else, my father found a scrap of paper and quickly scribbled one last letter, dripping dye on it as the shirt on his back continued to dry. Later as they were waiting in line and planes were revving in the predawn mist, a guy in his company broke the silence: “Sweet Tooth," tell us something’ funny.” “This is not funny," my father, sternly reproved. Those last words must have echoed in every mind as they went into the night.

An Australian sentry guards an American Boeing B-17 in the early morning as soldiers of the 128TH Infantry, 32D Division, in the distance load munitions and supplies into planes bound for Port Moresby at Amberly Field, Ipswich, Australia, on 18 September, 1942.³

Later that morning as they approached the emerald coast the pilot frantically ordered everyone to crowd close to the cockpit to prevent the small but heavily loaded plane from stalling as they ascended into the cloud enshrouded Seven Mile Field, an improvised air field seven miles inland from Port Moresby. They survived the cratered airstrip landing, but that was little consolation. Japanese ground forces were within 32 miles of the port and were encroaching further.

Every morning and evening "the rising sun" insignia emblazoned Zeros throttled out of the blinding sun strafing and bombing the airfield, and then retreated into the sun. And every night, Japanese bombers rained their lethal cargo, over the airfield. Each new arrival was lucky to be deprived of nothing more than sleep. The Japanese had no intention of allowing an American expeditionary force to establish a foothold in Port Moresby. They required Port Moresby as a base of operation for an invasion of Australia and the subjugation of the remainder of the pacific arena.

After two months of fighting their way through the haunting stagnant malaria infested waters of the impenetrable rain forests of New Guinea, then came the ultimate challenge: Buna!

As the battle for the beachhead at Buna continued against strategically superior entrenched fortifications and well supplied and numerically superior Japanese defenders, it was also waged on a "second" more deadly front. The politically astute publicity seeking General MacArthur demanded: “All columns will be driven through to the objectives regardless of losses,” "Take Buna today at all costs," and to General Eichelberger, the corps commander, "Take Buna or don't come back alive!" MacArthur wanted to exhibit Buna as his trophy on or before the "infamous" December 7th anniversary.


Therefore, the malnourished, diseased, and exhausted Allied remnant was irrationally ordered over and over again for six weeks to attack the impenetrable and virtually invisible Japanese bunkers with essentially nothing more than a hand grenade. They attempted to crawl or wade thru swamp and stream, and interlocking fields of enemy fire to each bunker and jam a grenade into the firing slit, i.e., if anyone was ever able to to get that far....

"MacArthur," what an amazing contrast to the King of the armies of Israel:

“David was then in an hold, and the garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem. And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate! And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David: nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the LORD. And he said, Be it far from me, O LORD, that I should do this: is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? therefore he would not drink it.” (2 Samuel 23:14-17).

Epilog:

Company E, 126th and Company M, 128th were the very first U.S. units to be to be airborne into combat.¹As part of the 32^D ‘Red Arrow’ Infantry Division, they initiated the Division’s unenviable record of more days in combat than any other U.S. division during World War II.¹ During the Papuan Campaign they also had the unenviable distinction of a casualty count that exceeded the division's entire battle strength.¹ But in doing so they wrote first chapter in the book of jungle warfare for all who would follow:

“The 32^D Division, during this difficult time at Buna, was writing the book for combat against the Japanese in the jungles of the Pacific with their sweat and blood. All of the Pacific battles yet to come were able to benefit from the lessons learned by the 32D Division at Buna, and also the Marines and Army Infantry concurrently fighting at Guadalcanal.”¹

¹Tom Bruss. "Highlights of the 32D 'Red Arrow' Infantry Division during World War II."

²"Papuan Campaign – The Battle of Buna". The 32D Infantry Division in World War II The 'Red Arrow'.

³ "Papuan Campaign – Strategic Situation & the Advance to Buna". The 32D Infantry Division in World War II The ‘Red Arrow’.

Vicarious Trauma

I awoke this morning with that abhorrent frame grab of the hand that killed Alison Parker indelibly burned into my mind.

It was his vile intent to made us "vicarious" participants in his world of the macabre, perverse, depraved, unnatural — seeing what he sees, hearing what he hears, feeling everything he felt, and perhaps even anticipating his thoughts.


"And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5).

A Summer Without War

Israel HaYom¹

In an Eilat mall, I saw a girl barely five foot tall in camouflage fatigues with the semiautomatic weapon suspended from her shoulder almost dragging the ground as she walked with her six-foot something boyfriend. In the Negev I saw young people on a Sunday picnic with side arms and automatic weapons in hand. In Jerusalem I literally saw the Daughters of Zion armed and paroling the city of peace. And in the dark stone hewn chamber of Yad Vashem, a single candle’s eternal reflection, and a wailing not unlike the wind arousing the somber remembrance of “Rachel weeping for her children... because they are not” “… they have cast lots for my people and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink” (Joel 3:3).

¹http://www.israeltoday.co.il/DigitalEdition.aspx

In One Hour

The New York Stock Exchange¹

This morning on the floor of The New York Stock Exchange traders agonized as they watched as the Dow fall 1,000 points "in one hour." The stock market, a virtual-reality animated by avarice, deception, and lies, will recover; "the rulers of the darkness of this world" will facilitate its resurrection when it suits their purpose. However, as the world nears "Midnight," an hour is coming when it will rise "no more":



"For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city! And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.... And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived" (Revelation 18:17-23).

How can I be saved?

¹"Photos NewYork1 032". Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photos_NewYork1_032.jpg#/media/File:Photos_NewYork1_032.jpg

As the Sun

Hume

Thrones

Savviest of the "Server Literate"

A rack of servers¹

If Hillary had a brand new clean slate and if she were savviest of the "server literate," it would still not be enough. Vegas got it wrong "what happens in Vegas" NEVER stays in Vegas "for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known" (Luke 12:2).

Hillary's affinity for subterfuge is no match for the "eyes of the LORD [that] are in every place, beholding the evil and the good" (Proverbs 15:3).

Hillary, 'your sin has found you out' (cf. Numbers 32:23).

¹"This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Wiped Clean

Wiped Clean³

A bellicose Hillary Clinton finally surrendered her infamous but now worthless network server to the FBI; it had been professionally "WIPED CLEAN." Hillary has a history of wiping things clean, as in the curious case of Vincent Walker Foster. Foster was a Deputy White House Counsel the initial months of the Clinton administration, and incidentally Hillary's mentor at the Rose Law Firm. In an early May 1993 commencement address at the University of Arkansas Law School he pleaded:



"The reputation you develop for intellectual and ethical integrity will be your greatest asset or your worst enemy. You will be judged by your judgment. ... There is no victory, no advantage, no fee, no favor, which is worth even a blemish on your reputation for intellect and integrity. ... Dents to [your] reputation are irreparable."¹

Foster was conspicuously out of place in the Clinton administration, but not for long as documented in this abbreviated chronology:

March 23, 1993: Clinton Attorney General, Janet Reno during her first news conference demanded the resignations of all U.S. Attorneys, effectively replacing them with Clinton appointees.

June 21, 1993: Vince Foster completes and delivers Whitewater corporate tax returns (1989 through 1991).

July 19, 1993:  "... he [Foster] arrived at his Georgetown home at about 8, and the phone rang shortly thereafter. It was President Clinton. Mr. Foster took the call alone, upstairs. White House officials have given only vague accounts of the phone call. 'They talked for 15 or 20 minutes.'"²

July 20, 1993: The FBI obtains a search warrant for the office of David Hale, a banker who later implicates the Clintons in the Whitewater scandal. Concurrently White House Counsel Vincent Foster allegedly drives to Ft. Marcy Park and commits suicide. Later that evening Hillary's chief of staff selectively purges Foster's office removing "an armful of folders."

May, 1994: Independent Counsel Robert Fiske issued a subpoena for all documents pertaining to Whitewater; documents the Clintons insisted are missing.

August, 1994: Kenneth Starr was chosen to replace the Clinton administration appointed Fiske due to conflict of interest.

January, 1996: A staffer discovered the previously subpoenaed Whitewater documents in the Clintons' private residence in the White House.

All too soon the world will be enveloped in the darkness of a kingdom whose foremost commodity will be the "souls of men."

"And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves and... THE SOULS OF MEN" (Revelation 18:11-13; emphasis added).

How can I be saved?

¹Ronald W. Maris; Alan L. Berman; Morton M. Silverman (2000).Comprehensive Textbook of Suicidology. Guilford Press. ISBN 1-57230-541-X. pp. 280–281.
²Jason DeParel, "A Life Undone," The New York Times, August 22, 1993.

³"Vince Foster grave IMG 1511" by Billy Hathorn at en.wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vince_Foster_grave_IMG_1511.JPG#/media/File:Vince_Foster_grave_IMG_1511.JPG

The Storming of the Bastille

Where Love Goes to Die

Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood

Jay D. Homnick, deputy editor of The American Spectator, in an insightful perspective today “The Elephant in the Womb” asks:

“... who in the gory history of the 20th and 21st centuries has murdered the most doctors? The most artists? The most lawyers? The most musicians? The most athletes? The most intellectuals? The most mechanics? The most inventors? The answer, my friends, is not Stalin, not Hitler, not Mao, not Pol Pot. It is that Orwellian monstrosity, that relic of the eugenicist and racist era of the late 1900s, Planned Parenthood.”

“More hell than health… there is little planning going on, and even less parenthood. Planned Parenthood is the friendly neighborhood place… where love goes to die…”

But I can't help but think how precious are His thoughts:

“For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee” (Psalms 139:13-18).

The Mystery

Hillary’s Very Bad Day

ObamaLeaks

He was a Soldier Once... And Young

Let Us Cross Over the River

The following article was reportedly published by The New York Times on July 30, 1906:

Erected in Negro Church by Contributions from Negroes.

ROANOKE, Va., July 29 -- A memorial window of Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson was unveiled in the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church today.  The congregation is composed of negroes.  The window was erected by the pastor, the Rev. L. L. Downing, the money for its purchase coming wholly from negroes.

The Exercises were largely attended by both races, the Confederate camps of Roanoke and Salem and the chapters of the Daughters of the Confederacy.  There were addresses by white citizens of Roanoke.

Downing's father and mother were members of a Sunday school class of negro slaves taught by Jackson at Lexington before the war, and to-day's exercises marked the realization of an ambition Downing has had since boyhood, to pay fitting tribute to the Confederate commander.

The picture presented on the window is that of an army camping on the banks of a stream, the inscription underneath being Jackson's last words: "Let us cross over the river and rest in the shade of the trees."

Nothing to Hide?

Planned Parenthood, Headquarters Washington, D.C. (2008)¹

Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services Dr. Deborah Nucatola recently ignited “pro-life” firestorm. An expose’ video released 3 days ago chronicles Nucatola nonchalantly waving her fork in the air and sipping wine, as she brazenly and graphically describes how her organization covertly and proactively harvests and markets the organs of the babies they abort. Not exactly dinner fare! There was once was a time when Planned Parenthood “allegedly” had nothing to hide:



 In 2004, Planned Parenthood initiated a ploy to overcome the blood-splattered guilt syndrome so common in Post-Abortive Woman. According to Planned Parenthood, rather than being uncomfortable or regretful with their pro-choice choice, women should be celebrating openly and unapologetically: there is nothing to hide. After all, as one abortion provider commented abortion is as American as apple pie. So what purgative did Planned Parenthood contrive to consummate the catharsis? T-shirts emblazoned with the verbiage, "I Had an Abortion."

Interesting, have never seen one. Need not wonder why: is it possible to destroy the pure and innocent image of oneself implanted within without guilt. Moreover, is it possible to destroy the pure and innocent image God implanted within, an image of Himself, without guilt! "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (cf. Genesis 1:26-27).


¹"Planned Parenthood Federation of America headquarters Washington DC" by AgnosticPreachersKid - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Planned_Parenthood_Federation_of_America_headquarters_Washington_DC.JPG#/media/File:Planned_Parenthood_Federation_of_America_headquarters_Washington_DC.JPG

How can I be saved?

The Center of the World

Martin Behaims Erdapfel¹

Obama's first phone call to a foreign leader only hours after taking office was to PLO Chairman Abbas to communicate his commitment to the Arab-Israeli “peace” process. His second call was to Israeli PM Olmert. Our President's overriding priority has never vacillated, it has always been the “center of the world” i.e., that tiny little nation approximately the size of New Jersey that is always in news.

Today as shouts of “Death to Israel” still echoed in the streets of Iran, nuclear talks in Vienna concluded with Iran receiving concessions beyond their wildest dreams as documented by photos of the normally reserved diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif (Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran) later literally dancing for joy on his balcony.

Secretary John Kerry concluded with a eulogy to the President "who had the courage to launch this process, believe in it, support it, encourage it, when many thought the objective was impossible, and who led the way from the start to the finish." A “process” that has now given Iran unlimited resources to facilitate the Arab-Israeli “peace” process i.e., by "annihilating" one or perhaps both parties in the process.

"For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.... Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me: whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake.... No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD. (cf. Isaiah 54:5-17).

¹© Alexander Franke (Ossiostborn) (via Wikimedia-Commons), 31 March 2006/ Martin Behaims Erdapfel/ This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Germany license.

The Occupation

The Battle of Kirksville,

E.M. Violette’s History of Adair County.¹

As the covert Federal occupational forces of Jade Helm descend on “hostile” Texas, there is trepidation, and justifiably so. This is not a unique Federal incursion nor will it be the last:

Cumberland Academy with its towering steeple once stood within the confines of Memorial Park. In earlier days, other than the court house, it was the city’s only place of worship. Here, the godly Joseph Baldwin first conducted his Normal School, and the less than godly Union Colonel John McNeil situated his artillery on that commandeered mount, savaging a largely untrained and unarmed contingent of the Confederacy during the so called Battle of Kirksville.

One of my father’s early memories was of an honor guard firing a volley in remembrance of Twenty-Six Confederate soldiers killed in battle. And of he and his brother, oblivious to the significance gleefully running to pick up shell casings around the mass grave and its monument. Pearl Harbor and Buna all too soon altered that innocence.

In recent years, a second monument appeared revealing a truth long latent in that trench. The day after the battle, by order of Colonel John McNeil, fifteen captives were tried, convicted, and shot where the old Wabash Depot once stood. And on the third day, Colonel Frisby McCullough was court-martialed on contrived charges, found guilty, sentenced to be shot, and with the apparent consent of McNeil, “paraded up and down the streets of Kirksville amid the jeers and shouts of joy of the Federals.” However, at his request as an officer, he was given one concession, to conduct his own execution: “What I have done, I have done as a principle of right. Aim at the heart. Fire!” However, his executioners failed to comply. And as a second volley was being prepared, he continued from the ground: “May God forgive you this barbarous murder.”

"And all that sat in the council, looking stedfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.... But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul. And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep" (Act 6:15-7:60).