James Thomas Rook Jr.

I found this interesting picture ... taken just 15 seconds apart, of Chelsea Clinton, with different lighting, camera angles, and background .... so you can see the same subject can look different depending on when it was photographed.

.....

.....

    

..... wait for it .......

 

.... "refreshing" the photos now .....

 

.......

Comedy is often misunderstood.

That has been worrying me all day!

I really like those NECCO candy wafers !

Trump has an outrageous sense of humor that is often as dry as the Gobi desert. 

Real men poke each other with humor, and insult each other good naturedly.  

Many years ago I was working on a Bethel Home in Lima, Peru, and as we worked, the American "Gringo" Brothers would with big grins insult each other quite creatively, and those who knew Spanish would call out to each other about how stupid each other was, etc., etc., etc. if their work was not perfectly done.

The Peruvian Brothers were HORRIFIED!

Donald Burt, the Branch Overseer had to call all the Americans in ( including myself ... ) and explain to them that this GREATLY UPSET the Peruvians working on the project, as these were fighting words to them ... and they assumed this would cause mortal combat.

So, to keep them from fear and crying we stopped light hearted insulting each other as we worked.

Whatever else you can say about Trimp, Kim, and Putin ... these men are adults and think like adults, and can take some snide ribbing.   It is like playing verbal chess.  When they get together ... they UNDERSTAND each other.

Obama was often referred to as the "Amateur in Chief", instead of "Commander in Chief", not because of his lack of his intelligence, drive, and experience, although the lack of real world experience doing something other than spending other peoples' money was a part of it .... it was  because although he was a grown man ... his thought processes and patterns remained that of a petulant child ...

There are whole nations, tribes, peoples, societies, and cliques that think like adults, and the same .... that think like children.

...and they always will.

They take everything personal, have no sense of humor (because they do not have a frame of reference comprehensive enough to know what is funny and what is not, or what is important and what is not, etc. ), but they ... no matter how old they get or what they accomplish ...

.... will always think like children.

7 hours ago, Queen Esther said:

I  also  have  such  a  big  GB  card....  bec. its  my  hobby  since  many  years Good  night  my  funny  Brother !

 

Remember focal plane shutters on film cameras where you could get dramatically different flash/available light balanced  pictures, depending on whether or not the "x" (electronic flash setting) was set to "at first curtain", or "at second curtain"?

I took a photo of a basketball player, years ago, jumping to put the ball in the basket, with a strong flash, and the combination of blurred available light and secondary flash  at about a 15th of a second, and the photo looked like his white front teeth, trailing the flash image,  were about 12 feet long, in an arc.

I bet some interesting photos could be made of GB member, Brother Stephen Lett, in action.

I used to rely on GB cards, but found that some were typical, and some were anti-typical, and I could never make any sense of the overlapping photos.

For those in Rio Linda, that is ultra-dry Gobi Desert humor.

You can "stonewall" Justice for a while .... but the people with the rifles and the bayonets also have ladders, or will make them as needed,  and with those rifles and bayonets, ( Sovereign State Enforcement Power) ....will climb over your wall.

... and they will NOT be happy campers.

As a professional photographer, I know that photos taken fractions of a second apart can make people and dynamics look completely different ... and keep my camera on "continuous" shooting bursts 5 pictures to the second. 

Now that "film" is free, with digital cameras when I shoot a wedding sometimes I take two or three thousand pictures for that very reason.  My 64GB SD card will take more than 10,000 high resolution pictures before I have to change the card.  I do take along spare cameras and six fully charged batteries.

A fraction of a second can make all the difference!

12 minutes ago, Queen Esther said:

He  is  not  able  to  be  a  good  USA  President  -  maybe  better  for  a  little  country..

Historically, the Germans choice of leaders ( ...and Herr Hitler was elected as Chancellor of Germany ...) has not been that good.

........... In English there is the proverb about "the pot calling the kettle, black".

9 hours ago, TheWorldNewsOrg said:

I find it very strange that President Trump has such a hard time getting along with the leaders of the world’s major democracies but feels very comfortable with despots and authoritarian leaders like Putin, Xi Jinping, Duterte and Mohammad Bin Salman.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 10, 2018

And I find Bernie Sanders concerns actually, considering that he is a raving Socialist ... an implied endorsement of Trump, by people that are rational, knowledgeable, and reality based.

.... getting down to the meat of the matter .....

Cos:

You remind me of those who advanced the mid 40's Japanese Empire.

They were tough, fierce, dedicated, and determined to NEVER surrender.

Two atomic bombs changed their mind.

Soon enough ... you will know.

Transparency is a moral obligation to those who contribute their hard earned money .... which represents a portion of their total lifetimes ... which is painfully short.

In a Theocratic context ... it is the difference between having integrity .... AND NOT.

On 6/8/2018 at 8:11 AM, JW Insider said:

My iPhone weather app includes NYC, LA, Dubai, North Pole, South Pole simultaneously, and yesterday (June 7!!) it showed that it was warmer on the North Pole than in NYC. Also, the South Pole was 130 degrees colder than the North Pole.

Are you talking about the Astronomic North and South Poles ... or the Magnetic North and South Poles?   As with all things "the devil is in the details".

59 minutes ago, Nicole said:

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

17 hours ago, JW Insider said:

My iPhone weather app includes NYC, LA, Dubai, North Pole, South Pole simultaneously, and yesterday (June 7!!) it showed that it was warmer on the North Pole than in NYC. Also, the South Pole was 130 degrees colder than the North Pole.

.... climate is what we expect ..... weather is what we get.

Time is the best teacher ..... unfortunately it kills all its students.

..... another victim of global warming cow farts .....

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

I asked him once if that was the reason? No answer, though he has responded on other things.

It is a matter of faith ... and to stay economically viable ... you cannot be a heretic.

Some people like to fly around in expensive Jet Planes ... some people like to construct massive edifices... and some people like to command great armies of various types.

None of those things are the issue.

The issue is ... are they being honest to the people that are paying the bills ?

Skin is skin ..... but when you are sitting around a campfire on a cold night ..... quite comfortable ... ( even though you may have to rotate ) .... and you half the distance, you are going to have 4 times the energy impinge on your body ( all radiation follows the inverse square law ).  You may get hot enough to damage your skin.

To find the approximate distance between the orbits of two planets in AU, subtract the two planet-Sun distances. For example, Earth orbits at 1 AU from the Sun and Venus orbits at 0.72 AU from the Sun. Mercury is 0.39 AU from the Sun.

... and that makes ALL the difference.

Plus the atmosphere of Venus is almost 100% carbon dioxide, AND 93 TIMES MORE DENSE (HEAVIER) THAN EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE ... than our Earth's predominately nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere, with TRACES of carbon dioxide, by comparison.

Venus is almost completely covered with sulfur dioxide clouds, which has completely different infrared absorption characteristics than that Earth's water based clouds.

Just because Earth and Venus share approximately the same size does NOT mean they are in any way whatsoever similar otherwise.

 And a comparison with Mercury makes no sense at all, because Mercury, except for some temporary Solar wind particles, has no atmosphere whatsoever, and  it is unique in that it does not rotate every 24 hours like the Earth does, but only rotates exactly three time for every two Mercury years.

What occurs on Mercury is a COMPLETELY different energy transfer situation.

 You are comparing "Apples, Giraffes, and Volkswagens".

Ever watch the old TV show "Have Gun - Will Travel" on TV in the 60's?

I was always jarred seeing Paladin riding his horse across the Arizona and Texas  deserts in summertime ... dressed completely in black.

I am almost sure this filming was done on a lot in California ... but what was depicted would have caused him to have a heat stroke in about five minutes.  I have a black suit I wore out in Service last Saturday, and at 80 degrees, I was sweating like a human bathroom shower head.

You are comparing things that are in NO WAY even remotely similar .... except Venus is roughly the same size as Earth.

Mercury is a unique situation unto itself.

I used to do Solar Isolation calculations for a living, for the Parson's Brinckerhoff family of engineering companies ... and often had to dispel the opinions of those who did not.

Very few people understand complex composite energy transfers in disparate systems .... I grew up with it.

The FIRST rule of Engineering is "make a sketch", and correctly label the component parts ...

4 hours ago, JW Insider said:

• To make these thin offset printing plates to produce My Book of Bible Stories and other literature published by the Watchtower Society, photographs had to be taken of proofs of linotype-produced pages. The film negatives were then merged with negatives of the pictures or illustrations. It was this slow, mechanical, prepress system of producing type from hot lead that needed to be replaced by some faster method. A group of Jehovah’s Witnesses investigated how to do this.

That investigative "group" was pretty much completely disfellowshipped.

Justice you only get from God.

Any committee, like an insect,  is usually a life form  that has at least  six legs, and very little brain.

.... an increase in carbon dioxide is NOT making the Earth warmer.

The Earth is getting warmer because of the variability of our Sun, and the Earth's orbital eccentricities .... and that increased warmth is causing more bacteria in the soil to flourish and reproduce, and they poop MORE CARBON DIOXIDE.

Get it?

The last time we had a crisis such as since 1880, the global temperature has risen by 0.74 degrees celsius, is when my grandmother went to a pig eating contest and her corset exploded!

So ... in 138 years the Earth's temperature went up 3/4 of one degree ... which is quite understandable if you understand orbital mechanics, Milankovitch Cycles ( Look it up on Wikipedia ....), and the fact that our Sun is a variable star with 40,000 year, 4,000 year, and 11 year cycles.

Please feel free to run down the hallway screaming with your hair on fire.

Until you can change the physics of nuclear fusion, and specifically our star, the Sun,  there is ONLY one thing a rational person can do.

Improvise and adapt.

1 hour ago, Anna said:

This might be another topic, but yes, I noticed that, therefor after the meeting I immediately asked an elder who was sitting in front of me. I said it was odd, why mention two questions and then only talk about one. (At that point my husband fled). He said because the second question would be off topic, since the discussion was about dedication to Jehovah. So I said sure, but without answering yes to the second question you couldn't get baptised. He said the second question would probably get discussed in the next lesson. I told him no, I looked. So he said not to worry, it will come up sometime.... ?

....perhaps tomorrow ......

.... perhaps 20 years from now ... on a windswept plain next to a dried up lake in New York State, next to some crumbled buildings giving silent testimony to the greed of man, in a collapsed water damaged building .... on a bookshelf ... the books eaten by worms.

 

My wife and I have cut back our contributions back about 70% for the last three years, SOLELY due to how the WTB&TS has handled their pursuit and perversions of Justice by their legal staff.  Whether or not the GB is aware of that and everything else that is going on financially I do not have solid proof for, but understanding people in general, makes me dislike them even more.

Since I still believe Jehovah's Witnesses are "The only game in town", and there is clear hard evidence that the "game has been rigged", and I have no vote whatsoever ... and neither do you ..... I have only two choices.

Vote with my feet ... or vote with my wallet.

It appears MILLIONS of Jehovah's Witnesses are doing that exact same thing.

Sometimes .... as many Congregations are finding out, as their Kingdom Halls THEY built and THEY paid for are cruelly confiscated and sold out from under them ... you have to just stand there, and allow yourself to be robbed.

Ever notice in this year's Watchtower Study Editions they have prominently mentioned the baptism Dedication Oath , and ONLY cited the FIRST of the two questions? 

I have noticed this twice ... but they did NOT cite the second question.

There is an OBVIOUS reason for this.

This is WHY the Baptismal Dedication Oath was changed in 1985 to include "Part Two", to make us a vassal of the Governing Body and its lawyers .... and why we can now be legally disfellowshipped for such nebulous, undefined things as "brazen conduct". 

It cost them several millions of dollars in lawsuits to figure that out.

What is this undefined, "brazen conduct"?

If you call them to account for things needing serious reform, it means they do not LIKE you.

You cannot expect to treat people with pervasive, institutionalized cruelty, even in mild mannered, soothing gentle tones .... and expect them to like you back.

It is a double edged sword that cuts both ways.

I was showing my eldest son various weapons I have, and I stopped .... paused ....

... and in a conspiratorial low voice asked "I don't have any ammunition for it, but would you like to see the most powerful weapon ever developed in modern times?"

With wide-eyed awe, he wondered what I had that would be that weapon, and he replied in a nodding whisper .... that he would.

I turned around, and out of my desk drawer, I showed him my checkbook.

And yes, dear young ones .... be assured that Jehovah loves you ... and the Governing Body loves you.

Just be sure to keep that saved ice cream money rolling in.

IT SEEMS THAT EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT THE SOCIETY IS DOING .....

.... EXCEPT THE PEOPLE PAYING THE BILLS.