James Thomas Rook Jr.

The shadow will be bigger than the flag if it is spread across an oblique wall with the Sun at the shown apparent angle, say somewhere around 45 degrees above the horizontal, and 35 degrees to the left.  ThIs is called the "cosine effect", which I am well familiar with, as for decades I had a photographic darkroom, and worked with this with my very own developer chemical stained fingers, and light meters.
 The light from the Sun is radial, from the Sun, but after traveling 93,000,000 miles across Space, it is for all practical purposes of this discussion, parallel rays, and easy to predict.
It's called "ray tracing".
BillyTheKid46 may (may) be a good agenda driven Watchtower Lawyer ... but agenda driven thinking is ALWAYS delusional.
The problem is....
 ... IT'S HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS !
Write me a super-BIG check, and when it clears the bank, I will send anyone a 30 page report.

I enlarged the photo, and compared the flag pole to the flag and pole projected shadows, onto the Kingdom Hall's wall.
The photo MAY be a complete fake, but it is NOT probable, in my considered and educated opinion.
The larger and higher flag in the picture (there are two) is definitely behind the fence at the sidewalk or curb, and it projects exactly correct at the right angle, and the shadow on the Kingdom Hall wall  at the address numbers "2925" shown, is the right size and shape, and SPECULAR ALBEDO that it should be.
WHAT IS TRUTH SHOULD BE THE AGENDA ... NOT what is the agenda..
Sometimes, we just have to bet our lives, on the best guess, according to how we see the Universe.

The preponderance of evidence, as I saw it then, and as I see it now, as shown leads me to believe that it happened EXACTLY as Jack Ryan just posted.
It is consistent with the fact that for 50 years in Mexico, Jehovah's Witnesses were a "cultural association", until the law was changed so they could own REAL ESTATE.
Straight from "central casting".
When I was a younger man, I used to bet my life that I understood parachuting as well as I understood that hitting the ground at 220 miles per hour is NOT GOOD ...
A series of ACTUAL life or death "leaps of faith".   I am USED to the idea.
It's all about how you rate the probabilities of this thing ... that thing .. or the other thing .... whatever it is, as being true, false, or somewhere in the middle.
Sometimes, the credibility gap is compensated for by a gullibility fill.
Sometimes the truth really hurts.
WDS - the sword that cuts BOTH ways.
The preponderance of evidence, as I saw it then, and as I see it now, as shown leads me to believe that it happened EXACTLY as Jack Ryan just posted.
 

The shadow will be bigger than the flag if it is spread across an oblique wall with the Sun at the shown apparent angle, say somewhere around 45 degrees above the horizontal, and 35 degrees to the left.  ThIs is called the "cosine effect", which I am well familiar with, as for decades I had a photographic darkroom, and worked with this with my very own developer chemical stained fingers, and light meters.
 The light from the Sun is radial, from the Sun, but after traveling 93,000,000 miles across Space, it is for all practical purposes of this discussion, parallel rays, and easy to predict.
It's called "ray tracing".
BillyTheKid46 may (may) be a good agenda driven Watchtower Lawyer ... but agenda driven thinking is ALWAYS delusional.
The problem is....
 ... IT'S HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS !
Write me a super-BIG check, and when it clears the bank, I will send anyone a 30 page report.

I wouldn't go that far. Someone could have superimposed the flag onto the picture, but knowing where the flagpole is from another picture now puts the shadow in exactly the right place (in my opinion). Also, I just ran a line from each known shadow projection point (corners, objects) on that front facing wall, and they all spread exactly as expected (nearly parallel, but flared as expected with low sunlight). Also notice that the edges are even attenuated as expected the further distance that the shadow travels to reach the further part of the wall from the flag. Compare that slight blurriness to the crisper shadows of the roof overhang, etc. 
That's a lot of unnecessary work if all they had to do was just not show a flag shadow altogether, or get a picture without shadows. They even caught the depth of the vinyl siding correctly and realized that the zig-zag would have to be exaggerated for the longer angle. If it's faked they got all this down perfectly. That tells me that the shape of the flag shadow itself is likely correct even though we can't see a portion of the flag making a piece of the projected shadow. If they had the abilities required to attenuate and zig-zag the Gaussian blur correctly, then they could have produced a more "expected" shape for the shadow of the invisible portion of the flag. The fact that they did not work to make it more "expected," but left a perfectly reasonable shadow anyway tells me it's not "Photoshopped."
I'm willing to suspend judgment and give more credence to the supposed branch letter's explanation. 
Also, due to my own prejudices, I have tried to be a stickler at avoiding jehovahs-witness.com, even when it comes up as the only source in Google for certain information. But I see that there is more evidence there than was presented previously on this site. For example, quoting:
"Hi, I moved during the past week and searched 21 Kingdom Halls, not including Bethel. I could only obtain a picture of a mast and a waving flag. The picture of the mast (with no flag) is of a Hall that's at Avenida México 2789 in the neighborhood of Puente Alto, Provincia Cordillera, Región Metropolitana, Chile, and was taken on the 21st of September, 2014 at around 6PM."
 

On this picture, I would have sworn that the JW.ORG sign was photoshopped. That would be damaging, if true, but still wouldn't be critical to the point of the picture. I found the location of this Hall on JW.ORG and on Google Street View, but can't see the sign.

One more thing, Allen.  Deception begets deception. I see "Billy the Kid" has adopted the easy path of deception that his leaders have taught him.  

https://www.iicsa.org.uk/investigations

No. But I gave them enough details in one message that it should have got some sort of response. 
They have my name and email address. They have the KH address. They have all the information I have. 
 
 

@JOHN BUTLER Have you heard anything from when you tried to contact the Police about the abuse in your old hall?

From the email I received. " In June 2015 it issued a retention order covering documents of interest to the Inquiry to the leaders of 18 prominent religious organisations, including the Jehovah's Witnesses. " 
18 different religions, apart from all the government departments and other institutions. So give them a chance.
It doesn't say that the JW Org is not worth investigating does it ? It's just not top priority. 
It is sad for the victims of JW Org sexual abuse here in the UK to have to wait longer, but I think the investigation will happen in time.
As for me despising any religion well those are your words Tom not mine.  

This must be extremely stressful to you, since the link you supplied points to 13 specific areas of inquiry, all but the first thought to be possible hotbeds of CSA, and the religion you despise is not among them.

I was having a discussion on here somewhere with someone, concerning the IICSA investigation into JW Org in the UK. 
I've just received this email from them so thought I'd put it up on here for people to look at. 
It doesn't copy and paste exactly as it looks on my email, but here it is anyway :- 
Our reference: IICSA-0013979

 
Dear Mr Butler
Thank you for contacting the Inquiry on 3 February.
As you may be aware, the Inquiry is investigating institutional failure to protect children from sexual abuse in the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches. In June 2015 it issued a retention order covering documents of interest to the Inquiry to the leaders of 18 prominent religious organisations, including the Jehovah's Witnesses.  
The Inquiry has received correspondence from a considerable number of individuals raising concerns about child sexual abuse within Jehovah's Witnesses organisations. At present the Inquiry is committed to delivering its existing programme and is not currently launching any new investigations. However, as our work progresses, we will consider calls for a Jehovah's Witnesses specific investigation carefully.
Any updates on our investigations, including scope and hearings can be found on our website at www.iicsa.org.uk/investigations
Investigations The Inquiry has launched 13 investigations into a broad range of institutions identified on the basis of the Panel’s criteria for selection of investigations. The investigations will give a voice to victims and survivors of child sexual abuse, enable the Inquiry to understand how institutions have failed to protect children from sexual abuse and make practical recommendations to ensure better institutional protection for children in the future. www.iicsa.org.uk  
I am sorry for the delay in responding to you and I hope that you have found this information useful. If you have any questions regarding the contents of this email, please do not hesitate to contact the Inquiry again.
Yours sincerely

Jodie Yarborough
Head of Correspondence & Engagement Team
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse
 

Agenda driven thinking is ALWAYS delusional ... whether you are on the "outside looking in" ... or the "inside looking out".
WDS - the sword that cuts BOTH ways.

I enlarged the photo, and compared the flag pole to the flag and pole projected shadows, onto the Kingdom Hall's wall.
The photo MAY be a complete fake, but it is NOT probable, in my considered and educated opinion.
The larger and higher flag in the picture (there are two) is definitely behind the fence at the sidewalk or curb, and it projects exactly correct at the right angle, and the shadow on the Kingdom Hall wall  at the address numbers "2925" shown, is the right size and shape, and SPECULAR ALBEDO that it should be.
WHAT IS TRUTH SHOULD BE THE AGENDA ... NOT what is the agenda..
Sometimes, we just have to bet our lives, on the best guess, according to how we see the Universe.

The particular picture you showed, however, might or might not be evidence for what it looks like. I don't think it's a coincidence that the picture finds the most damning angle, and yet that angle still doesn't prove what it was apparently intended to prove. Notice how close the flag material is shown to the corner of the Hall. You could not take a picture with it any closer. We also have a shadow that indicates the flag is not as close to that corner as it first appears. And we have a vertical fence bar obscuring the vertical flag pole so that we don't know if it is behind the white fence or in front. The picture therefore appears staged in a way that could be hiding evidence and which could be easily shown one way or another with a second picture that shows which side of the white fence the flag is on.
You have often shown the picture below, and engineers and draftsmen realize that you often need three or more perspectives, and dotted (hidden) lines to get the full picture.

The preponderance of evidence, as I saw it then, and as I see it now, as shown leads me to believe that it happened EXACTLY as Jack Ryan just posted.
It is consistent with the fact that for 50 years in Mexico, Jehovah's Witnesses were a "cultural association", until the law was changed so they could own REAL ESTATE.
Straight from "central casting".
When I was a younger man, I used to bet my life that I understood parachuting as well as I understood that hitting the ground at 220 miles per hour is NOT GOOD ...
A series of ACTUAL life or death "leaps of faith".   I am USED to the idea.
It's all about how you rate the probabilities of this thing ... that thing .. or the other thing .... whatever it is, as being true, false, or somewhere in the middle.
Sometimes, the credibility gap is compensated for by a gullibility fill.
Sometimes the truth really hurts.
WDS - the sword that cuts BOTH ways.
The preponderance of evidence, as I saw it then, and as I see it now, as shown leads me to believe that it happened EXACTLY as Jack Ryan just posted.
 

I don't know anything other than what was in the news several years ago ... that on a particular national holiday, Chile requires  Churches to display the National Flag for that day on their building or flag poles ... and the Elders put one inside the building, showing through the windows, and put one on a flag pole (what's a Kingdom Hall doing with a flag pole ...anyway..?), to avoid paying a fine, somewhere around $240.
I have several photos on my hard drive somewhere, from several angles.
That's all I know.

The picture I saw had the Chilean Flag behind the metal bars in the windows, behind the glass, inside the building, facing out, and there was a high steel rod fence with a gate around the property, with the flagpole on the property, on the grounds.
It may have been put there by Eskimos for all I know.
... but that is not probable.
 
 

She says that she was raised a Witness but did not make it her own.
She says that now she wants to.
She says that when she does she is going to track you down, old boy, and wallop the stuffing out of you at the sport of your choice, so long as it is tennis.

I don't know anything other than what was in the news several years ago ... that on a particular national holiday, Chile requires  Churches to display the National Flag for that day on their building or flag poles ... and the Elders put one inside the building, showing through the windows, and put one on a flag pole (what's a Kingdom Hall doing with a flag pole ...anyway..?), to avoid paying a fine, somewhere around $240.
I have several photos on my hard drive somewhere, from several angles.
That's all I know.

You are all confused. Did God have a nation in the past? Yes, the house of Israel was God's nation. God's Kingdom on earth, with a fleshly king representing it. There was nothing idolatrous about that idea. But as you know, the nation of Israel was later rejected by God and as Jesus said to the Jews: "This is why I say to you, the Kingdom of God will be taken from you and be given to a nation producing its fruits". This became the Christian congregation made up of not only anointed Jews (Israelites) but also anointed Gentiles. Hence, this new nation came to be known as "spiritual Israel", who with those not anointed (the other sheep) became one flock. 1 Pet. 2:9.
JW.org is a website. The Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses is the worldwide congregation of anointed and the other sheep. If you want to call it an organization there is nothing wrong with that, since it is organized to accomplish  God's will on earth, which is the preaching of the Kingdom and making disciples: "Jesus approached and spoke to them, saying: “All authority has been given me in heaven and on the earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you. And look! I am with you all the days until the conclusion of the system of things.” ( Matthew 28:18-20) This worldwide congregation is not lead or headed by a fleshly King like in Israelite times, nor any other human,  but a heavenly king Jesus Christ. He is the head of the congregation. Matthew 23:10 
There is nothing idolatrous about that arrangement, and giving support to it is not being idolatrous but it is supporting Jesus' arrangement.
And again I repeat, jw.org is a website, it is not the Christian Congregation, but merely a modern aid to disseminating the Kingdom good news.
 
 

TTH was in LlOYD's  HOUSE.
The "homeowner" sets the rules about what speech is permitted.
That is also true at the Kingdom Hall, and at my house.
It is also true with The Librarian, and admin, here.

"Permanent makeup is a cosmetic technique which employs tattoos as a means of producing designs that resemble makeup, such as eyelining and other permanent enhancing colors to the skin of the face, lips, and eyelids." (Wikipedia).
Those who wish to indulge in such, if they are Jehovah's Witnesses, would first be asking: " Is it against Jehovah's expressed permission?" The answer to that is no, as the contextual posting from @James Thomas Rook Jr. makes clear.
They would then consider, does it harmonise with Bible principles such as those underpinning 1Tim.2:9-10; Ph.1:10; 2Cor.6:3 and 1John 2:16 ?
There might also be some practical considerations such as:
the cost; the skill of the technician; the aesthetics; the impression given to others; the ease of reversal; the effects of aging This picture seems to offer no cause for controversy:

This picture, however, does give cause for concern..... along with these.