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Don't know. Of course, in David's case it was others in the royal entourage making the choice for him. In the account, he didn't ask for a virgin, but if not a virgin then the woman would have belonged to someone else, or would have likely been involved in sin or scandal. If they asked a man to snuggle up to him for the purposes of producing the right temperature of body heat, that might not have created the best "optics." But of course, David surely still had some older wives who would surely have been able to produce about the same level of body heat as this virgin. I always had the impression that this was the Bible's admission of a certain kind of senility on the part of David to think he needed this sort of thing, or else the royal house just assumed that this was in line with his wishes.

You might already be aware that TTH is trying to make fun of the excess squabbling by squabbling with himself. 99.99 percent chance, in my opinion, that @Arguis Maxus is just another account that @TrueTomHarley has created for his own "satirical" purposes.

When I visited Warwick a few months back, Sister Marina Sydlik was at the Sunday meeting I attended. I was sitting about 7 rows from the front and she was two rows from the front the whole time, but I didn't notice her until she was called on for a comment in the Watchtower Study. Back in the 1970s and 1980s she was also in the Art Department. She was very professional yet always friendly, and got along well with all the young persons, but not necessarily so well with the older sisters. I don't think this was her fault at all. There was kind of a joke going around Bethel and, unfortunately, it got back to her. Bethelites were calling her "the hot young babe." There were some Bethelites who would would pass her in the hallways, and then turn to the Bethelite next to them and whisper "Hey, who's the hot young babe?" just to get a laugh. She was basically "our age" (she looked to be in her late twenties) while Dan Sydlik, a member of the Governing Body, looked to be in his early sixties, when I worked with Marina. Best I could guess, she was about 32 years younger than him. The rumor (based perhaps partly on things Sydlik had joked about) was that he had known the family for years and had liked Marina from the time she was a little girl. She had a lot of money from her family, and she offered to loan some of her expensive jewelry to be worn by those who would be photographed for images in the publications. After that she was sometimes asked to loan jewelry again. She was used as an Art Department model too, on occasion. She was always nervous about her jewelry getting lost, and on one occasion something was lost for a while causing EVERYONE to get nervous, but then it was found. I don't know why they had to use real jewelry anyway.

Does this have anything to do with the semi-racist book we read in Kindergarten back in the 1960's? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX7k_QN29y8 Per Wiki: "One can swallow the sea, one has an unbreakable iron neck, one can stretch his legs to incredible lengths, one can survive being burned, and one can hold his breath forever." When accused of murder, since they all looked alike . . . "one by one, his four brothers assume his place (by switching roles through the ruse of convincing the judge to let them return home briefly to bid their mother goodbye) when subjected to execution and each uses his own superhuman ability to survive beheading, drowning, burning and suffocation. Finally, the judge decrees that since the man could not be executed, he must have been innocent."

I have been married to my wife for 40 years, less one. (39). She is 4 years older than I am, which means that there was a time when she was 8 and I was only 4! The shame!!

What next? Thumbtacks invented by a podiatrist?

The perfect time to look for another inhabitable planet, jump off and take a ride to, you know, expand our horizons.

Ah yes! My favorite! Besides Tetris, it's the only video game that I actually bought and loaded on my early PCs. I've gone several years without playing any video games or simulations, but I'll be very happy to try this one again. (I have to admit that I have also used the flight simulator function on Google Earth, and even tried out a few free flight sims for the iPhone.) I don't think people want to admit how often in the early MS Flight Simulator, that so many of us took off from the default airport and found ourselves trying to manage circle-eight maneuvers around the World Trade Center buildings in a Boeing 747 -- and inevitably crashing into them (pre 9/11).

For the record I have never heard you say anything here that did not sound sincere. I have never heard a word from you that I would have thought was borne out of hate or even OCD. However, there is a such thing as a "zeal for God, but not according to accurate knowledge." Of course, I'm sure your knowledge of scripture is at least as good as Pearl's, but as I've said before, the interpretation appears to unnecessarily "pick on" the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses. Earlier you quoted from Matthew 7: 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. I realize that this is not about identifying an organization, but is more about how Christ Jesus along with Jehovah's spirit produces a good tree producing truth, comfort, healing, and good qualities among those who follow. The problem with your own view, in my opinion, is that you already claim that it's the association of Jehovah's Witnesses through which the faithful anointed are coming through, and for this reason such an association fulfills Bible prophecy. But these faithful anointed are therefore being produced through the association of Jehovah's Witnesses -- and no bad true tree can produce good fruit. Also, anointed aside, I think all of us who are associated with Jehovah's Witnesses see GOOD FRUIT being produced among us. All of also see many of the wrongs, and most of us are not willing to discuss the wrongs, or admittedly, even "process" such things. Sometimes that's because some of us are obviously thinking that the organization has some kind of direct authority over us. This is no doubt a common view of immature Witnesses. But the Bible makes us realize that such an organization can be used as a tool for Christ's Kingdom interests, but that Christ's authority transcends organization. The organization is an expected result of trying to efficiently and lovingly get the word out to as many people as possible in as many lands (and languages) as possible. Human nature leads some in the organization to assume that they need to have (or see) some kind of temporal, worldly-styled authority over other persons, but many of us realize that we are not actually under the authority of men. Yet, we appreciate the leadership and example of men in the organization. Unrelated to that issue of authority, most of can easily see how the effect of a world-wide association of Witnesses is both an opportunity for each of us to show the fruits of God's spirit, and it becomes an example, even a "Witness," to the good effects of God's holy spirit. I'll grant that there is much to improve, but even if it produces SOME good fruit, then it is coming from a "good" tree. We don't have to chop down the tree, because it's not a bad tree. My own interpretation is that the "organization" is not the tree of Matt 7:17,18 anyway, it's just that the good influence of Jehovah's holy spirit helps such a "tool" to reflect usefulness as an "instrument" or "vessel" because it is made up of well meaning sincere and loving people who want to do what is right. Organization or "orderliness" is just another potential result of wanting to do what is right in the best ways possible.

I'd love to respond to each of your questions, although I'm a bit uncomfortable with the idea that this comes off as a serious disagreement between Arauna and myself. She happens to be the one who makes the strongest statements against a position that I have now come to see as more correct than the position I held just a few years ago when I would have whole-heartedlly agreed with her. I don't mean to position my own beliefs as the antithesis of Aruana's either, because I agree with her on the most fundamental principles behind her own reasons for accepting the beliefs she accepts. For example, it's obvious that all nations work in their own self-interests and any semblance of government working for the greatest benefit of the majority is not going to be found working in this world. The whole world lies in the power of the wicked one. What I have found most interesting is that --and this is about me and my opinion-- when we widen our viewpoints and focus on the contradictions and hypocrisies as a starting point, we often find that there is a world of evidence and information that we would have formerly rejected, not because it wasn't good evidence, but because it didn't fit into our worldview. I'm interested in the power of propaganda, and all of us should be if we are really interested in "the truth" on any matter. But pitting my evidence against someone else's just makes the other person believe they are being called naive or perhaps even unintelligent, for example. And being the recipient of the snide side of the "lol" makes me feel badly for the person offering it, because it usually means they are taking it personally. So, I'd like to make clear, as most people already know, that I'm stating my beliefs about world events and world situations, not as an attack on anyone's view. I already know that most of these views are accepted by only a small percentage of people in the "West." And I have no problem with persons accepting views opposing my own. I expect this. This is no reflection on intelligence, willingness to learn. It's not about naivety. Also, there are a lot things I already accept as true from the "opposing" side of each argument. My own goal has been to try to accept ideas that fit evidence I have seen, and explain evidence that wouldn't make much sense, otherwise. But there are always ways to fit ANY evidence into a view if one is creative enough. If Stalin was pure evil, for example, then the reason there is no evidence for all the evil things we want to believe about him, is because he was SO EVIL that he killed everyone and everything that could have shown evidence against him. Same would go for Falun Gong organ harvesting. No evidence means that all the Chinese people in government are so evil that they allow no truth of any kind to get out even if it means killing or torturing all who would try. Then it's also easy for us to believe all other evil things we hear that fit the image we've been given. And this makes it easier for propagandists to foist new tales upon us to believe. It takes very little time to sweep up a third of the world to begin believing things that are either not true, or have no real evidence. We also live in a time when wrongs are magnified for political and ideological purposes. Let's say a group kills or rapes or tortures 40 people. It's a terrible and disgusting thing! But if it's an ideological enemy of the West, we are bound to see someone post somewhere that it was 400 people. Which number is more likely to be reported, the 40 or 400? Probably the first reports will be "anywhere from 40 to 400." At this point fake news enthusiasts such as governments and government agencies and crazy ideologists will step in and start manufacturing evidence for 4,000 then 40,000. The limits of belief are tested, but if it fits an existing view in the West, for example, it's not going to be difficult. At the same time I expect that the non-West is probably doing something similar in creating exaggerated views of the evil in the West. And the areas where this is done best are well chosen. Several people actually have died in large demonstration/protests in Ecuador, Haiti, etc. But, in Hong Kong, where no one has died from the demonstrations yet (even though there have been about 3 fake funerals, so far) the West gives many hours of attention, yet close to nothing on Ecuador and Haiti. The violence in a place can be mostly instigated from the right, in Venezuela, for example, and yet the Western media will be expected to focus on violence on the part of the left. Then there are areas where even the news outlets are confused about which side to favor because of competing ideologies. (Turkey, Kurds, Anti-Assad ISIS forces, etc.)

I've heard about these. Some footage actually turned out to be footage from Abu Ghraib. People have passed off footage of Indonesian police beating fellow Indonesians with the purpose of fooling persons into thinking it was about treatment of Uyghurs, or more recently, beatings by Hong Kong police in HK (where actual damning video is available). Social media even made use of pictures of muslims supposedly crying over their situation when it was later shown that the most famous of these pictures was actually just a meme from China's version of SnapChat (called Tik Tok) where the original picture was of a Muslim woman and the "crying effect" had been implemented on the picture. It was not even part of the original. When I worked in NYC, Falun Gong groups would take over the sidewalk of half a city block and set up posters of picture of torture and bloody beatings. I didn't realize at the time that Falun Gong was a Buddhist-styled cult trying to renew its image and be seen in the West merely as an innocent "exercise group." The cult has been caught lying about the torture both in word and pictures for many years. But as an anticommunist media outlet, preaching the end of communism in a divine day of reckoning, they were quickly subsidized by anticommunist groups and governments. Today they get their message out in NYC by offering the Epoch Times newspaper for free in most of the same HUNDREDS of places where the free network owned daily newspapers are available. The claim about processing for body parts has been debunked, too, by the way. Everyone who thinks that Falun Gong is harmless should look at all the available evidence. One can start first by just getting a glimpse of their beliefs as described here at spitfire.com just for a start. The following excerpts are from an hour long podcast also available on the site: FTR #1090. Introduction: We begin with brief review of the Falun Gong cult and its connections. Part of a constellation of organizations and individuals working with former Trump chief of staff Steve Bannon to neutralize China, Falun Gong has garnered the support of CIA derivative Broadcasting Board of Governors in the effort. The Falun Gong teaches that: post menopausal women can regain menstruation, considered mandatory for spiritual evolution; gays are demonized; mixed race people are demonized; cult members are discouraged from seeking modern medical treatment; space aliens are inhabiting human bodies and are responsible for modern technology such as airplanes and computers; tiny beings are said to be invading human bodies and causing “bad karma;” master Li Hongzhi knows the secrets of the universe; master Li Hongzhi can levitate and walk through walls; master Li Hongzhi can install a physical “Falun”–swastika–in the abdomen of followers which revolves in various directions; Falun Gong teaching demonizes feminists and popular music; there will be a “Judgement Day” on which communists and others deemed unworthy by master Li Hongzhi will be neutralized. Falun Gong–largely through its Epoch Times newspaper–has established a major social media presence and is a key ally of President Trump’s re-election effort: “. . . . In April, at the height of its ad spending, videos from the Epoch Media Group, which includes The Epoch Times and digital video outlet New Tang Dynasty, or NTD, combined for around 3 billion views on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, ranking 11th among all video creators across platforms and outranking every other traditional news publisher, according to data from the social media analytics company Tubular. That engagement has made The Epoch Times a favorite of the Trump family and a key component of the president’s re-election campaign. . . . .” Program Highlights Include: The enormous amount of money under control of Falun Gong; similarities to the Unification Church; the anti-communist dogma of the cult (again, not unlike the Unification Church); the role of the internet and social media–Facebook, in particular–in the growth of Falun Gong’s operations; the spin put by NBC on Falun Gong’s beliefs. There is a very graphic picture of the supposed harvesting of organs here. As real as it looks, the caption of the picture says that it is a reenactment for the media. When the group flooded the sidewalks of NY and London with pictures of "actual" bloody repression, it was admitted by members that these were made from re-enactments because no actual pictures are allowed to come out of China. Note that the idea is meant to look as shocking and revolting as the "fact" that the Germans were using ground up babies to lubricate their tanks and other war machinery during WWII. This was a "fact" that I learned in school in Missouri as late as 1965. The problem with such claims is that if true they would be unmanageable. If it were really true that there are more Falun Gong members in China than members of the CCP, and there are literally about 100,000 of these organ harvestings going on per year, then how would one stop a Falun Gong member from getting an actual picture out? (A lot of people have the idea that there are no foreign journalists in China, they are all over the country. A lot of people believe that Chinese people cannot get any Internet outside of the Chinese CCP controlled Internet. It's a little more money, but it's done through the use of a VPN service, just as many people use here and in other countries. You can talk to Chinese people in mainland China this way, even through Western-owned social media apps.) Most media I can find is still very much on the side of the Falun Gong, who appear to be undergoing mostly unwarranted persecution. It seems likely that this is based on so publicly denouncing the Chinese government by using Western-sourced media piped back into China, which evidently includes unwarranted lies about violence used against Falun Gong. But on the issue of the organ harvesting, what I find most interesting here is that in an article below DEFENDING Falun Gong, we also have an admission that the claims of organ harvesting started, not from Falun Gong, but from a Japanese journalist who "heard about it." For those who know the historical and the current situation between Japan and China, this is suspicious. Currently there are journalists in Japan, and even a leader, who is willing to deny the "Rape of Nanking" (Nanjing) which is the equivalent of 'holocaust denial' in the West. note the following from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-21/what-is-the-falun-gong-movement-and-does-china-harvest-organs/9679690 Organ harvesting: is that really happening? According to Falun Gong itself, the ongoing suppression has led to the imprisonment of tens of thousands of practitioners, and claimed some 3,000 lives — but the claims of horror don't stop there. In 2006, a controversial Canadian report brought the world's attention for the first time to a horrific allegation: that the Chinese Government was secretly harvesting organs of Falun Gong followers. The report said the Chinese regime was performing some 60,000 to 100,000 transplants per year — about six times the official total of about 10,000 — and that this means that there are unacknowledged organ sources in China, the primary one being imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners. Photo: Falun Gong member An Yuan claims that she underwent medical tests for organ harvesting purposes in a Chinese prison. (ABC News: Vicky Xiuzhong Xu) Acknowledging widespread scepticism towards the report, one of the authors of the original report, David Matas, a prominent human rights lawyer, told the ABC that "there is new evidence every day". But Benjamin Penny, an expert of religious and spiritual movements in China and a professor at Australian National University, told the ABC that he does not think organ harvesting is an ongoing practice. "Certainly, we know that many practitioners are in prison. That's well known and there's no controversy about that," Dr Penny said. "But organ harvesting is an entirely different question. Organ harvesting is a claim that was not initially made by Falun Gong itself but by a Japanese journalist who heard about it. "My view on it is that I have not seen evidence which convinces me that is true. But I've not seen any evidence that convinces me that it's not true.

Weegers have admitted that it includes vocational training. In fact some have complained that while they are trained for better jobs that they have been given jobs at a greater distance from their home, leaving them less time with their family unless they are willing to move. The rail infrastructure helps, with great distances at great speeds and much lower costs, but it only helps and does not completely solve such problems. (China is far and away the largest builder of high speed rail infrastructure with the stated goal of bringing wealthier persons to poorer areas and poorer persons to wealthier areas.) Don't get the idea that the evidence shows no problems. There are many problems, many prejudices, and many offenses. The one-child policy itself is quite offensive to any of us with moral and religious sensibilities, and is a terrible thing to enforce upon women. (Of course the one-child policy only applies to the larger population of Han Chinese. Ethnic minorities, such as Weegers, are not under the one-child policy, but are automatically allowed two and often a third without more than a fine. But I think abortions are forced on the fourth pregnancy, and there are even penalties for not using contraceptives.) You should also note that a lot of pictures have come out of China claiming to show Weegers but the actual dress with the hijab etc shows that they are fake. Weegers don't dress in the typical Muslim styles of much of the Mid-East. This does not mean that there are not abuses as there will be in any system. In Israel, doctors have been secretly sterilizing Ethiopian refugees in Israel, for example, to perform a slow genocide. (As reported in Hebrew papers, and even Forbes, of all places.)

Nations always work in their self-interest (and all nations are therefore culpable in the context of Rev 16). But do you have any evidence they are not showing any compassion to the Muslims? Do you have any evidence that might help explain why no majority-Muslim nations signed onto the UN resolution against China's treatment of Muslims, when it is very common for Muslim nations to decry their treatment elsewhere?

I have read portions. The first volume is very good, and it shows the facts correctly that match up to known evidence, that has never yet been answered with counter-evidence by those who will only apply the anti-Stalin, anti-communist rhetoric (without evidence). He has biases, as we all do, and does not appear to fully understand the politics of Bolshevism, including its many problems, but he understands where the lies and propaganda about Stalin were initially coming from, and how for the most part it was a continuation of wartime Nazi propaganda, as continued in Ukraine and Poland, for example, and which the US tried to inherit and emulate for its own "news machine." But the second volume is full of popular misconceptions. These are mostly just the supposed "common wisdom" and which, unfortunately, he does not scrutinize as well as in the first volume. I'm curious about the third volume, too, because the more time spent with the actual original sources, he will cover a time period that might force him to rethink some unevidenced claims in the second volume. The most important point is that we have thousands of pages of actual evidence that the biggest part of the anti-Stalin narrative came long after the war, and was itself a rewriting of history. The idea that Stalin intentionally starved people by the millions was a late invention that has been completely debunked. The problem is that it fits what the West has wanted to believe about Stalin. And as the Russian government is anti-Communist, Russia itself has picked up the Nazi-sourced narrative. Of course, this doesn't mean that there were not serious problems with Bolshevism/Communism, and millions of people really did die. Famines were all too common, and millions suffered in the years between WWI and WWII, exacerbated by war, just as millions in Russia suffered famines in the years under the Tsars. This also included millions in India, Russia, Ukraine, etc. But it's now possible to see how, instead of blaming communism for the famines, most of the population was very fortunate to have such a system of government because it helped alleviate the suffering from the famines much faster than would have been possible otherwise.

I'll start with this one, since I agree with a big part of it. Foreign English teachers are still welcome and wanted in China, and they are still being invited. But they are not as welcome as they were just a couple of years ago. Teachers from the United States, especially, are being discouraged from accepting invitations, because the US relationship with China is disintegrating fast, mostly due to economic tariff wars. Chinese schools are not given the freedom to break the rules as often and the immigration policy is stricter. American teachers are meeting up with more antagonism. I think it's explained well in this article from the law firm, Harris-Bricken: https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/06/do-not-teach-english-in-china-and-why-everyone-should-read-this.html [Some excerpts make up the rest of this post, nothing more from me, although I will highlight some portions.] Do NOT Teach English in China and Why EVERYONE Should Read This By Dan Harris on June 19, 2019 Posted in China Business, Legal News ... Since relations between China and the West (especially the English speaking West) started going into straight line decline about a year ago, [2018] the number of these emails have increased exponentially and the problems have shifted. The problems we are seeing these days generally fit into the following three categories: 1. English teacher in jail for a fight or for drug possession. Our advice is to have someone close to them reach out to their country’s embassy and work with the embassy in securing a good local criminal lawyer. We urge them to act quickly and, if at all possible, secure financial support from their parents. We urge them not to publicize their case unless and until their retained lawyer suggests that be done, which is rare. [#2 missing from original article] 3. Visa issues. We usually suggest the teacher work with their school to try to solve these problems (if they trust/like their school) and/or get a good local immigration lawyer/visa specialist to assist. Occasionally we suggest the teacher leave the country. 4. Non-payment or underpayment. These usually involve the school perpetually underpaying, the school being late with payment, the school not paying promised bonuses, not paying for extra hours, not paying the final month’s paycheck under the contract or not reimbursing or paying for the flight home (as per the contract). Our advice is usually to let it go because finding and hiring and paying for a lawyer will likely be difficult and the teacher (just as with the work related problems mentioned above) may well be better off long-term by not making waves. Pretty routine stuff right? Yes and no and it is the “no” part that is causing me to write this post. The no part is that in the last three months these issues have gone into warp speed. Speaking just for myself, the number of these emails has gone from one or two a month to four to five a day. I have seen at least a ten-fold increase in prison, visa and payment problems for teachers from China (and nowhere else in the world). It has gotten relentless to the point of being depressing. If the emails we are relentlessly receiving are any indication (and they have to be), the following is happening in China in what feels like every minute: Teachers are being drug tested using their hair samples. Many are testing for cannabis and being jailed for 30 days or more and then being deported. This is happening to newly arrived teachers who insist they did not consume any cannabis since arriving in China. Listen up everybody, cannabis can show up in hair testings up to (and even sometimes beyond) 90 days after you have consumed it. So if you are going to be teaching in China and you do not want to spend time in jail and get deported, please, please, please go at least four months without consuming ANY cannabis before you go there and please, please, please do not consume any cannabis while there. None. Zero. Zilch. 没有. Aucun. Keiner. PLEASE. Invariably, the schools use this as a reason not to pay the teacher whatever is owed. Teachers are being checked (or reported on) for having an improper visa for China. The teachers are then being tossed in jail and then deported or just deported straight away. Invariably, the schools use this as a reason not to pay the teacher whatever is owed. It appears to have become very common (as a cost cutting measure) for schools to have teachers come to China and start their teaching on tourist visas, all the while claiming this is perfectly legal — it isn’t. The teachers believe this until the day they are arrested. Near as I can tell, the schools rarely if ever get in any real trouble for this but the teachers sure do. Teachers are not getting paid. Just this morning I got an email from one teacher who say that she and another 75+ teachers in her city (from various different schools) have not gotten paid for months. And another email mentioning nine teachers in another city who also have not been paid. Add to this the pretty much daily emails I get from teachers who do not get their last paycheck or the airfare reimbursements or the bonuses they were promised and it has become clear that it is open season right now against foreign teachers in China. The schools clearly believe they can blow off paying their teachers with impunity because they are right. When teachers ask me what they should do about getting paid my response is usually to say that they can retain and pay a local Chinese attorney to try to get paid, but the odds of a foreign teacher prevailing on such a claim are not good and pushing at all hard to get paid can have all sorts of negative ramifications. Schools will pull teacher’s work visas or refuse to assist in moving it to a new employer. They may also seek to have you deported so they can be sure to avoid having to pay wages owed and it is not uncommon for schools to make up claims about their teachers and to threaten to “make sure they will never work in China again.” You therefore need to think long and hard about getting bogged down in these sorts of disputes and even how they might harm your long term career prospects.

That doesn't explain why so many are very willing to speak out against their government, not just via Twitter where they are partly anonymous, but in China in Chinese by Chinese people doing face-to-face interviews. It's true that there are lot of problems, it's a big country. But the real problems are hardly even related to the issues the West wants to push. It's also true that those pointing out issues are more independent voices, not the official Chinese media, for which the government is the "sponsor" in a way similar to how corporations sponsor private, public and commercial broadcasting in the United States. The government will not allow voices critical of the government to give the TV, radio and Internet news, write the newspapers, or even give public speeches to large crowds. As far as everything being watched in big cities, there is not nearly as much surveillance in Chinese cities, as is done in the United States cities. (Through government and police surveillance, smart phones, Internet, IOT, toll booths, stoplights, building entrances, etc.) Remember that the United States corporations were racing to the first to be able to roll out 5G on a large scale, and China beat them to it, therefore China's use of it must be demonized. I was probably as surprised as you would be to find out there was no evidence for the mass murders that I had always believed in.

Yes. This is partly true. My old boss was from the mainland, where his parents still live, but had moved to work in Hong Kong before getting a job in New York. Most of his relatives still live on the mainland, so when he goes back he visits Hong Kong first, then his other relatives. We recently met at a restaurant with a couple other retirees from the same company, and we talked for a couple hours. I ran a few of these same "young people" arguments by him, and it's true that he is very wary of some of the government's business and economic plans, although he admits that they are currently working. He is very anti-communist as many Chinese-born US citizens are. But the one area he says the US (and West) has all wrong is the Uyghur ("Weeger") situation. He says that you have to read between the lines, or learn how to pick the one CNN report in 10 that gets it right. He is surprised that they allow reports to be completely contradictory (although he listens to an International version of CNN) along with a lot of anti-Chinese media. What's curious is that these "concentration camps" are not "concentration camps," as there is no torture, no forced hard labor, etc. Although Chinese are definitely behind it, they are actually run mostly by Weegers and for Weegers. One of the big thrusts of the Chinese government is to try to legislate against racism, and there is plenty of racism in China. If a group appears to be very unaccepting of other groups -to the point of using violence- they are supposed to go through training in their own culture and other cultures, too. This does include "indoctrination" in the goals of the government, what we would call classes in civics and citizenship, but he says it is mostly job training, and can even include moving a Weeger family to areas to get them better jobs. China ties the problem of poverty to violent rioting and demonstrations. Muslims around the world have agreed that this has worked as a method of reducing radicalization and has eliminated terrorism. Most of China, of course, are Han, although there are several million Weegers, mostly in the Xinjiang province. The first big problem with the Weegers came about after riots that evidently began with rumors of Weegers raping a Han, and other rumors that spread and morphed out of this one. The Han instigated violent riots against the Weegers, and China put a lot of effort into punishing the Han offenders. On the mainland, he says that the Chinese support and defense of the Weegers is a source of anger by racist Chinese. The actual number of Weegers required to go through the training programs are probably in the tens of thousands, he thinks. (The idea of "millions" is a Western invention.) He also mentioned that China has helped Muslims build mosques, not only in China but also in Africa. The Weegers have a vibrant culture in the Xinjiang province that China supports. By the way, the entire Muslim world does NOT believe the Weeger propaganda. Even when the UN resolution condemning the "Weeger" situation was promoted by the West, it was signed on by only about 22 countries, all white (US, UK, etc) and ZERO Islamic countries signed onto the resolution. The NYT which attempts at least one big anti-China article every week, ended up reporting the Chinese side of the argument in the context of the 22 nation campaign. While generally negative, of course, the article also included the following: China denied such actions when a United Nations human rights committee questioned the policy last year but later said it was providing vocational training to insulate Xinjiang’s population from what it described as the global scourge of extremism. To counter international critics, last month China brought Xinjiang’s deputy governor, an ethnic Uighur, to the council, where he asserted that such training is lifting Xinjiang’s people from poverty. The deputy governor, Aierken Tuniyazi, also rejected accusations that the trainees are in detention camps. “The trainees’ personal dignity and freedom are fully protected,” he said, describing students living in air-conditioned dormitories and dividing their time between learning valuable skills and participating in ethnic dancing, singing or sports. China has used its economic leverage and diplomatic muscle to support this narrative with some success. Muslim countries have remained silent and have even praised China’s treatment of its Muslims. Cameroon, a beneficiary of Chinese infrastructure spending, devoted a statement in the council last week to praising China’s “big achievement” in Xinjiang. And last month Vladimir Voronkov, the Russian diplomat heading the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Office, visited Xinjiang and in his end of mission statement made no reference to human rights concerns there, an omission that human rights groups saw as a propaganda gift to Chinese authorities. What often raises my own suspicions on these topics is a common thread of US hypocrisy. The US and other Western nations have been overreacting to Muslim countries for many years now, because it's good for the military contractors, and the oil industry. (These are often synonymous with the meaning of the expression "American interests," the thing the US is protecting every time the US joins a conflict.) Therefore, the West looks to blame China for something that might sound even worse. The West uses the IMF and World Bank and even so-called Human Rights societies to help push an agenda in countries where the West wants to plunder resources. When the West builds infrastructure in another nation it's mostly to help get those resources out of the country, not to help local workers and local civilians. The US is infamous for promoting a need for certain facilities at such a cost in IMF loans that the country is supposed to default, and then the US then has leverage to gain UN votes, build military bases, take a higher percentage of resources and profits, or completely "own" the country's new leader through a regime change. Therefore, this is what China will be blamed for doing through Western fearmongering. The pattern is very clear on several such items. The West (especially the US) does something bad, so China must be blamed for something just like it, but worse.

People influenced by to too much Western European, American, and anti-Communist news outlets are apt to believe almost anything they read that is negative about China. My youngest son reads and speaks quite a lot of Chinese and besides going to college with persons from China, he was also invited to do a half-semester project in Physics in China before he graduated. He often speaks to friends who live in China, because he also reads about the same issues you brought up here. China is still a poor country, although it has been raising a higher percentage of people out of poverty at a faster rate than any modern country has ever done. (Based on U.S. standards of "poverty.") It is also a huge country with a lot of problems from local petty leaders, and many of their governmental processes are tried through experimentation: trial and error. One of the funniest claims is that Chinese people supposedly can't speak out against their government. His friends criticize their government constantly, and laugh at the idea that people in Western countries believe that this is not possible without repercussions. It's true that those who attempt to subvert the government and its programs are punished, just as is done in the United States. Try demonstrating in front of a judge, inside a courtroom, or inside the White House, or try threatening a police officer and see what happens here. The primary difference is that there is very little incarceration in China compared to the United States. Even the Weeger situation is vastly misunderstood, and the numbers are highly exaggerated, too. China has much lower incarceration rates than the United States, not just per capita, but in actual numbers, despite the fact that China's population is so much higher. Before China even started implementing (or even before defining) this "scoring system" for citizens, it was already being touted as the worst invasion of privacy possible, and a way to keep citizens under control. Of course, the United States has already had three major credit scoring companies invading citizen's privacy without their permission to watch and score their spending behaviors. The idea that Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook are not far behind is actually backwards. They are much further ahead of China in these developments, and the privacy laws in China are so far ahead of the United States that it is doubtful China even wants the same level of privacy invasion that Western corporations and governments have invested in.

In 1994, I was working in Midtown Manhattan and someone handed me a 26 page booklet called "Four Years of Struggle against Texaco's Dark Legacy in the Ecuadorian Amazon." There is also a tract inside called "Boycott Texaco - Star Polluter of the Ecuadorian Rainforest." I never read them at the time, but I find them today in pristine condition, and didn't even know about the tract inside until this morning. Representatives of indigenous groups, along with supporters around the world, brought a case against Texaco which had devastated the lands, killed the fish, and chased away the animals that the rural people of Ecuador had relied upon to live. Texaco had agreed to clean up their mess, but this is in a part of the world that cannot enforce a cleanup in the way Texaco had been forced to clean up messes affecting the United States. Texaco continued to flout the laws, while claiming to uphold them, without a care that they were literally killing people by their roughshod processes. (Separately, not in the tracts, they have been investigated for suspicion of being in cahoots with actual hitmen who murdered indigenous people in Ecuador when they tried to stand in the way of Texaco and other oil companies there.) If any company or group had come into the United States and done something similar it would easily have been seen as a declaration of war. Similarly, a lot of people don't realize that when a group or government destroys the food supplies of another nation that it is the same thing as a declaration of war. When the US sanctions Venezuela, or Iraq, or Iran, (or perhaps Turkey) for example, if it attempts to enforce a total blockade of goods going into and out of the nation through pressure on other nations, too, it has not only declared war (unofficially) but has found a way to kill more civilians than an outright declaration of war would accomplish. Most people think of Bush II as the person who killed the most Iraqis, but when Clinton enforced the sanctions promoted through the UN, and continued to bomb infrastructure such as electric power plants, airports, clean water facilities, etc., Clinton had been able to accomplish the killing of at least a MILLION women, children, and men. When Saudi Arabia, with US help, bombs Yemen's water, and power, and resources, it creates the same situation where the majority of the population of men, women, and children can die of starvation and disease. There have been dozens of cases where governments have promised to help survivors of such campaigns, and dozens of cases where corporations have promised to help out the survivors who have had a livelihood taken away. If the country or corporation is rich enough, however, they always find a way to avoid the promised expenditures. And they don't worry much about the negative publicity, because if they break their promises long enough, they can usually just wait until the demonstrators get violent so that they can be termed "criminal" and most of the world will just look away.

And some allow for a dry application. Mennen women, to be Sure, usually kept their deodorant brands a Secret, to some Degree, because, you know, Mums* the word. [Don't Axe, don't smell.] (*I always wondered how well the Mum brand would work in the UK.) There, have we reached 101 topics in one, yet?

A solution looking for a problem: as rustled from https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/q/qr_codes.asp

I know what you mean. Most of the time when a person puts up a post that goes to a different topic, it's not that serious and they don't intend to create an in-depth discussion of that new topic. But Anna quoted something from another website with enough material in it to make 100 posts the length of this one. For example, if I mention mad cow disease as an aside, I know that JTR, for example, just might be able to find a video about cows that are arming themselves with guns for some kind of revolution, or something. But I doubt that this means JTR wants to discuss either mad cow disease or the advisability of allowing four-legged creatures to have arms.

For those who can't wait until the annual meeting, a friend of mine tells me that it will be made available in very small quantities to those who make a tour of the facilities at Walkill. Not sure if this goes for Warwick, etc. They won't mention it or promise it beforehand, but it's a very LIKELY perk of the tour. (I got my Ezekiel book the same way.) Also, I just stayed in the Berkshires for a few days last week and came down by Walkill on the way back. (If any of you are in the South Lee, MA congregation, yep, that was me and my wife on Sunday.) Anyway, the trees were just beginning to turn such beautiful colors and now is just about the peak time to catch the leaves. It's a beautiful drive and if you have a couple hours to Walkill, you will likely be the proud owner of the Study Bible, a full six months before all your friends!

Sounds like you belong in an institution.

Actually, you are right. I'll put off trying because I hadn't figured out how to extract the topic from all the other comments since Witness brought it up. Maybe we can leave it here and just let it come up elsewhere if anyone wants to restart it elsewhere. I didn't want to talk about it, but saw how much info you provided. It's a lot of good info and thought it might not get looked at properly without a new topic.