JW Insider

???? What is this about? Why are you getting a kick out of goading me? Or kicking against my goads, or whatever that scripture says? (Acts 26:14)
I know about the fraud(s). My wife gets "mad" at me when I string them along for about 25+ minutes, while doing other things of course. I have tracked about 4 versions of this, and I get calls like this every few days. It turns out that these young men from India will get very mad and start cursing at you, and just can't let it go after you have wasted half an hour of their time and they realize they've been had (in the sense that they finally figure out they are not really making progress in convincing you to part with money and/or offering them full access to your machine/network).
Of course, I may have to stop doing this after the reminders in today's Watchtower Study.
When they get to the point where they are having you look up supposedly unique numbers in obscure computer files and pretend that this is your license code to prove they are legit, you can act convinced and say OK, I see you are legit . . . . But wait, let me look up and see if it's the same number on my other computer just in case this isn't really unique. . . .  I look it up and after about 5 minutes tell them that it's the same number (which it is). Then they tell you that this is because you are on the same network . . . And then you tell them that you tethered/hotspotted your iPhone as the network for this other computer (which I did) . . . and then they tell you it's because you are on the same network again, because they don't have a script for that particular outcome. So you say OK maybe they are right, but there is just one more test to be sure. So you explain that you that you can VPN into one of your employee's work computers which is on a completely different network, and this time ask them if they expect that you will see the same supposedly unique number on this other person's computer on a different network. They know the answer is YES but they can't admit it, so you'd think they would just hang up. Instead 3 out of 4 will start cursing at you at this point, with poorly accented swear words. It's amazing!

???? What is this about? Why are you getting a kick out of goading me? Or kicking against my goads, or whatever that scripture says? (Acts 26:14)
I know about the fraud(s). My wife gets "mad" at me when I string them along for about 25+ minutes, while doing other things of course. I have tracked about 4 versions of this, and I get calls like this every few days. It turns out that these young men from India will get very mad and start cursing at you, and just can't let it go after you have wasted half an hour of their time and they realize they've been had (in the sense that they finally figure out they are not really making progress in convincing you to part with money and/or offering them full access to your machine/network).
Of course, I may have to stop doing this after the reminders in today's Watchtower Study.
When they get to the point where they are having you look up supposedly unique numbers in obscure computer files and pretend that this is your license code to prove they are legit, you can act convinced and say OK, I see you are legit . . . . But wait, let me look up and see if it's the same number on my other computer just in case this isn't really unique. . . .  I look it up and after about 5 minutes tell them that it's the same number (which it is). Then they tell you that this is because you are on the same network . . . And then you tell them that you tethered/hotspotted your iPhone as the network for this other computer (which I did) . . . and then they tell you it's because you are on the same network again, because they don't have a script for that particular outcome. So you say OK maybe they are right, but there is just one more test to be sure. So you explain that you that you can VPN into one of your employee's work computers which is on a completely different network, and this time ask them if they expect that you will see the same supposedly unique number on this other person's computer on a different network. They know the answer is YES but they can't admit it, so you'd think they would just hang up. Instead 3 out of 4 will start cursing at you at this point, with poorly accented swear words. It's amazing!

I scratched that, and it made my left foot jump up and down!

This is not a reply to you specifically, I know you know all this. I just wanted to clarify for others who might be thinking that we think that Russell is of no consequence.  Although Russell has been removed from that list, he is still considered very important, (and as one of the anointed) in the sense that he is viewed as the messenger who "opened up" the way for others after him. After all it was he who questioned the hellfire doctrine and immortality of the soul, two very important key elements that make us stand out from other Christian based religions. 
Russell has been compared to "the sinews and flesh" of Ezekiel 37:7,8 in the vision of the valley of dry bones,  and then with  Rutherford (in 1919) they began to live and stand on their feet as per Ezekiel 37:10.

The trip to Warwick is nice. I'm going to the 10:00 Sunday meeting in the auditorium there tomorrow morning. Then Monday, we go to Wallkill.
I met two brothers I knew from the 80's only because I called them first. Also, it's so impersonal without tour guides, and the whole place is sterile as can be. In a tour group you are talking to other people in your group and asking them where they are from, and what congregation, and invariably finding out that you know someone they know. In Brooklyn, I used to get called upon at least once a week to give tours, and it was always joyous, upbuilding and friendly. Also, a person coming through for a visit to Brooklyn could ask for me to give their tour and it would be a welcome interruption to the day's routines. Yesterday, I saw at least 200 people from bus tours and carpools come through and I happened upon only one instance of someone recognizing someone else from afar. Everyone was quiet, even young ones, as if it was a library. I saw only about 10 teenagers, and maybe 20 younger children. The rest were adults, more wheelchairs than I expected. Everyone is on their own, usually with a headset on, and 4 out of the 5 exhibits are very cramped so that I think brothers and sisters in wheelchairs felt like they were always in the way.
Bethelites stay out of sight, and the guides are often volunteers from nearby congregations who commute in one day a week. There are about 850 full-time workers here and I probably saw 10 of them even though I also walked the grounds several times between buildings -- not a part of the tour. Never saw a glimpse of a person in any of the building offices or windows because of the way they reflect. Except for the 200  on tour, you could have convinced me that all those many large buildings were vacant.
Two exceptions were two sisters assigned to clean the tables in the "multi-purpose room" with Swiffer-style brooms. I had brought a muffin with me and offered it to someone at the table and the sister pretended she wanted my food and said "Did you say you had a muffin?" I yelled back "You didn't hear muffin!" She lol'd and called the other sister over and began talking to us. They were originally from Hawaii and LA and had married Bethelites about 7 and 9 years ago working at Patterson and Brooklyn, respectively, before moving to Warwick.

Every time I go to Chipotle's they have an announcement that something is no longer being served. The guacamole for a while, then last week when they put up a sign saying they would not be serving lettuce in their burritos/bowls until further notice . . .
. . . and now I heard that they've pulled pork again.
Oh wait, scratch that . . . [JWI holds an earpiece a little tighter to his ear]. . . I'm just now being told that "pulled pork" is an actual thing. Who knew? So, actually, it's an announcement: Chipotle's: they have "pulled pork" again!

I posted about this just after getting off the phone with someone I knew, but had just recontacted earlier today. The conversation went to a lot of places that I won't go into much more detail about here.  As an engineer, he was involved in cleaning up a shale mine (for gravel), buried barrels of waste at Wallkill, suing the previous owners of "International Nickel" at Warwick for remediation (they owned the land prior), an endangered species, air contamination reports, etc. (Actually it was air contamination laws that pushed the printing from Brooklyn to Wallkill in the first place. Wallkill had none.) I even learned that run-off from a cemetery (i.e. launching pad) from old embalming methods can contain arsenic, and other bad stuff. 
But the brother wanted to make it clear that these were not "scandals" as some might try to make them out to be. The WTS was actually more careful than most corporations about keeping well within the law, and some of the old practices are under different laws today. Whenever a new project is being done, it's a chance to get the owners to fix things according to new law and new knowledge.
One reason I had met up with him earlier today is that on Friday, when flushing the toilets in the first floor men's room at Warwick, all the water was brown in all the toilets, even after flushing them. I took a video in case it was a problem, and can post it, but I won't for obvious reasons. I went to the sink and stopped it up with a napkin to fill it and see if it was also affected. It wasn't. I went to a urinal and it was, although less obvious due to shallower running water. Others saw it to, but I doubted anyone would speak up. I ran down to the first lower floor men's room to check it but it was closed. I filled up a cup from the drinking fountain and saw no sign of contamination.
Today, I went back and checked both bathrooms. No problem anywhere. I asked the engineer what it probably was, and he told me. Nothing to worry about, by the way.

Sorry, won't be to your satisfaction. We'll miss you!
So I just talked to someone who worked in the four major NY locations: Brooklyn, Patterson, Wallkill and Warwick. There were water problems with all 4. Patterson was the worst and they had to retrofit the pipes because of the mineral deposits. It was easily predictable according to the engineers, but the expensive outside engineers were quickly replaced with Bethel insiders. There were runoff problems up in Wallkill and no one can pump water from the aquifer there anyway, so they decided on a reservoir instead of the local Wallkill River. In so doing they discovered new problems for engineers to handle (some self-made over the years). The problems in Warwick were resolved after clean-up of the nickel and related minerals, but the lake water is considered very sensitive for several environmental reasons. Much of the planning had to do with level of water usage, where water comes from for fire dept utilization, what goes into the lake, what comes out of the lake.
All in all, it was the water. Warwick deals with the Sterling Lake and the Sterling Forest State Park and therefore extends their coverage for Water and environmental issues down into the Greenwood Lake and Sterling Forest Lake where the JW HQ sits. They are already connected by a stream between them, too.

I suspect it has more to do with the water issues that Warwick had dealt with in the lakes that begin in their region and spill down toward the WTS HQ. But I can look into it. I now have a contact who worked on these issues with Warwick and Tuxedo Park.

I am writing this on Sunday 12/9 at about 3:30 PM.
On Thursday night I drove up here to Warwick with relatives. We completed the five exhibits at Warwick, spoke with some Bethelites we knew, and attended the Sunday morning meeting held in the Bethel Auditorium where the "Long Meadow" congregation meets. This is a congregation of about 180 persons, some of whom travel from up to about half-an-hour away, and many (if not most) of the members are Bethelites who live in the HQ complex on site.
Tomorrow we'll go to Wallkill.
The first thing you notice from setting your smartphone maps and GPS routing systems is that the Warwick Bethel is not in Warwick. It's actually all within the borders and limits of Tuxedo Park, NY. If you look at the back of the Warwick Bethel brochure you'll see that 1 Kings Drive, Tuxedo Park, NY 10987 is the actual address. 
The name was picked, I assume, because Warwick is a town just a little farther away, in another zip code (10990), and smaller than Tuxedo Park, but with a name that sounds just a bit more Biblical. It's a name that also sounds a bit more alliterative: as in, "Watchtower at Wallkill" and "Watchtower at Warwick." Wars, Wicks, Walls, and Kills are all found in the Bible, but no Tuxedos of any stripe.
The exhibits were very good. I'll find my previous post that discusses them and try to get it to land below this one.

Thinking the same. In fact, one of the first things I thought about was the possibility that the person who told John Butler realized that John might be in a better position to report it than the person who told him, and HOPED that John would report it.

You had Rev 1:4 or 1:8 to choose from, and you went with 13:3??
At least the following verse refers to "posts."
(Nehemiah 13:6, 11) . . .and sometime later I asked the king for a leave of absence. . . .Then I gathered them together and assigned them back to their posts.

The GB might be on a pedestal. That will happen naturally, just as it did for Apollos, Paul, Cephas, and some "superfine apostles" back in Corinth.
Kind of funny that today I sat in the audience with two members of the Governing Body and two Governing Body Helpers. They did not have special seats. Not one person in the Hall made any special attempt to talk to them. No one seemed nervous around them or tried to impress them. No one tried to take pictures. They talked in groups as normally as anyone else there both before and after the meeting. I know this doesn't PROVE anything, but if it had been different, I would have made a point of how wrong that seemed.
I was sitting one row directly in front of one, and I kept checking to see that the crease on the back of my slacks around my knees, calves and ankles still had some "slack," so I honestly seemed like the only person there who might have been a bit self-conscious around them. This same brother only commented once at the WT Study, and the other GB member, not at all. Although their wives made one comment each. (But who's counting?)
I do think that other JWs put these men on pedestals more than they themselves TRY to be put on a pedestal.

I see. But this one is even better for those who do "cloud-based" witnessing on the Internet:
(Revelation 11:7-12) 7 When they have finished their witnessing, the wild beast that ascends out of the abyss will wage war with them and conquer them and kill them. 8 And their corpses will be on the main street of the great city . . . 11 After the three and a half days, spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell upon those who saw them. 12 And they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them: “Come up here.” And they went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies saw them.

In the late 1970s, Brother Knorr spoke at the District Convention in Rochester. The bright lights showed up his suit jacket as horribly wrinkled. I knew then that he was just like anyone else. He must have taken off his jacket on account of the heat & in the cramped seating never intended for formal attire it slid between seat & seatback and got all scrunched up as he sat on it, the same as would happen to me.

No you're not!!!!!

Sorry, won't be to your satisfaction. We'll miss you!
So I just talked to someone who worked in the four major NY locations: Brooklyn, Patterson, Wallkill and Warwick. There were water problems with all 4. Patterson was the worst and they had to retrofit the pipes because of the mineral deposits. It was easily predictable according to the engineers, but the expensive outside engineers were quickly replaced with Bethel insiders. There were runoff problems up in Wallkill and no one can pump water from the aquifer there anyway, so they decided on a reservoir instead of the local Wallkill River. In so doing they discovered new problems for engineers to handle (some self-made over the years). The problems in Warwick were resolved after clean-up of the nickel and related minerals, but the lake water is considered very sensitive for several environmental reasons. Much of the planning had to do with level of water usage, where water comes from for fire dept utilization, what goes into the lake, what comes out of the lake.
All in all, it was the water. Warwick deals with the Sterling Lake and the Sterling Forest State Park and therefore extends their coverage for Water and environmental issues down into the Greenwood Lake and Sterling Forest Lake where the JW HQ sits. They are already connected by a stream between them, too.

I see. But this one is even better for those who do "cloud-based" witnessing on the Internet:
(Revelation 11:7-12) 7 When they have finished their witnessing, the wild beast that ascends out of the abyss will wage war with them and conquer them and kill them. 8 And their corpses will be on the main street of the great city . . . 11 After the three and a half days, spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell upon those who saw them. 12 And they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them: “Come up here.” And they went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies saw them.

Oh Wait. I really just wanted to say that this particular topic has gone all over the place, but now and then in the JW Public Club it should be possible to discuss the credibility by which we have promoted various political stances and tied them to prophecy. It's true that we've promoted many theories over the years and none have ever turned out to be right - YET! But this doesn't mean they won't all be coming true soon.
Still, it's our duty as true Christians to test and prove to pay close attention to our teaching. So a topic that can accept a wide range of issues related to our expectations about prophetic teachings and our expectations about the "sureness" of such teachings might be a good idea. Not for everyone, of course. Some are in different places when it comes to their respect for the time and research put into our doctrines. Some don't like any of our doctrines, but they seem to base it on issues that are not necessarily related to whether we're right on those doctrines.
I've explained my position that I love our doctrines on war, Trinity, hellfire, nationalism, new earth, ransom, millennium, etc, but take issue with chronology -- and yet a lot of our prophetic doctrines are loosely based on our chronology doctrines.
Setting a rational baseline for what the Governing Body have excelled at rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater should be one of our goals. Dealing with John's criticisms might help some set or reset that baseline.

Oh Wait. I really just wanted to say that this particular topic has gone all over the place, but now and then in the JW Public Club it should be possible to discuss the credibility by which we have promoted various political stances and tied them to prophecy. It's true that we've promoted many theories over the years and none have ever turned out to be right - YET! But this doesn't mean they won't all be coming true soon.
Still, it's our duty as true Christians to test and prove to pay close attention to our teaching. So a topic that can accept a wide range of issues related to our expectations about prophetic teachings and our expectations about the "sureness" of such teachings might be a good idea. Not for everyone, of course. Some are in different places when it comes to their respect for the time and research put into our doctrines. Some don't like any of our doctrines, but they seem to base it on issues that are not necessarily related to whether we're right on those doctrines.
I've explained my position that I love our doctrines on war, Trinity, hellfire, nationalism, new earth, ransom, millennium, etc, but take issue with chronology -- and yet a lot of our prophetic doctrines are loosely based on our chronology doctrines.
Setting a rational baseline for what the Governing Body have excelled at rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater should be one of our goals. Dealing with John's criticisms might help some set or reset that baseline.

When you return, would you tell me if the prophecy I sent in has been put on prominent display as I requested?
In just a very short time, attrocities demanding the flag be at half-mast will become so numerous that it will be at half-mast all the time. When that day arrives, Big Business will see no point in manufacturing the unused top half, and flagpoles will be produced at half height. Of course, this will not negate the need to fly at half-mast after disaster, and the flag will accordingly fly lower.
Repeat the cycle a few times and it is plain to see that it will soon touch the ground, something which CANNOT HAPPEN. When it does, it will be like touching the eyeball of the world system of nations and THAT will trigger Armageddon. 
This better be posted in one of the display areas, if not given an exhibit of its own. I am starting to tire of the lack of respect that I am getting around there. My last archeological find that I sent in that in with the recommendation it be included in the Bible canon, they replied with the smart-alec remark that maybe it should be fired from a cannon.
 

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The building inspectors that comment in the video are from the Town of Warwick.
”but no Tuxedos of any stripe.”
Be grateful and ask no questions. It’s not enough for you to have to wear a suit?
 
 

. “When you give … do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Matthew 6:3)
Matthew 6:1 (BBE) Take care not to do your good works before men, to be seen by them
Matthew 6:4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Personaly i think IF you seeking for blessings its bettet to do hours with out telling anyone.