Pray, Pray and Pray Again.

Trump, Pence join 700 pastors in prayer call during coronavirus outbreak. CP.Blogger: I know that Mike is a believer: just pray that Mr Trump is too! 

Sickos.

Teen Vogue, Snapchat urge teens to send sexually explicit sext messages during COVID-19 quarantine.

Birdie.

This Will Put 'Le Chat Entre Les Pigeons' As The French Certainly Do Not Say Other Than Literally..

On February 29, Megan Youngren made sports history. Not by breaking a world record, or by overcoming a particularly devastating injury. No, Youngren became the first openly transgender athlete to compete at the U.S. Olympic marathon trials.

As is almost always the case with athletes competing across gender lines, Youngren is a biological male who attempted to make the U. S. Olympics women’s team. And even though Youngren didn’t make the cut, no doubt he is just the first of many men who will try to seek Olympic glory by competing against women.

And that means there’s more than a good chance we’ll find ourselves in conversations about the fairness of biological men in women’s sports.

The latest in our “What Would You Say?” video series tackles this question. Each video offers clear, articulate, and useable answers to tough cultural issues like this one. Here’s just part of the latest video, with Joseph Backholm’s response to the question of men competing as women:

First, allowing biological males to compete with girls ignores real physical differences.

Men have, on average, 36% more muscle mass than women. Men tend to be taller, and their bones are thicker and denser. Conversely, women have lower lung volume and lower airflow capacity because they have smaller lungs and airway diameter. 

The fastest men are faster than the fastest women. Likewise, the strongest men are stronger than the strongest women, even if they are in the same weight class. These biological realities are the reason men’s and women’s sports have long been separated.  

Which leads us to the second point.

Allowing boys to compete with girls denies girls the chance to compete on a level playing field.

In just the last two years, two biological males have won 15 girls track and field championships in Connecticut. These same two male athletes have participating in 40 qualifying events, filling slots that otherwise would have been filled by girls who are biologically female. Over their two remaining years of high school career, they are likely to erase many more females from the high school record books as well. 

This is happening in college also.

A student at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire previously competed on the men’s track & field team, but now competes as a female. In 2018, as a man, he placed 8^th in a field of 9 in the 400-meter hurdles during a regular season meet.  The following year, competing as a woman, he won the national championship in the 400-meter hurdles by 1.5 seconds.     

We all want to be understanding, but in this case, being understanding also requires us to understand what it means for women and girls who are forced to compete against biological males for political reasons.

Which leads to the third point.

Allowing boys to participate in girls’ sports threatens the existence of girl’s sports.

In the United States, sports used to be almost exclusively for boys. A federal law called Title IX was created in 1972 to make sure athletic opportunities existed for women in the same way they existed for men.

This has also created athletic scholarship opportunities. 45 years ago, almost no female athletic scholarships existed. As of 2012, almost 200,000 women played college athletics, many on scholarship. 

All of these opportunities for women and girls were created because we recognized that the physical difference between men and women shouldn’t prevent women from having the opportunity to compete. Today, we are being asked to pretend that the only difference between men and women is the way we feel.

In the past, it was considered misogyny when men took opportunities from women… Today, it’s called equality.  

That was just a brief sample of the latest What Would You Say video. Come to WhatWouldYouSay.org,  or catch it on YouTube. And be sure to subscribe so you will receive an update every time a new video is released. Breakpoint.

He Is ...

CS Lewis: Intellect In Action.

https://www.christiantoday.com/article/c.s.lewis.and.the.war.against.coronavirus/134559.htm

Spurgeon On The Coronavirus?

https://christianconcern.com/comment/lessons-from-spurgeon-on-coronavirus/

Films and TV Dramas.

I am getting heartily sick of paying for my TV licence and oodles of cash to Sky, on top, just to be fed countless films and drama series that have been designed to utterly confuse the watcher.

My wife and I are both sharp, intelligent people and quite capable of following a complicated Shakespeare play at the theatre.

Somehow though, it has now become de rigueur for directors to try to confuse their viewers. I have lost count of the films and series which we have had to abandon because, by the third episode we cannot fathom the plot. This is hardly helped when episodes are a week apart.

Twenty to twenty-five years ago, we had a lengthy phase of actors who mumbled their lines. This was considered to be 'most artistic - authentic, even'.

Happily, this disappeared for a couple of decades but is now back with a vengeance and there is much more besides. The list below cannot be accidental:

1) Scenes with fuzzy bodies moving around in near total darkness.

2) Actors who resemble each other - with the same kind of clothing, hair colours and styles to (deliberately?) make identification nigh on impossible.

3) Actors who appear for twenty seconds in Episode One, never to be seen again until Episode Four. You are expected to know instantaneously who they are - otherwise, you lose the plot.

4) Whilst the great directors of the past helped you to follow the plot - the modern idea seems to be to ensure that you do not.

5) Extraneous and trivial characters are seemingly added who either ensure that you cannot follow their role - and yet, are vital to the story-lines.

6) Extravagantly convoluted plots.

7) Calculated efforts to mislead the viewer.

8) Music so loud that it extinguishes the dialogue.

Strange how we can follow all of the older films without difficulty and with much poorer soundtracks.

Evil and Good.

Unfortunately, Will was right!

"The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones."

Act 3, scene ii of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.

Birdie.

They Know How It Works But Not From Whence It Came.

'God lives outside of space and time. He created space. He created time. He is confined to neither of these things. It's somewhat of a stretch for most of us to imagine that, but a physicist or mathematician should attest that it's entirely reasonable. There is nothing absurd or illogical to speak of dimensions outside of space and time; in fact additional dimensions are necessary to rationally explain the universe. String theory in modern physics defines 11 dimensions, four of which we experience.
Human experience, without exception, is that all effects have causes. There are no uncaused causes. The inevitable conclusion is that the laws of physics explain how the universe operates but they don't explain how it got here. All explanations require an "eternal" ingredient. The existence of anything at all demands an uncaused cause. So we never escape the question 'where did it all come from.'

Source: Cosmic Fingerprints.

Simply Great!

Understanding The Book of Judges.

"Scholars agree that the Deuteronomists' hand can be seen in Judges through the book's cyclical nature: the Israelites fall into idolatry; God punishes them for their sins with oppression by foreign peoples; the Israelites cry out to God for help; God sends a judge to deliver them from the foreign oppression."

1) "The Israelites cry out to God for help." How is that working throughout the nations today, I wonder? 

2) Is our world even capable of "crying out to God", I wonder?

3) What can we see to suggest that we are at the very end of end times, I ask myself?

4) We are "sheep without a shepherd" - let alone The Good Shepherd who is the ultimate answer to all of our questions.

5) Proverbs 29:18 "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

Bats!

What is bat soup? (A followup on the previous piece.)

Bat soup is reported to be a popular dish particularly in Wuhan, where the virus is understood to have originated at an open air fish market.

Grim pictures of a bat with its cooked insides floating around a broth have begun circulating as many people have now been confirmed dead from the virus.

In some of the images, the bats - still with fur and body parts intact - looks frozen in pain as diners scoop it up on a spoon.

In one video a girl puts the creature whole in her mouth with chopsticks.

Some recipes don't include the whole bat, but the soup is made of a broth that comes from boiling down the bats in a pot.

The bats are then skinned and their meat and insides added to the broth. Sun.

Smile.

Wow! Thanks, Mr Obama.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1260251/brexit-news-eu-uk-trade-talks-coronavirus-boris-johnson-barack-obama-spt

The Left Pretending That There Has Been A Hard Right In England That Was Ever More Than A Trivial Annoyance.

The threat from the rise of far-right terrorism in Britain could be diminishing after Boris Johnson’s election victory because supporters of the ideology feel they are being listened to, according to a former head of MI5.

Lord Evans of Weardale said “alienated” voters normally vulnerable to exploitation by far-right groups such as the British National party (BNP), EDL and National Action might feel that their voices had been heard at the ballot box with the significant win for the Conservatives in December’s election.

The former MI5 director general, who led Britain’s domestic security service between 2006 and 2013, said: “Whatever you think of the outcome of the recent election in the UK, the fact that some of the legitimate concerns that were being used as a pretext by English nationalists have now been formally acknowledged at the ballot box might be a good outcome, even though it is sort of disconcerting for southern liberals.

A

“There was a significant alienated and disenfranchised group out there who didn’t think the system was taking any notice of them. And that’s where you need to be concerned about extremists exploiting legitimate concerns.

“Disaffected English nationalists were manifesting themselves at the extremes in things like the British National party and National Action, which fed the undertone that articulated itself as extreme right-wing terrorism.”

However, the crossbench peer warned that it remained to be seen whether potential far-right supporters would be wholly satisfied by Johnson’s administration. Guardian.

Blogger: the BNP has been a dead duck longer than I can remember; talk about 'bogeyman politics'. 

Even so, when the term 'legitimate concerns' is used - and accepted in the Guardian - there has obviously been a sea change somewhere along the line.
The far left is, and always has been, a greater danger in the UK.

Grace: If Walls Could Only Speak.

If the walls could speak of the times I’ve been weak
When everybody thought I was strong
Could I show my face if it weren’t for the grace
Of the one who’s known the truth all along
If the walls could speak they’d say that my only hope is the grace
Of Jesus, the grace of Jesus – Steven Curtis Chapman

My. Doesn't He Look Cross?

If ONLY Modern Man Was Not So Concerned With 'Feelings'.

A Repeat of Schapiro's Vital Maxim Which I Dust Off And Use Periodically.

The politically correct snowflakes today hold sway and Leonard Schapiro's maxim: 

"The true object of propaganda is neither to convince nor persuade, but rather to produce a uniform pattern of public utterance in which the first trace of unorthodox thought reveals itself as a jarring dissonance," has never been more apposite.

Getting Through All That Isolation? - Not The Best Plan.

Covid-19 and God.

COVID-19 and God Should anything about the COVID-19 pandemic make us have doubts about God? His existence? His goodness? His plans for humanity? This situation highlights our own spiritual need...  CR.

Welcome, Huh?

How Dare France Not Treat Us Properly?

So, how come the EU (French) are demanding fishing rights in OUR waters?

Our fisheries are NO concern of theirs WHATSOEVER.

What a bunch of gangsters!

Well Done, Sun!

The Sun newspaper has always had 'a bit of a reputation' as many people see it as a worthless rag.

As I scan most UK national papers daily, I am happy to report that the Sun has tended to deal admirably with the Covid-19 crisis.

Not perfect, of course, but certainly most things handled with a hefty degree of responsibility.

On my walk.

I was out on my walk yesterday morning and spoke to a middle-aged guy laden with bags from Asda - exchanged a few friendly words (from a three llama distance) - and then he just muttered, " I'm not bothered - if you get it, you get it."

As I walked away, I reminded him that him being infected could infect others. He just looked at me blankly.

(A very rude word popped into my mind but I restrained myself.)

Boris: Please Pray For A Physical Recovery and a Spiritual Awakening!

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has tested positive for coronavirus and is self-isolating.

Opportunities To Promote The Faith.

Rahm Emanuel, one in a long line of brass-knuckled, opportunistic Chicago politicians, famously said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is [it’s] an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

There’s a lesson for us in this.

Much virtual ink has been spilled over Christians becoming marginalized in America’s increasingly post-Christian culture. Public prayer and calls for religious freedom are finding themselves the objects of mockery. Followers of Christ who refuse to go along with the new sexual orthodoxy advancing in our schools and workplaces find their livelihoods threatened, their reputations in tatters. Those who hold to the antiquated idea that there are but two sexes are seen as foot soldiers of a new Jim Crow.

And yet the coronavirus pandemic is a crisis—for all its evil and concomitant suffering—that presents the church with an undeniable opportunity. As the frightened pagans, atheists, agnostics, and “nones” around us hoard toilet paper and hand sanitizer, close the borders, and socially distance themselves, we who trust in a loving and sovereign Lord have open doors that we perhaps thought were closed forever.

But, to do this, we will need to re-think our position in the public square. Instead of demanding our way, we must mobilize to serve all, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. Stan Guthrie. Breakpoint.

Birdie.

That There Virus.

• Answers in Genesis
 
• Answers
 
• Science
 
• Biology
 
• Disease
 
• How COVID-19 Started & Where It’s Going

How COVID-19 Started & Where It’s Going

by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell on March 25, 2020

 
 

What is COVID-19, how it started, what are coronaviruses, did it evolve, how it spreads, and what we should expect as the situation develops.

COVID-19, since making its appearance as a dangerous pneumonia in the human population in December 2019, has rapidly risen to every headline. Just as my own father once told to me about the depredations of the Spanish flu epidemic in his rural South Carolina home a century ago, so this generation will be talking about COVID-19 for years to come.

WHILE NOT THE FIRST PANDEMIC TO STRIKE THE MODERN WORLD, THE NEED TO CONTAIN IT AND SLOW ITS SPREAD HAS RIGHTLY CAPTURED THE ATTENTION OF EVERY HOUSEHOLD, BUSINESS, CHURCH, AND GOVERNMENT.

While not the first pandemic to strike the modern world, the need to contain it and slow its spread has rightly captured the attention of every household, business, church, and government. In this information age, the latest news about the dangers of COVID-19 and how to stop its worldwide rampage saturate us. As news of its spread from China to the rest of the world unfolded, talking heads sometimes delivered contradictory information, reflecting both the rapidly changing situation and the simple lack of knowledge. There were even allegations—now shown to be false—that COVID-19 was man-made.1 Now we at least know it is a virus that made its jump from the natural world of animals to us.

COVID-19—A Type of Coronavirus

In considering this virus, it’s important to remember COVID-19 is not the only kind of coronavirus. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses including many that cause ordinary colds but also the deadly SARS and MERS viruses that surfaced a few years back. Analysis of the virus has confirmed that it has two particular mutations that make it able to latch onto and discharge its deadly genetic cargo into human cells. Those mutations may have both occurred randomly in the coronaviruses hosted by animals and then—once they became well equipped to take advantage of human hosts—spread readily among humans. Or perhaps the second mutation happened after the virus with the human-recognizing mutation made the leap to humans.

In any case, mutations are random changes in genetic information. If a mutation in a virus that infects one host randomly equips it to infect another host, and then that mutated virus gains access to the new host’s cells, that particular mutated virus multiplies rapidly. That is how viruses leap from animal to human hosts.

How COVID-19 Started

So how did COVID-19 start? Here’s the short version:

In December 2019 a severe pneumonia developing from what initially seemed to be an ordinary respiratory infection—fever, dry cough, flu-like aches, etc.—appeared in the population of Wuhan, China. Because COVID-19 started among the workers and clientele of a wet meat market—one in which food is slaughtered and sold on the spot—there was suspicion that the virus causing the disease had come from the animal population. China reported the first death on January 11. By January 13 the infection had arrived in Thailand. Since its initial leap from animals to humans, COVID-19 has spread rapidly in China and around the world through human-to-human contact.

How COVID-19 Spreads

IF IMMUNE DEFENSES ARE UNABLE TO SUCCESSFULLY DEAL WITH THE INFECTION, THEN THE HOSTS—IN THIS CASE MANY HUMANS, ESPECIALLY OLDER ONES—CAN BECOME EXTREMELY ILL AND EVEN DIE.

If immune defenses are unable to successfully deal with the infection, then the hosts—in this case many humans, especially older ones—can become extremely ill and even die. While most people infected with COVID-19 appear to have a mild illness similar to the flu, this infection is far more dangerous. Overall, the risk of death with COVID-19 is significantly higher than with the flu—around 3.4% by current estimates. This lethality is due to the high risk of developing a severe pneumonia. And the risk of dying from a COVID-19 infection is dramatically high among older adults—nearly 5% for people in their 60s, almost 10% for people in their 70s, and around 18% for people in their 80s.2 COVID-19 also spreads far more rapidly than the flu, at least partly because people are infectious long before they feel ill. And while children who contract COVID-19 do not, so far, appear to get as ill as adults, they do transmit the infection to the more vulnerable.

The COVID-19 virus spreads easily in the droplets exhaled with every breath and every cough from an infected person, even during the two weeks before that person develops a fever. Those tiny droplets settle on surfaces, and the viruses in them, the CDC says, may remain infectious for hours or even days.3 Thus, we may become infected by inhaling virus-containing droplets in the air or from touching surfaces and then our own eyes, noses, and mouths. Rigorous disinfection of oft-touched surfaces, frequent hand-washing, keeping hands off of faces, maintaining a distance of six feet between people when possible, and avoiding crowds is hoped to reduce the number of individuals who catch COVD-19 and stop the exponential rise in severe cases that threaten to overwhelm our health-care system and rob us of our loved ones.

Did COVID-19 Evolve?

If you read the news at all, you’ve seen many mentions of how this virus has “evolved” to infect humans. And indeed this particular coronavirus has changed to make it able to infect human cells. But that change is mutation, which essentially means damage to existing genetic information. Many mutations can happen, but only those that make the resulting virus able to infect a new host result in this sort of scenario. No mutations of a sort that could potentially create a new kind of more complex organism have ever been observed. Thus, nothing about the present crisis validates any claims about molecules-to-man evolution.

Where Things Are Heading with COVID-19

WITH COVID-19 WE ARE LIVING THROUGH HISTORY. WE DO NOT YET KNOW, AND CANNOT REALISTICALLY PREDICT, HOW THIS CHAPTER IN HUMAN HISTORY WILL END.

With COVID-19 we are living through history. We do not yet know, and cannot realistically predict, how this chapter in human history will end. Science and society are facing challenges unprecedented in recent times.

Battles are being fought in intensive care units where a variety of medications are being tried along with supportive care to rescue COVID-19 victims. Investigations are underway to determine what makes some people more susceptible to COVID-19’s deadly effects than others. Medical scientists in laboratories are searching for a safe and effective vaccine. Epidemiologists and virologists, once they have the opportunity to delve deeper into the origin of this particular zoonotic disease—the latest to leap from animals to humans—will be looking for ways to decrease the risk of the next one. It is not evolutionary beliefs but observational operational science that will supply the answers to dig us out of this nightmare and to come up with workable ways to address the next ugly microbe to crossover and come our way.

Meanwhile, support systems that keep people supplied with basic necessities are being stretched to their limits. Those confined to their homes must rely on help from their neighbors and those who remain at work supplying critical needs like food and fuel. Countless sermons will be preached—through livestream to far-flung listeners who cannot safely gather—drawing an analogy between the way an insidious virus can change to something deadly which, like sin, creeps unseen into our lives and destroys us. And people the world over are getting a painful lesson in the importance of scrupulously good hygiene and the common practices that quickly spread infection from person to person. “Social distancing” is the latest and perhaps the most important addition to our common vocabulary.

While we do not know how bad the situation will get, we should be thankful we live in a time when technology and worldwide communication systems can be brought to bear on these problems. And we should be exceedingly thankful for the selflessness of health professionals the world over who are remaining on the front lines, exposed to invisible dangers, with dwindling and imperfect personal protection equipment. We need to pray for God’s protection on them and for him to provide wisdom to all those who labor to bring us through this crisis.

Let Us Not Hold Back In Our Worship and Praise.

Possibly Not To Be Taken Too Seriously.

Ups and Downs.

Predictions during Covid 19 isolation:-
Burglary rates will plummet. 😀
Birth rates will increase.
Crime in general will go down. 😀
Divorce rates will increase in the coming year.
Motor vehicle injuries will decrease dramatically. 😀
Injuries in the home will rise.
Work accidents will fall. 😀
Gardens will be better tended than at any time in decades. 😀
Pollution will have taken a nosedive. 😀

Anasuya.

Meet Anasuya - From Lepra. Anasuya is 33 and married with one son, she lives in a leprosy colony with her husband. When Anasuya was just 11 years old she began to notice numb, discoloured patches of skin on her right thigh. Her left hand began to claw and her right food dropped. She tried to hide her symptoms as she was fearful that she would be separated from her family. She was diagnosed with leprosy and provided Multi Drug Therapy. Anasuya also was referred for reconstructive surgery. Despite the hardship Anasuya faced she came through it stronger and more positive. You can read more about Anasuya's story at the button below.  Click the button below to read more about Anasuya's story.

Anasuya's story

Hmm.

Tozer On The Paradox of Faith.

Valentina - Vo' Virus.

There is a place in Italy where the coronavirus has already been defeated. Its name is Vo', a small settlement of 3,000 inhabitants in the countryside of the Veneto region, about 70km from Venice.

It suddenly became famous around the world last month, after the news of Italy's first virus-related fatality: one of its residents, pensioner Adriano Trevisan.

After the ministry of health defined it as "a cluster of infection", Vo' was placed under quarantine on February 23.

The day after, one of the most iron-clad sanitary cordons in Italy's history was built around it: no one could enter or leave the town, and goods (only medicines and food) could only reach Vo' if authorised by the Prefetto (central government representative in Padua).

Alessio Turetta, 30, owner of a brewery in Vo' and town councillor said to EUobserver: "The pillars of our strategy to manage the health emergency were quarantine and testing".

The town implemented a similar model as South Korea, though with a less hi-tech approach, and on February 29, 97 percent of its population had been tested (Vo' residents living elsewhere were of course excluded).

Nothing like this has been done elsewhere in Italy: in Vo', they arrived to take 800 swabs in only one day.

At the end of the first mass screening on 29 February, three percent of the population resulted positive, and put under mandatory confinement at home.

"Those who tested positive were contacted directly by the health district: carriers with no symptoms or those with mild symptoms were quarantined at home, while those showing more serious symptoms (e.g. high fever) were immediately hospitalised" says Turetta.

"The carriers who remained at home were called several times a day to make sure they were abiding the quarantine, and check their conditions, such as their body temperature".

Regardless of the test results, all residents were invited to stay at home and limit their movements as much as they could, just to the supermarket or the pharmacy.

The strategy worked.

When the testing was repeated between 6 and 8 March, only one percent of the population was found positive.

As of Monday (23 March), the spread of the illness has stopped, and there are no new infections. Some media reported that a new infection was found in Vo' last Thursday night [19 March] but Turetta confirms EUobserver that it was actually referred to one of the few carriers left found on 8 March.

Not everyone in Vo' was happy with the strategy that was implemented.

A resident who prefered not to make his identity known, says: "When they tested the whole town, they crowded lots of people, no safety distance was respected. And I still don't understand how the virus reached a town as remote as ours".

But on the whole, it is undeniable that the Vo' model has been a success.

Of course, at first people were upset and worried, but based on the interviews made by EUobserver, it seems that everyone tried to do their part.

Carla Santolin, owner of a pharmacy in Vo', and the mayor's wife, told EUobserver: "My son and I live in Vicenza, a nearby city. On 24 February morning, the day that the authorities officially closed Vo', we let Vicenza at 7:30 and came to do the quarantine here, because we were needed too.

"The hospital in Schiavonia [that usually assists Vo' residents] was closed; its doctors were in quarantine. For days, more than drugs people came here to understand what was going on, ask for news, be listened to. So it was absolutely necessary to stay open and in contact with people, and help."

According to Mrs Santolin, "the Vo' model worked great. The results have been outstanding."

Sandro Lovison, owner of an agritourism in Vo', thinks so too. "In my opinion, the situation was handled very well" he says to EUobserver, "and I think it was also a winning strategy. We, the 3,300 inhabitants, after 14 days [protected from] the outside world, found ourselves with zero infections. Zero".

Case study?

Indeed, Vo' case is now being studied by Italian virologists, including those from the University of Padua (which actively participated in the testings).

Again, the town has attracted the attention of the international media.

According to Italian virologists, the 'Vo' model' shows that combining a strict quarantine with swabs, so as to identify healthy carriers, is the winning way to stop the spread of the virus - at least in smaller urban centres.

Turetta is proud of his fellow citizens: "There was a lot of awareness. Everyone understood the situation and acted accordingly".

By VALENTINA SAINI