Archives

Friday, October 28, 2011

Happy Birthday Engineer Annie!

400-408 – Thom Miller, (thommiller.org) is a Cleveland mobster turned minister, who now runs the international prison ministry Special Visit (specialvisit.org), and the ministry Kids Tears (kidstears.org) that helps protect children from sexual abuse at the hands of family and friends.  

• There's soon to be a movie about Thom's life (facebook.com/mobstertoministermovie, MobsterToMinistermovie.com). 

• In many ways, Ray Liotta's character in Goodfellas is Thom's story, shoe-shine boy to drug dealer to enforcer.  Thom was indicted 52 times, convicted 36 times, and the 52nd indictment was for killing a guy in a bar fight.  He came to Christ on his own, in solitary, on death row, on his 37th birthday, while serving a 15 year prison term, while reading a stolen King James New Testament as a dyslexic.  Broken externally and internally, grieving the crayon pictures his 12 kids mailed him saying "Daddy when are you coming home?," grieving his mother going blind yet crying herself to sleep each night praying "God, save my son."  And, grieving the darkness of the only life he'd ever known.  But, Jesus changed Thom's life.

• In August 2009, Thom's world was rocked when the youngest of his two step-daughters (Amber & Jamie) just 9 at the time and her older sister was 11, handed him a note that basically said, that the bad man was grandpa and he had been hurting them.  They had been having a discussion about "no touch areas" and the "bad people" who hurt children, when the little girl ran into the kitchen and handed him the note and ran off.  It ended up that grandpa had been raping them for years!   He's now in prison.  As a result, Thom is driven to expose the reality of child sexual abuse through his ministry kidstears.org, where he has a lot of free, downloadable resources.

• If you suspect abuse is occurring in a situation you've seen or heard about, if you see something suspicious, you can call one of these hotlines anonymously, and they'll follow-up on your tip.  (800) 540-4000 – LA Child Abuse Hotline.

408 – The FREE Line In The Sand event is coming to the Rose Bowl, Saturday, November 11th, pre-register at kkla.com.

413-423 – Thom Miller,

428-438 – Thom Miller,

439 – Pastors and Church Leaders – learn to increase the impact of your church at our FREE IMPACT 2011 Conference, Tuesday November 1st at APU, pre-register at kkla.com. (Jim Reeves – Faith Community, Dudley Rutherford – SOTH, Steve Mays – CCSB, J.P. Jones – Crossline Community) Or pre-register right now by calling (888) 799-4999.

443-452 – Thom MillerCalls – Were you a victim of child sexual abuse?

458-508 – Thom Miller, Calls – Were you a victim of child sexual abuse?

512-523 – Thom Miller, Calls – Were you a victim of child sexual abuse?

523 – Pastors and Church Leaders – learn to increase the impact of your church at our FREE IMPACT 2011 Conference, Tuesday November 1st at APU, pre-register at kkla.com. (Jim Reeves – Faith Community, Dudley Rutherford – SOTH, Steve Mays – CCSB, J.P. Jones – Crossline Community) Or pre-register right now by calling (888) 799-4999.

528-539 – Thom Miller, Calls – Were you a victim of child sexual abuse? Robbette's Call.

544-554 – JP Jones (Replay)

558-608 – • AFP (10/27/2011) French far-right Christians besiege Jesus excrement play.

• Anthony York (LAT, 10/28/2011) The retirement system overhaul at a glance.

• Change pensions for future public employees, blending guaranteed benefits with a new 401(k)-style savings plan;  [Isn't this like privatizing Social Security?]

• Raise the retirement age for most future public workers from 55 to 67 and require all public workers to contribute at least half of the cost of their retirement benefits;

• End employees' ability to work fat a government job while also drawing a public pension from a previous job;

• Provide full health benefits to only those retirees who were publicly employed for at least 25 years.

• LAT (10/28/2011) Democrats drive drop in support for healthcare law in new poll.  The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that support for Obamacare has fallen among even Democrats since it was passed.  Democrat support has fallen from 65% to 52%, Independent support has fallen 36% to 32%, and Republican support has fallen 14% to 11%.  Overall, 51% of Americans view Obamacare unfavorably, while just 34% view it favorably.

• Guy Benson (Townhall, 10/28/2011) Awesome: Virginia Tea Party Demands Refund Over 'Occupy' Double Standard.

608 – Don't miss Renewing your Mind weekdays at noon, RC Sproul's new series is "Luther and The Reformation."

612-623 – Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (frc.org), will be speaking at all four morning services (730, 900, 1045 and 1230) this Sunday at Calvary Chapel South Bay (ccsouthbay.org) as part of the Values Voters Bus Tour (valuesbus.com).

628-639 – Tony Perkins,

639 – The FREE Line In The Sand event is coming to the Rose Bowl, Saturday, November 11th, pre-register at kkla.com.

644-654 – Calls – 

• Peggy Noonan (WSJ, 10/28/2011) The Divider vs. the Thinker.  While Obama readies an ugly campaign, Paul Ryan gives a serious account of what ails America.

• Jim Angle (Fox News, 10/27/2011) Obama's Health Care Law Penalizes Marriage, Analysts Say.

• Allan Meltzer (WSJ, 10/28/2011) Four Reasons Keynesians Keep Getting It Wrong: Concern over future tax rates is one of the main reasons for reduced investor confidence.  Mr. Meltzer, a professor of public policy at the Tepper School, Carnegie Mellon University and a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, is the author most recently of "Why Capitalism?" forthcoming from Oxford University Press.

My Summary –

1) The inevitable future tax increases to pay for all the government spending forces investors to sit on their cash.

2) The multiplier effect fails, taking taxes from the productive and giving them to the unproductive cannot increase output.  Government spending doesn't boost output, lowering taxes does.

3) The inevitable increase in the size of government to oversee the new spending creates investor uncertainty.

4) Investors know that when the money runs out for the government-created jobs, the bonds that financed them will have to be repaid.

• To create jobs and improve the economy, we need to:

1) Implement 10 years of spending cuts.

2) Reduce corporate tax rates and expense capital investment by closing loopholes.

3) Announce a 5 year moratorium on new regulations.

4) Set an enforceable inflation target of 0%-2% to allay fears of future high inflation.

• WSJ (10/28/2011) Everyone Bails Out Everyone: European deal has something for everyone, except the real problem.

• Jerry Bowyer (Forbes, 10/27/2011) EU-Topia: Why Europe Can't Exist.