Monthly Archives: December 2010

Isaiah 58: 13-14—“If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot from doing your own pleasure on My holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of Yahweh honorable, and honor it, desisting from your own ways, from seeking your own pleasure and speaking your own word, then you will take delight in Yahweh, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.”

Old Posts

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Jeremiah 12: 14-17:

Thus says Yahweh concerning all My wicked neighbors who strike at the inheritance with which I have endowed My people Israel, “Behold I am about to uproot them from their land and will uproot the house of Judah from among them.  And it will come about that after I have uprooted them, I will again have compassion on them; and I will bring them back, each one to his inheritance and each one to his land.  Then if they will really learn the ways of My people, to swear by My name, ‘As Yahweh lives,’ even as they taught My people to swear by Baal, they will be built up in the midst of My people.  But if they will not listen, then I will uproot that nation, uproot and destroy it,” declares Yahweh. (Jeremiah 12: 14-17)

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“For here we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” (Thomas Jefferson)

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  • Read SnyderTalk the way you would a newspaper.
  • Scan the headlines and read the articles that interest you.
  • Be sure to check out the pages in the column on the right.

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SnyderTalk.com YouTube Channel:

I post SnyderTalk video commentaries on the SnyderTalk.com YouTube Channel.  Yahweh is the primary focus of the commentaries, but from time-to-time I talk about important social and public policy issues.  You can see every SnyderTalk video commentary 24/7 in the column on the right under Pages.  The commentaries are listed by the date they were posted on YouTube.

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Isaiah 58: 13-14—“If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot from doing your own pleasure on My holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of Yahweh honorable, and honor it, desisting from your own ways, from seeking your own pleasure and speaking your own word, then you will take delight in Yahweh, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.”

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“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4: 6)

News Items of Interest:

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Israeli Uncensored News

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“We have the greatest opportunity the world has ever seen, as long as we remain honest – which will be as long as we can keep the attention of our people alive. If they once become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors would all become wolves.” (Thomas Jefferson)

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On Boxing Day, it’s worth noting that Barack Obama is down but not out.  You could tell as much from the contrast between his petulant postelection press conference and his peppy pre-Christmas press conference. In the former he was crabby about accepting Republicans’ demands that income tax rates on all taxpayers not be raised. In the latter he was celebrating the lame-duck Congress’ acceptance of his stands on the New START treaty, repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and even the previously reviled tax deal.

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Egypt has recently held yet another fraudulent and farcical election. Ballot boxes were stuffed. Votes were bought. People who considered voting for the opposition were subjected to violence by professional thugs. And these transgressions have been well documented by human rights groups.

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The Civil War is about to loom very large in the popular memory. We would do well to be candid about its causes and not allow the distortions of contemporary politics or long-standing myths to cloud our understanding of why the nation fell apart.

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I received my Medicare card the other day, recognizing my 65th birthday and making me part of one of America’s biggest problems. By this, I mean the burden that the massive baby-boom generation will impose on its children and the nation’s future. There has been much brave talk recently, from Republicans and Democrats alike, about reducing budget deficits and controlling government spending. The trouble is that hardly anyone admits that accomplishing these goals must include making significant cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits for baby boomers.

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The governor leaves office with a budget in desperate shape, but he set a new political course for California.

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The DREAM Act, a bill that would have put some undocumented immigrants who arrived in this country before they were 16 on a path to citizenship, failed to pass the Senate in part because Republicans are in full anti-immigrant mode. But it also failed because not one American leader urged us to seriously consider what it means to be American in the 21st century.

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Article 1 of California’s Constitution broadly declares that privacy is among our inalienable rights. But the laws enforcing this right are from another era, and our constitutional protection is being undermined.

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A year ago, on Christmas Day, a young Nigerian named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up a passenger jet in midair as it was landing in Detroit, using a bomb hidden in his pants. As he fumbled with the detonator, other passengers realized something was amiss and wrestled him to a halt.

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Riding the lamest of ducks, President Obama just won the Triple Crown. He fulfilled (1) his most important economic priority, passage of Stimulus II, aka the tax cut deal (the perfect pre-re-election fiscal sugar high — the piper gets paid in 2013 and beyond); (2) his most important social policy objective, repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell”; and (3) his most cherished (achievable) foreign policy goal, ratification of the New START treaty with Russia.

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In June 2009, Gov. Pat Quinn’s Taxpayer Action Board offered solid proposals to streamline Illinois’ Medicaid program — it spends roughly $14 billion a year in state and federal funds — and to conserve money. Among the panel’s proposals: Expand managed and outpatient care. Shift long-term-care patients from institutional to community settings. More effectively screen out ineligible patients.

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Remember the Cornhusker Kickback? In a frantic effort to move ObamaCare through the Senate last December, Majority Leader Harry Reid procured Sen. Ben Nelson’s vote by offering Nebraska a unique opportunity: His state alone would not have to pay for the dramatic expansion of Medicaid under the bill. The deal was dropped at the last minute, but not only because of the public outrage it generated. Many realized it was unconstitutional for a reason that now applies equally to the health-reform law: Both violate the general-welfare clause.

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Forget the lofty rhetoric that accompanied last week’s roll-out of a new “network neutrality” policy from the Federal Communications Commission. The net neut battle today really is about how much cable operators will be allowed to charge for the bandwidth that enables upstarts like Neflix, Apple and Amazon to steal their core TV customers.

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In his memoir covering four years in Cuba as a correspondent for Spanish Television, Vicente Botín tells about a Havana woman who was frustrated by the doctor shortage in the country. She hung a sheet on her balcony with the words “trade me to Venezuela.” When the police arrived she told them: “Look, compañeros, I’m as revolutionary as the next guy, but if you want to see a Cuban doctor, you have to go to Venezuela.”

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If the Obama Administration is trying to lose its antibusiness reputation, you wouldn’t know it from the latest shakedown at the Department of Agriculture. In a move that caused jaws to drop in the farm industry, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has invited activists and biotech critics to shape the agency’s regulatory decision on a biotech product. If the precedent stands, it could permanently politicize a system that is supposed to be based on science.

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The plaintiffs bar never sleeps, so we can’t either. The latest news in fanciful lawyering is that the Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in a case that could open a new playground for class-action securities cases.

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President Obama’s indiscriminate expansion of federal power has inspired a healthy populist rebellion, but his opponents sometimes seem to lose their sense of proportion. Take Sarah Palin’s mockery of Michelle Obama’s childhood antiobesity campaign.

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Gallup’s analysis of the reapportionment results are not necessarily a big surprise — and perhaps worse for Democrats than this shows.  Based on Gallup’s surveys earlier in the year on party identification, they note that all of the ten states that lost representation in the House have overall Democratic affiliation advantages.  Five of the eight gainers have GOP affiliation advantages.

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It’s worth noting not only that the War on Christmas has continued, but now federal regulators have joined the wrong side. Christians should get far more aggressive in fighting back, because the Constitution is on their side.

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Better get used to this process, because it’s how President Obama will be pushing his agenda on all fronts.  The New York Times reports today that the White House will create incentives for doctors to discuss “options” for end of life care through regulation, after Congress removed the incentives from ObamaCare.

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Exceptionally stupid. Although, if he’s intent on digging up background on The One, I wouldn’t mind seeing what he comes up with by way of transcripts from Columbia.

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And so it begins, and on the most fertile red-state territory in the nation.  Texas, which got four more seats in the House through the 2010 Census reapportionment, has had its air-quality rules superceded by the EPA as part of its aggressive new action on carbon emissions.  Governor Rick Perry promises a fight.

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The war in Iraq has mainly been an exercise in partisanship, at least since the presidential election campaign of 2004.  Since Barack Obama took office, however, the issue has mainly faded to the background as Republicans and Democrats alike tacitly agreed to support the administration’s decision to abide by the status-of-forces agreement (SOFA) negotiated by George Bush and Nouri al-Maliki in 2008 that will see the bulk of US forces withdraw by the end of next year.  However, that schedule has generated further bipartisan agreement that the White House needs to do more in the wake of al-Qaeda attacks on Christians in Iraq to get the Iraqi government to defend the right to freedom of worship.

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‘Down with the Despot!”  That’s the slogan chanted in the last few days by thousands of Iranian industrial workers and miners. Reports from more than 30 cities across Iran indicate a nationwide protest movement with a mix of economic and political demands that could threaten the Khomeinist regime.

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An overview of the relationship between Israel and America must start from before the beginning, when Zionist leaders in Israel (then called Palestine) realized during and after World War II that America was going to be the center of decision-making and they shifted the center of Zionist activity from London to New York and Washington.

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A high school teacher in southern Spain is being sued for child abuse by the parents of a Muslim student who claims that the teacher “defamed Islam” by talking about Spanish ham in class. The case is one of a growing list of recent controversies that illustrate the increasing assertiveness of Muslims in Spain at a time when Spaniards are slowly waking up to the integration challenges posed by uncontrolled immigration from Muslim countries.

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Ankara will accept nothing short of a public apology and full financial compensation for the Mavi Marmara raid as a condition for improving diplomatic relations with Jerusalem. That was the message sent out over the weekend by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

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The Turkish planes sent to assist in putting out the Carmel fires earlier this month presented an opportunity for both governments to open a new chapter in our strained relations thus far. Our ties deteriorated continuously until the flotilla incident, after which contact was all but cut off and each leadership stepped up the rhetoric.

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Elijah is a great role model – sort of.

1 Kings chapter 18 tells about Elijah’s confrontation with the prophets of Baal – more correctly Ba’al – on Mount Carmel.  He challenged them to a duel.

Before the festivities got underway, Elijah asked the people of Israel who were standing by watching, “How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If Yahweh is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.”  (1 Kings 18: 21)  Then he made a proposal.  The prophets of Ba’al would build an altar, stack up wood, prepare a sacrifice, and ask Ba’al to consume it with fire from heaven.  Elijah told the people that he would do the same thing, and then he said, “Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of Yahweh, and the God who answers by fire, He is God.” (1 Kings 18: 24)

The people of Israel were ecstatic.  “That is a good idea,” they said.

The prophets of Ba’al went first.  They chanted; they raved; they cut themselves; but nothing happened.

Elijah went next.  He dug a trench around his altar and drenched the altar, the sacrifice, and the wood with water – so much water that it filled the trench.  When Elijah called on Yahweh, He rained down fire from heaven and consumed the sacrifice, the wood, and the water.  “When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, ‘Yahweh, He is God; Yahweh, He is God.’” (1 Kings 18: 39)

Elijah claimed a great victory for Yahweh that day, but Jezebel (Queen of Israel at the time) was a Ba’al worshiper and she threatened to kill Elijah.  What did he do?  He ran for his life.

Yahweh is our Protector, our Redeemer, and our Savior.  On Mount Carmel, Elijah was bold and he was victorious.  In short order, he was running for his life like a scared rabbit.  He shouldn’t have done that.  Yahweh would have protected him, and He will protect us too if we are following the leading of His Spirit.

Elijah is a great role model – sort of.  What he did on Mount Carmel is worthy of emulation, but he never should have run from Jezebel. When we are following Yahweh, we need to be bold and let Yahweh deal with the consequences.  That’s His job, and He’s good at it.

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Take on The TimesTM

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This was the year of two big developments in Iraq: the major reduction in American combat forces and a protracted election in which voting in March was followed by a nine-month delay in forming a new government. Despite the political confusion, violence did not escalate, and the economy continued to make slow progress. Still, Iraq cannot afford as much stalemate in the coming year as it experienced in 2010, and the new government will need to deliver security, public services and economic growth.

Take:

Good piece.

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What the commodity markets are telling us is that we’re living in a finite world, in which the rapid growth of emerging economies is placing pressure on limited supplies of raw materials, pushing up their prices. And America is, for the most part, just a bystander in this story.

Take:

As usual, Krugman presents the LP point of view as if it’s the only legitimate view.  When I hear LPs talk about our finite world and our inability to take care of the growing number of people alive today, I remember this FACT.  Three times the number of people on the planet today can stand shoulder-to-shoulder inside the city limits of Jacksonville, Florida.  I’m also reminded of Chicken Little.

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Over the past three years, American politics has been dominated by a liberal fantasy and a conservative freakout.

Take:

This piece is worth reading, but I think Douthat fails to appreciate the dire circumstances we face.  Am I “freaking out”?  I don’t think so.

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Ever since the Dodd-Frank financial reform law was signed in July, the question has been whether it would actually lead to a stable financial system. If the Republicans who will control the House next year get their way, the answer will surely be “no.”

Take:

The title of the financial reform legislation is Dodd-Frank.  That’s Senator Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut, retired) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) – the two people in Congress who were most responsible for the Great Recession.  You can bet there is plenty of room for improvement.  I hope the Republicans in the House will take a close look at financial reform.

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One week ago, secessionists were firing rockets on the streets of Charleston, and the unionists seemed lost. Seven short days later, unionists are honoring a new hero, Major Robert Anderson, with 33 gun salutes, and South Carolina’s secessionists look like amateurs. And the year is not yet over.

Take:

More Civil War stuff as the 150 anniversary of the war approaches.  Where’s the NYC material?

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Natural Healthcare Store, Live the Natural Life!TM

If you haven’t been there already, you should take the opportunity to visit Natural Healthcare Store.  Each product selected for sale at Natural Healthcare Store undergoes rigorous research to make sure that it is the highest quality at an affordable price.

Natural Healthcare Store carries skin care, hair care, and oral care products.  Be sure to check out the Dead Sea products imported from Israel and support the Israeli economy with your purchases.  Natural Healthcare Store carries makeup, deodorant, and detoxification products.  It also carries supplements, weight loss products, and loose leaf tea.  Rounding out its product mix, Natural Healthcare Store carries natural household cleaning products.

Katie and I believe strongly in healthy living, and we use the products.  We’re proud to say that our daughter Melanie owns the store.

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His Name is Yahweh:

There is a wealth of material available for free download on www.hisnameisyahweh.org including the book His Name is Yahweh.  His Name is Yahweh is also available at Amazon on Kindle for just $5.  If you haven’t read His Name is Yahweh, you should.  The importance of Yahweh’s Name is becoming more apparent with each passing day.

Available on Amazon Kindle and it can be downloaded at www.hisnameisyahweh.org