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Hola:        Encantada de conocerte… Mi nombre es Miastenia Gravis y soy una enfermedad neuromuscular, autoinmune y crónica que he venido para acompañarte el resto de tu vida.          Tengo muchas e incómodas sorpresas preparadas para ti que harán que tu cuerpo deje de obedecerte sin que puedas hacer nada para evitarlo. Un día te levantarás por la mañana dándote cuenta que ves doble y te quedarás con cara de alelado pensando qué diantres te está ocurriendo.            En otro momento hago que tus ojos no puedan abrirse dejando tus párpados caídos ante la estupefacción de quienes te rodean; te preguntarán qué te pasa en los ojos y no sabrás qué responderles porque ni tú mismo lo sabes.           Si veo que me divierto lo suficiente, pronto sentirás que tus brazos y piernas no se moverán cuando vayas a realizar alguna actividad sea la que sea, desde la más sencilla hasta la más compleja e incluso te podrás caer sin motivo aparente. Haré que te sientas cansado (principalmente al atardecer) y poco a poco iré conquistando más lugares en tu cuerpo hasta llegar a poseerte por completo.        Tal vez si me lo propongo haré que no puedas hablar, masticar o tragar alimentos e incluso líquidos y finalmente el día menos pensado conseguiré que caigas en mis redes inutilizando tus músculos respiratorios haciéndote sentir verdaderamente mal.          Antes de que sepas quien soy habrás de recorrer en el peor de los casos varios especialistas para que puedan identificarme. Si tienes suerte y el médico de turno ha oído hablar de mí o me ha visto antes en otros pacientes podrá identificarme sin problemas. Si no es así, te espera un auténtico calvario de pruebas y un verdadero periplo de especialista en especialista hasta que den conmigo.        No tengo predilección por ningún sexo en concreto. Ataco por igual a hombres y mujeres; tampoco tengo preferencias por la edad de mi víctima. Lo mismo puede caer en mis garras un adulto, un niño o un anciano. No soy racista ni clasista de manera que afecto por igual a personas de diferentes razas y condición social. En algunas ocasiones puedo entrar en períodos de letargo y tal vez dichos períodos se prolonguen meses o incluso años. Sin embargo, cualquier acontecimiento fortuito, una intervención quirúrgica o una situación de estrés suelen conseguir que me despierte y quizás me haya vuelto más agresiva que antes de mi remisión.         En algunos casos soy más benévola y solamente ataco a los músculos oculares pero me divierto más cuando consigo generalizarme en el cuerpo de mi sufrida víctima.           Si el médico tiene sospechas de mi presencia habrás de enfrentarte a pruebas y tratamientos bastante molestos que probablemente logren contener mi furia hacia ti.              Espero que alguna vez te acostumbres a mi presencia. Lo siento pero mi naturaleza es hacer daño y los demás, en muchas ocasiones, no te comprenderán cuando cambies de planes repentinamente porque de pronto se agotaron tus fuerzas o cuando tengas pocas ganas de hablar o salir.            Por supuesto que puedo inducirte a una depresión por lo que en muchos casos las personas que te rodean creerán que todos tus malestares son de origen psicosomático o fruto de tu estado de ánimo alterado.               En fin, acabas de conocer a tu nueva e inseparable compañera de fatigas.     Firmado: Miastenia Gravis

Thank you Admin  

Atlas Shrugging refers NOT to what the workers do or do not do .... but to the OWNERS and risk takers who by genius, sweat, and THEIR labor cause some engine of the world to exist ... when having their labors confiscated by Governments and Liberal perversions, shrug, and abandon their successful efforts to make life better for everyone, and make a profit while doing it.
These "Captains of Industry" who make the world a better place, and hold it all together ... decide to drop the ball and let the incompetent and the stupid run the show into the ground, causing great equity and fairness, by reducing EVERYONE to poverty, and ruin.
People demand "fairness" .... but if the world were truly "fair", the stupid and lazy would starve to death.

@Allen Smith - most can see through the sensationalist language used, but it is reporting a true story.
How naive are you?
Victim: "I was attacked and beaten, and I have life-changing injuries which will require therapy for the rest of my life!"
Allen: "You are very brave to speak up. There, there. Now don't you feel better?"
Victim: "So is my attacker to be penalized for what he did?"
Allen: "You having a voice is enough. On your way."
"Some here claim"? Hahaha. This is what Watchtower Australia claimed - they categorized the 1006 cases as child sexual abuse allegations. (Idiot.)
 

Hot Dog Styles From Around The World
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Here in Nigeria, beards are not allowed, its against our culture to keep beards...at least so it was the last time I checked. I guess it depends on the location and their culture. 

I NEVER - NEVER HAD problems with any of the Librarians pages.. NEVER ... 
it is only of recently that this FORUM has got thousands of visits from all over the world, that I could not even open a single page of this forum because of too many hits / visits / traffic.
I only experienced problem with FIre-fox that the forum could not open for some days.
now that problem is gone ., days ago .... both browsers firefox and chrome are working well for me (and my laptop)
thank you very much @admin and @The Librarian

I enjoyed "Seabiscuit" ... maybe it was about the storytelling method / narration.

Because when our site was supposedly experiencing a DDoS attack during a very heavily trafficked day our hosting company decided to block ALL AT&T phones. My phone still shows “forbidden” as well.   Invision Power Services seems to think it is not them though but rather another service that is preventing ALL AT&T phones from accessing their website.   I wonder if this has blocked ALL AT&T phones from EVERY IPS 4.x website out there?   Are there any other admins experiencing the same problem?

Because when our site was supposedly experiencing a DDoS attack during a very heavily trafficked day our hosting company decided to block ALL AT&T phones. My phone still shows “forbidden” as well.   Invision Power Services seems to think it is not them though but rather another service that is preventing ALL AT&T phones from accessing their website.   I wonder if this has blocked ALL AT&T phones from EVERY IPS 4.x website out there?   Are there any other admins experiencing the same problem?

via TheWorldNewsOrg
World News

via TheWorldNewsOrg
World News

Implications of the Supreme Court's decision
175,000 PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE
by Anton Chivchalov
Radio Liberty, 25 April 2017
 
On 20 April, Hitler's birthday, Russia became the first European country to prohibit the religious confession of Jehovah's Witnesses. Hitler also tried to do this, but did not succeed. A bit later Stalin tried, with similar results. According to the decision of the Supreme Court, for the first time since 1918 in Russia the property of a whole religious confession with countrywide reach will be confiscated, and this is hundreds of buildings, built on the voluntary contributions of believers themselves. The confiscation is an important point of the plaintiff's declaration of the Ministry of Justice. People do not request money from the government and they build houses of worship at their own expense, but the government confiscates them because it does not like how they pray.
 
The cynicism of the situation simply cannot be comprehended. Back before the decision of the court, the police and FSB throughout the country conducted raids on houses of worship, searched believers, copied their passports, photographed them, and issued warnings about their criminal responsibility for "extremist" activity. I stress again: this began before the court's decision. Now that it has been announced, throughout the country hunting season has been declared.
 
Police, the FSB, as well as an infinite number of vandals and goons of all stripes, all are out on the hunt for believers, women, children, and babas [elderly women]. In Cheliabinsk the police have already dispersed a meeting of deaf persons. In Taganrog believers have already received criminal sentences for reading the Bible. Vandals have already broken windows and even tossed grenades into houses of worship. All of this has already happened, and all of this now will be multiplied.
 
We stand on the brink of a widespread religious genocide with unpredictable consequences. "The siege has now begun, since the confession has been 'liquidated,' but Jehovah's Witnesses will not renounce the faith," lawyer Anatoly Pchelintsev notes justifiably. Really, it is impossible to ban faith with the stroke of the pen. As a result the country simply has gained 175 thousand prisoners of conscience. In Pchelintsev's opinion, some will emigrate and some will go underground. Those who will not be able to do either will be imprisoned.
 
It is amazing, but the majority of journalists and practically 100% of the public do not understand the reasons for this trial nor its consequences. The situation is understood thus: a) the Jehovah's Witnesses are a dangerous sect that commits actions that are dangerous to society; b) when they are banned, they will cease to do these actions.
 
"It is the end of the world for Jehovah's Witnesses," RT writes naively. In reality the situation is as follows: a) the only basis for banning Jehovah's Witnesses is their "extremist," that is the incorrect, literature. Nothing concerning any other harmful acts has been discussed in court, except for questions of blood transfusion, but even on this issue the Ministry of Justice was not able to provide any evidence.
 
The only basis for a ban is the disputable, in the plaintiff's opinion, wording in the literature and biblical interpretation. "It is not quotations from the Bible that are considered extremist but the interpretation of what is written in the Bible," the justice ministry's lawyer, Svetlana Borisova, declared frankly in court.
 
Further: b) after the ban, in the future believers will believe just as they believed earlier. History does not know cases when Jehovah's Witnesses changed their convictions on order of the authorities. If someone thinks that with the aid of the ban believers can be "re-educated," remade to order, this is an extremely naïve prediction. It does not work.
 
The only thing that will change as the result of the court's decision: it is necessary to imprison people. And it is necessary to imprison not a rock group of three persons and not a single Pokemon hunter, but almost 200 thousand citizens of the country. It is an incredible number of people who no single civilized state has imprisoned in modern history. It will be necessary to build new prisons and a whole network of prisons. But in any case, a whole new page in the history of state-confessional relations is beginning.
 
Attorney Viktor Zhenkov told in court a morality tale: "In this courtroom there is a person who was born in prison. Because his mama, who was in the third month of pregnancy, was sentenced as an enemy of the people to eight years incarceration simply because she was a Jehovah's Witness. She gave birth in prison and the infant spent two years in the prison's children's home. His father could not take him because he had been exiled to Siberia. In 1991 the government acknowledged that the mother was a victim of political repressions, apologized to her, and assigned a pension. And now here in the court this man, born in prison, approached me and asked: 'Does the Ministry of Justice really want a repetition of this horrible history?' And I did not know what to answer. Even now I do not know what is motivating the representatives of the Ministry of Justice and those who are directing this trial."
 
Today several people continue to say: there will not be any imprisonments; simply a legal entity is being banned; personal rights remain with the citizens. This is a misconception deriving from bad information. Already warnings have begun for believers simply for reading the Bible and prayers in their own home (!) under threat of criminal prosecution. The FSB has already begun warning that all adherents of Jehovah's Witnesses will be prosecuted on criminal articles. Earlier in Taganrog, 16 believers already received criminal articles for simply reading the Bible, and not all of them were members of the banned legal entities. The Ministry of Justice itself frankly acknowledged at the hearings that criminal cases may be initiated against believers. Religious discrimination (forbidden by the constitution) has been officially introduced into Russia: believers of some religions may assemble for prayer, and others may not.
 
It is encouraging that ever more believers of other confessions understand that tomorrow they will come for them. Baptists, Pentecostals, and even Orthodox have spoken out openly in defense of Jehovah's Witnesses, and they have sent their appeals to the president. For many, their eyes have been opened to what is happening. It is necessary to open them faster; it may not make it.
 
Immediately after the decision of the Supreme Court there began to be discussed in the corridors of power which religion will be next. "All organizations who exist in our country, with the exception of traditional confessions, should be examined to find protection of the interests of traditional morality, traditional values of Russia, in institutions of respect for the family, concern for neighbors, and love of the fatherland. In my view, very many organizations today do not accord with this criterion," said the chairman of the State Duma Committee for Development of Civil Society and Affairs of Public and Religious Associations, Sergei Gavrilov.
 
Has everyone gotten the signal?
(tr. by PDS, posted 26 April 2017)

Can you imagine that sometime in the future we actually won't need mechanical storage, but information could literally be stored in the air around us  ala "Cloud" hehe

Off topic alert.  
Please start new threads or this topic will be locked. 
Thank you. 
I have repeatedly begged Invision Power Services to embrace threaded replies but they are still stuck in 1999.  Sorry.  

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Click here to watch secular news channels LIVE from around the world.
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@admin  ONE  time  being  on  board  there....   WOW,  SO  COOL ;-))  But  too  expensive
Perhaps  in  the  future...   maybe?

How appropriate for a "World Forum" ....
The International Space Station - ISS - circles the earth at 240 miles above the planet, on the edge of space in low earth orbit.

The station is crewed by NASA astronauts as well as Russian Cosmonauts and a mixture of Japanese, Canadian and European astronauts as well.

As seen from the Nasa space video ISS live stream on the International Space Station - 
A real astronaut view of Earth!

Live ISS stream of planet earth from space courtesy of nasa HDEV High Definition Earth Viewing Cameras aboard the international space station.
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@admin
 

via TheWorldNewsOrgWorld News

via TheWorldNewsOrg
World News

This is our official position is found here:
https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/are-jehovahs-witnesses-protestants/#?insight[search_id]=267c5f94-25af-4a38-953c-27cb18721c90&insight[search_result_index]=1
Just thought I 'd point this out. Although, we may be interpreted that way from non-witnesses...

When either a religious group or a group of religions are singled out for suppression of their freely chosen movement and activities, then this might be termed persecution. To the extent that the reason for the suppression was related to teaching and preaching the message of the Bible or following Bible precepts, then this is the same as being persecuted for our Christianity (being persecuted for Christ's name's sake). Therefore, at least a portion of the suppression is "persecution" and Jesus said that Christians would be persecuted for following him.
Obviously, we don't want to suffer for breaking a law of Caesar's (assuming that Caesar's law doesn't conflict with God's law).
(1 Peter 2:19, 20) 19 For it is agreeable when someone endures hardship and suffers unjustly because of conscience toward God. 20 For what merit is there if you are beaten for sinning and you endure it? But if you endure suffering because of doing good, this is an agreeable thing to God.
(1 Peter 3:17) 17 For it is better to suffer because you are doing good, if it is God’s will to allow it, than because you are doing evil.
(1 Peter 4:15, 16) 15 However, let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or a wrongdoer or a busybody in other people’s matters. 16 But if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed, but let him keep on glorifying God while bearing this name.
This is the only prophecy that we can be sure is related to the ban in Russia. Jesus prophesied that persons bearing the name "Christian" would be persecuted. Even though the courts have claimed that the ban is not for being Christian, but for other things like:
"encouraging suicide" "claiming superiority over other religions, thus infringing on the freedom of conscience of others" "breaking up family associations" "enticement of minors into religious associations" "requiring that members proselytize in order to convert persons of other religions or ideologies." But at least a couple of these so-called "problems" with JWs should be intrinsic to basic Christianity. Therefore another Christian precept is to "defend and legally establish" the good news.
(Philippians 1:7) 7 It is only right for me to think this regarding all of you, since I have you in my heart, you who are sharers with me in the undeserved kindness both in my prison bonds and in the defending and legally establishing of the good news.
The suppression in Russia does not prove that we are the most persecuted religion on earth. (In fact, the vast majority of lands that we preach in benefit from freedom of religion laws that uphold peaceful assembly and the right to preach and live in almost any way we wish.)
The suppression in Russia may end up being just another pendulum swing in the legal battles Witnesses have had with the Russian government. It could all go another way in a matter of months. (And it could get much worse.)
Most of all, it does not mean anything specifically with regard to the "king of the north" or the idea that the U.N. might take a stand against all religion. We do not know who the "king of the north" is. As JTR said, all the guesses made in the past have never panned out as predicted. It's quite possible that our biggest test of faith will be the realization that the prophecy about the "king of the north" already came true two thousand years ago or more. 
It may also be true that we should NOT expect a special cry of peace and security. The context of Paul's letter to the Thessalonians actually makes this a real possibility. Paul may have been saying no more than "you won't be able to predict the time of the end by looking for wars and rumors of wars -- it could just as easily come during a time when at least some people are speaking about 'peace and security.'"
This would be the near equivalent of what 2 Peter says:
(2 Peter 3:4) . . .“Where is this promised presence of his? Why, from the day our forefathers fell asleep in death, all things are continuing exactly as they were from creation’s beginning.”
That matches the way that Jesus predicted that it could occur during a time of peace and security:
(Matthew 24:36-44) 36 “Concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 For just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be. 38 For as they were in those days before the Flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, 39 and they took no note until the Flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be. 40 Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken along and the other abandoned. 41 Two women will be grinding at the hand mill; one will be taken along and the other abandoned. 42 Keep on the watch, therefore, because you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 “But know one thing: If the householder had known in what watch the thief was coming, he would have kept awake and not allowed his house to be broken into. 44 On this account, you too prove yourselves ready, because the Son of man is coming at an hour that you do not think to be it.
It's the kind of peace and security that keeps people from paying attention and keeping on the watch. In other words, there will be no sign. If Paul was speaking of a separate cry of peace and security, then this would be an obvious sign, which Jesus said we would not get.
In fact, this was Charles Taze Russell's view of Matthew 24 prior to 1914 and it was a view that continued even after 1914. The following is from Studies in the Scriptures, Volume IV:
The History of Eigtheen Centuries Briefly Foretold --Matt. 24:6-13; Mark 13:7-13; Luke 21:9-19-- "And ye shall hear of wars and rumors [threats, intrigues] of wars: see that ye be not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are primary sorrows." Matt. 24:6-8
Thus briefly did our Lord summarize secular history, and teach the disciples not to expect very soon his second coming and glorious Kingdom. And how aptly: surely the world's history is just this--an account of wars, intrigues, famines and pestilences--little else. Our Lord separates the history of the true Church and states it with similar brevity, thus:
"Then [during that same period, the Gospel age] they shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations [peoples] for my name's sake. And then [during that same period] many shall be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets [teachers] shall rise and [D567] shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." Matt. 24:9-13
In the light of history would it be possible to portray the course of God's true Church in fewer words? Surely not. The likeness is perfect. "Whosoever will live godly shall suffer persecution," is the Apostle's declaration; and whoever has not shared it has every reason to doubt his relationship to God as a son. (Heb. 12:8)
 
I doubt that such a change in doctrine will happen any time soon, but this doctrine about Matthew 24 (as it was once taught in the Watch Tower publications) is probably a change in doctrine that has a good chance of being accepted again, assuming that the scene of the world does not change too significantly over the next few decades. (Chances of that seem pretty slim, too.)
This leaves us exactly where we should be, trusting in Jehovah, in any and every situation, whether in favorable season or troublesome season:
(Psalm 56:3-12)  3 Whatever day I get afraid, I, for my part, shall trust even in you.  4 In union with God I shall praise his word. In God I have put my trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?  5 All day long they keep hurting my personal affairs; All their thoughts are against me for bad.  6 They attack, they conceal themselves, They, for their part, keep observing my very steps, While they have waited for my soul.  7 On account of [their] hurtfulness cast them forth. In anger bring down even the peoples, O God.  8 My being a fugitive you yourself have reported. Do put my tears in your skin bottle. Are they not in your book?  9 At that time my enemies will turn back, on the day that I call; This I well know, that God is for me. 10 In union with God I shall praise [his] word; In union with Jehovah I shall praise [his] word. 11 In God I have put my trust. I shall not be afraid. What can earthling man do to me? 12 Upon me, O God, there are vows to you. I shall render expressions of thanksgiving to you.