What’s In A Name?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Decided to write a brief post today because I wanted to share something interesting that I discovered while reading the book, “Revelation:  Unlocking the Future” by Edward Hindson and Mal Couch. This is probably the third or fourth time that I have read the book, but each time I end up learning more and more. The Bible is God-breathed; which means that each writer was carried along by the Holy Spirit of God to write down their accounts of what they heard, saw, witnessed, participated in, and learned from the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation. With such a book as the Bible, no one has ever “arrived” at knowing all that there is to know within such a wealth of knowledge that is contained within the pages of God’s Word!

In the Bible, names were often given to describe the type of person that they would be, the circumstances of their birth, their destiny, or any number of reasons for the name. For example:

Moses [N] [B] [E] [S]

taken out; drawn forth

Hitchcock’s Dictionary of Bible Names. Public Domain. Copy freely.

Isaac [N] [E] [S]

laughter

Hitchcock’s Dictionary of Bible Names. Public Domain. Copy freely.

[Recall that Isaac’s mother “laughed” because she became pregnant at such an old age.]

Jacob [N] [B] [E] [S]

that supplants

Hitchcock’s Dictionary of Bible Names. Public Domain. Copy freely.

Jesus [E] [S]

savior; deliverer

Hitchcock’s Dictionary of Bible Names. Public Domain. Copy freely.

Before I get to the piece of history that I learned, I want to preface this post with information about the Muslim man, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was one of the radical Islamic terrorists who was killed after the Boston Marathon bombing. Recall that his mother said, ‘If they are going to kill him, I don’t care,’ she told CNN of Dzhokhar. ‘My oldest one is killed, so I don’t care. I don’t care is my youngest one is going to be killed today. I want the world to hear this. And I don’t care if I am going to get killed too. And I will say Allahu akbar!’

The blogger at Sweetness and Light comments:

What is so “bizarre” about what she said? She sounds like a typically devout Muslim mother to us.

By the way, the only print version of this story seems to be from the UK’s Daily Mail. CNN not yet published a print version of this interview, even though it is their scoop.

It’s almost as if they don’t want to make the family look like Muslim radicals.

With that background information, I will continue on with what I discovered.

On page 36 where the authors of the Revelation book are discussing the letters to the seven churches, the church called Smyrna (which was a persecuted church at that time in history) the authors give us some history. After describing that the church was named after an aromatic perfume, was ruled by Anatolians, Lydians, and Persians, was totally destroyed and left in ruins but re-built by Alexander the Great, we learn that it later gave its allegiance to Rome. Cicero called the city “our most fathful and most ancient ally.” By New Testament times, Smyrna was a large Roman city with a prosperous Jewish community.

The authors wrote:

In A.D. 178 and again in 180, Smyrna was badly damaged by earthquakes and was rebuilt by Emperor Marcus Aurelius. In A.D. 325, during the Council of Nicea, Bishop Eytychius represented Smyrna. In the fifth centrue, Attila the Hun conquered the city. In A.D. 673 it fell to the Arabs, but was liberated until A.D. 1402 when it fell to Tamerlane, who massacred the Christian population in the name of Islam. 8

We can see that “Tamerlan” Tsarnaev was named after a person in history who massacred the Christian population at Smyrna in the name of Islam.

Interestingly enough, Tamerlan sought out a name change.

Excerpt:

(CNN) — A few months before the Boston bombings, the suspected mastermind of the terror attack, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, wanted to change his name, a U.S. government official told CNN Wednesday.

Tsarnaev, who was shot and killed in a massive manhunt, made an interesting choice for his new name.

He wrote that he wanted to switch his first name to Muaz, the last name of Emir Muaz — a Dagestan insurgent fighting in the Caucasus region of Russia, the official added. Muaz was killed in 2009.

Further down in the article, we discover more proof that this terrorist was named after the “warrior Tamerlane.”

According to the website http://www.thinkbabynames.com, the name Tamerlan is derived from Tamerlane, the feared 14th-century warrior who conquered parts of the Middle East and Central Asia. Tamerlane, the name used in the epic Edgar Allan Poe poem, is now more commonly called Timur by historians.

In this article link, we learn that the  FBI Admits It Missed Opportunities to Stop Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

In a newly unclassified report, bureau agents describe a “huge” lapse that could have “changed everything” about the Boston marathon bombing

Excerpt:

The report reveals that in March 2011, the Russian Federal Security Service provided the FBI with information that Tamerlan and his mother Zubeidat Tsarnaeva were “adherents of radical Islam and that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was preparing to travel to Russia to join unspecified ‘bandit underground groups’ in Dagestan and Chechnya.

But according to that same report, when an officer from the FBI-led Boston Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) questioned Tamerlan and his parents, the JTTF never asked about Tamerlan’s travel plans. Nor did the JTTF officer question Tamlerlan Tsarnaev’s wife or his ex-girlfriend, who had filed an assault charge against him in 2009. Though the report says that it is “impossible to know what the former girlfriend and wife would have told the FBI in 2011,” the authors also point out that after the bombing, both Tamerlan’s ex-girlfriend and his wife told law enforcement about his growing radicalism prior to 2011.

Perhaps it would have served them better to have also known just why a Muslim mother would even want to name her son after an evil historic figure like Tamerlane who massacred the Christian population in the name of Islam.  Radical Islamic terrorism is a continuing generational problem.  It will not be solved by releasing terrorists from Gitmo, hoping that they will not return to jihad.  But that is the ignorant mindset within the current BADministration.  Either that – or it’s all being done by design.  What do you think?

Remember the Saul Alinsky teaching tactics?  He recommended doing something with one hand (like allowing tens of thousands of South American children to cross the border and overwhelm the Border Patrol)  in order to not expose “the other hand” (which is to allow terrorists to cross the same border) while Zero dithers (purposely) by blaming Congress for not being willing to shell out 3.7 billion dollars to “fix the problem” – [yeah…right!].  We know that 3 million dollars would fly all of the illegals back to their own country and parents/guardians; and the National Guard on the border would stop the flow of illegal immigrants coming into America.  Problem solved!

Doesn’t look like Zero really wants to solve the border problem.  He and his nasty handlers continue to do anything and everything that they can to destroy our way of life here in America.

Hat tips to all links.

Which America Do You Believe In?

I began contemplating this particular blog post after sharing a book and comments from an individual in the comment section of my last post (Facebook’s Secret Mood Manipulation).  Much of what I desire to share here brings to mind the reality of what is actually going on in our nation – vis a vis – the government elitists vs. We The People.

Many across the country – Conservative, Republican, Libertarian, and even some Democrats – have already caught on to the game that keeps going round and round within the political world of Washington D.C.  There is a political cancer infecting our government, and it is responsible for negatively influencing many unsuspecting people within our nation.  Basically, it is called “progressivism.”  Of course, we all know that this is not a new phenomenon. Quite the contrary, it has been going on (quite aggressively as of late) since the 1960’s.  The people involved used to be called liberals, and the social issues were often referred to as “liberalism.” But the radical changes happening today go way beyond the original definition of that term.

Our children (including Busters, Generation X, and Millennials) have been brain-dirtied by the radicals of the ’60s.  How so? Will get to that in a bit.

First, I need to explain that such radicals who may have started out as being benign protestors, gravitated towards more violence. They decided that in order to get attention, they needed to bomb government buildings, kill police officers, and, went so far as to even make an attempt to kill a judge and his sleeping children in their own home. When that got them nowhere, they decided to get degrees, put on suits, and become lawyers or professors at large universities.  Those who got away with their crimes and became (supposedly) “honorable” citizens with high-paying jobs (and unfettered access to college students) included two members of the FBI’s most wanted list and homeland terrorists in the 70’s – Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn. Both of them escaped justice for their heinous crimes because they got off on technicalities. They should have been locked up for their roles in the bombings of 20 government buildings, the deaths of police officers (leaving 8 children without a father), and their failed attempt (thank God) to fire-bomb and kill a judge and his family in their own home. Ayers and Dorhn were part of The Weather Underground – a home-grown terrorist group of the ’60s and 70’s who rationalized doing these things in protest of the Vietnam War.

If you missed Megyn Kelly’s three-part interview with the unrepentant terrorist, Bill Ayers, you need to do yourself a service and view all of them! Click HERE  It’s absolutely riveting – to say the least!  At the end, you will see the mindset of progressive-minded radicals (like Ayers) of the ’60s and 70’s are now “respected” professors teaching our children in colleges and universities across the nation.  The propaganda that has been fed to our children by the likes of these creepy and dangerous individuals has resulted in what we are now seeing as the current “hate America”  mentality, causing a downward spiral  of devastating consequences being hurled at our country and We The People, due to the members of the mentally ill asylum being in power and running (I mean, ruining!) America.

In my last post, I reported on Facebook’s mood manipulation experiment and included a link to a post where it was discovered that this “experiment” was tied to the Department of Defense.

SCG News: Facebook’s Psychological Experiments Connected to Department of Defense Research on Civil Unrest!

You might wonder, why would the DOD be involved with a social media’s experiment and why would “mood manipulation” be something that they would want to investigate?  The answer is in the title to the link above this paragraph.  It was for research on civil unrest.

The current nefarious government KNOWS how angry a majority of Americans are at all of the scandals going on in Washington D.C.  It gets worse by the day, and you can also throw in all the chaos going on in the Middle East due to our feckless resident in the White House and his puppeteers.  One quick note – if you never saw Dinesh D’Souza’s film “2016 – Obama’s America” – you should see it now.  You can view the entire film online!

Click here:  2016: Obama’s America

[Note: Within the first few minutes you will hear Obama’s lie, “For those of you who didn’t vote for me, I hear your voices and will be your president too.” In hindsight, we know what a liar he was (and continues to be) from the very beginning!]

You will see how absolutely prophetic this documentary (released in 2012)  has now turned out to be! It was made back in early 2012 with the goal of being  a warning to the American people regarding what havoc Obama would wreak if he got a second term in office. When it was made, the so-called “Arab Spring” had begun.  We now see what a mess that turned out to be – from the Benghazi terrorist attack to the slaughtering going on in Syria, to the ISIS Islamic takeover in Iraq.  D’Souza already saw a vision (and includes it at the end of his 2012 documentary, “2016: Obama’s America”) of the upcoming progress of the various radical Islamist groups.  Their goal?   To establish an Islamic Caliphate.  Once this is done – they will go after Israel, the United States, and the rest of the world.  Glen Beck was another person who feared that the “Arab Spring” would lead to an Islamic Caliphate, way back in 2010.  Media pundits laughed and mocked him.  But now, just who are the stooges?

Another quick note. Recall President George W. Bush and his Administration telling the American people that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were necessary,  not only just to “get Bin Laden” but also to PREVENT THE ESTABLISHMENT (or safe haven) OF A BASE OF OPERATION FOR TERRORIST GROUPS THAT WOULD PLAN MORE ATTACKS AGAINST OUR NATION AND ISRAEL?

When Obama got into office, he didn’t care whether or not we won either war. He didn’t work to get Al Maliki to agree to the need to leave some U.S. troops  in Iraq in order to help keep the peace already won there and to keep any future terrorists groups out. Now we have a more rabid and dangerous Islamic group called ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) capturing cities all across Iraq and heading to the prized city of Baghdad.  They are involved in unimaginable atrocities, killings, religious cleansing of Christians, and causing carnage all across the country. In fact, they are so brazen now that they have shortened their name to IS (Islamic State). If you know the history of WWII, you would know that this tactic is similar to what Hitler tried to do with his evil Nazi Socialist mindset back in the 1940’s. But I digress.

D’Souza has a new film out called “America.”  It discusses the idea of what the world would be like if America was never created.  I’m looking forward to seeing it soon and will write a blog post about it after I view the movie.

During my research for my last blog post – “Facebook deceptive practices of manipulation,” I came across some comments from Trenton Fervor that I thought were amazingly on target regarding what We The People see as the attempted destruction, (from within our own government) of our beloved nation. Fervor has also written a book entitled, “The Myth of American Democracy: The Deification of Democratic Governance and the Subversion of Individual Liberty.”

That title alone describes what so many people (and, not only TEA Party Patriots, but also Independents, Libertarians, and even some Democrats) are now seeing, and feeling, about both the Executive and Congressional branches of our government. We all feel that the elitists in Washington D.C. ARE NOT LISTENING TO WE THE PEOPLE!

I could cite dozens of usurpations and criminal activities here, but hopefully readers have been paying attention and already know about the various scandals. However, I will cite one recent example where the establishment elitists will even cross party lines in order to crush new blood and faces from getting into the Senate.

View this video: Fox Business.com: Allegations of vote buying in Mississippi and Fox News.com: FEC looks into PAC that backed Thad Cochran.

This is evidence of how low nefarious elitists will go in order to keep their power; as well as those elitists of the same political party (Haley Barbour??? Shame on you!!!) who would sabotage an election where a TEA Party backed candidate would have most likely have the primary winner before the 2014 Midterm election.  What’s worse is that they used Democratic voters (many are reporting that they were black Democrats) to be PAID $15.00 in order to go and vote in the Mississippi Republican primary. If they already voted in the Democratic primary, then IT IS ILLEGAL for them to vote in a Republican run-off! We shall see how this debacle ends up.

Many Conservatives believe that other types of voter fraud and hijinks were used in Florida years ago for the purpose of getting the former Lieutenant Colonel and TEA Party hero, Representative Allen West (a black conservative Republican) out of Congress.

Integrity, honesty, truth, and fair play went out the window in politics quite a while ago. But now, things have gotten so brazen and worse  that certain elitist candidates (and their dishonest backers) will do ANYTHING to get re-elected. They are power hungry, money grubbing, dirty-minded, and dishonest to the core! I pray that term limits for Congress will one day be the norm in this nation!

Back to T. Fervor’s book and comments.

I haven’t read his book yet. I don’t know exactly where he stands within the political spectrum. I won’t know (until I read the book) whether or not I will agree with all that he believes. However, the following comments that he made under a post about the Facebook mood manipulation experiment caught my eye and I thought that they were important to share with my readers:

TFervor • 20 hours ago

US Declaration of Independence, 1776:
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpation’s, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security… ”

TFervor • 21 hours ago

The future of American democracy is not about liberty, constitutionalism, individual rights, privacy, voluntary association, pluralistic living options, or limited government—it’s about universalizing the reign of elite-sanctioned reason. Government will become ever-more totalitarian, and this totalitarianism will be increasingly premised on the assertion of a “self-evident” “legitimacy of rationality.” An elite-vision conforming rationality. Whatever strategically promotes the elites’ vision qualifies as a rational action. If an action has been ordained to be “right” by the political establishment illuminati, it is therefore legitimate and necessary—regardless of popular sentiment or constitutional obstacles.

There will never be a “final straw” regarding the loss of liberty. The government is never going to push you over “the line”; the whole process is one of moving you and your line—like boiling a frog. Either you need to make a principled stand at some relatively indistinct point, or you need to recognize that you are willing to accept your gradual enslavement.

TFervor • 21 hours ago

Indications of increasing tyranny:
——————————————-
–Erosion of individual rights
–Restrictions on individuals’ abilities to defend themselves
–Control or distortion of public information
–Increasing control of media and public discourse
–Increasing centralization of governmental power
–Expansion or usurpation of un-delegated powers
–Strong, government-accessible, identification requirements
–Increasing requirements for licenses, permits, registrations
–Increasing dependency on government
–Control of money and banking
–Circumvention of law or de facto creation of new laws
–Secret laws and unaccountable decision-making
–Restrictions on internal or external freedom of movement
–Restrictions on free association and free assembly
–Staged or fraudulent elections
–Rules which protect establishment politicians from challengers
–Surveillance, infiltration, or subversion of groups critical of government
–False prosecutions, manipulated trials and juries, or unlawful imprisonments
–National resources diverted to benefit the regime or its supporters
–Propaganda or staged events to manufacture support or damage opponents
–The clandestine monitoring of private communications
–The accumulation of data which can be used to control or destroy opponents
–The use of fear and conflict to elicit acquiescence and obedience

TFervor • 21 hours ago

Democratic Farce
————————

Democracy has become a farce and a deception. It’s now a sham perpetuated in order to distract, beguile, and exploit the masses by keeping them enthralled and handicapped with a seductive illusion. For the establishment elites, democracy has a utility tantamount to jingling a set of keys in front of a whining infant public. They’ve commandeered the system and its meaning, and adorned it with whatever new ideological constructs or confusing illusions that best facilitate their power.

Democracy has been gutted of its original purposes and ideals, and it now serves as a vacuous ritual employed to distract, divert, and occupy the attention and energies of the public. It’s a tool of the State and its occupants, rather than a barrier to their domination.

“The Myth of American Democracy: The Deification of Democratic Governance and the Subversion of Individual Liberty” by Trenton Fervor on Amazon.

TFervor • 21 hours ago

American democracy is essentially dead. “The people” are powerless and completely manipulated given government power, technology, and control over information and thought. “Democracy” has come to be rule by a totalitarian cabal of illuminati—exercised from behind the pomp and circumstance of an illusory procedural farce serving to enfeeble, bewilder, distract, misdirect, pacify, and delusion the masses into acquiescence.

The US political system is far beyond the point where its terms can be considered reasonable. They are perverse and vile. The system assumes itself justified in forever escalating its impositions and dictates, and yet entitled to deference and obedience. The system requires its conscripts to object using only those methods inadequate to repel its aggressions and arrogance. The system is at a breaking point where its terms are recognized as being the mad devices of a tyrant class.

“The Myth of American Democracy: The Deification of Democratic Governance and the Subversion of Individual Liberty” by Trenton Fervor on Amazon.

TFervor • 21 hours ago

The events of recent really drive home the fact that the State is beyond containment. A great portion of the public is already financially, emotionally, or psychologically indentured to it, and unprepared to recognize its immense accumulated faculty for domination and tyranny. Those who do have concern with it, either lack the capacity to effectively criticize or contend against it, or they are reluctant to put themselves and their ‘stable’ lives at risk of the potential dishevel necessary to respond.

The State now possesses everything it needs to identify, track, dominate, and destroy its detractors. It will grow ever-more uncontestable, domineering, and suffocating. It has achieved supremacy in the control of information, and the channels by which information is disseminated. It has attained a mastery of the techniques of manipulation and the art of dissembling and deception. It controls its own narrative and enjoys the authority to prosecute and destroy anyone who resists it. It’s a new class of tyranny and empire—one which has more staying power than in the past; one which is more able to survive the catastrophes it creates by universalizing itself and destroying all alternatives to itself. The modern State’s power to protract its ultimate demise and to intensify and distribute the associated oppression and misery is far greater today. The thought that it is destined to collapse on its own accord as routinely as past empires have is—I fear—too charitable.

“The Myth of American Democracy: The Deification of Democratic Governance and the Subversion of Individual Liberty” by Trenton Fervor on Amazon.

TFervor • 21 hours ago

Too Late, Too Powerful already:
——————————————-
Power of this nature over communication, information, and “reality” represents a mortal threat to the notion of democratic sovereignty.

A country can not at the same time have a comprehensive, all-powerful government–and a government which has the ability to effortlessly and clandestinely destroy its detractors–and expect to avoid tyranny.

The public is seduced by the claim that things are kept in check by democratic oversight, but the dynamics of modern power can not be tamed or restrained by democratic mechanisms. The delusion of democratic sovereignty has incubated a monster which it can not contain. Leviathan is here.

“The Myth of American Democracy: The Deification of Democratic Governance and the Subversion of Individual Liberty” by Trenton Fervor on Amazon.

 

In conclusion, I must share that my friend Donna has said all along that the battle isn’t really between Republican vs. Democrat. It is We The People vs. progressives! She listens to Glenn Beck on his radio show and online TV show – The Blaze – and Glenn has tried to get people to stop believing that this political war that we are in involves R vs. D only. It has elements of that, but the progressivism that has infiltrated both parties, most universities, most media outlets, almost all of Hollywood, and especially the low-information voters in this nation had over 30 years of propaganda being spewed into ears, minds, and hearts of Americans that they no longer know the truth about our Founding, how we helped liberate many nations from Nazism, Communism, Imperialism, Totalitarianism, and Islamism, and how unlike all of those “isms,” America’s goal is to spread FREEDOM (or, it used to be – but not under Obama) across the world!

I’m really looking forward to seeing Dinesh D’Souza’s film “America – Imagine the World Without Her” this weekend or early next week!

Synopsis

Someone once observed: “America is great because she is good; if she ever ceases to be good she will cease to be great.” Today that notion of the essential goodness of America is under attack, replaced by another story in which theft and plunder are seen as the defining features of American history—from the theft of Native American and Mexican lands and the exploitation of African labor to a contemporary foreign policy said to be based on stealing oil and a capitalist system that robs people of their “fair share”. 

Our founding fathers warned us that, although the freedoms they gave us were hard fought, they could very easily be lost. America stands at a crossroads, and the way we understand our past will determine our future. America the movie takes 21st-century Americans into the future by first visiting our past. 

Gerald Molen, the Academy-award winning producer of Schindler’s List, and Dinesh D’Souza, the creator of 2016: Obama’s America, invite you on a journey of discovery that will bring you face-to-face with the heroes who built America, in the times in which they lived, bled, and sacrificed in order to build a great nation: Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and others. You’ll be there as Columbus sets foot on American soil, as bullets whiz by Washington’s head, as Douglass demands that America live up to the promises of her Founding Fathers, and as Lincoln sacrifices thousands of lives, including his own, to right a great wrong of history.

We’ll also meet their present-day critics, hear their stories, and then let you decide which America you believe in. From the team that created 2016: Obama’s America comes the story not of a man but a nation, at the crossroads of hope or disaster, whose destination will soon be decided.

Such a film would probably NEVER change the minds of progressive radicals like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.  I suspect that they are some of the “present day critics” interviewed in the film.  They both remain as “unrepentant terrorists.” Ayers even stated on Megyn Kelly’s show that he couldn’t “rule out” bombing America again. [So…where is Homeland Security on this threat? Oh…that’s right…Obama had a fundraiser at Ayers’ home when he ran for office as a Chicago state senator. Hmmm…Nothing to see here! (sarcasm  off)]

I think that this film is an important one for all Americans to see!  We are, just as it reads above:

 A nation, at the crossroads of hope or disaster, whose destination will soon be decided.

Well, if I don’t get back to blogging again before the celebration of America’s Independence Day, I’d like to wish all of you a Happy 4th of July!  God is still upholding our nation and I pray that He will continue to bless us,  protect us and lead us towards restoring our nation.

Hat tips to all links.

Also see:

Fox News.com: US wealth based on theft? Progressives and their dangerous view of America

Deadline.com: Hot Clip: Dinesh D’Souza’s ‘America’ On Life & Death Of Aaron Swartz

Facebook’s Secret Mood Manipulation Experiment [Plus Breaking News!]

Once again, I have another good reason to leave Facebook.   Back in 2012 (or thereabouts) I left because of the blatant discrimination and blocking of Christian and Conservative themed pages.   But don’t take my word for it. See a page that has documented many examples of the political and religious censorship and harassment by Facebook

A few days ago, the news came out (at least it did on Fox News Channel) that these nefarious individuals took it upon themselves to do a secret mood manipulation experiment on over 600,000 users (without their permission or knowledge) makes me feel that the honesty and integrity of these people is highly questionable.  As the article states at the top – “It was probably legal. But was it ethical?”

We interrupt this (about to be published) post for BREAKING NEWS!  Just found this link at another site:

SCG News: Facebook’s Psychological Experiments Connected to Department of Defense Research on Civil Unrest!

Excerpt:

It turns out that one of the researchers who ran Facebook’s recent psychological experiments received funding from the U.S. Department of Defense to study the contagion of ideas.

There has been quite a bit of chatter this past week after it was revealed that a recent Facebook outage was the result of a psychological experiment that the company conducted on a portion of its users without their permission. The experiment, which was described in a paper published by Facebook, and UCSF, tested the contagion of emotions on social media by manipulating the content of personal feeds and measuring how this impacted user behavior.

Over 600,000 users were used as guinea pigs without their consent, which raises a number of serious ethical and legal questions (particularly due to the fact that this study received federal funding), however there is an even more disturbing angle to this story. It turns out that this research was connected to a Department of Defense project called the Minerva Initiative, which funds universities to model the dynamics, risks and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world.

In the official credits for the study conducted by Facebook you’ll find Jeffrey T. Hancock from Cornell University. If you go to the Minerva initiative website you’ll find that Jeffery Hancock received funding from the Department of Defense for a study called “Cornell: Modeling Discourse and Social Dynamics in Authoritarian Regimes”. If you go to the project site for that study you’ll find a visualization program that models the spread of beliefs and disease.

Cornell University is currently being funded for another DoD study right now called “Cornell: Tracking Critical-Mass Outbreaks in Social Contagions” (you’ll find the description for this project on the Minerva Initiative’s funding page).

The Department of Defense’s investment in the mechanics of psychological contagion and Facebook’s assistance, have some very serious implications, particularly when placed in context with other scandals which have broken in the past two years.

First of all we know that Facebook willingly participated (and presumably is still participating) in the NSA’s PRISM program by giving the agency unfettered access to user communications. We also know that the U.S. government has invested heavily in technology used to track and model the spread of opinions on social media.

 

Continue reading HERE

 

WELL…THERE YOU HAVE IT!  SHOULD HAVE SUSPECTED ALL ALONG THAT THE ZERO BADministration WAS INVOLVED WITH THIS!

The entire time that I was working on this post, I thought in the back of my mind that there must be something more to the “Facebook Secret Manipulation Experiment.” Well, I found it! We now return to the original post content.

*******

I agree with one commenter at the (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everything-we-know-about-facebooks-secret-mood-manipulation-experiment/373648/)  link who wrote:

“Principled_Idealist

I guess Big Brother is done with just watching.

Now it involves manipulation of emotions. When you give permission to FB via the “agreement” when you signed up, did you know that you, your family, your friends, and your postings would not only be “owned” content, but would be used to manipulate? It’s one thing to try and manipulate purchases via ads, but to change the news feed (either positive stories or negative ones) of over 600,000 members in order to manipulate their emotions is unethical – to say the least!

Excerpt:

Updated, Monday, 10:40 p.m. Eastern.

Facebook’s News Feed—the main list of status updates, messages, and photos you see when you open Facebook on your computer or phone—is not a perfect mirror of the world.

But few users expect that Facebook would change their News Feed in order to manipulate their emotional state.

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We now know that’s exactly what happened two years ago. For one week in January 2012, data scientists skewed what almost 700,000 Facebook users saw when they logged into its service. Some people were shown content with a preponderance of happy and positive words; some were shown content analyzed as sadder than average. And when the week was over, these manipulated users were more likely to post either especially positive or negative words themselves.

This tinkering was just revealed as part of a new study, published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Many previous studies have used Facebook data to examine “emotional contagion,” as this one did. This study is different because, while other studies have observed Facebook user data, this one set out to manipulate it.

The experiment is almost certainly legal. In the company’s current terms of service, Facebook users relinquish the use of their data for “data analysis, testing, [and] research.” Is it ethical, though? Since news of the study first emerged, I’ve seen and heard both privacy advocates and casual users express surprise at the audacity of the experiment.

Further down in the article:

Did an institutional review board (IRB)—an independent ethics committee that vets research that involves humans—approve the experiment?

Yes, according to Susan Fiske, the Princeton University psychology professor who edited the study for publication. It seems an IRB was only consulted about the methods of data analysis, though, and not those of data collection.

According to a Cornell University press statement on Monday, the experiment was conducted before an IRB was consulted. Cornell professor Jeffrey Hancock—an author of the study—began working on the results after Facebook had conducted the experiment. Hancock only had access to results, says the release, so “Cornell University’s Institutional Review Board concluded that he was not directly engaged in human research and that no review by the Cornell Human Research Protection Program was required.”

In other words, the experiment had already been run, so its human subjects were beyond protecting. Assuming the researchers did not see users’ confidential data, the results of the experiment could be examined without further endangering any subjects.

Both Cornell and Facebook have been reluctant to provide details about the process beyond their respective prepared statements. One of the study’s authors told The Atlantic on Monday that he’s been advised by the university not to speak to reporters.

By the time the study reached Susan Fiske, the Princeton University psychology professor who edited the study for publication, Cornell’s IRB members had already determined it outside of their purview.

Fiske had earlier conveyed to The Atlantic that the experiment was IRB-approved.

“I was concerned,” Fiske told The Atlantic on Saturday, “until I queried the authors and they said their local institutional review board had approved it—and apparently on the grounds that Facebook apparently manipulates people’s News Feeds all the time.”

 

There you have it folks!  FB does this kind of manipulation all the time!

 

On Saturday, Fiske said that she didn’t want the “the originality of the research” to be lost, but called the experiment “an open ethical question.”

“It’s ethically okay from the regulations perspective, but ethics are kind of social decisions. There’s not an absolute answer. And so the level of outrage that appears to be happening suggests that maybe it shouldn’t have been done…I’m still thinking about it and I’m a little creeped out, too.” [bold and italics mine]

For more, check Atlantic editor Adrienne LaFrance’s full interview with Prof. Fiske.

 

What’s more:

 

As mentioned above, the research seems to have been carried out under Facebook’s extensive terms of service. The company’s current data use policy, which governs exactly how it may use users’ data, runs to more than 9,000 words and uses the word “research” twice. But as Forbes writer Kashmir Hill reported Monday night, the data use policy in effect when the experiment was conducted never mentioned “research” at all—the word wasn’t inserted until May 2012.  [bold mine]

I plan to link this post on my current FB page and will keep it up for a few days. It might end up being censored – we shall see. However, after a few days I will need to leave FB.

I do not know if any users will take these issues as seriously as I have, but it’s just plain ethical for me to warn my family, friends, and acquaintances about the facts regarding not only the political and religious censorship and harassment on that site, but also the secret mood manipulation experiment. It’s truly disgusting that FB would allow a defamation page that says something as awful as this:

June 2014: The Facebook page “Virgin Mary should´ve aborted“ covers images of the unborn Jesus as an abortion victim wearing a crown of thorns and blood flowing from his side while the Virgin Mary smokes a marijuana cigar. The content of this page is mostly anti-Christian, as well as pro-abortion. The statements on this page are spreading defamation and hatred against Christians and Christianity.

Such nefarious deeds echo the warnings of:

Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.”

George Orwell’s “1984”

Most prophetic of all, is what is written in the Bible.

Jesus’ own words and warnings about an evil generation looking for “a sign” and much more is written in Matthew 12

The book of Jude prophetically describes how it will be the closer we approach the end times.

Despite all of this, we know that when we belong to Jesus, we can be joyful and glad – even in the midst of all the chaos of sin, evil, and death being inflicted in this fallen world:

Jde 1:20

But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,

Jde 1:21

keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

Jde 1:22

And on some have compassion, making a distinction; [fn]

Jde 1:23

but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, [fn] hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.

Jde 1:24

Now to Him who is able to keep you [fn] from stumbling,
And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,

 

Jde 1:25

To God our Savior, [fn]
Who alone is wise, [fn]
Be glory and majesty,
Dominion and power, [fn]
Both now and forever.
Amen.

~ Christine

 

Hat tips to all links.

 

Update:  Posted this link on FB.  We shall see what happens.