The X Files Quotes that I say/reference so often that I've had to make gifs of them part 1/?

How many women and men coming forward will it take for you to stop speaking over actual victims and actual statistical facts that the fear is not unfounded? Especially in the current social climate we have?

You, personally, may think its unfounded based on your disagreement of certain statements made, but as a whole, no. Women fearing men is not unfounded.

Women have been stalked home and shot for saying no to men. A man in America just recently decapitated his girlfriend because she didn't want to have sex. Women have been punched and gang raped and shot and stabbed and burnt and decapitated, by men, for not accepting advances or not giving them what they think they're owed.

I'm incredibly aware of the fact that ever time I reject a man's advances, it could well be the men who decides I have to die for it. I'm scared of that. That's valid.

Please just accept that actually, we do have both the right and reason to be scared of men.

Men have also been stalked and shot by women for saying no. Men have also been decapitated by women for not wanting to have sex, and have had their genitals cut off too. Men have been punched, gang raped, stabbed, burned, decapitated and especially lynched for not giving women what they think they’re owed, and women can get them lynched just by crying “rape,” no proof required. Society will even parade them around as the victim after they do it.

People have provided lists proving this too, but I doubt you’d insist men fearing women is justified. Hell, you may even be one of the people who mock men for not wanting to interact with women anymore, saying “if they weren’t one of the bad ones, they wouldn’t be nervous.”

No, you don’t have the “right and reason” to be scared of every man simply because they’re men. I know you’ll never accept that, and I know you’ll never accept that you’re also a hypocrite too, since I doubt you you accept the reverse, and ever will. Very few men are the type to do the things you describe (else-wise these things would be way more common than they are). The actual statistics and facts say men are a danger to other men, far more than they are to ANY woman.

So no, I don’t have to listen to you just cuz you say it’s true. Fear, especially fear caused by commonly hyped up stereotypes, should be worked through, not stewed in. If you fear people based on what genitals they have, you have a problem and need to work it out in therapy, not be treated like you’re a rational human being and coddled as a victim.

IV. Mirror in the Aether

The great shutter hacks and crackles, lurching somewhat before it finally begins to retract. Mere seconds that feel like great elongated passages of time to an impatient man. Virtues are scarce when you have nothing but time in empty space. And who says what virtue is? Choice or an inherent trait or maybe even a pure state?

The first quarter block of lectures feel like they exist out of such ordering systems as time or space. To me, they are a pure state of experience or being. The recent focus of the lectures has been Empire and Egyptology, continuing with the running theme of warfare, combat, conflict, and violence, with various sojourns into related themes - mostly of a martial nature. Each quarter of lectures is followed by the requisite reflection period during which a guiding voice issues commands in a masked form. Gentle but firm suggestion. Commands are abstract or oblique and sometimes sound like they're being randomly generated without reason or purpose. 

I think it's a technique, a method of stimulating effective reflection through jarring non sequitur that serves to encourage and even require or demand disciplined focus and active thought. Whatever the means, the point of it is obviously to stimulate thought. Violence, morality, conflict resolution. Individual choice sparring with ordered behaviour. The absurdity of conquest and the great moral questions of snuffing out life and whether it makes a difference if the great moment is in hot or cold blood. Whether it has been commanded or it is choice. Whether the command came from another party or from ourselves through our own consciousness. Whether or not choice itself is a theory.

In the beginning, when there was just space and time, I would resist the lecture blocks. Despondency was a mask for my indignant anger, but the guiding voice is informed and a lack of engagement results in fruitless reflection. Idle thought, or maybe it's not thinking at all, must be some sort of trigger to the confinement vessel. Either it can read thought or hear my interior voice or something. Perhaps it assesses the quality of thought. However it's achieved, I discovered pretty quickly that I had to find a means of immersing myself. And so it soon turned out that the physical regimen wasn't just to assist in rousing me from rotten slumber, it's the key to a receptive state.

I wonder if the voice can sense the reluctant comfort I draw from the screen beneath the shutter. Whenever I contemplate the shutter in its closed and dormant state I think that it's because I'd rather be in a lecture, because while they're not visually engaging, they take me away to somewhere and that's something. It's odd to be hurtling through nothing and nowhere in a tiny space that never changes. In a tiny space within endless space. It's almost poetry. 

The outside is a churning maelstrom of light and fire and matter. A constantly shifting amorphous mass of activity and energy that's so vast and infinite and without order it's meaningless. With no-one to conquer it, it may as well not exist. It's just me out here in the pure nothing, but while I'm in it, I'm trapped outside of it. I may as well not exist either, and perhaps in a sense I don't. More poetry.

The first lecture of the first quarter covers colonies. From Congos and frozen wastes to The Great Series and systems of planets and stars and more to come. Claiming and renaming and reshaping physical and psychological space. The colonist is a great maker of order and my own reflections incubate as I absorb the ritual of factual display. Information relayed in the form of almost but not quite a vast and perhaps endless list. Statistics and comparisons and analytics - but without application. Conjecture and construction mined from ancient sources, consistent only in their unreliability. 

The lectures don't pose questions or set an agenda. They don't guide learning. They seem to be designed merely to inform, if they can be said to have been designed at all. The information conflicts, and there is little sense of rigour to the comprehensive lists of meaningless names and figures. Increasingly, I wonder if there is any awareness of the fallibility of information, and at times I wonder where I can place my trust. But I need to stay locked in to my senses. Process. Absorb. Obey.

Colonists are the great conquerors who conquer both time and space. By means of claim and name they give life by bestowing the very concepts of place and ownership. They give a name to number and a sequence to name. They bring existence from nothingness and they grant existence to nothingness. The lecture shows a consistent pattern of outcome. When entire worlds are conquered and the colonist begins to turn back from the outward gaze they find that their creation atrophies and their subjects grow restless. Hungry to die for the chance to make themselves anew and then to make a first great mark upon some fresh slate.

I feel my concentration slipping. In the wash of words I feel increasingly connected to the burden I hold inside. I deny it, I resist it, I suppress it, but my secondary mind can feel the presence of despair. Biding your time and looking inward  and mostly because the idea of looking outward is just too horrifying to imagine. I'm not worried about getting out or being free anymore. I worry about the point of it. If there is nothing can something be made in its place? 

On this vessel and in this box I am the sole colonist. It's now the first period of reflection and as the voice encourages me to reconcile my experiences with what I have absorbed I am concluding that I view existence itself as the colonisation of space and time. It is not merely the making of nothing into something but it is in fact a fluctuation of energies that never truly dissipates. The chain of being is never broken. The body-grown sperm cell is decapitated by the maw of the body-grown egg and thus so grows a wretched violent man who served his time more than twice while his gaze burned outward. Now as he looks inward he sees his many made subjects and they yearn for death. Isolated samples willing to be snatched from dream and cast out into perpetual waking. Light in the dark that won't be seen, so it may as well not exist. I can't look outward, but the more I look in, the more I hear the yearning.

I wonder if the voice is recording or processing or analysing my reflections. Whatever it's doing, it won't abide idle thought. If it does assess my reflections it keeps the score to itself. The punitive element of the confinement vessel seems to be that time can't be wasted. I've got nothing but time inside, nothing but space outside, and I need to make my claims by means of thought. I'm here to make time into something and then do the same for space. Or so I believe right now but as much as I absorb and reflect and pose great new unanswerable questions, I still find myself fighting despair and running from dreams.

(Via: Towards Data Science - Medium)

Were 21% of New York City residents really infected with the novel coronavirus?

It’s time to learn about bias the hard way!

The moment I saw yesterday’s Business Insider headline, I knew it would be a perfect case study for a lesson about statistical bias. “A statewide antibody study estimates that 21% of New York City residents have had the coronavirus, Cuomo says.”

I couldn’t have asked for a better one.

COVID-19 is no laughing matter and as a New York resident who spent her birthday this year battling pneumonia that almost killed her, I’m painfully aware of that. However, the creative ways people find to misinterpret data is an eternal source of hilarity for statisticians like myself—I’ll take my laughs where I can get them these days. Image: meme template source info.

Grab your schadenfreudean popcorn while I crack my knuckles. Ready? Let’s begin.

What is bias?

Depends where you’re hearing the word. I’ve made a tongue-in-cheek laundry list of various bias usages for your amusement, but in this article, we’ll focus on the statistical species of bias.

In statistics, bias is all about systematic lopsidedness.

If lopsided results are misleading, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they were born out of the intent to mislead. Perhaps they were, perhaps they weren’t. Statistical bias can come about through negligence, ignorance, expediancy, or shenanigans.

Let’s talk about conclusions that are off-the-mark, shall we? Image: SOURCE.

Statisticians may use the word bias to refer to:

Our technical definition—to be revealed in a moment.

Misadventures in randomization.

Skewed conclusions.

Any of the other definitions of bias. (Some of us are human.)

We’ll look at our little case study from each of these (overlapping) perspectives.

Great expectations

Image: SOURCE.

In statistics, bias is the difference between the expected value of an estimator and its estimand.

That’s awfully technical, so allow me to translate. Bias refers to results that are systematically off the mark. Think archery where your bow is sighted incorrectly.

Bias refers to results that are systematically off the mark.

High bias doesn’t mean you’re shooting all over the place (that’s high variance), but may cause a perfect archer hit below the bullseye all the time.

The headline says the study estimates that 21% of New York City residents have had the coronavirus. My guess is that this number is biased upwards.

21%? I suspect the real number is lower.

Why? I smell the pungent odor of randomization issues with how the data were obtained, which brings me to statistical subdefinition #2.

Selection bias

A special way to trigger results that are systematically off the mark is to collect your data in a problematic manner. For statisticians who love having things to be grumpy about, selection bias is a cherished frenemy. It visits so often!

Selection bias occurs when different members of your population of interest have different probabilities of arriving in your sample.

In other words, you’re making conclusions from your sample as if it were drawn randomly while it was drawn, er, “randomly” instead.

Image: meme template source info.

In that case, your sample isn’t representative of your population… which makes your conclusions untrustworthy.

If your population of interest is all New York City residents, then you don’t have a random sample (SRS) unless every single New York City resident has equal probability of being included. Is that requirement met by the NY antibody study? Definitely not.

The study did not represent everyone equally.

Before I even opened the article, I was thinking, “Yeah, right. What clever thing did they do to collect data from people who stay indoors?” As it turns out, no clever thing. What’s the probability the study measured someone who is fully self-quarantined? Zero. How many NYC residents are keeping themselves entirely to themselves? We don’t know.

Undercoverage bias: When your approach can’t cover the whole thing, so some uncovered parts are left out. Image: SOURCE.

This type of selection bias is called undercoverage bias. Your sample cannot cover your population if some parts have no chance of being sampled. One pragmatic quick fix for undercoverage bias is to settle for a less ambitious population definition. Instead of trying to make inferences about “all NYC residents” you could choose instead to talk about “all NYC residents who go outside” — problem solved!

Not quite. It gets worse.

What if we have more interesting sampling biases? What if the nonzero probabilities are systematically messed up too? What if there’s something special that made some outside-goers more likely to be tested than others?

New Yorkers shopping for pandemic groceries. Image used with permission.

Let’s see how the data were gathered. The study tested people “at grocery and big-box stores.” In other words, people who go outside. Where do you go to get infected by a stranger? Outside. If you’d like increase your probability of exposure, where do you go? To places with a higher density of people, like grocery and big-box stores. Where was the study done? Yup.

People who take bigger risks with the virus had a higher probability of winding up in the antibody study.

How about if you really, really, really want to get the virus? You might go to grocery and big-box stores frequently… more frequently than someone who’s trying to reduce their probability of infection. Of these two kinds of people, which kind of person would be more likely to have COVID-19 antibodies? Which do you think would be more likely to be in the right place at the right time to participate in the study? Hello, selection bias!

Because there’s no difference between a person who thinks this is a good idea and everyone else. Image: SOURCE.

In fact, the design of this study is a bingo sheet for the various breeds of selection bias — sampling bias, undercoverage bias, self-selection bias, convenience bias, volunteer bias, and others. If you’d like me to write a follow-up article that takes you on a tour of those (plus tips for how to battle them), retweets are my favorite motivation.

Biased archers have it easy — if you keep hitting the target above the center, at least you can see it and make adjustments. Researchers with selection bias aren’t so lucky. Selection bias means all your results are wrong and you don’t know how wrong.

Selection bias means all your results are wrong and you don’t know how wrong.

Does that scare you? It should scare you! All I can do is guess that the results are biased upwards by the sampling procedure, but there’s no way to know what the real number is. But wait, there’s more! It gets even worse.

Biased conclusions

What if unequal representation isn’t the only thing messing with our ability to make sane conclusions? There’s a whole cornucopia of other biases that might impair your statistical conclusions.

What if the antibody tests themselves have problems that the researchers are unaware of?

For example, information bias occurs when measurements are systematically incorrect. What if the antibody tests themselves have problems that the researchers are unaware of? What if they only detect antibodies above a strict threshold to avoid false alarms? Then those tests will miss virus cases, so they’ll bias the estimate downward.

Image: SOURCE.

If information bias and selection bias pull invisibly in opposite directions, is the estimate too high or too low? Impossible to know. What do we know for sure? Some people at grocery and big box stores got an exciting readout from something called an antibody test. What do we know about NYC residents’ actual exposure rate? *shrug*

Reporting bias and confirmation bias

Among the many other ways that humans might use the word “bias” are several interdisciplinary ones that statisticians find especially relevant to our favorite way of making conversation: pointing out that someone is wrong about something. I’ll only mention confirmation bias and reporting bias here.

To be fair to Business Insider, I think they did a pretty good job of reporting. They even called the results “preliminary” and mentioned some of the same sampling issues I talked about. Kudos! Similarly, the NY governor and the team who ran the study made properly-cautious noises. I have no beef with them. Instead, my complaint is with the broken telephone game that the rest of the internet is playing.

This sloth didn’t read the article. Just like some of the folks who will comment after only looking at the title. We see you. Image: SOURCE.

Some people won’t take the time to read the whole article. Fine, I get it, you’re busy. Alas, instead of applying appropriate lol-did-not-read humility, some folks treat that title as if it’s the whole story. When they share what they’ve “learned” with others, they’ll be creating a textbook example of reporting bias.

Reporting bias occurs when people come to a conclusion other than the one they would have made if given all the information their source had.

Whenever people transmit only the most extreme or “juicy” bits of information and leave behind the boring bits that weaken their conclusions, expect reporting bias. You’ll find it wherever people have incentives to:

Make pithy summaries of complicated things (e.g. to squeeze everything into a 280 character tweet).

Prevent readers’ eyes from glazing over (e.g. journalists editorializing scientific publications).

Persuade someone through trickery (e.g. conveniently “forgetting” to mention studies that cast doubt on the arguments you’re hoping to make).

Feel better about their opinions (e.g. when they’re suffering from confirmation bias).

Whatever the intent behind reporting bias, its presence decapitates the validity of your conclusions.

Does everyone who’s guilty of it know that they’re doing it? Not if they’ve fallen prey to confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias tampers with your ability to perceive/notice/remember evidence that disagrees with your opinion.

Bringing up this cognitive bias moves us from the realm of statistics to the jungle of psychology, so I’ll be brief.

Overcoming confirmation bias during COVID-19

Confirmation bias is a problem of perception, attention, and memory. To put it in the simplest terms, whether or not a piece of evidence “sticks” for you is influenced by the opinion you have beforehand. If you’re not careful, you’ll mostly notice and remember information that confirms what you already believe. If you can’t see all sides of a story, you might not even know you’ve only reported your favorite, infecting the people who trust you with falsehoods.

Is the study worthless?

I’m guessing there are plenty of folks who will wind up concluding unsupported nonsense thanks to this NY antibodies study. As usual, those readers with the highest data literacy will learn the least from it.

Does this mean that the study is worthless? No, but it’s only as good as the assumptions you’ll make about it. Since there’s very little that we know for sure from its data, the only way to make inferences beyond the facts is to bridge the gap with assumptions. That’s all statistics is. Assumptions, not magic.

The study is only as good as the assumptions you’ll make about it.

Unfortunately, we’re not all equally qualified to make good assumptions that lead to useful conclusions. For example, while I am a statistician with plenty of real-world data collection experience, I’m not an expert in antibody tests, so you shouldn’t trust me to make wise assumptions about their accuracy. Excellent! I don’t trust me either, so I’ll end up learning nothing about the virus exposure rate of NYC. The study is worthless in my hands.

We’re not all equally qualified to make good assumptions that unlock useful conclusions.

I can suspect whatever I like about selection bias causing an overestimate, but all I know is that the results are probably wrong and we don’t know how wrong. If you tell your friends that I said the number is below 21%, you’ve just shown us a prime demo of reporting bias.

But when experts who have been studying viruses their whole lives team up with medical professionals and psychologists who are well-versed in the behavior of New Yorkers… and join forces with those who know all the practical details about what actually happened during the development and deployment of those antibody tests to grocery stores, well, perhaps those folks are sitting pretty to make the assumptions that unlock the nutritional goodness of the tasty data collected.

Image: SOURCE.

In their competent hands, the study might be very valuable indeed.

In competent hands, the study might be very valuable indeed.

Perhaps the rest of us should be quiet and let the grown-ups get on with their jobs.

Liked the author?

If you’re keen to read more of my writing, most of the links in this article take you to my other musings. Can’t choose? Try this one:

A Decision Scientist’s 10 Dos & Don’ts for COVID-19

Were 21% of New York City residents really infected with the coronavirus? was originally published in Towards Data Science on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

CHRISTIANS ARE LIKE SHEEP TO THE SLAUGHTER

STUPID DUMB CHRISTIANS ARE LIKE SHEEP TO THE SLAUGHTER By Pastor Del Wray Something is wrong with America! What was it that destroyed the Roman Empire? Let me suggest three things that caused Rome to collapse. First Rome “Rotted from Within Morally”. Second, she made too much of “Sporting Events” with her large coliseums and third, she “Over Taxed” her citizens. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Today's newspapers are full of stories about the rampant rise in divorce rates; the increasing abuse of children by some parents; increases in the incidence of rape; pornography being read by an increasing number of people; more crimes against property; demands for world government; urgings for national borders to fall; Christian churches being closed because they will not seek licensing by the state; etc. But why are these things happening? Why are all of the legacies of the past, the family, national borders, the right to practice any chosen religion, the right to private property, amongst other things, under such attack? Is it possible that there are actually people and organizations who really want to change the basic order of things? Clues to the answers to these questions can be gleaned from some comments made by people and organizations that are talking about these wide-reaching changes in the nature of our lifestyle. Could it be that American Christians have turned from their Creator? Yes all of the above, but there is an unseen hand at work behind the scenes seeking to destroy American Democracy and rid America of Christianity. American Christians are blindly relishing in their materialism having become lazy and apathetic about this unseen enemy that is out to tear down and obliterate its freedom. They’re like sheep hell-bent to the slaughter, stupid and dumb, blind and deceived, unbelieving and refusing to obey God just as the Jews in ancient times. Any student of the Bible who has studied Holy Scripture for any length of time knows the Church Age ends in apostasy followed by 7 years of Tribulation, 31/2 years of Jewish domination of the world under their false messiah, the Jewish anti-Christ, when tens of millions of Christians will be killed for refusing to follow after this satanic One World leader. It’s estimated that over 200,000,000 Americans will be slaughtered by way of the guillotine and decapitation. After which, begins the second 31/2 years of trumpet and viol judgments known as the Great Tribulation, upon the Jewish nation for rejecting their true Messiah and becoming the instruments of death and slaughter of all those who have been martyred in the name of Jesus Christ and Christianity down through the centuries. Jesus Christ returns in His glory destroying His enemies and reins over the earth for one thousand years, called the Age of Righteousness or the Millennial Kingdom. Then God’s people will be removed from the earth and a New Havens and New Earth is spoken into existence. The Holy Spirit then cries out to John, there on the Isle of Patmos… "And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new..." Rev. 21:3-5 What is wrong with America? The Jews are what is wrong with America. "The Jewish religion as it is today traces its descent, without a break, through all the centuries, from the Pharisees."— Universal Jewish Encyclopedia The very people Jesus spoke vilest about. Today, the Christian church stands at a crossroads. The divine and sacred mission of the Christian faith faces a danger at this juncture in history which is greater than any it has faced in 2,000 years. If the day ever comes when Christians cannot profess their faith as they do today in America, then we will see the beginning of the end. The history of the world, for the past several Centuries and current events at home and abroad, confirm to the intelligent person that there is indeed something wrong with America, a conspiracy is afoot to destroy Christian civilization. The world-wide plot of these diabolical conspirators has been instituted while most Christians have been asleep in front of their pulpits and their TV's. For the most part, the Christian clergy, who should have been in the forefront of exposing this danger, have been indifferent or ignorant and have been the ones who assisted the enemies of Christ in their efforts to destroy us. This ignorance and indifference have dealt a blow to the Christian faith from which many will never recover. Christian fundamentalist believes in The End Times, the Rapture, the physical return of Jesus Christ, Armageddon and the Millennium. I have no argument with those who do just as long as they aren't aiding and abetting the New World Order, as exemplified by the so-called Christian Zionist John Hagee ministries out of Texas. Our shamefully dumbed-down American public refuses to take these warnings seriously, like sheep to the slaughter because they cannot imagine that the betrayal is as huge as it actually is and they are so utterly dependent on what they witness locally, meaning that since they don't see the 20 foot high barb wire fences around FEMA concentration camps in their neighborhoods, they must not exist. Well, just 8 miles from our church is Camp Somerset, an X-WW2 German POW camp being prepared right now by FEMA to be used as a Concentration Camp. I have observed myself FEMA vehicles/trucks coming and going from this camp. Why? Woe to you foolish Americans when they come for you and your family... There should be no confusion in the minds of Christians when it comes to the fundamentals of the faith. The mindlessness and confusion in this country would not exist if it were not for those of the preachers who are allies with the enemy who seeks to destroy them. There are countless Christians who are standing on the sidelines watching as their faith withers on the vine, and their freedom is about to drop into the laps of their enemies like overripe fruit. This cup will become bitterer when they realize that it is the ignorance and indifference of their spiritual leaders which has caused the deplorable condition of Christianity today. When Christians see their leaders in defeat on every front, they too will become confused and afraid. To stop this surrender, the clergy MUST make an about-face, no matter how painful it may be. They must take a stand against the invisible and intangible ideological war which is being waged against Christianity. How stupid can we be? As one preacher said, “we ought to sue our brains for non-support”. Let me say to those who read here, don’t be stupid all your life. America is deaf, dumb and blind when it comes to their spiritual well being, reaping the consequences of our sin. I do not utilize the aforementioned terms in a derisive or derogatory manner to those who may be physically handicapped, but rather I am referring to those millions of Christian in this land of ours who are mentally and spiritually deaf, dumb, and or blind.   Before considering these conditions, it would be wise to look at the definitions of these terms so that we may have a better understanding. DEAF: unable to hear; refusing to listen. DUMB: without the power of speech; bereft of the power of speech temporarily; that which does not speak or is little addicted to speaking. BLIND: lacking the sense of sight; unable or unwilling to try to understand; not controlled by reason; not possessing or proceeding from intelligence; lacking all awareness.   I fully understand that the "remnant" reading this article is cognizant of the matters which I will present herein, but this message very likely is applicable to your friends and family who may appear blissfully unaware of the coming judgment of the Almighty. Are you fulfilling your role as a Christian watchman in accordance with Ezekiel 33:6?   Over the years, since Roe vs. Wade, we have witnessed more than fifty million babies being murdered under the guise of abortion. Sadly the vast majority of these have been babies. We don't see foreigners and strangers having a great number of abortions. After all, more babies mean more public assistance.   Our people whether we like to acknowledge it or not, are under the Law. Those who say the Law was "nailed to the cross" are in serious error. The only thing nailed to the cross were the "ordinances," mostly pertaining to the animal sacrifices, since the Lamb of God was slain for us, there is no need for further blood sacrifices, And our people are deaf dumb and blind.   Violent crime, murder, rape, physical assault, armed robbery, etc. continues to escalate throughout the country and the U.S. Justice Department statistics indicate one such type of crime occurs every four minutes somewhere in the nation. The growth of Hispanic and Oriental gangs in the past decade had been epidemic with senseless initiation-type murders, car-jacking, home-invasions, drive-by shootings, etc. It has reached the point where those who are supposed to protect us are in fear for their own lives. And while our people may appear to be concerned, they are in truth, deaf dumb, and blind.   While the Scriptures are very clear on homosexuality, Lev. 18:22, 20:13, Rom. 1:24-28, et al. We have in the past two decades witnessed an explosion in the open flaunting of such decadent behavior. Prior to that time, these sodomizers dared not parade their disgusting acts in public. Today they have parades in our major cities and special "queer" weekends at "theme parks," and "resorts" and they openly demand "their rights" to do so. In addition, we have elected politicians who openly admit that they are "gay" and who continue to be re-elected by their mainly ungodly constituents. And our people, while they may disapprove, are deaf dumb, and blind. Our God is not mocked! Judgment cometh!   Have you noticed the tremendous growth in pornography, in all forms: print, movies, television, etc. that is sweeping the country? And it is not all "adult" in nature but it is expanding into the area of intimate acts of child porn. Notice if you will the heavy involvement of the Jewish Talmudists in these endeavors. And our people, some of whom subscribe to this filth are deaf dumb and blind.   We are literally being invaded today by tens of millions of aliens and strangers from all of the third world countries of the world. These illegals bring into our nation sickness, filth and disease, and non-Christian traits and living conditions. We have been informed in Scripture that we shall not "put a stranger over thee," and yet today we don't seem to understand this admonition. If our political leaders would listen to, and abide by the Word of God, illegal immigration would cease immediately. Miscegenation/race-mixing is on the increase and why would we expect anything else? Read the history of our people! And yet, most of our people are deaf dumb and blind to what our God states with regard to this.   Our so-called "excellent" system of public education is costing hundreds of billions of dollars every year to achieve nothing better than mediocre or failing grades and dumbed-down graduates. According to the U. S. Dept. of Education, almost 46% of the students who graduate from high school are considered "semi-literate." We have allowed the humanists, the AFT, and the NEA, and dare I say, the "Satanists" to take over our schools. We have "outlawed" school prayer, and removed God from our schools. Yet, even though parents clamor for more educational resources, they are deaf dumb and blind to the many shortfalls. Is it any wonder that many of our people have commenced "homeschooling"? From about 1,000 children twenty-five years ago, home-schooling now numbers almost 8 million children.   As a nation, we have expended huge sums in the "wars," the war on poverty, the war on drugs, etc., and we have obviously LOST all of these. Drugs and Poverty are still with us, and more so than ever. We have exported our manufacturing and industry in the name of corporate greed. Our manufacturing is now done in Thailand, Japan, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nigeria, Cambodia, Peru, India, Pakistan, China, and other nations in Africa and South America. Just look at the labels on most all of the products you buy. We have become an "information" and "service" society! We are a destitute nation who has given our God-given resources to third-world nations that despise us. And our people and our leaders are deaf dumb and blind to the consequences.   We have no morality and ethical levels of conduct left. We see the corruption and greed running rampant among our leaders. We have more lawyers in this nation than all the rest of the world combined. Contrary to Scripture, we have become a "suing" people. And our people, for the most part, are deaf dumb, and blind as to what the Word of God says.   We have expended hundreds of billions of dollars in aid and support to the ungodly Jewish Talmudists. We are even now involved in the war in Iraq at a cost of 2,000+ of our sons, fathers, husbands, mothers, sisters, and brothers. I would like to pose to President Trump, the question asked by Jehu, son of Hanani, of King Jehoshaphat of Judah long ago: "Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord." 2 Chron. 19:2. And the Fundamentalists and Evangelicals and many from Protestantism are deaf dumb and blind. The Zionists reject Jesus Christ, and such conduct was unheard of fifty years ago.   Our churches, for the most part, have become hollow, empty and Godless buildings. Many of the pastors, ministers, and priests follow the traditions of men over the Word of God. Materialism governs the established church. The pastors, ministers, and priests are supposed to be teaching the Word of God, but many have no idea of what the Gospel message is. There are some who deny the "virgin birth" of our Saviour as mere fiction. There are others who question the truth of the resurrection without which there is no salvation for Jew or Gentile. There are others who see nothing wrong with same-sex marriage. There are some who are practicing homosexuals and lesbians. For many of the clergy, it is a career, and not a heartfelt commitment to work for the LORD our God. And our people follow these blind leaders and are deaf dumb, and blind to what the Scriptures say.   We are a sick and troubled nation! We are sick and troubled people!   We are deaf. We don't want to hear about such unpleasant things as I have mentioned in this article. We are mentally and spiritually unwilling to hear.   We are dumb. We don't want to use the power of speech to speak out on the critical and important issues that we face as a people and a nation. We prefer not to get involved.   Some may think that we are religious extremists or kooks, or at best religious intolerants. Remember, whatever the issue, if it conflicts with the Word of God, we have both the duty and the responsibility, and the right to speak out. Use the power of speech!   We are blind. We don't want to see what is going on all around us. Many do not want to search the Scriptures to find out what God has to say about some issue. When you know the truth, you have to react in accordance with the Word, or pay the price of disobedience, and isn't that price SIN? You cannot merely pay lip service to God. God is not mocked!   We have had the "blessings" as stated in Deuteronomy 28:1-14, and now we have progressed to the "curses" section of verses for disobedience. Read this chapter of Scripture and compare what we have been and what we are today.   There does appear to be somewhat of an "awakening" on the part of our people today as they question some of the concerns that I have enumerated herein. And surely, the ultimate solution to all of our problems is to follow the instructions contained in that famous verse of 2 Chronicles 7:14.