“For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.” (Zechariah 2:8)
‘This common phrase is often used to identify an object of one’s special favor or affection. The apple of the eye, of course, is not a fruit but the pupil of the eye, so essential for sight that it becomes a peculiarly apt symbol for a prized possession. It is used five times in the Bible as a translation of three different Hebrew nouns, none of which refer to the actual apple fruit. In each case, however, it speaks of something highly valuable to the owner.
Three of these (Deuteronomy 32:10; Lamentations 2:18; and our text above) are in reference to the chosen people, Israel, as the “apple of the eye” of God Himself. God has often punished Israel for her sins and has allowed other nations to be His rod of judgment, but woe to that nation that touches the apple of His eye in this way!
That individual believers can also be so regarded by the Lord is evident from one of David’s prayers: “Shew thy marvellous lovingkindness….Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings” (Psalm 17:7-8).
To be kept by God as He would keep the very apple of His own eye requires an implicit trust in Him and His Word. In fact, His Word must become the apple of our eye! “My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye” (Proverbs 7:1-2).
‘Host Christine Dolan speaks with Angelia Desselle on the life-altering health problems she experiences after taking the Pfizer ‘vaccine’. Desselle also details the absolute lack of help from the government, or drug companies.’
I have quoted Alex Berenson several times on this blog and now ‘Twitter has permanently suspended former New York Times journalist and author Alex Berenson, an outspoken critic of CCP virus mandates and lockdowns—as well as Big Tech censorship.
“The account you referenced has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules,” a Twitter spokesperson told news outlets on Aug. 28.
Berenson, on his Substack page, also confirmed the suspension, writing: “Goodbye, Twitter.”
“This was the tweet that did it,” he wrote, referring to a now-deleted tweet that downplayed the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. “Entirely accurate. I can’t wait to hear what a jury will make of this. Meantime, guess you’ll be getting more Substacks.”
Berenson later noted that the ban didn’t surprise him.
“I expected this day was coming,” he wrote. “And Twitter can’t touch my Substack (in fact, it reportedly tried to buy Substack last year, but Substack fortunately said no).”
Berenson also hinted at possibly filing a lawsuit against Twitter over the suspension.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other health agencies have said that COVID-19 vaccines “are safe and effective” after clinical trials and say that side effects are rare. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walenksy and others have cited studies saying that the vaccines don’t necessarily prevent transmission of COVID-19, but have stated that the shots limit the severity of the illness.
Berenson worked for The New York Times from 1999 until 2010 before becoming a full-time author.
In July, Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 advisers, criticized Berenson for his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
“It’s horrifying. … I just don’t get that. I mean, and I don’t think that anybody who is thinking clearly can get that,” he said of the crowd’s response to Berenson’s speech.
Before his suspension, Berenson had often cited the results of a preprint Israeli study that found that previous COVID-19 infection provides better protection against the Delta variant than any of the COVID-19 vaccines.
“SARS-CoV-2-naive vaccinees had a 13.06-fold increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected, when the first event (infection or vaccination) occurred during January and February of 2021,” the study reads.
SARS-CoV-2 is another name for the CCP virus.
Those who were vaccinated, the study found, were also at a higher risk of being hospitalized compared to people who were previously infected.
Berenson also assailed what he described as Big Tech censorship, writing for The Wall Street Journal in December that the pandemic has ushered in a “new age of censorship and suppression.”
“For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven; To make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure.” (Job 28:24-25)
‘It was only discovered by scientists in modern times that the air actually has weight. This passage in Job, however, written 35 or more centuries ago, indicated that the two great terrestrial fluids of air and water forming Earth’s atmosphere and hydrosphere are both “weighed” by God’s careful “measure” to provide the right worldwide balance of forces for life on Earth.
Another remarkable “weighing” act of God is noted in Job 37:16: “Dost thou know the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of him which is perfect in knowledge?” Clouds are composed of liquid drops of water, not water vapor, and water is heavier than air, so how are they “balanced” in the sky? “For he maketh small the drops of water: they pour down rain according to the vapour thereof: Which the clouds do drop and distill upon man abundantly” (Job 36:27-28).
Meteorologists know that the weight of the small water droplets in the clouds is “balanced” by the “weight of the winds”—air rushing upward in response to temperature changes. Eventually, however, the droplets coalesce to form larger drops that overcome these updrafts and fall as rain. “By watering he wearieth the thick cloud” (Job 37:11). The coalescence is probably triggered electrically in the clouds themselves, “when he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder” (Job 28:26).
Politics in Australia is much like it is in the USA except for the names of the major political parties. The supposedly conservatives are the Liberal and National Parties. These two form a coalition and are presently the ones in power. The Leftist party is the Labor Party. However, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between the major parties on many issues. Nevertheless, now, ‘Labor’s deputy leader Richard Marles has told the National Press Club that his party wants to assist in finding “life beyond earth”.
Yes, our alternative Deputy Prime Minister wants to find intelligent life somewhere else in the universe.
Couldn’t he find any in Canberra? He would have been hard-pressed if he was looking among his own ranks during a recent Senate debate.
Responding to the onward march of insane and mindboggling “gender-neutral” terms such as “chest-feeding”, One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts brought a motion to Parliament.
It called for such ridiculous language to be banned from Government usage. Thankfully, the Government supported the move, and the motion was carried 33 votes to 31.
But that means that an astonishing 31 senators, including Labor, voted AGAINST the ban.
Among other things, the motion called on the Federal Government to:
“reject the use of distorted language such as gestational/non-gestational parent, chest-feeding, human milk, lactating parent, menstruators, birthing/non-birthing parent, and ensure all federal government and federal government funded agencies do not include these terms in their material, including legislation, websites, employee documentation and training materials”.
Posting on Twitter soon afterwards, Greens Senator Janet Rice said:
“I expect this sh*t from One Nation. But the Morrison Government just voted to support One Nation’s disgusting, bigoted Senate motion trying to deny the identity of trans & non binary people. So the motion passed. What happened to governing for all Australians? Scumbags!”
It’s hardly surprising that the Greens opposed the motion or engaged in this sort of rant. Par for the course, really.
But what’s truly alarming is that Australia’s alternative government, the Labor Party – currently leading opinion polls 52-48 on a two-party preferred basis – sided with the Greens against common sense.
Scary stuff.
Some may be tempted to look at the current state of affairs in Canberra and turn away. But that’s not the solution. It will only make things worse.
Now more than ever, we need common sense Australians to join and engage in the political process.
When so-called ‘Christian’ schools promote transgenderism there is not much hope with the public system.
‘When a six-year-old boy in their son’s class started to come to school sometimes dressed as a girl, Nigel and Sally Rowe, who live on the Isle of Wight, raised concerns with the Church of England school. They say that their son, also six years old, came home from school upset and saying that he was “confused” by the situation.
Nigel and Sally met with the headteacher and class teacher, and followed up with a letter setting out some of the questions that they had. But the school’s formal response was “cold”, they say, and didn’t address their concerns.
In the letter, the school suggested that an “inability to believe a transgender person is actually a ‘real’ female or male” and the refusal to “acknowledge a transgendered person’s true gender e.g. by failing to use their adopted name or using gender inappropriate pronouns,” was “transphobic behaviour”.
Unbelievable or is it? ‘A UK Islamic Sharia Council scholar has claimed that the Taliban have ‘grown up’ and British Muslims are ‘celebrating’ the return of the jihadi group to power.
Since taking over Afghanistan, the jihadi group has claimed it will not carry out violence against women, and will not ‘seek vengeance’ on those who stood against them during the brutal 20-year war in the region.
Sharia Council scholar Khola Hasan today told BBC Radio 4 that the Islamist group’s recent posturing on women’s rights was a ‘good start’, and ‘every single person that I know, as a Muslim’ was ‘celebrating’ their return.
She added: ‘They have been ruled by foreigners for 40 years, let the people of Afghanistan rule their own country and determine their own fate for a change.’
Fears over reprisal attacks and a return to the brutal rule of the jihadis have brought about deep unrest, with Western nations struggle to cope with the thousands of foreign nationals and locals trying to leave the country in the week since the Taliban retook power.
When asked about reports of women and children being beaten and whipped as they pass through checkpoints in Afghanistan, Ms Hasan said Afghanistan is a ‘tribal society with tribal loyalties’, with ‘a lot of violence within the communities’ amid decades of ‘occupation’.
Ms Hasan said: ‘We have to be very careful not to take small, minor incidents and make them into something huge.’
She added that ‘western media loves misrepresenting Muslims’, telling Sunday morning listeners: ‘The kind of language that came out from Western media when the Taliban took over – civil war, monsters, they’re going to slaughter people, it’s going to be awful, poor women, oh blah blah blah we’re going to cry our eyes out, poor women are going back into Medieval times, and all the rest of it.
‘It’s been misrepresented for so long that I’ve got used to it, I don’t even blink an eyelid anymore.’
Ms Hasan was told the world had ‘seen this movie before’, referring to promises to be compassionate and merciful following the sack of Kabul 25 years ago.
She replied: ‘No we haven’t because the Taliban have grown up, they were not exposed to the modern world, so what they were saying 20 years ago this was a myopic, insulated, small organisation, living in the mountains, very illiterate, very uneducated, not just about the world but about Islam itself…
‘They’re learning. That’s not an easy thing to do, to come from hundreds of years of one way practising your faith, and then suddenly exposed to different ways to think oh maybe we got it wrong. The problem is we don’t give them a chance.’
Her comments come after the United States and Germany told their citizens in Afghanistan to avoid travelling to Kabul airport, citing security risks as thousands of desperate people gathered trying to flee.
At least 12 people have been killed in and around the single-runway airfield since last Sunday, NATO and Taliban officials said. Some were shot and others died in stampedes, witnesses have said.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence said seven Afghans have been killed in the chaos around the airport. ‘Conditions on the ground remain extremely challenging but we are doing everything we can to manage the situation as safely and securely as possible,’ the ministry said in a statement.
The Taliban’s swift takeover of Afghanistan has sparked fear of reprisals and a return to a harsh version of Islamic law the Sunni Muslim group exercised when it was in power two decades ago.
Crowds have grown at the airport in the heat and dust of the day over the past week, hindering operations as the United States and other nations attempt to evacuate thousands of their diplomats and civilians as well as numerous Afghans. Mothers, fathers and children have pushed up against concrete blast walls in the crush as they seek to get a flight out.
The Taliban follow an ultra-hardline version of Islam. They have sought to present a more moderate face since returning to power, saying they want peace and will respect the rights of women within the framework of Islamic law.
I had Covid. I had an antibody test to prove it. Am I protected (and do I need to get the vaccine)?
Let me start with the usual disclaimer: THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. I AM NOT A PHYSICIAN.
But the answer is now increasingly clear: natural immunity from Covid following infection and recovery is HIGHLY protective against future Covid infections. Rates of reinfection are very low.
Perhaps natural immunity eventually wanes, but we don’t know when. In fact, a little-noticed paper from June suggests it may actually strengthen for at least a year – and provide plenty of protection from Delta and other variants.
I am not going into the problems with vaccine-generated protection today or with our political unwillingness to recognize natural immunity. (Remember, GOOD NEWS – we could all use it).
Let’s just look instead at why natural immunity works so well.
You immune response comes in two forms: “humoral” and “cellular.”
When you are infected with Sars-Cov-2, your body’s “B-cells” – part of the immune system – quickly pour out “antibodies.” These antibodies attack the viral particles circulating in your blood and other fluids, hoping to keep the virus from entering your cells and replicating itself.
This is humoral immunity. Your B-cells make antibodies in many different shapes. Some are better at sticking to the virus. Scientists call these “neutralizing” antibodies because they neutralize the “antigen,” the foreign body attacking you, keeping it from entering your cells.
Amazingly, your B-cells quickly figure out which antibodies neutralize most effectively and make more of them, while cutting back on those that don’t work.
At the same time, another part of the immune system – killer or CD8 T-cells – attacks cells that the virus has already infected. You destroy your own cells to prevent the virus from using them to make more copies of itself. This is cellular immunity.
For a few days after you are infected, your immune system is in a race with the virus. If you win the race, defeat the virus, and recover – as the vast majority of people infected with Sars-Cov-2 do – within a week or two you should have no measurable levels of virus in your body.
With no invader provoking a response, your B-cells will stop making antibodies against the virus. Over time, the antibodies you have made will slowly degrade – a change scientists can measure.
Antibody levels are measured as “titers” – how much the part of the blood that contains antibodies must be diluted before it stops neutralizing the coronavirus (or any antigen).
The details of how scientists measure titers are complicated. But the takeaway is simple – higher titers mean more antibodies in the initial sample. Higher titers are better, unless they are so high they indicate an overactive immune response. Over time, titers will decline.
But your immune system has not forgotten the virus. Both B-cells and T-cells are now trained to respond to it, should it reappear. (Confusingly, the immune system includes two types of T-cells, CD4 and CD8, and many subtypes of both B- and T-cells.)
This “adaptive” response explains why people remain immune to some viruses for their entire lives after being infected once – or inoculated with an effective vaccine.
Scientists have different ways to measure your immune response.
They can measure how tightly your antibodies bind to an antigen (the virus), how many different parts of the antigen they attack, how quickly your B- and T-cells will ramp up to make new antibodies or attack infected cells, and even whether those antibodies can recognize new variants of the original antigen.
In June, Rockefeller University researchers published a paper in Nature examining how antibodies changed up to a year after coronavirus infection and recovery.
The authors found that even “in the absence of vaccination, antibody reactivity to the receptor binding domain (RBD) of SARS-Cov-2, neutralizing activity, and the number of RBD-specific memory B-cells remain relatively stable between 6 to 12 months after infection.” (They also found that vaccination of previously infected and recovered people could boost those responses further.)
However, in a second paper published in late July, the authors found that vaccines did NOT produce a similarly powerful response in the B-cells of people who had not previously been infected. (But we’re not going to talk about that today. Good news, remember?)
In July, another group of researchers published similar findings in Cell:
Again, the authors offered reassuring findings:
Here, we evaluate 254 COVID-19 patients longitudinally up to 8 months and find durable broad-based immune responses. SARS-CoV-2 spike binding and neutralizing antibodies [have] an extended half-life of >200 days suggesting the generation of longer-lived plasma cells… Taken together, these results suggest that broad and effective immunity may persist long-term in recovered COVID-19 patients.
T-cell immunity was also durable, the authors found, and the killer T-cells could recognize not just the coronavirus’s spike protein but other parts of the virus.
(Again, the paper offered reasons to believe vaccine immunity was inferior, but we won’t talk about that, not today.)
A paper from Israel released Sunday reported that antibody titers in people who had recovered from infection fell only 5 percent a month (titers in the vaccinated fell 40 percent a month, though from a higher baseline).
Even better, between four and nine months after infection, the percentage of people with low titers remained roughly flat, at 10 percent.
All these papers should increase our confidence that natural immunity is durable and powerful. But what about real-world data?
Fortunately, we now have several studies examining large groups of previously infected people. In perhaps the most striking, the Cleveland Clinic reported in June a reinfection rate of zero among 1,359 people with natural immunity:
Not one of the 1359 previously infected subjects who remained unvaccinated had a SARS-CoV-2 infection over the duration of the study.
(The political pressure for vaccination is such that the Cleveland Clinic then issued a press release basically pretending the study didn’t say what it did. But we won’t talk about that today, good news, etc.)
And this week, Israeli researchers looking at a much larger group of people also found very, very low reinfection rates. Only 19 out of 16,215 people with natural immunity had a second infection from June 1 to August 14 (far fewer than the number of vaccinated people who were infected in a matched group).
These findings are particularly important because the Delta variant accounted for nearly all coronavirus infections in Israel by this summer. In other words, natural immunity remained protective against Delta.
So there’s your good news. Both the theoretical bench work and the real-world data suggest that natural immunity is long-lasting and protective even against Sars-Cov-2 variants that can evade vaccines.
