Disappointed with God

Have you ever been disappointed in Jesus, disappointed in God? Have you ever expected Him to act in a certain way because of what you understood about Him and His life and His nature—but He did not do things the way you thought they should be done? I have been angry and disappointed in God. I have been all but convinced that He did not live up to His promise, for I was sure that I knew what He was going to do, and God disappointed me. My heart was filled with rage that God would act that way, despite the fact that God has told us all, again and again, "'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways,' declares the LORD. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts'" (Isaiah 55:8-9). We cannot figure out God. He will be true to Himself, He will never lie, He will never deceive us; but He is more than we can handle. He is bigger than we are.--Ray Stedman, Daily Devotion

RayStedman.org

When You Trade Freedom for Security, You Lose Both

That's not just a catch phrase - it's the truth.

A Culture of Corruption

Why freedom is the best policy. A 30 minute radio program brought to you by Born to Win

The Truth About the Right to Carry

Revolutionaries

In practice, most political revolutionaries have been either liberals, nationalists, socialists, communists, fascists or anarchists.

Who You Gonna Call?

Victim Says Witnesses Just Watched Knife Attack

It happened as she and her 66-year-old mom left the Apopka department store. Six people witnessed the attack and no one stopped to help or called 911.

"It's like, when is someone going to stop? Where is someone to help?" the victim said.

Learnaboutguns.com

Cornered Cat

Gun Facts

CarryConcealed.net

Fact: You cannot count on anyone else, even the police to help you when you are attacked.

There are many who would demonize you for daring to protect yourself. Don't let them get a way with it. Stand up for your rights.





If I'm not mistaken, I believe the mall in Utah he mentions was (is?) a "gun-free zone," so if you were a concealed carry permit holder you would have been required to leave you gun in the car or at home.

The Silliness That Is California

Nuclear Checkout

Too funny.

Is Government Run Healthcare Better?

Bad things happen to those who wait by Mark Steyn

• he explained that "waiting" is built into the concept of a government health service: "If you need surgery," he said, "it's in my interest to get you in and operated on as soon as possible, because that's money for me. The faster it happens, the better my cash flow. But when the government runs the system, every time you get operated on it costs the government money. So it's in their interest to restrict or delay your access. When you look at the overall budgets - salaries, buildings - it's not hard to understand that the level of service you provide to the patient is one of your few discretionary costs. So the incentive is to reduce that."
  
  
• I have employees on both sides of the border. When my assistant in New Hampshire has a doctor's appointment at 9 a.m., she's in his office by 9:07 and back in my office by 11. My assistant in Quebec, living in a jurisdiction with the lowest doctor-patient ratio in the western world, can't get a doctor's appointment, so she goes to her local CLSC at 9 a.m., and waits, and waits and waits and waits all day to be seen.
  
  I doubt Chantal's and my loss of economic activity is factored into those health-care-as-a-proportion-of-GDP costs. In Canada, we accept that if you get something mildly semi-serious, it drags on while you wait to be seen, wait to be diagnosed, wait to be treated. Meanwhile, you're working under par. The default mode of the system is to "control health care costs" by providing less health care. Once it becomes natural to wait six months for an MRI, it's not difficult to persuade you that it's natural to wait 10 months, or 15. Acceptance of the initial concept of "waiting" is what matters.
  
  
• A few years back, she felt herself beginning to miscarry. Nobody was at home so she called a cab and went to the emergency room at the Royal Victoria. Knowing what "emergency" means in the Quebec system, she grabbed a novel on the way out - an excellent choice, Mr. Standfast by John Buchan, our late Governor General. It's 304 pages, and my wife had the time to read every single one of them before any medical professional saw her. While she was reading, she was bleeding - all over the emergency room floor, the pool of large dark red around her growing bigger and bigger, until eventually a passing cleaner ran her mop over the small lake and delivered a small rebuke to my wife for having the impertinence not to cease bleeding.
  
  
• Since my wife's experience, the average wait time in Montreal emergency rooms has apparently gone up to 48 hours. So don't pack an overnight bag, take two, and the complete works of John Buchan. The natural consequence of a system built on waiting is that more people do what she did - sit in the hospital, waiting to be seen, bleeding all over the floor until a cleaner (and it's one cleaner per two floors at many Montreal hospitals) wipes it up with a dirty mop and then runs the same mop over the floor in the isolation ward upstairs.
  

$900 BILLION --- and Counting

The vote in the House is today. Get that? Today! Why? Because these people are thieves. They're stealing your children's future. There rummaging around your living room in the middle of the night stealing much of that stuff you've worked for .. and stealing the future you've been trying to make for your children .. and they're scared to death that you'll wake up before they get away. They're pushing for a vote on their Democrat spending plan before the American people actually figure out what they're up to.

Read the rest.

A Deficit of Trust

Smokestack Lightning

Howlin' Wolf - 1964

Denying Reality

California college student: Terror is the New Communism by Dennis Prager

Of course, there is an irony to this statement. Meant in the opposite way she meant it, I could largely assent to the proposition that terror is the new communism. Communism was an enslaving and murderous threat in its time and the Jihadism is such a threat in our lifetime.

But that is not how this young woman meant the statement. As she has learned history and the contemporary world, communism was a bogeyman in its time and terror is a bogeyman in our time.

When I told her that communism had killed 100 million people, I could not tell if she even processed the words. It was as if had I uttered a series of nonsense syllables. She either didn’t believe me or didn’t care.

Tolerance Is So One Sided

Fight Back Against the Tolerance Fascists

Here's the reality: 95% of the time, if not more, when people yowl about racism, sexism, Islamophobia, homophobia, hatred of the poor, the environment, old people, etc., it's not true. Worse yet, most of the people doing the shouting KNOW IT'S NOT TRUE. They're merely crying wolf for political gain because they believe they may benefit personally from it -- or in the case of organizations like the NAACP, La Raza, GLAAD, CAIR, NOW and the alphabet soup of other groups that make a living off of having grievances, because it keeps them rolling in money and publicity.

They Hope They Can Pull It Off

The Democrats' game plan

• I am now convinced President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, other key leaders in the Democratic Party and the new administration realize they have no viable solutions to the economic crisis, know their own plans are going to exacerbate the problems and have concluded the only hope of maintaining absolute power beyond 2010 will depend on their ability to demonize their opponents and the Bush administration.
  
  So much for hope and change.
  
  
• The only ideas being put forward by the Democrats are the very ideas that created the crisis in the first place – more government intrusion into the economy, more bailouts of failed financial and industrial institutions, more command-and-control policies from Washington, more picking of winners and losers among businesses and, of course, more spending and more debt.
  
  All of this is doomed to failure, and the Democrats know it.
  
  
• Their only hope is to buy enough time for themselves until the economy can turn around on its own in cyclical fashion. But they clearly recognize that is not going to happen in the next two years – and probably not in four.
  

America in the Crosshairs

Obama’s Grip on Automakers Would Grow Under Emissions Decision

President Barack Obama, already overhauling automakers through a U.S. bailout, would gain a stronger grip on their future with his move toward letting California set emission standards for the nation.

I sure hope they don't try to make America into a giant California. What is it about liberals? They see something that doesn't work, that destroys the economy, that tears at the fabric of the American family, and they want to force that misery on everyone else. I guess California won't look so bad if the rest of America is in the same condition.

This liberal congress and administration is operating on the theory that they know what is best for the rest of us, our opinion be damned. And there is no watchdog approach by the media at all, in fact they try to frame everything this administration does in the best possible light and if something is especially unpopular it is enacted quietly and without fanfare so as not to alarm anyone until it is too late.

Watch your back.

Life without Microwave

I saw an episode of Tyler's Ultimate with Tyler Florence where he said he doesn't have a microwave in his kitchen - doesn't have the room. I was a little surprised by that because a microwave is a very convenient tool - albeit not a necessity.

I thought about what life would be like now without a microwave. I grew up without one so obviously it's possible. I remember how we used to use a kettle to boil water and reheat food in pots or in the oven. It just took more time, time we don't seem to have anymore.

So about 2 weeks ago the start button on my microwave broke. We couldn't use it anymore. It was a bit inconvenient but we managed without it for a little while.

I took the front panel off the microwave to see what was wrong and found the button was attached by thin plastic strips that had broken. I tried glue but it didn't work, so to the internet I went and I was able to find a website - amiparts - that had the part I needed. I ordered it - 30 bucks, delivered - and a few days later installed it and had our microwave back. Happily. I like the convenience of the microwave. But ...

Four days later I went to heat up some milk and pressed the start button. No sound. Sinking feeling. What now? The button was fine, and the microwave was counting down, but that's all. Don't tell me I just wasted 30 bucks and I still need a new oven. I don't give up that quickly, this is an over the stove oven and cost more than a counter top model.

I opened it up but didn't see anything obvious. Back to the internet. What a wonderful resource the internet is. I found a website dedicated to repairing microwaves. I looked through the troubleshooting guide and found my problem. The lower door switch was bad - 99% chance. I have an old microwave in the garage and decided to see if the switch was the same - it was! I swapped it out and had a working microwave again. Yea! Free. Double yea!

I like the microwave but I could live without it. It's just a matter of doing things differently.

Crisis of Values

Culture of Responsibility is Culture of Life by Star Parker

• Maybe our first black president doesn't know that, despite blacks being just 12 percent of the American population, black babies constitute 37 percent of all our aborted children. One of every two black pregnancies is aborted.
  
  
• In the words of my friend, the Rev. Clenard Childress, "the most dangerous place for an African American to be is in the womb of their African American mother."
  
  
• In his inaugural address, Mr. Obama appealed for "a new era of responsibility," bemoaned "greed and irresponsibility" and "failure to make hard choices."
  
  But, Mr. President, if you condone a culture that has no sense of awe and responsibility toward the greatest of all miracles and mysteries -- life itself -- how can you expect responsibility elsewhere?
  
  
• Can it be accidental that along with the millions of abortions that followed the Roe v. Wade decision, the stability of American families spiraled downward, divorce rates increased, and out of wedlock birth rates skyrocketed to where today four of ten babies are born to unwed mothers?
  
  
• For those who claim that Christian conservatives care only about abortion and gay marriage and are indifferent to social issues such as poverty, know that they are all one and the same issue.
  
  
• Understand that our crisis is one of values. Restore law that protects all life. And free at risk children from the tyranny of government schools where they are taught moral relativism. Allow these children the freedom to go to church schools.
  

The Weather Religion

Do Either God or Al Gore Exist? by Burt Prelutsky

• Human beings like to believe they’re totally rational creatures.
  
  
• In our own time, a great many people who are deeply skeptical when it comes to God are zealots when it comes to man-made global warming (aka climate change). Al Gore, who isn’t any more intelligent than Joe Biden and got worse grades in college than George W. Bush , is the high priest of what we might call the weather religion.
  
  
• The fact that through all of recorded history, the earth has gotten warmer and cooler long before the internal combustion engine was even a gleam in Nicholas Cugnot’s eye, should suggest to everyone that Gore is peddling month-old fish. But so long as there are enough true believers to make it profitable, not to mention chic, the weather zealots will continue to trample truth and logic underfoot.
  

'The One' Wastes No Time Killing More Babies ...

all over the world with taxpayer money!

Obama to Lift Ban on Overseas Abortion Funding

President Obama on Friday is expected to lift a ban on federal funding for international groups that promote or perform abortions, reversing a policy of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

A whole lot of innocent babies didn't vote for this.

America will pay a terrible price for this, call it karma if you must. We already are but people close their eyes to it.

This administration is not starting well, coming down on the side of terrorists (closing Guantanamo) and murderers. Nice.

Mexican Wrestlers

Crazy. Fun to watch.

Here's Something You Don't See Everyday

The Ugly

What the bailout party means to you

Evil, greed and stupidity is a human-nature problem, one that God identified shortly after we turned on Him. Without the informal social controls that religion exerted on all of us, society – that would be you and me – is in for a rough ride to a very unpopular destination. Too bad so many have worked for so long to eliminate those constraints. Now we all get to live with the results.

The New Racism

Robert Reich is back? The inmates are surely running the asylum. How would you like to cross a bridge built by unskilled workers?

Punishing white people, for mostly imagined grievances, will not make anyone's life better.

It's Me or the Dog

Former French president Jacques Chirac was rushed to hospital after being mauled by his own 'clinically depressed' pet dog.

This looks like a job for Victoria Stilwell

Disillusionment

Here's a post by Ronald Dart called "Disillusionment Is Necessary for Salvation." There is no mechanism to link directly to that post on his blog so I will quote it below.

Forgive me for citing another of Dart's Laws. This one was developed in the atmosphere of religious disillusionment and a doctrinal argument about what was necessary for salvation. I concluded that, to whatever extent one has illusions about religion and religious leaders, disillusionment is a necessary step for the saving of the soul.

The rule comes mind as I watch all the preparations for the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Someone noted that the University of Virginia was cancelling classes on inauguration day, something they apparently have never done before. It is an example of the expectations that have been built up for the 44th president, and one wonders what the reaction will be when the inevitable disillusionment comes. No mortal could ever live up to the giddy expectations that have been developed around this man and his political campaign.

The president of the United States of America is neither king nor dictator, much less a Messiah. The constitution places him as an equal power against congress and the Supreme Court. No man can live up to the promises of a political campaign, so the greater the promise, the harder the fall.

I suspect that President Obama would have been better served with a smaller majority in congress. Now, the Democratic Party cannot hide behind the Republicans, and President Bush will be in Dallas enjoying his retirement. Power corrupts, and the future political battles will likely be among Democrats rather than between parties.

Let the disillusionment begin. Maybe we can get back to constitutional governance.

The sooner the better.

January Sweepstakes Wins (so far)

I won a set of 4 glasses from Miller Lite/Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They came in a surprise UPS delivery. Nice little surprise.

My latest win is an HTC Fuze phone. It's more like a hand held computer than a phone. I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet, but this guy knows what to do with it. That sweepstakes is still going if you want to try to win. HTC FUZE sweepstakes

Well It's About Time

Bush commutes sentences of former US border agents

In his final acts of clemency, President George W. Bush on Monday commuted the prison sentences of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents whose convictions for shooting a Mexican drug dealer ignited fierce debate about illegal immigration.

Long overdue.

Don't Text and Ride

It's one thing to do that on a lonely road with no cars, but in traffic? That's a Darwin award wannabe.

Anyone for a Swim?

Science - It Isn't Perfect

"If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram."

The idea that we live in a hologram probably sounds absurd, but it is a natural extension of our best understanding of black holes, and something with a pretty firm theoretical footing. It has also been surprisingly helpful for physicists wrestling with theories of how the universe works at its most fundamental level.

I don't think we live in a hologram but I do believe that the universe is a temporary reality within a larger permanent, spiritual reality. Not sure how that works, wouldn't care to explain it, it's just my opinion. I like to watch scientific discoveries like this, it's very interesting to learn how the universe works and I'm not afraid they will discover something that will shake my faith in God. Every discovery has deepened my understanding. The Bible is scientifically correct but it is not a science text and doesn't pretend to be, scientific discoveries bring deeper understanding to the text. Sometimes you have to alter what you believe but that only means you now understand better than you did.

Can't Make This Up

Robber mistakes building for a bank, demands cash

When an employee told the man the office really didn't have any money, the confused would-be robber replied, "I know you have money. It's a bank."

He was told it was no longer a bank and he left with nothing.

No mention of him being caught - what a shock - so he's probably planning his next heist a little more carefully.

Where Have You Been?

dave foley & fans

Atom.com: Funny Videos | Spoofs | Funny Animations

I haven't seen David Foley in a while, loved him in News Radio and The Kids in the Hall.

Busybodies Should Be Prosecuted

RSPCA says people who dress up their dogs could be prosecuted

Typical News Report from Gaza

Hot Air: Why are they laughing when the war’s done so much damage to the peace process? Because: There is no peace process. There’ll never be peace with Hamas, and they know it.

Decision Making Process

James Taranto weighs in on Obama's decision to start the process of deciding what to do with the Guantanamo detainees.

Wow, on his very first day in office Obama is going to issue a directive starting the process of deciding what to do. That's the kind of bold leadership America has been hankering for, lo these eight awful years!

Race to the Rear

Hong Kong named world's freest economy

"There is no escaping the fact that the freer the economy the more it flourishes,"

Meanwhile, The U.S. rushes in the opposite direction, in fact, can't get out of it's own way fast enough.

Ninjas Need a Bailout, too

Fla. sheriff seeks portly 'ninja' in theft attempt

...a heavyset man with a visible potbelly and a ninja costume unsuccessfully tried to steal two different ATMs over the past two weeks.

Darwin Award Runner-up

Worker shoots himself in arm without a gun

After being pressed, he told Hudson that he secured the sixth bullet in a vise clamp, placed a metal punch into the cartridge primer and hit the punch with a hammer.

Stating the Obvious...

Hamas is a mental illness masquerading as a nationalist movement. --Mark Steyn

Alas, the 'oldest hatred' is spreading again.

Global Warming?

Not this century.

Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age

Ice cores, ocean sediment cores, the geologic record, and studies of ancient plant and animal populations all demonstrate a regular cyclic pattern of Ice Age glacial maximums which each last about 100,000 years, separated by intervening warm interglacials, each lasting about 12,000 years.

Most of the long-term climate data collected from various sources also shows a strong correlation with the three astronomical cycles which are together known as the Milankovich cycles. The three Milankovich cycles include the tilt of the earth, which varies over a 41,000 year period; the shape of the earth’s orbit, which changes over a period of 100,000 years; and the Precession of the Equinoxes, also known as the earth’s ‘wobble’, which gradually rotates the direction of the earth’s axis over a period of 26,000 years. According to the Milankovich theory of Ice Age causation, these three astronomical cycles, each of which effects the amount of solar radiation which reaches the earth, act together to produce the cycle of cold Ice Age maximums and warm interglacials.

Three Milankovich cycles trump carbon emissions. Please ignore Al Gore.

This Almost Never Happens

Hippo eats dwarf

OK, so it isn't true, it didn't happen, but it is a funny story.

Hippies Hate Cowboys

Here's an interesting post about the pothead culture coming into power.

Pothead Culture

Every little call to take garbage out, is met with some plea for moral relativism, cry for revolution, or both of those. I mean literal garbage, such as everyday household chores, as well as figurative garbage, like making sure Big Bad Bart catches that midnight train outta here and doncha dare come back. Hippies hate cowboys, I'm sure you've figured out by now, and they pull no punches that the thing they hate the most about cowboys, is the white hat, the black hat and the moral clarity. They hate the way this leads to realizations, fifteen minutes before closing-credits, that a real confrontation has to take place...for consequences loom over the "town," if it does not. The stoner hippie isn't down with that. He philosophizes his way out of every little thing that needs doing, and all without putting down the doobie or moving his ass off that well-worn mattress.

Hippies and those oh-so-hated cowboys are close cousins, in a way. They're both all about confrontation. But the cowboy uses bullets instead of rhetoric and the hippy doesn't like that. The dirtiest secret of all lies within that special hatred for bullets. It isn't the property damage, or the death, or the carnage, or the danger to the bystanders the hippy hates when hot lead is flying around the saloon. It is the finality of the solution. No more negotiations; they never began. An elegant Obama/Cronkite lilt to the voice doesn’t count for shit. Settlements to disputes are not proposed, only implemented. Nothing is up for appeal.

Another Good Ending to Criminal Activity

Victim Kills Robbery Suspect At Car Wash

Orange County sheriff's deputies said two men with a sawed-off shotgun tried to rob a man at a car wash on Orange Blossom Trail Friday night. The suspects didn't bet on the victim pulling out his own gun and shooting.

One of the suspects was hit in the chest. He was rushed to the hospital, where he later died. Investigators said the victim had a concealed weapons permit.

Blago To Be Impeached

"The plague that has been brought upon us by Rod Blagojevich will be lifted," said Rep. Jack Franks (D-Woodstock).

Rod Blagojevich did not bring any plague to Illinois politics, he's just a symptom of a far deeper cancer that has infected our country. Getting rid of Blago might make Illinois lawmakers feel better but it will do nothing to cure the larger disease.

He Doesn't Understand

Obama warns of dire consequences without stimulus

President-elect Barack Obama warned of dire and long-lasting consequences if Congress doesn't pump unprecedented dollars into the national economy, making an urgent pitch Thursday for his mammoth spending proposal in his first speech since the election.

"In short, a bad situation could become dramatically worse" if Washington doesn't go far enough to address the spreading crisis, the Democrat said as fresh economic reports showed an outlook growing increasingly grim.

You can't borrow your way out of debt. We're on the Titanic headed for the iceberg and the captain orders full speed ahead in 'hope' he can smash through it.

Obligation of Carry

Great video on concealed carry.

Deciding to be an armed, licensed civilian is serious business. Mature, sound judgment and preparation in every facet of this decision must be exercised. --nutnfancy

Deadliest Catch/Cornelia Marie

This One Ended Well

An eyewitness saw a robber brutally beating a store clerk in Ocoee, so he pulled a gun out of his car at the Kangaroo gas station on Franklin Street and fatally shot the robber.

The War in Gaza?

Obama's fault.

"He kills your brothers and sisters in Gaza mercilessly and without affection."

F/V Cornelia Marie

The clip I originally posted was removed. It was from an episode I had not seen before so maybe it was yet to be aired and The Discovery Channel had them remove it. Who knows. This one is from season 3, episode 3.



The Deadliest Catch is a great show and these are my favorite ships, not in any particular order:

Cornelia Marie

Time Bandit

Northwestern

Here's Jonathan Hillstrand of the Time Bandit deicing his windows:

deiceing

All Systems Go

Invasion USA

It's time to realize that we're all together in this boat called America, that the boat is sinking, and that government is not our salvation. Our hope is not in Congress or even a political-messianic deliverance through the presidency. The only economic stimulus plan they should be preparing is the one that rewards manufacturers and consumers who promote and purchase American-made products and services. Our government doesn't need to dole out more bailouts and drown us deeper in debt. We don't need more bad trade agreements, such as NAFTA, or to provide tax relief incentives for corporations that are outsourcing. We need fair trade, not free trade. And we need a fair tax, not a flowering system of taxes.

The so-called elites don't care about America, they are only interested in global government. America needs to be severely weakened in their minds, and they are making that a reality.

I'm Beyond Disgusted

Pigs at the Trough

Notice the sleight of hand about to be perpetrated on hardworking taxpayers. In the end, it is we who pay for the plans of politicians who are unable, or unwilling, to control themselves when it comes to other peoples' money. When Republicans cut taxes, Democrats scream about growing deficits. But Democrats never worry about the deficit when they spend more than what the government takes in. So it really isn't about the deficit at all. It is about how much of our hard-earned money the Democrats, mostly, will allow us to keep. When you understand this, you understand everything about politics and politicians.

We're Not Ready to Stop Ignoring This Yet

The World's Largest Ponzi Scheme

Well, brace yourself, buddy. People have been trying to warn about this, as you know, for who knows how long. This is why the effort to privatize it -- why do you think it was opposed, the effort to fix it? Government cannot give up the power; the Washingtonians cannot give up the power that running this Ponzi scheme gives them. They're willing to kick the can down the road and let it collapse when somebody else's gotta deal with it, except one thing. The difference between Bernie Madoff and the Washingtonians running their Ponzi scheme and others is he's probably going to go to jail. Our guys will be promoted and they'll be hailed as heroes, like Chuck Schumer, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, all these clowns that are responsible for most of this financial mess now and I'd say that they're largely responsible or have a great deal of responsibility for the auto problem that we have today. They're being hailed as great heroes and fixers by the Drive-By Media. By the way, $50 billion is small fry to the Social Security Ponzi scheme, but again, just ask yourself, go to bed tonight and then pretend waking up tomorrow morning and you read the paper, found out everything you have is a lie, that you have nothing.

Change Same Ole, Same Ole

Meet the New Great Satan, Same as the Old ...

Is this a record? It's still two weeks to inauguration but the Planet Healer-elect is already being denounced on the streets of world capitals*! In this season of change, it's good to know some things never do.

(*and, in this case, his boyhood home) --Mark Stein

Complete with bullet holes.

Be sure to read Mark's newest : Gaza has its version of rocket scientists

So when Britain's Channel 4 says that we don't get the chance to see these fellows speak for themselves, it would be more accurate to say that they speak for themselves incessantly but the louder they speak the more we put our hands over our ears and go "Nya nya, can't hear you." We do this in part because, if you're as invested as most Western elites are in the idea that all anyone wants is to go to university, get a steady job and settle down in a nice house in the suburbs, a statement such as "England's demise is on our agenda" becomes almost literally untranslatable. When President Ahmadinejad threatens to wipe Israel off the face of the map, we deplore him as a genocidal fantasist. But maybe he's a genocidal realist, and we're the fantasists.

This is Just Crazy

Robbie Madison's Amazing Record Jump - Watch more Sports Videos

Message for the New Year

I have linked to this message before but it is worth repeating. A new year is before us so go out and possess it.

The Point of No Return by Ray Stedman

Anyone who has ever taken a journey knows that in the process you inevitably reach a place that is called the point of no return. It is the half-way mark; you have gone so far that there is no point in going back. No matter what happens you might as well press on and you either reach the goal or your journey is a failure. In these days of extensive air travel we are frequently aware of this point of no return, for by its very nature air travel stresses the importance of this point beyond which there is no turning back.

Now the end of a year is that kind of point in time. On New Year's Eve we realize more than at any other time in our lives that we can never go back in time. Sr. Helmut Theilicke says we think differently on New Year's Eve than at any other time, for then we see time as it really is -- not as a clock with a round face where the hands come back to the same point again and again, but as a flowing river which passes a single point and never returns. On New Year's Eve we feel that we have passed a point of no return. We can look back and remember, but we cannot retrace a single moment of the year that is past. Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher whose writings have attracted so much attention these days, once said, "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."

Before us stretches a new year. We have never been to this place in time or in our lives before. Again, on New Year's Eve, we feel as we never do at any other time, though perhaps it is something we ought to feel every single day of the year. We feel the challenge of the unknown, of the unexplored, of the year ahead of us yet to be discovered. Most of us feel a bit of excitement, perhaps a bit of fear, a feeling of weakness as we come into a new year.

More

Listen to this message here.

A House of Cards

Obama’s Big Mistake: ‘Deficits Don’t Matter’

"We can't worry, short-term, about the deficit" is what Obama stated two weeks ago on Meet The Press. Deficits don’t matter.

And we wonder why so many Americans are in debt up to their eyeballs. Why live within your means, no one else does. The government certainly doesn't.

Congress has collectively been in denial for decades that deficits do matter. This is why we have over $50 trillion in unfunded liabilities associated with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

It will all just magically work itself out - preferably when these congressmen are long gone.

Wesbury's suggestions included eliminating corporate taxes altogether during most of 2009, a 50 percent reduction in individual income taxes, or allowing full expensing of equipment and investments made by businesses.

Those ideas would keep billions of dollars directly in the economy, rather than funneling those dollars through the federal government to become polluted with pet political projects and the usual inefficiencies.

Of course none of those ideas would appeal to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the other liberals who believe in more taxes, bigger government and less individual responsibility.

Let's look at New Jersey to see how well "more taxes, bigger government and less individual responsibility" works.

The 'Not As We Do' Government

Feds bust another Ponzi scheme

A Ponzi, or pyramid scheme operator takes money from one investor and rather than investing it gives it to another investor, proving to the latter that s/he is making money. Keeping this operation afloat requires more and more investors putting in larger and larger sums of money. Think Social Security.

When the government does it, it's called a retirement plan, but when a citizen does it, it's a criminal offense.

At Least They're Perfect

New Jersey Is the Perfect Bad Example

Think of it as our gift to the nation. Other states offer promising experiments in areas such as Medicaid, taxes, education and regulatory reform. In contrast, the People's Republic of New Jersey offers America something truly unique: the perfect bad example.