Save The Children

Mark Steyn's newest commentary, The Real War On Children, brings some sense to the recent SCHIP veto.

So what is the best thing America could do "for the children"? Well, it could try not to make the same mistake as most of the rest of the Western world and avoid bequeathing the next generation a system of unsustainable entitlements that turns the entire nation into a giant Ponzi scheme. Most of us understand, for example, that Social Security needs to be "fixed" – or we'll have to raise taxes, or the retirement age, or cut benefits, etc. But, just to get the entitlements debate in perspective, projected public pensions liabilities in the United States are expected to rise by 2040 to about 6.8 percent of our gross domestic product. In Greece, the equivalent figure is 25 percent – that's not a matter of raising taxes or tweaking retirement age; that's total societal collapse.

So what? shrug the voters. Not my problem. I paid my taxes, I want my benefits.

In France, President Sarkozy is proposing a very modest step – that those who retire before the age of 65 should not receive free health care – and the French are up in arms about it. He's being angrily denounced by 53-year-old retirees, a demographic hitherto unknown to functioning societies. You spend your first 25 years being educated, you work for two or three decades, and then you spend a third of a century living off a lavish pension, with the state picking up every health care expense. No society can make that math add up.

And so, in a democratic system today's electors vote to keep the government gravy coming and leave it to tomorrow for "the children" to worry about. That's the real "war on children" – and every time you add a new entitlement to the budget you make it less and less likely they'll win it.

Irresponsible Politics? Or Worse?

Sabotage in Wartime By Thomas Sowell

If Congress has gone nearly a century without passing a resolution accusing the Turks of genocide, why now, in the midst of the Iraq war?

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this resolution is just the latest in a series of Congressional efforts to sabotage the conduct of that war.

Large numbers of American troops and vast amounts of military equipment go to Iraq through Turkey, one of the few nations in the Islamic Middle East that has long been an American ally.

Turkey has also thus far refrained from retaliating against guerrilla attacks from the Kurdish regions of Iraq onto Turkish soil. But the Turks could retaliate big time if they chose.

There are more Turkish troops on the border of Iraq than there are American troops within Iraq.

Turkey has already recalled its ambassador from Washington to show its displeasure over Congress' raising this issue. The Turks may or may not stop at that.

In this touchy situation, why stir up a hornet's nest over something in the past that neither we nor anybody else can do anything about today?

Japan has yet to acknowledge its atrocities from the Second World War. Yet the Congress of the United States does not try to make worldwide pariahs of today's Japanese, most of whom were not even born when those atrocities occurred.

Even fewer, if any, Turks who took part in attacks on Armenians during the First World War are likely to still be alive.

Too many Democrats in Congress have gotten into the habit of treating the Iraq war as President Bush's war -- and therefore fair game for political tactics making it harder for him to conduct that war.

In a rare but revealing slip, Democratic Congressman James Clyburn said that an American victory in Iraq "would be a real big problem for us" in the 2008 elections.

Unwilling to take responsibility for ending the war by cutting off the money to fight it, as many of their supporters want them to, Congressional Democrats have instead tried to sabotage the prospects of victory by seeking to micro-manage the deployment of troops, delaying the passing of appropriations -- and now this genocide resolution that is the latest, and perhaps lowest, of these tactics.

It isn't all that long ago that people who did this sort of thing in a time of war would face the firing squad or hangman's noose. America has lost it's heart and soul.

Complacent Western Assumptions

Mark Steyn: Time for the U.S. to get comfortable with ideology

Well, one reason is we're not really comfortable with ideology, either ours or anybody else's. Insofar as we have an ideology it's a belief in the virtues of "multiculturalism," "tolerance," "celebrate diversity" – a bumper-sticker ideology that is, in effect, an anti-ideology which explicitly rejects the very idea of drawing distinctions between your beliefs and anybody else's.

Less sentimental chaps may (at least privately) regard the above as bunk, and prefer to place their faith in economics and technology. In Britain in the 1960s, the political class declared that the country "needed" mass immigration. When the less-enlightened lower orders in northern England fretted that they would lose their towns to the "Pakis", they were dismissed as paranoid racists. The experts were right in a narrow, economic sense: The immigrants became mill workers and bus drivers. But the paranoid racists were right, too: The mills closed anyway, and mosques sprouted in their place; and Oldham and Dewesbury adopted the arranged cousin-marriage traditions of Mirpur in Pakistan; and Yorkshire can now boast among its native sons the July 7th London Tube bombers. The experts thought economics trumped all; the knuckle-dragging masses had a more basic unease, convinced that it's culture that's determinative.

To take another example, on CNN the other night Anderson Cooper was worrying about the homicide rate in Philadelphia. The City of Brotherly Love is the murder capital of the nation, and CNN had dispatched a reporter to interview the grieving mother of a young black boy killed while riding his bicycle in the street. Apparently, a couple of cars had got backed up behind him, and an impatient passenger in one of them pulled out a gun and shot the kid. Anderson Cooper then went to commercials and, when he returned, introduced a report on how easy it is to buy guns in Philadelphia and how local politicians are reluctant to do anything about it. This is, again, an argument only the expert class could make. In the 1990s, the number of guns in America went up by 40 million, but the murder rate fell dramatically. If firearms availability were the determining factor, Vermont and Switzerland would have high murder rates. Yet in Montpelier or Geneva the solution to a boy carelessly bicycling in front of you down a city street when you're in a hurry is not to grab your gun and blow him away. It's the culture, not the technology.

Very few members of the transnational jet set want to hear this. They're convinced that economic and technological factors shape the world all but exclusively, and that the sexy buzz words – "globalization", "networking" – cure all ills.

Yea, Right

Pope John Paul II waving from the grave.

Not!

With All Of Our Technological Advancement...

You would think they could find a less disgusting way to "reintroduce friendly bacteria into the gut."

Trials in a Scottish hospital have shown patients suffering from the Clostridium difficile bug can be cured using 'donor stool' administered via a tube through the nose into their stomach.

Who thought up this procedure? Brilliant thinking about the bacteria but not so much on the dosing part. They put all kinds of friendly bacteria in yogurt these days, why not these? Not disgusting enough for a hospital setting?

An Inconvenient Truth Lie

What? Al Gore Lied?

The inaccuracies, according to the court, are:

1. The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.

2. The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The court found that the film was misleading: Over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.

3. The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.

4. The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.

5. The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr. Gore had misread the study: In fact four polar bears drowned, and this was because of a particularly violent storm.

6. The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream, throwing Europe into an ice age: The Claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.

7. The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.

8. The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt, causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.

9. The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting; the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.

10. The film suggests that sea levels could rise by seven meters, causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact, the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40 centimeters over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.

11. The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

Hey, Nice Slogan!

This is New York

Abridging the Freedom of Speech

Chuck Asay

Questioning Belief

Religion – including Christianity and Judaism – is "violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children." At least that's according to the No. 1 New York Times bestseller "God is Not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything" by journalist Christopher Hitchens.

He's partially correct, let me slightly modify that thought:

Humanity is "violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children and therefore, religion includes those elements.

It's this human element that poisons everything, including religion.

Quoted from How atheism is being sold to America, which is actually well worth reading - lots of good stuff in there. I had only read the first paragraph when I wrote the above but went back and read the whole thing after - David Kupelian does an excellent job taking on this subject.

Exploring St. Augustine

The St. Augustine Lighthouse, among the majestic oaks.



Take an hour or two and wander through the lighthouse and museum. If you time it right you can climb the light at night and watch the full moon rise, complete with champagne toast. Or just take the Dark of the Moon Tour if there is no full moon.



Looking up from inside.

Blessed

Men hold two views of what happiness consists in, viz., having and doing. To possess much, or to do some great thing, constitutes the sum of human blessedness according to popular theory. Our Teacher sweeps those conceptions away by absolutely ignoring them ... Being is everything. A man's happiness depends upon what he is in himself.

-- G. Campbell Morgan

Brainiac

Even if they did exist, how could anyone actually think they could get change for a one million dollar bill at a supermarket?

Two five hundred thousand dollar bills OK, sir? Or do you need singles?

It All Comes Around In The End

Senator Larry Craig (the bathroom guy) has a favorite recipe for Super Tubers on the Congress Cooks website.

With an apple corer or small knife, core out the potato center (end to end). Push hot dog through the center.

St. Augustine Alligator Farm

The Alligator Farm is a must see if you're visiting St. Augustine, at least if you're with your kids. It's very clean and you can tell they really care for the alligators. The shows are interesting and informative, not flashy, they work with the animals and some of the gators actually respond to their name. They have a huge saltwater crocodile named Maximo (see the video below) but when we were there he had put himself off display - he does whatever he wants. We could see his back. A little disappointing. Overall, it's a nice place to spend a couple of hours.

Fire One!

Here's a picture of the cannons firing at Castillo de San Marcos. They re-enact a recruiting speech (in period attire) and shoot the cannons after. Pretty cool. And loud. Don't know what that guy's doing with the stick in his butt - I think it's a knife but it just don't look right.

Castillo de San Marcos

Probably the most famous landmark in St. Augustine, Castillo de San Marcos is a very interesting place to visit. If you look closely at the tower in the picture you can see bullet holes. They shoot off cannons regularly, which you can hear throughout the city. And James asked one of the men why he didn't see where the cannonballs hit. He said because the people in those houses across the bay would get really angry if we used real cannonballs. There is limited parking on-site but the city parking garage is close by and I recommend parking in it for your visit to St. Augustine rather than fight 2 hour parking limits or feeding parking meters - if you can find one open. Be careful parking along the seawall. It wasn't obvious why the first two days but the third day it had rained and those cars were flooded out over the bottoms of the doors - not a pretty picture. It really didn't rain all that much either.

Hot Stuff

The ipod is so hot it will set your pants on fire.

Can't get enough.

Bush Gore Lied, People Died

You have to listen to this all the way through and let what he is saying really sink in, keeping in mind what he and other liberals have been saying since taking out Saddam Hussein. How can anyone in their right mind take anything these clowns say seriously? They don't let the truth get in the way of their agenda. They will use the truth, partial truth, complete lies, or any combination of the three to further their desires. They will use you, chew you up, and spit you out. They don't give a rats ass about anyone but themselves. They would rather destroy the United States of America than let it continue as it was originally conceived. It's their way or nothing. How sad for this country that they have come this far, what a tragedy that so many believe them.

The Founders Intention

The Founders Intended A Christian, Not Secular, Society

“It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all the other sciences and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the author of them: for all the principles of science are of Divine origin,” Thomas Paine declaimed. “Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles. He can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author."

When we examine an extraordinary piece of machinery, an astonishing pile of architecture, a well executed statue or a highly finished painting where life and action are imitated, and habit only prevents our mistaking a surface of light and shade for cubical solidity, our ideas are naturally led to think of the extensive genius and talents of the artist. When we study the elements of geometry, we think of Euclid. When we speak of gravitation, we think of Newton. How then is it, that when we study the works of God in the creation, we stop short, and do not think of God? It is from the error of the schools in having taught those subjects as accomplishments only, and thereby separated the study of them from the Being who is the author of them.” In short, even the least religiously committed of the founders wanted to approach public education in a manner that would deeply offend today’s uncompromising separationists, and those who ludicrously claim that the designers of our Constitution intended a “secular nation.”

The ludicrous indignation about Senator McCain’s recent remarks remains an expression of both ignorance and intolerance, and a mean-spirited refusal to recognize the simple truth in his statements. The framers may not have mentioned Christianity in the Constitution, but they clearly intended that charter of liberty to govern a society of fervent faith, freely encouraged by government for the benefit of all. Their noble and unprecedented experiment never involved a religion-free or faithless state but did indeed presuppose America’s unequivocal identity as a Christian nation.

St. Augustine

We just got back from St. Augustine and we had a great time. St. Augustine has something for everyone but it is heavy on the tourist market, you have to do a little searching to find all the gems hidden in this city - there's a lot of them. Bring money.

We stayed at the Castillo Real Hotel on Anastasia Island. It's one block from the ocean and has a nice pool for the kids. The pool goes from zero to about 5.5 feet, just like at the beach. Our poolside room was very quiet, you cannot hear the noise at the pool. The room was comfortable, has a fridge/microwave, jacuzzi, and large shower. Great internet access, too - wired or wireless. It was a nice area to stay in and was only a short drive to downtown St. Augustine.

The bonus was finding Cafe 11 almost right across the street. This is one of the gems of St. Augustine. Others agree. We would have been happy to eat every meal there and there were a few occasions when we wish we had. The menu is on their website, check it out. The weekend brunch is excellent and very busy, especially on Sunday. Nice jazz plays from one corner, not loud, just right and the weekend buffet is on the stage, among the speakers and amplifiers used for the live gigs. They could use less shaky tables, though. And the bathroom was impressively clean, a big plus for me since I invariably have to take James there and wait for him.

The first night we ate at the A1A Ale Works. I had the Spicy Ahi Sticks appetizer - to die for - and Irma had the Fried Lobster Bites, which she liked. I don't eat lobster. I had the Blackened Salmon and Irma had the Ragtime Shrimp dinner - both were excellent. I tried the stout but was not that impressed, although I am not a big beer drinker, I have had better. It wasn't bad, though, just not as good as I thought it would be. After all, it's called Ale works. The restaurant has great views and you can sit outside on the 2nd floor deck. James loved the saltwater fish tanks they have.

We also ate at the Santa Maria. If you have kids with you, you should eat here. It sits out over the water and there are little trap doors so you can feed the fish or birds. The catfish are so thick in the water trying to get at the food you can almost walk on them. The view is fantastic and we watched in frustration (well, I did, everyone else watched in fascination) as bait fish boiled about 20 yards outside the windows, just wishing I could throw a line in the water. One boat out of the bunch we saw actually did and pulled in a nice fish - I couldn't quite make it out. Don't go here for the food, though. Just go for lunch, get a grilled fish sandwich (not fried) and let the kids enjoy themselves. They will bring old bread to feed the fish and they brought a 2nd basket at James' request. Bring your own bread, too. If they would remodel the place and the menu - put some heart and soul into it - this place would be killer. At least get a new head chef, someone to bring life to the menu. I can easily deal with the out of date decor if the food rocks.

Another night we ate dinner at the Sunset Grill (somewhere on A1A), actually about a mile from the hotel. The restaurant is clean and comfortable with TV's on all the walls with the game on. Irma and I had a completely different food experience at this place. I had the Tuna on a bed of Spinach and Rice Pilaf. It was wonderful. It was a nice size, thick chunk of tuna, cooked rare and absolutely delicious. The spinach and rice were good, too. Irma had a fried seafood platter and she didn't care for it. She had a nice fillet of flounder and I couldn't imagine what could be wrong with it until I tried it. It wasn't seasoned. Obviously they didn't go to the Emeril Lagasse school of cooking. Salt, pepper and spices - how do you forget that? Anyway, James loved his pizza and Joshua liked his hamburger. I'd go back but I'd get the tuna.

We went to another place but I won't even mention it, just don't eat anywhere they say they are world famous. The place is way south of St. Augustine on A1A, near Saltwater Cowboys, which didn't open until 5pm, unfortunately. The catch of the day was Basa and they tried to tell me it is an Asian grouper. Wrong! It's a catfish and I don't want it. Why would a restaurant on the shore in Florida import cheap catfish from Asia and try to pass it off as grouper if not to rip you off? At least they said it was Basa.

There are so many restaurants in and around St. Augustine it would be impossible to try them all. There are also many upscale restaurants. I don't care about fine dining so much, I like to be comfortable, but the food has to be good. One place I missed but wish I hadn't is Osteens. Unfortunately they were closed Sunday when we stopped by. They are closed Sunday and Monday. They have a great reputation, though and I will be sure to eat there next time.

This turned into a restaurant review of sorts, I'll have a few more things to say about St. Augustine in another post.

FedEx vs. Government Bureaucracy

Achmed The Dead Terrorist

Finding Peace

Think of the essentials of human life, and I am going to take the very simplest – the essentials of which every child is conscious. The first word of human consciousness is “I am,” and when that word of human consciousness is analyzed, these are the terms of its expression: “I know,” that is mind; “I will,” that is choice; “I can,” that is force. These are the simplest things of human consciousness. Man takes these ideas of experience, and projects them into immensity, and so constructs his idea of God. Mind, infinite knowledge; will, supreme choice and consequent government; force, absolute ability. These things underlie all streams of religious thinking. Wherever religion has placed at its center, personality as Deity, it has been because man has taken of himself, and has imagined something of the same pattern, the same nature, the same kind, but vaster and greater.

Now mark what man has been doing. In every case, apart from Christ and apart from His ministry, man has projected himself into immensity, and consequently, he has projected into immensity all that is in himself. In every case, therefore, there has been an amplification of failure. Self-centered life flung out into immensity postulates a self-centered God. All the things of human limitation, resulting from human sin, abide in human conceptions of God, apart from that which has come into the world through Christ. An enlarged conception of mind, an enlarged conception of knowledge, based upon man’s own consciousness of knowledge, which is limited, creates an imperfect conception of knowledge. Man has never come, apart from Christ, to a consciousness of full and final and perfect knowledge of God and consequently, man persists in his attempt to deceive God. When man attempts to deceive God, he, by that very action, reveals the fact that he does not believe that God knows all and perfectly.

The whole system of sacrificial worship in other religions is that of attempting to persuade God to change His mind, and alter the method of His procedure.

Or, if man thinks of will, his will is capricious and revengeful, and he flings that out into immensity, and his conception of God is upon the pattern of what he is in himself.

In the light of these considerations, we turn to the declaration of the text, “God was in Christ.” This, then, is the meaning of incarnation. God answers the human necessity; enshrines Himself in humanity; thinks, speaks, chooses, acts through human channels; comes into the very midst of human history, after man had begun to write that history; and thus gave humanity the one and only Man from Whom the lines flung out into immensity include God as He really is.

All that was found in the perfect manhood of Jesus may be projected, and he result will be the truth about God. Fall back if you will upon my simple illustration of the camera. See in this same picture of your New Testament that which you put into the lens, and when the light shining through it projects the figure full of truth and unsullied splendor on the canvas, I see God. Every line is a line of beauty, and every expression of the face is full of beneficence, and yet of righteousness. I come back to this Man of the New Testament, and I follow Him and watch Him, and I take the things I see and fling them out, and I find God. I will take, for illustration, these self-same things to which I have made reference – the mind, and the will, and the force. Now I must leave you to wander at will, through these gospel stories, and I hope some of you may, and watch the working of the mind of the Master, anywhere and anytime; and when you do so, let the lines pass out until they fill the infinite spaces, and you will have found the working of the mind of God. Observe Him in the hour of his choices, anywhere and anytime, and then fling the lines out into immensity, and you have discovered the good and perfect and acceptable will of God. Mark every effort of Jesus, every putting forth of strength. See it in its purpose, watch it in its method, observe it in its victory, and fling the lines out, and you will find that He is vindicated in what He said. “My Father worketh even until now, and I work.” There is perfect harmony between the two.

Mark well the mind of Jesus in its essence by observing its activities; it encompassed vast eternities, and compressed Him into the simple speech of childhood. I have taken up an old sea-shell, and have put it to my ear, being told when I was a boy that if I would I could hear the ocean. Of course I heard it; the shell was made by the ocean, fashioned by the ocean, was of the ocean, and the ocean of the atmosphere repeated the action of the atmosphere of the ocean, and I heard the sweep and the music of the sea in the shell. Quite reverently – the figure is an imperfect one, I know – I put my ear and listen when this Man speaks, and He speaks in little words, all human language: “Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Oh, my masters, put that shell to your ear this morning, and the infinite speech of eternity is singing itself through your soul, and as you obey you find rest.

At the back of all the activity of this Man, love was the motive. The expression of His activity was service rendered to others, and all the way I see Him flaming in white hot anger against all that bruises and hurts; and whether I watch Him taking children in His arms and blessing them, or watch Him when in quiet dignity He pronounces the eight woes upon a guilty city, it is ever the vision of God that is breaking on my life. “God was in Christ,” and what is the result? We have found God, and He is a God of joy and a God of sorrow, a God intimately interested in all the details of human life, a God forever active; and all these things I have come to know through the Child, and Boy, and Youth, and Man of Nazareth.

Did I say that God answered man’s method, that man’s method is that of projecting man into immensity, and God adopted it? And did the way in which I said that make it appear as though God were turning from His own first purpose, and accommodating Himself to human failure? By no means. That is God’s return to first purpose. He made man in His own image and after His own likeness. And man, true to himself, might have flung out upon the canvas of eternity his own image, and have found God. The most intimate relationship existed between man and God in the Divine economy. But, when man shut his eyes to the far flung vision, and began to live as though that upon the earth which was material was the whole of himself, then he became distorted, iniquitous – exactly the same meaning is in the two words – sinful, sensual; and then, lifting his eyes to the heavens, were shadows indeed, and all his knowledge of God was based upon the knowledge of his fallen self, and was evil. But in Christ, we have the very effulgence of His brightness, and when all that He is in humanity is seen and enlarged, we have found God.

And one final word as to the purpose, “reconciling the world unto Himself.” Man’s misconceptions of God have resulted in man’s hatred of God. I want you, if you will, to think of that, and to think of it carefully. You tell me that the carnal mind is enmity against God, and I agree with you. But I ask you, Why is the carnal mind enmity against God? And from the very letter of Paul that declares the carnal mind is enmity against God, I make another quotation. The carnal mind does not know God, nor can it. It is at enmity against God. Yea, verily, I need not argue it; I need not argue it in London. But whence the enmity? The enmity is the outcome of ignorance. You say we are far away from the idolatry of our Hebrew Bible, with it’s Baal and Moloch and Mammon. I am not sure, but I will not press that. We are far away from the idolatries of ancient Greece and Rome. Again, I am not sure, but I will not argue it. But you are not far away, or humanity is not far away from it’s hatred of God. It does not express itself in brutal and vulgar language always. It expresses itself in the West End in the fact that the name of God is tabooed, and you must not mention Him. Men do not love God. Why not? They do not know Him. The old German sang well and truly, and you remember Wesley’s magnificent translation:

O God, of good the unfathomed sea
Who would not give his heart to Thee?

And whenever a man gets that vision of God, he gives his heart and everything else to Him.

But though humanity has had a revelation of God in incarnation, the incarnation as revelation does not reconcile men to God, neither can it. The birth of Jesus was the birth of a Man perfect in Himself, but other men will not be reconciled by that birth. The old prophet saw far beyond his own age, and I quote you his language: “When we see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him.” Do you imagine for a single moment that the prophet meant that there would be no beauty in the Servant of God when He came? I do not so read the prophecy. There was no beauty that would appeal to men. Why not? Because they are blind and cannot see. And here is the root of the trouble with the world.

“God was in Christ” is a great word, the meaning of which is not exhausted by the birth and life of Jesus. We must go on, and include the cross. The cradle demands the cross; or else I have seen a Man, strangely other than I am, and I shall hate Him because His purity rebukes my impurity, and His spacious, spiritual and eternal conceptions are a perpetual rebuke to my clinging to the dust of my materialism and the devilish sin that I love. Such hatred was the cause of His crucifixion. That is why they crucified Him.

And then, to face another mystery as infinite as the first, God in man suffered, as man apart from God suffers. And out of that came the fulfillment of all that began on the morning of the birth of Jesus. And when at last, by the infinite mystery of that dying, the life of that self-same Christ is communicated to men, they see Him as they had never seen Him, and they find God as they had never found Him, and in the vision is at once illumination and energy.

So that brethren – let us remember this also – not by His coming, not by the beauty of His Babyhood, the strength of His Manhood, the glory of His moral character are we saved, but by that final mystery to which this all led, the mystery of the cross; and by the way of His death I find my way back into His life for illumination and for energy. It is thus that we find God, and not only find Him intelligently, but find Him in victorious relationship and fellowship; and, to use the daring and marvelous and awe-inspiring language of Peter, we are made “partakers of the Divine nature.”

And so we have attempted to look a little beneath the surface, and have been compelled ultimately to look at something infinitely beyond the birth and life of Jesus. We know God through Jesus. No other interpretation is correct. How important then that we should know the Christ and know Him intimately. And to do it, brethren, we must begin at His cross. He is known, not by outward contemplation, but by inward revelation; and that inward revelation comes to the men who meet Him at the one trysting-place He has provided – His cross. And so I leave you at the cross, for there we must begin, and by the mystery of its cleansing tide and its regenerating forces we come into sympathy with Jesus, the Man of Nazareth, and find our God, and so our peace.

-- Excerpt from "God in Christ", a sermon from The Westminster Pulpit by G. Campbell Morgan.

The Appropriately Named "Killacycle"

This electric motorcycle does 0-60mph in less than 1 second. This is what it can do with an inexperienced rider:


And this is what it can do with an experienced rider:



It sounds like a cordless drill. The rider in the first video is OK, it looked worse than it was. Read his blog here.

It's So Obvious

Socialized medicine is not the solution

Medicare should be a sufficient example to send all voters running away from any suggestion of getting the federal government any deeper into the health care business. Economists and politicians alike predict the collapse of the current government-run health care program. It makes no sense at all even to think about expanding government's roll in the medical business. There is simply no way government can run a health care program that will not end in disaster.

It's a no-brainer but people want to get something for nothing so bad they will vote for it - and they will pay for it, too, possibly with their life.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. But then again, I hear those people in Nigeria make a killing off those email scams.

And You Want The Government To Supply Your Health Care?

Bambi vs. the Bureaucrats

Had he been a hunter, and had the mottled white doe that tumbled down a hill into his rural Oregon driveway six years ago been an adult, Jim Filipetti could have ponied up $19, applied for a deer tag and gunned the animal down. He could have butchered the deer the state now knows as "Snowball," mounted her head on the wall and moved on with his life.

But Filipetti chose to raise the injured fawn as a pet, spending thousands of dollars on veterinarian bills to treat her deformed hooves, installing strips of carpet throughout his house so she wouldn't slip on the hardwood floors, and feeding her a steady diet of sweetpeas, tomatoes and green beans—"the best that Safeway had to offer," he says. After 12 months, the house painter moved her to a pen outside his home in Molalla, Ore., but she was still a member of the family. "It was like having a dog around the house," Filipetti says.

Filipetti uses the past tense because his beloved Snowball has been seized by the state, which was considering euthanizing her.

The government wants to save you from your own stupidity with government stupidity. Yeah, that'll work. The government needs to get out of health care and out of schools, and out of playing Mommy to the nation.

Just Asking

How does a foreign country aquire any part of Nasdaq, let alone 19.9 percent? And 28 percent of the London Stock Exchange?

The transaction is being made through Borse Dubai, a holding company 100-percent owned by the government of the Emirate of Dubai and controlled by Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the head of the Dubai ruling family.

That's like selling bullets to the guy who wants to kill you.

No WMD's Here

'Dozens died in Syria-Iran missile test'

According to the report, cited by Channel 10, the joint Syrian-Iranian team was attempting to mount a chemical warhead on a Scud missile when the explosion occurred, spreading lethal chemical agents, including sarin nerve gas.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Man Bit By Rattlesnake After Putting It in His Mouth to Impress Ex-Girlfriend

Wilkinson said. "I told her it was a nice snake. 'Nothing can happen. Watch.'"

Forget The Whales...

... Save the languages!

Anderson said languages become endangered when a community decides that its language is an impediment. The children may be first to do this, he explained, realizing that other more widely spoken languages are more useful.

That's Apostate!

A very interesting video about Muslims who have converted to Christianity in Britain. Must see, actually. Being an Apostate in Britain

New Bin Laden Video

To English speaking infidels.

Kathy Griffin

Just some of my thoughts on what she said.

Jesus is an easy target. A bully will pick on the weak kids because they are not likely to fight back. There's very little danger in going after Jesus. What's going to happen? A couple of your words may get bleeped, someone will write a commentary about your insensitivity, your name gets mentioned on the news a few times, your target audience will laugh? Quentin will be signing her for another movie - life goes on.

Jesus is not capricious, He's not going to strike her down. And neither will Christians.

So what's this all about?

Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, has called for a boycott of the Emmy awards, likening the decision by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences to actions by radical Islamic states.

Johnson said "this is something I'd expect in a nation like Saudi Arabia or Taliban-controlled Afghanistan."

Bleeping or editing out a few of her words is like the actions taken by radical Islamic states? Really? Where has Ellen Johnson been living for the past six years, obviously not learning anything about Islam - except maybe from CAIR.

So why didn't Kathy Griffin tell Allah where to stick it? She could have addressed Jesus and Allah - spread the love around, heck, throw a few Hindu gods in there, too. No, that's off the table, can't do that. Even in the United States, she would have had to go into hiding for saying that. If she were in Saudi Arabia or Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, it would mean her life. She would be stoned to death or beheaded.

Kathy Griffin doesn't know Jesus, has no clue Who He really is. When He reveals Himself to her, she will change her mind. We were all enemies of God once.

And you, who were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled. - Colossians 1:21

Truly I say to you, All sins shall be forgiven to the sons of men, and blasphemies with which they shall blaspheme - Mark 3:28

Another point was made by Lauren Green in The Inaccuracy of Kathy Griffin's Remarks on Jesus:

The freedoms we enjoy in this country to speak freely and to live freely are directly related to that man who died on a cross 2,000 years ago.

And one more thing. There are many, many people who say they are Christians, and live as though saying "suck it" to Jesus. Not by words, but by deeds. Just saying.

Another Personal Jihad

Man with AK-47 assault rifle arrested after leaving Dearborn's Hemlock Park

Zorkot, a third-year medical student at Wayne State University, was allegedly armed with an AK-47 assault rifle and dressed in black clothing with camouflage paint covering his face when he was arrested Saturday in Hemlock Park.

You would never know from reading that article that he is a Muslim on a personal jihad, something which he is not shy to declare on his personal website

Here is a much better link to get to the bottom of this.

Why are these things just swept under the rug?

Amazing Photos

Last space shuttle mission - Awesome detail

Twin Tower on Sept. 11, 2001 - Most of these I hadn't seen before.

Things Are Happening, And They're Happening Fast

Manekin Pis dries up

That's to say, the capital city of the European Union has a Muslim-majority governing party.

(They talk funny over there)

Celebrity Calling

So I got a call today, yeah, Fred Thompson called. I let the machine get it, I can't be bothered with a Presidential candidate, maybe if he becomes President, then I'll answer. So, yeah, he invited me to meet him in Celebration - the town, not the party. I can't make it though, I'm too busy. He's not even President yet.

You Can Rest Easy Now

Earth Might Survive Sun’s Explosion - Not life on Earth, just the Earth itself.

What a relief, I was so worried.

Never Forget!

It Makes You Wonder

I previously posted about a possible test run on an Orlando flight. There is a lot more information about it here: The Untold Story of Delta Flight 1824.

The Aviation Nation has this on the incident.

Pat Campbell also posted about it in his blog, which includes the following from an "inside source."

There were 9 middle easterners, supposedly a family. 3 females and 6 males, they were "randomly"selected by the airline for additional screening by TSA. As a "SELECTEE" we automatically run an "EXPLOSIVE TRACE DETECTION" test on your bags after xray.
2 of the bags and some contents tested positive for SEMTEX (an explosive used by terrorists.) We tested the bags 4 times using different machines and got a positive each time. We then dump the bags...we found 3 jars of Vaseline duct taped together (as 1 cylinder) they tested positive. The Vaseline had been removed and put back in the jars, as we could see the voids on xray. We found strands of wire with the ends stripped, packets of the small eyeglass screw drivers, and 2 of the males had Vaseline smeared on their arms and neck areas. 3 of the males had false or fraudulent credentials, 1 male possessed 2 pass ports (same picture different names). After 2 hrs the FBI and OPD took them away from the checkpoint to the OPD station at OIA. From that point on I don't know what happened with them...

We removed all bags from the plane and did complete bag searches at the International gate side. We (TSA) found the 8 large bottles of Hydrogen Peroxide, not the bomb dogs.

You are 100% on the right track here. OIA is playing this thing down (probably for the bottom line) drasticly.

Hope this helps and is legible as I'm in a bit of a time crunch here.

thanks for getting the word out...OH! NOTHING IN THE LINE OF REAL EXPLOSIVES WAS FOUND, JUST TRACES.

Hard to know what to say about all this. Who's telling the truth? Hope we don't find out the hard way.

Psst, Wanna Buy A Theme Park?

Cypress Gardens will be auctioned off Sept. 25, minimum bid is $17.4 million.

No Questions Asked

Orlando held one of those sneakers for guns programs where you can turn in guns no questions asked and receive, surprise, a pair of sneakers in return. Among the guns that were turned in was a Surface-to-air missile launcher.

1. Shouldn't they get 2 pairs for turning that in?

2. No questions? Really? Not even, "Any more where that came from? We'll buy shoes for the whole family."

How Far Is Too Far?

Presidential Candidate Kucinich Blasts Bush ‘Illegal Occupation’ on Syrian TV

Is he really that stupid? And a Presidential candidate? He is a national embarrassment - at the very least. Watching this is painful. Please get this guy a straight-jacket.

Stuff This

Stuffed Ark - Life-like stuffed animals.

Giantmicrobes - Yes, microbes. Germs. You would not believe how cute those diseases are.

This Is Cute

Video of a Chihuahua playing mom to baby squirrels

Why It Pays To Recycle

Beer Cans Prevent Escape From Fire

A Cincinnati area man who died in a house fire early Wednesday morning may have survived if his escape had not been blocked by a large pile of beer cans.

Let 's Get At It

From Star Parker's Liberals love the sin and hate the sinner:

Coverage by the mainstream media of the Larry Craig scandal confirms again that liberals love the sin and hate the sinner. They've got both the Idaho senator and the conservative values he has supported in their crosshairs.

Perhaps it's relevant to take a moment and recall that the need for biblical guidance comes from the proclivity to sin. You don't need a map if you're hardwired to know where you're going.

But, for those on the left, a map isn't necessary because it doesn't matter where we are going. For them, a man going astray is proof that having a destination, and rules for getting there, is hypocrisy. The problem is not the fallen man but having rules to begin with.

That's the world, that's worldly. It doesn't just seem like things are upside down in this country, in the world. They are. And it's nothing new.

In dealing with the text "They that have turned the world upside down have come hither also (Acts 17:6)," a preacher of rare insight made use of three divisions. First, the world is upside down anyhow; secondly, to turn it upside down therefore is to turn it right side up; thirdly, let us get at it. That is the whole philosophy of our subject. Christ found men upside down. He came to invert the order and put them on their feet, that they might see things in their true relationship, and live as they ought.

This is preliminary only. There is much to do after a man's life has been changed, after it has become articulate, but nothing can be done till that is done.

Quoted from "Christian Principles" by G. Campbell Morgan.

Vouchers

I only wanted to call attention to a small part of a commentary, really not even the point of it, more of an aside. The commentary is Muslims untouchable, so get the Christians!

And this is the quote:

Non-Catholic Christian schools have been receiving state subsidies in Alberta and Saskatchewan for nearly 20 years. There has been a record of steady improvement in provincial testing results, no doubt caused in part by the competition the Christian schools offered.

American children desperately need a voucher system for their schools. Dare I say the future of America depends on it.

Let Evolution Do It's Thing

Report Says Most Polar Bears Dead By 2050

Polar bears depend on sea ice as a platform for hunting seals, which is their primary food. They rarely catch seals on land or in open water. But the sea ice is decreasing due to climate change - and the latest forecasts of how much they are shrinking are, if anything, an underestimate, scientists said.

"There is a definite link between changes in the sea ice and the welfare of polar bears," said USGS scientist Steven Amstrup, the lead author of the new studies. "As the sea ice goes, so goes the polar bear."

Well, obviously they'll evolve flippers and other adaptations to overcome the loss of ice. Oh ye of little faith (in evolution).

Another Test Run

You are not hearing about this on the news, not even Drudge, at least not yet. Here's a radio interview of Doug Hagman by Pat Campbell.

Middle Eastern men flying out of Orlando International Airport trying to get screwdrivers on a plane and bomb sniffing dogs hit on hydrogen peroxide in their luggage. You have to hear this.

Listen here

This Is Actually Quite Surprising

Not that there are government officials on the take, just that they were arrested. Especially so many from one state.

I guess they got a little too brazen. Discretion is the better part of valor don't you know.

Don't Go In The Water

Encephalitis Kills Another Young Swimmer

Authorities have released the name of a 10-year-old Osceola County youth who died from contracting amoebic encephalitis while swimming in a lake. And officials are investigating a third possible death from a deadly waterborne amoeba.

Health officials said that there is an increased risk of infection by the organism in all freshwater areas throughout Florida, especially during summer months when the water temperature exceeds 80 degrees.

Water sports or activities such as wakeboarding, water skiing, swimming or diving puts people at a greater risk, officials said. The amoeba invades the brain and the disease progresses rapidly, usually resulting in death within three to seven days. The infection cannot be spread from person to person or contracted from a properly maintained swimming pool.

Quote of the Day

Many on the political left are so entranced by the beauty of their vision that they cannot see the ugly reality they are creating in the real world.

-- Thomas Sowell

Jonah Goldberg on Hypocrisy

Craig’s List of Lessons

The Left claims to hate “moralizers.” So any failure to live like Jesus while telling others to follow his example is an outrage, even the defining challenge of our lives. (In 2005, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean pledged, “I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy.”)

One solution to the hypocrisy epidemic, of course, is to have no morals at all. You can’t violate your principles if you don’t have any. Another solution: simply define down your principles until they are conveniently consistent with your preferred lifestyle. My own perfect moral code would mandate a strict regimen of not enough exercise, too much scotch and a diet rich in cured meats. Men would be religiously barred from taking out the garbage until their wives told them no less than three times to do so. “Thou Shalt Not Shave More Than Thrice Monthly”: I’d never be a hypocrite if only the Bible gave us commandments like that.

But the Left has another solution. Under its system, you can still be a moralizer. You can still tell people what to do and how to live. And, best of all, you can still fall short of your ideals personally while guiltlessly trying to use government to impose your moral vision on others. All you have to do is become a liberal moralizer.

Once you become a liberal, you can wax eloquent on the glories of the public schools while sending your kids to private school. You can wax prolix about the greedy rich while making a fortune on the side. You can even use the government to impose your values willy-nilly, from racial quotas and confiscatory tax rates to draconian environmental policies and sex-ed for grade-schoolers — all of which will paid for in part by people who disagree with you.

You don’t even have to give up traditional religion, so long as you now define the teachings of your faith in perfect compliance with the Democratic platform.

Why, just look at John Kerry. In 2004, the Democratic nominee repeatedly insisted that his religious faith is “why I fight against poverty. That’s why I fight to clean up the environment and protect this earth. That’s why I fight for equality and justice. All of those things come out of that fundamental teaching and belief of faith.” Great! But when it comes to, say, abortion, consulting one’s faith is a no-no: “What is an article of faith for me is not something that I can legislate on somebody who doesn’t share that article of faith.”

Friendly Reminder

If you are taking you child to daycare, DON'T FORGET SHE'S IN THE CAR!

It’s just tragic beyond comprehension.

That's an understatement.

Florida Wants To Have A Yard Sale

Crist Says Selling Lottery, Roads May Be Money Source

"What I understand is that sometimes there are those in private industry who will give you significant upfront dollars, in the billions, for a lottery or for a road like Alligator Alley," Crist said.

How much can you get for the whole state?

Did The Law Change And Nobody Told Me?

When you get pulled over by the police are you supposed to pull over to the left now? I'm confused. (no jokes) More often than not, every time I see someone pulled over they are in the median or in a left turn lane.

There is a car pulled over right now in front of the hotel in the turn lane, there are 3 cop cars behind him and they have him handcuffed (for pulling over to the left I hope) as they go through his car. Do so many people run now that they are just happy they are stopped? If I pulled over to the left would they give me a ticket for that and the original offense? I even saw a woman getting a ticket while she sat at a light in the left turn lane - waiting for the green arrow. I guess it didn't turn green fast enough for the policeman.

Maybe it's one of those "statements," like wearing your pants below your ass. Some people just like to be contrarian.

She was ...

Born in East L.A.

See this if that didn't make any sense.

Honey, Have you Seen Mittens?

Massive Spider Web

Looks like something out of a 50's horror movie. Attack of the Giant Spiders.

Breaking News

There has been an announcement that there will be an announcement that Fred Thompson will announce he is running for president. Really.

Amazing ...

She's smoked for 93 years and counted every one.

An iron-lunged pensioner has celebrated her 100th birthday by lighting up her 170,000th cigerette from a candle on her birthday cake.

When All Guns Are Outlawed ...

Gun crimes in England have almost doubled since 1997, when a ban on firearms began.

Drunk Driving Is No Laughing Matter

But, you have to admit, this is kinda funny.

Lunar Eclipse

No one told me there would be a lunar eclipse last night. I stepped outside around 5-5:30am and saw the moon and my first thought was, "That's not a full moon. The calender is wrong?" I didn't figure it out until tonight when I saw this video by Chris Pirillo.

Mark Steyn

They wait for us to run again

Then as now, the anti-war debate is conducted as if it's only about the place you're fighting in: Vietnam is a quagmire, Iraq is a quagmire, so get out of the quagmire. Wrong. The "Vietnam war" was about Vietnam, if you had the misfortune to live in Saigon.

But if you lived in Damascus and Moscow and Havana, the Vietnam war was about America: American credibility, American purpose, American will. For our enemies today, it still is. Osama bin Laden made a bet – that, notwithstanding the T-shirt slogan, "These Colors Do Run": They ran from Vietnam, and they ran from the helicopters in the desert, and from Lebanon and Somalia – and they will run from Iraq and Afghanistan, because that is the nature of a soft, plump ersatz-superpower that coils up in the fetal position if you prick its toe. Even Republicans like Sen. John Warner seem peculiarly anxious to confirm the bin Laden characterization.

Another Sweepstakes Win!

I just received word I won a set of Bose Triport Headphones. Sounds good, I'll take them. Still waiting for the big win, though.

Thank you Electronics Warehouse.

Oh Goody,

Two more publicly-funded Islamic schools in America. Here's what Neal Boortz had to say about it:

And if you didn't think that the news about government education could get any worse, the Ohio Department of Education has discovered something that its taxpayers should be outraged over.

In Columbus, Ohio there are two publicly-funded charter schools: International Academy of Columbus and Westside Academy. They are operated by Islamic extremists associated with the national and Ohio chapter of CAIR. At least one of the schools has hosted an anti-Israel CAIR-OH "teach-in" in the past year.

CAIR's national vice chairman, Ahmad Al-Akhras, is one of the incorporators of both charter schools and the treasurer of International Academy. Also on the board of both schools is Abukar Arman. You might remember him from a story two weeks ago where he was forced to resign for the Ohio Homeland Security panel for his connections and sympathy with terrorists.

Arabic is part of their core curriculum. Thus their standardized test scores (on English language exams) are well below average, and the school only meets 2 out of 19 state indicators for proficiency. However, the schools continue to receive millions of dollars in taxpayer money every year to keep it open and renew their contracts.

Because there are so many Somali refugees attending the schools, both of the schools qualify for tens of thousands of dollars in federal grants under Title III. Furthermore, the Ohio Title III Director is none other than Al-Akhras' and Arman's business partner, Abdinar Mohamud.

How much longer are we going to put up with this nonsense? Every day you think that the news about government education can't get any worse ... and every day it does.

There is something seriously wrong in this country, in case you haven't already noticed.

He Had A Bad Day ...

She had a worse day.

State Highway Patrol Trooper Jason L. Turner loosened the handcuffs on Francina Pugh, 53, of Cleveland, and forgot to engage the safety lock on his patrol car door the night of March 30, 2006.

Turner lost sight of Pugh for up to 10 minutes while he searched her car and talked with a tow truck operator. She escaped and was hit by several cars not far from where she was stopped for erratic driving. Her body was severed and her skull crushed.

By the time he realized his prisoner was gone, Turner was at his patrol post in Hiram. He drove right by her walking along the turnpike but believed she was secured in the back.

The officer got a one day suspension. Somehow that doesn't seem right. Even if she wasn't killed, not noticing that your prisoner escaped until you got back to the station is pretty bad.

Ya Think Maybe ..

This global warming thing is starting to get a bit ridiculous yet? Now moose are the problem. And cows, of course, but we already knew that. You're still buying into it?

The Earth is a dangerous place, climate changes. It's not human activity doing it. I'm gonna make a new bumper sticker - Climate Changes! Always has, always will. Sometimes the sun burns hotter, sometimes cooler. The Earth is not going to be here forever, one well placed comet buys the farm. Even if nothing unusual happens it will all eventually burn up anyway. That is the future of the Earth. That's what science says, that's what the Bible said long before science knew.

Embrace the truth and live. Make the world a better place right where you are, do your part - clean up your house, clean up your yard, clean up your life.

More Illusions and Lies

Jesse Lee Peterson wrote about brown on black crime in Black Americans die while their leaders fiddle. I've seen indications of this (such as Newark) in the news but didn't put it together and realize it was such a problem, probably for the reasons he explains.

Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the NAACP, Newark Mayor Booker, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and others work to promote the false illusion that blacks and Hispanics are united, while they ignore the cold reality that blacks are being targeted daily.

At a recent press conference in Chicago, Sharpton continued promulgating the unity lie, saying, "We [blacks and Hispanics] need to sit down and see how we can share power in Chicago. …"

Jackson went so far as to provide cover to then-Mexican President Vicente Fox after Fox's insulting comments that "illegals do the work that even blacks won't do."

If blacks were under this kind of attack from whites, these same hypocrites would be marching in the streets.

In reality, black and Hispanic "leaders" have a false alliance because their union is based on a mutual hatred of the "white man." They seek to build a coalition of minority voters to get whites out of power.

Fighting an almost nonexistent enemy while ignoring an actual, dangerous enemy in your midsts. There is a lot of that going around. It's become the American way.

Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

Good Joseph Farrah commentary on The marketing of lies

Education or Indoctrination

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

There is a public school opening in New York City that "will integrate intensive Arabic language instruction and the study of Middle Eastern history and historical figures," including the life and teachings of the prophet Muhammad. WND also explains that field trips will include destinations in the Middle East and that "teacher materials will be adapted from publications supplied by the Council on Islamic Education."

New York City school officials have tried to assure the public that the school will be "non-religious" and will not promote a political or religious ideology, but skepticism abounds.

Are they out of their minds? Apparently. This is a public school, not private. Publicly funded.

Can you imagine the response of New York City educrats to school organizers who would have the temerity to advocate public funding of a school that would focus on the life and teachings of Jesus, promote the virtues of Western Civilization, and offer field trips to the holy city of Jerusalem (complete with side trips to Bethlehem and the Sea of Galilee)? Why, those "constitutional Neanderthals" would be thrown out on their ear! Their proposal wouldn't even pass the laugh test at the NYC DOE. Before you could say "ACLU," there would be a federal lawsuit to enjoin public funding of the proposed "inherently religious" enterprise. Not so, however, with Kahlil Gibran International Academy. In post-modern New York City, all religions may be equal, but some are more equal than others.

Second, it is duplicitous to suggest that one can separate Arabic culture from the religion of Islam. That's like trying to square a circle. It can't be done. In Islam, there is no separation of church and state. Islamic fundamentalists do not draw a distinction between religion, culture and politics. The three are united under Sharia law. These religious zealots see the state as a primary vehicle for advancing Islam. Indeed, the coercive power of the state is essential to spreading the teachings of the Koran. The words, "religious liberty," are not in the lexicon of these fundamentalists. "Convert or die!" is their mantra.

I've read articles about this school off and on for a few months now, I can't believe this even got past the idea stage. They will get away with what we let them get away with, they will take every inch and push for more. You have to learn to say no or they will take everything you have. If we set proper boundaries and don't compromise them, we will all get along much better. They don't respect us because we don't respect ourselves. The same can be said of the Mexican 'illegals' invasion. Boundaries are good. It doesn't mean you hate what is outside the boundary, many times it frees you to love them more.

Brain Dead?

Burt Prlutsky has a question and I've never been able to figure this one out either.

For instance, a question that constantly plagues me is: why are there still people who long to see Communism prevail? Even back in the 1930s, when America was suffering through the Great Depression, very few American leftists packed their bags and moved to the Soviet Union. They certainly paid lip service to the so-called worker’s paradise, the Communist Eden, trying to peddle it to the masses, but they, themselves, Stalin’s “useful idiots,” chose to remain here, in Chicago and New York, Philadelphia and Detroit. A few of them went over there, but they didn’t stay long. All in all, they seemed to think it was a nice place to visit, but they didn’t want to die there. So why do so many people continue to promote the vile system?

Perhaps way back in the old days when Marx and Engels were kicking ideas around, people could be excused for seeing something nice in their theories. But ever since then, wherever societies have attempted to turn theory into reality, the earth has been bathed in blood, whether it was in Russia, China, East Germany, Cambodia, Cuba, Venezuela, Hungary or North Korea; brutal tyrannies, each and every one. In none of those countries, not too surprisingly, has art, literature or science, flourished. Aside from various forms of torture, these regimes have contributed absolutely nothing to mankind, and yet the yahoos of the Left continue their incessant cheerleading.

Such extremely successful capitalists as Oliver Stone, Steven Spielberg and Michael Moore, pay court to Fidel Castro, in spite of the fact that Castro censors the Cuban press, persecutes homosexuals, imprisons AIDS victims, and executes his political foes. But, then, what else would you expect in a world in which Che Guevara posters continue to sell in the millions?

Speaking of millions, even I was shocked to read that, according to Forbes, Cuba’s dictator is richer than England’s queen. I knew it was good to be king, but apparently it’s even better being a left-wing tyrant.

Truer Words Never Were

Charlene's Story by Greg Laurie

There's another story of a woman who was a lot like my mother, or perhaps I should say that my mother was a lot like her. We know her as the "woman at the well," an empty person who thought romance and sex would fill the void in her life. She went from husband to husband, hoping to find her prince. But after five husbands, she simply gave up. She was disillusioned, scorned, and ignored. That is, until Jesus came along.

This woman had searched for, but never found, her heart's desire. What she (and people like my mom) did not understand is that she was trying to fill a void in her life that was created by God. That void is loneliness for God. Jesus told this woman, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again." In fact, this statement could be written over all the wells of life:

* Over the well of success: Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.

* Over the well of pleasure: Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.

* Over the well of materialism: Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.

No matter how much we have, if we don't have Christ, we will always be thirsty. But when Jesus quenches that thirst, we will be satisfied.

Jesus cut to the core of her pain. He told her there was nothing the world had to offer that would quench her spiritual thirst. "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:13–14).

If you don't get it now, one day you will. It might be at the end of a long road. Like these guys, it's never enough, no matter what it is, you're never really satisfied until you're drinking from the right well.

Dean Hit Jamaica As Cat 4

Hurricane Dean Pummels Jamaica As Category 4 Storm

It didn't quite make cat 5 status before hitting Jamaica, and that's a good thing. Still, cat 4 is not fun. I hope loss of life is minimal. I really hope it's zero but I doubt it.

Pre-Hurricane Delusions

Jamaica braces for Dean

"I'm not worried at all right now. I just don't think it's going to hit us, I can't believe right now it's going to hit us at all," said 26-year-old Althea Smikle,

"I'm not that worried because the homes are all very well constructed in Kingston," added 31-year-old elementary school teacher Jason Simmons, who lives in the Crossroads section of Kingston. "I am a little bit concerned for my parents' place though because of the flooding in their neighborhood, but you just put everything up on tables and chairs if it starts flooding in the house.

"We haven't really planned, just bought some food and batteries. I don't know that anybody is really that concerned. The people we talk to all seem fairly non-chelant, though I've heard of some fights breaking out in grocery stores. But so far that's just stories going around."

Well, good luck with that cat 5 hurricane, perhaps we'll get back to you Monday and see what you think then.

Speaking of Eating

How about fish that live on dead skin cells. Yes, the latest in spa treatments. Get one today.

Secret Weapon

Mammals Attack the Middle East

Iran's news service recently announced that security forces... how do I say this... "captured" 14 squirrels on the suspicion that they were spying on behalf of a Western power (read: the Great Satan).

They will go on trial as spies and the beheadings start at sunset after the trial. President Bush issued a statement saying if they are not released in 3 days he will send Jimmy Carter to talk their ears off.

It was only a couple weeks ago that residents of Basra, Iraq, complained that British troops had released man-eating badgers to terrorize the city, which was already coping with militias that kill—if not eat—people.

You thought Green Berets were tough? No, no, no, watch out for those man-eating militias. I believe they trained Bear Grylls. He'll eat anything.

Move Over Hummer!

There's a new enemy in town: The new public enemy Number 1: bottled water

"Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt."

In light of the NASA's newly republished figures of yearly temperature readings ...

The hottest year since 1880 becomes 1934 instead of 1998, which is now just second; 1921 is third.

Four of the 10 hottest years were in the 1930s, only three in the past decade. Claiming that man-made carbon dioxide has caused the natural disasters of recent years makes as much sense as claiming fossil-fuel burning caused the Great Depression.

The 15 hottest years since 1880 are spread over seven decades. Eight occurred before atmospheric carbon dioxide began its recent rise; seven occurred afterwards.

In other words, there is no discernible trend, no obvious warming of late.

... this headline from the Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post is very, well, enlightening:

D.C. resident John Lockwood was conducting research at the Library of Congress and came across an intriguing Page 2 headline in the Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt."

The 1922 article, obtained by Inside the Beltway, goes on to mention "great masses of ice have now been replaced by moraines of earth and stones," and "at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared."

"This was one of several such articles I have found at the Library of Congress for the 1920s and 1930s," says Mr. Lockwood. "I had read of the just-released NASA estimates, that four of the 10 hottest years in the U.S. were actually in the 1930s, with 1934 the hottest of all."

All Time Best Frivilous Lawsuit

Hands down, this is the winner.

South Carolina Inmate hits Michael Vick with '$63,000,000,000 Billion Dollar' Lawsuit alleging Al Qaeda ties.

Riches alleges that Vick stole two white mixed pit bull dogs from his home in Holiday, Fla., and used them for dogfighting operations in Richmond, Va. The complaint goes on to allege that Vick sold the dogs on eBay and “used the proceeds to purchase missiles from the Iran government.”

The complaint also alleges that Vick would need those missiles because he pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda in February of this year.

“Michael Vick has to stop physically hurting my feelings and dashing my hopes,” Riches writes in the complaint.

Blind Treating the Blind

I was going to post this video on Aug 2nd but never got back to writing something to go with it. It is true that doctors don't know what causes most mental illness and the medications that are used are largely prescribed on a trial and error basis.

When I read this article by David Kupelian I had to post it with this video. My opinion is he gets it right.

But let's pause, putting aside for a moment the dogma of all the "experts," and consider carefully and deeply what we're really looking at.

We are talking about human beings who have somehow developed a secret inner life dominated by exceedingly dark thoughts and compulsions. Wild mood swings. Horrible, consuming resentment teetering on the edge of violent frenzy. Paranoid delusions fueled by intense emotion. Satanic visitations and inner voices that torment people mercilessly, sometimes for years, commanding them to commit murder or suicide – or both.

Does this really sound to you like a physiological problem in need of drugs? Sound like a disease? A biochemical imbalance in the brain? Neurotransmitter activity that's too sluggish?

Or does it possibly sound like something much more mental-emotional, even spiritual, in origin?

The truth is, if we think we can solve problems like these with pills, we might be just as delusional as the people we're trying to help.

Before we go on, let's state the obvious: There are genuine, organic brain diseases that may benefit from drug therapy – but these are relatively rare. And there are also instances where an individual is so psychotic as to pose a direct danger to him/herself and others, where sedation might be appropriate. But what I'm writing about here is the overwhelming majority of cases where psychiatric drugs are unwisely relied on to fix Americans' mental-emotional-spiritual problems.

Got $400,000 Burning a Hole in Your Pocket?

Buy a new Lamborghini and celebrate by getting drunk and crashing it within hours of taking it home.

Everyone's impressed.

This Is News?

East German Border Guards Had 'Shoot-to-Kill' Orders to Stop Defections to West

That was pretty much common knowledge at the time, especially among those who tried to escape.

What Is NASA Thinking?

NASA: Gash Penetrated Entire Width of Heat Tiles

A close-up laser inspection by Endeavour's astronauts Sunday revealed that a 31/2-inch-long gouge penetrates all the way through thermal tiles on the shuttle's belly, and had NASA urgently calculating whether risky spacewalk repairs are needed.

They're calculating whether to repair it? The gouge goes all the way through the tile "exposing the felt material sandwiched between the tiles and the shuttle's aluminum frame." You don't take the chance, you fix the tiles. Can you imagine the uproar if they don't fix it and the shuttle burns up on re-entry? What about the crew, NASA is willing to risk them?

This is a no-brainer, stop calculating and repair the damage.

Over $4.00 a Gallon Here

No, not gas, milk! Milk prices rise to record highs

It was $2.40 to 2.80 not so long ago, now about $4.17. I've seen it at $4.35.

With Her Bare Hands

It wasn't so long ago a guy here in Florida killed a rabid bobcat by strangling it after it attacked him.

Not to be outdone, a woman in Connecticut strangled a rabid raccoon with her bare hands after it attacked a 5 year old she was with.

How Do They Know This Stuff?

I got a call this morning from my credit card company checking to make sure some recent purchases weren't fraudulent. Actually it was only two purchases, each less than $35.00. I appreciate them checking but I wonder what caused the red flag? Walmart?

So anyway, they asked me some security questions to make sure it was really me. One was how tall does my drivers license say I am and the other was what color was my old Firebird that I sold? They must have gotten this information from the government because I sure don't remember ever giving it to them, I sure didn't tell them I sold it. If you know where to look, the information is out there. And apparently, they are looking.

Gesundheit

It's Laughable

Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’

I'm all for treading as lightly as possible on the planet and "do no harm" is a great motto to go by when you can but the whole global warming/environmental movement thing is way out of hand. Talk about worshiping the created rather than the Creator. Now in their circular thinking they are beginning to turn it all around so normal human behavior like walking is worse for the planet than driving.

Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated.

The only problem with ignoring the lunatics is they begin to take over.

We already have human sacrifice abortion, they are working hard on legalizing euthanasia, but they kind of cut around the death penalty for being a cold blooded killer/menace to society thing - for some reason that's not OK.

They are against global warming, even though they say that would solve the problem of too many people, I guess because then they wouldn't be in control. Must maintain control.

Any perceived control over the earth by humans is an illusion anyway, easily wiped out with one storm, one tornado, one earthquake, one volcano, or one wave. Take your pick.

YouTube Still Down

After I posted the Bathroom Etiquette video, YouTube goes down. Although that article says it came up after 6 hours, it is not working right now. They are still having problems.

I can't say I'm addicted to YouTube, but I sure do miss it.

It's working now.

Better Living Through Bathroom Etiquette

Huh?

China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate

Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing’s authority over Tibet’s restive and deeply Buddhist people.

“The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1.

What? Isn't that kind of like saying you can't go to heaven when you die?

For the first time China has given the Government the power to ensure that no new living Buddha can be identified, sounding a possible death knell to a mystical system that dates back at least as far as the 12th century.

I guess what they are trying to do is keep people from saying they are the reincarnation of (whatever, I don't know) and developing a following.

The U.N. should pass a law saying no one can have 72 virgins when they die. Nah, Everyone would ignore it anyway.

Not Panic Mode, But ...

Bridge collapse no freak accident

"The nation is failing to even maintain the substandard conditions we currently have," said the report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers, "a dangerous trend that is affecting highway safety, as well as the health of the economy."

"Ignoring bad infrastructure and hoping it will do no harm is not an option anymore," says Rooney. "Places that take care of their infrastructure are safer, healthier and more prosperous."

The "ME" generation strikes again.

Busted

Surveillance Camera Captures 'Slip-N-Fall' Scam

They got the whole thing on video.

Kiss the Bricks

Are you kidding me? The NASCAR "tradition" is about 10 years old but this is the first I've seen pictures of it. I saw it on ESPN first and couldn't believe it.

Here are some pictures.

I'm sorry, but there's something wrong with that.