There's no place like Home

We're in Fargo North Dakota. Former home. We lived here for over 20 years after we were married. 20 tumultuous years of our 42. Tough Years. When we left it was to make a new start, new life, new chances.

Illinois was the destination to make that all happen. Now we come back to visit. We no longer live here. It no longer feels like home. It feels like we are visiting old ghosts.

We are here because tomorrow is Baby Dedication. Our son Tim is preaching. He's a good preacher (takes after his dad - ha). Tianna Dawn Redlin, Grandchild 4. We don't baptize babies. I won't go into it but Baptizing babies is not only not scriptural, it's dangerous spiritually.

Another time for that can of worms.

Then after church where my son Tim is preaching, we are off to Hornbachers to "Stock Up". We'll buy the same old things. Lefse, Haralson Apples, Pickled herring, and caramel rolls. We don't get that in Chicagoland.

We have to be back in Chicagoland by noon on Monday. We have opera Monday Night. They will carry that off if we are or are not there. It's Die Frau Ohne Shatten. 4+ hours long, early curtain and a really tough opera. I've listened to it on the radio ONCE. Struggled to get thru it. But Debora Voight is singing so how bad can it be.

My back hurts. Too much sitting. Too much to eat. Sleeping in uncomfortable beds. Overall I'm tired and ready to go home to Chicago.

I've seen enough ghosts from the past reminding me why living where I do was a change I needed.

I need to get back to my regular life.

What do you do about it when the truth is really not what you wanted to hear

Charles Krauthammer has a great article in the WAPO. The fact that the war in Iraq is being won in every way is really an inconvenient truth to the liberal side of the political arguments.

What to do?

Deny deny deny.

Look, I'm not crazy about the war in general. I'm not crazy about the whole methodology used in this conflict. But we are winning. It's over. We won.

So, what are they ever going to do?

Deny.

Frankly I'm pretty glad things are working out. There's going to be lots of other things going on in the world we are going to face, let's now stabilize and exit stage left except for Camp Bush with about 75,000 troops.

Now, what about that next door neighbor, Mr ABINANUTJOB, how's it goin eh? Wassup buddy. Maybe we'll go for a drive around your little country. What ya say?

Remembering Thanksgivings Past

I think of memorable thanksgivings. What's routine is eating too much, sleeping too much, and talking to people I haven't seen for a while.

Some Remembered Thanksgivings include:

When I was a child, before the big day we got 2 feet of snow (or at least is seemed like 2' to a 10 year old). I trudged off to the movie in Downtown Ellendale. Cars didn't make the trip but we did it on foot.

Another was at the Rudebusch home in one cold fall day. The turkey was on the top of the oil heater. It was being basted. It had been cooking for over a day at low heat. It was the best I ever ate.

There was a time when at my Grandma Lee's dinner was cooked on a wood stove. It was fabulous. Pies, turkey, baked potatoes, baked bread. This was not because it was fashionable. There was no REA yet. Electricity.

It was a fall after we were married and Tim was a little guy, we didn't go anywhere for Thanksgiving. We were pretty poor. We were married about 5 years. It was not a plentiful time. But, there was thanksgiving and joy. I've remembered that as one of the best.

Once we were the family Redlin, we put 3 pieces of corn on every place and every person had to say 3 things they were thankful for. It was a joyful time.

There is much I have to be thankful for, I have memories. It's just that life is changing, people are moving along. I don't know what to make of all this.

There is not much more I can say other than I am thankful but I think we make Thanksgiving more work and eating and sleeping and basketball than we should.

Have a good thanksgiving what's left of it all.

OFF LINE PROBABLY

Peggy and I are leaving for the norths of Dakota today.  Be gone till next Monday PM or for all practical purposes, till Tues next.

 

I know I take a chance posting this but the neighbors have an eye on the place, they have a key, and they have a gun and as Julie says, "they know how to use it".  I was always amused by that statement.

 

So, I'm sure I will have great profundity to share upon returning from the Polaris district.  That will be something new.  Great profundity from me that is.

 

Have a good Thanksgiving.  I will.  I'm very thankful for.

• Breath and Health
• Wonderful Wife
• Work that I Can do
• The Call of God on my life

 

Those four are all things that could be gone tomorrow.  It's only the grace of a true and living God that allows me to have them for another second. I don't take that lightly.

 

If I don't find a free wireless access I'll "talk to you" next on Tuesday.

Weather from Jesus to Now is just the same as from Jesus to NOW

The last 2000 years are pretty easy to track. Trees, snow pack, ice floes, etc the records are there. We have a pretty good idea of what the years of weather were since Jesus walked the earth.

According to an actual scientist with actual credentials who actually knows something about weather, It's getting warmer, it's been warmer in the past and his guess is it will get warmer and colder and then warmer. Climate change has been going on for a very long time.

Then colder,. NOW, it's getting warmer. We will live thru this.

Despite what the alarmists say. They extrapolate the worst. The big time hockey stick of temperature we have all heard of is well discounted. Here is a chart that might help you understand how over time we have been warm cold warm cold and now warm.

Read the article if you like long detailed footnoted documentation to prove things. Or believe your eyes.

I'm done being nice - It's Monday

All weekend I was kind and nice. But, I wake up and read:

Some poll in Parade Magazine. Should the US continue to Possess and improve nuclear weapons. They posed it as, Do we need NEW Nukes?

63% said NO!

Are they idiots? Do they think the rest of the world will play nice if we do? What king of stupidity pervades our culture. I blame a failed education system for turning out morons. Then I read the Wall Street Journal and this article. So there is a voice of common sense out there.

THEN

Junk Science Day:

Peak Oil. Renowned scientists who agree on everything like global warming being caused by humans (NOT) have also make pronouncements on how much oil we can or cannot produce from this planet. None of them agree even close.

Here's a chart.

It means that by 2030 we will produce between 65 million barrels of oil per day or 140 million. As Bob "Mr. Baseball" Uecker in Major League would say, "Just a little outside". That's not statistical error. That's a major discrepancy. Each side of the peak oil debate will pick their favorite expert and pronounce like they know what they are talking about.

I'm guessing these are all people (the experts) who made it thru 6th grade science.

This isn't about liberal or conservative. I believe there are lots of conservatives and liberals who close their eyes, click their red slippers together and say, "I wish there were no nukes, I wish there were no nukes". "I wish global warming would go away" and I wish the world wouldn't run out of oil.

They don't know and neither do I. And neither do YOU !

Quit believing everything you read or hear. I spend an inordinate amount of time using snopes to discredit stupid conservative emails of what George Carlin didn't say, or what Hillary Clinton is up to (who according to a recent Wall Street Journal poll is now favored 3-2 as the next president and that's WSJ readers), or Romney being a Mormon and how bad that is. Stupid stuff. People believing every phony thing that comes along left wing or right. I'm intolerant of both. THINK. Go back and study the science. Question everything. Quit being such a sheepling. I would say that the rumormongering and stupidity is worse on the left, then I get some other inane thing from a conservative friend of mine. Both are gullible.

OK, I'm ranting again.

I will tell you one thing that bugs me however. We blame SUV driving Americans for raping the earth. We are pikers. If we wanted to rape the earth we would be far less invasive than a copper mine in Chile that you can see from outer space, coal burning in China (thanks for the articles RBB, you are right. We should burn coal cleanly, but we should burn coal), and destroying rain forests globally. Earth rape is happening. I want to stop it. Stopping earth rape is not left or right.

Kyoto would be a treaty I could get behind if it sanctioned earth rape cessation and was not focused on blatantly picking people's pockets for some crooked UN slimeball's gain. Kyoto is not about global warming, it's about money.

It's Monday and I'm back and irritated. I need to take my meds.