Temp Change

I'm in South Dakota.

Drove to Des Moines to meet son Kevin. It was 88 degrees when we met. By the time we got to Watertown it was 35. Woke up this morning to snow.

Wow.

A few short miles.

ARBOR DAY HOLIDAY

Did you know that today is a state Holiday in NEBRASKA, Arbor Day?

I think that's a good thing. Why is there earth day and arbor day? Why not celebrate the tree?

What pagan religion is celebrating the earth?

I saw some beautiful purple red catkins on a cottonwood yesterday. WOW. I said a word of thanks to the one who made the tree.

I'm glad we spend one day a year to celebrate the tree.

Off to SD

I'm riding with Kevin. Off to Watertown. Funeral. Road Trip.

It's going to be great to spend some long quality time with him.

He's a good man.

On the other hand, we are going to bury a beloved aunt.

This will be a time to share ideas. Many. He's a good thinker. Challenges me. Smart as his dad.. HA!

I think there is an amazing clarity that comes with experience, age, spiritual centeredness and rational thinking. We have great conversations.

This is going to be good.

When Stupid Speaks

Just so you know. Our present administration has very stupid people in positions of power. They are there to placate the people who can't add and subtract. That would be liberals. We have happy little people who believe in the fairy tale of energy from nothing.

Here is a bit of a read on all that from Chicago Boyz.

Bad news, Obama’s Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Jon Wellinghoff, is bad at math.

No new nuclear or coal plants may ever be needed in the United States, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said today.

“We may not need any, ever,” Jon Wellinghoff told reporters at a U.S. Energy Association forum.

Wellinghoff said renewables like wind, solar and biomass will provide enough energy to meet baseload capacity and future energy demands. Nuclear and coal plants are too expensive, he added.

Okay, let’s look at the numbers, shall we?

Wellinghoff says:

There’s enough renewable energy to meet energy demand, Wellinghoff said. “There’s 500 to 700 gigawatts of developable wind throughout the Midwest, all the way to Texas. There’s probably another 200 to 300 gigawatts in Montana and Wyoming that can go West.”

Wow, that’s a thousand gigawatts or 1 terawatt of power just waiting to be captured! Obviously, we can depend on wind power right?

Well, no. Right now, the U.S. consumes roughly 4.1 terawatts of electricity and heat from electricity generation. That means that at most wind power will produce a little under 1/4 of our current power needs.

But it gets better. The U.S. gets 19.4% of its power from nuclear power. That comes to 790 gigawatts. These nuclear power plants will start going offline in 2020. That means over 75% of the most optimistic wind power projections will be eaten up just replacing nuclear plants. Coal plants produce 1.99 terrawatts.

So, if we don’t build replacement nukes and we start phasing out coal plants we will be 1.7 terrawatts in the hole based just on current consumption. Future consumption is estimated to be anywhere from 5-6 terawatts on up by 2030. If we get a breakthrough that makes electric cars practical, we will see almost a doubling of electricity use by 2030.

Oh, what is the total contribution of all alternative electricity sources? Currently, it’s 2.5% of 4.1 terawatts, so that comes to 102 gigawatts. In order to just replace nuclear and coal plants in use today we have to increase alternative generation by a factor of 27. We would have to accomplish most of that within twenty to thirty years!

Nothing, absolutely nothing about Obama and the American Left today scares me as much as their delusional energy policy. A modern economy is basically just a mechanism for using electricity to turn dirt into useful things. No electricity, no economy. As I wrote before, the great danger that Obama’s delusions pose is that it’s easy for Obama to cripple coal the, gas and nuclear electricity generation we have now but very difficult, perhaps impossible, to create practical alternative energy sources that meet all the parameters that Obama wants. Obama can wreck our energy grid with the stroke of a pen, and the effects will only become apparent decades in the future.

We are currently in the grip of a mass delusion about alternative energy, just as we were in the grip of a mass delusion during the ‘73-’83 energy crisis. The majority of Americans seem to be buying the innumeric argument that wind and solar can completely replace fossil and nuclear power and can provide for future increases in energy consumption. Obama will find it easy to muster support for crippling the energy grid.

China and other countries will invest in serious, dense, reliable energy such as coal and nuclear while we spend trillions on technology that leaves us starved for energy.

We are so boned.

World Changer Changes Worlds

No hyperbole intended, but Bernice Redlin, My aunt, Married to my dad's brother died this morning. She was always the strong one. We visited her and Wally last summer. Life seemed like it was set for a while. Now not. I am sad, but Wally had just gone into a nursing home.

Life ends. Sometimes because life changes.

When I called my brother I said, "This is the call you know will come but you wish you didn't have to make or take".

I have many fond memories. Picnics at Wally and Bernice's. Christmas together. Lots of reminiscences.

Now a page turns. A book closes.

She will be missed. She is.

A little GREEN REALITY for those who need Redemption on Earth Day

Peter Huber, like thousands of others have stumbled into the truth about the stupid A-Green policies of liberals. I say A-Green as I would A-Moral or A-Symmetrical. I heard from the Throne this morning and He told me He would like it very much if we didn't despoil his gift to us when he created the Heavens and the Earth.

Peter Huber identifies the insanity that Ecological Earth Worship gets you....

Shoveling wind and sun is much, much harder. Windmills are now 50-story skyscrapers. Yet one windmill generates a piddling 2 to 3 megawatts. A jumbo jet needs 100 megawatts to get off the ground; Google is building 100-megawatt server farms. Meeting New York City’s total energy demand would require 13,000 of those skyscrapers spinning at top speed, which would require scattering about 50,000 of them across the state, to make sure that you always hit enough windy spots. To answer the howls of green protest that inevitably greet realistic engineering estimates like these, note that real-world systems must be able to meet peak, not average, demand; that reserve margins are essential; and that converting electric power into liquid or gaseous fuels to power the existing transportation and heating systems would entail substantial losses. What was Mayor Bloomberg thinking when he suggested that he might just tuck windmills into Manhattan? Such thoughts betray a deep ignorance about how difficult it is to get a lot of energy out of sources as thin and dilute as wind and sun.

It’s often suggested that technology improvements and mass production will sharply lower the cost of wind and solar. But engineers have pursued these technologies for decades, and while costs of some components have fallen, there is no serious prospect of costs plummeting and performance soaring as they have in our laptops and cell phones. When you replace conventional with renewable energy, everything gets bigger, not smaller—and bigger costs more, not less. Even if solar cells themselves were free, solar power would remain very expensive because of the huge structures and support systems required to extract large amounts of electricity from a source so weak that it takes hours to deliver a tan.

This is why the (few) greens ready to accept engineering and economic reality have suddenly emerged as avid proponents of nuclear power. In the aftermath of the Three Mile Island accident—which didn’t harm anyone, and wouldn’t even have damaged the reactor core if the operators had simply kept their hands off the switches and let the automatic safety systems do their job—ostensibly green antinuclear activists unwittingly boosted U.S. coal consumption by about 400 million tons per year. The United States would be in compliance with the Kyoto Protocol today if we could simply undo their handiwork and conjure back into existence the nuclear plants that were in the pipeline in nuclear power’s heyday. Nuclear power is fantastically compact, and—as America’s nuclear navy, several commercial U.S. operators, France, Japan, and a handful of other countries have convincingly established—it’s both safe and cheap wherever engineers are allowed to get on with it.

Step away from the hybrid cars, close down the idiotic wind farms, stop destroying the environment with silly solar panels, quit fantasizing about ethanol, start creating clean fuel from coal, nuclear and biomas. Start drilling holes in the ground, deeper. There's more there than you know. CH3 is a great fuel, use it.

Here's the real question. What if the whole idea of global warming caused by CO2 emissions is just fantasy? It is. There is no global warming. The earth cycles, but you didn't cause it and you can't stop it. So, stopping commerce by capping trade and carbon credits is a simpleton's fairy tale.

There, I have done my part to try to bring just a little sanity to the insanity that terrifies little children of a hell on earth from Global Warming. Isn't that a sad pitiful commentary on what this evil religion has descended to??

It's so Irksome to Talk to my Wife, tell her I love her, ask her forgiveness, touch her heart, sometimes even ask her to do something I need done.

I mean, how hard can this be.....

She's here, I have to be all nice to her and everything. What's up with that.

I guess I'm immature for finding myself wanting to communicate with her. I don't find it as hard as it was. I know her. She knows me. I know she loves me unconditionally. There is nothing between us except my sin. She even knows that and loves me anyway.

I'm sure about now, you wonder.

OK, I'm not talking about my wife at all. I'm talking about a post My Friend John Armstrong wrote. How irksome is prayer? About as Irksome as talking to the woman who lights up my life. And I hope, she will keep talking to me. It's not irksome. It's natural. It's a joy. Particularly when HE talks to ME. If you don't get this parallel you don't understand bride and bridegroom.

I guess if you never get any feedback it could be irksome. Then, the question is WHY? Who is the problem, the one speaking or the one without ears to hear.

I'll give grace but I won' t accept that Prayer is Irksome, unless you don't understand prayer.

Glee in Ridicule

I know nothing about this video. Some church some where with some baby imitating his bombastic preacher. People apparently amused and egging him on.

Internet Monk posted on this. It has been sent to me several times.

OK, this is silly, maybe stupid and doesn't do the cause of Christ much good. The comments made on Internet Monk are sad and narrow in some cases. Religion at it's worst.

There doesn't seem to be much grace for stupidity. Just ridicule. When I see ridicule from unbelievers I'm not shocked. When I see it from those who name the Name I am saddened.

A lot.

I don't know why there is such glee in ridicule. I have suspicions of the whole Susan Boyle phenomena. Simon Cowel is a clever man. He probably orchestrated all this. But the audience ridicule disturbs me. The spirit behind it is a roman persecution spirit.

I have an idea. Let's take some poor saps, say, OH, I don't know, Christians, let's put those poor doofuses in Yankee Stadium with a bunch of lions, tigers and bears. Wouldn't it be fun to ridicule them as they are torn limb from limb for our entertainment? We could even put it on You Tube.

What fun. I'm gonna be sick.

The Flood of 2009 in North Dakota

From Friends in NODAK I have a set of pictures showing the flooding across the state.

It’s pretty bad.

Look at this gallery. Send it along.

I wonder why I don’t see anyone on rooftops. Too cold I guess.

Why conservatism is dead and the Republicans or Conservatives will NEVER come into power again

The Top Ten Reasons Conservatism is Dead as Disco!
John Hawkins
Tuesday, April 21, 2009

First of all, I know this column isn't going to be popular with all the mouth breathing, troglodytic, primitive dittoheads out there. But, facts are facts: conservatives are NEVER, EVER, EVER going to get back into power again.

The mainstream media says so, legendary conservative icons like David Frum, Meghan McCain, and David Brooks say so -- and, yes, Democrats in Congress who we should remember soundly beat us in November, say so.

So, I think it's time to point out what even completely unbiased political luminaries like Chuck Schumer and Keith Olbermann have been saying since Barack Obama was elected: conservatism is done, over with, as finished as warm days in the middle of December!

1) Sure, America's political history has been one long churning political cycle with both party's fortunes going up and down, but that's not going to happen this time! This time, the Republicans aren't going to learn anything from losing, conservatives aren't going to be inspired to take action by being out of power, and the Democrats aren't going to get even more complacent and corrupt as they enjoy the rewards of being in power. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are just too smart, too sharp, and too doggone perfect to allow that to happen!

2) Conservatives are fighting with each other too much to ever get organized again. That certainly never happened when liberals were out of power...well, except when the environmentalists fought with the unions over ANWR. Oh, then there was Joe Lieberman vs. the netroots. We also can't forget the gay lobby vs. black Democrats over gay marriage. Kos vs. New Republic, too. Plus, The Democratic Leadership Council vs. the Left. We also shouldn't forget about the Barack Obama vs. Hillary Clinton brawl and dozens and dozens of other minor fights, feuds, and brouhahas. But certainly, all those fights are nothing like the fights on the Right!

3) The biggest disadvantage Republicans have is all those darn Christian conservatives. As everybody knows, Christianity is passe in America. It's as old hat as conservatism and capitalism now. Don't bother to close the barn door, Mary, because Jesus and the donkey he's riding on are long gone and this is now post-Christian America. So, until Republicans smarten up and stop trying to represent the views of the 76% of Americans who still consider themselves Christian, they're just wasting their time!

4) As many people have pointed out, you can't win with conservative values in America any more. Republicans have just got to accept that and follow in the shoes of the Democrats -- who completely re-did their agenda by rolling out a plan that combines the long discredited elements of FDR's agenda that kept us mired in the Depression and the parts of Mussolini's agenda that served as an example to fascists worldwide. Republicans may as well abandon all hope if they think they can go toe-to-toe with that combination without completely abandoning everything they've stood for since Reagan was first elected and start over from scratch.

5) Notice how popular Barack Obama is today? He's on the cover of every magazine, the press loves him, and everybody at all the best Washington cocktail parties agree that it will be that way forever. Besides, Presidents never get less popular over time, do they? George Bush had a popularity in the thirties for his entire presidency -- didn't he? Wow, wonder how he ever got re-elected? How did that happen? My memory is a little foggy on that one.

6) The percentage of minorities in the American population is rising and as we all know, party affiliation is genetically programmed into people at birth. Certainly black Americans, who used to vote overwhelmingly for the Republican Party before they began voting overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party, can never vote for Republicans again. And Hispanics? Jews? They're ALWAYS going to vote Democratic in increasingly larger blocks, no matter how much their interests tilt towards the GOP!

7) Everybody knows that the GOP has practically been "wiped out" in much of the Northern United States. Why, they've lost seat after seat that they'll never win again! Granted, some people might think that when the political winds shift again, that moderate Republicans could run and win in many of those same districts -- just as the Democratic Party won in moderate Republican districts in 2006 and 2008, but every liberal I know agrees that just won't be possible for some very legitimate reason that isn't quite coming to mind right now!

8) The advantage that liberals have with the mainstream media is just insurmountable! They own the cable news (well, except for the one people watch, Fox), they own the newspapers (which seem to be rapidly going out of business) and they own the blogosphere (granted, the liberal blogs are all shrinking now while the conservative blogs seem to be getting bigger).

Anyway, as we all know, it's impossible to overcome the mainstream media given how much the public trusts them. That's why that crazypants actor Ron Reagan lost to Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush lost to Michael Dukakis, and George W. Bush lost twice to Al Gore AND John Kerry! Wait a second...oh, yeah. So, ah, how's that Fairness Doctrine coming along?

9) Certainly America's enemies wouldn't be so rude as to take advantage of Barack Obama. After Barack Obama decided to close Gitmo and started weakening our security, Al-Qaeda must be too grateful to attack. Iran wouldn't go ahead and build nukes on Obama's watch after he risked so much to reach out to them, right? Then there's Castro and Chavez -- they won't make Obama look like a fool at this point, after he risked so much to reach out to them. And Europe, well, they're not cooperating with Obama now, but they love the big guy! That has to pay off at some point. Doesn't it?

10) Barack Obama's policies, which consist primarily of expanding government and government spending faster than any politician in history, are sure to remain popular long-term -- well, as long as we never have to pay for anything -- right? Our good friends, like the Chinese, Russians, and Saudis, will be delighted to keep footing our bill forevermore without expecting us to pay it back. That's what friends do, right? If not, the rich would certainly never change their behavior in any way to avoid paying an ever-increasing percentage of their income in taxes -- would they?

Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

If Earth Day Were NOT a Religious Holiday

There is so much false religion centered around earth worship. The sacrifices made in the forms of banal adulation takes the forms of Solar Panels, Hybrid Cars, Carbon Credits, Wind Farms, Ethanol, Cap and Trade, and a dozen other bad policy, bad religion beliefs that have no future at all.

Meanwhile, if anyone TRULY wanted to save the planet and become "greener" he or she would read and digest this article sent to me by a Pastor Friend, Terry.

It tells the truth. Now if you read this article and still hold to the fantasies you are hopeless. If you read this article and trust your intellect you might JUST become enlightened to do the right thing. Save the earth by abandoning the stupidity you have embraced.

Warning, lots of big words and actual thinking is involved in reading this, so if that is not your normal modality, you are hopelessly sentenced to be a drone of energy and government control.

Church Conducted According to the Word of God would be Refreshing

Alan Knox has a great post. He identifies more clearly than I have regarding how far from the Pauline ideal we have drifted in our Church meetings. The church of the book of Acts would be aghast at the disasters most churches are today in conducting the services. They would not recognize it at all.

I believe this is something God will have to deal with or the Church as we know it will die. The body of Christ MUST be released into ministry.

Like Waylon Jennings sang, It's time to get back to the basics of Love.

Read the whole post and ask yourself WHY NOT??

Flood Filosophy Floating Around

From the Old Email Inbox. What we don't see in flood coverage in North Dakota.

1. We don't see looting.

2. We don't see street violence.

3. We don't see people sitting on their rooftops waiting for the government to come and save them.

4. We don't see people waiting on the government to do anything.

5. We don't see Hollywood organizing benefits to raise money for people to rebuild.

6. We don't see people blaming President Obama.

7. We don't see people ignoring evacuation orders.

8. We don't see people blaming a government conspiracy to blow up the levees as the reason some have not held.

9. We don't see the US Senators or the Governor of North Dakota crying on TV.

10. We don't see the Mayors of any of these cities complaining about the lack of state or federal response, if anything they are giveing praise to the state and Feds for their support.

11. We don't see or hear reports of the police going around confiscating personal firearms so only the criminal will be armed.

12. We don't see gangs of people going around and randomly shooting at the rescue workers. The gangs of youths are going from one center to another to make sand bags.

13. You don't see some leaders in this country blaming the bad behavior of the North Dakota flood victims on "society" (of course there is no wide spread reports of lawlessness to require excuses).

Chicago Boyz Poetry

I have always like Haiku, I've just never been able to write it.

Jonathon at Chicago Boyz published his Monday Morning Haiku Slam.

Me Like Clever writer
attempts to imitate seem to fail
a cheap form of flattery:

Urgent! Must search Web
But IE has other plans:
Windows Update, stat!

—-

Stockpiling ammo
Thousands of rounds in basement
Dems in power now

—-

Eating vegan food
With your new lefty girlfriend
Is she worth the gas?

—-

Wow, brilliant idea
But with no bank financing
You’re driving a cab

—-

Britney concert’s out!
Now, in the crowded subway
I feel twice my age

It's not about YOU Church

I have been interested in a few posts about finding the perfect church which often deteriorates into what's wrong with the churches I can't find that I would like to find.

Internet Monk has such a post right now. When I read the comments I am amused and saddened at the same time. I don't think they would approve of Jesus if he came bodily to earth and started a church. Here are samples of the comments (my responses in red):

Rob
Tyler, Texas
Authenticity, no praise band ROB, I think you equate authenticity with tradition. Not the same. I have seen rampant inauthentic traditionalism.

What we’re looking for: Something with a “mere orthodoxy” focus, respect for tradition, and a healthy balance of essential doctrine, Scripture and serious spiritual formation for new Christians. What we DON’T want: Sorry to include this last bit, but having been recently exposed to so-called “prophetic evangelism,” “apostolic revival” and so on, my wife and I want to avoid neo-Pentecostalism. We’re not cessationists, per se, but neither do we embrace the extremes that have recently manifested in the charismatic movement. I guess this writer is OK with extremes manifested in the traditional movements. Extremes of no stretching at all. Extremes of nothing fresh, new and in particular the Holy Ghost. The day of Pentecost might have been too extrema.

Currently we are attending a seeker-sensitive-purpose-driven-marriage-relationships-finances - oh so culturally aware and relevant church complete with the kickin’ praise band. We are at this church only b/c we fled our previous church when the prophets and apostles moved in. (out of the frying pan and into the fire? or maybe the other way?) We get very little substantive content beyond felt needs, so I’m a “self-feeder” with my Treasury of Daily Prayer and sermon podcasts. I think it's good you are a self feeder. I hope what you are feeding on will build you properly. Some self feeding can cause an unbalanced diet. Look at children, they would eat the wrong food if someone wouldn't stop them. AND, I know you respect Evangelists, Teachers and Pastors. I wonder what you do with the rest of Ephesians 4? Just tear it out of your Bible? They may not have been Good Apostles and Prophets, but not all Pastors and Teachers are GOOD either. Baby went out with the bath water here I think.

there are a million seeker sensitive and word faith churches like the one i just left so please please please if you can refer a reformed, or confessional Lutheran church i’d appreciate it.
I'm sure you will find one if you keep your eyes open. It'll be easy to find a place to park and a place to sit. It's a dying form, and frankly, it should be. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is LIFE.

I was at a Service last Sunday night. The young pastor spoke about reaching the younger people. He was radical in ways that made me fidget a bit. The music too loud, I couldn't understand the words. BUT, It works. The Lord spoke to me in this time and said, "Gene, It's not about you".

My friend John had just such an experience at an emergent church in Michigan. He writes about it here. I read it and smiled. John, the Lord would say, It's not about you. In fact if you have been in "Church" for 20 years or more it's probably not about you either.

My prejudices, the way I think Church ought to be "Done" has nothing to do with WHAT GOD WANTS. I love the imaginary church of my dreams. It's just what my dreams are. Maybe I need to love the Church that is working. It probably doesn't look like what I see in my Dreams.

It's not about you or ME.