A critical creative look at issues of Economics, Politics and Finding a Purpose in Life - Let's talk about it. I try to leave the woodpile higher than I found it.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Season's Greetings
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2010, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere . Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wish.
To My Republican Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 2010.
Season's Greetings
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2010, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere . Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wish.
To My Republican Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 2010.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Can you be a good news anaylist?
I wrote the author and told her so. She responded thanks for reading.
OK, Consider me thanked.
BUT,the truth is,this kind of political junk science can't go unchallenged.
I did.
Can you spot the untruths? Read the article, there are at least a dozen glaring errors.
Watching the Lefties Implode - or - what can happen when crazies and amateurs try to rule
'Weakness, chaos, and failure'
The Democratic Party is not so much a political party anymore as much as it is a public relations firm whose primary target audience is that of a remedial civics class.
'Progressive' LIBERAL blogger John Aravosis seems to add my argument: (via Ace)
Why with 60 votes are Democrats so ineffective, but with 50 votes Republicans excel?
...
It's not about the votes, people. It's about leadership. The current occupant of the White House doesn't like to fight, and the leadership in Congress has never been as good at their jobs, at marshaling their own party, as the Republicans were when they were in the majority. The President is supposed to rally the country, effectively putting pressure on opposition members of Congress to sit down and shut up. And the congressional leadership is supposed to rally its members to hold the line, and get the 51 votes necessary for passing legislation in a climate where the minority is too afraid to use the filibuster. When you have a President who is constitutionally, or intellectually, unable to stand for anything, and a congressional leadership that, rather than disciplining its own members and forging ahead with its own agenda, cedes legislative authority to a president who refuses to lead, you have a recipe for exactly what happened last night. Weakness, chaos, and failure.
We lost real health care reform not because we don't have a "real" filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. We lost health care reform because we don't have a real leader anywhere in our party.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Being an Overcomer
TGIF Today God Is First Volume 2, by Os Hillman
12-16-2009
"How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?" (Ps 13:1-2).
Have you ever heard someone jokingly say, "It's not easy being me?" This expression is poking fun at their unique personality or challenges they face in life. Well, it wasn't easy being King David.
His life was a life of extreme highs and extreme lows. He was a shepherd, a political leader, a builder, a prophet, a businessman, a warrior, a lover, a giver, a murderer and a worshiper. He must have been criticized by others as being hypocritical in his early career. In each of these roles he achieved things for God but he also failed God on many occasions. He had a creative-type personality, which is often very passionate with many mood swings. We see this side of him when he unabashedly danced before the Lord in front of his subjects almost naked (2 Sam 6:14).
When David wrote his psalms he was honest about what he was feeling. When he feared his enemies he expressed it. When he could not understand why God was silent, he expressed it as in the psalm above.
However, David never stayed in the place of despair. He often ended his psalms like this one. "But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me" (Ps 13:5-6).
David chooses to focus on what God has done for him, not what He has not done. If you are waiting for a breakthrough with God, be honest with Him about your hopes and dreams. However, also affirm your faith and trust in Him to accomplish His purposes through your life. Be an overcomer.
Second Graders in Indiana taught songs calling Allah God and never mention Jesus in a "holiday" program
First reported by American Family radio and Fox News. Thank God for Watchmen on the Walls.
In Indiana a "christmas" program was presented that the children sang no actual songs about Jesus. His name was never mentioned.
BUT
GUESS WHO'S NAME WAS? ALLAH. These are impressionable Second Graders. This is not a mistake or political correctness gone amock, this is EVIL. Let's call it what it really is.
From this report (read the whole thing)
Here’s what the children were assigned to sing:
“Allah is God, we recall at dawn,
Praying ‘til night during Ramadan
At this joyful time we pray happiness for you,
Allah be with you all your life through.”But when it came time to perform the “Christian” part of Christmas, children were assigned to say:
“I didn’t know there was a little boy at the manger. What child is this?
I’m not sure if there was a little boy or not.
Then why did you paint one on your nativity window?
I just thought if there was a little boy, I’d like to know exactly what he (sic) say.Micah Clark, executive director of the Indiana AFA, launched an Internet protest once he heard about the allegations. “What surprised me here is that we’ve had a secular scrubbing of Christmas for so long and the school apparently didn’t see the problem with kids singing to Allah,” he told FOX News Radio. “You won’t even mention Jesus and you’re going to force my child to sing about Allah?
We have much work to do. This is a full on pagan society.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
One Hundred Thesis on the Wall
This is pretty conclusive so if you believe in the Gore-ligion and all his apostles assembled in Copenhagen you may not want to read this. It will make your head explode.
Of course anything of faith that is contradicted by truth and science will cause true believers to come unglued.
It would me.
Except, there is no such list for a belief in Jesus as the Christ of God. So, sorry, I'll pass on conversion to the church of Gore.
Monday, December 14, 2009
What they teach you in Journalism School but SHOULDN'T
If you wonder why American newspapering is dying, consider this sign-off:
AP writers Matt Apuzzo, Sharon Theimer, Tom Raum, Rita Beamish, Beth Fouhy, H. Josef Hebert, Justin D. Pritchard, Garance Burke, Dan Joling and Lewis Shaine contributed to this report.
Wow. That's ten "AP writers" plus Calvin Woodward, the AP writer whose twinkling pen honed the above contributions into the turgid sludge of the actual report. That's eleven writers for a 695-word report. What on? Obamacare? The Iranian nuke program? The upcoming trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
No, the Associated Press assigned eleven writers to "fact-check" Sarah Palin's new book
Now we have this. From the AP's article covering (up) ClimateGate:
The AP studied all the e-mails for context, with five reporters reading and rereading them—about 1 million words in total.
That's less than half the reporters they assigned to "fact-check" Sarah Palin's book.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
I want to lose my cable connection, is this it?
BUT, reading THIS article it seems like we are getting closer.
I'm ready to say bye to cable.
MAYBE SOON?
On the road meant OFF this time
I made my meeting, then after a brief call and check up, I headed north.
Hey, I'm from North Dakota. I can handle this.
Except I can't. I made my PM meeting in Granville near Orange City and then headed east. I wanted to get as far as possible. I made 11 miles. To Pocahontas IA. And was bizzarded in.
But by 11AM I decided I'm outa here.
Made another few miles and hit whiteout blizzard condition. I stopped after hitting a huge snowdrift. Made better friends of a Cenex gas station manager than I wanted to.
After deciding without any empirical information that things had improved. I launched off. It was better. But, on the road there was a white out. When it cleared up...I saw a car in the middle of the road. I saw a front end loader next to it. I could hit the front end loader, or the stalled car or the ditch.
I hit the ditch.
For the next two hours I waited to be pulled out. I was finally. A hundred bucks later I was back on the road a thousand pounds of snow heavier.
And it was cold.
After driving on 20 for a few hours I ended up on the interstate between Waterloo and Iowa City. It was glare packed snow. Almost impossible. But I made it. And I made it home.
I guess I had paid my running off the road dues.
It's been hard but I am happy to be alive. And have my car full whole.
The good news is the trip was worth the effort. I guess if it was easy anyone could do it.
Feathered Evangilists
I have a feeling that birds are good Evangelists. Or they are so happy to have something to eat that they tweet thanksgiving loudly and other birds hear and come.
Of course there's that squirrel who keeps chasing them off....He wants it for himself.
I think there's a message in there somewhere.
I miss the opera
I miss the opera. A lot.
I listened to the opening from the Met on the Radio Saturday. It was just cleansing to hear it all again. I guess when you change your lifestyle some, things change, and sometimes there's a hole.
There is.