Why meeting a Payroll Matters

I have been very critical of Barack Obama. But I will cut him some slack. Before he was elected I said that other than his gross inexperience my primary concern of him was that he had no experience in real life, had never met a payroll, didn't grasp basic economics. So I guess we have to explain away his incompetence in things economics. I hoped he would get past it.

Pitifully it has come to pass. He still hasn't figured out basic business 101.

And he was so far out of his depth when he made this comment during his "Jobs" meeting (at the 2 minute mark) that "Proof" noted:

Part of what’s happened also among a lot of companies, is they figured out how to squeeze more productivity out of the workers that they’ve got. They’re working people longer hours, they’re doing more overtime… or not, but either way, they’re producing the same amount of product or providing the same services without hiring more people. That’s something that we really going to have to work on.

Spoken like a man who’s never had to meet a payroll! In fact, in nearly every company I ever worked for, as they were growing, there were times when our customer base had expanded, but not quite enough to justify hiring new people (profitably) to take up the slack, and until that happened…mirabile dictu some of us ended up working longer hours or overtime…or not… to provide goods and services to our customers! What a bumpkin! How naive can you get???
If Obama is really serious about “working on” the problem, he can lower taxes on corporations so that they can hire more people to provide better goods and more services and still maintain a margin of profit. Also, he can stop threatening to tinker with the American healthcare system, to give employers the confidence to be able to rationally calculate what it will cost to hire those additional workers, over time, as opposed to wondering what new government regulation or requirement might bankrupt them!

Oh, yeah. And while you’re at it? Drill here. Drill now.

Learn from God's Creation

TGIF Today God Is First Volume 2, by Os Hillman
12-05-2009

"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" (Rom 1:19-20).

Have you ever had someone say, "I don't see any evidence of God. How can a person believe in someone you can't see or see any evidence even exists?"

The Bible tells us that God is revealed in His creation everyday. Look at the human body and consider the likelihood of how thousands of body parts that must work together. Someone created it to work this well. If it were a manufactured product, it would be in the repair shop all the time because of all the moving parts required to make it work.

Consider the wonderful order and balance of nature and how the seas know their boundaries, the beauty of the mountains, and the balance of rain and oxygen needed to balance the ecosystems. Consider God's signature, the rainbow.

The 12th century Scottish Christian mystic, Richard of St. Victor said, "The whole of this sensible world is like a book written by the finger of God." Look at nature and wonder at the creative design of the hundreds of thousands of species of animals like the tiger, the elephant, the great whales, and the millions of species of birds, just to name a few.

Consider the planet we live on. "The Earth is a rough sphere about eight thousand miles in diameter, which means that it's about four thousand miles straight down to the center. We're accustomed to thinking of it as a ball of rock, but that's not so: the great majority of the Earth is liquid - molten rock called magma swirling, incredible slowly, beneath our feet. The solid part of the earth that we live on, and in whose hollows the sea sits, is called the crust, and on average it's only a few miles thick - maybe ten miles. That's like a layer a third of a millimeter thick coating a football. We live on that incredibly fragile, thin layer of plates floating on the subterranean sea of magma."*

Yes, God has revealed Himself in His creation.

Faith is the new order - by Reinhard Bonnke

FAITH is the most basic distinction between one person and another. The entire world stands on one side or the other of the line of faith. There are only two different types of people – not rich and poor, not black and white, not learned and unlearned, not Jew and Greek, not male and female. None of these distinctions really exists in Christ. God sees only believer and unbeliever. “He who believes … will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16).

Faith is the new order. Unbelief is the old and dying order. Faith is the dividing line which runs right through mankind. Having faith, or having no faith, are the only alternatives for our approach to life.

Fear sees just what man sees. Faith sees what God sees, and acts upon it. Faith creates action, and people of action, like Caleb and Joshua. Unbelief keeps us tied down in a spiritual wilderness – as Israel was for so many years. Fear and doubt magnify the difficulties, making us think people cannot be won for Christ and that the world is too strong. Without faith, we fear failure and mockery. With faith, people can be won, and so the joy of expectation grips us instead. By faith, we move into God's fullness.

Piling Up

Driving home last night pulling a trailer with my pickup I hit glare ice. It snowed and froze. Pretty tense.

I saw 30 accidents from Milwaukee to Delevan WI. One was fatal.

There but for the grace of GOD. I didn't go... but could have.

Piling On

I am famous for Piling on when someone has been a doofus or worse.

For instance I was not impressed with Obama's west point speech. So, I piled on.

Now Sarah Palin said that if the question of Trig being her baby or not is OK then it's fair game to question Obama's birth certificate.

She didn't say she believed in it. She said it was fair game. Anyone can go to her facebook page and look at what she said.

In any case, now some are piling on. Even some conservatives.

BOOO.

She didn't say what people say she said. I have the transcript. It's everywhere. I guess I think it's OK to pile on the other guy's guy but not to pile on my Gal.

But Politics ain't beanbag.

I may have to go to Jail

According to a bill being ginned up, people like me, people with opinions, people who are critical of bad politicians are going to come under government control.

I guess that Free Speech thingy is all so much Barbara Streisand.

I understand that there is ONE person in HELL who really likes it. From the Comments section:

Folks,

I think Durbin's and Feinstein's amendment is just SWELL! You go GIRLS!

Respectfully yours,

Joseph Goebbels
(Formerly Reichsminister of Propaganda and Enlightenment)

P.S. Could someone please FedEx me three pairs of asbestos underwear and a big roll of duct tape? It's hotter than Megan Fox down here in the Ninth Circle of Hell and I've got to tape Hermann Goering's mouth permanently shut. That fat f***er been running his yap non-stop since 1946 and it's driving me piffy. Vielen Dank!

I guess the book Liberal Fascism was Prophetic... Alas poor America, I knew ye well....

United Airlines Breaks Guitars - From New Wineskins

I rarely post e-mails verbatim, but this one is too flat-out good-natured funny not to, especially for this former “1K” (100,000-real-miles-per-year) United flier who now avoids them like the plague. Apologies if I’m late to a party everyone has already attended. Received from a former client:

A musician named Dave Carroll recently had difficulty with United Airlines. United apparently damaged his treasured Taylor guitar ($3500) during a flight. Dave spent many months trying to get United to pay for damages caused by baggage handlers to his Custom Taylor guitar.

During his final exchange with the United Customer Relations Manager, he stated that he was left with no choice other than to create 3 music videos for YouTube exposing their lack of cooperation. The Manager responded: “Good luck with that one, pal.”

So he posted retaliatory video #1 on YouTube this past July. The video has since received over 6.2 million [now 6.3 million] hits.

United Airlines contacted the musician and attempted settlement in exchange for pulling the video. Naturally his response was: “Good luck with that one, pal.”

Taylor Guitars sent the musician 2 new custom guitars in appreciation for product recognition from the video that has lead to a sharp increase in orders.

Here’s the video for song #1
And song #2:

It can have its downsides, but at its best, alternative media is awesome.

And yes, RB, I thought especially of you when I saw this one.

Three Deceptions Than Can Derail You From Your Destiny

Philippians 3:17 -- "Brethern, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us."

Paul faced a major problem in the first century. False teachers had slipped into the Church. The apostle warned the Philippians, and us by extension, to recognize the differences between a true man of God and a deceptive teacher or prophet. Without any sense of false humility, Paul declared that both his vision and his spiritual attitude were examples for us to follow. He instructs us in our powers of discernment to look for and observe leaders who exemplify, teach, and equip the church laity in the things Jesus demonstrated in His Own life, ministry, and outreach which include:

1. Embracing the love of God as it flows through us into others.

2. Posessing a passion and vision to carry the gospel of the kingdom to non-believers.

3. Posessing a passion to disciple believers in the church so they can be effective in discipling others.

Philippians 3:2 -- "Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision."
The first group Paul identified as "the dogs." In Paul's day one could find dozens of canines eating off the rubbish heaps outside cities, their faces bent downward as they sniffed and rooted out garbage to feed upon.

Today's Church has similar people, fault-finders, who incessantly and self righteously feed upon the garbage and failures of the human condition. Paul is saying "Beware of those who always have something negative to say and are continually judging or slandering others and the ministry of others."

Luke 18:9 -- "trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt."

Beware when your teacher must frequently tear down others to lift himself up.

Paul next warned against the "evil workers."
These individuals proclaim Christ, but they do so from envy...strife....selfish ambition rather than from love. For them, building a church is a competitive endeavor, a business. James also underscores this problem, saying. "For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing." (James 3:16)

The third warning was aimed against the "false circumcision" (Philippians 3:2). The essence of this error was that Christ's atonement was not enough for salvation; you also had to keep the whole system of Mosaic Laws to be saved. Today people continue to import religious obligations into the salvation experience. Paul separates himself from the Mosaic Law, revealing that his quest is to "be found in Christ, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ" (Philippians 3:9). Being "in Christ" our destiny is not just to carry Christ inside of us but to reveal the fullness of His glory to the whole world.

One of Paul's efforts as an apostle was to build a Gospel of the Kingdom consciousness into the new church believers thereby promoting unity.

2 Corinthians 4:6,7 -- "For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpasing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves."

We carry a treasure in these earthen vessels. We are responsible for filling the earth, cities, regions and nations with the kingdom of God. Jesus is waiting for us to co-labor with Him to fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of God.

Best Christmas Present

The news on the climate gate scandal is the best Christmas Present I ever got.

For a while there it looked like a losing battle. Fighting against the evil ALGORE. He just kept saying, "Settled".

I worried that Cap and Trade might happen. Or other kinds of stupid.

This funny, clever and insightful piece from the British Press says it best.

Science is the pursuit of the truth, not consensus

Financial Times 10 October 2007
The route to knowledge is transparency in disagreement and openness in debate. The route to truth is the pluralist expression of conflicting views in which, often not as quickly as we might like, good ideas drive out bad.

Michael Schrage’s comment on politics and science (FT, 26 Sept 2007) struck a raw nerve: and provoked an extended response from the president of the UK’s Royal Society (FT, 1 Oct 2007). Lord Rees advocates that we should base policy on something called “the scientific consensus”, while acknowledging that such consensus may be provisional.

But this proposal blurs the distinction between politics and science that Lord Rees wants to emphasise. Novelist Michael Crichton may have exaggerated when he wrote that “if it’s consensus, it’s not science, if it’s science, it’s not consensus”, but only a bit. Consensus is a political concept, not a scientific one.

Consensus finds a way through conflicting opinions and interests. Consensus is achieved when the outcome of discussion leaves everyone feeling they have been given enough of what they want. The processes of proper science could hardly be more different. The accomplished politician is a negotiator, a conciliator, finding agreement where none seemed to exist. The accomplished scientist is an original, an extremist, disrupting established patterns of thought. Good science involves perpetual, open debate, in which every objection is aired and dissents are sharpened and clarified, not smoothed over.

Often the argument will continue for ever, and should, because the objective of science is not agreement on a course of action, but the pursuit of truth. Occasionally that pursuit seems to have been successful and the matter is resolved, not by consensus, but by the exhaustion of opposition. We do not say that there is a consensus over the second law of thermodynamics, a consensus that Paris is south of London or that two and two are four. We say that these are the way things are. Nor is there a consensus on evolution since creationists will never be reconciled to that theory. There is no possibility of a compromise, in which Darwinians agree that a few animals went into the ark with Noah and their opponents acknowledge that most species evolved.

Numbers are critical to democracy, but science is not a democracy. If an evangelical Christian converted all members of the Royal Society to creationism, that neither would nor should affect my belief in evolution. Most scientists know no more about climate change, HIV/Aids or the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine than do most lawyers, philosophers or economists, and it is not obvious who is better equipped to assess conflicting claims on these issues. Science is a matter of evidence, not what a majority of scientists think.

It is easy to see why the president of the Royal Society might want to elide that distinction, but in doing so he turns the organisation from a learned society into a trade union. Peer review is a valuable part of the apparatus of scholarship, but carries a danger of establishing self-referential clubs that promote each other’s work.

Statements about the world derive their value from the facts and arguments that support them, not from the status and qualifications of the people who assert them. Evidence versus authority was the issue on which Galileo challenged the church. The modern world exists because Galileo won.

But to use the achievements of science to assert the authority of scientists undermines that very process of science. When consumers believe that genetically modified foods are unsafe, mothers intuit that their children’s autism is caused by the MMR vaccine and politicians assert that HIV/Aids is a first world conspiracy, the answer that the scientific consensus is otherwise does not convince – nor should it. Such claims are mistaken because there is no evidence for them, not because scientists take a different view: scientists should influence policy by explaining facts and arguments, not by parading their doctorates.

The notion of a monolithic “science”, meaning what scientists say, is pernicious and the notion of “scientific consensus” actively so. The route to knowledge is transparency in disagreement and openness in debate. The route to truth is the pluralist expression of conflicting views in which, often not as quickly as we might like, good ideas drive out bad. There is no room in this process for any notion of “scientific consensus”.

Climate Gate - Climate Liars caught Green HANDED

Now the question is, What to do with all this. How do we undo the damage. How can we get the textbooks written with truth in them.

What do we do?

Here is a PDF of a paper on this issue.

It has solutions.

Not as drastic as some who want to prosecute and imprison the culprits starting with Al Gore.

But, radical rebuke and shame for the lies is appropriate.

How to "Make It" in the Ministry - A prophetic word and Joni Mitchell

Facebook has been an eyeopener for me. Wow. Such ambitions. Such intensity. Such a desire to make it. It's ungodly.

I know a woman from a local church who tries so hard. She is involved in everything ever time the doors are open. She is almost possessive about what she does. To the point of failure.

She is so overwhelming no one else has a chance to do anything if she is involved.

She is a classic case of trying to hard.

It seems like this is an epidemic in ministry today. Trying too hard. Self promotion. Overbearing.

I have deleted some ministries who just became too much. One man in particular who couldn't make a post or an update to status without begging for money. To distraction. I could finally take it no more. Delete.

Then there are the jack of all trades master of none ministries. Only Jesus was gifted in everything all the time. You weren't and neither am I.

Be what you are and let God open the doors. I will speak prophetically for a moment....

Father says, I am not impressed with your efforts, your fasts, your sacrifices, your ministries. I am most impresed when you are focused on ME and respond to what I have placed in your heart.

If you are a biblical scholar you will see that those thoughts come from the Prophet Isaiah

They are also reflected in a song Joni Mitchell sang:

After the rush when you come back down
You're always disappointed
Nothing seems to keep you high
Drive your bargains
Push your papers
Win your medals
mess your strangers
Don't it leave you on the empty side?

All this talk about holiness now
It must be the start of the latest style
Is it all books and words
Or do you really feel it?
Do you really laugh?
Do you really care?
Do you really smile
When you smile?

You criticize and you flatter
You imitate the best
And the rest you memorize
You know the times you impress me most
Are the times when you don't try
When you don't even try

I know offensive word in this song. I know, I know. I edited it a bit. BUT, Joni Mitchell described much of what is going on in many ministries and churches today. I believe in a way if we have ears to hear we will hear it. It's like Father is saying to you:

You know the times you impress me most
Are the times when you don't try
When you don't even try

The best advice I ever received in ministry long long long ago from a Black Pastor were these. They have served me well. I pass them on.

Do less BETTER. Find what God has most anointed you to do. ONE THING. Do that. Local Church. Local area. Connect with ministers and leaders. Be part of what THEY are doing. Stop trying so hard. Let God do his thing. Be steady. Help other people. Don't quit or be discouraged and ONE DAY will find yourself in places and situations you could not have imagined. Embrace whatever God gave you to do and pursue that with diligence. He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek HIM and HIS anointing. Anything pursued in the flesh will fail in the end.

Last, I would say, don't try to find your identity in your church, your ministry or your efforts. It's not about you.

Find out who you are in HIM. Be that. Go where that calls you. He will make room for your gift. It's not about you.

Why Sarah Palin matters

This op ed from the Wassilla newspaper.

You need to read this. Liberals won't. It's ok. They whistle past the graveyard.

I agree with the conclusion of this article....She's the real deal.

The imaginary science of man-made global warming

By Bruce Walker
The imaginary science of man-made global warming can now be entered into the infamous history of politicized science, the results of which have threads in our lives today. Consider the residue of such frauds as Rachel Carson, Alfred Kinsey, and Margaret Mead. Carson's invented findings and unscientific methods led to the banning of DDT, which in turn cost the lives of tens of millions of children in undeveloped nations. Kinsey's tortuously doctored "sex research," as Dr. Judith Riesman has so amply demonstrated, was not only invented to sate his perverted lusts, but created scientific myths about normal and abnormal behavior which haunt us to this day. Mead also simply invented research to fit her idea of what the science of anthropology ought to be in order to justify her own immature and immoral behavior. Carson, Kinsey, and Mead had an agenda before they did any research, and this agenda governed everything else.

Science is supposed to be the impartial blend of data with theory that allows human knowledge to go wherever the evidence leads. Serious science must be firmly grounded in moral absolutes. This sounds untrue to modern ears because we have been indoctrinated with a false history of science. Without faith in an ordered universe according to discoverable principles, science cannot exist. The assumption that life and the universe are rational is religious in nature. There must be a belief in ultimate truth -- a faith, something which religion brings that is not found in a man-centered mindset. If man is all there is, then why can't truth be relative?

Those who hijack science, however, are not interested in truth. They have created a false history of science which asserts absurd lies like "medieval Christians believed the Earth was flat." (Not only is that not true, but the religious influence upon science tended to confirm that the Earth was a sphere, and Christians of the time had the truest calculation of the circumference of the Earth of anyone around.) The men who founded modern science -- Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Pascal, Napier, Newton, and others -- were much more religious than their contemporaries. Those who hijack science for personal and political reasons pretend that religion interfered with science, but this is no more than a power-hungry agnostic's narcotic delusion.

This fraud has left many ghosts. "Aryan" science pretended, for a time, to be rooted in real science. Many Nazis considered their vile rites to be steeped in pure science, and they condemned the religious sentimentality of those who thought that men are men and not livestock.

Perhaps the most egregious ghost is Trofim Lysenko, the man who ruled the life sciences of Soviet Russia from the late 1920s until the early 1960s. He had a theory which fit Marxism perfectly: acquired characteristics can be inherited. This is not true, of course, but Lysenko had the Politburo and Stalin behind him. It was science that fit the political needs of the Bolsheviks, and so it was science backed by the awful power of the party and the state.

Lysenko's experiments were heralded, although the experiments were never replicated. The Soviet Union was full of botanists, biologists, geneticists, and other life scientists, and it was obvious to anyone with a free mind that Lysenko was propounding nonsense. But it was not until 1962 that the Soviet government allowed a real critique of his cartoon science. Why?

Because in the Soviet Union, as in Nazi Germany, truth was never "objective." Science could literally be "Aryan," or "proletariat," or otherwise fit into some sort of sociopolitical mindset. God was dead in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, so no one was there to acknowledge the lies or account for the intellectual mischief. Honest scientists were imprisoned, tortured, and killed because they rested on the thin reed of the scientific method, which ill withstood the hurricane of politically correct science. Inconceivably, the life sciences of the largest nation in the world taught blatantly false "science" for decades. When criticism of Lysenko, an honored figure in Soviet "science" until 1964, was finally permitted, his acolytes realized that fear, bribes, lies, and false honors work much better than empiricism where science devoid of God is concerned. The ghosts spawned by Lysenko still haunt us today. The "science" of a modern Lysenko -- Albert Gore, Jr. (son of the famous racist, Albert Gore, Sr.) -- is totalitarian nonsense. The only question is this: How many good men must be consigned to the gulag before the dulled consciences of the administrators of academic "learning" smell Lysenko's stench?

Bruce Walker is the author of two books: Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie and The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.

I predicted that Obama wouldn't finish his term... This guy seems to agree

From Galganov.com:

When Obama won the Presidency with the help of the LEFTIST Media, Hollywood and Entertainment Liberals, Ethnic Socialists (ACORN), Stupid Non-Business Professionals and Bush Haters, I wrote:

It won’t take 6 months until the people figure this guy out and realize how horrible a mistake they’ve made. And when they come to that realization, the damage to the United States of America will be so great, that it will take a generation or more to repair - IF EVER.

The IDIOTS who not only voted for the Messiah, but also worked their sorry asses-off to promote his Lordship, are now left holding the bag.

Here are two things they will NEVER do:

1 – They will NEVER admit to making a blunder out of all proportion by electing a snake-oil salesman with no positive social history or management experience of any kind.

2 – They will NEVER take responsibility for the curse they’ve imposed upon the immediate and long-term future of their country.

In essence, the people responsible for putting this horror-show in power are in themselves responsible for every cataclysmic decision he makes and the consequences thereof.

In just 6 (SIX) months, the Messiah’s polls are showing the following:

On Healthcare Reform - He’s going under for the third time with polling well under 50%, even within his own Party.

Even though he might be able to muscle a Healthcare Reform Bill by using Chicago BULLY tactics against his fellow Democrats, it will just make things worse.

On Cap And Trade (Cap & Tax) – The Fat-Lady is already singing.

On the Stimulus Package (Tax and Spend) - His popularity is in FREE-FALL.

On the TARP package he took and ran with from President Bush - It’s all but Good-Night Irene.

On the closing of GITMO and “HIS” war on what he no longer wants called the War On Terrorism - He’s standing in quicksand with his head just about to go under.

On a comparison between himself and George W Bush at the same 6 months into their respective first term Presidencies - Bush is ahead of him in the Polls.

On a comparison between He Who Walks On Water and the 12 preceding Presidents between WW II and now - Obama ranks 10th.

On a Poll just conducted, that asks who would you vote for today between Obama and Mitt Romney - It’s a dead heat.

Between Obama and Palin - Obama’s ONLY ahead by 8 points and she hasn’t even begun to campaign.

It seems to me that Obama wants to be everywhere where he shouldn’t be.

He’s personally invested in screwing-over America’s ONLY REAL Middle Eastern ally (Israel) in favor of Palestinian Despots and Murderers.

He’s traveling the world apologizing for the USA while lecturing others on how to do it right, when in fact and truth, he has no experience at doing anything other than getting elected.

He went to the Moslem world in Egypt to declare that America IS NOT A CHRISTIAN NATION while he heaped praises on Islam, where he compared the “plight” of the Palestinians to the Holocaust.

The Russians think he’s a Putz. The French think he’s rude. The Germans want him to stop spending. The Indians want him to mix his nose out of their environmental business. The North Koreans think he’s a joke. The Iranians won’t acknowledge his calls. And the British can’t even come up with a comprehensive opinion of him.

As for the Chinese, he’s too frightened to even glance their way.

Maybe, if America’s first Emperor would stay home more and travel less, and work a little bit instead of being on television just about everyday, or forget about his Wednesday Date Nights with his Amazon Wife, or stop running to “papered” Town Hall Meetings, perhaps he would have a little bit of time to do the work of the nation.

In all fairness, it wasn’t HARD to be RIGHT in my prediction concerning Obama’s Presidency, even in its first 6 months, so I’m going to make yet another prediction:

OBAMA WILL PROBABLY NOT FINISH HIS 4-YEAR TERM, at least not in a conventional way.

He is such a political HORROR-SHOW, and so detrimental to the USA and his own Democratic Party, that the Democrats themselves will either FORCE him to resign or figure out a way to have him thrown out.

Who knows, maybe he really isn’t a BORN US Citizen and that’s a way the Democrats will be able to get rid of him.

Or – MORE LIKELY THAN NOT, the Democrats will make Obama THEIR OWN LAME DUCK PRESIDENT.

I don’t believe the Democrats have nearly as much love for their country as they do for their own political fortunes. And with Obama, their fortunes are rapidly becoming toast.

The Democrats can keep on blaming Bush for EVERYTHING. But, that game’s already begun to wear real thin.

Their mantra was “WE DON’T WANT 4 MORE YEARS”, which the STUPID people bought, since McCain was nothing at all like George W Bush.

The new mantra will soon become: WE DON’T WANT 6 MORE MONTHS.

Best Regards . . . Howard Galganov

Why Thanksgiving can be hard for a Minister of the Gospel

A Prophet without Honor
TGIF Today God Is First Volume 2, by Os Hillman
11-30-2009

"Where did this man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to Him, that such mighty works are performed by His hands? Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house" (Mark 6.3, 4).

Have you ever noticed how difficult it can be to spiritually impact your immediate circle of relationships and family? Jesus warned us of this phenomenon. We often relate to family and friends differently because they have a history with us that no one else has. They most likely have not had the privilege to witness the spiritual transformation that you have experienced and is evidenced by others in your life.

The spiritual authority that others may recognize in you is not there with your own family and friends. "After all, you're just my sister or brother, with whom I fought, played, and lived everyday life," is what is thought. Jesus was more qualified to be a carpenter than the Son of God in his own family and community's eyes. It was too difficult to change old perceptions of someone they knew so well. So too, is it for your family members.

The sad result of this mindset is that we often do not experience the same fruit of ministry in our family's lives that we do outside this circle. It is an unfortunate truth. "Jesus still healed a few sick people," meaning there is still a remnant of faith that can receive from you and I. Ultimately, God determines the fruit of our lives. Do not allow spiritual pride to prevent you from freely giving to your family and friends when they do not receive you in the way you think they should. You don't know which "few" God will choose to touch through your life.

Many did not receive Jesus. Therefore, many will not receive you. Nevertheless, allow God to touch the few in your circle He chooses to touch through you.

These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me and that’s good and all that really matters. (Mark 7:6b re-mix)

Gene's Report on Sarah Palin's Book

I have completed Sarah Palin’s Book Going Rogue.

It’s a good read. Her Ghostwriter, Lynn Vincent is a yeoman editor and did a good job.

I recommend it for anyone who grew up in rural America, particularly in the north. Like Dakota.

Her story is my story and vice versa.

The first hundred pages are a breeze and delightful.

It then bogs down a bit with some not so couched whining and victimization complaints.

Yes, she has been beaten upon. Politics ain’t beanbag. Some of that would have been better left unsaid.

Toward the end of the book it becomes a manifesto on the future. One I can believe in.

I appreciate greatly her well centered American greatness vision. It’s one I endorse. And she sees hope to turn it all around.

She is also not to be spat upon. If you tug on a barracuda’s tail for very long it will turn and inflict a pretty solid wound.

She has the capacity to get even. Don’t tug on superman’s cape, don’t piss into the wind, don’t diss Sarah. All bad ideas.

She’s the real deal. I want her next book to be a vision of what could be. She has one. He laying that out will mobilize the troops.

I am prepared to start Saying President Palin, I’m already pretty tired of saying President Obama.

She represents hope for sanity. The kind of sanity in the middle you and I live in. Not the fairy dust of the elite.

She is about the Middle.

A good friend who leans left in his politics, said to me that Obama’s biggest failing is that he doesn’t understand the “middle”. He has experience with the elite through school, his modicum of work experience, politics, social circles, etc.; and he has experience with the poor through his activism. However, he doesn’t really have any first-hand knowledge of the middle part of America, the 80% or so of us who aren’t destitute victims, who aren’t politically-connected, who go to work, earn a paycheck, hope our employer or small business stays afloat. For Obama the “middle” is just a concept.
I agree with this, but would take it a step further. Obama is an ideologue who sees the world through a philosophical prism. Everything is some sort of class struggle. The private sector is essentially some form of jungle in which the strong feed off the weak.

Therefore, people who have made their successful livelihoods in the private sector do not, in Obama’s opinion, have any great skill or experience that make the world go. Rather, those who succeed in the private sector are simply the best predators.

Sarah can do better. I don’t know of anyone currently who has any comparable experience or understanding of what needs to happen to get us out of this mess except her.

Do you?

PS:
It's still selling pretty well...NYT Bestsellers List

Hardcover Nonfiction

Top 5 at a Glance
1. GOING ROGUE, by Sarah Palin
2. OPEN, by Andre Agassi
3. HAVE A LITTLE FAITH, by Mitch Albom
4. ARGUING WITH IDIOTS, written and edited by Glenn Beck, Kevin Balfe and others
5. A SIMPLE CHRISTMAS, by Mike Huckabee

Barack H. Obama's cabinet is pitifully inexperienced and unqualified to make any quality economic decisions

Here's a news flash. BHO's Cabinet knows nothing about working for anyone other than the government (for the most part). 90% of the gangsters are people who have only ever worked on the public dole.

So, is it any wonder that almost all of the stimulus money they have spent to date has created government jobs? They know nothing else.

Why do we have these amateur trying to engineer our economy when they have zero understanding. OH, that's right. They are led by a rank amateur.

What a pitiful situation.

Ant and Grasshopper 2009

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

Two Different Versions

Two Different Morals

________________________________

OLD VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away..

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

________________________________

MODERN VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green.’

ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.” Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake.

President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper’s plight.

Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn’t maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and once peaceful, neighborhood.

The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010.

On the road minus my computer

My computer is broken, physically. Not electronically. I can use it, but it's fragile.

So, I'm leaving it behind as we travel to NoDAK to consume the gobbling birds.

Kevin will bring his. That's enough.

Anyway, I will be out of computer circulation for a bit, till Sunday or so. Unless of course something REALLY important comes up today. Then....

See you in several days.

I gave up..

I was going to post links to editorials that are supportive of my thesis that Sarah Palin can if she chooses to be, become President of the USA. I started to collect them, and realized, I can't do this. There are too many. The rumble is too much. I would be just ONE voice in a thousand.

Talk about your zeitgeist.

On the other hand, I have been writing notes critical of Obama and the bumbling fumbling dithering he is engaged in. Carter on steroids. Again, the zeitgeist is overwhelming. TOO MUCH. TOO Many.

Even CBS. Everyone is on the bandwagon now. Obama is a dunce. Shouldn't have been elected POTUS. Doesn't know what he is doing. ETC. I'm talking about those from the left.

Waking up in the morning with the wrong woman in bed beside you and discovering you are married to her.

That's Obama.

Where is the divorce court?

This Time it will be Different------The view from Chicagoland

The mood swing among the voters that decide each and every national election…the ones that get short shrift by the shrill screechings of the extremists that hold the reins of the two national parties each and every time are changing.

Yes, there IS a “throw the bums out, bring in the new bums” cyclical nature to our national elections. The two major parties are a cockroach motel where reason checks in, but never checks out…(only through their own separate doors).

Extremism is a huge turnoff to the LARGEST bloc of voters in this country. And yes, it is prevalent, pervasive, and predictable on BOTH sides of the aisle.

However, there is a special noxious brand of extremism that wafts up from the left side of the spectrum. It is tinged with self-loathing for America and all manner of Americana, it is disrespectful and disloyal to her ideals, it demonizes her at every turn and it sullies her reputation with half-truths, distortions and outright lies daily at home…and worse, in bowing and scraping to our enemies abroad.

It fraudulently sets up “blame carnivals”, which moves its tents from world city to world city, with barkers on the prowl claiming that passersby can see something they have never seen before…whereupon they produce a freak show of faux epic proportions, for the world to gawk at, point and snicker. The traitors in our midst set us up for ridicule and scorn…and apologize for our very existence. It’s a cottage industry of sedition, slander and supplication.

Mix in Chicago, where West Madison Street was known as “the street of broken dreams”, littered with a sea of buildings and humanity in various stages of decay, drug dens, and depravity. It was a hard scrabble existence, fighting for a way out. But at least it was fighting.

But, that great city with all its broad shouldered magnificence has been hurled upon a national stage with a spotlight on its festering boil and its largest wart. Its politics. LaSalle Street is the street of broken promises.

Watching the power move around the room, clout being thrown back and forth like a game of soft toss…and watching truth, honor, integrity, loyalty, …disappear like a sleight of hand magic trick. And, the fighting against it stopped…years ago. Died with Royko. You can’t fight City Hall. They owned the “facts” and you were an outsider if you wanted the truth.

We all know you can fool some of the people, all of the time. And when you own the mode of communication in which the vast numbers of them get their “facts”, you can continue to fool them. Almost forever. The New Big Lie is de rigeur for the statists and their propaganda machine. When people stop fighting for the truth, the truth itself dies. It died in Chicago, and it is dying in America. So it goes, right? Grin and bear it. It’s part of the game, correct?

Barack Obama said, This time it will be different…this time something was different.

But THIS promise, THIS duplicity, THIS disappointment…is particularly galling to the “real” middle, because they got played. And then they got dissed.

The folks who decide EVERY national election in this country are used to being lied to, told things that they know are never going to happen, that national politicians will act in their own self interests and that it will be “business as usual” in that fever swamp they call Washinton D.C.

So being lied to is not only understood, it is anticipated.

THIS time, it was going to be different, however. A very different look, a very different feel, a very different approach, a very different set of words, a very different style, a very different angle…produced the same crappy results. A bunch of liars with better props, better special effects, stagehands, better packaging, a neater logo, a catchy slogan…and New Coke inside.

We got set up for Gone With The Wind and got Howard the Duck instead.

So, the fall is further, harder…bruises more. There are arrogant prigs and extremists who will say they “knew” all along that this was going to be the case. They need to get over themselves. No, they didn’t. Nobody “knew” what we were getting…because the vetting was nearly invisible…and completely unavailable. Many brilliant people FEARED what might come to pass and pointed at all the signs and signals, alerting others to the POTENTIAL dangers. But nobody knew.

Information was in short supply. Rationed. Meted out in small doses, scrubbed and filtered and sanitized for mass consumption by our corrupt entrenched media. Flaws and frailties and faux pas were slathered in white out.

But, even AFTER the election…and certainly during the campaign…the open-minded, wait and see, maybe this time…center…REPEATEDLY got the back of the hand of this administration. This is a closed club and if you are not a nanny statist, you are not welcome inside the blame carnival tent. And you will be smeared and slandered, ignored and derided, just like everyone else. And pickpocketed to boot.

Well, the jugglers are now no longer tossing pins in the air three, four at a time…they are juggling chainsaws. The economy, jobs, Mideast, al Qaeda, Russia, Iran, …and EVERY answer in the blame carnival is the same. “Let me put my hands in your pockets”. “YOU are somebody for whom I’M going to apologize.” “You bitter clinger, you”.

This time it was supposed to be different. And, you know …it is.

“God DAMN America”.

Indeed.

Ken Klaus on Islam and Faith

One of my routines in life is to wake up at 6AM Sunday Mornings and listen to Ken Klaus. He's a good speaker and based on this video a pretty good news analyst.

I commend it to you.

There are two great political speakers in the America today. Sarah Palin is the other one

Rex Murphy

Obama inspires; Palin connects

Palin at the RNC: She mixed a natural charm with a mischievous edge of sarcasm. AFP/Getty Images

They are, in the way of fate, curiously parallel figures

Published on Friday, Nov. 20, 2009 6:37PM EST Last updated on Monday, Nov. 23, 2009 3:07AM EST

There are two great political speakers in the America today. Sarah Palin is the other one.

Barack Obama's speaking skills are his signature talent. He's a platform performer, a speechmaker in the great tradition, a kind of teleprompter Cicero. The campaign to become President owed more to Mr. Obama's oratorical mastery than to any other element. His speech on race in America, necessitated by revelations of the ugly thoughts and sentiments of his hometown preacher, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was the most important event of his campaign. If it had failed, his candidacy would have been doomed. Under pressure – the great test of the real speechmaker – he delivered.

The other great speech of the U.S. campaign season was Sarah Palin's on receiving the vice-presidential slot on the McCain ticket. This was a speech delivered under even greater pressures than that of Mr. Obama. John McCain's choice of Ms. Palin had been early and widely criticized, and in some quarters ferociously reviled. She had never really been under the national spotlight before. The entire media were focused on her with an intensity almost unseen in the annals of vice-presidential politics. If she'd been just “okay,” or messed up, John McCain's campaign was over. It was the highest of high-stakes gambles.

Did she deliver? She soared. She was the very acme of self-confidence and ease. She mixed a natural charm with a mischievous edge of sarcasm toward her opponents – even daring the unthinkable by pinging The One himself. It was her “first serve” on the national stage and she delivered an ace. The backwoods hick knocked it out of the hall that night – not only did she not sink the McCain campaign, she gave it the only real vitality and spark that gloomy, tight, fussy little campaign had from start to finish.

Her speech, in fact, was the rhetorical equivalent of Mr. Obama's crucial one. They do not as speakers, it is obvious, share the same idiom. Mr. Obama is utterly composed, deliberate down to gesture and word, very conscious that he is a “figure” on a stage. Mr. Obama “bestows” himself on an audience. Ms. Palin has none of that. She will never speak in front of faux Greek columns. She walks on the stage much the same way she'd go into a gas station. But she's shrewd in her choice of themes, has a marvellous feel for her audience, and a confidence that will never be confused with arrogance.

They are, in the way fate or the mysteries of politics sometimes offers such things, curiously equivalent or parallel figures, polar opposites but equals. Ms. Palin connects: Mr. Obama inspires. She's a latter-day frontier figure, impulsive, instinctive; he's pure urban cool, highly deliberate, even detached. Both have real charisma.

It will make Obama fans perspire to hear this, but Ms. Palin has a more forceful bond with her supporters than he with his. Mr. Obama offers a kind of self-flattery to his worshippers. They feel exalted that they have the intelligence or sensibility to see how remarkable their man is. But he remains remote. Ms. Palin works close up. She offers those much invoked, but actually neglected figures, “the ordinary Joe or Josephine,” a real sense that she does represent them.

Ms. Palin is in the hurricane's eye again with the publication of Going Rogue. The Associated Press assigned no fewer than 11 reporters to “fact check” Ms. Palin's memoir, a concentration of scrutiny AP would never presume to exert over the man who's actually in the White House. Elements of the press mock and scorn her with a fury that is near inexplicable. Rather fewer extol her gifts. But pro or con, the media cannot get enough of her.

Professional feminists despise her, view her with unhinged contempt, as witness this classic assessment of academic Wendy Doniger: “Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman.” Dutiful “progressives,” otherwise windsocks of sensitivity and nuance, revile her in the crudest, most extravagant terms. The intensity of their hostility, its unbridledness and dreadful tastelessness (the speculations on the birth of her Downs syndrome child) is an unwitting measure of her power.

A truly dumb and witless person would not have the demure columnist David Brooks hissing dismissively, angrily in fact, on a Sunday morning talk show that Sarah Palin “is a joke.” Poor Mr. Brooks gets intellectual hives just thinking about her. Empty vessels do not inspire such venom and fury.

Ms. Palin is a real and evolving element in the great story of American politics. She is the “other half” of the Obama moment, and she may be in the ascendant. Mr. Obama is losing his lustre, his appeal is dimming, at the very moment the Alaskan outsider is staking her claim. Those who call her a joke are expressing an anxious hope not offering a rational description.

Ms. Palin has rare gifts and stamina enough to give them play. She is the second most outstanding figure on the great stage of American politics.

Rex Murphy is a commentator with The National and host of CBC Radio's Cross-Country Checkup.

I may have to stop Bashing Obama....Unlike the Bash Bush people did for eight years

He's become pitiful. It's too easy. The left is turning on him.

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Napoleon Bonaparte quotes (French General, Politician and Emperor (1804-14). 1769-1821)

The election of Obama was a huge mistake now being realized.

I will not interrupt as he self destructs.

The Most Stupid Global Warming AdVert EVER

Daniel Schorr is a perfect old Idiot

NPR's 'Senior News Analyst' Blames the Internet as 'Complicit' in Fort Hood Massacre

By Tim Graham (Bio | Archive)
November 22, 2009 - 17:43 ET

If someone decided to commit mass murder after hearing hot talk on the radio, NPR "senior news analyst" Daniel Schorr wouldn’t really suggest blaming the talk radio host. He’d suggest blaming the radio itself. That’s the weird tone of his Wednesday commentary, titled "Was the Internet Complicit in Fort Hood Shooting?"

Schorr explored blame for that mysterious "series of tubes" that is the Internet: "From what is publicly known about Maj. Nidal Hasan, accused killer of 13 in a rampage at Fort Hood, he had no accomplice — unless you count the Internet in which he communed, exchanging sinister thoughts with an extremist cleric."

North for Thanksgiving

We had made a decision NOT to go north for Holidays this winter. Driving, Snow, Cold, Misery.

Last Christmas we drove thru some of the worst conditions imaginable. 100 cars in the ditch in a hundred miles.

And it took a 2 hours to get thru Rockford because of the blizzard.

We aren't going to try to do that ever again. It's just too much. We aren't chickens from spring anymore.

But, I have checked the weather. We have decided to take a run at driving to Oakes ND for Thanksgiving. We will see Earl, Ruth, Family, Ben, Virginia, Family. and a bunch more.

I just hope it doesn't blizzard.

Christmas short of serious global warming is out.

Obama's Presidency so far: Dither, dither, speech. Foreign trip, bow, reassure

Even Maureen Dowd, Uberliberal, has conceeded, Sarah Palin CAN:

Read her whole column linked below. Obama couldn't fumble more: From Dowd a summary of Obama's presidency so far:

If we could see a Reduced Shakespeare summary of Obama’s presidency so far, it would read:

Dither, dither, speech. Foreign trip, bow, reassure. Seminar, summit. Shoot a jump shot with the guys, throw out the first pitch in mom jeans. Compromise, concede, close the deal. Dither, dither, water down, news conference.

It’s time for the president to reinvent this formula and convey a more three-dimensional person.

Palin can be stupefyingly simplistic, but she seems dynamic. Obama is impressively complex but he seems static.

She nurtures her grass roots while he neglects his.

Direct from Instant Pundit:

MAUREEN DOWD: If only Obama were more like Sarah Palin. “The animating spirit that electrified his political movement has sputtered out. . . . Like Reagan, Obama is a detached loner with a strong, savvy wife. But unlike Reagan, he doesn’t have the acting skills to project concern about what’s happening to people.”

I think Obama’s “charisma” was based on voter narcissism — people excited not just about electing a black President, but about themselves, voting for a black President. Now that’s over, and they’re stuck just with him, and emptied of their own narcissism there’s not much there to fill out the suit. As Ann Althouse says, “I think what Obama seems to have become, he always was.”

Now that the brain damaged (deceived by mass hysteria) portion of the US population has voted this guy in, and he is falling off the edge of the earth, how do we get out of this hole? He's a mess.

That Obama Sticker on the back of the Prius says "I'm a Sucker for Mass Hysteria". Global Warming, Oil Shortage and Obama

How did the Prodigal's Father pray for his son while he was away

I have been in a "conversation" with a Pastor online about what we should pray for in Praying for people's salvation.

The Prodigal's salvation is always a part of that conversation. Most of us come to Jesus in the storm.

We seldom come to Jesus when we have plenty of money, good health, a great marriage, good kids, a great job, sound relationships and everything.

We come broken. Sweetly broken, but broken. In a storm. In change. In trouble. People no longer believe in HELL so preaching and praying to keep them out of a hell they don't accept is of little avail.

Not the emotional. Truly repentant. Sorrow for past deeds, attitudes and behaviors.

So, when the father in the parable prayed, as I'm sure he did, what did he pray?

Protect my boy from harm, keep him safe warm well fed, get him a good job, marry a rich woman and give him a great life out there in the world among the friends he has chosen.

OR,

Lord, bring that boy home. Help him to learn all the hard lessons. Help him to come quickly to the end of himself. Put him in a place quickly where he will see the futility of Life without repentance.

I suspect the latter.

Yet we pray the former.

If you have a wayward, a prodigal, a friend, a son, someone. What would be, what should be the right thing to pray?

More important, if you encounter a prodigal along the way, running from God, running from repentance. What should you do. Give him or her three squares, a warm bed, a hot shower and money you might need.

If God brought him or her to this place and you do, perhaps you are by your actions delaying the very process to bring them back to HIM. Not all compassion is compassionate.

Long ago I was rebuked by a Prophet for my unfettered compassion. I had a great deal of money and helped anyone down on their luck. He didn't know me, but he told me in no uncertain terms that God was upset with the roadblocks to repentance I kept putting up by my unwise charity.

I learned from that. I do not often support every homeless and prison ministry. Many of Those are people who have not yet eaten enough pea pods with the swine to turn around.

RE-PENT...As it were..turning around.

----God would not that ANY perish but that ALL people come to repentance..2 peter 3:9

Just get out of the way and stop the enabling.

What I despise about Sharia Law, Terrorists and bad Islam

Warning, Graphic Images of the results of the distorted practices of Islamic Fundamentalists.

I wonder what those who preach political correctness and tolerance think of this?

My Son Kevin can do this and belies this post.

BASIC AUTO MAINTENANCE (OR: WHY YOUR MECHANIC MAKES MORE THAN YOU DO) (from a book by Carl Koslowski)

Have you ever driven your car away from the auto shop and had the uneasy feeling that the entire staff there was laughing like hyenas at you behind your back? That is a common feeling, and there is a simple reason why you think that.

They are.

“But why?” you may ask, “Why are they having a laugh at my expense?” The explanation for that is pretty easy, my friend, and deep down inside you probably already know it. Let us set the time machine back a few years and look at things as they were when you were in high school.

Chances are you thought you were pretty darned smart back in high school. Remember? You were on the debate team, the yearbook staff, you may even have been the valedictorian of your senior class. Your parents were so proud they gave you a car. They helped you take care of it. Then you went to college and really wowed ‘em.

Wow.

But before we move on, let’s go back to high school. Remember that guy who took all the shop classes? Remember his friends? What was it you called them, Motor Heads? Grease Monkeys? Wrench Jockeys?

Boy did you ever look down on them! Ha Ha Ha! Look at the shop guys! Losers!

Admit it – that’s what you thought. But now you’re fresh out of school. On your own. With your own car. Your own used car, that is. Funny how life works.

See, Mom and Dad aren’t going to pay for the repairs now that you’ve struck out on your own. So guess who’s laughing now? That’s right, Smartypants…all those guys you looked down on in high school.

Admit it – when you take that car into the shop you feel as dumb as a brine shrimp. When the man in the coveralls looks at you and gestures back at your disabled transportation, you haven’t got the vaguest idea what he is talking about, do you?

Be honest.

If you are the average person you wouldn’t know a catalytic converter if there was one floating in your soup. That’s why you’ll happily pay the “dumbest kid” in your high school class to fix it. See, he would know the catalytic converter if it was floating in your soup.

So who’s the dumb kid now, Mr. Philosophy Major?

While you wait in the repair shop for the former dumb kid to tell you what’s causing your 11-year-old dorkmobile to spew black smoke and sputter like a Cub Scout at a nude beach, perhaps you might want to check out the walls of the repair shop. Go ahead, look at the sign that lists their labor rate…Look at it!

No, no, you didn’t read it wrong, Einstein. It says $75 an hour. Seventy-five dollars!

Even your psychiatrist doesn’t charge that. And without your car, you can’t even go see your psychiatrist. In fact, it’s not unlikely that you will see your psychiatrist in the waiting room of the repair shop as well. See, he doesn’t know what a catalytic converter is either.

The hour and a half you wait for the mechanic to return from the bay and tell you what’s wrong with your car is the longest ninety minutes you will ever spend. You’ll try to distract yourself by reading the three-year-old copies of Sports Illustrated they’ve thoughtfully left for you. Maybe you’ll buy a can of pop. Perhaps you’ll treat yourself to a nice gumball. If the repair shop is nice they’ll even have free coffee for the patrons. Go head! Have a cup of java on the boys in the bay! At $75 an hour, they can afford it.

Finally, after half a pot of the strongest coffee this side of Istanbul, the mechanic will come out and call your name, If you’re smart you won’t answer. You’ll run for your life.

He’s about to start telling you why you have to give him five hundred dollars.

He’ll start with the phrase, “Well, we checked the engine on the computer and this is what the problem is…” That’s the last thing he’ll say that you will understand at all.

Except the five hundred dollar part.

He will ramble on about the alternator fan belt or the fuel injectors or the overhead cams. All the while your eyes will glaze over. You will have absolutely no idea what he is talking about.

He will know that you have absolutely no idea what he is talking about. But he’ll keep on talking about parts that he is about to replace in your car….and you’ll nod. He will take an eternity to get to the only part of the conversation you really care about anyway.

The part about the five hundred dollars.

All along you will both know that you are giving him the money. But he’ll make you wait.

Why does he make you wait? Why does he torture you like this?

Because you asked for it, buster. You deserve every second of torture he dishes out. You owe him that five hundred bucks, even if all that’s wrong with your car is that it’s out of gas.

Why do you owe him? Because you wasted all that time in high school and college learning philosophy. And mocking him.

He knew you thought he was dumber than you. He wasn’t. All along he was plotting this day of sweet revenge in his grease monkey mind. You will gladly pay restitution to him for your arrogance, restitution in the form of five hundred bucks. Your psychiatrist will pay him the same restitution as well.

It’s a good lesson in humility when you think about it… guess that’s why “kar” is the first syllable in “karma.”

Thus endeth the lesson, but since you will inevitably face a mechanic who knows you know nothing at all about your car, here’s a short list of parts that your car does not have. Hopefully, this will save you embarrassment, if not money.

Your car does not have a :

Defibrillator
Maypole
Blinker Fluid Reservoir
Crisper
Carbuncle
Mine Sweeper
Ionic Transmographer
Semiautomatic transmission
Time Portal
Solar Interferometer
Martin Landau Roof
Starter Pistol
Cheese Filter
Irradiator
Electric Slide
Clown Vent
Serling Rod
Catatonic Converter
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
Aorta
Jimmy Hat
Snooze Alarm
Iambic Pentameter
Proton Torpedo Valve
Picnic Gasket
Litter Box

Eye of the Beholder

What the Media Showed…..

What I saw—-

The Not so Secret Plan to Force you to Take the Mark of the Beast?

VeriChip TV Ad Confirms Critics' Fears: They Want Everyone Implanted

By Jim Edwards | Oct 20, 2009

VeriChip’s TV ad for its Health Link implantable microchip that connects to your online medical records has spawned a backlash on YouTube. Observers regard it as either part of President Obama’s secret Nazi plan to enslave us all or a sign of the coming antichrist.

Sometimes Satan comes as a man of Peace...... Bob Dylan

The REAL enemy

Lets remember who our greatest enemy is.

It was NOT Muslims that fought for abortion, spent our future taxes, weakened our military, took our freedom of health care, polluted our cities, degraded our education, elected those who do not listen, wants to try terrorist as criminals, stopped oil drilling and so much more.

These things happened from people who CLAIM to be Christians.

Not all enemies are created equal.

Advice for when the really hard times come

If and when it comes, people will get by. There will be a lot of blood spilt, and in the end, we go back to a simpler way of life by choice and by necessity. Who cares if you have to do with less? nobody was born with entitlement. Feel for the rich, for in truth, they really are, (most of them) the poorest of the poor. Take care of your family, love your neighbor and share what you have.

There is a God, and he is good. He does not judge, but rather, as we as a people have turned our backs on him, he has lifted his protection, so what comes upon us, is by our own free will.

Way too many people without hope or faith, and if that's how you choose to live, well, great for you. Be miserable, be anxious. I prefer to walk in faith, try to live right, and treat everyone as best I can, regardless of how they will treat me.

The desire for money is the real root of evil, and pride... oh well, I'm off my soapbox. Bless you all.

Life is Hard, Play Short

President Palin, President Palin, President Palin (get used to it)

Bill Weir has a great editorial on President (to be) Palin. I am collecting and storing with URL's all comments and editorials saying that "Sarah Palin will never be President". I will use that to rub certain noses in later. I particularly enjoy collecting them from commenters to this blog. Anyway, speaking of comments. Here are a few about Bill Weir's oped.
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Palin/Bachmann 2012. With Liz Cheney as Secretary of State and Ann Coulter as Attorney General! Liz can jerk a knot in the foreign stooges while Ann clubs the domestic ones about their heads and shoulders.

"Like a mule, all liberals need a wood shampoo from time to time."
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Sarah Palin represents a woman that can not be allowed to exist.

She believes every woman should be free to strive for her goals (as if that was ever a question where I come from), and happens to be a beautiful conservative with family values and Christian ideals. But liberals know that all 21st century women are unabashed feminists, vote for abortion, hate the establishment, go to the right schools and are patently liberal.
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The left can not afford to allow Sarah Palin to gain traction. She represents living, breathing, strong women living in every city across the world quietly getting it done every day of their lives, without fighting or hating or rebelling. They must destroy her. She lays bare the lie of the left wing feminist movement. Whether she runs for office or not, she could turn the tide of women's votes forever if women give her any credence at all. That is totally unacceptable and must be stopped.
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Another one of the main reasons they hate her is because the left believes all educated women should be Democrats. They fear that Sarah will liberate the women of America from the left's extremist hold on them, and most of all, they fear America will realise the left have been fighting a war against mothers.
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Image a country where women were free to become traditional mothers and not be looked down upon it, and rather than told being a mother holds them back, they are told that that the traditional mother is the heart and soul of the western civilisation - more important and more skilled than our doctors, lawyers, politicians and scientists combined.

Leftist women hate her, because they know that as women and mothers, they are trash. They look at her, and see a super human mother, that the average leftist could NEVER be. And they don't want women looking up to her and aspiring to be like her.

A NOTE ON THE LAST COMMENT: I had a liberal friend tell me that a little girl in her kindergarten class said that when she grew up she wanted to be Sarah Palin. That horrified her. How far we have fallen when someone like Sarah who should be a role model for all women, has become a liberal horror story.

By the way, I am well into her book. Her story is compelling and just like most of America. I identify with much she writes about. But, I can see how the left will hate it. It's real life. They like fantasy and pixie dust.

Read that Barack Hussein Obama

Sarah Palin on tour....Wish she would come to Chicago

The following is from the Sarah Palin Facebook page.... I hope I don't get into trouble for posting the pics. I gave attribution. If I do need to pull them down I will. I just think this is worth seeing.

Sarah Palin says:

The first three stops on the Going Rogue book tour have been exhilarating!

I am humbled by the outpouring of support and have so enjoyed meeting and hearing from such great Americans in Michigan and Indiana. Our next three stops will keep us in the Heartland, and we hope that you can make it to one of our events in Cincinnati or Columbus, Ohio; or Washington, Pennsylvania.

Enjoy the pictures and go rogue with us!

- Sarah Palin

Gov. Sarah Palin greets a crowd of people outside of a suburban Grand Rapids, MI, shopping mall, Wednesday, November 18, 2009, prior to kicking off the first stop of the "Going Rogue" book tour. Photo by Shealah Craighead. Copyright SarahPAC.

Gov. Sarah Palin talks with a soldier who waited in line to have his book signed at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Grand Rapids, MI, Wednesday, November 18, 2009. This is the first stop on Palin's "Going Rogue" book tour. Photo by Shealah Craighead. Copyright SarahPAC.

Gov. Sarah Palin shakes hands with a family who waited in line to have their books signed at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Grand Rapids, MI, Wednesday, November 18, 2009. This is the first stop on Palin's "Going Rogue" book tour. Photo by Shealah Craighead. Copyright SarahPAC.

Gov. Sarah Palin signs a book and talks with a woman who waited in line to have her book signed at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Grand Rapids, MI, Wednesday, November 18, 2009. This is the first stop on Palin's "Going Rogue" book tour. Photo by Shealah Craighead. Copyright SarahPAC.

Gov. Sarah Palin at the Fort Wayne, IN, book signing, Thursday, November 19, 2009. Photo by Shealah Craighead. Copyright SarahPAC.

Gov. Sarah Palin at the Fort Wayne, IN, book signing, Thursday, November 19, 2009. Photo by Shealah Craighead. Copyright SarahPAC.

Gov. Sarah Palin at the Fort Wayne, IN, book signing, Thursday, November 19, 2009. Photo by Shealah Craighead. Copyright SarahPAC.

After 4 hours of signing books during the third "Going Rogue" book signing event, Gov. Sarah Palin greets a crowd waiting outside of Borders bookstore Thursday, November 19, 2009, in Noblesville, IN. Photo by Shealah Craighead. Copyright SarahPAC.

Gov. Sarah Palin talks with a woman who's looks resemble that of Gov. Sarah Palin at Borders bookstore during the third "Going Rogue" book signing event Thursday, November 19, 2009, in Noblesville, IN. Photo by Shealah Craighead. Copyright SarahPAC.

Gov. Sarah Palin shakes hands with a young woman who waited in line to have her "Going Rogue" book signed at Borders bookstore Thursday, November 19, 2009, in Noblesville, IN. Photo by Shealah Craighead. Copyright SarahPAC.

A bird's eye view of Gov. Sarah Palin talking with Americans and signing her book "Going Rogue" at Borders bookstore during the third "Going Rogue" book signing event Thursday, November 19, 2009, in Noblesville, IN. Photo by Shealah Craighead. Copyright SarahPAC.

Gov. Sarah Palin talks with a family who waited in line to have their "Going Rogue" book signed at Borders bookstore Thursday, November 19, 2009, in Noblesville, IN. Photo by Shealah Craighead. Copyright SarahPAC.