THE PLATFORM PART 4

Once again, O Intelligent Reader, I return to my platform.

The Constitution of the United States of America tells us what government is to be about.

So far we have covered: 1) forming a more perfect union; 2) establishing justice; and 3) insuring domestic tranquility.

Now it is time for a very relevant function of government: providing for the common defense.

It is the job of government to defend the nation against all forces, inside and out, which might cause the nation to fall, to stumble or even to trip.

On December 7th, 1941 a squadron of Japanese aircraft struck our naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, killing 2,403 American military personnel and civilians.

Although Hawaii was not a state, it was a United States Territory, and an attack on it was considered an attack on America.

This attack brought us into a war with Japan at the same time we were engaged in conflict in Europe against Adolph Hitler, whose goal it was to rule the Western World.

We ultimately won both wars. That's because we are militarily the strongest nation on earth, peaceful until attacked...then...watch out!

One single battle in the ensuing war with Japan was the battle for the Island nation of Iwo Jima.

During that battle, 4,197 member of the United States Marines were killed right out, 19,189 were wounded and 1,401 later died of wounds suffered there.

The battle lasted 35 days.

We won.

Ultimately, the war with Japan was won when President Harry S. Truman made the decision to drop one atomic bomb on Hiroshima and one on Nagasaki, Japan.

Some would argue that we were about to end the war with negotiations and that the bombings were unnecessary.

May I remind you that on December 7th, 1941 we were engaged in negotiations with Japan during which they had promised to abide by the peace treaty we had just struck with them.

Their ambassador broke off the negotiations hours before the attack on Pearl Harbor, which means, of course, that the attack had already been planned and the negotiations were nothing but a ploy to keep us from doing anything until the attack had come to fruition.

The point is: Negotiations have NEVER in the history of mankind prevented an attack, nor have they, in-and-of-themselves ever ended a war.

There are those who believe that we should pull out of Iraq immediately and negotiate peace with terrorists who have as their goal the distruction of the western way of life.

It has never worked in history, is not working anywhere in the world today and will never work in the future.

Those who think negotiations with terroritst will lessen their verve are either naive or are traitors.

I hope for the former, I fear the latter.

Their trouble is they either do not know or do not care to put the war on terrorists in the perspective of the history of war.

Therefore, Plank 4 of my platform is the unmittigated defense of our nation.

I.

Nations that harbor and/or train terrorists shall be given 60 days to round up, execute or otherwise dispose of all terrorists within their borders or face the FULL force and fury of the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and their state auxilliaries.

Anybody in this nation or any other who does not think we can defeat any present enemy on this planet is just plain STUPID (and if you're one of them, I'm sorry to report that you are just plain STUPID).

Now, might does not make right.

But when you are right, your might goes a long way toward enforcing your rightness.

In the case of terrorism, it is right that terrorists be distroyed.

If not, they will most assuredly distroy us.

II.

Members of any group or groups who support terrorists within our borders shall be tried as traitors and/or deported to Mexico immediately, and if Mexico does not like it, they should stop allowing their people to enter the United States illegally.

Those who are in our county illegally, from whatever country, shall be deported immediately. They may re-enter by getting in the same line those who enter legally are in, fulfilling the same requirements those in the afore-mentioned lines must fulfill and go through the process legally.

All legal aliens shall be welcomed with opened arms and shall be invited to work toward becoming citizens of and to partake in the American Dream.

III.

The defense of this country from without and within shall require the largest portion of the national budget.

So there you have it.

Part 4 of my Platform.

Remember: If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve.

TIME OUT!

Before I present to you the rest of my platform (I know. It's tough to wait. You are waiting with shrimp in your mouth...ie: baited breath), you MUST read The Insanity Farmer (whose name I have never changed in my blogroll).

Here is the link:

http://insanityfarm.com/

You must read: Politico Primer Part 1 and Politico Primer Part 2

No, really! You must!

Go read it!

Do it now!

Go!

Go!

It should be required reading in every civics class, every political science class and every social studies class.

So what are you waiting for?

I'll wait while you go read it.

THE PLATFORM PART 3

The third responsibility of the federal government, according to the Constitution of the United States of America, is to insure domestic tranquility.

Shall we turn to Webster?

Yes, lets.

Domestic:

of, relating to, or originating within a country and especially one's own country.

Tranquil:

1 a : free from agitation of mind or spirit
b : free from disturbance or turmoil

So, when there is turmoil in the country, the government is to make sure that tranquility is restored.

Question: Has our government insured that we have tranquility within our nation?

I think not.

So, as President, I will assist the members of the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Supreme Court to understand that this is in their job description.

I will assist them by saying, "Look, guys (and gals), you gotta make some tranquility happen here."

Of course, they won't know how.

They will look at each other and say something like, "Duh....How are we supposed to do that?"

To which I will respond, "Look, you gorbellied, folly-fallen, giglets, I will demonstrate."

Then, in a saturday evening, required viewing TV appearance, I will say to the citizens, "Now, sit quietly, cross your legs, take a deep breath and hold it."

This will accomplish several things:

1. When they sit quietly, suddenly all overt crime will cease.

2. When they cross their legs, all sorts of evil occurances will be prevented. Furthermore, the rate of population increase will decline.

3. When they hold their breath, certain ones who engage in unhealthy, oxygen depleting, carbon monoxide inducing and mind altering habits will expire...thus decreasing the surplus population, emptying our jails of many life-long criminals and freeing up many hospital beds.

4. When I at last give them permission to breathe normally, those who are healthy will be so happy to be rid of those who have been dragging the country down that they will gladly proceed through life in a state of tranquility.

In order to accomplish all of this, a new cabinet post will be established: The Minister of Calm.

Man! I can hardly wait to set some of this in motion.

As Always: If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve.

THE PLATFORM PART 2

The second responsibility of government, according to The Constitution of the United States of America, is to establish justice (check out the preamble).

What is this thing called justice?

According to Webster it is:

1 a : the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments

b : Judge

c : the administration of law; especially : the establishment or determination of rights according to the rules of law or equity

2 a : the quality of being just, impartial, or fair

b (1) : the principle or ideal of just dealing or right action (2) : conformity to this principle or ideal : Righteousness

c : the quality of conforming to law

3 : conformity to truth, fact, or reason : Correctness

Notice that it is the government's job to establish justice.

Again, according to Webster: to institute (as a law) permanently by enactment or agreement.

In order to establish justice, we use a system of laws, with a Constitution to establish the bounds of the laws, congress to write laws, the President to agree to the laws, a Supreme Court (whose purpose is to ensure that the laws do not violate the Constitution), Judges to mediate the laws, lawyers to argue the laws, and police to enforce the law by seeking out violators and bringing them before the courts.

Now, it has not worked out that way, because individuals in the system see their own need to power as greater than the Constitution itself.

Thus we have activist judges imposing law instead of comparing it to the Constitution and determining to which principles the law adheres or violates.

Therefore, my platform is to immediately suspend all sitting judges, good and bad, and replacing them with judges selected from my readership, who will obviously be honest, fair, upstanding, dependable, trustworthy, loyal helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.

Applications are being received.

Remember: If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve.

THE PLATFORM PART 1

My readers are the smartest blog readers in the world (except for Vickie, who sadly allows me to control her [or is it really "his"?] mood).

Since you are so smart, you will no doubt understand the various planks of my platform in my run for the write-in vote.

Plank 1.

As president I will work toward the unification of the United States of America.

There are several way this will be accomplished.

First, I will introduce legislation that will make it illegal to pass any more legislation. We have enough laws already. We just need to start enforcing the ones we have.

Secondly, I will introduce legislation that will make it illegal to disagree with me, thus creating a state of immediate unity.

The fact that legislation prohibiting the introduction of any further legislation will have been enacted will be a bit of a stumbling block, but I will introduce legislation that will make it possible.

For those who agree to agree with me there will be enormous benefits: free healthcare; free housing; free money; free gasoline; free Dairy Queen Blizzards; and free Honda Fits.

Those who choose not to agree with me will be strongly urged to plan an extended vacation in Bora Bora. Every effort will be made to make the trip effortless.

We will provide them with airfare, a pair of pajamas, one change of clothes, the religious tome of their choice and Ritz crackers.

Then we will give them a copy of "How to fly a Boeing 777 for Fun and Profit" and send them on their way.

Those of us who are left will bask in the knowledge that we all think alike, walk in lock-step and will play Monopoly every Monday night.

Global warming and food shortages will be unlawful.

Hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, landslides, sink holes and thunderstorms will be relegated to sections of the Sargasso Sea, and ships will not be allowed to venture therethrough unless they fly the flag of Bora Bora.

The Constitution of the United States of America exists, according to itself, to form a more perfect union.

No one has figured out how to do that until now.

Relief is on the horizon.

Or is that a hurricane brewing?

Remember: If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve.

The Groundswell Begins

There were four comments on my last post.

One of those comments promises to vote for me.

One out of four, all of them Americans.

Assuming three hundred million Americans, that gives me 7,500,000 votes.

I'm a shoe-in!

Next: My Platform Expanded

ONLY A HUGE WRITE-IN COULD DO IT

If nominated, I will not run

If elected, I will not serve.

That's my platform, and I'm sticking with it.

TOO EARLY?

To see, hear or read the mainstream press, you would think that the Presidential Primaries were next month!

I still haven't seen a single person worthy of the office of President of The United States of America come to the fore.

Here's what my candidate MUST be ready to FIGHT for:

1. Uniting the country. That must be number one.

2. Establishing justice under the law for every citizen.

3. Insuring tranquility in our land .

4. Providing common defense of our nation.

5. Promoting the general welfare of our citizens.

6. Securing the blessings of liberty for us and our descendents.

7. Taking as little of the money we earn (and the government does not earn) as possible.

8. Making government as small as possible.

9. Sticking to what is actually IN the Constitution.

10. Making abortions illegal except where the physical life of the mother is directly threatened medically (the Supreme Court's incorrect decisions of the past notwithstanding).

11. Remembering that this is a government of, by and for the people and that we are not a people of, by and for the government.

12. Being a person with a real American name like: George; John; Thomas; James; Andrew; Martin; William; Zachary (?); Millard (?); Franklin; Abraham; Ulysses (?); Rutherford (at least it sounds dignified); Chester; Grover (not the Sesame Street one); Benjamin; Theodore; Woodrow (?); Calvin; Harry; Dwight; Lyndon (?); Richard; Gerald; or Ronald.

What kind of a name is Barack? What about Hillary (mountains of trouble there)? Should we consider a man whose name is Newt (isn't that some kind of lizard?)? Rudolph (the Christmas president)? Mitt (gimmie a break!)? Jeb (sounds a bit hick-ish)? Condoleezza (come on...that's not a real name...is it?)?

Maybe we need a Joseph.

I know one.

SATURDAY SERENDIPITY

PART ONE:

I have been surfing the blogosphere.

WOW! What a concept!

Anyway, among the posts I have read have been some (not entirely wrongly) critical of the "organized" church and bemoaning personal disillusionment therewith.

Well, disillusionment is what happens when one's focus in on the corporation and not on the CEO.

Christ died for the church (ekklesia - that which is called out), not the church building, church location, church organization, church polity, or any other aspect of the corporate church, the CHURCH, ie: the people who have come into relationship with God through Christ.

(Yeah, yeah...I know He died for all sin, in all people, everywhere...but here I am talking about the church. Cheese...try to stay focused!)

Now anybody who has read God's Word knows beyond any doubt that He is well organized. Witness the very universe itself, His book of Nehemiah and the re-building of the wall, His instructions as to the lay-out of the temple, or the tents of Israel outlined in Numbers 2.

But Christ did not die for the organization.

He died for me.

And for you, by the way.

He is to be our focus.

Period.

Otherwise, we are doomed to think negatively about that entity we call the church, with its false-starts, foibles and rank stupidity.

When I learned to look at each face in the congregation through the eyes of Christ as I led the worship, instead of in light of the various frailties represented therein, my worship leading became meaningful.

I like meaningful.


PART TWO:

Have you been thinking a lot about the United Nations lately?

I was sent the following and thought I would share it with you.

(It can be bought at www.imao.us I think. It's a T-shirt design).

TOP 10 U.N. SLOGANS

10. If an impotent, bloated buraucracy can't solve it, then it's best left festering.

9. You can't spell "unethical" without UN

8. Genocidal dictators, beware our non-binding resolutions.

7. Bringing peace to our world (actual results may vary).

6. Tomorrow's corruption today

5. Raising pointless squabbling to an art form.

4. We take bribes so you don't have to.

3. Try our world famous cheesy fries.

2. If troubles abound, we'll be nearby doing nothing.

1. If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial America.


PART THREE

There is no PART THREE.

THE PLANE TRUTH

Nancy!

Nancy!

It's OK!

You can have a plane to travel on.

It is NORMAL for the Speaker of the House to have a plane.

No one is saying you should not have a plane...no one!

But, you simple minded, self-oriented, self-proclaimed queen of the USA,

YOU DO NOT NEED A BIGGER PLANE THAN HAS EVER BEEN USED FOR ANY OTHER POLITICAL LEADER WHO WAS NOT PRESIDENT.

THAT IS WHAT PEOPLE ARE OBJECTING TO, YOU OVER-THE-TOP LEADER OF THE "MOST MORAL GOVERNMENT EVER"...N O T.

Stop with the accusations and threats (read: defunding the war in Iraq) and just do the job the people (mistakingly) elected you to...

that is IF you know how.

AH, SWEET MEMORIES

I bought a memory foam pillow.

It's not helping my memory at all.

I can't even remember why I bought it.

OLDIE BUT GOODIE

A friend sent me this, so I thought I would pass (pardon the football reference) it on to you.

Football FINALLY makes sense..........

A guy took his blonde girlfriend to her first football game.

They had great seats right behind their team's bench.

After the game, he asked her how she liked the experience. "Oh, I
Really liked it," she replied, "especially the tight pants and all the
big muscles, but I just couldn't understand why they were killing each
other over 25 cents."

Dumbfounded, her date asked, "What do you mean?"

She said "Well, they flipped a coin, one team got it and then for the
rest of the game, all they kept screaming was: 'Get the quarterback!
Get the quarterback!' I'm like...Helloooooo? It's only 25 cents!!!!

I hope you catch it.

A FRIEND AND CO-WORKER BLOGS!

You all know Parker, the Insanity Farmer (see link in blog roll).

Now there's Caleb.

Caleb is also a co-worker of mine...one of the best, most dependable workers anyone could ask for.

He now has a blog called On the Air (Caleb) .

(Actually, the (Caleb) part is not part of his blog's name, only of the link I have to his blog. His blog is actually "On the Air."

But if you click on the words in the quotation marks above, you will not get to his blog.

Conversely, if you click on the link that includes (Caleb), you will be taken to his blog. )

Anyway...I recommend that you read his posts.

He is a dedicated Christian with strong, conservative views.

And he's cool.

Read him.

ALL IS SIMI-FORGIVEN

Thanks to the help of svoblogger, I am now able to leave comments on other Blogger sites.

Therefore, some is forgiven...there are still too many steps...but at least it works.

Therefore be hereby warned!

You will be visited by a certain presence this weekend.

Your blog will be read.

Certain appropriate comments may be left.

Some may be right.

Whether right or left, the comments will be filled with hidden but well exposed meanings.

There will be enough comments posted that one could write a commentary.

You can neither run nor hide.

Watch out!

Here I come!

FURIOUS!!

I have been to all of the links on my blogroll.

The only ones I can comment on are the ones that are not on Blogger.

When I comment on a Blogger site, it asks for my Google password. When I enter it, it takes me to my dashboard and does not leave the comment.

A thousand poxes on Blogger.

More, if you can manage it.

RANDOM RAMBLINGS

Random 1

I'm so happy to learn that Democrat Presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton, has stated that she supports our troops in Iraq.

According to her, her way of supporting them is to enable them to fail at their assignment by premature withdrawal, but hey, you can't have everything.

I've always believed premature withdrawal was awkward, at best.

Random 2

Saw a picture of a crowd of members of the Religion of Peace demonstrating against Pope Benedict XVI. They were burning him in effegy. They carried signs that said: "Jihad is Our Way."

When Ismail Haniyeh was installed as the new prime minister of Palestine, his first act was to wave the Qur'an and shout "Allahy Adhbar!" ("Allah is great).

The members of the legislature shouted back, "The Qur'an is our constitution, Muhammad is our prophet, jihad is our path, and dying as martyrs for Allah is our greatest wish!"

Peaceful folks, wouldn't you say?

They signed a peace agreement in Sudan.

In Darfur, Sudan, 200,000 Christians have been executed since the peace agreement was signed.

Another feather in the cap of the Religion of Peace.

In Khartoum, over 1,000,000 Nuba Christians have been slain, displaced, starved or sold into slavery by the Islamic government of Khartoum.

Let's hear it for the Religion of Peace!

In Pakistan, a teen converted to Christianity. Her uncle, a Muslim town leader, beat her, held a gun to her head and demanded that she renounce her Christianity and return to Islam.

She refused.

He, thinking he might be accused of murder if he shot her, instead tried to drown her in a canal. She struggled free, got away and is now in hiding.

Three cheers for the Religion of Peace!

Seven Israelies and three Christians were wounded and subsequently captured by Muslims during the recent Lebonese conflict.

They were executed with shots to the back of their heads.

Religion of Peace?

In a hospital emergency room in Israel, wounded Lebanese, Christians, Muslims, and Palestinians had their wounds treated and got well.

What defines a Religion of Peace?

Couple of days ago, mortors were systematically and diliberately fired into an elementary school in Israel, killing many children and wounding others.

What religion were those who chose children upon whom to fire?

They were members of the Religion of Peace.

Random 3

No doubt, when we pull our troops out of Iraq, the members of the Religion of Peace will show their real colors.

I wonder which of your relatives and friends will be receipients of their peacefulness.

NOW WHAT?

First I can't post.

Now I can't post comments.

Blogger keeps asking me for my GOOGLE login and password, which, when I put them in, it refuses to recognize, except when I use them to log in to my new Blogger site, which I can only do through my old Blogger site.

I used to enjoy this.

Blogging, that is.

They've made it so good that I can't use it any more.

NEW DIRECTION

Members of a particular political party (which shall not be named here, but whose initials are D.E.M.O.C.R.A.T.) keep saying we need "a new direction."

Oh?

Well, let's take a look.

Inflation is almost non-existant.

We need a new direction.

Taxes are lower than they have been in years.

We need a new direction.

The number of new terrorists attacks on our country stands at zero.

We need a new direction.

Gas prices are down.

We need a new direction.

The number of troops killed in Iraq annually has dropped significantly.

We need a new direction.

The budget defecit has been dropping.

We need a new direction.

The national debt has been dropping.

We need a new direction.

Deaths from cancer have been dropping.

We need a new direction.

The number of abortions in the country has been dropping.

We need a new direction.

Lower taxes have resulted in MORE government revenues (you are smart enough to realize how this happens, right?).

We need a new direction.

With fewer ecconomic barriers (read: "taxes"), new businesses are at an all time high (in spite of Wal-Mart, who was going to drive all other businesses out of business).

We need a new direction.

Overall drug use is down among teenagers.

We need a new direction.

Unemployment is very, very low.

We need a new direction.

The number of "better" paying jobs (ie: well above the minimum wage) is at an all-time high.

We need a new direction.

The stock market, overall, has been on a rise...even setting records!

We need a new direction.

Please...make me a list of which of the above things YOU want changed in our new direction.

Now, aren't you glad you elected representatives who are going to take us in "a new direction?"

New Blogger

It happened.

Blogger FORCED me to use New Blogger.

Now nothing I try to do works.

I have been days trying to make it work.

Finally I can write a blog.

I can't upload pictures.

I can't use colors.

I can't do anything!

"Nothing will change." it said.

I tried to submit a description of my problems.

It would not submit.

I had to jump through six hoops before they would allow me to blog again.

I am 65 years old weigh 275 pounds and have heart trouble.

I don't jump through hoops.

Period.

If you can read this, please report my troubles to blogger, tell them to fix my problems, call me, apologize in person, send me $1,000,000.00 in penalties and give me back my First Amendment rights to opine!

(Two out of three would be acceptable.)

I WANT OLD BLOGGER BACK!!!!!!

The March

The year was 1964.

The place was St. Augustine, Florida.

I was living in St. Augustine while earning money to continue college st Stetson University in Deland.

The CBS Evening News, featuring the venerable Walter Cronkite, announced that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was coming to St. Augustine to help the Southern Christian Leadership Conference stage peaceful protests in support of the equal treatment of "colored" Americans.

Because I believed (and still believe) in that cause, I decided to join the march and protests.

The march was uneventful.

The presence of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. created an aura of excitement and great dignity.

At lunch time, there was to be a sit-down protest at restaurants around town.

At the same time, "whites" in the city decided to boycot the restaurants that allowed "blacks" to eat at them.

I chose to go to my favorite lunch hang-out and eat with the protesters.

When I left the restaurant, I was greeted by two very large individuals of the white persuasion who threatened to take me out back and paint me black with shoe polish.

A deputy Sheriff pulled up to the corner where I was standing, and I promptly stepped over to the car and struck up a converstion with the deputy.

When I did so, the two very large individuals left the area, for which I was personally grateful.

That night the CBS Evening News showed what were supposed to be pictures of the arrest or Dr. King and of him being led up the stairs of the courthouse. Then they panned what was supposed to be a large crowd of mostly white people watching the proceedings.

Now, I worked across the street from the courthouse, and I know that the pictures shown on CBS were NOT of the St. Augustine courthouse, nor was there room for a crowd the size the network tried to make us believe was there.

Additionally, the pictures of Dr. King being arrested were pictures taken somewhere other than St. Augustine. They were not taken in St. Augustine.

That was the first time I realized that everyone who thinks the news tells you the truth is totally deceived.

Today, more than ever, I believe in the precepts set forth in Dr. King's famous speach:

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

What a different America we would live in if we all had that same dream.

Have a meaningful Martin Luther King Day.

(By the way...why don't we use his correct name and call it Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day?)

How to Read

Those of you who have read my blog for a while (both of you) know that from time to time I go on a rantette about poor interpretations of Scripture due to unfamiliararity with rules of sentence structure.

So let's set this up.

I have driven in many cities: Miami, Florida; Tampa, Florida; Jacksonville, Florida; Atlanta Georgia; Boston Massachusetts and New York City, to name a few.

None of the cities in which I have driven have been more terrifying than Atlanta, Boston and New York City.

One could reasonably say, "Drive yourself in those cities with fear and trembling."

It is much better to let public transit do the driving in places like that.

I love airplanes.

I fly several times each week.

Only I don't fly real airplanes.

I fly Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight.

You would do well to stay off any actual aircraft behind whose yoke I sat.

One could reasonably say, "Board an aircraft flown by Joe Scoggins with fear and trembling."

It would be much better to let real pilots fly those planes.

There is a Scripture that I have heard quoted by many pastors, each of whom attempted to interpret it, and each of whom had to twist it to make it say what they perceived as something that makes sense.

Here is the verse:

Philippians 2:12 "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. "

Invariably, preachers try to make this verse command us to work out our own salvation while trying to avoid making it sound like a faith of works.

Actually, it is absolutely, positively NOT instructing us to work out our own salvation.

In the same sense that the statements above are used ("Drive in those cities with fear and trembling." and "Board an aircraft flown by Joe Scoggins with fear and trembling."), so is this verse used: "...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."

We know this by the context of the verses ahead of it:

5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.;

and the verses following it:

13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Perhaps rendering it this way would help:

If you are going to try to work out your own salvation, you had better do it with fear and trembling, 'cause if it isn't done by God working it in you, it isn't going to get done.

In other words, you can't work it out yourself. Period.

It would be much better to let the real Savior do the saving for you.

This is the only way Phillipians 2:12 fits with its immediate context and the context of the rest of Scripture.

Plus, it is the only way to find the Gospel in this verse, for the Gospel requires God to do the saving through Christ, not of ourselves, or else we would boast of our accomplishment.

Now, aren't you glad that you have me to help you through these things?

A friend of mine, Guy Taylor, sent this to me. I thought you might like to see it.

Weather Bulletin - North Dakota

THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A MOMENT.

North Dakota News

This text is from a county emergency manager out in the western part ofNorth Dakota state after a snowstorm.

WEATHER BULLETIN

Up here, in the Northern Plains, we just recovered from a Historic event---may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with a historic blizzard of up to 44 inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.

FYI:

George Bush did not come.

FEMA did nothing.

No one howled for the government.

No one blamed the government.

No one even uttered an expletive on TV .

Neither Jesse Jackson nor Al Sharpton visited.

Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.

Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.

ABC, CBS or NBC did not report on this snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.

No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.

No one looted.

Nobody - I mean NOBODY demanded the government do anything.

Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.

No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera.

No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.

Nope, we just melted the snow for water.

Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.

The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a penny.

Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snowbound families.

Families took in the stranded people - total strangers.

We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.

We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die".

We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.

Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

"In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate."

It does seem that way, at least to me.

I hope this gets passed on.

Maybe SOME people will get the message. The world does Not owe you a living

Me-Me

Pride and selfishness are closely related sins.

In an effort to avoid insensitivity, we refer to recent generations as "me" generations.

Truth is, they are selfish generations.

The theme of this generation seems to be, "I want what I want, when I want it, where I want it, the way I want it and I want it right now."

Delayed gratification is a thing of the past.

Children, by nature, believe that the entire world is about them. That's because they have no contrary experience.

Teens are supposed to be discovering that the universe does not revolve around them.

Young adults, it should be able to be assumed, are supposed to be beginning to be other oriented.

Sadly, parents are afraid to teach their children the importance of serving others, rather than self, because of pressure put upon them by celelbrities, politicians and the intellectual elite.

The result is that neither teens nor young adults have a grasp of societal otherness, let alone an idea of how to use their talents to serve others.

As for Biblical admonitions to "raise up a child in the way he should go...," and to "spare the rod and spoil the child...," et. al., they are regarded as passe ideas that are not relevant today.

Is it any wonder, then, that a common complaint of parents is, "I just can't do a thing with him/her?"

From a purely practical point of view, how on earth is it that a 120 pound mother or a 200 pound father cannot control a 40 - 60 pound child?

Isn't it high time to pocket Dr. Spock (who recanted his recommendations, by the way), relearn the concept of firm, but loving, discipline and begin raising generations that at the least know how to be polite?

(I hear voices from all over crying, Dr. who? To which I respond, "No, not Dr. Who. He was a British time traveler. Dr. Spock, the early purveyor of permissiveness in child rearing.")

Will you be the parent who dares to say to your "sensitive" offspring, "Because I'm the Mommy, that's why."?

Or Daddy.

Oh Bother!

I am bothered by some things.

1) I am bothered that we now have a person serving a Speaker of the House who thinks of herself as a queen.

2) I am bothered that the citizens of this country who bother to inform themselves of things political seem to like the idea of higher taxes, more stress on small businesses, killing babies before they are born, stabbing a sharp instrument into the base of the skull of a baby about to be born after forcing him/her to be born breech, allowing babies to be aborted for the sole purpose of harvesting stem cells for "research" that has not had one single solitary success in treating any human disease of any kind, pulling the life support from a person who is of low estate while not even considering it for one "of their own" who may very well never recover from his condition....ahhh...what's the use?

3) I am bothered by the multiple divisions in Christianity, whose adherents would rather argue over this doctrine or that than seek the unity for which their Savior prayed (John 17), whose adherents would rather allow their feelings and/or emotions to supercede the Word of God in their behavior and worship and whose adherents wallow in catatonic inaction with regard to telling others about Jesus' offer of salvation.

4) I am bothered by my own cynicism, excusing it as "my spiritual gift." (II Hezekiah 4:12)

5) I am bothered by Christians who confuse their own thinking and vain imaginations as being the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

6) I am bothered by Christians who exercise spiritual pygmyism fighting about musical styles, pew colors, hymns over praise choruses and praise choruses over hymns, etc., etc., etc.

7) I am bothered by people who call themselves Christians who do not realize that there is absolutely no further revelation about the character of God, His love of His creation, or His plan for its redemption than is already revealed in His Holy Word.

8) I am bothered by Christians who stubbornly and quite mean-spiritedly believe that God revealed His Word in 17th Century English, and who do not even understand the 17th century, single sylable, three letter word "wot," used frequently in Bibles translated in that era.

9) I am bothered that I am bothered by so many things...and, frankly, that bothers me.

10) I wish that I were not bothered by being bothered by so many things so that when things bother me I would not be bothered so much.

Does all of this bother you?

Be It Therefore Resolved

1) I will blog every single day, rain or shine, hail or high water, what or may.

2) I will skip some days when I don't feel like blogging.

3) I will earn my second million dollars this year.

4) I have decided to work on my second million, since it is clear that I will never make my first million.

5) I will treat everybody with dignity and respect.

6) Except the people I know who have no dignity and don't deserve respect.

7) I will lose weight.

8) I've lost hundreds of pounds over the years and found every one of them...right where I left them.

9) I will have no more heart attacks.

10) They hurt.

11) Concerning the 2008 presidency: If nominated, I will not run and if elected, I will not serve.

12) I will no longer forget what I am talking about in mid..........

See You Soon, Elizabeth

I just found out that a very good friend of mine, named Elizabeth died of cancer Christmas day.

I have known Elizabeth for 20 some-odd years, since my early days at WSOR radio.

Elizabeth used to call seeking my "wisdom" on many matters. She also volunteered when I became manager of WJYO, helping with the music library.

She had her troubles, including several emotional disorders that kept her from being able to hold jobs very long, but she was loyal to Christian radio for many years.

Elizabeth trusted Jesus as much as anybody I have ever known.

She was my friend.

According to her sister, on Christmas morning Elizabeth acknowledged that she would be "seeing Jesus today."

She died a short time later.

She had lived here in Lehigh Acres for as long as I have known her, but had family in New York, which is where she will be burried.

Elizbeth was fond of the sign-off I have use for over 23 years in radio.

It goes:

"I'll be back tomorrow, and if you'll join me, we'll spend time together praising God through music and the Word. I look forward to that. Have a great day today. Make it a Christ filled day, and, the Lord willing, I'll see you here tomorrow morning. But if I don't see you here...I'll see you over there."

And so, Elizabeth, I know I won't see you any more here.

But I'll see you soon...

over there.

WELL, HERE IT IS!

H A P P Y

N E W

Y E A R!

See...it just can't happen.

A virgin cannot become pregnant and have a child.

That is an anatomical impossibility.

We know that.

The fact that it happened is what makes it a miracle.

What miracle is there to an event that happens tens of thousands of times a day?

None.

But for a virgin to become pregnant and bear a child...

That's a miracle.

And what a son!

(By the way, did anyone notice that she knew ahead of time that it would be a son...even without ultrasound?)

He was not only her son...he was God's son.

That just makes my head spin.

I wish I could figure out how that was done and all that it means.

But I cannot.

All the college, university, post graduate work and seminary training I received never came close to preparing me for its reality.

My wildest imaginations cannot fathom how the Holy Ghost accomplished it.

My most intellectual musings cannot begin to scratch the surface of all that it means.

To say that the birth of Messiah is extraordinary does it no justice whatsoever.

Neither you nor I have the words to express what went on.

This I do know, however: No other birth in the history of the universe has affected mankind like this one.

America, and other countries, too, may try to disparage, deny and denigrate it.

They may try to outlaw it, banish it and ridicule it.

But try as they might, they cannot squelch it.

Not even Wal-Mart could stand up to it.

On this day (yeah, I know, we can reasonably question the actual date) we celebrate the second most meaningful event ever...the birth of Yashua bar Yoseph ben Nazareth; Jesus, the Christ.

(The first occured after it: the resurrection of Christ, without which, Paul wrote, we would all be fools.)

I am so awed by it

So confounded by it

So humbled by it

That all I have left to say is:

MERRY CHRIST MAS!

Denominationally Speaking

Being a politically correct type, a worship leader and not wanting to insult women of a certain hair color, I submit the following:

A worship leader goes to the post office to buy stamps for Christmas cards.

He tells the clerk, "May I have 50 Christmas stamps?"

The clerk asks, "What denomination?

Puzzled, the worship leader exclaims, "God help us!" Has it come to this? Give me six Catholic, 12 Presbyterian, 10 Lutheran and 22 Baptist."

Worship leaders are a unique bunch; a strange blend of creativity, practicality and spirituality that, hopefully, translates into meaningful worship.

However, they have pecular habits.

Do you know how worship leaders turn pages?

Lick left index and middle fingers;
turn pages with right index and middle fingers...
Lick left index and middle fingers;
turn pages with right index and middle fingers...
Lick left index and middle fingers;
turn pages with right index and middle fingers.
(Try this in real life and you'll get the point).

Ode To the New Worship Leader

Here's to the new slick Minister of Music
A most delightful fella.
When he's directing and you're not expecting,
He'll switch to acappella, then
Isn't it a lovely sound,
With no instruments to drown
All of the voices blending so?
Isn't it a pure delight?
Wonder how the Campbellites
Found out about it long ago.
You'll not regret a Sunday operetta,
Just pay your tithe and come on in.
And for religion We'll get a smidgen
Between the special music and the parting hymn.
A-men.....A-women.

A worship leader was out on the lake in his fishing boat.

The Fish and Wildlife officer pulled up beside his boat and declared, "I must come aboard for a safety inspection."

"Welcome aboard," declared the worship leader. "When you're through inspecting, join me for some fishing."

"Will do!" said the officer.

At that point the worship leader pulled out a stick of dynamite, lit its fuse and tossed it in the lake.

It exploded and dozens of fish floated to the surface, which the worship leader just scooped up with his net.

"Hey!" shouted the F & W officer, "Don't you know that's illegal? Why I could fine you $700.00 for each time you do that!"

With that, the worship leader reached into his box, pulled out a stick of dynamite, lit its fuse and tossed it to the Wildlife officer, who caught it in mid air.

As the fuse quickly burned shorter, the worship leader asked, "Well, tell me, now...are you talkin' or fishin?"

Murphy's Factoids

-- Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

-- He who laughs last, thinks slowest.

-- Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

-- Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.

-- Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.

-- The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of gettingsomething right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.

-- If you lined up all the cars in the world end to end, someone would be stupid enough to try to pass them, five or six at a time, on a hill, in the fog.

-- If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.

-- The things that come to those who wait will be the things left overby those who got there first.

-- Flashlight: A case for holding dead batteries.

-- The shinbone is a device for finding furniture in a dark room.

-- A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.

(I promise...I'll get to Christmas...hopefully before Christmas of this year.

THE MORONIC OXYMORON REVISITED

In my Sunday School classes over the years I have posed the question that I asked in the blog-before-last.

Here is the question:

If a scientist were able to create life in a test-tube, would that be evidence for or against the intelligent origin of life?

I almost always got the same reaction I got from you, dear blog-reader. A blank stare that seemed to say, "Duhhhhh...what's he talking about?"

Here's the explanation.

If a person is a scientist he/she is supposed to be intelligent.

If a scientist is intelligent, he/she would realize that by simply mixing what already exists (ie:the elements in the test-tube) he/she is not creating, mearly re-arranging.

If the re-arranging of the elements brought forth life, one thing is clear: that life neither "created" itself nor happened by accident.

If it did not happen by itself or by accident, then it must have been by design.

One may conclude, therefore, that the life resulted from intelligent intervention.

If we try to assume that the life happened by itself or by accident, then we must conclude that the scientist is not intelligent. Not an altogether foolish postulation.

It requires the obvious: Life could not possibly have happened by itself or by accident, therefore must have been created by intelligent design, whom we call (upon prompting from Scriptre) God.

I love questions like this, for they reinforce my faith, all of which comes from The Creator, Himself, to begin with.

How cool is that?

FRUSTRATION PERSONIFIED!

For some time, Blogger has had an encouragement to me in my "dashboard" to switch to the new format.

Today I finally gave in.

Guess what! It would not let me change!

Furthermore, I could not comment on many of your blogs which had been changed over because they would not recognize my username and password!

This was not universally true, but seemed random.

There was a link to a lame explanation...something to the effect that they were changing a few at a time.

Then, pray tell, why did they seem so insistant that I change?

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!

THE MORONIC OXYMORON

Here is a question for you to ponder:

If a scientist were able to create life in a test-tube, would that be evidence for or against the intelligent origin of life?

Montana Cowboy

My sweet wife, Bonnie, has a new web site. Its address is:

http://www.freewebs.com/friendsareagift/index.htm

A mutual friend send a story to the two of us.

Bonnie posted it on her website.

No to be out-done, and to preserve the fine art of blogelony theft, I am posting it, too.

Here it is:


A Montana cowboy was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.

The driver, a young man in a Baryon suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"

The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , GermanyWithin seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored.

He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with e-mail on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy andSays, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says the cowboy.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then the cowboy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government," says the cowboy.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required," answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows, this is a herd of sheep.

"Now give me back my dog."

Ramblin' Prose

I've been listening to different preachers lately.

A good message is priceless. Sadly, I don't hear many.

Scripture dictates the topic of a "Topical Sermon." (As opposed to finding a topic and seaching for some Scripture that supports the point of view. )

The other method of preaching exposes the Scripture verse-by- verse (which I personally like best.)

In either message, the preacher must have a point he wants to get to. (In my humble, but correct opinion, that should be how to be saved and grow closer to God through trust in, and only in, the finished work of Christ at Calvary.)

Each element of the message should lead logically to the next and move the speaker prgressively toward his/her point.

The sermon should end with a climax that points the audience to Jesus.

Instead, most of the sermons I hear go like this:

"Our text is II Hezekiah 4:12

"Ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, chase a rabbit...off topic, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, tell an unrelated joke, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble.

"Anybody here want to come to Jesus?"

I can hardly express my underwhelmment.

Boudreaux Golly

Boudreaux live across the bayou from Clarence who he don like at all.

Dey all de time yell across de bayou at each other.

Boudreaux would yell to Clarence, "If I had a way to cross dis bayou, I'd come over dere an beat you up good, yeah!"

Dis went on for years.

Finally de state done built a bridge across dat bayou right by dere houses and Boudreaux's wife, Marie, say, "now is you chance, Boudreaux. Why don you go over der an beat up dat Clarence
like you say?"

Boudreaux say, "OK," and start across de bridge, but he see a sign on de bridge an he stop to read it and den he go back home.

Marie say, "Why you back so soon?"

And Boudreaux say, "Marie I dun change my mind 'bout beatin' up
dat Clarence.

"You know Marie, dey got a sign on dat dere bridge dat
say, 'Clarence 13 ft. 6 in.'

"You know, he don look near dat big when I yell at him across the bayou."

Blogger's note: Only VERY intelligent people can understand this joke.

Thought You Might Enjoy This

Here are the top fifteen things police have been heard saying:

#15 "Relax, the handcuffs are tight because they're new. They'll stretch out after you wear them awhile."

#14 "Take your hands off the car, and I'll make your birth certificate a worthless document."

#13 "If you run, you'll only go to jail tired."

#12 "Can you run faster than 1200 feet per second? In case you didn't know, that is the average speed of a 9mm bullet fired from my gun."

#11 "So you don't know how fast you were going. I guess that means I can write anything I want on the ticket, huh?"

#10 "Yes, Sir, you can talk to the shift supervisor, but I don't think it will help. Oh, did I mention that I am the shift supervisor?"

#9 "Warning! You want a warning? O. K., I'm warning you not to do that again or I'll give you another ticket."

#8 "The answer to this last question will determine whether you are drunk or not. Was Mickey Mouse a cat or a dog?"

#7 "Fair? You want me to be fair? Listen, fair is a place where you go to ride on rides and eat cotton candy."

#6 "Yeah, we have a quota. Two more tickets and my wife gets a toaster oven."

#5 "In God we trust, all others we run through NCIC."

#4 "Just how big were those two beers?"

#3 "No sir we don't have quotas anymore.
We used to have quotas but now we're allowed to write as many tickets as we want."

#2 "I'm glad to hear the Chief of Police is a good personal friend of yours. At least you know someone who can post your bail."

And...THE BEST ONE !!!!!!!

#1 "You didn't think we give pretty women tickets? .. You're right, we don't. ..... Sign here

Turkey Day!

HAVE A THANKFUL

TO GOD DAY!

Mule Division

A friend of mine sent me this in an email. I've seen it before, but it is cute:

A Missouri farmer passed away and left 17 mules to his three sons.

The instructions left in the will said that the oldest boy was to get one-half, the second oldest one-third, and the youngest one-ninth.

The three sons, seeing the difficulty of dividing 17 mules into these fractions, began to argue.

The uncle heard about the argument, hitched up his mule, and drove out to settle the matter.

He added his mule to the 17, making 18.

The eldest son then got one-half, or nine.

The second eldest got one-third, or six.

The youngest got one-ninth,or two.

Adding up 9, 6 and 2 equals 17.

The uncle hitched up his mule and drove home

I AM SO CONFUSED

What a trip!!

First I got really, really sick...heart stuff.

Then I lost my Internet connection.

I called Embarq (The new, totally stupid name for Sprint). Their very nice tech ran me through an hour and a half's work to try to get it all back.

At the end of countless adjustments and computer re-starts, he said, "Well there's a 50% chance it is your USB Network Adapter, and a 50% chance that it is your Network transmitter.

I looked into the price of USB network adapters and had resigned myself to purchasing one, trying it to determine whether it was the culprit and if it was not, purchasing a new transmitter.

Then I moved the Linksys adapter to another USB port on my computer.

The computer suddenly did not recognize the adapter...then did.

Then it recognized the adapter, but would not recognize the Internet connection.

Today, somewhat frustrated, I entered my blog's URL into the address bar and, bingo! I got connected.

Then I closed the Internet and bango...it would not reopen!!

Then I typed the address again, and bingo...it opened!!

I went into Internet options and set my blog as my homepage, closed the Internet connection and bango! I could not get back in!

Then I did the whole thing over again and...

I think everything is working.

I think.

Can you read this?

Then it must be working.

UNUSUAL RESPONSE

I recently received a series of comments on this blog from a person who calls him or herself "aztec mutton."

Most of his/her comments were of an attack nature, and he/she linked his name to a blog which he/she now claims is not his/hers, which was pure, rank filth.

Here is what he/she wrote in his/her last comment in response to jim's response to his/her previous comments:

Perhaps. Sorry. You should realize, however, that I find many of the opinions stated on this blog to be alien at best. Frightening. The thing is, despite my intentions, I legitimately thought blogging was intended for arguments, input, responses etc. Especially one that makes blanket statements that are beyond right-wing. I had a blog that was political in nature and I welcomed arguments. That's how I learned more about the world and other people's views. Anyway, didn't mean to offend anyone. Take care and don't forget to brush yer' teeth.

"Perhaps."

He/she seems not to be able to firmly grasp the offense created or the lack of reasonableness of his/her response.

"Sorry."

From what follows, it is difficult to surmise the sincerity of this apololgy.

"You should realize, however, that I find many of the opinions stated on this blog to be alien at best. Frightening."

Here is one who wants us not to find his/her opinions alien or frightening, but who seems to think it OK to find the opinions of those with whom he/she disagrees or does not understand alien and frightening. Interesting intellectual position.

What on earth could one who seems to apply free speech to him/herself possibly fear from the opinions of another?

Am I missing something here? Should I be afraid of his/her opinions because they are "alien" to me?

(By the way, I am 65 years old, have been around the proverbial block, and there are no opinions you could have that would either shock or frighten me.)

"The thing is, despite my intentions, I legitimately thought blogging was intended for arguments, input, responses etc."

(Putting the incomprehensibility of the above statement aside) He/she probably did not know that many blogs are little more than personal journaling. He/she did not realize that many blogs don't even invite comments. In fact, Blogger allows a blogger to turn off the comments altogether. The fact that this blog allows comments must have equated in his mind that it invites commonness, vulgarity and filth, as well.

"Especially one that makes blanket statements that are beyond right-wing."

Funny that a person who wishes to express blanket statements about this blog does not afford to me the same rights.

"I had a blog that was political in nature and I welcomed arguments."

That is absolutely within the rights of the individual blogger. Interesting, though, that the use of the word, "had" seems to indicate that the blog no longer exists. Might it have gotten too hot for him/her?

"That's how I learned more about the world and other people's views. "

If that is the purpose of one's blog, it is certainly permissible...if a bit simplistic.

"Anyway, didn't mean to offend anyone."

It is beyond comprehension that one could use inflamatory language, take pot-shots at one's philosophical position without accompanying rationale, and link folks to a vile, vulgar site without the slightest intellectual understanding that offense might be taken.

"Take care and don't forget to brush yer' teeth."

This was the hardest of all to deal with.

The implication that there might be some short-coming in the personal hygene of me or one or more of my commenters is just beyond the pale.

Let it be known, publically and on my personal blog, that I brush my teeth two or three times a day.

I swish, too.

And I floss.

Comments are welcome on this blog with only a few rules:

1. Be respectful at all times.

2. Disagree with me, if you just have to, but do not engage in battle with the other commenters. Everybody may express his/her opinion on the topic at hand, but I prefer NOT to engage in long strings of back-and-forth arguments, because, in the end, nobody's opinions are ever changed, least of all mine.

3. Vulgar, filthy language that seeks the lowest common denominator of human existance is not welcomed here.

Does all of that seem fair enough?

If so, fine.

If not...tough.

Once again, this is MY blog.

PREDICTION

Here is what will happen:

1. Within one year there will be EXTREME pressure to withdraw from Iraq.

2. Within 3 years of withdrawal from Iraq, we will have had several terrorist attacks on US soil.

3. Many terroist cells already in our country will be joined by others coming in through un-sealed borders and we will be fighting a war against terrorism RIGHT HERE IN THE UNITED STATES.

4. There will ensue GREAT PRESSURE to raise taxes "to pay for many new programs" that will "benefit" so-called "people without opportunity to better themselves."

5. The border fence project will be de-funded (or never funded to begin with), and the ranks of illegal aliens will swell until they constitute a large voting block (never mind that they have no right to vote...they will be afforded the right).

6. The slow trend toward civility in interpersonal relationships and polite society will begin to give way to state sanctioned vulgarity.

7. There will be EXTREME PRESSURE to enact the so-called "fairness doctrine," requiring all media outlets to take a liberal, leftist turn...including Christian radio and TV.

8. There will be another move toward nationalized health care which will result in it becoming more difficult to choose your doctors and which will result in long waits for needed health care.

9. Countries which now allow their citizens to come to the US for better health care will no longer have incentive to do so, resulting in fewer patients and higher medical costs.

10. TAXES, TAXES, TAXES...eventually up to 50% of your income for INCOME TAXES alone if you earn more than $50,000.00 per year.

11. The economy will begin to turn around and within three years will no longer be strong and robust. Recession is on the horizon.

12. The stock market will plunge, after having hit record levels under conservative leadership in our government.

13. No more "originalist" judges will pass appointment to the Supreme Court.

Those are some of my predictions.

All because the liberal arm of our government has been given the reins in congress.

President Bush, please be sure your veto pen is full of ink.

Senators, be sure you are on top of things.

In spite of it all, GOD WILL STILL BE IN CONTROL...AND THAT TRUMPS EVERYTHING!

HERE FOR A DAY VOTE!!

I'm here for a day...but I will be back.

Tomorrow is the day when we will decide the future of our country for many years to come.

If you are a citizen of The United States of America you need to make time to vote.

If you do not make time to vote, you do not deserve to call yourself a citizen.

Here's why:

Being a citizen of most countries is no big deal.

As a citizen of some countries, you wake up in the morning, do what the government has said you can do, go where the government says you can go. say what the government says you can say and have what the government says you can have.

In other countries you do pretty much what you want to and hope against hope that some coup does not take place that forever changes the way your government operates.

In The United States of America, you wake up in the morning, and, except for certain activities deemed by society as a whole and undesirable, such as murder, stealing, raping, etc., you do as you please.

In The United States of America, you have the opportunity to be whatever you want to be.

You can be a "captain of industry" just because you want to.

You can drive a bus, fly commercial aircraft, treat people's ills, sell snake oil or whatever you can find that will help other people to the degree that they are willing to pay you for it.

As motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar says, "You can get anything you want out of life if you'll help enough other people get what they want out of life."

But it all hinges on a sufficient number of people being a part of the process by voting for the people they think will make the decisions best for the country.

Now I cannot tell you how to vote.

I can give you advice about voting if you were to ask for it.

For instance, if you asked me who to vote for, I would say the following:

1. Do you want to pay more taxes? Do not vote Republican.
2. Do you want more attacks on the USA than we have had since 9/11? Do not vote Republican.
3. Do you want a weaker economy? Do not vote Republican.
4. Do you want more abortions in the USA? Do not vote Republican.
5. Do you want higher unemployment? Do not vote Republican.
6. Do you want higher inflation? Do not vote Republican.
7. Do you want open borders through which terrorists could enter the country? Do not vote Republican.
8. Do you want a lower wage-to-buying power ratio? Do not vote Republican.
9. Do you want elitists to tell you which doctors you can see, how much you will pay and how long you must wait for medical attention? Do not vote Republican.
10. Do you want to fight a war against terrorists on our soil, in our cities and in our countryside? Do not vote Republican.
11. Do you want to be MORE dependent on foreign oil (not a single viable "alternative fuel" has been found yet and none [that's right - none] is on the horizon)? Do not vote Republican.
12. Do you want more liberal judges on the Supreme Court who will rule in favor of gay marriage, eminent domain for shopping centers, restricting freedom of religion, etc.? Do not vote Republican.

Maybe you are a Republican, but you are angry at some of the decisions they have made lately. To "teach them a lesson" you plan NOT to vote.

News-flash!

You will not teach them a lesson.

All you will do is hurt yourself, hurt the country and (most importantly of all) hurt me, because all of the above listed things will come to pass.

If you do not vote, you are, at best, a liberal (for you will be allowing them to have control), and at worst a traitor.

What? That would make you angry if I called you that?

Tough cookies. I call them the way I see them...'cause in this country I can.

That is how I would answer you if you asked for my advice about how to vote.

Since you have not asked, I will not tell you those things.

Regardless...if I could get one message across to you it would be:

Get off of your lazy, indifferent, selfish posterior and

VOTE

Random Access Moments

Something we all need to learn:

The Holy Spirit of God never, ever leads us to do that which adversely affects the integrity, credibility or continuity of His work; that of pointing people toward Jesus.

If you or I, whether as a pastor, staff member, lay leader or lay person, do anything that calls into question any of these attributes, you can be certain that we are not following the leadership of the Holy Spirit, but of the adversary.

If what we do causes confusion, in our personal lives, or in the church, we are not following God's will.

I Cor 14:33 "For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints."

I Cor 14:40 "Let all things be done decently and in order."

To be sure, the Holy Spirit may lead us to change course, as in altering our order of worship, or adjusting our thinking, but when He does, it will always bring stability to the situation and draw us closer to God. It will never unnecessarily hurt people or bring disdain on His church.

When what we do is for the satisfaction of some personal or "political" gain, it is not the leadership of the Holy Spirit, rather it is the yielding to whim.

Father, help each of us determine that we will always seek to do that which stabilizes Your church, grows people in You and point others to the Lord, Jesus, Christ. In His Holy and precious name we pray.

A CHOICE TO MAKE

WARNING: THIS POST COULD BE CONSIDERED INFLAMATORY IN NATURE. PROCEDE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

According to the Department of Homeland Security, there are an estimated thirteen (13) Hezbollah cells in the United States (surprised?)

There are also a dozen al-Qaeda cells (still surprised?)

It gets better.

There are assorted groups of Hamas and other groups associated with various levels of terrorism in the world.

"How can this be?" you ask.

The answer is complicated, but in short, as long as any specific individual cell/group has not specifically been found to have plotted and/or carried out terrorist activity, they are watched, but basically left alone.

In many Arab states, and other countries where Islamics rule, clandestine Christian groups are arrested, deported, shot or beheaded.

Now I am going to delve into a bit of unofficial prophecy.

If we elect left-leaning politicians to office this go around, we will prematurely withdraw our troops from Iraq.

Within three years (maybe not that long), the afore mentioned cells/groups will become active and will be joined by those imported from their home bases abroad.

They will then begin a campaign to eradicate "Christian" Americans ON OUR OWN SOIL!

There are many, many citizens of this country who are devout, practicing Muslims.

A question that haunts me is: When the fighting breaks out here in the United States of America, on which side will they fight?

Does the prospect not present you with a serious dilemma?

How do you resolve it in your own mind?

Once again: When radical Islam brings the fight to American soil, on which side will those of you who belong to "the religion of peace," be?

I do not pretend to know the answer to that question, but I would like to hear from any of those who practice Islam (or those of you who know someone who does with whom you have spoken).

I am not really interested in opinions about what you believe will happen, I want to hear first-hand or anecdotally what you know you (or someone with whom you have spoken) would do.

OK...I'M ANGRY NOW!

I am angry at Republicans!

I am so angry that they have not done what I want them to, when I want them to, how I want them to, and where I want them to on at least two or three issues, that I am seeing red.

Republicans have not yet closed the borders.

Republicans have not yet become perfect.

Republicans have not yet...well, I can't think of what else they haven't done, but I know they haven't done it, because TV newscasters on NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and even some on FOX have told me so.

Because Rebuplicans have not done all the things I have wanted them to do, I am not going to vote at all!

Now I know what you are thinking:

Joe, you must not realize that by not voting, Democrats will win and you are hurting yourself.

Joe, you must not realize that by not voting, Democrats will win and you are hurting ME.

Joe, you must not realize that by not voting, Democrats will win and you are hurting Republicans.

Joe, you must not realize that by not voting, Democrats will win and you are hurting your country.

You must think I am dumber than dumb.

OF COURSE I KNOW ALL OF THAT.

BUT I DON'T CARE!!

I am mad, and that's all that counts.

See? It's all about ME.

It's not about America. It's not about unity. It's not about doing what's right. It's not about being a good citizen.

IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!!

(Editor's note: If you are a Republican or a staunch conservative, and you do not plan to vote, and/or vote for what's right as opposed to what makes you mad, you are lower than the lowest liberal. You are a fobbing , elf-skinned, flap-dragon. You are a gorbellied, folly-fallen, giglet.*

SOOO......

GET OVER IT!

GET READY!

GET OUT THERE AND VOTE! [When the time comes]

End of Editor's note)

*Don't get excited...these are all perfectly good Shakespearian terms. Read him...you might like him.

TIME FOR CHANGE?

I have some gripes and I am now going to express them.

1. My taxes are much too low.

I have a need to pay more to my loving government.

2. Our country's deficit has been dropping much too fast...way ahead of schedule.

I think we need to take steps to get it back up again.

3. Gas prices have come down too much.

If the Europeans can pay $5.00 per gallon, I should get to, too.

4. We have had too few terrorist attacks in the last four years.

We are entitled to at least one per year so we can lose a few thousand innocent civilians.

5. The stock market has been doing far too well.

People who invest their money in the stock market (of whom I am not one), have a right to lose more of their hard earned money and do not deserve to have money set aside for retirement.

6. Medical care is much too immediate.

I should be able to wait at least six months for some of the heart treatments I need periodically. Why, the way it is now, I actually get to see the doctor the very day I go to his office. I should only be able to make an appointment to see the receptionist three weeks from now so that I can actually see the doctor in about six weeks.

7. Wal-mart has a lot of nerve, providing my generic drugs for only $4.00 for a month's supply.

Why I've been complaining about the high cost of medicine for so long, I won't know how to behave if my prescriptions are actually reasonably priced.

Last week I got a three months supply for only $12.00. I used to get to pay $36.00 for the same period of time.

What to do?

8. We are having far to much success in Iraq and Afganistan.

(What? No one told you? The infrastructure is in better shape than it has been in ten years, the government is making strides daily toward being able to take over their own country and the civil war that was supposed to be happening has just failed to take hold...disgraceful!)

Since within three years of an early pull-out from Iraq we will be fighting terrorists on our own soil in our own country, instead of having to go overseas to do it, a pre-mature withdrawal of troops is essential.

9. I am absolutely furious that my home's value, which was supposed to go down because of the bursting of the housing bubble, actually has gone up in the last three months.

Just for that, I am keeping my house and absolutely refuse to even put it on the market.

10. President Bush has refused to be wishy-washy on almost any issue at all.

I think we need a man who can test the wind daily to see where he stands on an issue.

Maybe a good mugwump would fill the bill.

(A mugwump is a polititian who sits on the fence with his mug on one side and his wump on the other. He flies backward, because he doesn't care where he's going, only want to see where he's been.)

11. The general economy is too robust.

We deserve to be able to slow it down.

12. Unemployment is just too low.

Why, I can remember the Jimmy Carter days when unemployment was double digit.

13. The same goes for inflation!

Why can't we return to the days of 12% or maybe even 18% inflation?

14. And speaking of polititians, we need to get rid of these polititians who, when they discover a felon in their own ranks, force them to resign.

What we really need is for party leaders to endorse having members of Congress have actual sex with pages (instead of just writing to them) and then give them standing ovations.

We need strong men serving in Congress who don't mind leaving a woman in a car to drown.

We need more members of Congress who can't remember the story they told last time about their war escapades and so change the story every time they tell it.

For all of the reasons listed above, and for many I am just too depressed to mention here, I intend to vote DEMOCRATIC in the up-coming mid-term elections.

N O T !

REVELATION

One of my favorite sayings is: Everything you need to know about God is found in the Word of God; nothing you need to know about God is NOT found in the Word of God and anything you THINK you know about God that is not in the Word of God, you just made up.

What does this mean?

What it means is that the Word of God; i.e.: The Bible; is the entire revelation of God’s character, His love for his creation and His plan for its redemption.

He left nothing about Himself out.

There is no further revelation about Him needed.

In the Bible we find every iota of information about God that we need to discover who He is and what He is about.

We also discover why He created mankind, how mankind has historically responded to Him and what happened to disrupt what was to have been a fellowship of love between Him and His highest creation: human beings.

The Bible reveals the price of mankind’s disobedience to God and tells us that there is a high price to be paid for that disobedience, a price so high that no man could pay it.

Scripture shows us God’s plan to pay the price Himself, on mankind’s behalf so that humans could once again enjoy fellowship with Him.

Throughout history there have been people who have had "experiences" that they claimed brought them some "new" revelation from God.

For instance, after a fall on the ice, Mary Baker Eddy had a vision from God that healed her and brought her revelation about the nature of existence; that pain and sickness are illusions; Jesus was the offspring of Mary’s self-conscious communion with God and was conceived when Mary "Perceived" the "spiritual idea" of Christ.

Joseph Smith had "visions" during his youth that "revealed" to him that all Christian churches, denominations, and sects were wrong and that he should set them straight, and that a "messenger" named Moroni pointed him toward some burried gold plates containing many "new" revelations about God (written, by the way, in a convoluted form of "King James" English - presumabley because God could not speak 19th century English), etc.

After being attacked by ruffians and struck in the face with a large stone, which left her disfigured and traumatized, Ellen Harmonn (later to become Ellen White) began having visions from God in which she was levitated high above the earth and "revealed" that the door of salvation had been closed to sinner on October 22 1843. She is credited with solidifying the scattered Millerites and Adventists into one denomination know as Seventh-Day Adventists.

Sun Myung Moon had a "vision" in which Jesus told him that He (Jesus) had not fulfilled His mission on earth and that Moon was the only one alive who could accomplish the mission.

I could go on, but what I want you to see is that each of these had totally different "visions" from God, each of which named them as his "chosen" one to share new "revelations" with the world.

Can they all be right?

Can one be right?

Which one?

Who gets to choose?

You?

Me?

No.

If we want the total revelation of God, we need only to turn to the collection of 66 writings by 40 authors, written over centuries, which harmonize with each other, are ALL about the same person, and that leaves absolutely nothing about God unsaid.

We call it The Bible.

Its Old Testament is all about God’s nature and the coming Savior.

Its New Testament is all about God’s acting out His plan for redemption in Christ, its accomplishment and Christ’s soon return.

You should read it…it’s great!

No further revelation needed.

Period.

SUNDAY PRAISE

Lord I Lift Your Name On High
by Rick Founds

http://my.homewithgod.com/heavenlymidis/songbook/lordlift.html


Lord, I lift Your name on high.
Lord, I love to sing Your praises.
I'm so glad You're in my life.
I'm so glad You came to save us.
You came from Heaven to earth to show the way,
From the earth to the cross, my debt to pay;
From the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky;
Lord, I lift Your name on high.

A Normal Quiz

Do you know what that graph represents?

As a Psychology/Sociology major in college, I had to deal with this type of graph extensively.

The "standard normal distribution" is the normal distribution with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one (the green curves in the plots to the right). It is often called the bell curve because the graph of its probability resembles a bell.

See those little numbers along the bottom? There is a zero in the middle. That represents the point on the graph that is where the most of whatever you are measuring (people, ideas, IQs, pros, cons, etc.) falls.

Let's say you are measuring human characteristics. The further you go to the right or left, the fewer people demonstrate that characteristic.

It is important to realize that the curve measures quantitative results, not qualitative.

In our country, the majority of people work for somebody else.

On the graph, they would be plotted between the -1 and the +1, on the green line, or some such position.

The fortune 500 CEOs would fall close to the +3 mark and the homeless would fall close to the -3 mark...approximately.

Remember, "normal" is a quantitative term...it's about numbers compraed to the "norm."

Homosexuality is not normal behavior.

Homosexuals would fall in either the +2 or -2 section of the graph, depending on how one arranged the numbers.

Murder is not normal behavior.

Murderers would fall close to the +3 or -3 section of the graph.

Pollsters use these types of graphs to determine where the issue they'r polling fall in relation the the "norm."

There are many other uses for this type of graph, but for the purposes of this post, that is enough to know.

Would you consider a member of NAMBLA to be a "normal" person?

They would have you believe they are.

But they would fall in the +4 or -4 section of the graph. Definately NOT normal.

By the way, NAMBLA stands for: North American Man/Boy Love Association.

Keeping all of that in mind, here is a quiz for you (each question is multiple choice and has two answers):

1. What Congress person wants to be Speaker of the House and gladly associates with and actively supports NAMBLA?

a. Nancy Pelosi

b. Mark Foley

c. Democrat

d. Republican

2. What member of Congress drove a car into a body of water, escaped, and left the other occupant in the car to die, did not report the incident until the next day and escaped all responsibility for the act?

a. Ted Kennedy

b. Mark Foley

c. Democrat

d. Republican

3. What Lawmaker had actual sexual relations with a young male page, was censured by his comrades, allowed to continue "serving" and held an important chairmanship in his party?

a. Gerry Studds

b. Mark Foley

c. Democrat

d. Republican

4. What leader engaged in actual sexual abborant behavior with an intern, had several extra-marital affairs, was accused of rape by at least two women, was implicated in the deaths of several people who had opposed him and is now seen by his party as "one of our best ever...?"

a. William Jefferson Clinton

b. Mark Foley

c. Democrat

d. Republican

That's probably enough.

Answer in the comments section, if you like.

Here's the thing.

Mark Foley is a sleezeball...a beslubbering, clay-brained, clotpole who should not be in office. Guess what...he isn't!

He is NOT a "normal" Republican.

He would fall in the -4 or + 4 part of the graph, if we were measuring conservatives.

The correct answers to the above quiz, if graphed, would fall very near the "0" on the bell curve if we were measuring liberals.

Ignorance vs Stupidity

I'm ignorant.

I know nothing about nuclear fusion.

I am absolutely unknowledgeable about the grocery business.

I am ignorant.

Ignorance is not a bad thing.

We are all ignorant about something or somethings.

I don't mind being ignorant, since nobody knows all there is to know about everything ('though some would lead you to believe that they do).

What I hate is STUPIDITY.

STUPIDITY is constantly ignoring the facts, acting like the facts have no significance or being unable to draw a correct conclusion from a given set of facts.

Let's say we have 30 students in a second grade class.

In the class there are 3 black students, 2 oriental students and 3 Hispanic students. The rest are White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant or Catholics (OK, maybe a couple are atheistic...but those could be black, oriental, Hispanic or white).

Anyway...the teacher decides it is time for the class to learn to add.

She (or he) stands at the board and writes "2 + 2 = 4"

She then goes around the room and asks each student, "How much is two-plus-two?"

Each student answers, after which she then has the whole class repeat the equation several times as a group.

Question: Which of the children in the class did NOT have the opportunity to learn how much two-plus-two equals?

If you are a member of some groups, you would say that children of certain race or ethnicity did not have the same opportunity to learn as some of the others in the class.

STUPID!

(For those of you who studied new math in a public school, that means they all had exactly the same opportunity to learn the equation.)

Headline in yesterday's local fish wrapper: FOLEY ADMITS HE IS GAY!

STUPID!

Now I believe gayness to be neither hereditary nor a "choice." I believe it is a learned behavior pattern resulting from a variety of influences. And, like some other learned behaviors, I consider it to be sin.

Nevertheless, the headline is STUPID, because it is not related to the issue of writing emails and instant messages to pages (except in the most obtuse sense of the word "related.")

Several "talking heads" on TV have somehow connected the obnoxious behavior of one man to the political group of which he is (or was) a part.

Using that logic, since Ted Kennedy committed involuntary manslaughter, all members of his political party are likewise guilty of manslaughter (or at the very least covering up his).

STUPID!

I can't help but wonder how Barney Frank feels about Foley being gay. Does he consider that a plus for Foley or a minus?

What about a member of a certain political party who was caught having sex with pages? Shouldn't he have been treated with even MORE contempt than Foley, since he ACTED on his yearnings instead of just writing them?

How about a certain President who enjoyed having a certain intern kneel beneath his desk and engage in behavior that would have at least embarrassed most normal people and would have enraged others?

Did the fact that she was consenting diminish the significance of the event?

Was that a less immoral act than writing evi thoughts to a page?

STUPID!

My frustration is that there are certain people who, by virtue of their pre-dispositions and biases, will not be able to see the hypocrasy in this.

STUPID!

I guess some people just don't mind being STUPID.

Not Inspiring...But..Maybe In A Way

http://www.glumbert.com/media/cattoilet