I've Been Remiss

My apologies. Usually, I'm pretty well on top of new Followers, but with the holiday and all ...

So, a big Observatorium welcome to:

Cliff, Big Feed and Rosie.

Belated Barn Door

Let me see if I have this right. A guy who has ties to Islamic terrorism tries to blow up a plane fill of people and gets his clock cleaned by a passenger while he’s trying to ignite his Jockeys, so the TSA responds by telling passengers that they will have to stow their carryon stuff and everything else and remain seated from an hour before landing until the plane stops at the gate, and that passengers are going to be stuck with increased delays before boarding.

Anybody else thinking this is another case of shutting the barn door after the horses have run loose?

This incident simply highlights everything wrong with the reactive nature of law enforcement. John Law always seems to end up batting cleanup on things like this. Of course, that’s the nature of the job: they can’t be everywhere all the time. But had the TSA – and everyone else – not been so PC-paranoid of offending certain groups of people, it’s highly likely this never would have happened.

Now, does the TSA really believe new rules and greater delays are going to stop a determined terrorist? Here are some points to ponder: TSA rules prohibit carrying explosive and incendiary devices on their planes. Our guy didn’t care. Apparently the TSA had this guy on their ‘Hey, this guy might be connected with Islamic terrorism’ list. Didn’t keep him off the plane.

What part of ‘Your rules do not affect lawbreakers’ don’t these people get? These terrorists are the definition of ‘law-breakers’, folks. It’s like gun-control laws: the only people they affect are the law-abiding. Law enforcement field personnel understand this concept, but their superiors are apparently totally unaware that people who break the law will continue to do so regardless of how draconian those laws become.

Unless, of course, somebody actually decides that enough is enough and decides to enforce the law, that is. Much like our intrepid passenger, who beat the tar out of our would-be Achmed the dead terrorist.

There’s a line in the movie Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan that goes like this: ‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’. Until people wise up to the fact that to protect the majority you may have to offend a few people bent on destruction, these sorts of scenarios will continue to happen.

Angels Can’t Fly!

Someone alert the media!! Oh, right, they already have.

When I was in high school I submitted an article to the school paper detailing the biological impossibility of flight for the dragon featured in one of the stairwell murals at the school. I didn’t write the article on school time, nor was I paid for it: for me, it was simply a mental exercise.

Professor Roger Wotton of University College London took this same sort of mental exercise and expanded it to a 7-page paper on why angels, fairies, dragons and cherubs cannot fly.

I’m now officially upset – had I known then what I know now I could have parleyed my mental exercise into a college professorship.

I jest, but only somewhat. Professor Wotton uses the word ‘myth’ or one of its variations multiple times in his paper. The natural conclusion is that he doesn’t believe in the reality of any of the creatures he is ‘studying’. What he is, in fact, studying is why these creatures, which are ‘mythical’, are artistically doing something biology and physics says they can’t do.

His conclusion:

Why do we need to believe that all four groups of winged beings need to fly? A simple answer is that they all represent a link between Earth and other worlds, with the power of flight allowing them to commute. What better way to emphasise this link than by giving images the wings of familiar organisms?

It took Professor Wotton seven pages to come to this conclusion. I could have named that tune in one sentence: Angels, fairies, cherubs and dragons can fly – thereby defying physics and biology and every other natural law – because they are supernatural, that is, ‘above’ or ‘beyond’ nature.

Somebody’s got an awful lot of time on their hands, as well as an unlimited source of funds to pay for this kind of academic foolishness.

Involuntary Charity

You shall not steal.

Here we go again – another ‘clergyman’ making it up as he goes along.

This latest comes from York, England, where Father Tim Jones told his parishoners:

'My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift[.]’

He obviously knew he was going to catch flack for this, as reports of his follow-up words indicate.

You really don’t even have to be a Christian to realize how far off-base this guy is. I don’t think there’s a religion on this planet which condones thievery – some even go so far as to cut off hands as punishment for it.

But, of course, there is a mitigating circumstance for this little ‘mis-interpretation’ of Scripture. You see, Father Jones is an Anglican, apparently from the same liberal progressive school that has given us the Archdhimmibishop of Canterbury and the far-left American Anglicans who gave us elevated openly-gay Gene Robinson to the bishopric.

Now, I’m not saying all Anglicans are like this, nor am I saying this is a particularly Anglican problem. There are plenty of Anglicans here in America and overseas who denounce this sort of thing – hence the rift forming in the American Anglican communion over Gene Robinson. And there isn’t a Christian denomination that’s free from liberal progressives who treat Holy Scripture like an Etch-a-Sketch, shaking it to erase verses and concepts they don’t like.

Christ and each of the New Testament writers warned us of false teachers infiltrating the church and corrupting the Word for their own nefarious ends. It’s about time folks start taking those teachings to heart.

School Supplies

I never imagined a day would come when school supplies included condoms. But on December 9th, Milwaukee Public Schools unanimously approved a plan to hand out free condoms to students.

MPS concluded that 60-odd percent of teens are having sex, so rather than even attempting to teach them that not having sex is the best way to avoid STD’s and pregnancies, the School Board went along and rubber-stamped their seal of approval on sex between minors.

Such brilliance is blinding, isn’t it?

I’ve written before on how the best method of avoiding calamity is to avoid actions that tempt it, but it’s apparent this piece of common sense is too lofty a concept for some to grasp. Remember the statement, ‘If you build it, they will come’? Let’s modify that: if you provide it, they will avail themselves of it. By providing condoms, I foresee that that 60% figure of sexually-active teens is going to go up – perhaps not like a rocket, but it certainly will climb – and the intelligentsia who approved this fiasco will stand, jaws agape, wondering why it happened.

The article itself provides us with the information:

Despite [the potential for STDs], condom use among young people is on the decline, according to [Kathleen] Murphy. Free or reduced-price contraception is available at many health clinics and other sites around the city, but Murphy said many students may not seek out those avenues because of inconvenience, embarrassment or cost.

Let’s see. By giving them away, that eliminates the ‘reduced cost’ factor. By having them available in schools, that eliminates the ‘inconvenience’ factor. But …

In MPS, the condoms would be available only in high schools that have registered nurses, and the students would have to talk to a nurse before receiving a free condom.

Let’s sniff a little of the reality coffee, folks. These kids are embarrassed to go to a clinic or to Planned Parenthood – where they likely know no one – to get free condoms. These are places where most likely these kids would be praised (particularly at Planned Parenthood) for ‘doing the smart thing’ in using condoms, but they’re still embarrassed. Now, MPS is talking about handing out free condoms, BUT … the student wanting them will have to go to the school nurse – someone he or she is likely to see on a daily basis – who is going to school him or her on proper condom use, and who will likely question the student about their reasons for wanting a condom in the first place.

That’s not going to alleviate or eliminate the embarrassment factor: if anything, it’s going to make it a whole lot worse.

Then there’s the ‘peer-factor’. Students going into the nurses’ office when they’re not ill and coming out blushing are going to be faced with their friends who, knowing school kids, will razz them mercilessly about their little ‘visit’.

What this whole thing shows is that the intelligentsia in the schools has absolutely no clue why these kids should be embarrassed. But I do. Deep down inside, they’re hearing a little voice telling them that teen sex is wrong. Kids, that voice is called your moral conscience. In spite of the approval you may get from progressive teachers and progressive society for being ‘smart’ to use condoms, that little voice of moral conscience is telling you that sex at your age, and in your unmarried state, is wrong. Not somewhat wrong, or a little bit wrong, but wrong on fundamental levels.

Listen to that voice of moral conscience, folks. It’ll keep you out of trouble.

Credibility

The quality or power of inspiring belief

One of the major and most obvious problems in our modern world is one of credibility. When people say or do things which fly in the face of observable facts, those who hear these people understandably begin to disbelieve them, and the amount of damage to one’s credibility is directly proportional to the magnitude of the lie.

By magnitude I mean two things: how big the initial lie is, and how diligently that lie is promoted by the teller. By far the most damaging thing to credibility is the liar’s persistence in defending the lie even in the face of evidence counter to it.

Take, for example, the Copenhagen Climate Change meeting which ended not too long ago. A conference on global warming ended during a blizzard which brought snow to Denmark for the first time in 14 years, a blizzard on the east coast of the United States which forced pour Pharisee-in-Chief as well as others to cut their trips short, record cold temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere with snow in places which, like Denmark, hadn’t seen snow in decades. These are incidents you don’t need Internet access to find: they’re on the news and in the papers. Turning to the Internet opens a whole new vista on how anthropogenic global warming – in fact, global warming even with the human aspect – is nothing more than a farce designed to sucker gullible people and nations out of their hard-earned money so it can be turned over to other people and nations who can’t budget themselves (for plenty of information on the Great global Warming Swindle, check out Jim Hoft over at Gateway Pundit).

What has damaged Al Gore’s credibility, though, is his insistence that global warming is a fact, in spite of the vast volumes of data to the contrary. Except for his ‘true believers’ and those folks who want to create worldwide socialism, Al Gore is about as credible as the boy who cried wolf. But it’s not persistent insanity that’s keeping Al from admitting the lie: he and his cronies are making a bundle on anthropogenic global warming and aren’t about to let the cash-cow die.

Turning to a different kind of credibility (a type I frequently attack in this blog), Karen Howes over at Eastern Right speaks of Christian credibility during the holidays. I agree with one of her commenters in that some Christians consider gift-shopping secondary (or tertiary, or quaternary, or … way down the list) to the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior. The problem with these Christians who ‘…camp…out all night in front of stores…’ end up being the public face of Christianity, the ones seen on TV and read about in the newspapers, much like some of the current Christian leadership in the world (the Archbishop of Canterbury; Gene Robinson; Jeremiah Wright and Father Pfleger; Fred Phelps; the list is endless). These are ‘Christian’ leaders who love to test, in public, how far they can bend the tenets of Christianity before either those tenets break or their congregations do. Since the tenets don’t break, the congregations do, more to the detriment of the faith.

Looking at both sides of the coin (secular and religious), liars need to be publicly rebuked. Credibility can be reclaimed through public renunciation of the lie, so long as the lie hasn’t already gotten its own ‘legs’ (as in the case of global warming). Refusal to renounce the lie ends in the destruction of credibility, because:

A LIAR WILL NOT BE BELIEVED, EVEN WHEN HE SPEAKS THE TRUTH.

Ray Stevens Gets It Right

I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day - Casting Crowns

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men."

Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

The Meaning Of Christmas

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Oldie But A Goodie

Good doggy!

It Was Inevitable, I Guess

Remember back here where I'd felt a modicum of relief that even if ObamaCare passed it could be repealed later.

Well, with the following news, I'm no longer relieved:

Senate Passes Health Insurance Overhaul

I'm no longer relieved because, if Sarah Palin and the rest who are telling us this new healthcare system involved death panels - non-medical bureaucrats deciding who merits healthcare and who doesn't - I'll be heading off to the Soylent Plant sometime before next Christmas.

For those of you who don't already know, I suffer from a terminal illness - congestive heart failure. The only 'cure' for it is a heart transplant, and since I'm not flat on my back, entirely incapable of functioning, I'm not yet eligible for the transplant. To compound problems, I'm also a type-2 diabetic.

Think I'm gonna be eligible for ObamaCare? Not bloody likely.

Think of me - and anyone else you know with a terminal illness - as Sol.



Or, perhaps, it'll be more like this:

Some Christmas Eve Humor

Don't know if any of you have seen these gentlemen, but they're terrific.

Something Cool

Quieting The Panic ***UPDATED AND BUMPED***

There's been a lot of talk about the blogosphere about the almost-imminent passage of ObamaCare, and it's had me worried, since part of the deal is the almost-certain destruction of Medicare - which I'm on because of my disability.

But the following article has assuaged my fears somewhat:

Repealing ObamaCare

Granted, I'd rather this offspring of Pelosi-Reid-Obama would die unborn, but even if it does see the light of day, there's still hope it can be left on the trash-heap to die of exposure.

***UPDATE***

I stand corrected:

Reid Bill Says Future Congresses Cannot Repeal Parts of Reid Bill

The Embarrassment Factor

Submitted to the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel's Sunday Commentary section (we'll see if they publish it).

In the Journal/Sentinel article about the free condom plan being implemented in Milwaukee schools (link), something stuck in my mind. About halfway through the article, Kathleen Murphy, MPS health services coordinator tells readers that one of the reasons ‘young people’ (let’s call them what they are – school-kids) don’t avail themselves of the local free- or reduced-cost condom programs already available is because of embarrassment.

Why would these students be embarrassed? You would think that having a condom would be touted as showing the highest standards in regard to practicing safe sex. Yet the students are embarrassed to ask for one. Or two. Or more. Could it be that, deep down in their psyches, these embarrassed students are embarrassed precisely because they believe extramarital sex and/or teenage sex is wrong? Could the same morals that applied to my generation (I’m in my mid-forties) still apply, and these embarrassed students are concerned about being seen by their peers – or by adults around them – as sexually active?

In the paragraph that follows Ms Murphy’s admission of student embarrassment, article author Erin Richards tells us that ‘In MPS, the condoms would be available only in high schools that have registered nurses, and the students would have to talk to a nurse before receiving a free condom.’ Maybe I’m wrong, here, or maybe I’m missing something, but if students are embarrassed to go to a local clinic or Planned Parenthood office and get free condoms from a relative stranger, how will having them go to a school nurse – someone they may already know and will potentially see every day of the school week – who will then ‘talk with them’, presumably about safe sex and condom use, assuage these feelings of embarrassment? It won’t – in fact, it’s likely to make them even more embarrassed about it.

I personally think the MPS Condom Program is going to fail, and fail spectacularly. Not because of pressure from abstinence groups, nor from pressures from parent and taxpayer groups. It will fail because of the Embarrassment Factor outlined above.

From E-mail

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS
Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it
does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful
lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I
don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas
trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me..
I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a
ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all
brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't
bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key
intersection near my beach house inMalibu .. If people want a creche,
it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think
Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think
people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around,
period.. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is
an explicitly atheist country.. I can't find it in the Constitution
and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that
we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as
we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too.
But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities
came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is
a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not
funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham 's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane
Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?'
(regarding Hurricane Katrina ).. Anne Graham gave an extremely
profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply
saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God
to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out
of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly
backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His
protection if we demand He leave us alone?'

In light of recent events... Terrorists attack, school shootings,
etc.. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was
murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want
prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better
not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill;
thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said
OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they
misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we
might damage their self-esteem ( Dr. Spock 'S son committed suicide).
We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said
okay.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why
they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to
kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it
out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the
world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say,
but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes'
through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start
sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about
sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass
freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed
in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many
on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or
what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us
than what God thinks of us.


My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

Deeds Done In Darkness

And so it happens: with the purchase of Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson's vote on ObamaCare, it now goes up for a vote. When, you may ask?

1 a.m. Monday, December 21st.

I'm reminded of this:

Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. (Ephesians 5:11-12, NASB)

And this is a warning to each and every Congresscritter on the Hill:

Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14, NASB)

A day of reckoning is coming.

Mimicry

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Somehow ...



I don't think so.

Attack Of The Killer Global Warming!

Snow storm slams East Coast, knocks out power