God's Plans

Marla and I received a stern reminder of the old saw "If you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans" Saturday evening I was off doing some volunteer work and rode my motorcycle home arriving around 8:20 with smoked ribs on my mind. No Marla in the house -- figured she was on the deck, but when I exited the sliding back door I heard her screaming like I've never heard her before.

I rounded the corner next to the firepit and there she was laying face down with her chin on the second small set of steps, her legs out and her arms crumpled beneath her. "I can't move, I've been here quite awhile, nobody could hear me".

Dialing 9-11 seemed to be in slow motion, making SURE they knew about MANOR COURT NORTH WEST vs just "Manor Court",  seemed like running through molasses in January. I'm guessing it was 10 min before they arrived, but it seemed like an hour or more -- I heard sirens almost immediately, my bad hearing amplified by nerves had me thinking that they were pulling up when they were crossing the bridge on 52 a mile away.

We both knew that I couldn't move her -- no feeling in her extremities, but feeling on her back. Lots of blood, but I knew not a life threatening amount. Since the front of her skull was directly against a concrete step, I wondered if the paralysis was due to brain injury rather than spinal, but she was conscious and completely cogent, so it was hard for my addled brain to make sense of it.

The EMTs and firetrucks arrived, she was loaded up and we headed for St Mary's level 1 trauma center where a team of 15+ masked and gowned specialists received her and I was ushered to a waiting room to wait for the first support to arrive. My brain was flooded with fear of still sudden death due to some bleed inside the brain, would we sell the house to deal with her being a quadriplegic? I needed to get rid of those motorcycles!  Too risky! Why wasn't I at home??? !!!

Five days later, my brain still has some of those thoughts, even though the belief is that her prognosis is excellent. When she hit the step with her chin she hyper-extended her neck backward ("whiplash"), fortunately "bruising" or "compressing"  rather than tearing or severing her spinal cord. She was startled by an old firework in a supposedly spent cake that she used to start a fire in our fire-pit going off and "just tripped" as she ran. Had the cord been bruised a bit more, her ability to breathe would have been suspended and she would have died -- as she would have if it had been severed at that level of the spine.

She underwent spinal column surgery last Sunday for 5 hours to make more room for the spinal cord and to fuse the vertebrae to better protect this area that was weak from childhood. She has had one of us with her in ICU since she was admitted since she is unable to push the nurse button. She now DOES have feeling in her hands and feet, major muscle movement on both sides, good toe movement on the left, SOME on the right, a little finger movement on the left, and a TINY bit on the right.

Recovery is likely to be very long. She got out of the ICU yesterday and "3 weeks" is considered an optimistic estimate for when she might be able to come home. Getting back to typing and other skills with her fingers is nearly certainly farther off than that.

She sold her Harley 3 weeks ago because it as too risky -- she nearly died on our patio next to our pond, a spot that I use in my mind as my "happy place"... a  "safe and calming place" to deal with anxiety. This universe is not ours -- human control and power are ALWAYS illusions. Either Trump or Hillary could trip walking down some steps, break their neck, and be gone in a few minutes -- or stroke, heart attack, car crash, plane crash -- the list is completely endless. Worse, any of us, or those we love could do the same. We don't make those decisions.

Do I literally think God might "laugh"? Sort of.  God knows how mundane all of what happens in the mortal coil other than coming to Gods Grace and redemption through Christ is. We are also created in his image, so we know that he has something like "humor".

I personally think our consciousness is traveling but one of MANY timelines, only one of which we "see" in what seems like the single path of this mortal life.  Since it was a "freak accident", maybe on nearly all of the paths, it never happened, or there was a much lesser injury, etc.. On some smaller set of even smaller paths, she died and I'm going to her funeral today or before the end of the week. Perhaps on "1" or a really tiny number, I died in a motorcycle crash on the way home and she is heading on with her recovery without me, or on another, the world is heading on without either of us because I died in a motorcycle accident the same night she stopped breathing due to a spinal injury. "What are the odds of that?" ... well, what are the odds we ever met at all?

In that case, no doubt a number of people on that timeline would be crying at our funerals (more for her than for me), but Marla and I would know the truth and understand that eternity is all that matters, and whatever the worst that life gives you is, next to eternity and THE TRUTH (Christ), the worst this world has to dish out is much less than the medical profession bills as  "just a little bee sting" or "you will feel some pressure now" ...

I believe we have FAR LESS than "no idea" on these things -- "free will", "predestination", the power of the creator of the universe, etc. "Far less" means that all of our ideas about "fate", "God's will", "Why do bad things happen to good people", etc. are likely so wrong as to make the worst description of a Saturn IV Moon Rocket internal operations by a tribesman in the bush somewhere seem like revealed genius by comparison. Just pause and consider the difference in knowledge scale between "all knowing" and any of our pitiful brains, even rolled into one!

I don't believe that God "wills" such things as happened to Marla, but he allows "free will" in the universe, which I see as a combinatorial explosion of uncountable pathways of "if". God is with us on all those paths, always seeking to save us -- he indeed knows all (since all the paths have happened, are happening, and always will happen) but we don't.

He DOES have a plan and it WILL be accomplished -- maybe even on "all the paths" for all I know, but like a parent letting a child learn to walk, he allows us to "go bump" in many many ways, even go through our "terrible twos" where everything must be OUR way!!! No matter how foolish and ridiculous that way is! Some of our "bumps", like Marla's, are just part of being a human living in a physical world marred by sin. It's like hauling 50 million gallons of shit in a fall pumping season -- maybe NONE of the 50 million is your shit, but you are still quite likely to "get some on you".

Of course, none of this dime store rambling "philosophy" or "theology", or more colloquially put "bullshit" means anything while waiting for the ambulance, or sitting with her at night while she is in pain, or watching her struggle to get her toes and fingers to move. Those are the moments that are what is "real" in the human physical sense that is what we call "life". We see through a lens VERY darkly, but we have faith that it all really does mean something SOMEHOW!

Sometimes the soul just cries out with feelings that are not expressible. She is a few feet away sleeping peacefully, THAT is a blessing beyond compare. Our boys, daughter in law and grandaughter visited us and are now home safely -- that is another blessing! Our Iowa family has rushed to our side and continues to. Our Rochester friends have already driven people to the cities multiple times, delivered food, visited, and are making themselves available. Our pastor brought us Communion in the ICU ... I could keep going on, but won't.

We like to kid ourselves that we have plans and control, but we don't . Life is learning to accept God's plan for our lives with the help of his Grace. It is ultimately a WONDERFUL plan, no matter how we might feel about it at a given point -- our goal is to accept that plan and accept that it is in fact God's plan and therefore wonderful. "Accepting" doesn't mean sitting back and saying "whatever" -- it means hard work, which Marla is FAR better than me, so has the best chance of recovering as far as is possible.

So please pray for us. It is always fine to pray for speedy 100% recovery. God knows that is very much what we want, especially for a specially loved person that constantly does everything for everyone else like Marla. But also pray that we can accept and find joy in God's will and plan in HIS time -- because ultimately, that is the only plan that counts,  no matter how hard that plan may be. I am just so thankful beyond words that I'm still living on a path WITH Marla ... "just" seeing her smile when Tula arrived is a gift beyond price.

Thanks to all who are praying, helping and caring -- perhaps that is "the reason" at some level.

It's Gods Plan, and God is Good -- ALL THE TIME!

Long May Hildeast Rule BOistan

Comey comedy, Comey comity | Power Line:

Are your minds right yet folks?

1. Why would BO endorse Hildebeast while she is still supposedly under investigation of his justice department? There is no reason for him to do so, it looks TERRIBLE to anyone paying attention, but he did it anyway.
2. Why would Slick Willie meet with Loretta LynchMob in private when she is even closer to the FBI investigation? The optics were HORRIBLE, and they could have met at a 1000 secure locations and nobody would know. But they did it in the open so all would see.
3. Why would BO be traipsing around the country with Hildebeast  (BOII) on the very day the FBI is going to announce their decision on her crimes? Would tomorrow REALLY be "too late"?
4. Why would the head of the FBI admit that Hildebeast broke the law, but that they are not going to prosecute because she is Hildebeast? They could have just said "they didn't find anything". 

BECAUSE THEY ARE SHOWING YOU THEY ARE NOT ONLY ABOVE THE LAW, THEY MAKE IT AND APPLY IT AS SUITES THEM! 

So if you have not bended your knee and shut up already, SHUT THE F**K UP! 

Readers of this blog know they are already doing "guilty until proven innocent" when it suits their fancy and beating in private citizens doors when they support the wrong folks (Non-TP). 

I still assume that there are a lot of people they will make examples of  before they come for me -- but NOBODY should be the least surprised when other nasty shoes start dropping. These folks LOCKED UP the poor schmuck they falsely blamed for the "Benghazi" mythological film. 

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PBS On Quantitative Insanity

Column: The monetary bubble to end all bubbles is coming | PBS NewsHour:

We've been over the fantasy of "Quantitative Easing" a few times, but this Yogi Berra quote might help put the issue in common terms.

Yogi Berra famously said he wanted his pizza cut in four slices instead of eight. His “logic” was that he didn’t want to gain weight by eating a lot of slices. However, what matters is not the number of slices, but the total amount consumed.

I use this same "logic" with Fosters 24oz "oil cans". I enjoy Fosters beer and for some reason (conspiracy against me is the reason I believe), it is only available in 24 oz cans. So I like to say that "I've cut the number of cans of beer I drink in HALF!". I can also use the same excuse that "big economies" use -- I'm pretty much twice as big as everyone else, so my beers ought to be as well!

The article is from PBS, so they use "missiles in Afghanistan" as their "government good", but readers of this blog know that it would be FAR better to use "money transferred to voting blocks to buy votes" as the "good" -- over 3/4 of our budget, and those of the Europeans and Japanese as well is the transfer of money from young to old and successful to unsuccessful. The article also doesn't point out that ON TOP of the trillions in printing, all those governments are piling on trillions in debt!

... printing more money does not alter the size the economy; it simply reduces the value of each dollar. The seductive aspect of having the Fed pay for government expenditures is that, unlike taxes, the cost of printing money is invisible. Almost no one is even aware that they have paid for part of a drone strike.

"Fiat currency" -- what we call "money" has no intrinsic value, it is PURELY a "medium of exchange". It's "value" is constantly changing, relative to the price of EVERYTHING. We commonly see gas prices and say "the price of gas went up/down", but in fact it is equally true that the "value of our money relative to gas went up/down".

I've been talking about the "government bubble" for years now, and after a career in IBM I realize to a SMALL DEGREE how long disaster can be staved off in something large. IBM was around a 100 billion dollar a year in revenue company. It takes a long time for something that large to completely die even with horrible mismanagement. The US federal government is around $4T a year, PLUS it has a whole bunch of people here and around the world that would really really like for it not to fail. BUT, even though it is large, it isn't infinite, nor is it "magic".

Governments have two ways to pay for their expenditures. They can take the money from their citizens through fees and taxes. Or they can have the central bank create new money. (Borrowing the money can be thought of as a third way, or it can be viewed as simply deferring the choice between taxing and printing).

Rather boring isn't it? In fact, government is not magic AT ALL! It actually only has ONE way to pay for expenditures -- IT TAKES MONEY FROM IT''S CITIZENS!!!! Taxes are right up front -- the government takes your money. Borrowing takes either your money or your children's money in the future (with interest), printing money lowers the value of every dollar in existence. No magic -- everything the government promises to you is paid for by citizens.

Naturally, the government attempts to hide this any way they can, and they ALWAYS try to tell you that SOMEONE ELSE WILL PAY! ... "the rich, the banks, the corporations, ...". But of course they won't -- the rich, the banks, the corporations HAVE THE POWER. They ARE "The Party" (TP-D) The Clinton foundation alone takes in over $200 million every year! They are the ones primarily benefitting from the giant Ponzi scheme!

"So the ECB program transfers money from European savers to the largest, richest companies in the world. What was the response to the ECB’s bond buying plan? Was there outrage at this transfer of wealth? Did Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders lead “Occupy ECB” marches? No, exactly the opposite happened: Stock markets around the world rallied after the announcement of more European printing."

With Christ, the population was "like sheep who have gone astray", without Christ (religion, culture, values, tradition, family, community, truth, etc), we ARE SHEEP!

It's a bubble, it WILL burst -- the question is not "if, but when". So HEDGE ... have some metals in your portfolio, and maybe a lake place where you can catch catfish off the dock! ;-)
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Osteen, Anger, Hell, Homosexuality

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3059879/posts

Somebody posted the linked on FB and I read through it. It is full of discomfort for me -- and as a Christian, I think discomfort is often a good, or at least necessary thing.

First of all, my inclination is to dislike Osteen. He is a TV minister, a class that evokes the same sort of visceral reaction as "politician, used car salesman, etc". Being a Christian means one should ALWAYS feel at least uncomfortable about those reactions. We know we are supposed to LOVE even our ENEMIES.

The writer of the column doesn't get my vote either though -- very much "works righteousness", "holier than thou", "Scribes and Pharisee's", judgmental, etc I have a hard time understanding how any Christian can feel comfortable making the kinds of harsh judgements he is making.

I could go have a long scriptural "verse off" with some of the verses he quotes, but I don't feel like that today, nor do I feel "led" that way.  I went and visited my Dad yesterday and got to hear an MPR discussion about "political mixed marriages" that made "acceptance of homosexuality" one of those "we can't associate with people who fail that test!"

I overeat. I was sick over the weekend, so I've been trying to use that impetus to cut back AGAIN. Overeating is gluttony. Gluttony is sin, and it is just as bad as homosexuality. Do I "feel" that way? No, I find homosexuality especially yucky, not my temptation, but there are plenty of other sins that ARE tempting. Overeating is a nice clear not yucky, not embarrassing one to talk about.

Sexual sins are especially difficult sins. It is my firm belief that at our core we all know that "love, marriage, children,  family, extended family, community" are the human center of life. For those that are believers, God demands that we put HIM at the center of our lives -- which changes the focus of life.

Without (1) the sexual union of one man and one woman, none of us would be here. We also know that we will ultimately (2) face death, either alone or (3)with Jesus holding our hand. EVERYONE that is sane agrees with 1 and 2. Many, maybe even most, will try to deny or avoid thought about 2, but it's there.  We also have no choice on 1 and 2. We are here, we were born -- so we will die, end of story.

All human kind is in this boat. I find the fact there is not more love on the planet to be enough to prove the existence of Satan / evil on it's own! We are all short timers in a boat we did not choose to be in, and we KNOW that it ends in death! Why not love others in our shared situation?

In listening to the NPR show, reading this article  and dealing with atheists over the years, I'm convinced that the desire to judge others as being "less than ourselves" is an absolute hallmark of human nature. When Christ tells us to "love our enemies", he is giving us a command that is impossible for humans to follow -- like "love God with ALL your heart". The fact he would give such a command is proof that he is more than human. Humans have a hard time even conceiving of such things when they hear them, let alont think them up!

Have you ever met an atheist who even gives a HINT of loving their enemies? They are almost always pretty angry at those that disagree with them -- religious people, very much so! They are certain they are completely justified in their anger -- "righteous" even!

We all love ourselves. Even if we hate ourselves at times, it is always someone else's fault -- our parents, someone who abused us somehow, the political system, bad genetics (our parents again), racism, the system, ... maybe even God, sometimes even if we claim we don't believe he exists. We ended up "marooned" here with no way out but death unless we "give in" and subscribe to the "foolish idea" that there is a God and a potential for eternal life with him.

But many CAN'T accept that, because that comes with HELL, which is "immoral" according to  "our morality" since WE are  better judges of morality than the "certainly must be imagined" God who would conceive of such a terrible thing as eternal punishment.

I believe that accepting the moral authority that God has a RIGHT to actually judge us is one of those acts of humility that comes very very hard to many. I wrote on that some here. It is really a very mild humility asked of us compared that of almighty God being willing to suffer even unto death for our sin!

But in the meantime,  our natural desire is to feel better about ourselves by putting labels on some other groups and calling them "untouchables", "deploreables", ... "the evil".  If you go about 38min into the MPR piece (nearly the end), they finally get down to brass tacks -- "we can't be around people who are homophobic, racist, islamophobic or sexist ... these are non-negotiable". Let's ignore the fact that believers in Islam are "homophobic and sexist" by the MPR definition for the moment, we humans are also inescapably inconsistent. Humans are extremely limited beings.

Christ's forgiveness has no limits. I agree with Osteen that there will be people that have practiced homosexuality in heaven, and they will have sought forgiveness for their sin in this life. I pray fervently that there will be recovering gluttons in heaven as well as those fighting the sin of judging others in heaven, and especially those that have lusted after women in their hearts  -- and that I will be among them. Homosexual acts are sin, not homosexual desires, exactly like man or woman desiring a partner not their spouse. Sin is sin -- without Christ, it is like life, always terminal.

This somewhat long discussion for me is summarized by 1 John 1:8 " If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the TRUTH is not in us."

Christ is the Truth. Homosexuality is a sin, and it is not the unforgivable sin. Drinking to excess is a sin and alcoholics have a compulsion to drink to excess -- we don't tell them "go ahead and drink or you are not being true to your nature". Is it really possible to look at the wreckage of alcoholism, drug addiction, homosexuality, transgenderism and abortion and still say "these are not sin"?

Since ALL have sinned -- and even worse, struggle with sin each day, listing sins ought give no Christian comfort just because they can list a  group which happens not to tempt them personally. Any practicing Christian MUST have no problem pointing to a list which DOES NOT make them comfortable! Being a practicing Christian REQUIRES constant admission of our sinfulness!

Comfort, pleasure, ease ... Christians are NOT to seek these, but rather to serve the Lord!

For me, this analysis makes it clear why those without Christ are pretty much forced by human nature  to establish their own Secular Humanist religion with it's own "mortal sins" (homophobia, racism, etc above), and as the MPR program shows, they have done so, and it includes even "shunning" like the Amish.  I think Sapiens does a good job of covering the secular religion compulsion.

Matt 6:33  "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." We are in what to human eyes appears to be a hopeless situation, however ...

Matt 19:26  "Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

WaPo Wants To Use Electoral College To Stop Trump

The Electoral College could still stop Trump, even if he wins the popular vote - The Washington Post:


No, it isn't April Fools! It is St Paddies Day, Trump has not won the Republican nomination, nor stood for election, but WaPo is thinking ahead to invalidating the election, using the Electoral College!

Of course the WaPo like everyone else on the left has always been WILDLY in favor of "popular vote" in every case possible, including overturning the Electoral College by making an end run around the Constitution -- here they are pretty sanguine about the "National Popular Vote" effort in 2013.

Here is their summary today:

Trump hasn’t won yet. But it is increasingly likely that we will reach precisely the kind of scenario that the founders worried about — divisive political discourse threatens to thrust a dangerous candidate into office who appears inclined to govern more like a monarch than a president. Opportunities remain for cooler heads to prevail in our presidential election. And state legislatures should consider doing so this year.

NEVER TRUST A LIBERAL! They directly state that they recognize no truth, only power, and they prove it constantly!

We currently have a divisive political demagogue who ignores the Constitution in office and WaPo LOVES IT! Clearly we already HAVE only FAKE LAW! The same people who constantly espouse all manner of democracy -- in polls, in elections, in EVERYTHING, suddenly want to use the Electoral College to invalidate an election! These are the same people that demand that voting not even require so much as an ID!

When you give up truth you give up consistency and then you can never be trusted under any circumstance. We already knew this, but this is yet another example that makes it crystal clear!

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100 Million Deaths, DDT, Malaria, Value of Life

Rachel Carson's Deadly Fantasies - Forbes:

Readers of this blog know that I believe ALL lives matter, and that I am intrigued, dismayed, perplexed and frustrated by the WIDE variation in how much given lives in fact do matter! To that end, I've come back to the issue of DDT and Malaria.

To make the longer story REALLY short, DDT came online at just the right point in history -- right as WWII was getting underway, and from 1943 - 1960, it saved on the order of HALF A BILLION ... yes, you heard that right, 500,000,000 lives!!!  If you have time to read just the very early part of this article, it is WELL worth your time!

Then, along came "Silent Spring" -- a FICTIONAL work, that was supposedly based on science, but was not, that is credited with founding the environmental movement. The results of the world wide emotional backlash against DDT were immediately catastrophic, and if you must see the "punchline", at least 100 MILLION dead, making Carlson in the ranks of the greatest mass murderers in history:

In Ceylon, for example, where, as noted, DDT use had cut malaria cases from millions per year in the 1940s down to just 17 by 1963, its banning in 1964 led to a resurgence of half a million victims per year by 1969.[18] In many other countries, the effects were even worse.

By 1970, the National Academy of Sciences was worried, they tried to head off the rush to disaster with this:

To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT. It has contributed to the great increase in agricultural productivity, while sparing countless humanity from a host of diseases, most notably, perhaps, scrub typhus and malaria. Indeed, it is estimated that, in little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million deaths due to malaria that would otherwise have been inevitable. Abandonment of this valuable insecticide should be undertaken only at such time and in such places as it is evident that the prospective gain to humanity exceeds the consequent losses. At this writing, all available substitutes for DDT are both more expensive per crop-year and decidedly more hazardous.[19]

But it was banned in the US anyway, and many other places to follow.

And even for those that did not, the halting of American DDT exports (since U.S. producers slowed and then stopped manufacturing it) made DDT much more expensive, and thus effectively unavailable for poor countries in desperate need of the substance.[25] As a result, insect-borne diseases returned to the tropics with a vengeance. By some estimates, the death toll in Africa alone from unnecessary malaria resulting from the restrictions on DDT has exceeded 100 million people.[26]

I did more reading this PM on DDT than I really wanted to ... the guy that wrote this article used to eat a teaspoon of it before his speeches! He died of a heart attack at age 84.

I could ramble on -- in general, danger to humans, very close to nil. Danger to birds, nothing if used in ANY sort of sensible way -- the issue of eggshells / eagles is from having it virtually POURED on fields for no good reason other than it was "cheap and effective so more must be better".

Back to the important point, LIFE!

No images of lilu in her outfit today guys! ;-(

So a woman writes a fictional story about birds being killed at just the right time so a bunch of lefties go off the deep end about a pesticide that has saved HALF A BILLION lives, and it is banned!  We finally start getting back to use it FIFTY YEARS  after it's banning has killed well over 100 MILLION !!!

I understand that most of the lives saved and lost were black, and I certainly understand that from the point of view of the left-liberal-progressives in this country, black lives are "pawns". They are CRITICAL as a voting block today, but as 6K young black men die in the streets here by shooting each year, those lives matter as much as the lives of babes in their mothers wombs. Abortion falls especially hard on the black, which was the intention of Margret Sanger and the eugenicists.

The gay guys that died from AIDs mattered HUGELY, although far, FAR less than a common street thug that attacked a police officer in Ferguson. His life approached the worth of an assassinated US president if one considers the amount of media time spent on it.

OTOH, many many thousands of deaths of poorly educated white people in an epidemic of suicide and substance abuse are worth even less than those of the young urban black men shooting each other!

My answer is that we have abandoned any sense of proportion, reason and morality and are being completely driven by a politically controlled media, government and educational monolith under single party (D) control that is 100% directed to gaining and locking in POWER.

I'd like to hear alternative answers.


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WaPo Quotes Burke, Equates BO to Trump

Trump is the demagogue that our Founding Fathers feared - The Washington Post:

When the WaPo quotes Edmund Burke and even starts to wonder about democracy being good, you know you have fallen down the rabbit hole to a new level of Wonderland (as in Alice In). When they list the BO administration policies directly as being a "horrible danger" when Trump talks about them, you know that folks in Wonderland think that theirs is the only world.

Burke is about tradition, rule of law, aristocracy, the need for democratic inputs to a government to be STRONGLY controlled,  etc.

“The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please; we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.” (Burke) 

Indeed. Farhter on, the column quotes Federalist 10 of all things!

“Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people.” A representative government is designed to frustrate sinister majorities (or committed pluralities), by mediating public views through “a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country.”

"intrigue, corruption, or other means, first obtain the suffrages" Obtain the votes! How about just by not having to show an ID? The WaPo is favor of that after all. They are REALLY in favor of using government funds to buy the votes!

Our founders wanted to mediate the level of democracy they allowed through "a chosen body of citizens" -- meaning that to be allowed to vote, you had to meet some criteria! Like own land, have a certain level of wealth, a certain level of education, etc! The idea of "everyone voting" was crazy talk to our founders, and even then they wanted it FAR more limited than it is now!

The Senate was supposed to be appointed by the State, NOT elected by popular vote. The 17th Amendment screwed that up in 1913. The Constitution was to provide a rule of law that has been usurped constantly since the Warren court and continues to be desecrated today. Our slide into Mob Rule is all but complete -- and now WaPo is concerned as to what it really means to have NO RULES!

In 2008, a "sinister majority" voted for "Hope and Change", and a man that called broad swaths of the electorate "bitter clingers", and stood before faux greek pillars and declared that he would stop the rise of the oceans by his messianic presence.

With the theory of a presidential nominee as a wrecking ball, we have reached the culmination of the founders’ fears: Democracy is producing a genuine threat to the American form of self-government. Trump imagines leadership as pure act, freed from reflection and restraint. He has expressed disdain for religious and ethnic minorities. He has proposed restrictions on press freedom and threatened political enemies with retribution. He offers himself as the embodiment of the national will, driven by an intuitive vision of greatness. None of this is hidden.

Lets take this rather amazing near closing paragraph apart and show how the WaPO manages to totally point out that Trump = BO in all important aspects, just varying in the usurpation choices of what used to be America!

"Trump imagines leadership as a pure act" -- So BO has proudly used "executive action" in direct usurpation of the Constitution on immigration, EPA actions on climate change, and gun control. Both Bernie and Hillary explicitly promise more of the same on at least guns. So what is supposedly unique about Trump beyond the WaPo not liking his possible selection of where to be lawless? They have supported lawlessness for 7 years!

"disdain for religious and ethnic minorities" -- What part of "bitter clingers, clinging to their guns and Bibles" has been missed? Has not every Bible believing Christian that respects life and marriage as between a man and woman been maligned constantly and in more and more cases even lost employment with the sanction of the current administration? How many times does the WaPo expect us to be called all sorts of names including "racists" for not agreeing with BO on policy? How long do you need to watch BO to realize that disdain for his "enemies" is his standard mode of operation!

"restrictions on press freedom and threatened political enemies" -- Both the 1st and 2nd amendments are in the Bill of Rights.  BO has not only "threatened", he HAS restricted 2nd amendment rights by executive order!  He has openly espoused to the need to "control Fox News and Talk radio" on MANY occasions, and directly espoused the overturn of Citizens United which gives a tiny bit of ability for those not agreeing with government in all cases to have free speech that matters and costs money!

"He offers himself as the embodiment of the national will, driven by an intuitive vision of greatness." -- I haven't seen Trump use grecian pillars yet. I'm not even going to insult your intelligence with having to point out the finger wagging snobbish constant of his worshipfullnesss,  the brilliant, the totally superior, "the ONE", his supreme odifferousness --- BO!!!! that we have suffered under since '09!

We have already crossed the rubicon that the WaPo now is concerned about. One can only guess as to their thoughts as to how to prevent those who they disagree with from having a voice. We see that violence is already being directed at Trump with outlets like the WaPo blaming Trump because he is being attacked. Do they also blame women that are raped for dressing provocatively?  It isn't hard to imagine all kinds of sanctions from the left against Trump and people supporting him -- the normal left wing argument is SHUT UP!!!!!  (or be dead if you refuse!)

WaPo can't understand why people would support him. For a large segment of our population dying in droves at a rate not seen since AIDs, all for the "crime" of being white and lower middle class at the time in which BO decided to squeeze them into dependency.

When God, Law, Tradition, Family, Work Ethic and countless other aspects of the fabric of society are torn apart, the results are unpredictable specifically, but predictably bad. BO showed many of us how bad such results can be -- we can rest assured that the lessons will go on in unpredictable and very bad ways!

The left's answer to this problem is historically "Kill the ones we don't like". We can get a good idea as to how they operate from TP running Jim Crow in the South for 100 years.

 The conservative / Christian / Founders reaction was "Religion, Rule of Law, Limited Government and Democracy, Individual Freedom and Responsibility, Family, Community and WORK".

We decided to go the left way as a nation. Readers of this blog should not be surprised at the outcome.

Trump, Hildebeast and BS all promise to continue the decent, the question is just who specifically gets bloodied during the fall.


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Leviticus 19:15, Judgement , Inversion, Law

The title  verse:

"You shall do no injustice in judgement; you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly." 

The Equal Protection Clause of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

In order to understand "Equal Protection", you need to also look at the 5th Amendment. The Magna Carta, clause 39 stated it:

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.

The 5th amendment merely says:

Nor shall any person be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law

 If the US was to have remained a Constitutional Republic, ruled by laws rather than men, people that voted should all be very aware of this "decent of law". They would at least understand what is behind the 23 Lawgivers around the chamber of the US House of Representatives in our capitol.

The judgement of all humans is corrupt, but we can look back through history to the Bible and see that the temptation is to judge unfairly, differently for "the poor or the great". Corruption is corruption, IN EITHER DIRECTION!

One of the spiritual rules of the universe is that when there is an inversion of meaning -- left becomes right, good becomes evil, evil becomes good, male becomes female and female becomes male, then you see the hand of Satan operating directly before your face. Let those that have eyes SEE!

The "Progressive Income Tax" in the US -- along with "Affirmative Action" and other such laws are examples of inversion! They EXPLICITLY celebrate the corruption of judgement as being a "good", when it is declared directly in the Bible as an EVIL. The corruption of judgement destroys and invalidates law. Without law, there is no civilization except that based on raw power and coercion.

The root of the end of America was the abandonment of God -- the increasing evidence of Satanic inversion is simply the proof of the fact that God's judgement is certain and as Reagan said:

Dilbert On Trump

Scott Adams Blog:

I used to love the Adam's cartoon strip, "Dilbert" when  I worked at IBM. It was almost spooky how well he understood the typical mindless inanity of modern corporate life. He understood it because he was an engineer at AT&T and at least smart enough to make "Mensa" ... so maybe not a genius, but smart.

He opens with the following:

It isn’t unusual for members of the public to hate politicians. For example, lots of people hate President Obama. Some of that hatred is because of his policies, some is because of racism, and I assume there are a few other reasons. But I have never seen anyone who was literally afraid of him on a visceral level. 

Trump, on the other hand, actually scares people. I have seen people’s bodies twist up and go into full panic at the thought of him being president. I’m talking about actual, literal, bodily fear, as if a monster is already in house and you don’t know where it is hiding. Even professional members of the media feel this fear. 

And yet I feel none of that fear – not even a trace amount. To me, Trump looks like the safest candidate in the history of presidential elections, and I don’t even share his politics on a number of topics. So I have to ask myself why I have zero fear of Trump while so many others are in full panic mode. Should I be more afraid?

Adams never seems to "figure it out" in the column ... as an intelligent engineer, he is trying to be logical. Fear may have a logical basis, but it is only an emotion.

People that hated W or hate BO are not afraid that either of them would directly take them on and cut them down to size if they tried to heckle them. People DID fairly regularly scream things at W, and I'm not sure he ever took on a heckler.

If you hate Trump, unless you have a BIG ego and lots of skills, loud voice, etc, it is nearly certain that if you took your hatred up against him, he would chew you up and spit out out like used sunflower seeds! So they feel fear!

The other aspect I think is that Trump is an "unknown". I certainly was very concerned about what BO would do, and unfortunately those concerns proved to be largely founded -- BOcare, gigantic debt, disregard for the Constitution. loss of US stature around the world, terrible economy, and awful decrease in number of Americans working. I'm concerned about Trump, but policy wise, mostly because he is unknown.

I strongly dislike Trump because he is obnoxious, has no conservative credentials that I can identify, is more concerned about himself than anything else, and he coarsens an  already nasty US political stage.

The column is a worthy read though -- Adams is not the only very intelligent person that I know that is excited about and backing Trump. I think their hopes are FAR too high, in a very similar way to the hopes that the Obama Zombies had in '08.

Human "saviors" are never real!

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Young Earth Warmists

Climate Change, the Long View | Power Line:

Mostly just posting to have these charts in one place for future reference.

This has been well covered in this Blog, but sometimes a little repetition is good, a little repetition is good ... Marco Rubio ;-)

Young Earth Creationists tend to put the age of the earth at 6-10K years.

Compared to them, our current warmists are like fruit flies compared to elephants! In order to reach their "scientific conclusions", they restrict their data to AT MOST 155-160 years (1860 to now), and in many cases MUCH less ... like "since 1979" for satellite data.

The linked article is short and has three excellent charts to give a little perspective. A scientist would take 160 years of climate data next to 100's of thousands of years ( I find the "billions" to be spurious, no real climate data available on those ranges) is far MORE laughable than your typical scientist likes to consider Young Earth Creation!

They want to show a "trend" on a couple hundred year scale when they have data from thousands, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years to answer for?

Here is the last 10K years of climate data, in GENERAL it has been getting warmer, seas have been rising and C02 levels have been getting higher that whole time. That is what it means to be in one of the 5 "interglacials" in the last 500K years. If you wanted to point out something "scientific" rather than political, the fact that the peaks of warmth seem to be getting lower and the length of the cold periods getting longer MIGHT give a bit of a pause if you also looked at the 500K data.

The following chart is the last 500K data of Vostok data ... the fact that the last 10K shows that while it HAS been getting warmer since the "little ice age", we are only in a "warm period" relative to that cool period ... which is why "climate scientists" talk "avg temp vs baseline" ... the "baseline" is 1981 - 2010.  (Gee, I wonder why they picked THAT?)

At least Young Earth Creationists COMPLETELY admit that they are acting with religion in mind -- but hey, at least it is an OLD religion! The Climate Faith is at best only been holding worship services since 1980!

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Government For Government's Sake, Ground Hog Eve

Global factories parched for demand, need stimulus | Reuters:

The linked article is a rundown of the generally bad global economic conditions, but the bottom line is the heading -- demand is low,  government needs to provide more stimulus!

When IBM got to the point in the late 1980's that the average "span of control" (people per manager) was 7, I used to comment that we had "management for management's sake". We had completely forgotten what the business of the company was -- PRODUCING innovative and high quality solutions that customers wanted to buy, and were instead bogged down in "process, corporate programs, tracking and bureaucracy".

By '93 when they brought in Gerstner we were bleeding red ink and rapidly nearing death. We now have arrived at "government for government's sake".

US GDP percentage officially spent by federal, state and local government is supposed to be around 35% now -- it was 40%+ in like '09-'10. In Europe and elsewhere it stays over 40%. I'm not really sure ANYONE has a good idea of how much of "production" is now government "stimulus".

In the 1980's, Ronald Reagan revved up the "engine of capitalism" for what might have been it's last run, and we grew nearly continuously from '82 until 2000. Does anyone remember capitalism? It gets a lot of blame now, but in '08 and '09 especially we took that golden goose of capitalism into the DC operating room and it didn't come out -- but it still gets blamed a lot.

As near as I can figure, the "new goose" is government. It prints money and shits it out all over the landscape, the sheep run out and gather up as much of it as they can, and try to buy a few things from the remaining evil "businesses". You know, those idiots that are taxed and maligned every day for doing grubby work of growing, cooking, building, etc.  They might WANT to be "capitalists", but between BOcare, EPA, IRS, AMT, minimum wage, etc, they are basically just "undocumented government workers".

The geniuses in DC seem to have stuffed the old capitalist goose,  dressed him up in a top hat like Scrooge McDuck, put him in a window on Wall Street and claim he is alive. They sprayed some extra cash around the street to keep the folks moving the money from one stack to another happy, with the agreement they would send some piles back to the politicians in DC for the favor.

We have an old hag worth $50-$100 million stumbling around the country cackling about "income inequality" -- she was a bag lady delivering cash to Wall Street and a good deal of her pile comes from having sticky fingers (no, not like the Stones, that is her husband).

The richest guys in the US, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, regularly go out and lament "income inequality" as well,  the public loves it and sees no problem with it. It gives the sheep something to do rather than listen to speeches about "the greatest problem of our generation" (climate change), or watching reality TV -- or politics, but I repeat myself.

They don't really need to do that anymore either though, because there is a new reality TV show that is pretty high in the ratings called "Running for Emperor" starring Donald Trump, that is picking up solid ratings. It's an odd time, one never knows what people will watch anymore.

Oh, and I heard that Doc Brown from Back to the Future, got lost in time, fried his brain on a Mr Fusion overload and is promising to use a "flux capacitor" to power the dollar presses to hyperspeed so EVERYONE can be rich! In the future, everyone is rich -- it's the only fair thing to do!

and that's the way it is, Ground Hogs Eve, 2016.



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Trump? Cruz? Squeal Like A Pig!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gop-establishment-donald-trump-ted-cruz_us_56a058e0e4b0404eb8f04d0a?utm_hp_ref=dc&ir=DC&section=dc

It's HuffPo, but I recommend it. It's rather infuriating if you even had wisps of tenuous hope that we had some shreds of a country left!

"Cruz has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way in D.C., whereas Trump hasn't, and Trump up until this year was pretty much a player," said Craig Shirley, a longtime GOP strategist and charter member of the establishment. "Ultimately, the Washington establishment deep down -- although they find Trump tacky or distasteful -- they think that they ultimately can work with him. Deep down, a lot of people think it is an act."

Are we electing someone to the Glee Club? Cruz "rubbed people the wrong way in DC"?  Good God, I'm starting to think we would be better off carpet bombing DC than ISIS!

TRUMP is "tacky and distasteful"? What the hell did/do they think about the Arkansas HillyBilly's? Have they listened to the witch cackle about "all women should be believed"? Has either Trump or Ted raped anyone?

Who do you really want to deal with ISIS or the VAST stack of nasty problems now rotting and festering after the reign of stench?

Burt, or Ned Beatty?

Personally, I believe there are a few folks that would really be improved by  broadhead ventilation through the thorax! 

Yes, everyone assumes that Hillary is going to skate on her scandals, and everyone INCLUDING the Republican "establishment" is fine with Trump if it comes to that -- or even Hillary. How about Bernie? The MSM and the Democrats have assumed that Trump is beatable -- and even it if he isn't, he is "one of them", and "it's all an act".

There is ample reason for Republican insiders to feel more affinity to the real estate mogul than to the brash Texas tea party senator. As Shirley noted, Washington has spent decades doing business with Trump, if not personally begging him for checks.

The inside the beltway corruption is beyond what I had even imagined! We've got very very little but corruption left! (anything?) They are looking for "someone we can do business with"! The business of being many 10's of Trillions in debt and $120 T unfunded liability while transferring massive amounts of money from the productive to the non-productive or politically connected.

"I'm rooting for Hillary," said one half-joking somebody in the GOP establishment. "She can't win a mandate, so we hold the House and don't get slaughtered in the Senate. We will have a great midterm in 2018 running against her," he said, requesting anonymity for obvious reasons. "We are a great opposition party."

It is really looking like it is TIME for Rome (DC) to burn!  ISIS makes some inbred gay hillbillies look like gender confused schoolgirls -- and DC wants somebody "the can do business with" and "doesn't rub them that wrong way". What are they, cats?

Well? Who is it that owns this shit-hole? It is WAY past time to get serious!

Sowell, BO's Theater, Gun Marker

Showman-in-Chief - Thomas Sowell - Page full:

For an EXHAUSTIVE view on the studies, surveys, research, etc relative to guns, and the huge difficulty of making any sense out of it statistically, I recommend this.

The Second Amendment was plain and clear in the US Constitution for over 200 years, but by 2008, our nation was so screwed up that the Supreme Court had to get involved to "interpret" the plain text of the Constitution lest it be taken to mean "our soldiers can carry guns". Even then, it was 5 to 4 -- when a nation goes dim, it seems to go very dim very fast!

The president used to be sworn to uphold that Constitution, especially after the SCOTUS has recently ruled, but BO doesn't care about anything in that old document -- separation of powers, limited powers, rights of citizens, etc ... BO is certain he is THE supreme authority, and since "The Party" (D) is not going to stand up for their oaths of office either, the lawless regime slithers on.

TP is not going to rest until the guns in private hands are rounded up, one way or another, because their power will never be total until that happens, and they are not going to stop short of TOTAL POWER!

However, this is WAY past "statistics". As Jefferson said; "No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms". Without the rule of law, we are down to the bitter end of the freedoms that our founders bequeathed us. They understood that freedom is NEVER free, and unfortunately, either the last ember left here will finally die, or it will be "refreshed with the blood of patriots".

In the meantime, the Sowell article is excellent reading -- oh if only Sowell could have been our first Black President, we would be a great nation once more!

Those who have been marveling at Donald Trump's political showmanship were given a reminder of who is the top showman of them all, when President Barack Obama went on television to make a pitch for his unilateral actions to restrict gun sales and make a more general case for tighter gun control laws. 

It was beautifully choreographed, like a great ballet, and performed with consummate skill and understated eloquence. First of all, the scene was set with a room full of people who had lost loved ones to gun violence. A father whose son had been gunned down made a long introduction before the president showed up, walked down the aisle and up on to the stage to growing applause. 

As political theater, it put Donald Trump's rantings in the shade.

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Sapiens, A Brief History of Humanity

http://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316095/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451706273&sr=1-1&keywords=sapiens

"Sapiens" by Yuval Harari, is a bit more thoughtful than standard atheist rendering of the ascent of man, with even some small refreshing hints of humility. It is broad in scope, proposing to cover the story of man from pre-history up through the Cognitive Explosion, agriculture, civilizations, religion, the "Enlightenment" and on through modern times to conjectures of the possibility that our species will pass through a "Singularity" driven by genetic engineering, nanotech, cybernetics or AI that creates a "new species" more "god" than man.

Why? Well, he summarizes the tragedy of that quite well at one point (p 391):

Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if the planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about it's business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence, any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion. The other-worldly meaning medieval people found in their lives was no more deluded than the modern humanist, nationalist, and capitalist meanings of modern people's beliefs. 

The last line of the book,  ending with some trepidation of the potential amoral terror of meaningless power unleashed  is:

Is there anything more dangerous than irresponsible and dissatisfied gods who don't know what they want?

A fitting ending, but my opinion is that he does perform a useful function in pointing out that from the atheist scientific viewpoint, ALL of the religions and ideologies in world history are "imaginary" -- they have to be. This is the lament of Nietzsche as he said "God is dead" -- so Nietzsche suggested that SOMEBODY had better get down to business and form some "new myths", because the old "god myth" in his mind was dead. Fortunately, Nietzsche (and his soulmate, Hitler)  is definitely dead, so his pronouncements are at best "hollow".

I've been over this ground a few times, but it is fairly complex ground, so the fact that humans CAN'T OPERATE beyond "family, clan, tribe" exceeding orders of say 250 people tops UNLESS they have some shared believed order (he calls it "imagined order"). Religion, money, capitalism, democracy, liberalism, communism, human rights, corporations, animal rights (he likes that one, you can tell), nationalism -- they are ALL imagined (at least if you are an atheist, they HAVE to be!). This whole issue is covered well in "Dawin's Cathedral".

He asks a wonderful question on p176:

Was the late Neil Armstrong, whose footprint remains intact on the windless moon, happier than the nameless hunter-gatherer who 10K years ago left her handprint on the wall in Chauvet Cave? If not, what was the point of developing agriculture, cities, writing, writing, coinage, empires, science and industry? 

To which I'd put my tongue in cheek and add Scotch and ZZ Top. He does take the time to stumble around through the problems with "happiness" or "pleasure" as the meaning of life.

If happiness is based on feeling pleasant sensations, then in order to be happier we need to re-engineer our biochemical system. If happiness is based on feeling life is meaningful, then we need to delude ourselves more effectively. Is there a third alternative?

Both the above views share the assumption that happiness is some sort of subjective feeling (of either pleasure or meaning) and that in order to judge people's happiness, all we have to do is ask them how they feel. To many of us that seems logical because the dominant religion of our age is liberalism. Liberalism sanctifies the subjective feelings of individuals. It views these feelings as the supreme source of authority. 

He realizes the fact that "Liberalism" is the dominant religion, and he then points out the fallacy of liberalism. It will be interesting to see if he is spared from some sort of punishment from the liberal hierarchy, or if the fact that he espouses no specific alternative to the state religion gains him clemency. In one specific line he observes,  "Like Satan (who he does NOT believe in), DNA (which he does, and believes to be meaningless) uses fleeting pleasures to tempt people to place them in it's power."  For a non-sentient non-entity DNA, "uses" seems wrong ... "employs"? "infuses"? killing teleology (purpose) is much harder than killing "god", but without God, humans are the only teleological source available ... and so far, we haven't modified our DNA.

He recognizes that there is NO CHOICE but to throw the REQUIRED baby of the ability of humans to cooperate on scales much larger than 250 people out with the "bathwater" of god when you decide that "god is a myth" because certainly that means that EVERYTHING other than hard science is a "myth" (and that is at best an "inductive myth about mechanism ONLY"). It is this intellectual honesty that I find the best feature of the book. He realizes we have to have "myths" that nobody questions -- but he doesn't have any idea how that would be maintained in a truly "advanced" society that in his definition would be "pure science".

I don't completely agree with him that science is exempt from being pitched as well -- it requires a belief in universal order that is only falsifiable according to Popper, so it's "basic truth" is as fragile as the next experiment. Let's not even go into it being "imagined" just like everything else from a human consciousness that is a total mystery, and human perceptions which we are completely unable to check against some "other perception" (whatever that might be!).

He also realizes that science is completely value free -- it has no "right or wrong", it only has "correct / incorrect", "works / doesn't work".  Nuclear bombs or nuclear power are "just technology that works" -- science can say naught about which is "the good / better". It's methods explicitly deny such questions.

He does a good job in "The Prison Walls" (p112) of discussing how "The Imagined Order" is currently maintained ...  it's embedded in the material world (statues, buildings, etc), it shapes our desires (we buy into fabrications like "individualism" and they are so real we can't imagine an alternative, but most of all, it's "intersubjective") ... which he defines as follows:

Objective --  a truth that is OUT THERE" -- like gravity or radiation. Not ignorable by man. It would be there just the same if man ceased to exist.

Subjective -- meaning a truth that exists in the beliefs of one person (a child's imaginary friend)

Intersubjective -- a subjective truth shared by a group of people (money, christianity, human rights, progressivism,  communism,  global warming, ...)

So there you have it -- we are a species possibly on the brink of making ourselves into "superhuman gods", and we have no ideas of meaning, purpose, good/evil, etc beyond "myths" -- none of which the author finds to be apparently worthy of allegiance or even compelling.

He DOES come VERY close to one of my conjectures at one point, but he misses it by a smidgen (p 221), and there is a bit of irony in his pronouncement here considering his last line. Does he realize that he postulates the unleashing on the universe of something much akin to the belief that he finds "logical" about god (evil), but that nobody up to now has had the stomach for?

So monotheism explains order, but is mystified by evil. Dualism (Devil) explains evil, but is puzzled by order. There is one logical way of solving the riddle: there is a single omnipotent god who has created the universe, and he is evil! But nobody in history has had a stomach for such a belief. 

No, there is at least another (and probably many) logical answers -- there are MANY universes and free will is at least one of the engines that causes them to "fork". God created a perfect universe with free will. If we would have followed Gods will, there would be no evil. Evil is simply using free will to do other than what God intended  -- his perfect universe still exists, and he has even sent his Son to allow our now mostly evil one to be saved, which I believe it will be, but unfortunately at the cost of those who reject that option, again using their free will. They will exist for eternity with the result of their own choice (a choice they freely made against God's will).

It's a good read -- it is ultimately depressing if you accept his view that there is no meaning and we are eventually going to be transformed into some new species of angry, confused, capricious "gods", but it does do a better job of covering the challenge of "what is the good" than many books of this type, even though it ultimately gives no answer.

Perhaps it is meant to be the story of unleashing an evil god on the universe -- the one nobody has been willing to stomach.

Auto Deaths Down, Give Us Your GUNS!

Guns are now killing as many people as cars in the U.S. - The Washington Post:

In this age of the sound-bite, "Guns Kill As Many as Cars!" is no doubt what we will see often repeated. It is a tiny bit more "accurate" than "97% Of Scientists Agree on AGW!", but then "accuracy" isn't what matters today.

Highway deaths have been dropping -- less drunk driving, better safety features, better roads, etc. SO ... since highway deaths DROPPED, let's report the equivalence to guns! Simple!

But wait, SUICIDE accounts for more than half of the "gun deaths", and suicide is rising SO FAST that total suicides ALONE are a larger cause of death than  car crashes! But that isn't so much of a headline is it? "The Party" doesn't gain power by reducing suicide deaths -- in fact, TP is the party of death -- making suicide easy / assisted / etc is something they FAVOR!

While TP may occasionally try to correlate suicide with guns, they won't spend a lot of time on it since such gun happy locales as South Korea (#2), Japan(#17), Finland, Belgium, Iceland (#33-35) appear before the US at #50. We are however rising fast as TP rapidly sucks all meaning from life. They would be HAPPY with whatever suicide rate we ended up with as long as they could get the damned guns off the streets so their path to total power was at least cleared of that hurdle!

But no doubt we will get to hear about this "startling statistic" that "Guns kill as many people as cars!" ... possibly even MORE as suicides continue to rise and car deaths hopefully continue to fall.

No reason things have to make sense if they support the TP agenda!

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Let It Burn

Jeb is not the most important Bush in the 2016 campaign - The Washington Post:

I look at the disarray in the world, the country, and the Republican party and the emotional response is definitely "let it burn". The use and reuse of the "Mission Accomplished" picture, when the banner was FOR THE SHIP, which they put up when they came back from one of the longest deployments in recent history is a mark of what passes for "journalism" in The Party (TP-D) controlled media, but is really just partisan propaganda.

 It's from OVER A DECADE AGO ... back then, both BO and Hillary were committed to being AGAINST gay "marriage", and BO was AGAINST raising the debt ceiling! But "old positions" for TP members are down the memory hole instantly, and propaganda pictures against the opposition are FOREVER ... embalmed and on display like Stalin in the old USSR.

We could take all sorts of FACTUAL things relative to BO ... like his voting against raising the debt ceiling as a senator and then his castigating Republicans for their concerns with his MUCH bigger deficits and "rub them in over and over" (if we had a conservative MSM), but the fact is that the majority of this country just doesn't care. They bleat to the TP drum and they will continue to do so until it gets REALLY bad -- and even then, my sense is that the will to "something better" if it involves work, risk, commitment, principles, etc as opposed to "give me free stuff and blame others" is that we no longer have what it takes to compete in the real world.

My summary of the BO debacle is this video:

When there is no such thing as "truth" or "responsibility" and a nation abandons its Constitution, there is simply nothing worth saving left.

We are still yammering about decisions and events of '03 ... that war was won, and then lost by BO in the meantime, and TODAY IS TODAY -- yet the sort of abject hypocrisy on display in the video is ignored and the MSM continues to focus on a moment that they actually know to be completely FALSE from 2003! It is what happens when nobody cares about their country -- only about "their side winning".

At some point if we were to still have a nation, we would have to go FORWARD toward "something" that a large majority of people would actually believe in! Something like a Constitution, or "self-evident TRUTHS", or actually being "under God" or "endowed by our Creator" ... something more than "give me my free stuff RIGHT NOW!".

But apparently, like the 1930's is it going to take  something BIG in our face like WWII --  9-11 to a 10, 100 or 1000x before either we capitulate for good or pull up our panties and DO SOMETHING!

I don't think we have a choice at this point but to just watch the current world and country burn, and then hope that something arises from the ashes. It may not, but it is clear that we are going to have to fall a LONG way more before a significant number of people face the reality of today.

I've never cared so little for politics since I got out of college. Perhaps a vote for Trump "gets it over with quicker" ... which unfortunately seems like the best of the very bad alternatives!

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Choose Your Destructor!

Glenn Reynolds: Liberals have chosen The Donald as their 'Destructor':

For those unfamiliar with the reference ...

It's kind of funny for an old OO programmer ... a Destructor is a method that is automatically called when an object is destroyed ...

In this case, the "Object being destroyed" is what is left of the US ...

And there’s a lesson for our ruling class there: Calling Trump a fascist is a bit much (fascism, as Tom Wolfe once reported, is forever descending upon the United States, but somehow it always lands on Europe), but movements like fascism and communism get their start because the mechanisms of liberal democracy seem weak and ineffectual and dishonest. If you don’t want Trump — or, perhaps, some post-Trump figure who really is a fascist — to dominate things, you need to stop being weak and ineffectual and dishonest.

Having BO stop being "weak and ineffectual and dishonest"  might get Reynolds on the Secret Service list as threatening the president! BO is only going to "give up" being weak, ineffectual and dishonest when he reaches room temperature!

The closing is rather good ... it really all is. Recommended!

Hearing that Yale professor Erika Christakis won't be teaching at Yale because of the abuse she received over a respectful but non-PC email, former DNC chair Howard Dean tweeted: “Free speech is good. Respecting others is better.” To his credit, CNN’s Jake Tapper responded: “Of course only one of them is enshrined in the Constitution.” 

But Twitter humorist IowaHawk had the last word: ”With the exception of POTUS, the Atty General, both leading presidential candidates, the media, and universities, Americans love free speech.” 

If you wish to hold fascism, or even just Trumpism, at bay, then we need elites who are trustworthy, who can be counted on to protect the country, and who respect the Constitution even when it gets in the way of doing something they want to do. By failing to live up to these standards, they have chosen their "Destructor." Let’s hope that they haven’t chosen ours, as well.

Oh, and this!

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Hail Mary, Hail Christmas At Luther

Being on the positive side of a game ending like Thursday night in Detroit puts a smile on your face that tends to stay for awhile.

My smile  got a big boost last night as we were privileged and blessed to be gifted with amazing seats to participate in "Christmas At Luther: Saviour of the Nations Come!".  It was an experience like nothing I ever really imagined, and one which I know will stay with me the rest of my days.

Raised in a Baptist church in the day when elaborate musical programs were considered "worldly", and were done by Catholics (considered to be the "Whore of Babylon" in fundamentalist theology of the sixties at least), and Lutherans -- considered to be another of the apostate churches by that particular Baptist sect, my exposure to such worship was non-existent.

Add to this the fact that my musical talent would generously class as "minimal", and my background in any sort of classical music or understanding is woefully barren, and we have the proverbial beggar approaching the banquet. Oh, while we are at it, such a feast of spirit is properly preceded by a feast of a Norwegian buffet -- lefse, lutefisk, meatballs, brussels sprouts (which a like) and heavenly rutabaga mashed potatoes. It was definitely the best lutefisk which I have ever given a game try -- for some reason my Swedish blood apparently just can't quite get by the quiver though! We Swedes crushed the Norwegians potatoes and dumped lye on their fish, and the resourceful Norse consider them delicacies!

I'm not equipped to make intelligent comment on the program. Rapt amazement, awe and joy are the operative terms that come to me. SIX HUNDRED FIFTY young vocalists with symphony orchestra, handbell choir,  heavenly organ  in an incredible setting and really for the first time in my life I considered that angelic choirs and instruments praising God really could be something to look forward to in Heaven ... although I'm not giving up on shore lunch with Jesus.

I'm not sure two hours have ever passed faster! I was somewhat surprised, but very gratified to see that this was DEFINITELY an unabashed and unapologetic CHRISTIAN  CHRISTMAS celebration, . It included some of the manadary modern nods to "diversity", but they were not a distraction. I did reflect a bit on "why"? The crowd and the student body were certainly conspicuously caucasian with only sprinkling of others, but we were after all in Decorah IA, deep in the midwest.

In some ways the evening was coming "full circle". It was interaction with Luther graduates at IBM that provided the example that eventually led me to the Lutheran Church. I felt as if I was privileged to glimpse a special bit of that rich spiritual heritage that eventually drew me to the Lutheran Church. (a bit on that if interested)

What a miraculous complex creation we are gifted with. A little Norwegian-American school named after "Luther", a somewhat brooding German's German. Germany, where much later a madman idolized the Valkyries and a vision of "Aryan" that looked positively Norse, yet he himself looked nothing like the ideal. Enjoying the celebration of a Jewish child born in the mideast over 2,000 years ago with many aspects of the actual holiday translated by a Roman Church from pagan winter solstice rituals -- a Roman Church that the German Luther stood up to in The Reformation, 500 years ago in 2017.

Somehow though, when the candles are lit and the strains of the "First Noel" are coursing through the night and our gathered spirits, it is all simple.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Merry Christmas ... er wait, "Happy Advent" ... I'm a Lutheran now!

Thanks to the wonder of the internet, here it is https://vimeo.com/248192944.

No Right Is Safe, Or Real, "Privacy Clause"

The NY Times is all for extensive regulation of one enumerated right in the Constitution, the Second Amendment.

It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.

A nation where there is such a thing as law must bow to reason if it is not to descend into violence, and reason requires CONSISTENCY, something certainly flown from our nation's discourse.  How would the NY Times react to their own statement if you put "abortion" rather than "guns" in as that "no right"?

Abortion is a "right" that is not found in any wording in the Constitution at all -- "peculiar" or otherwise. It is said to be based on "the privacy clause" of the 14th Amendment, but alas, "privacy" is not mentioned there either. You can link off to a few pages of legalese here  that define which batwing and eye of newt was thrown into the conjuring pot to find "privacy",  but it real base is in the "penumbra" of the Constitution -- meaning "rights that can be inferred".

To put it in common terms -- rights that are not present in the Constitution, so they were MADE UP to suit liberal justices!

If we were reasonably law-abiding people that understood the logical and rational requirements of freedom, we would have had a Constitutional Amendment to attempt to define ACTUAL RIGHTS -- like "privacy", or "abortion", or "gay "marriage"". If they passed, we could point to what those new rights included -- and did NOT include. But we are no longer that kind of people.

In fact, we are a people so supremely inconsistent that a paper like the NY Times can do a column like this relative to the 2nd Amendment, while at the same time holding the position that no state may regulate abortion in any manner at all, and in fact, it may not even restrict FUNDING of abortion! (The fact there is a 2nd Amendment would require that you pay for my guns if the 2nd was treated like abortion!)

They can favor the killing of 60 million babies for mere convenience, yet claim that those that believe in law, reason and consistency, lack "decency" -- which after law, reason and consistency have been removed is merely "power", "popularity", or "mob rule".

Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for civilian ownership. It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.

What better time than during a presidential election to show, at long last, that our nation has retained its sense of decency?

As Nietzsche stated so well, once God is gone, "decency" is only a matter of WILL! Whomever can impose their will can define "decency".

The NY Times, BO and "The Party" DEFINITELY want to IMPOSE THEIR WILL, and the 2nd Amendment is an obstacle in their way.

As is covered extremely well in the video of this post, OUR MURDER PROBLEM IS CULTURAL, and it was created post 1960!!!

If you factor out our large violent cities, our murder rate is like SWITZERLAND! Our large cities have 3rd world murder rates, and our little Plano Texas like towns have murder rates like Switzerland. What is more, our crime rate precipitously went up, then down, now up again since the 1960s, and as the NY Times laments, our GUN POLICIES DIDN'T SIGNIFICANTLY CHANGE!

We broke the murder rate, we can fix it, but the big problem is that what broke it is "The Party", and they have no desire that people realize that, let alone that they change their policies to save lives -- if they did, we would never have had Roe v Wade, nor the government programs that encourage single female head of household, and consign young black males to shooting each other in the streets.

Laughing At AIDs and Abortion

Reagan press secretary laughs about gay people dying of AIDS.:

The Reagan Derangement Syndrome at Slate is definitely clinical ... they need to get back on their meds! The headline is naturally completely wrong (as is pretty much everything at Slate) ... nobody is "laughing at people dying" of ANYTHING in that link!  They don't happen to know what AIDs is, and "Gay Plague" sounds almost Biblical. (and the guy asking is using that designation, not Speakes)

 It is hard for people to imagine today, but I was FAR from the only person that graduated from HS prior to '75 that thankfully didn't even know what "gay" was, and it is completely unsurprising that in '82 somebody bringing up "gay" and "plague" out of the blue at a press conference would elicit uncomfortable laughter. Most of the people laughing were THE PRESS, and in fact the guy that raised the issue in the first place started laughing as well.

And NOBODY laughed at anyone DYING!!

Contrast that with abortion. It isn't hard at all to find "Abortion Humor".  I can guarantee you that **ALL** the victims of abortion are totally innocent.

The victims of AIDs, other than the hemophiliacs or women that discovered too late that their sexual partner either had sex with men or was an intravenous drug user, all made lifestyle choices that turned out poorly. It happens, often tragically -- consider driving drunk.

Perhaps the editors of Salon could just SLIGHTLY understand how people that care about babies in their mother's womb and view life as a gift from God as opposed to a meaningless party in the flesh, feel about abortion ... let alone abortion "humor".  To the extent that the writers of Salon have any grasp of reality at all, EVERY abortion is intended to result in someone dying!  The TOTAL number of AIDs deaths in the US for the LIFE of the disease -- which counts everyone HIV positive that has died of AIDs for ALL CAUSES since it showed up is less than  ONE million.

The deaths from Abortion in the US alone are over FIFTY MILLION, 1.2 million per year -- each year more than  the TOTAL  deaths from AIDs.  People are living with AIDs today, but other than a very few abortion survivors,  every abortion results in a dead victim.

No doubt the hatred of the Salon writers for an abortion survivor knows very few bounds -- the existence of survivors gives the lie to any mythology that it is "not a human life" that is being ended ... Gianna Jessen looks VERY human!

Why don't we get along in this country these days? Because of the kind of extreme dichotomy we see here. Prior to Roe V Wade in '73 (not that much before '82) people had freedom in states to protect the lives of the child in the womb, or to allow them to be slaughtered -- and those that approved of the slaughter could go to a state where it was allowed and kill their infant.

Those who believe that the right of slaughter is "basic" would likely be nearly as unhappy as those who believe in life today if Roe v Wade had declared that abortion was not allowed in ANY state. Perhaps they would have been angry enough and determined enough to get a Constitutional Amendment decreeing abortion as a basic right like the right to bear arms or to free speech -- but the evidence is otherwise.

We don't get along because we are lawless, and conflict is the state of lawless nature, trending life to become "poor, nasty, brutish and short" in the words of Hobbes. (the Constitution is the base of our law, ignoring it and failing to amend it in order to make change means we have no law at base)

For the aborted, it is VERY short, but it is certainly becoming poorer, nastier, etc for the rest of us, and increasingly short for broad groups of people like whites of high school education .

One might have a bit of a gallows chuckle at that last link. The article linked there says this is the worst "death bump" since AIDs (ha, ha, irony ...). So how much does the left enjoy laughing over "Red State Republicans", "Bitter Clingers", etc. ?? Certainly there were those that felt that gays and drug users "got what they deserved", but they were FAR from the dominant!  Does ANYONE on the TP side care AT ALL about high school educated whites dying earlier?

No, "The Party" (TP-D) has reached the level of power where laughter and derision of the poor rubes that are against abortion, or red state white voters is completely in the open and completely acceptable in media, entertainment, politics and even on campuses that are "safe spaces" for the left version of thought.

America aborted itself -- and most of the country fails to get the joke.

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