The Certainty Refuge

Elizabeth Warren ‘Silenced’ -- Liberal Media Show Their Arrogance Again | National Review:

As I drove up and back from visiting my 90 year old dad this past Thursday I followed my usual varied diet of listening across the radio spectrum -- lots of NPR, some in MN, some in WI (they carry quite a bit of different stuff). AM talk radio -- little Beck, little Rush, little Hannity, little scratchy stuff I couldn't identify.

What struck me most was how everyone had views that were close to 180 degrees off from each other, yet all were totally and completely certain of their absolute correctness. We seem to have entered the "age of certainty". A rather amazing development considering that at least the elite prognostications have been not tracking all that well the last couple years.

Some of the "certain" positions on the radio that day depending on where one turned.

•  Trump's "Muslim ban" was the most dangerous unconstitutional power grab in the history of the nation, guaranteed to incite vast amounts of global terrorism.
• Trump's temporary hold on travel from 7 states identified as sponsors of terrorism that have little or no documentation on their populace by the Obama administration is in line with rulings from every previous modern president, including Obama -- and restricting this already vetted presidential power on the standing of university students getting back to class is a travesty.
• Trump's tweet questioning the ruling is a gigantic violation of the separation of powers and should be enough to impeach him.
• Too even compare Trump's tweet with Obama dressing down the SCOTUS sitting right in front of him during the 2010 STOTU address shows this nation has lost all perspective and ability to govern itself -- it has the attention span of a 12 year old male with ADHD. 

I could go on ... the linked article covers the Fauxcahontas timeout certainty/uncertainty. There is a quote that I guess I had been misattributing and misquoting for years, but thanks to Google, here it is. "What is certainty but the refuge of those whose faith is not strong enough to entertain doubt." I thought it was "Certainty is a poor substitute for knowledge" ... which I like much better, so I think I'll declare that to be true and attribute it to Scalia. We live in a post truth age anyway.

It is DEFINITELY true that the one constant now is TRUMP!  Obama was somewhat close to this much coverage in 2009, 90% of it radically positive -- 11 days after he was inaugurated, he had already affected the world positively enough to be nominated for a Nobel peace prize, which he would actually receive on October 9 of that year. I'm thinking that it is "certain" that Trump won't be getting any global awards this year -- but then  that would be in opposition to the linked article and my beef with "certainly".

Here is what I thought was the best of the article:

Let me make a confession. I have no idea who the Democratic nominee will be in 2020. Nor am I completely sure, since we are being honest, who the Republican nominee will be. (Trump, I guess?) McConnell’s decision to cut off Warren may have been a disaster of epic proportions for the GOP. Or it could have been a brilliant strategic move, elevating an unlikable Massachusetts liberal to the top of her party. McConnell himself is probably ambivalent. 

I do suspect, however, that if Harry Reid had cut off Ted Cruz’s microphone in 2013, the Nevada Democrat would have been hailed as a hero and genius. Even so: The shoe-on-the-other-foot argument may not count for much anymore. Nothing may count for much anymore. If the last year and a half has taught us anything, it is that what we think is supposed to happen does not. Brexit was not supposed to happen. Trump was not supposed to happen. The Patriots’ comeback was not supposed to happen. 

Yet here we are. And no one seems to be drawing lessons from any of this. I open Twitter and see the very people who were convinced Trump wouldn’t win the Republican nomination, who were convinced he’d lose the general election, immediately embrace the most negative interpretation of anything Trump says or does, of any event that might impact him in the slightest. They may well be right. But they just as easily may be wrong, as they have been, consistently, for some time. A modicum of humility and skepticism would go a long way. I understand that these qualities are not especially useful in a city of careerists and poseurs and pseuds. But why not give them a whirl nonetheless.

One thing we know for certain, this IS NOT the age of humility!
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Why Three Political Branches?

Ninth Circuit’s Donald Trump Travel Ban Ruling Is Dangerous | National Review:



Why does BOistan need 3 political government branches?



The old United States had a judicial branch that interpreted written law that was either:



A. Based on the Constitution



B. Created by legislature and possibly being tested for Constitutionality.



It was above politics.



The 9th circuit is certainly a pure political play, and the SCOTUS is very much the same -- "Scalia seat", 4 liberal, 4 conservative judges, etc.



I got to spend some time listening to NPR today and it was very clear that "they won" and "Trump lost" -- hooray, hooray.



Constitution? Law? Who cares. THEY WON!



No doubt if Trump manages to stock the federal court system with "conservatives", and the next president is left wing, they will ignore court rulings like BO did with losing the court case on spending funds on BOcare even though not appropriated by congress.



Apparently even Trump lacks enough of a lawless streak to willfully ignore even just a court -- let alone the clear statement of the Constitution ( CONGRESS shall appropriate) AND court rulings!





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Fauxcahontas Gets a Timeout

‘Nevertheless, She Persisted’: How Senate’s Silencing of Warren Became a Meme - The New York Times:

Somebody eventually needs to let the left know that rules are not created to protect the strong. Yes, yes, Fauxcahontas and all sorts of women's rights folks are very proud of their ability to ignore rules, propriety, tradition, etc. Jezebel in 2 Kings thought taking on the strong without any rules was a great idea -- she ended up being eaten by dogs.

Even the common turncoat McCain had the following to say:

“You don’t insult — whether it be from a letter, or from a message from God, or on golden tablets,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. “That’s the rules of the Senate.”

"The Party" (TP-D) seems in a mood to put pussy hats and vagina outfits up against big guys with assault rifles wearing cammo, while proudly screaming "NO RULES"!

Whatever blows their skirts up I guess.

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Heartwarming Trump, WaPo No Less

Patriots owner on Trump: ‘In the toughest time in my life, he was there for me’ - The Washington Post:

I have to give the WaPo credit for printing this ... although they did make the point that there are "few stories like this" at the end. Are there ANY stories like this about Hillary, Billy C or BO? If there were, given the way the MSM works to promote their own, I'd suspect we would all be able to quote the most tear jerking from heart.

During the campaign, I noted that there was a heartwarming story about a boxer that Trump employed and treated well. I did a little looking around to see if it had been debunked, but found nothing, so apparently it is true. The media is wisely not drawing any attention to it by trying to discredit it, so fewer people know about it.

The level anger on the left against Trump seems to exceed even that against Reagan or W Bush -- he is of course "Hitler" and every other bad thing that can be hurled at him. Welcome to being in disagrement with the left!

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Let the Truth Rot

Intelligentsia Elegy | City Journal:

An excellent column on why it is that our "elite" (and pretty much everyone elses "elites") can't manage to get along with "the common man". The "let the truth rot" comment is from here in the column.

In Solzhenitsyn’s view, the intelligentsia had yielded to the temptation of Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor—may the truth rot, if people are the happier for it.

It's a worthy, but a bit pretensious read. Most of BOistans "intelligencia" manage to be either very narrow (know everything about nothing), or extremely shallow, knowing less than nothing (being wrong) about a set of "everything" that is quite narrow. It tends to not include much of history, philosophy, theology or classic literature -- eg. "Closing Of The American Mind".

I found this part the most enjoyable. I disagree that BO would have survived at NIU in DeKalb. He would have wagged his finger one too many times and someone would have kicked his sorry ass in a local bar bad enough he would have run home to Michelle and likely written himself another biography about how tough it is to convince everyone of your brilliance.

The election of Barack Obama was the singular triumph of this class. His election was celebrated for the milestone in race relations that it represented. But among the intelligentsia, this ecstasy was heightened considerably because he was One Of Us. His imminent canonization as a secular saint is best understood in the context of the arrival of the intelligentsia at the apex of American political power. 

Obama was only the second professional intellectual to be elected president, the first being Woodrow Wilson. It is probably not a coincidence that these two presidents have been temperamentally our least democratic. Unlike Wilson, who taught Greek and Roman history and wrote a highly influential tome on the Constitution that excoriated the Founding, Obama was an obscure, part-time University of Chicago Law School lecturer who had produced no original scholarly work. I studied law at Chicago while Obama taught there, yet it never occurred to me to take a class with him. He did manage to write two books about himself and was undeniably talented at stimulating the intelligentsia’s erogenous zones, prompting Garrison Keillor to swoon on NPR’s A Prairie Home Companion about how wonderful it was that at last we had our first president who was a “real writer.” (Abraham Lincoln could not be reached for comment.) 

Not to take anything away from Obama—he would have made a perfectly adequate assistant professor of political science at Northern Illinois University, if he had developed the self-discipline for academic work. But the reaction to him of the intelligentsia—the public intelligentsia, the sub-intelligentsia, the pseudo-intelligentsia, and the lumpen-intelligentsia—was embarrassingly self-parodic.

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Hating Hypocrisy

The Real Problem With Hypocrisy - The New York Times:

Modern psychology continues to attempt to catch up with Jesus. He knew that people hate to be called hypocrites, thus he says in Matt 23

27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

That is just one of my favorites, it is a litany of "you hypocrites", with the "whitewashed tombs" being a metaphor that stings me hard enough to be more memorable -- I'm a tomb lacking even decent whitewash. 

Strangely though, while the amoral poltical left, who proudly proclaim that they are not hypocrites since they have no values, love to talk of "Christian hypocrisy", no true practicing Christain can be a hypocrite. Why? 

Because if we really believe what we say before at least some of our communion rituals, we don't ever claim any form of sinlessness -- we proclaim our SINFULNESS and beg for redemption. 

I confess to God Almighty, before the whole company of heaven and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned in thought, word, and deed by my fault, by my own fault, by my own most grievous fault; wherefore I pray God Almighty to have mercy on me, forgive me all my sins, and bring me to everlasting life. Amen.

 The article talks a lot about why hypocrites are hated, (it's all about falsely signallying morality), then goes on to recommend that we say things like "I think it is morally wrong to waste energy, but sometimes I do it anyway". This would seem to be tautalogically true, since if wasting energy is morally wrong, all the energy wasted by the computers involved in typing the artitcle in and spraying it over the internet would clearly be "immoral".

"Morality" used to be something special -- murder, lying, infidelity, etc. Improper use of a resourse was once about efficency,  engineering trade-offs and such rather than "morality".

So given this latest NYT view, is hypocrisy possible without talking? When Al Gore flys to a warm climate on a private jet to discuss global warming, is is action "moral hypocrisy", since he clearly did not use the most energy efficient conveyance possible?

And some thought that medieval theologians were wasting time as they discussed how many angels could fit on the head of a pin! 

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Trump The Warmonger

Yemen Raid: Questions Swirl About Trump's First Military Operation : Parallels : NPR:

Executive orders are now a TERRIBLE thing ... when they were WONDERFUL just a few months ago. What changed?

Protests are now hugely to be applauded. Remember when the rather mild Tea Party gatherings in '09 were "chiling and racist"?

Oh, miliary casualties? Back on the front page. More soldiers died in Afghanistan under BO than under W, but one would be hard pressed to know that from reporting. What happened to the anti-war movement that was only operating under "conscience"? Crickets ... perhaps it was more politics than conscience?

The first serviceman died under Trump a couple weeks ago  -- big news on NPR, they even had the heartwarming story of family and friends from his hometown. Totally predictable. This is the way i think it ought to always be -- service lives lost with a Democrat in power are every bit as precious as those lost with a Republican in the Whitehouse. If your son or daughter dies under a Democrat president, that sacrifice is every bit as worthy and heart rending as if an awful Republican orders them to their death.

That isn't what it is about though. Obama spent more on war than Bush did according the the liberal Atlantic:

Over the course of his presidency, though, the U.S. military will have allocated more money to war-related initiatives than it did under Bush: $866 billion under Obama compared with $811 billion under Bush.

Again, this is not a story that the left wants published, so it only shows up in the middle of obsture articles. The cost of the "Bush wars" is often listed in the trillions ... naturally BO bears no responsibility for what happened on his watch.

The adversarial press is definitely back. It is a shame they don't realize that the reason they are supposed to exist is to counterbalance BOTH SIDES! Partisan opposition is just partisan opposition, not fullfilling what was once supposed to be the reason for having an "independent" press!

If you want to go into more depth on how special forces raids are planned and carried out, this is a good article. If you don't believe that this would have happened just as it did if Hillary had been taking over and that the news in the press would have been "muted to none", well then you are not a reality based person.

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Daily Bible Reading On Immigration

I'm in the book of the Bible about the shortest man "Knee High Miah".

Neh 13:3 So it came about when they heard the law, they excluded all foreigners from Israel.

I've noted that all sorts of left wing denominations have suddenly discovered selective Biblical texts relative to immigration in light of Trump's temporary restrictions on travel to the US from 7 majority Islamic countries specially identified by the BO administration as sponsors of terror. It is quite refreshing to hear the ELCA quoting from Leviticus.

The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. – Leviticus 19:34

I await their quote and declaration of importance for our lives of other Leviticus scripture.

20:13 "If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

The media calls it "Trump's Muslim ban" ... usually presented as permanent (wink, wink, nod, nod). I've heard that the media even in Christ's day tended to use "Trumped up charges" to crucify people.

We could talk for hours about "who is your neighbor", and the difference between "Caesar" (the government), vs you as an individual. If "Caesar" decides a nation needs borders. and they need to be controlled, does that make Christians immoral for being citizens? Acts 22:25 -- As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been found guilty?”

That sounds strangely like Christians that happened to be Roman citizens were not treated equally to non-citizens, and that was fine. 

The bottom line is pretty much that:

1. VERY few of the admonishments to New Testament Christians (none?) are about taking on the government. You pay your taxes, you fight as a soldier if you are drafted, you act as a "good citizen". If the government asks you to directly deny Christ or similar, you stand up, refuse,  and take your punishment.
   
2. Outsourcing to the government isn't a "good work". YOU are to be neighborly, provide charity, etc. Voting for for someone that promises to take other people's money and give it to "the poor" is not "helping the poor"in a Christian sense. Forcing the other guy to help non-citizens isn't a "good work" either.
   
3. "Caesar" defines the borders of the country, the enforcement of those borders, etc.
   
4. YOU, help "the poor" as YOU  find them in your community ... and yes, you are admonished to love them if they are Islamic, atheist, gay, democrat, Vikings fans, etc  Your task is to help,  not to preach others about how THEY ought to love them and the form that love should take. Not judging means you don't get to judge ANYONE as bad, nor even good ... that is above your pay grade. Your mission  (which you pray to the Holy Spirit to aid you in accepting) is about LOVE.

I've come to appreciate the Old Testament more as life has gone on. To me, the Old Testament is clear on "God's ways are not our ways", and God is SOVEREIGN ... "The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom". It aids in making human pronouncements "less certain".

For OT attacking tribes / nations, the word can also be taken as "clear": I Sam 15:3

"Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'"

That would be a hard one for my wife, she really likes donkeys! I find "the least of these" in the US to be the 60 million murdered in their mothers wombs. I believe that once our nation and churches are right with God on that, our ability to understand God's love will radically improve.

That is however only what **I** believe ... I'm not a bishop or anything, it is just what is in my soul. If we as Christians can search the scriptures on that issue alone and have general agreement, I believe the strength of our voice on other policies will increase tremendously.

The Horror Of Normalacy

Donald Trump’s ‘Conservative’ Agenda: Not Radical, More Centrist | National Review:



In the midst of our national riot over attempts to such radicalism as  "brush your teeth, say your prayers, tell the truth, work hard, be nice to others and don't play in the street", sometimes it is important to realize that there are millions in this country that find such advice to be unimaginably horrible.



Hanson lays out the case for the obvious very well.



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DeVos, Sowell, Saving Children

Education at a Crossroads - Thomas Sowell:



Two of the worst features of humanity are how limited our brains are in general, and how parochial our interests which drive our use of our limited wetware tend to be -- often just "me, me, me", or "hurray for my team"!



Thomas Sowell is less limited -- he is a genius with a practical heart that rivals his intellect. Having been born in inner city poverty, being bull headed enough to remain a Marxist even while studying under Milton Friedman, and then being converted to free market capitalism by his experience of being a government bureaucrat for awhile, his wisdom is invaluable.



Just go and read it. The plight of our inner city youth is dire unto death -- 5K or more killing each other each year with guns, on top of massive drug abuse, rampant crime and incarceration. The decrepit inner city schools stocked with union drone teachers steeped in the doctrine of low expectations assist in keeping largely minority youth enslaved in "The Party" (TP-D) and it's noxious doctrine of dependency for life.

 Indeed, the teachers unions themselves are an integral part of the TP machine which provides huge dollars and ground troops to TP, while TP provides them with no standards in the classroom and as much income and benefits as can possibly be generated for the teachers, and worse, the ever more bloated public education administration apparatus. The relationship is a study in the corruption of socialism and bureaucracy (but I repeat myself), with the destruction of the inner city blacks since the '60's, while indoctrinating them as vote slaves that vote over 90% for TP.



Naturally TP must fight DeVos with all they have -- and as we have seen over the years, when it comes right down to the core of the choice of "big government" vs for over simplification purposes "returning to America from BOistan",  "Republican" is a very weak brand.  The alleged party of small government has been heavily corrupted by participation at the the trough of big government.



America will never return unless the strangle hold of left-wing indoctrination of our children is broken. Pray that the battle finally turns here.

An opportunity has arisen -- belatedly -- that may not come again in this generation. That is an opportunity to greatly expand the kinds of schools that have successfully educated, to a high level, inner-city youngsters whom the great bulk of public schools fail to educate to even minimally adequate levels

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"The Resistance", Political Autoimmune Disease (PAD)

Byron York: Dems escalate anti-Trump offensive | Washington Examiner:

America was exceptional because of limited government. BOistan is quasi-European because of UNlimited government.

"The Party" (TP-D) was very certain that "demographics was destiny", so no Republican would ever occupy the White House in BOistan. They were nearly as certain that they would also re-take the Senate.

One of the persistent myths of BOistan is that "Republicans obstructed BO on day 1", with a Mitch McConnell statement from 2010 used as "evidence" of that. (when you are a Democrat, "fake news" is pretty much your "gospel").

Thus, we have an all out attack on Trump from even prior to his being inaugurated that keeps rolling along now that he is in office. We have the people that created UNlimited government protesting the elected government, thus the term PAD (Political Autoimmune Disease).

As in living bodies, having your system attack your system is not a recipe for health, and is one of the chief reasons why unlimited governments tend to become totalitarian sooner rather than later. When government is limited, the transfer of government power is honored as part of the contract of being a Constitutional Republic rather than a "democracy" with mob rule. Kind of like running your body temp up to 106, the last line of defense here is the 2nd ammendment -- might be hot, but it can add color.

BOistan is a lawless tribal state, so there is no understanding of governance, law, or even basic decency. Rioting to prevent speech at a university is seen as completely acceptable,  even by the founder of BOistan -- BO himself.

One of the joys of America was that even cretins like Slick Willie who stained the office of president, followed enough decorum to shut their noxious pie holes after citizens had been subjected to their vacuous lying rhetoric for 8 years. In this life, even the damned deserve a little respite! BOistan has no decorum, so even this drop of water on the tounge is denied.

Finally, as The Resistance organized itself and pushed on multiple fronts, a new supporter spoke up to encourage the protesters — former President Barack Obama, who managed to stay out of his successor's affairs for all of 11 days.

So Slick successfully removed the requirement for character in a president and TP cheered. BO established the new low bar of no requirement for having ever led anything in order to have the highest leadership position in the land. He then ignored the Constitution, the separation of powers, and used the IRS and other government agencies against his political "enemies". TP swooned.

Now TP is all about making sure that elections are no longer honored, and "resistance" is somehow "patriotic" (or just "an appropriate tantrum") when mere "opposition" 8 years ago was "racist".

The key here is the meaning of "no rules" -- as Pat Buchanan once said, "lock and load". Cammo and John Deere hats vs pussy hats and vagina outfits? I guess if that is what it takes, bring it on.

I kinda liked America, but it looks like there will be no return without using up a bunch of ammo sooner or later.

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HD Runs, Their Bikes Don't ... Indian Opportunity?

Did planned protests scuttle Trump visit to Milwaukee's Harley-Davidson? - Chicago Tribune:

It seems pretty clear that somebody whimped out here -- might have been HD, might have been Trump. Marketing in the bike segment tends to be a bit smash mouth. "Truth in marketing" is often an oxymoron. Wussing out isn't a well received biker value.

So how about Indian invites Trump to Spirit Lake IA, another state that flipped to play a little hardball?

I've got nothing against HD, still own one in fact. Their reliability has radically improved, but as also being a Gold Wing owner, it hasn't got like "stellar".

I'd be VERY tempted to drive down to try to pump up the crowd if the "The Donald" (I'm thinking "TD" for his nickname on the blog) would bring the big jet to IA. Sounds like a hell of a PR opportunity to me!

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Enterprise Meets Judd

OK, I had "heard" about the Ashley Judd rant but had not bothered to listen to the whole thing. I'm still not sure who she is, but I hope she took a cough drop to her speech. That "Nasty woman" must have had a sore throat after wasting all that breath.

It does get a little long of course, but true to form, the Enterprise takes care of her at the end -- PROPERLY!

While listening to the rant, I realized who her voice reminded me of.

Can't revisit Black Oak without reflecting on this deep theological wonder! 

Teaching The Eternal, Five Things

We don’t need to teach our kids to code, we need to teach them how to dream – Startup Grind – Medium:

 Trying to reduce what to pass on to the next generation to "5 things", or even one thing, is a time honored desire of mankind. At some point in our short lives, we realize that we won't be around long in any case, and usually realize through the death of a friend or family member that "short time" may be our next breath.

As in much of modern life, the author jumped right by meaning on the way to his list.

We’ve prioritized the acquisition of knowledge around what we assume society would deem most “worthy”. For much of history, knowledge was rooted in theology: it was about explaining the world in a supernatural way, seeing goodness as a tenet. The industrial revolution saw a vast shift away from this to a way of maximizing return on investment in a production-centric environment.

His list is:

1. Relationships
2. Curiosity
3. Agility
4. Creativity
5. Compassion 

I'd argue that for all of history -- past, present and future, a meaningful life is, has, and will be about MEANING. The core of all life in the past and all life in the future consists of birth, family and death. Some may want to remove family, however we are all born into one, and if a majority decides that having children and raising them well is not a priority, then their and our future history ceases. This fact has been lost on Western civilization today. 

My life is still based on "theology" in the sense of faith. All lives are -- including the list author, the only question is the realization of that fact. He has faith in a meaningless godless universe / world, and that his five items can make a life worth living. He chooses to either ignore philosophy or just lump it in with theology as no longer applicable to the world he believes he lives in. A scientific world that denies human consciousness, love and beauty because none of those are measurable. 

My list is as follows: 

1. Faith -- "The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God". The base of all meaning to is the tenet of a teleological universe that is created by a PERFECT God and fallen through misuse of the gift of free will. We all have a faith -- if you believe you don't, study some basic philosophy to understand what your faith is (solipsism, empiricism, determinism, positivism, etc)
   
   Faith and hope cover "agility" from the other list. By accepting our true place in the universe, the things of this world can be considered in the perspective of God's perfect love and the fact of eternity.
   
   It all has a purpose, and that purpose is greater than me. (although, God wants it to INCLUDE me!)
   
2. Hope -- Of redemption for me, redemption for those I love, and eventual redemption or re-perfection of the world and universe by a sovereign God. The story of life the universe and everything has a universal class happy ending, insured by God.
   
3. Love -- Love for God, love for family, love for others, and love for myself as I know God loves me. Relationships and compassion on the other list are covered by love.
   
   "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs ..."
   
   Christ (and the Beatles) tell is love is all we need. "Love the Lord thy God wIth all thy heart and soul, and thy neighbor as yourself" (even (especially?) if your neighbor is your "enemy").
   
4. Wisdom -- As I believe I live in a meaningful universe, God has provided me with a desire to know him and to grant me wisdom. Some now, much more in eternity. The pursuit of wisdom is one of my greatest joys.
   
5. Vocation -- God has given me a purpose, and if I seek him, that purpose is made clear to me. As I work at my purpose, God directs the universe to help me to "succeed" in achieving of that purpose.
   
   That purpose may be the bearing of great pain and suffering -- even unto death, or it may be ruling the world. To look at these and accept the sovereignty of God so that my ultimate purpose is the achievement of God's will, not mine, is the way to the most coveted prize of every life "Well done my good and faithful servant". 

It was an interesting exercise to try to do my list of five. Christ knows it best -- the greatest is love! ... and I'm obviously a work in progress since that came in 3rd on my list. 

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Davos David, My Girl Lost

The Republican Fausts - The New York Times:

This screed isn't worth your time. Brooks is an elitists elitist and he is what counts for a "conservative voice" at the NY Times as well as every Friday being the voice of the far left, "against" the voice of the far far left, E J Dionne, on NPR. I'm quite certain that neither of them know anyone that knows anyone that even considered voting for Trump.

When the CONSERVATIVE from the NY Times votes for BO against John McCain because he likes the "crease in his pants",  it is awfully easy to understand why we need Trump!

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