Thursday, April 25, 2013

Church Thoughts

We actually did a song with the choir in reference to Earth Day this past Sunday, but it was a song I am down with:

Care For Creation (Words and Music by Pepper Choplin) As this is a copyrighted work, and I share here without permission, if Mr. Choplin asks me to take this down, I will.

When I rise in the morning and consider all the blessings of the earth,
I give thanks to my Creator, to the One who gave me breath upon my birth.
I offer my thanksgiving for all God allows me to share, but I show my true thanksgiving when I nurture all God placed within my care.

     Let me worship the Creator and care for the creation as I live my life to worship and restore.
     I will sing and I will praise, but the measure of my days is how I care for the creation of the Lord.

As I move among God's children, may I show respect and care of all I meet. For the Creator who I worship has created them with holy dignity.


     Let me worship the Creator and care for the creation as I live my life to worship and restore.
     I will sing and I will praise, but the measure of my days is how I care for the creation of the Lord.


Also, our pastor led the service with some thoughts and prayer regarding the news of the week, Boston, etc. He struck me (as wrong) with a line about the sad state of the world, and I scribbled this on my Order of Worship:

"Actually, I took from this week the amazing human spirit, the goodness that responds so selflessly in the face of evil and evil acts. Goodness overwhelms evil. Sometimes it takes time, sometimes we see it immediately. People are good."

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Today's Things

Hello, Thing shopper! I am one, too, but so far never a buyer (dang bills!). Today we look to craigslist, but there are always Things for sale on thesamba.

Mostly, I grab these to put here so I can check upon them later, like this one asking $3500:



This is quite nice in Iowa asking $6800 for comparison, and that's a fair price.

Here's some expensive things:

$16900

Auctioning, as original as you are likely ever to see:

Not much cheap out there right now, and lots of Yellow!

Happy Belated Earth Day, George Carlin Style.

I can't believe how many things he says here that I say as well. Maybe I've seen this before and forgot?


Friday, April 19, 2013

Don't Read The Comments?

I did. I read some comments on my congressman's Facebook (you'll have to look for his post explaining why he voted against the Manchin-Toomey bill), on The New Yorker, and I always ask my self "why did you do that?"

If this is the level of discourse in our country, we may be doomed.

Occasionally, there are bright moments, like this one from the vapid New Yorker piece linked above:

"..were a stark reminder of how anti-democratic and dysfunctional our political architecture is..." Actually, No. The system works as designed. The majority shall never tyrannize the minority. Don't forget, we are a Republic not a democracy. In the strictest sense of the word, the system of government established by the Constitution was never intended to be a "democracy." This is evident in the wording of the Constitution itself which declares that "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government" (Article IV, Section 4). Moreover, the scheme of representation and the various mechanisms for selecting representatives established by the Constitution were clearly intended to produce a republic, not a democracy. To the extent that the United States of America has moved away from its republican roots and become more "democratic," it has strayed from the intentions of the Constitution's authors. Whether or not the trend toward more direct democracy would be smiled upon by the Framers depends on the answer to another question. Are the American people today sufficiently better informed and otherwise equipped to be wise and prudent democratic citizens than were American citizens in the late 1700s? By all accounts, the answer to this question is an emphatic "no." "There are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice and truth can regain their authority over the public mind" Madison(Federalist No. 63).

It's amazing that The New Yorker published a piece that was so stupid. A bullet point called "The Tyranny of Small States?" Really? Complaining that the Senate gives equal weight to every state? That's not "democratic?" What a dumbass. Seriuously. If you whine about the Senate not being just like the House, you are an idiot and I am finished listening to you.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Thatcher's Enemies Reveal Themselves

So, this from the Telegraph tells us eveything we need to know, right? I love it when the socialists, marxists, etc., prove we conservatives right with their words and behavior......

*** Update, this commenter on a Heritage article makes an excellent point, that I didn't explicitly make here:

UlyssesReturns
Perhaps the left in the United States have been infected by the same malicious virus that taints the left here in Great Britain. We on the right look down on the left as misguided and foolish whereas the left viscerally hates us as evil child killers, or worse. It is inconceivable that proper-thinking conservatives would ‘dance in the streets’ at the death of Chavez or eventually Castro (2 icons of the left), but that is exactly what has happened on the death here in England of one of the world’s greatest post-war leaders, Margaret Thatcher. We live in strange times.

He or she also makes a point I've been making for years about the ideological battle. We think the left is wrong, they think we are evil. If you don't recognize and fight that, you can't win the ideological battle. Anyway, the oppposite is true: leftism is evil!

"On Facebook she appears in photographs holding a hammer and sickle flag and posing alongside former Cabinet Minister Tony Benn and left-wing writer Owen Jones." She's a communist?

"Blythe said her dislike of the former Prime Minister came from being told she might never find work on leaving school in 1984 " She's selfish?

"A number of police officers were injured on Monday and arrests were made as hundreds held parties around the country when news of Lady Thatcher’s death was announced.

In Bristol six officers were injured as they tried to break up a gathering of around 200 people and were pelted with bottles and cans. One officer remains in hospital and one person was arrested for violent disorder.

In Brixton, south London, smashed windows and looting of shops was reported as two women were arrested on suspicion of burglary.

More than 100 people gathered in south London suburb - the scene of fierce riots in 1981 just two years into her first time in office. Some scaled the nearby Ritzy Cinema and changed the film listings to read "Margaret Thatchers dead".


Anarchist groups have warned of more mass protests on Saturday, with expected numbers between 2-3,000.

The events are being organised by a group called Class War with help from other groups such as the All London Anarchist Revolutionary Mob, which says it is “committed to radical action to undermine the state,” are also mobilising supporters to attend 25 locations across the country."

They are a bunch of thugs? Anarchist Thugs?











Monday, April 8, 2013

Socialism Isn't..... (and RIP Mrs. Thatcher)

Facebook posts are sometimes fun!

A friend posted "The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." RIP Margaret Thatcher

and one of her friend's replied: Ultimately ironic given that she benefitted greatly from a number of "socialistic" features of her country - number one being national health care.

and she said: She fought many socialistic things in her country and her legacy is strong. She did a lot of good for the world at a difficult time in world history.

and he said: she did. No doubt. I just worry about us continually attacking "socialism" when most of don't seem to understand that our public schools, roads, water & sewer, police, fire, hospitals to some extent and even our private insurance are all forms and degrees of socialism. Even the most wealthy of us depend on infrastructure brought to us through a form of socilism.

and she replied: But there are points of taking it too far. If not having crossed that point already, we are dangerously close. True socialism is not good. 

Definition of SOCIALISM:

1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods


   a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property 
   b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state


3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

BLAM!!

I had to chime in: Nice showing that, by definition, socialism has nothing to do with schools, roads, fire, etc. as well....





Monday, April 1, 2013

Hubris, As I Have Often Said.

"Your time on earth is barely the size of a head of a pin, if that big. In 10,000 years or a billion years of the existence of the earth, what is the normal temperature? What kind of vanity does it take to think that the state of perfection, the state of perfection and normalcy happens to be when you're alive."  -Rush


How many times have I said as much?





Here is a page of mine with a bunch of "here" links in it already....

Oh, and the data we use is Unreliable, anyway.