An Old Funny

This is a bit out of date, but I still think it is funny.

Who's Where?

Yesterday, Hu Jintao was named chief of the Communist
Party in China.

SCENE: The Oval Office. Condoleezza Rice (Condi)
National Security Advisor with George W. Bush,
President of the United States.

George: Condi! Nice to see you. What's happening?
Condi: Sir, I have the report about the new leader of
China.
George: Great. Let's hear it.
Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.
George: That's what I want to know.
Condi: That's what I'm telling you.
George: That's what I'm asking you. Who is the new
leader of China?
Condi: Yes.
George: I mean the fellow's name.
Condi: Hu.
George: The guy in China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The new leader of China.
Condi: Hu.
George: The Chinaman!
Condi: Hu is leading China.
George: Now whaddya' asking me for?
Condi: I'm telling you Hu is leading China.
George: Well, I'm asking you. Who is leading China?
Condi: That's the man's name.
George: That's whose name?
Condi: Yes.
George: Will you or will you not tell me the name of
the new leader of China?
Condi: Yes sir.
George: Yassir? You mean Arafat is in China? I thought
he was in the Middle East.
Condi: That's correct.
George: Then who is in China?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir is in China?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Then who is?
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Yassir?
Condi: No, sir.
George: Look, Condi. I need to know the name of the
new leader of China. Get me the Secretary General of
the U.N. on the phone. I bet he knows.
Condi: Kofi?
George: No, thanks.
Condi: You want Kofi?
George: No.
Condi: You don't want Kofi.
George: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a
glass of milk. And then get me the U.N.
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.
Condi: Kofi?
George: No, milk! Will you please make the call?
Condi: Call who?
George: Who is the guy at the U.N.?
Condi: Hu is the guy in China.
George: Will you stay out of China?!
Condi: Yes, sir.
George: And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me
the guy at the U.N.!
Condi: Kofi?
George: All right! Light with sugar. Now get on the
phone.
(Condi picks up the phone.)
Condi: Rice here.
George: Rice? Good idea. And a couple of egg rolls,
too.

By Roger O Emerson

Pastor Ted Haggard apologizing to a despot

At one time, and for quite a long time, I proudly called myself a "New Lifer." After all, New Life Church is where I came to know G-d, and there was always a flurry of activity that allowed fellow believers to fellowship. Obviously, I no longer feel the same way. Numerous theological issues kept popping up, some so slightly off that I am hard pressed to even identify them. More immediately noticable is how the focus has changed from saving souls to filling seats. But I digress.

Pastor Ted Haggard is also the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and has stated that he may soon be running for Congress. In today's Gazette is an article on Pastor Haggard trying to apologize to the (tyrant) Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, for the assasination comment made by Pat Robertson. Robertson made a shrewd assesment of the situation, and one that should not be ignored, and certainly not apologized for.

Who is Chavez? Joseph Farah wrote an item on that today, stating "This is a man who, according to his former pilot, paid $1 million to al-Qaida after Sept. 11 – a kind of reward for a job well done.

He rigs elections in his country and has brought nothing but misery to his people – expropriating millions of acres of privately held land, jailing dissidents, banning civilian ownership of guns, bedding down with Colombia's narco-terrrorists, propping up Castro in better style than the old Soviet Union ever did, buying nuclear material from Spain and attempting to build a 2-million-man army in a country not threatened by any external forces.

The chances are excellent that some day – sooner or later – American troops are going to have to deal with Chavez. "

To deal now, or to deal later? That is the question.

not really dead

Well, I dont really have an excuse for not blogging these past few months. Just got married, went on a honeymoon, and got pregnant.(YaY) Well, not me, but my beautiful Bride. Anyways, I might actually start bloging again, if anyone is around to even notice.

Shalom

Bush and the Porn Star

As I am sure you all know Mary Carey and Mark Kulkis, porn star and pornagrapher respectively, will be in attendance at a Bush/Republican fund-raiser. Kulkis' stated objective for this meeting is to buy influence with top political leaders, the Republican Party and credibility for themselves and their "profession."

Farah writes Mark my words: If Bush and the Republicans go through with this meeting, it will come back to bite them. Their hypocrisy is about to be demonstrated to the entire world. But I would have to disagree. It wont harm them at all.

Why? Cuz even a look at Focus On The Family's website doesnt show a single thing about this. If Dobson, being the anti-porn crusader that he is, can't be bothered to have his organization post something about this then what hope is there that the public could be bothered by it? And even if the public WAS bothered by it who else is there to vote for? Those evil democrats? why they havent been the party of the Christians for some 30 years. Everyone knows Christians have to vote Repugnikan right?

Pessimistic? Yeah. But watch, history will prove me right. It will be more than a few years before Christians start to leave the Repugs for parties that actually hold to a Judeo-Christian worldview such as the Constitution Party. In fact, even the Libertarian party is more Christian friendly than the Repugs are (not by words true, but by actions.)

Human Folly

Seems to me there are two follies we all fall into. Not believing facts because they go against our beliefs, which I posted on previously, and beliving other people think like us. Believing that "so and so" believed, thought, or meant what we believe think or mean. By this I mean we tend to transpose our beliefs onto others. Specifically people of great importance, such as the founding fathers or the prophets and even the Christ.

In vogue for the past 30 years or so is that there is a separation between church and state written into the Constitution. Now obviously there can be no such interpretation from a literal reading of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence or the writings of those founding fathers or therecords of their debates over the Constitution. However, our current sensibilities tell us that they must have meant that.

Our "sensitivity" now leads us to believe that the FF would have wanted non-land-owners and women to vote. That our FF specifically allowed for abortion, and abhorred the thought of the Bible in schools. We also now believe that the Gov't. should be providing for the "welfare of the people, which leads me to something that is of greater concern... taking this attitude into religion. Going astray on a human document is a mere problem. Going astray in Theology is worse than deadly, it can imperil the soul.

By overlaying "modern sensitivities" over the Scriptures we often end up with something approaching socialism and often totally ungodly. Many times a single verse is quoted or perhaps even an old saying that is purportedly scriptural (think "Cleanliness is next to godliness")

I cant seem to finish this post so I am just uploading it anyways. Ya'll see what I mean, and you can add to it in the comments or argue with me (o= Either way is great.

Confiscated Arsenal

I think this might bring a tear to Nate's eye.

RIDGEFIELD, N.J. (AP) - A day after police escorted a disoriented elderly woman to her home, they returned with a search warrant and found a massive cache of weapons and gunpowder.

Nearly 500 guns, including AK-47s and high-powered rifles, 500 pounds of gunpowder and 100,000 rounds of ammunition were taken Wednesday from the home of Elizabeth and Sherwin Raymond, both 82.

2,000 year old Date

After 2,000 Years, a Seed From Ancient Judea Sprouts
By STEVEN ERLANGER

JERUSALEM, June 11 - Israeli doctors and scientists have succeeded in germinating a date seed nearly 2,000 years old.

The seed, nicknamed Methuselah, was taken from an excavation at Masada, the cliff fortress where, in A.D. 73, 960 Jewish zealots died by their own hand, rather than surrender to a Roman assault. The point is to find out what was so exceptional about the original date palm of Judea, much praised in the Bible and the Koran for its shade, food, beauty and medicinal qualities, but long ago destroyed by the crusaders.

"The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree," says Psalm 92. "They shall still bring forth fruit in old age. They shall be fat and flourishing."

Well, we'll see. Dr. Sarah Sallon, who runs a project on medicinal plants of the Middle East, notes that the date palm in ancient times symbolized the tree of life. But Dr. Elaine Solowey, who germinated the seed and is growing it in quarantine, says plants grown from ancient seeds "usually keel over and die soon," having used most of their nutrients in remaining alive.

The plant is now 11.8 inches tall and has produced seven leaves, one of which was removed for DNA testing. Radiocarbon dating in Switzerland on a snip of the seed showed it to be 1,990 years old, plus or minus 50 years. So the date seed dates from 35 B.C. to A.D. 65, just before the famed Roman siege.

Three date seeds were taken from Level 34 of the Masada dig. They were found in a storeroom, and are presumably from dates eaten by the defenders, Dr. Sallon says.

Mordechai Kislef, director of botanical archeology at Bar-Ilan University, had some date seeds from Ehud Netzer, who excavated Masada in the 1970's. "They were sitting in a drawer, and when I asked for one, he said, 'You're mad,' but finally gave me three," Dr. Sallon said. "Then I gave them to Elaine, who's an expert on arid agriculture and dates." Dr. Solowey said: "Well, I didn't have much hope that any would come up, but you know how Sarah is."

Dr. Sallon, who is a pediatric gastroenterologist trained at University College, London, came to Israel 20 years ago. She is the director of the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Center at Hadassah Medical Organization, which she set up 10 years ago to study natural products and therapies, from Tibetan and Chinese medicine to the indigenous medicinal plants of the Middle East. The idea is to preserve these plants and their oral histories in a modernizing region, but also to domesticate them, evaluate them scientifically and then try to integrate them into conventional medicine.

Dr. Solowey, who teaches agriculture and sustainable farming at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, based at Kibbutz Ketura in the southern Negev, works on finding new crops for arid and saline areas like Jordan, Gaza and Morocco. She also works with Dr. Sallon to domesticate indigenous plants that appear to have medicinal uses.

Dr. Solowey grew up in the San Joaquin Valley in California and studied horticulture, then turned away from commercial agriculture in disgust, coming here in 1971. "I don't come to organic agriculture from the hippie side, but as a frustrated agricultural scientist," she said.

"We've bred for yield and taste, but not hardiness, so we have a lot of plants as hardy as French poodles, so we have to spray to protect them, and then we pay the price," she said. "There isn't a cubic centimeter of water in the San Joaquin Valley that isn't polluted with something."

She planted the date seeds at the end of January after trying to draw them out of their deep dormancy. She first soaked the seeds in hot water to soften the coat, then in an acid rich in hormones, then in an enzymatic fertilizer made of seaweed and other nutrients.

"I've done other recalcitrant seeds," she said. "It wasn't a project with a high priority. I had no idea if the food in the seed was still good, but I put them in new pots in new potting soil and plugged them into drip irrigation and kind of forgot about them."

About six weeks later, she said, "I saw the earth cracked in a pot and much to my astonishment, one of these came up."

The first two leaves looked odd, she said, very flat and pale. "But the third looked like a date leaf with lines, and every one since has looked more and more normal - like it had a hard time getting out of the seed."

Lotus seeds of about 1,200 years of age have been sprouted in China, and after the Nazis bombed London's Natural History Museum in World War II and a lot of water was used to put out the fire, seeds of 500 years of age also germinated.

"But no one had done it from 2,000 years old," Dr. Sallon said.

In the time of Pliny, forests of date palms covered the area from Lake Galilee to the Dead Sea and made Jericho famous; a date palm features on ancient coinage, as it does on the current Israeli 10-shekel coin.

The date palm symbolized ancient Israel; the honey of "the land of milk and honey" came from the date. It is praised as a tonic to increase longevity, as a laxative, as a cure for infections and as an aphrodisiac, Dr. Sallon said. But the dates of Judea were destroyed before the Middle Ages, and what dates Israel grows now were imported in the 1950's and 60's from California and originated elsewhere in the Middle East.

The Prophet Muhammad considered the date of great importance for medicine, food, construction and income, and it is described in the Koran as a "symbol of goodness" associated with heaven.

Dates need to grow 30 years to reach maturity and can live as long as 200 years.

But it is the female date that is considered holy, and that bears fruit. "Men are rather superfluous in the date industry," Dr. Sallon said.

"O.K, I have a date plant," Dr. Solowey said. "If it lives, it will be years before we eat any dates. And that's if it's female. There's a 50-50 chance. And if it's a male, it will just be a curiosity."

Blog Roll Addition

Arielle, I added you today. It is something I meant to do a long time ago, but I finally got off my lazy arse and did it.

Monster Debt

A quick reading of TGAMM (The Great And Mighty Mogambo) led me on a pursuit to find out the debt load here in the U.S. According to the Federal Reserve the mortgage debt for 2004 was $7.542trillion and the more current number for the remaining outstanding credit is a mere $2.127 trillion (trillions ya'll) $9.669 trillion total household debt. That is $69,070 for every person (140 million of us) in America with a job. Take out the gov workers and ya have $96,698 for every private sector job.

And then there is that pesky national debt of, as of 5-18-05, $7.768 trillion

Total: $174,381

Now compare that with the average annual income of $32,000... that's umm, hmmm 5.45 years income for every private sector job.

I'm needing a raise.

Polistasi Accountability

In Sweden a pair of cops were jailed and a third fined after failing to respond when a woman was being raped. This stands in sharp contrast to the polistasi here in Amerika. Here, they have no resposibility to the citizenry.

In Warren v. District of Columbia, two women were upstairs in a townhouse when they heard their roommate, a third women, being attacked downstairs by intruders. They phoned the police several times and were assured that officers were on the way. After about 30 minutes, when their roommate's screams had stopped, they assumed that the police had finally arrived. When the two women went downstairs, they saw that, in fact, the police never came, but the intruders were still there. As the Warren court graphically states in the opinion: "For the next fourteen hours the women were held captive ... (omitted, you can fill in the blanks here)" The three women sued the District of Columbia for failing to protect them, but D.C.'s highest court exonerated the District and its police, saying that it is a "fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen" (Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. Ct. of Ap., 1981)

Further the court in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, (109 S.Ct. 998 (1989) at 1006)held that no duty arose as a result of a "special relationship," (a SR is when the police know of a threat/danger to you) concluding that Constitutional duties of care and protection only exist as to certain individuals, such as incarcerated prisoners, involuntarily committed mental patients and others restrained against their will and therefore unable to protect themselves. "The affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State's knowledge of the individual's predicament or from its expressions of intent to help him, but from the limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on his own behalf"

Interestingly enough if they dont let you own/carry a firearm or any other weapon for that matter, they somehow dont see that as having imposed a limitation on you.

Now if we could just hold our boys in blue accountable for their actions...

Niggles

The Scotsman has an article about annoying habits. According to the article avoid the following 'niggles'

• Fabricating anecdotes in a desperate effort to liven up a dinner party.
• Using cringe-making terms of endearment such as ‘babykins’ in public.
• Displaying fear during horror films (if male) - this is a turn-off for women.
• Racking up excess luggage charges by going over the top with holiday packing.
• Making a partner spend far longer than they want to on shopping trips.
• Laughing at your own jokes, oblivious to the fact that no-one else is.
• Complaining about partner’s clothes.
• Changing preset controls on the car stereo.
• Tipping clutter from coffee table on to floor to make way for TV dinner.
• Failing to replace loo roll when it is finished.
• Leaving wet towels around.
• Scattering clothes about the bedroom.
• Reading e-mails while claiming to be conducting an important discussion about the mortgage or similar subject.
• Using a fork as a backscratcher.
• Nose-picking.
• Burping.
• Clipping toe-nails, even if newspaper is spread on floor to catch clippings.
• Wearing tatty clothing.
• Getting drunk despite lack of any obvious excuse.
• Failing to control flatulence.
• Being late.
• Asking for explanations of TV dramas, causing partner to miss plot twist.
• Obtaining reassurance about clothing, then changing it anyway.
• Making any attempt to complain about any of the above.

Coming Soon: Indoor Shooting Range

Whistling Pines Gun Club will be opening in November of this year. A total of 18 lanes and a limited membership of only 3,000. I am interested, but would have to shoot more than I do now to justify it. Having said that, something a bit closer and not freezing at 8AM might entice me to go shooting more. Also, they will except most ANY caliber. This includes the massive new .500 S&W Magnum which no person in their right mind would want to shoot (tho I'd like to try it once) and shotguns (sabots too) and rifles up to the .416 Rigby.

On the same subject, I found a fun little addition for an AK-47 which makes me want to go out and buy one. A 100-round clip. The mag is so big it actually loops onto the barrel. I imagine this makes the rifle excessively heavy, but how cool would that be? And in a full auto mode it wouldn't last very long anyways.

No king but King Jesus

Wes posted an item on the pledge of allegiance so I thought I'd add my two cents.

I was quite sure that I had posted on this beforebut I cant find it so I will sum it up. The Pledge was written by a socialist who wrote it to indocrinate children into the socialist way of thinking. Those words were not written by a patriotic man, nor a Christian. One thing most people do not know is that the hand over the heart is not the way it was to be recited. Rather, the original Pledge was recited while giving a stiff, uplifted right hand salute, which was criticized and discontinued during WWII. Nazis used the same salute, only palm down. And the "under G-d" bit was added by President Eisenhower in 1954.

So where does the Christian's allegiance lie? To Christ and Christ alone.
Mark 12:30 "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this [is] the first commandment."
Deuteronomy 6:5 "And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might."

This is where our founding fathers placed their allegiance. On April 18, 1775 John Adams and John Hancock were at the home of Rev. Jonas Clarke, a Lexington pastor and militia leader. That same night Paul Revere arrived to warn them of the approaching Redcoats. The next morning British Major Pitcairn shouted to an assembled regiment of Minutemen; "Disperse, ye villains, lay down your arms in the name of George the Sovereign King of England." The immediate response of Rev. Jonas Clarke or one of his company was: "We recognize no Sovereign but God and no King but Jesus."

If one must say a pledge, perhaps the some Ray Boltz lyrics would work
"I pledge allegiance to the Lamb
With all my strength
With all I am
I will seek to honor His commands
To the Lamb of God who bore my pain
Who took my place, who wore my shame
I will seek to honor His commands
I pledge allegiance to the Lamb"

Memories

My thoughts today have turned to others that I have known who have since passed. I am trying to figure out my thoughts and that is part of the reason for blogging. I truly wish I could have been blogging after I heard about Julie. But work and other events didnt allow me to. They did distract me though, which was a good thing (I think)

Life is precious. And it is also frail. Truly there are so many forces that are bigger than we humans. Indeed, many times it is that which is smaller than us which does us in. If not for the hand of G-d, none of us could be here.

Sean died in an accident on his motorcycle. He was only 26 years old. He was a friend of my brother-in-law(to be) but we got along quite well. Sean was crazy, to put it midly. All the stupid things that non-crazy people would have stayed miles away from, Sean did. He was the first person to have ever put me on the wrong end of a gun. You see, that was his idea of a joke. Knocked on the door and had the gun right in my face as I opened it. It was only a 9mm but from my end it looked bigger than a 12 gauge. What do I do? hah, nothing. My brain froze up and I just stared and continued to open up the door. Took me an eternity to see past the barrel to see who held it. I suppose I should mention that that same gun, a couple months later, went off and shot him in the leg as he was putting in his waistband (no holster.)

If I left it at that you might wonder why we got along. Well, like I said, Sean was a little crazy and that made for a lot of fun.

The other person that comes to mind is Erica. An intern at my church she was just 19 when she went to be with the Lord. A yound lady of sweet spirit whom I had met just briefly, but she was one you immediately wanted to get to know better. Someone who lifted up everyone she was around, lit up the room if you will.

Well I didnt get that chance. The night before Erica's death a young lady named Jamie was praying over her and had a vision of Erica screaming and then instantaneously being in the arms of Jesus. The next morning a high speed head-on accident took her from us. But hers wasnt a life that lent itself to mourning her death. Rather, her life and the way she lived was celebrated at her funeral. Her life was a gift to those around her. A blessing. She was a shining example of Christ and His love.

Erica's last diary entry, the night before she went, said that she was finally ready to meet G-d. That she was ready to give her life in service to G-d. That she was no longer afraid and she no longer loved her life.

Makes me think on where my life is. Would others mourn my passing or celebrate my life? Would I leave a lasting impression on those who only briefly knew me? Or will I just be forgotten. Seems to me I have a lot of work ahead of me to become like Erica (1 Corithians 11:1 "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.")

R.I.P. Julie Rifkin

Amongst all the hustle and bustle of getting the store ready for a walk-through and having to do inventory today something was brought to my attention that caused me to stop short. I dont know if any of you have heard of the lady in Colorado Springs who killed her two sons and then commited suicide, but obviously it has been all over the news here. Well, I was really trying to avoid it as that sort of story bothers me, so whats the point right? Well, I picked up a paper so I had something to read at lunch and opened up to this story and saw the picture. A family portrait of a woman I know. A woman who is no more.

Julie was a woman who spent much of her time volunteering at church. At times she seemed a fixture of the church and that isnt an easy thing to accomplish in a mega-church. Because she was always around I personally worked along-side her in times past. We would trade off working the bookstore on sundays so we didnt always get stuck working.

Looking back, I guess I can see more clearly the depression she fought with off and on thru the years. It is hard to understand the depths of despair, how wounded the spirit can truly be. Hard to comprehend that others are bleeding from their souls. Fortunately most will never be able to understand it because they will never experience it but I have been there, and I know only too well. The emotional pain becomes physical pain making it even hard to breathe.

When you begin to understand the despair of one in depression, you can see how they might be led to take their children along with them. Once the decision to take her life had been made, the thought of her children with no mother would have hurt her even more. The solution she chose was to not let them go through that pain.

I make no excuse for Julie's actions. Just expressing my sorrow. I pray that Julie had not slipped from the Hands of Grace and I pray that her children, Gabriel and Nathan, are found to have their names in the Lamb's Book of Life. Also for her husband and family, and all those who knew her. Romans 8:28 says "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose." May it be as you have said Lord.

Perhaps, like me, she spent that time serving in an attempt to feel worthy. Worthy of love, acceptance and G-d's salvation and forgiveness.

A Question of Legality

Terri Shiavo has been sentenced to death by the courts. Since this is a "lawful" action and since she is already condemned to death, what would happen if someone were to go in there and use a gun or knife to kill her? Would it be considered murder? How could it? she is already a dead woman in the eyes of the state.

Just a thought I had this morning at work.

Glorious Creation

How incredible is our G-d? If The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. (Psalms 19:1) then truly our G-d is majestic indeed, and His hand mighty.

Hubble's Ultra Deep Field is a view of some of the "oldest" galaxies. Thought to be from "only" 800-900 million years old. The Hubblesite has a lot of great images on it for those interested. Also check out Jason Ware's site www.galaxyphoto.com where you can order prints/posters.

G-d has also made some incredible creatures here on Terra Firma. Magnetotactic bacteria build internal compasses inside their bodies in order to tell them which way is north (or south for those in the southern hemisphere). Why? Well it tells them which way is down so they can move that way and avoid contact with air, which is deadly to them. Another cool little critter is the Bacillus Infernus, a hyperthermophile was found some 2800 meters beneath Virginia which is good because oxygen is poisonous to it too. Instead it breaths iron and manganese dioxide.

G-d is awesome!

BOOYAH!!!

A bit of impromptu late night racing tonite!
Pulled up on Academy at Airport and (what luck!) a slightly? modified Acura and a Camaro pull up at the same time.

Well, if ya ever done any racing, then you know it is all in the tree. The lights that is. I totally had the light on Airport. not even close. Took it up to 60 and had about two car length between me and the other two so I let it go. The Camaro and the Acura were pretty much neck and neck.

Well my luck held and we all hit the next light too, which is normally my turn, but I couldnt pass up the oportunity. So we all lined up.... And we all got the light good this time. However, I failed to watch my tach coming out of first AND second gear, so my tranny kicked it out of gear and I had some dead time. Not real happy about that. The upside is that I found out the Saab kicks ya out of 2nd gear at 70MPH. The Camaro had a much better run this time, or perhaps the Acura just did really bad, not sure which. Either way, I smoked em both, both times. BOOYAH!

Evo vs Creation part II

Well I promised and here it is. Two days later is pretty rapid for me. Anyways...

Arguments Against Evolution.

Age of the Ocean

• Salinity: Max age 62 million years, given the current rate of salt deposition in the ocean, if starting with a pure body of water (0.00% salt)
  
  
• Sediment: max age 12 million years, given 25 billion tons annually and average depth of 400 meters.

Astronomy

• Galaxies: Per the Big Bang Theory, galaxies further away from the center should be less and less organized the further away they are. This is not what is observed. We find the same amount of spiral galaxies far away as we do near. Also, due to the observed different speeds of stars orbiting in their galaxy, the galaxies would be featureless discs if the age of the universe was 16 billion years old.
  
  
• Comets: Max age of a comet should be about 100,000 years. There is a proposed Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud that resupplies these comets, but no such things have been observed to date. And even if they existed, they likely wouldnt have any material left after the 5 billion years of our solar system.
  
  
• Light: It is slowing down. Yes, I realize this is controversial paper (click for a simplified version, or simply a table), but I have read the paper myself and am convinced of the truth of it. Remember that it took 50 years for scientist to accept that the speed of light was not infinite. It may take many more years for scientist to accpet this as well. If true, it will have a HUGE impact on physics. ('C' is in most every calculation, if it changes, well, so does everything else.) And it messes up all the calculations of age that we use. Including carbon/argon dating.
  
  
• Magnetic Field: Earths field is decaying too fast. At rate of decay, it could not be more than 10,000 years old. The fields total energy (different from its surface intensity) has, apparently, always devayed at least as fast as it is now. The Creationist theory matches paleomagnetic, historic, and present data, whereas the Evo Theory does not. In addition to the magnetic field of earth, the magentic fields of Neptune and Uranus were predicted by a theory created by Dr. Russell Humphreys before any info on their fields were known. Needless to say, the Creationist model was correct, and the Evolutionist was wrong.**

More to come, I figure this is enuff info for one post. If anyone would like to dispute this just throw it in the comments. Please no links to TalkOrigins. The site is a bunch of blathering idiots who would see the sky as yellow if that is what the theory of Evolution demanded. I am open to honest debate but I draw the line at wasting my time.

** "The classic test of a theory, is its ability to predict. Successful predictions are so rare that they are usually regarded as compelling evidence in favor of the underlying theory." AJ Dessler

Evolution vs Creationism

Given the recent debate amongst the Vox Volk I thought I would post something a bit more substantive. You see, I used to be an evolutionist/theistic evolutionist myself. I loved science, especially astronomy and dinosaurs. One day while reading a bit more about astronomy I found some info that truly changed my beliefs. I read the theory of the Big Bang.

What is the Big Bang theory? Well, it's detractors state it best... "First there was nothing, then it exploded." Nothing indeed! The BB wasn't an explosion of some superdense star/mass. It wasn't even a star that exploded. Nope. It was "nothing" that exploded. The BB was less than a Planck Length, or 1.6*10^-35 meters. That would be 10^-20 smaller than a proton. Nothing indeed!

From that moment on, evolution was viewed through a jaundiced eye. What was the real story and not just the headline? Was some piece of news being spun into something larger than it really was? The answer most often was "yes." Very few of the "proofs" that are pointed out are truly proofs or even supportive of the theory of evolution.

I'll post more specific things in a soon to come post.

3rd time is a charm

At least, the third time was the charm for me. I didnt fall over today!!! YaY I am quite happy about that as the last two times I rode my bike I fell over. Not crashed mind you... fell. The cause of the falling has been me unable to get unclipped from my pedals. 1st time, no harm done, 2nd time (yesterday) I am bearing wounds from it. Not too bad but I haven't done that in some time and wasn't really wanting to ever do it again. But today I rode to church (3.25 miles) then hopped the bike into beautiful Nikki's SUV and went out to lunch and rode home from there (8.75 miles). I got some good speed going too. 38 MPH in one spot and 38.5 MPH on the last hill before my house.

"How do you know" you ask? a little computer (a Cateye Enduro, avail from REI for $30) mounted on the handlebars with a sensor on the front tire. I love that thing. Helps to push me. At the push of a button I have current speed(always on), average speed, time ridden, max speed, distance ridden since last reset, and distance ridden since last battery change.

A few more rides like this and I might just feel confident enuff to hit a trail or two.

Lincoln on Slavery

As I have mentioned this to Nikki several times, and as she has yet to actually believe me since it goes contrary to textbook after textbook, I am posting some quotes by the aggressor in an unnecessary war. Abraham Lincoln. These quotes are not in any order but the all show the man's heart towards the negroes.

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything."

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.


An article of interest is posted on Lew Rockwell.com written by Myles Kantor. Kantor writes of a case Lincoln took (he was a lawyer) in Illinois concerning a woman, Jane Bryant, and her four children who were escaped slaves. Rather than taking Ms. Bryant's side, Mr. Lincoln argued for her re-enslavement.

Did I mention he was a lawyer? 'nuff said.

The Next Revolution (We're Doomed)

That's right. Doomed.

Why? Well let's look at some of the differences between two revolutions in western history. The American Revolution and the French Revolution. These have both had large impacts on history (the former moreso than the latter IMAO) The French Revolution was, well, bloody. Evil turned in upon itself at times. Both the elite and the clergy were distrusted by the masses and tortured, mutilated and killed by depraved men who saw the opportunity to act out.

In stark contrast stands the American Revolution. The revolutionaries concerned themselves (largely) with combatants or those giving direct aid to the enemy and in any case were no where near as cruel. (excepting perhaps the tar and feathering of tax men) The American revolution also lasted for over 100 years (till Lincoln) whereas the French could not have sustained theirs even without Napoleon coming along.

What was the difference? Leaders. The French were lead by some of the "great" thinkers of the Enlightenment Age like Rousseau. The Colonials were lead by men of integrity, men of education. Most often those men were their pastors or men of great faith. And that is where the problem for today comes in.

today's pastors are almost single minded in their support for the government. The old "No king but King Jesus" has been replaced by "King Bush." The willful blindness of our clergy will hand over the ideological backing of any revolution to the likes of the "freethinkers." The result? A French style revolt that would be bloody and lack the support necessary to sustain it.

And that, folks, is why we are doomed.

Unless things change that is. It isn't too late for the clergy to pick up the reins of society and lead us to freedom, either within the bounds of our current government or the next. The alternatives are horrifying.

Interesting Week

Quite the time here. I am on my fourth cell phone in a little over a week. Had my car in the shop cuz it was shredding belts, got stuck at other peoples houses for two straight nights (not bad that) and got told I cant return to work without a work release.

This cell phone seems to be working, I replaced the pulley that was shredding the belts today and that now seems to be working, and I got to play about 7 hours of Gauntlet on the PS/2 with my sister. I just might have to get me one of those.

Here's to hoping your week was a little less exciting, but that it turned out (in the end) as well as mine.

2005 Goals: Update

Well I am starting to make good on the whole goals for 2005

I went out and spent $200 on shoes (Specialized, Sport MTB) and pedals (Time, Alium) Looking at my biking equipment you might think I was rather partial to Specialized, as my bike, shoes, helmet, gloves etc. are all from them, and you would be right to think it. That is because Specialized makes some awesome bikes, tho they dont make tandems. I suppose that will have to be a Cannondale (also a fine maker of bicycles.) Tho that is a future purchase as one costs about a months pay ($2300)

And not to forget some of the other goals, I am on track to getting out of school in early March. I am aiming to have the Cisco Certification by March 15th.

Republican Trifecta

Looks like the Repugnicans are going to pull out a three-peat in the White House.

Rumours are flying of a Cheney's retirement next year with Condi Rice taking the VP position. With Rice running for Prez in '08 that will take some support away from Hillary, and put the Pugs in a good position to steal the black and Fem-First crowd away from the Demoncrats.

Funny thing is, those groups are so solidly democrat that they wont think twice about voting Republican. Still, it is a good strategic move for the Pugs.

I'm Back

It's been forever since I last posted here. No one reason, really more of a combination of them. School, work, hurt my back, more school and work... And let me tell you, working with a hurt back (cuz they made me) wipes you out. I can rarely get even 8 hours of sleep at a time but in the past week or two I managed eleven or twelve hours multiple times. I am happy to report that I am getting better, tho still not in fighting shape, if indeed I ever was in fighting shape.

Site Search

To the woman who came to my blog by typing "sex the erik" please email me!
lol J/K

Sex in the news

Today in class, being the dutiful student and paying attention as always, I went out and checked the news. And what do I see? A million articles about sex. so here goes...

A Pittsburgh drive thru strip-club is up for sale on ebay. Only 299,000. No touching tho, which would fit right in with the ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upholds a law prohibiting touching the strippers.
But while you cant touch, you can hear. Jenna Jameson is hawking her new "moan tones," a collection of moans, grunts and lurid sexual noises in place of the usual ring tones. Said one potential customer who still desired more from the service, "If you can get her to say my name then I would buy it. I need that kind of personal attention." And finally, a little too much heat in the fire house gets four California firefighters suspended for having sex while on duty.

Soldiers

I woke up today with our men and women in uniform on my heart. Thinking on an article by Michelle Malkin about our boys taking care of tsunami victims. Thinking on various articles in SOF about the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, both their lethal side (think snipers) and their humanitarian side. I have Mark Schultz' song Letters from War going thru my head also.

Dont forget to include in your prayers the sons and daughters; the husbands and wives; the mothers and fathers that are in the fight overseas. You dont need to agree with the 'war' to pray for the safety of our men.

IWB Holster

I found a Inside the Waist Band (IWB) holster for my hammerless .357 revolver. It isnt actually hammerless, but a 'zero-profile' hammer, but it works out to be much the same. Since most holsters depend upon a strap behind the hammer to keep the gun secure there is a lack of concealed carry holsters for mine.

However, the good people at DeSantis have provided me with a worthy option. One of the other holsters I have been looking at is the Thunderwear. It is best to have multiple holsters for each gun for the various occasions one comes across. (Dressing up, dressing down, semi-dressy, play etc. etc.)

Dont Mess With...

West Virginia?

The 57 year old Govenor, Bob Wise, just got his Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do on saturday (Jan 15th)

A Sockdolager

I saw a quote on Wes's site today which reminded me of an article about the legendary Davey Crockett.

The article is from The Life of Colonel David Crockett, by Edward S. Ellis (1884) It is a story of the time Crockett learned the value of the Constitution.

A farmer speaking to Crockett "So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity."

"So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better

Glowing Squid

Some people ask how a good G-d could allow suffering in this world, why there are disease and illness. Sooner or later an answer comes up that might actually make some sense of the mess.

It has been recently discovered that the Hawaiian bobtail squid, which glows from its belly, actually does so thru the use of bacteria. The chemical produced by the bacteria, tracheal cytotoxin, kills off certain cells in the squid which creates a chamber which becomes a permanent home for the bacteria. This chamber is lit from the bacteria which allows the squid to hide from its predators.

How does this fit into the suffering thing? Simply that G-d created all the variety He did so that all His creation could fulfill a purpose. The very bacteria and chemicals that enable this squid to survive is the very same chemical that causes Whooping Cough and Gonorrhea in us humans. Truly all things are for a purpose whether we see it or not.

**Update**
I forgot to put in the link to the article.

What is a "Constitution"?

It seems that is the question our judges need to be asking. Apparently they have no idea what it means or even says. Here in Colorado the Supreme Court installed a judge to one of the higher courts even tho our Govenor refused to do it stating there must be more than the two choices for it. Appointing judges is one of the Constitutional duties of the Govenor, one the the courts have no power over.

In another case, U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper ruled that the Alabama county that required a sticker on their science books violated the constitution. The stickers say "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered." Somehow this violates the non-existant "separation of church and state."


Perhaps judges and lawyers can be required to take a class on the Constitution, and be required to actually {GASP} read it.

Reason to Saab?

Just yesterday I went out and purchased a different car. a 1999 Saab 9-3. This car has about anything you could want. A/C, tinted windows, leather interior, power windows, heated seats (mirrors too?) and most importantly, turbo! Now perhaps it is just that I have that new (to me) car love or perhaps that I have always thought Saabs cool, but hearing that GM might ax the whole Saab line bums me out.

I'll just have to enjoy it while I have it. And in the meantime figure out all the nifty features. Like the turbo for instance. The owners manual states the 9-3 begins to be limited by manifold pressure at 143 MPH. Fun Fun.

Fit Cities

According to Men's Fintess, Colorado Springs ranks 3rd on the fittest cities list. Behind Seatle and Honolulu, with San Francisco and Denver following. However, Houston Mayor Bill White, called the survey "mostly voodoo and fraud." The magazine said it looked at factors such as the number and types of restaurants, park space, air quality, weather and the number of health clubs.

Seems an incomplete list of criteria to me. But whatever way you look at it, Colorado Springs consistently is at the top of these surveys because of the active lifestyle here and the proximity to the mountains. It is hard to have an excuse to not ever exercise here.

To-dos for the New Year

A partial listing of some things to do this year.

Education

Get Cisco Certified (CCNA, Cisco Certified Network Associate)

Get a good job with said Cisco Certification.

Enroll for the CCNP program (Network Professional)

Buy a...

.30-06 Rifle

.22 Rifle

MP3 player

Clipless pedals and shoes for the bike

Fitness Goals

Ride my bike more

Ride up Rampart Range Road and down Highway 24 back to the Springs from Woodland Park

Ride down Phantom Canyon, coming back into the Springs via Canyon City.

A Who-ville Christmas

In light of our society trying to wipe out Christian influence from every aspect of life, from the display of the Decalogue to the blatant attempt to deny Christians a religious Christmas (but where your money is more than welcome) I am proposing a new holiday. A "Who-ville Christmas" to be exact.

Everyone knows the story of the Grinch. He also tried to steal Christmas by stealing all the decorations and presents, but found that even without all these things the Whos down in Who-ville came together and celebrated the spirit of Christmas anyways.

How is a Who-ville Christmas to be celebrated? On January 6th, twelve days after Christmas. Your celebration can be the exact same as your Christmas celebration is now. One change however is to focus on the birth of the Christ child on the 25th and not have presents until Jan 6th, and to avoid shopping as much as possible between Thanksgiving and Christmas. By avoiding shopping until Dec. 26th retailers would feel the financial squeeze because of the loss of Christian's money during the one time of the year they count on most.

As money is the one thing the world listens to, taking this action will quickly put a stop to the retail world trying to make this holiday into nothing more meaningful than an orgy of spending.

Right To Petition Update

A favorably hostile Court? possible? Seems like it in this case.

WTP has posted a press release concerning the movement as it stands now. The Petition is moving right along as planned, all while the FedGov is trying to quash it. But on another front, Bob Schulz filed a motion to quash an IRS Summons in the US District Court. The USDC issued its decision, holding that the court was prevented by law from quashing an IRS Summons. (What the?)

Schulz appealed to the US Court of Appeals, 2nd District, and the oral arguments were on the 13th Dec. Audio is available from a link provided in the release If you care to listen to it you can hear the Dept. Of Justice's Senior Counsel, Robert Storch, get rebuffed a bit by the Judges. Storch was unable to answer the questions of the Court and said that the Summons, legally, meant nothing, was legally unenforcable and therefore Schulz was under no legal obligation to respond to it. (In an attempt to get the court to say it has no jurisdiction) Storch was required to file a brief by the end of Dec 23rd explaining the FedGov's position on these issues.

We shall see soon enough what the brief says. It is nice to see a Court doing its rightful job, and being the balance to the Executive and Legislative branches.

From We The People

We The People wishes a merry Christmas

Merry Christmas
and
Happy New Year

Please Obey The Government

Civil governments everywhere, even though often controlled by evil men, are ordained of God to serve as His ministers of justice, and to restrain the criminal elements of human society.

God commands us to be law-abiding citizens of the Civil Governments under which we live, for there are no legitimate Civil Governments anywhere that God has not placed in power.

We The People of America, at the dawn of our nation's history, elected to govern ourselves under God's sovereign authority. America's Civil Government was established by men who placed their complete confidence in God's Word as the ultimate source of wisdom, truth and justice on earth. It was their abiding faith and trust in Him that most inspired the minds and hearts of those brilliant men as they wrote the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the Untied States. By these sacred documents, our nation was conceived in faith and dedicated to the eternal cause of freedom. In America, the People established the Fundamental Law, the Constitution, as a reflection of their understanding of God's plan and purpose for Civil Government. And, it is We The People who reserved the Right to interpret that Law. Only in America has God made the People the source of all political power. Only in America has God made all political power limited by written Constitutions.

In America, those who refuse to ensure that the Constitution and Bill of Rights are obeyed are themselves breaking God's law. They are lawbreakers. This applies to all People, whether they are elected officials, judges, or ordinary citizens.

Every American should obey the Constitution and Bill of Rights for two reasons: First, because this is America's Fundamental Law, given to us as a testament to God's grace and love for His People. Second, because America will not survive if We The People turn away from our true heritage, and the knowledge of who we are as one nation under God.

The We The People Foundation for Constitutional Education, Inc., and the We The People Congress, Inc., are acutely aware that our government at all levels is operating in sharp contrast to the way it was designed to function. We are also painfully aware of the heavy price being paid by those who are defending God's Civil Government in America--honorable, patriotic men and women including Dick Simkanin, Joe Banister, Sherry Jackson, John Turner, Nick Jesson, Al Thompson, Phil Hart, Irwin Schiff, and others too numerous to mention. We are indebted to these courageous Americans who have placed their love of Country and faith in God before their personal security and welfare. It is most appropriate that we acknowledge their sacrifices at this special time of the year.

Here at WTP, we remain focused on defending every American's sacred, unalienable Right to Life, Liberty, Property and Due Process of Law, primarily through the Petition Clause of the First Amendment, and we are committed to assisting those who are similarly focused.

We extend to you, the entire WTP family, our warmest wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Foreshadows & Types

A theory I am working on...

Not really a theory so much as a Type. Christ said that the whole of Scriptures testifies of Him. Now that is certainly true of the OT as it was in existence at the time. Logically that statement can be extended to the NT also, as Christ new what would be put in there long before He came in the flesh. (One could argue against the inclusion of the NT in that statement tho.)

As you know there are many "Types" in the Scriptures, which are basically foreshadows of future events. My thoughts while at work this past morning were on the wedding Christ attended shortly after being baptized. The whole "My time is not yet come" and turning the water into wine. Not just wine, but that which is much better than was originally given.

My initial thoughts on this, tho more study is needed, is the wine is a type of the covenant, possibly Mary as an obedient Jew, and the guests as the Jews & Gentiles stating this covenant is better than the old.

Not on solid ground

Stuff like this make ya feel a bit insecure. A sink-hole opened up that has taken all four lanes of a road. 50 feet deep and 150 feet wide, and officials say it hasnt stopped yet.

Evolution

I was scanning the Letters to WorldNetDaily today and I came across one referring to Farah's article Why I believe in Creation. The letter writer gives one of the two classic Evolutionist arguments that supposedly "prove" that aviation happened. The first is the fruit-fly-mutation argument, the second is the antibiotic-resistant-bacteria argument. The letter writer used the second, so I am addressing that one.

For starters, it should be noted that drug resistant bacteria have been found in the stomachs of corpses frozen in the tundra for over 100 years. But to debunk any similar argument... Ever wonder why there is a different flu shot every year? Cues there are different forms of the bug that are prominent every year. Not the same bug, but of the same family and they do similar things. Assuming a range of different forms of the bug (26 for ease, A-Z) one drug will work for many, but not all. Say penicillin kills everything but the vowels (which are drug-resistant naturally) What is left to breed? AEIO+U. So what do they breed? after their own kind. Well guess what? the old drug doesnt work anymore. Why? cuz it killed off everything it could. Does this mean that AEIO+U mutated? Nope. Just means that you couldnt kill them that way in the first place.

Occam's Razor states "Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitas." (Plurality should not be posited without necessity.) Or easier said "One should always choose the simplest explanation of a phenomenon, the one that requires the fewest leaps of logic." Which is the simplest explanation? There was an actual, beneficial mutation (never seen before in the history of science)? or the one just given?

Update to the Blog

Just added a link to the site LiveGoldPrices.com
A good site and I have found it a useful tool. You can also sign up with them which involves no more than an email addy and you have access to all their articles.

French Military Victories

I thought I'd bring up something rather entertaining. Head over to google.com and type in "French Military Victories" in quotes, and hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button. Then go ahead and follow the link on that page.

Silver: Now a Better Bargain

Some of you have surely noticed that silver took a BIG hit this past week. So did gold. Dropping from nearly $8.00 down to $6.70 makes ya wonder. After all it took three months to climb from one to the other, yet only two days to fall.

My theory is it was a confidence upswing in the stock market due to Micro$oft announcing its $32 Billion dollar dividend. M$'s press release was on the 8th, Silver was at 7.80 the day before and 6.50 the day after. It is reasonable to assume that this upswing in confidence is due entirely to this one item.

Metals and commodities are somewhat 'fear' based. When people see the economy going down, they get into tangibles. When things are looking up for paper assets, well... go with those. After all, that is how you make money. I, however, am rather pessimistic about the economy and dont have enough money to play with stocks or commodities, so I will still be putting my money in metals. Now I just get some more bang for my buck.

Planes In News

Pumpkin bombing. Why? It's just plane fun, thats why.

"Pulp flew in the swirling blast, mingling, twisting, and colliding like chunky napalm. The target disappeared in a maelstrom of goo, seeds, and contorted rind. The horror ... the horror ... and oh, the humanity of 50 middle-aged pilots cheering from the sidelines"

Also in the news, a Mooney makes an emergency landing on a moving 18-wheeler. Praise G-d they didnt land in front of the truck. 20+ tons of truck hitting a 1500 pound plane wouldnt have been pretty.

**Update**
Click here for a video of the Pumpkin Bomber

Parents On Strike

Here is a lovely news article on some parents who went on strike. Seems their kids are a bit ungrateful and lazy.

Happy Hanukkah

Tonite starts Hanukkah, and goes for the next 8 nights. These nights are, for me, a night to draw closer to G-d, to spend time in prayer and to read the Scriptures aloud (Gen 1:2-5, 14-18) and thereby bring His light into the world. Praying for the peace of Jerusalem and for the needs of our brothers (both Jew and Gentile) who so desperately need our prayers.

May the light of the Lord our G-d truly be the lamp that guides your feet, now and always.

Shalom

Wisdom of the Mogambo

From the Mighty Mogambo:

Total Fed Credit, which is the fount of from whence springs all that magical, out-of-thin-air, fairy-dust money that is the hallmark of the Greenspan Fed, was up another $3.8 billion in the last week. The Treasury issued another $3 billion in actual paper-and-ink cash, which is NOT money made of fairy dust, but is, instead, money that is made from actual paper and ink, but which is just as phony-baloney.


And people wonder why it is hard to make ends meet.

Law Of Debt

Per Ian comes McLeod's Law of Debt:

"Debt expands to fill the credit available."

All too true. Ya make more, Ya spend more. Doesnt have to be that way, but we American$ are nothing if not commercial creatures.

New and Improved

I made some updates to Ye Olde Blogge. It is now New and Improved! Better Tasting and preffered 2 to 1 over Old Ye Olde Blogge. I made it so you can now link back to my articles as some of you have been clammoring for that (you know who you are) =oP I also added links to the Poetry and to a couple of favorite posts (the sad thing there is that I could only come up with three)

Shalom

Emotion-Driven Thinking

I stumbled across a fantastic article by John Mauldin. Mauldin is a financial advisor, but in this article he delves into the subject of Psycology.

"Last week, I heard a very disquieting commentary on National Public Radio by Dr. Drew Westen of Emory University. Westen is a well respected psychologist, but he was commenting upon how our feelings can predict our political decision irrespective of the facts. ... For example, during the disputed election of 2000, we could predict whether people would believe that manual or machine counts are more accurate just by knowing their feelings towards the two parties and the two candidates. ...they're not just weighing the facts. Without knowing it, they're also weighing what they would feel if they came to one conclusion or another, and they often come to the conclusion that would make them feel better, no matter what the facts are. ... In fact, the evidence barely mattered. 84% of the time, we could predict whether people believed the evidence was sufficient... based on just three things... Adding the evidence into the equation allowed us to increase the prediction from 84% to 85%."

"We believe what we want to believe because to do otherwise would upset our world. The potential emotional stress of a contrary opinion is too much for us to deal with, so we go along with the (personally) least stressful emotional choice."

Without a shadow of a doubt I believe this to be true. I have seen it happen in other people and have sometimes wondered it in myself. Likely we all need to be a bit more open to the facts presented to us, and be open to the fact that tho we might not like something and yet it could still be the truth.

Literary Genius?

I am gonna quote from a famous book, a classic.

The girl's face was there, really quite beautiful in memory: astonishing, in fact. She had a very thin face like the dial of a small clock seen faintly in a dark room in the middle of a night when you waken to see the time and see the clock telling you the hour and the minute and the second, with a white silence and a glowing, all certainty and knowing what it has to tell of the night passing swiftly on toward further darkness, but moving also toward a new sun.

There is no way this paragraph would pass by an 8th grade English teacher. Yet it is a classic none the less. Why is it that literary genius can be so atrocious? I attempted to re-read thru Fahrenheit 451 a while ago but ran into this on page 11 and it totally sidetracked me.

I wont forget the message by Ray Bradbury anytime soon, so I guess it isn't the writing, rather it is the story and message that make a book great.

Polygamy via Nate

I havent kept up with the Pan-Galactic Blogger Blaster recently as school has had me too strapped for time. However, in my attempt at avoiding studying I looked it up.

Some gems from the discussion on Polygamy
"One wife is trouble enough." Astrosmith
"Mark Twain is said to have answered this question once by quoting the Good Book: "No man can serve two masters". Pablo
"Like I need TWO women telling me I don't spend enought time with them. If God didn't prohibit poligamy, He should have." INH
"Hopefully they wouldn't all have headaches at the same time" MR
"According to Paul, the "best plan" is celebacy. So yes. We do want to depart from it" Nate

Doing Homework

Well, that is what I should be doing, but I am not. I am looking for little things to give me an excuse for procrastinating. I have finals coming up and three tests I need to take by tuesday so I should be doing homework... Read my favorite blogs, checked the news, read my email and now posting here... still nothing. Grrr.

Silver update

According to the website Live Gold Prices silver hit $8.00 today. Up a total of 30% since August. I am really wishing I had more money to put into it, but funds have been limited with school. What little I do have has gone up 5% already so I will keep plugging along and tuck a little more away each week.

STOLEN!!!

Stolen: The affection of my adorable 4 year old niece.

It was stolen by an (also) adorable young female. I am sure you can all guess who the culprit is. It seems that after having met her just once, my niece asks when Nikki is going to come over. Well, we came over yesterday (Thanksgiving) and Brittney was sitting on the couch. She saw us come in and she just looked for a couple of seconds... then her eyes went about as wide as they could go and she got a huge smile on her face. She comes running over and hugs Nikki, but for once there are no hugs for me. Brittney just runs off. What is up? Brittney spent the rest of the night showing Nikki around and playing and giggling.

Very cute, but this worries me as an Uncle. Am I forever relegated to second class? The oh-its-just-you state? I'll have to ponder this one.

A Day Of Thanksgiving

Since we are all going to sit down and enjoy G-ds provision I thought I would pass along the history of this day. Most of us know such an abbreviated version that its meaning isnt very meaningful. Check out this link on the first Thanksgiving.

There is so much more to our G-d than we can ever imagine. So much more provision than we will ever see. So much care and detail that we will never know. No matter how bad things may get or how dark the future may be, G-d is good and faithful to us. I hope you all have a wonderful time with family and friends, and you are able to see all the blessings in your life.

Shalom

Marijuana Use

(Reuters) Swiss teenagers smoke more cannabis than their peers in every other European country, a survey said Thursday, ... One in three Swiss 15-year-olds has lit up a joint within the past year

Wow, sounds awful eh? Well lets compare this to the United States of America. Per the White House's Drug Policy website, use in the past year among 8th graders is %12.8 which jumps to %28.2 amongst 10th graders and %34.9 for our 12th graders. Locally, Colorado has the highest per capita pot use in the nation, tho I dont know how that affects high schoolers.

Now lets break it down by crime statistics via the FBI for 2003 using Alabama and Louisiana for comparison as they are the two closest in population to Colorado.

In Alabama (pop 4,500,752) there were 19,331 reported instances in the Violent Crime category, 182,241 in the Property category.
In Louisiana (pop 4,496,334) 29,062 Violent, 195,569 Property
In Colorado (pop 4,550,688) 15,706 Violent, 179,340 Property

By Ratio
Alabama 1 in 233(Violent) 1 in 24.69(Property)
Louisiana 1 in 155(Violent) 1 in 22.99(Property)
Colorado 1 in 290(Violent) 1 in 25.37(Property)

Remember you want higher numbers on the right. Is it misleading to pull only one variable and make a conclusion from it? You betcha, but I am working on joining the Legacy Media per my previous post, therefore I postulate that Colorado's higher usage of the Devil Weed is actually making us safer.

Retraction

I posted a few days ago about Silver and specifically about the NORFED coins. I said to cash those puppies out. Well, I was wrong. That coin is inflation proof as NORFED will take it as trade for a higher dollar value coin should the dollar continue its downward trend (And the end of this downward trend is zero) When Silver spot prices exceed $10 per ounce this coin will become worth 20 dollars. So my profit on this one coin deal will go up to over $11.

Many more of these corrections and retractions and I am going to put in an application with the Legacy Media.

School

Well I am finally getting good grades in this class. I did fantastic in the first class and this class I have been doing poorly. (I am on a bimester schedule so finish one class, then take the next) So I decided to actually start taking notes again. Fantastic idea eh? Last two tests have been 100% so it must be working.

Spelling

Sorry Elena...

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Txes M&A Uinervtisy, it
deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod
are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and
lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a
total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a
porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed
ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

I got this in an emial, may or may not hvae been dnoe by a university but it is eniterly readable.

Correction

I discovered a bad link on a previous post. I posted two links to a movie when I wanted to post a link to the homepage which is here Bellydance Superstars

Also I have noticed that my comment counters are not updating, so dont pay much attention to those.

Al Thompson Released From Prison

The United States District Court in Sacremento ordered Al Thompson released from jail. Mr Thompson had been held since Aug. 9th on a federal civil contempt warrant issued for Thompson's refusal to sign false tax forms for his business.

Despite being arrested earlier last April on the same issue, Thompson refused to fill out the tax forms the federal judge ordered him to submit asserting that, given his understanding of the law, he would be committing perjury for providing false information under oath.

Despite Thompson's motions to the district court requesting the IRS to provide a formal certification, sworn under penalty of perjury, that he was an “employer” and a “person” liable under the income tax laws, none was ever produced.

This war is being won one court case at a time. Dick Simkanin's conviction is on appeal (he wasnt allowed to present a single legal exhibit in his favor) and Vernice Kuglin won her near $1,000,000 fight with the IRS when the jury wouldnt convict because the IRS would not produce a law that Ms. Kuglin broke.

Born-Again Christians Shouldn't Vote?

Garrison Keillor, a radio host for the propaganda wing of the Gov. (also known as NPR) has decided that "tak[ing] the right to vote away from born-again Christians... [is] just a little project of mine." He goes on to state the Chistians are citizens of heaven, therefore "not here among us in America."

Does this mean that the IRS is going to leave me alone about the taxes they think I owe but wont bother to tell me why I owe it? To paraphrase the 80s Wendy's commercial, "Where's the Law?"

Bellydancing

Bellydance Superstars

All I can say is, wow

Via Pink Kitty

Silver

Yesterday I went out and bought my first bit of silver. Seeing as I am not terribly wealthy I cant afford to buy much so I figure $50 a week will provide me with a little bit of a 'saftey net.' Spot price was $7.62 per ounce with a spread of .89 per coin, total of 8.68 per coin after tax. The state no longer taxes precious metal coins, bars or bullion, but the city does.

I found a coin from Norfed in the bin. The Liberty Dollar has a face value of $10. I highly urge all my readers to visit their local coin dealers and look for these coins. $1.42 profit if you take that coin and go down to the local merchants and spend it. Not only do you turn a profit, but you are helping to raise awareness about the Federal Reserve and alternatives to it.

Politician Stands On Principle

Newly elected County Commisioner for El PAso County, Colorado, Bruce Douglas is opposing the sale of county owned land. The property, Penrose Equestrian Center, is a government-owned horse show complex southwest of downtown Colorado Springs. Value of the property? $5.2 million. County proposed sale price? $1.

Not only is the county wanting to just get rid of the property, they are going to have to kick in $500K just to fix up the land, AND still have to clean up from when it was used for gold proceessing. Mr. Douglas is not yet installed in office and he is already standing up for the citizens of the county. G-d Bless him.

World View

World View. It is how you see things and interpret events. There are really only two world views. That G-d is, and that there is no god. Everything else is somewhere in between those two. One could then define a third view, that Man is god. Out of these world views come our every thought and action. Not to say that those who believe in a god dont mess up and that those who dont believe in a god wont pray in times of trouble. Rather, if I believe there is no god and I am the result of naturalistic processes (the god Chance) I would be, just to give a few examples, less likely to take responsibility for my actions and place a lower value on life because life itself has no inherent meaning.

Secular Humanism (SH)has taken over western civilization. We (collectively) no longer believe in a Supreme Being. We no longer take responsibility, we dont give of our time to feed and clothe and minister to the needy, we are no longer connected to others simply because they are our 'neighbors.'

SH is the root cause of the abortion holocaust. Why we have ridiculous lawsuits against tobacco and fast food companies. Why snack food companies are making their packages smaller. And why I cant get a decent sized ice cream cone at McDonalds. (that last one is just a little too close to home!)

Engrish

The Grammar Queen, Elena, should get a kick out of this. Engrish.com

Lots of funny signs and whatnot written in Engrish (what else?)

Search Results

I have looked at the various search results from time to time and I notice that the top searches for my site are for the (#1)SSMOB and the various poems being a not too close second. Contrast this with Pink Kitties site (ya know I love you!!) I once saw a search on her site for "looking for prostitutes in the Nashville area" which is totally unrepresentative of anything on her blog. Ya hafta love how the various search engines will piece together individual words from the entire history of the blog then put it up as tho it was a single entry.

Come to think of it, I have never seen a search result for my Ode To A Coke...

Moore Profundity

A heavy, weighty statement by Michael Moore (sorry, couldnt resist)

"If the media are looking for a trend it should be this – that so many Americans were, for the first time since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has always been filled with evangelicals – that is not news. What is news is that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal. In fact, that's big news. Which means, don't expect the mainstream media, the ones who brought you the Iraq War, to ever report the real truth about November 2, 2004. In fact, it's better that they don't. We'll need the element of surprise in 2008."

I agree with him that this is the more important point. The nation was whipped into a frenzy to oust Bush or to keep Kerry out of office and more people voted in this election than in any other. Fear works, and this election makes a great argument against universal suffrage.

Pro-Lifers on the President

From Wes' blog, commentary by the American Life League's President about our President.

Many pro-life groups are gleefully declaring victory following George W. Bush's apparent re-election, but I cannot share in their enthusiasm. ... However, the Bush administration's first term has been less than sterling in terms of total commitment to the pro-life effort. ... Thus the status quo on abortion is going to be maintained, as will the ongoing public perception that we have a pro-life president.

Peroutka

I was checking the news and came across an article on WND on how poorly we third parties did this time around. Sad really. But that isnt what I am blogging about here. I wanted to post for everyone a statement released by Peroutka (or a part thereof anyways)

"Last night, we celebrated God's glorious and gracious sovereignty over all things. As Christ tells us in Matthew 28:18, 'All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.' Of course, this includes authority over civil government and over political elections. His will be done.

"Our victory is in declaring God's sovereign nature and submitting ourselves to His will. We do this when we run for office acknowledging God, defending the family, and working to restore the American republic. We do this when we vote only for those men who have submitted their lives to faithfulness and obedience to His Word."

"With this victory in mind – His victory – I encourage all Americans of good will to join us in the coming days, months and years to build our effort to honor God, defend the family and restore the republic."

Thoughts

Not much to blog at the moment, but I have been letting my blog die lately so...

Osama's dislike of Bush and the French approval of Kerry almost makes me want to vote for Bush. Almost.

Cobra Gunskin has its website up (finally) but I am dissapointed that they dont seem to have a holster for my revolver. Most companies don't, that is part of the problem with a hammerless. Guess I will just have to go for a T-shirt

I pushed thru the mental block that hampered me the first week or so of this new bi-mester and am getting A's again.

It is much better to have my toes being warmed on the heater than to be outside in this cold weather. Snow and 100 mile an hour wind. Not a good combo.

Dont forget to get out and vote your conscience tomorrow.

Bush on Homosexual Unions

Hot off the press! Bush supports same-sex unions!
umm, wait, isnt this the same guy who is all gung ho about 'supporting the family'? HA Why wont people see the truth when it is plain as day, and right in front of their noses. Christian leaders will have much to answer for, having willingly ignored all the signs telling us who Bush really is. The full article is at the Washington Times

Kerry is about to desruct. No longer will people be able to say they have to keep John 'Effing' Kerry out of office. Now is the time to vote your conscience.

Vote Your Conscience

"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."
John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the U.S.A.

Seems he didn't buy the vote-for-a-winner arguement either.

School Bans Halloween

Puyallup School District (near Seattle) banned Halloween this year. But not because of Christianity, but because "Witches with pointy noses and things like that are not respective symbols of the Wiccan religion."

Free Trade vs. Managed Markets

A few years ago I happened upon a used bookstore and found a series of books titled "Essays On Liberty." Put out by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) Published in the 50's and 60's these collections are fantastic primers for Libertarian thought and economic policy.

On Pink Kitty's blog Elena posted If that means that insulin gets to be cheaper and that I'm not paying outrageous co-pays, I'm all for a free-for-all in the marketplace. But supposedly the price wars aren't good for the airlines and their employees, so I'm not sure if the pharmeceutical industry would suffer the same ramifications.

Which is why I brought up the FEE. An article in Volume 3 written by W.M. Curtiss titled The Topsy-Turvy Tariff Tangle addresses the issue of competition well. The article includes a portion of testimony given to Congress by Charles H. Percy, the president of the Bell & Howell Company of Chicago. B&H Co. manufactured photographic products and were competing against other countries where the wage was 1/8th of the going wage here in America. (Japan paid $0.27 an hour, the US paid $2.00)

Mr. Percy's testimony "The highly paid American worker has become the most efficient in the world—two to ten times as productive as his European counterpart . . . . In the final analysis, the combined effect of foreign competition and high American wage rates has been fortunate—it has forced us to find new and better ways of doing things . . . . Without the spur of foreign competition, it is doubtful whether these techniques would ever have been developed. ... America’s industry did not become great by being sheltered. It achieved greatness because of the intelligence and pioneering spirit of its people. It became great through huge expenditures for research and development, new ideas in manufacturing and merchandising. It is great because it firmly believes that there is one way to succeed—to give the consumer the best possible product for best possible value. This, and this alone, will keep American industry vigorous and healthy in the years to come."

"Without the spur of foreign competition" could be better written by simply taking out the word foreign.

Christians = Bush Supporters?

Christians are Bush supporters. This seems obvious from the various media reports, and popular wisdom. However, like many things in the media or the public's eye, it is wrong. I found an article by Dr. Patrick Johnston titled "Why Christians Should Not Vote for George W. Bush" It is a rather long article but has some good stuff in it.

Another interesting site is BushRevealed.com The top article there is of Bush worshipping at a Shinto Temple.

When President Bush entered the ornately beautiful Shinto Temple erected to house the spirits of the late Emperor Meiji he clapped once and bowed deeply, following the common etiquette of worship at such shrines. ...
"...Bush and his wife went into the temple and clapped to awaken the demon and then bowed in worship and signed the book of worship,” says Dr. Morey, referring to the Bush temple visit made February 18 as part of his Asia tour. article

Want more? Bush said "Tell him that I pray to the same god [Mr. Sistani] prays to... Tell Sistani I have nothing but praise for your religion[Islam].

In another story reported by the London Telegraph "And I believe we worship the same god."


There are too many reasons to not vote for Bush, and the vote-against-Kerry arguments are all wasted on me. Badnarik and Peroutka are the only ones who could get my support this election.

Christian Coalition Denies Peroutka

The Christian Coalition has decided not to put Peroutka on its voter guide, even tho Mr. Peroutka is by far the strongest Christian currently running for the Presidency.

From Peroutka's blog

Dear Friends of the Constitutional Republic,

The Web page of the Christian Coalition of America says that it is our country's "leading grassroots organization defending our Godly heritage." This page says the CCA "is dedicated to equipping and educating God's people" and it points out that "effective citizen activism begins with knowledge."

But by refusing to list my Presidential candidacy in its voters guide, by refusing to let millions of Christians know where I stand on the issues, the CCA has failed to fully educate God's people. It has denied millions of Christians important knowledge which might have influenced their votes for President. And the CCA has done all of this despite the fact that I have, in my campaign, repeatedly defended our Godly heritage and exalted the cause of Christ.

...

I have, by God's grace, run for President as a strong, explicit Bible-believing Christian. I am on enough state ballots to win enough electoral votes to be President. To be excluded from the voter guide of the Christian Coalition of America is unfair to millions of Christians who look to the CCA for an honest and thorough representation of the available candidates. Moreover, it is self-contradictory for the CCA to arbitrarily limit the information it provides voters when the organization's stated purpose is to educate Christians to the alternative candidates.

It seems to me the CCA's position is unconscionable since the exclusion of my candidacy denies millions of Christians a righteous, Constitutional choice in this year's Presidential election.


This was brought to my attention by the lovely and talented Nikki

More Government or a Free-Market Solution?

I recieved an email calling for more government because China produces a lot of products that end up being recalled. Their solution? Increase inspections. I offer this solution. Underwriters Laboratories More than 100,000 product inspections in 2003 alone, UL tests and works to destroy every product given to them to inspect. Only safe products get the UL listing, as their name is extremely important to this 110 year old organization.

Did I mention that UL is a non-profit? All this work done for the safety of Americans (and elsewhere) and all without taking a cent from the unwilling.

Paranoia

I wake up this morning with my clock saying 5:05. I am supposed to be at work at 5! Here we go again! Twice this week! Grrr. As I get up to start getting ready I realized that I dont work today. Hope your alls days started a bit better.

First Final

Yesterday was to be the day I took my final, but I didnt actually make it to class. Instead, I slept. I was intending to lay down for a two hour nap, and so I set my alarm for 6. Imagine my surprise when I wake up at 11:30! I had set the alarm for AM instead of PM. DOH!

(Oxymoronic title not intended)

Ameriplan

Well I started a home based business, and I figured this is my outlet to the "world-at-large." Tis called Ameriplan. Ameriplan is the free-market's solution to insurance. It isnt insurance so much as discounted cost-for-service, by cutting out the high cost of dealing with insurance companies.

So, how does it help? Currently, in the State you are in (whatever State that may be) Ameriplan covers Dental, Vision, Prescription, and Chiropractic care. But more important is the fact that full blown health care is being rolled out. It is currently in four states (Oklahoma, Texas, California, and That-Other-State) I am not sure how much the full medical will be, if it is even more than the current plan, but I can promise it will be nothing like the $400-900/month insurance companies try to charge. If you know anyone who needs coverage (or wants to make money) give them this site.

If that isnt enuff for ya, consider it your patriotic duty per Bush in this last (2nd) debate. "There are other ways to make sure drugs are cheaper. One is to speed up generic drugs to the marketplace, quicker. ...

Another is to pass -- to get our seniors to sign up to these drug discount cards, and they're working."

Lessons learned

Some quick lessons learned last night while in the mountains...

If you forget eating utensils, ones can be fashioned from your firewood.
My camera can not see stars, no matter how long the exposure is.
You will never lack for kindling as long as there are pine/fir trees around.
It is always, always, always cold at night at 9000 feet.

Is it just me?

Ever have a person in your life that you just can't stand? It could be now, or in the past, but most everything about this person bugs you? (Speaking of character traits here) Then, one day, you realize that you are that person? Those very same things you hated about that person, you do now? You understand this is, of course, all hypothetical.

A Scripture for ya all

it just popped into my head so I felt like blogging it.

Matthew 25:15 And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey.
(v 28)Take therefore the talent from him, and give [it] unto him which hath ten talents.
(v 29)For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

Too Much Crack

People do some stupid things when inebriated. From simple lack of coordination to incredibly dumb ideas that lead to disaster. Some people don't need to be on drugs to do these fantastically stupid things. In stumbles Sweden.

According to WorldNet Daily Swedish lawmakers have proposed a new tax on those who happen to be men that would go to paying the societal costs of abuse toward women.
The article states that "20 to 40 women are battered to death in Sweden each year." This in a population of 8,986,400 (CIA Est) with a ratio of .98|1 male|female. At the rate of 40 a year, that is one death per 224,660 women. Is this problem such a pandemic that it requires additional taxes upon those who are most likely to earn wages?

If the illogic found in Sweden's Parliament is taken to other countries, perhaps we will see a special tax on black men as they are statistically more likely to commit a crime. How about a tax on "soccer moms"? They are more likely to drive a gas guzzling vehicle.

Sweden:
You deserve to fall. You have truly reached heights of stupidity heretofore unseen.

Political Leanings

I came across a political test that matches you with a candidate. And it has everyone, including those who dropped out of the primaries.
I came up with 48% Peroutka with subscores of 55% personal, 40% economic
and 48% Badnarik subscore 40% personal, 55% economic. The candidate I scored the least with is the Reform Party's Peter Camejo with 20%, 10% and 30% on personal and economic.

I guess it comes down to how much you weigh each issue. The economic issues are more important than the 'personal' issues to me. I figure if you stop feeding the beast then all the other issues become moot.

Attack of the Fish Lips

Quite the odd phrase that... "Attack of the Fish Lips" Sounds kinda like a title for a B flick. But no, this phrase was heard elsewhere. In fact, it was said of me... Earlier today Nikki was talking about some sites online she had visited about kissing. Should I be taking a hint here? Am I just not good enough? Do I need to be signing up for some classes? Or is it simply the fish face I make that cracks her up?

I couldnt wiggle my ears and wouldnt flip my eyelids up, so that fish face is the one skill I had as a kid. Until now it was only a way to make kids smile, now it works on Nikki too, only better. Problem is, her laughing make me laugh, and I cant hold the face when I laugh.

I hope all you guys out there can find someone as wonderful as Nikki is. (but not her, she is taken!)

Anime

For those of you confused about your anime, the picture was of Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII. I dont know anything about Yu-Gi-Oh, perhaps there is a similar character. On the left of the pic is Tifa, on the right is Aeris.

On another note, why is it that female anime characters have eyes that are from 1/3 to 1/2 of their face? It looks good on anime, but I would hate to get too close to those eyes!

For a more secure sleep

Just what the Dr ordered... maybe. I guess it disturbs me that we guys can be replaced so easily. But it isnt all bad news, they plan a 'lap' pillow, complete with a skirt covering.

More pleasant images

Highbulp Kitty gave us a horrifying image recently, but with a bit of digging I found more pleasant images such as this awesome hairstyle or this R2D2 conversion for your import.

*edit

One more cool hairdo

Say what?

From my curriculum... "In other words, routing protocols enable routers to route routed protocols"

Say that three times fast.

* edit
another gem. "Routers use routing protocols to build and maintain routing tables that contain route information"