Who'da Thunk...

A year ago, who'd a thunk we be in church,
praying,
saying,
Lord, give us a mormon for president?!?

Something else he promised and screwed up.

Obama declared in a June 8, 2008 speech, that his presidency will be “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

Malware Removal

Uninstalling Obama . . . . . █████████████▒▒▒ 90% complete

The Afterlife

Z at GollyGeez posted a Sunday Faith Blog about the afterlife.

It referred to an experience a neurosurgeon had, an after (or near) death experience.

It reminded me of something and I wrote this in comments:

There was another surgeon years ago who had a number of patients experiencing the "come to the light" phenomenon.
I told my mom about it one day at lunch when she was up to visit.
She told me that she had that same experience when on the operating table.
She got hepatitis through the blood they were giving here, went into shock and they pronounced her dead.
She described rising above the table, watching events unfold, started toward the light, was told to go back, it wasn't time yet.
She said she described events to the medical team she couldn't have known, being under a sheet, etc.
She hadn't heard of anyone else having this experience til I brought it up.
I believe in heaven. I have only a vague idea of what it will be.
I will take the scriptural over the anecdotal, however.
The only reason I believe in an afterlife is because one man died for my sins and to prove it, He rose from the dead.
He, however, did not give an account of what He saw (that I recall).
Have a blessed day. (end of comment)

I am still skeptical of all these experiences, including mom's.

A number of people will say that this encourages their faith.
That it proves there is an afterlife, therefore the Bible is true.

The Bible is clear and unbending on one concept:
Jesus said "No man comes to the Father but by Me."
Experiences that indicate people will go to heaven that have not met that criteria are suspect to me.
I believe that God and the spiritual realm exist.
I also believe that malevolent spiritual forces exist that try to deny to mankind access to the Father.
Spiritual experiences that show reward for following a path outside of one that Jesus has set are therefore contra-biblical.
Demonic.

I'm not saying those distracted or misled are demonic or demon-possessed,
Think Pinocchio and that island that wasn't all he thought it was.

Thanks Z, for an inspiration to write about this.
I'm curious to see what her other commenters think.

The State of Blogging Today

These are just my observations regarding blogs today.
I'm not going to do an analysis. I'm not going to invest that much time in something no one's gonna read.
And there you have my first observation.

It seems that there are a number of motivations for a blogger.

A number claim it is just a place to vent.
Others a place to exercise their writing skills.
These two types of blogger often claim that they don't care if they are read, their blog is just for them.

Another type likes to provoke a discussion, sort of a salon if you will.

Others, like myself, like to express some insight they may have and perhaps provoke a discussion of that.

Some bloggers are prolific, with two or three posts a day (a bit overwhelming to keep up with) while others, like myself, post whenever inspired or bored.
Many make it a habit to post daily as a discipline.

I read a number of blogs. I like to keep current on them.
This can be taxing sometimes.
Reading other blogs can lead me to:
a: not post, because someone has already touched on that subject well and I figure if I've read it , you've read it.
b: post, as I believe comments were not an appropriate venue for the response to an inspiration from that post.

As to commenting.
I like to comment as an encouragement to the blogger I read, even if I have no elaboration to contribute.
I see it as a "tip jar" to encourage them to continue posting.
I know of one gentleman that seems to do that here, and it is appreciated.
Without comments, it's hard to tell if anyone is reading you.
(Blogger tells me I've had as high as 28 page views. I don't trust the reliability of that as I've seen a reference to my blog post at another blog and yet seen zero page views in the stats.)
I can talk to myself far more efficiently than typing to myself. Yet sometimes writing forces me to structure my thoughts on a matter. My previous post  is an example of that.
Some bloggers make it a habit to respond to every comment, perhaps as an encouragement to more.
It's a very polite thing to do. That's similar to my "tip jar" notion.
At least one other studiously avoids responding to my comments since we got into a "debate" on the definition of a term he used, and another has banned me from her site as referred to in a previous post.

I see commenting as a type of community of sorts, a community which can also encompass some unruly neighbors.

A list of blogs I read is posted to the right. I read some others also.
Of the blogs on that list are a couple that typically generate long comment streams.
Sometimes these long comment streams become shouting matches and name-calling that no longer discuss the topic of the thread at which point you realize adding a comment about the topic is like shouting into the wind.
Some comments get so long and frequent, you wonder why that person doesn't get a blog. Except they probably get more exposure in the comments of someone elses blog.
And sometimes you post a pithy and insightful comment to which there is no response.
Or better yet, someone will make the same observation ten comments later, making you wonder if they even bother to read the preceding comments, something I'm diligent about.

So, that's my take on it. What's yours? Assuming you're there.

A Trick Question

And the idiots behind him fall for it.




How many of YOU know someone who served in IRAN?

I actually do. I almost did but was re-directed to Italy (Hallelujah!).
The guys I know who did went in my place.

But that was a long time ago.

Not a Bug, a Feature!

I was recently asked:
"If God created everything, did He create sin?".
A corollary to this is:
"Why do bad things happen to good people?"

First, I posit that God exists and that He created everything.
Including the flaw in man that allows him to choose other than what God would have him choose, or choose to buck God.
This is free will.

This flaw in man leads to a test among men as to who will choose God.

If man was never given this choice, God would have robots in Eden.
They do not make good friends.
They would never know that they truly loved God, having never been tested.

Now suppose they never fell. (Impossible, they had the flaw and eternity to reveal it.)
Two people in paradise would only spend forever there.

What if God wanted more for them?
But He only trusted more for those that He knew could be depended on to choose Him from their own free will?

Only temptations can bring testing.

Like Hell Week for the SEALs, you only know who will respond correctly by who passes the test.

This implies that there are those that will fail the test.

Yet those that succeed become "The Bride of Christ".
This sounds like something better than being stuck on Earth tending a garden.

An oyster may live it's entire life doing nothing remarkable.
But an irritant in an oyster produces a pearl (perhaps of great price). 

So stuff doesn't always go the way you'd like.
It's irritating, perhaps (probably painful).

What does it produce?

You choose.

The Star Spangled Banner

I awoke the morning after the debate and remembering the evening before, while in the shower, I began to sing The Star Spangled Banner.
As I sang, the opening lines being in a higher register came out weak and, I realized, plaintive.
Yet the closing lines of the first stanza came across more bold.

We have asked ourselves, "Can the Republic survive?".
As the opening lines observe the peril, the closing lines are a fervent prayer.
We await God's answer.
With hope.

Prosthethics in Sports

These people believe that Obama should have been allowed the use of a teleprompter.


I've deleted the video since it autoplays and that's annoying. The link is here.

I’m reminded of the controversy over the Olympics where the runner with prosthetic legs outran the rest.
TPOTUS is a prosthetic device.
My wife commented during the debate that it looked like Obama was listening to an ear bud.
I’m not sure Axelrod feeds would help Obama.

The guy at 1:48 reminds me of a "shambling zombie" Obama supporter.

In the words of Fiona, "Can we shoot him?".

PBS is worried.

Hilarious.
Big Bird is sucking up to Romney to preserve PBS money when he's president.
Big Bird knows which way the election's going...

An Animated Debate

Courtesy of Rosey at America's Living Room:

These are a few of my favorite things...

21:37:22: LEHRER: Come back to...

(CROSSTALK)

21:37:25: ROMNEY: ... to oil, to tax breaks, then companies going overseas. So let's go through them one by one.

First of all, the Department of Energy has said the tax break for oil companies is $2.8 billion a year. And it's actually an accounting treatment, as you know, that's been in place for a hundred years. Now...

OBAMA: It's time to end it.

ROMNEY: And in one year, you provided $90 billion in breaks to the green energy world.

Now, I like green energy as well, but that's about 50 years' worth of what oil and gas receives. And you say Exxon and Mobil. Actually, this $2.8 billion goes largely to small companies, to drilling operators and so forth.

But, you know, if we get that tax rate from 35 percent down to 25 percent, why that $2.8 billion is on the table. Of course it's on the table. That's probably not going to survive you get that rate down to 25 percent.

But don't forget, you put $90 billion, like 50 years' worth of breaks, into -- into solar and wind, to Solyndra and Fisker and Tester and Ener1. I mean, I had a friend who said you don't just pick the winners and losers, you pick the losers, all right? So this -- this is not -- this is not the kind of policy you want to have if you want to get America energy secure.

The second topic, which is you said you get a deduction for taking a plant overseas. Look, I've been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you're talking about. I maybe need to get a new accountant.

LEHRER: Let's...

ROMNEY: But -- but the idea that you get a break for shipping jobs overseas is simply not the case.

E-mail via my pastor

My faith in Internet stories has been restored.

Finally, some honesty in big buck hunting stories

Above is a picture of the new world record whitetail buck. It was taken by the cousin of a co-worker's sister's uncle's best friend's son-in-law's niece's hairdresser's neighbor's ex-boyfriend's oldest nephew. Reportedly it will score 2603-1/8 by B&C standard and was shot in West Texas on a really windy day, 85 degrees downhill, around a curve at 900 yards with a .22 cal. rifle.

Supposedly, this deer had killed a Brahma bull, two Land Rovers, and six Jehovah's Witnesses in the last two weeks alone. They said it was winning a fight with Bigfoot when it was shot. It has also been confirmed that the buck had been seen drinking discharge water from a nuclear power plant.

All this has been checked and confirmed by Snopes.

Honestly and Sincerely,

Barack H. Obama