I Understand

I definitely understand this guy.

College Students

I wish I had a transcript of the video that I am linking to on Brietbart.tv.  It's a video of college students who are members of the College Democrats Association giving their reasons why they are Democrats.  Some of the things they say are just flat out incorrect, such as, "we are a democracy, not a theocracy."  Proving that the government school indoctrination has worked on too many skulls full of mush.  Go watch that short video and then you'll understand my comments.

"No difference between a judge and a janitor."  Really?  Can a handful of janitors render decisions that fundamentally transform the country, rob you of your enumerated rights as declared in our Constitution, and turn you into a slave of the State?

I guess  I could have played it and paused it and wrote down all the things that were stupid and wrong, but there are only so many hours in the day, and I don't want to spend any of them screaming and tearing my hair out.

One quote just about shot me out of my chair:  "Government should take care of its citizens."

Red Curtain Of Blood falls across my eyes and steam starts shooting out of my ears.

No, no, no, no, no, you silly, imbecilic piece of bat guano. That's what the idiots in Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, and other communist countries have fallen for.  The government that's big enough to give you everything is the government that's big enough to take every damned thing you have.  Go live in one of the above named countries, do a thorough study for your doctoral thesis on how those governments take care of every aspect of their citizens lives and then come back and tell us all about it.  Here.  I'll help you out by giving you this link to the latest news on North Korea.

Worse Than Stupid

Yep.  They think you are worse than stupid.  If you come from flyover country, the parts of the United States that lie between the metropolitan areas of the east and west coasts, the leftist elites think you are some kind of evolutionary throwback.  You are not just ignorant, you don't even have the intellectual capacity to learn to become as sophisticated as they are.

Just go to this site and play the video.  It's barely 3 minutes.

What makes this even worse is that Chris Christie is not really even a conservative.  Christie is actually a liberal who sought a job in power and when he got there, he got mugged by the hard, cold reality that New Jersey is in a financial mess and he had enough intelligence to know that, as he responded to a union goon teacher, the State of New Jersey, unlike the Federal government, can't print money.  Bill Maher and company are the true believers in State control of everything except personally perverse lifestyles.

Fabulous Fungus Among Us

On Saturday evening, we went to some friends' house in the neighborhood for dinner and to learn to play pinochle.  The hostess gave us the "nickel tour" and outside in the yard there was an area that had these beautiful golden mushrooms growing in the gravel path.

Yesterday we went back for another session, and this time I collected a bag of these mushrooms, since I'm of the mind that there are probably more edible mushrooms out there than we truly appreciate.  It turns out that my suspicion that these were edible was right.  Not only that, but they are considered excellent.  They are commonly called Golden Chantrelle.  Their scientific name is Cantharellus cibarius.  

Golden Chantrelles from my neighbor's yard.

I got really excited from reading about them in Wikipedia.

Chanterelles as a group are generally described as being rich in flavor, with a distinctive taste and aroma difficult to characterize. Some species have a fruity odor, others a more woody, earthy fragrance, and others still can even be considered spicy. The golden chanterelle is perhaps the most sought-after and flavorful chanterelle, and many chefs consider it on the same short list of gourmet fungi as truffles and morels. It therefore tends to command a high price in both restaurants and specialty stores.^[12]There are many ways to cook chanterelles. Most of the flavorful compounds in chanterelles are fat-soluble, making them good mushrooms to sauté in butter, oil or cream. They also contain smaller amounts of water- and alcohol-soluble flavorings, which lend the mushrooms well to recipes involving wine or other cooking alcohols. Many popular methods of cooking chanterelles include them in sautés, soufflés, cream sauces, and soups. They are not typically eaten raw, as their rich and complex flavor is best released when cooked.^[4]

Cantharellus cibarius. Picture courtesy of Wikipedia.

I still did my little safety test on them.  I take the tiniest piece I can to sample for taste.  If I were to notice the slightest bad thing, numbness or anything at all, I would spit it out and wash out my mouth.  These tasted slightly plain, not much different than porcini  mushrooms. You know, those plain white things you buy at the supermarket.  But they did have a very slight peppery aftertaste.  After waiting a few minutes to see if there was any negative effects in my mouth I swallowed it.  After a couple of hours, I notice nothing at all.  I'm sure now that these are the same Chantrelles that I see on Wikipedia and a few other web sites.


After getting home, I was in the wooded area next to the house when I spotted this interesting fungus on the ground.

The specimen growing in my woods

In my searching, the closest thing I could find that matched my photo is Ramariopsis kunzei. I have never seen one before today.  If I'm wrong about the identification, I hope someone reading this blog will let me know.  I have no intention of trying this one, because if my identification is correct, this fungus, while edible, is tasteless and useless.  I'd have to be in survival mode to be curious enough to try it, but I've made a mental note filed away just in case.

"The Sickener" Quite fitting for this picture.

Then there was this specimen just a few yards away near some ferns.

While it seems that the gills suddenly grew out of control and pushed the red cap into disfigurement, I'm pretty sure that this is a Russula emetica.  That's the closest thing I could come up with, and the name says all I need to know.
Emetica is Latin for "sickener" and according to Wikipedia it causes vomiting and diarrhea.  Supposedly there is an edible type in the genus of Russula (meaning "reddish"), but I'm not feeling that experimental.

Anyway, I'll try to remember to report back on how the Chantrelles tasted after I cook them up with a meal.

Of course, you are responsible for any risks you take in harvesting or eating any fungus or plant in the wild.  I think everybody should use some intelligence to figure these things out.  If you don't have the mental skill to do that, don't risk trying to eat anything wild.

I'm just too ferociously freedom loving to let anything stop me from discovering stuff within reason.

Shalom Y'all

Friends From Indiana

During the cold months, we dream about the sunny, warm days that we will spend down at the artificial beach on Lake Chatuge.  Last summer Twyla and I were there twice and sometimes three times a week, and the fish got so used to being fed that they would hang around in a specific area waiting for us to arrive.

It is the nature of being in the rural mountains that you will meet people from as far away as Germany who simply want to enjoy the view and be at peace with their surroundings.  You just never know who you are going to meet.  Most people keep to themselves, and unfortunately children will run wild with very little adult supervision.  To call it annoying would be putting it mildly.

In most public settings, when you have to deal with rug rats being around, it is a most unpleasant experience.  When we go put our chairs down in the water, we go early on a weekday and hope that we have an hour or two before people start to show up.  I'll admit that such would be true whether the people who come after us were 9 or 90, but we especially are aware that kids are usually an unwelcome intrusion.

Oh wait.  If you are thinking of chastising me because you think I have a bad attitude about kids, then hold up.  I blame the parents.  Yeah.  I said it, and I mean it.

There was a time when my dad or mom made it very clear that I would behave like a gentleman in public.  I was expected to act like "an adult."  I put that in quotes because the meaning of that phrase has suffered so much degradation over time that I'm not sure that most people reading this would understand the term.  After all, we live in world that pays attention to people like Charlie Sheen, watches shows like Jersey Shore and elected Bill Clinton as president.  You can't get much lower than that  (Just kidding, I know BO is president now. Having a lecherous, rapist for a president almost seems like a step up now, doesn't it?)

Anyway, it is indeed a pleasure when you meet kids who reflect well on their parents and the manner in which they were reared.  We met such kids at Lake Chatuge this past week.  Most kids run by and act like they have not a shred of respect for anyone's existence at all.  The children you see in the pictures are an amazing exception.  They immediately were curious as to what we were doing and when they saw that we were feeding the fish, they quietly listened to instruction and came and sat down to enjoy the experience.

Most kids have an attention span of about 20 seconds.  These kids were willing to come and sit and trust what we said about sitting quietly and letting the fish come in and enjoy watching them up close.  That didn't happen by accident.  Children don't have such appreciation without it being imparted to them from parents.

They were from somewhere up north in the heartland, in Indiana.  They were in town in Hiawassee, Georgia for a Christian motorcycle organization event going on at the Georgia Mountain Fairgrounds.  I didn't ask them to spell their names, so if I get it wrong you'll have to forgive me.  These pleasant young people were Jamie, Zachary, Ben, Isaiah, Lydia and Elena.  They sat there quietly and talked respectfully to each other and to us.  I sat there throwing shredded cheese all around them so the brim would swim and eat and even brush against them from time to time.  They really enjoyed the experience, and were even thoughtful enough to thank us for the experience.  That's something that rarely happens with the few other kids who are willing to sit quietly and let us show them this experience.

When we parted company with these well behaved, respectful kids, Twyla and I thought of how it gave us hope for the future.  I hope their parents know how much we appreciate their efforts in bringing up such good kids in a world that wants to drag them into the sewer.

A big, hearty thank you to the parents who trained these kids.  Keep up the good work.

Making Sense Now

DOUBLE RED ALERT

POSTED BY ANN BARNHARDT - JUNE 24, AD 2011 9:01 AM MST

Two HUGE intel leads in my email box this morning from way-back contacts that I've had for years, that are actually somewhat connected concepts.1. File this one under "Now It All Makes Sense". A Missouri farming and ranching contact just got off a conference call wherein he was informed that the federal government is sending out letters to all of the flooded out farmers in the Missouri River flood plain and bottoms notifying them that the Army Corps of Engineers will offer to BUY THEIR LAND.
Intentionally flood massive acreage of highly productive farmground. Destroy people's communities and homes. Catch them while they are desperate and afraid and then swoop in and buy the ground cheap. Those evil sons of bitches.
2. Speaking of evil sons of bitches, George Soros appears to be "investing" in farmground through the same puppet company that he used to get into the grain elevator and fertilizer business. The company is called Ospraie Capital Management and is buying up farmground in a joint venture with Teays River Investments as a partner. Here is that announcement:
Click Here
Okay. Here's the connection. This Ospraie outfit was a hedge fund specializing in commodities that was started and run by some cocky child who didn't know how to trade bear markets and got his butt kicked into next week in the grain market of 2008. He also lost a fortune trying to trade RARE EARTH METALS. In fact, it was so bad that he had to shut his fund down because he had promised his investors that he would give them all of their investment money back if the fund lost more than 30% in one year. Whoopsie.
But it appears that Soros swooped in and saved the day because this Ospraie is the "co-investor" with Soros that bought the remnants of ConAgra's trading operation and renamed it . . . Gavilon. In the industry, it is widely acknowledged that Ospraie IS Soros. That three-page article citation is here, copy and paste the URL into your address bar:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/12/news/companies/ospraie_demos.fortune/index.htm
As you probably remember, Gavilon just recently bought both DeBruce Grain out of Kansas City and the biggest grain elevator company in the Pacific Northwest, thus making Soros (who is the money behind Gavilon through both his own Soros Fund Management AND his de facto control of Ospraie) the third-largest grain company in the U.S. with 280 million bushels of storage capacity, behind only Archer Daniels Midland (542 million bushels storage capacity) and Cargill (344 million bushels storage capacity). That citation is here:
http://www.world-grain.com/News/News%20Home/Features/2010/12/A%20powerful%20signal.aspx?p=1
Bottom line: Soros, through Ospraie, is buying up farmground. Please also note that the hotlink citation above is dated June 26, 2009. My contact says this has been going on for two years - and also remember what I told you about farmground prices inflating wildly, especially in Illinois. I have personally confirmed farmground in Illinois selling for $13,000 per acre within the last month, whereas that same kind of ground in Illinois was going for $5500 per acre the day Obama was inaugurated.

Spread the word.  

For the original post go to Barnhardt.biz

Water: Part II

I wish I could have thought of a clever title for this post. I thought some were cute, but they all got flushed.

Water is both essential to life and destructive at the same time.  What a paradox.  It's destructive in big tsunami like ways and in small, irritating, rusty ways.  Just the word "leak" can make some people shudder.  And why is that?  Why are there so many substances that do not react well to getting wet?

Electron cloud model of water atom

I started reading again on all the stuff I learned years ago about chemistry in order to bring some great enlightening insights to my readers on this subject.  When it comes to chemistry and physics, I think I would rather try to explain how quantum mechanics works.  I get excited talking about radio isotope decay and the significance of polonium haloes in granite, but water is far more difficult.  That's right.  The substance that should be the most familiar to us in at least two of it's forms is the hardest to explain.

This is because as much as people like to think that science can explain everything, the more you know about what science REALLY knows, the more you realize that they don't explain a lot.

Bohr model of the atom

Let's start with the fact that most atoms are invisible.  Yeah. Those cute illustrations of what scientists believe to be the working models of atoms are just illustrations.  Most people aren't even aware of this, because ever since grade school, we've been subjected to illustrations designed to teach us about the assumed properties of  atoms and even subatomic particles are presented with such assurance that this is "just the way it is."  And while the atomic models we are shown are the best models that can be developed based on the experimental behavior and empirical evidence, they are still just best guesses.

Our best scanning, tunneling, electron microscopes can only see the very largest of atoms, and the pictures are very fuzzy at that.  How many people outside the scientific community even understand that, below a certain size, you can't "see" molecular objects. That's right.  Once you get so far down in size, there is no actual optical resolution that works, because you can't focus wavelengths of light that would have to be so short that you can't create lenses to deal with them.  That's why the electron microscope had to be invented.  When you look at an image from an electron microscope, you are not actually seeing the object the way you would look at a bacterium under a standard optical microscope.  You are looking at an image produced electrically on a monitor that is interpreting the electrons that have been focused to bounce off the object you want to examine.  An analogy would be the image you get from a high quality radar array from many miles up in space looking down at a land mass on earth.

Physicists know that down to a certain point we can't observe what goes on at the atomic or subatomic level. How can we, when the very act of trying to see an object means bombarding it with electrons?  It would be like blind people trying to watch a basketball game by being on the court with the players and touching them and the ball in order to "see" what's happening.  So, always keep in mind that what we "know" about atoms and elements are based purely on observing how they react with other atoms and other molecules on a relatively huge scale compared to their actual size.  Most of what we know about electrons seem very well proven, otherwise we wouldn't have radio, TV, microwaves, etc.

We don't know with absolute certainty that the hydrogen atoms attach at an angle to the oxygen atom in that model you see at the top, but it's the best guess based on how we think water behaves relative to other molecules.  For instance, in the shapes and behaviors of proteins. But this does not explain why water has the extremely high dielectric strength that it does compared to other liquids.  Why is water such an extremely good solvent with so many other substances?  Why does water expand when it freezes, even when in higher density solution such as sea water?  We don't know why.  We only know that it does.  We can speculate that the electron orbital cloud of the hydrogen expands away from the larger oxygen atom, thus making it less dense compared to the surrounding liquid water molecules, but such a change in the spatial relationship would seem to indicate a higher, not lower energy state.  This is because, as some would suggest, the hydrogen bond state in water forms an "open lattice" structure and this open lattice gets bigger at the point of freezing.  Open lattice?  Suggesting that there is empty space between the atomic matter?  But nature abhors any kind of vacuum.  This is an odd mystery.

We don't fully understand how atoms attach to each other. Physics describes three types of bonding between atoms: hydrogen bonding, covalent bonding, and ionic bonding, but these descriptions are only due to observation of behavior at the macro level and based on theories about the electrical charges and numbers of electrons and protons that are in the atoms.  There is overlap in the characteristics.  Most of the bonds in the smallest molecules are covalent in nature, meaning that the atoms are sharing electrons to some degree.  Ionic bonding is more along the lines of purely electrical or "magnetic" type attraction between atoms.

Hydrogen bonding is not completely understood. As of this post, in the year 2011, there is still a call for scientists to come up with a definition for hydrogen bonding. (Note the line just before the contents box at the link.)  How is it that hydrogen bonding is described as being weaker than ionic bonding?  Sodium chloride crystals (table salt) are a simple paradigm of ionic bonding between chlorine gas and sodium metal.  But I can take a pint of pure (distilled or deionized) water and dissolve up to four or five tablespoons of salt in the water.  This demonstrates that the bonds of the crystals have been broken while the physical state of the water has remained unchanged.

The same weak hydrogen bonds that allow you to push your finger down on a plunger and "atomize" water from a spray bottle are the same strong hydrogen bonds that give nylon it's elastic strength.  The same hydrogen bonds that allow water to evaporate off your skin  are the same hydrogen bonds that connect amino acids across the spiral lattice of phosphates that make up the DNA helix, but that can easily be "unzipped" by ribosomes to create RNA or recreate new DNA molecules.  All of the soft tissues of your body are swimming in a sea of water.

The element of water behaves differently with so many other elements, and even behaves differently depending on the amount of the element present.  For example, you couldn't survive if you didn't eat enough salt in order to have sodium ions in your body.  Every nerve cell in your body depends on sodium ions carrying nerve impulses.  But what happens when pure sodium comes in contact with water in an unregulated environment?  Watch the video:



You couldn't do that safely with lithium or especially rubidium.  They are far more reactive than sodium.  If you'd like to see how stupid and spectacular some people can be with sodium, go to this link on YouTube.  The third video in the list is really an example of what not to do.

This is enough for today.  Go ponder what a miraculous substance water really is.  How anybody who understands the little bit we can comprehend about the world around us can be an atheist is beyond my ability to explain.  I will continue to repeat what I've said before.  People will believe what they want to believe no matter what the evidence suggests or proves.  Accepting this has kept me from going crazy when talking to people.

Shalom Y'all

Mind Over Matter

I have what is probably an incredibly high amount of disdain and derision for the field of psychology (and including psychiatry) as a whole.  Oh, I do know that there is mental illness and that some is organic and some is due to psychological trauma and that there is a need for professionals who can deal with such things.   But most of what is in the realm of medicine for the mind is just pure rubbish, because if you start from bad premises, everything that follows is sure to be stupid, insane, or both.

I post on this with some trepidation, because it is so easy to be misunderstood on this matter, no matter how much I try to be clear.  I've been teaching in enough different settings where in a group of people, some would simply not be able to comprehend what I was trying to get across, and not only I would be amazed at their inability to understand, but more than half the group as well would be puzzling over this. I have been very appreciative for such events, since, had the audience not been there, I might have questioned my own sanity or ability to relate certain concepts.

I started to post with some trepidation, but then remembered, "Hey, it's MY blog."

I would hope that if I ever needed to see a psychologist, I could find someone like Gagdad Bob, but that would truly be analogous to finding a needle in a haystack.  After reading this recent post, I just had to make my readers aware that there actually are intelligent people in the very soft "scientific" field of psychology. You don't always need a post-graduate education to appreciate all that he writes, so check out his archives.

Bad Model! Bad, Bad Model!

I've been saying this for many years now, and it's especially important when it comes to water vapor.

This video is well worth your six minutes.

Hat Tip to Maggie's Farm.

Romans Part V

You can find the beginning of this study by clicking on this link.

Chapter 14 begins with a passage that can easily be misunderstood by someone with no understanding of the historical context of the time in first century Rome, or a well-established understanding of the rest of Scripture. Before you think you understand what the author is trying to say, you need to know if you have the right answers to certain questions.  Who is the writer talking to?  Why does that matter?  What does that audience already know?  What are the assumptions that are taken for granted by all the parties concerned?

A reader two thousand years removed from the situation that is being spoken about has a lot to learn before a rational understanding can be made.

The first verse is easy enough to understand, since most of us have probably been in churches where the "old timers" have treated new converts with thinly veiled disdain for having little to no knowledge of the Bible or spiritual matters.  But what's this thing about eating meat or not eating meat?  In order for us to really understand Paul's point, we need a thorough understanding of what was going on in the first century.  Not just in Israel or Rome but the known world in general.

Atheism was a tiny sliver of a minority philosophy among a few philosophers, but better than 99% of the world believed in some kind of deity or multiple deities.  All of the false religions believed in sacrificing to their gods.  Usually not so much for sin, well, actually, almost none of it for sin.  It was mostly a kind of appeasement or bribe for good fortune.  People who held such religious beliefs might look to the opinions of the self-appointed priests or gurus of the various religions or they just thought up ways to worship on their own or copied their parents' methods of worship.  They might sacrifice all kinds of things.  They also would have sacrificed many of the same kind of kosher animals that the Jews used in worship.

Let's take a moment to look back at the Acts of the Apostles.  In chapter 15 we have the episode where the leadership, seemingly headed by James, led by the Holy Spirit, comes up with the minimum requirements for a letter addressed to the new Gentile converts.  One of the four items mentioned is abstaining from meat sacrificed to idols.  A second item is things that have been strangled, a method of killing that didn't allow for proper bleeding out.  A third prohibition was from ingesting any blood directly.  While Torah and the Oral Law had very specific instructions on how to slaughter animals for sacrifice and even for general consumption, the pagans had no such rules.  Some African cultures, to this day, drink fresh blood taken from cattle.  Some people in America and Europe think nothing of eating a concoction called blood pudding.


While the instructions were clear that the new followers of Messiah were to abstain from "knowingly" ingesting blood, or eating an animal that had certainly been sacrificed to a false god, some of the people were so afraid of transgressing the rule that they would just give up meat altogether.  Some of these people still could not bring themselves to the idea that this God of the Jews was totally unlike the capricious and sinister gods of the pagan religions.  Such were gods who would punish you for making mistakes out of ignorance.  Paul was admonishing the brethren to tolerate these newcomers and not give them a hard time as they were still learning.

But did Paul contradict the instructions that had gone out from the Apostles at Jerusalem?  No.  According to Acts chapter 21, Paul wanted to make sure that he was in complete agreement with the leadership when it came to issues of faithfully following Torah. The distinction Paul is making is this:  While some understand the new freedom in Messiah, that the excessive rules and "hedge around the Law" by the Rabbis no longer applied to the believers, those who still wanted to be extra cautious about not violating Torah by not eating any meat that they couldn't be sure was kosher were not to be looked down upon by other believers.  Stated another way, some believers were willing to eat beef or goat or lamb or chicken that they got from non-believers with the simple assurance that it had been slaughtered properly and not used in a religious sacrifice.  Other believers, however, just weren't willing to take that chance with all the pagan sacrificing going on.  Their consciences wouldn't permit them to take that chance.

On this issue, Paul simply tells them to quit using it as an excuse to judge each other on a matter best left to God.  It's really that simple.  But is this a passage that can be used by Gentiles to excuse the eating of unclean animals?  No.  Remember the instructions of the Apostles through James in Acts 15.  The assumption of the leadership was that new Gentile believers would go to synagogue and learn Torah.  Their Jewish fellow believers would show them the proper way to slaughter and kasher their meat and know which animals were acceptable for consumption and which were not.

But because of the matter of conscience with some believers, Paul makes it clear that if your brother doesn't want to risk violating Torah by eating the meat that you are serving, don't take offense.  Better yet, don't serve him meat if he doesn't want to eat it.  We have unbelieving friends who wouldn't dream of inviting us over for dinner and serving pork.  If unbelievers can show that kind of good sense, how much more so should believers?

As for his statement that all things are clean, we need to keep it in the same context as what Messiah said when he dealt with the issue of hand washing.  That it was not what we ate that defiled us nearly so much as what defiled us spiritually based on our thoughts. When faced with the choice of eating pork or shellfish, or starving to death, we are going to eat what's available.  Long before Messiah came, the Rabbis understood that we are to LIVE according to Torah, not die by Torah.  That which imparts life or eases human suffering always supersedes any prohibitions in Torah.  Messiah proved that in healing on the Sabbath.  He never said Torah was wrong.  He simply reminded the religious leaders of their own training and teaching, that doing good and alleviating pain or suffering and bringing praise and honor to God were most important. That's right. There is and always has been a hierarchy that allows for breaking the laws in Torah.

Let's say I  was invited to someone's house for dinner, and they did not know anything about Torah or kosher eating.  My host or hostess went to a lot of trouble to prepare the meal and they were very proud of their effort. They have no intention of doing anything less than being gracious.   The main course is a pork chop.  What do I do?  I eat it.  I will silently pray to God that what I am doing is performing a mitzvah, which He is already well aware of.  I will eat it and be gracious about it and thank them for their hospitality.  I won't correct them or do anything that might cause them embarrassment.  My concern for the feelings of my host or hostess is more important in this case than breaking this part of Torah.  The greater command of Torah is to love my neighbor as much as I love myself.

Polls? I Should Care About Polls?

Thank you Mr. Dice for proving what I have suspected for many years now.  If Mr. Dice can go out and do this so easily, what does it say about what the dominant broadcast media say about what the public wants?

Why should I care about what most people want?

Watch this video, and if you have a few real brain cells to rub together, weep for America.

Gunwalker Scandal

. . . Is a lot more important than Wiener's wiener.

The story started circulating in the blogosphere months ago upon the death of agent Terry.  I didn't comment on it until now, because I was afraid that, like the scandal over the two border agents who got railroaded into Federal prison for shooting a drug dealing, illegal Mexican, it would just get swept under the rug and nobody would pay attention.

But when I started seeing it on blogs that don't talk a lot about 2nd amendment issues, I thought maybe there would be hope that some people would wake up to what our government is trying to pull, flagrantly allowing people to die, in the hundreds to carry out policy that would rob us of our constitutional rights.

Read the most recent stuff on it here, and then do some more research on your own.  And don't you dare tell me I should have anything BUT contempt and derision for this administration and anyone in Congress who knew anything about it and didn't blow the whistle.

I was tipped off to this most recent story by Ann Barnhardt, and I like what she has to say about it as well.  She doesn't have permalink on her site so if you are going to read her comments on it, you will need to index her post by today's date:  June 17, 2011

Water: The Simple Is Fascinating

We take it for granted every day.  Oh, I don't just mean that we usually don't think much about it until we are thirsty or want to wash our hands. We don't think much about the miraculous nature of water.  Water has extremely unique properties.  Is it extreme to say that water's properties are uniquely extreme?  The facts that you will read in this post and those to come should bear this out.

How important and unique is water?  The answer to that is revealed by the fact that scientists are looking for it on our nearest celestial bodies.  Why?  Because of it's absolute necessity for life.  This is where I have to interject something important.  I like science-fiction stories as much as the next guy, and while there is some amazing technology that has arisen from people daring to question conventional wisdom and keep pushing the envelope, there really are limits and absolutes.  Water is one of those absolutes.

Even the most bizarre forms of life that we find on this planet still have to use water as part of their metabolic processes.  No water; no life.  It's just that simple.  That is why scientists look for the existence of water as being the primary requisite for life any place in the universe.  Of course, it's simple to say that water is absolutely necessary for life to exist.  The hallmark of good science is to ask why that is.  Real scientists keep asking the question "why" until the question is answered, whether we like the answer or not.  Studying water down to the molecular level gives us the answers for why it is so necessary for life.

There are at least 19 features of water that are anomalous.  These are features that should not occur according to the prevailing scientific knowledge about chemistry.  These are features that do not occur with any other liquids in the known universe.  If it were not for these things that shouldn't be, no life could exist on this planet.  We will only look at a few of these items at a time, due to time and space considerations. You've got other things you have to do.

Water behaves like no other liquid in any given range of temperatures.  Let's just take it's freezing point.  Extremely high when compared to alcohol.  Of course, water readily mixes with all the various types of alcohols, which is why we can have anti-freeze in our cars.  A fifty percent mixture with ethylene glycol can protect from freezing below 0° Fahrenheit.  Most all lipid or fat type liquids  have much lower freezing temperatures, except for natural animal fats, but that's a subject for a whole different post.

How water behaves in a very narrow range between freezing and boiling is what makes it so incredible.  For simplicity, let's think about water on the Celsius scale.  It might have been a good idea if we had adopted this scale for use in America rather than the seemingly arbitrary scale of Fahrenheit, where water freezes at 32° and boils at 212° (at sea level, another interesting factor).  The Celsius scale would seem to make more sense since water itself is the basis for the scale.  Zero degree is the temperature at which water freezes.  One hundred degrees is the temperature at which water boils.

Most all substances, be they solid, liquid or gas become denser as they get colder  Some very amazing qualities have been imparted to metals through a process of heating and then freezing them down to temperatures approaching absolute zero. The molecules slow down and get closer together.  Denser objects are more affected by gravity relative to the substance around them, therefore, denser, colder water will sink. However, water is completely unique in that water has a very specific maximum density at a temperature of  4°C or 40°F.  In lakes, this is vitally important because it creates motion and subsequent circulation of water.  More oxygenated water at the surface gets circulated to organisms at depth.  This is why large lakes don't just stagnate and die, unless something occurs to interfere with the process.  More amazing is that water is the only liquid that expands when it freezes.

Have you ever thought of what would happen if water didn't do that?  Because water expands when it freezes, it becomes less dense than the surrounding water and floats.  If water behaved like it should, according to physics, and became denser, it would sink to the bottom.  In a short time all life would cease to exist on the earth.  This planet would just be a big ice ball.

More to come.

Good Example

I got the following from Grouchy Old Cripple in Atlanta.  It's a very simple object lesson.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism would work, and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich – a great equalizer.The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan. All grades would be averaged, and everyone would receive the same grade – so no one would have to fail, but no one would be able to receive an A."
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.
As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride, too, so they studied far less. The second test average was a D. No one was happy.
When the 3rd test finally rolled around, the average was an F.
As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased – but bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would agree to study for the benefit of anyone or everyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor explained to them that socialism would also ultimately fail for exactly the same reason – because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when someone (government) takes the reward away, no one will try or care enough to strive to succeed.
Couldn't be any simpler than that.
Remember, there IS a test coming up, we can't afford to fail in 2012.

Thomas Sowell once said sumpin' like socialism has a record of failure that is so obvious only a liberal could miss it.

Thanks, Denny.  We need to keep making this point every chance we get.

UPDATE:   I like this video version even better:

Romans Part IV

If you want to start at the beginning of this series, click this.

In my last post, Honor The King, I was specifically focused on the problem of people using Romans 13 in two inappropriate ways.  First, to suggest that we have to show honor and deference to evil rulers, and second the idea that we have rulers in the United States. Darn it; I didn't use John the Baptist as an example either.  I need to go back and update that post.  John, cousin of the Messiah, very publicly condemned Herod for committing terrible sin.  Herod was illegitimate as a king over Israel, and everyone knew it.   Jerome Corsi has recently published a book that proves that the current usurper at Pennsylvania Avenue is just as illegitimate as president.

Call me a "birther" all you want to.  The real idiot is someone who can't distinguish truth from fiction.

The purpose of this post is to pick up from where I left off in the complete study of Paul's letter to the congregation in Rome, for the express purpose of seeing if he ever said that we don't need to keep Torah any more.  I had gotten through chapter eleven and all I can discern so far is that he was making it clear that the Law of Moses has a purpose and we have no reason to disregard either the Torah or Messiah's admonition that He never came to abolish the Torah, or the prophets.

Paul was explaining that the pattern holds from the earliest time.  First Adonai saves us through his mercy and grace.  Being a God of order and righteousness, He requires that restitution be made, but He makes it Himself.  However, he expects us to then live our lives according to His rules out of gratitude.  We establish that the law is true and good.

So we now pick up the study of Romans at chapter twelve.  Paul is urging the brethren at Rome to make their bodies a living sacrifice as a spiritual form of worship.  Why does he write this?  Because all good Jews know that God commanded that the only real physical sacrifices could be made at the Temple. God made it clear when he showed Moses the heavenly Tabernacle and told him to construct it on earth, that man would no longer be allowed to sacrifice on his own terms anywhere he wanted to.  Why is this important to Paul's discussion in the letter?

After the diaspora of 600 years previous, many Jews had not returned to the land of Israel, either because they couldn't or wouldn't, but they were still aware of the prohibition of not offering sacrifices on their own. The rabbinic teaching became that the closest thing they could do to sacrifice  would be to study Torah.  Quite sensible, since John's gospel begins by telling us that Yeshua and the Word are one and the same.  The rabbis alluded to this for centuries before John wrote his gospel.  The sages taught that Torah was eternal and that Adonai created the universe through His Torah.

While Jews living in Rome had long understood that they could not offer sacrifices outside of the Temple system in Jerusalem, Roman gentiles had been living under the old pagan way of offering sacrifices to any or many gods, whenever and wherever they chose.  Accepting this Jewish Messiah was a radical departure from what they were used to.  Paul wanted them to understand that even though they might not be able to sacrifice in the traditional way, either because they couldn't go to Jerusalem to the Temple or because even if they went there, if they weren't circumcised they couldn't enter the Temple proper, in order to offer sacrifices anyway.
Therefore, Paul gives them specific instruction on the kinds of things they can do that serve as spiritual sacrifice.  That is essentially all of chapter twelve.

Most of what I have to say about Romans chapter 13 is contained in my post, Honor The King.  Click on the title and go read it if you haven't done so.  As for the rest of the chapter, I've seen the summary of verses 8 through 10 get horribly abused in the church.  How so?  Because most Christians have this amorphous, undefined, laissez faire attitude about what it means to love their neighbor.  I've heard some of the worst gossip and backbiting go on in churches under the guise of praying for people. I've had Christians have me bid on jobs and then expect a huge discount below an already fair price.  That one gets me because it assumes that I would charge a lot more money to a non-believer, or that I charge too much for my services, period.

I see people who claim to be proud Christians doing things all the time because it is the "accepted" way of doing things as far as the world is concerned, but they never stop to ask if it meets God's standard of loving their neighbor.  This is why studying the Torah and applying the standards to our behavior is so important.  Even after we come to Messiah and repent, accepting salvation, we still have a fallen, fleshly, selfish nature that we have to struggle with every day.  It requires us to study and contemplate what God requires as the standard of love.  It's not about our feelings.  The Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) might nudge us in the right direction, but the Bible is full of admonitions to study and learn the Word.  For whatever reasons of God's choosing, He doesn't just inject it into our heads or download it like an autoexec.bat file.

And the admonition is to study the WHOLE Bible.  You can't make a proper judgment of what a few isolated Scriptures mean and how they apply unless you have a real working knowledge of all the Bible.  And since there isn't a single human being walking the planet who can accomplish all that, we are admonished to gather and fellowship with other believers.  God created us to be social animals.  And while I can agree with temporary sabbaticals on occasion, I can find nothing in Scripture that approves of living a sheltered monastic lifestyle.

Maybe the next post will wrap up this study of Romans.

Shalom Y'all

We've Got To Stop Rudolf McGillicuddy

Who is Rudolf McGillicuddy you ask?  I'm not sure.

But let's say that he might be running for president of the United States in the near future.

A lot of people don't like him for some reason or other.  He's got no real chance of winning.  He demonstrates that he has a firm grasp of the issues and is a fast learner, but he talks with an irritating nasally kind of voice.

He has no gravitas or real relevance in the world of politics.  So, there's just no way in hell he could get elected as president.

He has no real skeletons in his closet.  He basically speaks his mind and speaks the truth, and seems to share a lot of the same values as people who live in fly-over country.  It would be stupid for his party to back him to run for president of the United States because he would surely lose to Barak Obama.

Therefore, I am calling on all of you people out there to help investigate this guy.  Help read all of his emails for the last five years.  Go through his garbage.  Yes, I mean literally.  Camp outside his house and collect the bags and look through them and see if he's got any incriminating evidence that might show that he's not qualified to run for president.

Once we accomplish this, we need to then move to expose the Easter Bunny for being the fraud that he is.  We need to make sure that voters are aware that the Easter Bunny does not actually lay colored eggs and hide them for children to find.

We at the ComPost Files are not sure whether or not the Easter Bunny is considering a run for the presidency of the United States, but we feel that it's best we not take any chances.

Honor The King

UPDATED: 09:00 EDT/ GMT -4  on Monday, June 13, 2011

In conversation amongst Bible believers and at the same time contemplating current events and outrageous behavior by government (I know, I know; when does that not happen?), it seems inevitable that the Scriptural admonition to obey the rulers appointed over us comes into play.

Not that I have any illusions that folks so inclined to study only that which they want to, and believe that which they want to, are going to be swayed by anything I have to say on the matter, I've stewed over this issue in my mind and prayed about it for a couple of weeks now, wanting to be sure that I wasn't letting my own desire cloud my judgment regarding this matter.

I will continue to think on it long and hard and always be open to deeper truth about it, but right now, I'm ready to hold court.

There are several verses in the Bible regarding obedience to authority, but the one that gets misused and abused the most by Christians is Paul's admonition to the congregation in Rome; specifically in chapter thirteen.  Yet they take his words and not only do they isolate them from all the rest of the text of Scripture but they isolate the first part from the rest of the context in which Paul places it.

"Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities.  For there is no authority except from God, an those which exist are established by God. Therefore he who resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.  For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil.  Do you want to have no fear of authority?  Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good.  But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil. . . ."  Romans 13:1-5 (NASB)

I say this verse gets misused and abused because, going back to Bill Clinton, when the sitting president was doing things that were blatantly wrong, unlawful, and in direct violation of the Constitution and I expressed my disgust over such actions, I was admonished with the verse above.  When I have said that I have nothing but utter contempt for the president, be he Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush or the current golfer using the People's House, I have had Christians react as if I was doing something I should repent of and be ashamed for doing.  Truly wishing to do the right thing and honor the ultimate authority, the Creator of the universe, I've prayed for wisdom in this regard.  Following my own admonitions to take the entire Bible as my counsel, I will lay out the case in my defense.

God repeatedly warned His people that they should not want a king. He expressly warned them in 1 Samuel chapter 8 that requesting a king would result in lots of bad stuff.  The irony was that the people were asking for a king "like the other nations" because the sons of the priest Eli were corrupt.  But rather than pray to Adonai for deliverance, they choose to jump from the frying pan into the fire by asking for someone who would have greater, consolidated power over them to oppress them even more.  Go figure.  The bottom line is that those who ask for a human king are rejecting God.  What I have learned from this that when I talk to those who express concern over showing respect and deference to human rulers, I often find a corresponding lack of respect and concern for God's Word.  Perhaps I can delve more deeply into examples of that later, but the short of it is that I see many examples of Christians who will disobey God's direct commandments because they can use the cover of obeying man-made law.

God had rules for the king that He appointed.  When that king got out of line, God sent a prophet to give correction.  This scenario is repeated enough throughout the Bible that I shouldn't need to cite examples.  The text of Romans 13 quoted above has been abused for centuries, outside of the theocratic/monarchy of Israel, and is known as "divine right of kings" justifying monarchies in doing any damnable and horrific thing they wanted to do. Yet, if you read what Paul writes in whole and in context, the assumption is that our obedience is in the mundane, benign and beneficial aspects.  The instruction of Romans 13 is not to obey everything and in all circumstances.  Once again, in taking the whole counsel of the Bible, I can cite Peter in Acts, after having been commanded by the Sanhedrin to never preach about Yeshua/Jesus again, that the Apostles must obey God rather than men.  Yet here was a body of rulers who had the ostensible authority of God Himself.  And let's not forget that Yeshua Himself had told the disciples that those religious leaders sat in Moses' seat and had the authority to declare halakhah (the right way to do things).


In other words, we are called to obey when the rulers are ruling in the right way and demanding good behavior, but when the rulers are demanding that we directly disobey God, we have no choice but to rebel.
What I find very interesting in my own case is that I have not rebelled against any authority of the president of the United States.  I have merely expressed my contempt for the president and many members of congress showing flagrant disregard for the Law and the Constitution, appointing others who do the same and proceeding to destroy the United States of America.

Somehow this erroneous thinking has crept into the minds of Americans that we have a government system that is something like a monarchy or oligarchy.  This is wrong.  The founding fathers debated, argued and reasoned out that nothing good could possibly come from two forms of government: democracy and oligarchy.

Let me pause here to say that I am using oligarchy very broadly.  Elected representatives come and go, but the idea is that a group of people are ruling us and not representing us or following the supreme law of the land, the Constitution.  The whole purpose of creating a Constitution was to put chains on government.  To protect the individual as a sovereign entity, able to follow the dictates of his own conscience to follow God.  And do not make the mistake of leaving off the very important words "to follow God."  John Adams put it best when he said that the Constitution was designed for the governance of a religious and moral people and that it was wholly inadequate for any other.  Check the sidebar for my page on other essential quotes.

On the flip side of the coin, our founders totally detested the idea of democracy.  Yes, I said that correctly.  Yes, I do know what I'm talking about.  The proof of what I write is in the history, debates, writings, minutes of the meetings of Congress, the federalist and anti-federalist papers.  The founders loathed the idea of democracy.  It was a pleasure to find that idea expressed in the movie, "The Patriot" by Mel Gibson:

"Tell me, sir, why should I trade one tyrant 3,000 miles away for 3,000 tyrants one mile away?  A legislature can trample a man's rights just as easily as a king can."

But I digress.  The founding fathers did not want a king and they didn't want an oligarchy, and to try to prevent that from happening, they created a Constitution that was purposely designed to make it very hard and cumbersome to pass laws or do anything to rule over the people.  In fact, the founders created our form of government with the express idea that we DON'T HAVE RULERS.  We are supposed to have elected public servants who are supposed to understand that the power to administer only those things that are necessary to an orderly society, borrow their power from the sovereign people.  When you see members of Congress, or the Executive branch, or even the Supreme Court as rulers, you have fallen into a dangerous trap.  You have gotten stuck on stupid.  You deserve to be told what to do by people who think there are 57 States, vote on 2,000 page bills that create dictatorial power for bureaucrats, and send lewd and obscene pictures of themselves over the internet.  You need a first lady to be your nanny and tell you what to eat.



As another example of how evil it can be to carry the passage from Romans 13 to absurd extreme; what if you were living in Germany under Adolf Hitler after he acquired all the dictatorial control of the country?  Would you have quoted Romans 13 to Dietrich Boenhoffer or Corrie Ten Boom?  Would you have cooperated in revealing the hiding places of Jews or gone out to help round them up?

As a Christian in today's United States, would you work in an abortion mill?  It's the law of the land, right?  Five out of nine justices on the Supreme Court in 1973 said that the right to kill a baby in the womb was something that existed in the Constitution.  Right there.  In invisible ink.  Between the lines of other black marks. Somewhere.  It's there, just trust us.  We went to law school.

If you were a Christian during the civil rights movement in the sixties, how would you have felt if someone quoted Romans 13 to you in an effort to make you sit down and shut up while black people were being persecuted and denied their rights to equal treatment under the law?

It would be bad enough for so-called believers in God to try to correct me with Scriptures such as Romans 13 if we lived in an actual monarchy when the king or queen was doing things that were blatantly against God's law,  or even against plain decency and common morality.  But it truly makes me sick when they use Romans 13 as if it even remotely applies to an administration or congress or even the Supreme court that is openly and flagrantly violating the ultimate and supreme law of the land, and expects me to show respect for it.

I don't think so, Sparky.

The only thing necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.  So I will continue to express the reasons why the president and many members of congress are fully deserving of contempt and derision for violating their oaths of office; for entering into their positions with the full intention of violating that oath and doing the things they do in order to "transform" this society.

You people who like to quote Romans 13 need to go look at the exchange between Paul and the high priest in the Temple in Acts 23. Ananias unrighteously orders that Paul be struck. When Paul calls him on his evil act, Ananias appeals to his own position of Kohen Gadol.  But Paul, in so many words, corrects that error by pointing out that the man's unlawful use of his power rendered his position meaningless.  I don't need to engage in any deep midrashic thought to understand the lesson there for myself as a believer.  It means that God does not condemn me for expressing contempt for those who abuse their position or authority.

Paul wrote that passage above because this radical new idea of freedom in Messiah was already being abused by some people as an excuse to not follow any law or earthly authority.  Such thinking needed to be corrected.

If we are never supposed to criticize anyone in authority, you need to explain to me why Yeshua said what He said to the Pharisees and Sadduccees.  I'm going to give you the same advice that Messiah gave to those same religious leaders:  "Stop judging by mere appearances and make a right judgment."

Tomatoes Almost Ready

We have a couple of them turning red.  Conditions are hot.   See how the tomatoes are almost as tall as me?  Oh, and let me make it clear that I do not look that pale.  Twyla will attest to the fact that the bright sun and the imbalance in the shot make me look washed out.  I'm actually nicely tanned from all the farm work.

While I don't like watering every day, I'll do what I have to.  Best not to let them get dry and then water them or it rain because it will split the fruit.  I hate it when that happens.  You get a picture perfect 'mater just turning red in the summer heat, and while the plant doesn't look like it's too dry, you get a rainstorm or you finally get around to watering and all the ones that were closest to pickin' perfection split down the side from stem to stern.  Don't want to let that happen.  That's zucchini and yellow squash in the left of the pic.

I've got some green beans in the back that are ready to pick.  We've eaten lots of sugar snap peas.

Now I've got corn up to my shoulder, while many people barely have corn knee high. The corn grows about four inches a day.  Those are potatoes in the foreground. Pickles is only in the corn because I'm standing there for the picture.

Social Justice II

When you hear the words "Social Justice" juxtaposed together, remember that is just Marxist code for spreading the misery and reducing everyone down to a subsistence level or worse.

Just keep in mind that in every communist regime since 1900, the answer to food production problems and the resulting unrest was to cut off any food supply and starve the problem to death.

Wanna see what we are headed for if people don't wake up?  Go look at Zimbabwe.
THAT's "social justice."

Potato Progress

Nothing makes me realize how fast the season is passing than looking at stuff grow.

I started the potato cage looking like this:

Then after the spuds sprouted, I began putting on the compost and leaves. The cage is 2.5 feet wide by 7 feet long by 2 feet tall.

As of today, June 8, 2011 I've reached the top of the cage with compost.  I guess if the potatoes keep growing they'll just have to drape over the sides.  It's just the beginning of June.  Where are these vines gonna grow to?

It's going to be interesting to discover how many potatoes are in there come the fall.

Knowing Is Hard

Seems like Twyla and I are always saying that it is hard to know the truth when there is so much ignorance out there.  We don't live like elite people, don't want to live that way, or seem that way to others. But, dammit, I get really tired of hearing people parrot the propaganda that they've been fed by the dominant media that is just flat-out false.  I don't want to talk down to people or purposely make them feel stupid.  I feel like I did when I was fueling my truck one day and this young girl pulls up to the pump next to me and with a lit cigarette in her hand, proceeds to swipe her card, pull the nozzle, open her tank cap and shove the nozzle in.  She was at first shocked when I started shouting at her, and then giggled when she realized why I was shouting.

And I'm really sick and tired of people not being willing to take the time to actually find out the truth about issues that really effect their lives.  I pause here to interject a quote that I got from Belmont Club:

Part of the problem with politics is the problem of datasets. Soap opera issues — like sex and petty abuse of power — are popular with the viewers and newspaper readers because they are the only issues that everybody down to the least educated can understand. They are discussions at the lowest common denominator of human nature. Death and sex are what the King and the King’s chambermaid have in common. Editors know that if “it bleeds, it leads” because everybody bleeds.
Readers who are unable to grasp complexities of the deficit, the War Powers act, or the intricacies of quantitative easing are still able to comprehend that it isn’t kosher for a California governor to cuckold the maid’s husband, for a powerful banker to chase a chambermaid around a hotel room, for a President to hit on an intern or for a Presidential candidate to maintain a mistress with campaign funds while his wife is dying of cancer. They understand that because they can understand that. It is an available dataset to them. Creepy behavior is something they can grasp without a college degree. The same thing is true for gut issues like gas prices and inflation at the supermarket. People who don’t know how the fiscal system or the financial markets work still sense when their wallet is empty. Having an empty wallet not be the most theoretically important economic issue around but it is the dataset available to the average Joe.

I was talking to a friend the other day at a garage sale.  He and his wife don't have a computer and get all their news from the idiot box.  On most accounts, he sees through the leftist crap and seems like a conservative on most issues. But then he says, with total derision and disgust snarling from his mouth, "And what about that, . . . that . . what's his name . . . Paul guy?"
"You mean Ron Paul?"
"No, no, ah . . . "  Fingers snapping.
"Rand Paul?"
"No, no, uh,  Paul something. . . "
"Paul Ryan?"
"Yeah, geeze, what an asshole!"
"What?  Why would you say that?"
"He want's to get rid of medicare."
"Really?  What do you know about his plan?"
"Something about vouchers."

I won't go on with the conversation mode, but I'll admit to being obviously pissed off in front of my friend and then asking him if he actually read anything about Paul Ryan's plan.  No, he hadn't.  All he knew was what the TV told him as if Jon Stewart had written the script.  And when I explained to him the brief, true, and salient points about Ryan's plan, he agreed that he'd been totally misled and that Ryan's plan made perfect sense.

If you think it's more important to pay attention to who is dancing with who, who's getting kicked off the island, who's going to win a contest, how your sports team is doing, and you just can't be bothered to study some issues because it's boring and not any fun, then you deserve what you get when your quality of life goes into the toilet.  The problem is, such people drag the rest of society down into the septic tank with them.

When it all goes to hell and there are people who either sit around wondering what happened, it's going to be hard to feel any pity for them.  And God forbid I should encounter anyone who will say that it's the fault of Wall Street, or Big Oil, or Big corporations or Wal-Mart or any such nonsense because it will take much restraint to keep from beating the hell out of them.  The people who make the law and hold the badges and the guns are the ones who made Wall Street, Big Oil and all the rest do all the things they did.

And no, it's not all Obama's fault.  In fact, only a small fraction is Obama's fault.  Those of us who have been conservatives for decades have known this all along.  We are the ones who have been railing against the crap that led us to this point ever since Tip O'Niel for crying out loud.  The problem is the voters who buy into the crap about "fairness" and "tolerance" and "social justice" and the amorphous, undefinable "Hopey, Changey" pathway to social and economic collapse.  We real conservatives are pissed off that you didn't want to listen to reason and see through the lies when Bill Clinton slicked his way into the White House.  Now we are even more doubly pissed off that you didn't listen or pay attention when BO told you the unvarnished truth about what he wanted to do as president and you voted for him anyway.

Okay, post is long enough and I have a lot of stuff to do today.

Shalom Y'all

Palin Derangement Syndrome

I think I've managed to stay away from talking about Sarah Palin fairly well, but it's not easy to avoid her when the press keeps her in the spotlight.  I think there are a few of us observers who find some chuckles in the irony that the media who would laugh derisively at anyone who would consider voting for the Wasilla Wonder, just can't stop chasing her around with a microphone and video camera, hoping she'll say something that will make her look like a stupid beauty queen and prove once and for all that her 80% approval rating in Alaska was nothing more than a complete fluke.

I'm posting my own comment below to someone who commented on Morgan Freeberg's blog: House of Eratosthenes.  "bpenni" as he calls him/herself quoted some typical left-wing "journalist" talking about how Sarah just can't win, and her approval ratings are so low.  Of course, we are only ever given the results of the polls, not the questions, how they selected the respondents, or anything that might make us suspicious of how the same media that is notoriously "in-the-tank" for the current occupant of the People's House, came to their conclusions.

My comment is on the post "Stockholm Syndrome".

Yes, bpenni, that’s right. We enlightened types in the press, (especially the press, since that’s where the truly enlightened media types go to share our wisdom with the unwashed masses without ever having to interact with them) will tell you who is simply unacceptable to run as a conservative for election.

Don’t you pay any attention to the fact that McCain was dead in the water until he asked Palin to join his ticket. Forget that the politically savvy people who actually look at things like records were finally energized when Palin, with an “eye-popping” popularity among real constituents who experienced her success in Alaska, were thinking, “Maybe we’ll get lucky and McCain will die his first year in office.” Okay, sorry, maybe only a tiny, tiny group of people thought that.  I'm sure that McCain’s a nice enough guy, he just has some serious problems with keeping his oath to support and defend the Constitution.  He has a really hard time understanding what the purpose of the First Amendment is all about, or the value of protecting U.S. borders.

Forget that Palin can draw a crowd of all kinds of people, and turns out to be right when the idiot lefties merely think she’s wrong.  (Party like it's 1773)   They can't help it if they led people to believe that she said things that she never did.  ( "I can see Russia from my house."  "I didn't know Africa was a continent.")

In reality, the lefties are scared to death that Palin is going to pull her own unique version of what Ronald Reagan did in 1980.  Earning the nomination in the GOP and wresting it away from the establishment hacks.  They are afraid that she will get  enough of the real conservatives and the common folk will see through the smear tactics of the Krauthammers and the Roves and all the other “loyal opposition” RINOs and decide they want Palin in spite of the propaganda.

I have a very, very simple way to know if I’m going in the right (correct) direction in politics. If the lefties are practically screaming that I shouldn’t move in a particular direction, then it must be a good, or at least safe, direction. If they are complimenting me on moving in a level-headed, intelligent, non-partisan, non-controversial direction, then I must be walking into quicksand or an ambush.

Of course, they won’t over play their hand. They’ll gently talk about Romney or Pawlenty or someone who is stereotypical white, male, reasonably handsome, talks in a debate like he’s doing show-and-tell at an elementary school, and they’ll deride his “conservative” views just enough to convince people who only pay attention to broadcast sound bytes long enough to form the erroneous opinion that he’s a real conservative and not just a political hack.

They won’t ask HIM the same questions that they ask Sarah until after the nomination process has insured that he is going to be the next RINO that they have chosen to lose to their anointed one, BHO.

There are still enough of the top echelons of the leftist fourth estate who remember Ronald Reagan. Now with Ahnold, and Jesse Ventura in the history books, they know that there are enough crazy people out there in fly over country who might just be willing to ignore their anointed wisdom from the hallowed halls of the Old Media. By God, they are not going to let that happen again. We are going to crush this Palin, even if it takes flying monkeys.

But it’s all good. I have a secondary fantasy, since I had the pleasure of listening to Herman Cain when he filled in for Neal Boortz and when he had his own talk radio show for over a year or two in Atlanta. I would love for Sarah to keep driving the press nuts with this tour and then, if she decides she isn’t going to run, endorse Herman Cain. I’m kind of salivating at the idea of how the media is going to blow a gasket over the race issue.

You stick to your guns, bpenni. The media is counting on folks like you to help them get a GOP nominee like McCain again. I’m not going to sweat it. I’ve made my plans. I’m ready for whichever direction this next election takes us.