Zoo Trip

Yesterday my daughters Second Grade class, along with the First Grade class, took a trip to our local zoo. In addition to all of the normal animals to see, right now they are also doing a big dinosaur exhibit, with large mechanical dinosaurs, that are really cool to look at.

It was a very nice day for such a trip also. It didn't rain, but it was a little cloudy, so that Florida Sun wasn't beating down on us all day, and the temperature was very nice for being outside and walking around all day.

This was the first time that I've been able to go on a field trip with my daughter, usually they are planned for times that conflict with my work schedule, so it was nice that I was able to go this time. We really did have a great day, and saw lots of animals. The Otters were out swimming, which they almost never are. In fact, you are usually pretty hard pressed to find the Otters, as they are well hidden away and sleeping I guess. Even the Crocodile came out and let us take a look at him, and he doesn't usually do that either.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun, and it was a great day. Going to the zoo is a lot of fun, and it's a lot of fun to see how much the kids enjoy it too.

First Time For Everything

I have another book review today. Honestly, I wasn't sure that I was going to review this one, but I think that there are some things that need to be said.

The book is called "Lies My Teacher Told Me." And it is about how American History is taught in High Schools in our country. I have to say, there are parts of what was written in this book that I do agree with, but overall, and especially when the author was drawing conclusions, it ended up being a liberal tome of revisionist history.

First, the parts that I agree with. There is something very wrong with the way that History is taught in this country. I have always loved history, and yet even I was bored to tears during my high school history courses. The way it is presented is dry and boring. I do agree with the author that there are aspects of our history that are just ignored because they don't seem to fit the story that the textbooks are telling, which makes the History seem not only boring, but also unrealistic.

I have had conversations with people before where they said that there is no value to learning history. I usually respond that there is little to no value to the way that History is taught in our schools, but there is clearly value actually learning History. I think one of the most basic arguments for this is the classic line that those who fail to learn from History are doomed to repeat it. There are a lot of lessons that can, and indeed need to, be learned from what has happened in the past. It's like a sign I saw once that said, "Learn from the mistakes of others, you can't live long enough to make them all yourself." By looking at what has happened in the past, and seeing how people handled those events, and things that they have tried, we can learn what has worked in the past, and what hasn't, and this can be critical information in deciding what we should do going forward. But presented as dry, sometimes cherry picked facts, students just don't care, and who can blame them.

On the other hand, whenever the author decided to draw conclusion, or say how he thought the history should be taught, he always come down on the side of liberalism and socialism, and painting the USA in the worst possible light. Some portions of the book actually read as a socialist propaganda presentation.

There is no question, I highly recommend against reading this book. Not that I'm worried about it, most people, unlike me, would be bored to tears reading this liberal tome, and, unlike me, probably wouldn't finish it.

Unfortunately, I'm getting near the bottom of my stack of new books, and so, I need to get a few more... I have a few in mind, just have to figure out how they work into the budget.

Earth Day... and do we care?

I realized this morning that today is Earth Day. Of course, do I really care? Should I just scoff? Should I just shrug it off as one more liberal/environmental wacko nonsense? There was a time when that would have been my position [ok, let's be honest, that was just this morning].

Anyway, as I was thinking about all the Earth Day stuff, it kind of hit me, while we [speaking for Christians now] should certainly not worship the Earth, as some people do, regardless of whether they know it or not, but why not take advantage of this day, which was meant to be a totally secular day, and use it to praise God, and thank Him for the awesome Creation that He has made?

God gave us the Earth for humans to use and rule over, and, as with everything else He has given us, we do need to be responsible and be good stewards of it.

I have no issue with reasonable, rational, and responsible environmentalism, in fact, I would think that we should see that as doing the right thing. What I object to is all the crazies that try to tell us how we must live our lives in order to "save the planet." Of course, as I've said before, most of the crazy stuff that they want us to do would not "save the planet" even if it did need saving, but honestly, a lot of the stuff that they push on us all the time would have the effect of hurting the environment, but they get idea's in their heads, and no amount of facts will convince them that they are wrong.

As a Christian, I take comfort in the fact that God is in control, and that He has promised us that we will not destroy ourselves, as is the claim of the Environmentalist movement. Genesis 8:22 says, " While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." So take heart, that's a promise from Almighty God. This doesn't mean that we can't, through carelessness, cause small scale problems, even semi-large scale problems or disasters, but God is in control of it all.

There have been, in recent days, quite a few Churches and Christian groups that have gotten in bed with the Environmentalist lobby, saying, hey we agree on this, so we'll work together, but this is never a good idea. This is what is being talked about in 2 Corinthians 6:14 when it says, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?" Yes, it's talking about a lot of things, including marriage, but it's not limited to that. Remember, a large portion of the environmental movement are not simply not Christians, but are openly hostile to nearly everything that Christians believe and stand for, up to, and including Christ Himself.

Anyway, I'm all for taking this Secular Pseudo-Holiday and using it as a special reason to thank and Praise God.

The Great Easy Bake Oven Crisis

Anyone owning the classic Easy Bake Oven will soon find themselves unable to bake their favorite treats, at least in an Easy Bake.

If you have a newer model, you need not worry, other than recalls due to kids getting their fingers stuck in the things, but they actually have a heating element. The classic ones, however, do not, they rely on a 100 Watt incandescent light bulb.

Due to actions by Congress, very soon, when that light bulb goes out, you won't be able to replace it. You see, Congress has banned (hasn't gone into effect yet, but will soon) the sale of all incandescent light bulbs, and they didn't even think to make an Easy Bake exception. All you will be able to use are CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs) which do not put off anywhere near the heat of incandescents, meaning that they will be unable to bake your favorite treats.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I thought you all should know... if you have trouble coping with this news, call your Congressperson's office and tell them that this is very hard for you, and you just need them to talk you through it.

Popes and Priests and Alter Boys

With the Pope's visit to the US this week, it seems you can't turn anywhere without hearing someone ask what he will say or do about the "Pedophile Priests Scandal." First of all, what do they expect him to say? Do they think that there is some chance that he's going to give his blessing to the actions of these Priests? I mean, come on, let's get real.

Anyway, this is something that has been extremely annoying to me. They keep calling the offending Priests "Pedophiles" but let me let you in on something. I realized this when I read "The Marketing of Evil." See, this has been presented to us with a very specific agenda in mind. There could be no question that what had been happening in some Parishes was very wrong, and certainly was a worthy news story, and of course, you can expect a liberal media to latch on to any chance to damage any Church that holds to any belief in Jesus.

Anyway, what I'm talking about here is the media bias implicit in the word "Pedophile." In a vast majority of these cases, the boys who were assaulted were post-pubescent. Pedophilia, according to Merriam-Websters online dictionary means: "sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object" meaning, or course, pre-pubescent children. Therefore, Pedophile is not a fitting description for most of these Priests. So how should they have been described in the interest of factual accuracy? That's simple, they are predatory Homosexuals. Of course, there is an obvious problem with actually calling them that. It would seem to cast Homosexuality in a bad light, and there is no way liberals want to do that.

Anyway, I'm not saying that it's not a story, and I'm not saying that it shouldn't have been reported, certainly it should have been, and the Catholic Church in the US has done a terrible job of dealing with this problem, in fact, they official response has been to simply cover things up, so, someone had to hold these sexual predators, and those who have protected them, accountable for their actions. The problem is that calling them pedophiles colors the story, and does not help people to actually understand what is going on. I also understand that the Pope had to address the issue in some way while he was here, but I think that him saying that he was ashamed is pretty much all he could say.

I know that there are some people who would read something like this wonder why I would make such a big deal about the misuse of just one word, in the telling of this story, but that one word is the critical link when it comes to the accuracy of the reporting of this story.

I may not be able to change the way the media in this country reports things like this, but at least all three of you who read my blog will know the truth.

I'm Going Green

Ok, well, I see pretty much everyone else making big announcements that they are going green, so I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon. So here's my big announcement:

I'M GOING GREEN!!!!!

Of course, all of these companies that make these big, bold claims, never really tell you anything about what exactly that means, but I'm not going to be like that. I'll tell you how I'm going green.

First, I'm not building a multi-million dollar mansion that uses 20 or more times that electricity of the average American household, so, right there, I'm ahead of Al Gore. Second, I'm not going to start flying around the world in private jets, which puts me ahead of most of the environmental movement. After that, I'm not going to put on huge "Earth benefit" concerts that pollute so much that the money raised barely covers the cost of the cleanup from the concert.

Of course, the biggest thing that I'm going to do is to denounce all the wackoes, and push for the construction of new Nuclear Power plants. Nuclear Energy being totally safe, and the greenest form of electric production. If we could build a whole bunch more of them, we could have truly affordable electricity in this country, it would be plentiful, and all without all those tons of so called greenhouse gasses that everyone is so worried about. That would be great wouldn't it?!!?

Ok, so let's be honest. This is not a new position for me, but it is a far "greener" position than that taken by all the big environmentalists. You know the type, they want to impose all sorts of regulations on the lives of the rest of us, but are willing to give up nothing themselves.

So, honestly, what's the truth about the green movement? It's all political. It has nothing to do with protecting the planet, and everything to do with ushering in a socialist form of Government. If you don't believe me, take a good hard look at what they are trying to push, and what it will really accomplish. If you look at it in the cold light of day, without the ideological covers, you will see that I am correct in this. No doubt about it.

Some Rantings

Ok, first of all, this week, we had General David Petraeus testifying before Congress on the status of the war in Iraq. As if the moronic questions of the members of Congress weren't bad enough, the "protesters" who interrupted him with chants of "Bring them home" were just too much to take. I'm not talking about them being against the war, I don't care too much about that, I was against starting the war, but I don't want to walk away in defeat when we have our best possibility of victory since the beginning of the war. Anyway, disrupting Congressional hearings because a person is upset about something is not acceptable. And besides, what is Petraeus' crime? The fact that since he took over operations things have really turned around and gotten markedly better? I guess that would make the far left America haters dislike him. I don't care what people think of the war, General Petraeus is a hero and a patriot, and deserves great respect for doing great things in a very difficult situation.

Also, what is with everyone trying to proclaim that we have lost in Iraq? Don't they realize that defeat is impossible? We achieved primary victory very soon after the initial invasion. We could have walked away at that point and declared it to be a victory, as we had won completely up to that point. However, even people like me, who didn't want to go into Iraq to begin with, understood even from that point, that the country would turn into complete chaos if we didn't try to help them get back on their feet. Of course, they handling of that was very poor for quite some time, at the top levels, not by those with boots on the ground. Basically, what I'm saying at this point is, we can't lose, all we can do is either finish what we started, or give up and walk away, but we can't be defeated.

And what's with Hillary lying? Telling the story of the pregnant mother whose baby died, and then she died. In Hillary's version of events, they died because they couldn't pay for the care, and therefore care was refused. The truth, however, is a little different. The fact of the matter is that the woman, who she named by name, was insured, and was in fact receiving all appropriate care, but the baby was stillborn, and the mother died two weeks later. A tragedy to be sure, but certainly not an excuse to hand all of our health care over to the Government.

And what of Obama? Mr. Post Racial himself. A Grandmother who was a delegate for him, saw some neighbor kids playing in a tree, and told them to stop playing like monkeys (you know, because they were in a tree) because she was afraid that they were going to get hurt. Totally innocent right? Apparently not, you see the treed kids were black kids, and so she was accused of making a racial remark, and Obama's people asked her to step down as a delegate. So, basically, this guy will throw anyone under the bus, except for the real racists and sleazeballs in his life, there's no end to him defending them.

And something I just saw on the news, showing that Charlie Crist's (FL Governor) approval rating has dropped to 59%. Of course, the only way that his rating is that high is if they are only polling democrats, or liberal Republicans, because regular people can't stand the guy. Then they show that President Bush's rating is down to 28%. Of course, they don't tell you that Congress's is, and has been, far lower than that for a long, long time.

And, on the Mark Levin Radio Show he played some clips of Obama reading from his first book. Now, just they drivel that was written was bad enough, and totally racist, but in the audio clips you hear the words spoken in his own voice, and so you can hear the inflections and stuff, and so you can know that he means just exactly as bad as it seems when you read it. There is no question that this man is a racist. What else might he be? I guess that remains to be seen.

Obama Announcement

I recieved this email this morning, and I wish I knew who wrote it so that I could give appropriate credit, but it's great, so I'm going to share it here.



A PAID POLITICAL ANNOUNCEMENT
BY SEN. BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
(D- ILL)

My fellow Identity-Americans

As your future president I want to thank my supporters, for their... well, support.

Your mindless support of me, despite my complete lack of any legislative achievement, my pastor's relations with Louis Farrakhan and Libyan dictator Moamar Quadafi, or my blatantly leftist voting record while I present myself as some sort of bi-partisan agent of change.

I also like how my supporters claim my youthful drug use and criminal behavior somehow qualifies me for the Presidency after 8 years of claiming Bush's youthful drinking disqualifies him. Your hypocrisy is a beacon of hope shining over a sea of political posing.

I would also like to thank the Kennedys for coming out in support of me. There's a lot of glamour behind the Kennedy name, even though JFK started the Vietnam War, his brother Robert illegally wiretapped Martin Luther King Jr. and Teddy killed a teenage girl. And I'm not going anywhere near the cousins, both literally and figuratively.

And I'd like to thank Oprah Winfrey for her support. Her love of meaningless empty platitudes will be the force that propels me to the White House.

Americans should vote for me, not because of my lack of experience or achievement, but because I make people feel good. Voting for me causes some white folk to feel relieved of their imagined, racist guilt.

I say things that sound meaningful, but don't really mean anything because Americans are tired of things having meaning. If things have meaning, then that means you have to think about them.

Americans are tired of thinking.

It's time to shut down the brain, and open up the heart.

So when you go to vote in the primaries, remember don't think, just do.

And do it for me.

Thank You.

Even The Wind Knows The Truth

Something I saw on Fox News today struck me as kind of funny. It seems that John McCain was giving a speech, but the teleprompter was out, and so he was reading from prepared remarks on the podium, but the wind kept blowing the pages around, making things difficult. Apparently this caused John McCain to skip a part of his speech. Included in the parts that were skipped was a point at which he planned to say, "I'm a Conservative." Kinda funny that even the wind knew better, and stopped him from delivering this lie.

I guess the whole thing is part of a tour he's doing around the US, visiting all the places he has been as a result of his Military service. I guess it's geared toward reminding everyone that he is a War Hero (and truly I do thank him for his service) and to get back a little of the media attention, but doing so without too much chance that he's going to do or say anything that's going to get him in trouble. Actually, it's probably a pretty smart plan, so, Kudos to John McCain, and more appropriately his campaign staff, for this good strategy. Of course, I don't want him to be our next President, but he actually does seem to have a pretty good shot at it, and honestly, I'd like to see Obama or Clinton even less, but I'm still not going to vote for him.

Speaking of Clinton, I still find it unbelievable that so many people are demanding that she drop out of the race. Her and Obama are pretty much neck and neck for the nomination right now, and she certainly has every right, and possibly you might even call it a duty, to stay in and fight it out. It's also stunning to me that Obama is still doing well in the polls, even after it's come out how racist he is, but I may do a larger post on that whole subject.

For now, all we can do is discuss the issues... and Pray... always Pray.

************************

Something else that was kind of interesting, I saw a poll where people were asked who would be the best new first spouse. Cindy McCain won handily at 66% with Bill Clinton coming in second at 30%, and only the last 4% going to the America hating Michelle Obama. Kinda makes you think doesn't it?

10 Planks

In the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, there are 10 essential planks that must be instituted in order to put in place a Communist Government. This may surprise you.

1. Abolition of private property and the application of all rent to public purpose.

Do we really have Private Property today? Even if you own your house, do you really own your house? Think so? Try not paying your property taxes. Now who owns your house? So if you have to pay money to the Government in order to keep what you own, is that not a form of rent? And have you heard of Eminent Domain? This is the practice where the Government can decide that they want to use your home or land for some purpose that they approve of, and they can force you to sell to them for what they deem a reasonably price, regardless of the actual value.

Seems like we pretty much have this one going on here today.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

Ok, I don't think there can be any question that this one is going on. Anyone who works for a living is well of aware of the crazy, out of control income tax structure in this Country. And the purpose of it being progressive is to take as much as possible from those at the top, and give it out, through welfare programs, to those at the bottom. Sound familiar?

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

Death tax anyone? Ok, so we aren't all the way there yet, but it is clear that the Government is trying.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

At this point in time this really only happens to the ones that are pretty far out there, the ones that are really anti-government, but give them time, and they will be after people like me who just want to fix the system, through voting in the right people and informing the public as to what is really going on.

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

Have you heard of the Federal Reserve Bank? Have you heard George W. Bush's plan to give them vastly more power? Of course the Democrats don't like it. They say it doesn't go far enough.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the State.

With all the regulation in both of these industries, whose hands are they in? And regulation seldom gets repealed.

7. Extention of factories and instruments of production owned by the State, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

Ok, so the factories and such are still basically private enterprises (though heavily regulated), but there is clearly a lot of the other stuff in the works (just look at all the government departments and administrations to control all of these things).

8. Equal liablity of all to labor. Establishment of Industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

Department of Labor anyone?

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.

Ok, so it has been explained to me that this has been happening for quite some time in the US, but honestly, I can't say that I fully understood all of it.

10. Free education for all children in government schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. etc.

And this may be the most important thing. Taking children out of the home, as much as possible, and keeping them in schools that are controlled by the Government so that the kids can be indoctrinated into following along with all the rest of this stuff. And how are a vast majority of America's youth "educated"? In Government Schools. Oh, we call them Public Schools, but let's be honest, if they were really public schools, the public would have some say over what goes on there, but they don't, it is all Government run, and therefore, they really are Government schools.

So, if there is anyone who thought that I was overstating things when I said that both Obama and Clinton are communist, well, you can see here, I was understating it. They both are determined to move us along this path as fast and as far as possible. Oh, and lest I forget, McCain just wants to go down the road a little slower, but his goals are really the same. This is why I will be voting Third Party this year. Please join me.