Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Yesterday when partaking of the bread generously offered daily at One Cosmos on Tuesday, July 22, 2008
"Keepin' it Real with the Old School Raccoons", Gagdad said this:
"In short, if you don't walk it like you talk it and run it like you spun it, then you're probably just an enchanting or seductive gasbag at best. If your words do not come from realized wisdom, then what good are they? They will mimic the form, but they will be lacking the substance that gives them life and makes them real." As I went on to read the excellent comments Ben mentions Andrew Klavin, being interviewed:"Here’s the thing: I really believe this stuff I’m talking about. You know? I’m not just saying it. When I talk about seeking the truth at all costs, when I talk about America as the embodiment of an idea worth dying to defend, when I talk about walking into the heart of inner darkness to find forgiveness and spiritual light, it’s not because I think it sounds good or because I’m running for election or anything. I mean it with my whole heart, with every scrap of me. That stuff sets me on fire inside. And to betray it, to turn my back on those ideas, for a literary prize or a good review or a cocktail party invitation… dude, that wouldn’t even be life to me, it wouldn’t be recognizable as life. I have a lot of blessings, man, a lot of blessings. I have a wife of uncommon goodness who has loved me unconditionally for thirty years and looks at me like I’m some kind of hero. I got two kids – if I’d picked them out at the kid store, I couldn’t have done any better – and they look to me with the expectation that I’ll do my best to do right in the world and act with integrity. You got an award worth giving that up for? You got a review worth that? And also I’ve got this gift, this ability to tell stories. And what’s the point of that, if it’s not about getting it right, getting it the way the muse gave it to you, telling the tale that’s in your heart without fear?"
Read it all here:
Dirty Harry’s Place… � The New Iconoclasts: Andrew Klavan — The Interview

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

More laundry.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

IMMIGRATION LAWS

1. There will be no special bilingual programs in the schools.
 
2.  All ballots will be in this nation's language.

3.  All government business will be conducted in our language.
 
4. Non-residents will NOT have the right to vote no matter how long they are here.

5. Non-citizens will NEVER be able to hold political office
 
6. Foreigners will not be a burden to the taxpayers. No welfare, no food  stamps, no health care,  or other government assistance programs. Any burden will be deported.
 
7. Foreigners can invest in this country, but it must be an amount at least equal to 40,000 times the  
daily minimum wage.

8. If foreigners come here and buy land, options will be restricted. Certain parcels including waterfront property are reserved for citizens naturally born into this country.

9. Foreigners may have no protests; no demonstrations, no waving of a foreign flag, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our president or his policies. These will lead to deportation.

10. If you do come to this country illegally, you will be actively hunted &, when caught, sent to jail until your deportation can be arranged. All assets will be taken from you.
 
Harsh?

The above laws are current immigration laws of MEXICO.
 

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Thank you, Tony Snow:


A Meditation on Life, from a Dying Man
Blessings arrive in unexpected packages, - in my case, cancer. Those of us with potentially fatal diseases - and there are millions in America today - find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God’s will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence ‘What It All Means,’ Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.

The first is that we shouldn’t spend too much time trying to answer the ‘why’ questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can’t someone else get sick? We can’t answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.

I don’t know why I have cancer, and I don’t much care. It is what it is, a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.

But despite this, - or because of it, - God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don’t know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.

Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.

To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life,- and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non-believing hearts… an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live fully, richly, exuberantly - no matter how their days may be numbered.

Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease,- smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see…. but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance; and comprehension - and yet don’t. By His love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.

‘You Have Been Called’. Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet, a loved one holds your hand at the side. ‘It’s cancer,’ the healer announces.

The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. ‘Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler.’ But another voice whispers: ‘You have been called.’ Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter… and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our ‘normal time.’

There’s another kind of response, although usually short-lived an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tiny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions.

The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing through the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes ( Spain ), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.

There’s nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue, - for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.

Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the holy city. From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.

We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us, that we acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God’s love for others. Sickness gets us part way there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two peoples’ worries and fears.

‘Learning How to Live’. Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God’s arms, not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love.

I sat by my best friend’s bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was an humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. ‘I’m going to try to beat [this cancer],’ he told me several months before he died ‘But if I don’t, I’ll see you on the other side.’

His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn’t promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity, - filled with life and love we cannot comprehend, - and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.

Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don’t matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?

When our faith flags, he throws reminders in our way. Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things, and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it. It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up, - to speak of us!

This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.

What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don’t know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us who believe, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place, in the hollow of God’s hand.’

Tony Snow

Sunday, July 13, 2008

lgf: American Kids Learning Jihad in Pakistan

Are your teens acting out? Vaccinate them with lies at brain washing school in Pakistan.
lgf: American Kids Learning Jihad in Pakistan

Friday, July 11, 2008


------
It's been quite the year.

Frank's paddle-out-
My heart goes out to you and your children. I remember Frank coming up to me after my Dad's service and asking for these readings...this has been such a hard year for me coping with the loss of my Dad that I never got them to him, but maybe they will bring you some peace, I know that they have me. Much of my process was finding refuge in the blessings, I hope that you and your children are able to do so and in this time of a beautiful sadness know that love is surrounding you.

Northwest Indian Memorial on Death:

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there.

I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glint on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the autumn rain.

When you awake in the morning hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of birds circling in flight.

I am the stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there.

I do not sleep.



The Circle of Life:

Fear not that which is now,

Fear not that which is to come.

Life, Death and Being are as one,

It is a circle. There is no

beginning and no end.

For that which is the beginning

is the end of the other.

And that which is the end

is the beginning of the other.

Surely the lessons of life are

the wisdom of death.

Those that live in the knowledge

of what the circle truly is

have peace beyond measure.


I know that the shock is huge and that pain is immense-never ending... words just don't do this moment justice...give yourself time that is the biggest most healing gift, it was for me. I will wrap you and your family in white light, and pray that this moment of deep sadness is able to transition into love, light and ultimately peace. I am holding all of you in the light of love as are people you don't even know, this is what occurs when a great man is leaves this world. I hope that these readings that I read at my Dad's service are of some comfort in this difficult time of pain and sorrow.


------ End of Forwarded Message
Real Craig's List ad:
Ferocious attack kitten is available for adoption to any home willing to accept him.
This destructive kitty has been trained as a proud warrior and will fiercely defend your house, even against you. Well-trained since 10-weeks of age to attack anything in his presence, he will protect your family from evil things, including the following:
* insects

* other trained attack kittens

* babies

* toilet paper

* anything under a blanket

* unwanted house guests
* paper bags

* floor rugs

* Chuck Norris

* Feet.

Great with children (assuming you don’t like the children). Probably best used for professional catfighting. He is housebroken, but only because he wants to be. This attack cat has trained himself to seek out his food anywhere you hide it and rip the bag open to feed himself, great for those who travel extensively. Also trained to drink water out of toilet bowls and dishwater from items in the sink. Knows how to open some doors. He will find you wherever you hide.
Neutered (trust me, you wont want to him to procreate). Has not been declawed, but you'll figure that out really fast.
Understands and responds to a variety of vulgar and profane verbal commands. Has a very soft and furry belly, like a teddy bear - however he will bite your face if you try to touch it.
Willing to accept trades. Potential adopters must have experience with trained attack-kittens... please be prepared to show scars.

For the love of God, someone please take this thing out of my house.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

This Adult Child of a Marin County Moonbat madness vents to her Aunt:
Dear.....
You would not believe what I just went through with my dad....short version of a long story is he called -------(my daughter) while I was out one recent afternoon and said to her, "You are a young lady and will be voting soon." Ah, well, let's see, five more years but anyway, he proceeded to interrogate her and ask if she knew who the Presidential candidates are. She replied that i she did, and gave both of their names and party affiliations. He then asked if she liked one or the other; let me remind you, she just turned 13! She said, "Well, I know my mom and dad both like McCain." He basically tried, right on the spot, to totally discredit our very private views, carefully and purposefully never shared with him. Eric is in Iraq, Graham in the USMC and will go to Iraq in January. My dad told her that our country needs to elect Obama so that we don't have to have the need for an Army, Navy,Marine Corps or Air Force. Poor thing was so confused, here she is alone with me, her father over there helping out in some dusty dirty shit hole taking care of wounded troops. He made many other extremely leftist opinionated statements to her and , naturally , she didn't know how to handle it. Of course, I would have grabbed the phone, had I been home, so he took full advantage of a child. She does not get these radical views at home, but leave it to the Mill Valley Loser to take it upon himself to spout his garbage. I am outraged, in fact I emailed him a very nice note asking that he respect my request to not communicate these views to my daughter. Well, along with a reply that he would honor that was this whole paragraph defending his position and asking me pointedly inflammatory questions. I have refused to engage since then, so gross. He is such a narcissist that he can't fathom that for a very long time I have actually had quite conservative views, he is shocked and dismayed and sent me links to two news articles, one that was titled "Any Radical Femininst Would be Insane to Vote for GOP Candidate McCain", and another about some shit to do with political commentary saying Obama is the only way to save our country from another 100 years of war, a point which he made sure to tell Dagny. The subject line of the latter email was "still trying to rescue you", ahhh, gee, thanks, no rescue needed. We live in a country where you can choose whom to vote for, and may the best person win. Needless to say I have decided to just not be in touch with the idiot, and on a gossip level, if you saw his current girlfriend you would fall over..." and she ends
with:
"Thanks for listening! Sometimes I just don't know what to think of his inappropriate behavior and you have sent some recent good articles so I jumped on the chance to vent!"

Remember friends, this well resumed Marin(not Marine) Dad's son in law
is an ARMY RESERVE DOCTOR serving as you read this as a field doc in Iraq. His grandson, Graham 11. is a pilot on his way there now and they now have Graham 111., her sister’s baby, and now Graham !V., and a new grandbaby!

Aunty (my friend) emails me that she is so proud that "we will be kicking liberal ass for the next several generations!! This is why Dada is losing his mind. OH, and by the way, his other daughter in Marin County, her son has just signed up for the Marines! OMG, the poor man! I love all the Graham’s named after my
marine boy!! "
Geeze, I was told there weren't any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and here they have secretly shipped this uranium powder to an undisclosed location.
Lucianne.com News Forum

Saturday, July 05, 2008

It's my one year blog birthday. The best thing about it is that I am privy to some of the fine places where you should go to read what is beautiful, good and true . Now I'm going surfing to celebrate and think about if I should keep it going or not or if anyone cares a twig. Why should you listen to me anyway for crying out loud? Unless, of course, you are related to me or know me. Cheers!

israelinsider: politics: Blogger admits Hawaii birth certificate forgery, subverting Obama claims

It seems as though it would be so easy for Obama to clear this up don'tchya think?

israelinsider: politics: Blogger admits Hawaii birth certificate forgery, subverting Obama claims

Friday, July 04, 2008

YouTube - God Bless the U.S.A. by Lee Greenwood

YouTube - God Bless the U.S.A. by Lee Greenwood

God Bless the U.S.A. by Lee Greenwood

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.


The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,


When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. ——— We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. ——— He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. ——— He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. ——— He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. ——— He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. ——— He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. ——— He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. ——— He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. ——— He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. ——— He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. ——— He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. ——— He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. ——— He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. ——— He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: —— For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: —— For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: —— For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: —— For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: —— For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: —— For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences —— For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: —— For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: —— For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. ——— He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. ——— He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. ——— He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. ——— He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. ——— He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. ———

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. ——— And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.


Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton


William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton


John Hancock

Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton

George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton


Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean


William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris

Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark


Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
Matthew Thornton

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Another oldie but goody by the supposedly slacking Vanderleun.

How Beautiful We Were @ AMERICAN DIGEST