YouTube View Counts - What they mean in the Atheist debate

Tonight I got sidetracked viewing YouTube postings of Richard Dawkins snappy responses to stupid questions and I discovered something.  There is a huge discrepancy between the number of people looking for comfort from the Christian Evangelical viewpoint and the Christians looking for a way to dispute and embarrass Atheists.  Search for 'Dawkins' and look at the view counts of some of his snippets of videos answering questions about God.  One for a speech he gave at a women's college near Liberty University had well over a million views!  The question an audience member posed was "What if you are wrong?".  By contrast the number of views of Christian originated videos refuting atheism were lucky to earn 25,000 views!

What does this say?  It says that Christians are making a huge difference because if their arrows weren't hitting their mark in day to day life the atheists would never need to seek the balm of videos of Dawkins making smartypants, shallow, Biblically illiterate comedy answers.  Answers always followed with tons of laughter from audiences with itching ears.

The sad part is if the scene was traded; if the audience were filled with Christians and Dawkins or another leading atheist were at the podium there would be sincere concern for souls to be won and that's serious business.  We wouldn't laugh at atheists and make fun of them and minimize them and trivialize them and marginalize them.

The issue in our society was well defined in a recent newsletter from the Ravi Zacharias International ministry:

"In fact, long before theology was ushered out of the public square, out of politics, economics, and the sciences, it was considered to be the highest science, the study of the rational Mind behind our own rational minds. It was the discipline that made sense of every other discipline, the subject that united every subject. Such a perspective is inherently foreign to the contemporary mindset. But it cannot be shooed away like a meddling religion or deferred like an unwanted question without dismissing some sense of cohesion—and without dismissing Christ himself. His very life is a refutation of compartmentalized thought, belief, and action. His cross was neither public nor private; it spanned both, and every century following its own." (Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.  )

The real answer that Mr. Richard Dawkins should have given the student is "If I'm wrong then I will be eternally separated from the creator I thought didn't exist.  I will be sent to a place where my sins will be played back to me forever and I will be tormented forever and long for a single drop of water and I will want to warn everyone of this place." That would've been the braver more intellectual more scholarly researched answer but he's a naughty little smart-mouthed boy.  He gets paid to help fellow atheists feel good about themselves and make Christians appear like foolish half-wits.    Check it out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg
Probably his most embarrassing remark is his statement that because the questioner is American she is Christian and that if she were from India she would be Hindu.  I felt sorry for his ignorance and I wish there was something I could do for him.

YouTube is all about entertainment and the true intellectual thermometer of our country and our world is read by just scanning down a few comments.  Vocabularies are so limited that very soon you find yourself descending into a middle school toilet stall range of intellect.   I say this because of view counts.  They are like an unofficial poll of what interests our students, what interests our public, and where their focus is.

Richard Dawkins is afraid to read the book of Ecclesiastes because it would be too threatening so how could he ever make it to Acts Chapter 9?  God only knows because to Him all things are possible. 

Here is another  intellectually embarassing video.  When people produce dialogue like this I just can't bear to hear it all because it reveals so much ignorance.  It takes a lifetime to clear up those questions with real answers that God gave us thousands of years ago and this poor fellow doesn't have a lifetime left.  But look it earned 5 million views!  Compare that to videos from the evangelical point of view.  Lucky to get 2,000 views.

It isn't circular logic to go to ancient scriptures to look for answers to modern questions.  If I were asked for the phone number of the nearest Dominoes Pizza I might go to Superpages.com.  You ask me "How do you know that number is for Dominoes Pizza?"  I tell you "Because Superpages.com told me so."

There are a few things atheists can't explain away and Nick Vujicic is one of them.  I don't think the Randolph-Macon Women's college would ever invite him to speak.  There just isn't enough intellectual bravery there.

 

Physics and Creation Theory

Magnetic monopole experiment at CERN could rewrite laws of physics
(PhysOrg.com) -- An experiment led by a University of Alberta researcher, at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, could dramatically change our concepts of basic physics, revolutionize our understanding of the Universe and could eventually lead to technologies in future generations that right now only exist in science fiction.

In this article please play the animation embedded in it.  A well done animation that reveals ideas that are difficult to grasp for those that are visual learners.  This isn't a blog entry about me but I am mostly a visual learner however I can take words and form visuals but it is not a strong point.  When it came time to study 20th century physics in my degree courses particle physics was the most difficult for me.  To imagine spins and momentums and visualize theories of magnetism in substances from equations and variables was darn near impossible and my grades weren't stellar.  But I digressed.

Scientists, at least ones primarily in modern times, do not believe anything until it is proven to them in hard numbers, lots of photos and evidence of the kind you see discussed in the animation.  In rare cases you catch scientists starting out with a conclusion, working to arrive at said conclusion just so they can earn the grants and finances for their work.  Who likes unemployment right?  Such was the case of global warming theory and that whole debacle.

A famous theorist and atheist once said "We don't believe in God because we don't want anyone meddling in our sex life."  That really gets straight to the point; although it is a bit broader than that it still is valid.  If anyone out there can tell me who said that please leave a comment because I don't recall.

Note how the beginning of the animation starts out with the conclusion that the universe starts out with a big bang and it isn't attributed to any deity or anything of the sort.  Just 'bang' there it is.  All work after that is working up stream to support that conclusion.  A conclusion that itself was a matter of heated discussion in my lifetime.  Apparently there is enough evidence for Big Bang theory of origin that scientists everywhere have come out of the closet  and bravely mention it as in this case.

Suppose we had a piece of pottery that represented our universe and all the matter in it.  A fictitious, superior race of scientists one day picked up this pottery and began asking themselves how the pottery came about.   A leading scientist of this race stated "This thing came about suddenly by itself behaving according to the substance that makes it.  They photographed it and observed that it was built with rings.  "Rings made of what?", they asked.  So they begin by cutting it in half and observing a cross section then they break a piece off and grind it up and look at the pieces microscopically.  They blast it with fire and lasers and study light spectra to classify what it is made of.  Then this race of superior beings write a report, the summary of which I found and copied below...

"This thing which we have named "bowl" came about suddenly and evolved over a period of trillions of years.  Bowl formed according to the manner in which the substances behave when they come in close proximity to one another.  Briefly the list of substances are dry powders mixed with water.  We found trace elements of minerals that added color to the element silica including iron, boron, copper,  carbon, nitrogen,  zinc, sulfur and aluminum-oxide.  Water came into contact with some elements and the elements began exerting attractive forces which morphed into coiled compounds.  The coils or ropes of compounds began circling and sticking to one another and as rotational energy was lost the coils became tighter until you have one end smaller than the other end.  Our statistical theoretician estimates a one in a trillion chance that the correct amount of electricity zapped this bowl while it was in a cloud of trace elements giving it the color and pattern we see. "

A scientist not affiliated with their group named 'Reveileb' writes a response.   I found it and it is printed below.
"I too examined the object and I agree it should be called 'bowl' however I disagree with its origin.  I believe that nothing is made that does not have both a maker and a purpose.  It was made from coils of clay formed by hands, stacked on top of one another, smoothed over by hands using water then fired in an oven to maintain its shape.  I turned the bowl over and found etchings of a kind I cannot interpret other than they are in a pattern that suggest the bowl was etched by the finger of its creator.  The creator has a name and here I have a photo of the etching below.  Other than that I understand all the other points my fellow scientists were making and I agree with the list of substances and compounds the 'bowl' is made of.  However I do not agree with how it was made.  But this has not stopped me from my research only taken me beyond the research of my fellow scientists because I started with a different conclusion of how bowl came into existence.

  
 The conclusion of this matter is that saving face is the most important thing for all people including scientists who are, after all, just like you and I.  Scientists do not like to face the possibility of being close to the discussion of believing in God because to do so would admit that there is a being out there more intelligent and more powerful than themselves.  This is a trait that is programmed into us and was responsible for the fall from grace the archangel Lucifer experienced.  It is the reason for the fall from grace of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  To this day we still make that same mistake.
  

Scams! - or How to Handle Internet Scams the Christian Evangelical Wacko Way

Searching for a more secure job involves putting your credentials out there on various large relevant job banks and search engines.  I do not use Yahoo Hot Jobs.  I also go to large credible corporations and organizations and open an account, establish ties with them and have job notices sent to me automatically.  This is standard procedure for the last 15 years for me. 


Once in a rare while I get an email out of the blue like the image I've posted above.  If this doesn't jump out at you as a scam then you probably can't spell the brand of car you drive.  Let's go through this point by point.  Just reading the company name in the From: field is a tipoff so obvious I didn't even highlight it. 

1.  Employers almost always know what sex you are and put a 'Mr. Meyer' so this tells me this scam is using an email robot and firing out perhaps thousands of emails using placeholders. "Hello name," etc.  
2. Secondly this woman, if it is human, makes no attempt at hiding a foreign origin.  Not as suspicous as it once was but is a clue to be added to others.
3. There is no specific job title for this woman.  This is so 'duh' that it makes me resort to slang.  Next it mentions Yahoo!HotJobs which is a common search engine that I do not use...it is naive and all but a useless waste of time.
4. She says that I'm qualified for the position of Finance Manager.  Oh I'm so impressed with that compliment I'll jump right on it.  Not!  This is an insult to Finance Managers everywhere because if my credentials were even slightly perused it would be obvious I'm a geek and you shouldn't let me anywhere near money...too few decimal places and it confuses me.
5. Point 5 is only something a geek would catch.  Spam filters and the like are trying to be avoided here by placing a period in between the 'o' and the 'b.  This is done twice so it is no  accident.  When you break up keywords a simple filter will miss it and probably not mark it as possible spam, such as mine did.  I use the Thunderbird email client and Verizon's junk mail resources.

Finally, a '.biz' URL is so small time.  A '.biz' URL is like a business card amount of advertising and is inexpensive to host and to change.  How many .biz URL's do you know?  I thought so.


So what do we do with this scam email?  We can delete it.  We can open it as long as we have virus software running.  We can become a Finance Manager and launder money for commies overseas.  We can mutter a bad word and list it in our junk folder for future filtering.  We can report the scam to proper authorities.  When you get this type of email you can safely assume proper authorities have already been notified and that this email you got is the result of their ineffectual efforts.


There is one other option.  We can recognize that behind every scam is a person and that person might not know Jesus.  By the way these email addresses might even have been an identity theft.  Still there is a person somewhere along the way even if it is an FBI agent.  So below is my example of a response to scams.  You can safely click on the link it goes to a Christian ministry website.


I have received your information for the position of Finance Manager. At this time I am not qualified to fill such an esteemed position and so I will have to ask for my removal from your email list.
Life?? offered to you.
Sincerely,

Wade Meyer
Warm and sunny Florida




If a person clicks the link it takes them to EE Prison Ministries International to the exact page that walks you through the ?? steps to salvation.  So I can either be a son of thunder about it all or I can be constructive.  I finally decided to be constructive and I hope you do too!

A Man of Integrity? President Mahmoud Ahmedinijad

I try hard to make up title's for this blog that will grate on your nerves and invite you to read its content...sometimes.

What is a man of integrity?  Once again remembering my speech class in Middle School a speakers rough outline is to 1. Tell your audience what you are going to say.  2.  Tell them.  3. Tell your audience what you told them.  This forms the basis for speeches and essays and even blogging which is nothing more than a really informal essay.  Expanding this outline to action steps we have a person of integrity as a person of kept promises who makes plans known and then follows through with them.  I am going to tell you that in that sense the President of Iran is a man of integrity.

Obviously the whole concept of integrity is a framework made of a system of values and of course values rooted in God or a god.  The word 'integrity' is like the word 'temperature' in which it has no meaning unless you attach values.  Good/bad morals for integrity and hot/cold for temperatures.  Jesus spoke of this when he said to his audience to be hot or cold for him for if they are lukewarm he spit them out of his mouth.

Announcing that Iran would begin enriching uranium the President of Iran said on April 9, 2006 "I am officially announcing that Iran has joind the group of countries which have nuclear technology."  He refers to the operating of centrifuges for the purpose of weapons grade uranium.  He began preparations for this speech by breaking UN seals over the labs January of that same year.  A man of integrity follows through on his plans.  Of course he's insane I'm not praising him lest you think I'm insane as well!  Here's the proof as his speech continued: "...At this historic moment, with the blessings of God almighty and the efforts made by our scientists...produced enriched uranium needed to the degree for nuclear power plants Sunday."  (a lovely Sunday sermonette eh?)  Insanity is doing something like this in the name of a god. 

Let me just add this about these lovely scientists of his:  Some of his scientists and engineers were trained at universities in America.  Notably at my university the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.  This university, buried in the heart of America, surrounded by modest mountains and hillbilly forests, had its own nuclear reactor.  The only university that did, at this time.  Buried in the heart of America were Islamic students even at my local Garland county Community College.  Many enrolled in engineering , to my knowledge, without exception.  I had friends, I was a member of the Foreign club.  I attended the wedding of my friend Mahmood after my girlfriend became enchanted by him.  I also dated a Jordanian girl briefly.  A beautiful girl that played guitar.  I asked myself where does one get the money to project onself to the other side of the planet to attend a college in the heart of flyover country and why?  Just one example comes from the day I was sick and missed a class.  I don't remember whether it was Dynamics, an engineering course with obvious applications to understanding centrifuges, or my Calculus 2 class but the math and notes were critical.  I stopped by a future Islamic terrorist organization member and fellow classmate to copy his notes from class that day.  There on his bookshelf was a bag, I kid you not, the size of a 1 gallon Ziploc, filled with marijuana.  I pretended not to notice and retrieved his notes and finished my business.  Look, I barely knew enough evil existed to know that I needed Jesus.  These were all just people to me and that in truth is the way it should be.  My friend, that was a girl, that Mahmood married was an American white girl.  I asked her what her father did, I had earned her trust, she nonchalantly told me that her father flew a small plane to Louisiana and back carrying freight and sometimes carrying drugs.  These are the types of alliances Persians often look for to achieve their ends.  I don't know what ever happened to what's-her-face but I hope she's happy.

What the President of Iran did in 2006 was bold and defiant and beligerant but the world took him seriously.  Jacques Chirac, president of France, said on January 19, 2006 "Leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, just like anyone who would invisage using, in one way or another, arms of mass destruction, must understand that they would expose themselves to a firm and fitting response from us.... This response could be conventional.  It could also be of another nature."  The Associated Press stated: "Chirac even hinted that France had already retargeted its nuclear arsenal." AP source  Remember this is coming from the land of pastries, impressionism, and Peugeot!  You can imagine what we've done.

Finally, four years later our man of integrity is telling us what he told us he was going to do.  He announced his nation has joined the other nuclear armed nations.  If only we had such a strong and determined leader, under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all, of course.  I am not worried because the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is in control of the master plan and Iran is only an event on a much more complete timeline.

Nutrition Absurdities

 "Just 2 teaspoons of blackstrap molasses will sweetly provide you with 13.3% of the daily recommended value for iron. " - World's Healthiest Foods website (click title to go there)
I wonder if there are any nutritionists out there who can explain to me this whole concept of "recommended values" of this and that?  I think the earliest I can recall being taught about the food pyramid and the United States Department of Agriculture recommended daily allowances of this and that was in 7th grade science class, about 1972.  I could easily confirm this with Google but 1972 may have been when all this was beginning to be taught in our schools.


By the way as an aside the building I attended junior-high, what they now call middle-school, was the same building that President Bill Clinton attended in high school before the new high school was constructed.  If you are a Bill Clinton supporter reading this then I'll let you kiss my book.  Central was another broken promise.  He was going to convert that building to a shining institution on the hill supporting and sponsoring artists and the art community.  Instead it stands abandoned.  Sarasota has done far more with its old high school and the buildings are even about the same age.  In all fairness Sarasota's old high school is half the size in a community with intellect.  The old ways are worth preserving for future generations and so Central Junior High School stands as a monument to Bill Clinton's intentions.


On to the business at hand:  2tsp * (100/13.3) = 15.03 teaspoons of molasses would have to be consumed per day to achieve the USDA's recommended daily allowance of Iron.  Remember this is a food high in this nutrient.  Just think how much you would have to eat of other foods.  Mixed nuts: 6%Iron, per serving of 20 nuts is just one other example of a great source of iron.  20 * (100/6) = 333.333 nuts.  How absurd!  This means to be healthy and eat a variety of foods I would, for example, have to consume 7 teaspoons of molasses and 151 mixed nuts per day.  

These standards feed guilt trips and foster a sense of failure just reading the nutrition labels.  Where does that leave the rest of the world?  Why are we even still alive if we can't even meet the minimum daily requirements?   I have no trouble meeting recommended daily allowance of chocolate; especially during holidays and St. Valentine's Day. 

That's Life!

Good morning and happy birthday to me.
Since the beginning of the year the world has been focused on very weighty matters while a quiet revolution has taken place in the breakfast cereal world.  Since I was 12 years old, which if you do the subtraction, was 39 years ago I have been a frequent eater of Quaker Life Cereal.  My father chose Chex Rice cereal as his constant favorite but I liked the sweet nuttiness of Life.  I didn't care who paid for it I just would ask for it and it magically appeared in the cupboard above the stove.  Quaker can thank me for my faitfulness up until now.

To my recollection Life never included a toy in the box so its not like I was lured as a customer by a toy like a dullard.  But one early year I do recall an offer on the side of the box for a Revell plastic model airplane kit.  It was a DC-9 American Airlines airliner and it was probably 4 or 5 dollars but I could be off; minor detail.  Life was just a quality cereal, non-candy, that tried to be good for kids before it was fashionable and trendy to eat puffed cardboard pieces.

When I grew up and began a family of my own you naturally look for ways of cutting costs.  Life was going for $5 a box for a while and I just had to cut back somewhere.  I started buying all sorts of cereals which I won't go in to but after the black-white generic experiment bit the dust there became more and more store brand knock-offs of mainline brands.  This was smart because the mainline brands paid for the advertising, rolled the cost into their cereal then the consumer, if he was wise, would buy the store brand.  I waited and watched and waited for years for a store brand knock-off of Life cereal.  Walmart had the lowest cost for Life.

Just two weeks ago my wife went grocery shopping and came home with a cereal called Simple Living oat cereal.  Finally the patent or whatever was holding things back timed out and Hannaford of Sweetbay grocery stores had produced a competitor to Quaker Life.  What follows are the results of the taste test by an experienced consumer...me.

Appearence is remarkably the same down to the waffle hole counts.  Compared to Life the texture of Simple Living in your mouth with milk was ever so slightly coarser but that's not a problem.  Both tastes are almost identical with Life coming out ever so slightly sweeter.  I suspect Hannaford was  able to save money here by not putting as much sugar in the mix.  Life cereal's nutty flaver is brighter and maybe fresher tasting but Simple Living is just as nutty flavored but a little darker or stronger and this may be due to differences in roasting the cereal.  I tried to take a fair picture of the two cereals side by side with equal lighting.  I have spotlights in my stove hood so the lighting is not equal but fair enough.  Try Simple Living I think you will enjoy the right-on taste and the cost savings.  Ironically Walmart had Life with a reduced price last time I visited the cereal aisle and this may have reflected the new competition.

If anyone out there can shed any light on how pricing is determined and know of any other competitor to Life let me know with your comments.  Anybody an expert on cereal production chime in too.

Young Man River

Young Man River

by Wade Meyer

One time on an outing my family and I went .
To western Oregon's waters framed by cathedral trees.
There ran a swift small stream close to the road it seems.


Our father pulled over to a spot where we could go explore.
But I stood with hands on hips looking down across the shore.
My attention drawn to round stones where water trickled over.

The sound it made was garbled. Voices mournful and hollow.
I picked up boulders, moved stones by rolling and found;
Voices changing low, and high brightly in sound.

My family wandered and explored.
But I stayed working not in the least bit bored.
With shoes and arms wet I toiled on, absorbed.

Everyone began returning back;
Into the car they clamber.
Hurried, I worked quicker with my work in that river.

Finally, my mother grew impatient, down to that river she went.
"Wade we wait and need to hurry on; what is that you're doing?"
"Ma, its the river, the sound, it needed tuning."

Increase of CO2 Triggers Glaciation

(Dr. David)"Zink goes on to explain that scientists have focused their attention only on "the first stage result" of the greenhouse effect. He adds that they fail to recognize that the greenhouse effect is the trigger that sets off glaciation."


This is a quote from the online book you can read by clicking on the title above.
This is fascinating stuff. I remember the 70's and the reports of core samples and glacial periods in National Geographic and Scientific American. (yeah comic books were boring) If you were a boy it was the stuff that fuels the imagination of a world that will never be seen in our lifetime....or will it?

The Young Dead Soldiers by Archibald MacLeish

The Making of a Murderer - The Making of a Christian

Kate Uttinger writes in this month's Leben Magazine issue an article that will capture your imagination.  It is about Apache Indians in the 1800's.  Specifically one man born to the Bendonkohe Apaches in southwestern Arizona.  The Indians always had fascinating names for their people, to me at least.  Its like inventing your own name for playing the blues- pick an infirmity, pick your favorite  fruit, add your last name and that's your blues name.  Mine would be "Blind Watermelon Meyer".


Goyahkla translates to "One Who Yawns".  Early in his life, according to Ms. Uttinger's research, he "lived the idyllic picture of native simplicity."  Played hide-and-seek among  the rocks and brush with his siblings, learned how to track animals and from the adults learned to recognize medicinal herbs.  


Apache warriors grew up able to travel on foot 70 miles per day. Running, bathing in icy water, wrestling and marksmanship made up a large part of their training.  This is what Goyahkla did and more.  He married Alope, a delicate girl and had 3 children by her.  "He farmed, occasionally raided nearby Mexican outposts for supplies, and played with his children on the dirt floor of their wickiup."  This all changed one day.


The day that would change his life forever was the day he left with his fellow warriors to trade at a Mexican village.  They left a small guard with the women back in their own village.  Upon their return Goyahkla  found his wife and children and mother and many of the other women butchered by hostile Mexican raiders.


He vowed to avenge his family and avenge he did.  Murdering many and he raged and hated for decades.  The last words of his unfortunate Mexican victims would consist of crying out to Saint Jerome.  Phonetically it comes out "Sahntoe YAH ro-may!" in the Spanish language thus giving Goyahkla a new name Geronimo!


How many of us have yelled that name as kids as we jumped from our tree forts and tree limbs and creek banks?  But why Geronimo?  According to Leben magazine there was a young man nearly 70 years ago named Private Aubrey Eberhart that  leapt out of a C-47 transport with a parachute.  He had been influenced by wild west movies popular at the time.  He delivered on a promise that he would yell something recognizable to fellow paratroopers on the ground when he jumped out at just several hundred feet.  And that is the way it all began.


Geronimo is quoted as saying in 1902 "The Jesus Road is best and I would like my people to travel it...Now we begin to think the Christian white people love us!"  After being captured and relocated to Fort Sill, Oklahoma two Dutch Reformed missionaries invited him and his men to attend services in the evening.  The pastor preached on the atonement.  An old warrior by then Geronimo limped into a service a year later after a recent fall from his horse.  He heard the sermon titled "Jesus Made Just Like Sin For Us".  Right then Geronimo begged that the pastors would "Pray that Jesus would give me a new heart."  A week later he was examined to satisfaction to have "more knowledge than anyone anticipated".  "No consistory of our church could refuse to admit this man into membership." said Dr. Walter Roe and so Geronimo was baptized into eternal life.


That is the end of the story of Geronimo but there are more details that I will leave you to discover.  He is a man I may one day stand side by side with in eternity along with St. Jerome, whoever he was.

Definition of Money

"What matters is that a man acquires a good not in order to consume it or to use it in production, but in order to give it away in a further act of exchange. Such conduct on the part of people makes a good a medium of exchange and, if such conduct becomes common with regard to a certain good, makes it money."

Ludwig von Mises from the book "Human Action"

INSULA SERVO IPSUM

To avoid stress from conflict is

to avoid responsibility

to avoid responsibility is to

avoid accountability

to avoid accountability is

to avoid integrity

to avoid integrity is to avoid honesty

to avoid honesty is to avoid the truth

to avoid the truth is to avoid God's laws

to avoid God's commands is to hide

to hide is to admit guilt

to be guilty is to cover ourselves up in the Garden of Eden.

If you believe this you now have the justification to stand firm for what is true. This is different from "stand firm for what you believe." Why? If what you believed were not true would you want to know? (start over from the top)

Story Time

One of the remarkable things about my brain is that it even works at all. It is limited in its capacity to concentrate when there are other distractions in the room. Just today was another reminder that the whole planet wants to make war as soon as I decide to curl up with a good book on the sofa. Here's a simulation of what it is like for me to try to read. In fact I told my wife this very thing and she didn't hear me. Here now is what it is like for me to read with distractions in the room:

"He raised his spear as the dragon's tail

He raised his spear as the dragon's tail

He raised his spear as the dragon's tail "What? I don't know where your other shoe is!"

He raised his spear as the dragon's tail swept across

"let's see" his spear as the dragon's tail sw "Try looking under the kitchen table. Yeah you have to get down low to the floor I know its a toughy to do that but BEND AT THE WAIST LOW and look"

the dragon's tail swept across the cave flo "No its not by me! Hey would you put that load of laundry in the dryer when it finishes!"

He raised his spear as the dragon's tail swept across the cave floor

"Okay drive carefully honey have you got plenty of dragon...I mean gas in the car?"

floor. Chenal watched in horror as the only man she ever lov "No I don't have much just $7 will that be enough? Sorry you can ask your mother if she has more." only man she ever loved was now in the cross hairs of the beast."

This was only a story line I made up to illustrate my point but if you'd like to elaborate let's collaborate by using the comment feature. Type!

In The "Old South" [south church of Boston]

IN THE "OLD SOUTH."On the 8th of July, 1677, Margaret Brewster with four other Friends went into the South Church in time of meeting, "in sack-cloth, with ashes upon her head, barefoot, and her face blackened," and delivered "a warning from the great God of Heaven and Earth to the Rulers and Magistrates of Boston." For the offence she was sentenced to be "whipped at a cart's tail up and down the Town, with twenty lashes." Blogger's note- Sibyls were prophetess in ancient Greek and Roman times that were depended upon for advice of an other-worldly nature, like witchcraft. However in this case this Miss Brewster was quoting scripture, in this poem by John Greenleaf Whittier. Even Satan can quote scripture but he does not want churches restored, renewed or corrected. Therefore in this case I would say this 'Sibyl' was under God's authority.

SHE came and stood in the Old South Church,
A wonder and a sign,
With a look the old-time sibyls wore,
Half-crazed and half-divine.

Save the mournful sackcloth about her wound,
Unclothed as the primal mother,
With limbs that trembled and eyes that blazed
With a fire she dare not smother.

Loose on her shoulders fell her hair,
With sprinkled ashes gray;
She stood in the broad aisle strange and weird
As a soul at the judgment day.

And the minister paused in his sermon's midst,
And the people held their breath,
For these were the words the maiden spoke
Through lips as the lips of death:

"Thus saith the Lord, with equal feet
All men my courts shall tread,
And priest and ruler no more shall eat my people up like bread!

"Repent! repent! ere the Lord shall speak
In thunder and breaking seals
Let all souls worship Him in the way His light within reveals.

"She shook the dust from her naked feet,
And her sackcloth closer drew,
And into the porch of the awe-hushed church
She passed like a ghost from view.

They whipped her away at the tail o' the cart
Through half the streets of the town,
But the words she uttered that day nor fire
Could burn nor water drown.

And now the aisles of the ancient church
By equal feet are trod,
And the bell that swings in its belfry rings
Freedom to worship God!

And now whenever a wrong is done
It thrills the conscious walls;
The stone from the basement cries aloud
And the beam from the timber calls.

There are steeple-houses on every hand,
And pulpits that bless and ban,
And the Lord will not grudge the single church
That is set apart for man.

For in two commandments are all the law
And the prophets under the sun,
And the first is last and the last is first,
And the twain are verily one.

So, long as Boston shall Boston be,
And her bay-tides rise and fall,
Shall freedom stand in the Old South Church
And plead for the rights of all!
1877.

What Does the Government do to Earn a Living?

My friend and I were talking after church today about jobs. She is an unemployed graphical artist and her laptop LCD display went bad. She can only search for jobs at places that have a wifi cloud and now she can't even do that because she has to have an external monitor. She cannot afford cable or Internet connection at home now. Her office will now be the public library for job search pursuits. "Fran" handed me a business card that was made for free by a benevolent friend. There was a huge list of chores she is able to do for hire: graphical artist, cleaning, closet organizing, babysitting, mowing, landscaping, concierge and the list went on. She said I do it all because I am doing it all already to pay bills.

Wow, I said, you are doing whatever it takes that's great! We laughed about the hundreds of silly psyche questions on job applications now- "If you met yourself somewhere would you become best friends?" Things like that. "Do you prefer to work slowly to think things through or do you kick your dog a lot?" That last one I made up but the questions often have a darned if you do darned if you don't answer to them. An HR person, with advice from a psychology major from a public university is responsible for the hour and a half it takes to fill out some job applications. My daughter filled out an application online for Wachovia Bank for Teller, she performed all the algebra problems correctly then after one of the dozens of silly psyche questions the program popped up "We're sorry but you are not qualified for the Teller position." then dumped her out. She can be thankful, I told her.

Fran, I said, you mow, you clean, you do computer graphics what do you think government employees do? What are their choices but to make government more complex and larger. By the end of the day a Pastor has started compiling for a sermon, written memos to staff, visited someone in a hospital or nursing home to give them spiritual encouragement and contacted a football coach to make plans for the upcoming year. By the end of my day I have cleaner carpets, chairs arranged in rows, wasp nests destroyed from the eves of the buildings, investigated an alarm security circuit fault and updated room diagrams and saved the campus money by patrolling thermostats. A roofer stands back with his men thinking about a shower and drinking something cold at home while looking at a brand new roof. A manufacturing engineer turns in a report to a production manager showing that rejections are down on the avionics wiring harness assembly line for Dassault-Falcon. A conveyor belt circuit board repair woman looks at a BNSF train moving off in the distance pulling a 100 cars of coal from the Powder River Basin that SHE helped load. What do the Executive and Legislative Branches in Washington D.C. have at the end of their day?

To show productivity in the government you HAVE to spend more, show larger more complex documents, and increase system complexity. You have NO other choice if you hope to keep your job. Kilobytes to megabytes, to gigabytes to terabytes of system documents over the years is what they have to show. Oh it talks about simpler government but talk is cheap. In the end whatever the government employee does will hurt someone somewhere in some small or large way that is just trying to meet personal life goals. Its getting that tight. Zero moves are available that does not compromise the constitutional rights of a once free people. Its a stalemate endgame; say hello to a goodbye.

If there truly were rewards in making government smaller then the Constitution Party would be in power in more instances than it is not.

Thank you and Good Day!

Michael Jackson - The New Old Music

I had so much trouble logging in to Blogger using the Opera browser that by the time I logged in with Internet Explorer I just about darn near lost the flavor of my inspiration of what to write about. Kind of like writing a letter then having to re-write because it got thrown out. Do it from memory and it just loses its freshness.

So here goes. Everyone who is anyone has fairly stopped writing stories about the passing of Michael Jackson. The pastor that baptized me when I was 12 was named MJ Timbs so for the rest of this blog entry I'll refer to the musician as just MJ.

My youngest daugther is 15 years old and right after, I mean just about the day after the passing of MJ a CD appeared on the table of his music call "Number One". This was a huge departure from the music she usually listens to and I later found out the CD was borrowed from a friend. When I asked her about it she said "Dad he's really good. I like the music!" I just groaned and shook my head. Except for the years where MJ was still a musical phenomenon in his youngest years (my youngest years too for that matter because we are/were both 50) I have totally rejected his music. It was pretentious, it was disco, it was girly-man stuff and I just hated it. When he started looking as though he had reconstructive surgery from a tragic fighter jet accident and rumors started spreading I really...well just forget it. I'll take Thumper's advice and stop.

We were all driving out to the mall one day, my wife, and daughters and Emily began playing the MJ CD in the van. Emily said "No daddy he's really good I like it." as she pushed the skip button on the CD player to go from song to song. It landed on a song called "Earth Song" and she let it play. Something happened and I felt a little wall falling down in the back of my mind as I listened to it. I had to be honest it was good in my lexicon in musical tastes.

I said to Emily "Okay that's a good song.....okay he probably hired the finest backup singers money can buy.....okay the melody is probably one of the best rhythm and blues songs I've heard in a long time...and the song was put together by probably some of the best in the industry in the best studio money can buy. I admit he was good." Here I am the biggest non-fan of MJ there could ever be and I have a song of his on my MP3 player.

Which brings me to a rediscovery of music and musicians from "my day". The best place to find these are on YouTube. Fascinating footage of Jethro Tull concerts and Emerson, Lake and Palmer concerts, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn on and on. Late 60's, the 70's and some into the 80's are what I would consider my generation and I am glad young people are rediscovering music that has merit. There's a great acoustic version of "Lucky Man" on YouTube. A version I didn't now existed of a concert in California.

I have always been the kind of Christian that isn't afraid of music. I filter out the music that is just filth and select the music that is praiseworthy. If we are created in God's image and God is a creator then He made us creative also. What we do with that creativity we will be held accountable for but in any case music is a manifestation of the nature of our Creator. My children are the same way. "Train up a child in the way he should go..." They police themselves and filter out the dregs of our musical society.

This is why one of my all time favorite movies is "Amadeus". The two main characters are, Wolfgang, a disrespectful, disgraceful man who is disconnected from the concept of responsibility. He is portrayed as an ungodly man. The other main character is the narrator of the story and is dying of old age. Antonio Salieri is pious, visibly believes in God, asks God to bless him in his musical work; also is talented. Riven with jealousy and outraged that Wolfgang is better than he is he becomes bitter and angry at God. If this story is true and I have no reason to believe it is not possible then it is a great example of the verse in the bible that says "God blesses whom He chooses to bless..." Wolfgang, as a vessel, holds as much as humanly possible, the creativity that God poured out onto him. Whether he recognizes this or not is his problem.

If you are a Christian and reading this and you come from the old school just remember where music comes from but remember also the fact that music comes out of faulty vessels as much as yours is faulty. But don't ever let go of your hymnal it is a wealth of inspiration and joy. If you are not a Christian and you are reading this I'm sorry but music comes from the God of the Jews but inspiration can come from God or Satan. Start by reading a chapter in Psalms once in a while.

Racoons

There is not a whole lot to post tonight but let's see if I can make a mountain out of this.
Coquetta treed a raccoon tonight. There is a new rip in the screen of the pool cage that was made larger by her escape yesterday. That left a swinging flap open for raccoons to get into the cats food up on the patio table. Coquetta was lunging at her collar while I was getting her hooked up on her rope. If she is not on a rope she runs off and that's illegal sort of.

I let her out the screen door and she moved so fast I could hear dirt flying as she jetted down the straightaway past the yucca trees. Authoritative growls and a very good attempt at climbing the tree. It was so funny and cute at the same time. I'm not sure if she knows what she would do with a 'coon if she caught one. The coons here are huge, maybe 3/4ths the size of the dog. Well they always look big in the dark.

It has been raining every day here and the creek is up making the garbage cans more attractive than fresh crustaceans.

I continue to be embarrassed by Obama's forays overseas. He is so in over his head and so naive I just constantly cringe at the words coming out of his mouth. I prefer to call him "Chairman Obama" because he is not legally the President of the United States according to the US Constitution. Besides the supernaturally coordinated soft revolution has descended our nation into a state of Marxism. Chairman Obama is more fitting; like Chairman Mousey-Tongue over there in China.

To stand in an Arab state governed by Sharia Law and brag about your Muslim roots is so ignorant. Its a slap in the face to Muslims to then brag about conversion to Christianity. For Christ's sake it would've been better if he had then presented them with a short gospel presentation and offered an invitation to them to convert. That would've been the more noble message to bring and straight to the point.

He is so in over his head that they're going to use him like a sharpened pencil or a good screwdriver. Oh geez I can't look! God save us from fools and ignorant men!

Then D-day speech tours in Europe and a visit to a Nazi concentration camp. It would've been better for him to have just said nothing than to open his mouth. Instead he talks about being on guard for the evil in us all. As Dennis Prager noted on his show covering D-day the level of evil is on an entirely different level than the evil in us all. Nazis took delight in evil, he said, and he reminded us of the fact that most of the Jews were naked before they were killed because the Nazis took delight in humiliating them. How many of us are on that level?

Yet! And yet the man stands there talking about evil Nazis but endorses every American baby-killing proposal Congress can bring him. The man is an abomination and that goes well beyond embarrassment to evil on the level of Nazis. The hypocrite. Our nation got exactly what it voted for and what it deserved. Only Divine Providence can give us what we don't deserve but we have asked Him to leave. Not please leave but just leave.

I would dearly like to see Coquetta sniff the Chairman of the United States to see what her reaction would be. Dogs know stuff. Would she bark if he came to the door? Probably but that will never happen. For the record Coquetta doesn't bark at everyone who comes to the door only people she doesn't trust.

Musical Instrument Sampling

     This is not a researched statistic but I only say it to make a point:  99% of the fascination people have with technology involves a very narrow list of technological break-throughs.  Mainly the "gadgets" involve areas of little mental effort but produce maximum emotional satisfaction.  Some examples include personal networking websites, cell phones, violent or otherwise video games that push the limits of decency beyond decency; to name just a few.

    For that 1% of the population that actually enjoy a challenge in the mix of "gadgets" we have this genre of software that has been around for a long time- musical instrument sampling.  You cannot fully appreciate the perception and precision of the human ear until you try to imitate a traditional acoustic instrument.  Now people can be easily fooled and easily satisfied and that is fine but to carry things to the Nth degree in such a way that even an educated ear can be satisfied is an accomplishment.  Read the endorsement in the image above.

     This may be an over simplification of what Synthogy does but what we have here in Synthogy is a product that allows you to play a piano from a computer connected to a midi keyboard.  For the price of their software, your home computer, and a nice weighted 88 key midi keyboard from Sam's Club (Yamaha console about $800) you can play piano music that is imperceptable from handmade concert pianos that may cost more than your house, if you had to buy one.

     Go to their website, click on 'demo' or 'download' and begin playing mp3 files over your mp3 player using your best headphones or plug the player directly into your home theater system.  Play the demo of Bosendorfer Imperial Grand, Steinway, or the demos of the 10' Fazioli Italian piano.  There are uprights too that create a very sweet and charming sound.  But look you can possess the equivalent sound of a half million dollars worth of pianos for far less the price.  I know it takes skill, practice, and brains to play a keyboard but oh there is so much more personal satisfaction from this than text messaging a joke to a friend who always laughs.  This stuff is a dream come true for piano player wannabes like me.  

     Let me circle back to one of my first points and that is the incredible amazing  ability for the human ear to distinguish sound.  Combine that with realizing that in a typical acoustic piano there is an interplay of harmonics in the struck string and the neighboring strings that you may not even be aware of.  You may not be aware that a Fazioli uses agraffe stringing but you will know that the sweet charm of a Bosendorfer is different from the Fazioli but you won't know why but you know.  Synthogy has captured it.

Kid's These Days

Excuse me while I go a little crazy. Several things have happened in the last couple of days that piled up to be life's pressures. To handle pressure I turn to humor. Yesterday there seemed to be a huge outbreak of kids on little shiney scooters. There were teens doing tricks off the outdoor choir stage. I caught a kid going down the hall on a scooter like Satan ordered him to. He was in a daze of some sort and I had to holler twice "Hey this is God's house you can't ride your scooter in here!" Meanwhile a contractor discovered a hopeless amount of rotten boards and loose shingles on my roof. Estimates are from 10 to 13 thousand dollars. My youngest daughter explained that her Ipod screen was broken and another student had one for $125 that "we" could buy. Oldest daughter calls hours later explaining that her Volvo air conditioner wasn't working and that she had to drive her roommate to Melbourne for the weekend and her roommate was real sensitive about temperature.

For some reason a bunch of scripts started composing in my head as I walk around on campus , with my sprained back, that I call "old man scripts". For example-

"Why when I was your age I had nothing but a stick and wad of chewing gum and I was happy for it. I went to bed at night and put my gum on the bed post. When I got up I grabbed my stick and the gum off the bedpost and started my day and had more fun than you can imagine. When I went to college I threw away my wad of gum and celebrated life with nothing but a black and white TV set and a thumb to get a ride to school. And I was glad for it! You vermin are spoiled rotten brats all of you." Then I pick up my hickory ax handle and chase them around a bit.

"Why when I was your age all my mamma could afford us for Christmas was a bag of M&M's and I thought I'd landed on easy street. I ate one M&M per week until they were gone. You kids are spoiled rotten brats expecting MacFlurries every night after school. No imagination on how to have fun. All I had was a empty pinto bean can and a wooden stick and I was glad fer it. All my friends in my neighborhood thought I was rich. When it snowed I took my shoes off when I walked to school so that when I got to school I wouldn't track in any water I was so considerate. You kids destroy everything! Git outta here with that contraption. (Chase kids around with a cane at about 1mph. ) The music your band is playing sounds like racoons during mating season. When I was young we didn't have 5,000 watts of amplifiers and expensive guitars. You know what I had? I had a chewing gum wrapper that I put over the comb from my back pocket and my buddy had rubber band he put across his mouth and plucked. That was our music and the church felt blessed to hear 'Amazing Grace' ."

Maybe I'm going crazy under the pressure but I just put a couple stacks of chairs in a closet and moved a table back to a room where the deacons had a meeting last night. Looking down on a cabinet I see a magazine for deacons entitled "Deacon". It had a wealthy model looking, perfect man on the cover with a perfect complexion so that spawned another "old man script".

"Deacon's these days got ta have their own magazine to know what to do. Spoilt brats!. Why when I was deacon we wore our feed store caps and had 2 days growth of beard. We had nothing but the word of gawd and a skillet (no need for a stick because we have to be nice) and we fed widows in their distress out of thin air and took orphans fishing with nothing but a string a hook and a worm and they were glad for it! Deacon hah! Put your Izod shirt away and get busy and scrub floors you buncha spoiled 30 somethings old brats." (proceed to race around the room at 1mph hour smacking men with a dirty, worn bible).

Goodbye Paul Harvey I'm going to miss your stable and moral reporting. Perhaps we will meet in the next life.

World Going Retro

"Those Were The Days"
from All In the Family
by Lee Adams and Charles Strouse

Boy, the way Glenn Miller played. Songs that made the Hit Parade. 
Guys like us, we had it made. Those were the days.
Didn't need no welfare state. Everybody pulled his weight. 
Gee, our old LaSalle ran great. Those were the days.

And you knew who you were then. Girls were girls and men were men.
Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.
People seemed to be content. Fifty dollars paid the rent.
Freaks were in a circus tent. Those were the days.

Take a little Sunday spin, go to watch the Dodgers win.
Have yourself a dandy day that cost you under a fin.
Hair was short and skirts were long. Kate Smith really sold a song. 
I don't know just what went wrong. Those Were The Days.

In that TV series our family gathered around the TV and laughed and laughed at the antics of Archie Bunker.  [by the way, Mom if you are able to look down from Heaven we could never figure out that one lyric "Gee our old LaSalle ran great."  Thanks to the wonders of the Internet I now know.  Guess we were a Chevrolet and Rambler family and you never owned a LaSalle]  Archie was a laughable fuzz ball.  A harmless puffer of cigars that now would be a focus of Code Pink.  Edith Bunker, a woman who lived her position in the scheme of things yet  led Archie to new ground.  She often was wiser than Archie but protected his ego and respected his leadership often.  That family was both a picture of a traditional family yet at the same time it  was a dysfunctional family.    I feel sorry for anyone who has no idea what I'm writing about and has never seen a single episode of this TV show.

"Meathead" dragged Gloria off into the future of liberal thinking and progressive approaches to life, liberty and pursuit.  The new next generation, they were, that opened the doors to the full opposite of the lyrics above.  Meathead and Gloria, if real, would've now had "children" and their children have even had children.  Likely out of wedlock if you were to write the rest of the story realistically.  Likely both of those generations represent the attitudes of the majority vote that funneled our nation into what looks to be a potentially very dark future if you are of the mindset of Archie, Edith or Republican or Independent or other conservative categories.

Focusing on my subject of going 'retro' now have you noticed the lines of automobiles that have been designed to hark back to earlier times?  Post LaSalle times but pre-80's.  The new Ford Mustang that is more perfect than the original but has those lines.  The Chevrolet HHR and sport truck, the Chrysler PT Cruiser, Dodge Charger and many others.  Oh, and let's not forget the new VW Beetle.  Have we run out of ideas?  Look around at many other examples besides cars and you will see something new designed specifically to call back to some undefineable sweet-spot in time.  Have we run out of ideas and are now trying to turn back the hands of time?

What about political climate?  With our latest offerings in Washington we not only have thrown Herbert Hoover under the bus along with mamma and Archie Bunker and Christian ideals we've gone overseas to envy the sordid pasts of other countries.  Russian governmental control, the iron fist.  The Atheist iron fist at that.  Mimicking and envying all the mistakes of Europe of the last 3 or 4 centuries at least.

Could this be the beginning of the end?  I mean if I were God and I looked down and saw all the recycling repitition of bad ideas I would severly want to press the Game Over buzzer on the clock.  But for one detail-  there is still hope that you might be saved from judgement, Archie, Edith, Meathead and Gloria!

You know the one idea from Europe that has not been recycled in our government is the concept of an official state run religion.  Or have we?  A religion is nothing but an -ism isn't it?  Can you identify what 'ism' the Democrat run Washington, Hollywood, and TV news is implementing?  The answers are hidden in the pictures below.  See if you can spot them.