Convenience and Conscience

This is a repost of something I shared on FB.

"Prior to 1973, the United States was a nation whose parents sacrificed so that their kids could have a better future. After the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, our nation became one in which the parents sacrificed their children so that they could have a better future." - Mike Adams

Think about it. This decision has been made over 57,000,000 times in the U.S. alone since abortion has been made legal.

Pray that God would heal our stony hearts so that we as a nation, especially our lawmakers and judges, would stop murdering for convenience.

Pray for those that are hurting because of the effects of an abortion for God alone can heal a wound so deep.

Here is a website that provides a count on abortions throughout several demographics and provides some background and external links for more information.
 

I Would Quit Too

I read this story today and am pretty frustrated by it.  This is the latest in a continuing stream of ridiculous claims made by some Democrats.  In the athletic realm this stuff is called poor sportmanship.  From where I stand it looks like they lost a big game and are just hurling insults in desparation.  Hopefully the nation doesn't listen to or believe this junk.

Well Said

I know that I can always find people to agree with my opinions, but this seems like common sense to me.  I find it interesting that this recording was made decades ago and in the time since then we've obviously moved much further down the road of entitlements and socialism.  Here in the present, we now all get to sit back and watch history unfold a little further as the consequences of the decisions of our elected leaders come to fruition. 

Although I think it will be even more interesting to see in the end the purpose for which God chose to raise up the nation of the U.S.A.

Job 12:23

²³ He makes nations great, and destroys them;
He enlarges nations, and guides them.

Jeremiah 50:8-10

⁹ For behold, I will raise and cause to come up against Babylon
An assembly of great nations from the north country,
And they shall array themselves against her;
From there she shall be captured.
Their arrows shall be like those of an expert warrior;^[a]
None shall return in vain.
¹⁰ And Chaldea shall become plunder;
All who plunder her shall be satisfied,” says the LORD. 

 

Ezekiel 29:15

 ¹⁵ It shall be the lowliest of kingdoms; it shall never again exalt itself above the nations, for I will diminish them so that they will not rule over the nations anymore.

 

In the end I think we need to remember that our nation, like all nations, is His instrument.  We are not the Second Israel.  Honestly, the state of our hearts before God probably shows that we more resemble a second Catholic Rome - much tradition but little faith.  Perhaps the question is, to what extent may the faith of our people, the humility of our nation, or the repentance of our hearts influence the way in which He uses us?

That's Just Funny.

Just sharing some quotes from an online article...

"China bluntly criticized the United States... saying the "good old days" of borrowing were over."

... I wonder how that is said in Cantonese.  I thought that was an American idiom.

"China -- the United States' biggest creditor -- said Washington only had itself to blame for its plight and called for a new stable global reserve currency."

... this one is just great!  This horse is dead already, but why are in huge debt to a communist country who is our largest enemy at this point in time?

... What's that?  China is pointing their finger at this situation for support for a global reserve currency.  Now that's something the Anti-christ could use!

"China scorned the United States for its "debt addiction"..."

... Whatever!  Oh, wait.  I agree with this one.  But honestly, what are we really going to do about it?

"[China] urged the United States to cut military and social welfare expenditure."

... I'll bet China would appreciate us cutting our military expenditure.

... I actually agree with cutting a huge amount of our social welfare expenditure, but isn't this coming from a communist country?  I'm confused.

"Obama called on Congress to back measures to give tax relief to the middle class, extend jobless benefits and pass long-delayed international trade pacts."

... Nothing new from the President.  Give more money away in hopes that people will spend, spend, spend!  That will help!  I'm just saying how about we go for a healthy, stable economy?  I'd prefer thrift over huge investment growth.

... How about we stop paying people who are out of a job?  Necessity is the mother of invention and I think people will be much more motivated to come up with ways to make money when Uncle Sam isn't footing the bill.

"India's finance minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters: "There is no need to unnecessarily press the panic button.""

... Spiritually speaking, I think it's time we do that here in the U.S.

DMZ 4 - Confusious say, "Man who stand on toilet..."

This is the third bit o' toilet wisdom in the South Korean train station which stood so proudly and full of hope on the dividing line between the north and the south.  Yet again I was impressed by the profoundness that this bathroom displayed.  All these signs kind of  kept with a theme: you can have your brain washed and your hands washed all before leaving the bathroom.

At first glance this seems like a very practical bit of wisdom aimed directly at lumberjacks.  Without such advice maybe Paul would have been Babeless pretty quick.  Now, I don't know how much lumbering they do in Korea but if Confucius could eventually end up sending his advice to the world at large perhaps this bathroom could, too.

Anyway, on second glance there seems to be some other applications.

Political: very rarely does someone "big" in Washington surprise anyone.  They generally follow a party line, the crowd, or the voters.  In this arena I, like many other people I know are asking, if this tree falls in the woods, does anyone care?  Obviously we should care which direction our elected leaders fall, but what do we do when our "woods" are full of "trees" that we would never have planted?  That wasn't rhetorical - I really don't know.

Relational: I'm a parent.  It can't be helped that I'm concerned about which direction my children are leaning.  I think parents have the ability to greatly influence the leaning of our children - and I think we have a responsibility to do so.  The question is, what actions are we taking to influence them?  Regardless of how we answer that question, we will influence them.  Our inaction in this case may in fact be the biggest push that our developing adults receive toward falling in the wrong direction...  Again, what steps am I taking or not taking?  What steps should we be taking?  Why aren't we taking them?

Spiritual: Like the AF always says, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail."  And like somebody else says, "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."  And then there's always, "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine whether it is from God or whether I speak from my own authority."  One of the amazing things about God is that He leaves it all up to us.  We get to choose.  The choice seems to be extremely easy, yet actually making the choice seems extremely hard.  However, we have the promise that if we intentionally lean toward God, He will show us the best way to live.  (John 7:17, Hebrews 11:6)  I'm going to daily make the choice to lean toward God, so that when it comes time for falling (which will surely come) I know I'll land in His hands.

Thank you again R-Toto for your wise thoughts.  Until the next time nature calls.

Nature Calls

We're heading up to Mt. Bigelow today in the Catalina Mountain range for an overnight camping trip with the Harts. It was going to be several families, but sadly a lot of people were busy or not feeling well. I'll get some pics up when we get back.

Off subject, I got this today from The Other Secret Agent. I thought it was a sharp reminder that we can't borrow billions of dollars too prop up a straw-man economy and not expect serious impacts.

Health Care Questions

I went through most of the July health care bill. The most interesting thing to me was how our government intends to irresponsibly pay for the new health care system.

In all, the bill will set up at least 8 trust funds to pay for the program totaling $2,352,000,000. However, I don't think that amount is the irresponsible part. There are successful companies in the world that have outgoing numbers in that range (of course, they have more than that coming in, too). The thing that says, "What kind of 9 year old mentality is spending our tax dollars?!!!" is this phrase which follows the establishment of each trust fund: "There are hereby appropriated out of any moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated..."

What?!

Anyone try that with your budget?

"Honey, want to buy a new car?" "Oh, yeah! Will it fit into our budget?" "Oh, I'll bet so. We'll just take whatever we have left over at the end of the payday and put that toward the car payment."
I think wisdom here says that if we have to do unwise things to accomplish something, it's probably not a wise goal to reach for. Basically, these are the things debt is made of - I've already given my thoughts on that here.

It wasn't really a lie... really.

I read an article on Fox News.com today that shed more light on something President Obama used in the post-break, Health care-reform, motivational speech. At one point, he was giving examples of the atrocities of our current health care and health insurance systems. He ran a list of several people that had their insurance removed at a critical time or that were denied coverage for something important; all the examples truly seemed like atrocities.

However, because of my presuppositions about President Obama I told myself that while his points and examples were extremely convincing I should just wait and see how things unfold.

Here's the unfolding:

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama, seeking to make a case for health-insurance regulation, told a poignant story to a joint session of Congress last week. An Illinois man getting chemotherapy was dropped from his insurance plan when his insurer discovered an unreported gallstone the patient hadn't known about.

"They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it," the president said in the nationally televised address.

In fact, the man, Otto S. Raddatz, didn't die because the insurance company rescinded his coverage once he became ill, an act known as recission. The efforts of his sister and the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan got Raddatz's policy reinstated within three weeks of his April 2005 rescission and secured a life-extending stem-cell transplant for him. Raddatz died this year, nearly four years after the insurance showdown.

I know that all politicians spin in their favor, which is exactly why I'm a Republican. The less politicians are in control of, the better. I think we are all much better at running and dealing with our lives ourselves.

What can we learn from this?
1. The government can take some steps to ensure people aren't wronged. In this case, the government did their appropriate part.
2. Clearly, "taking steps" should mean creating reasonable boundaries to ensure righteous business practices. Again, that was done is the above case. If the gov wants to do a little more, that could be a good thing, possibly. Bring that to the congress and the American people will probably support it.
2. "Taking steps" should not mean mandating insurance, forcing insurance on people, or providing it for free.

Couldn't hold this one back.

I've been keeping my political opinions to myself lately (except around my bride). I think constant complaints about certain heads of state being morons (Biblical term is "fool") annoy others. I try not to annoy others.

A good friend just put this post up. Thank you FPF for the laugh. No one pours sarcasm on a plate of tom-foolery like you!

But FPF's thoughts provoked me to share some of my own on recent research. I disagree a little, though. We'll probably end up with some Chinese vehicle crammed down our throat since we owe them $700,000,000,000. I have to count the zeros, too. It's a big number.

I read somewhere that if one owes money to another, the borrower becomes servant of the lender. Take a second to consider that word - servant. In a country that is familiar with slavery, picturing servitude isn't difficult.

Well, congratulations We The People! We are now servants to a communist country that we've been openly opposing for almost eight decades.
1. Masters don't usually put up with dissension.
2. Masters usually have major influence on what servants do and where servants go.
3. Servants are in no position to call the shots.
4. Servants receive mercy when the Master feels like it.
5. Some Masters show no mercy (see history for indications about our current Masters).

The future should be interesting.

What's your Remedy?

It's been less than 60 days since the new regime came into power. So far we've heard the heads of state call for more involvement and control of health care, education, scientific research, banking, the commercial sector in general, and energy development.


I would say that if we could judge the climate of our country based on the actions of the people that the majority voted into power I would say our country is looking for a Savior. Where could we find one of those?

Quote of the Day

I heard an audio clip today of Barrack Obama discussing the solution to our countries financial problems in which he was as honest as I've heard him yet. He said we have to explore the concept of "Economic Redistribution."

I wonder if that was an original idea of his or if it's been used in other countries, at other times, and if so, how did it turn out? Plus, why hasn't our poor, underdeveloped country thought of using it before?

(I've been told that I'm really bad with sarcasm, so I'll just tell you that the entire second paragraph was sarcastic. Non-sarcastic - I wonder if people listen to AND think about what Sen. Obama says...)

Copy Cat

To all who know me, I think it's clear who I will vote for. However, the FPF posted his reasons today and I'll post the link to it right here.. no, no - here because I think he did it so accurately, briefly, and completely.

It's been a while

Well, it has been a while since my last blog. A lot has been happening, but a blog hiatus was needed. I thought I would put this on here, though. It's interesting to say the least.

Personally, from what I've seen, Sen. Obama is a very good speaker, but I would say he's like a toilet that's only cleaned on the outside; he appears shiny but don't look inside. I believe that Sen. Obama is dishonest and tells half-truths. This would be another example if true. I could be wrong and I'll admit it if this ever actually gets addressed.

Anyway, I got this in an email and so I researched it. As I said, I doubt anything will come of it but, if true, it will be a shame that it gets ignored. I attached a bunch of links for the websites that I found as additional resources to substantiate this guy's authenticity.

This is what I got in the email which has the YouTube video I was sent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyspCRmJv7w&eurl=http://www.obamacrimes.com/

These are other links I found. Obviously, many of them have to be taken with a grain of salt.
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/1078071/Philip-Berg-vs-Barack-Hussein-Obama-Citizenship-Lawsuit

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2066207/posts

http://www.obamacrimes.com/index.php/component/content/article/1-main/1-philip-j-berg-esq-files-federal-lawsuit-requesting-obama-be-removed-as-a-candidate-as-he-does-not-meet-the-qualifications-for-president

This one gives a running history on the law suit since being filed and the Obama campaigns' reaction.
http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/philip-j-berg-lawsuit/

http://barrysoetoro.us/

This is to the report on Fox News.
http://www.myfoxtoledo.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=7638284&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1

Like I said, it seems credible - I mean to say it's not a scam or fake. We'll see what happens...