Check This Out… July 30, 2008

July 23, 2008. Since the 23rd, we have had two partly cloudy days, one of which was dry for 24 hours. No wonder the weather is the Number One topic of conversation in Alaska.

Well, good. It keeps the rifraff out…

Reality Check July 30, 2008

Obama supporters need to step back and take a breath or two. I realize that it’s heady stuff being in the presence of such greatness as he possesses, but there are some things that need to be thought about by them, not the least of which is the possibility (unthinkable, I know) of him losing this election in November.

He can’t seem to manage to gin up much more enthusiasm than he already has. In fact, some of his former supporters have actually reconsidered, having realized that he just isn’t stirring up the same kind of worshipful enthusiasm that he was during the primaries, and the truth-in-packaging rules have been badly bent, for he is nothing like the candidate who first threw his hat into the ring at the beginning of the primaries. Since those heady days, the public has discovered more about him and about the people with whom he chooses to surround himself, i.e., Bill Ayres, Bernardine Dohrn, Jeremiah Wright, etc.

His supporters also need to realize that he didn’t “kick Hillary’s butt.” She came THIS close to kicking his around the block. He won the primaries by the skin of his teeth, and he hasn’t managed to stir up a bit more enthusiasm than he generated then, even though he has the field to himself. To top it all off, as far as I know, Hillary has not excused her superdelegates yet.

But Barack’s campaign seems to be running out of steam. Even all those Germans couldn’t convince the U.S. to give him much of a bump in the polls, and I am sure there are places in the country where the Magical Mystery Tour gave McCain the bump, instead.

But, just suppose the unthinkable happens, and he loses the election in November. I know there are a lot of Blacks who are going to vote for him only because of that less-than-50% of Blackness that he has. They don’t care about his politics. They don’t care about his abilities, or lack of them. They only care that he is the only person running who is “like them.” (Well, that’s an arguable virtue. I wouldn’t want anybody telling me I’m “just like him.”) But they believe “their time” has come. They believe–and nobody has told them otherwise–that he will be the one to undo all their imagined injuries from “the Man.”

And, if his election doesn’t come to pass, if he loses by any margin whatsoever, the Blacks of this country are going to believe that they were cheated; as if the simple fact of his candidacy guarantees a win for him–and them–by virtue of the color of his skin. I fear there are going to be riots in some parts of the country, and it will be about as chaotic and frightening a time as we have had in this country in many years, and that people will die.

There isn’t a way to explain to people how it can come to pass that Obama can lose. In the minds of his rabid supporters, they will vote for him for one reason: His skin color. It doesn’t matter to them how ill-suited to the Presidential office he is, or how poorly they would be served by an Administration filled with people JUST LIKE HIM, and others whose aim has always been to overthrow the Constitution and turn the United States over to Socialist Marxists.

The storm clouds are gathering on the horizon. The sun is still shining on us as I write this, but we are about to get a reality check that could be fatal, not just to us as individuals, but to America, and all she stands for.

In The Words Of Thomas Sowell… July 29, 2008

Since I am suffering from the punies this week, and rather weakened by a chronic problem that comes and goes–under the (GOD-AWFUL! More and more rain, temps still in the 50′s!) weather, so to speak, I’m going to let the inimitable Thomas Sowell write this post. His “Random Thoughts” columns are always rich in insight, wit, and common sense. I hope you will enjoy it.

Thinking Can Get You Into Trouble July 25, 2008

Just WHO the HELL does he think he IS??

After hearing him bloviate in front of a crowd of Germans (who despise America and all she stands for, for some reason, not related to gratitude), I was almost nauseated.

America has ONE President at a time, if you please. And, that President is busy in Washington DC, doing his job. He is NOT gallivanting around Europe to get his ego stroked, pumped up, and polished. Obama is not the president, no matter how many haloes the adoring press makes sure surround his head in their photos, how many quivers go up Chris Matthews’ leg, or how many pseudo-presidential seals he puts up. Not only that, but I suspect this European junket is made at taxpayer expense, by calling it an official “fact-finding mission” instead of what it really was–part of his campaign for President of the World. Is this something he plans to use to plump up his “experience” statistics? After all, 143 days is only four and a half months.

Kyle Ann Shiver from American Thinker has some good input, but don’t stop there. Find a transcript of his 30-minute speech, and see for yourself. If you can make it all the way through it without feeling a sense of dread in the pit of your stomach, you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

As if that wasn’t enough, he and his crew had the unmitigated brass-bound (and blasphemous) gall to plaster his campaign posters all over the gates to the Western (Wailing) Wall at the Temple in Jerusalem. Rumor has it he was jeered at and taunted. One can only hope. Going around the world thinking you are the anointed one, finding places to show off your charisma, is good political theater, but it doesn’t play well in the U.S., where we have certain ways of doing things like electing Presidents. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he…” (Proverbs) He can pretend to be king of the world all he wants, but we have an Electoral College here who will have the final say.

But it’s a real good thing that the Germans can’t vote in America.

Oh, yes…Guess it turns out that there was a free rock concert and beer garden before his speech…

The Year Without A Summer July 22, 2008

I’ve lived in Alaska off and on for over thirty years. The first five years were kind of a blur, thanks to my immaturity and size. But most of the rest of it has been well-experienced. The years in Juneau were wet. Not just damp, but WET. The Alaskan Panhandle (we call it Southeastern) is some of the wettest country in the United States. Towns like Ketchikan and Wrangell, for instance, often have years with over 300 days of measurable precipitation. Moving to Valdez in 1970 was an improvement, although a small one. More days without rain, but probably just as many cloudy days. It was because of this that I told the handsome and talented Mr. Sourdough “Get me out of here, or I’m leaving!” I probably would have been satisfied with a vacation, but he must have taken me seriously, because the house went onto the market, and the packing began.

But eighteen years was all I could handle of life outside, and after Mr. S passed away, it didn’t take long for the move north to be considered in earnest. Being back in Alaska has been a balm to my spirit, but I must admit that I have been prone to sigh frequently at the paucity of sunshine. This year has been especially trying. The first year we were here in Wasilla, the sun beat down day after day, well into October. But it must have cracked the mold, because there has been a gradual decline in the quality of the weather since then.

Today, for instance, is day #12 of rain. This wouldn’t be so bad if it was the only time all “summer” that it did this. But this has been the weather pattern since May. We have had more rain this year than I have seen since I left Valdez in 1988.

We have had an occasional peek at the blue skies we know are up there somewhere, but the largest part of the time has been spent watching dripping eaves, soggy plants, and waterlogged pedestrians. That’s bad enough, I guess, but today, our high for the day was 55. No wonder the Public Health nurse we saw said she saw snow on the mountain this morning when she got up.

The problem is that it is still only July. Is it any wonder we are looking forward to August and September with trepidation? Here it is in National Weather Service statistics.

Oh, well. It keeps the fire danger down.

One More Time… July 19, 2008

First, there’s this,, then there’s THIS.

Next time you fill up your car, thank Nancy Pelosi. It seems as though there’s no understanding her rigid stance on this, but that might just be because we are looking in the wrong pocket. If we remember her hateful opinions regarding President Bush, it all becomes clear. Speaker Pelosi is the poster-child for BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), and has set her sights on absolutely refusing to allow a single vote on a single bill that might make him look good or give him a point or two in the polls. Her attitude is a simple one: DO NOT ALLOW THIS PRESIDENT TO RECEIVE ONE MORE POSITIVE WORD OR VOTE. The whole thing boils down to forcing the economy to go south on George W. Bush’s watch. It’s been her whole reason for existence since the elections in 2006. At that time, as she received the Speaker’s gavel, she was fond of mentioning her firm agenda, although she never revealed what that agenda contained. It didn’t take long to discover that what she had in mind was the complete and total discreditation of this Presidency.

For leftist Democrats, it’s been an easy life for the last seven and a half years. Their mission has been simple: Kick George Bush in the gonads as hard as possible, as often as possible. One thing they haven’t quite succeeded in has been to undo his reputation completely. I admit that I have been deeply disappointed in his support for illegal aliens and “anthropgenic global-warming.” And, the leftist press (basically all of the press, if the truth be told) has had a field day kicking him around with public-opinion polls on “satisfaction” with the job he is doing. It’s an easy thing to word the questions of a poll in such a way as to manipulate the opinions of the pollees. “Are you satisfied with the job the president is doing on…?” A lot of people who support him are like me: disappointed, and not really satisfied. So, just how many of those people polled really support him, but feel less than thrilled about some of his decisions? It may just be me, but I think his actual numbers would be considerably higher than the leftist press would have you believe. But it suits their agaenda to spread the rumor that nobody loves him any more.

But, Speaker Pelosi should check congress’s own numbers in public satisfaction. Last time I checked, it was in the single digits, and trending downward. Of course, if you are Nancy Pelosi, you are going to ignore facts like these, and continue on the course you have set. My mother used to call this “cutting off your nose to spite your face.”

I don’t know if public opinion can change her, or if it will take a march on Washington with torches and pitchforks. All I know is that even TALK of opening OCS drilling brought oil prices down farther, faster than they’d ever fallen in history, and people are not as ignorant as Noseless Nancy and her henchmen in Washington think. We KNOW who’s responsible for the high gasoline prices, and we are taking notes. It might be interesting to see what the threat of Pelosi’s own impeachment might do to her stubborn refusal to allow people to keep working and staying warm. Somehow, I think she has forgotten that the people who use that gasoline use it to drive to work, to fuel the greatest economy in the world. She might have forgotten. But, I doubt it.

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Two Years Ago On The Sourdough…
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Memo to Murtha, et al… July 16, 2008

Largest re-enlistment ceremony in U.S. history. Part 1

Part 2 is Gen. Petraeus’ speech.

The Democrats in congress are deeply saddened…

Greens’ Goddess July 16, 2008

Environmentalism is a luxury, and like all such, is best taken in moderation. The environment requires protection, but that’s all. Primitive panthiesm has no place in this millennium. Nature is not an utterly benign continuum, and human beings are not a disease. Pseudo-religious environmentalism has long outlived its welcome. It’s time to bring down the curtain.

J.R. Dunn hit the nail on the head with this one.

The Enviros are so busy shooting themselves in the foot with anthropgenic global warming that they didn’t see this on the horizon. They enjoyed a “perfect storm” of environmental disasters in the last 40 years or so that gave them credibility and lots of push when it came to getting what they wanted.

But, now, a lot of their cherished, foundational excuses for their Utopian social engineering are beginning to crumble in the face of the truth of real, honest-to-goodness scientific fact. The global-warming club they were using to beat us into submission six months ago has become a limber switch, as the world’s average temperatures slide downward instead of up, their data having been erroneous from the beginning, thanks to a Y2K-related computer glitch. Proof that polar bears are prodigious swimmers, that the “photographic evidence” of the lorn bear on the ice was a setup, that open water appears at the North Pole EVERY SUMMER has poked a hole in their “rising oceans/shrinking ice fields” scam. And so it goes.

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(resource: 1. a source of supply, support, or aid, esp. one that can be readily drawn upon when needed.
2. resources, the collective wealth of a country or its means of producing wealth.
3. Usually, resources. money, or any property that can be converted into money; assets.” (dictionary.com)

Unlike the Goddess-worshippers, I believe most good citizens are conservationists. We are good stewards of the world around us, and we police our spaces without having to be beaten into it. It has long been the unspoken policy of Alaskans and others who live close to the wildernesses of the world to be as careful as possible about our surroundings. Americans, especially, are wealthy enough to afford to be careful in our use of natural resources.

But “being careful” is not the same thing as locking it up and throwing away the key, which is what the environmental religionists are trying to do (ever since Bill Clinton’s self-serving sequestering of the prodigious anthracite coal deposits near Escalante, Utah, in return for campaign donations from the Riyadi family of Indonesia, who owned the only other large anthracite deposit in the world).

We belive in careful, conservation-savvy utilization of the world’s resources, and we have methods now that can utilize these resources with a minimum of disturbance to the surrounding countryside.

The environmental religion is just that–a religion–and a fundamentalist one, at that. Those of us who believe in common-sense, conservation-minded utilization of natural resources don’t enjoy having the fundamentalists’ enviro “gospel” shoved down our throats by unkempt zealots, sleazy politicians, or sanctimonious lefty college professors in Birkenstocks, wire-rimmed spectacles and facial hair.

We believe in using our resources (see above) carefully and wisely. We will worship the Creator of all these resources, and I’ll have my Green Goddess on my salad, please.

Love Children July 14, 2008

God created us out of love. In a burst of lavish, profligate love, He created for Himself a people with a unique ability–to CHOOSE to love Him for His own sake.

Atheists and other unbelievers (or even just the ignorant wanna-believers) will ask, “If there is a God, why does He allow so much evil in the world?” It’s always a good question. Giving it proper thought leads to several conclusions. One is, of course, that having created us out of love, and giving us the free will mentioned above, He must allow (does NOT mean “condone,” but more like, “permit”) a certain amount of evil to exist in order to give goodness and love an opportunity to triumph through our choices. It’s easy to look around us and see how often we have made choices other than the loving ones. In this world, the real-time decisions have results we can’t even contemplate. (Who knew, for instance, that the decision to turn a majority of America’s corn crop from food to fuel would have consequences that would raise food prices around the world by more than 75% virtually overnight?) Pandora chose to open the box, even after she was told that the contents were woeful and filled with pain and suffering.

The Bible tells us that “God is Love.” This does not mean that we have no chance of loving “rightly,” or of loving “enough.” It means that we have a perfect template to follow when making our moral decisions. Do we try to match our choices to His, or do we decide not to use the pattern, but to make our own happiness? Unfortunately, most of us are pretty firmly habituated to making our own happiness, in spite of others, and regardless of the pattern He holds up for us to use.

And, that leads to another “reason,” which is simply that in our free will and our choosing, the choosing to love is the highest good, but is seldom achieved. You can see that the gift of free will can be a blessing or a curse, depending on the way we choose to use it. It’s much easier to choose the selfish option. As humans, we like what we like, when and how we like it, and never mind what the other guy might like, want, or need. And, with so many of us running around making sure we get our “likes” satisfied first, we just don’t seem to have the time to make sure that our neighbors are getting a fair chance at meeting their own needs.

I am reminded of a little story I heard years ago about Heaven and Hell. In the story, a person has died, and gone to Hell. The devil shows him a large dining room, with people sitting at a lavish banquet, but all are lamenting, weeping because they only have spoons with three-foot handles, and no way to get the delicious food into their mouths.

Then, the individual is shown Heaven, which looks somewhat the same, with a large and noisy dining room, except that all the diners at the tables are rejoicing, even though they also have spoons with three-foot handles on them. The difference is that the diners in Heaven are feeding each other.

Departures July 12, 2008

We are going to a funeral in a couple of hours. A teenaged girl in our parish was killed in a car crash this last week. She was a sweet, quiet girl, the only daughter of a career military woman–a full Colonel–in the Air Force. She sang with the cantors at Divine Liturgy on Sundays, and was always polite. She wasn’t afraid to seek out an old lady (me) she saw in a store to give her a hug. That’s always a good sign in a teenaged girl. We are going to miss her sorely.

Tony Snow passed away today, after losing his battle with cancer. He was such a bright spot in the sordid world of political Washington that he is going to be missed by more people than he could have imagined. He loved God, and cherished his family and his Christian life.

For those of us who survive the loss of loved ones, the question is usually put by the pastor: Are you ready for death? What is the condition of your soul? Are you satisfied that it is good enough for Heaven? A funeral sermon is always a good opportunity for a pastor to put the questions to his flock.

But for all of us, a sudden death should say, “This person died suddenly, on their way to work/to school/shopping. Did the person remember to pray that day; to put their life in God’s hands? Was their soul ready to meet God?” Death happens often enough around us that at some point, we should have these thoughts, at least in passing.

It’s never a good idea to think that death will pass us by, and that we are so wonderful that Hell could never be an option for our wonderful selves. None of us actively wishes for Hell, but not many of us are actually living our lives in ways that can guarantee that we won’t have to worry about that at the end, either. The choice, of course, is always up to us. God doesn’t send any soul to Hell. He just ratifies the choices made by those individuals during life.

Of course, none of us can judge our own souls, since that is left up to God alone. But it is always a good idea to presume that we still need a lot of work spiritually, and that we are willing to throw ourselves upon God’s mercy in the event that we have no time to make amends in the flesh, and trust in His loving care.

The reality is this: The moment of death is the end. If you haven’t done your best, or submitted your heart to God’s care, there isn’t going to be an opportunity to do so after you die. Once that moment passes, the opportunity to repent is gone. There is no repentance after death. No do-overs, no second chances. We can have numerous opportunities on this side of the grave, but death doesn’t give us any chance to say, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned!” after we have died.

But practice makes perfect. Keep trying.