News to make you wonder what the hell is going on.

This is yet another example of Government run programs.

The U.S. Census Bureau spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on promotional items used to convince more people to mail back their census forms, but a 9Wants to Know investigation found thousands of the items were dropped off, unused, at a local high school.

Label this WTH?:

Five students at a South Bay high school stirred up some controversy Wednesday for wearing t-shirts depicting red, white and blue American flags on Cinco de Mayo.

School officials at Live Oak High in Morgan Hill told the students they had to go home if they wouldn’t turn the shirts inside out.

One of the students said it appeared school administrators were worried the patriotic shirts could trigger fights.

Some students at Live Oak High in Morgan Hill said others were planning to come to school Thursday wearing red, white and blue.

Four of the five students who wore American flags or patriotic colors on campus walked into a meeting with the superintendent of the Morgan Hill unified school district Wednesday night.

They were facing unexcused absences because they chose to go home early rather than take off what they were wearing.

…Some Mexican-American students KTVU spoke with said they thought wearing red, white and blue on Cinco de Mayo was disrespectful.

“It’s just kinda disrespectful that they would do that on this day,” said student Victoria Wright. “I mean, we don’t go around on 4th of July wearing red white and green and saying ‘Viva Mexico,’ because that’s disrespectful.”

So this is an assumption that Hispanic students will respond with violence when they feel disrespected. Even worse, fearing violence from Hispanic students, the administrators solve the crisis by banishing the “offensive” items, rather than warning students that any violence will be severely punished.

In other words, the administrators insultingly assumed that their Hispanic students would erupt in violence at the sight of an American flag, and the only way to prevent this is to cower at the presumptive violence and preemptively cave in to the mob’s demands that American flags be banned from campus.

Tech under tech support.

One of my jobs was technical support for Dell Computers. There was a tendency among my fellow techs to disparage those who called in need of help. I refrained for the most part. Yet, every so often I would find someone on the other end of the phone that would make me questioned that stance.

I would state "every computer users starts someplace and learns more from there."

When it comes to PC support at home I tend to let the kids deal with the tech support personnel and only jump in when needed. There is a tendency among my technically savvy friends, family and workmates to disparage those tech support people on the other end of the phone.

Oh what a dual edged sword!

I regularly diagnose PC and network problems, sometimes dialing into various tech support lines and proceed to convince them that I know what I am talking about.

Last week I had two calls I had to make. One went swimmingly the other, not so much. My wife purchased some headphones for PC gaming. We had tried various kinds and this one actually worked to her liking until it didn't. We tried various settings and none of them helped.

Finally it was determined that they broke. As Logitech has a great warranty on products, (upwards to seven years on some), I made the call. The tech was jovial and sounded confident and was familiar with US slang and spoke without an obvious accent. After the preliminary identifications was out of the way he asked plainly if I had done any diagnostics. So I recounted what had been done and he was satisfied. A new headset should be winging its way to our house.

Next up was internet trouble. Our Internet Service Provider (ISP) is Qwest. For some reason our signal started bouncing between working and not working. Not being the bulk of the time.

Thinking it could be the modem I tried adjusting some of the settings and ran the handy diagnostic tool they provided. This lead me to calling in and finding out there was an outage in the area. They set up a call back time to notify me when service was restored. Good enough!

The next day I got the call and things got a little bit odd. The various websites I was used to going too would take a long time to load and then stopped loading all together. A shut down and start up of my web browser (Chrome) would seemingly resolve the problem. Which is even more perplexing. It also turned out that was a coincidence. As a couple of easy ping tests proved.

Qwests DNS server was not working, was my conclusion. At which point I realize that not everyone who reads this could possibly know what that means....

DNS is Domain Name Service. It is a computer that maintains a list of where everything on the internet is located. All the computers on the internet have an address. This is a unique identification that tells data where it has been and were it is going.

An IP address looks like this: 192.168.1.100

Which is actually:C0.A8.1.64 or 11000000.10101000.00000001.1100100 (which is me just showing off)

Without getting into a bunch of tricky stuff about switches and routers and subnets and such. Lets just say that in a DNS server 74.125.127.99 = www.google.com

Computers only work with binary numbers 1 or 0 or on and off. So a computer can only translate text into numbers to work. Trust me when I say there are lots and lots of Ones and Zeros working tirelessly day and night so you can watch youtube.

So launch your web browser, type in www.google.com. Your DNS server looks that up and sends back the web page you requested. Unless the look up table is not there. Trying to convince the tech that the DNS server was down was an exercise in frustration.

So I found this CBO report. It Projects that. President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget will generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years, $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected, and raise the federal debt to 90 percent of the nation's economic output by 2020...

That is seriously screwed up. In pointing this out the response I got was a head scratching.

But, George Bush spent lots of money! To me this is like saying, "Wow, having my finger cut off hurt" and someone responding. "Oh yeah? My friend got a paper cut!"

Yeah Bush 41 did over spend. Yes, the congress was enabling this expenditure. Guess what? We the people voted them all the hell out. As a Republican I find myself defending GW, despite him not being anywhere near the President I would have wanted. I suppose it is akin to living in New Jersey and being an NBA fan.

Frustration Man Cometh

We are living in interesting times.

/rant on.

The socialism rampant in our Government is of great concern. As is the lack of representation. There is a serious lack of jobs and my current situation of being reduced in hours and still paying the bills .vs. going on the dole and being able to better support my household is not my ideal of America.

My office is permeated with the air of hopelessness. This seeps out of the various media outlets as well Doom is in the air with the spring.

There is a prayer to let go of those things out of our control. It is just difficult to not feel angst right now. My faith is resolute, the human in me looses that focus and some despair invades.

There are things to do. Family, House, Yard, Job hunting, Weight and Fitness. The fiscal side of things makes marked limits on house and yard and generates more stress then I would like.

Job market around here is horrid. The only thing worse is the housing market (it is a buyers market if you do not need employment).

Weight and Fitness requires more focus then I am willing to provide as well. Kids schooling provides some vicarious joys and sorrow. Overall there is a depressing feeling of just being tired.

/rant off

There are plenty of those much worse off, so even my rant falls flat by comparison. I have two upstanding citizen adult kids. A good supportive family all of whom reflect virtuous values. There is my angelic 12 year old who is joy incarnate. And my loving wife who provides me strength and fortitude. My blessings are vast.

The Government is causing Obesity!

My buddy Flying Van is hostile towards school lunches. I believe he feels that the government is spending his money incorrectly. A point I am in agreement with.

The idea behind the lunch entitlement is that poor people can not afford to buy food or they care so little about the kids they have they choose not to feed them or they lack the training on how to purchase and prepare food. Seeing how kids are required to go to school, this makes it a logical place to feed these poor starving kids, who must be thinking about their empty stomachs instead of learning reading, writing and arithmetics.

That is to say your brain needs calories to function. Add to that the fact that hunger is a distraction and you have a prime example of the Government aiding education!

One of the primary problems with the above idea that people are starving. No doubt there are people in the US, who cannot access the cornucopia of goodness. If someone is starving the human thing to do is to get them fed, then have them to feed themselves. Finally have them help feed those who are starving.

So holding a parent responsible for providing for their child gets jettisoned. Having a community wanting to help the less fortunate is also jettisoned. And the chance of the child learning to feed themselves is shunted towards letting the government feed you.

Case in point: If you are on food stamps the USDA added incentives and other changes that targets the link between Obesity and Food Stamps with an idea to trim rampant obesity rates among low-income groups. Obesity is not caused by starvation... Right?

So we know that food stamps, from the government, are making poor people fat. Now I read that school lunches are not just making sure that hungry kid has sustenance to insure better performance. No our School lunch program, from the government, are making hungry kids Obese.

I never got\purchased school lunches. My mom made me a sandwich with some fruit and veg for quite a number of years. Sadly, many of those lunches were never eaten. Sometime around third grade I was responsible for my own lunch. Which means I had breakfast and dinner at home and ignored lunch. In HS I was on swim team and had instant breakfast (beats upchucking). Again, if I did have some lunch it was not everyday.

Basically, I was too lazy to make a lunch and too busy to bother with lunch. When I did eat, I made up for the missing meals. I did a pretty good job of burning off any extra calories as well.

Now my daughter needs to have regular intervals of food intake or she gets listless. My nephew would have to eat a certain nutritional balance to avoid nasty headaches.

To my way of thinking. Yes, we need to feed habitually hungry kids. The parents need to be held responsible or face some kind of consequence. Funding a Union does not seem to be covering the basic need.

Wisdom of Shoo

Shoo Prophetically stated that "It would take another Ice Age to dissuade the Man Made Global Warming zealots" (note: heavily paraphrased).

Washington DC is having quite the snow storm. RBG can provide a first hand account if you do not believe this to be true. (*I am taking great care to be factual and verifiable here).

Freedom Eden did a hit piece on Contessa Brewer from the (quote)"unbiased"(unquote), news Organization MSNBC. She presses the meteorologist to take a swipe at Jim DeMint who recently tweeted "He says the snow will continue 'until Al Gore cries uncle.'".

The reasoned response:

RAPHAEL MIRANDA: Well, it's an interesting point. Global warming skeptics love to say, 'Oh, it's snowing. What happened to global warming?' But there is a school of thought that says global warming will provide more moisture to the atmosphere, which will allow for bigger snowstorms like this one. So really, it depends on which school of thought you attest to, but it could go either way.

Which, to me, speaks highly of Mr. Miranda as being fair and balanced.

So lets harken back over a year where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blogged about the winter season no longer bringing snow or cold to DC. David Freddoso, takes him to task here.

As flying Van facebooked "If you have any pre conceived notion, you'll cling to the things that support 'your' side and spin/deny/ignore the things that don't. Worst offender in my opinion is the IPCC."

To which RFK's unintended response: "Idiots on the right like Rush [Limbaugh] like to point to any cold-weather anomalies as proof that global warming doesn’t exist,"

Which misses the point so amazingly, ignorantly, it is cause to laugh.

TV (US .vs. BBC) SPOILERS!

Dollhouse post mortem. The last five episodes when combined with the unaired Epitaph one give you an idea of what the show could have been. To me it appears Joss and FOX bumped heads and, like with Firefly, did not have the intestinal fortitude to hold his creative ground. Instead we got the Imprint of the Week with overt sexual overtones that did not appeal as most of the audience is not voyeurs.

For those who shrugged and voted with the remote, here is what you missed. Echo is able to load past imprints at will. The company behind the Dollhouse designs a way to imprint the world and they do. For the next 10 years as a rag-tag bunch of survivors, Echo and company work to set things right. It is rushed and you get the feeling you missed quite a few episodes. In my way of thinking yanking the fluff episodes that are "required" for a US series and following a storyline would have helped this series.

We are treated to story driven television via the BBC America channel. They do more with a series with less episodes, by focusing on an actual story.

Heroes ended its season and it was tiring seeing the safe, uncreative drivel that crept into this one time favorite. I wonder if, at some point, the production team decides to sacrifice story to stretch out the job as long as possible. Frankly I have a tough time watching any of the CSI shows anymore. They break down into Crime, cute line, montage, plot, montage, close. Most of the show revolves around the exciting world of lab coats.

Juxtapose that with the Children of Earth, Torchwood. The ended of this tale was disturbingly well written. Salvation at such a horrible cost.

Politcial Blogging.

Blogs are a never ending mosaic of thought, feeling and expression. The political blogging has certain defined (by moi) forms

The Rant blog. Passionate, mostly rhetorical and cathartic in nature.

The Attack blog: Highly biased, intolerant, rhetoric filled, ad hominem, name calling, childish.

The Thoughtful blog: Introspective, conceding points on merit, non-ideological.

What is most disconcerting thing about the attack blog is the mob mentality that is generated. So they self generate a desire to repress. Some of the comments become rabid with zero tolerance to ideas outside of the group. To read them can evoke such a strong emotion that can override the understanding that nothing is to be gained by jumping into the fray.

He who knows when he can fight and when he can not will be victorious. ~~Sun Tzu

My friend Shoo is very adept at divorcing emotion from discussion, it is a trait I really admire. I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve when it comes to such things. The Wizard does as well, usually making me re-consider a position. Both I consider thoughtful blogs. (my own is a rant)

While I enjoy a good rant, I prefer to read the thoughtful.

CSPAN needs to show the Health Care debate!

Contact your representative and ask for the Obama promised CSPAN debate. It is the only way for us to stop this.

You start to wonder if giving Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11 and his two henchmen, a show trial with full constitutional rights in New York City, a good idea?

Is giving the underware Christmas Bomber, a non-citizen, full constitutional rights, a good idea?

Multiple unauthorized guests in the White House, is that a good thing?

Fort Hood terror attack, was that an isolated incident?

The administration deciding to be tougher on Israel than Iran, is that a good policy?

Sending 90 terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to Yemen, a compassionate ploy?

Is lifting an executive order giving Interpol immunity from American laws a screw up?

Is reneging on an unprompted, calculated campaign pledge to put Obamacare negotiations on C-SPAN eight different times, is that an oversight?

Is creating two trillion-dollar slush funds while calling them TARP and job stimulus plans, is that good fiscal policy?

Has Obama done anything to reignite the US economy? Ten to 17% unemployment!

Maybe this is all on purpose?

Architects of Ruin, by Peter Schweizer Takes a look back at Saul Alinsky, who argued the middle class would have to be brought around slowly to revolutionary change. And that the best way to do it was to take everything away from them! "Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, nonchallenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution."~S. Alinsky

Progressives feel the USA is in need of radical change, The USA is guilty, it is immoral, it is colonial, it is imperialistic, its military is immoral, we have supported the wrong people, we have plundered the earth, we have stolen all these resources for our own benefit and our own lifestyle. This country is unjust and immoral and Obama is going to make it right. So people have to feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the current system, i.e, capitalism, that they are willing to let go of the past, capitalism, and change the future, socialism.

This is a crisis to be taken advantage of by our President...

or maybe I am just being paranoid...

Not pretty but voters should know this.

Note: Spending is spending no matter what side of the aisle.

Freedom Demolition

At one point in time I was talking to a friend about firearm purchases. His contention was anyone who owned a firearm was a danger to society. Recently I was reading about certain TV sets being banned in California. The phrase "Why would anyone buy something like that?" popped into my mind. That question, in one context, is perfectly reasonable. In another context, one dealing with banning or regulation, is the elimination of freedoms.

Are there certain things a person should not be able to buy? Sure, weapons grade plutonium, for instance. The line that gets drawn is a slippery slope fraught with peril.

One of the channels on the TV played Demolition man, and it had a bit more social commentary then I had given credit. Given the current administrations perchance for regulation and neologisms.

Napolitano preferred the euphemism Man-Made disaster in place of Terrorist Attack. Iin the film: homicide is referred to as a "non-sanctioned life termination" and as "Murder Death Kill" or "MDK". The loosening of decency standards depicted is more of a conservative bent then liberal. A violation of the Verbal Morality Statute, is punishable by police reprimand or a fine. In liberal fashion though, the fine is automatically deducted from a citizen's finances.

Then the government control of media in that the favorite songs of the time are old 20th-century commercial jingles (kid oriented ones) and many words have gained redundant, childish repetitions: to be happy is to experience "joy-joy" feelings. Which bodes of the nanny state.

Then comes the crux. It is explained that anything "not good for you" is deemed "bad" and therefore illegal, including alcohol, caffeine, contact sports, non-educational toys, meat, spicy and unhealthy food, table salt and tobacco (sound familier?). Firearms can only be seen in museums (Gun Control!). Physical contact was recognized as causing the spread of disease and is now seen as unusual (This is enforced in Elementary school). Even high-fives have been replaced with energetic waving. Procreation is carried out in a laboratory (Heavily regulated no doubt); abortion is illegal, but so is unlicensed pregnancy. I can see Nancy Pelosi salivating at the prospect!

I ponder why it is those elected to 'represent us' sometimes feel the need to "protect us from ourselves?"

Gaming dynamics

Imagine writing a comprehensive list of directions that encompass your day. Now write a corresponding list of Sights and Sounds. Next a description of reactions that will cover the bulk of your day.

This is an overwhelming task. The possible outcomes make it an impossible task (or at the least highly improbable). There is a significant chance your write-up will have major errors. Even if you dramatically limit the scope.

The above thought experiment is a fairly simplistic analogy of what the Computer Programmers at Blizzard have done in creating World of Warcraft (WoW), which is the most popular online game.

Every so often they change the content in what is known as a "patch." This is a re-writing of the code that is then carefully inserted into the game. Some Patches go smoother then others. There has never been a catastrophic patch that I know. They have a good testing procedure.

I have written some code and have a good understanding for how complex it can become in a short period of time. A program like WoW is overwhelming when you start considering its nature.

Still, when there is some small glitch in a patch, there are people who go out of there minds. They rant the "poor quality" and the "incompetence" of the programmers. I know it is human nature to want something to complain about, but these folks take it one step beyond.

I guess this is a rant for acceptance and civility. Accept that being outside of a process means you have a limited understanding of the same.

Brisk, cold, arctic, frigid, gelid, glacial, icy, polar bleak, cutting, raw chilly, parky crisp, frosty, nipping, nippy, snappy

Walking to work in 11 degree's is actually fun for me. I enjoy the cold and the crunchy grass, steamy billowing exhale. When I am at work, I would like it to be able to take my winter gear off.

Facilities at the Library are proving to be worthless.

Yesterday it was in the 40's. in the tech room. The heater guys came over and told us it was fixed. There was NO warm air coming from the vents, which you figure would be proof it was working.

They opened up the door and the heat from the back room and hallway slowly got the temperature up. This morning again it is in the 40's. Again they come over and, again they tell us it is working.

It's not. So I am wearing thermals, dual socks and four layers and still get chills.

I like walking in the cold. Not sitting and trying to work in the cold.

Compassion enough to starve people?

July 2008. New York decides that people are too stupid to make choices around diet and by banning Trans fatty acids they will stop obesity, or some such nonsense. Here you have government forcing people to do something, this is an elimination of freedom.

But Trans Fats are bad right? This is a good thing right? NYC looking out for the little guy, the Government as parents protecting their swaddling children from harm...

Lets take a food kitchen in NYC, one that distributes food to the hungry. There are LOTS of hungry right now, work is scarce, money is scarce. These food kitchens run off of donations, which are also down at the moment. So lets take a hypothetical example: A church decides to have a collection of food for a local shelter. They deliver the food, it is accepted with a Thank you.

Next, the shelter goes through the food and throws away anything with Trans fats. Because it is much better to go hungry or starve then risk obesity?

Oh, BTW this is NOT hypothetical! This is an example of government gone wild and hurting people.

When a small church comes to the Bowery Mission bearing fried chicken with trans fat, unwittingly breaking the law, they’re told “thank you.” Then workers quietly chuck the food, mission director Tom Bastile said.

“It’s always hard for us to do,” Basile said. “We know we have to do it.”

My Spoon is too big

Well my clothes are actually...

I grabbed a favorite shirt of mine and went out to eat recently. This particular dinner has been blogged about below with pictures. My shirt looks like crap on me, because it had been on a much larger version of me.

All my old shirts are too big. This, is very annoying to me for a couple of reasons. I LIKE my old shirts but when you put on a dress shirt and its like tucking in a spinnaker sail IT LOOKS LIKE GATHERED CRAP!

It was bad enough that my Briefs had turned into Boxers (I do not like boxers). Now my shirt collection is requiring being purged! Tee-shirts can be worn big. It is even comfortable. Sweat Shirts I prefer big. It turns out there is something to be said for work shirts that fit.

Do NOT get me wrong. I am well pleased that for the first time in 30 years I am below 200 pounds. I just never took into account that my wardrobe would become obsolete.

Silly me...

Okay, I feel better (until I look at my FORMER shirts again)... So anyways. I went to the Doctors today. My NEW doctor. My old one saw the writing on the wall and opted for early retirement then face the Government Rationed Healthcare system that seems to be coming our way.

This new doctor was not born in the USA. No big deal, but I am starting to wonder if there are ANY new doctors being born in the USA... And I got a bit of a life shock, this may or may not make sense\be funny to anyone out there depending upon your age and experience.

THIS DOCTOR IS YOUNGER THEN ME! For the first time EVER! yes, it was a fundamental shift in my universe. Shocking to say the least. Doctor baby face was nice enough, he apparently enjoys his laptop computer as he spent much more time looking at it then at me. I was anxious to hear how my blood work went. Being Type II, and having shunned 88 pounds, you can understand.

He starts explaining things, with an increasingly confusing loop the loop of information:

Doc: Okay your blood test results are excellent, your numbers are at the upper range for normal.

Me: Wow, Normal? Great I was hoping to get off my medication.

Doc babyF: Well, your numbers are normal for a regular person.

Me: I have daily bowel movements, I am not sure what that has to do with...

Doc babyF: No I mean your blood work would show your not diabetic in a normal person.

Me: I'm not a normal person?

Doc babyF: You have Diabetes.

Me: Yes, but with my weight loss I was thinking I would be able to reverse that. Now you say my numbers show my blood sugars are normal! That means I'm Cured!

Doc babyF: No, it doesnt, you still have diabetes. If you Did NOT have diabetes your blood test would be normal.

Me: Did the numbers before show I had dabetes?

Doc babyF: Yes, most assuradly.

Me: and now the numbers show my blood is the same as a normal, non-type II person?

Doc babyF: Exactly correct.

Me: So the only reason I am not cured NOW is because I was diagnosed earlier?

Doc babyF: Yes, that is correct.

Me: ........................................wtf?

Anyways. My BP is phenomenal! My Cholesterol is Excellent! My weight is a tad high (according to a highly flawed calculation called BMI, but so be it).

All in all I am a much healthier human being, just in time for Christmas! Now if I just had something to wear!

Eat Global Warming!

I am opposite to PETA's agenda. Saying I am a vegetarian can have an odd effect on some people who mentally categorize in a mind narrowing fashion.

However, I am reading today that California decided that people need to go out of state to purchase Televisions. This is due in part to Man Made Global warming and government wanting the highest energy cost they can achieve. Yes, that paragraph is very slanted.

In reading all this cap and trade, carbon footprint, government regulation. I wonder when we will each have our own carbon limit. Something like the UK is contemplating. "Wow, I am over my carbon allowance, I better stay home and darken my house to catch up..."

Why is it, I wonder, if the planet is in such danger, why not simply outlaw meat production?

Eating vegan is more environmentally efficient than feeding the animals in a meat-based diet. Veganism also greatly reduces the wastes, pollution, and deforestation caused by mass raising of animals.

We have altered vast ecosystems and devoted massive resources to support the world's burgeoning livestock herds. These animals need to be fed. They need water to survive. If they are ranged, they need land. And these animals produce enormous quantities of waste.

The ecological footprint of meat production is deep and wide, and ranges from forest destruction in Central and South America for ranching to suppression of native predators and competitors in the United States.

Seven kilograms of grain are required to produce 1 kilogram of beef; the conversion is 4-to-1 for pork and 2-to-1 for poultry. Each kilogram of meat represents several kilograms of grain that could be consumed directly by humans, not to mention the water and farmland required growing the grain.

Huge amounts of food - not to mention the water and farmland required growing the food - can be freed up by reduction in meat production. For example, if the 670 million tons of the world's grain that is fed to livestock were reduced by 10 percent, the resulting grain could feed 225 million people.

The massive waste produced by livestock threatens waterways worldwide. In the United States, where 130 times more animal manure is produced than human waste - 5 tons for every U.S. citizen - animal waste is the principal source of water pollution.

However, Al Gore has dismissed this method, maybe because it will do nothing for his bank account. Nothing in the cap and trade bill address meat consumption either, possibly due to the lobbyists?

Or maybe all of this rancor is not about the Earth at all...

Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out

It has to be getting more and more difficult to believe in the man made global warming cult Al Gore has been raking in the cash from.

"The planet's temperature curve rose sharply for almost 30 years, as global temperatures increased by an average of 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.25 degrees Fahrenheit) from the 1970s to the late 1990s. "At present, however, the warming is taking a break," confirms meteorologist Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in the northern German city of Kiel. Latif, one of Germany's best-known climatologists, says that the temperature curve has reached a plateau. "There can be no argument about that," he says. "We have to face that fact.""

With Hurricanes At Thirty Year Low, Gore Turns To Photoshop

Climate change appears to have stalled just before the upcoming world summit in the Danish capital, where thousands of politicians, bureaucrats, scientists, business leaders and environmental activists plan to negotiate a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Billions of euros are at stake in the negotiations, meaning who is going to get the slush fund that cap and trade 'creates' to stop global warming. I guess that makes it a real crises!

Catholic bashing (phrase of the day)

Check this out from the Washington Post.

The Archdiocese’s ultimatum

By David Waters

In a surprisingly bold and seemingly unbiblical move, [tuck that word away for the time being] the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is threatening to discontinue its social support for nearly 70,000 people—including a third of Washington’s homeless—because of its opposition to a proposed same-sex marriage bill. [Think about this. The issue in question is not support of the homeless. It is really same-sex marriage, ... which has another name, FWIW.]

Under the proposed bill, according to a story by Post reporters Tim Craig and Michelle Boorstein, religious organizations would not be required to perform same-sex weddings, "but they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians." [And therefore…]

Apparently, the archdiocese is concerned that it could be forced, for example, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, open adoptions to same-sex couples, or rent a church hall to gay and lesbian groups. "If the city requires this, we can’t do it," Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. "The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that’s really a problem." [Yes, that is a problem. But notice the key part here: "The city is saying that in order to provide…" Get that? "The city is saying…".]

And withdrawing support for the poor and the hungry isn’t a problem? [Ummm… did he slip into Bearded-Spock-Reality? The issue is same-sex marriage.]

It gets complicated anytime church and state work together to provide services for people, especially when a mix of public and private funds and facilities is involved. In this case, for example, the church manages a number of city-owned homeless shelters. [aaaaaaand….? So…. the Archdiocese is ready to continue to help so long as the City doesn’t pressure the the Archdiocese to do morally repugnant things. Is that it?]

The use of public funds and facilities should be governed by secular laws and regulations, including anti-discrimination laws. But churches and other non-profit religious organizations are exempt from many such laws, because of church-state separation.

The Church should have every right to oppose any piece of legislation and to use its funds and facilities as it sees fit. [Except when it interferes with a liberal agenda?] On the other hand, if any church is going to accept government funding for any purpose, shouldn’t it be required to abide by government rules?

But the larger question is this: [Get this….] Is the Church really going to ignore the gospel imperative to feed, clothe, shelter and care for the disadvantaged—in this case 70,000—because it might have to provide better benefits to a few of its own workers? I don’t think that’s what Jesus meant by "going the extra mile." [And the City is going to ignore the prescription by God not to commit sodomy. Is that it?]

As DC council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) put it: "Are they really going to harm people because they have a philosophical disagreement with us on one issue?" [How thick is Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3)?]

This seems to be the scenario.

The Archdiocese is presently doing its part to help homeless people.

The City is going to press the Archdiocese to do things which are morally repugnant and contrary both to Scripture and the natural law.

So, standing there with its hands open in both directions, waiting to help the poor, it would actually be the CITY which would cut off funds to help the Archdiocese, because the Archdiocese refuses to condone sodomy.

Get that? The City would suspend the funds.

Therefore the liberals, to pressure the Church to violate the interior logic of Christianity, say that the Church wants to "harm" the poor.

Is that what I just read?

And the writer, Waters, who flashes out the word "unbiblical" might want to review Holy Writ’s comments on sodomy.

(special thanks to Fr. Zuhisdorf)

What a sad day

The house passed the "Worst Bill in History."

I sent an e-mail to my congressman stating how disappointed I am with his irresponsible vote. Further, when a political opponent steps up I will be supporting him.

Happy is a pretty simple definition, right?

Just to warn you, I am a bit irk'd at the moment. In that tiny universe called Face Book, there are bunches of friends from various points in my life that gather. One of them is the definition of kindness and sweetness, what you would call a really good person.

She is of a political slant similar to mine and posted on her support of traditional marriage. This invoked the rage of someone else who sputtered from discussion to argument to name calling to ad hominem and diatribes. This is not the first time this person has done this. I was the recipient at one point. I opted to ban and say "go away," as there was nothing useful or positive or even worthwhile being offered.

If you do not agree with me on point x your not a real friend, your not fair and good, you are angry, you are judgmental, you are racist, etc. I am right you agree with me or be CAST OUT! *sigh*

"No human trait deserves less tolerance in everyday life, and gets less, than intolerance." --Giacomo Leopardi

There is some comfort in surrounding yourself with people who agree with you, act like you do, hold your same values. There is great value in questioning beliefs, paradigms, choices. I often marvel at the ability of give and take in arguments.

A true debater can argue multiple sides of a topic and still hold a personal belief. A very strong belief as it is formulated on a solid bedrock of knowledge.

I can only surmise that lashing out like that is some fear based reaction, because confidence in your own belief is challenged and you lack the maturity to accept a change of view.

How important is it to be right? I guess we could ask Galileo..