CatHouse Chat

Happy Halloween!

THIS is how "the Lost Get Found," Christian!

Britt Nicole just went out and opened her eyes and looked to see who God had placed in front of her - and then she did her best to shine God's love into their lives.

Why don't you - why don't I - why don't we... do the same?

My, my, look what happens when you ENFORCE THE LAW!!!!

Crackdowns on illegal immigrants and other law enforcement efforts are driving gangs out of Northern Virginia and into Maryland and the District, a report released Monday concluded.

"Many gang members from Northern Virginia are moving or driving to Prince George's and other Maryland counties, into the District of Columbia or further south and west into Virginia to avoid dealing with police departments that are unrelenting in their efforts to keep gangs under control," authorities wrote in the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force report.

The report said the task force's success is the result of Virginia law enforcement's use of anti-gang policing measures, including the referring of suspected illegal immigrants to federal authorities. Since the task force was created in 2003, it has arrested 952 gang members, more than 40 percent of whom were illegal immigrants, the report said

via www.washingtonexaminer.com

I've said it before, I'll say it again: America is happy to have immigrants who come here legally, who obey the law, and who want to assimilate into American culture.

If you're here illegally, I have precious little pity and empathy for your woes.

Grammar/Vocabulary Wars, part 2

*sigh*

• past vs. passed
• know vs. no
• throws vs. throes
• accept vs. except

And some really odd ones I've come across recently, but the one I remember is "say for" instead of "save for." (At the King's command, everyone left the throne room save for the Duke and is retainers)

So, where's the Left's outrage?

President Barack Obama has only been in office for just over nine months, but he's already hit the links as much as President Bush did in over two years.

CBS' Mark Knoller — an unofficial documentarian and statistician of all things White House-related — wrote on his Twitter feed that, "Today - Obama ties Pres. Bush in the number of rounds of golf played in office: 24.

via www.politico.com

Seriously. They railed against Bush, called him stupid, insisted that he wasn't taking things seriously when he went golfing or took some time off in Texas - but I'm not hearing a peep now when Obama does anything similar.

In nine months, less than half the time Bush took, teh Won has played golf 24 times. Never mind that he's not dealing with Afghanistan, or the health care "crisis," or the rampant corruption in the DemonRAT-ick party... He wants to play golf.

*sigh*

Related articles by Zemanta

• Obama Ties Bush on Golf (outsidethebeltway.com)
• They Told Me If I Voted for Mccain, the White House Would Become an Old Boys' Club - and They Were ... (pajamasmedia.com)
• McGurn: The Post-Gracious President (online.wsj.com)

Oh, this has GOT to be the LOLcat of the Month!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Lady Pickle-Purr, ruler of all laps!

Pixel loves to claim her rightful place on a lap for her morning skritchies!

It's Worldwide Howl at the Moon Night!

Image by Rick Leche Photographer via Flickr

I did not know this until I read it over on Yak's site...

Nine p.m. local time, everyone go out and participate in the first annual Worldwide Howl at the Moon Night!

C'mon... Live a little (at the very least, it'll make your neighbors nicely nervous *snicker*)! ;-)

UPDATED! Is H1N1 - "Swine Flu" - really the pandemic the media says?

According to two recent stories on FoxNews, H1N1 deaths in the U.S. have passed 1,000, with 95 of them children. Everybody is screaming

PANDEMIC!!!!!

and descending into panic attacks.

However, if you look at the statistics from the World Health Organization (and admittedly, these stats' most recent information is from July), you'll see that worldwide deaths total only 177,000. OK, let's be pessimistic and say that worldwide deaths have tripled since July - that would bring the grand total of worldwide deaths to 531,000.

Let's put this in perspective.

Here are the top ten causes of death in the United States:

• Heart disease: 631,636
• Cancer: 559,888
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 137,119
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,583
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 121,599
• Diabetes: 72,449
• Alzheimer's disease: 72,432
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,326
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 45,344
• Septicemia: 34,234

The rough total for all ten is 1,854,400, and the leading cause of death in the United States alone - heart disease (ONE CAUSE) - is about 1.2 times higher then the hypothetical WORLDWIDE death rate for this flu.

Folks, I'm not saying not to take precautions. I'm not encouraging you to stop washing your hands or to let sick kids go to school and infect everyone else. I'm not telling you to refuse the vaccine shots and I'm not telling you to get them, either - that's your choice to make after you've evaluated the facts as they apply to you and your family.

But can we just quit with the hyperbolic scare tactics? I swear, y'all are crying "WOLF!" and when the wolf really does come to our door, everyone will be so jaded by previous hysteria that they'll throw the door wide open, and then we'll see some serious death rates.

So let's be sensible, OK? Be safe, be smart, but will you all please just take a chill pill???

UPDATE: My good friend David points out an article from CBS (!!) on 21 Oct., which says

If you've been diagnosed "probable" or "presumed" 2009 H1N1 or "swine flu" in recent months, you may be surprised to know this: odds are you didn’t have H1N1 flu.

In fact, you probably didn’t have flu at all. That's according to state-by-state test results obtained in a three-month-long CBS News investigation.

The ramifications of this finding are important. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Britain's National Health Service, once you have H1N1 flu, you're immune from future outbreaks of the same virus. Those who think they've had H1N1 flu -- but haven't -- might mistakenly presume they're immune. As a result, they might skip taking a vaccine that could help them, and expose themselves to others with H1N1 flu under the mistaken belief they won't catch it. Parents might not keep sick children home from school, mistakenly believing they've already had H1N1 flu.

Why the uncertainty about who has and who hasn't had H1N1 flu?

In late July, the CDC abruptly advised states to stop testing for H1N1 flu, and stopped counting individual cases. The rationale given for the CDC guidance to forego testing and tracking individual cases was: why waste resources testing for H1N1 flu when the government has already confirmed there's an epidemic?

As lovely a case of circular reasoning as I've ever seen....

Related articles by Zemanta

• Germophobes, please don't hoard the Purell (money.cnn.com)
• Health Expert: How to Track and Fight Swine Flu (usnews.com)

The latest "medical" breakthrough: Hydrogen Barakside

via fearaniarthair.blogspot.com

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

(And if you don't have my buddy, Man of the West, on your reading list, then you're missing out!)

Icons of Evolution - another one bites the dust!

By emphasizing growth rates, the researchers redefined the transition between dinosaurs and birds in a way that makes archaeopteryx just one of several species of feathered dinosaurs preceding modern birds. It may not even be a direct ancestor. Scientists disagree, though, exactly where dinosaurs ought to leave off and birds begin. "How do you define what is a bird and what is not a bird?" says paleobiologist Geoffrey Birchard at George Mason University in Virginia. In this study, "they changed the criteria. This is something that dinosaur people argue about a great deal."

Bird or Dinosaur?

View Slideshow

• More photos and interactive graphics

Such revisions make paleontology a science of second thoughts. Reconstructing the history of life, researchers thrash out theories of ancestry, behavior and biomechanics guided by hints from ancient bones. Archaeopteryx -- combining the feathers, wishbone and wings of a bird with the reptilian tail, teeth and claws of a dinosaur -- had already become a question mark.

Newly discovered fossils have prompted scientists to revamp their assumptions about archaeopteryx's distinguishing features over the last decade. A cornucopia of fossil finds in China demonstrated that feathers coated many dinosaur species, not just birds. Other surprises still may be concealed in trays of unexamined museum specimens. The first and most complete fossil of archaeopteryx, found in 1855, was misidentified as a flying pterodacylus for 115 years. The newest finding, though, demonstrates that our understanding of even well-studied fossils like archaeopteryx -- scrutinized, measured, modeled for 150 years -- can still be upended.

via online.wsj.com

I'd like you to take particular note of the last sentence in the quote:

The newest finding, though, demonstrates that our understanding of even well-studied fossils like archaeopteryx -- scrutinized, measured, modeled for 150 years -- can still be upended.

When man presumes to attempt to overturn God's sovereignty over creation, when he goes to extreme lengths to deny the plain truth of a designed universe (it's called "suppressing the truth in unrighteousness" in Romans 1), and when he does not work in partnership with God's methods which have been clearly revealed both in nature and in Scripture, then of course all these supposedly intelligent theories are going to be in turmoil! Without God, mere men cannot comprehend the full truth of anything, even "science."

Don't get me wrong: I'm not "against" evolution, per se. However, too many people confuse micro-evolution (wolves into dogs, for instance), which is not at all against the Bible, with macro-evolution (amoebas into humans, for instance), which is - and which is logically unsupportable.

Where, for instance, does an amoeba - or a plant or a fish or a reptile or whatever - gain the genetic information to grow into a human? How do all the diverse parts of the human eye come together at just the right moment so that it actually works and can be transmitted to offspring? Where do the instincts and neural paths come from that permit that visual information to be transmitted to the brain and transformed into usable information?

No. Evolutionists - and don't talk about theistic evolution, because it's a contradiction in terms - have far too high and steep a hill to climb, and they haven't been able to convince me that they're even 6 inches off the floor.

Another one bites the dust...

It was billed as one of the most important fossil finds in history, a “missing link” that would challenge everything we knew about human evolution.

Darwinius masillae, the primitive primate that was unveiled to the world with huge fanfare and a Sir David Attenborough documentary in May, seems now to have been less of a missing link than an evolutionary dead end. Far from being an ancestor to humans, the lemur-like creature from 47 million years ago belongs to an entirely different branch of the primate family tree that has left no known descendants, research has indicated

via www.timesonline.co.uk

See, this is why I don't get all worked up when the newspapers explode with breathless screams of excitement over the newest "missing link." A month, a year, a couple of years, and the little bit of Darwinian idiocy gets debunked.

God's Word stands firm, and God Himself mocks our foolish attempts to remove Him from His throne:

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us."

He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
"As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill."

We are made in the image of the God of this universe; we did not "evolve" out of pond scum. We are far more precious and noble than the evolutionist could ever dream - and we are the only creatures for whom God chose to give His life and ransom us from the clutches of sin, death, and hell.

Darwinius masillae? A glorious and beautifully designed animal - but only an animal, and not a human.

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8)

Oh, now this is just plain stupid!

Eric Williamson faces an indecent exposure charge after a passerby saw him in the buff in his own home making coffee.

It happened at 5:30 a.m. Monday.

Channel 5 reports the woman and 7-year-old boy who saw him naked apparently had cut through Williamson's front yard from a nearby path.

via www.wtop.com

I think Mr. Williamson ought to turn right around and charge them with trespassing, as well as adding "peeping Tom" charges....

"DRAGGED," not "drug"

Just some linguistic errors which drive me completely bonkers!!!

• envelop vs. envelope
• breath vs breathe
• thrown vs throne
• taught vs taut vs (aiiigh!) taunt
• alot vs allot vs a lot
• alright vs all right (yes, I AM that picky!)
• the ubiquitous to, too and two
• the also ubiquitous their, there, and they're
• ditto your and you're

And some personal dislikes, although they're actually correct (my preference is for the first word):

• instinctive vs instinctual 
• disoriented vs disorientated
• people vs persons

*sigh*

Anyway. Sorry. I just had to get out a little rant... A good resource for many quirks of the English language is the Grammar Girl over at the Quick and Dirty Tips website. Actually, Q&D has several excellent resources: modern manners, public speaking, money, finding bargains, parenting tips, and lots more. I highly recommend the site!

The Geography of Jobs - TIP Strategies

The Geography of Jobs - TIP Strategies

Posted using ShareThis

A Nation of whiney hypochondriacs...

Health care costs too much in our country because we deliver too much health care. We deliver too much because we demand too much. And we demand it for all the wrong reasons. We're turning into a nation of anxious wimps.

I still love my job; very few things are as emotionally rewarding as relieving true pain and suffering, sharing compassionate care and actually saving lives. Illness and injury will always require the best efforts our medical system can provide. But emergency departments nationwide are being overwhelmed by the non-emergent, and doctors in general are asked to treat what doesn't need treatment.

In a single night I had patients come in to our emergency department, most brought by ambulance, for the following complaints: I smoked marijuana and got dizzy; I got stung by a bee and it hurts; I got drunk and have a hangover; I sat out in the sun and got sunburn; I ate Mexican food and threw up; I picked my nose and it bled, but now it stopped; I just had sex and want to know if I'm pregnant.

via www.post-gazette.com

Or, as the actual title of the article states, "Suck it up, America!"

Believe me, this is not unusual - in our area, volunteer rescue squads are having to charge people who use the service as a taxi to get from their home to their doctor. Stupid, selfish, and pathetic!

WalMart and Amazon go to war

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. launched a brash price war against Amazon.com Inc. on Thursday, saying it would sell 10 hotly anticipated new books for just $10 apiece through its online site, Walmart.com.

That was just the beginning.

via online.wsj.com

Amazon is matching (not surprising), and this means that I'll get an excellent deal on Sarah Palin's book, which comes out in mid-November!

Competitive capitalism - gotta love it!

"Claiming to be wise, they became fools...."

President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.

The stunning choice made Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. Obama's name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.

via www.foxnews.com

... without further comment....

If you want more, go read

• Rick Sincere - "Is lutefisk hallucinogenic?"
• The Write Side of My Brain
• Crystal Clear Conservative
• Wizbang (here and here as well)

And I'm sure there'll be more.

UPDATE: Yep -

• Fear an Iarthair- " In one of the most mind-boggling, coffee-spewing, curse-inducing moments of computer face-time I have ever experienced, I saw the headline on Drudge, 'Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize.'"
• Legal Insurrection
• Riehl World View
• Fausta
• Gateway Pundit "Un-be-liev-a-bull!"
• Michelle Malkin
• Hot Air (particularly awesome for their round up of links)
• Red State "He's becoming Jimmy Carter faster than Jimmy Carter did!"
• Times Online - "Absurd decision makes mockery of Nobel Peace Prize" (Um, didn't that already happen when it was awarded to Yassir Arafat?)

What's a "zeptosecond"?

Go check it out and see if you can't give the Instapundit a proper definition - especially since he had his definition wrong! ;-)

OK, now, HOW many Republicans are aiming for Perriello so far?

Besides Robert Hurt, who I just mentioned...

Let me see. There are five others so far (in no particular order)

1. Laurence Verga. Mr. Verga is a second generation (I think) American, and is a self-described "conservative Republican/Constitutionalist." That's good... Looks like he's very pro-national security, pro-life, pro Second Amendment. Excellent! I note he also favors term limits, and has pledged to serve no more than six years in the House. Hm. Oh, and FaceBook page here.
2. Feda Kidd Morton. I'm not seeing a website for her yet (she does have a FaceBook Fan page), here's a Google search on her name. Lots of information, and she certainly looks like an excellent candidate... She has a good background in the grassroots, so I daresay she's pretty well in touch with the majority of the party that's disgusted with RINOs...
3. Bradley Rees. Maybe not such a great candidate... But, then again, he does say he's a Fair Tax guy. Nevertheless, he doesn't look like a serious candidate to me at the moment.
4. Ken Boyd. He's served on the Board of Supervisors and School Board in Albemarle County and presents himself as a fiscal conservative (that's good!). Hm. I see he's also got an extensive background as a banker - well, hopefully that ought to encourage a determination not to overdraw the government bank account!
5. Michael McPadden. Mr. McPadden is also a supporter of the Fair Tax, and looks to be what I call an "Environmental Steward," which is what I would consider to be a reasonable, logical and godly stance on environmental issues. He is a Naval veteran, and certainly appears to be very pro-military. His blurb states "Individual Liberty. Sound Money. Constitutional Restraint."

An interesting group, and from what a friend conversant in Virginia politics has told me, I haven't even scratched the surface: there are apparently over 20 candidates! Yikes...

Come 2010, Perriello is in for a world of HURT!!!

(big kittipurrs to Jim Riley for the post title and the heads-up... )

Go Dan River (which is apparently the Danville Register Bee's online presence) is reporting that Robert Hurt, Virginia's Senator for the 19th District, has decided to campaign for a seat in the House of Representatives:

Confirming what many political pundits have been assuming for months, state Senator Robert Hurt, R-Chatham, filed the paperwork Tuesday to run for Congress in 2010 against Rep.Tom Perriello, D-5th District.

Hurt, a lawyer and Pittsylvania County native, said he and his wife began seriously discussing the idea after former Rep. Virgil Goode opted against another run earlier this year. Hurt said he would wait to make a formal announcement of his candidacy until after the November election, but filed now “because there’s so much to get done.”

Sign me up, Sen. Hurt!

His website, though incomplete at the moment, is live - so go sign up and show your support!

Wednesday morning Spurgeon: He goes before us

Image via Wikipedia

Always First in Fellowship
"He goeth before you into Gailee; there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you" (Mark 16:7).

Where He appointed to meet His disciples, there He would be in due time. Jesus keeps His trust. If He promises to meet us at the mercy seat, or in public worship, or in the ordinances, we may depend upon it that He will be there. We may wickedly stay away from the appointed meeting place, but He never does. He says, "Where two or three are met together in my name, there am I"; He says not, "There will I be," but, "I am there already." Jesus is always first in fellowship: "He goeth before you." His heart is with His people, His delight is in them, He is never slow to meet them. In all fellowship He goeth before us. But He reveals Himself to those who come after Him: "There shall ye see him." Joyful sight! We care not to see the greatest of mere men, but to see Him is to be filled with joy and peace. And we shall see Him, for He promises Himself to them. Rest assured that it will be so, for He does everything according to His word of promise: "As he said unto you." Catch at those last words, and be assured that to the end He will do for you "as he said unto you."

Jesus promised that He would never leave us nor forsake us, and as Spurgeon notes, He has promised to go before us as well. These great promises, along with so many others, bring great comfort to me - especially when I'm in a very Romans 7 mood, like today:

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched [woman] that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

I get so tired of dealing with the sin in my life; it's very wearying! I keep falling into the "I've got to DO something for God" attitude, and forget entirely that He wants me to love Him, to know Him, and to worship Him first and foremost. Again and again I fail and turn away, and again and again He calls me back and guides me on the path He wants.

He reminds me over and over again that He calls weary and burdened people to Himself, and He gives them rest:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Instead of casting all my cares upon Him, I keep insisting on carrying them myself - how foolish I am! Why can't I remember the simple truth in that old Sunday school song, "Jesus loves me, this I know... [I am] weak, but He is strong"?

Additionally, I need to remember that Romans 7 does not end in the hopeless cry of "Who will rescue me?!" but rather with this joyful declaration:

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Jesus will rescue me, Jesus has rescued me, and Jesus will continue to rescue me all the days of my life and forever into eternity future. There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus! 

So I need to cling to the promises that Jesus will go before me and never leave me, and also trust Him when He says

... He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Phil 1:6)

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Phil. 2:12-13)

God cannot lie, and so I know that the work He has begun in me will be completed in His time and by His power to the praise and glory of His name.

Jesus has gone before me. He has never left me, but He also calls me come into His presence and find rest. He wants me in fellowship with Him, to receive love, grace, and strength to serve Him each day. His abundant kindness surrounds me every moment of every day, and the joy and gratitude I feel for that simple truth should fill my life with praise for my great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Related articles by Zemanta

• God is With Us (eagleviews.org)
• Ministry of the Holy Spirit (codybateman.org)
• The Grace That Cuts Away (justanotherclaypot.blogspot.com)
• Grace and the Fallacy of "Arrival" (justanotherclaypot.blogspot.com)

DO WANT!!!!

So, if you want to sashay on over to my Amazon Wishlist...

Yep, on Amazon right here.

You go now. You buy me stuff! ;-) *snicker*

Creigh "Dirty" Deeds

via www.youtube.com

Yup. Deeds has run a lazy campaign which refuses to speak to the issues and prefers to attempt to smear McConnell with half-truths and lies. Classic finger-pointing campaign to attempt to keep the spotlight off himself, excoriating his opponent without offering concrete and sensible solutions of his own.

So much for a "civil" campaign.

DIRTY Deeds, indeed!

Oh, and don't forget to listen to the parody by Jim Hoeft and Brian Kirwin (hey, don't knock 'em - *I* could have been the one singing!!!)

Your Tuesday Spurgeon - with some John Calvin, too!

Image via Wikipedia

The Leadership of Our Guide

"Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all Truth" (John 16:13).

Truth is like a vast cavern into which we desire to enter, but we are not able to traverse it alone. At the entrance it is clear and bright; but if we would go further and explore its innermost recesses, we must have a guide, or we shall lose ourselves. The Holy Spirit, who knows all truth perfectly, is the appointed guide of all true believers, and He conducts them as they are able to bear it, from one inner chamber to another, so that they behold the deep things of God, and His secret is made plain to them. What a promise is this for the humbly inquiring mind! We desire to know the truth and to enter into it. We are conscious of our own aptness to err, and we feel the urgent need of a guide. We rejoice that the Holy Spirit is come and abides among us. He condescends to act as a guide to us, and we gladly accept His leadership. "All truth" we wish to learn, that we may not be one-sided and out of balance. We would not be willingly ignorant of any part of revelation lest thereby we should miss blessing or incur sin. The Spirit of God has come that He may guide us into all truth: let us with obedient hearts hearken to His words and follow His lead.

It's interesting that I just finished up Chapter 5 of Book One in Calvin's Institutes yesterday. This chapter is entitled, "The Knowledge of God Conspicuous in the Creation and Continual Government of the World," and Calvin's main point seems to be that even with all the evidence from Creation around them and the witness of their conscience within them, fallen man persists in his willful suppression of the truth, and chooses to worship the false gods and demons conjured by his own fancies.

Spurgeon makes the point that, unless God guides us, we are to prone to fall into error. It is only in God that "true truth" is found, because all truth is God's truth. Spiritually, we cannot know the truth, because in our natural state, we are dead men - zombies immersed in sin's clutch, and the puppets of Satan. It is only when the Holy Spirit comes to convict us of sin and give us new life that we can turn to God and to the truth.

If we do not receive that new life from God, then

In vain for us, therefore, does Creation exhibit so many bright lamps lighted up to show forth the glory of its Author. Though they beam upon us from every quarter, they are altogether insufficient of themselves to lead us into the right path... When Paul says that that which may be known of God is manifested by the creation of the world, he does not mean such a manifestation as may be comprehended by the wit of man (Rom. 1:19); on the contrary, he shows that it has no further effect than to render us inexcusable (Acts 17:27)... But though God is not left without a witness, while, with numberless and varied acts of kindness, He woos men to the knowledge of Himself, yet they cease not to follow their own ways, in other words, deadly errors. (Institutes, Book 1, chapter 5, sec. 14)

We cannot plead ignorance, without being at the same time convicted by our own consciences both of sloth and ingratitude. It were, indeed, a strange defence [sic] for man to pretend that he has no ears to hear the truth, while dumb creatures have voices loud enough to declare it...But while man must bear the guilt of corrupting the seed of divine knowledge s wondrously deposited in his mind, and preventing it from bearing good and genuine fruit, it is still most true that we are not sufficiently instructed by that bare and simple, but magnificent testimony which the creatures bear to the glory of their Creator. For no sooner do we, from a survey of the world, obtain some slight knowledge of Deity, than we pass by the true God, and set up in His stead the dream and phantom of our own brain, drawing away the praise of justice, wisdom, and goodness from the fountain-head, and transferring it to some other quarter. (Ibid., sec. 15)

Thus, when Truth makes Himself known to us, we need to be very careful and humbly give Him the praise and glory, rather than ourselves. After all, compared to Him, we are certainly not "all that!" We need Him - we desperately need Him! - to teach and guide us, to lift us up out of the pit and place our feet on Christ, the solid Rock of our Salvation.

I mourn that I came to this so late in my life. The salvation I professed when I was a young teenager did not produce any fruit until my 30's, and so many years were wasted! So many habits and thought patterns now need to be broken and confessed, and I struggle with them daily. I pray that as God continues His work in me I will be more and more faithful, humble and obedient to His call and leadership in my life.

Happy Birthday to my big brother!

I'm going to call him later today, and I hope that the card I sent arrived on time (sometimes US Snail is a little quirky...), but I wanted to mark the occasion of his 49th birthday here at CHC - just in case he happens to swing by today.

So,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BIG BROTHER, BUCK!!!

...or, Harry, as he seems to prefer these days... But "Harry" is our Dad, and I confess that I don't know if I'll ever be able to make the switch ;-)

The last moonflowers of the season I think

Cash for Clunkers a flop - Conservatives unsurprised

"Most of the idea of any stimulus is to pull spending up from the future, but it doesn't make any sense to design a program that only pulls up spending by one month," said Blinder, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration. "Why in the world would you make it a one-month program? The Germans didn't do that. The British do that. When I designed a mock version of this I was thinking of it as a one-year or two-year program."

Was the $3 billion wasted as a stimulus?

"Yeah, mostly," he said. "It provided a lift to GDP [gross domestic product], but it was so fleeting."

via www.washingtonpost.com

But I'm sure that the Big Government DemonRATs and RINOs are simply stunned...

*sigh*

And they're talking about spending MORE tax dollars! Look, congresscritters, take a int from real life: when the checkbook balance shows $0, stop spending money, and quit kiting checks!!!!

Saturday robotics practice

No Olympic torch for Chicago

Oh, gee, darn... Obama, I guess they're just not all that into you...

(screenshot taken at the Drudge Report)

As Mike says, "IOC: Obama's Not 'All that Jazz.'"

YankeePhil supposes that Michelle Obama is now disappointed with the world *snerk*

And DJ is wondering if Jimmy Carter will condemn the IOC as "racist."

Reuters says, "Obama's Olympian Gamble Collapses."

Obama and his wife, Michelle, had taken their star power to the Danish capital to make Chicago's case, ignoring the carping from Republican opponents who charged it was a bad time to go with foreign policy challenges in Iran and Afghanistan and the U.S. Congress bogged down in a domestic healthcare debate.

"I'm asking you to choose Chicago. I'm asking you to choose America," Michelle Obama told committee members.

Her husband said, "If you do, if we walk this path together, then I promise you this: The city of Chicago and the United States of America will make the world proud."

All that was for naught as Chicago was eliminated in the first round of voting, a decision that brought gasps from the Chicago contingent at the Copenhagen meeting.

Aw, darn... Cry me a river.

UPDATES:

Rick Sincere stops by in my comments - and I totally agree with him!

Chicago is the winner on this. It won't go into debt for millions of dollars...

And my dear blog-brother, Mike, let me know about Michelle Malkin's lovely mention of the Brazilians' response to the news that Rio will be hosting in 2016:

  

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Shock and Awwwwww! Obama loses Chicago's bid for Olympics (dvorak.org)
• Obama's Olympics Speech: 'I Urge You To Choose Chicago' (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Obama: US would do world proud with Olympics (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Whoopi Goldberg doesn't have the moral sense of a Frenchman

The French director Luc Besson refused to sign the petition calling for Polanski's release.

He said: "I have a lot of affection for him, he is a man that I like very much but nobody should be above the law. I don't know the details of this case, but I think that when you don't show up for trial, you are taking a risk."

via www.telegraph.co.uk

A 45 year old man plies a 13 year old girl with champagne and quaaludes, rapes and sodomizes her, tries to get her to keep it a secret from her mother, and then flees the country before the trial when it looks like he might actually be convicted.

Take a look at the transcript over at the Smoking Gun.

And Whoopi thinks it's not "rape-rape." Oh, really?! Well, then, what the hell is it?

Well, she knows she tossed the shan into the fit, because she's apparently trying some damage control:

Whoopi wanted to clarify the comment and make it clear that she was talking about the legal charge against Polanski at the time.

No, Whoop, you said something that displayed an incredible, insensitive, ignorant, and idiotic lack of character.

Even a Frenchman knew better.

Banned concealed carry in church: is it a First Amendment violation?

Obviously not all churches have the same beliefs about the legitimacy of self-defense and defense of others as does the New Life Church. This brings use to the second violation of the First Amendment. The morality of using deadly force when necessary to protect innocent lives is a strongly debated topic among various denominations. The early Christians disagreed on the topic. Historically, the standard Jewish and Catholic view was that self-defense was a right and defense of others was often a duty. Some Christians, particularly since the 20th century, take an opposite view. Likewise, many adherents of the major religions of Asia also support self-defense, while some (especially some Therevada Buddhists) do not. These doctrinal differences about self-defense represent very important, sincerely-held differences in religious beliefs. A religion is, after all, not just about the forms of ritual; religion is especially concerned about providing guidance for moral conduct at moments when a person may face decisions involving the end of life.

The state, of course, must be neutral between the various religious beliefs. The state should not compel a Quaker to shoot someone who is trying to kill her, nor should the state forbid a Baptist from saving her own life.   The CHL prohibition in churches violates the Free Exercise clause because it prevents self-defense by members of a religious community, when they are gathered as a community, even if key tenet of the religion is the communal duty of the adherents to protect their fellow adherents.

Moreover, the CHL ban also violates the Establishment clause because it favors some denominations over others. In effect, the statute privileges pacifist denominations over non-pacifist ones, by forcing the non-pacifist religions to obey pacifist standards of conduct in their own houses of worship. This is not only a Free Exercise violation, it is an Establishment clause violation, because it plainly creates the message that the pacifist way of being is the only way of being which the state will allow in any church, anywhere in the boundaries of the state.

via volokh.com

Very interesting points made at Volokh - I suggest the whole article and the comments are well worth the read (kittipurrs to the Blog Father, by the way).

Frankly, concealed carry by law-abiding citizens anywhere does not bother me. First, hello!, LAW-ABIDING citizens, and second, if they're doing it right, concealed carry means I wouldn't know about it anyway. And with crazy-person violence frequently in the news these days - how many times has it been in a church? - you can be that if some violent person intent on doing murder comes into my church, I'm going to be thanking the person who takes out the bad guy!

At any rate, as I said, Volokh's comments are very interesting, and certainly provide a base for a good discussion.