‘Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.”‘  ~ Exodus 8:19a  

Funny search engine terms used to find my blog:

• i hate lake pointe church in rockwall

• kyle the traffic cone

• bible housing crisis

• brian franklin tanzania

• Civilian deaths in the war in Afghanistan have increased 60% thus far this year.

• I truly hope events do not actually mirror predictions; still, I would once again urge us to all get our financial houses in order—quickly: ‘Fortis expects a complete collapse of the US financial markets within a few days to weeks. That explains, according to Fortis, the series of interventions of last Thursday to retrieve € 8 billion. “We have been saved just in time. The situation in the US is much worse than we thought”, says Fortis chairman Maurice Lippens. Fortis expects bankruptcies amongst 6000 American banks which have a small coverage currently. But also Citigroup, General Motors, there is starting a complete meltdown in the US.”

• Atheists are so tolerant and understanding: ‘It’s good that Christians homeschool. We need citizens to clean our toilets and mow our lawns. Perhaps some homeschooled Christians will be able to fill these types of jobs. The rest will be unemployable retards like their parents.’

• I wholeheartedly believe that parents should be liberal with their support for and affirmation of their children. A great deal of the motivation behind a child’s efforts lies in his search for his parents’ approval and we should be quick to recognise and fulfill that need. However, it should also be tempered with a copious amount of realism and (if need be) infused humility. Cheering on your child for his effort and celebrating his success should not be confused with a need to tell your child he is the best at everything he does—especially if it is not actually the case. Just ask former Aggie basketball player Deandre Jordan. After being told he is the greatest player for so long, he believed it—and it probably cost him millions of dollars.

• ‘The first flashing red alert, however, did not appear when the writer portrayed “God the Father” as a black woman, and the “Holy Spirit” as an Asian woman.’

• ‘Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran … [which] are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.’ Here we go again!

• ‘If this is 1938, as many conservatives argue, then Iran is Romania, not Germany.’

To-day’s 1980’s Moment is brought to you by: The Police

‘When a man opens a pit, or when a man digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey [or a 'possum?] falls into it, the owner of the pit shall make restoration. He shall give money to its owner, and the dead beast shall be his.’  ~ Exodus 21:33, 34

I saw Jacob and Laura at church to-day which reminded me that 1) it has been quite a while since the Hayneses (does that look right?) last were in town and 2) I need to post the picture from my opossum adventure to pair with theirs. 

Now, imagine sticking your arm down into a trash can with the intention of bring back dog food–and only dog food–and being greeted with this:

I would like to end this post with a very important caveat: Not all ‘possums are bad.  Some (like the one below) are downright fantastic!

‘Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.’ ~ Luke 15:25

I left work early yesterday (that’s right, Kev: Comp Time!) and, at the end of an uneventful three-hour trek up Interstate 45, found myself at the doorstep of my in-laws, where the girls have been since Sunday evening.  Long drives tend to sap my energy so my first activity was little more than watching Gracie Mae swim with Manna (her grandmother) in the pool from the comfort of the pool chair (with a room temperature Shiner Bock close at hand).

Later that evening, we packed up the plantation and rallied at the Dallas Arboretum for their summer concert series featuring one of my favourites, Asleep at the Wheel.  I absolutely love their tightly-played and enthusiastically delivered brand of Western Swing, so I was in hog heaven as we sat on the sloped lawn eating homemade chicken salad sandwhiches (not as good as Marian’s!) and tipping back bottles of chilled Spaten and Heineken.  Good stuff.

In spite of the great show, I think my favourite part of the evening was during the encore as I held Gracie Mae on my shoulders and she clapped and laughed wildly to their rendition of ‘Cherokee Maiden‘.  It just doesn’t get much better than that.

(Jackson, are you paying attention?)

‘They shall not make bald patches on their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards, nor make any cuts on their body.’  ~ Leviticus 21:5

Good news!  The old crew chickens appear to be accepting the new chicks I introduced into the coop last week.  The latter have been able to negotiate the coop largely unmolested, though the larger birds tend to become aggressive whenever I enter to feed them.  (The get in such a fowl mood!)  I would love to post pictures (the Ameraucanas are absolutely beautiful) but the wife’s camera is behaving badly.  Stay tuned.

“I’ll meet you at the outdoor cafe.  (I’ll be wearing orange.)”  

• By way of demonstrating how the biblical translation you employ can have a significant impact on your exegesis: Do you realise that the King James Version mentions unicorns?

• ‘South Korea currently ranks 12th in the world militarily, whereas North Korea is 18th. South Korea has twice as many men available to the military (24 million to 11 million) and roughly twice as many under arms (657,000 to 382,000). Economically the South ranks 13th in the world with a GDP of $982b (just above Australia), the North ranks 156th with $2b (just above Greenland). North Korea’s gross national income was valued at $26.7 billion last year, with its per capita gross national income at $1,152, according to the Bank of Korea. By contrast, South Korea’s $971 billion economy grew 5 percent last year, giving it a per capita income at $20,045.’  (So, remind me, why are we still in South Korea?)

• What do Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Pachelbel, and Fleetwood Mac have in common?

• As someone who would have lost my land to this New World Order boondoggle, I am very relieved to know that, in this instance anyway, the Powers That Be heeded the concerns of the little man.

• Sedacca wrote that current financial-market conditions remind him of “someone standing on a lonely beach, armed with only a small bucket, trying to stop a rare tsunami that hits the shores. It is how I feel about our markets and the tools being utilized by the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and other regulatory bodies. They are overmatched for what they are facing and, worse yet, they helped create the mess in the first place by being far too easy with money and debt creation.”

• ‘By [current standards of] morality and logic, Germans at Nuremberg might have asserted a right to kill women and children because that is what the British were doing to [German] women and children.’

• Knock, knock. Who’s there? Hermann Goering’s underwear…

• Maybe those folks in Taxachusetts aren’t so bad after all. A local school committee recently added Ron Paul’s book, ‘The Revolution: A Manifesto’ to its summer reading list.

To-day’s 1980’s Moment is brought to you by: Billy Joel 

‘I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But my love will never be taken away from him…’  ~ II Samuel 7:14-15a

The news has by now travelled far and wide but, for those yet unaware, I relish the opportunity to announce that we are expecting a son!  I can say in all sincerity that I would have been just as overjoyed to discover the next addition to our family lacked a Y chromosome; still, though I would have loved another daughter just as much, I feel a bit…different about our impending arrival.  

It is a near universal truth that men desire sons made in their image to carry forth the family name and legacy.  Admittedly, though I would have been overjoyed at the prospect of expanding our collection of pink accoutrement (and hope to again in the future, truth be told!) I am very much enamoured with the idea of welcoming Thomas Jackson into the fold.  He will be called Jackson, after one of my Christian–and Southern–heroes.  My prayer is that he will grow to be a godly man and not take after his father in all of the bad ways.

It is difficult to fathom an additional member around the family hearth; yet, as I recall, I had similar troubles coalescing my thoughts around Gracie Mae.  However, knowing the joy she has brought to our lives, I have every reason to look forward to November.  The ‘New Normal’ as the Andersons describe it.

Fatherhood is much like having a wolf by the ears; it is both exhilarating and utterly frightening.  And one heck of a ride!

People smile and tell me I’m the lucky one.
And we’ve just begun, think I’m gonna have a son.
He will be like she and me, as free as a dove,
conceived in love, the sun is gonna shine above.

And even though we ain’t got money,
I’m so in love with you honey,
Everything will bring a chain of love.
And in the mornin’ when I rise,
you bring a tear of joy to my eyes
and tell me, everything, is gonna be alright.  ~ Kenny Loggins, Danny’s Song

• It seems that a former College Station city councilman made it big—he was featured in the ‘Headlines’ portion of the To-night Show with Jay Leno.

• DO NOT BE DECEIVED: CO2 and water vapour are NOT poisoning our atmosphere nor causing global warming! Those saying so are pushing Junk Science.

• Pat Buchanan says it is simple: No war, no holocaust.

• The Big Government Candidate. (Not so fast!)

• A word of advice: DO NOT take ammunition into Russia. (Even if you are a pastor.)

To-day’s 1980’s Moment is brought to you by: Europe

‘The LORD their God is with them, and the shout of a king is among them.’  ~ Numbers 23:21b

• My friends and family will be pleased to discover that the anniversary present my lovely wife gave me the other day displays both her thoughtfulness and her utilitarian mindedness—she gave me ‘Grilling for Dummies.’ (Hopefully, this means no more ‘blackened’ chicken.)

• ‘Albert Jay Nock wrote, “The only element in Judean society that was particularly worth bothering about was the Remnant. Isaiah seems finally to have got it through his head that if anything substantial were ever to be done in Judea, the Remnant would have to do it. This is a very striking and suggestive idea; but before going on to explore it, we need to be quite clear about our terms. What do we mean by the masses, and what by the Remnant?”’

Doc Holliday: ‘And you must be Ringo. Look, Darling, Johnny Ringo. The Deadliest pistolier since Wild Bill, they say. What do you think, darling? Should I hate him?’

 

Big Nose Kate: ‘You don’t even know him.’

 

Doc: ‘Yes, but there’s just something about him. Something around the eyes, I don’t know, reminds me of… me. No. I’m sure of it, I hate him.’ ~ Tombstone

• ‘As farmers plant more corn to in order to take advantage of federal subsidies, they use more land, fertilizer and water, pushing up the prices of all other crops up as well. The government corruption of market prices signals – starting with corn subsidies – fans out through the economy, resulting in yet another terrible misallocation of resources. Corn is grown to burn as destitute peasants on the other side of the world starve to death. And why? Because powerful politicians pander to special interest groups that stand to reap huge benefits at the expense of the rest of us.’

• So—is Paul dead or not?!!

• Oh, Cana-duh! A prepubescent Quebecois has succeeded in having a judge overturn her father’s grounding of her from using the Internet. Parents in Canada beware—you’re country is crazy!

No. You know, I know, everybody watching this show knows that four years from today, whichever of them is elected, government will be bigger, more expensive, more obtrusive, and more oppressive. If you vote Republican or Democrat, you are giving up. You’re saying ‘I’m never going to be free. America will never be a free country again. I will never get smaller government. So I’m just going to vote for the one I think will take me to hell at the slowest-possible rate. ~ Harry Browne

To-day’s 1980’s Moment is brought to you by: Ferris Bueller (and the Beatles):

‘Even a child makes himself known by his acts, by whether his conduct is pure and upright.’  ~ Proverbs 20:11

[Mea Culpa: Jon, I realise this is a long post but I just can't help myself!]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: The English Shin Kicking Championships

• If my chickens will only lay eggs like this, I could retire in no time flat!

• ‘The Royal Bank of Scotland has advised clients to brace for a full-fledged crash in global stock and credit markets over the next three months as inflation paralyses the major central banks.’

• Did you hear the one about the man who goes to buy a car in Moscow, pays for it, and is told by the salesman that he can collect it on a particular date in 10 years’ time. The buyer thinks for a moment and then asks: ‘Morning or afternoon?’ The salesman, astonished by the question, asks: ‘What difference does it make?’ And the buyer answers: ‘Well, the plumber is coming in the morning.’

• A ‘RAND Corp. study, “Invisible Wounds of War — Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery,” justifies a tenfold jump in the U.S. casualty count versus the figure of 33,000 American dead and wounded used by the Pentagon.’

• ‘We need to be clear about the trade-off. The price of liberty is a small but appreciable loss of security; the price of security is a loss of liberty.’ (Link via Lew Rockwell.) 

• Dire Straits and the art of Venn Diagrams. 

• They say that the Internet was invented (or at least, conceived) in 1934. Yet, Al Gore was not born until 1948. I’m confused.

• Will the Church stand in the breach and yell ‘HALT!’? Or, as in the past, will she allow the State to dictate how we shall practise our faith?  Sooner or later we will all be faced with a choice. We will be forced to stand and be counted.

• ‘If you are unsure whether you are a prostitute, please ask one of our friendly security guards to sort it out for you.’

• ‘It’s pretty rapidly running out of gas and it just seems like every day more and more people are coming out with the fact that [global warming is] pretty much a hoax. And these are Ph.D climatologists that are pretty much saying what I said all along.’

• I remember my daddy trying the cloth diaper route years ago. (OK, I actually remember my daddy telling me about it.) It has its benefits but drawbacks are part of the deal, too. However, if you are so inclined, here is how to make your own.

• The funny thing about the Tenth Amendment?—it’s part of the Constitution, too!

• ‘Iranian scientists claim breakthroughs in nanotechnology, biological researchers are pushing the boundaries of stem cell research and the country’s car industry produces more cars than anywhere else in the region.’

• Good news for those who love war and can’t get enough of it—the GWOT© is coming to Pakistan!

• Remember when Republicans used to be in favour of liberty and Newt Gingrich wasn’t crazy?

• How has South Africa fared post-Apartheid?

• Uh-oh! People who make sense like this usually get their country invaded.

‘May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb.’  ~ Deuteronomy 32:2  

• By leaving the children in the public schools, where they will be taught—starting in kindergarten—that Christian morality is wrong, the SBC has pulled its own teeth.  What are children to think, when their church and their parents say “gay marriage” is wrong, yet leave them in schools where they are taught “gay marriage” is right? If Christian teachings are supposed to be authoritative, are not the schools in the wrong for teaching the opposite? But if the schools are wrong, will not the children eventually have to ask, “Then what are we doing here?” 

• How is it that the first drink [of beer] from a tankard tastes best? Perhaps it’s on account of sin, because our flesh and our lips are sinful.  ~ Martin Luther

• I’m like a one-eyed cat peepin’ in a seafood store. 

• ‘Finally, how—if it can be done at all—can the church reclaim the authority it has surrendered to science?’ 

• ‘Hello Al Gore; Hello UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  Your science is flawed; your hypothesis is wrong; your data is manipulated.  And, may I add, your scare tactics are deplorable.  The Earth does not have a fever.  Carbon dioxide does not cause significant global warming.’  ~ John Coleman, Creator of The Weather Channel 

To-day’s 1980’s Moment is brought to you by: The Honeydrippers

• There are so many things tragically wrong with this story that I wouldn’t even know where to begin commenting upon it. 

• This is the beginning of something big. 

• Is this book better than Oz, Narnia, Tolkien, and Alice in Wonderland?

• NEITHER HERE NOR THERE:  Nothing mitigates the tedium of a Monday workday quite like the cool that is Steely Dan oozing from my headphones.

• ‘Has it come then to this, that the chaste spouse of Christ is reduced to borrow the meretricious adornment of the “scarlet whore,” in order to catch the unholy admiration of the ungodly?’  ~  Rev. Robert L. Dabney on the church and culture.

• As the U.S. Government continues ‘God’s Work’ in the Middle East, Iraqi Christians, who once thrived there, continue to be martyred and persecuted. 

• ‘[John] McCain acknowledged, “a program of this nature could be construed as ‘brainwashing’ or ‘thought control’ and could come in for a great deal of criticism.” 

• The man who played Forrest Gump as a child recently completed his enlistment in the Army—after having served a tour in Iraq. 

• I’ll bet you didn’t hear much—if anything at all—about this story in the Lamestream Media. 

• Wait a minute!  You’re telling me that the Soviets were dishonest?  I am shocked—SHOCKED!! 

• As if we needed more evidence that the church in Europe is morally bankrupt. 

• Now this is my kind of election! 

‘ He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.’  ~ Ezekiel 37:2

• The campaign comes to an end but the r3VOLution presses forward! 

• As it turns out, weapons inspector Scott Ritter was right: ‘Time after time, I backed my opposition to the Bush administration’s “case” for war on Iraq with hard facts, citing evidence that could be readily checked by these erstwhile journalists had they been so inclined. Instead, my integrity and character were impugned by these simple recorders of “fact”, further enabling the fiction pushed by the administration into the mainstream, unchallenged and unquestioned, to be digested by the American public as truth.’ 

‘They who are shocked at a single murder on the highway, hear with indifference of the slaughter of a thousand on the field. They whom the idea of a single corpse would thrill with terror, contemplate that of heaps of human carcasses mangled by human hands, with frigid indifference.’  ~ Jonathan Dymond

• ‘Full of fun and mischief, Josephine and Zac Onions are ordinary, healthy children.  But there is something extraordinary about Josephine, five, and her three-year-old little brother-they are both still breastfeeding.’ 

• Whenever I hear the Beatles songs ‘Paperback Writer’ or ‘Penny Lane‘ I find myself back behind the wheel of the 1969 Ford Mustang I bought when I was 17.  (I must have burnt through three cassettes of their 20 Greatest Hits.)  Interestingly, a scientific research project is currently underway related to memories one has that are tied to the Beatles.  I’ve submitted my memory to the web site-have you? 

• I’m thinking about getting these for Ashlee for her birthday.  What do you think?

• ‘It’s breakfast time, you five-pound bass!’ 

• ‘Secondly, liberalism was lulled to sleep with the seductive lure of evolutionism-the doctrine of Social Darwinism, which saw history as an ever-ascending spiral of progress. According to this theory, the triumph of liberty is inevitable because Reason, Science, and Enlightened Thinking are on our side. The history of the 20th century would soon refute this.’ 

• I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again-DO NOT count Hillary Clinton out of the presidential race.  Ever.  [UPDATE: His birth certificate has been released.  Beware, however, that you still don't count Hillary out.]

• My Irish blood loves to hear of my kinsmen rising up in defiance to the European Leviathan.  Erin go bragh!  [UPDATE: Yee-haw!]

‘O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?  How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?’  ~ Psalm 4:2

• The presidential election season always results in more Pander Bear sightings.

• ‘If elected president, Senator John McCain would reserve the right to run his own warrantless wiretapping program against Americans, based on the theory that the president’s wartime powers trump federal criminal statutes and court oversight, according to a statement released by his campaign Monday.’ 

• [Russian Prime Minister Vladimir]Putin, who has repeatedly praised the Russian Orthodox Church while emphasizing the separation of church and state, said during a visit to a church and monastery outside Moscow that Orthodox Christianity is an integral part of Russian culture. “One should not completely draw a line between the culture and the church,” Putin said in televised comments. “Of course, by law in our country the church is separate from the state, but in the soul and the history of our people it’s all together. It always has been and always will be.” 

• It amazes me that folks want the government to run the health care industry when it can’t even turn a profit with a restaurant. 

• Update on the Joseph Farah/ Rick Warren debate.

(Curious?  Click here. )

• ‘As Lewis wrote them, the Narnia tales are centred on the figure of Aslan, the Lion—and Aslan represents Jesus Christ the Lord.  It is Aslan who gives life to Narnia and all its creatures, who draws children from our world into Narnia to carry out important missions: who, by sacrificing himself on the Stone Table and then rising from the dead, is Narnia’s redeemer.  Without Aslan there is no Narnia, and no Chronicles of Narnia.  But you would never get that from this retelling of Prince Caspian.’ 

• In the Land of the Free Report: Cut your grass when you’re told or go to jail. 

Neville Chamberlain’s willingness to hold discussions with Hitler regarding the Sudetenland was not the folly for which the British Prime Minister’s reputation has suffered all these years—nor was it the catalyst for World War II.  It would be wise for us to truly understand what actually happened in Munich in 1938 before we are again thrust into another bloodbath by the ruling classes who never actually see the battlefield.  As Patrick Buchanan notes, ‘Chamberlain went to Munich because he did not believe that keeping 3 million Germans inside a nation to which they had been consigned against their will was worth a world war.’ 

• This post over at Dry Creek Chronicles paints a daunting picture of why we need to wake up or we will suffer the same fate as the Germans. 

• I have to admit that I, too, once thought that only someone guilty of committing a crime would hide behind the 5^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Now, I am not so sure. 

• ‘[W]e argue that our monetary system creates incentives for irresponsible behavior (moral hazard) and is therefore an important cause of recurrent crises.’

• Charles Darwin is being accused of stealing the (un)scientific ‘theory’ that made him (in)famous.  (It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.) 

• I have yet another reason to avoid the opera like the plague: ‘The New York City Opera commissioned Charles Wuorinen to compose an opera based on “Brokeback Mountain,” the 1997 short story by Annie Proulx that became the basis for a 2005 movie that won three Academy Awards.’ 

‘Messianic Jews living in the Negev Desert also say they are routinely harassed and attacked by yeshiva students, some inspired by Yad L’achem, a religious organization dedicated to stamping out Christian missionary activities in Israel. Random acts of anti-Christian violence have also occurred: last October in Jerusalem, a church was fire-bombed, and several days after Christmas, a German pilgrim who was returning from Bethlehem carrying a large wooden cross was attacked by a gang of ultra-orthodox youths who smashed the cross into splinters.’ 

• Those crazy, crazy Arabians!