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A vehicle for venting on philosophy, religion, and the general state of things. Proprietor: C. W. Powell

Saturday, January 03, 2004

Excite - Sports News: "Pete Rose admits in his upcoming autobiography that he gambled on baseball, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Saturday."

Sometimes things really appear weird, don't they? People will defend homosexuality and women in the ministry, teachers in public school who hate the history and accomplishments of America, sexual deviates in the presidency of the United States, judges who do not believe in transcendent law, ministers who do not believe the Bible, politicians who swear to defend a consitution that they seek to subvert in every public action, news reporters who corrupt and adulterate the news, and legislators who think nothing of raping the public treasury.

But woe to that baseball player who bets on baseball!!

Doesn't that seem strange?
FOXNews.com - Politics - Suspicion Still Surrounds Libyan Leader Al-Qaddafi: "U.S. officials released details Wednesday of the intercept last fall of a ship carrying nuclear weapons components bound for Libya, a seizure that came right as the United States and Great Britain were deep in negotiations with Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi (search) to give up such weapons."

Hmmm. Wonder if the pictures of Saddam and his snake hole had anything to do with it.
Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / A conservative ruling on gay marriage: "Today, thousands of children are being raised by loving same-sex couples from Boston to the Berkshires. The court rightfully notes that these children should not be penalized or deprived benefits and protections because of their parents' sexual orientation. Prochildren conservatives should support security for all Massachusetts children without exception."

The trouble with so much of the social revolution is that it is based upon junk science. What are "loving same-sex couples"? Who asks whether or not homosexual sexual orientation is itself a penalty and a depravation? Isn't it depravation to raise a child without a father, or a mother. Are two fathers just as good as a father and a mother? Of course not. To say that a stable homosexual family is better than a disfunctional heterosexual one is like saying that the bankrobber is a good daddy because he doesn't beat his wife. Isn't homosexuality itself sending sinful messages? I predict that a generation from now we will find out all kinds of reasons why homosexual marriage is a bad idea.

Think about it though. Established failures will continue if they are financed by public funds. Too many people have an interest in their continuance, no matter what the failures. Public education is a disaster in America. But we will never get rid of it, because too many people are paid by our taxes to lobby and lie for it. It will be continued no matter how much it fails. It took more than a millenium for there to be even a reasonable to the abuses of the Papacy, and in spite to the evils that produced the child abuse scandals of our generation, the Papace will continue, because of the selfish interests of power and money that so many have in continuing it, no matter what its failures. There will be no serious challenge to the papal doctrine of celebacy, which causes homosexuals to seek the priesthood in order to get mama off his back about marrying a nice Catholic girl. Instead they will condemn the priest who is in a sense a victim of the system also.

Friday, January 02, 2004

"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions,
their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the
establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the States the powers not delegated to the
United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in any religious discipline has
been delegated to the General Government. It must then rest with the States." --Thomas Jefferson

[Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Samuel Miller, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Bergh, ed. (Washington, DC: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XI, p.428, letter on January 23, 1808.]
The PC politics of censorship - The Washington Times: Editorials/OP-ED: " My husband received the following letter from a waggish friend: 'Jim -- I just wanted to wish you and yours a happy holiday. I'll leave it at 'holiday' to avoid running afoul of the ACLU....
'On second thought, I withdraw 'holiday.' It derives from 'holy day,' which clearly presents problems. And 'season's greetings,' a well-known dodge, suggests other difficulties. With global warming, what is a season? So I'll just say, 'Timely greetings to you and yours.' Uh, wait. 'Yours' implies possession of the female. Maybe it should be, 'Timely greetings to you and those who, through their own free choice, the same choice we cherish in Roe v. Wade, choose to be associated with you?'
'Nor will I mention the so-called 'new year.' After all, other cultures celebrate their new year at other times. Who are we imperialists to demand our own?
'I find this time of year so difficult. Don't you?' "


I, for one, refuse to surrender the language, the Christian faith [the only true religiion], God-ordained differences between the sexes--including their role in life, Western civilization [which is superior to all civilizations that have ever been on this earth], and God-ordained reason which enables a human being to tell the difference between hawks and handsaws and gnats and camels. If you want to sink into the slough of undifferentiated chaos, have fun--if you know what fun is.
Gadhafi's secret message - The Washington Times: Commentary: "Saddam Hussein's meek surrender was the tipping point. Col. Gadhafi also knows that what the Bush administration did in Afghanistan and in Iraq could be done in Libya --only faster. " [See article below]

Any questions, Mr. Blix?
Reuters News Article: "Two Jewish leaders accuse the European Commission of encouraging anti-Semitism by releasing a 'flawed' poll accusing Israel of being the greatest threat to world peace and then by failing to release a report on the involvement of Muslin minorities in anti-Semitic incidents."

Funny, the really bad people are those who believe in protecting their homes, their families, and their liberty.
Blix: No need for war: "London - Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said Libya's renunciation of weapons of mass destruction under diplomatic pressure shows that Iraq could have been contained in the same way, without the need for war. "

None are so blind as those who will not see. Seems that Libya didn't decide to give up the WMD program until Saddam was rooted out of his snake hole. But then, Blix doesn't have his cushy job now. He's a "former UN chief weapons inspector." Some unemployment under the Bush administration has been very good. Some really bad people have lost their jobs--especially a bunch of really, really bad people in Iraq. Of course, the UN crowd doesn't recognize that there are really bad people--just people who haven't been loved enough and talked to enough.
According to Scripture, if this prediction does not come true, if Bush is defeated or wins narrowly, then Robertson is a false prophet and should be shunned by all Christians. Under the old law false prophets were to be put to death. Good thing [I guess] that isn't done nowadays. There would be a shortage of preachers.

Daily Press: Pat Robertson: God told him it's Bush in a 'blowout': "'I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election in 2004. It's shaping up that way,' Robertson said. "
According to Scripture, if this prediction does not come true, if Bush is defeated or wins narrowly, then Robertson is a false prophet and should be shunned by all Christians. Under the old law false prophets were to be put to death. Good thing [I guess] that isn't done nowadays. There would be a shortage of preachers.

Daily Press: Pat Robertson: God told him it's Bush in a 'blowout': "'I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election in 2004. It's shaping up that way,' Robertson said. "
Abortion doctor gets 34 years for sex abuse of patients: "Brian Finkel, a once prominent Phoenix abortion doctor, was sentenced to more than 34 years in prison Friday for sexually abusing patients over a span of nearly two decades in his high-profile practice."

The word "hypocrite" doesn't appear anywhere in any of the news stories that I have found about this case. How come? Maybe he didn't care about women with unwanted pregnancies afterall--he just aborted their babies for the money. What a hypocrite! Or does the word apply only to disgraced preachers?
Oliver North: Conspiracy theories: "WASHINGTON, D.C. -- It's hard to say exactly when the Democrats decisively left the reservation, for the parallel universe that exists only in their own imaginations. In their world, Bill Clinton was impeached solely because Republicans were 'trying to overturn the election'; Al Gore would be president today if only Jeb Bush hadn't stolen the election in Florida; and Osama bin Laden is a CIA operative who orchestrated Sept. 11 to justify the end of civil liberties in the United States. This litany of conspiracy theories barely scratches the surface of the paranoid mentality that currently infects American liberals"

There has always been a nutty side to American politics. In the fifties and sixties most of the conspiracies that surfaced were loony right-wing ones: Catholics, Jews, the Rockefellers, the Bildebergers, the Rothschilds, the Ford Foundation, the Masons, the Illuminati, the Council on foreign Relations, the United Nations [would you believe that I cannot even remember many of them--I should have kept better notes!!], and more recently the Trilateralists. Conspiracy theory drove the agenda for many right and right-to-center political organizations. The liberals referred to it as the "lunatic fringe."

But the lunatic fringe has migrated to the left. There were always nuts on the left, but since McGovern, the nuts have increasingly gained influence. Its what we used to call "scapegoating." One of the debts I owe to R. J. Rushdoony was to deliver me from this kind of thinking in my youth. He helped me see that conspiracy theory is a psychological device to excuse your own failures. It is interesting that it arises among parties and groups who cannot bear to lose, and must blame someone for it. It has taken place throughout history and has been responsible for the shedding of much innocent--and not so innocent--blood.

You have freedom to adopt theological theories,but you do not have freedom over the results of your choices. If you desire a fluffy and "open" God who does not control all things, then you must bear the consequences of your choice. If God doesn't control all things for the good of His people, for which we are to give thanks, then some thing or some one must, if we are not to be buffeted by chance. If bad things do not come from God to test us, and if they are not our own fault, then who is to blame.

If they come by chance, then we live in a stinking world and may as well commit some form of suicide, with guns, drugs, or booze. If some one is the cause of the bad things, then there must be some really evil people who have great power and great wealth who control our lives.

Isn't it interesting? In order to secure our free will by denying God control of the universe, we surrender our free will to monsters and monster conspiracies, who control every part of our lives. Interesting.

Thursday, January 01, 2004

statesman.com | Nelson pens protest song: "By the end of the day, Nelson had written the anti-war ballad 'What Ever Happened to Peace on Earth,' which he will debut at Saturday's fund-raising concert for Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich at Austin Music Hall."

Christ didn't come to bring peace on earth, not as long as men are at war with Him. People may think that peace will come when the U.S. surrenders to the French and the Germans, but God doesn't gain peace by surrendering to sin; He wins it by gaining victory over sin and death and hell. Peace will come in God's time, when people like Willie Nelson cease and desist from warring against the Bible and the truth. And they will stop it, you know...one way or another.

Willie evidently hasn't learned when to hold and when to fold. He is still bluffing with a spot card high.
BBC NEWS | Americas | Brazil to fingerprint US citizens: "'I consider the act absolutely brutal, threatening human rights, violating human dignity, xenophobic and worthy of the worst horrors committed by the Nazis,' Federal Judge Julier Sebastiao da Silva said in the court order. "

Fingerprinting is equal to the death camps? If all the judges in Brazil think like this, the legal system is in real trouble. A judge should know the difference between gnats and camels as well as that between right and wrong.

But then, some U.S. judges.....

Tuesday, December 30, 2003

We're all supposed to be dead by now - The Washington Times: Pruden on Politics: " Here's what my Internet correspondent reminded me of (and if you see it on the Internet, it must be so):
'According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the '40s, '50s, '60s and '70s probably shouldn't have survived. Our mothers put us in cribs covered with bright-colored lead-based paint.
'There were no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bicycles into traffic (bike paths were unheard of), we had no helmets. If we didn't feel like pumping a bike up the hills, we could always hitch a ride with strangers. There were no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was particularly special.
'We drank water from an old garden hose, not from a bottle. One bottle of bellywash could be shared with up to four friends, drinking from the bottle, and no one died.
'We gorged on cakes, pies, candy, bread and butter, and anything we could find with lots of sugar in and on it, and we were never overweight because we were always running through the 'hood. "

I can add that I have lived through the frights over nuclear holocaust with backyard bomb shelters [a must item in the 60's], fears over the coming ice age cause by global cooling, the Red Scare focusing on Ike who was a conscious member of the communist conspiracy according to Robert Welch, the dread of a silent spring where no birds would sing because they would all be dead by pollutants in the air and water, overpopulation so that there would be no room for us to stand on this cold and polluted and starving planet, global warming evidenced by snowstorms and hurricanes so that we would all fry, and worry about lesser matters like meteor or planetoid crashes into the earth or the sun burning out or exploding. Guns were an especially evil and needed to be confiscated--or at least licensed and tightly controlled before they ganged up on humans and spread death and misery everywhere. But the scares sold newspapers, magazines, and provided jobs for people who couldn't find anything useful to do except scare people. The scare-mongers wanted a monopoly on the scare business so they warned about preachers who spoke of divine judgment and hell fire. The scare-mongers only feared personal hells, not collective ones. In the churches the trouble was with the organs and long sermons---these were replaced by guitars and women giving "devotionals." After all, doctrine divides good human beings and brings war and hatred. Let's see who can show the most love by believing as little as possible.

After all, the world is a stinking place, and the only way to postpone the Horror, the Horror, is to catch a little love somewhere and to have someone who is easy on the mind. It wouldn't matter where you found the love, because true love will be willing to let the bird go, so you can have her if you can catch her. The greatest fear of all is to entangle your life with "commitments" for they just drag you down and get in the way of what you might want to do. How can I be true to myself if I constantly make commitments to others? A person did not fear the disgrace if he was a liar, an adulterer, a sodomite, or a prolific producer of bastard children. The f- word gained respectability, but if a person used the n- word you were dead, which you also were if you called a football player a little monkey, a term used by Howard Cosell, a term which he also used with respect to his grandchildren. The greatest fear was not to conform to the prevailing standards of non-conformity and social correctness, which imposed a societal strait-jacket worse than all the landed gentry of Europe in the last five centuries.

The only thing we had to fear was fear itself, and there were a great many people who made careers by junk science and phony "studies," financed by government, to make us afraid of things we had never thought of before. We wouldn't listen to our mothers who tried to make us put our galoshes on, but we meekly surrendered to seat belts and other meddling from the Nanny State. See my article on the Nanny Church in the Nanny State.

Yep, it's a wonder any of us is alive. Some of us aren't. I remember a boy I went to school with who burned himself up about 50 years ago while stealing gasoline from a farm vehicle. Another boy drank himself to death. They didn't listen to their mothers or fathers, but that generation seemed to surrender without a struggle to the Nanny State, buying into the propaganda that bureaucrats know what is best. They hated their mothers and fathers and surrendered liberty without a peep to governments. After all, they were an enlightened bunch who were assured that they were the first to walk the earth who knew what was wrong with the world and that they would fix it up to be safe for everyone, especially for those who didn't seem to care much about the Ten Commandments.

Solomon said it best, Proverbs 12:10 "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." A good man will be recognized even by the animals he owns, but the tender mercies of the ungodly unhinge everyone around them. If we have many more tender mercies from this crowd who are experts on what we are to be afraid of, none of us will survive. Let us follow the example of Nehemiah and "chase them from us." Nehemiah 13:28

Don't despise small things. That butterfly flapping its wings in Moldavia might very well cause a hurricane in Miami. I, for one, will keep my wings flapping as long as I can.

Monday, December 29, 2003

Concerned Women for America - Short-Circuited Reasoning and Obstructionist Filibustering: "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is the largest federal court of appeals and holds a big record—it's been overturned more times than pancakes at IHOP. Sometimes its rulings are so outlandish that even liberal Democrats express 'outrage.' Truth is, the activist judges on the circuit court are exactly the kind of judges who liberal democrats consider 'mainstream.' They want judges who will change public policy in ways that the majority of legislators and the public oppose, and they're willing to let the judges take the heat for it. "

This kookie bunch will continue to be kookie until more republican votes are gained in the Senate, so that those who spit at the constitution by filibustering judges are defeated.

Yahoo! News - N.H. Judge Nixes Abortion Notification: "The New Hampshire law requires abortion providers to notify at least one parent at least 48 hours before performing an abortion on a minor. The parent would not have to approve the abortion. Alternatively, the girl could asked a judge for permission, which would have to be granted if the girl was mature enough or the abortion was in her best interest. "

How unreasonable! to require that parents be notified before an abortion. Parents certainly are less concerned about the health of their children than judges are. Any fool knows that.
NYPress - Cage Match - Matt Taibbi - Vol. 16, Iss. 51: "Non-believers in America are far too polite, which will prove to be their undoing. There is a reason why the life of a typical atheist family resembles the Marshall-Will-and-Holly model from Land of the Lost. They live in caves, only venturing out for food and water, conceding the entire plush territory to T-Rex and the idiotic Sleestack. A guilty conscience prevents them from taking positive steps to change the situation: We're only here by mistake, it was our own fault for rafting down those rapids, this is their world, not ours..."

Oh, we hadn't noticed the poor plight of the atheists. But Taibbi and his buddies should remember the words of Christ, that it is rather foolish to venture out to war without counting the cost. Atheism exists because of the tolerance of Christians, who overwhelmingly in America would oppose any kind of government establishment of religion. We are content to compete in the marketplace of ideas. Atheism is so unreasonable and destructive that in only attracts a few misfits, who are usually unable even to catechise their own children in the "principles" of atheism.

Atheism never wins a permanent victory in the public forum of ideas. It seems to gain ascendency when people are angry and discontented. It is one of those irrational forces that sometimes sweep like an irational wind through the minds of people who are angry and discontented. It is always established by force and persecution, as in the old Soviet Union, present-day China [though it is slipping there], and American public schools.

Of course, Taibbi considers himself among the "smart people" who are being victimized by the likes of Billy Graham. That's the trouble with atheists, for he can never really engage the argument, for he has defined his opponent away as stupid.

You see, Billy and Franklin Graham may be wrong about some things, but they are not stupid, and Christians in America are not stupid. But Christians don't really have to worry about such people as Taibbi, unless they wield power. The fact that atheists like Taibbi can flourish in a society "dominated" by Christians gives the lie to what Taibbi says. Christians have never flourished in societies ruled by the sword of atheism. The Christians and their kindness have permitted his sort simply because of the teachings of Christ, which he despises: "Love thy neighbor as thyself."

I do not know a Christian who expresses the hostility toward non-Christians--even atheists--that Taibbi expresses. Sure, we try to convert them, but that is because we want them to be better, not degraded and destroyed.

But if you don't think that the persecution of Christians is just over the horizon, read Taibbi article again.


No history, no study, no debate: "THE ASSOCIATED PRESS and various newspapers reported this month that UCLA's Chicano Studies Research Center released a 'study' that recommended allowing California's 4.6 million noncitizens to vote in local elections.
But there was no study. There was no new research or in-depth information. There was a Latino Policy & Issue Brief written by UCLA law professor Joaquin C. Avila. The brief cited census data that found that noncitizen adults comprise large portions of California municipalities -- such as 32 percent of Los Angeles -- and then concluded that 'a substantial number of persons, who contribute to our economy and our government's revenues, are being denied political representation' -- which he dubbed 'political apartheid.' "

This is the way more and more "scholarship" is performed these days. The scientific world is so corrupt, espcially in the social science fields and the humanities that what passes for scientific scholarship is merely the issuing of opinions and decrees. If someone feels it necessary to support his/her/its opinion, there is simply an appeal to some junk "pseudo-science"

Of course, if there is no objective truth with reference in the Creator, then there is nothing but opinion and subjective desire. True science, which is knowledge of the truth, is distinguished from opinion by the very existence of objective truth. How is opinion to be judged, if not by objective truth. Of course, you can always appeal to the sword or bombs. That's what Islam has done as it has increasingly lost the intellectual arguments. But this is hardly science.

Reminds me of some of the neanderthal types that inhabited the school playground when I was a boy. Their idea of discussion was to ask, "Wanna fight about it?" No one did, of course. They were too big and brawny, having been held back two or three grades. You had to know something in order to pass your grade in those days.

Oh well.
We may very well be entering a post-Western-European age in World History. As European nations have departed from Christianity they have become increasingly irrelevant. Christianity is much more vital in Korea, and Eastern Europe than it is in Western Europe.

This is not necessarily a bad thing.

Asian forces in Iraq signal global shift | csmonitor.com: "But the worries over unpleasant exchanges with France and Germany overshadowed the fact that many other European countries had joined the 'coalition of the willing.' Besides the 12,000 troops from Britain, other Europeans that contributed to the multinational force include Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Spain, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine. And logistical support is provided by Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal.
Yet, while editorial writers and politicians anguished over the Bush administration's insensitivities toward the French and the Germans, US allies in Asia were stepping up to the plate."

Sunday, December 28, 2003

Message received: 'America wins': "Meanwhile, in Group C are all those who acknowledge that America has won swift victories in Afghanistan and Iraq but that they're meddling with ancient, complex cultural forces that will come back to bite them in the butt. Whatever gets you through the night, boys. One can't help noticing that, despite innumerable warnings from these Western defeatists about the folly of provoking the incendiary ''Arab street,'' the Arab street is now in the third year of its deep slumber. It may be that Osama is just very cunningly ''lying low,'' but, with each passing month, the reason he's lying low is more and more likely to be due to an inability to get up again"
Hurray for Time Magazine. [Never thought I would say that] But then, we know that Hitler and other monsters have won man of the year, so the choice doesn't mean the magazine approves of the military.

But Austin Bay makes a good point: the peaceniks never liberated the Nazi concentration camps nor delivered anyone else from slavery. Those who won't fight for liberty will not keep it. The Pope said that war solves nothing. Tell that to the inhabitants of the Nazi slave camps. And tell that to the slaves that rotted in the Gulag waiting for those who never came.

HoustonChronicle.com - Bay: Prepared for war and peace on Earth: "me Magazine has given its 2003 Person of the Year award to The American Soldier. "

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