Ivory Dome

In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, there was no shortage of opinions about what was the cause of this tragedy: too much gun control, not enough gun control, video games, a failed psychiatric system, an unresponsive school administration, etc., etc. ad nauseum. But the one opinion that stood out in my mind was posted by James Randi in a satirical “prayer” asking a loving God why He didn’t prevent the horrendous, senseless slaughter at Virginia Tech:

http://www.randi.org/jr/2007-04/042007todd.html#i9

First of all, I can sympathize with anyone who is angry towards God, especially in light of the events at Virginia Tech. Looking back, I was none too pleased with God when my father and mother died in their sixties. But at least in the natural order of things, parents are supposed to die before their children. I can’t imagine the anguish of a parent losing a child at any age. But I suspect that when that child is college age, with so much potential and hope for the future, and under the circumstances at Virginia Tech, it can’t get much worse than that.

As far as why God allows things like the Virginia Tech shootings to happen, for better or worse, He created us with free will. He could have created us as mindless automatons without the means to do anything but his bidding, but then He couldn’t have a dynamic love relationship with us that He has always longed for.

Whether you view Adam and Eve as historical figures or merely allegorical characters, the truth is the same: even if there were only one rule to follow, humans would use their free will to disobey God. When Adam and Eve decided they knew better than God, that perfect relationship was broken. Since that decision, God has allowed us to go our own way, and the Earth has never been the same since.

In order for God to totally take back control of His creation from us, two things would have to take place: all of mankind would have to either have to 1) give up its collective free will; or 2) use that free will to be totally obedient to God. How many people would be willing to do that? Would you?

Randi asks why God created tobacco, cancer, spina bifida, and Crohn’s Disease. I believe that all of these things are a result of the Fall of Man. I know that sounds terribly theological and cold, so let me give you some real life observations:

I’ve seen my own father, stricken with lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking tobacco, face his own death with humor and dignity.

I’ve attended a Christian music concert given by a young man with spina bifida and laughed with his beautiful wife when he joked that they almost didn’t get married because he started getting “cold tires.”

I’ve heard Joni Earickson Tada, a quadriplegic since a diving accident at the age of 17, speak eloquently about how her affliction has actually been a blessing.

I’ve listened to the music of a young Hispanic man, born with no arms, who played guitar beautifully with his feet, and I’ve seen video of Pope John Paul II embracing him after he played for the pontiff.

(Sorry, I’ve never known anyone with Crohn’s Disease.)

So what do all these people have in common? One thing: they all rose above their circumstances and found joy through belief in a God who loved them enough to pay for His broken relationship with them by sacrificing His own Son in an act that was every bit as anguishing as what the parents of the victims at Virginia Tech went through.

About the shootings at Virginia Tech, Randi asks why God did this to us. In doing so, he joins a long line of people, going all the way back to the Garden of Eden, who have tried to use God as a scapegoat. When God asked Adam “Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”, Adam replied, “The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” [Emphasis added.]

So James Randi wants to place the blame on God for not preventing the Virginia Tech shootings – a God in whom, by his own admission, he doesn’t believe. God gave Randi (or anyone else) the free will to believe that if he so desires.

I just have one question: How’s that working for you?

It seems everywhere I look, in the local area, there is something about District voting V. at large voting. Lawsuits  have been filed. But is district voting really what liberals want? I don’t think so.

Potter county is essentially a square. Let’s say we divide that square into four or even as they desire eight section’s.  Lets run four or eightstraight lines from the North to the South, set so as to contain an equal amount of people. Would they be happy? No, that’s not what they want. So let’s run the lines East and West. Nope! I suspect the lawsuit would go forward.

Let’s define balkanization according to dictionary.com;

balkanization

Division of a place (district) or country into several small political units, often unfriendly to one another. The term balkanization comes from the name of the Balkan Peninsula, which was divided into several small nations in the early twentieth century.

Or from Wikipedia;

Balkanization is a geopolitical term originally used to describe the process of fragmentation or division of a region or state into smaller regions or states that are often hostile or non-cooperative with each other. The term has arisen from the conflicts in the 20th century Balkans. The first balkanization was embodied in the Balkan Wars, and the term was reaffirmed in the Yugoslav wars.

So what do the liberals want? What would make them happy? I suspect nothing would ever make them happy but I knowwhat they want. Again I’ll turn to Wikipedia for an answer. I will  make slight changes to better fit this situation, that all reading will recognise. The meaning won’t change.

Beggar thy neighbour,  or beggar-my-neighbour, policies seek benefits for one district at the expense of others. Such a policy attempts to remedy an economic problem in one district by means which tend to worsen the problems of other districts.

Also from Wikipedia see;

The tragedy of the commons is a type of social trap that involves a conflict over resources between individual interests and the common good. The term derives originally from a parable published by William Forster Lloyd in his 1833 book on population. It was then popularized and extended by Garrett Hardin in his 1968 Science essay “The Tragedy of the Commons”. However, the theory itself is as old as Aristotle who said: “That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it”.

Pay particular attention to the last statement by Aristotle, and remember along with Socrates and Plato,  Aristotle was one of the most influential of the ancient Greek philosophers. They transformed Greek philosophy into the foundations of western culture as we know it.

Why do people want to come to the US? Most will say for better opportunites, jobs, better lives for thier families. And I suppose at a midlevel that is true. But at the base, at the very foundation they come here because their own country sucks (it’s a desert or the number of people have ruined the land). Their own culture sucks (Islam tribalism feudalism). Their own government sucks (communism, again Islam). And at the top level they come here because the United States is the best country in the world, because it has the best culture in the world, because as a republic it has the best Government in the world. The closest thing to a real Democracy ever conceived.

So what do liberals really want? It is easily seen in the requirements set forth in the proposal defeated last November and referenced above;

The city’s charter would have been amended to increase the number of city commissioners from four to eight and commissioners would have been required to live within their districts and be elected by voters in their district.

Back to my statement about those nice neat straight lines across Potter or Randall counties. If the proposal would have passed the next thing in court would have been how to divide the county. The eight districts would not be enough. Here we need another definition, and description of the next legal battle.  Again from Dictionary.com;

gerrymander

US politics. the dividing of a state, county, etc. into election districts so as to give one political party a majority in many districts while concentrating the voting strength of the other party into as few districts as possible. 

This is what liberals want. They want balkanization. They want eight districts divided by race and culture. They will gerrymander those eight districts to ensure a black, a hispanic a Vietnamese, even as some at that other site would love a gay.  they don’t want just Amaerican’s. Americans of a generally similar mind and thought. They want balkanization and conflict it is sure to cause.

They will ensure cultures that suck gain a voice. They will push the total failure that is multiculturalism while trying to suppress western culture. The push for the socialism liberals want will quicken.

A government that has run well since 1913, will become a government that is constantly at odds over every issue that comes up. The forced transfer of wealth from those who work and participate fully in the American dream, to those who refuse to participate, refuse to adopt western culture, refuse to even speak the language will accelerate. The failures of these people and cultures so evident in the places they originate from will become the failure here. Those failures will be forced upon us by law as will the costs. The desire for eight districts, is really a desire to enable the minority to silence the majority. The bitterness we see in the Nations legislature will now be in our City.

We must not allow, or even be complacent about what is really happening here.

Those who refuse to be American, who refuse to adopt western culture, who refuse to work or speak the language do not deserve to be Americans. They do not deserve to have a voice in a republic they don’t believe in.  Look at Haiti, look across our southern border at the towns there. Look at New Orleans, Detoit even the Nations capital where these policies have long been in effect. Look at the condition of the countries that still try to live the Communists dream. Look at those places and you will see our own future, if the great American melting pot is destroyed by things like district voting.

Heed the words of Aristotle “that which is common to the greatest number has the least amount of care bestowed upon it”. That was likely a warning. We should take it as such. It is the foundation for all that has made this country great.

This all is an attempt by liberals to legislate equality, but remember in a land where men are free there will never be equality and in a land where all men are equal there will never be freedom.

Read this inspiring story.

I’d like to celebrate Earth Day 2007 with a couple of quotes from the first Earth Day, 37 years ago:

 In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish. 

Paul Ehrlich

If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000. … This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age. 

Kenneth E.F. Watt

Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for cleaning up the environment and conserving our natural resources.  As a Christian, I believe that mankind is the steward of God’s creation and as such, we should all take that stewardship seriously.  Many people of the pagan persuasion base their environmental responsibility on their worship of Gaia.  Those who are concerned with national security want us to be energy independent to break our unhealthy reliance on Middle East or even Venezuelan oil.

The beef I have with environmental alarmists is this:  Like the boy who cried, “Wolf!”, making dire predictions about the environment that eventually prove to be false is actually counter-productive to the environmentalist movement.

What quotes will we remember on Earth Day 2044 (Lord willing, I’ll be 94), and for what reasons? 

I recieved this from a cousin who sometimes comments here. April 19th is a day even I rarely think of, but a day, more than any other that brought about July 4th. Enjoy, and I for one will endever to not forget again.

Rules of engagement was carved into stone here, that day at Concord!!  Tomorrow, April 19, 1775, is a day of reflection to each, remember the sacrifices that our militia and military has provided since the first shot at the lonely bridge at Concord; and are still providing in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I have stood in the middle of the bridge and imagined the shots, shouts and moans of pain.   

In the midst of the whole Imus incident, I was reminded of a time when the word “ho” conjured up visions not of racial slurs, scantily clad women and hip-hop, but of the Hawaiian islands and “tiny bubbles in the wine.”

I learned with some sadness yesterday that Don Ho passed away yesterday at the age of 76.  I had the good fortune of meeting him on my honeymoon. 

When my bride made the suggestion we attend the Don Ho Show, I was a little curious (it seems I’ve been Curious for quite some time now) as to why she would want to see this performer.  As it turned out, she had watched his daytime TV variety show as a young nurse working night shifts in Houston back in the ’70’s.  I had no particular opinion one way or the other about Don Ho, so I said sure, let’s go.

I am so glad she made that suggestion.  As I had heard before, and learned first hand that night, Hawaiian culture doesn’t tolerate people who seek to draw attention to themselves by being the “big star.”  The Don Ho Show was more a variety show, including artists of lesser renown.  The evening was an absolute delight, and after the show we had the privilege of meeting Don and getting our picture taken with him.  He was gracious and friendly, asking us where we were from and actually showing us a human side rarely seen among performers with his name recognition.

In an age of papparazis and outrageous celebrities like Britney Spears, Paris Hilton (to say nothing of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton), it’s sad that we’ve lost a gentleman like Don Ho. 

He gave the word “ho” a good connotation.

Just recently I learned of this festive day through one of my favorite blogs, “The LawDog Files.” As you know tax day is April 15th.  Buy a gun day is for those of us with an affinity for firearms and a large tax refund.  Mine was plenty large this year, so I purchased an IMI Desert Eagle in .50AE, brushed chrome.  I haven’t fired it yet and the rounds are quite expensive, I am going to look into handloading for it.  This is the 4th handgun in my collection.

The reason I chose this gun is not only for its aesthetic appeal but it can also convert to .44 magnum and .357 magnum.  Another unique feature of this weapon is that it is gas operated as opposed to blow back.  This particular model shoots fifty caliber bullets. That is a full half an inch wide.  I may also use this for hunting if I get proficient enough with the gun.

If you have the means purchase yourself a new or used firearm for this year’s buy a gun day and repeat this process every year!