Catching Up Again

I cannot believe that I haven't posted in a week.


Work is actually picking up a little, mostly because our competition is mostly out of business. We still have a couple left, but several of our competitors have shut their doors. I sympathize with those who lost their jobs and hope they can find new ones soon. Since we are aftermarket we are not quite as subject to new auto sales.


I can't say Dad is doing well but he is doing better than I expected. I'd like to spend more time up there but work schedule makes it difficult and car problems, soon to be fixed, are only making it worse. (I got one problem solved, and now another related problem.)


I have been giving a lot of thought and doing a lot of research into eschatology for the last week. This is of course a touch subject because prophecy has a tendency to be obscure until it is actually fulfilled and mistaken interpretations are all too common. The disciples of Jesus did not realize how many prophecies He fulfilled until He ascended into Heaven and they started studying the prophecies and were amazed. One of the biggest obstacles to pre-Christian students of Hebrew prophecy was how to reconcile the two images of the Messiah, the Suffering Servant and the triumphant King. Today we understand it but it was a source of a lot of confusion until it was fulfilled. Of course there are always skeptics, and always were. I would have loved to have seen the skeptics in the crowd when Lazarus came out of his tomb.


So many have written about that idiot cop who told a conservative protester that "It ain't no more" that nothing more can be said. He should be a poster child for the Obamaniacs.


Do you need a good laugh. Check out this post at Pasadena Closet Conservative. It gave me a badly needed laugh.


Here's something amazing. My parents should be rightly proud of 53 years together, but this couple has them beat. How often do you hear of a Diamond (75th) Wedding Anniversary. Ruth and Raymond Zink of Suburban Flint Michigan have done it. Hats off to them for an incredible feat.

A Bit of a Shock

I got some troubling news today.


No it's not my father and my job is OK.


It involves some old friends.


I first met them when they were my neighbors during my teen years. They had four kids and the older two were capable of watching themselves when their parents were away but the younger two needed adult, or at least near-adult, supervision and they were a handful to say the very least. I babysat them.


Toward the end of my teens they bought a laundromat/dry-cleaners and went into business and for many years did quite well. The economy has reached them and they have had to shut their doors. While their laundry business was alright, the economy caused a large cut in their dry-cleaning and they were no longer able to survive.


It's odd but I feel terrible for them. They are wonderful people who don't deserve this. They are old enough to retire but their children have worked for them for thirty years and don't know the first thing about a job hunt. I guess they'll have to learn.

I guess their competitors will now see an increase in business.

How Far Away Is the Private Manned Launch

A private company is going to succeed where the government is dropping the ball.


Perhaps that's how it should be.


Private enterprise is cheaper and more efficient than the government because it has to be. It has competition and needs profit to survive so it has to be more efficient and cheaper without being more dangerous. The Dragon may well be doing this two to three years before the Orion is ready. You can be sure that NASA will be all over this once it works.


And it will work.


Watch the Dragon spread its wings and soar.




Beautiful. What other word is there for it.


Will private enterprise be the next to walk on the moon? I wouldn't be surprised.

From My Brother

"We've got a duty to die and get out of the way with all of our machines and artificial hearts and everything else like that and let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life." Former Governor Richard Lamm (D) of Colorado.


In the book Logan's Run (which is very different from the movie) children are brainwashed to believe that it is selfish to want to live past your allotted time and those who run from death are morally equated with murderers. (In the book your last day is your 21st birthday). I never thought I would see that become a potential reality.

Sadly I don't know if this is just a joke or could one day be a painful reality. While I doubt that it would reach this level, I do believe our president would allow old people to die simply to save money, and those who deny it are living in a dream world. Remember the words of an equally infamous Democrat, former Governor Lamm of Colorado who said that old people have an obligation to die and get out of the way. I wonder if those who rightly furious about that are furious about this. (Of course Lamm was foolish enough to say what he thought where he could be heard and quoted.)

My brother sent me this joke.


"CASH FOR CODGERS":
...and it works like this... Couples wishing to access health
care funds in order to pay for the delivery of a child will be
required to turn in one old person.
The amount the government grants them will be fixed according
to a sliding scale. Older and more prescription dependent
codgers will garner the highest amounts.
Special "Bonuses" will be paid for those submitting codgers
in targeted groups, such as smokers, alcohol drinkers, persons
10 pounds over their government prescribed weight, and any
member of the Republican Party.
Smaller bonuses will be given for codgers who consume beef,
soda, fried foods, potato chips, lattes, whole milk, dairy
products, bacon, or Girl Scout Cookies.
All codgers will be rendered totally useless via toxic injection.
This will insure that they are not secretly resold or their body
parts harvested to keep other codgers in repair.
Run my old friend, Run

Remember this movie? If your old enough?



It's no longer about age but it seems eerily familiar.

They Influence You

B F Skinner was probably one of the most destructive thinkers of the Twentieth Century. I have said before but will repeat the vary basics of what he believed. He basically believed that freewill is simply an illusion and it really does not exist. To him our brain is like a computer with an incredibly complex program running it but it is still just a program. We will do what we are programmed to do, we will think what we are programmed to think, we will decide what we are programmed to decide. We really have no choice.

Now most leftists would find this whole idea as repulsive as most conservatives would find it. They will honestly say they don't believe in it, but it still influences their thinking. Many educators do believe in Skinnerism and teach accordingly. You may not believe in Skinner but did the professor who taught you political science base his course on Skinner's ideas? Did your sociology professor base the course you took on Skinner's philosophy?

There are a couple of side effects of believing in Skinner or being taught by those who believe him. To Skinner freedom and choice are an illusion and you're going to do what you have been conditioned to do along with your genetic predisposition. Thus freedom as understood by the founding fathers does not really exist. The only freedom they see is freedom from exploitation and they consider all other freedoms expendable for this big one. (Of course the fact that they simply replace the old exploiters and become the new exploiters is lost on them.) They want to take over your conditioning so that they can condition your children to be model citizens of Utopia. (Note how well that worked in Brave New World or A Clockwork Orange. -- the book not the movie!)

Secondly, if people are doing only what they are programmed to do then you are not responsible for what you do; the people responsible for your "conditioning" did it. If I were to take a bunch of weapons and go downtown and start shooting random people they would look for a "root cause" rather than hold me responsible. Though I would deserve to die they would try to stop it because it was not my fault. I am the true victim of a combination of whatever caused me to snap.

Our actions, thoughts, beliefs, and decisions are from a number of sources. We have our genetic predispositions -- which are very real but are not always destiny. We have been taught certain things from childhood which influence our thinking. The public culture bombards us with stuff that influences our thinking. Our education influences it. Moment to moment variations in ourselves and the environment influence it. Angelic and Demonic forces are constantly working on our minds as well. And in the end we have another thing - - - Our God-given freewill.

Then I should be in Slytherin house

It's true that you possess many of the qualities that Voldemort prizes in his followers. Skill, determination, resourcefulness, and if I might add . . a certain disregard for the rules. Yet the sorting hat placed y0u in Gryffindor . . . why is that Harry?

Because I asked it to.

Exactly! You see Harry, it's not your skills or abilities that decide who are you are . . . It's your choices.

A Lot of This and A Lot of That

A great cartoon that says it all



And another


I am thrilled to see that Dr Sanity, who suspended her blog indefinitely last month is back with a vengeance. She is one of the best writers on the net. I don't often comment but I read most of what she says.

I was going to go to the County Fair tonight, but I thought better of it. All I do is walk around and eat, and three dollar hot dogs (just for starters) is a bit absurd.

When you work third shift in a guardshack there's only so much you can do so you watch a bit of TV. You sometimes feel a little guilty because you're getting paid to watch television but it keeps you awake so you can see and hear what is happening. (As my boss told me We'd rather you watch the tube than doze off! ) PBS is a favorite, as long as you ignore political propaganda and one of my favorites is Nova Science Now. They had an interesting thing on stem cells and a Japanese scientist who had moral problems with embryonic stem cells may have found what may soon be a workable solution; he found a way to turn regular cells into stem cells. It's not perfect and it has an unfortunate side-effect, but it's a major step in dealing with a major moral conflict. Like the attempts to grow in vitro meats, thinking outside the box has the potential to solve many of society's disagreements in some areas.

Another episode was about Dark Matter and I found it fascinating but it started my, admittedly over-active, imagination going. When I was studying nuclear power we spent a lot of time on Physics and one of the things we learned was to think of not only time and space as dimensions, but also mass and charge were to be thought of as dimensions as well. Anti-matter of course is like matter but the charges are reversed so you have an anti-proton and positron instead of a proton and electron. Anti-matter's existence is confirmed even though we have no large amounts of it, which we couldn't contain anyway. Now imagine if you would that matter and anti-matter were viewed as 180 degrees apart. Is it possible that charge goes into more than two directions? Could there be something like matter that is, let say 30 degrees removed from our conventional matter? Could such matter exist and be detected? Could Dark Matter be matter slightly out of phase with our matter yet still intrude gravitationally into our existence? Just a pointless meandering of a bored mind at work.

One more thing, commenting at Z's blog I remembered a movie called Harry's War and would like to find a DVD of it. However it seems to be kept carefully tucked away from the public. Any ideas anyone? It is available on Netflix, but I don't use that service. I just found a possible source at the link I guess I'll see. Yes I can get it here . Amazing what one finds as one searches.

Catching Up?

I have not been doing much with either Blogspot or Facebook for the last few days. Been in kind of a funk.

Dad is not doing too well and he could hang on for a while but he could also go at any time.

Yesterday I was strolling along and ran into an old co-worker from my previous employer. We ate lunch together at Wendy's and talked over old times. It's amazing how much you get to miss people. This particular guy used to load parts onto the paintline to be painted, and though he is legally blind, he could see well enough to walk without a cane and could keep up with the guys who had normal vision and could run circles around a couple of them.

I was between two storms last night at work, or was actually in a quiet spot in a stormy area and watched the distant rain, lightning, and darkness in relative quiet. It made me think of where my country is now and that perhaps a storm is coming and there's no stopping it. Our country is divided like it hasn't been in over a century between those who want someone else to take care of all their needs and those who want to be as responsible for themselves as they can be. Trouble is if no one has to be responsible no one will be and everything will collapse. Or we get a police state which is what they want, even though they will never admit it. (How can it possible be a tyranny? I'll be the one in charge and I'm a good guy interested only in justice!")

Or we say enough and stand our ground and stop the would-be dictator from encroaching on our rights and our responsibilities.

Whoa!!

A probably innocent woman was the unfortunate collateral victim of an American missle in Pakistan and at Jihad Watch a Muslim commentator is using this as a distraction from multiple Islamic killing of targeted innocents.
Link

She was murdered as a result of a hellfire missile hittiing her father's house when she went round for tea. The US OC of the drones falsely assumed that where she goes Mehsud would be found....and that has not been the case.

She hardly died as a shahid sipping tea and talking to her father about Mehsud not being able to eat properly these days due to his busy schedule. I doubt that she achieved "eternity in paradise", she did not die fighting and she is a woman. ....it's simply a cruel and sad way to go.

(You have to open all available comments to find it.)

I doubt that she achieved "eternity in paradise", she did not die fighting and she is a woman.

You just can't make things like this up. Holy Cow.

Of course Robert Spencer, the sites main writer, is a right-wing hatemonger to some. Keep in mind that the modern definition of a hatemonger is one who tells a politically incorrect truth and we cannot let the politically correct thought police obscure the truth.

Also collateral damage and deaths is an inescapable reality. They are horrible and we must minimize them, but we will never eliminate them, except by the absolutely impossible feat of eliminating war (dream on dreamers!). The Jihadists never seem to even try to minimize collateral deaths from their attacks because they don't care. The more deaths the better. They complain about it to us because they know we do care even if we can't totally eliminate it.

Update: This writer seems almost to be a parody of a Jihadist and I considered the possibility that it was meant as satire, but his initial comments in the thread convince me otherwise.

Initial comment
And killing the Pakistan Taliban commander's INNOCENT wife by crusader drone missile is not going to help matters either. It's bad enough that they cannot sleep at night due to the drones and sleep during the day in a different bed and different locations.

You can bet that Baitullah Mehsud is not going to take this lying down. He loved his wife very much and I think it was her father who had tried to broker that Sharia for weapons down deal in teh 1st place.

A Bad Day

Today did not go at all as planned.

My brother from Florida was up and we were going to have an cookout as a family. I drove up to Mom and Dad's place and was there about 20 minutes when Mom was giving Dad something to eat.

Suddenly he went into a seizure. The ambulance was called and he was taken into the hospital.

At the moment we have no idea what has happened, but there are several possibilities, most of them not-good-at-all.

Prayers will be appreciated.

The New Opiate of the Masses

Karl Marx is well known for his foolish statement that Religion is the opiate of the masses used to make us not notice the suffering our oppressors are putting us through. Sure society uses opiates to quiet the masses. It uses bread and circuses to keep the mobs content as ancient Rome did. It buys people off with welfare checks.

There was once a Calvin and Hobbs strip where Calvin was reading a book and read Religion is the opiate of the masses and wondered what he meant. The Television answered and said It means Marx had no idea. The television also functions as an opiate of the masses.

Today we have a new opiate of the masses.

As freedom of the press, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, economic freedom, the right to defend yourself, the right to your own property etc seem to be boxed in more and more through the actions of the PC thought police one realm of freedom is growing and it is the true opiate of the masses.

In Huxley's Brave New World the state used the drug Soma and sexual promiscuity to control the crowds. (Both were social opiates though Soma was literally one.) By keeping one's mind on sexual activity and tuned to sex the people were prevented from thinking about anything else.

Another, lesser known but still interesting, Dystopian novel is Robert Silverberg's The World Inside . (I must say though that I speak of this book with some reservations as it is mildly pornographic -- though far from graphic by today's standards.) It takes place in large structures called Urbmons which are thousand story tall buildings in which a Utopian society exists. It is a society of sex, drugs and reproduction where it is a criminal offense to reject a sexual request. Sadly many correctly see the warning of overpopulation in the book but fail to see the other warning. In the end the only freedom the people have is sexual freedom as everything else is controlled. Yet even sexual freedom doesn't exist because you don't have the right to say no.

As the book progresses you begin to see how empty the lives of these people are. Sex is easy to get and meaningless and even love is hard to see. Then you begin to understand that those who control society use sexual pleasure to control the masses.

Today we are barraged with sexual stimuli that is used for advertising and art. Even, otherwise innocuous, childrens' movies and cartoons contain sexual content. Kids are beginning to believe that the sex drive must be fulfilled. Who benefits from this promiscuity? It sure isn't those who practice endless sex.

Is sexual freedom the bait that will be used to draw people into giving up their other freedoms? While many support "sexual liberation" without a political agenda, I am not so sure that the educators, psychologists etc who support this are (ahem) "pure" in their motives.

Give up all of your other freedoms and I will give you endless varieties of sexual pleasure.