Now, I am NOT the biggest fan of Mark Levin.
His voice grates, and has the euphony of a dental drill.

The really FAST one.

Today I heard him say the finest thing a talk radio person has ever said. He REFUSED to politicize the family decisions of John Edwards and his wife. He offered prayer for them, and left it at that.
He did not drub them for this or that choice.

Mark Levin was a real mensch, and for that this Aardvark applauds him.
Please join him and me in prayer for the Edwards family, for healing, comfort, grace, and deeper understanding of God's plan for them (we can ALL use that last one!). If they have not yet, may they personally experience the love and watch-care of our covenant God.

Here is our latest foray into japery.

It should be on our website tonight.

You KNOW you want one.

The power of t-shirts compels you.

CoastCon has happened.

And a good time was had by all!
Biloxi has rebuilt sufficiently to host a do like this, but it has a LONG way to go.
Cheers to the Super 8 crew, who struggled against insurmountable odds to be the host hotel.
I met Noel Neill (go buy her biography), and my pal Jeff Breslauer was there.
_____________________

The Dread Dormomoo weighs in on Anna Nicole.
"She should be cremated, the ashes put in an urn, and joint custody awarded to Momma and Stern."

They could split the time, with 6 months for each.

A historical note:

Small things often stick with you the best.
When I was a child, my pater had a penchant for... odd cars. We had a vineyard, and sold Concord grapes at a roadside stand in the summer, and also sold grapes to a winery. This was back in the waning years of the Highway Road Trip, as I-95 was being built to suck the other asphalt arteries dry. US-9 went right past our house. This was in the early Sixties.

He acquired a used Checker. Yes, the cab Checker. It had a back seat floor area that could sleep four kids. He painted it a weird purplish-grey, and it became his pickup truck...a true pickup being too plebeian for his tastes. In the glove compartment there were several brake-fluid stained postcards of the Saucy and Tasteless variety, the sort procured at roadside stands selling State Spoons, marmalade of indistinct pedigree, and postcards, often of the big-lipped watermelon-eating black folk variety, or the crazed Salesman chasing the negligee-clad Farmer's Daughter.

Charming.

One card had a liver-lipped hobo, a cigar in the corner of his mouth, his bindle resting on his shoulder. He says" Me worry? I get mine from the GIVE-mint.".

Give-mint. I got the mechanics of the wordplay, but puzzled over its precise meaning. Why was this meant to be funny? This was pre-LBJ's Great Society. I was a proto-Bobby Hill, and was much concerned with understanding the clockworks of humor.

My puzzlement etched the word into my mind. He was rather apt, that hobo.
Give-mint.
-------------------

Giraffe scores a home-run:

Edwards wasn't trying to get the church to look after the poor, he wanted the government to do it. Maybe that is his church.

Give that man a SEE-gar!
That is pellucid.
The Give-mint is Church.
The politicians are the priests and acolytes, and the proffered goodies, the sacraments.

And April 15 is when they pass the plate.

John Edwards--SUPERSTAR

One of the first projects I undertook when I became a Christian as a teen was to do a line-by-line comparison of Jesus Christ Superstar to what the Gospels actually taught. Now, I LOVED the rock opera (and as a musical work, I still do), but that exercise revealed the paucity of Biblical knowledge that Webber and Rice enjoyed. (Yes, I understand, they were NOT writing a Bible study program, rather a Jesus as feckless revolutionary who let it get out of hand, and Judas as hero, whose effort to "save" Jesus also goes awry. Then there is the "I Don't Know How To Love Him" Magdalen bit. If there had been no JCS, there would be no da Vinci Code.) It also set a pattern for me, in that I do my best to insist on Biblical authority for what I teach and do, which is why my reliance upon grace is so important, as I blow it with astounding frequency.

In the words of Charles Simpson, "I'm not where I ought to be, but praise God, I'm not where I used to be!".

Now I have NEVER seen the like: amazing ignorance of Jesus and His teaching cascading from the lips of commentators and politicos alike. (unless it was the time the Press was shocked and amazed that Jesus had something to do with the Jews, as revealed in "The Passion of the Christ".) It's kind of an "Everything I Learned About Jesus Wasn't Really About Jesus But Was Twaddle I Learned In Kindergarten" moment.

WA-A-A-A-Y back in olden times, the disciples of Socrates, f'rinstance, would write whole dialogues, and posthumously attribute them to old hemlock-breath, sort of philosophical fanfic.
Jesus is getting the same treatment from the political hacks of today. John Edwards is asserting that Jesus would be ashamed of the You-Ess-of-Ay:

During an interview with the faith and spirituality website Beliefnet.com, Edwards, who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic presidential bid in 2004, said ""I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs...I think he would be appalled, actually.

He also asserts that our lack of National Healthcare would wring tears from the Son of God.
The focus on the Nation is telling. The liberal mindset operates in terms of Groups, the masses.

Jesus championed the individual. Our relationship with God, one-on-one through Christ, certainly joins us to the church, but we still stand before God on our own. Come Judgment Day, we each of us will stand before Christ as individuals. I will not be able to hide with My Group.
Jesus commands ME to do alms, to give, to help, to teach. He works through relationships, not Groupthink. America is not a Christian nation, by definition it cannot be. America cannot be A Christian. It is incumbent therefore that we individual Christians do our part where charity and helps are concerned.

Proverbs 19:17, "He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the LORD; and that which he hath given will he pay him again."

I like the "Message" rendering:

Mercy to the needy is a loan to God, and God pays back those loans in full.

That is so neat.

If you are a Christian, you have a responsibility to help the poor. Specifically help fellow believers first and foremost:

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. Gal.6:9-10

Certainly we should help unbelievers who ask, but not to the hurt of our brethren. (Not to appear crass, but the care Christians have one for another can and SHOULD be a potent incentive for becoming a member of God's Family.)

Matthew 5:42, "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away."

John Edwards is pulling "Jesus" fanfic from his nethers, and what Edwards is saying is worth precisely that. Allow Jesus to suggest what all of the weepers from the Left who are interested in directing MY charity by robbing me through taxation and giving MY money in "our" name, while keeping their houses and lands, and carbon footieprints can do:

So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
(Luke 18:22)

In the words of Stan Lee: 'Nuff said!

The current kvetchfest about Pretty Women and Their Higher Wages is most droll.
(The added plus of having it reported by the Fox Newsfoxes just makes it more gigglesome.)

The Dread Dormomoo posits that it is all because the Pretty are also the Smarter. They know, instinctively or otherwise, that the putting forth of the best foot, dressing for success, and utilizing What God Gave Ya is the best way to go. (Not the exposure of hectares of boobosity, but rather dressing attractively.)

The Liberal Arts College dressing-down, Birkenstocked, unshaven "I'm being Honest: this is Me" may win points at the coffee house or poetry saloon, but it ain't the Nineties any more.
Verbal self-control is a winner as well. The office is one environment, the bistro is another entirely. What may be acceptable at The Macaroni Factory and Potable Palace is likely a tad loose for business, and gettin' stuff done.

Frankly, given the choice between, say, Laurie Dhue and Amanda Marcotte (or any of the Womyn's Studies crowd from my Alma Mater), whether for Journalism or for fetching a latte (ha, I said "Laurie Dhue" and "fetching" in the same sentence) I think that Ms. Dhue gets the job.

(Of course, if it were Shep Smith, The Dread Dormomoo and I would both hire. He's dreamy....)

"Thanks for taking our quiz. You answered 100% of the questions correctly. "


I took the Religion quiz.
I scored right up there with Mr. Mensa! Missed one, made 100%
(The Sunni / Shiite question got me. Hey, they BOTH begin with "s".)
Vox is right...they must grade on a curve.

"What we're trying to say to the president is, you can't send people in who are not trained for urban warfare . . . who are not prepared to contend with an insurgency." ---Nancy Pelosi.


This is Murtha's plan, and at first blush, it appears reasonable.

But y'know, I do not trust the bounders. There has never been a riper time for Public Discontent in the US to boil over into Uprising. The majority of troops, and much materiel, is to be found overseas. The Leadership would be stupid (!) not to recognize this. The training of our soldiers in urban tactics would go a long way toward making the Crowned Heads Rest Easy. Internecine fighting would be distasteful to many in the armed forces, but there are enough soldiers who are desensitized to the idea of firing on a countryman that it would be a tough row to hoe for any rebels with Constitutional demands. These guys have sought explicit answers from the government as to the Constitutionality of the Income Tax, f'rinstance. Their Constitutional demand for Redress of Grievance has been met with stony silence from the Hallowed Halls.

So Murtha's Plan makes me a tad queasy. A non-responsive government wants to specifically train its Protectors in methods well suited to keep the rabble in line.

Queasy, I tells ya.

It's so difficult!

I am hearing this all over the place- especially where discourse on "illegal aliens" is concerned, and frankly, usually when a female advocate is speaking. "This is a Difficult situation." This usually goes hand-in-hand with the idea of "humanizing" the illegals.

I do not understand what is so difficult or complex about this.

You have people who have broken our country's laws, who are now being given a pass by the media, and largely left-leaning (and well-meaning) advocates. This seems simple. I do not get the problem here.

There are more American citizens killed in the US by illegal aliens per year than the number of our soldiers killed in Iraq to date. This includes traffic fatalities as well as felonies.

Now, to be fair- and this is a sticking point for me- I have NEVER seen an (apparently) Hispanic guy leave a public restroom without washing his hands. It's always the white guys. Ewwwwww.
I am not anti-people. I am not anti-black, brown, pink, red, or yellow. (Frankly, I have trouble with the Purples.) I am anti-illegal. Anti-lawbreaking.

I just cannot understand how this is complex. Perhaps I am just simple-minded.

Hey, I'm givin' you a free shot, here!