...aaaaaaaaaand it begins...

While I was in Knoxville at the Knoxville Comics and Anime Con, and doing well, thank you, the Voices of Reason abdicated their positions, and a pro-life group gave the Republican nominees (or the Red Faction, as Vox puts it) a Paper to sign, a pledge promising solemnly, and swearing on pain of having their livers cut out whilst staked out on the beach ohLordmyGodistherenohelpforthewidow'sson
*ahem* or somesuch that they would not ever, never hire anyone for their staffs who is not staunchly pro-life. Mitt Romney refused.

So did Herman Cain.

(Boos and hisses from the gallery)

Mitt has already disqualified himself with his dumb MassCare or whatever it's called. His lack of repentance is breathtaking in light of mainstream America's disfavor of O'bamaCare. His polls are down. Herman Cain, that champion of the FairTax (and yes, I've read the site and much of the forum kerfuffles. I still like it, and I liked the Linder/Boortz "comic book" as well. Color me naive, and a potato-eater.), Cain has refused to sign the pledge. A bouquet of rotted veg rockets from the cheap seats.

Pause with me as I present my curriculum vitae: I am pro-life. I have marched in Montgomery for an awesome Pro-Life bill that was overwhelmingly ignored (and there were more of us than were ever at a civil rights march!). I was media liaison for an area pro-life group for a time. I have prayed, spoken, and been earnestly pro-life. I even blog pro-life. I am so pro-life that I actually considered thinking about joining Operation Rescue, and decided that my best family ministry was ministering to my family whilst not in jail. I taught my children not to kill their unborn children. One has obeyed my teaching, for the others it has never become an issue. Bottom line: I am pro-life, even if I don't pray the rosary.

That said, allow me once again to tenderise the insensate equine. Abortion is not a political issue. It is one of the heart. I just wish that the Bible quoters would go beyond individual verses and instead perceive the gestalt of the gospel call. It is easy to wave a placard with

" ¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be. " (Psalm 139:13-16 NIV)

It is easy to march, and hand out literature. It is harder to invest yourself in people's lives. It is harder to teach people the gospel, and that killing babies is less than God's best. It is harder to raise your children to do right. There are many who do that, and eternal huzzahs are due them. There are people who open their homes and pocketbooks to strangers to care for them through the pregnancy, and then provide an adoptive home for the baby. More huzzahs!!

The point is (going back to the gestalt thingie) that we are called as Christians to teach the Gospel, and live it. We have no command nor example to politicize issues like abortion. The clash of the Kingdom of God versus the kingdom of darkness occurs in the heart and mind, not in the streets. (insert West Side Story alley fight here).

Doing this political pledge is counterproductive. It could deny us the abolition of things like oppressive taxation, a clearly political issue. Mixing the gospel and politics is always a losing proposition...for the gospel. It requires admixture, adulteration, compromise. You spread the Gospel by teaching the Gospel, not trying to vote it in.

Caesar to Caesar, God to God.

Here endeth the lesson.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D) will resign from Congress at the behest of Pres. O'bama, Nancy Pelosi, and many other Democratic worthies.

The day of his leave-taking should from henceforth be called "National Weiner Day".
The grilling of Oscar Meyers and Hebrew Nationals shall be de rigueur.

The Dread Dormomoo approved this message.

I'm just sayin'....

------------------

In other important news:
The Ugliest Website in the World is back!

REJOICE!

No Job Too Odd!

Our business motto is "No job too odd". Our spokesvark Stan is always getting in trouble in our radio ads because of this business model (click on the purple MP3 widget to the right). Now my bum has been bitten for the same reason. I have spent two days as a "consultant" with an area fabricating firm, helping them learn to screenprint on acrylic-coated metal, which is a hoot, because first I had to learn. We mixed ink, fiddled with art sizing, made three screens in a row, got it all to work yesterday evening, then were informed that there was better art than what we had been given to begin with. One more screen done overnight, and Riatsila and I went in today so I could print whilst he loaded and unloaded the makeshift press we were using. We finished the job within an hour, after a two-day learning curve.

Customer happy, paid us in stuff...pricey inky stuff that they bought before I came on board.

You just can't print effectively on metal with PVC t-shirt ink, even if it is silver!

Glenn Beck is trotting out the old reliable "Promised Land" mantra re: the Israelis. God promised them the land, therefore it is theirs. Palestinians need not apply. I can agree with the last bit...Palestinians are not a nation, they are a loose slurry of desert-dwelling hobos that has made itself odious wherever it dwelt. Arafat got them into the West Bank, where they have been an international thorn since.

The "God Promised" canard seems ready-made for any who wish to look at God's positive statements, and conveniently ignore covenant penalties. It is no mistake that Beck is allied with John Hagee, the dispy toad that has been flogging end-timey-wimey stuff for decades. Hagee is also a faith-walk proponent akin to the Copelands, and heir to the illogical positivism of that error.

Deuteronomy 28 is a goldmine for God's promises to the children of Israel, at least the first half.

¹ “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. ² And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God:
³ “Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.
⁴ “Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.
⁵ “Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
⁶ “Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
⁷ “The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.
⁸ “The LORD will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you.
⁹ “The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways. ¹⁰ Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of you. ¹¹ And the LORD will grant you plenty of goods, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. ¹² The LORD will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. ¹³ And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them. ¹⁴ So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right or the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

The second half clearly details God's promises of a calamitous sort, if Israel chose to disobey God's dictates. Here it is:

¹⁵ “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
¹⁶ “Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country.
¹⁷ “Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
¹⁸ “Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.
¹⁹ “Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.
²⁰ “The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me. ²¹ The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. ²² The LORD will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish. ²³ And your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron. ²⁴ The LORD will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
²⁵ “The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶ Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away. ²⁷ The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. ²⁸ The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart. ²⁹ And you shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you.
³⁰ “You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. ³¹ Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescue them. ³² Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand. ³³ A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually. ³⁴ So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. ³⁵ The LORD will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.
³⁶ “The LORD will bring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods—wood and stone. ³⁷ And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the LORD will drive you.
³⁸ “You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it. ³⁹ You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. ⁴⁰ You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. ⁴¹ You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. ⁴² Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land.
⁴³ “The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. ⁴⁴ He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.
⁴⁵ “Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. ⁴⁶ And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever.
⁴⁷ “Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, ⁴⁸ therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. ⁴⁹ The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, ⁵⁰ a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young. ⁵¹ And they shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, or the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you.
⁵² “They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you. ⁵³ You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you. ⁵⁴ The sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, ⁵⁵ so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. ⁵⁶ The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, will refuse^[a] to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, ⁵⁷ her placenta which comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.
⁵⁸ “If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD, ⁵⁹ then the LORD will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses. ⁶⁰ Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. ⁶¹ Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the LORD bring upon you until you are destroyed. ⁶² You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God. ⁶³ And it shall be, that just as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess.
⁶⁴ “Then the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known—wood and stone. ⁶⁵ And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. ⁶⁶ Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life. ⁶⁷ In the morning you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were morning!’ because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and because of the sight which your eyes see.
⁶⁸ “And the LORD will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again.’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.

Kinda unplesant, yes? God is a bargain-making God, but He makes the bargain on His terms, being God and all. We can sign up, and all is peachy, but we are then signatory to the penalties as well as the blessings. Jesus reminded the Jews of their comeuppance in Matthew 23, which Hagee, et al, cannot understand was a warning to the people then hearing Jesus' words. How hard is "This generation" to understand? As a nation, the Jews rejected Yeshua ha Meschiach, and every vestige of their service to God was shattered. The Temple was destroyed in 70 AD. Without the Temple, there were no sacrifices, no holy place, no Holy of Holies. No bronze laver, no altar, no table of showbread, no lampstand.

No Ark of the Covenant.

When Jesus died, the veil separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the world was torn in two from top to bottom. Jesus' death in ~30AD did away with the need to sacrifice animals to cover sin.
God then gave the Jews 40 years to get with the new program. Some did, most didn't. 70 AD rolled around, Rome lay siege to Jerusalem, and when the Romans became disgusted at this:

. ⁵³ You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you. ⁵⁴ The sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, ⁵⁵ so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. ⁵⁶ The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, will refuse^[a] to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, ⁵⁷ her placenta which comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.

they said "ENOUGH!" and destroyed the place. No more Jewish religion, for there was no Temple. What passes for Judaism today is a hodge-podge of traditions and superstitions, mixed liberally with Torah. It is not what God set up.

The cheerleaders for Israel today don't get it. They live where they live by UN fiat, and like their Scriptural cherry-picking, they choose to say yea and amen to THAT UN declaration, while decrying all the rest.

Israel, and then Judah rejected their God and His ways. Covenentally, He has returned the favor. The secular state of Israel now lives in a hell of the UN's (and their own) making. All the "Courage" rallies Glenn Beck can muster will not change the Scriptures, nor God's mind.
-----------------------------------
Allow your Aardvark an addendum. Above is not an anti-Semitic tract. It is an anti-stupidity tract, aimed at the clueless pratings of the End-Timey-Wimey crowd, who see modern Israel as fulfillment of Biblical prophecies that have already been fulfilled in Christ, and who ignore God's promises of censure and sanction as surely as they cling to their Bible-Promise-Card theology of limitless blessing, with Jesus as Lord and Personal Valet.

As to the modern secular State of Israel, I am a fan. They have survived as a nation against all odds, and have been firm allies of the US (even whilst spying on us). I suspect that if Bebe Netanyahu chooses to ignore Obama's demands, and shrugs off the leash the US has used to control Israel, the Mid-East would soon be a safer place. On the other hand, if Obama continues in the role of Israel's Worst Enemy, he should start looking over his shoulder for Mossad agents.

Ultimately, it is not a safe thing to be an enemy of Israel.

It has been a huge couple of weeks. MobiCon was a record-setter for smaller SF cons, sales-wise. Part of the reason is their burgeoning anime track, with popular voice guests. Last weekend was Animazement in Raleigh, NC, again, a record-setter for sales at that particular con. The crew at AZ were unfailingly helpful, and put on an astonishing show. The dealer room was run very well, especially in that it appeared to this Aardvark that they had reduced the number of sellers there, which makes for happier remaining dealers. Rising tides floating all boats, and such. This is a key piece of wisdom missing at many larger and hoping-to-be-larger anime cons: more dealers does not really help anyone. The con-goers get frustrated with a multiplicity of dealers selling essentially the same stuff. The dealers get grumpy - and dealers can be a grumpy lot - when there is too much competition for a finite pool of money. Then the dealers grump at the con staff. Fun ensues.

The ideal situation is having a semi-juried room, with a couple of each type of merchandise mix for variety and a little competitive pricing. ACEN (Anime Central), the same weekend as MobiCon, was dreadful, with an overgrown dealer room with too many PVC figure dealers, too many t-shirt vendors, too many Pocky sellers...

Can there be too much Pocky?

ACEN typifies the worst in dealer room dynamics, unless it is the St. Louis show that places each type of dealer in its own ghetto...whole sections of 10-12 t-shirt sellers vying for your shekels. As super-cool and groovy as our designs are, they cannot stand up to the onslaught of dealer-room hypnosis induced in the buyers by endless vistas of the same kind of merchandise.

So there is the Aardvark's wisdom: limit dealers to a commodious mix of goods for the attendees, giving them enough but not too much. This is economics that works.

Bernanke needs to attend a good con. Oh, wait....

This one's for YOU, Ted!

The Dread Dormomoo and I trekked to Mobile, AL to attend MobiCon this weekend. A GREAT time was had by all, and my stint as Fan Guest of Honor was a pleasant one. Congratulations and glad-handing all around, plus people attended my panels on what got you into SF fandom, and a 30-year retrospective of being a huckster at SF conventions. (That one may not have been as dreadful as it sounds.)

The image above was the design I did ESPECIALLY for the weekend in celebration of the prophetic Rapture follies of Camping and Co. I was secure in the belief that I would have to issue no refunds. We sold ALL of the ones we took (two dozen), plus I had mail orders to print when I got home.

PLUS, the whole rapture stupidity opened the door to share some biblical truth in a comparatively hostile environment. (SF cons rarely have chapel services, f'rinstance, nor do the attendees sing "Kum Ba Ya" at the end.) It was a sweet time all around. I got to see old friends, new friends, AND I got to sell them things, too!

We did half again as well as at past MobiCons. Their attendance was WAY up, too!

Wayne, Don, and all the rest, thanks for an amazingly wonderful weekend! You, too, Tex!

Next year at Mobile!

I went to MobiCon, and all I got was this lousy autograph.

Isn't it AWESOME!!?

Robert Picardo is a great guy, personable, self-deprecating. I do not usually buy autographed pictures of actors, except as gifts for others, but when I saw this Hirschfeld caricature, it was a done deal.

Thanks, Bob!

Well, the week begins, with MobiCon at its end! The very convention that is featuring Your Humble as their Fan Guest of Honor is upon us. (My brief bio and stunning picture may be found here. Scroll down past Ethan Phillips.) See you all in Mobile, AL.
-------------------------
I have to say, as much as I like Herman Cain's FairTax allegiance, AND as much as I like Godfather's pizza, I really have a problem with his having been a Fed governor.
-------------------------

Sadly, I heard the doubtable Hannitoad and his stuffed panda Dick Morris on radio.
Morris was mumphing about the diminishing Repub field of Gingrich, Romney, Trump and Huckabee. Not a peep about Paul (and no, I wasn't surprised.)

I think Morris must still be working for the Clintons.

FOX News is every bit the MSM as CBS, et al.

The Very Conservative Restoration preachers have tended to be a grumpy lot, and have developed some tropes to fall back on. The above banner appeared in local newspapers during the 50's and 60's on the religion page, often sponsored by a local funeral home, since few things shunted your mind to The Eternal Verities like reminders of your mortality.

The aforementioned grumpy preachers excelled at Us vs. Them rhetoric. This was, after all, during the Cold War, and we knew Who our enemies were: The Russkies on the geopolitical stage, and the denominational ecumenicists on the religious front. Adding a jot or tittle beyond what the Bible said (or what the grumpies preached) pretty well landed you into the latter classification. If you had a church HQ, you were in the enemy camp.

(Allow me to interject my view that the divisions in Christendom are not a good thing, that the almighty insistence upon MY way rather than God's is abhorrent, and lends itself to divisiveness which in no way honors nor obeys Jesus Christ.)

One of the doctrinal windmills at which the grumpies liked to tilt was that selfsame banner "Go to the church of your choice." With polemical fervor they would cry "There is only one church, the church that Christ died for. You should go to the church of Christ's choice, not the church of your choice!" Such grannying fuss played well to the audience, who perceived "church of your choice" as being ecumenical "any brand will do-ism". It was a reliable rant, which reliably missed the point. This was, after all, during the Cold War, and our Great Enemy was Godless Communism. They had the Church of the State's choice. Period. Here in the free good ol' YouEssofAY we had jillions of churches on jillions of street corners! All that, and you could choose which one to attend; no commissar pointed your way. The ad was not a celebration of errant denominationalism...it was a paean to religious freedom in the West. If you have trouble with that, you must be a Commie, too, and we may question your fondness for apple pie as well.

No-one ever saw through to that last bit. Apparently, they never saw the freedom bit either.
To paraphrase the Space Quest games "What a smart person I am!" Wonder if I could get Gary Owens to record that.

-----------------------------------

Those that note the time stamp on my post (and I have so many reader that someone is bound to notice) will see that I am playing the hypocrite, and that I Am Not At Church. Yesterday your Aardvark was shanghaied into being a judge at a local BBQ cookoff.

Yes, I know. Weep for me.

I got to enjoy four pieces of chicken, and five pork ribs. Then we had BBQ sandwiches for supper.

Are you still weeping?

Having done this, I have discovered a new syndrome: Acute Barbecue Poisoning. Maybe I can start an ABP telethon. Let's just say that digestive time-dilation is involved and leave it at that.
Unfortunately, like the drunkard in Proverbs my response to the next cookoff may be "when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.".

Bin Laden's Big Love didn't work out maybe?


Usama/Osama bin Laden's five wives were not quite enough.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A stash of pornography was found in the hideout of Osama bin Laden by the U.S. commandos who killed him, current and former U.S. officials said Friday.

The pornography recovered in bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, consists of modern, electronically recorded video and is fairly extensive, according to the officials, who discussed the discovery with Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Just sayin'.

----------------------------------

On Thursday, Sen. Chuck Schumer threw some oil execs on the barbie with his demands to remove "taxpayer subsidies" from "Big Oil". What in the world does that mean? Oil Execs are Washington's favorite menu item when gas prices go up. Grilling them makes for good PR, 'cos the senators are seen as looking out for the Littul People. Screaming about tax breaks for oil companies is great fun, and not listening to the oil company heads' answers is a laff riot.

One of them, in a clearly self-serving move, repeatedly said "we get no subsidies".

Turns out using real-world language, this is true.

In the U.S., companies are taxed 35 percent on earnings of $10 million to $15 million or on all earnings over $18.3 million. That’s one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world... (FactCheck.org)

Companies that operate overseas pay no taxes on money earned overseas, if that money STAYS overseas. This includes, but is not limited to, oil companies. The "tax breaks" in 2005's H.R.6 actually wound up raising oil company tax bills.

So what could Chuckles Schumer possibly mean by "taxpayer subsidies". Ah have had a rev-uh-LAY-shun!

Taxpayer subsidies mean any money a business is allowed to keep beyond current tax liabilities. In the Wonderland of Washington-speak, all money that business makes should be Washington's, and it is by the sufferance of the taxpayers, by their "taxpayer subsidies" that any business is allowed to keep a portion if their "obscene profits" at all, and that grudgingly.

To our brave leaders-from-behind, the rubric is: "all your cash are belong to us.".

This ad makes me so happy!

I am agog at the dependability of dispensational stupidity. Jesus is ostensibly Lord, yes? You spell Lord "B-O-S-S", yes?

So why, if our Boss says regarding his return:

"No one knows when that day or hour will come-not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." Matthew 24:36 NIV

do people insist on setting a date?

Why? Could the answer be MPAI? What part of Jesus' statement is hard to understand?
I will not even go into the fact that the whole "Left Behind" scenario is a load of heretical dingo's kidneys. Not even a little bit.

We'll see on May 22nd.

One of the reasons that the public backing of The War Effort is on the wane-and I am NOT a backer of the war on Terror- is that we have no clear enemy. If terror was the killer from the SCREAM movies, we could get a handle on it. How about the bureaucrat Hengist, who turned out to be a Piglet-voiced Jack the Ripper in the original Star Trek? THAT'S an image we can get our brains around. We have no such image of our enemy in this pathetic hoedown of a war. No, THREE wars.

Political Correctness in all its Marxist glory has stripped us of our most potent weapon. Mark Twain said "Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.". Caricaturing the enemy, subjecting him to ridicule, makes him less fearsome, less formidable, and more defeatable. Because we are fighting by Emily Post's Rules of Warfare, we cannot use the impolitic, or the impolite. If Bin Laden had been cartooned as a goat, or Mohammed as a camel (PBUH), we would have gone a long way toward having a despisable, fightable enemy.

Propaganda cartoons make the Enemy less than human. This may not be nice, but it is War. A dehumanised enemy is a defeatable one. I am not advocating the wholesale scoffing and fun-making of other humans, but in War, the point is To Win. Propaganda Cartoons are a potent tool for winning. We need to have a raft of cartoonists to puncture the pretensions of our enemies. PLEASE, let's be sensible, and do this thing to win!

Of course, this assumes a sane national wish to actually win. It has been clear since Viet Nam that we have ceased as a nation to have the desire to crush our enemies. It's as though Nagasaki and Hiroshima used up the national will, and we must atone by being losers forever.

Been away for days, bereft of electron flow. The N. AL tornadoes of Wednesday last took lives, property, electricity, and the Internet. We got power back on Saturday, and the 'net today. Our lives and property are intact, thank The Maker.

I have been going through io9, and learned that the architect who brought Googie to the world passed away last week. He brought soaring optimism for the future, and cast it into brick, mortar, glass and steel.

One of the commenters, otakuoverlord wrote:

People were so amazingly confident that the space age would transform humanity into a (...yes, predominantly white) utopian society amongst the stars. We went to the f**king MOON at the same time you could grab a shake inside a giant polygon primitive. That's awesome.

Racism removed, why can't we feel that way about the world again?

There it is again, the ever-present need to peel open the scab, make the wound bleed, apologise for past errors, real or imagined, one more time. My response was (this is not the first time I've dealt with this issue):

This makes my horse-pummeling point of weeks ago for me. "Race" did not even have to enter this discussion. We cannot feel the optimism of the past precisely because our faces are constantly ground into (real and imagined) social sins of the past. The caricature of "church" ("You filthy sinner" messages, like that) is alive and real right here in post-Christian Sci-Fi-dom.

Keep picking the scab. Of COURSE it will heal without a scar.

The book of Proverbs says "A foolish son is the calamity of his father: and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping 19:13" One of the symptoms of a contentious wife is that she will not forgive...she will not let something go. She rabbits on and on about it. There is no peace, because there is no forgiveness. Herein lies the reason for our doldrums of pessimism.

The cartoon church that the world despises has old ladies of both sexes pointing bony fingers of indignation and intoning condemnation upon the miscreant. While there is no dearth of people who raise their own esteem by lowering yours, the church for whom Christ died does not operate that way. Forgiveness in Christ washes away, expunges, cleanses you of all unrighteousness and guilt. Little wonder that baptism is such a potent command for entry into the Kingdom. Once the sin is pardoned, as far as God is concerned, it never happened. He forgives you, and doesn't bring it up again.

Enter our racially-sensitive society, with a guilt-mill cranked by so-called "reverends" Jesse and Al and all. The nation has confessed and repented endlessly for the acts of our forbears, things that we have not done, but their guilt has been imputed to us by a political transubstantiation, making us the slave-owners of the 1800's and Southern Democrats of the 50's. These alleged ministers of the gospel do not have the grace to forgive; instead they lay the same sin at our door year upon year. There is little wonder that there is so little optimism. You cannot feel good about the future when weighed down by guilt, real or imagined, from the past.

The gospel teaches that we in Christ grow from faith to faith, reflecting Christ from glory to glory. The picture is one of upward growth. The modern mavens of the racial anti-gospel, anti-christs like Jackson and Sharpton, smear undeserved guilt on our society, and profit thereby. "But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." the prophet Amos said, and Martin Luther King Jr. quoted the vision. The current crop of race-baiters and guilt merchants have trampled and repudiated that vision. Proverbs also says that without a vision, the people perish. Denied forgiveness by the wealthy and politically powerful merchants of race, how can our nation expect to have optimism about the future?

Well, President Barack Hussein Obama has released his long-form birth certificate.

Trump wins.

Now, if anyone can get his transcripts and medical records... you know, the stuff every other presidential candidate provides.

Heck, the stuff anyone applying to work in a warehouse or at a McDonald's has to provide.

So, has anyone sussed out that the amazing "NO HASSLE, NO HAGGLE!!" pricing the dealerships are shouting about really means "You pay what we TELL you to pay."?

Just like always.

..........................................







Loen's Fa-CHAYBook status:

Dear Royal Family:
Nobody cares.
Sincerely,
The World.

Thirteen J.B.Hunt Trucks
(or)
The Birth of a Superstition
---------------------------

On one of our junkets to Florida anime conventions, Riatsila and I got behind a truck with a dreadful yellow faux-Spencerian logo as we exited to fill up with gas. I commented on how not-fond-at-all I was of the artwork. It seemed like someone's nephew got a-hold of a graphics program and said "Look, Unkie! Look what I can do!"

Of course, once noticed, the ubiquity of J.B.Hunt became a terrible reality. Yellow logos everywhere!

Somewhen over time, we started counting Hunt trucks. They were all over the place. Then, self-consciously, we began to relate the number of trucks we saw to how well we did at the cons we attended, and a superstition was born!

We recognised that we were establishing a superstitious mindset, and were doing so purposely to explore the dynamics of the thing. My thoughts on the horrors of superstitious thinking may be found here.

We began to notice a 10-to-1 ratio of sales to trucks ($100 per each truck). This fell down when we saw 78 of them on the way to G-Fest in Chicago. Of course we had the need to rationalise the drop in the ratio (much as the ancients would try to suss out the why of drought or plague).
Then, from rationalising to the rational, I would suppose that a preponderance of Hunt trucks indicated an upturn in the economy (bless Ben!) so of course our sales would improve!

Bottom line, it appeared that the more J.B.Hunt trucks we saw on the way to the con, the better we did. The nature of a superstition looks for reasons and repeatability. Not reasonable reasons, necessarily, but reasons nonetheless. The Canaanites figured out that if they had sex with consecrated prossies, the gods would be titillated by the theo-porn and get busy themselves, fertilising the land.

Understand, this was undertaken as an intellectual exercise to examine the formation of superstitious thoughts and attitudes. We are firm believers in God's provision, and realise that every good and perfect gift comes from Him.

It just makes me mad when I see a bunch of J.B.Hunt trucks on the way home from the con!

ZOMG!!!

Jay Sekulow, that ever-ready barrister for God, called Chez 'Vark this morning (I know, right. Called US! Rush Limbaugh was late calling for his talking points, too!)

Seems the militant atheists are challenging the National Day of Prayer, and Sekulow is warning that if the NDOP is struck down by Godless judges, then Christians will be unable to pray for the nation. This catastrophe can be averted if we send panic money NOW, because without a government-sanctioned National Day of Prayer, we cannot possibly pray for our nation.

I am a conservative Christian. Color me stupid.

(C) Basil Wolverton

I am comforted that we have been brought from the brink of catastrophe by the courageous action of Mssrs. Boehner, Reid and Soetero. The governmant did NOT, in fact, shut down. WHEW! I was losin' sleep over THAT one. Knowing that the watchful eye of the Givement continues to glare balefully down on me gives me hope for Another Day! O, Hallelujah!

--------------------------------------

I am weary of the snarky little comments by non-nuclear people about how dreadful atomics are, how dangerous, how deadly. Then they point a quivering digit at the quake-stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. Next they will be invoking Godzilla.

In their zeal to do a hatchet-job on The Offending Atom, they overlook the small fact that nuclear power isn't dangerous.

Earthquakes are. The earthquake is wot done it, an Act of Gaia. Our precious Earth-Mother shook, rattled and rolled the Japanese atomic plant to death. Without the earthquake, Mr. Atom would still be our friend!

The radiation released was reported breathlessly by the Green newsies, who clearly did not have classes on Atomic Readiness on the 4H TV Action Club in elementary school! They would know that the vast majority of the radiation released consisted of short-lived alpha-emitters, the type of radiation easily shielded against by the sheet of paper I am not typing on now.

Here is a neat little piece on radiation. (You will need to provide an email to continue the lesson for 10 minutes.)

Radiation has dangers, yes, but there are different types of radiation, and the differences in them are dramatic. Learn about them, and have less fear when CBS or NPR begin to bleat that attack by giant radiation-monsters is imminent.

Your Aardvark is in LO-O-O-O-VE!

Yes, friends, I am in love! Well and truly in love...

with the animations of Jessica Borutski! (Her still art ain't bad, either!)

Here is her first cartoon (well, not really...she animated for John K. on Ren and Stimpy, but this is what put herself on the map):



More later!

If I hear another lie from the pretending Liar-in-Chief, I am gonna explode. In fact, I just did, screaming at the radio.

Screaming, like a feminist who just dropped her bucket of Ben & Jerry's on her favorite cat, killing it.

He was blathering about the "drill, baby, drill" or somesuch, and he said that if we were to get every drop of oil from our resources, that "it would not meet our long-term needs".

His misdirection is breathtaking, but not as asphyxiating as the credulous listeners who hear and do not perceive. Certainly, it will not meet our long-term goals (however he defines them), but increased domestic oil production will currently fulfill our current needs, which is our entire problem now. We need fuel NOW, while we work out the solutions for the future. It is like saying that we should sit in the dark, because our lightbulb production cannot possibly meet future illumination needs. We need a man or woman in the Oval Office who has the clarity to see NOW, because we have to move through now to get to then. Obama's thousand-yard stare is of no use either to us or those in the future. To put it shortly, Barack Hussein Obama is of no use to us, period.

He almost makes me miss Jimmuh Cahter.

President Obama seems pathologically unable to practise strategic thinking. He apparently only deals with Things Tactical. There are people who play chess with their next fifty moves planned ahead, then there's the way I play: just responding move-by-move. I don't win much.

Libya appears to be just one more isolated chess move in a dreadful first-term game for Barack Hussein Obama. WHY are we there? WHERE is a declaration of war by the Congress? WHEN will we get out?
--------------------------------

Tennessee Valley parents are apparently suing the State in Federal Court in Huntsville, blaming the Alabama's low property tax rates for the poor schools here.

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Alabama property owners pay the lowest property taxes in the country.

A federal lawsuit set for trial here Monday argues that isn't simply a coincidence or a reflection of an anti-tax electorate, but designed to discriminate against black schoolchildren.

The case is Lynch v. Alabama, named after one of the plaintiffs...

The suit is being brought on behalf of families of black schoolchildren in Lawrence and Sumter counties and families of white schoolchildren in Lawrence County. The plaintiffs range in age from preschool to high school.... --The Huntsville Times

The irony is palpable. They were at least smart enough to include a few white kids in the suit, to fend off accusations of "reverse discrimination".

It is instead taxpayer extortion in the Name of Civil Rights. All of the property money goes into a pool, where it is divvied up. Birmingham and Madison County apparently get more than "their fair share" except that they also pay a large percentage of the tax bill. Should property taxes increase, I will be curious to hear the howls from property owners in Sumter and Lawrence counties.

I wonder how many of the plaintiffs rent?

This made me happy.

Hooked from Character Matters on Vimeo.

STOP COAL PLANTS NOW!!!


We must stop the HORROR that is coal electric energy production.

The destruction, the terror, the loss of property!!

Is 45% of domestic electric generation WORTH the danger posed by ASH?!

IS IT?

---------------------

In other news, the Department of Energy has discovered the existence of Electric Fairies. Efforts to utilise them for domestic power production has been hampered by the EPA's placing them on the Endangered Cryptids list.

Pictire from: omarsinc.com/goodteachers

EVERYBODY WINS!

Wisconsin Congressional Democrats have taken their soccer ball and gone ho...wait, they haven't gone home; they've run away! They have joined The Beaver, Dennis the Menace, and hordes of other five-year-olds who didn't get their way, or who went to Dad's study, but didn't learn their lesson.

What lesson? YOU LOST! You are no longer the majority. In a representative government, the Majority has more clout than the Minority (apparently Beav didn't learn his math OR civics lessons, either). Having a tantrum won't change the numbers. This isn't American kid's soccer, where EVERYONE gets a pizza party. Unless, of course, you throw an especially excellent tantrum, turn that exquisite shade of blue, appear on CNN, and get Jesse Jackson to declare the whole "collective bargaining" thing a "Civil Rights Issue".

It's easier to win the soccer match if you have some adults to move your goal around.

BTW, has anyone noticed the Marxism inherent in union-speak? Collective bargaining...struggle....

So, it is time to go home, WI Dems, and represent your constituents. You are the minority, and do not have the clout you once did. You will likely lose this issue. Mensch up, guys 'n' gals. Do your job, even if you lose.

Smile and enjoy the pepperoni!

Jews Forgive Glenn Beck...Film at 10!


Isn't it time to maybe lighten up a tad? Everyone is tired of the Eternal Victim drumbeat.
There has been no black slavery in the YouEssofAY since the late 1860s. There have been no Nazi slaughters of Jews in over sixty years.

But, no, The ADL and other organisations spend their time, electronic antennae a-quiver, hoping to see or hear something, ANYTHING, that can be remotely seen as anti-Jewish hate speech, and then issue press releases and Threats of Reprisal.

They may not have learned as much from History as they ought.

Being a burr under society's saddle does not endear a group to that society, and tends to encourage fringe groups to take action. Sometimes fringe groups take center stage. If YOUR group is twitchy, or touchy, or just weird, then YOU may be the Star Trek red shirts when the Revolution comes. This has played out on the world stage time and again.

Mr. Foxman of the ADL, et al, Mr. Beck was not comparing Judaism with Islam. He was comparing The Reform tendency to Be Political with an Islamic group's tendency to Be Political.
You are smart enough to understand that. But, no, you have to play your Eternal Victim card, and savage a man who is a staunch supporter of the Jews. Whether one is a Zionist or not, your greatest fans and friends are evangelical-types. If you allow polemic to get in the way of that friendship and support, then you may not be as smart and clever as you think you are.

Another thing. Using "Nazi" as an historical comparison to stated practises and goals in no way diminishes the horror of the Holocaust. Knee-jerk "That's OUR victimhood! You can't use that word." attitudes DO in fact diminish it, cheapening it to an editorial page riposte. Between the madness that is in the world, and the victim card-playing of an entire people (or their self-anointed spokesmen) the oath of "Never Again!" becomes hollow whistling past the graveyard. Beck's point in using "Nazi" examples is not as a lame polemical barb, but rather is to show that the political and practical underpinnings of the German National Socialist party in the 1930s and 40s exist clearly and in abundance today, even in our current regime and its advisors. Beck provides ample historical and documentary evidence, using their own words. Perhaps your alarm should be better aimed at the current administration and its supporters.

Reform leaders also accepted Beck’s apology.

"I would welcome the opportunity to meet personally to introduce you more fully to the Reform Jewish Movement, to discuss the concerns about this incident and about the concerns that many of my colleagues (half of them Reform, half Orthodox, Conservative and Reconstructionist) expressed in the open letter to you regarding the repeated references to the Holocaust and Nazis, so that you may better understand the pain and confusion that language evokes," wrote Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism in a letter to Beck.

Beck's comment on Tuesday stemmed from an open letter to him on which almost all the signatories were non-Orthodox rabbis. They criticized him for repeatedly comparing those with whom he disagrees to Nazis.

"There are the Orthodox rabbis and there are the Reform rabbis. Reform rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it is just -- radicalized Islam is less about religion than it is about politics," Beck said Tuesday.

Jewish Funds for Justice, a liberal group that calls for Beck's censure for his frequent use of Nazi comparisons on his program, said the apology was "welcome but incomplete."

"We reiterate our call on (Fox News chief) Rupert Murdoch to end Mr. Beck's tenure at Fox News…. Anything short of this reflects an unwillingness to take seriously the harm Mr. Beck causes to many in our community and beyond," the group said.

"Harm" "Pain" "Confusion". "They criticized him for repeatedly comparing those with whom he disagrees to Nazis. "

This is schoolyard bickering, and unworthy of the line that had Moses the Lawgiver as its head.
Ooooooh You said "Nazi". THAT'S HURTFUL!

Mr. Beck does not call people with whom he disagrees "Nazi". He refers to those who display doctrines and practises congruent with the National Socialists "Nazi". There is a difference, and you know it, unless of course you only hear what he says through his critics, and haven't actually listened to what he says. He is issuing a warning of the cyclical nature of history, that if we do not learn from history, then we shall surely repeat it. You may do well to train your antennae onto that one

As the Dread Dormomoo said this morning, "If you act like a victim, you will be one.".

Inversion: Part Deux

This business of inverting or flipping tunes to parody or give the same "feel" in a non-royalty-costing way does not necessarily entail every single note or phrase...just enough to bring to mind the tune being invoked. The beat does the rest.

Here is an anime inversion of Barry Gray's "UFO" series theme. It is by Toshihiko Sahashi, and despite the whingings of the great unwashed on YouTube, it is an homage to Gray's work, not a "ripoff". It was the theme for the second season of Big O, a wonderful anime series from the early "aughts". First, Barry Gray's "UFO":



Next, the "Big O" second season piece:




Great stuff, and very mood-setting.

I have had an interest in soundtrack music ever since I was a little feller (3-4 years old).
One type of incidental music writing involves what I call "inversion". There may be a music theory term for it, but I do not know it. The method involves taking an extant piece of music and flipping it. One of the most obvious examples is Barry Gray's piece "Formula Five" which was a pop music tune set in far-off 2062 or so on "Fireball XL5". When Gray wrote it, the hot jazz craze of the time included "Take Five" performed by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. It was the record that put jazz on everyone's turntable, and transformed Space-Age Bachelor Pads forever. Here is Brubeck's work, with Barry Gray's inversion below it.




FORMULA FIVE:



See how it works? I have another one for tomorrow, where a Japanese composer inverts a Barry Gray piece.

OK...spent the weekend in Atlanta at AnachroCon, the third installment of the steampunk convention. The entire cast of characters did an amazing job putting on the con, with some 600 attendees partaking in the Victorian SF goodness (I say that to tweak my new friends at Frenzy Universe, fellow hucksters, and purveyors of gear-ey, vacuum tube-ey decorative wonderment for steam enthusiasts. Their blog is cheerful, and informative, too. Their last post corrects the manifest belief that all steampunk is British, or at least revolves around Merrie Olde. They quite correctly remind us of a vast swath of Industrial Revolution history exists this side of the Pond. Hello, M&K!
Safe journey, and Good Hunting!

Mark Helwig is a fun neighbor to have, and a good artist to boot. I say good in the correct sense, not the "he's OK, and uses his colors well" sense. Click his name to be amused. Be sufficiently amused to plunk down the shekels for a print of your favorite. I did.

There were other dealers there, who are also many other places. Wolfhome was there. Jennifer and Kip were well, and their entourage. They sell excellent genre clothing, at SF and anime cons, and at Ren Faires.

It was a great con, and I look forward to next year's!

Alabama
Jihad

I have long tried to stay out of the Alabama / Auburn rivalry because I don't like messing with other people's religion.

(Pauses a beat.)

"Al from Dadeville" called in to the Paul Finebaum show on Jan 27, bragging about his act of fannjish terrorism:

"OK, let me tell you what I did the weekend after the Iron Bowl. I went to Auburn, Alabama, because I live 30 miles away and I poisoned the two Toomer's trees. I put Spike80DF in 'em. ... They're not dead yet, but they definitely will die."

Ahhhhhhhhh, sportsmanship.

The rivalry between the two schools has been bitter, but an egregious act of vandalism like this is unacceptable in any sense. "So what?" you churlishly retort, "It's just a coupla trees."

Yes a couple of 130-year-old oaks that are a community treasure. The trees are regularly mulched with toilet paper. The locals roll the trees mightily after Auburn wins. They are beautiful landmarks, especially when not so festooned.

Harvey Almorn Updyke Jr., 62, of Dadeville, AL, is the miscreant "Al" who poisoned the trees. One defense attorney has already recused himself from the case. This will be interesting.

Mammoth effort is being put forth to rehabilitate the toxic site and save the oaks, Perhaps Toomer's Corner will be blessed with the trees for a long time to come.

"Tide for Toomers" is a Facebook page put up by Crimson Tide fans who deplore this senseless act, and who are raising money toward the effort to save the oaks.

The Plumbline's
BLACK HISTORY MONTH VIGNETTE

I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.
Frederick Douglass

But was there EVER a question?

Socio-Sexual Hierarchy Quiz

My Results:

Sigma

You don't give a damn. You are off doing your own thing, with or without anyone's approval. You radiate cool and intrigue, and women find you intensely interesting, despite you not trying or noticing. You don't go to parties or social gatherings, but if you do, you're usually with a friend and a gorgeous woman you brought. You're the lone wolf of the hierarchy, almost as attractive as Alphas. You shun leadership in favor of getting the hell away from everyone.

Vidad and Mr. McLeod may giggle as appropriate.

SO, the Dread Dormomoo and I were talking, herself in the throes of the viral orgy, having unspeakable things done to her cellular integrity: aches, fever, chills, do the math. She is still clearer-thinking than I on my best days. The business of Ron Paul's straw-poll win at CPAC came up, and Fox's love affair with Anyone-But-Paul. The big-big-BIG news apparently is that Mitt Romney came in second, that meaning in anybody's lexicon that he lost .

The question of the day is, If a polygynous Mormon were to make it to the White House (and yes, I know it would take an event equivalent to an asteroid strike -read Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer - for this to happen) who would be First Lady? Or First Sister-Wife?

Perhaps the fever has affected her summat.

"Herbalife Reviews -- 98% Of Herbalife Reps Get Burned Discover Why. Get the Free Report"

Why?

Because it's an MLM, THAT'S why.

ATTABOY, HOSNI!

Egypt's President Mubarak has gotten his back up.

"I have to responded to your calls, but I am also embarrassed and I will not listen to any foreign interventions or dictations, regardless of their sources."

He is responding to things like this from President Obama:

"Third, we have spoken out on behalf of the need for change. After his speech tonight, I spoke directly to President Mubarak. He recognizes that the status quo is not sustainable and that a change must take place. Indeed, all of us who are privileged to serve in positions of political power do so at the will of our people. Through thousands of years, Egypt has known many moments of transformation. The voices of the Egyptian people tell us that this is one of those moments; this is one of those times.
Now, it is not the role of any other country to determine Egypt’s leaders. Only the Egyptian people can do that. What is clear -- and what I indicated tonight to President Mubarak -- is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now."

It is NOT our business to instruct another Head of State in what to do, and President Obama is a wiseguy who knows better than everyone else What To Do, and he is not shy about letting them know. Barack Obama is "That Guy". Mubarak clearly did not appreciate it. Silly man.
(Incidentally, I do not know where this "brutal dictator" business is coming from. He was never on the "Axis of Evil" radarmotron to my knowledge.)
Mubarak is a Middle-Eastern ruler. Period. He does not fit our sanitised Western mold of What a President Should Look Like. He is no Reagan, but neither does he appear to be a Saddam Hussein. I am open to correction on this, but this whole Egypt thing appears to be straight from the box. This is an organised flash crowd.
I dunno, but I am of Tevyesque mind where Egypt is concerned. The Pragmatic Aardvark says that Mubarak is our and Israel's ally. The current regime is stable, at least by Middle-Eastern standards. On the other hand, the PEEE-PUL are raging and want him out, Democracy uber alles! On the other hand, the whole thing seems a ready-made, instant revolution, just-add-water. On the other hand, look at you. A baby and a sewing machine. You're a person.
There is no other hand.
I do not harbor end-timey-wimey thoughts. My understanding of Revelation, and the gospels (especially the Matthew 23 & 24) is historical, in that I believe the historical church's understanding that Jesus was speaking of things SOON to come to pass, during that time period. I do NOT follow the New York Times bestseller version. That was developed by John Darby early in the 1800s, and popularised by C.I.Scofield (the P.T.Barnum of eschatological humbuggery) in the early 1900s. That said, Israel is important to us in the region, not as The Budded Figtree, but as a strategic ally. Egypt is a mutual ally, at least until the Muslim Brotherhood gains control. You know, kinda like Iran in 1979. THAT went well.

I am moving into G.R.O. mode: "Get Rid Of"; finding my inner Buddhist , or at least my inner Don Aslett. (Why is it that the really useful people with good ideas seem to be Mormon nowadays?)

I am going through my junk roo...er, office and Throwing Things Away. I felt a heady sense of accomplishment as I found a stack of DVD-ROM disks, and started tossing them. Dark Age of Camelot free trial disks. For them wot knows, DAOC trials were the gamer equivalent of those ubiquitous AOL "FREE TRIAL!!!" disks. Anyway, they are bound for the dustbin, now.

Must start looking for other junk of which to divest myself. I am afflicted with the "but I might need one of those one day" mindset, and so find it difficult to G.R.O. stuff. I didn't go through the Great Depression, but I was raised by some who did, hence my problem. You know those little bits of PVC coated wire that power cords and suchlike come bound with to keep 'em neat in their packaging? I find little outcroppings of them in drawers, my rationale being: I always lose the twist-tie from the bread, and these are better than the paper-and-wire ones that come on the bread." Sadly, these are in my office drawer, four miles from my kitchen where my bread resides.

No, I do not have towering stacks of newspapers stored Babelesque about my house.

My office is done up in a charming melange of "Childhood Toys", "Space-Age Bachelor Pad", and "Industrial Mayhem", with a couple of David Goodman's paintings thrown in for good measure.

Yes, I own TWO Goodmans!

So, I am trying to lose a ton of stuff, to streamline my life. Wish me Godspeed, or Luck, or Qapla', whatever you are comfortable with, and if you know someone with a Bobcat for rent cheap, let me know, please!

This may be a re-visitation, but in a time when the "why" of someone's actions may be more important than the actions themselves (think "hate crimes"), Christians are again given the nasty end of the stick.

I pause to allow you to pick your jaw up from the floor.

One of the most annoying things the True Believers do is share, or witness, or evangelise. (Remember, evangel means "good news") The militant atheist crowd, as well as the "just want to be left alone" crowd really militate against this hateful practise of telling them about Jesus. They see it as judgmental, that they are being told they are bad people who are going to hell.

Admittedly, there are some who take it upon themselves to punch someone's ticket, but the scriptures themselves do not offer that as part of the job description. We may speak as far as the gospel does...no farther. Thus-and-so will keep you out of the Kingdom of God. It is up to the hearer to make the connexion. One must recognise peril to recognise the need for rescue.

Since the motive is more important than the action in today's enlightened view, please consider this: is it a bother to you for a flagman to stop you to warn of the bridge being out? Do you malign his callous disregard for your time schedule? The reasonable person sees through to motive: "I don't want you and your family to die at the bottom of the gorge.". Likewise the coworker, friend, family member, or artless stranger who wishes to tell you about the gospel. This person does so with the highest motive: concern for your well-being. He sees you in spiritual peril (Jesus said "No-one comes to the Father except through me".), and wants to throw you a life-ring. Do you argue with the lifeguard who is pulling you to shore?

You may not believe at all, or you may be a lifelong neo-Zoroastrian, but when an unsophisticated evangelist sees you as his personal mission, please understand that he is doing it out of love, out of a true desire to do you good.

Motive IS important.