I Love Stuff Like This

How rich are you? >> I'm loaded. It's official. I'm the 46,777,565 richest person on earth!

  ¶ 5:05 PM 0 comments

  This is just silly

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free.

In love, you feel the most alive when everything is uncertain, one moment heaven... the next moment hell.

You'd like to your lover to think you are flexible and ready for anything!

You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please.

Your ideal relationship is open. Both of you can talk about everything... no secrets.

Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment.

You think of marriage as something precious. You'll treasure marriage and treat it as sacred.

In this moment, you think of love as something you thirst for. You'll do anything for love, but you won't fall for it easily.

  ¶ 4:38 PM 0 comments

  The President's Statement on Torture So the President has a stance on Torture:

President's Statement on United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture

On United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the United States reaffirms its commitment to the worldwide elimination of torture. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right, and we are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law.

Yet we keep prisoners in Gitmo, without benefit of council, or without charging them, and from what has been reported by Senator Durbin and others, under what would be considered less than ideal conditions. From what Senator Durbin said, it seems to me that we are torturing our enemy combatants in Gitmo. Of course above it states that "human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law." Since enemy combatants are not protected under the Geneva convention since they are not POW's then they are not protected by the rule of law, which means we can torture them all we want.

Isn't this statement wonderfully ironic given the backdrop of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib

Many have been detained, arrested, thrown in prison, and subjected to torture by regimes that fail to understand that their habits of control will not serve them well in the long-term. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies. All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.

How can our country stand for liberty for everyone yet continue to treat our "enemy combatants" with such disrespect.

This is not the America that I grew up in, this is not the America that has in its pledge, "For Liberty and Justice For All" We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard. You cannot just classify a people as having no rights, all humans have rights, denying rights to a people for Political gain is just wrong, plain and simple.

This administration has made the statement that they want to bring Freedom and Democracy to oppressed regimes worldwide, shouldn't we as a country, be looking in the mirror and realize that America is judged, on the world stage, not by what we say, but by how we act.  ¶ 4:10 PM 0 comments

  Looks Like I am a Liberal.

Your Political Profile

Overall: 30% Conservative, 70% Liberal

Social Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

  ¶ 3:13 PM 0 comments

  More on Burning the Flag Mark Frauenfelder makes a good point, in that desecrating an American Flag can be gotten around so easily. But he concludes with this line:

Real Americans don't take away the freedoms of other Americans.

This has always been my belief about Constitutional Amendments, we should never amend the Constitution to take away rights and freedoms from Americans.

His article can be found here  ¶ 4:37 PM 0 comments

  Burning The Flag Here we go again, the small-minded politicians in Washington do not understand how the constitution is supposed to work. You don't put stupid things in the constitution. But now they want an amendment so they can make Flag Burning Illegal. This is a country that realized that the constitution was missing something, a Bill of Rights, and the first right, is for Freedom of Speech. The Supreme Court ruled 16 years ago that burning the flag in protest is a form of Free Speech that is protected by the constitution.

This is the most compelling argument I have heard about the issue.

"The reason our flag is different is because it stands for burning the flag," Representative Gary L. Ackerman, Democrat of New York, said in a speech on the House floor, wearing a flag-print necktie. "The Constitution this week is being nibbled to death by small men with press secretaries."

Also these statements were brought forth in a New York Times Article:

But Terri Ann Schroeder, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union, said public opinion polls should be irrelevant to debates about the First Amendment, since it serves mainly to protect statements and opinions that may be unpopular.

"That is antithetical to what the Bill of Rights is supposed to be about," Ms. Schroeder said, adding that she thought the amendment would fail by one or two votes.

Like most Democrats, two Republican senators, Robert F. Bennett of Utah and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, have consistently opposed the measure.

"I don't want to amend the Constitution to solve a nonproblem," Mr. Bennett said. "People are not burning the flag. The only time they start is when this amendment gets offered."

Assessing the chances that his side might lose in the increasingly conservative Senate, he said, "We may," and added, "That is democracy."

I have always believed that even if I do not agree with someone they do have the right to believe the way they wish, even if it is totally misguided. :) However it seems that we must at times make sure we fill the Constitution with silly stuff. As a country and a people we should be removing unjust statements from the Constitution, not filling it with measures that limit the rights of all Americans. That is what the Bill Of Rights accomplished, and why Prohibition was such a bad idea.

Every state in the union has a law against the desecration of the Flag, so why do we need such redundancy in the Constitution? Only law-makers who want their constituency to feel like they are doing their job, worry about such things.

Let us hope that the Senate defeats the motion, since the House is too stupid not to defeat, time and time again.  ¶ 11:33 AM 0 comments

  The Death Tax We all know, the only things in life that are for certain are death and taxes. In an article on www.factcheck.org we find that the ads about the repeal of the Estate Tax are basically false, but what I found amusing is that one of the ads quotes Don Malarkey,

Announcer: They freed the world from tyranny, then came home to build family businesses and farms. Heroes in war and peace. They paid taxes all their lives, but not the IRS hits this "Greatest Generation" with an unjust double tax, the death tax.

Don Malarkey (WWII Vet): In war and peace, my generation stood up for what's right. Join us now and help us end the unfair death tax.

Announcer: Tell Max Baucus to side with family business, not the IRS.

Malarkey? Is this the subliminal message? See we are not telling you the whole truth, but when were political ads required to tell the truth. I have always found it interesting that if you discovered that the maker of soap was not telling the truth in an advertisement you could sue and have the FCC go after them for false advertising, but not so with political ads. Wouldn't it be nice if there was an organization that politicians would have to have their ads approved and fact-checked, and then they could use the seal in their ad, like the good housekeeping seal of approval. I know wishful thinking.  ¶ 9:43 AM 0 comments

  Classical Liberal I took a quiz about my beliefs, and here are the results. Not sure what this means but there it is.

You scored as Classical Liberal. You are a classical liberal. You are sceptical about much of the historicity of the Bible, and the most important thing Jesus has done is to set us a good moral example that we are to follow. Doctrines like the trinity and the incarnation are speculative and not really important, and in the face of science and philosophy the surest way we can be certain about God is by our inner awareness of him. Discipleship is expressed by good moral behaviour, but inward religious feeling is most important. Classical Liberal 79% Emergent/Postmodern 79% Modern Liberal 57% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 50% Neo orthodox 39% Roman Catholic 25% Charismatic/Pentecostal 18% Reformed Evangelical 18% Fundamentalist 0% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

  ¶ 2:29 PM 0 comments

  Lifetime, Television for Women Is it just me or is the programming on the Lifetime network a little bizarre? The Lifetime network is dedicated to programming for women, but if you look at the movies that they show, you wonder what women really wants to watch this stuff?

There is normal fair, such as Golden Girls, Mad About You, Designing Women and The Nanny.

But then you have the movies, like A Killer Upstairs, Touched By A Killer, Till The End of The Night, these movies are about people killing or kidnapping women, raping women, and such things. Why do women want to watch programs like that, what is up with that? To me that is just strange, I don't want to see programs about women being raped and murdered every day, but if you watch the Lifetime channel you have a good chance that one of the days movies will be about that.

Lifetime, the channel for Women, seems to focus on everything that women fear. But maybe in facing these fears it makes women stronger. But I just think it is strange... But then I am a guy what do I know.  ¶ 11:50 AM 0 comments

  My God! Here is a quick one, the other day, I heard a self-professed athiest say, "My God! ..."

My question is this, can someone who does not believe there is a God, do that?

I don't think you can and stay a card carrying athiest. ;-)>  ¶ 12:26 PM 0 comments

  What I have been saying for years, it is not a choice, got that! From the Daily Kos, from Time Magazine:

"The Scent of a Man" reported on new research showing that homosexual men's brains register the same response to male hormone-like pheromones as women's brains do [May 23]. That finding could be used to support the idea that sexual orientation is present from birth. As a gay man, I am frustrated by the ongoing debate about whether sexual orientation is a choice. Why is it that the people who are in a position to know the answer to that question---gays---seem to be ignored by straight people? If you're straight, ask yourself when you chose to be straight. You are what you are; there's no choice involved."

First off, I am not gay, but I have many gay friends, and in my discussions with them none of them made the "choice" to be gay! They found they just could not be "straight." Try as they might, relationships with women were not fulfilling.

I know there was no time in my life, where I made the choice to be straight, I have just always found women attractive. So all of you out there that think it is a life choice, think about it, if it were a choice, you would have had to make the same choice, did you? No! It should be that simple, but it never is.

  ¶ 1:08 PM 0 comments

  Schadenfreude Tony Blankley in a recent article: The Age of Schadenfreude


Complains that the Daily Show has it all wrong:


A large percentage of activist Democrats and the left gain pleasure from the continued embarrassing or tragic incidents surrounding President Bush's Iraq effort. "The Daily Show" would have to come up with almost completely different material if it didn't have Iraqi set backs to gaffaw over. Can you imagine Bob Hope's audiences getting a good laugh over reports of insufficient armour in the Sherman tank or Gen. MacArthur being forced to escape from Bataan? There really should be nothing pleasurable about seeing your country struggle during a war.



Well he is right, there really should be nothing pleasurable about seeing your country struggle during a war, and if the Bush administration had done its homework correctly before the war, we might not be struggling in the conflict in Iraq now.


It is true that I was against the war then and I am against the war now. But that has become a moot point, we are there, and there is no reason other than hubris, that our troops were not better armed and better prepared. The Bush administration seemed to believe the hype that the Iraqi's would greet us as liberators.


Of course the places that we failed were in the infrastructure side of things. We have not been able to keep the water flowing or the electricity, or the oil for that matter. Plus, the administration did not do its job protecting the oil, which was supposed to allow us to pay for the liberation and peacekeeping efforts.
It seems that it is very easy to throw a monkey wrench in the oil works to mess things up...


Now the president is faced with an unpopular war, problems with social issues, but through it all he doesn't make mistakes, at least not in his eyes, and is always right on every issue.


I wish I could be like that, but then I am not a lame duck president with nothing to lose except the support of his party.


Of course that is just my opinion, I could be wrong.  ¶ 9:53 AM 0 comments

  New Composition Posted! My choir has been working on this piece Fatherly Love and will be performing it on Fathers Day. I just finally got it on my Music Composition Page

Let me know what you think, one of the members of my church wrote the words. I have other poems of his that I am working on as well so there will be more pieces similar to Fatherly Love showing up as the days go by.  ¶ 9:11 AM 0 comments

  If music be the food of love, play on. From this article in the New Yorker:









  ¶ 11:06 AM 0 comments

  First Post I am new to Blogging, my plans for this blog are to create thought provoking dialogs about things that interest and concern me... I am also hoping it will make me a better writer as I look toward my future interests...  ¶ 1:40 PM 0 comments