Eric Holder's Advice to State AGs

Attorney General Eric Holder is taking the lawless attitude of the Obama administration and passing it down to state attorneys general. Yesterday during an interview with The New York Times, Holder said state attorneys general do not have to enforce laws they disagree with, specifically when it comes to the issue of gay marriage. —Katie Pavlich, Townhall 

But State Attorneys General represent their states; the state they represent is the State Attorney General’s client … so when the state legislature passes a bill, and the governor signs that bill into law, the State Attorney General incurs a legal obligation to enforce that law, and defend that law in courts of law. 

 Mr Holder, on the other hand, is the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the United States.

What do you think about Holder telling state attorneys general that they do not have to enforce the laws of their state?

Gov. Brewer recently in the News ...

Do you agree with Gov Brewer of Arizona or not?

Thank you, Dubya

George Bush ran for the presidency on this notion he called “compassionate conservatism.” I honestly do not know what that means, other than, perhaps, there is something called dispassionate conservatism. I don’t really know what that is, either. No, I suspect that George Bush was just plain old full of it. But, it did get him elected, and that’s what he wanted—after all.

Then, after he was elected, after the terrorist attacks on 11 September, Old Dubya took advantage of the fact that everyone was feeling nervous and insecure, and he signed into law the so-called Patriot Act. If you examine this document, it isn’t all that patriotic. Not if you believe, as I do, that the founding fathers gave us a Constitution, and a Bill of Rights, to protect us from “too much” government.

But, people act differently when they are scared —and it doesn’t even matter what party you belong to. Old Dubya scared everyone, but you can’t blame him all that much. Scaring people to the point where they obey their government’s every command is what governments do for a living. They scare everyone into believing that the government will save them from —something. If not terrorists, then people who leave their water running, or ass hats that have the audacity to run their vehicle’s air conditioning system during August.

And now that the people are plenty scared that we’ll all die a horrible death if not for the tens of billions of dollars the government spends on armored vehicles for the Podunk City Police Department, we no longer need a constitution to protect us—from government. The government will protect us from government.

Admittedly, tanks are expensive, and so to reduce costs, the government is prepared to offer you s considerable savings. If you’ll just consent to placing next to your automobile engine a small little device that tells the police where you are, day, or night, then they won’t have to spend a lot of money tracking you down whenever they need to see you about something. Also, if you run a red light, they can just mail you a ticket. Or roll a stop. Or exceed the speed limit. Or press down too hard on the accelerator from an intersection. You know—efficiency. If there is one thing people need more than anything else, it’s efficient government.

Yes indeed … no matter whether you are a conservative or a liberal, if there is one thing we all need more of … it’s more government. So here’s a thought: let’s start focusing all of our attention on whether Obama is going to play another round of golf this year, and ignore the fact that we are no longer a free people. After all, what does a free society care about government? 

I can almost hear the voices of long dead veterans telling us, in their weary, gravely voices, “Focus people —focus.”

Eurasian Union

I’m sorry … what? Eurasian Union? Don’t you mean European Union? Such a question is what I would expect from most people today since it would appear that not many people are even aware that such a thing exists. Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev at a 1994 [1] speech at Moscow University first proposed the idea, which is based on European Union integration. In 2011, the presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia signed an accord setting a target of establishing a Eurasian Union by 2015. The agreement included a roadmap for the future integration and establishment of the Eurasian Commission, and Eurasian Economic Space, which began its work in 2012. If realized, the Eurasian Union would comprise a number of states once part of the former Soviet Union: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

Ukraine submitted an application to participate in the Eurasian Union as an observer only, in August 2013. Georgia, while still eying the European Union, said that it will consider the Eurasian Union if Russia will first agree not to drive tanks over the top of Georgian children. But, it would appear that much work has already been done: partial economic integration already exists between Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan through a “Customs Union.” Additionally, a number of regional organizations already exist, such as the Union State of Russia and Belarus, the Eurasian Economic Community of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, consisting of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan, and the Commonwealth of Independent States which involves most of the countries that were part of the Soviet Union.

The United States appears to oppose the formulation of the Eurasian Union based on the idea that Putin’s scheme is merely an attempt to re-establish a Russian-dominated USSR type union among the former Soviet republics.

Not everyone has this alarmist mentality, however. Some observers claim that the Eurasian Union is no more than a counter-weight to the European Union. Other observers, such as Jonah Goldberg, claim that the Eurasian Union is a counterweight to civility in much the same way the League of Doom is a counterweight to the League of Justice.

According to Timothy Snyder [2], it is fascism, pure and simple.  Snyder has sounded an alarm bell for future generations:

    “The Eurasian Union is the enemy of the European Union, not just in strategy but in ideology. The European Union is based on a historical lesson: that the wars of the twentieth century were based on false and dangerous ideas, National Socialism and Stalinism, which must be rejected and indeed overcome in a system guaranteeing free markets, free movement of people, and the welfare state. Its advocates, by contrast, present Eurasianism, as the opposite of liberal democracy.

    “The Eurasian ideology draws an entirely different lesson from the twentieth century. Founded around 2001 by the Russian political scientist Aleksandr Dugin, it proposes the realization of National Bolshevism. Rather than rejecting totalitarian ideologies, Eurasianism calls upon politicians of the twenty-first century to draw what is useful from both fascism and Stalinism. Dugin’s major work, The Foundations of Geopolitics, published in 1997, follows closely the ideas of Carl Schmitt, the leading Nazi political theorist. Eurasianism is not only the ideological source of the Eurasian Union, it is also the creed of a number of people in the Putin administration, and the moving force of a rather active far-right Russian youth movement. For years Dugin has openly supported the division and colonization of Ukraine.

    “The point man for Eurasian and Ukrainian policy in the Kremlin is Sergei Glazyev, an economist who like Dugin tends to combine radical nationalism with nostalgia for Bolshevism. He was a member of the Communist Party and a Communist deputy in the Russian parliament before cofounding a far-right party called Rodina, or Motherland. In 2005 some of its deputies signed a petition to the Russian prosecutor general asking that all Jewish organizations be banned from Russia.”

So here we go again; the cycle continues. Some on the right are warning that this evolution to yet another Soviet bloc fits the leftist narrative to a tee; they have never seen a form of socialism that they didn’t like—even if it can also be described as bolshevism. Neither is there much difference between National Socialism and Bolshevism; one of the greatest myths of the 20th Century was that fascism and socialism are opposites. It simply isn’t true. And, while some on the left will argue that use of the word “socialist” is only a device to attract trade union support, that most on the left do not embrace totalitarian regimes, it is in my view just another subterfuge. The fact is that all collectivist regimes are rooted in the same nonsense declared by the German idealists of the 18th and 19th Centuries. Differences are entirely superficial.

My gut reaction to this is Que Sera. Russia (and friends) must ultimately do what they believe is in their best interests. I’m not sure how scaring the bejesus out of everyone will further their economic model, but Eurasian Union nations are free to do as they wish. It does remind one, however, that there are consequences to elections —not only here in America, but also in places far, far away.

For the record, I do not think there is much any US president could do to arrest this development, but I think it would be nice to have people inside the beltway who understood the notion of long-term consequences. For example, while George Bush went around flexing his muscle in the Middle East, Vladimir Putin was making regular stops throughout the Middle East arranging alliances, including with Syria and Iran. So one must wonder if Bush’s inane policies helped propel Kazakhstan (70% Muslim), Tajikistan (98% Muslim), and Kyrgyzstan (80% Muslim) into Putin’s camp.

Notes:

[1] Proving that Bill Clinton was asleep even before the mesmerizing Monic Lewinsky.

[2] Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine, Timothy Snyder 20 March 2014. Timothy D. Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University, holds the Philippe Roman Chair of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science and specializes in Central and Eastern European history

Thoughts on Climate Change

Our ever-prescient president has predicted [1] more extreme droughts, floods, wildfires, and hurricanes, and this isn’t bad for a constitutional scholar who knows less about the constitution than he does the dreams of his father, who he never met. Unfortunately, the president’s predictions are not supported by science unless you happen to be Chair of the Al Gore Department of Weather Phenomena at Matchbook University.

The fact is that climate change is a complicated science —far too complex for most people to understand, including 99.9% of all politicians who make their living by passing along rumors, half-truth, and innuendo. One must also remember that the average person’s understanding of climate change comes from pulling back the drapes and looking out a window. This does not include those on the left, however, who have no drape pulling competencies or certifications. One will find that the primary source of knowledge on the left are the junk-science talking points distributed from the desk of Dr. Homer Simpson [2] at Climate Progress —himself a graduate of MU.

Most Americans, and others from around the world, tend to conclude that because they are experiencing scorching heat waves, droughts, floods, and other extreme weather, that the cause of all these maladies is climate change. According to a team of British scientists, it just isn’t so.

Their findings, in the summer of 2013, is that extreme fluctuations in weather may be regional phenomena [3], and when carefully analyzed, one finds that global temperature variability has been nearly constant for the last 50 years. The lead author of this study, Dr. Chris Huntingford, said, “The general view of the scientific community is that there will be parts of the world where variability does go down, so to colleagues this is not necessarily a complete surprise.” It is also no surprise that people tend to ignore global variability because of their personal experiences where they live.

There are two possible indicators to this analysis. First, since most people lack scientific training, they should refuse to involve themselves in matters beyond their intellectual capacity. We deserve no less than this as a basic human consideration. Unless an individual holds a post-honorary degree in weather science, they should withhold from us their opinions about climate change. This would include those who instead hold a PhD in Astrology, for example, for they too lack bona fides in the appropriate field of study. I mention this because the individuals and organizations that propagate the global warming myth actually do recruit people with PhDs in a wide range of fields that have nothing whatever to do with earth science, and in exchange for their endorsements, pay them a goodly sum of money. This is simply dishonest.

I have to say that I agree with Charles Krauthammer, who recently opined as follows: “ … I’m not a global warming believer. I’m not a global warming denier. I've long believed that it cannot be good for humanity to be spewing tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. I also believe that those scientists who pretend to know exactly what this will cause in 20, 30 or 50 years are white-coated propagandists.”

Meanwhile, the Propagandist in Chief has declared that this debate is settled. He is lying, once again. He may wish for us to go quietly into the night, but I see no indication of that happening any time soon. But now the second possible indicator to the above analysis: intense levels of hot air emanating from inside the Washington Metropolitan area could adversely affect weather variability within the Eastern region of the United States. Fear not; it is an easily solvable problem. Vote conservative in November.

Notes:

[1] The White House, 29 June 2013
[2] Author of "The Last Little Polar Bear Who Drowned"
[3] No Increase in Global Temperature Variability, Nature International Weekly Journal of Science, 9 Jan 2013

Sunday Faith Blog

There is no reason to fear tomorrow;



Our Lord is already there.






Hi, GeeeZers! I’ve had a very rough couple of weeks in a lot of ways, so I’m imposing my Bible verse need right now on you today! I love the verse below because it has everything; I’m rejoicing in the hope I do have (and the wonderful blessings I have), I’m being VERY patient waiting to get back onto the internet from home on a new computer (hurrah!), and some things at work, and I’m trying to pray a lot more than I usually do (which, sadly, isn’t too much), for good health, for helping me to keep hopeful, and for patience and constancy in prayer!

“Romans 12:12 “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”

I don’t see how anybody could go wrong by following that scripture, do you?

I was at physical therapy Friday and the PT assistant and I were talking…he had read a book called, I think, The Four Agreements…they are:

1. Assume nothing

2. Do your best with every single thing you do (including not only at work but even doing the dishes, changing the oil on your car; important and menial things: always do your best).

3. Only speak when it doesn’t include gossip or hurt anybody or waste valuable air … I see that as advising only to speak when it lifts or lightens

4. Don’t take anything personally.

I thought that was a fabulous list of things to read every day, maybe morning, noon and night, and try to practice it. Another blessing!

God bless you all.

Z

What do you think?

I have seen several hypotheticals surrounding the events in Ukraine.  One essayist believes that the USA is behind this whole thing, although his argument was pretty weak.  So let’s hear from our readers: what do you think is REALLY going on here?

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen ...

The title of this essay is also the name of a popular Negro spiritual performed by such famous artists as Marian Anderson, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Paul Robeson, and now … by Barack Obama, who is perhaps the most artistic of them all.

Wait … Barack Obama?

Yes, indeed. The debate will continue for decades about whether Mr. Obama was a good president, a bad president, or whether he was actually ever black. Whether he was good for America, even for a few seconds, will depend upon what side of the fence you’re on. If you happen to be a convicted moron, then Obama could be the finest thing ever to happen to mankind since peanut butter. On the other hand, if you are even just a little rational, he is an total disaster across the entire spectrum of national leadership.

My bottom line is that Obama is a wimp. Here is a man that voluntarily decided to run for the presidency after no more than fifteen seconds in the U. S. Senate. The man fought long and hard against the wildebeest, ultimately achieving the communist party nomination. He then defeated Mumps McCain in one of the least remarkable political contests since the assassination of Caligula. He also won reelection —not because of the Negro vote —but because he was overwhelmingly elected by white voters. I’m writing about those people who Obama and Holder now claim are racists: whitey, honky, goobers, rednecks, crackers, and white trash.

How quickly he forgets.

So why is Obama suddenly whining like a Nancy-Boy about his popularity among the people who just a few short months ago gave him an overwhelming (albeit, corrupted) victory over someone who really is qualified for the presidency? Well, he’s whining because the American people are fed up with his lackluster performance as chief executive. The list of his failures as president is far too long to list here, but we can summarize:

     • His brainless spending has increased our national deficit to $4 trillion. That means, $4 trillion more than anticipated revenues. Worse, the spending has not benefitted the average American. It has benefitted Obama’s financial backers, however.

     • Obama has hurt small businesses by increasing the number of federal regulations, at a cost of $11 billion in implementation costs, and $46 billion annually in operating costs.

     • Obama’s policies have cost Americans their jobs, from shutting down offshore oil production, to blocking the Keystone Pipeline, curtailed the production of fossil fuel (coal), increased taxes on small businesses, demanded increases to minimum wage, and perpetuated the fraud of green industries.

As I said earlier, the list is far too long to list here, but you can find the specific examples by doing a little research on your own. But let’s give credit where credit is due: Barack Obama did successfully raid the Gibson Guitar Company for their use of “illegal wood” in the construction of their musical instruments.

Oh, wait … didn’t Gibson Guitar publicly endorse a Republican candidate for the presidency? Oops, sorry.

But no, Mr. Obama is claiming that his problems have nothing whatever to do with that long list of things that have caused people to lose faith in him. No. According to Barack Obama, the people don’t love him any more because of …

Black History Month

Even in spite of all mankind’s accomplishments, across a wide array of human endeavors, we cannot make the claim that the 20th Century was necessarily a meritorious period. We suffered through two world wars, numerous smaller conflicts—and the number of human dead was measured in the tens of millions. Not once did we give pause to consider that perhaps we had enough weapons, sufficient war technology to last a while … we kept on working on even more efficient ways to destroy our fellow man.

In retrospect, had we suddenly decided that enough was enough and suspended all weapons development programs, it probably would not have made a difference. Not even if we had to resort to throwing rocks at one another. I say this because at the end of the 20th Century, we found large numbers of people doing essentially that. Well, not throwing rocks at one another —but butchering one another with machetes.

The ghastly history of the Hutu and Tutsi conflicts did manage to place a horrific stain on the 20th Century, although as it turned out, not the last one of that century. The Hutu/Tutsi wars began with the slaughter of between 80,000 and 200,000 people by the Tutsis in Burundi in 1972. This was followed up by the Rwanda genocide, in which Hutu militias targeted Tutsis, resulting in a 100-day blood bath, killing between 800,000 and one million people.

Ordinarily I would wonder at the seemingly large disparity in the estimated numbers of dead, but then these estimates came from the United Nations. But in the examination of these events, years after, UN experts constructed one of those post-war “here’s why it happened” explanations. In summarized form, we learned that this tribal conflict had nothing whatever to do with differences in language, or religion. The two languages are very similar, and large numbers in both populations speak French. The people are mostly Christian. There are no known ethnic differences, except that male Tutsis appear generally taller than the average Hutu male. There was one additional similarity: both groups blamed the census conducted by Belgian and German colonists.

It sounds nonsensical, doesn’t it?

According to UN experts, the violence between these two tribal groups is the result of intentionally created class warfare—the exact strategy now used by Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Jesse Jackson, Jeremiah Wright, and Al Sharpton here in the good old USA. And, I suspect for the identical purpose: divide and conquer.

Perhaps now we have a better understanding—a clearer picture of what is going on among the so-called American leadership and the ideologues that manage our black communities. And now we may better understand such things as the so-called knockout game, and the flash mobs making their way across the United States. There were two such incidents in Cambridge, Massachusetts recently, but I suspect that few people even heard about it.

Why?

Dr. Thomas explains: “Some in the media, as well as in politics, may think that they are trying to avoid provoking a race war by ignoring or playing down these attacks. But the way to prevent a race war is by stopping these attacks, not trying to sanitize them.”

He’s right. Our citizens will find out about these incidents sooner or later no matter how much effort Obama’s and Holder’s lap dogs expend trying to stifle the information. Trying to hide a problem does not appear to be the mark of a responsible leadership—but neither did I make such a claim. Sooner or later, mainstream society will find out about such incidents, and we should anticipate the likelihood that their reaction could be violent. It is hard to imagine that Boston’s Southies would ignore such attacks, and then what we end up with are two groups (or more) lashing out. We end up with exactly what Obama and Holder (and the others) want: race wars. Suddenly, the violence of the Hutu and Tutsi Wars is not so far removed from ourselves.

Dr. Thomas explains further, “What is politically expedient is to do what Attorney General Eric Holder is doing — launch campaigns against schools that discipline a “disproportionate” number of black male students.” He’s right again. It is a tired old shoe among leftists: continually change the narrative, or, as Saul Alinsky would say, “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”

We can continue to ignore the behavior of hoodlums, but we do so at great risk to an orderly, voluntarily lawful society. It is better for everyone that we suppress these hoodlums now, that we punish them vigorously now, rather than continue down a road that either leads to open violence, or lands young men on death row.

I want to conclude by recognizing the tremendous accomplishments of black Americans, in a very wide range of human endeavors. With that said, I fail to see how setting aside one short month to recognize blacks over any other racial or ethnic group does anything more than divide Americans further. This may be what Obama and his henchmen want, but it shouldn’t be what the rest of us want. We are, after all, all Americans.

Figured it out, yet?

Art by Bob Mack

It really is difficult to know where to begin. I suppose we could start with John Kerry’s pronouncement that climate change is as dangerous to the world as nuclear weapons in the hands of the Iranians and North Koreans, or chemical weapons in the hands of Baathists, or legislature in the hands of John McCain.

If not Kerry’s startling revelation, then perhaps we should talk about Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama’s conspiracy to drive Californians into drought, which given their supposed concern about climate change phenomena, forces one to scratch their head. Yes, by all means save the smelt and to hell with tens of thousands of people or tens of billions of dollars lost to the state and national economy. Unfortunately for Californians, the entire state legislature is composed of morons exactly like Pelosi, and Boxer, and Mammy Feinstein.

Or we could discuss Obama’s intention to shut down an additional 20% of our coal industry, which will drive the cost of electricity up by 70 to 80% and increase unemployment further. This while tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer funded stimulus found its way into the green industries, which all went bankrupt. There was nothing to help America’s employment picture, though. No, the term “shovel ready” was only an inside joke.

And how about those youngsters, eh? In spite of their college degrees and advanced degrees, there will be no jobs for them. They’ll remain at home with Mom and Dad and play computer games while the Obama’s continue to pursue their taxpayer funded jetsetter life-style. Screw America.

And by golly, if the chief executive doesn’t like it when Congress exercises its prerogative, you know—as set forth in the Constitution, then he’ll just anoint himself King of America; he has a pen and a phone, you know.

Or is this all no more than a ploy to change our domestic conversation away from Obama’s hopey-dopey leftist failures in advance of the 2014 elections? I suspect this is the case, but in spite of all these examples of depressing leadership, which is only the tip of our national malaise, 37% of the American people are happy with President Obama’s performance as this country’s chief executive. More than one-third … My gosh, I never realized we had that many federal government employees.

Have you figured it out yet?  We're all living at the animal farm, and guess who's become an absolute tyrant ... 

Another Mystery Solved

A few weeks ago, scientists were startled by the sudden appearance of a rock on the surface of Mars that looked amazingly like a jelly donut. The object was about 4 cm wide, red-centered, and very delicious looking. This set off a flurry of speculation about whether there are cops on Mars, and try as they might, Mars rover operators could not find further evidence of any animated movements.

Well, now the mystery is solved. “Once we moved Opportunity a short distance, after inspecting Pinnacle Island, we could see directly uphill an overturned mineral that has the same unusual appearance,” said Ray Arvidson of Washington University. “We drove over it, we can see evidence of the track, but now we have this gelatinous material clogging up the tracks of the Mars explorer.”

No, he didn’t really say that. But the Mars explorer did return another photograph that has scientists scratching their heads … Any ideas about this one?

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

UNTRUSTWORTHY

In 2009, South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson called Barack Obama a liar. It may have been poor form for a joint session of congress, but Obama had just finished calling Republicans liars by suggesting that Obama Care would cover illegal aliens.

Almost immediately, leading Democrats and RINOs denounced Wilson and demanded that he apologize to the President. Jimmy Carter even went so far to proclaim Joe Wilson a racist, joined of course by Maureen Dowd and Bill Cosby.

But now here we are, five years down the road, and we are fully cognizant that Joe Wilson was 100% correct. Barack Obama was lying during his speech to this joint session of Congress, and he continues to lie even now. Writer Brian Hayes tells us, “The Covered California website includes a special page entitled, in Spanish, ‘Fear not if you are undocumented and want to enroll your family in health insurance.’ The website goes on to assure illegal aliens that the information shared with Obama Care cannot be provided to Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities. It does not explicitly warn that illegal aliens are ineligible.”

So guess what? Joe Wilson was correct; President Barack Obama is a liar —and no, you cannot keep your doctor if you like your doctor. We are wondering, though, where is the Democrats’ apology to Joe Wilson? Why isn’t the free press helping to expose this fraud perpetrated against the American taxpayer?

Okay, just kidding.  We know why.

Source

Sunday Faith Blog

A hundred years ago, Sadhu Sundar Singh, a Hindu convert to Christianity, became a missionary to his friends and relatives in India. While he died at aged forty, his life was so amazing that many stories from his life survive among the Christians of India. Here is one of my favorites.

Late one afternoon, traveling with a monk from another religion through the Himalayas, the mountain temperatures suddenly dropped severely. The night was approaching as the wind whipped the mountains with a severe snow storm. The monk commented that they needed to get to shelter soon or they would freeze to death in the storm. Just then, with quite a distance to go, they heard a cry for help.

Looking from the path, down a steep precipice, they spotted an injured man lying near the bottom of the slope. The monk told Singh they did not have time to help. If they stopped to help all three of them would freeze to death. The monk explained that from his religious tradition it was acceptable to leave him since the injured man probably deserved his fate. He argued that if the man died it was his karma. When Sadhu Sundar Singh seemed to feel a need to help, the monk suggested that his best bet as a Christian was to simply pray for God to miraculously intervene and then keep going in order to save himself.

Singh responded that as a Christian he could not abandon the injured man. As the monk left, Sadhu Sundar Singh climbed slowly down the perilous cliff to rescue the man. By the time he reached the man Singh was drenched with perspiration in the freezing temperatures. Against all common sense, Singh made a sling of his clothing in order to tie the man onto his back and carry him back up to the path. As the snow continued to deepen in the storm and darkness, Singh prayed for the strength to save the man's life.

Once they were back on the path it became obvious that the injured man could not walk to shelter on his own. Over the several next hours, with the injured man strapped to his back, his every step on the path became a prayer asking God for the strength to keep going. Finally, exhausted, Sadhu Sundar Singh spotted a light ahead. Anxious to lay his burden down, Singh stumbled over something just a few feet from the doorway. It turned out to be the frozen body of the monk who had abandoned them. Singh's life had been saved by the warmth of the man on his back.

An incredible spiritual man of prayer, Sadhu Sundar Singh years later was asked by one of his students, "What is life's most difficult task?" He responded, "To have no burden to carry."

Do we pray only for miracles or also for the strength to bear the burdens?

Z: when I read that, I knew I should share it on a Sunday; I hope you're blessed by it. I think burdens are horrible, myself :-) But, I surely can see when burdens are blessings.........or become blessings. Want to talk about it?



"—If God is for us, who can be against us?" Romans 8:31.

Whatever is happening to us, God is for us — there's a purpose. Have a purposeful Sunday!


Z

Have a wonderful Valentine's Day

This song was the first dance song at my wedding reception.  As most of you know, my husband was from Germany.  I got to thinking about him tonight and so I picked this song for my Valentine's post.........The version I loved was not Anne Murray's but I can't remember the other singer, so I thought I'd play the Murray version and see how it was.........I clicked on it and the introduction is in German, you'll hear it.  There are probably 25 versions of Murray singing that song on video, and I "picked" the German one?

Sometimes there are coincidences.............sometimes they aren't coincidences.

Happy Valentine's Day, honey.  Ich liebe dich sehr.

And Happy Valentine's Day to all of you loyal, wonderful GeeeZers.

Now I have to tell you the truth.  That was SUPPOSED to be the first dance for us at our wedding, but the band was terrific and, for some reason, they did a good "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay," or we just couldn't wait to dance together, because we danced to that before our 'first official dance!'
Also, "Can I have this dance.."  at our wedding had been recorded by me.  We danced to ME singing.  That was an amazing feeling, believe me. I wish I still had that recording now.  

On one of our anniversaries, we were driving up to Santa Barbara, and the first song that came on the radio when I turned it on was "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay,"...weird. huh?
But nice.

Z

KAMIKAZE!!!!!!!!!!

A KAMIKAZI attack in 1945..........and what so many of our fighting men went through in WWII.  This is astonishing footage.  I hope you take a look. 

Z

The Span of Time

Yesterday we celebrated the life of a child star, and a woman who performed more than 30 years of diplomatic service for her country. I think it made us all somewhat nostalgic. Looking through some of the You Tube videos, I found one during which Mrs. Black received a Screen Actor's Guild lifetime achievement award, in 2006. Her mind seemed sharp, but she appeared very unsteady, physically frail.

It made me sad in a way that I can’t explain … other than, perhaps, the realization that all of us are fading. So I wonder, how should we remember Shirley Temple Black? Beyond this, how would you wish to be remembered?

Rest in Peace Shirley Temple Black

She had a long life, but still ... part of America is now gone forever.

IRS...Truth with no consequence?

Obama was 'angry' at the IRS Scandal last May..........
The linked article (a must read if nothing else to notice the typical CNN bias) includes this:

'Be On the Look Out'

Among the criteria used by IRS officials to flag applications was a "Be On the Look Out" list, which was discontinued in 2012, according to the report.

The criteria included:

-- Whether "Tea Party," "Patriots" or "9/12 Project" was referenced in the case file.

-- Whether the issues outlined in the application included government spending, government debt or taxes.

-- Whether there was advocating or lobbying to "make America a better place to live."

-- Whether a statement in the case file criticized how the country is being run.

-- Whether it advocated education about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Wouldn't you call that more than a 'smidgen' or corruption?   I would.  

"Lois Lerner a former head of the division that reviewed those applications, was included on an email in 2012 in which staffers hinted at a secret effort to write the crackdown rules."   I guess the emails aren't available because there's this supposed investigation going on, but that information seems important enough to have leftwing media venues carry the story, huh?  Isn't that only fair to all Americans?  Well, they aren't.

We had the new head of the IRS apologize yet leftwingers still insist there was absolutely nothing that was done wrong. Without investigation, how can he know?  But how can leftwingers say there IS nothing when the guy's apologizing!?  :)  Check out this quote from the article:

"Mr. Koskinen said he hasn’t gone back to look at those documents, nor has he delved into the details of the tea party targeting. He said his goal is to try to put the scandal behind him and restore trust in the agency."    Wait, so we shouldn't find out who in OUR IRS was doing this before we can 'restore trust in the agency?"  Isn't that HOW one restores trust?    

MORE:

"He told committee Republicans that he will try to get them the documents they are seeking but that turning over material about how the crackdown rules was written could interfere with the process."

What process? He "hasn't gone back to LOOK at those documents.."  Wouldn't that be a goodly part of the process?

WOW.   Will anybody feel the IRS is FAIR UNTIL this investigation reveals everything?  Or, as suggested in the hearings, does it go WAY above the Ohio office and involve DC and they're so scared we'll find out that we'll NEVER hear the truth and we'll always fear the IRS even more than we had?    

It's one thing to fear the IRS for their having found something in our returns that we forgot to give them;  it's quite another to fear the IRS because they've found out we don't share the president's politics, isn't it?

Z

Sunday Faith Blog

“There is no substitute for the spiritual, in war.  Miracles must be wrought if victories are to be won, and to work miracles, men's hearts must…be afire with self-sacrificing love for each other, for their units, for their division, and for their country.  If each man knows that all the officers and men in his division are animated with the same fiery zeal as he himself feels, unquenchable courage and unconquerable determination crush out fear, and death becomes preferable to defeat or dishonor.”

—John A. Lejeune, Major General, USMC (1926)

I loved this quote on so many levels and hope you are touched by it, too.  I never understood true courage until I read it;  never understood people knowing they might die but going ahead anyway.

"Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble."

  1 John 2:10

God bless all who love their brothers to this extent.  With God, all is possible.

z