Inspired by Jesus Goes to Jail posted by Erick back in April, I give you Jesus, makin’ rolls.

My family came home from Church one Sunday, and I started asking my Daughter about the picture she colored in Sunday School.

“Hi sweety!  Who is this?” I asked, looking at a picture of Jesus opening a scroll.

“Jesus,” she replied.

“What is he doing?” I asked further.

“He’s cooking.”

Now this caught me off guard.  I wanted to see where this went, so I asked my Daughter what he was cooking.

“He’s making rolls.”

I looked at the way the scroll drawn on the picture.  Yeah… I can see how it would look that way to a three year old.  I called my wife in to have my daughter explain what Jesus was doing.  When my Daughter explained… we both left the room, fell on the floor, and laughed ourselves silly.

The push for Obama Care and recent scandal in New Jersey has led me to post a thing or two about organ transplants.

Why?

I am the receipient of a kidney transplant.  Just over a year ago, I received a kidney from a cadaver donar.  I waited on dialysis three years for a kidney.  Many wait even longer.

Dialysis is treatment that prolongs life by filtering the blood and helping maintain a balance in body chemicals.  While it prolongs life, it also shortens life.  It’s rough on the body.  A patient on dialysis often feels irratable, cranky, and tired.  There are two options at this point.  Get a Kidney Transplant, or die on dialysis.

To get a transplant, a patient must complete several tests.  There is blood work, antigen matching, general physical assessments, and doctor interviews.  All of these steps must be completed before a patient can be on the transplant list.

As of now, a patient goes on one of several regional lists.  There are obligations that one must keep to maintain status on the list.  These include many of the same tests that were taken to get on the transplant list.

Then there is the waiting.  The waiting is what kills most people, both figuratively and literally.  Dialysis is an imperfect treatment.  The waste eventually builds up.  The body can only be artificially cleaned for so long.

A Kidney transplant not only extends the life of the patient, it improves quality of life.  Foods that were once off limits become part of the normal diet.  One feels less tired, and even is in a better mood most of the time.

The National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 is the law that governs transplant activities.  It forbids the buying or selling of Organs.  I’m not going to get into a discussion of if that’s good or not here.

The point of this little blog was to give the RS bloggers and lurkers an idea of why people would pay $160,000 for a kidney, with however much of that going to crooked Jersey Politicians.

If the wait is years now, and roughly 4,000 people die each year waiting for a transplant, what will it be like when the government gets even more involved?  I shudder at the thought.

Should any of you have any questions, I’ll be glad to answer them in this blog.

No mention of Independence Day?

Typical.  But I’ll give it until tomorrow, as today is actually July 3rd.  By the way, have we been attacked by aliens yet?

President Obama has stated, according to the AP,

“”I think that it’s important that even as we move forward with President Medvedev that Putin understand that the old Cold War approaches to U.S.-Russian relations is outdated.  …Putin has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new.”

I would like to point out the obvious fact that Vladimir Putin is former KGB.  (To misqutoe the US Marine saying, “Once KGB, Always KGB.)  Not only is this good on the resume for being a James Bond villian, this explains his outlook on how to interact with the U.S.

To be honest, I don’t see the reason Putin should change anything in dealing with the United States, or more specifically, Barack Obama.  When you look up Usefull Idiot in the dictionary, it now says “see Barack Obama.”

Putin has worked to weaken our foothold in Eastern Europe.  He’s said on many occasions that our missile shield stations in that part of the world would be targeted, and don’t think he didn’t have a hand in kicking us out of Manas Air Base.

Putin will have to try about half as hard to weaken us now, seeing as how Obama supports dictatorships around the globe that will more often than not follow Russia’s lead on a variety of issues.

The truth is our President is going to have to learn from the Cold War, OUR SIDE of it, how to deal with Putin, and Medvedev.  Sadly, his mentors want the same thing Putin, Chaves, and the American Left do, a weak United States with a crippled military and diminished influence in the world.

One day my wife and I were shopping at Sams Club.  (I know, Sams is not Wal-Mart, but it’s the same company.)  I waited by the restroom while my wife changed my daughter’s pull-ups.

I found the most increadable thing I’ve ever seen at a Wal-Mart or Sam’s.

Here it is below.

I do not choose to be a common person.
It is my right to be uncommon — if I can.
I seek opportunity — not security.
I do not wish to be a kept citizen,
humbled and dulled by having the state look after me.
I want to take the calculated risk,
to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed.
I refuse to barter incentive for a dole;
I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence:
the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of Utopia.
I will not trade my freedom for beneficence
nor my dignity for a handout.
I will never cower before any earthly master
nor bend to any threat.
It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and
unafraid: to think and act for myself,
to enjoy the benefit of my creations
and to face the world boldly and say:
this, with God’s help I have done.

I’m SURE many of you RS’ers know this is the Entrepreneur’s Creed.  This was the first time I had ever seen it.

Now I at some point in another life worked at Wal-mart in the small south Georgia town I am originally from.  I never saw this posted at any of the Employee buliten boards or by water fountains.  Perhaps that has changed.  But when I read this, I loved it.  It fly’s in the face of everything liberalism stands for.  It even goes as far as to invoke God right at the end.  That must really rub salt in the wounds.

When, WHEN, I own my own business, I will have this posted in every waiting room and office.  With a picture of Ronald Reagan and Sam Walton somewhere near by.

Before Obama gives the NEA authority to burn or destroy books, and before the Bible and other books become labled “hate speach” (I say this half joking… half)  I’d like to expand my collections of books to educate my daughter on history and what the US is all about and how special it is.  I don’t know that I’ll be able to do that in 10 or 15 years, the way things are looking now.  I’m going to find Alexis deTokeville’s book, and get a few of Ayn Rand’s works.

I need a good solid listing of as many histroy books as I can find. 

Please list here.

Thanks.

This will be a very light hearted post.  We will, however, still poke fun at President Obama. 

I’ve heared Hannity call Obama’s European Adventure the Apology Tour.  I’ve seen it here in the diaries too.  I’ve decided to stick with this theme.

So, I invite Erick and the Directors to hold a naming contest for Obama’s Apology Tour 2.  They are welcome to use this diary as the place for the contest.  If they decide not to, we can still have fun with seeing who can come up with the most clever name.

I will kick this thing off. 

Barack Obama’s

 Lo Siento

Apology Tour 2

(Translated - I’m sorry.)

Have at it Red Staters.

So I’m flipping channels, and I see Cownell grad Keith Obamaman is on.  I got physically ill.  I almost puked.  Keith, like the rest of his MSNBC palls, decided to use cheap sexual references about the tea parties.  As if that wasn’t bad enough, He had Jennine Garafalo on.

In the echo chamber of empty headed left wing thought, these two idiots were glorifying in all their smugness.  Garafalo said that “right-wingers would believe anything except the truth.”  First they started saying something about the shape of the brain in people that are conservative.  They sound as foolish as the people that said physical differences in blacks and whites made whites mentally superior.  Then they called the people at the tea parties are Racist!

Ah yes, Jennine.  Being upset at bailing out Banks and GM and Chrysler is racist.  Being upset because my government took my money to give it to banks, to loan it back to me with interest… is racist.  Being upset at Congress, the majority made up of white males, is racist.  Being upset at my two senators who voted for this thing, both of whom are white males, is racist.  Being upset that George Bush approved the first round of bailouts for the mortgage industry is racist.  Being upset that Barack Obama has signed into law a bill that will put not only me into debt, but my daughter and any children she has decades from now is racist.  Being upset that government is taking on roles in my life that the men who founded the country never intended it to take on is racist.  Being upset that I may have to watch my daughter be forced into “voluntary service” is racist.

Never mind that my parents WHO ARE FROM THE SOUTH taught me from the time I was born that there are no differences between black and white or any color as far as God is concerned, seeing as how he breathed the breath of life into all of us.  Never mind that I go to a church where the pastor, MY Pastor, is black.  Never mind my wife and I are looking into adopting children, and are willing to take any color child that comes along.

How funny that Jennine is projecting her own infantile ranting on the people that have good, sound, well thought out reasons to be upset at the direction and actions of our Government for the last several years (Yes, years - remember the reason Republicans lost the House and Senate was they SPENT TO MUCH!)

So to Jennine and Cownell Keith - Go Rahm Emmanuel yourselves.

Yesterday, I made a post after watching the preview of a 20/20 segment about defending yourself with a gun.  Here is the promised review. http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=7312540

As per my military training, I will give you the bottom line up front.  If we grew up in a culture where children were taught proper use of firearms and our right to own them for our protection, we would not have many of the problems 20/20 alleges.

The First segment take college students and places them in an experiment.  These students are given instructions on how to use a hand gun by a police instructor.  Their experience with a firearm varies from none to a student who owns and uses rifles and hand guns.  The student is told that some time later during the day, he will be “attacked” and will need to use the handgun. 

After the instruction, the student is placed in a classroom with police officers and ABC crew disguised as regular people.  These students are the only ones in the room armed.  This group is getting instruction on safety equipment, when the instructor walks in the room in disguise and begins to fire something akin to paintballs (a soft plastic bullet with a paint tip) at the teacher and the students.  The police officers and ABC crew are there to simulate the chaos of a crowd during a shooting.

The students did not fair well.  Some have trouble getting the gun out of the holster.  Some don’t duck when the intruder enters the room.  ABC does get this right; the students don’t have enough training.  But I wonder how many would have faired without the protective gloves and oversized shirts on?  I’ve been in MOPP 4 (MOPP standing for Mission Oriented Protection Posture - 4 meaning full chem gear, suit, boots, mask, and gloves) several times during training  in the Air Force.  The mask makes it hard to see, and the gloves are not easy to work with either.  I understand the safety issues with using the simulated bullets, but it decreases the realism, and skews the results of the experiment.  There is also the issue of only one armed student.  What if two or three students had been armed?  This gives the intruder multiple targets, and while his attention is focus on one armed individual, the other has time to calm down, breath, aim, and make a shot to stop the attacker.  Lastly, the student is up against a police firearms instructor.  Who’s going to win this gun battle?  Something else I learned in the Air Force, the aggressor always has an edge.  The aggressor picks the time and place of engagement.  The defender, in this sense, is at the aggressor’s mercy.

 20/20 then goes on to replay an old segment from 10 years ago about children that find a gun in hidden in toys.  Don’t get me started.  I’m leaving this alone due to the sheer stupidity of the segment.  This is a lead in to a piece about teenagers finding two guns in the drawer of an old dresser while cleaning out a garage.  Ok, what gun owner worth half his salt keeps guns in an old dresser in his garage?  This is only my first problem with this.   Out of the 24 teens, only three go to find “help” (ABC’s words, not mine.  I’m guessing the owner of the house, who in reality is an ABC producer.)  Not satisfied with these results, ABC sends in an actor (another producer) to incite the students to pick up a gun.  In one scene, this actor/producer looks straight down the barrel of one of the two guns in the draw.  One of the teenagers he’s trying to incite tells him to put the gun down.  The teenager says “I’ve had a gun safety class.  You aren’t supposed to do that.”  Here we see that the one guy with training and good sense speaks up.  This restates the point I made up top.  Training. 

Now we go to our “Won’t somebody think of the Children!” moment.  This is the most difficult segment to write about.  I DO NOT want to make fun of the child exploited in this part of the 20/20 “You’re too stupid to own a gun” show.  Damon Weaver lives in a tough section of Palm Beach County (Yes, THAT Palm Beach County, FL - The same county that gave us Alcee Hastings and Robert Wexler).  He wants President Obama to do something about the violence in the town of Pahokee, Florida.  Damon then goes on to talk to some of the residents of the town.  Many have been shot, but will not go to the police, or will not testify in court.  The segment then ends with Damon Weaver asking President Obama “What can you do to help Pahokee?”  I’ll answer that question for you, young Damon.  Nothing.  If the townsfolk of Pahokee won’t go to the police to put a stop to this nonsense, then nothing can be done.  On a side note, Damon wants to be a Democrat when he grows up.  I guess because Democrats that run Palm Beach County have done such a great job keeping that place safe.   He’s got great role models in Wexler and Hastings.

On to the next segment.  20/20 brings out it second victim.  Omar Sumaha, the brother of a slain Virginia Tech student, his sister, is sent by 20/20 to a gun show in Richmond, VA.  He’s given 5000 dollars to purchase firearms at this show.  20/20’s point is to show that there is no background check at the gun show, and any buyer and seller can meet and do business.  20/20 goes on to shot holes in its own argument, so to speak, by reminding us that the VT shooter HAD A BACKGROUND CHECK.  After that, I quit listening. 

The last segment was the summation of the “You’re not capable of defending yourself” theme of last night’s show.  At the end they state that you are better off running away than to stay and fight.  If you are not armed, I’m sure that is the case.  Diane Sawyer then blew a hole in the entire show.  20/20 couldn’t find a reliable study on the effects of carrying a gun, and the ones they found were contradictory.  We are not given the name of those studies.  We are just presented with evidence that no matter what you do, you are not capable of defending yourself.  You could get killed.  You could hit a bystander.  You could hit a family member. 

Guess what?  I don’t care.  You could back over your kid in the driveway.  You could get kidney failure.  There are an entire host of evils that could befall the average man or woman.  Government CANNOT take the sting out of life.  We see what happens when government tries to protect us from ourselves.  We get Tyrants like Castro or Chaves.  We get regimes like China.  I want to know that I have the option of defending myself with a firearm if I feel the need.  I want to know that if I hear a noise in the middle of the night that is not my wife or daughter, I can meet that threat head on and not sit and hide in my house and hope to God the Police find my family before a murder, rapist, child molester, or terrorist (if some in congress have their way and bring Gitmo detainee’s to Northern Virginia.) 

Here is the Conservative (and my) argument.  Attackers are less likely to go on a killing spree if they know that average citizens are armed and know how to use firearms.  ABC didn’t do any stories on an individual that was armed and alive after a gun battle.  What would have happened if even a fraction of some of the teachers and students at VT were armed?  Would 30 people have died needlessly?  The law that was enacted to prevent such actions didn’t even prevent this shooting?  So now what?  We are going to trust the same people that failed to protect us with the first law?  I guess so.

End of story.  Thanks ABC.  Even though I’ve managed to get married, buy a house, keep a truck running since 1996, and am raising a family, I’m so glad you took the time to tell me how incompetent I am when it come to protecting those I love.

You’re too stupid to carry a gun.  By 20/20

I haven’t seen the show yet.  It hasn’t aired, but I will watch, and then tear it to shreds.

I will start early with the example I saw on Regis and Kelly this morning.

The video they show while Diane Sawyer is speaking is of a robbery of a store.  The clerk and the bad guy (lets call him what he is) are both armed.  The point is made that while about 6 or so feet apart, 14 shots are exchanged.  None of the shots hit their intended targets. 

Here’s the conclusion I came to after seeing that video and hearing that statement (and sure many of not all of you will too),  HOW MANY SHOTS WOULD HAVE HIT THEIR TARGET IF THE CLERK HAD NOT BEEN ARMED?  Continuing to state the obvious, the clerk being armed forced the bad guy to take cover and eventually leave. 

Here’s the part that really steamed me.  Diane Sawyer states that some 30% of US house holds have fire arms.  Then she goes on to insinuate that all the children in those households are playing with the guns.  Again here’s the theme - You’re too stupid to own a gun.

More to come after I force myself to sit through this…

So, we’ve now learned that North Korea has launched it’s missile.  FOX is covering it.  The BBC is covering it.  Even Jihad TV (Al Jazzira) is covering it.  CNN and CNN Headline News is NOT covering it.

CNN Headline News had Oprah’s Weight Summit with Valeri Bertonelli….

Nevermind that North Korea exports it technology to countries not friendly to the U.S. or it’s allies. 

I now await the empty words of the UN condeming this action.

I’ve read a few post on RS that sound something like this- “Everything north of Richmond is Blue” or “Everything north of Richmond has gone over to the Dark Side.”

I’ve gotten kinda irritated at this because I live north of Richmond, and my county is fairly Red (the good non-Communist American Freedom loving Red.)  So I’ve decided to post a picture and a link that displays the current VA congressional layout.  I think I have a grasp of the eastern half of Virginia, having lived in Hampton Roads (as a member of the US Air Force) and now as a contractor living in Stafford County.  I’m not so familiar with why western Virginia and Richmond are blue (though I can make an educated guess about Richmond.)

The quick and dirty is this: Stop generalizing about Virginia. 

Here’s the picture that I *ahem* borrowed from Wikipedia and the link to the picture. 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Virginia_Congressional_Districts_by_party.svg

Here is a second link that breaks down Virginia by district and county if you have a hard time following the next few paragraphs.

http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/pdf/congdist/pagecgd109_va2.pdf

5th and 9th Districts: The two most South West districts are blue.  The 5th District (the big blue blob in the center) has been a Democrat Stonghold since after World War II.  (This information was gathered using www.govtrack.us)  I don’t know how the 5th district has changed since 1947, but I suspect it has contained Charlottesville in every interation.  The most western district, the 9th, has had the same congressman since 1982.  It was previously Republican. 

1st, 2nd, and 3rd Districts: Most of you know where Richmond is.  Richmond is in the 3rd district in the eastern half of the state (the blue island surrounded by red not on the coast in the south eastern portion of the state).  The 1st district has been Republican since 1977.  This district is the eastern district on the coast.  This first district contains areas near Langley Air Force Base (Langley itself is in the 2nd district), Fredricksburg, and Stafford county.  The second district was Republican since 2000, but Thelma Drake lost her re-election bid in 2008 by 52%-48%.  The 2nd District is composed of the section of virginia not connected to the rest of the state (the little part that hangs off Maryland-the blue island on the eastern most part of the state and the southen most coastal area, including Virginia Beach, Langley AFB, and Norfolk NAS (heavily military). 

Much of what is geographically northern Virginia is Red.  The 1st, 4th (southern most red district), 6th(the western most red district), 7th (right next to the 1st), and the 10th are held by Republicans. 

Part of the reason I constructed this post is because research and presentation is one of the ways I learn new information (thanks to the TONS of briefings I presented during my brief stint in the Air Force.)

I welcome those of you RSers that live in Virginia to fill in the blanks.  This is not a complete study.  I really just wanted everyone outside the state to know where VA stands as far as red vs blue congressional districts.

Bottom line - please don’t group me in with the Democrat distracts near D.C. held by Congressman Connolly and Congressman Moran.

I was thinking about this past election, and I find a striking similarity to a passage in 1st Samuel Chapter 8:4-22.  The Word will be black with normal text.  My comments will be in blue and italics. 

4 Then all the responsible men of Israel got together and went to Samuel at Ramah,

5 And said to him, See now, you are old, and your sons do not go in your ways: give us a king now to be our judge, so that we may be like the other nations.  (Amazing how many of Obama’s supporters are pushing us to be like Europe, and not keep us the special Nation we are.)

6 But Samuel was not pleased when they said to him, Give us a king to be our judge. And Samuel made prayer to the Lord.

7 And the Lord said to Samuel, Give ear to the voice of the people and what they say to you: they have not been turned away from you, but they have been turned away from me, not desiring me to be king over them. (We’ve traded away a relationship with God, for safety and security from earthly government, giving our freedom over to the state.)

8 As they have done from the first, from the day when I took them out of Egypt till this day, turning away from me and worshipping other gods, so now they are acting in the same way to you. (Since the 60’s the culture has been in decline, Abortion being our biggest problem.)

9 Give ear now to their voice: but make a serious protest to them, and give them a picture of the sort of king who will be their ruler. (We warned the country what kind of president Obama would be.)

10 And Samuel said all these words of the Lord to the people who were desiring a king.

11 And he said, This is the sort of king who will be your ruler: he will take your sons and make them his servants, his horsemen, and drivers of his war-carriages, and they will go running before his war-carriages; (Obama wants to create the national Statist service requirement for young people.  Thank God I already have Military service and am already 30 years old.)

12 And he will make them captains of thousands and of fifties; some he will put to work ploughing and cutting his grain and making his instruments of war and building his war-carriages.

13 Your daughters he will take to be makers of perfumes and cooks and bread-makers.

14 He will take your fields and your vine-gardens and your olive-gardens, all the best of them, and give them to his servants. (Do I even need to go here?)

15 He will take a tenth of your seed and of the fruit of your vines and give it to his servants. (A tenth.  I’d be extatic if my taxes were only a tenth.  But the point here is that your hard work will go towards the state, or at that time the King.  And what recourse do you have against a king?)

16 He will take your men-servants and your servant-girls, and the best of your oxen and your asses and put them to his work.

17 He will take a tenth of your sheep: and you will be his servants.

18 Then you will be crying out because of your king whom you have taken for yourselves; but the Lord will not give you an answer in that day. (Here is the scarry part.  I really hope that when the country wakes up, as we are seeing signs of now, it’s not too late for us.  Since our system of government is vastly different from that of the children of Israel, I believe this to be the case.)

19 But the people gave no attention to the voice of Samuel; and they said, No, but we will have a king over us,

20 So that we may be like the other nations, and so that our king may be our judge and go out before us to war. (Our arguments were not listened to.  Obama won the election.)

21 Then Samuel, after hearing all the people had to say, went and gave an account of it to the Lord.

22 And the Lord said to Samuel, Give ear to their voice and make a king for them. Then Samuel said to the men of Israel, Let every man go back to his town.

Well, that is it.  I hope this gets read and commented on.  I find the similarities frightening.  God actually tells Samuel to give the people ECONOMIC arguments to reject the path they are bound and determined to follow.  There are reasons for that… I believe it’s because the spiritual arguments wouldn’t work, and God appealed to what he knew would be the best chance for them to make the right decision… but’s that is getting into theology, and my opinion… so this is as far as I will go down that road. 

This entire post was just to bring out the similarities between our situation and that of Israel in biblical time.  Histroy has a way of repeating itself.  Please comment.

This was really good, but I don’t know if anyone reads Dilbert or has posted this. I only wish people called before whateter OUTRAGE OF THE MONTH Congress has come up with to distract the American People from their own stupidity or worse had this kind of intestinal fortitude.

The Perky one interviwed “Joe the Plumber” after last night’s debate.

He had a great observation. Obama speaks elequently, but where’s the action to back it up.

Here’s the video.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Having been a member of the Intelligence Community - or IC as it is sometimes called by “insiders” - I’m familiar with the process of getting a security clearance.

Many of us fill out a form called an “SF 86.” In this form we list out our employment histroy, the places we have lived, our associates - the people that know us well - and any events we might not be proud of like drug use or other infractions with the law.

I’m not sure what process members of Congress have to do to obtain a clearance, but given that Obama is the Chairman on European Affairs, a Subcommitte of the Senate Foreign Relations committe, and a member of the Homeland Security Committe, it only seems logical that he should have one.

This beggs the question, givin Obama’s associations with William Ayers, should he even have a clearance? Did Senator Obama put his association with Ayers on his security clearance paperwork? And if anyone out there knows, do Congressmen and Senators fill out the same paperwork as us “regular folk” in the IC?

Given that William Ayers was a member of an organization that planted bombs, it could well be argued that he was dedicated to the violent overthrough of the US government. Granted he’s not violent anymore, but he’s still subversive.

It’s my opinion that not only does this association disqualify Obama from the Presidency, but from any classified information or security clearance privlages as well.

Wing Zero