Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Missy's Chair


I've posted Missy in her chair a few times... it's always been HER spot.



UNTIL NOW...!  (uh oh)

Simon has lost his 'fear' of the chair and has decided it is quite comfy.



Then along comes Missy expecting to settle down into HER chair.
She was not too pleased with what she found!



Then later, after she got HER chair back... Simon comes back from a trip outside to find his seat had been 'stolen' back.  Regardless, he tries to also settle in.  Really cute!










Aren't they just adorable?!


Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Look What I Made!


Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding



(Here's a close-up)




Cornish Hen Half & Veggie Pasta




Sunday, May 23, 2010

My Latest "Gift"


It was delivered Friday evening...




Trying to catch and release it was such a joy!  I don't know what it is with Missy and her bugs, frogs, lizards, and snakes.  At least Simon brings me the fuzzy and furry "normal" gifts expected from cats.


I love my cats... I love my cats... I love my cats.
They're lucky I love them!!!

Friday, May 21, 2010

"Grey's Anatomy" - Season 6 Finale

For anyone who missed last nights 2-hour "Grey's Anatomy" season finale… you missed one of the best finales I have ever seen. Granted I sobbed for two hours, but that's beside the point. In my opinion, it was the most emotionally traumatic, heroic, stunning, jaw-dropping, powerful, heartfelt, tragic, hold your breath finale ever! I'm all geared up for the "LOST" series finale on Sunday… but not sure if they will be able to deliver the emotional roller-coaster ride "Grey's" provided. I'm hopin' for the best… but, WOW!... "Grey's" left me stunned and speechless for quite some time.

In case you missed it, you can watch the episodes here:

ABC.com - Grey's Anatomy: http://abc.go.com/shows/greys-anatomy
Grey's Anatomy - s06e23 - Sanctuary (Season Finale P1)
http://abc.go.com/watch/greys-anatomy/93515/261783/sanctuary-finale-part-1?cid=fullepisodeaccess
Grey's Anatomy - s06e24 - Death And All His Friends (Season Finale P2)
http://abc.go.com/watch/greys-anatomy/93515/261805/death-and-all-his-friends-finale-part-2?cid=fullepisodeaccess

Hulu.com - Grey's Anatomy: http://www.hulu.com/greys-anatomy
Grey's Anatomy - s06e23 - Sanctuary (Season Finale P1)
http://www.hulu.com/watch/148529/greys-anatomy-sanctuary#s-p1-so-i0
Grey's Anatomy - s06e24 - Death And All His Friends (Season Finale P2)
http://www.hulu.com/watch/151241/greys-anatomy-death-and-all-his-friends#s-p1-so-i0

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Nancy Pelosi... What a superscary whack-job!

If this wasn't bad enough...

Nancy Pelosi asking the church to preach amnesty.



Ohhhh... so it's "separation of church and state" EXCEPT when Pelosi wants them to preach on something she supports.


Then comes this...

Pelosi Says It's Okay To Quit Your Job... Go Be Creative... Taxpayers Have Got Your "Health Care" Back.




Here's a more in depth debate on same issue.




This woman is un-freakin'-believable!

Monday, May 17, 2010

College Has Become a Consumer Fraud

College Has Become a Consumer Fraud
Monday, 17 May 2010 09:59 AM
By: Ronald Kessler

College catalogs are as enticing as brochures for shiny new cars. They promise intellectual stimulation, critical thinking, and preparation for a rewarding life. But like come-ons for underwater land, the claims of liberal arts colleges are bogus.

Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato began the liberal arts tradition of learning in ancient Greece. They advocated systematic reflection and a search for truth. The term liberal arts itself comes from the Latin word liber, meaning free.

Today, colleges impose rigid conformity. Rather than encouraging students to find the truth for themselves, they propagandize, usually with a far-left cast. Rather than encouraging open-mindedness, they promote stereotypical thinking and adherence to preconceptions and dogma.

In short, a college education — at roughly $40,000 a year — has become a consumer fraud.

The corruption of college has taken place over decades. That is why some of the most brilliant and successful figures dropped out of college or never attended in the first place.

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, left Harvard after two years. Socichiro Honda, founder of Honda Motor Co., left home at 15 and never got a degree, which he said would be “worth less than a movie ticket.”

Henry Ford dropped out of school at the age of 16. Edwin H. Land, who brought the world the Polaroid camera, polarized sunglasses, and 3-D movies, left Harvard University after his freshman year. F. Scott Fitzgerald dropped out of Princeton.

William Faulkner dropped out of the University of Mississippi. Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook from his Harvard dormitory, but after the social networking website exploded in popularity, he quit school and became a full-time entrepreneur.

To placate his parents, Michael Dell enrolled at the University of Texas. He began buying remaindered, outmoded IBM PCs from local retailers, upgrading them in his dorm room, then selling them. Eyeing the burgeoning inventory piling up in their room, Dell’s roommate moved the parts to the door and suggested that Dell move out.

Dell did—and decided to drop out at the end of his freshman year.

Others who dropped out of high school or college include Larry Page (Google), David Geffen (Geffen Records), Steve Jobs (Apple), Richard Branson (Virgin), Ralph Lauren (Ralph Lauren), and Jerry Yang (Yahoo).

In fact, one in five billionaires never finished college. Nine presidents, including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Harry S. Truman, never earned a college degree.

To be sure, genius will never make its home in a structured learning environment. Thomas Edison rebelled against school and was told by his headmaster he would “never make a success of anything.”Albert Einstein could not read until he was seven. He hated school and dropped out at 15.

One of his teachers told him, “You will never amount to anything.”

But if colleges encouraged the kind of innovative thinking they profess to nurture, they would attract, rather than repel, brilliant minds.

More important, they would stop turning out cookie-cutter graduates who cannot think outside of the box.

Michael Dell and Bill Gates dropped out of college precisely because they wouldn’t — or couldn’t — tailor their thinking to the prevailing wisdom.

“I took one course that was remotely related to business — macroeconomics,” Dell has said. “One of the things that really helped me is not approaching the world in a conventional sense,” he said. “There are plenty of conventional thinkers out there.”

As practiced today, the very heart of the academic approach is flawed. In the political sciences, that approach entails postulating a theory and shoe-horning reality into it.

For example, Myra G. Gutin taught a course on first ladies at Rider University in New Jersey. In her book “The President's Partner,” she sorted first ladies into three categories: ceremonial (Bess Truman, Mamie Eisenhower), whose role was said to be mostly entertaining; emerging spokeswoman (Jacqueline Kennedy, Pat Nixon), who promoted issues important to them; and activist (Eleanor Roosevelt, Betty Ford).

While such theories give academics something to write about, they distort rather than illuminate the truth. Like racial stereotyping, placing labels on people focuses attention on apparent similarities while shifting attention away from differences.

Instead of promoting conventional thinking, Gutin should encourage students to examine for themselves what each first lady was like. Michael Dell did not come up with his revolutionary concept for manufacturing computers to order by adopting the prevailing wisdom. Thinking outside the box requires looking at the world without blinders.

As a college student, I rebelled against that mind-constricting conformity. After crusading against formal education as an editor of the Clark Scarlet at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., I took my own advice and dropped out after my sophomore year.

My parents were not pleased. They were not exactly strangers to the academic world. My father was an associate professor of microbiology at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and a professor of chemistry at City College of New York. My stepfather was a physicist at MIT. My mother, a concert pianist and composer, taught at the Juilliard School in New York.

But on the school paper, I had found my passion, investigative reporting. I had written an article exposing rampant discrimination against black students by local landlords. When I called a sample of those who had placed classified ads in the local paper, almost 40 percent admitted they would mind if my roommate was black and said they would not rent to me.

The Worcester Telegram picked up the story, and the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination began an investigation.

Rather than regurgitating what my professors told me, I learned I could uncover original information on my own. Rather than using it to write papers that no one would read, I realized I could have an impact on society by exposing the truth.

After becoming a reporter on the Worcester Telegram, I went on to the Boston Herald, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, which I left in 1985. Published last year, “In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Life of Fire and the Presidents They Protect” is my 18th book.
I have never regretted my decision to drop out of college. Since then, college has become more doctrinaire. At least 90 percent of college professors are registered Democrats. That would not be a problem if they honestly sought to open students’ minds rather than brainwashing them.

While exceptional professors still exist, portraying Republicans as evil, Americans as Nazis, and capitalism as a way to subjugate minorities is the norm in too many college classes. Protected by tenure, professors replicate themselves, blackballing teachers who do not have ultra-liberal views.

If “the truth will set you free,” America is in serious trouble.


Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com. View his previous reports and get his dispatches sent to you free via e-mail. Go here now.

Obama Healthcare Claims Were a Sham

Obama Healthcare Claims Were a Sham
Thursday, 06 May 2010 11:35 AM

By: Ronald Kessler

A year ago, President Obama promised that his healthcare reform “could save the nation more than $2 trillion over the next 10 years and save hardworking families $2,500 in health care costs in the coming years.”

Since that time, Obama has claimed hundreds of times that the legislation would “bend the cost curve.”

All along, Republicans said Obama was making up figures. Now we know who was right.

An analysis by Obama’s own Department of Health and Human Services says that, rather than reducing costs, the healthcare legislation that was passed “will increase national healthcare spending by $311 billion from 2010-2019.”

While healthcare amounts to 17 percent of GDP now, it will cost 21 percent by 2019, the report from Obama’s own administration says. The increased costs will be as much as $500 billion higher if Congress — as expected — overturns planned cuts in Medicare spending.

Moreover, although 34 million people will gain coverage under the law, 23 million will remain uninsured, according to the analysis. People who choose to go without insurance and employers who do not provide required coverage will pay $120 billion in penalties from 2014 to 2019.

Richard S. Foster, the chief actuary of Medicare and Medicaid who prepared the report, says the reason his analysis did not come out before the bill was passed is that he “didn’t have access to the reconciliation legislation itself until it was publicly issued on March 18, which was three days before the House vote took place on March 21. Because of the complexity of the reconciliation changes, it wasn’t possible to estimate the package prior to the vote.”

In other words, the White House, which claims to endorse transparency, had no interest in telling the public the real costs of the bill until after it was passed. Otherwise, it would have made sure that Foster received the appropriate information in time to prepare an analysis.

Back in 2003, when President Bush made a 16-word statement in his State of the Union speech that British intelligence believed Saddam Hussein had been trying to buy uranium from Niger, the media unleashed its full fury on him. Each day brought new page one headlines insinuating that Bush had lied.

In fact, not only did the British intelligence service MI6 believe that Saddam had sought uranium from Niger but also investigations by both a British House of Commons and a Senate intelligence committee later concluded the MI6 report was well-founded.

Now it turns out Obama misled the country about a measure that affects one-fifth of the economy, yet there is no outrage except from Republicans. The news media have treated the story as a non-event.

The New York Times played the story on Foster’s report on page A8. The Washington Post and USA Today did not run a story. With the exception of Fox News, none of the networks touched it.

If Obama were a company that advertised such false claims, the Federal Trade Commission would take action. If Obama were a Republican, the news media would play his deception as a scandal.

But Obama is neither. He is a pitchman who has victimized the American people with his sham reform.


Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com. View his previous reports and get his dispatches sent to you free via e-mail. Go here now.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

"LOST" - Across The Sea

May 11 Episode: Across The Sea

I've had difficulty with this episode... torn between liking it and not-so-much. The episode, in of itself, was interesting... getting more background on Jacob and MIB... but I'm not sure I'm liking some of the implications. I'm trying to think things through, but I keep coming back to, "One day you can make up your own game and everyone else will have to follow your rules." If this turns out to be one big game that Jacob made up... then I'm gonna be extremely irritated. It's almost like... Mother liked you best and I got stuck with this stupid job; I'm not gonna be stuck here by myself! Like a petulant child throwing a temper tantrum.

I just cannot accept this and I refuse to believe that's what all this has been about.

Anyhoo... here's my random thinking on the whole smoke-monster thing. MIB is NOT the smoke monster... the smoke monster has been imitating him all those years like he is doing with John Locke now. We now know that Jacob retrieved his brother's body and laid him to rest next to his surrogate mother in the cave (and I so thought that island Adam and Eve was going to be Rose and Bernard left behind in the 70's), just as we know Locke's body was laid to rest by Ilana, Ben, Sun, and Lapidus. The smoke-monster took on some personality and mindset of it's hosts, previously MIB (wanting to get off the island), just like it is doing now with Locke (don't tell me what I can't do).

So the smoke-monster seems to be an entity in of itself, whether it already existed or was formed by the entrance of a life into the water-cave? I'm not sure, but leaning more toward already existed. Was it bad beforehand or was it corrupted by absorbing traces of anger, lying, deceit and murder through it's host?

And what about the destruction of the well and the camp... Mother did that?? Looks more like the work of a smoke-monster!

How many of you think that Claudia's ghostly appearance might actually be a smoke-monster appearance?

Friday, May 14, 2010

Obama Threatens Veto of Obamacare...

I thought this article was very interesting...

Obama Threatens Veto of Obamacare as Cost Estimates Soar Above $1 Trillion
Wednesday, 12 May 2010 12:44 PM

Reacting to the surprise announcement that congressional budget referees now predict healthcare reform could top $1 trillion, the Obama administration threatened Wednesday to veto parts of its own healthcare bill.

The politically explosive revelation, which is likely to give new impetus to the GOP’s repeal movement, came after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said the law potentially could add at least $115 billion to government healthcare spending over the next 10 years.

This comes after a separate Medicare office report found that the bill would raise spending by about 1 percent during the next decade. Still the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) stood by the administration's original claims that the law would reduce the deficit. Obama tasked Congress with making that happen through tax increases or spending cuts. If that doesn’t happen, the administration is vowing to make program cuts itself.

OMB spokesman Kenneth Baer said Wednesday that the healthcare law "will reduce the deficit by more than $100 billion in the first decade, and that will not change unless Congress acts to change it. If these authorizations are funded, they must be offset somewhere else in the discretionary budget.

“The President has called for a non-security discretionary spending freeze, and he will enforce that with his veto pen."

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the new CBO analysis "provides ample cause for alarm," according to a report on ABC News.

"This comes just weeks after the Obama administration itself released an analysis confirming that the new law actually increases Americans’ healthcare costs," Boehner said. "The American people wanted one thing above all from healthcare reform: lower costs, which Washington Democrats promised, but they did not deliver. These revelations widen the serious credibility gap President Obama is facing."

Meanwhile, Jennifer Hing, spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee, told Fox News: "If Congress were to approve all of this new discretionary funding authorized in the healthcare bill, almost all of the administration's highly touted savings would be made null and void."

If Congress approves all the additional spending called for in the legislation, it would push the 10-year cost of the overhaul above $1 trillion — an unofficial limit the Obama administration set early on.

The CBO said the added spending includes $10 billion to $20 billion in administrative costs to federal agencies carrying out the law, as well as $34 billion for community health centers and $39 billion for Indian healthcare.

The costs were not reflected in earlier budget office estimates, although Republican lawmakers argued strenuously that they should have been. Part of the reason is technical: the additional spending is not mandatory, leaving Congress with discretion to provide the funds in follow-on legislation — or not.

"Congress does not always act on authorizations that are put into legislation by drafters," Baer explained. "Authorizations for discretionary spending are not expenditures."

Congressional estimators also said they simply had not had enough time to run the numbers. Costs could go even higher, because the legislation authorizes several programs without setting specific funding levels.

The healthcare law provides coverage to some more than 30 million now uninsured, offering tax credits to help buy health insurance through new competitive markets that open for business in 2014. When Congress passed the bill in March, the CBO estimated the coverage expansion would cost $938 billion over 10 years, while reducing the federal deficit by $143 billion.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Media Ignore La Raza Immigration Protester Fomenting Violent Revolution

**NOTE - This man is a high school history teacher!


Media Ignore La Raza Immigration Protester Fomenting Violent Revolution
By Lachlan Markay - Mon, 05/10/2010 - 14:45 ET

Which is more newsworthy: hearsay accounts of racial slurs unsupported by video evidence of the alleged incident, or video of a protester calling for violent revolution against the federal government, the imposition of socialism, and the annexation of the Southwestern states for Mexico?

If you chose the latter, you're probably not a journalist of the self-proclaimed "mainstream" variety. The legacy media has been largely silent on video of Los Angles schoolteacher at a La Raza protest of the recently-passed Arizona immigration law literally calling for the violent overthrow of the United States government.

"There's 40 million potential revolutionaries north of the border, inside the belly of the beast," Los Angeles high school history teacher Ron Gochez told a frenzied crowd, referring to the 40 million Latin Americans in the United States. He went on to claim that teaching or writing a book "is not part of the movement," and that his followers needed to go a step further -- to literal revolution.




video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGqPo5ofk0s

Does this man represent a fringe element of the pro-illegal immigration protesters? Probably. Has an individual's fringe status ever stopped the media from reporting on the outlandish things a couple Tea Party attendees have said? Of course not. Often those statements are taken as evidence that the movement is nothing more than a bunch of potentially-violent racists clinging to their God and guns.

The clip above shows a man actually advocating violence. There is no ambiguity about it. He obviously has a deep hatred of capitalism -- which can reasonably be described as far more radical than a deep hatred of socialism. And this man is a high school history teacher!

The response from the mainstream press: [crickets].

Where are the journalists that were so worried about political violence stemming from the Tea Party?

Why is Mark Potok of the Souther Poverty Law Center not appearing all over cable television to decry the anti-government violence La Raza is advocating?

Where is Bill Clinton to pontificate on the dangers of heated rhetoric and the potential that it could spill over into actual violence? And where are all the media talking heads that were so eager to parrot the former president's politicized warnings?

The alleged spitting incident on the steps of the Canon House Office Building was enough to whip media liberals into a frenzy. With the N-words supposedly hurled at Rep. John Lewis, it made for a perfect anti-Tea Party media meme, despite the total lack of evidence supporting the claims.

MSNBC's prime time lineup was one four-hour doomsaying sermon on the dangers of "right-wing extremism." But so far that channel is eerily silent on this man's heated calls for a violent uprising.

Pictures of a sign at a Tea Party rally quoting Thomas Jefferson's famous "water the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants" statement were paraded around as an undeniable sign that the Tea Party movement was out to overthrow -- violently, if necessary -- the political order.

Leftist accounts of the Tea Party are replete with accusations of racism. But where is the outrage over this La Raza protester's use of the phrase "frail ... white people"?

Even Sarah Palin's use of crosshairs on a map of November's target congressional districts was touted by many media liberals as a sign that conservatives have an inherently violent attitude towards politics. And yet, the same journalists haven't drawn any similar conclusions about the radical pro-illegal immigration movement that, as we've just seen, actually calls for violent revolt.

For those who have been paying attention, this double standard is hardly shocking. But the video of this man literally fomenting revolution and advocating violent imposition of socialism -- and the media's virtual silence -- serve as a powerful reminder of the legacy media's never-ending quest to discredit conservatives.

—Lachlan Markay is an associate with Dialog New Media. Make sure to follow him on Twitter.


http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2010/05/10/media-ignore-la-raza-immigration-protester-fomenting-violent-revolut

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer - On A Roll!

First the immigration bill... now this bill! You go, girl!!


Arizona gov. signs bill targeting ethnic studies

Jonathan J. Cooper, Associated Press Writer – Wed May 12, 6:23 am ET

PHOENIX – Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a bill targeting a school district's ethnic studies program, hours after a report by United Nations human rights experts condemned the measure.

State schools chief Tom Horne, who has pushed the bill for years, said he believes the Tucson school district's Mexican-American studies program teaches Latino students that they are oppressed by white people.

Public schools should not be encouraging students to resent a particular race, he said.

"It's just like the old South, and it's long past time that we prohibited it," Horne said.

Brewer's signature on the bill Tuesday comes less than a month after she signed the nation's toughest crackdown on illegal immigration — a move that ignited international backlash amid charges the measure would encourage racial profiling of Hispanics. The governor has said profiling will not be tolerated.

The measure signed Tuesday prohibits classes that advocate ethnic solidarity, that are designed primarily for students of a particular race or that promote resentment toward a certain ethnic group.

The Tucson Unified School District program offers specialized courses in African-American, Mexican-American and Native-American studies that focus on history and literature and include information about the influence of a particular ethnic group.

For example, in the Mexican-American Studies program, an American history course explores the role of Hispanics in the Vietnam War, and a literature course emphasizes Latino authors.

Horne, a Republican running for attorney general, said the program promotes "ethnic chauvinism" and racial resentment toward whites while segregating students by race. He's been trying to restrict it ever since he learned that Hispanic civil rights activist Dolores Huerta told students in 2006 that "Republicans hate Latinos."

District officials said the program doesn't promote resentment, and they believe it would comply with the new law.

The measure doesn't prohibit classes that teach about the history of a particular ethnic group, as long as the course is open to all students and doesn't promote ethnic solidarity or resentment.

About 1,500 students at six high schools are enrolled in the Tucson district's program. Elementary and middle school students also are exposed to the ethnic studies curriculum. The district is 56 percent Hispanic, with nearly 31,000 Latino students.

Sean Arce, director of the district's Mexican-American Studies program, said last month that students perform better in school if they see in the curriculum people who look like them.

"It's a highly engaging program that we have, and it's unfortunate that the state Legislature would go so far as to censor these classes," he said.

Six UN human rights experts released a statement earlier Tuesday saying all people have the right to learn about their own cultural and linguistic heritage, they said.

Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman didn't directly address the UN criticism, but said Brewer supports the bill's goal.

"The governor believes ... public school students should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people," Senseman said.

Arce could not immediately be reached after Brewer signed the bill late Tuesday.

"Separation of Church and State" Misunderstanding

Where did “separation of church and state” come from, and what does it mean?

Most people believe this phrase was in the original U.S. Constitution, but it was actually first expressed in a private letter by Thomas Jefferson. Since then, especially in recent times, it has sadly been misused to slowly, but surely, eliminate Christianity from the public sector—and replace it with an anti-God religion.

The often-misused First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . . ”

This was intended to protect the church from the federal government, not government from the church.

Want a more in-depth answer?  See article below...

from Answers Weekly



Separation of Christianity and State

by Ken Ham, President/CEO, AiG–U.S.
May 3, 2010

Almost all Americans have heard the phrase “separation of church and state.” It has been used as something of a club to “beat down” and eliminate Christianity from public places, including symbols (like crosses), disallow Bible reading and prayer in public schools, and stop the teaching of creation in science classes.

Now, where does the phrase “separation of church and state” come from? It is not a part of the original U.S. Constitution of 1787, as most people falsely believe, or in any of its amendments. In reality, the idea of a “wall of separation” between church and state came from a private letter from President Thomas Jefferson, and it has sadly been misused to slowly, but surely, eliminate Christianity from the public sector—and replace it with an anti-God religion.

The Establishment Clause in the First Amendment was intended to protect the church from the (federal) government, not the government from the church. Therefore, no “national” church or religion is allowed to be established by the federal government.

I will highlight key words of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . .

You can see that the “separation of church and state” phrase is nowhere in the Amendment (or the rest of the Constitution). The 1802 letter from Jefferson was sent to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut in response to the group’s letter to him. Jefferson was trying to assure the Baptists that the federal government would never be permitted to interfere with the church. In fact, in his letter, Jefferson states:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.1

Today, secular scholars have lifted the Danbury letter out of its entire historical context and have turned the so-called “wall” metaphor completely on its head.

“Separation of church and state” is now used to protect the government from the influence of the church—establishing a policy of freedom “from” religion, which in reality has become “separation of Christianity and state.” This would have been an entirely foreign and unintended concept to the Founding Fathers.

This misrepresentation of the Constitution was witnessed once again as I attended a debate in March, in which Rev. Barry Lynn, a liberal minister, lawyer, and the head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, spoke. Not only did he argue for separation, but claimed that government “neutrality” towards Christianity was his group’s aim. Sadly, most Americans (Christians included) have also been duped into believing that the so-called “separation of church and state” requires eliminating the Christian God and creating a neutral situation. But there is no such position as neutrality. Indeed, one is either for Christ or against Him (Matthew 12:30)!

The religion of naturalism (atheism) has been imposed on the public education system, and on the culture as a whole. For instance, science textbooks in the public schools now typically define science as naturalism (atheism):

Science requires repeatable observations and testable hypotheses. These standards restrict science to a search for natural causes for natural phenomena . . . . Supernatural explanations of natural events are simply outside the bounds of science.2

In keeping with this pronouncement, these books teach molecules-to-man evolution, based only on unproven natural processes, as fact! In other words, they have eliminated the supernatural and replaced it with naturalism. In reality, they have eliminated the Christian worldview and replaced it with a secular, atheistic one!

Sadly, because many Christians have falsely believed that there can be a neutral position, and have also been duped regarding the so-called “separation of church and state,” they are not prepared to boldly and unashamedly stand on the Word of God as they confront issues like abortion, “gay” marriage, racism, etc. By shrinking back, believers have allowed the secularists to impose their anti-God atheistic religion on the public schools—and the culture as a whole.

Answers in Genesis has launched its “I am Not Ashamed” campaign to challenge Christians to publicly and unashamedly stand on the Word of God. Only then, from the basis of the Bible’s absolute authority, will Christians be able to effectively combat the immorality that plagues our nation.

For more information on AiG’s “I am Not Ashamed” campaign, see our special insert stapled inside this newsletter or go to our new website of IAmNotAshamed.org.


Footnotes

1. Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptists, The Library of Congress website.

2. Neil A. Campbell, Brad Williamson, and Robin J. Heyden, Biology: Exploring Life, Florida Teacher’s Edition (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006), p. 38.


http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/au/separation-of-christianity-and-state#



Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists

The Final Letter, as Sent

To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.

http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html
 
 
 
If you're interested...

Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists
The Draft and Recently Discovered Text

http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpost.html


AND...

'A Wall of Separation'
FBI Helps Restore Jefferson's Obliterated Draft

You get the writer's opinion in this article... but some of the facts are very interesting.  For example:

"One of the nation's best known advocates of religious liberty, Leland had accepted an invitation to preach in the House of Representatives on Sunday, Jan. 3, and Jefferson evidently concluded that, if Leland found nothing objectionable about officiating at worship on public property, he could not be criticized for attending a service at which his friend was preaching. Consequently, "contrary to all former practice," Jefferson appeared at church services in the House on Sunday, Jan. 3, two days after recommending in his reply to the Danbury Baptists "a wall of separation between church and state"; during the remainder of his two administrations he attended these services "constantly."

Jefferson's participation in House church services and his granting of permission to various denominations to worship in executive office buildings, where four-hour communion services were held, cannot be discussed here; these activities are fully illustrated in the forthcoming exhibition. What can be said is that going to church solved Jefferson's public relations problems, for he correctly anticipated that his participation in public worship would be reported in newspapers throughout the country. A Philadelphia newspaper, for example, informed its readers on Jan. 23, 1802, that "Mr. Jefferson has been seen at church, and has assisted in singing the hundredth psalm." In presenting Jefferson to the nation as a churchgoer, this publicity offset whatever negative impressions might be created by his refusal to proclaim thanksgiving and fasts and prevented the erosion of his political base in God-fearing areas like New England.

Jefferson's public support for religion appears, however, to have been more than a cynical political gesture. Scholars have recently argued that in the 1790s Jefferson developed a more favorable view of Christianity that led him to endorse the position of his fellow Founders that religion was necessary for the welfare of a republican government, that it was, as Washington proclaimed in his Farewell Address, indispensable for the happiness and prosperity of the people. Jefferson had, in fact, said as much in his First Inaugural Address. His attendance at church services in the House was, then, his way of offering symbolic support for religious faith and for its beneficent role in republican government."


http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danbury.html

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

"LOST" Fans - Jorge Garcia (Hurley) Interview

Jorge Garcia On the "Tiring ... Wet ... Perilous" 'Lost' Finale & More (VIDEO)


Monday, May 10, 2010

"LOST" Fans - Useless Trivia

I was watching a rerun of "Grey's Anatomy" tonight, s04e05 - Haunt You Every Day, the Halloween episode where the dude takes a chainsaw to his own foot and Meredith took her mom's ashes to the hospital in a baggy... when I saw the kid that needed new ears.  As soon as I saw him I thought... that's David, Jack Shephard's kid!

His name is Dylan Minnette and he's been in alot... or so I found out when I checked on IMDB to verify.

On another note... on a different "Grey's Anatomy" episode, s02e24 - Damage Case, John Cho from "FlashForward" plays an intern from another hospital that fell asleep at the wheel thus causing an accident that killed someone.

Speaking of "FlashForward"... I noticed that Jack Davenport who plays Lloyd Simcoe is the same guy who played Norrington in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" trilogy... and when I rewatched "The Wedding Date" I noticed he was the groom, Ed, marrying Kat's sister.