President Obama said, “One thing we can’t afford to do though is privatize Social Security.  An ill-conceived idea that would add trillions of dollars to our budget deficit.”

That’s confusing to me.  Certainly President Obama has heard of Galveston County in Texas pulling out of Social Security back in 1980.  (Sorry, no other counties can opt out thanks to Congress passing a law in 1983.)  What were the results?  How did those people do?  Read about Galveston County’s smart move.

I appreciate President Obama’s concern about adding trillions of dollars to the budget deficit.  But that seems a little half-hearted coming from him as he’s had the largest annual budget deficits of any president EVER.

Further, President Obama must also know that Galveston County invested the taxes (which would ordinarily have gone to FICA) in Fixed Rate Guaranteed Annuities.  There are no ups and downs of the market.  There are no potential losses (annuities have strict regulation guidelines).  Any investor that has dabbled a little in the market knows how secure these are.

So claiming market instability as evidence of the ridiculousness of privatizing Social Security is simply put: foolish.

Congratulations! We just passed April 9^th! I’m sure you know what April 9^th is, right?  If not, let me tell you:

Taxes amount to 27% of our income for the average American. January 1^st to April 9^th represents 27% of the year. So starting April 10^th, the money you earn is the money you actually get to keep. That’s right, 99 days out of 365 days go to Uncle Sam. And just in time for April 15^th—Tax Day!

This is a sad statement on Christian men.  We have bought the world’s bag of goods and don’t even have the discernment to see that the goods aren’t very good.

But why didn’t Carnahan’s office produce it?  Why not take photos?  Why not let the press see it before you removed it?

What did you say?  There actually was NO COFFIN LEFT ON THE LAWN?  Oh, got it.  You made it.

KTVI has all the info here (scroll down for the video).

Jeff Emanuel at The New Ledger has some insight:

“Far from reducing the cost of health insurance, Massachusetts’s individual mandate has driven costs up at twice the average national rate. This was entirely predictable; after all, what can possibly reduce downward pressure on a price more effectively than a legal requirement to purchase it, whatever the cost? According to the Connector, the least expensive price for an insurance policy for a 50 year old non-smoker in 2008 was $3,599 a year ($299.94 per month), with a $2,000 deductible. Next door in Connecticut, that price was just $1,468 a year ($122.36 per month, with a $2,500 deductible) – and Connecticut hadn’t even spent $1.3 billion on controlling and engineering their state’s health care marketplace!”

So this is what we have to look forward to it nationalized health care passes.  I can’t wait.

via: Ben Domenech at The New Ledger

As to your opponent, I wish that before you set pen to paper against him, and during the whole time you are preparing your answer, you may commend him by earnest prayer to the Lord’s teaching and blessing. This practice will have a direct tendency to conciliate your heart to love and pity him, and such a disposition will have a good influence on every page you write.

If you account him a believer, though greatly mistaken in the subject of debate between you, the words of David to Joab concerning Absalom are very applicable: “Deal gently with him for my sake.” The Lord loves him and bears with him; therefore you must not despise him or treat him harshly. The Lord bears with you likewise, and expects that you should show tenderness to others from a sense of the much forgiveness you need yourself. In a little while you will meet in heaven. He will then be dearer to you than the nearest friend you have upon earth is to you now. Anticipate that period in your thoughts. And though you may find it necessary to oppose his errors, view him personally as a kindred soul, with whom you are to be happy in Christ forever.

But if you look upon him as an unconverted person, in a state of enmity against God and his grace (a supposition which, without good evidence, you should be very unwilling to admit), he is a more proper object of your compassion than of your anger. Alas! “He knows not what he does.” But if God, in his sovereign pleasure, had so appointed, you might have been as he is now, and he, instead of you, might have been set for the defense of the gospel. If you attend to this, you will not reproach or hate him, because the Lord has been pleased to open your eyes, not his.

Of all people who engage in controversy, we who are called Calvinists are most expressly bound by our own principles to the exercise of gentleness and moderation.”

John Newton, writing to a young minister, The Works of John Newton, I:268-270.

I grabbed this from The Gospel Coalition and Truth Matters.  Great insight!

Oh, well!  There is not even enough legislative language to allow the Congressional Budget Office to figure out how much his proposal would cost.  Of course, that wouldn’t be intentional, would it?  Because “transparency” is the word being used repeatedly–wait, that’s right, “transparency” for health care was the very same word he used as he campaigned for his presidency back in 2008.

To quote the CBO:

This morning the Obama Administration released a description of its health care proposal, and CBO has already received several requests to provide a cost estimate for that proposal. We had not previously received the proposal, and we have just begun the process of reviewing it—a process that will take some time, given the complexity of the issues involved. Although the proposal reflects many elements that were included in the health care bills passed by the House and the Senate last year, it modifies many of those elements and also includes new ones. Moreover, preparing a cost estimate requires very detailed specifications of numerous provisions, and the materials that were released this morning do not provide sufficient detail on all of the provisions. Therefore, CBO cannot provide a cost estimate for the proposal without additional detail, and, even if such detail were provided, analyzing the proposal would be a time-consuming process that could not be completed this week. [bold mine]

The AFA encouraged all its members to boycott Pepsi.  Over 500,000 signed the boycott pledge.  Since the boycott began, the AFA has monitored Pepsi’s activities and donations.  The substantial amounts of money given in 2008 to various homosexual activist groups by Pepsi did not occur in 2009.  Because of this the AFA has suspended its boycott.

See original story here.

Check out other great cartoons like this at Calvinistic Cartoons.

Michael Horton offers a critical examination of Osteen’s book, Becoming A Better You, that is worth reading.

Read more here.

-Chinese proverb

Read this article for some hope!

-Sigmund Freud

Now this doesn’t necessarily invalidate any system that Freud came up with.  However, when you take into consideration that the system he invented, psychoanalysis, has as one of its primary goals to treat psychological and emotional illness, you have to ask yourself if a person who thought that most people are trash really had other people’s best interests at heart as he developed his system.

The Global Warming pundits took a great hit recently when a server at the University of East Anglia was hacked containing emails and documents from well-known scientists supporting Global Warming.  The University has disclosed that the documents and emails that have been leaked were authentic.

Five points come out:

1. Prominent environmental scientists organize a boycott of scientific journals if those journals publish scholarly material from global warming dissidents.
2. The scientists then orchestrate attacks on the dissidents because of their lack of scholarly material published in scientific journals.
3. The scientists block from the UN’s report on global warming evidence that is harmful to the anthropogenic global warming consensus.
4. The scientists, when faced with a freedom of information act request for their correspondence and data, delete the correspondence and data lest it be used against them.
5. The scientists fabricate data when their data fails to prove the earth is warming. In fact, in more than one case, scientists engaged in lengthy emails on how to insert additional made up data that would in turn cause their claims to stand out as legitimate.

Read the full story here.

-President George Washington, October 3, 1789

Advance Auto Parts
Aldi
Banana Republic
Barnes & Noble
CVS Pharmacy
Dick’s Sporting Goods
Gap Stores
Harris Teeter Stores
Home Shopping Network
Kroger
Limited Brands
Nordstrom
Office Depot
Old Navy
Radio Shack
Staples
SUPERVALU
Victoria’s Secret

For a list of companies that do support Christmas, click here.

-Senator Kit Bond, R-MO, in reference to the government takeover of health care

Paul essentially tells Timothy to be at work in the spiritual gym. The word “train” is the Greek word “gumnaze” from where we get our word gymnasium. It is a mistake that we make to think that we can simply be spiritual without any effort or at least with minimal effort. A little 15 minute quiet time with prayer and reading the Word and we are invincible. Paul tells Timothy to TRAIN and makes as a comparison the physical training of the body. Timothy knew all too well the rigorous training that athletes went through and he would make the connection that Paul was saying, “In the same way athlete physically train, you need to spiritually train yourself.”

This is a slap in the face to the modern evangelical thinking of “I’ll just read my daily devotional from Oswald Chamber’s My Utmost for His Highest and I’ll be good to go–I’ll be close to Jesus and I’ll know His will.”

If only the Christian life were so simple and easy.

#1 Kentucky – 129 games (1943-1955) (broken by Georgia Tech 59-58 in Memorial Coliseum on Jan. 8, 1955)

#2 St. Bonaventure – 99 games (1948-1961)

#3 UCLA – 98 games (1970-1976)

#4 Cincinnati – 86 games (1957-1964)

#10 Arizona – 71 games (?-1992) (broken by UCLA)

If someone can help round out the Top 10 I’d appreciate it.

UPDATE: Here are my thoughts on the Kansas Jayhawks getting into the Top 10 on this list.  Currently, they have a 59 game home winning streak.  They will not play another home game until next basketball season.  This year 2009-2010 they played 12 home games BEFORE league play began.  If they win all of those, and they should, they’d tie Arizona at #10.  As long as their non-league games don’t include some powerhouse (and it usually doesn’t) and they don’t play a high ranked team in league play the first few games, they have a legitimate shot at working their way up the Top 10 list.

They had 20 total home games this year.  If they have 20 more next season and won them all, they’d have a 79 home game winning streak.  My guess is that would place them in the top 5 or 6.  If they went unbeaten again the following season and played 20 home games, then they’d tied St. Bonaventure at #2.  That would be quite a feat in this day and age of basketball.

See also:

Fox News Article

Another Article

1) The impulse to avoid painful growth by disappearing safely into the crowd in corporate worship is very strong.

2) The tendency toward passivity in listening to a sermon is part of our human weakness.

3) Listeners in a big group can more easily evade redemptive crises. If tears well up in your eyes in a small group, wise friends will gently find out why. But in a large gathering, you can just walk away from it.

4) Listeners in a large group tend to neglect efforts of personal application. The sermon may touch a nerve of conviction, but without someone to press in, it can easily be avoided.

5) Opportunity for questions leading to growth is missing. Sermons are not dialogues. Nor should they be. But asking questions is a key to understanding and growth. Small groups are great occasions for this.

6) Accountability for follow-through on good resolves is missing. But if someone knows what you intended to do, the resolve is stronger.

7) Prayer support for a specific need or conviction or resolve goes wanting. O how many blessings we do not have because we are not surrounded by a band of friends who pray for us.

Taken from John Piper’s sermon The Love of Human Praise as the Root of Unbelief

On this day in 1517, the great reformer, Martin Luther, nailed his 95 theses on the door of the church at Wittenburg.  It created a firestorm.  Eventually, Luther was called to the Diet of Worms in 1520 and asked to recant.  His famous proclamation still rings true 489 years later:

“Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can and will not retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”

–Matt Olson, Bible College President

This quote was just too funny to pass up.  I’m sure some Arminians out there will have a great time with it.

Yet, sadly the next time a ballot asks for a tax increase to benefit schools, well-intended people will simply vote “yes” and contribute their dollars (and mine) with no call for accountability and no call for improvement.

If the congressman is going to open it up for questions, then he has got to expect that a question regarding current issues (e.g. healthcare) is going to be asked.

So just answer the question.  If you are going to vote for it (and everyone in the room knew you were going to), then just say so and say why you support it.

I have yet to see (I am sure there is one out that somewhere besides Pelosi or Reid) a congressman or congresswoman openly state in front of their constituents they will vote for the healthcare bill.

So the Touch Pro 2 is my only hope of having an extremely fancy yet advanced smartphone.  Granted, there are others but none of them have really impressed me especially when compared to the iPhone.  But the Touch Pro seemed to come the closest.  So I have held out hopes that the Touch Pro 2 would meet my expectations and give me a phone similar to the iPhone.

–Margaret Thatcher

#5 You don’t have to–Parents are the ultimate authority (after God of course) of your children–not the state!  So you actually DO have a choice where to send your children.

#4 America’s schools are among the worse in the industrialized world–no comment needed

#3 America’s schools are morally repugnant–Not only do children have to hear about sex from their peers, now they hear about it straight from the teacher’s mouth!  Some states even have books in their curriculum that show acceptance of homosexuality along with other sinful behaviors.

#2 Government education is anti-Christian–Baucham notes, “Our education is either based on biblical truth, or some other ‘alleged truth.’  There is no such thing as neutrality in this regard.  All education is religious in nature.”

#1 The Bible commands Christ-centered education–If point #2 above is true, and point #1 here is true, then we must in obedience give our children a Christian education.  This is not possible within the public schools.

The AARP has an agenda and if you don’t like it, they’ll just leave.

It’ll be interesting to see what their membership numbers are at the end of this year if they continue pushing national health care.

-Todd Akin, US Representative from Missouri

Tonight ABC World News will be anchored from inside the White House.  They will have a prime-time special “Prescription for America” which is essentially a giant infomercial for nationalized health care.  Then President Obama will have a “town hall” meeting in the White House to further push his agenda.

For the next few days ABC plans to follow-up with a continued push for this proposal.  CBS, NBC, CNN and other stations except Fox are expected to put his proposal in a favorable light and have few, if any, dissenting opinions or proposals.

When the media/journalism becomes bias, it’s no longer true journalism but a giant Op-ed. While we’ve known this for some time, it’s sad when it’s this blatant and people can’t see it for what it is.

Further, NBC has given more than favorable coverage to President Obama. His interviews consist of nothing more than the proverbial “soft ball pitches” that he can slam out of the park. No hard questions.

Of course, this would have nothing to do with the fact that GE owns NBC, and GE is currently seeking billion dollar contracts from the government.

Romans 16:20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

For those keeping track, it would be one more area the Obama administration has taken more control over.  So far Obama has managed more government control for:

Banking
Housing
Auto Industry
Tobacco (if the bill passes the House)

And on the horizon is Health Care.  Today Obama placed an August deadline on Congress to get something passed and on his desk to sign.

*****UPDATE*****
The law was passed and signed by President Obama just days ago.

The American Family Association has called off its boycott of Pepsi.  See more info here.

———————————————————————

Pepsi has taken a number of actions lately to support and promote the gay lifestyle.  It is sad that Pepsi is refusing to remain neutral in the culture war and instead is aggressively endorsing this lifestyle.

Consider these items:

Green Day is crying censorship.

Censorship?  So should Walmart be required to sell anything and everything with no regard for content?  Does Walmart not have the right to choose what CDs it sells?  Or should it be required to sell everything single CD available. Geez, I guess Green Day would have no problem with a “back room” at Walmart for porn DVDs.  After all, refusing to do so is censorship since Walmart only sells G, PG, PG-13, and R rated movies.

Billie Joe Armstrong, the lead singer for Green Day, said, “You feel like you’re in 1953 or something.”

No, Billie, we feel like it’s 2009 where a company actually has the nerve to refuse to carry your unedited CD and you’re whining about it.

Walmart 1, Green Day 0

Email Walmart and thank them for their stand.

The specs are amazing and are available here.

I can’t wait and I’m hoping to be able to get one of these.  My current plan with Sprint has unlimited internet and the Sprint Reps say I have a good chance of not needing a internet plan, though they can not be sure until I actually try to buy the phone.

And the great thing with Sprint is that you have 30 days to decide whether to keep the phone.

And to be consistent, one who believes in gay marriage would also have to support other types of marriage that are not traditional like polyamory.

Citizen Link by Focus on the Family has an article detailing this trend.  And it won’t be stop there.  Pedophilia, bestiality, and other forms will all have supporters arguing they have the fundamental “right” to marriage.

The text of the speech is available at John Piper’s Blog.

When Machen was asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest “The first syllable is pronounced like May, the name of the month. In the second syllable the ch is as in chin, with e as in pen: may’chen. In Gresham, the h is silent: gres’am.”

Method 1 – The government can raise taxes and thus increase revenue.

Method 2 – The government can borrow the money.

Method 3 – The government can print the money.

There is no such thing as free money.

As Dr. Adrian Rogers notes, “The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.”

It’s like pulling a single hair from a dog and then saying, “Look at the great job we did cutting that dog’s hair.”

Well worth watching.  Unbelievable!

You have to watch all five minutes to get the full effect.

All I can say is, “Wow!”

According to the video, Clinton doesn’t realize that an embryo is already a fertilized egg.  Hello!

And this man set national policy for eight years!?

This link gives you a good idea of understanding how much it is.

After viewing it, you’ll probably say, “WOW!”  Just like I did.  Then you’ll probably bury your head in your hands when you realize how much our President and Congress are spending in the Stimulus Package ($800 billion) and in our regular budget (figures vary, but it’s at least above $1.5 trillion).

“Those who are really called of God to the sacred ministry are such as have been brought to a deep acquaintance with themselves, feel their own ignorance, and know their own weakness. They know also the awful responsibility that attaches to the work; and nothing but the authority of God can induce such to undertake it. They whom God never called run, because of worldly honour and emolument: the others hear the call with fear and trembling, and can go only in the strength of Jehovah.

How ready is the man to go, Whom God hath never sent! How timorous, diffident, and slow, God’s chosen instrument!”

–Adam Clarke, Commentary on Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 6

One advanced feature is that it will turn the voicemail into text for you and then SMS text message you or email you the text of the voicemail.

Google Voice is in its pre-release form and will be available to everyone soon.  If you want to know when you can use it, fill out this short form for Google, and they’ll email you.

For more info, visit Google Voice is Online Voicemail.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Check out this Sports Illustrated article.

Sounds like Rome is burning and Nero has his fiddle out.

George Grant has a list of the anti-life (i.e. pro-choice) decisions and actions that Obama has already made.

January 5, 2009 – Obama picks pro-abortion Virginia Governor Tim Kaine as the chairman of the Democratic Party.

January 6, 2009 – Obama chooses Thomas Perrelli, the lawyer who represented Terri Schiavo’s husband Michael in his efforts to kill his disabled wife, as the third highest attorney in the Justice Department.

January 22, 2009 – Releases statement restating support for Roe v. Wade decision that allowed virtually unlimited abortions and has resulted in at least 50 million abortions since 1973.

January 23, 2009 – Forces taxpayers to fund pro-abortion groups that either promote or perform abortions in other nations. Decison to overturn Mexico City Policy sends part of $457 million to pro-abortion organizations.

January 26, 2009 – Obama nominee for Deputy Secretary of State, James B. Steinberg, tells members of the Senate that taxpayers should be forced to fund abortions. Nominee erroneously says limits on abortion funding are unconstitutional.

January 29, 2009 – President Obama nominates extreme pro-abortion advocate David Ogden as Deputy Attorney General.

February 12, 2009 – Obama nominates pro-abortion Elena Kagan to serve as Solicitor General.

February 24, 2009 – Obama nominates Dawn Johnsen, a former NARAL attorney, as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of the Legal Counsel. Johnsen is a professor at the Indiana University School of Law, but she is also the former Legal Director for NARAL serving from 1988-1993. She has argued that any restriction that makes abortion less accessible is tantamount to “involuntary servitude” because it “requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state’s asserted interest in the life of the unborn.”

Thanks for keeping the record straight, George Grant.

Read the full article at the St. Louis Suburban Journals online.

–Tom Cole, US Representative (R-Okla.), in response to his voting against the stimulus bill.

–Sinclair Ferguson

$39 billion slush fund for “state fiscal stabilization” bailout
$5.5 billion for making federal buildings “green” (including $448 million for DHS HQ) $275 million for flood prevention
$65 million for watershed rehabilitation
$200 million for public computer centers at community colleges and libraries
$650 million for the DTV transition coupon program
$307 million for constructing NIST office buildings
$1 billion for administrative costs and construction of NOAA office buildings
$100 million for constructing U.S. Marshalls office buildings
$300 million for constructing FBI office buildings
$800 million for constructing Federal Prison System buildings and facilities
$10 million to fight Mexican gunrunners
$1.3 billion for NASA (including $450 million for “science” at NASA)
$100 million to clean up sites used in early U.S. atomic energy program
$10 million for urban canals
$2 billion for manufacturing advanced batteries for hybrid cars
$1.5 billion for carbon capture projects under sec. 703 of P.L. 110-140 (though section only authorizes $1 billion for five years)
$300 million for hybrid and electric cars for federal employees
$198 million to design and furnish the DHS headquarters
$255 million for “priority procurements” at Coast Guard (polar ice breaker)
$500 million for State and local fire stations
$180 million for construction of Bureau of Land Management facilities
$500 million for wildland fire management
$110 million for construction for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
$522 million for construction for the Bureau of Indian Affairs
$650 million for abandoned mine sites
$75 million for the Smithsonian Institution
$1.2 billion for summer jobs for youth
$412 million for CDC headquarters
$500 million earmark for NIH facilities in Bethesda, MD
$160 million for “volunteers” at the Corp. for National and Community Service
$750 earmark for the National Computer Center in MD
$224 million for International Boundary and Water Commission – U.S. and Mexico
$850 million for Amtrak
$100 million for lead paint hazard reduction

• $20 million “for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers.” (Pg. 45 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “20,000,000 for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers)
• $400 million for STD prevention (Pg. 60 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “CDC estimates that a proximately 19 million new STD infections occur annually in the United States …The Committee has included $400,000,000 for testing and prevention of these conditions.”)
• $25 million to rehabilitate off-roading (ATV) trails (Pg. 45 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “$25,000,000 is for recreation maintenance, especially for rehabilitation of off-road vehicle routes, and $20,000,000 is for trail maintenance and restoration”)
• $34 million to remodel the Department of Commerce HQ (Pg. 15 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: $34,000,000 for the Department of Commerce renovation and modernization”)
• $70 million to “Support Supercomputing Activities” for climate research (Pgs. 14-15 of Senate Appropriations Committee Report: $70,000,000 is directed to specifically support supercomputing activities, especially as they relate to climate research)
• $150 million for honey bee insurance (Pg. 102 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “The Secretary shall use up to $ 50,000,000 per year, and $150,000,000 in the case of 2009, from the Trust Fund to provide emergency relief to eligible producers of livestock, honey bees, and farm-raised fish to aid in the reduction of losses due to disease, adverse weather, or other conditions, such as blizzards and wildfires, as determined by the Secretary”)

If you are close to the O’Fallon, Missouri area, we would be honored to have you as our guest.  Our services start at 7pm with coffee & fellowship at 6pm.  You can check out our website: www.changetheglo.be

The tech-side of me wants to rush right out and buy a computer that has one of these chips, but then the frugal-side of me reminds me that my budget can’t handle it.  So, alas, I wait….and know that at some point I will be using one of these babies!

Intel Core i7

Looks like a pretty close race from this picture.  In fact, it looks like the Republicans might have won.  The problem is that “size” in one sense doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t matter how big the state is, if not many people live in it.  Likewise, it doesn’t matter how small the state is (e.g. New York) if a lot of people live in it.  Electoral votes are given out based on the population size of each state, not on its geographic size.

So taking this into account, if we reshape the US and make states “larger” that have more electoral votes, and states “smaller” that have less, we end up with this cartogram:

That shows quite a bit of difference.  Here the Democrats clearly won.

But what about by counties?  How did each county in the US vote in the 2008 general election?  Here it is:

Again, looking at just this it would appear there was a convincing victory for the Republicans.  But, alas, this cartogram, fails to take into account the size (not geographic-wise, but population-wise) of each county.  Doing this, gives us the following cartogram:

Again, this shows a convincing victory for the Democrats.

All pictures were taken from here.

Oftentimes when doing design work in Microsoft Office program, you need to move various items fractions of an inch.  In Publisher this is rather easy; simply, hit the various arrow keys and it moves ever-so-slightly in that direction.  But in a program like Word, hitting the arrow key results in a much bigger movement of the object than is normally desired especially if you are lining up various objects.

Thankfully, Microsoft has an answer to this.  Simply select the item you want to move and instead of hitting the arrow key by itself, hold down the CONTROL key and then hit the arrow key.  Doing this moves the selected object one pixel in the chosen direction.

Another helpful feature is when you want to drag an object to a certain location.  Oftentimes it is impossible to simply drag the object horizontally without also moving it slightly vertically; the reverse is also true–it’s hard to move the object vertically without moving slightly horizontally.  But sometimes you just want the object to go up/down or left/right.  To help users with moving an object in only one direction simply press the SHIFT key and then proceed to drag the object in the direction you want it.  This saves you the step of having to realign your object.

These shortcuts and helps apply to Excel, Word, Powerpoint, and Outlook.

–Mike Huckabee

Inverted Jenny

This is one of the world’s most infamous stamps.

William Robey in 1918 went to the Post Office and bought 100 of the these stamps when they were first issued.  All of them had the bi-plane inverted.  They were the only stamps to have the JN-4H bi-plane inverted.  It was an instant hit as Robey sold the stamps for $11,500.  Last year a perfect “Inverted Jenny” (named after the bi-plane on the stamp) was sold for $825,000.

Christian Martyrs in India

As well as this article: India Violence Against Christians Continues

So why does Barack Obama refuse to produce his Birth Certificate?

One of the requirements for the President of the United States is he or she be a natural-born citizen.  Obama has apparently put a image of his birth certificate on his website, but the birth certificate seems to not be genuine, but rather “photoshoped.”

Why can’t Obama simply produce the Birth Certificate?

When John McCain was asked about his Birth Certificate he immediately produced it.  Has Obama?  No.

It is most concerning that Obama doesn’t clear up this mess by simply producing his Birth Certificate?  Why would he not do that?  Unless, of course, he isn’t a natural-born citizen and he really has no US Birth Certificate.

Watch the video and make your own conclusions.

“WOW!” is all I can say.

It was an interesting morning in O’Fallon, Missouri.  They had checkpoints throughout O’Fallon looking for analleged murderer.  I didn’t go into work until I heard they had a subdivision cornered off and had the guy surrounded.  It turns out this happened less than 1/2 mile from my church, Liberty Christian Church.

NY Times on Fannie Mae and the Bailout

At the outset, let me say on of the biggest motivating factors for me in deciding to be “pro-drilling” in ANWR is because of the huge amount of revenue we give to foreign nations in regards to oil. Many of these nations either support terrorists, back the beliefs of terrorists, have a hostile nature towards the US, or disagree with key positions to me as a Christian and as a US Citizen. Many times it’s a combo of the above answers. Thus, we support their belief system financially.

If we were getting oil from Israel or Mexico or some nation friendly to us, it’d be different.

In addition to this, the money we pour into other nations is money we are not pouring into our own. Thus we hurt our economy.

Additional arguments that helped me to decide to be pro-drilling in ANWR:

-revenue would be $150-200 billion lifetime (the North Slope in Alaska, which we’ve been drilling for some time, gave $50 billion in revenue over 27 years; each state was impacted by this money)

-250,000-730,000 jobs created (note: vast majority would not reside in Alaska on the oil rigs/drills/platforms)

-the potential for a gigantic discovery (like other countries have made in the past) best lies in ANWR; we could be sitting on a 100 year supply (100 miles west of ANWR is America’s largest oil field)

-once we started drilling, price-wise it’d be a simple supply/demand model in terms of the worldwide price of oil. If we introduce a new supply and it’s a large enough amount, oil prices will come down (more supply + same demand = lower prices)

-current oil fields/oil areas have growth population in the animals; the caribou (reindeer) have grown from 3,000-32,000 in these regions (including Prudhoe Bay where pipelines exist)

-If ANWR was a state, it’d be larger than ten other states in the US. That’s a lot of ground to simply “shut” the door on.

-most of the area is uninhabitable; if you see pictures of it, the pictures look pretty bleak; it’s not the “beautiful” part of Alaska that is normally shown

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_casualties_of_war

The liberal media makes a big deal about the 4,000 lives lost. Yes, every one of those lives is of great value. But to suggest that because we have lost 4,000 lives we should therefore not have gone to war against Iraq is crazy. Some in the media have made that argument. Solely using that criteria would essentially turn you into a pacifistic nation. And nations that don’t go to war aren’t nations for very long.

Furthermore, over 20,000 people die each year from the flu.  That is five times the number of soldiers that have given their lives in Iraq.

Over 40,000 die each year in car crashes.  That is ten times the number of soldiers that have given their lives in Iraq.

We can choose to fight the enemy on his turf or let the enemy bring the war to our own homes.  Personally, I prefer the former.  We can also choose to have soldiers defend us and go to war for our country or we can choose to have them stay at home and instead allow our mothers, wives and children to be innocently slaughtered when the enemy brings the war to our country.

It is cheap and easy to complain and criticize the war in Iraq.  Freedom is never free.

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