Month: March 2016

Plain “speaking”

National/Domestic:

The Week magazine’s current issue’s cover story is how Trump is killing the Republican Party. What hot air! What is FINALLY killing the status-quo Republican Party is conservatives finally get at least one candidate who is not only saying what they believe in their own hearts but that is NOT an establishment crony. Our two-party malfunction is simply the one and same hand. The difference is the front of the hand or the back of the hand; that is it. Of course there is concern in many of the Trump voters if he will deliver. They aren’t idiots. But what they do know is the candidates the Republican Party has provided are a bunch of individuals who will on the whole will be no freaking different than Hillary.

The party decides it wants to usurp the citizens and not select their choice. You know what that is? Yet ANOTHER clear example of TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION! You know what we are SUPPOSED TO DO when that happens? Read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights. We are supposed to RISE UP and REMOVE the ENTRENCHED CORRUPT form of government.

Brussels:

What a sad state of affairs in Brussels. I listened quite a bit to the coverage about the terrorist attacks in Brussels yesterday and this morning. I heard a lot rehashing the story to fill up air time. I also heard supposed experts on either Brussels, foreign policy, terrorism, intelligence or our administration. Some really ridiculous comments were made. I wish I could quote exactly and name the individual but I was driving when I heard them and well, safety first. In general the comments were like:

  1. Isis is retreating and scrambling to recover since they lost 20% of the land they held in an area of Iraq.
  2. What is needed is more actionable intelligence.
  3. Yes, there are in essence, self-governing Muslim neighborhoods in Brussels…
  4. Here in the USA we may need to make air passengers arrive to the airport on foot instead of by car at the departure area of the terminals.

With ISIS and any other terrorist group, we have individuals who are simply not “playing by the rules”. We have individuals who do not want to be citizens of the neighborhood or country/state that they reside in. We have individuals who want to kill as many people as possible who disagree with their warped, immoral, unethical religious beliefs and convictions. They simply want to kill all “the others” or convert them by sword/AK-47. The continuous insistence that civilization must play by the rules in fighting these degenerate life-forms is noble in the romantic view of life but also quite ridiculous in the practical and real matter of life itself. This is not a police matter. These are not individuals who have rights in our country or any other country simply because THEY CHOOSE not to be citizens of their locale. Since they have made this choice we need to honor their point of view and treat them as real-life agents of death and destruction. If you or I discovered an IED in our neighborhood, would we take time to ascertain if it was ethical and/or legal to engage immediately in order to save human lives? Hopefully the answer is no. That is how we MUST view and engage any terrorist.

It is long time past for the leaders of government and policy to realize and act on the fact that the only way to win these battles is with the same vehemence a physician tries to eradicate cancer in a patient. You do it immediately, fully and with prejudice.

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The Loyal Penguin

Retired bricklayer and part-time fisherman Joao Pereira de Souza, 71, found the animal back in 2011 when he washed up on a beach, starving and covered in oil.

Joao, who named the penguin Dindim after discovering him in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, decided to take the creature home and nurse it back to health.

Once Dindim was well again, Joao released him back into the wild – and didn’t expect to see the penguin ever again.

ut just a few months later, the South American Magellanic penguin returned to the beach and followed Joao home.

According to Globo TV, Dindim spends eight months with Joao and the rest of the year breeding off the coast of Argentina and Chile – 5,000 miles away.

Joao told the Brazilian news channel: “I love the penguin like he’s my own child and I believe the penguin loves me.

“No one else is allowed to touch him. He pecks them if they do. He lays on my lap, lets me give him showers, allows me to feed him sardines and to pick him up.”

t took 11 months for Dindim to be nursed back to full health and for the past four years he has been a loyal visitor to his rescuer.

Read more: Cute penguin chicks huddle up to keep warm in -24°C temperatures

Joao added: “He arrives in June and leaves to go home in February, and every year he becomes more affectionate as he appears even happier to see me.”

dindim1 dindim2

 

 

Story link

 

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Open-minded

I lost a supposed friend last Sunday. One who had some different beliefs but was open-minded (supposedly) and we had been friends for about a year. Heck even pen-pals. Open-minded, I love that when people claim that. Yep the person was open-minded as long as I apparently didn’t believe God, the Lord Jesus Christ and Christianity. Open-minded, you underestand, as long as the beliefs are the same as theirs. Open-minded. So far in my limited life experience of almost 51 years, the person who claims such isn’t REALLY. I apparently thanked God too much in my posts when I wrote about blessings and answered prayers.
What is kind of interesting is I have been thinking about the term “open-minded” a bit recently. I had recently heard that for a Christian that being “open-minded” in essence allows ourselves to vex our souls (2 Peter 2:7-8). Put another way, it puts us in constant environments that we know we should not be a part of (ex. abstain from all appearance of evil – 1 Thess. 5:21-22). So I have been thinking about that and what that really means/implies on the whole and to my own self. I am still not sure of the whole paradigm (if that is the correct word to use) but I must agree that I have been getting a bit wore out having to skip posts by individuals who embrace a lifestyle or belief system that is so contrary to mine. I know not everyone agrees with everyone else on everything so that isn’t the issue. It’s more about serious systemic beliefs that I understand to be wrong. So then maybe the fact that the individual isn’t open-minded after all actually means that they have more serious convictions about their own beliefs than I do, which if that is true, means to me I have allowed my soul to be vexed when I was trying to be engaging and open-minded myself. Which gets me to thinking about the phrase “open-minded” and how it should be correctly used/applied. Maybe – though now I am pretty positive it is the case – the willingness to be “open-minded” isn’t always a good thing or more importantly – the right thing.

It is more important in trying to develop relationships and friendships to be true to what you know is right even if that limits the opportunities to gain friendships. After all, for a Christian, the most important relationship one should have is with the Lord. If the chief “aim” of the human being is to glorify and enjoy God I am sure that obedience to Him trumps open-mindedness for the sake of being engaging is not going to lead to success in accomplishing one’s chief aim.

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