It Has to Stop Raining Eventually

It has been quite some time since I last posted and that mostly has to do with my health being in a very bad down cycle. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome tends to run in cycles and this has been the worst one since I first succumbed to the illness over twenty years ago.  This was surprising because I’d thought I’d gotten good at handling the illness and had established a new bottom floor in the cycles.

But much like the large amounts of rain we’ve gotten this summer, it hasn’t shown any sign of letting up.  Locally, we are on a pace to break the seasonal rain totals set in 2007 when flooding devastated the area.  At least the last couple of days have been sunny, if humid, and the forecast only has a chance of rain tomorrow night.

Due to wearing myself out doing things on two days this past week, I ended up not getting out to church again.   I look forward to Sunday more than any other day of the week and this is aggravating.  Oh well, at least it looks like I’ll be getting out with the missionaries again later this week.

This downturn in my health has been so extended that I had to ask to be released from my calling as Ward Mission Leader.  I still insist it is the best calling a man can have as a Latter-day Saint and didn’t want to give it up.  But the Holy Ghost made it clear it needed to be thus and so at the end of June I was released.  Still a ward missionary though and that’s a relief.

So I keep hoping my health and other circumstances will improve.  My intentions are to post here more often and will probably do more movie reviews just to keep me motivated.

And at some point post about the cat who walked in the cat door and won’t leave.

A Society That Can’t Protect Itself…

… Is a society that will collapse.  That appears to be the case in the United Kingdom as the disarmed populace and police officers were in no position to stop their latest spree killer. 

At some point this unwillingness to defend their people has to be considered madness, one would think.  Bird was armed with a .22 rifle and a shotgun, but was able to kill as many people as the Fort Hood shooter who had a semi-automatic pistol.  With a mostly unarmed police force, the Brits failed to stop a murderer when they couldn’t shoot back.  Governments exist to protect their people from harm and instill order of some kind; that is the most basic tenet of governance. 

This makes me grateful to life in a country that has the right to bear arms and hasn’t forgotten that deadly force is needed to stop such murderers.  Well, at least for the moment.

A bill has been proposed in New York state to limit police officer to shooting to wound arms and legs.  Anyone who has fired a pistol knows it isn’t like the movies and that they aren’t that precise.  Police officers aren’t going to be in range conditions being able to take their shots slowly and methodically without any incoming lead.  Simply put, there is no way “shoot to wound” can be done!

We are living in an era of dangerous stupidity.

A Grim Memorial Day Weekend

It’s been awhile since I posted and a lot has happened.  While I’ve been fighting my health problems, my father had hernia surgery on relatively short notice to begin the month of May.  An older friend I home taught for years died a very prolonged death this past Monday.  Then yesterday, two people from a family we know were killed in Memorial Day traffic when a trailer came loose from a pickup into their lane.  It has been a very rough month.

Started getting sick Friday night and thought I might be over it by this morning, but I’m worse again.  Some virus going around, I expect.  So no church today.  Absolutely trivial compared to what has happened and I don’t know if I can say enough prayers for the Cox family… So I’m asking everyone who reads this to pray for them.

Odds and Ends

Will be working on a post about the Tea Party in Winona last week and about the Republican Congressional District 1 endorsement convention this past Saturday to put up this week.

In the meantime, a few items that caught my eye the last two weeks:

A follow up on the couple beaten in New Orleans last week by leftwing protesters.  The Palin pin part of it has been debunked, but it is very clear this was a politically motivated attack. The mainstream media shows that they are well beyond simple bias by ignoring this one.  If conservative protesters had done this to a pair of Democrats it would be the overkill story for weeks.

Dr. Helen aka the Instawife has an interesting piece up about how psychologists are moving to social activism in their therapy.  This is damning stuff and worth checking out. The desire to control other’s lives is getting to be the hallmark of the left.

Speaking of controlling people, the FDA is going to start regulating salt in prepared foods.  This serves two goals:  controlling the population even in the most miniscule way and to inflate the number of government employees (they’ll need to hire more to administrate this, of course). Idiocy. Look for more of this under the guise of lowering the government’s cost of providing healthcare.

There is no way ObamaCare can be funded, it is simply impossible.  But the Democrats will keep trying and one way they want to raise taxes is by adding a VAT (Value Added Tax). That hasn’t worked out so well for the Europeans and is yet another way to retard the growth of an economy.  In our case, it would kill it dead. Best quote:

In 2008, the average resident of West Virginia, one of the poorest American states, had an income $2,000 a year higher than the average resident of the European Union, according to economist Mark Perry of the University of Michigan, Flint.

Oh yeah, we really need to emulate those Europeans.

Denial of reality seems to be a big part of leftwing big government.  Over in California they are doing their best to be like Europe and ignore the financial catastrophe they are in.  Entertainment comes first but the piper will have to be paid eventually.

Meanwhile, that unpronounceable volcano in Iceland is still hampering flying and a bigger eruption is possible.  But just how unsafe was it to fly?  Turns out that the grounding was based exclusively on computer models and nary a single weather balloon was sent up to get real data. The religion of computer models has already given us the fraud of man made global warming and now this is going on. Once again reality is being ignored in favor of theory.  I’m afraid science is dead.

The relationship between Israel and the United States is on life support as well.  The hostility of Obama and his cronies toward the Israelis  has been palpable of late and has generated a great deal of concern. I’ve been warning people he is slowly building a case for armed conflict with Israel and been greeted with dismissal.  Better look again, as this refusal by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to rule out shooting down Israeli planes crossing Iraqi airspace to hit Iran. The ghost of Jeremiah Wright is alive and well in the Obama administration.

A Must Read

Read it and weep for the future.

Beware the False Flags at the Tea Parties

UPDATED

One of the most dangerous things that can happen to someone involved in a cause is succumbing to the belief that “the end justifies the means.”  The cause then justifies any kind of dishonest behavior and falsehood.  Having wandered the political spectrum I can say all political persuasions have people vulnerable to the philosophy.  However, the percentages are far higher in those who tilt to the political left.

Case in point is the slander directed at Tea Partiers.  The media can’t resist going profoundly negative in an effort to protect their secular messiah, Obama. But interestingly enough, it isn’t working with 40% of the people having a positive view of the Tea Party movement. Attempts to paint authentic grassroots protesters as racist/white supremacist have failed miserably as polling has shown the cultural breakdown of the groups to be nearly identical to the general population.

So what to do when the lies don’t get traction?  Start a false flag operation to frame Tea Partiers as extremists.

As reprehensible as this is, I suspect it is only the beginning.  So keep an eye out at the Tea Parties for troublemakers.  They aren’t going to be the real deal.

UPDATE

Further evidence of how the left is moving toward extreme behavior including violence.

Over at Gateway Pundit, Jim Hoft has two posts up today worth reading.  The first is on the AP lying about racist comments being made by Obamacare protesters.  They’ve escalated to lying about the videos (plural) out there that don’t show any evidence of epithets being flung.  The AP is aiding and abetting the lies being told by the Congressional Black Caucus by claiming it was one video that was presented by conservative and libertarian bloggers.

That’s not the worst of it though.

Violence has always been an inherent aspect of left wing politics, from the bombings in the early 1970’s to the fringe anarchists (their calls for anarchy are just a cover for hating capitalism) attacking Republicans on a bus at the 2008 National Convention. The beating of Kenneth Gladney by SEIU thugs last year got faint media attention.  Now we have this savage beating of a young couple for wearing Sarah Palin pins.

Once again you can hear crickets chirping with the media being silent.  I expect more of this as the public turns against the Democrats.

Happy Easter + Thoughts on General Conference

I hope everyone has a happy Easter and use the time to reflect on all the good things they have in life - no matter how big or small. It is a time of gratitude for me.

We celebrate Easter to remember the Lord rising and conquering death.  That glorious feat made it possible for all of us to be saved from death and be able to come back to our Heavenly Father.  There is no greater gift giver than the Savior and we should be very grateful to Him.

Life has been very difficult of late, but there are always small things to be grateful for no matter how dark the storm clouds.  These are trying times for most people, so I don’t exactly feel alone in this.

Is also has been time for General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It is always interesting to pick out the main themes being taught in the sessions, for they are to be guidance for half the year (if not beyond).  So far, the one that seems to dominate is guiding the children of the Church correctly. A great deal of concern is being shown toward children going astray and what parents should be teaching to prevent that.

With our popular culture in a freefall of depravity and hedonism this is one of the biggest challenges facing us today.  It takes more effort to be righteous with each generation it seems and I think part of the unrest in the political sphere represents more than just economic worries.  A feeling of things slipping away is pervasive in the conversations I have with people. 

Another theme in the conference talks is about how happiness doesn’t come from the material world, but from the spiritual. I’m hoping to hear more on that today.

UPDATED

Another General Conference has ended and it will be six months until the next one.

Again the main theme was about teaching and raising the “rising generation” in righteousness.  Over and over the responsibility of parents and youth leaders in guiding the children in the Church was stressed.  Dealing with adversity was the secondary theme with the Atonement by Jesus Christ given equal emphasis.

My favorite talk was by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf from the Sunday morning session. “Let us love at all times,” is something I try to live by; following in the Saviors footsteps.  Counseling the members not to look down upon others due to their appearance or circumstances in life stood out to me. That instruction is something more members of the Church should listen to. It also spoke to me more than the talks on parenting – not surprising as I have no children and very little prospect of ever marrying.

I look forward to reading the talks and seeing which ones will work the best for missionary work!