A very clever rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus performed by The Silent Monks.

See ‘ya later, gotta see what the wife’s up to America’s First Black President seeks the help of America’s First Black President.

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Yes, 3 + 1 = 2 + 2 Carville thinks America’s First Black President should seek more than help from America’s First Black President’s wife.

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What did you expect, with all the apologizing?

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Tactical Awareness Not always a matter of physicality.

In 2008, there were almost 10 million cases of identity theft in the US alone, 22% more than the previous year. While people are getting better at recognizing identity theft, and minimizing the damage, the best solution is to prevent it from happening in the first place by following these steps.

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Christmas Shopping Kudos From an e-mail sent by Sheplers (Western wear), not shying away from mentioning the unmentionable holiday this season.

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Holiday MP3 Store? From Amazon.com, a partial screenshot of their “Holiday MP3 Store”. In perusing the ~46 MP3 albums listed, it appears that the unmentionable word “Christmas” is mentioned 36 times. Of the remaining titles, a Christmas related word (e.g., Noel, Santa, etc.) is listed 6 times. Hmmm, 42 out of 46. Now, what “holiday” is that, again?

All things are better in Koine! And my friend Joe Carter should get a kick out of the shot of Biola’s infamous hippie Jesus mural.

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Bad News / Good News The Bad News? 49% of Protestants think Mormons are Christians. The Good News? Those same Protestants are looking forward to having a whole lot of fun at church this coming Sunday.

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Mexico tosses us a red herring From CNN,

Violence in the United States is not related to illegal Mexican immigrants, but violence in Mexico is connected to vast shipments of weapons from the United States, Mexico’s foreign minister told CNN Thursday.

Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa pointed to efforts by Mexico to stop the flow of weapons, the great majority of which come from the United States.

“Since 2006,” she said in a wide-ranging interview with CNN’s editorial board in New York City, “the Mexican government has seized over 85,000 weapons in Mexico.”

She noted that it’s not just “regular weapons,” but also machine guns, grenades and other high-power arms.

Robert Pastor, a Latin America national security adviser for President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s, pointed out last year there were at least 6,600 U.S. gun shops within 100 miles of the Mexican border and more than 90 percent of weapons in Mexico come from the United States.

I’d venture to say that the chances are slim to none that one could purchase machine guns, grenades, or other [related] high-power arms, in any of those 6,600 gun shops.

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With either choice, your system’s gonna get cleaned out Evidently, people would prefer to have a colonoscopy vs. cleaning out their computer’s registry.

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The FBI chooses Glock Contract award at close to $1 million, for 2,900+ Glock 23 .40SW handguns.

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Lucky Break: significant good fortune or opportunity What do you do, if you’re committed to naturalism, and you’re faced with the fact that your very existence hinged on at least 10 highly improbable events of the past? Well, the rational, neo-Darwinistic logical conclusion must surely be that we were really, really, really, really, really lucky! For those who can actually put 2 + 2 together, the folks at Reasons to Believe have been discussing the design aspects of our universe, for quite some time.

Self Defense for a Bear Attack If it was me, I’d leave the summer squash for the crockpot, and utilize something that has the word “magnum” associated with it.

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Geek News of the Week Images of Aurora on Saturn’s South Pole.

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The S.L.E.D. Test as an argument against abortion Whenever I discuss the topic of abortion with a person who is pro-abortion, it’s amazing to see the lack of clarity and reason in their position. Truth be told, when unpacked to its core features, their position is without rational basis. Scott Klusendorf, formerly from Stand to Reason, discusses the S.L.E.D. Test, what it is, and how to rationally apply it to demonstrate that the unborn are valuable as human beings.

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Funny

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Obama think $1.00 will cover the purchase of 4 apples And, yes, the media didn’t handle it like they did when Dubya was around.

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The 1% Solution? Bono’s One Foundation only manages to direct a little over 1% of what it receives to the needy? Ouch! Maybe the Obama administration should consider a takeover?

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Power to the People! The last best hope…

From a Facebook friend,

Q: What do Twilight and the World Cup have in common?

A: They’re 90 minutes, nothing happens, no one scores, and if you don’t like it, it’s because you “just don’t get it”.

A little personal story … and the outcome I blame on long time commenter, JA aka the Jewish Atheist.

About a month ago, after dinner with my wife and youngest daughter, we stopped in a sporting goods store with an eye to pricing camping equipment. The store didn’t have a good selection of “real” (backwoods, hiking/canoeing) gear but my youngest announced she needed a new swimsuit.

Blam! I was trapped. Time just gets sucked away when two women start shopping. The two of them dived into the suits picking out various ones and trying on a vast array of offerings. So I was left to wander the store. I didn’t find much. An odd or end to help clean the pistol (.22 caliber Ruger Mark III) we use for our weekly range outing. The only other thing I found (and purchased) was an inexpensive Buck folding knife. Which … my eldest daughter then appropriated for herself. Hmmph.

Now, some months ago, JA had recommended a Spyderco “Sharpmaker” for keeping kitchen and other knives sharp. I had taken it to a family gathering some time ago and whiled away some hours gainfully sharpening our hosts cutlery and as a tool it’s worked quite well.  Anyhow, having had one knife snatched like that led me to shop for another … and I picked up a book on “whittling” from Amazon (The Little Book of Whittling) after all you can’t do anything without more books. 🙂

Seeing that Spyderco made a sharpener so I checked and lo and behold they make knives too, e.g.,   the Spyderco Tenacious. I got this one. Which was then appropriated by my youngest daughter. In (mock) desperation, I purchased a third which I claimed for myself by calling it a “father’s day” present (specifically this one, Spyderco Dragonfly).

So now we are all spending some quantity of spare time with our new hobby making pieces of wood smaller and trying not to nick our fingers too frequently. I did in fact buy more bandages just last week.

From Chuck Asay (click for a larger version):

A bit of selective outrage.

I’ve been mulling this over for quite a while, and I think it’s time to put these thoughts out there and see if I can get other fair-minded folks to back me up on this.  I’ll have to admit it’s not something that’ll be easy to adjust to, but I think that, in the end, you’ll thank me.

On average, every year airline travel kills 1,000 people.  Every year.  Now, statistics about deaths per passenger or per passenger-mile are used to try to mitigate this, but if one of those 1,000 people is someone you know — friend, family, or perhaps yourself — it doesn’t matter how many others didn’t die.  Those are 1,000 people that aren’t going to be landing at an airport near you ever again.  Consider this; that’s 1/3 of a 9-11-type terrorist attack every year.  Where’s the uproar about that? 

And even if you cravenly choose to brush this aside, let’s not forget the death traps that are automobiles.  On an average year, these instruments of death cause 40,000 – 50,000 deaths!  Every year!  Osama bin Laden doesn’t have to kill us infidels with planes; he can just wait for Detroit to do it for him. 

Given the immense human cost of these modes of transportation, I think that any sober individual would agree that these statistics prove that air flight and driving should be outlawed, or at least a moratorium put on their use until such time as they can be made completely harmless to man and beast alike. 

This isn’t, or shouldn’t be, a Democrat/Republican, liberal/conservative thing.  All Americans have life, and losing it should be avoided at all costs.  Even one death is too much if we truly value the safety of our people, especially our children.  Children are usually put into these instruments of death without a say in the matter, and so we must speak for them.  Ban transportation for the children.

This may adversely affect our culture, our economy, and our competitiveness in the world market, but again, what is one life worth?  Environmentalists seek to save endangered animals; what about the endangered humans?

In conclusion, instead of moving around so much, we should stay still.  Still, baby, still! 

In other news today, with the oil spill from the BP rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico ,which killed 11, heading for land, many on the Left are calling for a stop to off-shore drilling.  Some are invoking an accident from 21 years ago to buttress their point, and asking for at least a moratorium on new drilling.  Perfection, apparently, has not yet been reached.

AP Photo/Icelandi Coastguard

Halldor Kolbeins/AFP/Getty Images

An Alternative Observation of Earth Day

 1.       In the face of slow action by humankind, God temporarily addresses global warming with volcanic ash that may lower worldwide temperatures for a time. 

2.       To provide an example of how people can slow down for a few days, God closes European airspace, dramatically reducing  consumption (and the burning of fossil fuel) and helping people observe the Sabbath.  

3.       Makes a dramatic statement:  The Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” Psalm  24:1. 

J

Joe Carter tells us, “No, Your Kid Can’t Paint Like Jackson Pollock”.

If this is a good representation of paintings [sic] by Jackson Pollock, then my reply would be:

Thank God!

Why is the Left getting so worked up about Sarah Palin jotting down reminder notes on the palm of her hand, for her speeches? Maybe she should simply read her speeches, word for word via a teleprompter, like the President does.

From Michael Ramirez (click for a larger version):

Oh look, a squirrel….

And, hopefully, stay there.

Now, this is funny (HT: hellinahandbasket),

…it is simply not reasonable for a 19-year old punk to be plucked off the Iowa plains, given a prized appointment to Starfleet Academy, immediately promoted above all of his upper classmates, and then immediately commissioned as not only a junior officer, but a captain — and then given command of a major vessel. This is stupid and asinine, and was only written because it makes 14-year old girls swoon.

Star Trek might attract 14-year old girls, but it should not be written with that as its primary goal.

While I thought the movie was enjoyable, to a point, I was completely annoyed with the incessant reflections on the bridge of the Enterprise, and found the video-game-like battle scenes to be tiring after, say, 10 – 15 seconds. Critics claim that the standard Star Trek series / movies are dull banter. Well – yeah – what did you expect? It’s Star Trek!

Yes, we’re in that time of year when people scurry about, putting up holiday decorations, baking holiday treats, purchasing holiday gifts, writing holiday cards, attending holiday parties, and even trimming holiday trees. And all the while, we’re told by an impotently paranoid culture that we cannot utter the name of THE holiday that all our December actions are based on. Heaven forbid we should actually mention the holiday that everyone KNOWS is being celebrated.

Beginning just prior to Halloween, Disneyland re-decorates their “Haunted Mansion” attraction to combine aspects of both Halloween and that unmentionable day of celebration (which happens to be sometime near the Winter Solstice). Jack-O-Lanterns are mixed with images of Sandy Claws and the like. As one enters the attraction, it is interesting to note the canned narration inviting guests to “come inside and see what happens when two holidays collide!” Well, it’s obvious that one of the holidays is Halloween, but which holiday is it colliding with?

Kwanzaa?

Festivus?

Hanukkah?

Ramadan?

However you celebrate the holiday formerly known as [strong throat clear], take the time to read two sites, written by my friend Ilona, dedicated to the Advent of that colliding holiday (see here and here).