Happy Thanksgiving

The midterm election season is behind us, kind of, with the GOP retaining the Senate.

There is so much for which we should be thankful.

Personally, I have so many things for which to be thankful it would take me all day to list them. I thank Jesus Christ for what He did and what He continues to do – He's my Lord and Savior. I thank the saints for persevering in handing down the faith. I thank those brave souls who established this Union. I thank our military men and women for preserving this nation. I thank my ancestors for making the difficult journeys to American soil. I thank my parents for birthing and raising and supporting me. I thank my wife for marrying me and birthing and mothering my children. I could go on and on, but I won't.

Some Leftists go into their theatrics this time of year, braying about how horrible it was for Europeans to bring western civilization to the Americas. It makes me wonder why the ones in the U.S.A. who are European ancestry haven't moved to Europe.

This idea that the native peoples living here (who, by the way, were also newcomers at one time) were all peaceful and noble and that the Europeans who settled here were horrible, evil people who always mistreated the natives is ridiculous. All over the world, people have been overtaken and either killed off or integrated. Yet only in certain parts of the English-speaking world is the integration portrayed as evil and celebrating anything remotely connected to it is stopped.

But notice that the Normans didn't give the Anglo-Saxons any sovereign territory, nor casino operation exemptions. Such concessions are not typical of victorious peoples.

Don't let the Leftists take away Thanksgiving. Celebrate proudly.

It is time for us to pause and consider that there is much for which we should be thankful, and we should thank Him. If you're not inclined to do that, then consider all of the people in your life who have been there along the way, providing emotional support, friendship, guidance, and goods and services.

The modern American Thanksgiving meal is an overly bountiful one, a testament to how somewhat free markets and capitalism have produced plenty. From the farmer to the importer to the grocer, participants in the market have allowed us to splurge.

I bid you a safe, pleasant, and reflective Thanksgiving Day.

We Should Defend Our Borders

Remember when the latest Leftist panic was guns (again)? As I type this, the Left's panic-du-jour is "children separated from their parents" at the nation's borders. The Left is desperately pushing this panic with everything they have. This is probably an effort to derail momentum for border security (because the Left doesn't actually believe in national borders but will gladly use them to their advantage anyway) and distract from devastating things like the IG Report and Hearings.

Plenty of people generally not the Left have hopped onto this bandwagon, and understandably so. We can all agree it is sad that kids are placed in the position of being detained in a different location than their parents. It looks awful and it sounds awful. But how did things get this way?

It's really awful when a surgeon has to cut into somebody, especially a kid. It looks bad. It's going to cause a lot of pain. It would be great if the surgeon never had to do that. But the surgeon is reacting to events that were set in motion when someone assaulted someone else. Then the victim was brought to the surgeon, who has to deal with the mess with no perfect way forward that looks tidy and won't cause any pain.

What's really going on?

Absurdities in California

Time for the March of the Criminals and Commies again, since it is May 1. And of course it is pure coincidence that the Caravan of Wannabe Invaders came all the way to the California portion of the border and arrived at this time. Riiiiiiight. What a bunch of stupid theatrics.

Someone forgot they were supposed to be in the shadows!

Speaking of stupid cultural appropriation of kabuki theater, Larry Lopez, appearing under his stage name Nativo, is still doing a very poor imitation of Jesse Jackson. Or maybe Gloria Alred? Whichever. Larry, whose attempt to beat a criminal prosecution had him either feigning dementia eight years ago, or making a miraculous recovery since, or perhaps is still demented (I'll let you decide), made it into the Orange County Register and either the reporter was too lazy or agenda-driven to note the paper's previous coverage of Larry, or the editors decided to cover for him. It even appears to me that they have prevented comments from being made on the article.

If you're not interested, at least scroll down for a reminder that rioting has lasting negative consequences.

Tax Day is Tomorrow

With income taxes due tomorrow, here are some of my entries dealing with taxes:

Wrong Turns on California Roads

Dear Progressives, Socialists, Liberals, Leftists, and Democrats

Funding Government: Of Fees and Taxes

If You're a Social Network Professional or Investor

I hope you can still read this. Certain large tech companies have been silencing or at least restricting content creators and users who aren't in lockstep with the Leftist*/SJW/victicrat doctrines and practices. Some fire or push out employees who deviate from the groupthink.

A viable social networking platform is needed that won't be hostile to conservatives, libertarians, moderates, classical liberals, observant Jews, and conservative/evangelical Christians. Facebook and Twitter are two huge examples of services that have been engaging in problematic practices. A long time ago, Townhall.com, which hosted user blogs, might have been able to evolve into such a service, but that's a long dead issue.

So, if you're a "Silicon Valley", tech, or social network person with technical expertise and/or managerial skills and/or money to invest and you're NOT a Leftist, it behooves you to give the majority of us who aren't Leftists a viable alternative, once that will protect privacy. People will be willing to pay a small monthly or yearly fee or pay for extra services as long as they know they aren't being shadowbanned or otherwise restricted and that the information they've set to "private" won't be shared. People have been leaving Facebook, Twitter, and certain other services. Many more would be willing to jump ship for a viable, user-friendly alternative, or at least would add an account at the new service. Even some Leftists would join, and they should be welcomed as long as they can be prevented from trolling/harassing staff or other users.

I think such a service would offer the ability to:

• network
• form and maintain groups
• schedule/plan/invite to events
• post and share short comments/updates as well as longer-form commentaries and analysis, text, audio, images, videos
• follow/block content and other users
• commenting on content
• private messaging 

The terms of such a service could still prevent or remove activity that encourages or facilitates crime, terrorism, or even actual racism (regardless of the source).

So how about it??? Who will take advantage of the opportunity that is before them???


*Leftism is distinct from classical liberalism. An important difference is that Leftists do not support free speech. There are other examples.

If Friday Was Good, Sunday Was Spectacular

A carpenter, with questionable parentage, from an unremarkable town, walked the countryside. He attracted followers, keeping twelve with him closely and three of those especially close as he spoke to groups large and small. He was part of an oppressed group - a Jew in a Roman-occupied part of the world. He said and did things that confounded the dominant religious authorities of the day. People flocked to him for a miracle. There was something he claimed that was outrageous to his fellow Jews: He was God. Arrogance? Insanity? Fraud? From a man who urged people to forgive each other and love each other?

For thousands of years, it had been pounded into the minds and hearts of the Jews that there was ONE God and that He was spirit, not an idol that could be kept in a room. He was a unique, personal being, not a "force" or something we all could be or have if we meditated enough.

And yet here was a Jew, this guy who was extremely familiar with the Scriptures – including the ones that said there was just one God - walking around claiming to be God. He wasn't part of the recognized system of priests and religious leaders, so he posed a threat to them and their comfortable, established way of doing things. This guy even had the nerve to disrupt their moneymaking schemes.

Enough was enough!

They handed this guy over to the Romans and demanded that he be executed. He was a threat to the religious leaders, and since he'd claimed to be a king, he must be a threat to the Romans, too. Furthermore, anyone claiming to God was being blasphemous, right? The Roman leader, while spooked a little, didn't find anything wrong with the man, especially after the man explained that his kingdom wasn't of this world. Yet the Romans needed to keep order, and people were demanding that this "king" die. The "king" was taken and scourged - whipped so brutally that his skin was shredded. That wasn't enough. The people wanted this "king" to die. And so this carpenter, who had worked with wood for years to make useful things for other people, was forced to carry the very wood he'd be nailed to so that he could hang on a cross bleeding and losing his ability to breathe.

This man who'd preached loved and forgiveness, who had urged people to turn from their sins, who had healed the sick, who had done some controversial things but never anything wrong, was beaten and executed, all in excruciating pain.

That was what we now call "Good" Friday.

If that was all that happened, most of us would never have heard of Good Friday. Someone may have mentioned this carpenter in an obscure list of Jews who claimed to be the Messiah, but most of us would never have heard of this Nazarene.

But it wasn't all that happened.

On Sunday morning, once the holy days and feasts were over, some people who loved this carpenter were returning to care for his body as a final sign of respect.

The body was gone, though. Nobody ever found the body. To their shock, this Jesus, who had been scourged and killed, was alive and well - very well - though he still had the holes in his hands from the nails and the hole in his side where a spear had shoved into him to make sure he was dead. He talked with them, they embraced him, they felt him, they ate with him. He'd come and go as he pleased over the next several weeks. Finally, having done what he'd set out to do, he was taken away in a "cloud"... probably a description of what appeared to be a blindingly bright light.

Because of that Sunday when Jesus was first seen alive after being killed, we now have Good Friday. Why is Friday "Good"?

It is no coincidence that Jesus was executed during the Passover season (the Last Supper was a Passover Seder). Many years before, when the Jews were enslaved in Egypt, there was a night when they slaughtered lambs "without defect" and placed the blood of a lamb on their doorways. Overnight, when the Lord passed through Egypt with righteous judgment, the firstborn of every household was struck down - but the Lord "passed over" the homes with the blood. The Jews were subsequently freed from their slavery.

John the Baptist referred to Jesus as "the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world." Jesus was the ultimate Passover Lamb "without defect" who shed his blood to free all of us from our enslavement to sin. That Friday was Good because it is the day that our sins against God were paid for... by someone other than us!

But that Sunday...

We've all dealt with death in our lives. We've all had loved ones that have died. Thousands of years of recorded history tell us that dead people stay dead.

Yet this miracle-working carpenter was seen alive after his death. People touched him, talked with him, ate with him. They stuck their fingers in his wounds.

Being modern people, we are understandably skeptical of this. We don't have video proof. But what we do have is history, and the testimony of those who were there. Good Friday had left the followers of Jesus afraid and feeling defeated. They had shown themselves to be cowardly, and their leader was dead.

If Easter (Resurrection) Sunday did not happen, how did such people go on to change the world? Unless they actually encountered a resurrected Jesus, these people would have no reason to face ostracism and martyrdom to proclaim that resurrection and spread the teachings of Jesus. It is easy to deny the truth to save your life. Would people be willing to give up everything they had and die for something they knew to be a lie? No way!

So what does this all mean for me today? It means that I have a way to be right with God, because even though I have done things against Him, Good Friday was the day that those sins were paid for. I am forgiven. I also have someone who is my friend, my advocate, someone who knows what it is like to live life on Earth and knows what it is like to feel pain, suffer loss, and to die. And that Someone has promised me that if I follow Him, everything will be okay. Death is not the end. He has conquered death, and someday death, pain, and sorrow will be taken away from me. He has backed up His "blasphemous claims" with action, showing them not to be blasphemous at all.

He doesn't want me to cut the heads off of people just because they don't believe in Him. He doesn't want me to fly airliners into skyscrapers to kill people going about their lives. He wants me to do things like love others and take care of the needs of others. This is why so many have built hospitals, universities, and charities in His name.

It isn't about going to church regularly. It isn't about trying to convince people that my life is perfect. It isn't about making sure I can retire wealthy. It isn't about getting everyone else to see things the way I do. It isn't even about keeping a checklist of rules and sticking to that checklist. It isn't about "getting it right" on my own before I can approach God, because that will never happen.

It IS about having a peace with God, knowing that He forgives the horrible things I've done and may yet still do if I simply ask Him to, having sincerely repented. It is about having fellowship with that Nazarene who rose from the grave and still lives, because He deserves my allegiance and because He did life right.

There are people who believe that everything is an accident, a series of extremely unlikely coincidences. Sunsets. Surf. Waterfalls. Roses. Redwood trees. Chocolate. Wine. Galaxies. Eagles. Puppies. Kittens. Sex. Newborn babies. Mozart. DaVinci. Those are all accidents? I don't think so. All of the complexity in the cells of our own bodies, all of the symbiotic systems of the natural world, where organisms depend on each other for survival. Those all "just happened"? I don't think so. The world is beautiful and amazing, and it is not accidental or inconsequential that a Jew who was without sin and claimed to be God suffered and died at Passover and then rose from the dead.

Yes, there is something broken about the world, as evidenced by all of the suffering. But the fix is in. The victory was demonstrated almost 2000 years ago. I can't ignore that. That has to have an impact in my life, how I view life, and how I live life. My Lord humbled Himself, suffered and died for me. And then, He beat death, and someday, He's going to kick death - and its parent, sin - down the stairs, and shut the door on them. The world won't be broken anymore. I can't know everything about what the future will bring, but as long as I'm holding on to Him, I'll be in the best company there is. And since I love Him, as long as I'm around, I should seek to love others, meet their needs, and follow His lead.

May you have a Joyous Resurrection Sunday.

The Good Thing About Good Friday

Unless you are living under sharia law and are kept ignorant of such matters, you know that this coming weekend is the weekend during which Christians especially commemorate the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The books of the Bible claim that that both of these events were historical events - that they actually happened.

If both of these events did actually happen, then they are the most significant events in all of history.

The resurrection of Jesus is not a mere resuscitation of a man destined to later die and decompose, but rather a restoration of life to His dead body and a transformation into a glorified state in which He will never die again - eternal life. He is the first human being to resurrect to eternal life.

It was the resurrection of Jesus that confirmed the significance of His crucifixion. As C.S. Lewis put forth, Jesus was either "a liar, a lunatic, or Lord".  Since then, "legend", as in never having existed, has been added to the "possible" choices by the scholars and philosophers who seriously discuss these matters. The assertion that Jesus never really existed requires ignoring or "explaining away" quite a bit beyond just the books of the Bible, it also requires a discounting of the non-Christian references to Jesus in Roman, Jewish, and Gnostic writings, and an alternate explanation for the emergence of a sect of Judaism into the Christian church.

Over the years, people have tried to explain away the resurrection, attacking it as impossible (as if they have ultimate knowledge that God can't ever have performed miracles), a hoax, or a legend.

Hoax theories have included such claims as "Jesus didn't really die on the cross, he merely passed out", "the disciples stole his body", and even "Jesus had an identical twin" to explain away the basic documented facts of the death of Jesus on the cross, the empty tomb in which He had been buried, the appearances of Jesus alive after the crucifixion, and the rise of early Christianity among a group of Jews.

But for it to be a hoax, it would have been a hoax perpetrated by a powerless group of ordinary people who then maintained the secret of the hoax in the face of hardship, persecution, and death. We've witnessed the willingness of people to die for what they believe to be true, but would a group of people be willing to die for what they knew to be lie, when they could save their skins by recanting?  Plus, why didn't the non-Christian Jewish authorities ever record that Jesus had a twin? As for the "legend" theory of the resurrection, it requires an elaborate alternative explanation for how a group of ordinary Jewish people started Christianity in the first place and why they would do it in the face of opposition from the Jewish and Roman authorities.

I'm convinced that both events – the crucifixion and the resurrection - happened, and that changes everything.  Jesus' resurrection proves Him to be Lord. It means that Jesus is Messiah, Christianity is true, Jesus is God, and Jesus is Savior, and all of us who follow Him have been forgiven of our sins and will fellowship with God, having eternal life.

Nothing could be more significant.

Have you asked Him to be your Lord and Savior? Have you cast your sins and burdens at His feet and bowed down before Him? It's the best decision you could ever make.

More on this can be found here:

http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/resurrectionofchrist.html

Disneyland Unions Have Been Talk But Little Action For Decades

Margot Roosevelt is one of the few reporters still employed (last I checked) by the Orange County Register's latest parent company, and she wrote that paper's coverage of the latest Big Labor griping about Disneyland. Someone wrote the headline as "Disneyland Resort workers struggle to pay for food, housing and medical care, union survey finds."

I'm going to assume that the words in this article were chosen and reviewed very carefully.

Valentine's Day Is Not Enjoyable For Most Men

I'm time for my annual reminder, so I'm bumping this up.

Ladies, if you have a man in your life with whom you will be celebrating Valentine's Day, he will probably never admit this to you, but chances are he hates Valentine's Day. He will never admit it to you because you seem to enjoy it and he doesn't want to rain on your parade.

There are many reasons why most men do not enjoy Valentine's Day.

Men tend to be practical when it comes to money. You expect him to blow money on overpriced chocolates, flowers, jewelry, gifts, dinners in crowded restaurants, hotel rooms, etc. Chocolates? They'll be gone soon, and frankly, most American women don't need the extra calories. That's a fact, since 2/3rds are overweight and half of those are obese. Flowers? They'll be dried and withered soon.

Men stress out looking for the right cards, the right gifts (you know how men are about Christmas shopping, right?), making the right reservations, because some of you punish your man if he doesn't magically read your mind and do exactly the right thing.

Sure, some women buy their man a gift, too. But if he is the breadwinner, isn't that really spending his money anyway? And let's be honest – Valentine's Day is really about women, and there's no equivalent for men. Maybe Superbowl Sunday, but unless you make your man killer munchies that day, you're not doing a lot of planning and buying gifts and cards for him, are you?

Now, shouldn't your man enjoy bringing you the pleasure of being fussed over and reminding you that he loves you? Yes. But do you reciprocate? If you point to sex as the reciprocation, this implies that you don't also enjoy sex. In which case something is very wrong. Otherwise, sex is a mutual exchange. (If you're not married, you shouldn't be fornicating anyway.)

Men show they love their woman year-round by paying the bills, by protecting her, and by doing many other things, often including lifting heavy objects, opening things, reaching for things, removing scary things, doing fix-its on the home and vehicles. Do you show your love for him by respecting him, keeping yourself together, keeping his stomach full, making love to him as often as he wants it without dropping things he enjoys off of the menu, being a smart shopper, and doing domestic chores (if he is the breadwinner)? These things may not be important to you, but they are likely important to him.

A happily married man can enjoy Valentine's Day because his wife shows genuine appreciation for his efforts to celebrate their love, and he likes to see her happy. However, statistics show that such men are outnumbered by either unmarried men (who don't have a girlfriend, or have one pressuring him for marriage when he isn't ready or doesn't want to even marry) or married men who are unhappy, and those men are lot less likely to enjoy Valentine's Day, and even happily married men might not like the obligation to do this on February 14, when your love should be celebrated each and every day.

(As a side note - there are some single men who enjoy the day because they can find desperate women who are easy scores in the bars. )

So if he makes a big deal about Valentine's Day, don't make him regret it. He's doing it for you.

(There are unfeminine women reading this scoffing that anyone still believes in gender roles. I guarantee you they are not making any man's Valentine's Day enjoyable. Remember I'm talking about generalities here. You can always find some people who are abnormal for their sex, and there are the scoffers who try to deny any real difference between the sexes or who will claim there are more than two sexes, or that I should use the term "gender" and that gender is something someone can change or may be different than outside appearances... blah blah blah. We're dealing here with generalities and NORMAL people. Men tend to have penises and are masculine, women tend to have vaginas and are feminine. That any given visitor is a butchy female or has some effeminate husband is her problem, not mine. I'm not writing to the niche or freakish, I'm writing to the general population. )

UPDATE from 2012

State of the Union Wish List 2018

I'm so glad we have President Trump instead of HRC. And make no mistake about it. Those were the choices. Ford, Dole, McCain, and Romney were all fine men with much experience who got the GOP nomination, and they all failed to get elected. Did we need to add to that list?  No.

This doesn't mean I think Trump has done everything right or well. The attacks on him by the Left, including judges, media, activist groups, and the Democratic Party, have been over-the-top and unprecedented in modern American politics, acting as though everything Trump does or says is the worst thing ever and will be the end of the world.. I'm sure they'd argue that it is warranted is because they see him as an unprecedented in his actual/potential danger to the country.

Trump is a populist, not a conservative ideologue. His public position on marriage law, for example, was more to the Left of Obama as he entered the Presidency.  He was steeped in the culture of NYC and has long had public appearances with, and donations to, Democratic candidates and causes. He's been governing as a conservative, and that's what really matters.

If we focus on what he's actually done and not what the media has said he's done or has planned to do and we ignore Twitter, he has quite a list of accomplishments, including reducing ISIS, the new tax law, judicial appointments, and rolling back regulations. Sure, there are Leftists and others who aren't happy with all of those things, but if the Left doesn't like it, then in general, it's good. I've seen more than one headline lamenting Trump is undoing everything Obama did, and that's GREAT!

People who ignore the activist groups, the political nerds, and media hysterics will likely not have the sense of fear or outrage that so many people have today.

Let's get to the speech.