one of the best birthday presents, ever!

my daughter got me this cd for my birthday. with her own money. she loves me, and i know this because she bought this with her own money, not money from mom to by me what she thinks i would like. i love her.













what are some of your favorite presents?

unbelievable to me

more links to people that feel the same way i do. please read the link at the bottom of this link to another study. it is a study by someone from stanford university and it shows how iraq was working with al-qaeda.

here is another blog that shares my view.

while watching fox news

i'm sitting here watching the news about hurricane rita, and checking my office e-mail. then i see a commercial paid for by gold star families for peace. it says that the president is lying to the country. have you seen the commercials? it also has widows holding babies asking what they should tell their child.

tell them the truth. your husband was following orders to protect not just our freedoms, but the freedoms of those in iraq, afghanistan, and the surrounding areas. this sort of thing makes me think back to people asking why do all of our national guardsmen, and reservists have to go to the middle east.

does anybody remember that a president thought it was a good idea to downsize the military? if the military would not have been downsized, then the national guardsmen, and reservists would not have to go where the active duty military would already be.

this also makes me think of the thought process of the people who signed their contracts to serve their country, and follow the orders of the officers appointed over them. boy, i could go on and on about this.

i just wish that people would understand that the military is there for a reason, and death is a possibility. the military is not a desk job.

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another e-mail

i got this in an e-mail and thought it worthy of my research. many of you may remember ben stein as ferris' economics teacher, but he is also a columnist, and as far as i can see, he wrote this, and it makes me feel a little better knowing that some actors are not loonie. that is my opinion, but read and enjoy.

Get Off His Back (Updated)
By Ben Stein
Published 9/2/2005 11:59:59 PM

***UPDATED: Sunday, Sept. 4, 2005, 2:13 p.m.***

A few truths, for those who have ears and eyes and care to know the truth:

1.) The hurricane that hit New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama was an astonishing tragedy. The suffering and loss of life and peace of mind of the residents of those areas is acutely horrifying.

2.) George Bush did not cause the hurricane. Hurricanes have been happening for eons. George Bush did not create them or unleash this one.

3.) George Bush did not make this one worse than others. There have been far worse hurricanes than this before George Bush was born.

4.) There is no overwhelming evidence that global warming exists as a man-made phenomenon. There is no clear-cut evidence that global warming even exists. There is no clear evidence that if it does exist it makes hurricanes more powerful or makes them aim at cities with large numbers of poor people. If global warming is a real phenomenon, which it may well be, it started long before George Bush was inaugurated, and would not have been affected at all by the Kyoto treaty, considering that Kyoto does not cover the world's worst polluters -- China, India, and Brazil. In a word, George Bush had zero to do with causing this hurricane. To speculate otherwise is belief in sorcery.

5.) George Bush had nothing to do with the hurricane contingency plans for New Orleans. Those are drawn up by New Orleans and Louisiana. In any event, the plans were perfectly good: mandatory evacuation. It is in no way at all George Bush's fault that about 20 percent of New Orleans neglected to follow the plan. It is not his fault that many persons in New Orleans were too confused to realize how dangerous the hurricane would be. They were certainly warned. It's not George Bush's fault that there were sick people and old people and people without cars in New Orleans. His job description does not include making sure every adult in America has a car, is in good health, has good sense, and is mobile.

6.) George Bush did not cause gangsters to shoot at rescue helicopters taking people from rooftops, did not make gang bangers rape young girls in the Superdome, did not make looters steal hundreds of weapons, in short make New Orleans into a living hell.

7.) George Bush is the least racist President in mind and soul there has ever been and this is shown in his appointments over and over. To say otherwise is scandalously untrue.

8.) George Bush is rushing every bit of help he can to New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama as soon as he can. He is not a magician. It takes time to organize huge convoys of food and now they are starting to arrive. That they get in at all considering the lawlessness of the city is a miracle of bravery and organization.

9.) There is not the slightest evidence at all that the war in Iraq has diminished the response of the government to the emergency. To say otherwise is pure slander.

10.) If the energy the news media puts into blaming Bush for an Act of God worsened by stupendous incompetence by the New Orleans city authorities and the malevolence of the criminals of the city were directed to helping the morale of the nation, we would all be a lot better off.

11.) New Orleans is a great city with many great people. It will recover and be greater than ever. Sticking pins into an effigy of George Bush that does not resemble him in the slightest will not speed the process by one day.

12.) The entire episode is a dramatic lesson in the breathtaking callousness of government officials at the ground level. Imagine if Hillary Clinton had gotten her way and they were in charge of your health care.

God bless all of those dear people who are suffering so much, and God bless those helping them, starting with George Bush.

****

UPDATE: Sunday, Sept. 4, 2005, 2:13 p.m.:

More Mysteries of Katrina:

Why is it that the snipers who shot at emergency rescuers trying to save people in hospitals and shelters are never mentioned except in passing, and Mr. Bush, who is turning over heaven and earth to rescue the victims of the storm, is endlessly vilified?

What church does Rev. Al Sharpton belong to that believes in passing blame and singling out people by race for opprobrium and hate?

What special abilities does the media have for deciding how much blame goes to the federal government as opposed to the city government of New Orleans for the aftereffects of Katrina?

If able-bodied people refuse to obey a mandatory evacuation order for a city, have they not assumed the risk that ill effects will happen to them?

When the city government simply ignores its own sick and hospitalized and elderly people in its evacuation order, is Mr. Bush to blame for that?

Is there any problem in the world that is not Mr. Bush's fault, or have we reverted to a belief in a sort of witchcraft where we credit a mortal man with the ability to create terrifying storms and every other kind of ill wind?

Where did the idea come from that salvation comes from hatred and criticism and mockery instead of love and co-operation?

Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He also writes "Ben Stein's Diary" in every issue of The American Spectator. Please click here to subscribe.

an e-mail

y'all are probably getting tired of me changing my blog template aren't you? well, like i said a couple of weeks ago, i like change. with the way things go in my life i will probably change it again in a couple of weeks. well, anyway, i got this e-mail and i was wondering what you thought of it. please read it and share with my other 2 readers what you thought of it. i will share my thoughts after you and 1 of the other 2 readers post their comments.

gracEmail (THE ONE TRUE CHURCH)
Edward Fudge
Sep 11, 2005

Someone recently wrote me an email arguing that only those who belong to his particular denomination are any part of the body of Christ and the universal church of God. How should we respond to such claims, which are made across the "Christian" spectrum?

* * *

For more than a millennium now, different people have equated the true church of Christ with some particular group found in the Yellow Pages (an anachronism, I know, but you get the point). All such attempts will ultimately fail because they are trying to shrink Christ's spiritual body, God's true church, to a tiny segment of the whole -- a segment which, regardless of its identity, sprang into existence far too late to claim such a lofty distinction. The true church of Christ includes every saved person who knows Jesus since Pentecost, and it is far bigger than any Christian denomination or nondenomination regardless of its name, claim or fame. To suppose otherwise is to fall, however unintentionally, into sectarianism and possibly into heresy as well in the biblical sense.

The world is full of would-be "true churches," each of which has preserved or restored some part of the apostolic message, church detail or personal experience, and all making exclusive claims. Each such group probably is correct in some of its specific doctrines or practices, though such groups usually are not nearly as unique or distinct in those matters as they themselves imagine. And they all are wrong in their exclusive claims.

The time has come to stop playing the "Guess the Right Religious Organization and Win a Trip to Heaven" game. Instead, as repentant sinners who have nothing that God needs and nothing of which we dare to boast, let us put all our trust in the sinless Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Let us entrust ourselves to Jesus Christ -- to learn from him, to follow him and to become like him. When we do that, we can stop quibbling about the name over the church house door. And we then can say with confidence that we are part of the church of which Jesus Christ is the head and the Savior.
___________________

© 2005 by Edward Fudge. Unlimited permission to copy without altering text or profiteering is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice. For encouragement and spiritual food any time, visit our multimedia website at www.EdwardFudge.com .

if you got this far, thanks. please leave a comment.

a poem by c.s. lewis

while reading blue like jazz, i read a section from the second chapter that made me think. it has a poem that “addresses his own depravity with a soulful sort of bravery:

all this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
i never had a selfless thought since i was born.
i am mercenary and self-seeking through and through;
i want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

peace, reassurance, pleasure, are the goals i seek,
i cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin;
i talk of love--scholar's parrot may talk greek--
but, self-imprisoned, always end where i begin."

donald miller continues, "i talk about love, forgiveness, social justice; i rage against american materialism in the name of altruism, but have i even controlled my own heart? the overwhelming majority of time i spend thinking about myself, pleasing myself, reassuring myself, and when i am done there is nothing to spare for the needy. six billion people live in this world, and i can only muster thoughts of one. me."

now these are not always my thoughts, but i have them nonetheless. how is it that we still have to fight these feelings, and thoughts? why can't we accept the new creation that we are when we become christians and live like we should? how do we deal with those feelings, and thoughts? or am i the only one that has this problem?

donald nails me with this book. i am just at the beginning of it though, i hope that i feel a little better later on in the book.

forrest gump

who has not seen this movie? i just got finished watching it with my fam, and the one line that is sticking in my mind could've come from the bible. of course it would be a paraphrase. here it is, if you can't think of it:

forrest says to jennie at jennie's grave, "if you need anything i won't be far away."

that just broke me up! oh well, i can't make it through that movie without having my eyes leak.

what are some of your favorite lines from movies?

you may ask yourself

no this is not a post about the song by the talking heads, but a post that will hopefully give you an opportunity to do something, if not physically, but possibly monetarily. here is an address that you can go to and consider giving whatever you can in support of the efforts being exerted to help churches affected by katrina get back on their feet and thus helping their communities get back on their feet.

i got an e-mail from the church that my family attended and were members of, park row. they are assisting first hand with the efforts of assisting with the katrina refugees that have been redirected to texas from their homes in the new orleans area. please pray for those that are providing relief, both physically and spiritually. please pray that they will not run their selves into the ground and thus not be a help, but hindrance.

if you are having survivors guilt, like me, you too, can help right now. go to our Father, and pray for His guidance, and support. there is something you can do!

over 1,000 and counting!

amazing that i would get that many hits in the short life of this blog. thanks. keep the comments coming.

i am back in l.a. after a week in va. thanks for the prayers, but i could use some gas for my car, too. i noticed that my good friend in texas who is married to my cousin is now part of this great thing known as the blog-nation. please visit his site, and tell him how much you like it, even though he went to that liberal church of Christ college in searcy, ar.

he's a great guy and i would sit at his feet, while we lived in texas, and be in awe at how he could teach by just being real and asking how does this verse apply to us today, and he would even tell us what he thought, too.

he is a thespian, a singer, a father, a husband, a brother, a son, a cousin, etc. ..... but most of all he is my friend. go see his blog!