Worm on the brain?

Well, not exactly ON it, but rather IN it.

Yuck. Ouch.

Yes, a PHX woman had what she was told was a brain tumor, but when the surgeon went to operate on her brain stem, he found a worm. From undercooked pork. Or somebody not washing their hands after they went to the bathroom.

I hope my wife doesn't read this.

We won't go out to eat for a long time :)

Follow the link and read the story, then watch the VIDEO of them pulling the worm out!!!

Tree Houses

That's right. Tree houses. Not that you can build one very easily here in AZ. I didn't see an 'cactus houses' (ouch).



Popular Mechanics listed 10 great tree houses. Check em out.



This one was my favorite. Don't just build a house in a tree, build a castle!

Did I miss something here?

It appears that the CA Supreme Court is going to hear some complaints about Prop 8. Now I thought the whole purpose of a constitutional amendment, was that it creates the highest law in the land (other than the US Constitution) and so becomes the standard by which judges should make their rulings. In fact the whole issue in CA was that the voters had already passed a law affirming marriage between a man and woman, but the CA Supreme Court had shot it down as unconstitutional.

Doesn't the amendment MAKE it constitutional?

Ugh.

Unreal Expectations

I haven’t been watching or reading much news. I have been trying to avoid it. I’m going through a period of political pull back for a moment. It really won’t last long. I can’t help myself in the long run. Right now I am dealing with some family issues, a crazy busy but tenuous work situation, and trying to reorganize my days. I even finished up a fiction book that my son recommended. I wasn’t that impressed with the book, but I was impressed at the reading level of my 8 year old. Geesh. The book was Inkheart and will soon be a movie starring Brendan Frasier. I’m sure we’ll see it. It wasn’t much of a page turner for me and I kept seeing the villains as cartoon characters in my mind for some reason, but it did have a good, although predictable ending.

All of that has kept me out of the Obama glow. I’ve been getting spammed with emails about “Obama coins” and other assorted “memorabilia”. Sorry, it’s just a little nauseating. Not because I voted for the other guy, but because the expectation level that has been set is… well unrealistic at best. During the election Conservatives joked that Obama was perceived as ‘the messiah’.

We were just joking.

I really had no idea that a good chunk of the population was serious. Howard Kurtz has an interesting piece about the frenzy. My favorite quote has to be, “Being cool can really help a new president.”

The depth of the comment is beyond me. I’ll have to meditate on that one for a while.

Have you EARNED your man card?

PM put together a list of the 100 things that a man should be able to do. I heard about this on the radio this morning and the DJs were remarking that they only got about 25%. I'm not too shabby with SOME do it yourself things, so I thought I would at least take the test and see what I got.

Some of them are pretty basic, some are a bit more complicated. A few of the things I've seen, but never done myself (like using a stick welder). I'm pretty sure I could, but I didn't want to count it, since I didn't KNOW I could do it.

I think I can keep my man card, I got an 89%. Not too shabby. I think I'll growl a few times and go rewire a power supply!

Mormons take the heat for sticking by their beliefs

Here in AZ we passed prop 102, an amendment to the state constitution defining marriage to be the union of one man and one woman. In CA it was Prop 8. These are similar to amendments passed in 30 states now. The purpose of all of this is to fight back against ‘alternative lifestyle’ education in our schools and to preserve the definition of marriage.

In any case, the fight in CA was particularly nasty. The LDS church led the way in getting Prop 8 passed.

Watch this commercial put out by a NO on Prop 8 organization.


The Huffington Post has to be one of the worst and most popular left wing blogs. Here is what they had to say about the LDS church and their support of Prop 8.

Yet somehow an economic boycott doesn't feel direct enough; those who team up against gay people must learn that there are consequences.

That's why we are seeking to strip the Mormon church of its status as a religious organization.

I hope that people with healthy levels of sanity prevail. I would hope that the court would support the first amendment. You don't cease to have the right to speak just because you are religious.

I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

This is what crazy looks like

Guts galore... brains... not so much. A surfer takes a 40+ foot wave.

... and YES he did bail just after these pictures were taken... NO he isn't dead, just REALLY beat up and has some torn muscles...

Hopefully it didn't hurt the few brain cells that he had.

This one is worth a read

Very interesting editorial in the American Spectator.

It's a little paranoid for my tastes... but a good warning to keep your eyes open and your wits about you.

Can a government where the executive, legislative and judicial branches are all controlled by the same ideology, even the same group of people, really hold each other to the intended checks and balances?

I guess we'll find out. Let's hope it's not too hard and too long of a lesson.

My Representative Speaks for Me

I am very proud to say that my representative is Jeff Flake. He was one of a few Reps yesterday who had no cause for concern (he won 62 - 35). An editorial from him was published in the Washington Post this morning. I've included it below. I think Jeff would be a great House minority leader moving forward. It will be interesting to see how the shake up goes.

A Way Out of the Wilderness
Well, we Republicans have just made history.
Not the type of history we wanted to make, mind you, but history nonetheless.
Not only did we lose the White House but, after losing our House and Senate
majorities in 2006, we followed it up last night with even steeper losses in
Congress.In January, Democrats will enjoy lopsided congressional ratios not seen
since the 1970s. Let's face it: We Republicans are now, by any reasonable
measurement, deep in the political wilderness.The temptation for Republican
members of Congress today will be to assume the role of the post-Watergate
Republicans of 1974 and accept minority status as a permanent condition. Indeed,
the terrain is more difficult for us now than it was in 1992. Then,
Republicanism was still largely defined by the Reagan years. Today the party is
defined in the public mind by the Bush presidency. We've got a steep hill to
climb.Much of the backroom maneuvering and media speculation in the coming weeks
will focus on identifying new standard-bearers for the party. This is important,
and after a second straight drubbing, the House Republican leadership should be
replaced. But the far more critical task is determining what standard these new
leaders will bear.I suggest that we return to first principles. At the top of
that list has to be a recommitment to limited government. After eight years of
profligate spending and soaring deficits, voters can be forgiven for not knowing
that limited government has long been the first article of faith for
Republicans.Of course, it's not the level of spending that gets the most
attention; it's the manner in which the spending is allocated. The proliferation
of earmarks is largely a product of the Gingrich-DeLay years, and it's no
surprise that some of the most ardent practitioners were earmarked by the voters
for retirement yesterday. Few Americans will take seriously Republican speeches
on limited government if we Republicans can't wean ourselves from this insidious
practice. But if we can go clean, it will offer a stark contrast to the
Democrats, who, after two years in training, already have their own earmark
favor factory running at full tilt.Second, we need to recommit to our belief in
economic freedom. Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" may be on the discount
rack this year, but the free market is still the most efficient means to
allocate capital and human resources in an economy, and Americans know it. Now
that we've inserted government deeply into the private sector by bailing out
banks and businesses, the temptation will be for government to overstay its
welcome and force the distribution of resources to serve political ends.
Substituting political for economic incentives is not the recipe for economic
recovery.Most House Republicans opposed the recent bailout and will be in a
strong position to promote economic freedom over central planning as the Obama
administration stumbles from industry to industry trying to determine which is
small enough to be allowed to fail and which is not. Since timetables will be in
vogue, perhaps Republicans could even insist on a timetable for getting the
government out of the private sector.There are, of course, other pillars of the
Republican standard -- strong national defense, support for traditional values
and the Second Amendment -- but these are not areas where voters question
Republican bona fides. In any event, as we have seen over the past several
months, economic woes tend to subsume other concerns. We shouldn't complain. We
can now play our strongest hand.In some respects, raising a new standard was
made easier by yesterday's rout. The Republican Party is not bound by
election-year promises made by its presidential nominee. More important, the
party is finally untethered from the ill-fitting and unworkable big-government
conservatism that defined the Bush administration.This is not to say that it
will be an easy transition. Congressional Republicans picked up some
unattractive habits over the years in an effort to hold on to power. Whether it
was relying on the redistricting process to help us choose our constituents,
using the appropriations process as an ATM or passing legislation -- such as a
generous prescription drug benefit and a bloated farm bill -- to pacify
individual constituencies, these habits and voting patterns will be hard to
break.But there is reason for Republicans to feel optimism. Politically, America
remains a center-right country, and America loves a chastened and repentant
sinner. As surely as the sun rises in the east, the Democrats will overreach.As
long as we Republicans are willing to admit our folly, get back to first
principles and work like there's no tomorrow, we've got 'em just where we want
'em.

Still some interesting things happening

Obviously the presidency has been decided. Like our current government I plan on watching the next group and tracking them to see what they are up to. Always a good idea.

But some interesting elections are still on going. Four senate races are still close. Reps lead in all four. The closest one is in MN between Norm Coleman and Al Franken. Are you serious? I guess the same people that elected Jessie "the Body" Ventura as governor would only be living up to their reputation if they put 'Stu Smalley' in office. I'm still pulling for Norm.

Probably the most interesting race is in Alaska. Stevens, having recently been found guilty of uh, graciously accepting all kinds of... gifts that people just left at his house, is WINNING! And most likely will win. So what happens then? Well, that would mean another election in Alaska.

Can you see it coming?

Yup.

Good money says that the election would be between the Dem candidate that Stevens just beat and our former VP candidate Gov. Palin. She has already indicated a strong desire to stay in national politics and in Washington. Taking Stevens disgraced seat and doing some 'mavericky reforming' would be a good start.

The people that say politics is boring aren't paying attention.

I'm exhausted

Wow, what a couple of days.

Brandi started her new therapy in Scottsdale on Monday. We are very optimistic that this will be a great thing for her. She's really a trooper. It has been 11 months now since she had the worst back episode of her life that landed her in the hospital for a few days. Please be praying that this therapy will be effective and have great long term benefits. Thanks so much to all of the friends and family that God has put into our lives to help get us through this. We really couldn't do it with out you guys. Four days of therapy, every week, for six weeks.

Some really tough news coming out of work in the last couple of days as we frantically try to fill a req for a much needed technician before they completely slam the door on any hiring. Mandatory vacations. How can you mandate 160 hours of vacation in 5 months, when most of your employees only acrue 120 hours of vacation in a YEAR?

I talked to our financial guy yesterday. He said invest in guns, ammunition, seed and fertilizer. Something about the return of the hunter/gatherer society... Guess he isn't too optimistic about the government solutions to the financial mess so far.

The boys finished up their baseball season with a LATE GAME (oh joy). It started at 7:30 and ran until almost 9. It has been a great season. The kids have really learned a lot about the game. The coach has been absolutely awesome! Definitely a best case scenario there.

We seem to finally have crawled out of our three weeks of sickness. It started with a nasty cold that went through the ranks, followed by a touchy stomach bug. Jacob was declared well yesterday and allowed to leave the house for the final baseball game of the season.

Something else happened yesterday too, but I can't think of what it was... hmmm... it'll come to me....

But it's not just coal!!

The McCain team is hammering Obama right now for a quote from a January article. Here is the quote that they are using:

"If somebody wants to build a coal power plant they can, it's just that it will
bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that
greenhouse gas that's being emitted,"

It's not really shocking if you follow the cap and trade program that Obama would support and that the Dems are almost certainly planning within the first few months of his presidency. I've written about it before here.

The sad thing is, that McCain supports the cap and trade program as well, although I think he wouild be slower to implement it given the economy.

When the bill hits the floor, it will be up to average citizens to call and fight it tooth and nail, regardless of who is president. It will throw our economy into a depression. It will make EVERY SINGLE THING you purchase more expensive by massive amounts.

All for warm feelings about a green planet and Al Gore's hype about global warming. It will cost jobs, it will cost our economic security, and it will cost lives in impoverished nations around the world.

Politics Are Affecting the Festivities

HT: MM

Empty Rhetoric Meets REALLY Gullible Followers

HT: MM

I needed a good laugh this morning

If you aren't part of corporate America, you might miss the last reference and hence the humor.

If you don't get it, then google "who moved my cheese".

The Obama Infomercial! Don't miss it! For a limited time ONLY!!

I really don’t have time for this, but I just can’t help myself.

In case you missed the Obama Infomercial last night, let me give you a recap. Sob story, sob story… Obama will fix EVERYTHING! The only line that was missing was, “I’m Barack Obama and I’ll fix that country for $39.95!”

There was a sad story about an older couple that retired, but had some health problems and he had to go back to work. There was a sad story about a family where the dad worked at a factory and the factory cut back his work. There was the teacher who worked a second job. Then we heard about Obama growing up as a kid. How much his mom helped him, followed of course by the heart breaking tale of his mother’s death from cancer. Interlaced through all of this is Obama telling you that he is going to fix that problem.

According to Senator Obama, he is going to create 5 million new ‘green’ jobs that CAN’T be outsourced. Really? That’s wonderful. HOW? Has he already invented some tremendous new technology that is going to produce energy from thin air. Maybe there will be 5 million people harvesting air? I know it sounds great. If there was a way to make so much money that you could afford to employee 5 MILLION people… don’t you think there would be entrepreneurs and businesses JUMPING all over it?

He’s going to cut healthcare costs by $2500 per family. Really? HOW!? By getting hospitals to transfer all of their records to electronic format? Trust me, and I definitely know something about this. Transferring to an electronic system may eventually save money (mainly by cutting people who handle the paperwork), but it costs a lot of money up front and if it isn’t done right can be time and ‘expensive’ labor intensive. Even if it went seamlessly, it won’t save the average family $2500 per year (or $10 for that matter). And while we are talking about that, let’s just think about some numbers real quick. $2500 per family… hmm… let’s be conservative and say that there are 75 million families in the US. That’s $187.5 BILLION dollars that is somehow just going to VANISH from the healthcare industry and no one is going to miss it! In fact while he is at it, he is also going to GIVE healthcare to 47 million people that don’t have it (he doesn’t mention it, but about 15 million of those are illegal aliens). So just do a sanity check here. He’s going to save the American people $187.5 BILLION dollars, while giving you better healthcare and covering 47 million people that aren’t currently covered…. I’m pretty good at math, but Senator Obama must be a lot better than I am if he can make those numbers work.

Occasionally the video (which was HOLLYWOOD quality in its production) would cut away to a Democratic politician saying how great Obama is and how he is a once in a generation leader. Really? What has he done? The only things that they mentioned in the video last night were the times he ‘reached across the aisle’ by working with people like Senator Lugar to push for the containment of old solviet era nukes. Wow, sounds impressive. In fact that sounds like something that everyone would want. As a matter of fact they did! It was unanimously passed. Not because Obama wrote a great bill, because he didn’t write hardly ANYTHING. What they are talking about is an ‘add on’ to an existing bill that was written and passed in the 90s. After the USSR collapsed we passed legislation to allocate funds to help the solviets break down some of their nuclear arsenal so that it didn’t fall into dangerous disrepair, or worse, into the wrong hands. Obama “REACHED ACROSS THE AISLE” to add a couple of lines to the bill to expand the program! COME ON!!! This is ridiculous!! Then they went on to talk about how he had fought against some of the senior people and leadership, but gave NO specifics! BECAUSE THERE AREN’T ANY!!!! He hasn’t done ANYTHING of substance!!! Period. That’s why they have to be vague and fill a 30 minute spot with glurge and sob stories! They want you to think that this country is a horrible place! But somehow, when Obama becomes President EVERYTHING will be better. In an instant! It will be like the rapture, but you don’t have to go anywhere, the rapture will bring you to Obamaland!

Please.

Someone needs to take his medicine. He’s having delusions of EXTREME grandeur.


What you heard last night is the same thing he’s been doing all around the country for the last couple of years. He finds hard cases, and there will always be hard cases to point out, and he talks about them. He goes on about the hard questions and tough issues facing this country and then says that he will fix them. If you ask him how, he tells you how much money he is going to throw at it.

That’s a lot of money. Thrown pretty much EVERYWHERE.

Hmmm… where does that come from again?

I mean, he already said he is going to cut taxes on 95% of working Americans. Which means a good chunk of people that don’t pay taxes will get paychecks from the government… hmmm… that’s more money gone. He is going to increase all kinds of taxes on wealthy people and businesses, which historically speaking means LOWER REVENUE to the federal government, lower profits in businesses, cut backs, fewer jobs… How is this going to solve ANYTHING!?

The man has been running for president for almost two years. We have yet to really see any new, good, or even SUBSTANTIVE ideas.

This is a frightening election.

****Update: Just caught this AP (of all people) article that sheds some light on some of the shady aspects of the Informercial.

Obama the first Pro-Abortion President

Please read this article. Written by a professor at Princeton who is a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics. It’s a crushing blow to pro-lifers who have tried to justify a vote for Obama. I have listened to well intentioned and intelligent people try to argue in their own minds that the next president will have NO effect on abortion, but they couldn't be more wrong.

Here are some things that Obama has vowed to do to support and truly INCREASE abortion:

- Repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which according to NARAL has cut the number of abortions that ‘should’ have occurred in half because it cuts public funding for abortions where the mother’s life is not in danger and that don’t involve rape or incest. This one change alone could mean tens if not hundreds of thousands of additional abortions every year, funded with YOUR tax dollars.

- FOCA : Freedom Of Choice Act. Sounds good doesn’t it. Obama has pledged that he would sign FOCA, which would repeal all limitations on abortions through the entire 9 months of pregnancy.

In essence, FOCA would abolish virtually every existing state and federal
limitation on abortion, including parental consent and notification laws for
minors, state and federal funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience
protections for pro-life citizens working in the health-care
industry-protections against being forced to participate in the practice of
abortion or else lose their jobs. The pro-abortion National Organization for
Women has proclaimed with approval that FOCA would "sweep away hundreds of
anti-abortion laws [and] policies."

- Repealing the Mexico City Policy which will send tax payer dollars to other countries to fund abortions.

- Appoint pro-abortionist judges who will uphold these policies and undo the small amount of progress that we have made under W. Possibly pushing abortion forward for decades to come.

You simply cannot say that the next president will not impact abortion. In reality the next president could very well change the entire debate on abortion. Which way the debate goes may decide on your vote. This isn't a scare tactic. It's reality.

Catching up on Dilbert

Tuesday is my catch up day and the start of my four day work week... that's right. :)

Dilbert of course is near the top of the list of things to catch up on... right after a huge steaming pile of email.

Naked Socialism

Obama is a socialist. Just listen.



If this is news to you, then you haven't been paying attention to what he says.

If you are okay with a socialist government then you are woefully ignorant of history and our constitution.

Obama and Biden over the last couple of weeks have been trying to avoid the word "socialism" because that is a buzz word and people don't like it. So they try and use other phrases, like 'spread the wealth around' and 'redistribution' (although this one has been pretty rare as well).

I've had several discussions with people that say, "well weren't the first Christians essentially communists, in the pure sense of the term?" and again, "Didn't Jesus promote socialism?"

Yes, in many respects both of those things are true. My wife and I had a discussion about this last night. The big difference is compulsion vs. desire. If I want to give to the poor then praise God. If I want to share all that I have with others, that's fantastic. The difference is the government TAKING from you to give to others. I'm completely in favor of Christians and churches being generous in trying to help those in need. That's one of the great things about the US. Historically speaking, Americans and Christian Americans specifically, have been the most generous people in history. That is something that we don't want to lose. If anything we want to encourage that as much as possible. A government that lets people keep their money so that they can afford to be generous, is the best way to do that.

The High Road or the Fraud Road, Which Would You Choose?

Having had a credit card number swiped and used fraudulently, I'm a little paranoid about my on line purchases. Retailers do their best to cover their backsides as well.

Wouldn't you think a politician would do the same?

McCain did, according to several people conducting "tests".

Obama... not so much. Check out this article on Obama's contribution system. This has been brought up several times and for months now. You would think Obama would have had his people look into it and fix the problem. But that might limit the funds coming in from... well... anybody in the world.

Considering that foreign contributions violate federal election laws, could this be construed as gross negligence? Of course, Obama didn't set the campaign website up, that was just his advisers and staff. To accuse him of wrong doing based on these 'associations' would just be ridiculous...