Theology Exam

this one mysteriously cracks me up...over and over. Thanks to Mom for passing it along.


Do you really know your theology ?

Who was the 3rd man in history to walk on water?

The 1st one was Christ ...

The 2nd one was His disciple Peter ...

Then there was this guy, Miguel...

Patriotism

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

- Mark Twain

For in a Republic, who is “the country”? Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant—merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.

- Mark Twain

It is the besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which the masses of men exhibit their tyranny.

- James Fenimore Cooper

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression.

- Thomas Paine

Lots of rubbish coming from the White House now about the discussions going on in the Senate and House about Iraq…especially about setting a timeline for getting our folks home. Evidently, a couple of Republicans are siding with Democrats to insist on a timeline for getting out of Iraq. In my opinion, voting one's conscious instead of blindly following the party line is a sign of integrity.

I'm having serious issues with the tripe being spewed by our VP and fellow henchmen. According to them:
- criticism of the administration is unpatriotic.
- setting a timeline to bring back our Soldiers is unpatriotic.
- bickering over tapping American's phone calls with out following legal procedure (probable cause, anyone?) is unpatriotic

If the administration would propose something new, that would be refreshing. It appears a sign of the frustrating times that Congress finally realized there was no goal for going into Iraq other than getting Saddam, no plan to stabilize the country afterwards, and no fooking clue of the sectarian hatreds simmering just under Baathist bootheels. Our leaders were ignorant, they were impulsive, and they've rooked our country and Iraq's as well. It's time to end it. All our administration has delivered so far are empty promises of "we'll win this at some point if you stick to it" which wore thin last year.

Casualties:
3,245 American dead to date
23,417 American wounded (many maimed for life)
250? Coalition dead
60,000 to 600,000 Iraqi dead...nobody really knows the final

That's a damned high price to pay for ignorance, arrogance, whatever you want to call it...hubris? We could be there for a decade at this rate and they'll still be killing us and themselves.

What saddens me most is that Bush and Cheney took our national outrage at 9-11 and wasted it in Iraq. There were other ways to capitalize on our energies back then, better goals for our military. Maybe there still are.

Nation's Liberals Suffering from Outrage Fatigue

From my The Onion desktop calendar:



WASHINGTON, DC —

According to a study released Monday by the Hammond Political Research Group, many of the nation's liberals are suffering from a vastly diminished sense of outrage.

"With so many right-wing shams to choose from, it's simply too daunting for the average, left-leaning citizen to maintain a sense of anger," said Rachel Neas, the study's director. "By our estimation, roughly 70 percent of liberals are experiencing some degree of lethargy resulting from a glut of civil-liberties abuses, education funding cuts, and exorbitant military expenditures."

The House That Mike Built

In New Jersey, civil engineer Mike Strizki lives in a 3,500 SF house with his wife and all the extras like a hot tub and a big-screen TV.

Mike has also built the nation’s first solar-hydrogen house. “Mr. Strizki's monthly utility bill is zero – he's off the power grid – and his system creates no carbon-dioxide emissions. Neither does the fuel-cell car parked in his garage, which runs off the hydrogen his system creates.”

It took him 4 years to finish and cost $500,000, but strangely enough the NJ Board of Public Utilities gave him a grant of $250,000 for the project. Mike says that, now that it’s been proven to work, a little R&D and some innovative mass production of the parts can lower the cost to $50,000 per house.

This man deserves a Nobel Prize. His ideas, if they take hold, could slash our dependence on foreign oil, nuclear power plants, and in the end save our planet for a few more generations.

Do You Act – Or React?

JC's post of the Desiderata brought me back to another gem I've been holding on to for years. I annually talk about this with my daughters, and like to think the lesson of self-respect sank in at an early age.


Do You Act – Or React?

I walked with my friend, a Quaker, to the newsstand the other night, and he bought a paper, thanking the newsy politely. The newsy didn’t even acknowledge it.

“A sullen fellow, isn’t he?” I commented.

“Oh, he’s that way every night,” shrugged my friend.

“Then why did you continue to be so polite to him?”

“Why not?” inquired my friend. “Why should I let him decide how I’m going to act?”

As I thought about this incident later, it occurred to me that the important word was “act”. My friend acts toward people; most of us react toward them.

He has a sense of inner balance that is lacking in most of us. He knows who he is, what he stands for, how he should behave. He refuses to return incivility for incivility, because then he would no longer be in command of his own conduct.

When we are enjoined in the Bible to return good for evil, we look upon this as a moral injunction – which it is. But, it is also a psychological prescription for our emotional health.

Nobody is unhappier than the perpetual reactor. His center of emotional gravity is not rooted within himself, where it belongs, but in the world outside him. His spiritual temperature is always being raised or lowered by the social climate around him, and he is a mere creature at the mercy of these elements.

Praise gives him a feeling of euphoria, which is false because it does not last and it does not come from self-approval. Criticism depresses him more than it should, because it confirms his own secretly shaky opinion of himself. Snubs hurt him and the merest suspicion of unpopularity in any quarter rouses him to bitterness. A serenity of spirit cannot be achieved until we become the masters of our own actions and attitudes. To let another determine whether we be rude or gracious, elated or depressed, is to relinquish control over our own personalities, which is ultimately all we possess.

- Author Unknown

Grant

My sister Christopher and her husband Nyles had their baby boy, Grant, in February. Welcome to the family :) All are doing well. Nyles, who's been accepted by a major passenger airlines for their pilot training program, was able to get back home for the weekend for the birth. We'll be visting in April and are looking forward to a bit of baby snuggling.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Beautiful