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Leave her alone! ...She's a human!

Okay. So her name isn't Britney, it's Paris. And she's not getting a hundred million from big granddaddy "Warbucks" Hilton... she's only getting FIVE million. So, what must that have felt like... to know that "life as she knew it" was essentially over (unless she got up and went to work)? Was it a nauseous feeling like a swift kick in the gut? Did she wail as she did when carted off to jail? Or was it an explosive breath-stealing shock.....?

........BANG! BANG!!

...one shot to the chest and another to the throat? Life ebbing away in pools and rivulets; seeping into some anonymous filthy street in some backwater Pakistani city called "Crazy"?

How tragic. How completely and utterly tragic! To have all her hopes and dreams for the future cut so tragically short! Robbed of everything that matters by a madman devoid of any sense of humanity....

No her name's not Britney. OR Paris. Her name was Benazir... Her name is Martyr.


Coupla years back I wrote a verse of carol, and laid it aside. Last year I wrote another, then laid it aside. I've written a coupla more, but.... still needs another. Here's what I got so far...


Israel cried for her messiah
Mary had a baby boy
Come to baptize men with fire
God a babe in Mary's arms
Sing Hallelujah
Glory in the highest
O, Hallelujah
God a babe in Mary's arms

Angels sang in adoration
Mary had a baby boy
Come to bring the world salvation
God a babe in Mary's arms
Sing Hallelujah
Glory in the highest
O, Hallelujah
God a babe in Mary's arms

Shepherds quailed in fear and wonder
Mary had a baby boy
Come to die and death to conquer
God a babe in Mary's arms
Sing Hallelujah
Glory in the highest
O, Hallelujah
God a babe in Mary's arms

Wise men came with gifts a' bearing
Mary had a baby boy
Come to give us life unending
God a babe in Mary's arms
Sing Hallelujah
Glory in the highest
O, Hallelujah
God a babe in Mary's arms


Still need a final verse... I'm stuck. Actually have a melody, though... and chords and tab. The last bit'll come. I'm not at all worried.

Merry Christmas everyone.


..::Update::..

Hows about this one...?


Centuries gone, the world a' pining
Mary had a baby boy
For a King resplendent shining
God a babe in Mary's arms
Sing Hallelujah
Glory in the highest
O, Hallelujah
God a babe in Mary's arms

And just for fun...


"Santa is Dead"

Need Proof?

1. No known species of reindeer can fly, but there are 30,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified. While most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer, which only Santa has ever seen.

2. There are 2 billion children (persons under 18 years of age) in the world, but since Santa doesn't appear to handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total, which is approximately 37 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average rate of 3.5 children per house, that means Santa has to visit 91.8 million homes (assuming there is at least one 'nice' child in every home).

3. Santa has 31 hours in which to work (allowing for different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels from east to west). Using the figures above, this works out to 822.6 visits per second, meaning that Santa has .001 seconds to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the presents under the tree, get back up the chimney, jump on the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each stop is distributed evenly around the earth (I know that is wrong, but humor me), we are talking about .78 miles per house, or a total of 75.7 million miles. To achieve this Santa's sleigh must be moving at about 650 miles per second (300,000 times the speed of sound). The average reindeer clocks in with a top speed of 15 miles per HOUR.

4. Assuming that each child gets a small gift, like a medium-sized lego set (approximately 2 lbs), the sleigh will be carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa who is invariably described as overweight. A 'conventional' reindeer can pull almost 300 lbs, and if we suppose that 'flying' reindeer can pull 10 times that amount, it would not be possible to do the job with only 7 or 8 reindeer. According to the figures, 214,000 reindeer would be necessary, increasing the payload to 353,430 tons (4 times the weight of the ocean liner 'Queen Elizabeth').

5. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance. This will heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each, causing them to burst into flames instantaneously, and exposing the reindeer behind them. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized in .00426th of a second. Meanwhile, poor old Santa would be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500 times greater than gravity. A 250 lb Santa would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 lbs of force.


Unfortunately, all this leads to the conclusion that if Santa ever did deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now, due to the laws of physics.


Merry Christmas one and all, and may the Lord richly bless each and every one of you.

"Romney should not be the next president"

'Old GOP bromides' aside, why exactly does the Concord Monitor NOT like Mitt Romney? Little mention of Liberal objections to a Conservative candidate, just a list of flip and flops, and the word: "Chilling"

Follow the link to discover exactly why the Concord monitor calls Romney a ...

...disquieting figure who sure looks like the next president and most surely must be stopped.


The 'Pearl and Lodestone Crier' says pretty much the same of Hillary ...

a disquieting figure who sure looks like the next president and most surely must be stopped.


_________________

--This message was approved by ELAshley, but should in no wise be construed as an endorsement of Governor Romney





There’s a Huckabee Born Every Minute
--Ann Coulter
December 19, 2007


Asked on CNN's "Larry King Live" Monday night about his beliefs on evolution, Huckabee rushed to assure King that he has no interest in altering textbooks that foist this fraud on innocent schoolchildren.


The Huckster doesn't believe in evolution but has no interest in removing it from the Humanist Indoctrination manuals in American schools? He's willing to allow another generation to sink into that dark well of pathos and unbelief that the fraud of Darwinianism "foists" upon innocent school children? What? A Baptist preacher not interested in defending the truth?

Judging strictly from the rest of the article I'm beginning to wonder if I can even contemplate voting for Huckabee.

The world sees Christians in only two lights, really: Hypocrites and the 'Real Deal' which to the unbelieving world usually means those who compromise the message to make it more palatable to the unbelieving world.

Huckabee compromising on truth? What else would he compromise on if awarded the White House?





Click on the picture for the full view and some of my pencil notes will become legible. The robot is a theme I used in a drawing/painting I did back in, ohhh, 1991 or so dealing with man's reliance on technology and what's lost in the bargain. The painting was entitled 'A Farewell to Whales' from a series called 'Man, Being Imperfect.'




Saudi King Pardons Rape Victim

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - A woman sentenced to prison and a public lashing after being gang- raped has been pardoned by the Saudi monarch in a case that sparked an international outcry, including rare criticism from the United States, the kingdom's top ally.

The woman, known only as "the Girl of Qatif," was convicted of violating Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic laws against mixing of the sexes because she was in a car with a man she was not related to when the seven men attacked and raped them both in 2006.

The sentence shocked many in the West. In unusually strong criticism of a close ally, President Bush said that if the same thing happened to one of his daughters, he would be "angry at those who committed the crime. And I'd be angry at a state that didn't support the victim."


That's right... it's the woman's fault she got raped!

Peace with Islam? Not on THESE terms!


Muslim Students Take Over 'Meditation Room' in Minnesota

Key points EL finds curious:

Literature titled "Hijaab [covering] and Modesty" was prominently placed there, instructing women on proper Islamic behavior.

They should cover their faces and stay at home, it said, and their speech should not "be such that it is heard."


Jews and Christians are the enemies of Allah’s religion.


Peace with Islam? When they consider Jews and Christians to be 'enemies'? What American woman would accept Sharia Law when it demands they dress in croaker sacks and remain silent in public? Neither Judaism nor Christianity require this of women, and yet Christianity is pretty much reviled by those who are not Christian. Jews likewise are reviled by much of the world.

Islam? Embraced by far too many.






Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls would scarcely get your feet wet.


Anyone know who said this? Just curious.


Photo courtesy of Drudge


Income is earned, not distributed. The rich keep getting richer because they keep doing whatever it was that made them rich.

Ditto for the poor.

Having said that, Charity is 'Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself' in action. But being charitable requires one to be cognizant of good stewardship-- Charity is not a safety net for slothfulness.

Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought; but wrought with labour and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you: not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us. For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread.

2 Thessalonians 3:8-12


But again... Charity is 'Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself' in action. Be good to your neighbor, but be good stewards with the resources God has given you.


..::Tacking::..

Being rich is not evil, as some believe. Rich men CAN enter heaven.

So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses.

--Job 42:12


The LOVE of wealth bars rich haughty men from entry into heaven, NOT the possession of wealth itself. Cash itself is not evil.

Failing them for fear
our oft desolate dreams
its becomes us a sensual search
for simple significance...
personal significance
Beating bushes
blazing trails
firing hills
and failing them all
for fear of failing
and a rhyme and resonance unrealized

Sift the ash of our ruin
What pearl of great price pristine
'neath unsullied skies
survives our stately scourge?
What is there left
having burned our bridges
fired our fields
having wasted ourselves for naught?
Looking within has yielded no fruit
no rhyme nor resonance
And failing ourselves within
what then lies without?


ELAshley
101507.082411.6





I’m not asking for Government censorship or any other kind of censorship. I am asking whether a form of censorship already exists when the news that 40 million Americans receive each night is determined by a handful of men responsible only to their corporate employers and is filtered through a handful of commentators who admit to their own set of biases.

--Vice President Spiro Agnew
November 13, 1969



You can read the whole speech here


Also uttered by Spiro Agnew:

In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism.

--September 11, 1970, San Diego, CA


Man! How little things change!


full, empty, empty, (full
and prostrate heavenward)
counting anxious minutes
full, empty, empty, full
(five, ten, fifteen)
an anxious watch of
hands too slow
minutes too creep
too full unempty
full, empty, empty, full
empty to weakness
and weak presage wellness
cleanliness nearer too
godliness
empty, full, full, empty
prostrate heavenward
(counting counting counting)
and nearer too empty


ELAshley
121407.041506.6


...and often maliciously deliberate --let's push back the fog of 'misconceptions' surrounding the differences between Islam and Christianity.


Per my last post, the author makes the following observation:

Only Islamic clerics sanction the murder of women who have been raped. Only Islamic clerics issue murderous fatwas, celebrate murder of artists, and mobilize sword-wielding men to demand death for a female teacher who allowed children to name a teddy bear 'Mohammed'. Only Islam proudly exhibits videos of throat-cutters torturing helpless victims.


True. Anyone watching the news these last few years cannot objectively dismiss it. Christianity, on the other hand has never condoned such behavior. "Christians" throughout the centuries certainly have promoted the idea that women are "less" than men, but considering the most basic difference* between Islam and Christianity, such men's status as "Christian" is in doubt. Truth: Christianity does not condone murder... not even the thought of murder.

On another front. Islam, in its more extreme forms, hides its women in croaker-sacks**. Christianity only asks that women dress modestly so as not to draw untoward attention from the opposite sex. As with murder, sexual impurity for the Christian is more than a physical act, it is a thought crime against God's Law. Just thinking with lust upon a member of the opposite sex is just as, and equally punishable, as the physical act under God's Law. Islam subjugates an entire segment of society because MEN cannot control their own base desires. Islam punishes the woman who is raped more severely than the rapist-- if he is punished at all. Many Muslims-- and other cultures --see nothing wrong with Female Genitalia Mutilation, or Female Circumcision. One reason for this practice that I've encountered is the idea that Women should not enjoy sex; that sexual pleasure is strictly for the male. Some Muslim communities even see it as fine and proper for a girl to be given away in marriage at nine years of age-- Mohammad himself had a nine year old wife.

And Islam does not condemn ANY of these practices***. How Christianity can then be said to be more similar to Muslim perversions toward women than disparate, requires one to willing accept a colossal pile of steaming ignorance, and call it 'informed' and 'palatable'.

Women have held subordinate roles in Western cultures for as long as there has been Western Culture, but this doesn't mean Christianity sanctions such. Taking time to actually read the Bible, one will find nothing to suggest that women should be treated with anything less than genuine unabashed respect. The Bible says we are to love our wives as Christ loved the Church. Throw that in with 'love your neighbor as yourself,' and it becomes clear to any objective reader that Christianity is not even remotely similar to Islam.

But this will fall on far too many deaf ears. The O'Donnell mindset on this is just too entrenched in far too many Liberal minds. There are of course exceptions: few Liberals who comment here actually ascribe to Rosie's brand of Liberalism-- a dangerous and fast-growing brand of Liberalism --that says Radical Christianity is every bit as dangerous as Radical Islam.

In conclusion, please consider this: Islam sees the world in only two "Houses": Dar al-Islam, the House of Islam; and Dar al-harb, the House of War. Islam is NOT a religion of peace... again, there is far too much ignorance in the Liberal mindset in this respect. There can be no peace with Islam for the simple reason that THEY do not believe there can be peace. Even the leaders of CAIR, who want only to 'improve relations' between Muslims and non-Muslims in America, ultimately want to see America under Sharia Law... the very Law that subjugates women, treats them less than dogs, allows for the mutilation of female genitalia, and stones them because MEN rape them. And many many more atrocities besides.

Naturally, had I the time, this post would be much much longer. As it is, some will find plenty to argue. But I'll not argue with people who can't see the obvious, or with those who, rather than argue the points, seek to divert attention by erecting 'strawman' tangents... something they can burn down... something over which they can feel proud of themselves.


---
* Muslims are born Muslim, whereas Christians born into the Church by Christ's blood.
** A Southern colloquialism, for a 'rough unattractive bag'
*** What is not forbidden in Islam is Allowed



Jihadism, Liberalism and Perversion

What [Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel] found was that perversions are an essential way in which the human mind and psyche rebel against and seek to evade reality. That reality is rooted in biology: the male-female difference. The intolerance and fear of such differences can result in the practices of Wahabbi Islam, wherein women are so feared that they must be hidden and brutalized like beasts of the field. Muslim men's terror of women is undoubtedly accompanied by a high incidence of hidden (not so hidden when they travel to the Riviera) perverse sexuality.

Socialism is similarly perverse in its radical egalitarianism, denying differences of talent, intelligence, motivation, skill. Liberalism's affirmative action is perverse in its effort to impose an egalitarianism that is unattainable. It seeks to correct the "socially constructed" discriminatory differences. (Under its strictures shouldn't there be affirmative action for white basketball players?) This is perverse thinking. Modern politically correct liberalism is shot through with perversion.

The reason we hear so little condemnation, much less military resolve to annihilate these savage perverts, is Western culture's thralldom to contemporary, politically correct liberalism, which is itself perverse. Post-modern Liberalism shares the mindset of the jihadis and unconsciously enjoys their enactment of liberal fantasies.


Ouch! Read the whole article.




This is a center-right country caught between an incompetent right-wing party and a ruthlessly organized, energized, militant, minority left-wing party.

--Newt Gingrich



...a DANGEROUS minority left-wing party.


From today's Rush....

Don Surber: "The War is twice as popular as Congress. Under Democratic leadership, the 110th Congress is the least popular Congress since pollsters began measuring this. Various polls peg the disapproval at various numbers at various times. But one thing doesn’t change: Worst Congress ever. Democratic apologists say that this is because Congress has failed to end the war. Well, that may explain the low marks on the Democratic end. But the 63 votes so far this year on the war obviously are turning off independents and Republicans. Let us review. In November, Gallup pegged the Congressional job approval at 20% with 69% disapproval. In December, Gallup found that 40% of Americans think the Surge is working, 39% say not working. And while 57% now say going into Iraq was a mistake, 41% say it was not a mistake. Apparently 69% say electing this Congress was a mistake. Only 20% apparently believe this Congress was not a mistake. While obviously the questions are slightly different, the pollster is the same: Gallup."

Maybe Congress needs to redeploy to Okinawa and not the troops. (laughing) War 40, Congress 20, and 69% say electing this Congress was a mistake. Speaking of this Congress: "Each day lately, Democrats inch closer to giving President Bush more money for the war in Iraq without any serious mandates for withdrawing US troops. Democratic leaders are loath to acknowledge they've backed off, but lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, as well as congressional aides, say Democrats are trying to find a way to provide continued troop funding while searching for some compromises that show they're still intent on challenging the president on the war. ... According to one senior Democratic lawmaker, there's a growing discomfort among pro-defense Democrats about linking a $50 billion Iraq measure to troop withdrawal. 'We have to come off this lack of funding for the military operations,' the lawmaker said. 'We have to continue the funding. We don't want to look like we're against troop funding. ... We should separate the funding discussion from the rest of the war.' ... Additionally, lawmakers who represent areas with large military bases fear that layoff notices could go out to civilian military employees just a week before Christmas if the Pentagon has to pull money from other accounts to pay for the war."

That's another thing that's driving the fear here. Layoff notices, civilian workers at the Pentagon, one week before Christmas. The question must be asked here, folks, how in the world will these civilian workers who are laid off afford the sleigh ride at Jellystone National Park? That's a reference to the last government shut down. Everybody got paid, but the Jellystone sleigh ride operator got laid off. (laughing) He called Larry King. He was on Larry King first. He called in here and he had a beef with me. He wanted to set me straight on this. So poor Democrats, war 40, Congress 20, and 69% thinking electing this Congress was a mistake. They've had 63 resolutions and votes to try to end the war and get the troops out. They've failed on every one of them, with a lame duck president in the last year. Now they're trying to figure out how they can give the money and have their stupid idiot base not realize they're doing it. (laughing) And now the layoff notices at the Pentagon. (laughing) Excuse me, folks. I just love seeing these people implode. They're imploding all over.


--Rush Limbaugh, December 6, 2007



                    Christopher Scott Gailfoil
                                   1964 - 2007


















I'm not usually moved to write anything for anyone specific, and judging strictly from what I remember of Chris, always smiling with room-brightening intensity, the tone of my little tune is far from bright, and far from fitting. Last I saw Chris was at our leaders' house signing the sleeve to a record I co-wrote. It's fair to say I knew his brother Mike much better.

I admire people like Chris, who know what they want in life and go for it. Chris was a dreamer who lived his dreams. I have always chosen to take the safer route which has never produced in me an ounce of inner calm... acceptance, yes... but never calm.
Stevie Nicks described it best,

But never have I been a blue calm sea
I have always been a storm


I was looking forward to seeing Chris again sometime in the upcoming year, him and especially Mike. Though I haven't seen either of them in more than twenty years something just spilled out of me this evening... lyrics to a song in my head in under five minutes. There was a melody when they came, but it has left me; this has always been the case... I have always had to fight for the melody. And I have not always won. But here is the song nonetheless... not as I heard it in my head, but its pale mute caricature...


"Going to Ground"

Harbingers a knockin’
Dead leaves clatter chatter down the road
Cold dead knuckles a tick tick tockin’
All of my heroes goin’ to ground
There was time green and shining
Cool pressed smooth clean linen white
But time, come a time, come a chimin’
And all of my heroes goin’ to ground
Swiftly unwelcome
Swiftly unwelcome
Swiftly unwelcome
All of my friends are goin’ to ground

Insistence come a callin’
Layin’ to waste my palette of dream-soft dreams
It’s a thin tuft scrabble to keep from fallin’
All of my friends are goin’ to ground
Where is the time green and shining
Cool pressed smooth clean linen white?
And Time, now time, comes a chimin’
And all of my friends are goin’ to ground
Swiftly unwelcome
Swiftly unwelcome
Swiftly unwelcome
All of my heroes goin’ to ground

Swiftly unwelcome
Swiftly unwelcome
Swiftly unwelcome
All of my friends are goin’ to ground
Swiftly unwelcome
Swiftly unwelcome
Swiftly unwelcome
All swiftly goin’ to ground
All of my friends are goin’ to ground
All of my heroes goin’ to ground
Everythings goin’ to ground


ELAshley
120107.105852.6


It's more than a bit disconcerting to know ones circle of friends and acquaintances have begun to shed the chrysalis, as it were... my how we dance about death...



The LORD bless and clothe him with His glory, and may He richly bless and comfort all those who have been left to carry on.