Thursday, March 31, 2005

Spring is here

Alright! Spring has officially arrived! Yippee!!!!!

It was nearly 80 degrees here in my little town yesterday. All the trees are blooming and I have dusted the pollen off my Shadow and taken her for a spin. Even road about 15 miles back from a class on Tuesday night at 9:00 and it wasn't too cold. I am very excited about Spring. Gotta start playing golf again next week when the time changes. It will be light long enough to get in 9 holes after work! Got a couple of motorcycle trips planned this spring as well. A fishing trip too! Yep, Spring is a great time of year in the Carolinas.

Well I finally figured out why I wake up at 4:30AM every morning. There is a scientific study that says it is a genetic thing. Hmmmm, not so sure about that but it is worth reading I suppose. Here is the link.

Mel Gibson weighs in on the Terri Shiavo story. I must agree with him on this. Link to story.

For those with money in the market we finally got some good news yesterday. Whew the past couple of weeks have been brutal. Check out the story.

By the way I keep hearing some people of the liberal persuasion saying the economy sucks. Here is a story that seems to contradict that mindset.

Hmmm, the world's tallest skyscraper in the Middle East. What is it that makes me think this is NOT a good idea. I just can't pin point it.

OK gotta run!

Write on!

Friday, March 25, 2005

Book Review

I just finished this book by Steven Shrewsbury. He's an up an coming author who has the talent to rival many of the greats like Steven King and Robert E. Howard. Here's my review of his latest novel called "Godforsaken." I urge you to get a copy. This will be one you'll want to read again and again over the years.

Enjoy!


Godforsaken

This new book by Steven Shrewsbury is already a classic in my opinion. As an avid reader of fantasy fiction who has gone through literally hundreds of books in this genre in the past 25 years I can honestly say this story is one of the finest I have ever read. Shrewsbury creates an ancient world using his vivid imagination along with much historically correct information form our own olden times. Follow a savage Celtic chieftain warrior, in a style reminiscent of Robert E. Howard’s Conan, who travels to Rome to avenge his wife and his people, then wanders the world in search of the mysterious tree of life. Along the way he battles Roman gladiators, befriends a Christian apostle, and engages in a conflict of wits and brawn with the very Gods themselves. By the end of this book you will find you have been immersed in a world where mighty legends have been created before your very eyes. Don’t miss this stunning work of battle lust, mischievous godly magic and revelations of biblical proportions!

JD Pearce

*****


You can order Steven's new book at either one of these links.

http://www.stevenshrewsbury.com/

http://behlerpublications.com/titles-shrewsbury.asp Posted by Hello

Terri Shiavo

Well, if you have not heard about this case you just plain do not listen to the news on TV or radio and never read a news paper or any internet news. Perhaps if you live in the woods or a cave I would give you a pass but if you are at all involved in the daily grind and occasionally watch TV or turn on your car radio you probably have heard something about this case.

I am a news junkie and I have heard it all, over and over and over for the past several days and even before that. I read a column by Neal Boortz on the subject published at Townhall.com. He is one of the few talk radio guys who does not support keeping Terri alive. He has compassionate reasons for wanting her to die but I disagree with him. Here is a letter I sent him this morning.


Hey Neal

I found your response to Rush's question intriguing. I think you are right about the soul making the transition to eternal life and certainly Terri deserves that. Yet where I part with you is here.

The life that we live here on earth is but a drop in the proverbial bucket of eternity. Should Terri remain in her current state for 5, 10 or 30 more years could be just the blink of an eye to God. He has used this woman's plight to show us many things the past week.

We have learned that many people in this country are as passionate about killing the infirm such as Terri as they are about killing the unborn. We have learned that the Judicial branch of government here in the U.S. has too much power and needs to be reigned in. We have also learned that sometimes Congress and the President will act in haste if they deem an issue important enough. We have also learned that we all need a living will. There is more here to be learned that will be revealed but I digress.

This case has taught us much and I thank God for using this poor woman to do his will. I wish her no suffering but I also know that God does work in mysterious ways and I am not smart enough to understand these ways nor shall I pass judgment on God for his motives.

I know people can be greedy and evil. My gut tells me that Terri's husband's motives are not pure. There is too much circumstantial evidence to the contrary and the fact that no judge will hear that evidence really steams me.

End


I left it at that with Neal but I will go a bit further here.

Where does it end? When a judge can issue a court order to starve a poor infirm woman to death and the legislative branch can convene in special session to pass a law to make a judge take a new look at the case and all the facts surrounding the case and the judge refuses, where does it end?

Our President flew from Texas to Washington to sign this emergency that many of our elected officials have traveled back to Washington to pass bill but again this was ignored. Where does it end?

If you stumble and fall, hit your head and are in the hospital, mis-diagnosed as a brain dead vegetable and have no living will. Then a judge orders you starved to death is that OK? What if you are really in there but just can't communicate, you can hear people talking about you and you know exactly what they are doing? This has happened you know. Then they pull your feeding tube and you ever so slowly dry up and die of dehydration and starvation, is that OK?

I think Not! I say Stop this madness!!!!


Think about Terri's plight today, good Friday as you contemplate the Lord's plight as he traversed the stoney path with the burden of our sins until he was crucified, dead and entombed. He did rise praise God and today sits at God's right hand. Our judgment will come and we must be prepared.

Blessed are those who seek the Lord.


JD

Saturday, March 19, 2005

More News, some good, some bad...

Greetings Folks

There is much happening in the news these days and here are a few news stories you may or may not be abreast of or interested in for that matter. So if you are so inclined here we go!

Looks like Arnold is really making things happen in California. In fact I would compare him to President Bush in the way he is making bold moves and shaking up the status quo. Here is the link to an article by Dick Morris explaining some of what Arnold is up to. In case this link is bad I will post the entire story at the end of this blog.

Is President Bush now vindicated in his bold vision to bring freedom to the people of the middle east? Charles Krauthammer thinks so. I wonder what all the nay sayers think about it now?

I've always wanted to go to Australia, for some reason that country is an appealing place to travel to. Now here is another reason to go!

Should Terry Shiavo live or die? I am under the impression that if she had therapy she should be able to function much more than she does today. I have also heard that her husband and guardian has refused to let her have any kind of therapy including not even allowing her teeth to be brushed for over ten years. True? I don't know for sure, sounds ridiculous to me. However at the root of the problem is this question. Should her feeding tube be removed and she be allowed to slowly starve and dehydrate. I think this is a cruel way to kill a human being. What about the cruel and inhuman punishment talked about when it comes to criminals? Should this woman be treated worse than a criminal? Here is the latest on the story.

Cute little Jessica Lunsford is dead. Murdered and raped by a child molester who had been staying across the street from her house with his half sister. The half sister should not have allowed him to be there in the first place. What is her crime in this? The girls father was out catting around with a girlfriend, not spending the night at home. Was he neglect? The grandmother had some issues on her lie detector test. Did she know this guy? Had he been over there talking to the grandma while the dad was out? The moral of the story here is more than two fold. The U.S. justice system needs to crack down on these child molesters and make them wear ankle bracelets or something. Keeping them in jail longer and perhaps neutering them would help too. Parents need to be more careful with their kids and keep their damn doors locked at night. How about some type of alarms on your children's windows and doors. Here is the sad story.

Baretta is innocent! So says the jury in this Hollywood murder story. I personally thought they would convict him but it seems there really was no evidence to tie him to the murder, circumstantial or physical. Obviously what we saw on the news was not the full story. His body guards must have been deemed non-credible by the defense. What do you think? Did he get away with murder?

I suppose that is enough for one day.

Have a great weekend!

JD



Here's the Arnold story!

March 17, 2005 -- WE'LL never change the Constitution to let him become president, but Arnold Schwarzenegger is conducting a one-man revolution aimed at providing presidential leadership.

The East Coast media has missed the full dimensions of the California governor's accomplishments and bold proposals. Together, they constitute one of the most astounding, imaginative and forward-thinking agendas in our recent history.

Start with the War on Terror. While President Bush hunts the terrorists down and pressures nation-states to give up their sponsorship of terror gangs, Schwarzenegger is working to solve the problem of Islamic terrorism once and for all — by ending our dependence on foreign oil and stopping the worldwide economic and climatic distortions that global oil usage causes.

He's doing it by providing aggressive state leadership to open the way for hydrogen fuel cell cars. While President Bush speaks of the advent of these vehicles in the indefinite future, Gov. Schwarzenegger is bringing them to the here and now by converting gas stations along California's interstate highways to provide hydrogen fuel as well as gasoline.

With financing projected to come one-third each from federal, state and private sources, California will offer hydrogen fuel every few miles in urban areas and at least every 20 miles along the highway system by 2010. Eventually, he and the leaders of Washington, Oregon, Baja California and British Columbia will work together to create a "hydrogen highway" that will run from B.C. (British Columbia) to B.C. (Baja California).

The Schwarzenegger plan calls for state-subsidized production of hydrogen and for tax incentives for those who purchase hydrogen cars.

Replacing gasoline engines with hydrogen-fuel cells would eliminate two-thirds of America's need for oil — a demand that we could meet entirely with domestically produced oil.

Since California accounts for 20 percent of U.S. new-car purchases, the tail will wag the dog and a national hydrogen grid will become almost inevitable.

But Arnold's revolution also aims to restore democracy at home.

Disgusted by the gerrymandering that led to the re-election of all but a handful of members of Congress in 2000 and 2002 (including all 54 California congressmen in 2002 and everyone but Gary Condit in 2000), Schwarzenegger is acting to end the disgrace on our democracy. He is pushing a voter initiative to adopt the Iowa Plan — to have legislative and congressional districts drawn by independent jurists who aren't permitted to take account of incumbency or party in creating the districts.

The cynical political deals that underscored the post-2000 Census reapportionment made the incumbents of both parties invulnerable and limited the number of swing seats to a mere 5 percent of the House of Representatives. Gov. Arnold will change all that in California. And, as with hydrogen cars, his action will likely awaken voters across the nation to take back their democracy.

Finally, Schwarzenegger is striking at the root of the problem with public education by seeking to smash teacher tenure and pay and promote teachers based on merit, just like other employees in America. The privileged classroom enclave where incompetence is not punished and excellence is not rewarded will be ended in California.

Too bad that so-called education reformers like Hillary Clinton dropped merit-based promotion (which she once supported in Arkansas but dropped when she came to New York, with its virulent teachers union).

If the legislature does not pass the "governator's" tenure-reform and redistricting programs, he'll put these issues on the ballot where they will most likely pass.

In energy, the environment, anti-terrorism, democratic reform and education, Arnold Schwarzenegger is showing us what a governor can do. Are there other governors willing to follow his bold example?

Thursday, March 17, 2005

The Left is lost!

While browsing the news this morning I found a great article at Slate.com by Chistopher Hitchens. Here is a link to it. In this article he points out the flaws in the NYT article from the 13th concerning the so-called looting of the WMD sites in Iraq.

Remember these WMD sites did not exist according to certain parties on the left and certain weapons inspectors with agendas that did not mesh with the Bush administration. Now all of the sudden the two brilliant juorlnalists from the NYT claim that all this material was systematically removed from Irag to a neighboring state with trucks and cranes and they call it looting!

Hmmm, seems the same paper who printied that Bush lied about Sadaam's WMD capabilites now prints and article that says Sadaam had the capabilites and we allowed them to be looted. What's wrong with this picture. By the way, the Old media did not report this story at all on Monday the day after the NYT printed it.

Double-hmmm, I wonder why?

You a Clint Eastwood fan? Here is a link to an interview with Clint by Bill O'Reilly. Check it out! In this article you will learn that Clint is 74 now. Wow! How did that happen? His mom who is still alive is 96! Looks like Clint could be with us a while longer.....

Write on!

JD

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

The News Today

Greetings friends

I normally like to post good news here however it is often that I find some important information that is not so good. This is one of those occasions. It seems that one of the most ruthless gangs from Central america has made it's way to the USA. I know they have been here for many years but the antee has been upped. Now it looks as though they may have an alliance with Al Quaida. Check out the story here. For more detailed information on this dangerous and super violent gang you can click here.

Another important story you will not hear on CBS, ABC, NBC or the rest of the old media was actually reported by the New York Times last weekend. It seems that the illusive facilities to create WMD from Iraq were actually there and were then spirited away during the first days of the war to a neighboring state. Hmmm, seems like me and a zillion other people have been saying this all along but Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and the Dims in Washington were not quite bright enough to figure this one out. Well, perhaps they really knew it but had another agenda. Naaa, that couldn't be true could it??? The link may not work so I will give you the full story. The real story here is that this is meant to be critical to the Bush administration yet it actually verifies what they said all along about Sadaam's WMD program. Looks like the NYT has shot themselves right in the foot here.

By: James Glanz and William J. Broad
NYT March 13, 2005

In the weeks after Baghdad fell in April 2003, looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein's most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms, a senior Iraqi official said this week in the government's first extensive comments on the looting.

The Iraqi official, Sami al-Araji, the deputy minister of industry, said it appeared that a highly organized operation had pinpointed specific plants in search of valuable equipment, some of which could be used for both military and civilian applications, and carted the machinery away.

Dr. Araji said his account was based largely on observations by government employees and officials who either worked at the sites or lived near them.

"They came in with the cranes and the lorries, and they depleted the whole sites," Dr. Araji said. "They knew what they were doing; they knew what they want. This was sophisticated looting."

The threat posed by these types of facilities was cited by the Bush administration as a reason for invading Iraq, but the installations were left largely unguarded by allied forces in the chaotic months after the invasion.

Dr. Araji's statements came just a week after a United Nations agency disclosed that approximately 90 important sites in Iraq had been looted or razed in that period.

Satellite imagery analyzed by two United Nations groups - the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, or Unmovic - confirms that some of the sites identified by Dr. Araji appear to be totally or partly stripped, senior officials at those agencies said. Those officials said they could not comment on all of Dr. Araji's assertions, because the groups had been barred from Iraq since the invasion.

For nearly a year, the two agencies have sent regular reports to the United Nations Security Council detailing evidence of the dismantlement of Iraqi military installations and, in a few cases, the movement of Iraqi gear to other countries. In addition, a report issued last October by the chief American arms inspector in Iraq, Charles A. Duelfer, told of evidence of looting at crucial sites.

The disclosures by the Iraqi ministry, however, added new information about the thefts, detailing the timing, the material taken and the apparent skill shown by the thieves.

Dr. Araji said equipment capable of making parts for missiles as well as chemical, biological and nuclear arms was missing from 8 or 10 sites that were the heart of Iraq's dormant program on unconventional weapons. After the invasion, occupation forces found no unconventional arms, and C.I.A. inspectors concluded that the effort had been largely abandoned after the Persian Gulf war in 1991.

Dr. Araji said he had no evidence regarding where the equipment had gone. But his account raises the possibility that the specialized machinery from the arms establishment that the war was aimed at neutralizing had made its way to the black market or was in the hands of foreign governments.

"Targeted looting of this kind of equipment has to be seen as a proliferation threat," said Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a private nonprofit organization in Washington that tracks the spread of unconventional weapons.

Dr. Araji said he believed that the looters themselves were more interested in making money than making weapons.

The United Nations, worried that the material could be used in clandestine bomb production, has been hunting for it, largely unsuccessfully, across the Middle East. In one case, investigators searching through scrap yards in Jordan last June found specialized vats for highly corrosive chemicals that had been tagged and monitored as part of the international effort to keep watch on the Iraqi arms program. The vessels could be used for harmless industrial processes or for making chemical weapons.

end

This is just part of the article but you may get the point from it. If these so called looters could come in and move all this equipment right under out noses hard hard would it have been to move out WMD at the same time or in the months prior to this.

Gotta run, more on this to come!

Monday, March 14, 2005

What a Sunday!

WOW! The weather was nice yesterday. Must have been 75 degrees here in Charlotte. I had to get my Shadow out and give her a wash. I took a nice ride in the mid afternoon and visited a couple of friends . Did about a 15 miles trip. It sure was good to be on the road again. I am planning on spending a little money this year on my bike. I want to add a sissy bar with back rest and a small windshield. After that I will get a suitcase like bag that fits down on the sissy bar for when I go camping. I have got a few friends now who ride so looks like I am going to get out more this year than last!

In the News lately the debacle in Atlanta is still headlines. This guy who took the gun from the officer and killed the judge and a few others is back in custody. Do you think they will hand cuff him this time or is it too mean to handcuff a prisoner. It makes them look guilty. This liberal PC nonsense has to stop! Not to mention the policy of having hardened criminals being escorted by female deputies that obviously do not have the ability to keep their guns away from the criminals. How stupid is that policy? Looks like it will change now that people have died due to their lack of common sense in Atlanta.

In other disturbing news some lunatic has killed seven people at a church service. My wife and I had a discussion about this a year or so ago when someone had shot up a school. I said next thing you know some idiot will open fire in a church! Sure enough it has happened. My prayers go out to all of the above, in Atlanta and in Wisconsin. It seems the crazy people are just taking it out on innocent bystanders these days.

I am urging everyone I know to back the Fair tax Act. In this proposal we will no longer pay income tax, payroll tax or inheritance tax. An across the board consumption tax will replace it all. Corporations too! Take a look at it and see what you think!

I was watching TV last night and Deadwood was on HBO. I tuned in because I watched most of last season even though I was a bit put out by all the vulgarity. I love a good western though and this one is gritty and realistic it seems. However last night was my last episode. I just can't support this thing any longer. Every other word is the F word and the blatant sex and vulgarity is just too overwhelming. My sensibilities have changed over the past few years and since I have been born again I just cannot tolerate some things I would have tolerated in the past. Call me a prude if you like but I am done with that show.

The Sheild will be on tomorrow night. It is a cop show that I enjoy that is realistic and gritty. I hope they don't get too overboard with it. It is on cable but not HBO so maybe there is hope.

One last thing. The wife and I went to see Bruce Willis in "Hostage" this weekend. It was a very good movie. It was rated R for strong violence and language but I still enjoyed it. The story was good and it had many twists in the plot. I recommend it for adults.

Later

JD

Friday, March 11, 2005

Middle Eastern Oil? No Thanks!

Check out this article from the World Energy Council's website written by Walter Youngquist.. Here's the biggest part of it:

OIL SHALE

If a technology can be developed to economically recover oil from oil shale, the potential is tantalizingly enormous. If the containing organic material could be converted to oil, the quantities would be far beyond all known conventional oil reserves. Oil shale in great quantities exists worldwide: including in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Estonia, France, Russia, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and the USA.

The term "oil shale" is a misnomer. It does not contain oil nor is it commonly shale. The organic material is chiefly kerogen, and the "shale" is usually a relatively hard rock, called marl. Properly processed, kerogen can be converted into a substance somewhat similar to petroleum. However, it has not gone through the "oil window" of heat (nature’s way of producing oil) and therefore, to be changed into an oil-like substance, it must be heated to a high temperature. By this process the organic material is converted into a liquid, which must be further processed to produce an oil which is said to be better than the lowest grade of oil produced from conventional oil deposits, but of lower quality than the upper grades of conventional oil.

There are two conventional approaches to oil shale processing. In one, the shale is fractured in-situ and heated to obtain gases and liquids by wells. The second is by mining, transporting, and heating the shale to about 450oC, adding hydrogen to the resulting product, and disposing of and stabilizing the waste. Both processes use considerable water. The total energy and water requirements together with environmental and monetary costs (to produce shale oil in significant quantities) have so far made production uneconomic. During and following the oil crisis of the 1970’s, major oil companies, working on some of the richest oil shale deposits in the world in western United States, spent several billion dollars in various unsuccessful attempts to commercially extract shale oil.

Oil shale has been burned directly as a very low grade, high ash-content fuel in a few countries such as Estonia, whose energy economy remains dominated by shale. Minor quantities of oil have been obtained from oil shale in several countries at times over many years.

With increasing numbers of countries experiencing declines in conventional oil production, shale oil production may again be pursued. One project is now being undertaken in north-eastern Australia, but it seems unlikely that shale oil recovery operations can be expanded to the point where they could make a major contribution toward replacing the daily consumption of 73 million barrels of oil worldwide.

Perhaps oil shale will eventually find a place in the world economy, but the energy demands of blasting, transport, crushing, heating and adding hydrogen, together with the safe disposal of huge quantities of waste material, are large. On a small scale, and with good geological and other favorable conditions, such as water supply, oil shale may make a modest contribution but so far shale oil remains the "elusive energy".

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If we could get some petroleum companies working on extracting this stuff and processing it we could truly wean ourselves from the OPEC dependency. This would also send the price of sweet crude back down along with gasoline prices. It would be nice to pay .80 cents a gallon again.

What say you???

Evil Outsourcing & stuff

I just read a very intersting article at Townhall.com after finding a link to it at Neals Nuze. For those of you who do not believe in facts you may want to pass this up. Larry Elder has a great column about the Evils of Outsourcing in America!

Want to know where those weapons of mass destruction we can't find in Iraq might be now???? Check out this page.

Did you find that interesting? Well check this one out!

Oh well I must get ready for work. Gotta earn a living you know!

JD

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Moving on to the news...

Greetings

I hope my million and millions of visitors enjoyed the pics from the family reunion. I took most of them down but I did leave the one of Grace Britt (Granny) for all the world to enjoy. I also left the one up of my shadow. It is almost spring and I will be getting her ready for business soon!

I was reading this morning in Neals Nuze where the private accounts for SS that the President is trying to push through the congress is not polling well. Neal made mention of the fact that most of the people not paying attention or saying no to these private accounts are either the AARP or products of the government school system here in the good ole' USA. Well Neal you nailed it buddy. The vast majority of the kids being churned out of the public school system in this country wouldn't know a whit about the economic impact on their lives if they were able to have private accounts set up from the time they were 18 until they turned 65. If the schools actually taught economics as a true subject of study rather than teaching it from a platform of how bad the United States is by being the economic bully of the world we might have some different opinions out there.

There is a proposal being batted around right now which presents a very interesting theory. If each and every baby born in the USA were paid $2000.00 that day, then again on each birth day until it is 18. All of this going into an account strictly for retirement the kid would have 65K at 18. By the time he hit 65 years old he/she would have over one million dollars for retirement. That means a couple would have two million or more for their golden years. It is said this program would cost less than the current social security system we have set up today. Sounds a little far fetched but it is an interesting proposal.

I was emailing back and forth with a friend of mine about the state of the country and the economy and so forth. He stated he thought there would be another revolution here in the USA someday in the future. I replied that there already is one, a conservative republican revolution. If you don't believe me look at the current political climate. Republicans have won the White House, the senate, the house of representatives, and the majority of governors seats across the country.

Let's look at some reasons why the republicans have had such sweeping success.

  1. Democrats were wrong about tax cuts.
  2. Democrats were wrong about Iraq.
  3. Democrats have positioned themselves to only succeed if America fails.
  4. Democrats continue to block the President's prime judicial nominees.
  5. Democrats continue to block the President's energy plan.
  6. Democrats continue to push for removal of GOD from schools and public places.
  7. Democrats continue to block Social Security reform.
  8. Democrats will try and block Tax Reform.
  9. The rise of conservative talk radio.
  10. The influence of FOX news.
  11. The influence and availability of internet news.
  12. The fall of the Old media.
  13. The rise of BLOGS!
I could go on but I think you see my point here. Democrats are still nasty and wrong plus, there have been big changes over the past decade or so in this country where news is concerned. The people who absorb the news in America are no longer forced to get it from the big three CBS, ABC, and NBC. We have talk radio and FOX news as well as the internet. We can now get both sides of the story and it has made a HUGE difference in the way people see politics. I see more changes coming. Hold onto your hats because the democrats will not go down without a fight. However they will go down. Their party is currently imploding and I predict it will split at some point.

More to come....

Saturday, March 05, 2005


My Shadow! Posted by Hello

Here she is, Grace Britt herself! Posted by Hello

Family Reunion pics!

OK, so I am playing around with my blog tonight. It is Saturday and I really do have better things to do I suppose but I am doing this anyway so sue me!

I am going to post some pics from my family reunion and try and get some of my relatives to come check it out. I have been blessed with a great, loving family and we all gather in north Georgia every year to meet and break bread together. Grace Britt, my sweet Grandmother is the matriarch of the family and only the best Granny in the whole world!

We do this for her, that is drive hundreds of miles to eat and chat for a couple of hours then hit the road again. I enjoy it, really! She will be 85 or 86 this year, I am not exactly sure which but who's counting anyway... (wink)

Love Ya Granny Britt!

So here goes nothing!


Janet At the Park! Posted by Hello

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Freedom

Freedom:
  1. The condition of being free of restraints.
  2. Liberty of the person from slavery, detention, or oppression.
  3. Political independence.
  4. Exemption from the arbitrary exercise of authority in the performance of a specific action; civil liberty: freedom of assembly.
  5. Exemption from an unpleasant or onerous condition: freedom from want.


  6. These are a few of the meanings of the word freedom you will find in the dictionary. Freedom is a word that we take for granted here in the United States. Although we have true freedom in many ways, guaranteed by the Constitution, we have to keep a watchful eye on a government that will try and take it away from us piece by piece, incrementally. However for the most part we are a free people here in the U.S. and we are blessed to be born here or to have been brought here.
    As you know many around the world do not know what freedom means. Many if not most of the peoples of the world suffer under brutal governments that oppress their citizens, many of who cannot even read or write so that they, being uneducated can not and will not rise up and take the freedom that men naturally yearn for.

    This seems to be changing in the middle east and beyond. Lately more and more citizens in these countries are pushing for that elusive word called freedom. Governments are toppling and oppressive regimes are now the ones trembling with fear, fear of the word freedom being chanted by thousands of citizens marching in the dirt streets of places like Lebanon and Egypt. Now that Afghanistan and Iraq have held elections the dominoes are beginning to fall in this region of the world and a paradigm shift is taking place. How long before Iran and North Korea follow suit. Even the old Soviet Union is seeing more and more freedom take roots.

    These my friends are historical and world changing times. Many people will deny this but you can thank God and the United States of America and it's current leaders for the major events that are unfolding before our very eyes. Yes that means George W. Bush and his bold vision to change the middle east. You must give credit to him and all his advisors who prompted him and helped him destroy the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. These two events were the precursors or catalyst to what we see happening now.

    It will be very interesting to see how the political left here in the U.S. handles this remarkable news that is transpiring daily. Even as we speak their foolish behavior during the last election and since is being repudiated each day. They again are finding themselves being on the wrong side of history as all their arguments against George W. Bush and his vision are being reduced to mindless babble. What will Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean and John Kerry say when the middle east is a land of democracy? Will their stalwart cries of (Wrong War at the Wrong Place and the Wrong Time) be forgotten? Will their accusations that Bush and Cheney devised this war for their own motives and profits just fade away? What will they do when they have found themselves and their political views obsolete?

    The world is changing and freedom is spreading. I am reminded of a movie I saw just the other day. A man had been captured and was being tortured to death. He was told to just ask for mercy and his torture would end and his death would be painless, yet with his last dying breath he screamed, (FREEDOM!)