The Pros and the Cons

I don’t know why there is so much controversy over prayer in school. I can tell you that it works. No reason for debate. If I graduate from nursing school it will be more a testament to God’s grace than my ability to comprehend anatomy and physiology.

Revelation 1:1-3

1The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

The words of the Bible are so full of encouragement. Have you ever had a pair of shoes, or maybe jeans, that you had had for so long that whenever you wore them, they felt like a second skin? I feel that way about the Bible sometimes. I can see why the Bible makes such comparisons.

Ephesians 6:15-17

15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

It's so easy sometimes to regard the Bible like a rule book. In a lot of ways even a rulebook can be a comfort. But the Bible is so much more than that. The Bible shows us a way that God can be a companion to us at any time, when He speaks to us through his word. I'm talking about familiar verses which sing comfort to us in times of trouble. It sings to us like a mother sings to her baby.

In an earlier post, I had posted some comments about alternatives to gasoline, and it has occured to me that I may have been premature.

I did a little research that got me excited. Do you know that almost every major car manufacturer is making vehicles that can run on what they refer to as "flexible fuels"?

E85, in case you are unaware, is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. Legislation supported by Democratic senator Barack Obama "will triple the number of E85 pumps," Obama said in a news release. "This really makes the option of buying a flexible-fuel vehicle realistic when you save significant amounts per gallon of E85 and get substantially better gas mileage."

He's wrong about the mileage. E-85 boosts horsepower which most vehicles waste. The upside, however, is that we will be using more agricultural products and importing less oil from the middle east if this thing catches on. Also, from my conversation with a guy from the ag co-op, it will cost roughly $0.30 a gallon less than regular unleaded.

Here's the thing that really upsets me, though. I went to all the major oil company websites and typed into their search engines "e85", and every one of them came back blank. Finding a station that serves e-85 is nearly impossible. Not Marathon, not Shell, not BP.

When I was a kid, I used to love The Muppet Show. I remember my two sisters and I would sing along with the opening song. Sometimes we'd change the lyrics..."This is what we call the dingy show!!"

My favorite part was the Swedish chef. Never has a nation's identity and culture been mocked more effectively than when the Swedish chef would start his show singing in that fake-Swedish affect. The best part was when he would say "bork bork bork" and throw some utensils in the air. Absolutely hysterical.

I kind of wanted to get it on DVD, but I bought Millennium Season 2 instead, since it was on sale. Millennium, in case you never saw it, was the scariest thing I've ever seen on broadcast TV before or since.

Maybe I'd be better off turning off the tv for now and getting back to my homework...

An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the
Welfare State

by Robert Tracinski

September 2, 2005

It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar
pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle,as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

The man-made disaster is the welfare state...

Full article is at:
The Intellectual Activist

This article has been posted with the express permission of www.TIADaily.com.

It has been suggested that President Bush did not cause the hurricane that destroyed New Orleans.

I for one am disappointed. Wouldn't it be cool to have the ability to create a hurricane? And unleash it on your enemies?

I've heard conjecture that President Bush is the world's first Evil Genius Villian, like Lex Luthor in the Superman comic books. Think about it, he amassed a fortune in his business dealings, he had a life altering experience (when he became a Christian), then he came to power as president to avenge his father. The only thing cooler than that would be if he did have super powers.

If he had the ability to talk to aquatic mammals, like Aquaman, maybe he could get a walrus to eat Howard Dean. It's hard to imagine an animal with worse social skills or a bigger mouth, but I think the walrus is a close second.

According to an article in the September issue of Nursing 2005 magazine, the CDC considers an avian flu pandemic "likely".

"If the avian flu virus acquires the ability to spread easily, from person to person, it could trigger a world-wide epidemic (pandemic). The flu pandemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 21 million poeple worldwide, was also caused by an influenza A virus that may have originated with birds." (Avian influenza: Are you ready for a pandemic? pg 26)

What can you do to protect yourself? The article was directed at health care workers, and so most of the information provided is directed at patient care. However, the article did provide family and patient teaching, which amounts to cough etiquette, disposing of used tissues, the importance of hand hygiene, and food handling tips.

According to the article, the Department of Health and Human Services is stockpiling the antiviral drug, oseltamivir (Tamiflu), which prevents the virus from replicating and shortens the duration of the illness. It can also be given to prevent infection. (ibid)

I just got my car back from the shop. I noticed I was charged for "turn signal fluid" refill. Should I be worried that my turn signals were low on fluid?

Truthfully, I'm grateful I've found a good shop that does honest work. When I brought my 7 year old Hyundai into the shop for transmission problems and the work took longer than expected, the shop put us in a rental car. Eventually they were able to locate the source of the problem. I'm not all that mechanically inclined, but apparently there was some kind of "loose nut behind the steering wheel". I've got a pair of pliers in my toolbox, why didn't I think of that?

Actually, the problem was with the aftermarket cruise control the previous owner had installed. I love cruise control because it allows me to do one of my favorite things when driving down the interstate highways, pretend I'm asleep. I know it sounds silly, but that's better than annoying people with a cell phone.

All the footage I'm seeing of people signaling to aircraft on TV reminds me of a story. There was a helicopter pilot flying around Seattle one day when the weather abruptly changed, as it frequently does there. Fog rolled in so thick he couldn't tell where he was. So he flew by an office building where he could see someone working in her office. He had a notepad and a Sharpie with him, so he wrote a sign that said "Where am I?" The office worker saw his sign and, in a dutifully helpful fashion, responded with her own sign which read "You are in a helicopter".

Immediately the helicopter pilot knew he was hovering near the Microsoft building. He knew this because, who else but a Microsoft employee is capable of giving an answer that is both completely correct and completely useless? That's like saying Louisiana has had some trouble with the weather lately.