Alabama Judge Roy Moore

According to the folks at the Foundation For Moral Law this poem was written by Judge Roy Moore.

Remember him?

The Foundation For Moral Law had championed the cause of Judge Moore and his defense of The Ten Commandments.

The name Judge Roy Moore became well known across America when he was sued by the ACLU for a wood-burned miniature of The Ten Commandments that was on display in his courtroom. He won that three-year case on a technicality.

He later became Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and had a 2 1/2 ton monument of The Ten Commandments brought into the Supreme Court building. He was again sued by the ACLU and that case resulted in an order to have the monument removed. Judge Moore refused and was removed from his post as Chief Justice.

I wonder — is the ACLU the American Civil Liberties Union or the Anti Christian Liars Union?

The following is a poem written by Judge Moore. He has been stripped of his judgeship and now they are trying to strip his right to practice law in Alabama. Christian or not, I hope you’ll read this and gain something positive from it. We all know the morality of our country’s people, especially the young,  is in acute jeopardy. The judge’s poem sums it up quite well.

America the beautiful,
or so you used to be.
Land of the Pilgrims’ pride;
I’m glad they’ll never see.

Babies piled in dumpsters,
Abortion on demand,
Oh, sweet land of liberty;
your house is on the sand.

Our children wander aimlessly
poisoned by cocaine
choosing to indulge their lusts,
when God has said abstain

From sea to shining sea,
our Nation turns away
From the teaching of God’s love
and a need to always pray

We’ve kept God in our
temples,how callous we have grown.
When earth is but His footstool,
and Heaven is His throne.

We’ve voted in a government
that’s rotting at the core,
Appointing Godless Judges;
who throw reason out the door,

Too soft to place a killer
in a well deserved tomb,
But brave enough to kill a baby
before he leaves the womb.

You think that God’s not
angry,that our land’s a moral slum?
How much longer will He wait
before His judgment comes?

How are we to face our God,
from Whom we cannot hide?
What then is left for us to do,
but stem this evil tide?

If we who are His children,
will humbly turn and pray;
Seek His holy face
and mend our evil way:

Then God will hear from Heaven;
and forgive us of our sins,
He’ll heal our sickly land
and those who live within.

But, America the Beautiful,
If you don’t – then you will see,
A sad but Holy God
withdraw His hand from Thee.

If you pray, please pray for Judge Moore. He has run the good race and needs our support.

Sep 012010

Well Hell…

My blog theme crashed during an upgrade today. When I finally got the new version loaded several hours later, I found out my daily WP backups were less than complete — each one missing posts or having errors and wouldn’t load into the host’s SQL tables. I’ve been using Austin Matzko’s WordPress Database Backup plugin.

It took several of my older backups, loaded into my data tables one at a time, to get all the posts copied and back together. I did lose comments from several of the latest posts, but I think I have all the posts intact.

I’m searching for a better way to backup files, because if I have to go through this again …

Moral of the story: When you need to update a theme, I recommend you first save a copy of the old theme, then temporarily change to a different theme. Then update or load your new version. When that’s done, go to your theme’s page and preview your updated theme. If it loads OK, you can probably activate the updated theme. If it doesn’t load properly, you can reload the older version you saved, and in all probability, get the blog back online without any problems.

And, make sure your data tables are backed up properly and often!!!

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September is full of special days and is a dedicated month for many causes. It contains, “Balance Awareness Week,” as in don’t fall over! It’s, “Self-Promotion Month,” and September even has PETA’s, “Fish Amnesty Day” which is in protest to the, “National Hunting and Fishing Day” on the 25th of the month. September 30th starts, “National Chimney Safety Week.” And, for the sweet tooth, it’s, “National Caramel Month.”

September is also, “Classical Music Month.”

West Virginia Symphony Orchestra

Many of us enjoy classical music, but when asked by someone, “What is classical music?” we are unable to provide a solid statement about this genre that encompasses many styles of music and spans more than seven hundred years.

Wikipedia says, Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music encompassing a broad period from roughly the 9th century to present times. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common practice period.

Got that? ;-)

Given the extremely broad variety of forms, styles, genres, and historical periods generally perceived as being described by the term “classical music,” it’s difficult to list characteristics that can be attributed to all works of that type. Vague descriptions are plentiful, such as describing classical music as anything that “lasts a long time,” a statement made rather moot when one considers contemporary composers who are described as classical; or music that has certain instruments like violins, which are also found in other genres. However, there are characteristics that classical music contains that few or no other genres of music contain.

Classical music, according to historiographers, is classified by six different stylistic periods:

• Before 1400/Medieval – characterized by Gregorian chant, mostly religious
• 1400-1600/Renaissance – an increase of secular music, madrigals, and art song
• 1600-1750/Baroque – known for its intricate ornamentation
• 1750-1820/Classical – balance and structure
• 1820-1900/Romantic – emotional, large, and programmatic compositions
• Beyond 1900/20th Century – limitless

If you are a new classical music fan, here’s a list of “must have” symphonies from “About.com.”

• Mahler Symphony No. 9 in D Major
• Haydn Symphony No. 34 in d minor
• Beethoven Symphony No. 5 in c minor
• Mozart Symphony No. 25 in g minor
• Barber Symphony No. 1 in G Major
• Haydn Symphony No. 94 in G Major
• Dvorak Symphony No. 9 in e minor
• Ives Symphony No. 1 in d minor
• Brahms Symphony No. 2 in D Major
• Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in d minor

About.com provides a classical music introduction guide for new listeners. Another definitive introduction to the classics may be found at classicalmusic101.

If you find you would like to own some of the classics for your music collection, you will find a reasoned list of the ten essential CDs that every classical music fan should have right here — if you’re only going to buy ten classical CDs in your life, they should be these ten.

And, if you visit Classical.com, you will find another introduction to the classics with the ability to actually listen to excerpts of the music. You may browse by the composer’s name, the instrument, period, etc., in many of the genres.

Enjoy Classical Music Month!

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A Wheeling, West Virginia newspaper, The Intelligencer, ran an article about an issue in the legislature that concerned publishing the names and addresses of people registering for a concealed handgun permit.

Public Has Right To Gun Information
The Intelligencer

To their credit, many members of the West Virginia Legislature are willing to change their minds about important issues. Having heard arguments that persuade them to support a bill one day, they display the character and leadership to alter their stances when presented with more thoughtful points of view.

That appears to be what happened with a bill in the House of Delegates, to make it virtually impossible for the public to obtain information about those in our communities who obtain permits to carry concealed firearms.

At one point it appeared that the bill would pass. But late this week, House leaders placed it on the “inactive” calendar.

What happened? Proponents of the measure had argued that those with gun permits have a right to privacy. Specifically, they cited victims of domestic violence.

But this week, lawmakers began to ponder the other side of the question — the public’s right to know. Many now seem to understand that society is better served when the public is aware of who among us may be carrying concealed guns and, perhaps, that some are not doing so legally.

Lawmakers were right to change course on the bill. They should hold to their current stance on it.

Maybe that’s their stance, but my stance is it is a breach of privacy. What good comes from publishing this list? It’s already available to law enforcement. The public does not need to see it for reasons other than being nosy. Arguably, the news rag should be criminally responsible if a concealed carry permit holder is robbed for his guns or is accosted by an ex who found out in the newspaper where his battered wife moved to.

Seriously, I don’t understand this line of thought. Concealed carry license holders are the epitome of law-abiding citizens. Why do you want to punish them instead of the thieves, muggers and rapists who purchase guns illegally and DON’T apply for licenses and are NOT listed in the papers?

Since robbers only need to check the newspaper to see if their intended victim is carrying, I believe turnabout is fair play. Let’s publish the names and addresses of all people who do not own guns. With that list, the nice criminals won’t be so stressed to find a non-threatening house to rob.

Perhaps these no-gun people should have a yard sign that says, “I don’t believe in owning guns. This household is unarmed.” They should have to wear a lapel pin or brooch too. Maybe a yellow 6-point star?

You gun haters need to read my post on hoplophobia and then get professional help.

And while we’re at it, let’s publish a special address list of owners and reporters of the newspaper. And all the legislators. We might have reason to visit them some evening…

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Aug 252010

After the 2nd hottest July in recorded weather history, we finally had a couple nice (cooler) days here as August wanes. I took the dog for a walk around the neighborhood and noticed many of the trees are already starting to show color in the leaves. It seems a bit early for that…

In any case, September is just around the corner. September is a beautiful month around here — especially the latter days and transition into October. We have our annual Forest Festival then, and the local area is crowded with beautiful autumn scenery, a week-long gala all over the town and many, many tourists enjoying the beauty with us.

Some notable September birthdays include Jesse James (the real outlaw), Charlie Sheen, Lily Tomlin, Alan Ladd, Rocky Marciano, Terry Bradshaw, Raquel Welch, Peter Lawford, Peter Sellers, Patsy Cline, Arnold Palmer, Mel Torme, Agatha Christie, Prince Harry, Orel Hershiser, Greta Garbo, Sophia Loren, Stephen King, Bill Murray, Ray Charles, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Heather Locklear, T. S. Eliot, Jack LaLanne, Michelangelo, Gene Autry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Truman Capote, Crystal Bernard, and approximately 1/12th of everyone else!

September is Classical Music Month. I might do a post about that. It’s also Prostrate Cancer Awareness Month. Think about that, guys. And, fittingly, it’s also Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. My wife had a big scare with that. Ladies, take notice.

Patriot Day is the eleventh of September — the day in 2001 when the homicidal Muslim terrorists brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing 2,995 people including the 19 Muslim hijackers. I’ll write no more about these Muslim murderers, as they don’t deserve anymore publicity for their cowardly, contemptible deeds. However, our spineless, politically correct baby-kissers better soon recognize Islam for what it is.

And finally, September contains Constitution Day (or Citizenship Day). Constitution Day is an American federal observance that recognizes the ratification of the United States Constitution and those who have become U.S. citizens. It is observed on September 17, the day the U.S. Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution in 1787. I will definitely try to work in a post about our Constitution.

Enjoy the remainder of August!

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With the 4-2 loss to the Florida Marlins on Thursday, the Pittsburgh Pirates (40-81) are ready to set a new record for losing. You may very well see history made tonight when they play the series opener against the New York Mets.

The Pirates are on the edge of losing their 82nd game this season. By doing that, they will cinch their 18th year of losing baseball. Even worse, they will put this feather in their cap a week earlier than the previous record of August 27, 2001 — a great sign that this is the worst of any of the seasons ever, on course for a 53-109 finish, the worst since 1952. Read more if you’re able to stomach it.

It’s a shame. Pittsburgh has some excellent young talent, but their only hope for a meaningful and satisfying career is to be traded to a real baseball team.

As in previous posts about this, I’ll say it again: Bob Nutting — You just don’t get it. Sell the damn team. And to you Pirates fans — As nice as PNC Park is, stop going to the games! The only way to regain this once-great team is to turn Pirates baseball into a losing proposition for Nutting. Pittsburgh isn’t commonly known as a city of losing sports teams. Take that embarrassment of a baseball club and make it a personal goal to turn it around into something to be proud of. After all, Pittsburgh, you DO have a stake in this — your taxes, state funds and even parking income helped build that beautiful stadium. So, just do it! You’ll be happy you did, once Nutting is forced to sell the team to someone that loves baseball.

Meanwhile, the Washington Nationals (52-69) have totally captured my interest this year, even though they are at the bottom of the National League East pile. John Lannon is pitching well. Ex-Pirate outfielder, Nyjer Morgan is back in the game and hitting well. It is enjoyable to watch Dunn, Kennedy, Desmond, Zimmerman and Pudge Rodriguez play ball, both defensively and offensively. Strasburg is a phenomenon. Even with losing, they stand out as an excellent team.

I feel somewhat like a recovering alcoholic, loving every minute of my new life, watching a great group of sportsmen putting it together in a club that is serious about baseball, while knowing in the deep recesses of my mind there were many previous years of discouragement and mental anguish over a team that stumbles at every turn and has a management that cares only about the bottom line, and I can’t let myself go back there.

Update 8/21/2010

Typical news item about last evening’s Pirates-Mets game:

“The 7-2 rout by the NY Mets (61-61) assured Pittsburgh (40-82) its 18th consecutive losing season, the longest run of futility in major American pro sports history. This was the earliest the Pirates have hit 82 losses in that stretch.”

“I don’t like it – nobody likes the record,” manager John Russell said. “We still have a lot of work to do. … We all expect something better every year. Nobody wants to lose this many games.”

Way to go John. EIGHTEEN YEARS and you and the rest of the inept management STILL haven’t figured it out.

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Have you heard of the United States Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG)? Here’s their mission statement:

United States Public Interest Research Groups Mission Statement

U.S. PIRG is an advocate for the public interest. When consumers are cheated, or the voices of ordinary citizens are drowned out by special interest lobbyists, U.S. PIRG speaks up and takes action. We uncover threats to public health and well-being and fight to end them, using the time-tested tools of investigative research, media exposés, grassroots organizing, advocacy and litigation. U.S. PIRG’s mission is to deliver persistent, result-oriented public interest activism that protects our health, encourages a fair, sustainable economy, and fosters responsive, democratic government.

One of their current fights is for network neutrality. Here’s their latest email to me.

You’ve probably heard by now that Google is trying to buy an E-ZPass to the information superhighway.[1] The deal it has made with Verizon would allow Google sites to load faster and take priority, while potentially slowing down other websites to a crawl.

The scary part is, this deal could become the precedent for future corporate deals, as well as future legislation on how the Internet works — essentially crushing the heretofore accepted notion of a free and open Internet that no one company can control.

Join us in telling the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to block the bad Google/Verizon proposal.

Today, the benefits of Internet freedom — sometimes called net neutrality — are so strong as to be almost invisible to most users. Whether you want to publish a blog, or browse any kind of content whatsoever, there are no fast or slow lanes, no privileged websites or networks. And because everyone has equal access to everyone else’s content, the web has become a major source of information, innovation and democratic participation.

But deals like the one between Google and Verizon threaten all that. Suddenly companies could give corporate partners, or anyone willing and able to pay for it, special access to faster lanes on the information superhighway.

That’s not today’s Internet, and with your help, that won’t be tomorrow’s Internet either.

We need you to join our call to the FCC. Tell them to block the Google/Verizon proposal. Keep the Internet free.”

http://www.uspirg.org/action/google?id4=es

Sincerely,

Andre Delattre
U.S. PIRG Executive Director
http://www.uspirg.org

P.S. Thanks for your support. Please feel free to share this e-mail with your friends and family.

[1] Google-Verizon Pact Proves Need for Real Net Neutrality, PC World, Aug. 11, 2010.

If you feel strongly about network neutrality, please take the time to investigate PIRG and use their service to email the FCC about this important item.

Tell your friends and family. Thanks!

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As I do now and then, I was searching the web last night for new posts on “goose quill” and variations thereof. When I got a hit from the White House, I just had to read it.

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
June 24, 2010
Remarks by President Obama and President Medvedev of Russia at the U.S.-Russia Business Summit
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Washington, D.C.

3:08 P.M. EDT

(excerpt)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: …President Medvedev visited California and Silicon Valley to explore new partnerships in science and technology and in venture capital. And while there, he pledged Russia’s support to preserve the historic Fort Ross in Sonoma County — an enduring reminder of the early Russian settlements and trade that brought Russian goods to our young nation.

Some have even wondered whether our Declaration of Independence may have been signed with goose quills from Russia…

What’s up with that?

Have YOU ever wondered if the goose quills used in 1776 Philadelphia were Russian? If they were, how did they get them from Fort Ross to Pennsylvania? Wikipedia says Fort Ross was the hub of the southernmost Russian settlements in North America between 1812 to 1841!

Even if those dates were wrong, how did Obama’s Russians get the goose quills across country? After all, the forerunners of UPS weren’t  incorporated until 1919… And seriously, no — it wasn’t the Pony Express. William Russell, Alexander Majors and William Waddell, the three founders, put the Pony Express together in the winter of 1860. It was an undertaking of enormous proportions; 120 riders, 184 stations, 400 horses and several hundred support personnel. However, even with those resources, they weren’t able to deliver goose quills to Thomas Jefferson in 1776 — 84 years before their time.

I can’t verify this source, but it is one of many (along with my old history teachers) who will tell you that “the quill with which Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence came from the wing of one of his own geese raised at Monticello.”

So. What the heck entices Obama to continually demean our country’s history, sovereignty and significance at every turn? Is telling a lie to give Medvedev a tingling feeling up his leg similar to bowing to Saudi’s King Abdullah?

I can’t wait to see this anti-American, Islam- (and Russian-) apologist along with his socialist and perverted “czars” thrown out of the White House in 2012 (if he isn’t impeached before that) and packed back to Chicago, under the rock with his American-hating buddies, Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright.

Good riddance, Obama.

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Night of terror — November 15, 1917.

This YouTube Video was made by MacraeCain. It is a true story about the harassment, beating and imprisonment of our mothers and grandmothers protesting the right for women to vote during the Woodrow Wilson administration.

Might this video be the reminder you need to get out and vote in November?

Alice Paul 1901

If that’s not enough, here’s an interview with Winnie Walsh, a writer and lecturer who tells us more about Alice Paul, a woman who picketed the White House during Wilson’s term to gain womens suffrage in the United States.

Some women won’t make it to the polls in November because -- why, exactly? Carpool duties? You have to get to work? Your vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining? The voting machine is confusing? If that’s you, then please watch these videos again and think real hard about it.

As you know, the mid-term elections this November are some of the most important this country has faced in its history as our arrogant politicians increasingly ignore ‘We the People.’ There’s still time for you to get serious about the direction in which you want our country to go and learn about the candidates you want in office to guide us there.

Be there!

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