The Peaceful Gnome

There is a group of unschoolers I'm associated with in the Bay Area that has many members who are simply gaga over Obama, it's kind of cute actually. This post is based on an email I sent the group this morning. But why would an Unschooling parent support Obama? If you haven't read the Obama " PLAN FOR LIFETIME SUCCESS THROUGH EDUCATION " You can check it out here : http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/PreK-12EducationFactSheet.pdf You ought to read it if you haven't already, it's only 14 pages long but it's chock full of edu-speak nonsense like "research-based standards and principles" (research 10 times, standard & (ized) 12 times) which means, of course, everything must be approved by the teachers union. It does not look homeschool friendly at all. It looks to me like they want ALL children under continuous government supervision from birth to adulthood. Check it out and read it for yourself. Homeschooling is not even mentioned ...

Bad Astronomer linked to this on his blog, it's very cool. It is [a] spatial representation of every star within 14 light-years of the Solar System. There are 32 stars in this region, including the Sun. The stars are colored according to the spectral type, which may not reflect the actual color. Please see this Wikipedia article for the listing of stars. The stars on this map may not all be visible to the naked eye, as many are dwarf stars. Some of this information may be preliminary and not entirely accurate as a result. Each grid square represents 1 square light year . The grid is aligned to the ecliptic . Planets are not shown on this map because they orbit stars at a relatively small distance. They would be indistinguishable at this scale. Unless noted otherwise all star data is meant relative to the Sun ("Mass: 1.25" means 125% of the Sun's mass).

Woo Hoo! My hero Bender has a new movie coming out! Cool :-) This should be good! Not quite Ender's Game though, that was one of the best Sci-Fi books ever. "Oh wait, you're serious. Let me laugh even harder."- Bender

Kenyan artist Makadem says we need to vote for change, "Obama be thy name... thy will be done..."

Who will you vote for on election day, McMussolini or ObaMarx ? Thomas J. DiLorenzo explains why " your choice on election day [is]: McMussolini... or ObaMarx. Take your pick. Or do the patriotic thing and stay home. Don’t vote. It only gives them a reason to claim that "the people have spoken" and that they have a "mandate" to ruin our country ." While filling out my ballot I messed up on a couple of the local propositions so I will have to actually go in person on election day. Right now I am inclined to leave the votes for all federal offices blank and only vote on State and Local issues, that is if I bother to vote at all. My feeling about the upcoming election is one of disgust, tempered slightly with despair and a very light sprinkling of fear. This country is doomed and should be dissolved for the good of its people and the safety of the people of the world. Vote NO for...

US in Iraq = Fail World Economy 2008 = Fail The Glorious Leader Bush = Fail

See Part One here . Ah, so true... (click cartoon to see full sized)

There is a new blog out there called Skepticblog , done by several of my favorite skeptics, including Brian Dunning, Michael Shermer and Phil Plait among others. Cool. Here is an excerpt from Shermer's first post there: A short lesson in economic civics: the primary job of government is to protect our private property from being plundered by foreign powers and domestic criminals (through the military and the police respectively), to resolve disputes over property (through the courts), and to protect our civil liberties (another form of property) by enforcing the Constitution and Bill of Rights (through legislation). The government does not produce property, so in order to pay for these services (military, police, courts, legislature) it taxes us. According to the Oxford English Dictionary , a tax is “a compulsory contribution to the support of government”. A “compulsory contribution” is an oxymoron. It is compulsory confiscation, and we are all about to have $700 billion confiscat...

So, after writing the previous post here I got on my bike and peddled on over to the BART station for the ride to work. I noticed when I arrived, 5 minutes before departure time, that there was a cluster of about 30 people standing quietly and patiently in front of the locked gates. I locked up my bike on the rack and strolled to the gate and peered inside the station, no sign of the station agent, not a good sign. So, after about 30 seconds I shouted out in my loudest voice, "Hey! Are you going to open the gates before the train leaves?" Up popped the overpaid BART drone from her hiding spot inside the booth. "The trains don't leave until 8:00!" she insisted. After a brief but spirited exchange between her and I, long distance and at the top of our voices, she finally made a phone call and then opened the gates at the last moment. Everyone got on board the train. But... What about all of those other people standing quietly waiting for things to happen?...

Democracy is an insane and unworkable idea. Most people are either stupid or ignorant. Take Proposition 8 for example. When they reworded the proposition, at the instigation of ultra-left wing commie Jerry Brown, from "Limit on Marriage" that simply defines marriage as between a woman and a man, it was ahead in the polls. After Jerry the Pinko changed the wording to "eliminates the right of same-sex couples to marry" it dropped 8 points in the polls. That means 8 percent of the people are so stupid they can't tell that the proposition still says exactly the same thing it always did. Most Americans, Californians especially, are sadly lacking in critical thinking skills so it's not a big surprise. (For example witness the popularity of pseudo-science "cures" for every ailment you can imagine, astrology, feng shui, herbal medicine... and on and on.) Remember, by definition almost 50% of the population is below average in intelligence, do we r...

It's a wonderful warm (82 degrees at posting time) autumn day in the burbs, and of course I can hear nothing except Brian across the cul de sac running his gigantic gas powered leaf blower, or in his case leaf sucker since he's using it to pick up the leaves. Nothing says "burbs" more than the incessant roar of dozens of power mowers, leaf blowers and trimmers coming at you from every direction. Bah! At least the gasoline ones really need to be banned, IMHO.

Apple and Google have both donated large sums of cash to help make sure that traditional marriage is destroyed in California , and eventually the world. Marriage is between a man and a woman, period. Two men or two women are not married no matter what bit of paper they may get from the state or from some heretical post-Christian sect like the United Church of Christ . It's tempting to boycott them but that sort of thing is pretty ineffectual. This has prompted me to finally decide on this issue. I'll be voting Yes on 8 even though I don't really think that the government should be involved in marriage in any way shape or form. The truth is they will use this as a wedge to condemn and eventually persecute Christian churches who refuse to marry two men or two women. Even though they deny this now they are quite simply liars. It comes easy to them since they follow their father, who is the father of lies. (John 8:44)

Oh, wait, I thought it was Ablaze! but no, it's just barely smoldering... like the LCMS' ill conceived and poorly executed "movement" to reach 100,000,000 people with the gospel by 2017. They have used up about 30% of the time allotted but have only got 10% of the "numbers" they need. Ablaze is not actually Lutheran of course, it's closer to your standard evangobapticostal sort of program and is full of implied "decision theology." Worse, it totally ignores all that is distinctly Lutheran (and thus really Christian), such as the proper preaching of Law and Gospel (Word), Baptism, Confession and Absolution and the Holy Eucharist (Sacraments) as the means by which the Lord has said He will spread his gospel around the world. (For more detail on what's wrong with Ablaze! see Ablaze!®, the Movement - By David Berger ) Anyway, Scott Diekmann has come up with brilliant plan to get it all over with so we can forget this horror and get on ...

More proof, as if you really needed it, that Obama is nothing but a corporate whore, just like Mad Mac. Big Donors Drive Obama's Money Edge Yep, shocking as it may be to some, the Messiah is just a tool of the elite class, the ultra-rich looters who have screwed us so many times before. BOHICA!

I like this guy...

Well, the last rape went so well and the American Sheeple barely baaaaaaaed so the elite rich vermin who infest the walls of Congress have decided they can do it again without even the slightest risk of any repercussions. Sadly, I'm pretty sure they are correct. WASHINGTON – With a timely endorsement from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke , there's new life to the idea of Congress returning to Washington next month to pass a second round of measures aimed at injecting life into the economy. (More.) *Bend Over Here It Comes Again

Vote yes on Prop 2... here are two video clips from the Yes on Prop 2 web site: Warning, the following video may be disturbing to some who are unaware of where their food comes from: That's why I eat almost no meat and refuse all but Cage Free eggs... yuck...

Why the whole family needs to be in church together :

It takes a government to come up with a heinous idea like asset forfeiture and then apply it to a couple in their 90's like this! The Enforcement Arm of the Robber State

This is a very long week for me. Instead of my normal four 12 hour days I'm working six 8 hour days. Woe is me ;-/ Anyway... I was thinking about the presidential election and who could I vote for and not feel as though I was committing a sin by doing so. I have not yet made up my mind who to vote for, or even if I am going to bother casting a vote for president at all. I have heard it said by some, Todd Wilken for one, that "Life" is the most important issue to consider in an election. I do agree with this assessment, however it does not help me much in deciding who to vote for. I hold the total pro-life position, from conception to natural death . For me this includes children in Iraq who happen to have already been born as well as American babies who haven't yet been born. The trouble is there seems no candidate for president who wants them all alive. Obama thinks slaughtering millions of unborn babies is somehow a constitutional right, while McCain has no ...

Copyright is a stupid idea anyway, once I buy a book or recording or painting or sculpture, it's mine to do with what I want... or so I figure... People did still write and make music before copyright, that whole copyright thing was nothing more than a scam by the publishers to increase sales. Not that much goes to the average artist. Sharing is a "good thing"®. :-)

That's what congresss says when faced with helping out the common folk. As I ponder the economic meltdown/collapse that is going on around me I am struck by the rapidity with which the elites, through the "Best Congress Money Can Buy" , are able to somehow find trillions of dollars of tax money to bail their own fellow pluotcrat thieves out of the pits they themselves have dug. These are the same elites that can never find money for things like filling potholes in the street, maintaining parks or giving financial aide to low income students trying to attend college while working full time. These are things that cost next to nothing compared to the bailouts we've seen in the last few days. I'd say it's amazing but it's not really, it's just disgusting. Of course they will not be held accountable for their evil, not in this life anyway. Nothing will improve for the American people without armed revolt because the electoral system is totally rigged....

If the pentecostal and fundamentalist and evangelical dispensationalists who believe the "Left Behind" and "Late Great Planet Earth" misinterpretations of the end times teachings in the Bible with the "secret rapture" of the church and the 7 year tribulation and the reign of the Anti-Christ and all of that stuff, follow things out to their logical conclusion they will be forced to vote for Obama!

RefTagger is making some changes so I'm testing here to see what happens... Ephesians 2:8-9

I got a haircut yesterday from the best and newest stylist in town. A few more pictures are here. In the end I was going to buzz it all off anyway so I figured what the heck :-)

Ah, now this makes perfect sense, diplomacy between nations IS like a bunch of junior high school boys squabbling, it's really too bad there is no adult supervision at the UN.

Cool, the USSA is almost completed now. With the upcoming election of a true Marxist to the Presidency things will really move fast as "emergency" after "emergency" is announced and is dealt with by new socialist programs. Sadly our grandchildren will be living in a suffocating totalitarian state as a result. There is nothing short of armed resistence that can change this in my opinion, because it's not the Democrats alone, it's both parties who have done this to us, clearly they are both the same party in reality, the election "contests" are mostly for show. The USSR fell apart but I'm sure the USSA will do way better! Government ownership of, well pretty much everything, is communism guys, this story from the New York Times shows us how it will be: October 9, 2008 U.S. May Take Ownership Stake in Banks By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and MARK LANDLER WASHINGTON — Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit markets, the Treasury D...

From the BBC: US debt clock runs out of digits Until last month, the clock had enough digits to measure US debt levels The US government's debts have ballooned so badly the National Debt Clock in New York has run out of digits to record the spiralling figure. The digital counter marks the national debt level, but when that passed the $10 trillion point last month, the sign could not display the full amount. The board was erected to highlight the $2.7 trillion level of debt in 1989. The clock's owners say two more zeros will be added, allowing the clock to record a quadrillion dollars of debt. Douglas Durst, son of the late Seymour Durst - the clock's inventor - hopes to replace the Manhattan clock with its lengthier replacement early next year. For the time being, the Times Square counter's electronic dollar sign has been...

This is a great bit on why the mainstream media has hyped the huge Govco Rip-off they call the $800,000,000,000.00 bailout plan, or as Mad Mac likes to call it, "The Rescue Plan". Read it, it's not long and makes several excellent points about who owns the big news outlets and what their interests in getting the rip-off money are. 700 Billion Dollar Bailout And The Mainstream Media: Too Big To Tell The Truth?

From Greg Laden's Blog: There is no such thing as race (biologically), race is a social construct used as a political and economic tool, even efforts to use race in a "positive" way such as in medicine or forensics are doomed to failure because of the lack of biological validity of the concept, and so on and so forth. Here, the idea of the exhibit is really to help people to realize that well formed thoughts about their fellow humans that are based on the race concept are like well formed thoughts about the world they live in that are based on the flat earth. But more destructive. It is just amazing the number of people I talk to who can't seem to get thier minds around this simple concept. Race is a phony issue, a human is a human, period. That doesn't stop me from thinking in racial and to my shame at times, racist ways, but when I stop and ponder the reality of our world I know that race is not a physical reality, it's all in our heads ;-/

Cool, Pete Seger is still around at 89 years of age and still singing!

William Grigg on McCain and the "Focus on the Family" gang led by James Dobson. "Focus on Fascism" would be a more accurate description I've always said: Blessing the Mad Bomber: Gary Bauer (the gnomish figure in the center of the assembled Republican luminaries) puts in face time at a John McCain campaign event as a representative of Dr. James Dobson. McCain is a foul-tempered, abusive serial adulterer and unabashed warmonger, so naturally he received the support of Dr. Dobson, the nation's foremost Christian family counselor.

I have said many times that I think John McCain is not totally sane... well actually I've called him Mad Mac more than once. I initially based this on nothing more than looking at his eyes when he was speaking. I know it's horribly subjective and probably unfair, but when I look at someone's eyes I sometimes feel I can tell something about that person's mental state. Over the years I have been right far more often than I've been wrong when deciding to get away from a person based on nothing other than the look in their eyes. Then again maybe it's a case of forgetting the misses, like those who believe in psychics do , I don't know for sure. But with Mad Mac there is actually more to it than that. There are the strange angry outbursts he is famous for, and there is the bomb bomb bomb Iran incident as well. But the most telling thing is his Vietnam experience. I don't think John McCain is a bad or evil man, but I do think he was damaged by what he ...

Oh Happy Day when I get to PAY for the folly of Wall Street Bankers! Thank you Obama, thank you McCain, thank you Pelosi and freinds... may you all get what you so richly deserve.*

This is from Peter Gray's Psychology Today blog this week: "We come into the world as little scientists, pre-programmed to try to understand everything around us. Nobody has to tell us to explore and learn about our environment; we do it naturally, all our lives, in increasingly sophisticated ways, unless someone turns it into work by trying to make us do it." So true! There is no better way of taking the joy out of learning something than telling me there will be a test on it later ;-)

The whole financial mess, indeed the whole financial system the Empire operates under, is nothing but a con game. Con is short for confidence, and if you read this article in the SF Chronicle you will notice that everyone who is in favor of the bail out of Wall Street makes statements like this "We need to take drastic steps to restore confidence." That is because without confidence in the phony money and the phony system the whole thing will unravel! It's all a big con.