The Peaceful Gnome

This year, don't forget to LOOK UP! (From APOD ) The Sky in Motion Credit & Copyright : Video: Till Credner , ( The Sky in Motion.com ) Music: túrána hott kurdis by hasta la otra méxico! Explanation: Still need to come up with a good new year's resolution? Consider one appropriate for 2009, the International Year of Astronomy ; just look up -- experience, learn, and enjoy the changing sky. This 4-minute, time-lapse video is composed from a series of 7,000 images highlighting much of what you could see. Arcing through the sky in a stately reflection of planet Earth's own rotation are Moon , Sun and stars . But the sequence also features satellites and meteors streaking overhead, clouds moving along the horizon changing in a beautiful iridescence , and beaming crepuscular rays .

In light of the Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, which I have tried for several days not to comment on, I have this to say about the so-called "War on Terror" by the American Empire and it's allies. This is not a war on terror but a war between terrorists. Israel and the American Empire engage in terrorism every time they bomb civilians and claim they "really didn't want to slaughter women and children but the evil terrorists made them do it by not surrendering." Bah! Hamas is a pack of terrorists, but then so is the IDF . The same goes for the American Empire and it's ongoing attempts to colonize Iraq and Afghanistan. A pox on all of them! We have no business being there and it does nothing good for our own homeland and people.

That is the implication of this story, or at least that's how I read it anyway :) Retail gasoline prices fall in U.S., edge up in California - Los Angeles Times

Thanks to Anthony Sacramone over at Strange Herring for this article. Matthew Parris, an avowed atheist who grew up in Africa and lives in England has a lot to say about changing things in Africa and concludes with this: "Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted. And I'm afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete." Read the whole article here , it's not that long and it's amazing to hear an honest and open atheist for once. You know, one who's not claiming silly things like "all evil in the world is caused by religion!" or "even the good religious people ...

I recently took part in a poll on energy issues and was asked about what I thought of "clean coal". I stated that I didn't like the idea and didn't really think it was possible for coal to be clean. I think I might have actually understated the evils of coal: Sadly this doesn't look very clean to me. Click on the photo to go to the New York Times story on this massive coal ash spill.

Gene Veith posted about Mass as well, and said it better than I did, so I'm passing his on as well: Put the “mass” back in “Christmas” The word “Christmas” refers to the birth of Christ, of course, but more specifically it denotes the worship service–more than that, the Communion service, the “mass”–that marks that event. So as we put Christ back in Christmas, let us also put mass back in Christmas. In other words, let’s go to church! In the Biblical measure of time, the new day starts on the preceding evening (”the evening and the morning were the second day”), which means that Christmas Eve is really Christmas. (So it’s OK if that’s when your family opens presents!) So going to a Christmas Eve service counts. But there is nothing more meaningful than a communion service on Christmas day. Sadly, many, and maybe most, Protestant churches have abandoned holding Christmas services. In fact, when Christmas fell on a Sunday a few years ago, many churches cancelled their Sunday servi...

Rev. Bill Cwirla posted this today: WELCOME a poem for Christmas Eve Welcome little One Lying there on manger bed of straw Nursing peacefully on virgin mother’s milk. Warrior, enmity-maker, serpent’s head crusher, It’s your natal night, and we bid you welcome. Welcome little Promised One Virgin offspring, unspotted by Adam’s primal sin Death-destroyer, darkness conquerer Your only weapon is your weakness, Your victor sign - a cross. Welcome Sin-bearer, Unashamed in Adam’s nakedness Swaddled in our embarrassment at trading fellowship with You For a Lie that said we could be like You . Yet you are not ashamed to be like us. Who would have known to look at You, So weak and helpless That You are the ancient Promise? Humanity’s Head and God’s image restored - Mystery hidden, at last we see You. Who would have known to look at You, All helpless at your birth That You are Light and Life Holding the cosmos in hands Soon to be pierced for our transgressions...

Go to Church on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, or better, go on both! :-) Let's all remember what the day is all about, that Jesus Christ was born as a babe, not to look cute and cuddly and make us feel all warm and fuzzy, but to live a perfect life and die for us so that we might not die as we deserve but have eternal life with Him! Merry Christmas!

So, our building engineer yesterday called us up to his office to see the glorious electric pickle. "Don't try this at home" he said... "only at work" :-) The electric pickle is strange, smelly and sort of cool: This page has video of an electric pickle , along with an explanation of what's going on.

Put aside your principles and remember: all you need is love Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, says the first Christmas changed how everyone thinks about universal human dignity..... How can a supposedly Christian Bishop go through this whole article on Christmas and never once mention the reason Christ came? All you need is love indeed. Jesus came to die on the cross for our sins and to save us from hell , not to show us how to be "nice."

I laughed out loud so I must share...

I got this via a homeschooling email list, it's truly awesome.

Thanks to Dan at Necessary Roughness :

It takes a lot of effort to make a pizza I don't like. I've liked almost every pizza I've ever eaten! But North Beach Pizza in San Francisco has done the job. I ordered pizza from them today and it took 2 hours to arrive, was half cooked, luke warm and stuck to the paper in the box... nasty! I would have sent an email complaining but they don't have an email address on their web site, so here I am griping. Don't buy North Beach Pizza, it sucks. They were good at one time but no more. This is the second time I've had bad pizza and worse service from them.

Today, December 21, is the day the church traditionally remembers St. Thomas, or as we sometimes call him, Doubting Thomas. There is a good summary of what we know of Thomas on Aardvark Alley here . Last night was the Children's Christmas Program at Messiah, it was wonderful as always to hear and see the young children re-telling the story of the Nativity of our Lord in word and song. :-) Serenity had a little solo part and did quite well. Lora took a couple of photos and a short video that I don't have access to at the moment, if I can get them I'll post them up here as soon as I can. Serenity as an angel is just too cute! The night before last we had a "block party" of sorts outside at the entrance to the court. Our neighbor Chip provided, and poured generously, some sort of peppermint schnapps that we mixed with hot chocolate. It was only after I drank it that I discovered that it was 100 proof :-) Yikes, that hot chocolate had quite a kick I'll tel...

...or is there really a difference? I don't actually see one, involuntary confinement, loss of freedom, extreme boredom... death... Children forced into cell-like school seclusion rooms Story Highlights Mentally disabled, autistic kids injured, traumatized in school seclusion rooms 13-year-old Georgia boy hanged himself in room with cord teacher gave him Autistic Iowa girl confined in school storage closet where she pulled out her hair By Ashley Fantz CNN MURRAYVILLE , Georgia (CNN) -- A few weeks before 13-year-old Jonathan King killed himself, he told his parents that his teachers had put him in "time-out." ...

The Boston Globe has an on-line feature called " The Big Picture " that often has very cool photos, here is the lead photo from "The Year 2oo8 in photographs" Wow... Lightning bolts appear above and around the Chaiten volcano as seen from Chana, some 30 kms (19 miles) north of the volcano, as it began its first eruption in thousands of years, in southern Chile May 2, 2008. Cases of electrical storms breaking out directly above erupting volcanoes are well documented, although scientists differ on what causes them. Picture taken May 2, 2008. (REUTERS/Carlos Gutierrez)

It's cold outside. Actually it's cold inside as well, at least here in the lobby of the tower. Our building engineer worked on the heat today and there is at least a slight detectable warming of the air, or maybe it would be more accurate to say a lessening of the bitter cold! It's 41 degrees outside and windy... brr. I did notice the other day that Father Hollywood was talking about the Sneaux! they got and about how seldom it snows in New Orleans. I checked it out and it snows twice in New Orleans for each time it snows in San Francisco. That doesn't stop it from getting cold here though, really we're suffering here... I keep looking to the hills and expecting to see white but so far nothing. How can it be so cold and still not snow? Humph. The weather service says it will be down into the 20's tonight, so if we do get any precipitation it will be snow. Yay... actually "ACK!"

How Normal is your Brain? Click on the image above and follow these directions: If your eyes follow the movement of the rotating pink dot, the dots will remain only one color, pink. However if you stare at the black ' + ' in the center, the moving dot turns to green. Now, concentrate on the black ' + ' in the center of the picture. After a short period, all the pink dots will slowly disappear, and you will only see a single green dot rotating. It's amazing how our brain works. There really is no green dot , and the pink ones really don't disappear. This should be proof enough, we don't always see what we think we see. Thanks to my friend Tom for sending me this in an email. Pretty cool.

Due to the downturn in the economy Wells Fargo has gone back to a more basic system for moving money around downtown San Francisco. Wells Fargo brought out their old stagecoach today, this is from the corner in front of our building at Montgomery and Washington Streets. If I'd known they were coming by I'd have brought my camera, cell phone photos are weak :-(

I've noticed that for the most part science types are raving left wing nuts. They won't admit it but it's clear it's all about the money, we have it, they want it, the government is the way they can get it. So it is a pleasure to hear Michael Shermer , the famous skeptic, being skeptical of the left wing mantra of "The economic collapse is all because of deregulation!" Regulation Schmegulation

Well, mostly :-) Later on today Lora got a visit from the local Government Indoctrination Center Guards... err... the school district representative, truant officer type person because someone in the neighborhood noticed Serenity is not in school. There was some scrambling about looking for the copy of the Private School Affidavit but she eventually found it, but only after calling me in a slight panic because she couldn't find it. My head looks about like this right now....

From my journal, written as it happened: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 3:10:36 AM Lora is missing. I do not know where she is. She left last night around 9:00 PM to go sing Karaoke at some local dive and when I woke up to go to the bathroom at 1:45 AM she was not at home yet. I tried to go back to bed but couldn’t sleep because it was 2:00 AM and closing time and I was worried. I tried calling her phone but it turns out she didn’t take it with her! Now it is very late, or early, and I’m beside myself with concern. I’m waiting a bit longer and then I will call the police, perhaps she merely got arrested for DUI or something and is not dead. Of course I doubt I’ll ever allow her to drive my car again, ever … 3:26:53 AM Now I don’t know if I’m more scared or pissed, actually I have to say that at this point scared is riding much higher than pissed. It’s to the point of “You better be dead already cause I’m gonna kill you if you ain’t.” Rapidly swinging emotions, anger, ...

The Power of PRAYER! Yep, these foolish amateurs praying over gas pumps back in July caused all of this. What did they ask for? Did they just say "Give us lower gas prices oh Lord?" Well yes, but they didn't consider the possible side effects or tell God just how He should bring these prices down. Seems that God heard their prayer and answered it in full, by crashing the economy! Voila! Lower gas prices. That is why praying should be left to trained professionals, or if amateurs pray it should be done in the way our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ told us to pray "thy will be done," that way at least we know we will get what is best for us. Silly fundies.

Sovietizing the Economy: The Final Phase from Pro Libertate by William N. Grigg “Insanity,” according to a famous definition, is a condition revealed by the habit of doing exactly the same thing repeatedly in earnest anticipation of a different result. A closely related form of derangement is megalomania , a prominent symptom of which is an individual’s self-exalting belief that he is the divine exception that can make that different result occur. When it’s displayed in private pursuits, megalomania is a harmless if pitiable condition. When coupled with political power, it becomes the propellant of large-scale social experiments that ruin societies and kill people by the tens of millions. Barack Obama suffers from an acute case... ...By waging two eminently avoidable and utterly disastrous wars abroad, and engaging in unprecedented domestic profligacy, George W. Bush and his cronies burned our economy to the ground. Obama and his comrades are now ready to sow salt and leave it entire...

Ed commented on my previous post that the idea of Christian Anarchy is "the ultimate oxymoron." Naturally I disagree :-) Honest Politician and Just War are right up there as far as I can tell. To learn what Christian Anarchy is about you might start out here with Vernard Eller's "Christian Anarchy" . I don't agree with everything there, but I think he's got some really good points, there is some pretty interesting history as well. A Google search on Christian Anarchy will bring up quite a few other sources.

Homeschooling - Charter Schools - Unschooling - Worldschooling - life learning - whatever - It seems to me that if you are teaching children at home you are, by definition, "homeschooling" so I don't see how one could deny the label "homeschooler" to anyone using charter schools to teach at home. To me the fact that your children are at home rather than in the local government indoctrination camp (PS), while a good thing , does not seem quite as important as the fact that if the government controls, in any way, what you are doing it's not a good thing . When the government hands out money there are always strings attached and they always get tighter and tighter as time goes by. I like the idea of "government free" schooling. Sort of like "cage free" chickens. Around here we have free range children... sort of... ;-) The charters seem to me to be a trick to lure people back under government control. I believe in "government free...

From Strange Herring, the best news source ever, read it or else! Yes, Virginia, There Was a Santa Claus, and He Used to Slap the Spit Out of Filthy Little Heretics Like You from Strange Herring by Martin Luther (Doktor) For the real scoop on the real Santa Claus, please read Herr Veith’s essay from 2005 . I, Martin Luther (Doktor), officially declare December 6, SMACK A HERETIC DAY. Oh joy of joys! This beats a peasants war any day! Hey, you! Yeah YOU! Come here! You look like a docetist with patripassian tendencies! ( THWAP! ) You’ll thank me later! Via Herr McCain Posted in Smack a Heretic You'll Feel Better, Stop Looking at Me Like That, The Sacred

This is a pretty big issue with me as a near anarchist libertarian. Many of the " homeschoolers " I've met, not in SFBUNie events but elsewhere, use "charter schools" like Connecting Waters or California Virtual Academies ( CAVA ) and are very happy and glib as they describe the way they are spending thousands of my tax dollars. It's sort of irritating actually. They go through all the same testing as public school kids and we all know what a waste of time that is! For the most part they seem to be among the more traditional minded in terms of "teaching classes" to the kids and constantly measuring "progress." I don't imagine that there are or could be very many unschoolers ( world schoolers ?) in charter schools simply because of the accountability problems. In any case, there is a good article here in Home Education Magazine , it gives a good overview of what the problem with government control of "homeschooling...

People who know me are aware that I drift back and forth over the food spectrum, from nearly complete carnivore during part of my "Atkins phase" all the way over to nearly complete Vegan during my "Low Fat phase." Right now I'm reading two books: The Ultimate Vegan Guide: Compassionate Living Without Sacrifice, by Eric Marcus The Ethics of What We Eat by Peter Singer and Jim Mason I have always been pretty repulsed by the idea of killing animals for my dinner, I've tried to get over that but the thought of killing really does bug me. Reading "The Ethics of What We Eat" has just served to make that worse. I hadn't realized just how brutal the treatment the vast majority of our food animals receive really is, and not just at the end when they are slaughtered, but the continuous misery they live in on factory farms. So I've decided I'm not going to eat meat or fish at all. If I'm not willing to kill it I can't justify my eat...

Here is the stuff Serenity and I did this week that some people might think are somewhat schoolish , and some not as well. On Wednesday we loafed around the house. On Thursday Serenity had the first session of art class at Monart . She loved it! We followed that up with a trip to El Cerrito where we met up with the SFBUNies for Perpetual Recess. Again, Serenity loved it. Perpetual Recess is to children what free range chickens are to poultry. No cages, just free range children :-) What it looks like is a big group of old hippies and their offspring :-) From there we changed into our "fancy clothes" and headed over the Bay Bridge to the San Francisco Symphony where we heard " Lang Lang Plays Chopin" which was pretty good too! Then today we went and met up with a big bunch of homeschooled folks at Whole Foods and had a tour of the various departments talking about things like what is organic, what does locally produced mean and what is cage free, that sort...

Bah, at one time I actually liked Barry, before I realized he was juiced with steroids and a Bambi Killer to boot! :-P~~~ Check out a video here.

I look forward to seeing this. I think, maybe. Of course I found this trailer through Strange Herring , the best news source ever!

This is the right way to do these things, private groups raising money and purchasing the land from the owners. Over 5,600 acres of prime coast lands have now been purchased by the Sonoma Land Trust. Heh, I'm amused to read in the article "Over the decades, visitors to the Sonoma Coast could only dream of hiking on Rule Ranch in the hills above Jenner, where cowboys still round up cattle on horseback." That is mostly true, though some people, back in the day, would just ignore those "No Trespassing" signs and duck through fences on land along the Northern California coast. There are amazing groves of Redwoods most people never get to see that I have hiked through, lush valleys and fantastic views, all seen "illicitly." I was always very careful not to damage anything or disturb anyone, but I was not going to allow a puny barbed wire fence and a rusty sign stop me from exploring. After all " It is more blessed to ask forgiveness than pe...

While I am seriously contemplating returning to my vegetarian ways after the Thanksgiving week binge of animal flesh and sugar, Anthony Sacramone has this to say about the whole subject over on Strange Herring, the worlds most reliable and unbiased source of news and commentary, read it or else! ‘Good’ Cholesterol Now Bad, ‘Bad’ Is Good: The Heavens Rage and America Scarfs One More Fat Burger for Spite from Strange Herring by Anthony Sacramone

The Lincoln Gambit from Pro Libertate by William N. Grigg The Idol and the Avatar: Barack Obama, the second socialist politician from Illinois to elected President of the USA, borrows some mojo from the first. "The president addressed Congress the other day. I don't know which was scarier -- the speech, or Congress cheering him on. He invoked Lincoln . Whenever a president is going to get us in serious trouble, they always use Lincoln." -- Victor Milson, space adviser to the U.S. president, reporting ominous news from home to his friend Dr. Heywood Floyd (who is in the vicinity of Jupiter); from the film 2010: The Year We Make Contact . While it cares little for customary piety, our ruling Nomenklatura displays the intolerant fervor of Paradise-bound Jihadis in defending the sanctity of the Almighty State and its avatars. In that pantheon there is none holier than the martyred founder of the Second (or People's) American Republic -- Abraham the Almighty, whose sacr...

Rev. William M. Cwirla points out that Despair.com has a lot of new material, cool! :-) And best of all:

I heard this morning that Luther said something about lands where wine prevails are more cheerful than those that brew a lot of beer. As the bible says, "Wine gladdens the heart of man." (Psalm 104:14-15) While those who are drinking beer are bitter... makes a certain amount of sense. :-) Anyone have the actual quote?

Of course, when you are talking about terrorism, the one thing that you must NEVER EVER , under any circumstances even think about, let alone talk about, is why so many people are willing to die in order to attack our massive globe straddling Empire . It is far better just to blather on about their methods or their tactics, we really don't care why there is an ever growing pool of people who say "It's worth it to die if only I can strike back at the American Empire." (CBS/AP) The United States can expect a terror attack using nuclear or more likely biological weapons before 2013, reports a bipartisan commission in a study briefed Tuesday to Vice President-elect Joe Biden. It suggests that the Obama administration bolster efforts to counter and prepare for germ warfare by terrorists. "Our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing," states the report, obtained by The Associated Press. It is scheduled to be publicly released Wednesday. The commi...