The Peaceful Gnome

Today is Saint Andrew's Day . This is the first commemoration of the Church year, Andrew was the first disciple of Jesus so I guess that is why he gets first place. The first Sunday in Advent is always the Sunday closest to St. Andrew's Day. In the readings for today in the Treasury of Daily Prayer is this quotation passed on by Valerius Herberger spoken when Andrew was being martyred by crucifixion and had been on the cross for three days and his hearers wanted to take him down by force: "Ah, let God take care of it! Do not make the peace of the Gospel suspect by your unnecessary revolt against the government." I guess that answers what Andrew thought about obeying the government even when it is very clearly wrong!

From The Telegraph : Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose. ( Read full story ) What we have here is simply scientific confirmation of what we already knew through the revelation of God in Romans 1:20.

Amazon.com has a feature called a wish list. I use it to store things I want to buy until I scrounge up enough money to get them. But you can use it to find something cheap to get me for Christmas that you can be sure I'll be thrilled to get! :-) Go to my actual blog page if you're reading this in email or a reader and it's on the right hand side at the top. Or click here . Why do I do this? In the past some people have spent gobs of money on stuff I really didn't want, or gave me gift cards or cash (we all know that's not much fun), sometimes for more $$ than I feel comfortable spending on books and stuff, this way everyone comes out ahead, I get a book I really want to read and whoever is giving me a Christmas gift doesn't have to shell out a bunch of cash. Win win. :-)

Gene Veith points to a Russian who predicts the breakup the American Empire. Gene is somehow unaware of the dozens of secessionist movements in various states. Granted they are almost all small but still, they exist and this could be a good time for us. Those who know me already understand that I'm a California Nationalist who I doesn't think California should have joined those united States in the first place. Being a part of that empire just costs us money, we get nothing in return. These days we get to be hated by foreigners for being Americans and mocked by Americans for being Californians. Getting us out of the US yesterday would be a day too late as far as I'm concerned.

As I was listening to Issues Etc. this morning, they were talking about judgment day, actually I'm still listening and riding in to work on BART right now, it came to me that many people, me included, tend to say things like "I'm doing my best for God." or "I'm doing the best I can with what I have." or whatever. It came to me that this is quite simply a lie, always and for everyone! If anyone actually did do their best they would be perfect and thus not in need of Christ's salvation. We all act out of selfishness, we all fail to put God first in all things, none of us loves our neighbor as ourselves, and if we think we do we deceive ourselves. (1 John 1:8-9) So, that is yet one more sin we need to repent of, the idea that "I'm doing the best I can." It is a lie.

My nephew Philip and his family via my mom... ;-) Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Father Hollywood , in a probably vain effort to keep the "Official" LCMS youth gathering away from his fair city offers a guide to New Orleans: New Orleans is a cesspool. You should really think about going someplace safe by comparison: like Gary, Detroit, or Kabul. We have them all beat in violent crime. In fact, the murder rate is approaching 50%. You have as great a chance of being murdered in New Orleans as you do of flipping a "heads" on a coin. Think about that! Also, keep in mind, New Orleans is utterly amoral. Every street corner has a drug dealer on it - openly selling crack and heroin. In fact, our pushers are not only violent and disease ridden, they are all naked lesbian voodoo priestesses who play the lottery and listen to heavy metal music. You also have to watch out for the crazy Cajuns who cruise around the bayous of the Central Business District in piroughs and jeeps looking for dead animals to scrape off the road to make jambalaya (what do you thin

The Hoover Institution has a piece on how homeschooling is no longer a "fringe" phenomenon: Everybody knows somebody who is teaching a child at home “I never really told anybody about my music at school, only my really close friends,” Cheyenne Kimball told People Magazine in 2006. “Then [school officials] actually aired the show around the whole entire school, and that caused a lot of problems. I was a straight-A student and all of a sudden I didn’t want to go to school anymore because of the things people were saying. That’s why I’m homeschooled now.” Cheyenne, winner of NBC’s America’s Most Talented Kid at age 12, recording artist, and star of her own MTV show, is just one of many high-profile Americans whose educational choice is home schooling. ( Read the rest here )

Winter Patriot commented on my "I give up" post with a link to his post Angels Weep . It is a take on Romans 13 that I've secretly held for a long time... Paul, you must be joking! Ah, I get it, say nice things about them and maybe they won't kill us... maybe that explains it after all, it makes better sense than most takes, at least for me...

Chris has the 2nd best news site out there, check it out. Plus ça change: "Progressive" Leaders Ride War Machine Deeper Into Darkness Armed with the same invincible ignorance and arrogance that have for generations led their imperial forbears to bitter defeat in Afghanistan, Barack Obama and Gordon Brown have both pledged themselves to a substantial escalation of the Anglo-American adventure in Central Asia. Thus these two self-proclaimed "progressive" champions of benevolent change are guaranteeing more of the same bitter fruit already produced by this misbegotten enterprise: more death, more ruin, more suffering, more corruption – and more violent extremism. The latter, of course, is where we came in, with the Carter-Reagan marshalling of extremist jihadis -- known as "freedom fighters" in those days of yore -- to hotfoot the Soviets and their secular Afghan clients. Indeed, the entire arc of America's bipartisan policies in the region over the pa

As Kermit says... I used to ride my bicycle to the BART station, bring the bike on board the train and park it securely at work. Then BART "improved" it's service by "adding trains" in the evening, while cutting the number of cars per train to the point that I could not reliably get onto a train at 7:09 or 7:25 pm and instead had to wait until a later train to get home. So I decided to try parking at the BART stations instead. Which, as you will recall, resulted in the theft of my bike from the inside of the BART station. I gritted my teeth and continued riding to the BART station until a recent rash of vandalism to my bike. First my headlight was stolen. I bought a new one and made a special effort to remove it when I parked. Then the bracket to my headlight and a Velcro strap on my lock were ripped off. So I was reduced to holding my headlight, that I had removed that day, in my hand as I rode. The last straw was when my bike's seat was ripped off

What it comes down to is this, any law you propose states this, I will kill you if you do not agree to do "X." I say this because ALL laws say this. All . Jay walking is a "crime." So, what does that mean? It means if you jay walk you risk death at the hands of government enforcers. How so? You are accosted while jay walking by the local police. You say, "Buzz off bucko!" The cop says "you are under arrest!" You say "Not even." They attempt to restrain you and you resist, you are now "resisting arrest" and in the process of subduing you force will be used to make you to comply. The harder you resist the more likely "they" are to simply kill you. All laws imply deadly force. All laws = the death penalty. Of course they won't say you are being killed for the "crime" of jay walking, but for resisting arrest or attempting to escape or whatever, but really it's the original "crim

From by William N. Grigg's Pro Liberate ( Dum spiro, pugno! ) Government, as we must never forget, is force. And as Simone Weil so memorably observed , force is that mysterious influence “that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing . Exercised to the limit, it turns man into a thing in the most literal sense: it makes a corpse out of him.” Every government function, no matter how mundane or apparently harmless, carries with it the implied (and often overt) use of lethal force against those who do not submit. Stefan Molyneux perceptively describes this as the principle of the “Gun in the room ”: Whenever anybody refers to the supposed virtue of a given government undertaking, Molyneux sagely observes, the central question is not whether the end is desirable, but rather “whether I am allowed to disagree with you without getting shot.” ( Full story here )

The best news source ever is Strange Herring by Anthony Sacramone. He presents short headlines and quick, often acerbic comments on them. Check it out, or I'll come over to your house and nail your other foot to the floor.

...that I have no room to squawk about political screeds, after all I spew them all the time, but hey, I'm not claiming to be anything other than a screed spewing Angry Gnome anyway, it is what it is :-)

So, after my little "I hate political science posts" rant I did remove the general ScienceBlogs feed from my Google reader. Then I went through some of the blogs on ScienceBlogs and checked out how often they were spewing atheist commie baloney and subscribed individually to a bunch of them that very seldom had any political comments. So sorting is possible but excedingly tedious. I will doubtless miss a lot of good stuff from the guys/gals who spew so much AC that I can't be bothered to read their feeds, sorry to miss out on it but hey there's only so much time in the day.

There is a blog site out there called ScienceBlogs.com that has some very good popularizing science blogs, places where you can go to read about the latest developments in numerous different fields from geology to astronomy to evolution. They have 73 different blogs and tens of thousands of posts have been written. Sadly the site is infected with a severe case of politica l science. Not science about politics, like studying elections and such, but "science" that serves political ends. The site is 100% atheist-socialist in outlook, meaning they were all gaga over Obama for one thing. All economic news is twisted into an argument for more government intervention. The most pathetic thing is that the most vehement of the atheist-socialist comments come from people who are not speaking in thier actual field but are commenting on politics as if a degree in Evolutionary Biology somehow gives one authority to pontificate about energy policy ! I've tried as best I can to

Over the last couple of years I have made a huge effort to convince myself that the Lutheran view of government had some merit. I've read everything recommended by Lutherans on the subject but I just can't make myself believe it. I can't believe it because I am certain that it is, quite simply, wrong. It is possible that I misunderstand the Lutheran position still, but I don't think that is the case. Lutherans teach that government is a blessing from God, a positive good. I think that this is wrong. In reality government is a curse and an evil. Even God warned Israel that a king (government) was a terrible idea that was against His will for them. (1 Samuel 8:4-19) We are certainly commanded in Romans 13:1-7 to obey and honor those in power over us, but in no place in the New Testament, at least no place that I'm aware of, is it even remotely implied that we ought to participate actively in any government, even less is it implied that we have some duty to part

"I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture , and I'm going to make sure that we don't torture," Obama told 60 Minutes' Steve Croft in his first national television interview since the Nov. 4 elections put him in line to become the United States' 44th president. "Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world." Obama's most ardent supporters are split over whether he should prosecute Bush officials [for torture and other war crimes.] Oh wonderful Obama, we're back to Freedom Tickles? Look, if they tortured prisoners it's a crime , if you don't prosecute them it's a crime as well. Just replace George with Barack in the picture and there you have it... A pox on all your houses!

I have sometimes used a service called Crosscards to send Christian themed cards to family members, it's a nice free service with pretty cool e-cards. Since I like the cards I said yes to the "do you want emails from us?" question. Most of the time they are pretty tame, some have been intriguing, like the ones about Christian martyrs around the world today. Today though I got one from them that I can only classify as Evangonut stuff. Christian Zionists misread the bible and spew false teaching like mad, and it leads to nutty stuff like supporting Israel over the Arabs no matter how very wrong the Israeli side is. It also leads to weird stuff like this: You are receiving this email because you subscribe to one or more free email newsletters from Crosscards.com. If at any time you decide you would prefer not to receive these messages, please use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email. Your regular subscriptions will continue as normal.

So now there are demonstrations against democracy all over the place. Whoopdidoo. Ultra left wing types are very similar to Islamic fundamentalists when it comes to democracy, it's all good unless the vote goes against them, then all bets are off. This whole thing just demonstrates for me the wisdom of keeping the government out of everything important. So, I believe in separation of church and state. I believe in separation of school and state. I believe in separation of marriage and state. I believe in separation of... life and state :-)

I've been busy. I went with Serenity to Livermore Park day on Thursday and then to the Symphony and heard Beethoven's 6th with Lora on Thursday night. Then on Friday I baked bread in the morning and then went with Serenity to another park in Castro Valley... park days mean I get to sit in the sun, or shade if it gets too warm, and read a book for a couple of hours :-) Today I did laundry and played a victorious game of Civilization. :-) The last several days have been sunny and warm, upper 70's for the most part. Mike's friend, Mary Ann and her daughter Topanga are coming over tonight for "movie night." No word on what movie we are going to watch. Serenity's friend Kallie will be over as well so it will be a full house. Serenity spent most of today with her friend McKenna from accross the street. So that's what I've been doing.

I should have been more even handed with my previous post. I left out our friends the "conservatives" aka Fascists. They like to pervert the language just as much as the communists, they just have different words they prefer to twist. Their favorite one is "freedom." Freedom means having no privacy, papers and persons and homes and vehicles can be searched on the say so of any random low IQ thug wearing or carrying a badge from virtually any agency of the government. Conversations and electronic communications can be monitored to make sure you aren't plotting "terrorism." Terrorism, that's another favorite word the fascists love, it means at its heart, any resistance to the will of the American Empire. So, Happy Veterans Day everybody! Of course only our masters have this day off, the politicians, the bankers, the government bureaucrats and the government indoctrination center workers (teachers in public schools) will be kicking back

Communists, aka "liberals", have once again proven that they actually hate democracy by filing suit to overthrow the clear will of the people of California . They want to alter the definition of the word marriage to include, well whatever the hell they feel like having it mean on any given Tuesday. As Orwell pointed out, the control of language is a great way to impose tyranny, way to go commies!

Dark Flow is in the air... I was listening the other day to the latest " Reasons to Believe " podcast and they were talking about this very subject. The thing is I think that xkcd has it right on this one... it's the entrance to Heaven! :-) See, all the matter in our Hubble Volume, that is the observable universe, is heading in the same direction in space at great speed... the universalism preachers are right! Everything is heading to the same place! Heh. Or not :-) What it really means is that there is matter that is outside or our Hubble Volume that is influencing the matter in the area we can observe...

SFBUNies at Rock City 123 , originally uploaded by ldevich . Yesterday Serenity and I went to Rock City again, always a fun place to go. This time we met up with some folks from SFBUN (San Francisco Bay Unschooling Network) We had a great time! Here are some more photos of the day, enjoy!

But.... Father Hollywood explains the reality of this quite well. The POTUS is not "our president" at all. I have been saying the same thing for many years, first about "Bush the Elder", then "the Adulterous Hillbilly", recently about "the Shrub" and now I will be saying it about "the One" as well. He is the president of the executive branch of the federal government , I don't work for the government, that means he is not my president! Read Father Hollywood's explanation if you don't believe me :-)

Obama Upstages Guy Fawkes by Anthony Gregory The fifth of November was Guy Fawkes Day. The fourth was Obama's day. Most Americans, especially the left-liberals, have been too busy thinking about Obama to care about Guy Fawkes. Do you remember, lefties, the movie V for Vendetta ? What a great moment in our romance that was. We libertarians loved the movie. You loved it too. The film was representative of our whole eight-year fling. We libertarians, you progressives, united against the common enemy – our ancient enemy – the corporatist, militarized, theocratic police state. You’ve always had a subversive streak and Bush brought out the best in you. November 5th should be the day we remember the radical ideas in that movie, and of Guy Fawkes Day: "The people should not be afraid of the government. The government should be afraid of the people." So terrible has been Bush that you began wondering if the true hero in the drama of social struggle was, in fact, the omnipotent p

As anticipated there was a landslide victory for the Socialist Party last night. The Old Line Fascists went down in flames. The new government = United Socialist States of America. Oh Joy. So, the darker colored corporate whore won out over the older and paler colored corporate whore. How very thrilling. Like the Who said back in 1971 : I'll tip my hat to the new constitution Take a bow for the new revolution Smile and grin at the change all around Pick up my guitar and play Just like yesterday Then I'll get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again Don't get fooled again No, no! Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Meet the new boss Same as the old boss! On the other hand there is some good news, barring some last minute vote tampering by the ruling elites, Proposition 8 looks to have passed, thus defining marriage for California as being between one man and one woman. Other good news is Proposition 2 passing, forbidding cruel caging practices when raising animals fo

So I was wondering if I should go and vote this morning or not. Almost always in the past I have eventually done it, only one time since I was 18 have I skipped voting, that was in an "off year election" and even then I felt guilt over it. So I wondered if I should vote. Then I thought, "I should pray about it!" So I began to pray, "O God in Heaven, I come before you this morning and ask your guidance…" And that was as far as I got as the answer seemed to me to be both swift and clear, that I ought to do what I can, no matter how little it is, to influence the course of my nation, state and city to the good, and prayerfully consider each issue, and each candidate, and then vote as best I can, trusting the Lord to accomplish his sovereign will. So be it.

My wonderful daughter Lora bought me the leather bound version of the Treasury of Daily Prayer for my birthday. It arrived on Saturday and I've been browsing through it and used it for morning prayers Sunday and this morning. It is wonderful! There are many reviews I've read on it, all of them saying the same thing, it's great! There is very little negative that anyone I've read could come up with. I intend for us to start using it for a daily family devotional, starting tonight I think. Evening Prayer is the section I'm looking at using because it is the only time we can be sure that Lora and Serenity and I are all there most days. Here is a review by Rev. Rick Stuckwisch : The book is outstanding and beautifully done. An incredible amount of work went into collecting and assembling the materials that make this Treasury a genuine treasure of the Word of God. The selection of Psalms and hymns and writings, as well as the careful crafting and collating of co

from Empire Burlesque - by Chris Floyd “Where should we go now?” he asked. “Death faces us everywhere.” And so the great historical presidential campaign of 2008 is finally at an end. By every reasonable and legitimate measure, Barack Obama will be the winner. But of course "reasonable and legitimate measures" mean little when dealing with deliberately fomented chaos and chicanery of the American electoral process, the laughingstock of the rest of the world, whose people stand in slackjawed amazement as they watch and wait -- in dreadful impotence -- to see which hegemon will emerge from the stormcloud of filth, lies, ambition and money that howls around the campaign trail. It has been, as usual, a bizarre, even lunatic experience, completely untethered from reality, obsessed with trivia, gossip and spin, and emptied, again deliberately, of anything resembling substance. Vague hope is offered by one side, vague, wiggly fear by the other. "Change" is the universal ma

Woo Hoo! It's raining! The rain was nice enough to stay away from Tracy last night where Lora, Serenity and I were visiting the Domkes and their five kids for Halloween along with Mike and Mary Ann and Topanga, so Trick-or-treating was nice and warm and dry. It's been a very dry year so far. But officially we are ahead of normal for the month of November :-) On day one anyway... Don't forget to turn your clocks back tonight when you go to bed yet another stupid government trick. We need to follow Arizona on this one and just skip the idiotic idea. Rainfall Totals Hourly Rain 0.00 in Daily Rain: 0.42 in Monthly Rain: 0.42 in Yearly Rain: 1.44 in Normal Rain, month to date: 0.29 in Normal Rain, year to date: 7.77 in