The Peaceful Gnome

This last weekend we had family gather from around the world to remember our cousin Bonnie and to scatter her ashes beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. Kristi, Jason and Cole came from New Zealand, Michelle came from Virginia (I think), Joy Ann came up from LA (we won't hold that against her, much), Kari came from Arizona, Becky and Jaden came from Utah, Mike, Lora, Serenity and me came all the way from Pleasanton while Maryann and Topanga came from the other side of San Francisco. After sailing the bay and sprinkling the ashes we had lunch at Aliotos and went out to the California Academy of Science. Although it was a sad occasion it was good to gather family from near and far and spend a little time together. I hope we can all get together some time with less time pressure and for a happier occasion some day. Here is a slide show of a few pictures I took:

Oh man, it's all been a waste of effort... well not that much effort actually since I only pay for the gym, I don't actually go there :-), but it would not really matter anyway, the whole exercise thing is a myth, at least when it comes to weight loss or even maintaining weight. In the end it comes down to eating a bit less and cutting out a lot of carbs ... or so says this story in New York Magazine by Gary Taubes back in 2007. I believe it to be true because it fits with my own experience. On a strict low carb regime I lost 35 pounds, then gained about 10 back and have been steady ever since eating whatever I feel like. No other diet or exercise + diet plan has ever been as successful for me as that, not the "Low Fat" diet, not the vegan diet not anything I've tried. So... maybe I'll go back on the low carb diet and see what I can do with that :-) Oh, and exercise, in moderation is probably a good thing, I'll continue to ride my bike to work an...

This is a "Course of Study" I saw on a home schooling email list, it was put into its form here by Pam Sorooshian and I made it ours by the simple insertion of Serenity School , it makes what we are doing sound almost respectable doesn't it? :-) Then there is why we do it which you can get an idea about by reading The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto, free in its entirety on line. The World is Our Classroom SERENITY SCHOOL Course of Study Elementary Students Serenity School is a private full-time day school established in compliance with the Education Code of the State of California. Because we believe that the family is the most fundamental social institution and the preferred means of caring for, preparing, and training children to be productive members of society, Serenity School promotes and supports a family-centered education through our independent study program. At Serenity School , independent study, in which children learn p...

Yes, it's my Friday at last! After 3 long days of work it's time to head off to the hills for camping and hiking and fun :-) Serenity and I will be spending Wednesday through Friday at the Sunol Regional Wilderness camping with some other SFBUNies and having a good time. Then on Saturday we are off to the Vallejo waterfront for: Woo Hoo... I mean Aaarrrrrrrgh!

Tonight, as I was reading an email list called "5 minutes with Luther", there was a verse from the hymn "There is a fountain" at the end of the devotion. This is such a wonderful hymn I decided to post it here: There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Immanuel's veins And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains Lose all their guilty stains Lose all their guilty stains And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains The dying thief rejoiced to see That fountain in his day And there may I, though vile as he Wash all my sins away Away Away Wash all my sins away E'er since by faith I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply Redeeming love has been my theme And shall be till I die And shall be till I die And shall be till I die Redeeming love has been my theme And shall be till I die Wash all my sins away Wash all my sins away Redeeming love has been my theme And shall be till I die. Here is a nice version on Y...

This is about 50 minutes long so don't start unless you have a good block of free time to spend on it. It's a presentation given at a conference by Rev. Christopher Esget. Please note, I don't see any way to "link" to the video so it's embedded only, to watch the video if you are getting this via email and you don't see anything to watch, click on the title of the post to go directly to my blog where you will then find it embedded:

I was reading the Psalms assigned for the evening of the 12th day of the month in Treasury of Daily Prayer and was struck by how clearly the gospel is announced at times in the Old Testament. I am thinking in particular of Psalm 65:2-4 here. First is the announcement that God "hears our prayers". Then we learn that "When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions..." and that it is God who chooses us and brings us near to dwell with Him. How wonderful that the clear Gospel is there in the Old Testament where so often we think that there is little but "Law". "You atone for our transgression", we don't do it ourselves. Blessed is the one you choose ..." we don't choose God, He chooses us! Thanks be to God. Amen.

Dan, over at Necessary Roughness, has posted a wonderful article about Struggling with Sin and the fact that we are all sinners, every day. It used to be I'd just repost the whole article here but I think it's better to link to stories other people have gone to the trouble to write. (It's just polite, but I still think copyright laws are a stupid idea.) You will find this one edifying I promise, it is not one of those snarky hostile political screeds I like so much :-)

This is really amazing. How can making gold and silver coins be counterfeiting ? Printing worthless scraps of paper backed by nothing but threats like the government does, that's counterfeiting! Read this and weep for what was a free country, then go out and spit on a government lawyer! "It's The Money" from Pro Libertate by William N. Grigg

Paul Craig Roberts writes in Chronicles Magazine about Americans hysterical and mostly irrational fear of mythical enemies and claims this fear is the most powerful force in America, he may be right. Read "Fear Rules" here.

Sure, I'm probably the last person in the country to see this but it is so funny I had to put it here anyway, enjoy David after dentist :

At least it made me smile. Thanks to " The New Unschooler " for this one: Click here if you don't see the embedded video>

Here is a great discussion of the issue of Free Will and original sin. Evangelicals and Catholics both mess this one up in one way or another, and it's important, because it takes us away from salvation by faith alone and plants us back in salvation by works, often without even quite realizing it. It's well worth a listen.

Here's a guy, Doug Stanhope, who says pretty much exactly what I say about Freedom in America. He says it in a way that will make you laugh, while getting ticked off and saying "Yeah!" Warning, he's pretty crude and cusses a lot, if you are not in the mood to hear some potty mouth, well you better skip this one. At least not listening to him is one freedom the state has yet to rip off from you:

Oh cool! Someone on a homeschooling email list sent out a link to Free Online Course Materials offered by MIT online! Woo Hoo! That looks way cool. Then, while browsing around seeing if other schools have that sort of thing I discovered that Stanford has some via iTunes ... not quite what I think I'd like but if you just wanted to listen to some lectures it might be fun. Then I found The Open University which is based in the UK. That one really looks interesting, in fact I decided to play around with that one and registered. You can log in on that site and engage in discussions on the course materials, very interactive and yet free somehow. I'll let you know how it works out. The MIT courses look pretty interesting as well but I'll hold off on them until I've tried out the Open University for a while. This is the sort of thing the internet really is made for ;-) This is also essentially unSchooling, you learn what you want, when you want, at whatever pace you...

So the California leach society, aka. the Governator and His Enablers in the Legislature, want to close almost all of California's State Parks to help solve the budget crisis. What a load of BS that is! In the first place it only amounts to 70 million dollars, which when you are looking at a deficit of 25 BILLION dollars is just chump change. In the second place the state ends up getting back over twice what it puts in because of businesses paying taxes around the parks. What this is amounts to is punishment of the people of California for daring to reject the absurd money grab recently attempted by the bloated parasitical vermin who infest Sacramento. A far better way of lowering the budget would be to fire each and every parasite who processes state licenses and permits or any other form of state paperwork for, well for anything at all. Then release each and every person in prison who is not there for crimes against persons or property, you know drug users and dealers who d...

My last comment is this, I'm glad to hear that although Tiller was a Lutheran he had been excommunicated by his LCMS congregation , which is why he was at the ex-Lutheran ELCA "church" where he was killed.

Here is a reasonable comment on Tiller: George Tiller Murder Wrong on Multiple Counts from Necessary Roughness by Dan

I wrote two posts about a recent event in the news concerning the murder of an abortionist in Kansas. After a nights sleep I have deleted the second one which I had posted here, the first I never posted at all. If you received the post in email or read it on a reader, please accept my apology for such un-Christian writing.