The Peaceful Gnome

For a long time I thought I wanted to be a therapist. Luckily for my potential clients I never became one :-) I suspect I'd have taken an approach similar to this: Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

Here is what is going on in the mind of every politician as he makes his campaign ads.  If only they were really this honest! Thanks to Father Hollywood for this.  :-) Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

This time he's teaching an atheist how to better argue against God :-) Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

If you are not in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod some of this won't make much sense, though the first 4 minutes or so about truth is good no matter what, so you should watch at least that much.  Otherwise, great stuff and I sure hope Matt gets elected so that Missouri doesn't turn into just another lame "evangifundimethobapticostal" church <yawn!>  People, we ain't "protestants" of that sort, we are Evangelical Orthodox Catholics,  we are Confessional, Liturgical LUTHERANS and proud of it.  We are LUTHERAN because it's RIGHT!  :-)  We take the sola's of the reformation SERIOUSLY: # 1 Sola scriptura ("by Scripture alone") # 2 Sola fide ("by faith alone") # 3 Sola gratia ("by grace alone") # 4 Solus Christus or Solo Christo ("Christ alone" or "through Christ alone") # 5 Soli Deo gloria ("glory to God alone") ...and that's the truth, so there :-p Poste...

It has gone back to cold! Serenity and I had a fire in the fireplace this morning to take the chill off of the apartment. It's cloudy and windy and about 60 degrees out, yuck. Because of all that we decided not to go to the Pirate Festival. I'm a fair weather pirate I guess. :-) This morning I baked bread, this afternoon Serenity and I will be baking chocolate chip cookies for the fund raiser for the Domke's tomorrow after church. Should be fun. Here is one of my favorite songs by Tom Leher, I've got it on a CD but it's cool to see him here singing happily of spring time... Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

via lewrockwell.com More on those great old magazines! :-) Posted via web from The Angry Gnome

Solomon said it thousands of years ago in Ecclesiastes 1:9 "What has been is what will be,    and what has been done is what will be done,    and there is nothing new under the sun." So, my "new word" I coined is not original at all. :-( http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sarcaustic I'm still sarcaustic though. Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

After my "flag" post I started to think about the tone of my conversations, both on the inter-webs and in person. I coined a new word just now that might capture that tone: sar-caustic ;-). Sometimes I even offend myself! Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

My cow-orker Ellard, has been forced to give away the donuts people give him because he's supposed to be giving up sugar because of high diabetes risk, I'm helping him out by eating a cream filled yummy.... mmm Crispy Creme!  :-) Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

Yesterday was flag day... so here's a flag... Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

Heard this song by Imogen Heap on Slacker Radio on the way in to work this morning, nice 8-) Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

The Nor Cal Pirate Festival is great fun, and it's FREE... my favorite price for anything :-)  We're going again this year if I have to hijack a ship to get there!  AAARGH! Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

Right... "previously unknown" suuure, this war had nothing to do with securing this stuff, truuussst us!  It was about fighting evil jihadists and terrorists!  We're politicians , would we lie to you? Breaking News Alert 1 The New York Times Sun, June 13, 2010 -- 9:22 PM ET ----- U.S. Discovers Nearly $1 Trillion in Afghan Mineral Deposits The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials. The previously unknown deposits -- including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium -- are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believ...

Lora and I watched this terrific Australian movie "The Boys are Back" last night.  I was watching it for the second time in two days because I watched it Thursday night and then decided I wanted to share it with Lora because I was pretty sure she'd love it.   8-) It's the story of a father raising his two sons after his wife dies of cancer.  The photography is spectacular, the music, mostly by my favorite Icelandic band Sigur Ros is perfect.   (Of course the only other Icelandic band I know is Bjork and I can't stand her.)  I think the reason I liked the movie so much was not only the great acting, which it has, or the great music and photography, but the fact that the father decides to "Just Say Yes" and the resulting family relations are very much of the "unschooling" sort, in spite of the fact that the boys are in school.  The reviews say it's based on a true story too, so that's even better.  It could have been a sappy m...

From Bo Giertz in "The Hammer of God" which I'm reading at the moment: “God can do whatever He wills. But it is neither true that God must give a man a clean heart, nor that he must have a clean heart, before he can become a child of God. God saves us by grace, even with our unclean hearts. Our state of grace rests not on our heart, whether clean or unclean, but on the righteousness and merits of Jesus.” A very and comforting thought isn't it? Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

With the passage of proposition 14 in California free elections are a thing of the past .  Now only Demopublicans and Republicrats will be on the general election ballot.  They did this through the deceptive trick of calling for "Open Primaries" where you can vote for any candidate in the primary regardless of your party affiliation.  It sounds like a good idea, except for one problem,  only the top two vote getters from ALL parties will be on the ballot in the general election!  This means in some areas, like San Francisco, there will be two Democrats on the ballot, or in places like Orange County it could be two Republicans, for most places there will a Democrat facing a Republican.  The two official government parties, Demopublicans and Republicrats will effectively be the only parties allowed to run for office.  Libertarians are not allowed on the California ballot.  Greens are not allowed on the California ballot.  The various rig...

Lora cooked what we think might have been a delicious chicken pot pie tonight. Unfortunately when she removed it from the oven she put it on a burner on the top of the stove that she did not realize was on. When she realized what she had done she removed it from the burner and placed it on a ceramic hot plate, whereupon the glass pie plate (probably made in China) exploded into little shards all over the kitchen! Our house guest Celeste then left for Little Caesars to get Pizza... See and download the full gallery on posterous Posted via email from Our Family Blog

Since I think God uses evolution over millions of years and not special creation 10,000 years ago, I think this is pretty funny. If you are a creationist you might not be so amused... Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

Laugh while you can, it may not be all that funny when it all comes crashing down: Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

WASHINGTON – The White House scrambled Thursday to explain new revelations of political dealmaking, defending attempts to steer state primary races but saying the president was unaware an aide had urged a Colorado Democrat to seek a federal job rather than run. With Republicans denouncing "Chicago-style politics" and accusing President Barack Obama of breaking his clean-politics promises, White House aides mustered a multi-pronged response. The White House has the right to try to avoid messy Democratic primaries , they said, but Obama leaves the details to underlings. They also offered more information about the Colorado Senate matter after being accused of trying to hush a similar Pennsylvania episode that broke wider open last week. Presidents, as leaders of their parties, "have long had an interest in ensuring that supporters didn't run against each other in contested elections," press secretary Robert Gibbs said. But when it comes to personally per...

A co-worker (cow-orker?) brought this ancient (circa 1953) fire extinguisher, that he came across when he was cleaning out an old house the other day, to work with him this morning.  He thought perhaps he could sell it on E-Bay or something and he wanted me to "Google" it for him.  According to the back of the can it is 90% carbon tetrachloride .  We talked to our building engineer and he told us he knew of this chemical from when he was boy and his father told him it was extremely dangerous stuff.  It turns out that " The fact that high temperatures cause it to react to produce Phosgene made it especially hazardous when used against fires."  Say what?  Phosgene " gas gained infamy as a chemical weapon during World War I."   Oh goody, now get it the heck off of my desk!  :-) Posted via email from Our Family Blog

Since moving to Livermore I've been driving my car to the train station to go to work.  I've found this to be stressful.  I get upset by the traffic, impatient by drivers going slower than I want to on the off ramp and getting in my way in the parking lot.  Plus it puts miles on the car, adds wear and tear to both me and the Corolla and uses up more of that expensive gasoline.  Then I have to pay $1 a day to park in the station lot as well.  Well, last week I decided to try riding my bike the 8 miles to the station.  I rode on Sunday but then we had rain again for a few days (It looks like that strange late wet weather has FINALLY gone away!).  Yesterday and today I rode though.  Instead of being stressed out from freeway driving I'm relaxed from a strenuous 45-50 minute aerobic workout on the way to the train, nice.  I'm going to be a fair weather rider though.  I have no intention of riding 45 minutes in a driving cold rain in...