There Is A Merciful God

Watch this. Here is a guy that gets struck by a richocet from a 50 cal. rifle.

To Vote Or Not To Vote

Let’s Just Get it Over With, Shall We?
By Doug Patton
July 28, 2008

Two schools of thought seem to prevail among conservative Republicans unhappy with the prospect of voting for John McCain. First, there are those who believe that McCain, though far from their first choice, is looking better and better as the campaign progresses, primarily because the alternative is totally unacceptable. Then there are those think that the Republic can survive a Barack Obama administration, especially if it ushers in another Ronald Reagan era.

Those believing in the former rightly point to Supreme Court nominations, tax policy and national security as some of their primary concerns. Their belief is that while McCain is wrong on global warming, wrong on immigration, wrong on free speech issues such as campaign finance reform, he is still infinitely better than Obama on many of the biggest issues.

The latter group believes that while Obama will appoint extremely liberal Supreme Court justices, those on the court most likely to retire are also liberal, thereby netting the Left nothing. This theory neglects to acknowledge the fact that Obama would be replacing eighty-something-year-old liberals with fifty-something-year-old liberals on the high court. It also fails to take into account that the president of the United States appoints hundreds of lower court judges during the course of four or eight years. We are still suffering under the hair-brained rulings of Jimmy Carter’s judicial appointees.

Add to those concerns the specter of crippling tax increases, crushing gas prices and a smothering nanny state, combined with the distinct possibility of terrorist attacks on a scale we could not have previously imagined, and the election of Barack Obama becomes a recipe for disaster.

And yet…and yet…

I resist the thought of an Obama presidency with everything that is in me. He is a radical on virtually every domestic and foreign policy issue you can name. He would appoint people to our courts who would continue the American slide into the gutter of moral relativism. He would surrender in Iraq and otherwise be a bungling commander-in-chief. He would meddle in every aspect of our lives and tax everything that means anything to us.

And yet I find myself wondering if it is a necessary evil. I cringe at the thought of listening to all the whining from those who will say the election was stolen if Obama loses. It might be worth four years of Obama in order to put Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton out of business. Imagine no more excuses for the lies these two have been telling for the last thirty years. Imagine no more affirmative action. After all, if a black man can make it to the presidency, why is preferential treatment any longer necessary?

I find myself dreaming of a day when wide-eyed idealists on the left — especially African-Americans — who see their political salvation in this guy, will come to realize that a black man or woman can be every bit as incompetent and dangerous as a white man or woman with the same misguided worldview.

Many of us prayed for a J.C. Watts presidency or its equivalent. I personally hoped in 2000 that George W. Bush would pick Watts as his running mate. Had he done so, imagine how different this election year would be. The first serious black presidential candidate would be a conservative Republican whose election would truly have put the lie to the charge that white America won’t vote for a black man for president.

But that did not happen, and we find ourselves in 2008 with a European-style socialist knocking at the White House door. Perhaps it is time to put this race thing behind us once and for all. His presidency will be an unmitigated disaster. Perhaps it is time. Perhaps the only way to put this myth of ongoing systemic, institutional racism in America is to elect a black man and just get it over with.

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© Copyright 2008 by Doug Patton
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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and public policy advisor. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online, TheConservativeVoice.com and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at mhtml:%7BB5A5E0E5-09A7-4E7E-ABCC-097CA314DBE1%7Dmid://00000091/!x-usc:mailto:dougpatton@cox.net.

Domestic Murder

Every now and then you catch a grounder. A weird, sick grounder, but a grounder nonetheless.

Two days ago in a neighboring town, a young man shot and killed both his parents, dismembered his father and stuffed their bodies into a septic tank. He then later wandered down to the Sheriff's headquarters where he confessed to the double murder.

Syracuse, NY -- The couple found Tuesday in a septic tank at an Elbridge home died of multiple gunshot and shotgun wounds, the Onondaga County Medical Examiner's Office said today.

The office also officially identified the couple as Joseph and Jo-Ellen Bisesi, the residents of the home at 5879 Sandbank Road.

Scene investigation, autopsy and radiographic studies were used in the determination of the cause of death, the medical examiner's office said.

All the remains of the couple were recovered, the medical examiner said. The Bisesis' son, Joseph Bisesi III, has been charged with first-degree murder in the slayings.

In court papers filed about midnight Tuesday at Elbridge Town Court, Bisesi was accused of killing his parents by shooting them multiple times and then disposing of the bodies in the home's septic tank.

He had removed the limbs from his father's body, but the torso was found protruding from the septic system, state police said.

I can't wait to hear what his attorney dreams up for his defense. He ran out of yeast cakes?

Can We Drill On Mars Too?

Mars is certainly in the news this week. At space.com there is an article on Mars that bears reading:

How Mars and Alaska Are Alike
Little did Bucknell University geology professors Craig Kochel and Jeffrey Trop know, as they were working in Alaska, that they would soon predict one of the most important planetary observations ever made.

Okay, so what are the similarities? Lack of attractive women? No good Italian restaurants for thousands of square miles? The weather really, really sucks? You can crap almost anywhere and no one cares?

The pair was in Alaska for an eight-day trip in July 2006, studying geological features and the processes that create them. As they studied photographs taken of the surrounding area, some features caught Kochel's eye. He thought they were strangely familiar, and then realized they reminded him of images he'd seen when working on the Viking missions to Mars in the 1970s.

Kochel and Trop trekked to where the shots were taken overlooking a glacier. Spotting triangle-shaped landforms called "fans" sealed the deal: They looked strikingly similar to photographs taken of features on Mars.

Although geologists can usually tell what shapes the landscape around us, it was a mystery what formed the Mars-like features found in Alaska.

How about phrasing it as Earth-type features found on Mars? These guys looked at geological events in Alaska and sought to draw inferences on similar events on Mars. The end result?

Kochel and Trop explained that with a bit of luck and good timing, it would be possible to snap photographs of martian avalanches. Amazingly, soon afterwards the orbiter sent back images of an ice flow avalanche in action on Mars. Pieces of ice, dust and possibly rocks crashed down from high, steep areas, sending clouds of fine material billowing upwards. The cloud itself was about 590 feet (180 meters) across. The exact cause of the avalanche isn't known with certainty, but it could be because the sun warmed layers of ice.

This was the first time an avalanche had been observed on another world, and was the perfect confirmation of Kochel and Trop's ideas.

So let's see, the bottom line is: gravity works on Mars as well as in Alaska? I am relieved that up is still up and down is still down on another planet of our solar system.

Now I wanna see if there is any oil underneath all that red sand.

Incredible Martian Landscapes

From the UK Daily Mail:

Scientists have released some of the most detailed photographs of Mars ever taken.

The pictures, which were snapped from a European Space Agency (ESA) probe, show a region of the Red Planet called the Echus Chasma.

The deeply-incised area is a network of valleys that planetary geologists believe were created by channelling groundwater that once flowed on Mars' surface.

These are beautiful scenes of a desolate planet that may have known the life giving presence of flowing water. I sometimes think about a passage in Romans chapter 8:

19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.
20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope
21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

I believe all of creation was affected by The Fall and we are seeing the interplanetary results of that event. It will be restored in due time and not through the efforts of man.

How We Stay Gainfully Employed

Police in Oakland, CA, spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, officers discovered that the man was standing beside them in the police line, shouting, "Please come out and give yourself up."

An Illinois man, pretending to have a gun, kidnapped a motorist and forced him to drive to two different automated teller machines, wherein the kidnapper proceeded to withdraw money from his own bank accounts.

A man walked into a Topeka, Kansas, Kwik Stop and asked for all the money in the cash drawer. Apparently, the take was too small, so he tied up the store clerk and worked the counter himself for three hours until police showed up and grabbed him.

Police in Los Angeles had good luck with a robbery suspect who just couldn't control him self during a lineup. When detectives asked each man in the lineup to repeat the words: "Give me all your money or I'll shoot," the man shouted, "that's not what I said!"

In Modesto ,CA , Steven Richard King was arrested for trying to hold up a Bank of America branch without a weapon. King used a thumb and a finger to simulate a gun. Unfortunately, he failed to keep his hand in his pocket.

Home Again

It ended too soon for my liking, but that's the nature of a real good time.

We had a great time at Chaumont Bay. The weather was unbelieveably cooperative, almost every day was great.
The wife and I packed up the car and left last Friday; the three daughters still at home didn't show up unitl Monday, so we had a few days all to ourselves. Our friends were just finishing up their vacation at the camp next door so we spent some time with them. We watched the fireworks displays all along the bay that 4th of July evening and had quite a show.

I got burnt, bitten and blistered from walking along the roads that follow the shoreline. I did almost four miles every day. The kids are all brown as berries and the wife looks like she just got off the boat from southern Italy. On Wednesday our oldest daughter and the grandkids joined us for three days and they had a ball playing in the water, collecting shells and running around like madmen with the kids from a neighboring camp.

For dinner we ate grilled chicken, pork tenderloin, hotdogs, hamburgers, potato salad, fruit salad, chips, melted cheese/chili dip and baked goods. We had banana pancakes, pumpkin pancakes, muffins, eggs, and bacon for breakfast. I am afraid to weigh myself but I think with all the walking I kept the damage to a minimum.

We had bonfires at night and made smores, then we watched movies. We gotta do this again soon.

We left at about 1030 this morning and stopped in Watertown for breakfast. We drove in a downpour almost all the way home. Boy it was great!

Happy Birthday America

Wow. We're 232 years old today and don't look a day over 192; well maybe 198 tops.

I was going to post a copy of the Declaration of Independence today but as I was surfing I was redirected by SoCalOilMan to The O Word who has a nice patriotic blog. The Declaration can be read there.

But this post at the American Thinker caught my attention. I had forgotten that only about a third of the American colonists supported the War of Independence. Another third remained loyal to King George and the other third sat out the war on a fence.

While reading this and other pieces regarding the early birth pains of this, the greatest Country on the face of the Earth, I again am struck by the faith of these frail, fallible men - the Founding Fathers and the men of the Continental Army. Praise God for their sacrifice.

Off To Chaumont

We're leaving for a week's vacation on Lake Ontario tomorrow. It is a different cottage than the one last year, it belongs to the mother of a friend of mine at work. She is in a nursing home and he needs help paying the taxes for the house. It is just down the street from where we stayed last year. As Elmer Fudd says, "West and Wewaxation At Wast!"

It's Not The Anthem I Would Pick

Some idiot decided to sing whatever she wanted when she was invited to sing the National Anthem at the Denver State of The Union yesterday.

DENVER - Mayor John Hickenlooper's annual State of the City address may get more attention for what wasn't included than what was.

At the start of the event Tuesday morning, City Council President Michael Hancock introduced singer Rene Marie to perform the national anthem.

Instead, she performed the song "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," which is also known as the "black national anthem."

When she finished, the audience responded with mild applause. The national anthem was never performed.

Governor Bill Ritter (D-Colorado) discussed the incident on The Mike Rosen Show on 850 KOA on Wednesday morning, calling it "inappropriate."

I agree, it was inappropriate. I myself would have chosen another song as an anthem. Perhaps something like this:



Now, how can you go wrong with that? Everyone can get behind that song...