I wasn't asked for my Google account password today. I was in Google last night looking at my Google history, watching Google videos and looking at Google maps, which come in a lot faster now that I have DSL. This is the first time I have blogged since last Monday. Rates are slowing down because there really isn't that much "new" in the news that I haven't already commented about. That means if you are a regular reader of my blogs you're "ahead of the learning curve" as Rush says because the things I talk about will be in the news for days and days to come. Today's big topic is that NBC is going Green with reporters in Greenland watching the ice bergs melt, and also in Ecuador, where presumably you will no longer be able to get all that lovely produce they showed you of exotic fruits, if global warming gets out of hand. They're going all Green in their sitcoms. Of course we have the writers strike which to me is as absurd as hogs going on an eating strike because they don't want to get fat and that much closer to slaughter. It's something contrary to their very nature. Likewise it seems a "queer" thing to me that a natural born comic like Jay Leno would not be able to just improvise a few jokes at the beginning of their show on the day's events, because their jobs could easily be taken over by a tallented armature, who would have no problem with it. Soap operas never went into reruns. Often I've provided enough material in ideas in a letter to provide them easily with a year's material, if they want to use it. Ideas are like dandelions. Why buy some when you can go out into any field and pick them, if you even want them? Also in the news is Joe Torrie taking over the Dodgers bring all that championship expertise. You know how the karma of the coach or manager seems to transfer to the teams they head, time after time. Yesterday the Orion Federation battled the Pikes in a "battle of the undefeateds" and lost. The Patriots are a "Pike" team and the Federation has been backing the Colts, but no other Indiana team. Last night Google showed mostly all green traffic, and today going to the bank with Terry we saw nothing but a sea of green lights all the way there. It's nice to have things go your way.

A couple of days ago I told the Lord that if he answered a certain prayer I was asking for "a miracle" for that I would honor Him in my blogs and in conversation. Of course as a Christian I'm supposed to be doing that all the time anyhow One man said, "Adversity and trials don't create character in a man, they Reveal it". The Bible also says to the believers, "You are predestined unto good works". What this means is that God knows who you are before you do it, for good or for bad. You're never going to catch Him by surprise. Therefore it's absurd for Jesus Christ on KFI to say, "Oh, we need adversity and evil in the world, for how else would we know who the heroes really were. Without adversity there would be no heroisum". This is completely bogus reasoning. God knows whether or not you are a champion. The circumstances of life merely Reveal that fact to others. You could make the argument, "Well, being in abject poverty is a good thing because poor people tend to be more generous as a percent of their substance that they share with others. The poor often engage in sacrificial giving with each other". I will agree with that statement. The rich could learn a thing or two about Christian sacrificial giving from the poor. But still as a percentage of total Giving, the poor are overwhelmed simple because the rich have so much MORE to give to begin with. If God wanted more giving going on by my way of thinking he'd make more poor people rich.

The one big story that is hanging on in the headlines is the candidate for Attorney General, Mc Kasey. He has had troubling answers in his confirmation hearings, according to Google news. Not only doesn't he know whether waterboarding is torture or not, but he's also mistrustful of the FISA court and thinks we should have unimpeeded wire tapping. People say that Mc. Kasey could in fact be worse than Gonsolez because he is slicker and "more confortable" breaking the law than was Alberto Gonsolez. This is troubling indeed. The Japanese were brought up on military charges for various tortures of Americans, and among the crimes was waterboarding. So by our own sixty year old standards, waterboarding Is torture. But it's said even though the CIA no longer uses waterboarding, the Bush Adminestration wants to keep waterboarding open as an option in case we encounter a really bad terrorist with valuable timely information.

Sixty minutes had an interesting show. It seems that photos were faked of Iraqi "seed purification plants" and a lot hinges on whether or not there was a brick wall there in 2002. And our inspectors found there was a "wall" there and trucks could not get in or out. Moreover the German guy who brought the charges of Iraq developing biological weapons of mass destruction, himself was found out to be a fraud, and he got bad grades besides. Our inspectors in early 2003 found out there was no secret biological lab and there were no weapons of mass destruction, and Collin Powell was delivering known false information to the U N. The next segment was on elephants and the hunt for ivory. My position on it is if a merchant has ivory that he might as well go ahead and sell it, because conthiscating it won't bring any elephant back to life. That damage is done. It's ironic that nearly twenty years after an Ivory ban, the place where elephants are still being hunted is the Darfore region east of Chad, in the same area where genocide is also going on. The elephants venture out of their safe havens during the rainy season because they were know where the green Savannas and the watering holes are. As such the poachers use their knowledge of the elephants nature against them and lie in wait for them. If I were president I think I'd send troops to save the elephants in the Darfore region, and if we save a few human beings in the process, so much the better. The third segment was that rich guy with his cars and his castle and his 88 meter long sailing yacht, that's all computer controlled. I have no problem with the rich spending their money on whatever makes them happy. That's what life is all about, to "enlarge our capacities" and I think it's kind of neat in a sense to own gadgets nobody else owns. It's kind of what the American Dream is all about.

I watched some inspired piano playing of really beautiful music, and it was part of a religious program and they said it was “playing in the spirit”. They talked about the mystic vibrational qualities of the vowels of the Hebrew language, and how Jesus promised streams of living water and healing, and even the rocks would praise him because even rocks have their own vibration they resonate at. Joel Olsteen’s basic message this morning was “stay the course” and spoke of digging a building foundation deep when the building was to be really high. I thought of the Union Oil building and how there seemed to be a “stall” in that building’s construction for all of 1956. That building has four underground parking levels. Then there was Col. Harlen Sanders who went into the Kentucky Fried Chicken business at age 66. He is a Christian, of course. He had opened a restaurant once but then a freeway was put in and killed his business, so he drove down the street selling chicken out of the deep fryer on his truck. Then he sold chicken to other restaurants. Olsteen spoke of David and Nabal that “fool” and how if David had come against him militarily for the sin of ingratitude, it might not set any better with the government than it would today, because David had to wait thirteen long years after he was anointed by Samuel at age seventeen before he ascended to Power. I think we all need to look for the miracle in our lives. Joel was saying there may be people whom we count as “lost” as far as a relation goes, perhaps even our own kids, but that God can restore the years lost to sin and you will “come out better than when you went in”. We can pray for that. I think people worried about the office of Presidency need to pray about what to do about our situation, and ways God might enter in to make his will known, both for your own political involvement, and the country as a whole.

I watched Meet the Press. It was Fred Thompson. His position on the war and the trouble in Pakistan pretty much matches the president. Then it was Chris Matthews, and then I caught a little of the Beatles. They had “Live” “Hey Jude” and “Resolution” songs as heard on the Smuthers Brothers program. KOLA had the “Help” movie, and I think it’s the new “fake” John Lennon that does that Help rendition from anthology they played, because of his enunciation of certain syllables. "Help" is being re-issued with improved picture and sound and all that and everybody should buy it. The "fake" John Lennon missed out doing the "Help" movie but was going to be in the Beatles' third movie, a prop. Western that never came about. I caught “This Week” on station 7.2 and they had John Edwards and then their round table. At one point I was starting to fall asleep. I went out to the patio. Hillary Clinton got the usual criticism. Hillary herself has said "They aren't criticizing me because I'm a woman, but because I'm ahead". I think being "Number one" can be a status symbol. It's like Xerox and everybody having the slogan "It's just as good as a Xerox". Well, Xerox wins from that. (Selah)

Yesterday I had Dr. Dean Edell on in the afternoon. He’s a little concerned that this new early screening for nine month old babies might make parents a little needlessly paranoid. It seems to me it’s a good preventative measure to have two “screenings” before the child is two. It seems better to be safe than sorry and I see no down side. Dr. Edell once again criticized vitamin usage saying vitamins do no good and they cause cancer. He said that cateracts are not really a “disease” of the eye but merely aging of the lens and that doctors say this is one area when it’s entirely the patient’s choice when or if they want to get the operation, and it might depend what profession you are in. As to his assertion about fall birthday being the smartest, back in my day (when we wrote on stone tablets) the "fall" students were the youngest students in the class because the cut-off period was December first. I think some places even that date was "early" because when I was five, the LA school district suggested since I was so smart that I not wait for the semester, and enroll in September when I was five & a half. My birthday was December 31st. or one month past the deadline that became the standard later on. I think being with older kids makes you smarter, and I'd imagine being with younger kids makes you dumber. But according to Dr. Edell, the older students in a school class actually do better.