Bushido in America

Long but compelling read by Robert L. Kocher called "Bushido, Class, and Governance" about the principles of Bushido (the guiding philosophies of the samurai). One of the things this article talks about is how people like George W. Bush, Ted Kennedy, Al Gore etc. would never have succeeded on their own in the real world had it not been for family name and connections: their "nobility" so to speak, when in truth none of them possess any redeeming qualities which makes them fit to be in a position of authority...

Were the average person to walk into a bank, declare he had no money, prospects, or experience, then ask to be put on the bank's board of directors at $80,000 a year since he was down on his luck, he would be ushered out the door in short order. But when your name is Bush, your granddaddy was senator from Connecticut, your Father is Vice President or president, "somebody," people in the class structure will work to find a soft spot for you. In Bush's case he was rescued from virtual backruptcy and from a slide into lower-class obscurity by being given a series of such positions until the class structure could install him as governor and eventually president on the basis of family name and class group membership. From the standpoint of outside objective reality, there was no basis in experience or qualifications other than the name Bush, and class union membership, to put him into office as anything --either in business or government.

The Bush case is illustrative of principle, not exhaustive. Close examanation of many high level people in politics/goverment reveals a similar path which has a death grip on the American political/administrative system and which often does not incorporate serious employment or evidence of ability along the line. Al Gore is basically an unemployable ludicrous figure saved by inheritance of the Gore family name and state power structure. The same is true of any Kennedy. The list of such people reveals they have no personal investment in anything other than a diamyo class power system and political power mediated by a vacuous loquaciousness that could be found in any high school debate team along with equivalent high school experience and other qualifications.

While there may be some jostling between class members for specific positions, as long as the contests are primarily restricted to being among class members, the class system dominence is protected and perpetuated.

As I said it's a long read, but one well worth recommending to others.

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"The 12 Days of Christmas" by the YouTube Community Choir

This is AWESOME!!Look for my favorite YouTuber Geriatric1927 (AKA Peter the British pensioner) sporting a nifty Santa hat!

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Jack Chick and Stan Lee present: GALACTUS IS COMING!

What if Jack Chick worked with Stan Lee on a religious tract?

Behold: Galactus Is Coming!

I've a horrible desire now to print up a bunch of these and plant them around our church sanctuary before service on Sunday morning.

Special thanks to Shane Thacker at The Phantom City - a blog that I'm going to be visiting quite a bit from now on - for finding this :-)

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Disgusted

I shouldn't have looked. I knew what to expect. But I looked anyway.

Senator Tim Johnson, a Democrat from South Dakota, may have suffered a stroke earlier today (although his spokesman is now saying that's not the case). If Johnson can't fulfill his term, it would apparently go to the governor of South Dakota to appoint someone to fill the seat. The governor of South Dakota happens to be a Republican. So one more Republican in the Senate would tilt control of it away from the Democrats.

So more than enough jackals over at Free Republic are now licking their chops over the opportunity they have to "regain" the Senate because of this.

Here's one page of their comments: I'll leave it up to the reader to decide which ones cross the line of good taste. I could also say something about the losers on Democratic Underground: a lot of them have suggested that this is some kind of Bush/Rove plot to take back the Senate. Which I think Karl Rove is one of the most evil, un-Christian men on the political scene (and that's saying something) but I don't know how anyone could seriously entertain such a notion that Johnson's illness is a Republican plot.

But it's the ones at Free Republic - you know, the "conservative" forum, the one that is supposed to take "the high road" - that I find particularly loathsome at this hour.

There really is no difference between the Republicans and Democrats, is it? For both of them it's all about acquiring raw, naked power and then using it to beat others into submission.

If you are a member of either party, or even any party at all, you as an individual are of no use to it. Your unique soul does not matter. Only what you contribute to "the party" for sole sake of "the party" gaining power. You have made yourself an asset to be used at the will of "the party" and it is "the party" - not you or God - that will determine your identity. And when one is completely bereft of any identity of their own, that is when they lose any sense of appreciation for the value and sanctity of other individuals.

The behaviour at both Free Republic and Democratic Underground regarding this matter illustrates that point perfectly.

America will not survive people who are like this.

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Fight for the future

This is why some things are worth fighting...

According to a story from Media General, Rockingham County schools exceed the state average when it comes to school violence. For the school year 2005-06 there were "64 reports of possession of a controlled substance, 43 reports of possession of a weapon, 20 reports of possession of alcoholic beverages, 13 reports of assault on personnel, three reports of assault resulting in serious injury, three reports of bomb threats, and one report each of possession of a firearm, sexual offense and assault involving use of a weapon."

Meanwhile, the News & Record is reporting that given a typical group of 10 students from Rockingham County, "half have had sex, three have smoked pot and, within the previous two weeks, two have gotten drunk. At least three have beaten another person, two have carried a weapon for protection, two smoked cigarettes, one has considered suicide and one has been a victim of sexual abuse."

Young people need to know what the limits are. They want that, even. They anticipate those of us who are older than they are to show them what is right and what is wrong, what will give them strength and what will destroy them. If we expect the best out of them, they will in turn expect only the best out of themselves. We owe them that much at the very least.

In light of all this, I defy anyone to tell me how having an admitted thief on the school board is going to be a suitable role model for young people to emulate.

Well, Ron Price is on there now. Some of us did our best to convince him that he was going to be doing a lot more harm than good if he insisted on being seated. But there was really nothing we could do to persuade him. And now Ron Price is setting the example to the children of Rockingham County that they can get away with breaking the law and not have to worry about the consequences for what they do.

"Not having to worry about the consequences for what you do..."

This is how the Roman Empire came to fall.

And people like Ron Price are slouching us ever so gradually toward Gomorrah.

The fight ultimately belongs to God. But He has certainly called us to occupy as best we can in the meantime.

I realize that in all likelihood, Ron Price is going to "win" this situation in the eyes of the world...

...but since when did temporal victory ever really matter to those seeking justice in the eyes of God?

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Christmas Tree 2006 and the first presents

Well, here is our Christmas tree, all decked-out for 2006...I put it together last Wednesday night and Lisa did the decorations over the weekend. Yeah it's an artificial one that we've had for a few years now, which I know that some people swear by getting a real one for the holidays... and let's face it, no fake tree will ever have that wonderful scent that effuses through the living room from a real natural pine. But this one does have the advantage of being a pre-lit tree! And as you can see there are already presents underneath. Those would be from Lisa, 'cuz I always do my wrapping in the last day or so before Christmas. Maybe when the time comes I'll post some pics and you can see the ummm... "beautiful" job that I usually do with wrapping gifts.

Speaking of gifts, a package arrived in yesterday's mail. It was from "Weird" Ed and his lovely bride Olivia and their kid Tristan. Inside was a lovely angel Christmas ornament for Lisa, and they sent me this:Star Wars Trivial Pursuit DVD Game! It's such a beautiful thing that I still haven't taken the shrink-wrap off the box (which is a nifty decorative tin). It was terrific enough to make a blog post about. The tragedy of the thing is that Lisa and I agree that we can't play this game together 'cuz I would be nigh-invulnerable and the obvious runaway winner. Maybe I'll get together a lil' group of fellow Star Wars uber-geeks (like Darth Larry) and we can have a real cutthroat game of this. That might even be something worth videotaping and sticking on YouTube. Anyway, what a great first gift for this holiday season!

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Comprehend THIS! Something cool for teachers and students (and anyone else)

Found some really neat stuff that I can imagine being a great lesson for science and math teachers to use in their classrooms.

First of all, have you ever wondered about just how big our solar system is? Well, here is a scale drawing of the Earth's solar system: the first one that I've ever seen. There are some physical scale models of the solar system around the world that usually portray the Sun as being the size of a basketball and the Earth as not much bigger than a pinhead several football stadiums away. This is the first one I've seen that could (conceivably) be used for an afternoon's class activity without having to go outside. Remember: the graphics are to-scale representations of the Sun and planets, along with the distances in between them. See how many mouse-clicks it takes you just to get to Mercury... to say nothing about Saturn!

But even that one is dwarfed by this scale depiction of a hydrogen atom, which is also the very first scale picture of an atom I've seen anywhere. In chemistry or physics classes we always see a hydrogen atom being one proton with one electron and no neutrons: one big dot with a little dot going around it in circles. Until finding this page I had no idea just how inaccurate those drawings are when it comes to the distance between the proton and electron. This page advertises itself as being "the largest web page on the entire internet" and I can believe it: if your monitor size is 72 pixels to an inch, that makes this page eleven miles in length from one end of the scroll bar to the other.

These pages tell me a few things. One: that gravity is a lot stronger force than we usually realize if the Sun is keeping objects that far away from it still going in their orbits. Two: that the forces between a proton and a neutron are incredibly powerful given the distance between them and how they interact with other atoms. Three: that most of everything we know about the universe is... just empty space.

And Four: that thinking too much about stuff like this is enough to drive you completely and utterly bonkers :-)

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