This is why they don't believe in God???

My facebook page sees fit for the last two days to choose as "top news" that some comedian-cum-philosopher won a "cultural humanism" lifetime achievement award. Good for him. I have no problems with groups I'm not aligned with choosing any character they want to honor, though I am mystified that FB thinks it's so important TO ME. But in looking into the deal (which I almost always end up regretting) I found this little ditty on why Christianity should be rejected.

Arguments Against Christianity
There are at least eight insurmountable problems within the extant evidence that each independently refute the Christian doctrine of a divine Jesus:

Jesus' endorsement of the murderous immorality of Yahweh in the Torah;

Jesus' doctrine of "eternal punishment" in the "eternal fire" of Hell;

Jesus' failure to claim actual divinity;

Jesus' failed prophecy of his imminent return;

Jesus' failure to competently reveal his doctrines (concerning e.g. salvation, hell, divorce, circumcision, and diet) in his own written account or that of an eyewitness;

Jesus' failure to perform miracles the accounts of which cannot be so easily explained as faith-healing, misinterpretation, exaggeration, and embellishment;

Jesus' failure to attract significant notice (much less endorsement) in the only detailed contemporaneous history of first-century Palestine;

Jesus' failure to recruit anyone from his family,
any acquaintance from before his baptism,
a majority of Palestinian Jews, and even
some of those who heard his words and witnessed his alleged miracles.

An omnipotent omniscience benevolent deity competently attempting a revelation would have foreseen and corrected all of these problems. The existence of any one of them implies that Christian doctrine is false.

Okay, all my Christian followers should stop laughing now, and let's go through this.
1. WTF is the "murderous immorality of Yahweh"? Are we referring to the wars fought to remove the Canaanites, I assume? Yes, God could have overcome that and chose not to. Why? #1, the people Israel were at a stage that it had to be proven to them that they could not get right with God on their own. They had to be given concrete rules, and find out that they (not God) were incapable of keeping them. Since they proved that they were generally incompetent even as they waited for said laws to make it down the mountain to them, it became obvious that they would never survive even the influence of the ridiculous pagan religions around them. The Canaanites were an exceptionally, ridiculously depraved lot. God ordered a strict separation, and yes, even extermination, of them. This becomes "murderous " in the eyes of those who attack the faith. But if you believe in a sovereign, perfectly Holy God, you see that 1) Paul said that all nature shows the manifest presence of God, so the Canaanites, like all of us, were without excuse. 2) They had been judged by a Holy God whom they rejected, and found wanting. If you recognize that God exists, and that He is the creator, then He has the right to judgement, and that is neither murderous nor, if Jesus is the manifest Word of this God, does it require refutation on His part.

2. Here is the humanist problem- if they're wrong, they go to Hell. No matter their "ethics" or "moral code based on reason and the good of mankind", etc. If Jesus would condemn them to perdition, he must be evil. The basic sin of Satan in the past and the Anti-Christ in the future- making oneself god. If God is creating a people unto Himself, and this people are not to be robots, and thus have to have a choice, there has to be a consequence for the wrong choice.

3. Another WTF. What could be more clear than John 8:58: "Before Abraham was, I AM".

4.Mathew 24:36 clearly states that only the Father knows the day and time. And if the 13 billion years that scientists ascribe from the big bang to now can be 7 days in the eyes of a God who is the maker of, and thus beyond, time, how does the arguer (one Brian Holtz) propose to define "imminent"?

5. Here I can only challenge that "competently" is defined in terms of the author's own prejudices and desires. Otherwise I can only assume his trolley has chugged on around the bend, because, once again, Jesus' doctrines seem pretty clear to me.

6. How about water into wine at Cana? Or two rounds of loaves and fishes? Or, for that matter, walking around alive after His brutal death- something witness by over 500 people?

7. Christianity only became widespread after Constantine in the 300s AD. And most "contemporary" historians would have considered it an insignificant offshoot of Judaism, and likely lumped the two together. Reason would tell us this; but he who first cried for reason is often the last to apply it.

8. a) His mother was at His side at His death and at His grave at the Resurrection morning. Two brothers wrote epistles in the Christian cannon, and James His brother was the leader of the Church in Jerusalem. Mr. Holtz should go a little deeper into the Word than just the dust jacket.
b) First, His ministry BEGAN at His baptism, and second, the Gospels never mention ANY such acquaintances, so how does one know? We do have the mention of the synagogue at Nazareth, but if you read the whole passage, you'll see why that is the exception that proves the rule. If you use reason, that is.
c)The Word of God constantly talks about "the remnant" being saved. The Jews were prophesied BY GOD to reject Jesus. This dog don't hunt.
d)And now, in a crated world in which His manifestations are clearly evident so that people are without excuse, still many reject Him. What's your point?

An omnipotent omniscience benevolent deity competently attempting a revelation would have foreseen and corrected all of these problems. The existence of any one of them implies that Christian doctrine is false.

The key word in the above quote is "would". In actuality, this should be "could", because "would" implies that the knowledge forces corrective action. the truth is, while God is certainly capable of this corrective action, He chooses not to because it does not fit His plan. Plus, even if you take this whole thing as an exercise in debative literature, Holtz is guilty of so many lack-reads, mis-reads, and inserting his own prejudices into his interpretations that this whole thing has the structure of Swiss cheese and the smell of Limburger. One would think a philosopher with a background in computer science like Holtz would have a grasp on one thing leading logically to another, like a program. Unfortunately his reasoning is more on the GIGO theorem.

Mark, ch. 4, New International Version

11He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12so that,

“‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never understanding;
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’”

Saturday Junk update

Item #1: Woodbridge sent out another letter; this one gave us a description of perp and event. Male black (surprise!), 5'6" to 5'10" and thin, wearing black trench coat w/ white piping and baggy pants (surprise again!). Scum approaches woman as she unloads her van, smashes her head into driver's seat as he grabs for purse in passenger seat. she struggles and he hits her on the noggin with she believes a gun. The gun described a a black semi-automatic. May be wearing either a fur lined hood or a stocking cap. Hopefully with all the attention he's meriting, he'll either move on to other hunting grounds or slip up and get caught. I'd like to see him hiding in a trash dumpster Monday morning and get picked up by Serv-all. Beats having him get shot by FWPD and listening to his pastor and relation crying about what a good boy he was and how evil the cops are. Y'ever wonder why we have stereotypes? Because certain types of people do the same stupid $#!t over and over.

Item#2: When my LaCrosse technologies weather station died after a mere 6 months on the job (in good weather), I replaced it with a $10 temp and humidity station from Accu-rite / Chaney. This week it also went the way of all flesh. I e-mailed Chaney about the problem, not expecting much based on my experience with LaCrosse. I've already wrote how the LaCrosse answer to every problem was "change the batteries", that if you persisted, they told you to send the ENTIRE UNIT back to them, and for your bother they'd tack on a $50 fee just to look at the $100 unit. And, I wrote about how I wrote to LaCrosse, Wal-Mart (where it was purchased), and the Weather Channel (who sponsor it) and told all involved it was a POS and so was LaCrosse's customer service. TWC was obviously too uninvolved to reply, Wal-Mart as usual was too big to care, and LaCrosse replied as always, "change the batteries."

Flash forward to today. Chaney asked me one question and sent one reply. the question: when did you buy the unit. The reply: your new unit will be coming by FedEx in 7-10 days. Is there anyone out there from LaCrosse technologies? THIS IS WHAT CUSTOMER SERVICE IS ABOUT!!! Of course, after reading the reviews for my unit on Amazon.com, I'd guess if they had any real customer service, they'd be out o' bidness in a matter of weeks. They make a great unit in theory that does not function well in practice. It does not bear up well in any weather (an odd quality in a weather station) and changing the batteries is a lot like doing the hokey-pokey without the music. Congrats to Chaney Instruments for standing behind their stuff!

Item #3: Watching the East West shrine game. You Wisconsin fans, Tolzien blew chunks today. You're lucky he didn't play like this against TCU, you'd have bee humillerated.

Item #4: Indiana Workforce Development just sent Laurie and I each a form asking for info that they already have in our profiles and our weekly filings from last week. They needed to have this info that they already had within the next 7 days. And just to make their point that they REALLY need this info that they already had, they sent EACH of us TWO of the same letters with the same forms with the same date! To sum up, that's four letters sent out to collect info that they could have gotten in a few seconds of pushing keys. But, as long as they're doing it efficiently, I guess.

Another round of January Junk

Item #1: If you looked in on the last round of JJ, you saw the story of my old friend's dad and his back problem- and the unwillingness of insurance to finish covering it. Turns out to be an ill-disguised blessing. His wonderful specialists had discovered an old injury and happy that they'd done their job, left it at that. As old injuries are wont to do, it was "healing nicely" and thus insurance bailed on him prior to the start of PT. So Friday he had his appointment with his regular doctor, who actually LISTENED (Yes, specialists, listening is one of the skills you were taught in Med School and promptly forgot when $ calls) when George told them that that was NOT where the pain was. His doc found that the back was, indeed an old injury- and the current one was a BROKEN PELVIS!! Needless to say, the PT would have f'ed him up worse had the insurance left him start it. Isn't wonderful how God used greedy, short-sighted people to stop the damage about to be done by greedy, short-sighted people?





Item #2: Keith Olberman was abruptly fired by MSNBC last night, and evidence leads us to believe that Olberman may not have even known himself until the very last minute. Now, I have little love for the gent; I don't generally raise my blood pressure by listening to left-leaning demagoguery, so my only real contact with him outside of the "news" stories he often found himself in was his pompous, ill-informed commentaries a couple of years back on Sunday Night Football pregame. And I thought it seemed a little fishy when he got suspended last fall for no more than making contributions to like minded butt nugget political candidates. After all, this was a liberal theology network- I found it hard to swallow that ethics were really that big a deal at MSNBC. Word is that the network head had had a jones for Olby's removal for a while, and I guess he thought giving him the bum's rush at the tail end of a slow news week might cause a little less consternation amongst his fans. To me, in my far from complete judgement on the subject, I'd have to say it is a good example of, "as you sow, so shall you also reap." Good luck on G4, Olby!



Item #3: A news report from an Australian news source, later embellished by the Huffington Post (imagine that) has pitted astronomers against chicken littles across the globe. Here we see the star Betelgeuse, the red star in Orion's left shoulder.

Astronomers have noted that Betelgeuse (pronounced Beetlejuice, like the movie) is shrinking- collapsing inward as all red giants eventually do. Someday, scientists tell us, it will go into terminal collapse, and in less than a heartbeat will explode into a supernova. It will for a while be around as bright as the full moon on earth, visible in daylight. The Aussie reporter, however, tells us that it will be like having two suns (the so-called Tatooine effect) and it will happen IN 2012. Apparently he must have consulted his Little Golden Book On Mayan Prophecy to dig this up. The HuffPost, however, insinuates they got the scoop from astronomer Dr. Brad Carter, who in the article a) does discuss the science of the event, and b) does not give a date, as no self respecting amateur astronomer would.

Not to fear, though; another astronomer, Phil Plait, takes the bull by the horns. He debunks the Tatooine effect, throws out any attempt to date something that could happen anywhere from tomorrow to ten million years from now, and assures us that we'd have to be within 25 light years to have anything bad happen to us as a result of Orion's impending rotator-cuff injury, and Betelgeuse is a full 25 times that far away. Reporter Claire Connelly must have dreams of a 2012 sequel screen play credit on her mind.

Item#4: The Angels acquire longtime Blue Jay Vernon Wells for catcher Mike Napoli and some other bum. Those of us old enough to remember when MLB wasn't the haven of sports greatest mercenaries have to look with sadness on the departure of a lifetime player from a small market team to one of the temples of MLB mammon, but at least it was a trade. Remember trades? that's how players used to move in baseball, each team taking a chance and getting SOMETHING in return. On the bright side, it WAS a trade; Napoli is a competent hitter, though not up to Angels' manager Mike Scioscia's standards behind the plate; and Wells is coming off an off-year and has a tendency to start well, get hurt, and tail off.

Step into my time machine week thirty-nine

Geez, it's so cold I had to jump start the time machine! And it's not any better where we're going; the high on this date in 1976 was 11 degrees, though the low only dropped to 7. Plus, ye olde keyboard has decided that the "b" key is no longer functional and I am having to paste the stubborn letter in where I a-solutely have to have it, so bear with.





Winter seems to take the fun out of the music industry. I mean who wants to go out and purchase a 45 in 10-degree weather? And once again it shows on the chart. Out of 11 rookies in the Hot 100, 4 are worth the mention. Frankie Avalon (who'll pop up twice today) comes in with his disco remake of his 1959 #1 Venus. At 94, a release from the 1970 lp Cosmo's Factory from CCR, their cut down from 11-minute version of I Heard It Through The Grapevine- 4 years after the band split up. Way up at 64, the Captain and Tenille set sail again with Lonely Nights (Angel Face). And finally, the unstoppable juggernaut that Elton John had become, with Grow Some Funk Of Your Own at #51. Not a bad song, but 51???





The tops for the other years has spun on to the zeroes this week. 1990 saw Technotronic, a producer-formed project with a fake lead singer a la Milli Vanilli, on top with Pump Up The Jam. In 1980, we find the late Michael Jackson with Rock With You. 1970 saw the opening #1 of the seventies, Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head, from the master of the long titled song, BJ Thomas. True to my word, I give you Frankie Avalon at #1 in 1960 this week with Why. And in 1950 it was Patty, Maxine, and Laverne- the Andrews Sisters to you young'uns- with I Can Dream Can't I?





The big dropper this week is the Average White band (sorry the disrespect, I don't wanna copy another capital, and then recopy the lower case) with School boy Crush, falling 23 to #65; the highest jumper is Gary Wright's Dream Weaver, flying high through the starry sky to land at 55, up 19. 2 other notes in this neighborhood: 1) Feelings has at LAST left the building; and 2) remember our couple mentions of Let's Live Together from the Road Apples? They hit their peak at 48 last week, and are sliding down at last, pausing at #68 this week.





Our look at the #1 lps of the 70s has reached September of 1973, and the Allman brothers band's classic brothers And Sisters. Recorded after losing Duane Allman in one motorcycle accident and during which they lost berry Oakley in another just 3 locks away, it contained their one big hit, the #2 Ramblin' Man along with the AOR instrumental Jessica (#65). It spent 5 weeks at the top, and was replaced on October 13th by the Rolling Stones' Goat's Head Soup. Recorded in Jamaica "because it was about the only place that would let us all in", this lp contained the #1 ballad Angie and the based in part (1st verse) on a true story Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker), which featured billy Preston on the clavinet and hit #15. Here's Keith Richards:





"The problem (with the Stones' mid-70s albums), which I was ignorant of for a long time, was studio musicians and sidemen taking over the band. The real problem with those albums was the band was led astray by brilliant players like Billy Preston. We'd start off a typical Stones track and Billy would start playing something so fuckin' good musically that we'd get sidetracked and end up with a compromised track. THAT made the difference. "





Led astray by brilliant musicians, huh? I imagine that is a line some people would say had never been a problem for the Stones. In any event, Soup topped the chart for 4 weeks. The last eight weeks of 1973 were ruled by that previously mentioned juggernaut, Elton John, and Goodbye Yellow brick Road. This 2-disc lp was recorded as were the last two at Chateau d'Herouville in France- it was to be done in Jamaica as well, but the chaos around the Foreman/Frazier fight drove them to France. The first side featured the classic AOR hit Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies bleeding; the original Candle In The Wind, which hit 11 in the UK, was recorded live and released in 1986 (hitting 5 in the UK and 6 in the USA) and then re-recorded in 1997 in honor of Princess Diana, and we all know how THAT went; and the #1 Benny And The Jets. The other sides included the #6 title track and the #12 Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting.





Coming into Airplay Alley, a meager 2 songs- at 40, up 5, are the Spinners with one I did not know, called Love Or Leave; and at 39, also up five (which makes I think four of the last 6 entrants going in on a 5-notch climb), Cledus Maggert and The White Knight.





Today's almost but not quite is Country boy (You've Got Your Feet In LA) from Glen Campbell. Peaking last week at 17 (it made 11 on billboard), it drops to 28 this week. This was the lead song on one of my favorite lps, Rhinestone Cowboy. This excellent lp, which we had on 8-track up at Snow Lake when I was but young, contained other than the two hits: the prophetic Comeback; a cover of My Girl; my favorite, I'd build A bridge; and a song I
remember more for the memory of how much I liked it than the song itself, called Pencils For Sale. I may have to get this the next time I raid Amazon for cheap oldies.





Two songs actually go into the top ten, so two come out. Falling are The Theme From Mahogany (from 4 to 15) and Saturday Night (from 10 to 25).





Coming into the top ten at 10, up one, is Earth Wind And Fire with Sing A Song. Up 4 to 9 is Paul Simon with 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover. #8 and up one is David Ruffin's Walk Away From Love. Also up one are the O'Jays with I Love Music. John Denver holds yet again at 6 with Fly Away; Sweet does the same at 5 with Fox On The Run. Hot Chocolate (pictured) moves to 4 with You Sexy Thing, a 3 notch jump.














The top Three hold in place: Love Rollercoaster at 3, I Write The Songs at 2, and that means that CW McCall remains at the top with Convoy; them hogs is gettin' IN-tense up here!

Okay, we survived a cold, "b" less trip into the past. Stay warm out there!

Where's that damned bat-signal?

Since Bob G. went ahead and blew the top off the Woodbridge armed-robber case over at his place, I thought I'd update y'all on the view within.

To recap: Woodbridge had armed robberies on Dec. 18 and New Years day. Both times were early-ish in the evening, so you know this is either a miscreant smart enough to watch his victims and find out when they get home at night, or he's conscientious about early to bed etc. Then last week, WANE-TV broke the story at an apartment complex off Wallen Rd. having two roughly similar attacks. The basis of that story was that the complex had not bothered to say anything to the residents.

I told Bob about our two incidents and he suggested I contact WANE. A good idea, methought; so I e-mailed a tip in. Lo and behold, that very day, Woodbridge told us that they had hired a "courtesy officer" who would patrol the area in addition to other miscellaneous 'my neighbor sucks' duties.

This brings us to last night, when this boil on the ass of humanity struck again, apparently assaulting the woman (how very brave) in the course of his too-lazy-to-workitude. This was on local news last night (Laurie forgot where she saw it for sure), and while Bob was doing his excellent piece, Aishah Hasnie decided to call me about being on the piece she did tonight. Of course, I was at work and unavailable, and good that it was so; I had really very little to add other than really wanting to meet Aishah, and the lady she ended up interviewing was a lot easier on the eyes than I would've been. Of course, the best part of this came after I listened to the message on the way home:

Chris: You'll never guess who that was!

Laurie: Who?

C: Aishah Hasnie!

L: (somewhat disbelieving) What did she want?

C: To see me.

L: (Much more disbelieving) WHAT did she want???

C: To see me!

L:Why?

As if pretty reporter-chicks aren't constantly dropping by to see me. ;)

In any event, her piece actually netted her the breaking news that they were going to send us out a second note with not only info on the latest attack, but tips to stay safe. They also mention that FWPD suspect that as I theorized, it is one and the same miscreant (in case you are out there and have pulled yer head from yer drug-riddled butt long enough to read this, a "miscreant" is defined as " reprobate: a person without moral scruples". Dat means ya don' give a f#ck abou' no'un no how.) that has struck all three complexes. And I might add, Woodbridge is so far the only one good enough to give WANE the time of day, so 2 pts for us.

Speaking of points, I've been lazying past putting up this week's Commissioner's cup update. (I know you've all been disappointed with me.) After last week's games, The State Ducks now have 131 pts and 2 players left; the Elks, 106 and 3; the T-Cubs, 84 and 4; SVA, 81 and 4; the Angels, 72 and 3; Begles 71 and 2; Buzz, 67 and 2; Rangers, 63 and 2; the Champion KCAs, 54 and sadly done; the Clock BBQs, 47 and 2; the Rhinos, 46 and done; and the B2s, 28 and done. So Laurie's teams are at 249 and 8; I'm at 213 and 2; Shenan, 211 and 8; and KC, 177 and 6.

Disasters

Tonight on the way home, I heard about the earthquake in Pakistan. Of course, Pat Miller made it out to be worse than it was (he accidentally called it a "9.4" quake.) But then, in true end of the work-day callousness, I thought, "Serves 'em right."

Now, it was just a brief knee-jerk reaction, and I immediately felt bad about it. Serves who right? Well, maybe if you concentrated all the corrupt government officials, all the civil servants in the Taliban's back pocket, the terrorists hiding under a rock, the al-Qaida radicals brainwashing a new generation of children who'll never get the chance to be children, and the various assorted misogynists and wife-beaters who apparently get a religious "out" in Muslim nations, then just maybe you might have a group who might possibly be "served right", though that is up to God, and I'm sure if He felt so, He'd see to it.

Not my place to judge.

Did it serve the 15,000 likely dirt poor residents of Dalbandin right? They probably would have been just as happy to never have heard of the Taliban, al-Qaida, assault weapons, roadside bombs, homicide bombers, 90% of the governments they've had since Victoria was crowned Empress of India, the USA, NATO, CENTO, the UN, the IRS, or the fatwah of the week. Were they "served right?" That kind of logic tells us that the USA is the great Satan, nutcases are inspired by Rush Limbaugh, and that the definition of persecution includes having to look at "In God We Trust" on coins and licence plates and at nativity scenes on courthouse lawns. Yeah, they really deserved it.

Y'know, back about a year ago when I started this blog, I regularly featured disasters like the ones in Haiti and Chile. And not long ago, a friend asked me if I was following the great flood in Australia. Yes, I had; and I had thought about doing a post on it, but 2 thoughts stopped me. One of them involved being able to do the story justice, or cynically, fitting entertainment value. The other was, if I do one about that, what about the flood in Brazil? The volcanoes in Indonesia? The Mudslides in Guatemala? The human tragedy of Mexico's unwillingness to fight a war on drugs? The scorching heat in central and eastern Europe? When I started, I was hoping to drum up at least prayer support for those who were suffering. But then it became, is it big enough? Was it newsworthy enough? Should I just pray about this one on my own, rather than bring out the broken record again? And now, we've come to, "serves 'em right". And whether this is face, heart, or soul, it becomes #1 of the seventeen things I am currently ashamed of myself on. (And no, I haven't counted them.)

So tonight, I'll pray for the corrupt officials and dishonest civil servants, the terrorists and the children they are turning into killers, the wife-beaters, the nutcases, and especially the dirt poor residents of Dalbandin. I invite you to do the same- not because you have a list of things to be ashamed of, but because it "serves them right."

God blesses a confessor. As I got to the most intense part of this post, the guy on TV said (paraphrasing): Looking for the perfect gift for your wife/girlfriend on Valentine's day? Have yourself examined for testicular cancer." Truly broke the mood, particularly when I added, "or have her do it!" I suppose I should mark that as #18, but I'm gonna go easy on myself.

More January junk

It may be just me, but 2011 isn't holding out much promise of being a good year. Added to our problems with the old car and lack of work (which is to continue at least Monday for Laurie), My son KC got fired because A) Steak and Shake is too cheap to have a manager on third shift; B) as a result, one of the third shifters decided to cull from the till; C) without enough help on their busy nights, even the honest workers had a lot of 'deletes' on their registers; D) management, instead of EVER counselling the workers about their 'deletes', waited instead for the engineer-less train to go off the tracks- which of course it did; and E) given that all of the above made it impossible for management to tell who were white hats and who were black hats, fired the lot of them- saying that if you had 'deletes' on your register, you MUST be stealing.

(Note to my readers: I've already informed S&S what I thought of their practices. I'm not an organizer of boycotts, but I told them I'd not be back. If you think about it the next time you consider stopping at S&S, do me a favor- blow yer horn, wave a finger of your choice at them, and drive away for another day.)

So now KC is looking for work despite the fact that often he was the only one working FOR them. Oh, well, with management like that, it won't be the last time. During the week, a former neighbor of mine had a streak that included A) finding out the hat from his favorite football team that he ordered 3 weeks ago was sold out; B) his microwave blew up; C) his trip to this week's Komet game was an OT loss; and D) the aforementioned favorite team got clocked by Da Bears this afternoon. Sports was also bad news for KC; each and every playoff game he picked has went the other way, including the embarrassing losses by his pre-season Super Bowl picks, Atlanta and Baltimore.

Now an old friend gives me her latest: As last year wound down, much of her husband's family ended up in the hospital (actually in the same hospital for a period; inconvenient since they were two sets of steps, or exes, however you want to look at it). One passed away; another, who had gone home, passed out in church this morning and is right back in. In the meantime, her father got a pretty severe back injury; was put into a home for OT to get back in shape- but now his insurance says that's good enough, send him home- as of tonight- and she'll have to come up from her home north of Indy to the Summit City to stay with him a while. Nice job on the health care, Obama!!!

(Note to readers: I know you can't blame it on him yet, but I haven't picked on him in a while; yes, Charlotte, I was kidding.)

In the meantime, KC posted a quote from his significant other on facebook last night: to the effect of I could talk the Pope into doing something bad with my way with words. I'd much rather be able to talk people (are you listening, Joshua?) into doing right; I seem to have a hard enough time listening to my own good conscience. In the last few weeks, just looking at FB, I've seen someone I don't know feel like giving up because some dude left his key and split; a young girl I know constantly dealing with heartache of people she cares for crapping on her; and an old friend who is dealing with some manner of emotional abuse. I wish I had words for any of them; but what do you say? When you're in those situations, even "I care" sounds phony- especially if you're not close. I only wish I was as good with words as Ashley thinks... or better yet, with actions. I feel like all I can really do is pray, and hope that Jesus has a "hug" for them.

And on top of that, now the JETS are taking the wood to New England. Far from me to root for the Pats, but EVERYBODY hates the Jets.

I guess though, if you can still look at sports when things are going bad, it can't be THAT bad.

Nice thing about that game was a very satisfying (for me) stretch early on. Play #1, Brady gets picked off, then gets juked out of his jockstrap. And still, the Jet defender got caught before he scored. Play #2, rb Shaun Greene trips over Sanchez's foot and loses yards. Play #3, the Jet blocking Vince Wilfork loses him, and in trying to catch him, runs into the other RB, L.T., and Wilfork tags him for a loss. Play #4, an anomalous good play for the Jets, a three yard gain. Play#5, kicker Nick Folk misses an easy FG. Play#6, Brady gets sacked. Play #7, a good gain turns into a first down when the Jets get called on a face mask penalty. Good times. Go Steelers!!!