An interesting week

My wife and I returned just hours ago from a flight, a cruise to Puerto Rico and St. Martins back to Long Beach. I read 3 books on the curise, one by Mario Puzo, of Godfather fame. The 4th K. I also read Vince Flynn's brilliant Consent to Kill. A book I wish W would follow when dealing with Islamofascism. Even Puzo's book , written in the late '80-early 90's showed Islam to be an evil, hateful idea aimed at killing America and the Western world.
And I am on a book dealing with Trials and pain of the Christian life and how to deal with them by a writer, prof at Biola in Ca.Thnking Right When Things Go Wrong. On board ship were 500 Jewish Orthodox adventurers, singles, and religious Jews. We met a few and discussed Orthodoxy, politics, marriage. The upshot for me was that the last book put all these ventures into perspective. We are and always have been in a spiritual war whether our intellects, history, emotions, media, universities or even our friends and families have not understood that. Since I deal with a lot of pain and sleeplessness, I found myself wondering how, what, when my faith would kick in to give me some perspective. Though I have taught for 45 years, been a pastor for almost 19 and been in the church world for nearly 50 years , learning, teaching, preaching, serving, worrying, working on my own strength, getting a divorce, getting a second chance and now married for the last 25 years to a very believing mate, I am praying that each week , each day will be granted me by the King of the Universe to put away the trivial and focus on the important as the God of the OT and NT sees life. My bet is many readers, viewers,sleepwalkers through life, strugglers, faithers, all go through this and like Alfie ask, What's it all about? It's God, silly, it's God. It's 'mankind is my business' as Marley told Scrooge. That's what it is all about. I only pray Jesus gives me time to act upon this interesting week. Oh yes, even Sam Alito is going to the SCOTUS, dispite the evil of liberals trying to subvert justice in the Congress. Mundane things, politics, religion, getting our dog and cat back from the kennel, hearing about 2 yr. old baby Jack's school experiences, are all part of that time-line which God allows . How we use it, how I use it, how you use it is up to us. And for some of us, there isn't that much time left.

Love Me

OK, that is a come-on for anyone who knows that all people, libs, conservs, Pubs, Dems, Muslims, Hindus et al want people to love them, accept them. At least when they started out in life before the trials hit them in the face. For years now, we have seen the MSM blast Christians for wanting to 'shove their views in the public's face.' Yet, it is the leftist secular humanists who have been doing that for nearly 70 years in this nation ad nauseaum. Today, it is the Gay Lobby. It is Moveon.org. It is university socialist, America-haters who are constantly shoving their views via the MSM and the Democrat Party into the public's faces. But, as in the message of the Gospel, the real loving thing to do if you are a Christian is to not only proclaim the Gospel of Jesus, the Bible and God's love, salvation, forgiveness and warning of eternal loss, darkness and a life without the Light of the Universe but to do it because Christians really do not want anyone to perish eternally or to live a horrendous, lost life right this very year in the here and now! What if the above is True Love? I believe it is yet the society we live in is increasingly hostile to this act of love. It FEELS put upon. Yet many statistical studies show that love , forgiveness, faith in One higher, purer, and wiser than one's self is good for you on a daily level. Following Biblical standards and following the God of the Bible, Jesus, does seem to make people happier, more compassionate, more loving, more trusting and more open to helping others that just doing it for some ideological or political reason. Isn't it time that Christians of all stripes stop apologizing for reaching out with the loving truth? Isn't true love warning people of their hateful, sinful, wrongheaded actions which lead to not only daily but eternal horrid consequences? Doing justice, forgiving, teaching, showing grace, love and responsible living standards is what Jesus instructed us to do. Isn't that the love which obivates the Hollywood, the secular, the sexually perverse and the literary love that so many either want to practice or try to practice to satisfy their own creature needs rather than the needs of humanity?

Politics of hate, anti-American, and it's not Iran!

Actually Iran is a hateful nation. Yet in the Carter years, he played them so badly that it took Reagan's presidency to establish some balance in our relations. Still, after 8 years of Clinton, when Iran was supporting every Islamic terrorist group possible, the USA did nothing to stop their nascent nuclear program, their overseas bank accounts, and their terrorist camps. Yet yesterday, Senators Bayh and Reid had the gall to say that in 4 years, Bush has forced Iran to become so truculent. What chutzpah! What prevarication! For almost 5 years , Leftist Dems have bashed, hated and blamed W for all things bad in this nation and in international relations. Whether it was judicial choices, N.Korea, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Red China, Katrina, the poor, all were examples of Bush-evil! Just last week, it was evil Jurist Alito. The Leftist Dems are our domestic Iranians! They blather about impeachment over NSA tapping of terrorist phones. Frankly, I am not bothered about this and do not care if my phone was tapped to see if I was a terrorist! I am not guilty. Al Q supporters, suspicious Muslims in mosques who advertize hatred for the USA are people we better watch! We are in WWIII. The Leftists simply do not believe that so their villain is Bush. They secretly hope we lose this war against Terrorism because they think it is evil conservatives, Gopers, Christians and Bushies who are the real evil in the world. This delusion is harmful for America and yet they blather, lie and slander on and on. When this nation is hit again by Islamic terrorists, one will not have to look far to blame the lapses and underminers that exist in our national unity and national defense. It will be the Leftist Democrat Party, their willing MSM allies, and their unsuspecting alliance with the Iranian murderous nuts that rule Iran right now. They will never admit this but thinking Americans will realize it and voting Americans will never let their like anywhere near the leadership of this nation against Islamofascism.

The Alito trial, for that is what it is.

Judge Alito is being treated as if he is on trial. He is not an honored guest before a group of 18 arrogant Senators. The arrogance seeps out especially in the questioning by Kennedy, Biden, Leahy and sometimes even Feinstein. Abortion , NSA spying, Executive Power seems to be the problem with the leftist Dems. Leahy seems to think rights for Islamofascist terrorists should be expanded, not contracted. Freedom of religion has not come up yet. Border protection has not come up. Alito is a very responsible person and my guess is his understanding of Con-law and technical knowledge is so far superior to these Senators that he is sailing through. The nutter groups like the ACLU, NOW, PETA have all come out against Alito. Soros and the leftist fever swampers of course are against any rational judicial choice that a Republican President could announce. My guess is that Alito will indeed read the Constitution and not be a radical on any side. I feel safe with him. Kennedy does not. That alone makes Alito the right choice. There will be cases that I hope Alito judges correctly when it comes to eminent domaine, religious freedom, national security protection. My guess is Alito will defend America not undermine it as his leftist detractors would. That alone makes Sam Alito, a baseball fan of the Phillies btw, the right choice! LOL

Mark Steyn's great article on the death of the West.

Hugh Hewitt has put in print an analysis of Mark Steyn's article in Opinion Journal of the Death of the West. It is a public service. Now if only the universities would allow their students to read it. Also, what a miracle it would be if the State Department would read it. And President Bush. And the UN. And especially the NY Times editorial staff. Pat Robertson need not apply for Opinion Journal's website! But, since the EU, other European NGO's will not read this analysis, there should be commentary from plebians like myself.

First, it was over 3 years ago when that old isolationist, Pat Buchanan had much the same to say about Islam, the death of Western culture. It was very, very depressing. Pat has an agenda which many were not able to stomach. I did not like his pessimism.

Second, the Left in this nation and in Europe is working overtime to defeat Western values for some form of wishy washy multiculturalism and harmonious secularism. For over 60 years, it has been a culture war which many in our own nation will not believe: see David Letterman on TV just a few days ago. Too many Americans still get their views from Leno , Letterman and the MSM. Alternative media, the Web, Talk Radio, and Fox still has an uphill battle to combat mendacity and prevarication. The Leftist media simply lies nowadays with no punishment except the Mapes, Rather blow up. The Leftist Dems rarely are punished for their continual lying and they are undermining our Culture just as much as Islam.

Third,it will take much for our democratic, tolerant viewpoint ala President Bush, to finally say, Islam is not peace.Not as it is the standard of nearly 40 plus Islamic states. In Indonesia they burn Christians in churches. One can not tolerate that! So-called moderate Muslims must finally stand up and denounce Wahabi Islam NOW. CAIR will not do it. Who will?

Fourth, Islam needs an Ataturk. Turkey should be the standard format for a modern Islamic state, not Iran or Nigeria or Sudan or even Saudi Arabia.

Fifty, Steyn does not address the madrasses. With these horrid, evil, racist, hateful schools brainwashing many, many young Muslim students on a daily level, one wonders how to combat these schools. One wag said that unless all these students are killed, the newer generations will still be turning out Bin Ladens. That is a horrid idea but I await an answer to these madrasses. Steyn and Pipes, and Hanson should investigate some alternatives.