For anyone bored enough to be watching the Demoncratic (intentionally mispelled) National Convention may have noticed some of this. The dems are double talkers, generally misinformed, or blantantly naive. Case in point are some of the things I found.

First of all, there was talk of job outsourcing. Job outsourcing, from our point of view, is American companies that jobs in foreign countries. At the DNC, they spoke about the evils of it. To that, we wonder:

Why not challenge Teresa Heinz Kerry, whose company has 57 foreign plants? Why not ask which party supports the three things that force companies to flee overseas: high taxes, suffocating regulation and excessive union demands?

Of course, they didn't stop there:

Others complained about our dependence on foreign oil and high healthcare costs. Again, which party refuses to allow domestic and offshore drilling? Which supports such severe standards on our own oil that we cannot use it and must sell it to other countries? Which is it that opposes medical tort reform that would reduce malpractice suits, and counts trial lawyers among its biggest donors?

Probably the most popular rant was that President Bush has alienated our allies and launched a ‘unilateral,’ pre-emptive war. Why don’t Democrats understand the meaning of the word unilateral? Why are they insulting the many countries who have stood strong with us? Do they not remember the fourteen months the President spent pleading his case before the U.N., after which that worthless body refused to act on the “serious consequences” it threatened in the unanimously passed Resolution 1441?

It would seem that the best spin doctors at work are at work for the demoncrats. I mean, they can say anything and people believe it blindly. They can rewrite definitions--like 'unilateral' and 'censorship'--and people believe them.

And really, who do they think they're fooling when the say time and time again we went into Iraq alone. Do they not remember Britain? What about Korea? Oh yeah, and there was Japan! We can't forget Poland. What about the Philippines? I know there are others I have neglected to mention. The international community was not left out, except those that didn't want in, and because of that (because of France and Germany), we're the evil ones. Sometimes, I just don't get it.

Now, I want to clear some things up. I know there will be spin doctors at work at the RNC, too. I know there are people who follow everything they say blindly, who believe all that comes out of their camp as Gospel truth. And just so you know, I won't be watching any of it, either.

"What do we want?!?!"

"Peace!"

"When do we want it?!?!"

"NOW!!"

How do you plan to get it? That's the real question, isn't it?

Truthfully, how do you plan to get peace? Peace protests have to be the most asinine and hypocritical protests there are. First of all (despite the fact that they can call their protest "peaceable"), in order to protest something, you're causing a stir, disturbing someone else's peace. Second of all, if all you mean by peace is an end to war, it will never happen! Third of all, if all you mean by peace is an end to war, that peace couldn't last long.

Peaceable demonstrations are not always exactly that. Now, I don't mind if people protest, but I have my right to peace and privacy, too. If you were protesting outside of my hotel room, I would have to respectfully request that you go somewhere else. If it happens to be a peace protest and I am asked why, what would happen if I said "because I want some peace"?

An end to all wars is a nice thought, but let's be realistic: wars will not cease on this side of eternity. You can protest all you want about our involvement in a war and hope your message is heard, but protest all you like about Out-there-land and Someplace-else-country fighting, it won't mean a thing. Besides, as long as there is stuff to agree AND disagree on, there will be wars.

Finally, and this is the important one, so we back out of a war...we might end up right back in one once we're attacked again. This is more true now, considering what and who we are fighting, than in previous eras. As long as we are taking the fight to terrorists and those that support and harbor them, they are too occupied to take the fight here. In a way, that war is giving us peace here...giving us enough peace for demonstrators to protest against that very same "war" giving them peace.

Anyway, how does one bring about peace? A retired general once answered that question: "Quick, decisive, unilateral force." Yes, a war! Sometimes, you have to bully people around to bring them to their senses. Negotiations and sanctions are all well and good, if they're effective. But when they're not, drop a bomb, kill all the baddies, and they won't be around any more to cause any trouble, hence, peace!

I think I've said enough...time to go to a wake (at least someone knows true peace)...

Is any one else laughing at all the headlines?

Seriously, with each passing day, each stage win (or stage performance), Lance Armstrong seals his 6th straight Tour de France win. It's hilarious. Well, his 6th win wouldn't be, but the reporting is.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am cheering for the man. I certainly hope he wins.

What gets me is...the reporting. Was it a week ago when Lance won his first stage of this Tour? Ever since then, the headlines over at ESPN have been the same: "Lance Armstrong Seals 6th Tour de France Victory" (or something like it). With each successive stage completed, they state the same thing. It's almost as if the seal from the previous stage completion wasn't good enough, so Lance had to reseal it. Even more funny is that Lance is quoted to say the same thing in just about every article (or the author him/herself articulates it for us): barring an incident or a miracle, Lance Armstrong will win his 6th straight Tour de France.

I'm willing to bet people are stupid enough not to catch it, either. Seriously, ESPN, we get the picture!

What it does for us is end the Tour before its time. If anything, I've lost all interest in following it. If it weren't for the "Lance Seals Win" glaring at me in the headlines section, I wouldn't care anymore.

Anyway, am I the only one who thinks this is funny?

Let's just say that in the coming days, should I find the time and desire to go through it all, the site layout will be improved again. I've found a way to make things look cleaner. The neat thing is, this change works in BOTH Mozilla and Internet Explorer, so I may be able to do away with the "IE Friendly" version of my journal.

Right now, things are in the testing phase, so it may take about a month for the changes to be realized...

You may find this little image on the bottom of my pages now (or shortly for some of the other ones). If you have a web page, it's a great idea. Why? Well, robots (that send spam to email addresses they find) like to search all of the links on your pages and follow them. They will follow this link and be in for a surprise.

Go ahead and click on it.

If you were to follow that link, you would find hundreds of fraudulent email addresses. Well, the spam robots see those and automatically send their spam email to it. The neat thing about those email addresses is that their hostname is that of many of the spammers to begin with.

So, what happens is they send an email to an address at their site that doesn't exist. Then, they get a bounce right back to them. This bogs down their system rendering it almost (if not entirely) useless.

This is the equivalent of sending the postage paid envelopes that you did not ask for back to the sender with nothing in it. They're paying postage twice on spam you didn't want! In this case, they would be spamming themselves twice; once to send it out and receive it on their system, a second time for the system to send it back to them saying that address does not exist!

Oh, and for those who may worry about putting their email addresses in the comment forms, there should be none. Pivot masks them so that should robots search the source of these blogs, they would only see ascii code, not actual email addresses, yet the mailto link will still work for regular people.

I'm writing this to let everyone know that I'll be somewhat absent from the site for a while. My copy of NCAA Football 2005 came today. So, I'll be busy tearing up the college gridiron, trouncing my rivals, and, all-in-all, having a good time. Go Gators!!

It seems that Alachua Free-Net is having mail server problems again. So, until further notice, please email me at one of my alternate email addresses. For those who do not know what other ones I have, you can email me at stingray at freeshell.org. Thank you.

We went to a place and took pictures recently. We took pictures of a bunch of bugs...but they're bugs that people actually like. They're liked for their wings (among a few other things). Go ahead and take a look of the pictures of butterflies from the Sertoma Butterfly House.

Those of you NOT using the IE Friendly version of this site may have noticed that sections have been moved between the right and left columns. I have been wanting to do something to that effect for a while to make things more, um, intuitive (at least to me). Everything is still here, it's just in a different column.

IE Friendly users only have two columns, so no shuffling was done. However, I did put a reminder to check out the Link Dump Journal in the About section there. The rest of us will see it right under the calendar in the right column.

The Mobile version has undergone a similar change to the IE Friendly version.

Anyone who sends me email to my afn.org address (which forwards to my freeshell.org address) will get a bounce. The Alachua Free-Net is down. If you must send me email, send it to one of my other addresses:

stingray at freeshell.org
arcadium at freeshell.org
stingray at arcadium.ms11.net

I'll leave a comment here when the situation is resolved.

Have you noticed that the pictures of Kerry and Edwards that are circulating look like they're about to head to a Massachusettes courthouse for a wedding license?

We spent a good part of the day today watching A&E. We're not big A&E fans by any stretch of the imagination, but they have this one show on. The show is called Airline. Today they had a marathon of the show.

It's a behind-the-scenes look of the airport workers of Southwest Airlines. It's very interesting watching them deal with all sorts and conditions of passengers, or want-to-be-passengers. It has spurned a new saying around here: "Drunk people are funny."

Include the name "Jesus" in what you're saying and what you said is the truth. Talk about God, and you talk about the truth. Seriously, put on the right clothes and talk about God and Jesus and you can just about fool any person.

Case in point was last night. My wife had the laptop on her lap and the TV remote was across the couch from her. Some program we had been watching had ended and a "Christian" program started (I had gone to another room). Perhaps you've seen him. My wife calls him Slater (after the character on Saved by the Bell, to whom he bears a slight resemblance). His name is really Joel Osteen. He likes to preach uplifting, empowering messages (I refrain from calling them sermons). In fact, last night, he was preaching a message that repeated the idea that God will do good stuff for you because of who you are. This flies in the face of what Scripture actually says.

That's the sad thing about the state of Christianity today...well, American Christianity. It was once said that the problem with American Christianity is that it is more American than it is Christian. Anyway, many preachers these days are stuck in the rut of telling the people what they want to hear. They end up justifying the sin that they are in. Think about it...take Osteen's message as an example, because with that thinking, it doesn't matter how bad you've got it or how bad you are, God will still do good stuff to you.

Now, I called Christians morons because they fall for this stuff without checking against the Scriptures. Most likely it's because they don't know how. And they don't know how because they haven't been properly catechized.

If you check out the Scriptures, you would read of the centurion who asked to have his servant healed. You would read of Simon the Pharisee who expected to hear good things about himself from Jesus as his dinner guest. You would read of Naaman the Syrian general who expected to be healed by Elisha because of his status and the wonderful gifts he was bringing for God. Needless to say, the didn't hear what they wanted to hear or otherwise confessed that they did not deserve to have what they wanted.

That brings us to who the people said Jesus was. Some believed he was John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the other prophets brought back to life. They read and heard only what they wanted to hear; they didn't hear the full message. That is exactly what I preached in my sermon yesterday. A sermon, my wife says, which Joel Osteen preached completely against. You can decide by reading it right here.

Today, the United States celebrates another year of independence. For 228 years, America has seen no other ruler than her own, the American people. Though there have been attempts to seat a foreign government on these shores--the British as we declared independence, the Germans and Japanese, Muslim extremists and theocratists--through it all, we have elected a man to execute our government, a group of men to write our government, and a group of men to judge our goverment. These people have been elected from among our own.

For 228 years, we have been the United States of America. Even that was threatened when some of those states felt their own independence and sovereignty threatened. Through it all, however, we have always been one nation "...under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all..."

Almighty God, You have given us this good land as our heritage. Grant that we remember Your generosity and constantly do Your will. Bless our land with honest industry, truthful education, and an honorable way of life. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil course of action. Grant that we, who came from many nations with many different languages, may become a united people. Support us in defending our liberties, and give those to whom we have entrusted with the authority of government the spirit of wisdom that there may be justice and peace in our land. When times are prosperous, may our hearts be thankful; and in troubled times do not let our trust in You fail; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Collect for the Nation

Yes, I'm counting down to February (I want to hold my baby), but there is another countdown on the way.

I'm am really looking forward to starting a Dynasty on NCAA Football 2005 for the PS2. I can't wait to take my Gators to the National Championship year after year after year. I can't wait to put myself in the backfield. I look forward to putting my brother in the slot. And, as I do every year, I'm make the biggest, meanest, nastiest OLB to bolster my defense. Then, I'll have spots for 66 other players (up from 51) on my roster...who knows, I may create a couple more. I'm gonna rock!

July 13th (or so) it is supposed to hit store shelves. I ordered mine direct from EASports (I get $15 off a month from them, saves money). It should hit my PS2 on the same day.

I can't wait.

I know about the problems with the web page loading. Something's going on with Freeshell that is beyond my control. They have some new computers and are in the process of moving things to those machines. As with changes of this nature, they say and would like the transition to be seamless, but even they admit that it most likely would not be. Well, here we have the evidence that it's not as seamless as anyone would have hoped.

Bear with it...try a few times, the page(s) you're looking for may eventually load. When all is said and done, things should be back to normal. With the upgrade, things should be better than normal. Just give it some time.

We've begun announcing to our congregations that we're pregnant. So, a new journal has gone live. We call it Wags the Journal. Why? Well, we've taken to referring to our unborn child as Wags (sometimes, Wags the Baby). Anyway, there's a link to it under the Site Links section, or you can click here.