JackTrade's Blog

     I am no longer a Republican, but am now with the Constitution Party.  I had been a Republican the whole previous time I voted, but now feel betrayed and will probably never again vote  for a Republican Presidential candidate.  A number of things have angered and disillusioned me about the G. O. P. in the last couple of years, and this post is about the most offensive: the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Act of 2006.

     This is supposedly a campaign finance reform law.  It is really an attack on the First Amendment of the U. S. Constituton.  It strips good and law-abiding citizens of their rights to free speech and assembly during the last 60 days before an election. 

     McCain-Feingold reminds me of Adolf Hitler's Enabling Act, which he shoved down the throats of the German people through the Reichstag (Germany's equivalent to Congress) in 1934.  It gave him total dictatorial powers, completely bypassing the German Constitution, making it not wrth the paper it was writen on.  Hitler could pass any law, and had a free hand to do anything he wanted.  Under the Enabling Act, he had total power, and we know how he used it, or rather, abused it.

     Now John McCain's signature legislation (which, by the way, Obama voted for and our President refused to veto) is an excellant reason among many not to vote for him for President.  It is the most obviously unconstitutional act to ever pass through Congress.  It is an Enabling Act for politicians and the Liberal press to keep "we the people" from cramping their style!  Especially around election time, the nation's politcians need reality checks from "we the people" to keep them from utterly corrupting themselves!  Don't talk to me about trusting them.  This legislative abuse of power, Congress's Ultimate Unconstitutional Act, is the ultimate reason they cannot be trusted.

     How dare Congress put themselves above the Constitution this way!  If those legislators who voted for this don't want to be responsible and accountable enough to the American people to listen to them, especially right before an election, maybe they should get out of poitics or run for office in China!  I for one am not interested in living under an American dictatorship.

     Neither the politicians nor the Liberal press have any right to tell me when I may and may not speak on any issue.  They are only after dictatorial power power for themselves. McCain- Feingold spits in the faces of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and every soldier, sailor and marine who has ever fought or died for our nation's freedoms.

      Come to think of it, it is time to bring the troops home from Afganistan and Iraq.  They are needed here to fight Barack Osama and Sadaam McCain!

    There is a story from California about the state using prisoners to fight the wildfires that are causing a great deal of damage in that state.  They are using those convicted of nonviolent crimes.  Violent criminals, sex offenders and the like are not eligible for this program.

     I believe this is an excellant idea.  I have always thought that prisons should be used for violent offenders only, and alternative punishment found for such crimes as theft, fraud, and other crimes without violence.  Prisons are places where criminals go to learn to become better criminals, and are colleges for crime.  (The prisoner's major in this college is detemined by who his roommates are.) 

     Using nonviolent prisoners to fight fires will at least give them a useful skill when they get out, and maybe reduce the attrition rate at the prisons.  They will not be as likely to become a repeat offender if they develop another skill besides making license plates. 

     Plus, they are serving society now.  Sometimes they have to walk for miles before they get to a fire.  "It is grueing work,"  as one article said, "but it beats staring at the four walls of a prison cell."  I for one am all for making prisoners work, and the harder the work, the better.  This would make it less likely the prisoner would get any "homework" done for his "college."  The more they work the less likely they are to get into trouble. 

     (The article quoted is from firehouse.com, called "Female Inmates Doing Time on California Fire Lines" by Christina Hoag.)

     In closing, I would like to quote from a New York Times article entitled, "On Front Lines of Forest Fires, Prisoners Find a Calling."  "Lieut. Dan Clark, supervisor of the inmates at Angels Camp, said the prisoners maintain high morale even during long firefighting sieges because they enjoy their work, feel needed, and take pride in the results of their labors.  Some of them - no statistics are kept - wind up working for the Forestry Department when their terms are completed.  And many more leave prison with skills and motivation they did not have before.

     ''They learn work ethics, if nothing else," Lieutenant Clark said.  "And lack of work ethics is what put a lot of them in prison.'"

     Maybe learning work ethics would keep many from returning to prison.

     On the night of February 23, 2005, John Evander Couey kidnapped, raped, and murdered Jessica Lunsford and buried her under the front porch of his house.  On March 7, 2007, he was found guilty of these crimes and later sentenced to the death penalty.

     On June 25, 2008, the United States Supreme Court ruled that, short of murder, the death penalty cannot be given for the rape of a child.  Of course, this ruling changes nothing for Couey, nor should it.  But the death penalty might have changed things for the Lunsford family.  Used at the right time, it would have saved Jessica's life.

     Couey has a long criminal record, including 24 arrests for burglary, carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, and more to the point, indecent exposure.  As far back as 1978, he was accused of grabbing a five-year-old girl in her bedroom and kissing her.  For this he was sentenced to ten years in prison, but was paroled in two.

     After release, he moved in with his estranged mother and stepfather, and attempted to rape his 5-year-old stepsister.

     In 1985, he married Karen Joan Goshe, and in 1990, the marriage was dissolved when she discovered him sexually abusing her older daughter. 

     The following year, he was finally labelled a sex offender when he was found guilty of lewd behavior with a 5-year-old neighbor girl.

     This "man" is a career criminal; a serial sex offender.  He is a danger to any child he comes in contact with  and always will be.  Because he was handled with kid gloves (no pun intended) by his family and the justice system, Jessica Lunsford is dead.

      They say John Couey had it rough growing up.  FOUEY!  That is no excuse for what he did to Jessica and the other girls he fondled and raped.  A lot of people have hard childhoods and adulthoods and don't go out and rape little girls!

      They say John Couey is borderline retarded.  HOUEY!!  Chris Burke is retarded, but he did a splendid job as an actor on the television series "Life Goes On."  He did a lot of good with his disability.  Couey uses his as an excuse for evil.

     They say John Couey is small and was bullied when he was young.  That is still no excuse.  I am small, and was also bullied as a child, and furthermore, I have had cerebral palsy since I was born.  I have never raped little girls.  Anyone willing to excuse him for his crimes on this basis, well, his reasoning is just plain SCROUEY!!!

    Now we come to the crux of the matter: I believe the ruling in Kennedy vs. Louisiana is a perversion of the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, which says, "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."  Our Founding Fathers certainly saw nothing wrong with the death penalty for a number of crimes, including rape.  And I have a feeling the especially in the case of the rape of a child, many of them would themselves been happy to have been the executioners.

     Death is not a penalty out of proportion or the crime of adult rape, let alone child rape.  Sexual molestation destroys the life as surely as murder does.  The physical consequences are bad enough, but the psychological are more devastating, making some victims wish they were dead, and even causing some to commit suicide.

      In the case of any rape, especially a brutal one, there is no way the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.  To not execute the perpetrator of a child rape, especially, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment - of the victim!

     One more thing:  There is  no question that once a pervert is put to death, he will never again rape another woman or child.

     One definition in the Random House New College Dictionary of the word monster is "one who excites horror, as by wickedness or cruelty."

     Poor Joseph Fritzl.  He does not like being characterized as a monster by the world press.  Why would they say such a thing about him?

     Is it possibly because this man, who lives in Vienna, Austria, raped and brutalized his daughter Elizabeth repeatedly over a period of 24 years, while keeping her as a sex slave and prisoner in his dank, airless cellar?

     Maybe it it is because he fathered  7 children with that daughter and imprisoned three of them with their mother.

     Perhaps it is because when one of the babies he fathered with Elizabeth died, he cremated his body by throwing him in his heating furnace in order to, as he said, "Get rid of it," dehumanizing a baby he forced his daughter to help create?

     Poor Elizabeth Fritzl.  She has a monster for a father.  Now the chickens have come to roost for him.  It seems to me that being called a monster is one of the least of his problems.  He is so ridiculously self-centered, he is silly.  He should be less worried about being told the truth about himself, and more about his future in prison, and then in hell.

      Maybe some day, in a newer edition of the Random House College Dictionary, next to the definition of the word "monster," a picture of Joseph Fritzl will be placed next to it.

     I have a suggestion for Barack Obama, in particular, and the Dermocratic Party in general, as well as the news media.   Ignore Jeremiah Wright. 

     Just leave him alone.  He is an egotistical publicity hound who thrives on creating racist controversy. 

    Let him spew out his hateful venom as he has the Constitutional right to do so.  But use your Constitutional liberty to say absolutely nothing about it.

     Treat him as the self-righteous demogogue he is.  The best thing the Obama  Democrats could do for themselves is to not retaliate at all.  Surely they can find better things to talk about than a cheap phony who is messaging his ego with his racist message.  Hillary would be very foolish if she keeps stoking the fires he starts.  Sensible people would be turned off of her in nothing flat.  John McCain would have one less weapon in his arsenal against the already-divided Democrats.

      Do it for the good of the country.  Do not give him the time of day.  He is not worth it.   Hate mongers like him are best ignored.  He is not worth the tape used to produce his sound bites.  His speech not even worth the air it takes to expand his lungs.  So, ignore the old windbag. Neither you nor the American people need the distraction.    

      The sooner he and others like him are ignored and forgotten, the better.  Should he ask, "What do you think of me,?" a good reply would be the same Howard Roark gave to Ellswoth Toohey in Ayn Rand's novel, The Fountainhead: "I don't think of you at all."

     The video of the girl in Lakeland being beaten by 8 others made my blood boil!  I don't think "trash talk" had very much to do with the motivation.  Those young punks were just looking for an excuse to make a big splash on You Tube.

     When you get right down to it, I don't care what the reasons were that the girl was beaten up by those cowards.  But I do have a definite idea about what should be done about it.

     All of the people who participated in this beating need to be taken out to the proverbial (or a literal) woodshed and given a good, hard spanking, and I suggest a wooden paddle be used. 

      Yes, I know the psychobabble against it, but I believe a little rough justice would do those girls more good than anything else.  They caused tremendous pain to that girl and her family, and even to the society forced to view their handiwork on the news.  Some organized delivery of pain would demonstrate society's aknowledgment of the need for severe punishment.  Better a spanking now than a long prison sentence later.

     Psychobabblers would have us believe spanking does not work. Or it hurts the poor child's "self-esteem."  First of  all, I have seen it work.  I was spanked a number of times growing up, and believe me, there was a significant improvement in my behavior after that!  I didn't want any more my father's belt, so I stayed out of trouble!  Also, I was beat up by a punk in the P. E. lockers at school once.  When I told his coach about it, he got a good paddling.  The next day, when I tried to talk to him, he ran away from me!

     As for the argument it hurts kids' self-esteem along with hurting their rear ends, -well- that is the idea!  Those punks have demonstrated nothing but arrogance, and no remorse whatsoever for what they did, being more concerned about their not going to the beach for Spring Break than the seriousness of their crime.  They need  to be tanned on a part of their bodies the sun is not supposed to have direct contact with!

     I have one more suggestion.  Since they like to be in front of the camera so much, put their paddlings on YouTube.  They could be placed right next to the one they made - as a Results Show.

     I will be brief and to the point.  I ordinarily do not give autobiography in my blogs, but this time, I feel compelled to do so.

     I was born with cerebral palsy, and as a result my early life was made miserable by others who ridiculed and mocked me.  I was too weak to defend myself, and  was beat up and bullied many times in my early life, and there were days when I did not think life was worth living.  When I was in school, teachers refused to help me with bullies, except for one instance.  My father tried to get a neighhbor to get his son to stop bullying me, but the neighbor just walked away.  For six years, I endured his son's bullying, at home and at school.

     A huge mistake was made in my education when i was in Junior High (now called Middle) School.  The administraton put me in a special English class which was too easy.  It was a class for people with mental retardation and other handicaps.  I am not mentally retarded at all.  As English was my bast subject, to this day I have no idea as to what they were thinking.  I was deprived of a good foundation in grammar .  It was years before I was able to undo the damage they did.

     I have had some success in my life.  I hold a Master's degree from Temple Baptist Theological Seminary  in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  I have written songs and essays which I trust have inpacted lives.  People tell me I have done good in ways I don't even know about.  I have had a modest influence for Jesus Christ and His Church.  That is the ultimate in success. 

     I did not get there by whining and demanding apologies from everyone who hurt me.  Nor did I demand an apology from families of people who were mean to my great-grandparents!  I hope this helps people see how ridiculous it is for blacks to demand an apology for what went on 150 years ago.  After all, there is no one left alive who were involved in enslaving anyone.  I certainly did not. 

    The Legislature apologised.  I hope it helps people move on.  What is done, is done.  Please people, get a life!

Pastor Jeremiah Wright.cancelled a visit to a Bay-area mega-church because of lack of security.  Now the people in the church won't hear him preach a sermon full of racism and hate, delivered in the name of Christ.  Thank God the Sheriff had the good sense not to waste taxayers' money to protect him.  Barack Obama's 20-year connection with him should give any voter with good sense who loves this country pause before voting for him.

I don't know what book he preaches out of, but from what I  have heard of him, his message is the polar opposite of the Bible's message of love.  Christ loves all the people of this world.  This is why He came -  to be the sacrifice for our sins on the cross.  This means white people as well as black.  The Gospel of John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."  "Whosoever" means everyone, including us white folks, too.  The Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 3:27 and 28, " For as many aof you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek (or gentile), there is nether bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye all are one in Christ Jesus."  If Paul were writing that verse for today in America, I'm sure he would add, "There is neither white nor black."  In other words, it does not matter what race you are.  Christ died for all.

Wright's message of hate towards America may be politicly correct, but in no way is it Biblicly correct.  His first name may be Jeremiah, but he he does not manifest the spirit of the Old Testament prophet.  The prophet loved his nation (Judah), but he had the strongest message of judgment in the whole Old Testament to deliver.  He is sometimes called the Weeping Prophet because God's message through him gave him personally so much pain.  In 9:1 he says, "O that my head were a fountain of tears, that  I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!"  He cared about the people of Judah.

More to the point is Wright's hatred of America. The way he talks, it appears he would be happy if this nation was destroyed.  This is not the spirit of the Prophet.  He had a very deep love for Judah, even though he was called to preach severe judgment against their sin.  In chapter 28 of his book, we see a confrontation between him and a false prophet named Hananiah.  Jeremiah had predicted that Judah would be conquered by the Babylonians.  Hananiah opposed him and said that within two years  the Lord would break the yoke of Babylon.In verse  6, Jeremiah replied, "Amen. The Lord perform the words that thou has prophesied."  In other words, Jeremiah wished that what Hananiah was saying was true. He did not want the judgment to fall, even though he knew it would.  He had no desire to see his countrymen carried into captivity, and Jerusalem destroyed. 

Jeremiah Wright seems to be praying for America's destruction with every breath he takes.  The Tampa Bay area does not need his hate-mongering, especially from a "Bible" (?) church.  If I were a member of that church, I would have left it at the first sign of this kind of man coming in to preach, if I couldn't stop that foolishness.  He does not represent the Spirit of Christ, but the exact opposite. 

I pity him.  He needs the love of Christ as much as anyone.  He must be terribly empty inside, in spite of his eloquence.  One can only pray that the Lord will get a hold of him and he will repent of his hatred.  He could then, and only then, manifest the spirit of the Prophet Jeremiah, and accomplish good things for the black community, and gain the respect of people of all races.  After all, The Lord Jesus included him when He laid down his life for "whosoever believeth." As the old hymn says, "Whoever will may come" to Christ for the love and forgiveness he needs.  When Jeremiah Wright comes to Christ believing in Him, then peace, not hatred will rule his heart.

       In his reply to my post, "Everybody's doing it!,"  Mmustangg made a very astute observation: "What needs to be done is to introduce shame back into society.  There is no shame anymore.  People do things openly now that years ago they woul have been laughed at or shunned for.  The shame starts at home.  We need to teach our kids to stay away from what's shameful and wrong."

      He is absolutely right.  Shame is the way to get people to stop paper predation.  (For the definition, read my post "Everybody's Doing it!")  I merely said it must be done.  He  told us the way to get it done.

      Judeo-Christian morality has served America well.  Because of it we are the greatest nation in the world.  But as a nation we have forsaken our roots, and removed the ancient landmarks.  If we don't repent and go back to the Christian morality that made us great, we will soon be just another nation that forsook our God, and we have already begun to pay the price. 

     We have become a prideful nation, like ancient Israel was in the time of the Prophet Jeremiah.  The worst part of it is that like them, our pride is not in our great achievements but in our great sins.  We wish to think of ourselves as above the old fogey morality of the Bible, and have embraced the new-fangled, modern morality.  As a culture, we have gone from being a decent and moral people to being totally immersed in sexual immorality.  People think this is good, and take pride in it.  They ought to be ashamed of it.

     In Jeremiah 13:23-27, we read, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?  Therefore I will scatter them as the stubble that passeth away by the wind of the wilderness.  This is thy lot, the portion of thy measures from me, saith the Lord; because thou hast forgotten me, and trusted in falsehood.  Therefore I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, that thy shame might appear.  I have seen thy adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy whoredom, and thine abominations on the hills in the fields.  Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem!  wilt thou not be made clean?  when shall it once be?"

     Illicit sex sells.  But in the long run, what has the culture bought, but a shameless society?  The new morality has bought us an arrogance which makes us believe anything goes, including abortion on demand, which says, in effect, "Go ahead and have sex: You can always murder the kid later.  Just make sure you do it before the baby is born."  It has also bought us no-fault divorce, for people too lazy to work through problems in their marriages, or be faithful to their partners in the hard times.  One more thing it has bought us is a great increase in sexually transmitted diseases,  such as AIDS, gonorrea, syphilis, and other no one ever heard of before now.  All of this is a great argument for the necessity of shame.

     As a nation, we must stop feeding on sex.  The meaning of exposure must be changed back so that it becomes once again a shameful thing to be seen photographed naked.  People need to stop looking at Playboy and all other pornographic magazines, and the way to do it is create an atmosphere of shame and exposure.  As the Bible, in Ephesians 5: 11 and 12 says, "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darknesss, but rather reprove them, For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret."

     In other words, Expose the sin for what it is--immoral and wrong!  Then, instead of embracing it, expose it to the public shame and shunning it deserves.  Punish the predator with prison.  Punish the paper predator by not buying his magazines and not watching his television shows.  Make it once again so smut is harder to get, and must be hidden from view, because it is viewed as shameful.  We must go back to the days when porn had to be hidden in brown paper bags so others would not see it, and put the buyer to shame if he is seen with it.

     We must publicly punish lotharios like Eliot Spitzer and Bill Clinton, by putting them to public humiliation in the kind of exposure of exposure no politician should want.  Never elect them to office again!  Teachers who have sex with underage students should never be allowed in the classroom again.  Religious leaders who are sexual predators should never be allowed in the church pulpit again.  Parents who molest their children should automaticly lose custody, and never hope to get it back.  The exposure of these people should be so public and so glaring, that the shame they are exposed to would be a warning to other not to go there.  A public whipping along with a long prison sentence would be shaming enough to stop most of these shinanigans.

      Much of the blame for this situation lies with the religious entertainment centers called churches.  Instead of calling sin for what it is, the preachers today try to mitigate it with modern psychobabble.  Instead of preaching redemption through the Lord Jesus Christ, for sin, they give out mantras of self-esteem, which is nothing but a shoddy  defense of the pride that prevents repentance.  Instead of the great hymns of the faith, many churches incorporate rock music and idiotic "praise songs" whose repititiousness act like drugs on the brain and leave the "worshipper" unable to think straight. 

     The church must not function like an entertainment center.  Instead of the nonsense and babble people need to hear preachers preach the Bible.  Instead of self-esteem, people need to hear of the penalty for sin and Christ's salvation.  Instead of rock music, they need to hear and sing hymns like "Rock of Ages." 

     The church does not need any more entertainers calling themselves "preachers" standing in the pulpit.  She needs men of God who will call sin "sin" and not back down when they are persecuted by the babblers.  This means being willing to stand up to those like the people in the homosexual movement who are trying to foist their false interpretation of Scripture on the church.  The very fact that they have made such inroads into the church is a matter of shame to the church. The Bible calls homosexuality "abomination" (Leviticus 18:22), and in Genesis 18, God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for the wickedness that was going on in them. 

      Our society is full of pride and selfishness, the very opposite of the ethics that made Americe great.  As it says in Mcah 6:8, "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" 

     For those who choose to disdain Christian morality, this is the only thing I can say to  you: Some day, you will be judged by God for your sins.  Jesus Christ died on the cross for you, and if you come by faith to Him and repent of your sins and accept the salvation He has provided, you will be eternally saved.  It is better to do that than to face Him at the Great White Throne and be shamed forever in Hell.  

      There is no entertainment there.

     Politicians.

     Parents. 

     Priests.

     Teachers.

      These are some of the people who have been caught having inappropriate sexual relations, and in many instances, they have been doing it with children. 

      To site the obvious example of a politician, Eliot Spitzer, the now ex-Governor of New York, was caught soliciting the services of a BLEEP in Washington, D.C.  He had built a career on fighting corruption, only to himself be shown prone to moral corruption.  I could have put the $80,000 he spent on whores to much saner use than he did.  The sheer blatant hypocrisy of a "fighter of corruption" corrupting himself has destroyed the faith of some voters in the electoral system. 

     Parents are charged with the responsibility of protecting their children from sexual predation.   In today's world, that is not easy.  But when the parents themselves are the sexual predators,the results are tragic.  Even if it is not the child, but some adult other than the spouse the parent is having sexual relations with, the adultery will have a profound effect on the family.  God put the Seventh Commandment in the list of Ten for very good reasons one of which was to protect the sanctity of family life.  Yet this is constantly violated in our society.

     Catholic priests scandalised the world with their molestation of women and  children.  It was the best-kept secret that unmarried "men of God" were having homosexual relations with boys in their parishes, and heterosexual intercourse with women.  If this is the result of "celibacy," Rome needs to change its ways.  But it is not just Catholic priests that are involved in this scandalous behavior, but rabbis, and preachers in every denomination of the church.  These are not isolated incidents.  Do the names Jim Bakker and Jessica Hahn ring a bell?  The worst part about this is that most preachers are decent men who are doing their best to serve their churches, and the stinking breath of scandal hurts their ministries, too.

     Now children are not even safe in school.  Teachers are having sex with their students, some as early as elementary school!  Legally, I think this is called statutory rape.  The penalty should be the same regardless of the sex of the teacher and student.  Any teacher that sexually molests a child should not only never teach in a public school again, but should be severely punished in the penal system, or better yet, publicly flogged.  That goes for any sexual predator, not just teachers.

      Here is the kicker: All of the blame does not rest on the predators themselves.  Everybody's doing it.  Our society feeds on sex.  All you have to do is look at the front page of a supermarket tabloid.  And some of the highest-rated television programs are the most loaded with sex and innuendo.  Decency has completely gone out the window.  And then we wonder why our society has gone to pot.  In the name of free speech, we have abdicated our responsibility to protect our children and ourselves from what I call "paper predation."  Paper predators are those who put out hard- and soft-core pornography, be it Huster and Playboy, the trash in a tabloid, a sexually-laden television program, or the filth to be gotten with a computer.

      A good start in solving this problem would be for everybody to stop doing it.  Stop looking at Internet porn.  Stop reading Playboy and Hustler.  Stop going to pornographic movies and watching the sex-filled garbage on television.  Stop reaching for that gossip-filled tabloid.  Women, stop buying and wearing "clothes" that leave you looking half-naked!  

    Decency must be demanded if we want to stop the insanity. 

     USF students Nisreen Swedburg and Sarah Wiliams claim that they were discriminated against by Sowthwest Airlines because they are "too pretty."  They were escorted from the plane by uniformed police officers and banned from flying on any Southwest planes, including their return fights (oops, I mean flights!). 

    They were not discriminated against at all.  The airline has every right to protect their passengers and crew from young women (no matter how pretty they think they are) who disrupt their flights with bad behavior. 

     What is so "pretty" about being combative because you had to wait for a bottle of water, Ms. Swedburg?  Many people around the world would be glad to wait twice as long as you did for just an ounce of it.

     And you, Ms. Williams, your yelling a profanity back at the passenger in the plane's rest room was a real thing of beauty.  You must have looked lovely during that temper tantrum!

     I have lived long enough to know shallowness when I see it.  If these two young "ladies" (and I use the term very loosely) think they were discriminated against because they were "too pretty," they are a couple of the shallowest and most childish young adults I've ever heard of.  Not to mention egotistical and vain.  For their own good, I hope life knocks their egos down a few pegs.  As Proverbs 16:18 says, "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."

       According to Ms. Williams, "[The flight attendants] were like older ladies.  We were younger.  Who knows, they could have been just jealous of us because we were younger."  Baloney!  Flight attendants see a lot of life on planes you don't see, and have gotten along fine with women a whole lot prettier (and older) that you are, Ms Williams. 

     How beautiful someone is depends a lot more than on just physical makeup.  These two may be somewhat attractive on the outside, but from what the world has seen of them from the inside, they have a long way to go before they are truly beautiful.  They are far from being too pretty to fly.  They are too raucous to fly.

     At the Orient Road Jail, Charlette Marshall-Jones, or Deputy Devil (as appropriately nicknamed by blogger K1662), in an incident as ridiculous as it was brutal, dumped a prisoner, Brian Sterner, out of his wheelchair.  What made the incident worse was the lack of compassion shown by everyone else there. No one made any effort to help him. They just left him there. 

      To compound the evil even more, one fat supervisor laughed into the camera that recorded the incident.  I will never forget the sadistic look on his face as long as I live.  I reminds me of the cruel laughter of evil scientists in some of those old monster movies in which the monster is torturing his victim and laughing uproariously at her plight.  He is Supervisor Sadist as far as I am concerned. 

      I got very angry as I watched the incident.  I was born with a disability, although I am not in a wheelchair.  Growing up, I was constantly bullied, especially by one neighbor.  I know how that feels, so I have nothing but sympathy for Brian Sterner.  It does not matter why he was in the jail: None of those deputies did right by him.  First, he was bullied by Deputy Devil, and then laughed at by Supervisor Sadist.  No one helped him back into the chair that I saw.  Everyone around also used to have a good time at my expense when I was bullied. Outside of help from my family, only one time do I recall ever being helped with a bully.  That is not something I can forget.

     I don't care how high Supervisor Sadist's rank is in the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department.  His callous behavior has disgraced his uniform.  If not fired, he should at least be demoted to several ranks lower than his present one.

     I must say that I am thankful that the Sheriff is not tolerating what was done.  He just needs to find decent corrections officers. 

     The quality of the officers employed of Orient Road Jail, as shown by their inhumane and cruel treatment of Brian Sterner, reminds me of another prison: Abu Garib.

      I don't know about the rest of you bloggers, but I have never in the whole time I have been following politics and voting, seen a more inadequate bunch of of candidates running for President.  It is scary how bad they are. 

     The Democrats, Clinton and Obama, are Liberal Socialists who will follow their agenda no matter how opposed it is to the Constitution.  I expected their candidates to be exactly that, and am not the least bit surprised by them.

     The Republicans are almost as bad.  I am not only disappointed in the actions of the party (see my post "Democrats in Disguise"), but I have never seen a sorrier crop of men running as Republicans.

      Mike Huckabee claims to be a Christian, and was a preacher.  Maybe he is.  I hope so.  I have no wish to disparage his testimony.  My problem with him as a Presidential candidate is that when he was Governor of Arkansas he was a tax and spend Liberal no different than Bill Clinton.  Also, I think he is a wishy-washy character.  He asked former candidate Mitt Romney, a Mormon, "Don't the Mormons believe that Satan is the brother of Jesus?"  This was a perfectly legeitimate question about his faith.  Then after a furor erupted over the question, he apologised for asking it.  So he is not only a Liberal, but a weak character, also not White House material.

     That leaves us with John McCain, the most likely candidate to get the Republican nomination.  To be honest,  I wish I could vote for him, but in all good conscience I cannot.  Any man who lends his name to an unconstituitional law like the McCain-Feingold voting reform, which takes from me my freedom of speech to say what I think on the issues at any time,but especially right before an election, does not deserve to even be a candidate for the  office, let alone become President.  After all, the President, upon taking the oath of the office, swears to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America."  How can I believe he will do that when has already put up a law which compromises my First Amendment right to free speech?  A true Conservative would not have dared to put a bill like that through a City Commission, let alone Congress!!!  You can't trust him.

     I despise being put in a position where I am forced to choose between the lesser of two evils.  I have been told many times that by not voting for thr Republican candidate I will be biting off my nose to spite my face.  In other words, if I don't vote for whoever the Republican candidate happens to be, I will be responsible for getting the Democrat elected.  Baloney!  The people responsible for electing the Democrat will be those who vote for the Democrat. 

     Here is something for my fellow American Christians to think about:  Some day, we will stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ to give account for our lives.  We handed the Republican Party electoral victories in 2000 and 2004.  Since then, Christians  have pretty much been treated with disdain by the Party.  Why should we help them get their candidates elected based on their past performance?  The lesser of two evils is still an evil choice.  When I stand before God, I want  to stand having chosen the good and right, and not having been blackmailed by the world.  If Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama is elected, it will be the responsibility of those who voted for the one or the other.  I would rather stand before God after choosing the good, than than trying to prevent evil  by voting for evil.  Two wrongs do not make a right.  Fellow Christians, I will accept the temporary consequences of my choice to vote "outside the box" for a good candidate. Will you be willing to stand before God and accept the cosequences before God of voting for status quo forever?  Maybe in doing so, you will be biting off your nose to spite your face!

     I love animals.  I saw last night that some lout shot a woman's horse dead.for no apparent reason.  This makes my  blood boil, and my heart goes out to the lady.

      I hope they catch whoever did it.  This kind of cruelty should be dealt with very severely.  I suggest the appropriate punishment would be a good horsewhipping.

     Merry Christmas.

      I am sad this Christmas Eve.  I have read and seen reports of thefts of Christmas presents from cars and homes, and even thefts of decorations from the front yards of people's homes.  It seems like the grinches are out in force this year.

     Worse than that, it seems the meaning of Christmas has been hijacked.  I went out with a group the other night to see the lights.  Yes,  they were beautiful.  But I came away depressed.  I remember not too long ago when the true meaning of Christmas was expressed in yard decorations.  There were many beautiful manger scenes depicting the birth of Jesus.  There was  Mary, Joseph, and the Babe, lying in a manger, surrounded by shepherds and various animals.  Some had the wise men coming from the east to give their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  There were small ones, and there were large, ornate ones.  Both types were beautiful displays of the ultimate Christmas gift to the world, Christ Himself.  This year, I counted ony eleven.

     The true meaning of Christmas has been hijacked,  first, by a certain organization that pretends to fight for people's Constitutional rights, but is actually trying to destroy the rights of Christians to religious worship.  Their hypocritical pretense is masked  by the idea of giving more freedom to other religions.  What they so conveniently overlook is the fact that this country was  founded by Christians and those who lived under the Christian value system, not by any other, be they Buddhists, Shamans, or Muslims.  I'm sure this organization would be dismissed out of hand by any other religion that would gain control of the U. S.  If any do, then you can bet freedom of religion would be a thing of the past.  I don't even want to think about being under Sheria law. 

      The true meaning of Christmas is also being  hijacked by commercialism.  Greed has taken over the spirit of the holidays.  Even children want elaborate and expensive toys and electronics, causing less than wealthy parents to go into ridiculous debt to purchase them.  Then sometimes the kid spends more time playing with the box than the item inside it! 

     Also, everyone appears to be trying to "keep up with the Joneses," or even surpass them. One-upman ship is not in the true spirit of Christmas.  It is opposed to the spirit of love and humility.  Christ humbled Himself in order be His Father's gift to the world.  Read Philippians 2:5-11 in the Bible.  This is the true spirit of Christmas.

     As a sign  I saw the other night said, "Wise men still seek Him."