Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven
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| Sunny Days in Heaven Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven |
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Thursday, May 06, 2004 Belly up for Franken? Air America can't meet its payroll. I thought they had a large war chest going in, but apparently not. The investors are bailing out. I guess when they don't force taxpayers to subsidize them, liberals can't make a living. How much will you bet that Franken et al don't learn a thing from this? posted by Mark Butterworth | 11:19 PM | New Rose I bought a new rose bush a few weeks ago. It's called Oranges 'n Lemons. It is a striped rose and fades fairly quickly after blossoming, but this is the best bloom I had to photograph. I'll get a better picture of it next time it blossoms. 
posted by Mark Butterworth |
2:51 PM
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Testing This is a test of my new capabilities. 
This is a picture of my daughter that was taken in 3-D and then burned inside a glass block by two lasers intersecting. This very cool phenomenon is supposedly able to last forever. If you turn the glass, you can see her profile like this: 
posted by Mark Butterworth |
2:07 PM
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Speaking of idiots These are slightly more idiotic folks than those who've I seen on my city council, my school board, and running for state assembly. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:54 AM | Wags R us Lileks linked to this wag and his infinity engine. People. What can you say about them? posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:46 AM | Our friends Great article on the heroism and fighting spirit of Salvadoran soldiers in Iraq. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:37 AM | Pithy Excerpted at Opinion Journal from Terry Teachout's Reader: On Norman Mailer: "The trouble with Mailer was that he was drunk on ideas, a deadly tipple for woolly-minded pseudo-intellectuals. Sensing instinctively that liberalism had run its course, he made the mistake of assuming that radicalism was the only way out, and complicated matters still further by opting for a romantic radicalism rooted in sexual mysticism. As a result, his style grew bloated and slack, especially on the increasingly frequent occasions when he grappled with imperfectly digested philosophical concepts." This covers a lot of academics, novelists, and artistes in their slide into depravity and idiotarianism. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:33 AM | Wednesday, May 05, 2004 Bush Rules! Whatever you want to say about Bush, he's a decent man and considerate to the people who serve in our armed forces. As in this photo of Bush jogging with an amputee veteran. posted by Mark Butterworth | 11:15 PM | The soulless never sleep Major League baseball is going to advertise Spiderman 2 on it's bases for a few days for the movie's opening weekend. Is nothing sacred anymore? Jockeys advertise on their clothing at the Kentucky Derby (the Court said they could, but by what right I'm perplexed). There is no end to the crassness of businessmen, and the abuse of the human society. "I guess it's inevitable, but it's sad," said Fay Vincent, a former baseball commissioner and former president of Columbia Pictures, which is releasing "Spider-Man 2." "I'm old-fashioned. I'm a romanticist. I think the bases should be protected from this. I feel the same way I do when I see jockeys wears ads: Maybe this is progress, but there's something in me that regrets it very much," he added. Why is it inevitable? Congressman George Nethercutt [R-WA] today wrote Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig about plans to put advertisements on bases this summer. from Drudge posted by Mark Butterworth | 11:01 PM | Deplorable. . . but? What our soldiers did in abusing prisoners is deplorable, but I doubt our soldiers will get the benefit of the doubt. Rush Limbaugh made the case that the vaunted "compassion" of the left and liberals will never be found when it comes to our soldiers. Simply put, in the words of the Left, our soldiers have a different culture, and we have to understand the root causes before we can condemn their actions. The abuses I've seen in pictures do not deserve prison, but murders certainly do -- yet, I am reluctant to judge from afar without knowing the facts. I believe it was Dennis MIller who opined the other night, "Naked Iraqis forced into a pack? Bad, but not as bad as being murdered, stripped, mutilated, burned, and hung from a bridge." The problem with war is that such moral arithmetic takes place. We start measuring degrees of evil, malice, and justification of means. posted by Mark Butterworth | 10:48 PM | New project I just bought a digital camera and am learning to use it. It's quite good and I want to master it since I always wanted to be able to take good pictures. The learning curve is steep, but half of it is learning what features you don't need to use. I also hope to post pictures on the blog, but I have to find Surewest's promised web storage space. As soon as I can, I'll start posting some very cool photos (I promise). This will also make blogging a bit light for the time being. posted by Mark Butterworth | 10:42 PM | Tuesday, May 04, 2004 Rejecting the gospel I love to say that this will kill the liberals and lefties (is there really a difference between the two? A slight one, perhaps), but the fact is that facts don't matter to ideologues. Nevertheless it may make it harder for them to increase taxes in the future, and make it easier to cut taxes (I hope, I pray, I yearn, I long for it). Why? Because Bush's tax cuts are increasing tax revenue as promised and lowering the deficit. Smaller-than-expected tax refunds and rising individual tax receipts will pare back federal borrowing significantly for the first half of this year and could reduce the $521 billion deficit projected for the fiscal year by as much as $100 billion, Treasury and congressional budget officials said yesterday. "The 5.5 percent average [economic growth] pace in the latest three quarters was the largest since 1984," said Mark J. Warshawsky, assistant Treasury secretary for economic policy, in a statement to the department's borrowing advisory committee. "With the assistance of tax cuts, growth has become self-sustaining." An improving picture could strengthen the political hands of the president and House Republican leaders as they wrangle with the Senate over more tax cuts . . . The WaPo doesn't want to say that tax cuts spurred the economy and increased revenues, but the facts speak for themselves. posted by Mark Butterworth | 1:31 PM | Monday, May 03, 2004 Devastating? Will this challenge to Kerry's self-proclaimed war hero status devastate his presidential campaign? Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is "unfit to be commander-in-chief." They will do so at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday. Publicity matters, and so do TV ads. If the group can publicize its disdain for Kerry, it should have an impact. After all, what can Kerry say during a debate when someone asks why so many of his peers at war despise him? He can try to blame it on the vaunted "Republican attack machine", but it will ring false. posted by Mark Butterworth | 3:09 PM | Saturday, May 01, 2004 Canada is a lost cause In Alberta, Rev. Stephen Boissoin has a date with the Alberta Human Rights Commission for writing a letter to the editor. In 2002 he learned that Alberta P-Flag Faith Society had undertaken an initiative in Alberta public schools teaching that homosexuality was "Normal, Necessary, Acceptable & Productive." Boissoin's letter urged Christians to become aware of this publicly funded initiative, an action that prompted a University of Calgary professor to launch a complaint with the AHRC. posted by Mark Butterworth | 2:57 PM | Thuggery Not all corruption is greed. Some is ideological as in San Diego. Neal Boortz writes: I can’t remember who first issued the warning, but they were more on-target than they would ever know. No man’s life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session. If quotes won Pulitzers, this one would qualify. Make it a Nobel. Let’s add the United States Supreme Court to this list of entities dangerous to the basic concepts of liberty and to your property rights. In 1795 the Supreme Court described the power of eminent domain as “the despotic power.” Things change. In the mid-1990s the Supreme Court opened a floodgate of government abuse of private property rights with its interpretation of the “public use” restriction on government seizures of private property contained in the Fifth Amendment. The Supremes essentially said that any use of private property that could in any way benefit the public legitimizes the seizure of that property from its rightful owner, including the general catch-all of increasing tax revenue. Since the date of that Supreme Court evisceration of private property rights, local governments have engaged in an orgy of land seizures, often at the behest of private developers, for projects that in no real sense constitute a “public use.” For an example let’s pay a quick visit to San Diego’s popular Gaslamp District. There we will find Ahmed Mesdaq’s Gran Havana Cigar Shop and Coffeehouse. Mesdaq has owned his business in the Gaslamp District for 13 years. He recently spent $2.5 million to purchase and renovate his current location. Someone else, though, has their eyes on Mesdaq’s property. A private developer named GRH LLC wants to build a Marriott Renaissance Hotel on the site of Mesdaq’s business. They have tried to buy his property, but Mesdaq says no. He likes his location, he just spent big bucks renovating it, and he wants to stay there. He feels that he can’t find another suitable location in the district for the price that has been offered. That should be the end of the story. Sadly, it’s not. Enter the San Diego City Council. On April 27th the city council voted to take Mesdaq’s land away from him and hand it over the GRH. The council decided that a nice 334-room Marriott on that property is more to their liking than a cigar and coffee shop because the hotel will generate more in property taxes. Mesdaq will be paid a “fair” amount for his property. “Fair,” as determined by the city council, not the free marketplace. Mesdaq will essentially be out of business. How many members of the San Diego City Council actually managed to stand up for the concept of private property rights? Just one. The vote on the seizure was 8 to 1. Nice going, San Diego. Eminent domain abuse is epidemic across America in the wake of the hideous SCOTUS decision. In Alabaster, Alabama 12 landowners are being forced out of their homes to make way for a Wall Mart. The Alabaster city council wanted the sales tax revenue that the superstore would generate. You would be surprised to learn how many cases of eminent domain abuse across the country involve Wall Marts, though they certainly aren’t alone when it comes to using government to avoid the free market. posted by Mark Butterworth | 1:28 AM | Judging Amy is Intolerant I don't watch this TV show (Judging Amy), but Brent Bozell does and what he reports in its depiction of Christianity leaves much to be desired. posted by Mark Butterworth | 1:20 AM | Regulation Nazis Lefties and liberals would consider me dispassionate, hard hearted, and cruel because while I consider human life to be sacred, I do not consider it to be inviolate. This means that I do not consider punishing others (even to the point of death) when they misbehave to be wrong. But I don't believe in punishing innocents (like the unborn) or people who make ordinary and harmless mistakes such as this child of God: Amanda Conroy expected her high school years to end in celebration on prom night, this Saturday, and then graduation, in three weeks. But the honor roll student never expected to be booted from Barron Collier High School. All she had ever worked toward, everything she had expected to happen, changed in the school's parking lot Tuesday. Police conducted a random search of students' cars and, after a trained drug dog alerted investigators, Amanda was asked to open up her mother's Durango. The teen had forgotten about her mom's stun gun. Amanda described the day as progressing in a kind of surreal fashion, as school administrators explained the zero-tolerance policy for any weapons found on campus. Bob Conroy said his daughter's punishment increased throughout the day as he talked to an assistant principal, the principal and then an assistant superintendent: from a five-day suspension with no prom, to a 10-day suspension with no graduation ceremony, to expelled from school and no diploma. "Her whole life is ruined because she took the wrong car," the father said about his only child. The district's zero-tolerance policy, as it reads now, leaves no room for appeal. "Based on similar circumstances, the principal will recommend expulsion," Assistant Superintendent Michele Lugo said. "I feel horrible," said Amanda's mother, Darlene Conroy. "No one is allowed a mistake anymore." Her whole life is not ruined, but the system that perpetuates this insanity is. The little wisdom I profess to have would never allow me to treat someone like this, yet so many who would never execute a murderer would execute these absurd rules upon children and young people. posted by Mark Butterworth | 1:02 AM | The Truth will not will out unless we will speak out From the Best of the Web: The State Department is out with its annual Patterns of Global Terrorism report, and the findings are encouraging. "International acts of terror in 2003 were the fewest in more than 30 years," according to CNN. The report found that "190 acts of international terrorism occurred in 2003--a slight drop from 198 attacks the previous year and the lowest total since 1969." That's also a 45% decrease since 2001, when America became engaged in the war on terror. This is good news. Heard it on TV yet? posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:45 AM | |
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