An Exciting Day on the Farm

The woman on the right is our good friend Val, whose husband is in Afghanistan connecting up computers for the U.S. Army. Val said she would like to bring her male alpacas over to "a real farm," so we are leasing out a portion of our land to her to take care of these sweet animals. They will be given lots of loving care here, and the children will enjoy them immensely.

Colleen has always wanted alpacas, but when it came down to plunking down the cash, it was either move to the farm, or buy an alpaca. Now look how God has blessed us with seven of these wonderful creatures (two more coming soon).

Of course, Jon was one of the first to get right in there and pet the adorable creatures.

At first, Sara wasn't so sure what to think about the alpacas. But, soon,..."Look Dad, he is trying to kiss me on the head!"
The horse was one of the first to check out the new animals.

Giving Thanks For Beauty

Every day I thank God for the person who lived here several years before we moved in. He/she planted such a wonderful variety of trees and shrubs. I have no idea what kind of tree this is. It has thorns and is ten or twelve feet high. Anyone know what it is?
And, of course, we have to show you our oriental poppies, which don't have many days left to light up our south side. As you can see, I am preparing the ground to plant lots of flowers soon. With our long winters, we really appreciate the warm days.

A Sadr City Parade

Gateway Pundit brings us this photo with these comments: "US Soldiers- Smiling children- Safe Streets- Sadr City
Sensational."


A U.S. Army Soldier gets a lift from an Iraqi boy and his mule on Route Douglas in the Jamilla Market in the Sadr City district of Baghdad, June 9, 2008. (U.S. Army photo by Tech. Sgt. Cohen A. Young, MNF-Iraq)

"I Never Knew Them."

Via a commenter at Little Green Footballs

More Efforts to Silence Talk Radio

The left has managed to slip into the federal regulations a provision requiring all local radio stations to be culturally diverse." The new regulations proposed by the Federal Communications Commission had a cut off comments provision of June 11, 2008 (today). Congress will have to pass another resolution of disapproval, as they did last year regarding an attempt to revive the "fairness doctrine." Now, the leftists are trying to go at it from a different, more subtle angle, called "localism."

Two Views of Last Night's Sunset

"Deafening Silence"

I wonder what effect the cowards who fled to Canada during the Viet Nam war have had on the loss of free speech in that country. We have all heard of the ridiculous case against Mark Steyn, but there are others. David Warren chronicles them here in a post entitled "Deafening Silence."

What Will Al Gore Say About This?

31,072 scientists have signed the following petition:

“We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limit on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.” The petition went on to say, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the earth.”

Al Gore steadfastly refuses to debate the issue.

Drill for Oil, Stupid!

In reading an excellent post at the Power Line blog this evening, I learned a new word: anthropogenic. Wikipedia defines it as "effects, processes, objects, or materials are those that are derived from human activities, as opposed to those occurring in natural ..." The writer of the post, John Hinderaker, was referring to the fact that John McCain long ago signed on to the "anthropogenic global warming fallacy." Thus, Hinderaker asserts, we have a "presidential race that is starting to resemble a nightmare contest between Jimmy Carter and Michael Dukakis--only a Dukakis who knows what he's doing in a tank."

The Audacity of Democrats

Geckofeeder linked to an excellent analysis of recent American history over at the American Thinker blog. I urge my readers to check out The Audacity of Democrats.

The Mystery Of the String and the Spoon

Over at Crunch Time, Hapkido solves the mystery of the string and the spoon. Hint: it's about efficiency and ingenuity.

Water on Mars!

V.W. at One Happy Dog Speaks brings us the big news of the day. NASA has found water on Mars!

A Break-In Reveals The Next Church Obama Will Join

The folks at Creative Minority Report have Watergate-style broken into Obama's headquarters. They have recovered this legal pad with Obama scribblings that give us a hint as to which church the Obamas will join next.

Senate Democrats Advocate Privatization

Did you notice that Senate Democrats have decided that they do believe in privatizing? They held a late night voice vote to privatize Senate restaurants, which have lost two million dollars in the past year. Now we have the precedent we need to privatize Social Security.

Bye-Bye Barbarians

With some marvelous help from American bombs, a Danish unit is freed in Afghanistan, and some Taliban barbarians are no longer with us.
Via American Power

Obama says it doesn't work. Oh yeah?

On June 5 the U.S. Navy demonstrated their ability to defend against an in-coming scud missile. Barack Obama wants to scrap the missile defense system. Please don't vote for him.

Via Ace of Spades

Gayle has the words Obama spoke on this video, which is hard to hear. Here are his exact words.

I'm the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning and as President I will end it. Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems and I will institute an independent defense-priorities board to insure that the quadrennial defense review is not used to justify unnecessary spending. Third, I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal I will not develop new nuclear weapons, I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBM's off hair-trigger alert and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals."

McCain Has No Time to Meet With Billy Graham

Can you believe it? Go here to read the letter McCain's scheduler sent to the person trying to arrange the meeting.

"Do you really think the world is filled with morons?"

The above question was asked on the floor of Congress on May 14 by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher from California. He was referring to the Warner-Lieberman bill which was defeated last week. In his speech Congressman Rohrababacher thoroughly debunks the man-made global warming scam. Of, course, since the planet has actually been in a cooling trend the past seven years, the alarmists no longer use the term global warming. Now they call it climate change. That way, they can be right, no matter whether the planet is warming or cooling! Congressman Rohrabacher, who also has been in the forefront of border control, and efforts to free imprisioned border patrol agents, gives a wonderful speech before Congress tackling all of the scams of the last thirty years. I urge my readers to follow this link to the Congressman's fine speech.

Exuberance!

The yellow roses lining the driveway are really doing their thing today. And, if we get tired of looking at them, we can always jump in the canoe and look for some water.

The End of Identity Politics

A lot of Hillary supporters are angry today. The Democratic party has perfected the art of identity politics, and it has strangled them. Let those who are angry come over and help Republicans build a party that makes the best choices, without considerations of race or gender.

Digging and Analyzing

I am not the only one who has spent the day digging. This picture from Mars shows America's Phoenix Lander digging up some soil to analyze.

Via Astronomy Picture Of The Day

What Would Batman Do?

Via Seeker's Jar

Tonight's Sunset

You know it is time to stop digging in the garden, when you look up and see the sun setting.

Let Us Not Forget

Sixty-four years ago today our troops landed on the beach at Normandy in the face of "withering machine gun fire." Twenty-nine thousand died, and over one hundred thousand were wounded or missing by the time our troops left the peninsula. The people we saved from Hitler remain free today. The photo and figures come from the Neptunus Lex blog, which concludes,

Every year there are fewer of them.

Let us not forget.

Caption This

Via Extreme Mortman

Lost Your Cat?

Via The Cook Shack

Caption This

There is actually a very funny story connected to this photo, but I don't think I am allowed to tell it right now.

Three Views of Tonight's Sunset

Refreshing

I just finished reading the Vanity Affair article by Lauren Collins about Michelle Obama. She comes across as authentic, down-to-earth. She grew up on the South Side of Chicago in an 1100 square foot house with one bedroom and one bath. Her family of four included her brother, Craig, who is now the basketball coach at Brown University, her mom, and her dad. Her parents taught her to respect her teachers, but also to think, to question. They also encouraged her to ask them (her parents) lots of questions, to ask "why." I know she has taken a lot of criticism from conservative pundits, but the article portrays her to be refreshing, with normal motherly concerns and someone who enjoys watching reruns of the Dick Van Dyke show. Laura Bush seems almost Stepford Wifeish to me. No one will ever say that about Michelle Obama.

Global Temperatures Drop Again in May

Confirming what many of us have already noted from the anecdotal evidence coming in of a much cooler than normal May, such as late spring snows as far south as Arizona, extended skiing in Colorado, and delays in snow cover melting in many parts of the northern hemisphere, the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) published their satellite derived Advanced Microwave Sounder Unit data set of the Lower Troposphere for May 2008.

We are now ten years into global cooling.

Welcome!

Yellow roses line the driveway to the front porch, where two bougainvilleas dance in the wind.

Caption This

No Defense

Most of you are probably aware of the show trial going on in Canada. Marvelous author Mark Steyn is on trial for alleged hate crimes against jihadists, contained in his wonderful book, "America Alone." From Maggies Farm, here is article 7.1of the Human rights code.

Section 7.1 of the British Columbia Human Rights Code states, re a "hate" offense accusation:

...innocent intent is not a defense, nor is truth, nor is fair comment or the public interest, nor is good faith or responsible journalism.

I am betting that Steyn will make a complete mockery of Canada's politically correct code.

Goin for It

Via Classical Values

References

Sometimes cartoons get right to the heart of the matter.

These last two cartoons via Third Wave Dave blog

In The Bag

View From the Top...and From the Bottom

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, 'Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am.'

The woman below replied, 'You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude.'

'You must be an engineer,' said the balloonist.

'I am,' replied the woman, 'How did you know?'

'Well,' answered the balloonist,' everything you told me is, technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help so far.'

The woman below responded, 'You must be in Management.'

'I am,' replied the balloonist, 'but how did you know?'

'Well,' said the woman, 'you don't know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault.'

Via Last of the Few

Accomplishments?

Via Last of the Few

Tonight's Sunset

This monstrous thunder cloud has now moved right over our house. Never a dull moment out here on the high plains.

"So the fact that they are illegal is not enough of a crime?"

The health and human services costs to the American taxpayer regarding people who are in our country illegally is staggering. Hearings are finally being held on the subject. Here is a brief example from a Florida hospital. Want to know why your health care costs are so high?

Via Last of the Few

Happiness Is...

Reading this morning's post entitled "The Wisdom of Over-Educated Fools and Holy Hucksters" over at One Cosmos, inspired me to write this post today about our son, Thomas.

Thomas will be 19 in August. He lives in an apartment with his best boyhood friend. Both boys (young men) work for the Kroger grocery chain, although in separate cities. In less than a year Thomas has risen to the point where he has been given responsibility this week to manage the general merchandise of this large store, while the manager goes on vacation. We are very proud of Thomas for working his way up from bagger to clerk to management in such a short time, while also going to college and getting good grades.

He has told us that he may want to suspend his college career next year while concentrating on his work. That is perfectly okay with us. We want him to make his own decisions, live his own life, and reap the rewards and consequences of those decisions and that life. Right now he is feeling pretty good about himself, because of what he has accomplished. We want him to continue to gain wisdom from working hard and doing a good job at work.

Interestingly, his grandparents don't agree with us. They want him in college full time at a big time university. They want him to be "educated" by the elitist liberals of academia. He is respected by the people he works with at the supermarket. He has little in common with the college students whose mommies and daddies are providing them with everything but truth. Grandpa is a new-ager. Both grandparents are heavily dependent on antidepressants for their happiness.

Thomas and his siblings were sexually abused by their biological father. Thomas participates in therapy weekly, and is completely sincere and dedicated to overcoming what that abuse did to his mind, and learning how to conduct himself properly in relationships. Thomas is so lucky that he has a mom who is so grounded in integrity and truth, and is, therefore, a person so utterly dependable and reliable for him.

Welcoming the Morning Sky

Yesterday afternoon I was so bummed. I could see no blue blooms on any of the wild phlox plants that are everywhere on the property. I thought they were finished blooming. Then, this morning, there they were again in their sky blue glory. I guess they close up in the heat of the day, and only bloom in the mornings. That's okay by me. Whatever works for you little beauties, works for me!


On the sunny south side of the house I am planting lots of bright seed geraniums.

Finally!

We waited until June 1, but it was worth it. The exquisite beauty of the oriental poppy has finally arrived. We know it won't last long, so I vow to observe, admire, and appreciate it while it and its brothers and sisters are doing their things.

"What were you thinking?"

From One Happy Dog Speaks:

Once upon a time there lived a king. The king had a beautiful daughter, the PRINCESS. But there was a problem. Everything the princess touched would melt. No matter what: metal, wood, stone, anything she touched would melt.

Because of this, men were afraid of her. Nobody would dare marry her.

The king despaired. What could he do to help his daughter?

He consulted his wizards and magicians. One wizard told the king, ‘If your daughter touches one thing that does not melt in her hands, she will be cured.’

The king was overjoyed and came up with a plan.

The next day, he held a competition. Any man that could bring his daughter an object that would not melt would marry her and inherit the king’s wealth.

THREE YOUNG PRINCES TOOK UP THE CHALLENGE.

The first brought a sword of the finest steel.

But alas, when the princess touched it, it melted. The prince went away sadly .

The second prince brought diamonds. He thought diamonds are the hardest substance in the world and would not melt. But alas, once the princess touched them, they melted. He too was sent away disappointed.

The third prince approached. He told the princess, ‘Put your hand in my pocket and feel what is in there.’ The princess did as she was told, though she turned red. She felt something hard. She held it in her hand. And it did not melt!!!

The king was overjoyed. Everybody in the kingdom was overjoyed.

And the third prince married the princess and they both lived happily ever after.

Question: What was in the prince’s pants?

M&M’s of course.

They melt in your mouth, not in your hand.

Ya Got A Better System Than Free Enterprise?

The late Milton Friedman explains the ABCs of free enterprise to liberal do-gooder Phil Donahue.

Via American Power

Fleeting Power and Beauty

Tonight the big thunder clouds built up again around sunset, so I quickly got the camera, and these were the scenes captured for your enjoyment. Sorry, Jeffro at The Poor Farm, but the thunder is headed your way again tonight.

How's The Recession Going Where You Live?

"What do you call a recession where the economy keeps going up and up, even if a bit sluggishly? Well, my friends, you call that an expansion. And that is what we seem to have right now, despite all the economic doomsaying about a recession or even a Great Depression 2.0. Today, the Commerce Department revised its first-quarter estimate of gross domestic product upward to 0.9 percent from 0.6 percent. That follows 0.6 percent GDP growth in the final quarter of 2007. The revision also makes it more likely that the second quarter will be positive, maybe 1.5 percent, maybe even higher."

So begins the lead paragraph today in a U.S. News and World Report article by James Pethokoukis.

Tonight's Sky Show

When we saw these powerful thunderclouds building up, and flashing lightning, we got a little worried. We kept watch. They moved on upward and eastward toward Kansas.

Time For Creativity

School's out, so time to begin a summer of creative play. Led by our first grade graduate, Greg, the kids have built a city with lots of families and even its own junkyard.

Obama's Latest Gaffe

Lightweight Obama's latest gaffe came on Memorial Day. He said his uncle was a member of the American brigade that liberated Auchswitz. The Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated on January 17, 1945 by the 322nd Rifle Division of the Communist government of Russia.

I think Hillary's uncle was probably there, too, dodging sniper fire.

Reflecting The Sky

Spring has finally arrived here at the the little farm on the high plains. With it are many pleasant surprises. I believe these plants are blue phlox. They are everywhere on the property. These are ones I can see from the kitchen window. They seem to reflect the blue Colorado sky.

Oops!

I think you said what you meant, Maxine Waters.

via The Jungle Hut

Cartoons That Make Us Think About the Meaning of This Day

Via The Cook Shack

Will We Honor Them?

via The Cook Shack

How The Democrats Are Torturing Themselves (And Soon Will Try To Do It To Us)

Via Conservatism With Heart

Rocket Man!

Former fighter pilot Yves Rossy, 48, accelerated to 186 miles an hour May 14, 2008, over the Swiss Alps during his first public flight while strapped to his self-made, jet-powered wings.


Via Sense of Events

Tread Softly and Carry A Big Stick

Have you been following the cases of right feet in running shoes showing up on beaches on the British Columbia coast near Vancouver? Four right feet in running shoes. My advice? Don't go jogging along that particular coast until this mystery is solved.

I've Had It With The Fearmongers and Scammers

Jason Blevins writes today about the culture of fear that envelopes many Americans today, and the politicians and scammers who profit from us cowering in fear. Remember when FDR said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself?" Here is more from FDR's famous speech.

"This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. . . . The only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

The Blevins article lists many of the items being promulgated to make us fearful little sheep waiting for some political shepherd to lead us and save us. He appropriately ends his piece with some wise advice and a Biblical admonition.

Bid adieu to the merchants of gloom and go for it. Aim higher. Whistle.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I will fear no evil."

The Buck Stops Here

Holly at her DOGSNHORSES blog posts a link to a story about a teacher who asked her class of five-year-olds to vote on whether a boy should be allowed to stay in class or leave! The boy has been a discipline problem. So, the teacher ducks her responsibility and asks the children to solve the problem! (They voted overwhelmingly to kick him out of class).

I am wondering whether the parents have also ducked their responsibilities to discipline this child. If he is allowed to get away with bad behavior at home, it would be logical for him to think he can try it at school, too. Our four-year-old, Sara, could probably be diagnosed with all kinds of currently popular diagnoses like autism, Asbergers, ADHD, etc. Her birthmom had the whole DSM book thrown at her (meaning that she had many diagnoses, because nobody could figure out how to deal with her).

Nevertheless, Sara is our adopted daughter now, and we know that it is our responsibility to require her to behave. Our daughter Mau Mau would be given the diagnosis of developmentally disabled. Does that mean she should be allowed to get by with behaviors like hitting, kicking or non-stop screaming at the top of her ample lungs? No! Our eight-year-old, Jon, has not lived a day in his life without spilling something and making a mess. Does that mean we should just give up and not expect him to keep trying? No!

We love each and every one of our children. That is why we are not going to turn our heads when they misbehave. We are going to dole out consequences appropriate to the misbehavior. We are going to teach them how to be civilized little citizens. We are not going to leave it up to their schools or anyone else.

Hillary: Assassinations Are Still a Possiblity

Non-stop lightning

This eleven second video was shot on our back porch the night before the tornadoes hit the next morning. This constant display of lightning went on for four hours with no let up. We should have known that something would happen the next day.