“If we only stopped to realize that it is really, after all, the little things that count, why, we would be a wiser and more contented race.” – Will Rogers, 18 November 1923 I hear your words Will but I have trouble putting them into practice.  I know that life is the little things that happen while we are waiting for something else. I try to sit back and enjoy the “simple” things but somehow that eludes me. I promise to, like you did in the photo to the right, just sit back and rock away some today and to … Continue reading Being Contented…..

The incidence of narcissistic personality disorder is nearly three times as high for people in their 20s as for the generation that’s now 65 or older, according to the National Institutes of Health; 58% more college students scored higher on a narcissism scale in 2009 than in 1982. Millennials got so many participation trophies growing up that a recent study showed that 40% believe they should be promoted every two years, regardless of performance They are fame-obsessed: three times as many middle school girls want to grow up to be a personal assistant to a famous person as want to … Continue reading The Me Generation….

I want to apologize to those of you who read this blog. It seems I have just lost the energy to continue to post here on a regular basis. The futility of convincing some to look at Jesus’ words in a different light has simply become too exhausting for me. Convincing people to concentrate on “being” a Christian as apposed to just believing certain things is more than I can handle right now. While I will continue to do my best in being a better follower of Jesus Christ and that means listening to his words and doing my best … Continue reading Lost Energy….

    I don’t know but I kind of think we are just too connected in the country.  “Stop and Smell the Roses” Continue reading Too Connected????

Three years ago, Liu wrote a best-selling book called China Dream: Great Power Thinking and Strategic Positioning of China in the Post-American Age. In his hawkish tome, Liu explained that China needed a strong, martial leader and offered advice for his resurgent nation: “When China is threatened, it has no choice but to use war to protect its right to rise, to break through America’s military containment.”….. A nation that half a century ago counted Albania as one of its few trading partners is now the world’s second largest economy–and could eclipse the U.S. as the biggest within five years. … Continue reading China’s Place in the World….

  Two members of the liberal group Progress Kentucky have been identified as the secret recorders of a strategy session for the reelection campaign of Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the top Republican in the Senate. The Feb. 2 audio recording, which was leaked to Mother Jones magazine and posted online Tuesday, revealed plans by the McConnell campaign to go after actress Ashley Judd over her mental health struggles and religious views, had she decided to run against Senator McConnell. Ms. Judd has since decided not to run. Source: McConnell secret tape: Liberal group blamed, but Ashley Judd still an issue … Continue reading It’s Time For You To Leave…..

America’s hospitals have been growing. The bigger they get, the more power they have — to set prices and force insurers to pay more. Patients foot the bill via higher premiums, copays, and deductibles. It’s one factor behind the nation’s increasing health care costs…. According to an audited financial statement, UPMC made $948 million in profits from 2011-2012. And while tax returns show it spends just two percent of its yearly budget on charity care…. Jeffrey Romoff, makes almost $6 million a year. That makes him the highest paid CEO of any large nonprofit hospital in the U.S., according to … Continue reading Nonprofit hospital makes billions…

A handful of Democratic and Republican senators are considering a rewrite of 60 of the most consequential words to ever pass through Congress. The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed after the attacks of 11 September 2001, and provides the legal cornerstone for the so-called US “war on terror”. Only one brave Congress member opposed it. It allows the US government to wage war at anytime, any place and on anyone deemed a threat to national security – with remarkably little evidence needed. via Authorization for Use of Military Force: a blank check for war without end | … Continue reading Authorization for Use of Military Force: a blank check for war….

Scientific monitors reported that the gas had reached an average daily level that surpassed 400 parts per million — just an odometer moment in one sense, but also a sobering reminder that decades of efforts to bring human-produced emissions under control are faltering. The best available evidence suggests the amount of the gas in the air has not been this high for at least three million years, before humans evolved, and scientists believe the rise portends large changes in the climate and the level of the sea. “It symbolizes that so far we have failed miserably in tackling this problem,” … Continue reading The Tipping Point…..

Here are the five greatest reasons parents “lose” their children from Christianity: 1) Falling into the temptation of using religion to control their children through guilt and shame. — “Jesus is watching you!” Even the best parents can find themselves wanting some divine backup in a conflict with their children. However, using God for intimidation in a conflict with children has two major issues. First, it means children are associating God as “against them.” Second, it means that the parent is not building a personal relationship of trust with the child. 2) The parents seem to be afraid of the world, … Continue reading Five Reasons Christian Parents “Lose” Their Children

China’s leaders never tire of saying it: Asian giants India and Chin What would happen if countries in the same region started to trust each other? What would happen if they made in a priority to do  business together and to act in their self interests?  What would happen if they decided to try to solve the regions problem among them selves?  Those are questions that should strike fear in all the power brokers in Washington and elsewhere in our country. China and India are regional neighbors who collectively have 2,700,000,000 people or about ten times the population of the … Continue reading Being Made Irrelevant….

We spent the last two posts reviewing an article entitled “The Six Worst Things About American Christianity” from RedLetterChristians by Steven Mattson. Now that I have had a few days to digest these words I want to turn the article’s six points around to imagine them as lessons we U.S. Christians should learn. Here they are: 1) We must realize that no one has an exclusive connection with God  —  Much of what we know about early Christianity is the result of  a scribe writing down Christian stories that had been passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of … Continue reading Six Lessons to Learn in U.S. Christianity….

I often wonder how our government survives, let alone efficiently, doing the people’s business. In the engineering world where I spent thirty years of my life there was an old saying “Design By Committee”. All of us engineers knew that the more people you have involved in solving a problem the less likely that you would come up with a good answer. Design by committee is similar to “Too many chefs spoil the pot” in the cooking world. The above cartoon shows us that this is also true with our current way of doing business in government circles. When you … Continue reading I Often Wonder…..

“A key issue is that we’re a more unequal society than all of the countries we looked at, and that creates a different work environment where people feel they may be penalized for taking time off,” Schmitt said in an interview. In the states, that fear at least partly reflects the widening gap between what top corporate managers earn and what rank-and-file workers bring home, Schmitt suggested. In the U.S., where corporate culture often seems to equate taking time off with slacking, many employees feel they are effectively penalized for going on vacation, as promotions and other rewards go to … Continue reading When it comes to vacations, the U.S. stinks…

Instead, three Syrias are emerging: one loyal to the government, to Iran and to Hezbollah; one dominated by Kurds with links to Kurdish separatists in Turkey and Iraq; and one with a Sunni majority that is heavily influenced by Islamists and jihadis…. “The only real outcome I see in the next 5 to 10 years is a series of cantons that agree to tactical cease-fires because they are tired of the bloodletting,” said Mr. Holliday, the analyst with the Institute for the Study of War. “That trajectory is in place, with or without Assad. Source: Pressure of War Is Causing Syria … Continue reading Sectarian Violence…. Cantons

From my friends at FCNL. This program is entirely for political purposes only.  We don’t need such an expensive boondoggle. Continue reading Insanely Too Much!!!!

When faced with a challenge, whether you deny the problems it poses or dive in to solve them in a positive way may determine how much anxiety you feel overall. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about 40 million Americans ages 18 and older are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder every year. To dig deeper into who may be at greatest risk, investigators from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign surveyed 179 healthy men and women and asked them how they dealt with their emotions and how their answers correlated with their level of anxiety in a variety … Continue reading How To Deal With Anxiety….

  I had my first and only visit to Niagara Falls in the Summer of 1999.  The falls were impressive and yes I did put on the rain coat and toured them close up via the little boats shown below. Continue reading Niagara Falls

I know I am getting burned out on all this constant bickering in the U.S. I watch little or no news on TV now. All the news channels seem to be about inciting a riot among us. My internet news sites which I visit first thing every morning are now for the most part briefly scanned.  I am just tired of all this stuff. It may just be time for me to go “Walden” as Thoreau did and drop out for a while. I seem to only be able to see the dark side of life and I just can’t … Continue reading Burnout…..

  This is a rather simple picture but a meaningful one to me.  It is of the grandfather oak tree on our property. I’m pretty sure it pre-dates our 1925 farm house. In our part of the country oaks are about the last trees to finally leaf out so this must finally be Spring. Continue reading Blooming Oaks

As defense secretary, Robert Gates withheld $614 million from Lockheed Martin in 2010 for its lackluster work on the $400 billion F-35 fighter program, the most costly weapon system ever bought. Source: F-35 Bookkeeping | TIME.com. A few hundred million here a few hundred million there and before long you are talking about real money. It is totally unfathomable to me how we could spend $400 billion on one plane design!  But it seems that the $614 million that Gates took away was actually just delayed. He planed on giving it back at a later date. I can only hope that … Continue reading F-35 Bookkeeping…