History

Well, America has elected a black president. I’m glad to see that milestone reached, although I would have preferred Michael Steele, Lynn Swann, or J. C. Watts to have broken the color barrier.

I have no doubt that God is in control. What He wills for us to learn from this administration remains to seen. Obama will do both good & bad things to our nation like every one of his predecessors. I’ll be praying that the good outweighs the bad.

May God grant wisdom to all Americans, & may we always be on His side.

This is the Day

It’s almost over. In about 18 hours we should be done with this election. Then comes dealing with the results.

I voted about ten days ago. I know there are some who think early voting is an abomination, but it certainly is convenient. I think requiring a valid photo ID to vote would stop more fraud than limiting Americans to one day in which to cast their ballots.

I plan to try to avoid as much election news as I can until Wednesday morning. Why? Well, for one thing, exit poll data never did anything but suppress voter turn-out and depress those whose candidate is reported to be losing. It serves no useful purpose that I can see; it simply gives those who obsess over these things something to do until the only results that matter (counted votes, if you were wondering) come in. And that is not a useful purpose. Let the talking heads discuss the Monday Night Football results or, better yet, stay off camera until the vote counts start coming in.

My prediction (and remember, I’m not a professional) is that the exit polls, turnout, bones, crystal balls, runes, and chicken entrails will be interpreted by the media to signal an Obama landslide. Reporters want to report history, and an Obama win would be historic. Like them, I’d like to see a person of color win someday; just not someone with Mr. Obama’s lack of experience, disdain for the unborn, and socialist rhetorical flourishes.

Regardless of who your candidate is, if you haven’t voted please do so. Yeah, there’s a part of me that would rather you didn’t if you’re supporting Obama, but it’s not the best part of me. If your candidate is reported to be behind, vote anyway. The media isn’t fair and balanced, whether it’s the MSM, talk radio, or bloggers on the Internet, so don’t let them suppress you! This is your last chance to vote for the Presidency this decade, at least. Just do it, and do it prayerfully.

And remember, “All things work together for good for them that love the Lord.” Romans 8:28

A Very Good Prayer for the Election

John Piper, minister of the Bethlehem Baptist Church in the Great White Northland of Minnesota and writer of the Desiring God blog, had an excellent prayer posted. This is an excerpt:

That we would know and live the meaning of

* being in the world, but not of it,
* doing politics as though not doing them,
* being on the earth, yet having our lives hidden with Christ in God,
* rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s;

Whatever happens tomorrow, God will remain Sovereign in the life of the Christian. Let people see that you possess the “peace that passes understanding” and marvel, and be ready to give a testimony to those who ask why you’re not running around like Chicken Little.

QVC – Quality, Value, Conservatism

When the love of my life and I moved to Midland many years ago, we got hooked on the early days of QVC. For us, it was a precursor to shopping online. So, it is with some nostalgia that I present the following, with a h/t to Basil at Frank J.’s IMAO. I tried embedding & couldn’t make it work, so follow the link.

I’m not a fan of John McCain the candidate, although I prefer him to the alternative. McCain is who he is, warts, scars, and all. One thing about McCain, though, he’s got a sense of humor.

Barack Obama is a puppet, lost without a teleprompter. He’s the perfect candidate for our country; a triumph of style over substance. Make a joke about Barry and he’ll scream, “Racist!” I think he’d prefer to scream, “Blasphemer!” but the quasi-religious nature of the epithet would alienate half of his base.

Mr. J. is the author of one of the more hilarious pieces of political satire I’ve ever read, “Nuke the Moon“.

As the Late, Great Mr. Buckley Spins in His Grave…

Iowahawk has a great lampoon of the lesser (much, much lesser) Mr. Buckley here.

I think Rush Limbaugh is right – some Republicans long for the days of Rockefeller and are more than willing to be serfs to the Democrats.  They’re the “Sally Fields” of conservatism, desperately looking for someone to whom they can exclaim, in teary-eyed glee, “You like me!  You really like me!”

Like Sally, they’ll be mocked and ignored for the remainder of their careers.  Unlike Sally, outside their profession no one knew them, anyway.

A Hunka, Hunka Burnin’… Halloween Decorations?

Sorry, Elvis…

If you want the full story, or at least our local media’s version, you can find it at the MyWestTexas.com site.

For a different perspective, here is the exchange of text messages that took place between my son (J) and me (M) during yesterday’s fire at Midland High.

J: 9:58 a.m. – “Our school is on fire”

M: “Are you safe?”

J: 10:50 a.m. – “We’re back in.”

M: “Thanks for the update.”

J: “No prob it just took 1 and a half hours.”

M: “Yup. Glad no one was hurt. Your violin may have a charcoal scent.”

J: “Oh well, better than what the orchestra hall usually smells like.”

M: “LOL”

Now, lest you think I sat for an hour waiting for a response after my “Are you safe?” message, shortly after I sent it I called him and we discussed what was going on in detail.

If things went down like my son related, I’d like to thank Mr. Townsend for putting himself at risk and fighting the fire with the available extinguishers. The damage might have been worse if he hadn’t taken action, and he ended up being treated for smoke inhalation. There’s no chance he’ll read this, but on behalf of all the parents of MHS students I’ll just repeat, “Thank you, sir!”

So Close, Cowboys!

My Oklahoma State Cowboys came very close to beating the #1 Texas Longhorns today. The game ended at 28 – 24. OSU stopped Texas at the 1-foot line with less than 2 minutes to go, then drove to mid-field. A “Hail Mary” fell short; no immaculate receptions here, I’m afraid. I’m happy with how they played, though I’ll admit to disappointment with the finale.

OSU’s got a great season going, with the loss to Texas their first after 7 wins. They should win at Iowa State next week, then face a tough Texas Tech immediately after that. If Tech beats Texas next weekend, a distinct possibility, an OSU victory over Tech could leave Texas, Oklahoma, Tech, and OSU all with 1 loss in conference play late in the season.

Realistically, OSU has a good shot at a 9 – 3 season. This would mean winning the games they should (Iowa State and Colorado) and losing to Tech and OU. The Tech and OU games could go OSU’s way; they play both teams tough and have beaten Tech more often than they’ve lost to them.

All in all, this could be the best season I’ve seen for my alma mater since head coach Mike Gundy was handing the ball off to Barry Sanders 20-years-ago.

A recap of today’s game is found here.

Chess and the Mountain King

Now, this is cool: (h/t to Jonah Goldberg at The Corner)

My Addiction

It’s a shameful secret, but it’s time to come out – I am addicted to political blogs.  Please understand, I’m strictly talking about right-leaning blogs.  I’m not into the hard-core stuff you’ll find at moronic sites like “The Daily Kos”.  But, still, I have to check out “The Corner”, “Michelle Malkin”, and “IMAO” several times a day.

My parents would be ashamed.  The last political discussion my father and I had before he died was when he told me he’d rather vote for a yellow dog than a Republican.  I told him that by voting for Bill Clinton, he proved the statement.  Still, he and Mom never could understand how the son of a union organizer could be a Republican.

I may have voted for Carter in my youth.  He was my “hope and change” candidate.  Then came the Iran hostage crisis and Ronald Reagan, and I swerved right and haven’t looked back since.  I just can’t understand those who think the government is a solution to anything, much less those like Barry O. who think it’s the solution to everything.

This election is worrying me.  I’m afraid that Obama will take us so far left we’ll never get back.  Once more than 50% of the people are dependent on government shackles, how can you ever throw them off?  At a time when I’m trying to save all I can for my son’s education and my retirement, the Democrats will “spread the wealth” to the unproductive slugs and I’ll be left with nothing for my family.  I mean, Obama’s threatening to end the oil industry!  That would destroy West Texas!

I know I should trust God to pull us through.  There’s a chance these are End-Time events, and the church will be out of here before too much longer.  But I’m fighting a lot of anxiety over these things.

We survived 8 years of Clinton.  And, even if the Dems do to the country what I fear, we’ve had a good life thus far.  If all the material things got vaporized tomorrow, or redistributed to the greedy, we’d have each other.  Persecution is the natural, expected state of Christians the world over.  This country’s been different, but the times they are a-changin’.

God forgive my worrying, but I can’t seem to shake it this time.  I’ve got to get my mind over onto something else, somehow.

Geeky Goodness

I got a phone call yesterday from the love of my life, telling me she had killed the computer.  Now, to her, “the computer” is the Gateway PC running Windows Vista that she and my son use.  My Mac is some arcane devil-machine that she prefers not to touch.

I got the Mac hoping that the family would use it, and I might be able to retire as the house’s IT guru.  This hasn’t happened.  I still get sucked in to any PC problems that develop.  This time, upon hitting an e-mail icon the PC had flirted briefly with a BSOD message, then shut down entirely.  All attempts by my wife, my son, and (sad to say) me to power up the machine failed.

I removed the battery and replaced it.  Took the power cord off, and plugged it back in.  Hit every “F” key on the machine.  Nothin’, nada, zip.  The only signs of life were the blue light ring around the power button and the pinkish light on the front that indicated the PC was connected to a power source.

Having exhausted my knowledge, I offered to take the machine to Best Buy’s Geek Squad after lunch.  There, the ridiculous machine proceeded to humiliate me by powering up for the young lady Geek on the first try.  She checked it for viruses and found nothing.  An older gentleman, one of the few computer repair types I’ve ever seen older than me, took over and he, too, found no major problems.  “The disk is about 33% fragmented, and I’ve seen that do strange things.  If I were you, I’d run the disk defragmenter two or three times.”

We discussed virus protection, as I haven’t updated the Trend PC-Cillin on the machine since late last year.  Oxy provided it to employees, and when I left Oxy I lost that privilege.  While no viruses were found, the older Geek felt like something should be installed.  He highly recommended something called Kaspersky, which Best Buy didn’t have in stock.

I tried to get the Geek to run a more comprehensive diagnostic, not wanting to get home and have the PC stubbornly refuse to start again.  He said, “I could take your money, but I’d really recommend you just try the defragmentation first.”  I offered money, he turned it down.

So, here I sit with the PC defragging at my side.  I assume it’s defragging, as it says it is, but all Vista does is show a spinning blue circle next to the “Defragmenting hard disks…” message, so I really don’t know if anything is happening.  The circle has been spinning for about three hours now.  Anyway, we’ll see if this does the trick, and I’ll load Kaspersky once it arrives.  Then, I hope I can ignore the PC for a good, long, time.