BATF Helpful?

I owe the BATF an apology. Everyone talks about how the feds hate guns and want to take them away from us. But when I applied for my C&R license, the BATF contacted me twice to make sure my application was processed.

I applied and gave them a credit card number. For some reason, they were not able to use it. They sent me a notice giving me 30 days to fix it, and I think they wanted a money order. I figured this was some sort of cheap ploy to get me to give up, because nobody wants to stand in line to get a money order. It’s ridiculous that any government agency would demand a money order in 2008; it’s idiotic.

Sure enough, I forgot about the application, and I figured it was dead. Then they called me and told me to get off my butt and pay the fee. They said they would take a check. And they called again, when I took my time to get it in the mail.

Some agencies, like the Patent and Trademark Office, really like to get fees. In fact, the PTO has a very damaging and stupid policy of dividing patents up into more patents, so you have to pay a fee for each one. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, until you think about the $450-per-hour lawyers who are paid to help applicants comply. It’s like the pinhead local sheriffs who set up speed traps; the town gets a hundred bucks from the ticket, and you end up paying a thousand dollars more per year in insurance in order to help them get that hundred bucks.

Maybe this is what the BATF is up to, but I have to say, they are not trying to discourage me from getting a license.

This will open the door to some fairly cool purchases, including an M1 carbine. Believe it or not, I am so trifling I put off buying guns because I don’t want to drive three miles to an FFL holder to pick them up.

Bring a Folding Chair

My sister has been losing her mind over the prospect of an Obama Presidency, so she decided she had to be in the voting line at 6 a.m. today, and she managed to persuade me to go, too. I thought she was nuts, but by the time the polls opened at 7, there was a line down the block. Does this mean there will be lines all day, or did I just encounter a bunch of hysterics and people who can only vote before going to work? I don’t know. But here’s what I have to say.

GO VOTE, AND DO IT EARLY.

Democrats smoke a lot of dope and get up late because they don’t have jobs; we can get an edge here by making sure we make it through the lines by the time the polls close.

It was a little nauseating, listening to the white housewives in the line as they talked about how much they and their friends worshiped Obama. A lot of white people are voting for this guy just so they can brag about voting for a black person. If the country goes under the Magic Obama Bus, that’s fine. They got to feel good and grandstand a little. These are people who have no idea what capitalism is or what socialism is, or why one works and the other leads to tragedy, totalitarianism, poverty, and despair. All they know is, Obama gives them a warm fuzzy feeling, and he wants to save all the kitties and bunnies and trees.

It’s really unfortunate that women are allowed to vote. Whatever problems would arise from male-only suffrage, at least we would be safe from socialism and pacifism, and we would always be allowed to defend ourselves and our families.

It’s too bad the Republicans don’t have a great black hope, but since we have such a hard time finding decent candidates regardless of race, it isn’t surprising. The white candidates aren’t exactly inspiring, so why would anyone expect us to be able to come up with black candidates who were any better?

Obama is a sorry excuse for a candidate; for some reason, everyone on the left is mesmerized and can’t seem to perceive that he is a far-left junior Senator with no executive experience, no notable achievements, anti-Semitic ties, and anti-white leanings. They don’t see it, but it’s true. John Kerry was ten times the candidate Obama was. So was Hillary. I would say the same about Al Gore, except that I think he may be mentally ill.

It’s very odd that the left is so worked up about this guy, or at least that they think they are (in reality, the polls are fairly close). He’s like Salieri in Amadeus; a patron saint of mediocrities.

I hope all of you will vote, and that you will not forget to pray. It really, really matters. Open your Bibles and look at all the accounts of God choosing leaders. Look at all the accounts of God’s people overcoming powerful opponents by faith. The polls don’t mean anything, if God is with us.

I am glad I got this over with. Tomorrow I’ll get up and decide whether it’s time to celebrate, or time to buy weapons Obama and the Democrat-controlled Politburo will ban next year.

It’s a MADDDDDDHOUSSSSE!

I have always loved Bible movies. This was true even before I became more religious. I don’t know what it is about Bible movies. I love watching Victor Mature beat on Philistines. I like watching Charlton Heston race chariots. How can you beat this stuff? It’s like superheroes and Jedis, only the miracles are based on truth.

Today a package arrived from Amazon. A Chuck Heston double feature! The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur! I can’t wait!

I just put a Costco rib roast in the oven at 250. It should be ready right when my McCain/Palin fast ends. What could be better than slow-cooked rib roast, a baked potato, garlic butter, horseradish, and Charlton Heston? Not hardly anything I can think of.

I also made a horrible impulse buy. Sarah Lee now makes little cubes of cheesecake in an ice cream carton. I know it’s not as good as homemade, but fasting has a way of altering your standards at the grocery store.

I’m not nervous at all about the election. In fact, I’m having a great day. Does that mean God is going to answer our prayers, or just that he helps Christians relax right before their countries go socialist? Hard to say. Whatever the explanation is, I’ll take it.

I think I’ll do the Ten Commandments tonight, with my rib roast. Oh, YEAH.

I Need a Standing Eight Count

Here’s a tip for people who are fasting and praying for McCain. Do NOT work with food during your fast. And don’t do yardwork.

You can guess how I came across these bits of advice.

I moved a huge planter full of wet dirt, from one end of the yard to the other. Then I salted down a rib roast and applied minced garlic to it. It’s obvious why doing manual labor was a bad idea. The food thing is harder to explain. I’ve noticed this before. If you fool with food during a fast, your blood sugar will drop. I knew better.

I plan to enjoy the hallucinations while they last. And I’m satisfying my hunger with a delicious glass of iced water! MMM…tasty water! What a treat!

Hurry up, sundown.

When the Canaries Get Nervous, Get Out of the Mine

This is from Women in Green. Naomi Ragen, an American Jew in Israel, explains why Jews need to vote for McCain, in order to preserve their beleaguered nation. I can’t link to it, because it’s not on the web. It came via email, so I will have to republish the entire piece. I put one sentence in boldface.

Why I Voted for John McCain
By Naomi Ragen

The first election I remember clearly was that of John F. Kennedy. I was a
little girl at the time, but the handsome candidate won my heart, and the
election. For decades the differences between Democrats and Republicans in
America have been slight, with one candidate a little more articulate or
photogenic than the other, but certainly both were capable, patriotic, and
experienced.

This election ­ probably one of the most important in the history of America
­ changes all that. Faced with hostile forces which threaten all of us in
the free and civilized world, Americans experienced just how dangerous their
position is on 9/11, when there safe, protected world came crashing down on
their surprised and unsuspecting heads. In this election, Americans either
choose to continue fighting those forces by voting for John McCain ­ a
staunch patriot and war hero, or to give in and give up by choosing Barack
Hussein Obama, a virtual unknown who wants to slash America’s defenses, lose
her war in Iraq, and start unconditional talks with homicidal maniacs that
threaten us all with atomic war.

I trust John McCain on security. He is the son and grandson of four star
navy admirals. He has a son serving in Iraq. He was tortured in a
Vietnamese prison for five and a half years, and wouldn’t let his father ­
supreme commander of all U.S. forces in that war- use pull (protekzia, as we
say in Israel) to get him out before others. He understands the importance
of winning the war in Iraq to Israel’s security. As he said: “We are engaged
in a basic struggle between humanity and inhumanity; between builders and
destroyers. If fighting these people is not intrinsic to the national
security and most cherished values of the United States, I don’t know what
is.”

Barack Hussein Obama, on the other hand, is the son of a white woman from
Kansas and a Black Muslim from Kenya. He has never served in the military.
His spiritual mentor is Rev. Wright, a Black racist and anti-Semite who
preaches ‘God damn America’ from the pulpit. Obama calls himself a “citizen
of the world,” and is popular with European-haters of America. He has other
close friends who hate America, including domestic terrorist Bill Ayers who
blew up buildings in the sixties, and planned to blow up the Pentagon. Obama
is also friends with Israel-hating Rashid Khalidi who had close ties with
the PLO, and indicted Syrian-American slumlord Tony Rezko. He has lied
about these connections. But about this he has told the truth: if elected,
Obama one of his first acts as president will be to remove U.S. troops from
Iraq and to hold unconditional talks with terrorists like Ahmadinejad.

The Democrats have run a very, very expensive campaign, financed by million
of dollars of foreign donations (which are illegal), including money from
Arabs in Gaza, to hide these facts. They have succeeded in convincing Jews
to believe what they are told, not what they should be able to see with
their own eyes. It is estimated seventy-five percent of Jews in the U.S.
will vote for Obama- the opposite of the Jews in Israel. They will vote
for him to feel that they are ‘enlightened’, overcoming any prejudice
against a Muslim and a Black man. They will vote for him because they have
been told he will be better for the economy (he won’t. He’ll destroy the
U.S. economy with new taxes, ) They will vote for him because instead of
G-d, they believe in abortion rights, they don’t really care what is best
for Israel, and because they want to feel like liberal Americans who read
the New York Times, not ethnic outsiders.

People like me are harder to convince. That tends to happen to you when you
are in the same building with a Hamas terrorist who has just blown himself
up in the hope he can take you and your family with him. I voted for John
McCain, and so did every other American in Israel I know, Jew and gentile,
religious and secular.

I am not an Authority

I am encouraging people to fast and pray for McCain, or at least for an Obama loss. Democrats are praying for Obama to win; don’t worry about that. You can’t expect God to pay attention to prayers for a pro-abortion victory or a far-left, anti-Israel, anti-Christian administration. Just pray for McCain to win, and that he and his Vice President and administration will rule in a way that pleases God.

People are asking how to fast. I used to think a fast meant bedtime to bedtime, 24 hours minimum, no calories. Then I learned that a lot of people fast differently. Jews often begin fasting one evening and break the fast the following evening. I think. Some people will skip one meal. Some will eat only fruit. It’s up to you, I suppose.

As for me, I won’t be having any calories until an hour after sundown. Today that’s 6:38 p.m. Hmm…that’s pretty easy. And as luck would have it, I have a nice rib roast aging.

I am taking Communion every morning now, early. I did that today; it’s too important to skip. But it doesn’t amount to much, as food goes. And I took vitamins and fish oil.

Incidentally, I got up at 5:30 today! Amazing! You will never fully understand what an achievement this is for me. I am not a natural morning person. When I was in college, sometimes my roommates would get me up at 1:00 for lunch. And in the past, when I got up early (or late), I felt miserable for at least an hour afterward. I’m not having that problem now. I get up, and I’m ready to go. I look forward to it.

Here is something Christians are very familiar with. Circumstances arise that seem to be unfavorable or inconvenient. And you feel as if things are going wrong. Then you find out that these circumstances lead to a pleasant surprise. That’s what happened to me, with regard to getting up in the morning.

The funny thing is, no matter how long you believe, and no matter how many times things like this happen, it’s always a big surprise.

My TV’s clock has been failing to work, so I’ve been relying on a backup clock radio set to go off five minutes later. On Sunday, I forgot about Daylight Saving Time, and I also forgot the backup, which I had set to 6:20 because I got to bed late on Friday. So the TV was set for 6:00 (which was actually 5:00), and the clock radio was set for 6:20. The TV failed again. I woke up at “6:20” and felt like I had blown it. Later I realized it was an hour earlier than I had realized. So I had actually gotten up at 5:20.

I have been trying to force myself to get up at 5:30 for quite a while, but it has been hard getting to bed early enough. Thanks to DST and my mistakes, I ended up doing it unintentionally. So here I am, on the schedule I wanted to begin with.

I already mentioned this, but no one reads anything I write on Sunday, so I thought I’d mention it again.

I got a comment from Carl the pagan, on yesterday’s post. I wanted to publish it, but there was so much pagan content, I didn’t feel right about it. Sorry, Carl. Like Hebrew National, I have a higher authority to answer to. I don’t want people reading my comments and thinking, “Wow, paganism looks swell.”

A year or two ago, I went to see furious atheist Christopher Hitchens speak, at a reformed Jewish synagogue. I was disgusted with the rabbi, for bringing an atheist in to proselytize and to condemn God, in a house of worship. I was fairly disrespectful to the rabbi in my post; that was wrong. Anyway, I can’t allow myself to make the same mistake the rabbi did. Does this make me close-minded? Yes, absolutely. On this issue. I’m proud of it; it’s the right position to take. G.K. Chesterton said, “Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” I am open-minded by nature, but continuing to entertain clear error once you know the truth is the worst kind of foolishness.

I am close-minded on many issues, such as whether the sky is blue and whether two plus two equals four. This only proves I’m not an idiot.

I guess now I’ll get comments from people who think two plus two equals five, calling me Eurocentric and intolerant.

Believe it or not, there are people who actually feel that way. Read Robert Bork’s book. There are far-left wackos who believe logic is a Eurocentric, patriarchal construct used to…I don’t know…legitimize rape or something. I know many of you will think I’m kidding.

Get out there and fast. God decides who wins elections.

Pull Out the Stops

I was IMing with Aaron tonight, and he mentioned his plan to fast tomorrow, in hopes of helping McCain win. I had been thinking of doing the same thing. He’s going from one hour before dawn until sundown.

I say we go for it.

WHO’S WITH US?

Pray too, of course. Otherwise you’re just dieting badly.

We’re not Alone!

Look!

Was Not Arrayed Like a Banana Flower

Here is intesting Bible stuff.

Lately, from time to time, I have thought about the fact that Jews pray toward Jerusalem. I figured it was one of those things that don’t apply to Gentiles. Maybe it was hyper-religious super-observance rooted in the Talmud, or maybe it was one of the many commandments which only apply to Jews. That was my guess.

Today I read from the books of Chronicles and Kings. Look what Solomon said as he prayed to dedicate the temple:

41 “As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name- 42 for men will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm—when he comes and prays toward this temple, 43 then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.

That is from 1 Kings 8.

Incidentally, earlier on, he said this about his own people:

33 “When your people Israel have been defeated by an enemy because they have sinned against you, and when they turn back to you and confess your name, praying and making supplication to you in this temple, 34 then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel and bring them back to the land you gave to their fathers.

I guess I’ll catch a lot of flak for recommending praying toward the temple, but come on. This isn’t Elmer Gantry’s prayer. This is SOLOMON. How can you not take him seriously?

When I was on the kibbutz, I had something like a vision. I won’t call it a vision, because I wasn’t completely awake. It happened in the funny state between sleep and waking. I found my bed turned sideways, and at the foot, I saw an angel in a white robe. It was a female angel (some believe all angels are male), and she had grey hair, and there was a wide silver belt around her waist. She had her hands raised in worship, and she was praying and looking up. The bed had a quilt I did not recognize (I didn’t have a quilt over there), and there were arms and legs attached to the edges of the quilt, and they were flopping frantically as she prayed.

Now, here is something I can only tell you because Google Earth now exists and permits me to view the building where I lived, from the air. My bed was parallel to a wall, but in the vision, my feet were pointing at Jerusalem, and I was facing it. The angel, on the other hand, faced the other way. She was facing me.

I think it probably means something; I think it was about something stupid I did years later. But I won’t go into that. Of course, it may have been the tail end of a dream. But I’ve had a few of these things in my life, and they don’t feel like dreams. There is a kind of turbulence to them, as if I were being thrown around. Makes me think of Jacob and his dream of wrestling the angel.

In other news, I have some plant photos. A commenter was asking for them.

First of all, you have to see my prik ki nu bush. This is the pepper the Thais call “bird’s eye,” among other things. This is one bush, I swear. A tiny bit of the lime tree behind it is visible at the top, but there is only one pepper bush in the frame. To establish scale, let me point out that it is against the fence behind it, which is standard chain link.

I know it’s incredible.

Here are some of the peppers.

Now some other stuff. Here is the key lime tree I planted the other day, with the little wire string-trimmer shield I made:

The older tree is behind it. I am now getting limes. It’s yellow. I’m not sure why. Many things can cause this, and only one of them is fatal.

Here is one of my banana trees, with smaller “pups” around it. The big tree is around fourteen feet tall, which is about twice what I expected.

Now take a look at the bananas. the flowers haven’t dropped off yet.

When you say “banana flower,” it can refer to one of at least two things. One is the giant purple blossom which gives rise to all the fruit and blossoms. Another is an individual blossom, which turns into a banana.

Here are the “petals” which have already fallen off. I’m going to use these as mulch for the new trees. These things are actually called bracts. They are not real petals.

The flower or bunch or whatever you call the entire fruit/flower thing drips with sweet fluid all day. It’s always full of bees. It turns out you can eat the last bit of the main flower (bracts) which remains on the plant after it quits producing hands of bananas. Eventually you end up with several hands plus a knob at the end of the bunch, and the knob, made up of bracts, is the part you eat. You soak it in something or other and then chop it up. Asians dip it in sauce.

I won’t show you my smaller pepper bushes, which look awful. They’re in the same bed as the prik ki nu, and I expect them to grow very well once they get used to the dirt. They used to be in pots, which they outgrew.

Let’s Call Things What They Are

I have a reader named Carl. Today Carl announced in a comment that he is a pagan, and he explained the pagan significance of Halloween.

Take a look at what Carl said in my comments, back in August, without mentioning his religion:

I am not going to comment anymore on your blog because you have become way too crabby and intolerant since you found religion.

You have lost your sense of humor. I wish the old Steve would return!

You tell me. Is it ethical for a person who believes in a religion which is inherently hostile to Christianity to complain about a Christian’s turn to God, without identifying his own religion? I’ll give you my opinion. It is not. To a cynical person, it would appear that Carl was trying to discourage me from telling about my faith and experiences, for the benefit of his own religion. And that he didn’t want me to know why he was doing it. Of course, that’s just a possibility. Maybe he just didn’t think it was important to tell me his beliefs.

I have lost my sense of humor; in other words, I no longer write R-rated posts or write in an approving way about things like lust or drunkenness. In the old days, I was harmless. Now I am a problem. That is true of any Christian, but it’s especially true of a happy Christian who sees the power of God working in his life. People like that can make nonbelievers jealous and cause them to consider accepting salvation.

If you’re a Christian and people are giving you a hard time about it, think about their motives. Thanks to Carl, I’ll be a lot more wary for the rest of my life. It’s hard to believe there are Americans out there who seem normal, yet who worship demons or trees or other strange “deities.” But they’re among us. Might as well keep it in mind.

I hope some of you will pray for Carl. He probably means well; I doubt he became a pagan in order to ruin his life. Funny thing; I was much crabbier before I turned around, and it’s very obvious in my writing. Life seems brighter every day, and I say so, over and over. What is it that causes Carl to perceive things differently?

I have to wonder what kind of kooky, evil rites and prayers I have inspired by blogging about God. For all I know, there are lost people out there trying to cast spells on me or praying that various spirits will thwart me or help me see how “wrong” I am.

This morning I was thinking about the rotten things that have happened to me all my life. Some people can slide through life without too many obvious problems, regardless of whether they worship God. My life has never been like that. My family has been under constant attack since before I was born, and I have always felt that I was especially hated. When I was a kid, my life was completely miserable. Until I was maybe eight years old, I had nightmares nearly every night. Many times, I dreamed of a white, hairless demon who came out of a sort of manhole under my bed and tormented me. The manhole was the mouth of a long tube that led down to hell, and there were other demons like him there. Once I dreamed I was outdoors at night, and I looked up at a star, and it was actually a hole, and I could see his eye through the hole, watching me. When I didn’t dream of him, I dreamed I was in Kentucky (my favorite place at that time), and that relatives I loved were approaching me to greet me; as soon as they got close, they began to twist and deform and melt into grotesque shapes, and I couldn’t stop it. It happened over and over. Many times I would wake up, and I would see giant lizards and insects and centipedes crawling all over the walls and ceiling, and even over the bed.

The days weren’t much better; my family was a mess. My father always made good money, but other than that, nothing went right for us.

Christians take prayer seriously, and I know that those who oppose Christianity take their faith seriously, too. They use supernatural means to try to harm and distract Christians. I’m sure I’m on their radar; I wonder how long that has been the case. Two of my great-grandmothers were heavy-duty Christians. Who knows whose attention they attracted back in Kentucky?

For a long time, I think my family has been punished for growing cigarette tobacco; we killed a lot of people that way. We might as well have sold crack. Apart from that, my great-great-grandfather was supposedly a witch. That’s just about the worst thing you can do to yourself and your family and descendants.

I guess none of this matters; God is God, and compared to him, all other spirits are powerless and insignificant. The Bible shows this over and over. In Egypt, God humiliated the gods of the Egyptians by attacking the things they supposedly ruled over, and showing his complete and effortless control over them. He turned the Nile to blood, he darkened Ra’s sun, and so on. He gave the Hebrews victory after victory over the heathens and drove them out of Israel. He continues to help a few million Jews defeat over a billion furious Muslims. I am on the right team. The team that has already won.

Here’s something crazy. I have been up for four hours. Am I the only one who forgot the time change?

I have been getting up at 6 a.m. lately, and I’ve been enjoying it tremendously, because it cuts the crummy part (the nights) out of my day, and it lets me get a head start on my relationship with God. Over the last week, though, my TV (which I use as an alarm) has been failing to turn on; I’ve had to use a clock radio as a backup. And because I got to bed late the other day and re-set the TV and radio to compensate, the clock radio was set for 6:20 this morning. I forgot to change it back. And the TV did not go off.

I woke up and saw the clock radio, and I was angry, because I thought I had blown it. I have been trying to arrange my evenings so I could get to bed at nine and get up at 5:30, and when I thought I had gotten up twenty minutes late, it seemed like a setback. Later in the morning, I turned on the Weather Channel for a couple of minutes, and I saw “6:20” on the bottom of the screen. Suddenly I realized two things. Not only had I not failed to get up on time; I had managed to succeed in getting up earlier than usual. Fantastic. Maybe tomorrow I’ll manage 5:30.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Did Mr. T have a Son?

I am Relaxed

I think we are going to win this one.

John McCain is ahead of Obama in Zogby’s latest poll. Republicans almost always do better than the polls suggest. Republican turnout will be great, because we are more afraid of Obama than Democrats are of John McCain. And I can’t believe God would give us a socialist President who has announced his willingness to divide up Jerusalem. And the pride and smugness we’re seeing from Obama and those in the media who unethically supported him and smeared McCain and Palin…is it even possible that God would reward these people with victory? Such things happen, but to me, it looks like a humbling moment in the making.

I have been feeling relaxed about the election for quite some time. It’s strange, considering how I felt in 2000 and 2004. And it doesn’t mean I’m sure McCain will win. I generally have more serenity in my life these days, and I guess the effect applies to politics. That makes sense. After all, security and prosperity come to each individual from God, not from Uncle Sam or from the individual’s own efforts. So I am not afraid that my life will be difficult if Obama wins.

Obama is really exposing his inner socialist these days. First there was the Joe the Plumber moment. Now he’s calling people who want reasonable taxes “selfish.” Unbelievable. As Mike Huckabee says, wanting to spend your own money on your family is not selfish. It’s normal and healthy and righteous. It’s what human beings are supposed to do. Socialism, on the other hand, is clearly evil and cannot be implemented without a move toward totalitarianism.

When a government decides to take wealth from productive people and pass it around, it has to give itself new, unnatural powers in order to get the job done. It has to be able to locate wealth, and it has to be able to identify what it perceives as need, and it has to decide who deserves the money it has forcibly confiscated from working people. A small, limited government can’t do those things. To get those things done, the government will have to diminish our privacy and our property rights, and it will have to employ a lot of bureaucrats to stick their nose in our business and decide who gets what. A socialist America (truly socialist, I mean) will be like Cuba or any other socialist state. There will be boards and agencies manned by cronies of the chief executive, and they will funnel loot and power to their buddies before thinking about the public good. That’s how socialism works. Jesse Jackson has a history of going to meet CEOs and saying, “We have to get rid of this meritocracy.” That is literally the way he says it; no paraphrasing. Under socialism, government bureaucrats by the tens of thousands will be paid to say the same thing, as policy. When merit no longer determines compensation, other measures have to be used. And that means empowering bureaucrats to decide what the measures are, and to do the measuring. That’s the Obama plan.

I know these things already happen in our government, which is somewhat socialist in its present form. But it can get much, much worse.

By the way, let’s not forget: prior to 2005, Obama and his America-bashing, handler-muzzled wife gave less than one percent of their income to charity. When he got a ridiculous advance for the race-baiting book Bill Ayres probably wrote for him, they went up to between five and six percent. And those figures are deceptively favorable to Obama; they include donations to his church, which are not charitable at all. Church donations and charitable donations are different things.

When it comes to giving, observant Jews and Bible-believing Christians typically START at ten percent; that’s a baseline. And they make up a big portion of the “selfish” hordes that support John McCain. Obama doesn’t begin to measure up. Joe Biden is also incredibly stingy in this regard. So was Gore. So was Clinton. Then there’s Dick Cheney, who gives a colossal, multimillion-dollar portion of his income to charity. Bad, evil Dick Cheney. Giving more per month than the Obamas, Bidens, Clintons, and Gores do, combined, in a decade. Once again, I have to ask: isn’t he supposed to be greedy and full of hate? If he is, how come Al Gore’s giving amounts to a tiny fraction of one percent of Cheney’s? Pope Prius I is not living up to expectations.

We all know conservatives give more than liberals, as a general rule, even as we complain about high taxes. We’re not complaining because we want to hoard our money. We’re just asking for the right to decide whom to give it to, instead of putting the decision in the hands of godless bureaucrats who reward laziness, perversion, dishonesty, and other evil traits. We know that private citizens do a better job of just about everything, and that includes giving.

Call me crazy, but to me, it seems like selfishness when you vote for a candidate because you want him to take other people’s money and give it to you. Am I missing something?

I think every conservative should learn to give. There have been years when I’ve been a real miser, and I am ashamed of it. Federal Express’s Fred Smith used to say no company got a union unless it deserved it. Countries are probably the same way. If we don’t give on our own, maybe we’ll be punished with a government that does it for us.

Anyway, I am optimistic and relaxed.

Don’t forget to vote, and make your friends vote, too.

Fine New Whip

You have to do me a favor.

Make me stop looking at this truck.

It’s a little confusing. It seems like the headlights and grille on this thing are different from the photos of other 2007 Silverados I’ve seen. But it’s automatic. It has the small V-8. And it has a regular bed with no ridiculous crew cab. And it only has 7,000 miles on it.

In some ways it’s fairly cheesy. The windows have cranks, and there’s no CD player. And vinyl seats? Won’t I stick to those? I like the durability, but I would think leather would be best, to avoid the staining you get with cloth, without losing breathability.

The appeal of getting a cheap used work truck is that it’s cheap. The downside is that I might want to make a truck my primary vehicle in a year or so, and then I’ll have no T-bird to back it up, and my only ride will be a pea-soup-colored truck with window cranks.

And Stay Off my Grass

Today is Halloween. Hooray, hooray. My plans? Business as usual.

I used to think that Christians who refused to participate in Halloween traditions were going way overboard. Now I’m not so sure.

Halloween got its start as a pagan holiday. A Catholic Pope moved a Catholic holy day, All Hallows’ Eve, to October 31, and that’s where we get the term “Halloween,” but October 31 was already sacred to people who worshipped vile spirits. And it still is. They claim it as their most “sacred sabbath.” And they are especially active on that day, even now.

On Halloween, we encourage our kids to commit vandalism. We don’t tell them to do it, but we laugh about our own stupid childhood acts, as if we approve, and kids hear, and they imitate us. A single egg can damage a car to the tune of a thousand dollars. It can take weeks to get toilet paper off of your trees or house and out of your yard. I am personally familiar with the nasty job of cleaning up splattered jack-o-lanterns. Yet the vandalism tradition continues. In some places, they even refer to the night before Halloween as “Mischief Night,” and young idiots are expected to go out and commit arson.

As for dressing up, we tend to dress as evil supernatural beings, which is surely not a good idea. A big percentage of girls and women dress as sluts, and they often live up to the appearance.

Here in Miami, there is a publicly owned mansion called Vizcaya. They have a Halloween party there every year. Most people who go are between 21 and 30. Everyone gets good and drunk, and you will see a lot of exposed female flesh if you go. I’ve seen women wearing nothing but body paint from the waist up. After the party, people drive home drunk. Liquor companies put up tables and serve their products.

In Key West, they’ll put on a festival they call Fantasy Fest tonight. If you want to see nude, painted gay men walking down a major thoroughfare, this is where you need to be.

Every year, I have to make sure my car isn’t outdoors, because of the vandalism. That ought to tell you all you need to know about the wholesomeness of Halloween.

This year I’m not getting involved. No pumpkin. No candy. Trick-or-treating is nearly dead in Miami anyway, because people think their neighbors will poison the candy. Maybe the best thing is to help the tradition die. If it were just costumes, I would be thrilled to join in. But the pagan connection and the crime and the sex and the drunkenness and drug abuse put it over the top. People point to pagan influences on Christmas and Easter, but no objective person would draw a serious comparison. Let me know when someone eggs your house on Christmas. Whatever it used to be, it is now a Christian holiday. As for Easter, it has never been much of an event for me, and given what I know now, I would rather celebrate it on Passover and call it by its right name.

Some churches sponsor Christian Halloween activities. To me, that’s sort of like Christian heavy metal. You imitate something negative, and by doing that, you maintain your connection to it and keep the door open for more of the associated negativity to enter your life. People eventually become what they imitate.

Anyway, no candy tonight. And hopefully, no vandalism. I have done a lot of hard work in the yard, and I don’t want punks ruining it.

Chili!

My yard has been sprayed with copper. The garage door has yielded to my efforts. To reward myself, I have decided to commit suicide with chili.

I made my famous Unauthentic White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Chili today, only I made a change. I took out 2/3 of the beans. I am trying not to be a giant obese hog, and the beans are what make chili sit in your guts like mashed potatoes. With the beans cut down, the chili isn’t so carb-heavy.

Believe it or not, I’m low on peppers. I have some white habaneros, but they’re all heat and no flavor. I managed to scrape together three habanero golds and one yellow habanero, and I made my own chili powder, which contained chipotles. I think I did okay. I put the cutting board and a few other things in the dishwasher, and after it had been running a while, I opened it to add something else, and I started coughing. The pepper residue from the dishes was rising up with the steam. It was like being maced.

Usually I don’t go for internal blistering, but today I felt like I needed some heat in my chili, so I am not playing. I got some cheddar to put on the top and some sour cream to go on the side. This should be tremendous.

Procrustes’s Truck

I got another truck question. Is a long bed worth it, or are the parking and turning-circle problems such a pain it’s better to have a regular bed?