video you'll only find on youtube

What can we expect from the upcoming vice-presidential debate? This is courtesy of Hot Air.

on the record

I'm watching "On the Record" and Newt Gingrich is the guest. They're talking about when the government bailed out AIG, the troubled insurance company. The only private sector person in the room was the current chairman of Goldman Sachs. Henry Paulson, the Treasury Secretary, is the former chairman of Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs has about a 20 million dollar investment in AIG. No other investors were brought into the discussions.

This "bail out" conversation gets more interesting by the minute.

follow the money

Congress rejected the hastily prepared bail-out bill and the market lost nearly 7 percent of its value. Many people believe that the runaway sub-prime housing bubble has caused the current crisis. Behind that would be those two siblings, Fannie and Freddie. And to whom has Freddie and Fannie given loads of money to in Congress?

Find out.

it would mean no more chunky monkey for me

This just in from Vermont:

VERMONT -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman.

Here's the actual letter from PETA to Ben and Jerry's:

September 23, 2008

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Cofounders
Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.

Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,

On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I'd like to bring your attention to an innovative new idea from Switzerland that would bring a unique twist to Ben and Jerry's.

Storchen restaurant is set to unveil a menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent breast milk procured from human donors who are paid in exchange for their milk. If Ben and Jerry's replaced the cow's milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers-and cows-would reap the benefits.Using cow's milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer's health.

Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America's leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow's milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease-America's number one cause of death.

Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.And of course, the veal industry could not survive without the dairy industry.

Because male calves can't produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to 17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can't even turn around.

The breast is best! Won't you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow's milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry's ice cream?

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Tracy Reiman
Executive Vice President

Source

upcoming lifepoint events

All of our San Diego friends are invited to the following LifePoint events. Please note: a few of these actually involve something called "exercise."

LifePoint Bike Ride around Coronado.
Volunteering at the San Diego Food Bank

For more details, visit the LifePoint Church website.

joe biden and the history of television

Katie Couric was interviewing Joe Biden about the recent financial upheavals and this is what he had to say:

“When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed. He said, ‘look, here’s what happened.’”

A few quick observations:

1. Franklin Roosevelt wasn't the President when the stock market crashed in 1929 -- Herbert Hoover was. FDR wasn't elected until 1932.
   
2. Even if FDR had been President in 1929, he couldn't have gone on television and said anything about the stock market crash. NBC didn't begin regular broadcasts until 1939.

And what did Katie Couric say to such an obviously wrong statement? Nothing.

See the video.

feeding the soul

Every day you provide your bodies with good to keep them from failing. In the same way your good works should be the daily nourishment of your hearts. Your bodies are fed with food and your spirits with good works. You aren’t to deny your soul, which is going to live forever, what you grant to your body, which is going to die.

St. Gregory the Great

bail-outs and more

Amazing. Incredible. Unbelievable. These were just a few of the words that crossed my mind during the past two weeks as I’ve watched the financial news unfold. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re probably aware of the high profile bail-outs that have occurred recently. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG ...

Experts estimate the eventual cost to be between 500 billion and 1 trillion dollars. Just for the fun of it, I thought I would type out what one trillion dollars looks like:

$1,000,000,000,000

Maybe this will help you understand one trillion dollars. It comes from the internet, so it must be true:

If you had gone into business on the day Jesus was born, and your business lost a million dollars a day, day in and day out, 365 days a year, it would have taken you until October 2737 to lose a trillion dollars.

Or another way of looking at it ...

If you counted non-stop without eating or sleeping it would take approximately 23 days to count to a million. To count to a billion literally would take a lifetime: 95 years. Counting to a trillion, assuming we get started right away and don’t waste any time, would take about 2,000 centuries -- 200,000 years.

Any way you look at it, that’s a big bail-out. An amazing, incredible, unbelievable bail-out.

I’ve had people ask me over the past few days, “Are you scared of what might happen?” My answer has been the same: “No.” And I’m not being disingenuous. I’m really not scared.

Jesus made a promise to me (and to all others who follow him) a long time ago and it hasn’t failed yet. The promise? “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33). The “other things” he was referring to were the basic necessities of life.

The reason I find comfort in what Jesus promises is because of what Jesus has already delivered -- an amazing, incredible, unbelievable bail-out. Not in financial terms, but in terms of spiritual wholeness, health, and purpose. When you’ve been bailed out like, what is there to be afraid of?

blast to the past

Just found this link to vintage toys. It's amazing what people will do with too much free time.

http://www.timewarptoys.com/toptoys.htm

unlikely endorsements

John McCain Has Some Odd Fans:
His Jailers at the 'Hanoi Hilton'

They Play Down Torture and Wish Him Well;
Museum Visitors Want to See His Cell

By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV
September 13, 2008; Page A1

HANOI -- As a U.S. Navy pilot, John McCain flew 23 bombing sorties over Vietnam before he was shot down and incarcerated in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" prison camp. The courage he displayed behind bars gave him the aura of a war hero, and it is still powering his electoral appeal.

Yet now, even the jailers who once tortured Sen. McCain are lining up to offer effusive -- if somewhat embarrassing -- endorsements for his presidential candidacy.

"If I had a vote in the U.S., I would choose McCain," beams retired Col. Tran Trong Duyet, the camp's former commander. "I want him in the White House."

This unlikely sentiment is widely shared in this fast-growing country of 85 million. "The majority of the people in Vietnam know Sen. McCain and feel comfortable about him," says Duong Trung Quoc, a member of Vietnam's National Assembly and secretary-general of the Association of Vietnamese Historians. "Nobody here knows about Obama."

The fascination with Sen. McCain's presidential bid shows what has and hasn't changed in Vietnam in the more than three decades since Hanoi's Communist regime won its "American War." Converts since then to a gospel of free-market economics, Vietnam's rulers today see America not as a foe but as an increasingly valuable partner with shared geopolitical interests, such as counterbalancing a rising China next-door. "Vietnam needs a strong America, not a weak America," says Mr. Quoc.

Sen. McCain, as a leading advocate of normalizing U.S.-Vietnamese relations after the war, was instrumental in this rapprochement. Hanoi nowadays has an actual Hanoi Hilton hotel within a few blocks of the former prison, as well as Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises and a cowboy-theme nightclub decorated with Confederate banners.

Tran Trong Duyet

Yet, despite such economic liberalization, Vietnam still remains a repressive authoritarian state whose regime draws its legitimacy from defeating the U.S. Its official narrative of the war makes no mention of excesses committed by the Communist North. And, when it comes to the treatment meted out here to Sen. McCain and other American POWs, the "Hanoi Hilton" is still presented as something resembling a vacation resort that its guests were almost reluctant to leave.

Most of that French-built prison complex, known as Hoa Lo in Vietnamese, was demolished in 1993 to make room for an office tower. One surviving wing, however, has been preserved as a museum dedicated mostly to Vietnamese revolutionary leaders who had been jailed at Hoa Lo by French colonialists.

More Museum Space

Over the past several months, as Sen. McCain edged closer to the presidential nomination, the museum adjusted its exhibition. The section dedicated to him and other downed American pilots, incarcerated here between 1964 and 1973, now occupies two full rooms, up from just half a room last year, says Hoa Lo's deputy director Nguyen Thi Hien.

"The visitors who come here now focus on the American pilots," she says. "They all want to see where John McCain's room was." (Sen. McCain's cell happens to be in the demolished part, and no longer exists.) Accompanied by a soundtrack of air raids, Hoa Lo's exhibit makes no mention of the systematic beatings and torture that are so prominent in the accounts of Sen. McCain, who spent five and a half years in the camp, and of his fellow POWs.

Instead, propaganda photographs show smiling, well-coiffed American inmates having cookies and tea. "There's plenty of fruit in this tropical land. It is as if one is being in California, somewhere on the West Coast," says one poster depicting POWs playing basketball and guitar. Another, purportedly painted by American POWs, contains this misspelled appeal: "Lets' fight so the Yanks quit, and the puppets topple. Foreward!"

One photograph shows Sen. McCain -- who complained of being denied critical care for his broken limbs -- being examined by a Vietnamese doctor. A large display case exhibits what is billed as his flight suit -- strangely intact, even though Sen. McCain was severely injured after ejecting from his Skyhawk dive bomber, and was bayoneted and beaten immediately after his capture in Hanoi's Truc Bach Lake in October 1967.

A Prize Catch

A crumbling concrete monument on the lake's edge, next to fancy new restaurants, still marks the spot. While not "Hanoi Hilton's" most senior POW in rank, Sen. McCain was considered by his captors as a prize catch because his father served as head of the U.S. Navy Pacific Command. Because of this particular status, Sen. McCain refused Vietnamese offers to release him from the "Hanoi Hilton" out of turn.

"He came from a very prestigious family and he acted like a prince," recalls the camp's former commander, Mr. Duyet, who is now regularly made available for interviews by the Vietnamese government. McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds declined to comment for this article.

On a recent afternoon, the 75-year-old Mr. Duyet extracted a folder with faded black-and-white photographs and waxed lyrical about how "my friend John McCain" once taught him English and how the two frequently discussed "girls."

Speaking in a leafy garden where he keeps caged birds, Mr. Duyet also insisted that "prisoners liked me because I was good to them and treated them nicely." Sen. McCain had a starkly different recollection of Mr. Duyet. In an interview with the magazine U.S. News shortly after his release in 1973, Sen. McCain described Mr. Duyet -- nicknamed "Slopehead" by the American POWs -- as "a particularly idiotic individual" and "the bad guy" with a penchant for sadism.

Making a Movie

Ms. Hien, the Hoa Lo museum's director, says that the abuse of Sen. McCain and other American prisoners is not shown in the exhibit because no such thing occurred here. "What we display is based on historical evidence, and the evidence is that the POWs were all treated in a humanitarian way," she says. Because of growing interest in the issue, Hoa Lo plans to further expand the American POW section. She says she is also preparing a short documentary film for visitors.

Vietnam's oft-repeated official line, to be reflected in the documentary, is that American prisoners at the "Hanoi Hilton" actually enjoyed higher living standards than their captors. "The American body is different from the Vietnamese body -- the American diet is different, and so the American prisoners were receiving much bigger portions than our ordinary citizens," says Luu Dinh Mien, an official with the Vietnam War Veterans Association who served as a propaganda officer and interrogator in the camp. (Sen. McCain recalled that, on many days, the only food he received was pumpkin soup and soggy bread.)

Among a handful of interviewed former Hoa Lo personnel, only retired Col. Pham Cong Khoi, who served as a cell guard responsible for Sen. McCain, offered a reluctant admission that the "Hanoi Hilton" was not quite the paradise it's made out to be.

"I personally did not beat anyone," he said when asked about Sen. McCain's accounts of frequent thrashings. "But it is very normal that something like this happens in prison, when you question someone and they don't want to answer you." Minutes later, Mr. Khoi returned to toeing the party line. "We saved McCain's life and treated him well," he insisted with a broad smile. "And in return we think McCain will do something good for Vietnam."

national journal's most liberal senator ratings

http://www.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/sen/lib.htm

For someone who criticizes his opponent for voting with the President "90% of the time," it's interesting that Obama has voted with his own party 100% of the time. At least McCain has broken with his party 10% of the time. If someone promises to "reach across the aisle" but never has ...

junior padre day at petco park

Today was "field day" for the junior Padres, which meant all the kids were free to roam on the outfield grass and sit in the dugouts. I took Hope with me and we played catch out in right field, near the same spot that Brian Giles normally roams. Here's a few pix I snapped for your enjoyment.

greg gutfield on sarah palin

Who Hates Sarah Palin?

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

By Greg Gutfeld

According to many in the media, we truly have discovered someone worse than Hitler — and it's Sarah Palin.

Head to any left-wing blog or even CNN for that matter and you'll find the zaniest of conspiracies -- froth that even a dude with rabies would find unseemly.

So how can one person create so much bile among folks who claim to be the most tolerant in the universe? I mean, liberals are the good people: They're open-minded, caring and of course, fair.

But somehow, a Republican lady in her 40s is exempt from this treatment. Perhaps, she truly is the devil in a dress, a ghoul that eats children and pollutes the planet and possibly beats Barack Obama, the patron saint of every customer buying wheat germ in bulk at GNC.

But I know the real reason why every single elitist media type is terrified of her. They've never met her. And by "her," I don't mean Sarah Palin. I mean "her", an actual normal woman with a bunch of kids, an average husband and no desire to watch "The L Word."

She's scary to these folks the way Wal-Mart is scary to them: Both are alien to someone who blogs about their chakras. They won't go there, because they've never been there.

To them, hating Sarah Palin is a symptom of larger bigotry against the rest of us, the normal. If they saw her at a party, they would wonder how she got in. She's the anti-Obama, the anti-New York Times, the anti-everything that Tim Robbins loves, which is why I love her — and you should too.

And if you disagree with me, then you sir are worse than Hitler.

Greg Gutfeld hosts "Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld" weekdays at 3 a.m. ET. Send your comments to: redeye@foxnews.com

Source

new meaning to bi-vocational

Many of you know that I am a bi-vocational pastor. That's a fancy way of saying that I work two jobs -- one as a pastor at LifePoint and the other as ecommerce manager at Blue Haven Pools and Spas Supplies Direct.

While perusing Google News, I noticed another route to being bi-vocational. This is from USA Today.

Priest charged with selling coke from campus rectory

A Catholic priest was charged this week with selling cocaine from his office and residence at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, local news organizations report.

The Rev. Christopher Layden, 33, was arrested Wednesday after police found "about 3 grams of powder cocaine and items of drug paraphernalia" while executing a search warrant on the campus, according to The Pantagraph.

Layden pleaded not guilty to three charges, the paper says.

The News-Gazette reports an informant told police that he has used cocaine with the priest "40 to 50 times" since 2007. "First Assistant State's Attorney Steve Ziegler said in court Thursday that the UI police monitored a cocaine purchase by the informant from Layden on Sept. 4," the paper says.

Here's the campus police department's blotter entry about this case.

The Peoria Diocese says in a statement to the local ABC affiliate that it was "shocked and saddened" to learn of the priest's arrest. He has been suspended pending the outcome of the case, the statement says.

---

Side Note: The University of Illinois is only a short drive down Interstate 74 from Peoria.

old co-workers and friends on tv

During the Olympics, I'm watching a commercial for 24 Hour Fitness and one of the guys is a friend of mine from Opportunity Camp. A week or so later - while watching PBS with the girls - he's on another commercial. Bobby Brindley hosts our nightly talent show at camp and is a genuinely funny and nice guy. Of course, he "officially" goes by Bob, but we still call him Bobby.

So ... today I'm watching the early morning news (around 6:15 or so) and who do I see on a local Jerome's furniture commercial? One of my former co-workers from Blue Haven. Here's the link to see his commercial. He's the last of the "fake" sales people in the commercial.

even cafepress is doing it

As many of you know, I have a cafepress store that sells a few designs of mine. I'm a big cafepress store but this is disappointing ... It was a "Featured Product" of all things!

sarah palin and her daughter

I've been following the media frenzy over the fact that John McCain's newly minted running mate has a 17-year-old daughter who is pregnant. The news came to light because of a liberal blog that spread the rumor that Palin's infant son actually belonged to her 17-year-old daughter. This nasty rumor forced the Palins to set the record straight, which included sharing the news about her pregnant daughter.

What is amazing is how much air time and print space is getting devoted to this story. It seems rather ironic -- and a bit hypocritical -- that the press would pursue this story when we were told that a politician's sex life didn't matter when that politician was named Bill Clinton. And we're not even talking about the candidate herself but her 17-year-old daughter!

At first blush, it appears to be two things: 1) it appears to be the liberal press saying, "Gotcha" to a conservative candidate. 2) it appears way out of line and I think most Americans will feel the same way ... ask the candidate hard questions but leave the kids out of it.

Why would anyone want to gloat over the fact that a young girl has gotten pregnant? According to the liberal mindset, we should be celebrating the fact that the younger Palin has expressed her individuality -- I thought that was the reasoning behind why most liberals do not support parental notification when it comes to abortion. A 17-year-old should be old enough to know what to do with her body.

Of course, the real issue is not the 17-year-old but Governor Palin. Her nomination must have scared the beejeebies out of some people based upon how quickly things turned nasty.

Could it be that those on the left understand that Sarah Palin will reasonate with average, ordinary voters in states where Obama-Biden do not?