Glen Beck Attacks Trump

Two very different articles today have appeared about discrimination and Christianity.

First, Glen Beck has launched a full-on attack of Donald Trump as a fraud who has never opened a Bible and is a fake Christian.

“too many people are looking at Trump and believing that man has ever opened a Bible…that’s the biggest crock of bullcrap I’ve ever heard”
– Glen Beck 02-11-2016

Glenn Beck On Trump’s Christian Faith: ‘Biggest Crock Of Bullcrap I’ve Ever Heard’

Glenn Beck floats Trump’s Christian faith as fake

Mr. Beck’s personal beliefs on religion are rather out of the mainstream so I find it interesting that this is the area that he has chosen to attack Trump. Beck is a Mormon that likes to borrow ideas from Evangelical Christianity. There is no clear record that Beck could rightly be called a Christian—as defined by the Historical Creeds.

Beck was campaigning for Ted Cruz when he made his comments. Cruz has lifted the banner of Christ as his rallying point. This is curious to me when Cruz is unwilling to model public policy after Biblical Law.

I have reluctantly come to agree with Gary North’s assertion that Christians are not ready to lead. I have been in, under, and around Christians in politics for over thirty years, and this is long enough to follow several movements from start to finish, everything that Christians touch in the political arena, they screw-up. The latter state is worse than the former.

In the 1990’s, Evangelicals took over the Republican Party in California and made a huge mess out of it. Look at the Moral Majority, Christian Coalition, Capital Resource Institute, and a host of similar groups. They all end-up not bringing their faith and applying it to the political landscape but copying the power politic tactics of their enemies—they know no other paradigm—and adopting them as their own. Baptizing Power Religion does not make it Christian.

I don’t know where Trump’s heart is; only God does. I am not aware of any “fruit” to which I could point that says, “There’s your proof” but so what? I think of him as a typical American Roman Catholic. He has some incomplete knowledge of God and likely lacks a personal relationship with him. Trump needs your prayers—whether or not he is elected.

For Beck, Cruz, and Trump, I think of verses like this:

It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains.  But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.
Philippians 1:15-18

The second story which I will only mention briefly is about a BBC news anchor (presenter) Dan Walker. Walker is under fire for believing that Genesis is true and refusing to work on Sundays. (Chariots of Fire anyone?)

The bulk of the article is an attack on Walker by London Telegraph columnist Rupert Myers. Myers’ real problem is with God. Myers appears to be a typical humanist who is openly hostile to Christianity.

The gist of the matter is that because Walker is a Christian, he cannot be trusted when interviewing people on issues of science, education or technology.

If it weren’t for Christianity and the belief that God is knowable and his Creation is orderly and not random, we would have no basis for science but why let history get in the way of prejudice? Education in the West was the product of a Christian worldview.

Clearly Myers sees his chance to become the next Christopher Hitchens.

New BBC anchor takes heat for Christian faith

NARAL: Fetal Parody Tantrum

The National Abortion Rights Action League took issue with a Doritos advertisement that aired during Super Bowl 50 and made total asses out of themselves in the process.

I thought the ad was slightly offensive for making fun of a baby inside the mother but I never expected that the pro-abortion crowd would actually take this as a serious affront to their right to kill babies. I’m sure Doritos is happy about the publicity and doubly happy at how stupid NARAL looks to the rest of us. Thus no grounds for a corporate apology.

In the ad, the mom, a doctor and the father watch as the fetus moves to and fro in its mom’s tummy in an attempt to get closer to a chip wielded by the father.

When the exasperated mom flings the chip across the room, the baby follows – exiting the ultrasound frame and, apparently, the womb. The last bit is only intimated, as the camera pans to the horrified faces of the mom, dad and doctor as the Doritos logo flashes on the screen.
NARAL Article on FoxNews.com

NARAL stupidity on Twitter

Here are a few choice—can I use this word when attacking abortion rights folks who think they own it—quotes from the Fox New article.

“If NARAL is scandalized by the notion that a human fetus is human, then they are scandalized by science,” Ashley McGuire, a senior fellow with The Catholic Association, said in a statement to FoxNews.com.

McGuire’s statement continues:

“We know children in the womb have distinct and human DNA. We also know that they exhibit all sorts of human behaviors in the womb such as yawning, thumb-sucking, and even dancing thanks to tremendous advances in ultrasound technology.

“But groups like NARAL and Planned Parenthood rely on a denial of these scientific realities better suited to the Dark Ages to maintain their rabid insistence that those unborn babies are undeserving of basic human rights.”

Rush Limbaugh is right, Liberals have no sense of humor.

Myth of Solar Energy

Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord, But a just weight is His delight.
Proverbs 11:1

I have a few older stories that I’ve been saving to comment on later; The State of Nevada and Solar Power is one. As is often the case, you must go outside the United States to see what’s going on in our country since our media is so reluctant to report the news instead of regurgitating press releases from their Liberal friends.

One would think that a state that is mostly desert, heat, and sunshine would be a leader in solar energy; however, this is not the case. Like their neighbors in California, the politicians in Nevada have decided that killing the “Golden Goose” is better than slowly bleeding it.

Although Nevada is one of the sunniest places in the world, there has recently been a dark cloud hovering over the rooftop solar industry in the state. Just before Christmas, Nevada’s public utility commission (PUC) gave the state’s only power company, NV Energy, permission to charge higher rates and fees to solar panel users – a move that immediately shattered the rooftop solar industry’s business model.
theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/13/solar-panel-energy-power-company-Nevada

That’s right, at a time when Obama and company are trying to pile drive fossil fuels into the ground and Saudi Arabia has declared economic war on US energy companies, Nevada Power has killed the alternative energy market and effectively nationalized all privately owned solar cells in the state.

The money quote in the article is, “People would pay more for going solar rather than less. It has left companies no choice but to stop doing business in the state.”

Instead of Nevada Power paying fair market value for excess power that they purchase from solar customers, the utility says it will pay only 2.8 cents per kilowatt and then they will sell it for 13 cents. They also will be charging solar customers more for electricity that they buy on nights and cloudy days. This is in addition to charging each solar customer a $40 per month fee just to be hooked up to “the grid”.

The article concludes, “Not only that, if they are going to give us 2.8 cents a kilowatt and then sell it for 13 cents, basically 17,000 Nevada homeowners built a solar farm for Nevada power. I don’t think that can be right.”

For those of you that think commercial solar power is the answer, take a look in your favorite Internet search engine. Enter this criteria: California solar farm gross polluter

On the first page, you will begin to see mention of Ivanpah solar farm. Yeah, solar power is a gross polluter. Why? Because they need to burn large quantities of natural gas. big solar big gas Ivanpah

As its name implies, the Ivanpah Concentrated Solar Thermal Power Plant in the Mojave Desert is supposed to provide renewable energy from the rays of the sun.

But on March 26, 2014, Ivanpah applied to the California Energy Commission and the California Air Resources Board to increase, from one to five hours, its auxiliary gas-fired boiler’s use of pre-warmed fluid for its steam generators.  Ivanpah generates power for about 12 hours of solar insulation each day, of which four to five hours are peak generation. Ivanpah is projected to generate electricity for 249 days each year due to cloud cover, desert windstorms, nighttime and other constraints.
Ivanpah morphs into gas solar hybrid

“The moral of the story? Expansive government is good at merely shifting environmental and economic problems around from one political constituency or region to another, while claiming it has solved such problems.”
—Master Resource article.

I recall seeing another story which stated that a solar farm in California was classified as a “gross polluter’ because they use too much water to scrub their solar panels. Sorry but I can’t find the reference to this story.

I did however find another solar related article.

A PV solar panel is not “pollution free”, just the opposite, it carries with it a very large carbon footprint and a trio of toxic emissions unique unto itself. A solar panel is a product manufactured by energy rich fossil fuels and lots of them, and that manufacturing process creates additional bad guys unique unto itself. Quote from Ozzie Zehner new book “Green Illusions”: “Not only are solar cells an overpriced tool for reducing CO2 emissions, but their manufacturing process is also one of the largest emitters of hexafluoroethane, nitrogen trifluoride, and sulfur hexafluoride, chemicals used for cleaning plasma production equipment, these three gruesome greenhouse gases make CO2 seem harmless. As a greenhouse gas, hexafluoroethane is twelve thousand times more potent than CO2, is 100 percent manufactured by humans, and survives ten thousand years once released into the atmosphere. Nitrogen trifluoride is seventeen thousand times more virulent than CO2, and sulfur hexafluoride, the most treacherous greenhouse gas, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is twenty-five thousand times more threatening. The solar photovoltaic industry is one of the leading and fastest growing emitters of these gases, which are now measurably accumulating within the earth’s atmosphere, recent studies on nitrogen trifluoride reports that atmospheric concentrations of the gas have been rising an alarming 11 percent per year.”
Go solar California Information

I’ve been hearing the praises of solar power since Jimmy Carter was President but it still doesn’t seem ready for primetime.

The truth is nuclear can be safer, cheaper, and more available but one Jane Fonda movie and some stupid government regulations ruined the industry.

Hawkeyes Results

Iowa Results in percent

Cruz   28
Trump 24
Rubio   23
Carson   9
Paul   5
That’s 89 percent of the vote!

Where’s Bush?

Huckabee is out.

Look for Carson to decline further. I expect his support to shift to Cruz.

Paul, like his dad, will stay in as long as he can. The real question is when he does drop out, will he endorse anyone? And when he does will it matter?

Next it’s New Hampshire. Look for more GOP hopefuls to drop off after that.

I expect Trump to win in New Hampshire but who gets second? If Cruz finishes third, it may be a rough March for him. If he gets second, then we may have a more interesting contest.

Update 02-03-2016
Paul did drop-out. Wow.
Ditto for Rick Santorum

Also, is it the “Bush effect”? Not a single governor has a snowball’s chance to make it. This used to be proof that you could handle the Executive duties of the job.

Bloomberg Running? Now that’s March Madness

Michael Bloomberg, is threatening to run as an independent for President if he doesn’t like where the race is heading. Supposedly, he will make-up his mind come March. link for article “President Michael Bloomberg”

This is nothing but wishful hoping by a bunch of Democrats that are fearful that Hillary won’t be their nominee. By March, Bloomberg will not only have missed most filing deadlines to run but missed participation in all early primaries and missed-out on being on the ballot during the “Super Tuesday” contests in March. By the time he would jump into the race and actually get his name on a ballot somewhere, the Republicans will likely have their nominee and we will know if Bernie Sanders really has the support of Democrats.

Bloomberg’s entrance into the race would cement a Trump victory and a fractured Liberal ticket. It would be worse that what Ross Perot did to George Bush back in 1992.

While it would be fun to watch, there is no way that it will happen. However, it does raise some interesting questions.

• Are Sanders voters voting for Bernie or against Hillary?

• Suppose Bloomberg managed to get on California’s ballot by the March 25th deadline. What happens in a State like California where only the top two vote getters in the primary appear on the November ballot? Suppose he is a serious candidate going into November but California says he can’t be on the ballot.

• Perhaps Bloomberg and Sanders show-up on the November ballot but a Republican does not.

A Story Concerning 13 Hours

A friend of mine is retired from the Air Force. Recently, he invited some Facebook friends to join him for a viewing of Michael Bay’s 13 Hours at a local theater. This was the second week after the movie’s release. He stated that we should all arrive early to be sure we got tickets.

I followed his instructions and arrived at the specified time. Not seeing him outside the theater, I bought my ticket so I could get out of the rain and inside the theater to see if he was already there. Again, I did not see him in the lobby, so I got a medium popcorn and drink and went to the appropriate theater. Again, I did not see him. I found a seat and waited.

After about 15 minutes of previews for TV shows I probably will never watch, I sent him a text. His reply was that they were about 8 minutes away.

Ten minutes later, they finally arrived. He said, “I’m sorry we’re late”.

My response was, “Isn’t that the whole point of the movie? You Air Force guys being late?”

wink

ECUSA Gets a Timeout

The Anglican Communion has suspended the Episcopal Church of the United States. In a move that should have happened when the 1928 Prayer Book was dumped in favor of a watered-down, modern language one (i.e. the 1970’s), nevertheless, the worldwide group has finally acted.

For the first time, the global organizing body of Anglicans has punished the Episcopal Church, following years of heated debate with the American church over homosexuality, same-sex marriage and the role of women.

The Anglican Communion’s announcement Thursday that it would suspend its U.S. branch for three years from key voting positions was seen as a blow to the Episcopal Church, which allows its clergy to perform same-sex marriages and this summer voted to include the rite in its church laws.

It was also seen as a victory for conservative Anglicans, especially those in Africa,, who for years have been pressing the Anglican Communion to discipline the U.S. body.

“The traditional doctrine of the church in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union,” the leaders of the Anglican Communion, which represents 44 national churches, said in a statement during a meeting in Canterbury. “The majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/01/14/anglican-communion-suspends-the-episcopal-church-for-3-years-from-committees/

The article goes on to report that since 2003, ECUSA

“has lost more than 20 percent of its members since it consecrated Robinson, and new statistics suggest that membership continues to fall, dropping 2.7 percent from 2013 to about 1.8 million U.S. members in 2014.”

What is happening is that the faithful part of the church—which is showing exponential growth—has isolated the malignant tumor that is the American Church. Were it not for hundreds of millions in trust funds and endowments, ECUSA would be extinct. This large cache of money has insulated them from having to hold to biblical orthodoxy in order to survive.

It’s sad when wolves like Gene Robinson are the Shepherds of the flock. When lay people need to pray for the repentance and salvation of their church leaders, in my world it’s time to go elsewhere. No wonder today’s youth are so pagan. Many people are in hell today because of Robinson and his fellow liberals but they’re ok with that because they don’t believe in hell anyway.

Since believing the words of Jesus is not necessary to be a Christian as Robinson defines it, I’m not sure why he would even call himself a Christian. Gene, if you don’t believe in the Bible, be honest enough to get out of the church. Heretics, heathen, and hypocrites are leading ECUSA beyond apostasy. Scripture promises that leaders like you should be fitted with a millstone and put out to sea.

Instead of repenting, look for the ECUSA leadership to double-down on their rebellion.

Cartoon Network: Leaven in Your Living Room

It is the belief of some fringe protestant group—possible the Amish—that claim that “Satan travels true wires” so if you don’t have electricity, he can’t target you. I’m starting to think they might have a point.

Earlier this week I was reading articles on Blastr.com. I often visit this website to see what movies are in the works; one article caught my eye.
Cartoon Network UK censoring Steven Universe’s sexuality misses the entire point of the show

Until recently, I would not be interested in what is happening in the U.K. but since Obama took office, I have found England’s U.S. news coverage more comprehensive than I usually get from American journalists. The media here is so in love with our dictator-in-chief that they are rarely objective. Often they either praise his rule by Executive Order or just ignore what he is doing—whichever they think will further his administration more.

When a website dedicated to the genre of science fiction entertainment is talking about Cartoon Network, censorship in England, and sexuality; clearly something is amiss.

Before I get into this article I want you to understand who owns and operates this website. This website is run by the SyFy Channel. SyFy is owned by NBC-Universal which is owned by Comcast. This is not some fringe place on the internet. No, this website is part of one of the largest entertainment companies in the world.

The article is an opinion piece that defends a particular cartoon and castigates the censorship by English broadcasters. The edit being complained about is rather mild in my opinion. What shocked me most was the high praise of Steven Universe for being the most openly gay cartoon ever made. Steven is gay; not just the side-kick or some peripheral character.

Steven Universe is gaaaaaaaay. It is easily the gayest kids’ cartoon in the history of western animation. And we’re not just talking about subtext, either. While Steven Universe may be innocent and cutesy, there’s no denying certain facts:

– Garnet is a gem fusion that resulted from Sapphire and Ruby being in romantic love

– Pearl is in love with Rose Quartz (as confirmed by the show’s creators), often to the detriment of her own self worth

– Amethyst shape-shifts into all sorts of forms, many of them male-presenting

– Steven and Connie have fuzed to form a genderqueer person, Stevonnie, who is, let’s be real, attracted and attractive to both men and women

– Background characters often feature same-sex couples

In short, Steven Universe is a rainbow show, kids. And everyone loves it for that.

Well, almost everyone …

 

I’m like dang! I had no idea that there was such a thing. To me this cartoon is totally out of bounds. I know that most programming on Cartoon Network is not Thomas and Friends but really! This is propaganda and recruiting in its most blatant form.

The fact that this is shown on Cartoon Network means to me that it will fly under the radar of most parents. When I think Boomerang or Cartoon Network I think of children’s programming and I likely wouldn’t give much thought to the title Steven Universe. I thought it was Jimmie Neutron for the next generation.

It’s hard to have worse programming than the pre-teen crap on the Disney Channel but apparently NBC found a way. Too bad they can’t keep homosexuals confined to their Bravo channel.

This also means Steven Universe will eventually find its way to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. Parents, it might be a simplification that Satan travels true wires but he certainly is trying really hard to get through your television to desensitized your children to evil.

This is another reason to “cut the cord”.

Cutting the Cable in 2016

2016 began with my efforts to stop more fiscal bleeding so I can add more fuel to the Dave Ramsey “snowball”.

On New Year’s Day, we cancelled our subscription to DirecTV. I had been a customer of DirecTV for about ten years.

Back in 2006, I traded in our miserable service from Comcast. Comcast’s Internet and HD television we just crappy. Dial-up was faster on evenings and weekends than anything offered by Comcast. Their HD could be beaten by “rabbit ears” any day.

Unfortunately I live on the “old side” of Elk Grove where there is no fiber-optic cable or competition. Thus we looked at Dish and DirecTV. The deciding factor of which satellite product to go with literally came down to one TV show. My three year old liked Thomas the Tank Engine and Dish didn’t carry the station and DirecTV did so we went with them.

In contrast to Comcast, DirecTV had great service and a superior television experience. However, the bill kept inching upward. Two years ago, we dropped one television from our bill. We went from three to two TVs. I think we did that in November or December of 2014. We also went to a lesser programming package. Then in January, DirecTV raised their rates. After all was said and done, our DirecTV bill was about two dollars cheaper than having a higher programming package and an additional TV.

We have been subscribing to Amazon Prime and Netflix anyway so I decided to bite the bullet and “cut the cord”. The only thing we immediately miss is HGTV. They have no streaming subscription package and you can’t get much from their website. Yeah I know you can get them on Sling TV but you can’t DVR the programs or watch them when you want. Besides, we just added Hulu and the idea is to save money not reallocate it.

We bought a TiVo Bolt and a drone unit for the bedroom. Only after buying it did we learn that Hulu is not available thru the Bolt. As best as I can piece together, the app for the Bolt needs to be written in HTML 5 but previous TiVo products used Flash Player to power their app. TiVo has yet to get their Hulu app working on the Bolt. I called TiVo a few days ago and was assured that the Hulu app would be deployed to users in the next few days; I have yet to see it.
Update: After posting this blog, I checked again and found that the Hulu app is now available on my TiVo Bolt

Anyway, here is the quick and dirty economic analysis. DirecTV costs $109 per month less Hulu subscription of $12 yields a net savings of $97 per month. ($1,164 per year)

Oh the TiVo Bolt was $299 at BestBuy but was on sale for $289 and when we paid for it, for some reason we were given a $50 BestBuy card. We used the card to buy the $149 drone unit so we got both for about $400. The Bolt will support 4K displays and record up to four programs at once off the HD antenna.

In April, we get to kick Verizon to the curb. We will finish switching to Cricket. This will cut our monthly cell phone bill about $140 dollars compared to what I’m paying right now for two phones on “Big Red”. Oh, I think we will at least double our data when we switch.