Chick-Fil-A Protestors Stumble Badly

Let me preface this saying I am a southern born (Knoxville, TN) Roman Catholic conservative.  That being said I was taken aback over the recent Chick-fil-A same sex marriage controversy.  As a constitution defending conservative I cannot for the life of me understand the uproar caused by President of Chick-fil-A Dan Cathy, when he said during a radio interview that his values were against allowing same sex couples to wed.  Article I of the Constitution allows free speech for citizens, with the lone exception of when one talks of overthrowing the government, so President Cathy broke no laws in this country.  Enter the kook fringe of the left wing media calling for a national boycott of Chick-fil-A, trying to show the company their homophobic comments won’t be tolerated in the United States.  Little did they know, former Are-Kansas (That’s how we pronounce it in the south) Governor Mike Huckabee, started a national buy Chick-fil-A day on Aug. 1st.

The event was a resounding success! The line of cars waiting to be served at the drive-thru at the Elk Grove store backed up all the way to the freeway.  Some waited 2-3 hours just to purchase one of the famous chicken sandwiches and stand up for free speech.  So many customers showed up the store contemplated not opening the following day due to a shortage of chicken and side dishes! These claims were nearly proven true as the following day Chick-fil-a did not have the batter to fry chicken, or any waffle fries or any other side dishes!  Talk about a resounding success, corporate bragged how it was a record day for single day store sales!

Not to get lost in the success was one CFO/treasurer of Tucson, AZ based Vante a medical supply company named Adam Smith.  Smith a 40-50 year old man decided to make himself the face of the anti-Chick-fil-A movement.  Smith using his phone, recorded himself going through the drive thru, belittling a young lady working at the window.  Telling her she works for a bad company, and asking how she sleeps at night, following that up by saying he now has a purpose in life by attacking Chick-fil-A.  The young lady at the window showing composure well beyond her age, stayed cool, calm, and collected never gave in to Smith, saying only have a nice day.  Then the most disturbing part of the video in my opinion; Smith claims he is heterosexual and appears to be hitting on the employee!  Smith thinking he won the war, posted the exchange on Youtube, somehow not knowing the video would go viral!  After the video went viral, Smith like any coward would do removed the video, apparently trying to avoid detection….anyone with the IQ north of a potted plant can tell you the internet is forever, not temporary, the video had made its rounds and was on all late night news/cable tv shows.  Needless to say Smith was fired when the President of his company found out, about his escapade.

I will say this about former CFO Adam Smith…..You’re a coward! Attacking a young lady working the drive thru window to either get her start in the working world, or just working a summer job at the local fast food store, pick on someone you’re own age!  As far as you making a point posting the video on line….good call, you got yourself fired #winning!  I am sure your friends and family are so proud you “have a purpose in life now!”  With the publicity you have received lately Smith, you will be taking advantage of all 99 weeks of unemployment I assume, because I can’t fathom who would take a chance and hire you now!  #epic fail #loser #jobless

Guest opinion submitted by JS

Chick-fil-A Experience

Yesterday, like millions of Americans, I went to Chick-fil-A to show my support of traditional marriage and the First Amendment. Actually, I bought breakfast there for my whole family and returned about 8 p.m. in hopes of finishing the day with a milkshake. We waited about 50 minutes to get to the counter and place our drink order (by then they were out of many food items including ice-cream). Some friends that we saw in the drive-thru line said it took about an hour and a half to get to the place where they could give their order and almost two hours to complete the whole evolution.

The atmosphere was festive, the people were polite to each other and it was genuinely fun to be there. The line periodically did “the wave” and everyone got along great. No one cared that the place was out of food. I heard people say they would settle for a catsup packet if that was all that was left. They wanted to show their support. I thought of the people voting in Iraq that waited in long lines and earned a purple thumb when they voted. Yesterday we voted and the sound reverberated down the spines of the ruling class.

The message was loud and unmistakable. Barry Obama and his minions have struck a nerve with main street Americans. The people have had enough and are ready to shove the children out of the White House. Political correctness finally crossed the Rubicon.
Yes, Mr. President, the Cathy family did build it without your help. Now get out of our way and let our people grow.

Colorado Movie Shooting

In contemplating the shooting last week, I came across an old song that sums up many of my feelings.

The local school has got a real problem
They’ve hired policemen to restrain the rage
Metal detectors greet the school children

I’d like to say welcome to judgment day

Out on the streets I hear the guns blazing
They’re not just children going through a stage
‘Cause now they’re eighteen and beyond raising

Well, I’d like to say welcome to judgment day

Judgment Day DeGarmo and Key Band 1994

I’m probably in the minority on this point but I disagree that this guy is mentally ill. This is wishful thinking so people can deny the existence of evil in the world. I think the shooter was someone with twisted values but knew what he was doing. I’m sure he spent the bulk of his formative years in government schools.

If Darwin was right—as he was surely taught— then why were his actions wrong? Surely he proved his fitness as superior to those that died? If we are the product of random chance and probability then on what basis were his actions wrong? Based on what he was taught in government schools his actions are arguably rational, reasonable and justified in his mind. If “man is the measure of all things” then if he did what was right in his own eyes then how can we judge him?

It is at this point that Liberals and Libertarians scream that we can do whatever we want as long as we don’t hurt others. But if Darwin was right then what basis do you have to limit behavior by saying that hurting others is wrong? At this point folks will appeal to Hobbs and “the state of nature” or Rousseau and the “Social Contract” but both of these are artificial constructs that never existed in the real world. They are devices to explain things without appeal to God as creator and governor of the universe; besides Darwin and Marx swept aside the old order and introduced one that has lead to the “post Christian West”.

Without belief in God no amount of verbal gymnastics will provide an adequate basis to prove that murder is wrong. God is real—no matter how much non-sense that Christopher Hitchens could churn out to the contrary—nothing can change this Truth. Murder is wrong because it is first and foremost an assault on God by destroying beings created in His image.

Lest the Christians rejoice too much with my essay I do have a question about this topic for ya’ll. I have heard much about forgiving this guy for what he did but why? Has he repented? Did he say he was sorry? Has he asked for forgiveness? Has he gotten right with God? The answer to all these questions is NO. Listen to the following and let me know what you think of the forgiveness issue.
http://visitredeemer.org/sermons/?sermon_id=38

Meanwhile pray for the injured and families of the victims.

Reflection of the court and Obama Care

Writer and theologian Francis A Schaeffer (30 January 1912 – 15 May 1984) declared that we are living in the Post-Christian West. This was the impetus for his book How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture (1976). The Court ruling today has pushed us further down the road of Western decline to the era of Post Constitutional America. The phrase was popularized in the book Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America (2012) by Mark Levin. The premise of Ameritopia is that people will trade constitutionalism for utopianism. While I haven’t read the book, the contrast would seem to explain the environmental movement and parts of the welfare state. This would dovetail nicely with the Obama agenda.

Scoffers think that conservatives like me are way off base about the ramifications of today’s Supreme Court decision on Obama Care. I would like to use a few illustrations to express my view of what happened today. All analogies breakdown at some point but here are a few good ones to try to share my point of view.

I spent over two decades in various parts of the Episcopal Church. The last two years was with outcasts from ECUSA (Protestant Episcopal Church). In the 1979 Prayer Book, much of the theological heritage that would get in the way of theological liberalism was relegated to the section in the back of the book for historical documents. These documents contained ideas contrary or embarrassing to the atheists in robes that pretend to be representatives of Jesus Christ. In the same way, the Supreme Court has relegated the last shreds of the Constitution to the index in the back of the history books on the American experiment.

Another way to explain this decision is from the book that I just finished called Ben Hur. Written in 1880 by Civil War General Lew Wallace, the book bears little resemblance to any of the subsequent movies. Towards the end of the book, Judah—the character played by Charlton Heston—enters Jerusalem to find that Jesus had been tried and convicted in the dead of night and that the injustice of his arrest was upheld and compounded by both Pontius Pilot and Herod. Judah tries to rally his troops to stop the proceedings only to find his men were active participants in the crowd yelling “Crucify him”. In much the same way, the injustice of Obama Care was upheld by those sitting in judgment of the law when they clearly knew that they were partaking of a grievous evil for the sake of political expediency. Judge Roberts played both Judas and Herod in this tragedy.

Another illustration is the conflict between Jesus and the religious rulers of his day. The leader in the time of Christ had so distorted the Law that it no longer bore any resemblance to the writings of Moses. Jesus was the one that spoke with Moses in the burning bush but when he tried to explain the Law to the rulers of his day they tried to stone him for blasphemy. They had so distorted and perverted justice that they could no longer recognize it. They called evil “good” and good “evil”.

My last illustration to explain today’s ruling is lethal exposure to radiation. You can’t see it, smell it or taste it but by the time you know it happened you are already dead. Yes you may walk around for a few minutes, hours or days but the effects are irreversible because by the time you exhibit symptoms the damage has been done. The ruling today forever laid to rest the concept that the national government has any limits. The government now has license to tell us what to buy, what to eat, where to live, what to drive and to literally determine how long we should live. Today the State declared itself as our “god”. It will take a while for this new found power to manifest itself to much of the populous but the nanny government of Michael Bloomberg has been pumped full of steroids and granted a nationwide franchise. The ruling elites now have the tools to bring us the dystopian worlds of 1984, Brave New World and Atlas Shrugged. The Republic is dead and it will take a period of time before the mind of the populous notices the death of the body politic. (If they have their “bread” will they even care?)

We often have used the analogy of the frog in the boiling pot dying as the heat has been turned up ever so gradually over time. The frog is dead before it realizes that it is boiling. Well today the water evaporated out of the pot and much of our populous yawned.

The words of Deuteronomy 28 verses 15 thru 68 echoed in my head all day today. Verse 15 reads,

But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.

Today’s decision may be an historic day but it is not one to be celebrated. The Rule of Law and the Constitution received an ignoble end.

Microsoft Tablet Surfaces

Microsoft recently unveiled some prototypes of a Windows 8 Tablet called Surface. The devices are interesting because they bridge the divide between Tablet devices and laptops. They are faster than the Apple or Android counterparts and run more programs. The Intel version will run Office and most other programs that you can run on your desktop machine but in a portable format. They come with a physical keyboard as well as touch capability. They will support a midgrade CPU and solid state drive.

The Surface computers will make tablets mainstream and not just toys with email and GPS capability. The only concern I have is with the rumors that these tablets will be wifi but not 4G capable.

The tech press is divided into two camps on these Surface prototypes. One group says that Microsoft is just trying to push their hardware partners into going forward with a tablet design that is beyond what is on the market now while the others say that Microsoft needs more products for their Microsoft Stores. The wifi only capability gives some credence to the camp that believes the Surface devices are only prototypes and not the actual Windows 8 tablets that will be commercially available.

The almost simultaneous advent of Apollo (Windows Phone 8) will be an interesting twist to the roll-out of Windows 8. Microsoft is clearly pushing for a unified experience that is scalable from the smallest to the largest consumer computing experience. Both Operating Systems will be able to run virtually identical applications on either platform. Apollo is Windows 8 light and both share similar programming code.

Microsoft has a golden opportunity to reign in Apple and bring competition to hand held devices. Apple can’t thrive in a competitive market because they are not willing to drop their prices beyond a certain point—even in the face of competition. Apple historically will always take shareholders over market share. The boys in Redmond might be late to the party but they will be formidable once they join the battle this fall. If the press conference is to be believed then look for ARM devices in October and Intel ones around Christmas.

Movie: A Man Called Peter

I rarely do movie reviews on this blog but last night I saw a movie worth writing about. It does not have the action of The Avengers or the special effects of Prometheus but the story in this movie was better than either film. Last night I watched a film on Netflix titled A Man Called Peter. The movie had been sitting in our instant cue for the better part of a year but last night my seven year old son asked to see it. The synopsis of the film is:

Based on a true story, this drama centers on young Scotsman Peter Marshall, who travels to America and becomes pastor of the Church of the Presidents in Washington, D.C., on his way to becoming chaplain of the U.S. Senate.

Peter Marshall was a Presbyterian minister with a gift of communicating his faith in a way that could be understood by the simple and the learned. Much of the film gives you a feel for the type of man that could go from such humble beginnings to the seat of power in a short period of time. Much of the movie covers the period of the Great Depression and World War II.

If you want to know why the people of this period were called the Greatest Generation, this film will give you the answer. This film touches on many themes that are still plaguing our culture today. It has the best rebuttal of feminism that I have ever encountered and the movie was made in 1955. Marriage and family are spoken of at length as is the subject of death. The film’s depictions of the events of December 7, 1941 are haunting and very memorable. In a sense, the timeline of the movie revolves around the events on this date.

Toward the end of the film, Marshall is made the Chaplin of the U.S. Senate. As I heard Marshall’s prayers for the beginning of each day in the U.S. Senate, I thought that here was a clergyman that even humorist Will Rogers would agree had the correct view of the Congress and partisan politics.

Peter Marshall is played by Irish actor Richard Todd. Todd was a very prolific actor in the 1950s. His bio on Wikipedia reads in part,

He later appeared in The Dam Busters (1955) as Wing Commander Guy Gibson. Americans remember Todd for his role as the United States Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall in the film version of Catherine Marshall’s best selling biography, A Man Called Peter and as Robin Hood in the 1952 Disney film The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men. Todd was the first choice of author Ian Fleming to play James Bond in Dr. No, but a scheduling conflict gave the role to Sean Connery.

Wife Catherine Marshall is played by actress Jean Peters. Peters starred in movies with Marilyn Monroe, Clifton Webb and other top stars in Hollywood during the 1950s. Amazingly, her last film was A Man Called Peter. She then married billionaire Howard Hughes and stopped acting until the 1970s. Her last roll was on an episode of the television series Murder, She Wrote.

This film was nominated for an Oscar. It is great for the whole family and has a message that families need to hear.

Obama Preempts Supremes

President Obama’s Administration leaks like the proverbial sieve. Our government appears incapable of keeping any secrets.

It is clear that today’s Executive Order to enact portions of the “Dream Act” is the result of information that the White House was given that the U.S. Supreme Court is about to issue to rule in favor of Arizona’s controversial immigration law.

Lastly, why is it—when Democrats are in office—that we never hear complaining about the “Imperial Presidency”?

Verizon Kicks Customers in the “Family Plan”

Verizon is touting its new “family plan” as some type of an improvement over what I have now. How can that be?

My current plan has two smart phones and two regular phones. Look what this does to my bill.

Here are some of the details:
• A regular phone will go from 9.99 to $30.
• Talk goes from 1400 minutes to unlimited. Currently we use about 350 minutes per month.
• Texting—which most of us never use—will be unlimited. (If you really need texting you can run it thru your data plan and not pay extra. Yes, there is an app for that.)
• Data—which I do use—will go from unlimited to pay as I go.
• Currently two Gigabytes is $30, under the new plan one gigabyte will be $50. A 300 percent increase in cost!

Source http://solutions.vzwshop.com/shareeverything/?intcmp=VZW-VNT-SE-PLANRECMND

To have the same number of phones that I have now will cost $25 more under the family plan. That feels like a kick in the family plan to me. Only a mafia family could offer such a deal and expect us to like it. I would like to add more devices to my plan but not at the kind of prices that Verizon is offering. The price point is too high.

To avoid this plan you either need to upgrade your phones before the plan goes into effect later this month or pay full retail price to keep the unlimited data plan. Verizon doesn’t even offer a 4G Windows Phone and won’t until at least the fourth quarter of this year.

If AT&T will fix their network so it doesn’t drop calls and be competitively priced I just might consider switching. They clearly have a larger variety of offerings than Verizon. AT&T will respond with their idea of a family plan soon. Let’s see if they respect my budget or want to rape and pillage my wallet too.

CNET even agrees with me http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57451500-94/why-verizons-shared-data-plan-is-a-raw-deal/?tag=txt;related

Davy Jones Monkeys with Worker Comp Rates

In case you thought Barry Obama was the only one out of touch with the real world…

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones went against a unified front of labor and employer representatives siding with the insurance industry and the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau (WCIRB) in approving a 8.3% increase mid-year rate hike for California employers. Added to the 37% rate increase he approved for January, July and later renewals are facing an average rate increase of 45.3% over last year at the same time.

from http://wcexec.com/Jones-Approves-45-Workers-Comp-Hike-for-71s.aspx

emphasis added.