We just got done swimming with PJ for about an hour, and she’s feeding him before bed while our dinner cools. Now it’s time to leave the keyboard and go dish up an AMAZING treat. If you haven’t tried one of these, you need to do so immediately. Even Scooter, my little lovebird, likes it. I’m almost drooling on the keyboard!
The attendance numbered almost double the last Civic Center event I attended, so I think support was very good. The station is also trying to secure funding for the next broadcast year, so it was also a call for support.
In a somewhat related note, on Sunday I added a new mini-feature to this site, the Bible Verse of the Week. You’ll see it in the menu on the right-hand side of this site. That is, of course, unless you read these posts on a site that syndicates my blog…in which case, you need to come directly to the source!
For some time now I’ve posted a link to Jon’s Evangelical Musings blog on this site. We have some good mini-discussions on there from time to time. Look under the Links heading on the right-hand column of this page, unless you’re reading this article on one of the sites that syndicates my blog. In that case, come directly to my site for the link.
I’m not trying to exalt anybody, don’t get me wrong. I’m sure Jon wouldn’t want that. I just want to say, “I stand with you!” and thank him for his boldness.
The last paragraph is scanned into the image at the head of this entry, but you can find the entire article in the free magazine, which is available all over town in local businesses as well as dispensers. Pick one up today! If you can’t do that, click here to download a PDF version.
If you don’t live under a rock, you know by now that a front group took two words spoken by Rush Limbaugh on his radio talk show and fabricated them into comments he didn’t say, attempting to smear him and brand him an enemy of US soldiers. He’d previously been talking about Jesse Al-Zaid, aka Jesse Macbeth, who the anti-war left was touting as a veteran who witnessed atrocities. Sadly, Al-Zaid simply washed out of boot camp after 44 days and faked the rest. That’s the strength of the anti-war left’s argument.
Then the Democrats in the US Senate jumped on board. They wrote this letter to the CEO of Clear Channel, asking him to pressure Limbaugh to back down from comments that he never even made. That, my friends, is govermnent suppression of political speech, EXACTLY the kind of thing that the Constitution prohibits. And our North Dakota senators, the dutiful little Democrat puppets that they are, signed right on board. It’s no surprise, considering that at least 90% of their campaign contributions come from outside of North Dakota.
There are two possibilities here:
1: That our beloved Senators were misled and signed the letter without knowing the whole story. If that’s the case, then how can we trust them to sign ANYTHING responsibly, especially legislation? If they’ll sign a letter violating the First Amendment, what else will they sign? Don’t they have staffs that research this kind of stuff? If a guy working in his garage with the radio on can get it, how can they miss it…except willingly? Which leads to the next possibility:
2: That they signed this letter knowingly, preferring to be loyal liberal Democrats rather than do what’s right (or legal). In this case, they have shown their loyalty to a corrupt and morally bankrupt political party rather than the state they claim to represent.
What have our ND Senators done to support the families of soldiers? They’ve dutifully done whatever the leftist Democrat Party has told them to do, so they can keep getting enough out-of-state money to remain big fish in a small pond. They vote right in line with Massachussetts liberals, not North Dakotans…check their voting records and compare them with the most liberal: they match. Then they come back to North Dakota every now and then to claim that they’re bringing home the bacon, while pretending to be North Dakotans on paper so they can be re-elected. In the mean time, the free speech rights of a person who holds no public office had better not get in the way, as their signatures on this historic document prove. North Dakota can do better.
Thanks and props to my friend Jerry for the photos!
Scooter has been a true friend and enormous blessing over the past ten years. I’ve had him longer than I’ve been married; longer than I’ve been at my job; longer than I’ve owned my house, truck, or most of my motorcycles; longer than I’ve been a Christian. He’s been through a lot with me, and always stuck tirelessly by my side. Although I’m a daddy now and much more busy, Scooter is always right there, ready to play. He’s even been protective of little PJ at a time when we didn’t know if he would be jealous.
I was no stranger to birds when I got Scooter; my parents had a Quaker parrot and we grew up with a little parakeet in our home. I understood that a bird is a big investment of time. They have the comprehension of a small child and are not a pet you can leave unattended like a cat or a dog unless they’re safe within the confines of their cage. Certain things like air fresheners, scented candles, or Febreeze will kill a bird in minutes. They’re curious and must not be allowed to get into a toilet with the lid up, a pot of hot soup, or other such hazards. They really do require someone very meticulous.
I’ve never clipped Scooter’s wings…ever. That adds a whole new dimension of danger, of course. Only because I’m abnormal have we never had an incident of him flying out a door or window. But he gets to come and go as he pleases when we keep his cage door open, flying back and forth between my shoulder, my wife’s shoulder, or his house. We have to be even more vigilant now that we have a curious baby reaching for him!
The Bible says that “a righteous man regardeth the life of his beast” in Proverbs 12:10. I’ve always tried to do that. Someone told me that “once you have kids, your pets truly become pets.” That’s been true to a degree, but we still love Scooter tremendously and I always look forward to that first chirp in the morning. I thank God for Scooter and look forward to ten more years!
A friend sent me a link to this blog post this morning and pointed out that the truck looked familiar. Of course it does:
You can know a lot about somebody by the friends they keep. These are the friends of the North Dakota Peace Coalition. I have NDPC literature on my desk with links to Code Pink on them…certainly one must be able to infer that they support Code Pink’s beliefs and actions. If that’s the case, then that lumps them in with the loonies that call our soldiers “predators” and strips them of what remaining credibility they imagined they had.
I’ve been doing a lot of poking around along the river lately as I like to see how the construction of the new bridge is going, and now that the water level of the Missouri River is so low I can find lots of other cool stuff too! For instance, I found what was left of the old wood pilings sticking out of the rocks beneath this bridge, the old Northern Pacific bridge from the 1800s. They’ve had to do extensive work to the Bismarck side of this bridge throughout its history, because the hill keeps sliding. The most recent attempt to shore up the tracks where they meet the hill happened while I was a teenager, and it resulted in the steel beams currently in place.
Perhaps down the road here I’ll post some more of my discoveries from underneath a few of Bismarck’s many bridges. Stay tuned!
I’m no stranger to the tree in these photos. It’s a lone inhabitant of a hill overlooking River Road, just north of Pioneer Park. The housing development on the hill is growing very quickly; the entire area used to be prairie, but now has paved roads cut into it. That means this tree’s cozy environment has been divided into lots, waiting for upscale homes to be built thereon. I wouldn’t be surprised if this little tree becomes a casualty of encroachment, but I’m not about to go out and hug it.
By the way…I’ve probably pointed it out before, but I will again: did you know that Highway 1804 (on the Bismarck side of the river) is numbered for the Lewis & Clark expedition’s trip to the northwest? And did you also know that Highway 1806 (on the Mandan side of the river) is numbered for the expedition’s return?