Comments

I appreciate all comments. I enjoy blogging because at least someone hears me. If nobody listened, I would do a diary instead. I need no agreement regarding anything I post, I do however require no cussing. I like the blog to be family friendly.

I have previously admitted to being a terrible cusser, I am. I cuss a lot. I just don't blog with cussing. It it is unnecessary and when one writes, one should take time to choose their words. The emotions should be clearer and not hidden or amplified by cussing.

I will continue with the blog as long as I know somebody, anybody, continues to want to hear my words. The blog continues to be about looking at the world in a way other than we have been trained. It is about looking at events from another perspective and looking at ourselves from another perspective. In the end, it is not and never has been about me. I mention things in my life; but, only to make a point and all I know is my life.

Of Kings and Queens

A recent poll showed that the majority of Canadians no longer wanted to be under the monarchy. Heck, most didn't know how much they were under the monarchy until the Governor General closed their Parliament last year. I want to talk about the concept of royalty.

Kings and queens are referred to as Royalty. They are given privileges based on nothing other than their birth. Your genes or marriage make you special. Kings and Queens have subject, you are subject to their whim. They are allowed to decide how you will live or if you will live.

There was a time when having kings and queens made sense. Countries could not vote and most were ignorant. Nations, as they grew, needed representatives to deal with other nations. Many took advantage of their position. Caligula and Nero are good examples of this. Often, monarchs claimed to have been appointed by God or in the case of some to be of God or be God. The Pharaohs were big on saying they were Gods on earth.

Why would any country with an educated populace and a constitution want to have a King today? It seems sort of unnecessary and elitist. Personally, I cannot see myself bowing to a queen or king unless forced to. If one studies the history of European royalty we find they were inbreds. The result was a high incidence of hemophilia. There is a reason you are not supposed to sleep with your family members.

"Royals" have always referred to the rest of us in such charming ways. We are the "commoners" (That is why the representatives of non-royalty in England are called "The House of Commons"), in private we are referred to as the "great unwashed masses" or other such dismissive phrases. Recently, the head of British Petroleum referred to the people of the gulf coast as the "little people".

The whole idea of royalty is that you have betters, they don't have to even prove it, it is there by birth right. There is a lot of discussion about citizenship and rights, we are looking at who deserves less and who deserves more. When you question others having the same rights as you, you justify others having more rights than you based on birth alone.

Be careful what you wish for, you may get it. We need to step back for a moment. Do we believe in human rights, that can be lost if we violate those of others or do we believe in birth rights? It is not a crime to be born and we do not pick our parents. A child born of illegal aliens committed no crime, being born is not a crime. The baby had no intent to commit a crime, it is a baby.

Recently, I was in a disagreement with a neighbor. He confronted a young man living in my home, he asked him to prove that he had a right to be in his neighborhood. I corrected the neighbor. The neighbor said he was just protecting the neighborhood from outsiders, he said he kept an eye out on the blacks and Mexicans. He was an idiot, still is.

I feel very blessed to have friends who are black, Mexican, gay, straight, white, asian, rich, poor, smart, not quite as smart, bikers, politicians, buisnessmen and women, ones that can cook (my personal favorite) and whatever else you can imagine. People are often surprised by who associate with, they look at me and see a very conservative person in lifestyle. I am.

I know a couple who chose to have an open marriage. I would never choose such a thing, it goes against what I believe for me. They were concerned that I might have a negative opinion of them because they knew of my Christian beliefs (they are also christian). I assured them that I had no such feelings. It is not for me to judge their mutually agreed upon chosen lifestyle. I am not a king or God and do not wish to be either. I am happy to be me, that is hard enough.

I don't have a lot of requirements for others. I ask that people not be violent and respect others. I also ask that they don't steal from me. I expect mistakes, heck I make them, we all do. What I do not respect is asking others to conform to my beliefs or my lifestyle. In exchange, I expect them to not attempt to put the same on me. I am a very fundamental Christian, few of my friends are the same and we seem to get along fairly well.

As a Christian, I believe God made us different for a reason. He made us different from each other. I believe Satan likes conformity, I believe dictators like conformity, it reassures them that they are right and better than the rest of us. When we attempt to force conformity, we become like mini-Satans or mini-dictators. I wish neither job.

There is right and wrong. The evils we commit on one another, the lies we tell, that is evil. There is imperfection, we all have it, the harms we do to ourselves. We can protect ourselves, we should not attempt to control others to make them like us. Or at least that is what I believe.

Loving oneself

Do you love you? Do you love being you? I would honestly say that I do not always love me; but, I always love being me. I know plenty of people who love themselves; but, don't love being themselves. There is a difference. The difference is quite fundamental.

If you don't love yourself; but, love being yourself, you will always seek to improve. If you love yourself; but, don't love being yourself, you will not change and will always love being yourself less.

Love is funny.

Liars and scientists and the media

Recently I read something about it raining fish. This has happened on more than one occasion, actually search it and you will find that it has happened many times. The common answer from the media, scientists and others who haven't investigated is that it is caused by cyclones hitting the ocean. Just a couple of problems.

Often what falls is fresh water fish. You might argue that the fish were taken from a lake; but, nobody has ever witnessed such a thing. If a lake disappears someone is going to notice. The other problem is that whenever it rains fish, they are all the same species. How come no lobsters, or shrimp. No they stay on the bottom. How bout, how come no seaweed? Now that is a better question.

I won't bother posting to any articles. You can search for it. There was a gentleman named Charles Fort, he used to search out such anomalies and then report on them. In the early 1900s he reported on the fish falling from the sky. We still get such reports and more often than one would anticipate. Mr. Fort said they probably just materialized in the sky. I am not convinced by his answer; but, it is better than that of the scientists.

I don't know the answer to fish falling from the sky. Heck, I don't understand electricity running down a wire. I know the answer I have been told, I just don't understand it. It seems like magic. I find, more often than not, that science wants to explain anything it cannot explain. Because they are scientists and have a title, we tend to believe them. Heck, we believed Bernake and Paulson and Greenspan. We like titles.

This is an article on a mystery cloud circle that appeared in Russia. There is even a video of it. The video has been seen by many, many people.

The scientists have an explanation for the cloud holes. It is caused by planes and we just figured this out. I have a couple of questions, not that I distrust Greenspan, I mean scientists. After all they are pure in their talks about global warming. They would not rush to judgement or say what was popular. Hmmm, I may have to modify that statement.

In the story about what the scientists have learned I have a couple of problems. Firstly, the angle of the clouds. Planes do not go straight up into the sky, look again at the Russian cloud. My second problem is that the Russian clouds, and others, are round on the outside and inside. The picture provided by the scientists was not the same.

The issue is not clouds, it is not fish, it is about accepting what you are told as soon as some is deemed an expert. I don't know why sometimes fish fall from the air; but, I do know that a guess by a scientist without looking at the particulars of the actual event is not science. Scientists hate anomalies, it means they don't know everything, they don't. Heck they cannot even explain awareness.

Corruption of the one

There is a lot of discussion about corruption. I myself have discussed the corruption that has destroyed the pension system in the United States. It is easy to point to the corruption of those on top, those who get a lot for their corruption; but, corruption does not start at the top, it starts at the bottom and works it way up.

In Argentina they destroyed their whole country because corruption became acceptable, a way of life. In the end it resulted in Argentina's collapse. This video recites what happened in Argentina. It is twelve parts; but, highly informative and quite prophetic regarding what is happening in America.

Corruption begins in the heart. It begins when we covet things and are willing to lie to ourselves or cheat others to get what we want. One pastor gave a great description of how adultery begins. He said in his decades of talking to couples, adultery always began with something simple, like a lunch, that was hidden from the spouse. It was hidden from the spouse because the person was already fantasizing.

Corruption begins the same way. People "fudge" on their taxes or take a tool from work. Once done, the person begins to justify it. It creeps in because the justification means other thefts are okay. I am the first to say that I have taken more than one pen away from work, I am terrible with pens. I lose them and can never seem to keep them around. Because of this, I refuse to let my work buy me nice pens, I insist on the cheapest pens we have. Fortunately, with computers, I use pens less. The point is, I don't justify taking them. Not that anyone would care if I did. I am salaried and work is 24/7.

My employer bought a really nice laptop for me. It was state of the art, I mean a really nice computer. I wouldn't use it, I gave it to the Systems people. I use my personal computer to do work because I don't want to drag around two computers or use their computer for my personal business. I use my employer's cell phone, it has unlimited calling so it cost them nothing. I used to use my personal cell phone because I made personal calls and business calls. I did not charge for using my personal phone. While, because I am salaried, I am allowed to use my corporate phone, I preferred to use my personal one for both. Now I have to carry two phones.

I am far from perfect, in oh so many ways. I am just a guy. Yet, I try to not allow myself to be corrupted. It is not about being perfect, I am not, it is about catching yourself before you go too far down the slope. I used my employer's fax machine to send something out recently, I did. It may have cost them 40 cents but I doubt it, it doesn't matter. I had to send something quick and I used it. If they want, I will pay the 40 cents. I will not justify it by the fact that my salary was cut 10%, it changes nothing.

I am not so naive as to believe that none of my employees looks at the stock market or Amazon during the day. I know they do. I am more concerned about them getting their work out. I expect deviations from perfection. I am more concerned about moral corruption, when you know what you are doing is over the top. I don't expect people to think only about work for eight hours a day, that would be a living hell. We must accept that people are people. It is when they know what they are doing is wrong that corruption sets in.

Nobody waits till they become president to decide to become corrupt. It is a ladder that one climbs. The one at the top of the ladder is no more corrupt than the one at the bottom and both justify what they do by looking at the other. The guy at the top says that the guy at the bottom would do the same thing and the guy at the bottom says that the guy at the top is doing the same thing. Justification, baloney.

Corruption is not about a dollar amount, it is about a heart and intent. The fight against corruption is a daily thing, it is for life. Sometimes we fail. I am not talking about stealing, I am talking about selling out, about justifying. We think we are better than others because we don't do whatever, pick one, our favorite sin that we do not engage in. It could be homosexuality (not a condemnation of gays, things people look down on more than their own actions) or theft or adultery or love of money or bigotry or whatever, the one we are not driven by, whatever it is. We are all imperfect and sin, have corruption.

We have a tendency to look at the log in the other person's eye to justify what have done or what we have not done. We look at the other person rather than our own failings. There are plenty of shortcomings to go around. It is valid to look at them; but, we must remember our own. Not what the world says is our, what our own heart convicts us about.

For me my worst action was slamming someone's hand in a picture frame when I was 13 or so. I did it just to see what would happen. That was evil. I have made many mistakes since then; but, that one was pure evil. I did it and wasn't angry at the time.

My youngest did some things she should not have in the past. My answer to her was that she could not do wrong by me because all I want is what is best for her. She can only do herself wrong. I think this is how God looks at us. We can only hurt ourselves, we cannot hurt him.

It says that Satan accuses day and night. He does not make things up, we do bad things. We should not ignore corruption. We should applaud repentance; but, what we repent can only be known by our heart, what we knew was morally corrupt, not by some measuring stick that someone else holds. That is rules and not heart, corruption is about the heart. Be well.

Microsoft and clouds

In the not too distant future it is indeed going to be a cloudy day. Microsoft is offering their Office suite on-line for free to individual users, Google does the same; but now Microsoft is in the game. This means that you no longer need to store the program on your computer and it will always be current.

On the other hand, your documents will sit on Microsoft's servers. The government will have access to your personal documents even though you did not send an e-mail. That is the current state of the law. You had darn well better decide what type of things you want to keep private. Consider how casual comments made by someone can be used against them later now.

Try writing a book and storing it on the cloud. Tom Clancy would be at risk. On a lighter note, here is a link to some wonderful music. The composer is long dead and he no longer has a copywrite issue.

The Russians are now creating their own cloud.

You have to hear this

This is a link to a YouTube video. I will not explain it, just watch it for yourself.

What do you hear?