Who is Ignorant in Seattle?

Yessir, the Seattle Times was all over it - someone flying a Confederate flag in a Seattle neighborhood. Shameful! Harumph, harumph! Scramble the ready alert Truth Squad to expose this heinous example of non-PC behavior in Seattle of all places! I mean, what would San Franciscans think? Just one minor problem. 

When the Truth Squad arrived and inquired of the flag-flyer, turns out he was Norwegian as was the flag he was flying to cheer on the Norwegian Olympic team. Oopsie. Ahem, of course we knew that, and ah ... we'll just let ourselves out, no - sorry to bother you, and ... a have a nice day! Wonder what happened to the neighbor who reported it? Ignorance is bliss I guess and so very PC. 

www.dailywire.com/news/27472/seattle-residents-complained-about-confederate-emily-zanotti

School Shooting Countermeasures

It's time to move the school shooting debate beyond guns/no guns. Two possible counterterror options have emerged since the shooting. 

First, the Florida school shooter was unable to shoot through the reinforced glass at Parkland High School that had been put in place as a safety measure for hurricanes. It would not seem to be a huge problem to make sure that all glass in schools facing an interior hallway was of this type. Even better if all exterior glass was as well.

The second idea is the brainchild of a teenager in Wisconsin. It's a steel bar that slides under the bottom of an interior classroom door and locks down in seconds, preventing the door from being opened even a crack. So far, no one has been able to shove the door open and because it is on the bottom of the door and made of steel, it's almost impossible to shoot out. At $95, it's an inexpensive and effective start to school security. 

It's time to quit yelling and start doing something that really will protect our kids and together, these two items would go a long way toward that goal. 

www.foxnews.com/us/2018/02/20/wisconsin-teen-invents-device-to-protect-students-during-shooting.html

Promotion to Glory

A lion of the Church has died. Billy Graham died this morning at age 99. A plain-spoken man used by God in amazing ways, he will hear from his Savior a "Servant, well done!" And hug his beloved wife Ruth again, who preceded him by a few years. Your life has just begun, Billy. Thank you for your faithfulness while you were here.

Wise Words for Hard Times

We have all endured another horrendous school shooting, this time in Florida, and while most of us are in shock, the political blame games have begun. Mike Rowe is an well known actor who hosts Dirty Jobs and Somebody's Gotta Do It that promotes the dignity of people working in really hard and often unpleasant jobs. Rowe also pitches trucks for GMC, as I recall. He is a very down-to-earth guy and had some down-to-earth words for a fan who wanted to know why he was silent following the Florida school shooting.

Rowe first responded:

"Sorry I’ve been so scarce. I guess I could blame a chaotic production schedule, but the truth is, I’ve been absent because I don’t know what to say in the wake of Florida.

Like most of you, I’m overwhelmed with pity for the victims and their families, but consumed with anger for the coward who chose to murder. Rage and sorrow are hard things to reconcile, and the more such things occur, the more apparent it becomes that there is nothing new to say. So forgive me Susan, if I repeat what I said after Vegas and San Bernardino."

He then went on to say:

"Evil is real. As long as humans have walked the earth, people have chosen to do evil things. This is what happened in Florida. A nineteen-year old man chose to do an evil thing. He planned it. He executed it. He succeeded.

Should we endeavor to know why? Absolutely.

Should we discuss the impact of video games, accessible firearms, single-parents, no parents, powerful medications, social media, mental illness, bullying, or anything else we think might have encouraged him to choose evil over good? Without question.

But we should also stop confusing the influence of such things with the root cause. Because nothing in this man’s past can possibly explain his decision to kill seventeen people. If you believe otherwise, ask yourself why millions of other people with a similar past don't make similar choices.

The past does not equal the future."

Amen. Wise words. It's well worth reading the whole piece. I wish we had more MIke Rowes in Congress and far fewer of the charlatan class that currently reside there.
www.dailywire.com/news/27335/mike-rowes-facebook-response-florida-shooting-frank-camp

The Golden City by the Bay

The Daily Wire reports that, "An NBC Bay Area Investigation reveals a dangerous mix of drug needles, garbage, and feces throughout downtown San Francisco ..."  The piece continued:

"Surveying 153 blocks — a full 20-mile stretch — the NBC investigative team found 'large heaps of garbage, food, and discarded junk,' as well as '100 drug needles and more than 300 piles of feces throughout downtown.' "

The City of San Francisco is spending $30M taxpayer dollars to clean up this crap, thinking I'm quite sure, "How are we going to blame this on Trump?"

www.dailywire.com/news/27348/san-francisco-spends-30-million-cleaning-feces-paul-bois

You Mean They're Not Telling the Truth??!!

Shocker isn't it? The media and the Left would have us believe that President Trump began plotting with the dastardly Russians years before he even knew he would run for President to, yes - run for President! Clever people these. Never mind that it was President Obama who was caught on an open microphone during the 2012 election telling the Russian ambassador to relay to his bosses to hang in there because he would have more "flexibility after the election." Then there was Hillary who pushed the big red "re-set" button for U.S. - Russian relations in a PR stunt, then ran a farmer's market for espionage hackers with her computer server in her bathroom at home with all her email as Secretary of State, but hey, we don't want to confuse anybody with the facts. The narrative, though, is starting to fall apart rather quickly now.

Case in point: Ron Goldman, VP - Advertising for Facebook was interviewed on television this weekend and said this:

“The majority of the Russian ad spend happened AFTER the election. We shared that fact, but very few outlets have covered it because it doesn’t align with the main media narrative of Tump and the election,” he said. “The main goal of the Russian propaganda and misinformation effort is to divide America by using our institutions, like free speech and social media, against us. It has stoked fear and hatred amongst Americans. It is working incredibly well. We are quite divided as a nation."

It is working indeed and predictably, Goldman has caught flak from the Left for blowing the whistle on their disinformation campaign. 

Here are some further facts that have emerged about the "brilliance" of the Russian meddling. They spent a total of $46,000 on their social media ad buys and targeted solid blue states for the most part where a huge majority of voters had long since decided to vote for Hillary. Awesome political strategy to take the election away from the Woman Who Would be Queen. 

Did the Russians meddle? Yes. Was it right to do so? No. Were the Russians stupid and incompetent and of no effect? Yes. But, any port in a storm in the quest to neuter President Trump and kick him to the curb. As Abraham Lincoln said,

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

That is precisely what we are seeing in the intense and vicious continuing campaign against Trump and anyone who believes in this country of whatever color or creed. The Left wants a dictatorship and they intend to get it - they know it's really for our own good even if we don't. 

townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2018/02/20/facebooks-top-advertising-exec-had-a-message-about-russian-meddling-the-left-hated-n2451573

Observation Point

"... the facts of life are conservative."

      

                                         Margaret Thatcher

Remember That Little Problem in North Korea?

Apparently the Chinese do since they have now moved 300,000 troops into position along the North Korean border. To better understand the scope of this deployment, the entire U.S. Army only has approximately 470,000 troops currently on active duty. 

There were also reports in Japanese media:

"... that had revealed evidence of China’s building massive refugee camps near the North Korean border, some that could welcome up to half-a-million refugees. Officials reportedly ordered the construction of such camps in Jilin, the same city where state media published a citizens’ guide to surviving a nuclear war triggered by North Korea."

While most of the U.S. media are occupied with the daily trivialities in this country, they are missing coverage of a huge story that could affect not only American interests in Asia but the continental United States itself if Kim Jong-un gets trigger happy. The Chinese are definintely paying attention. 
www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/02/05/report-china-moves-300000-troops-closer-north-korean-border/

Greater Love

I have read a lot of WW II history over the years and am familiar with a fair number of lesser known details about the conflict. Bob Collins, who heads the Alliance Chaplains ministry for the national office, stumped me with an incident about the "Four Chaplains." He gave me a link, which I quickly clicked, and found a story of amazing faith under the most dire circumstances. 

In February, 1943, the transport Dorchester was in a convoy making its way across the icy Atlantic carrying 900+ troops to Greenland. An escort ship had earlier detected a periscope from a German U-boat, which were known to be in the area. Suddenly, although only150 miles from their destination, the Dorchester took a torpedo deep below the water line from a spread of three fired by the U-223. The Dorchester had been a coastal steamer before the war and carried no armor at all. The torpedo was a terminal blow and it was only a matter of 20 short minutes before the ship slid beneath the waves.

A panicked evacuation began. Troops scrambled for lifeboats, rapidly overloading them. Rafts were flung into the ocean only to have them drift out of sight before anyone from the doomed ship could climb aboard. Over the increasing chaos, four voices rang out. The detachment being transported carried 4 chaplains: a Methodist, a Jewish chaplain, a Roman Catholic, and a Dutch Reformed chaplain. Their voices could soon be heard praying for the dying and wounded, calling for calm amidst the storm, and organizing the evacuation.

Most everyone was on deck waiting to get off and the chaplains were handing out life jackets. When they ran out, the chaplains took off their own and strapped them on four young men. As the ship began to slant and go down for the final time, survivors on the water  saw the four chaplains with arms linked and offering prayers. One survivor, John Ladd, said,
" It was the finest thing I have seen or hope to see this side of heaven...”  Truer words have not been spoken.

The article about the disaster and the chaplains' heroism concludes:

That night Reverend Fox, Rabbi Goode, Reverend Poling and Father Washington passed life’s ultimate test. In doing so, they became an enduring example of extraordinary faith, courage and selflessness."

Indeed they are. The 230 who survived the sinking  will never forget them. Likewise, a grateful nation that awarded them the a medal authorized and awarded only once in U.S. history, the Special Medal for Heroism, has not forgotten. And finally, their Maker has not forgotten them either, as they now know for all time.  
www.fourchaplains.org/the-saga-of-the-four-chaplains/