The Most Unbiased, Scientific and Accurate Poll, Maybe

The political winds and the fortunes of the different candidates for the Republican presidential nomination have certainly been changing. Each day you turn on the news and someone has moved up or down in the polls or has disappeared altogether. Polls for the most part are amazingly accurate, for that moment in time, but as we have seen in the past, affected somewhat by who is doing the polling. So I thought I would do my own poll and here is what I found. The Republican candidate for president will have the following qualifications according to my poll: He/she will be between 5ft 4in. tall and 6ft 3 inches tall and weigh between 110 lbs and 240 lbs. He/she will be left of center, right of center or in the center. He/she will be between the ages of 50 and 67. He/she will be married, and/or divorced between one an three times and have between 0 and 30 children. He/she will either already be in office, have left office in disgrace or was once in office. He/she will be the next President of the United States. Admittedly this is not a rigid scientific poll. But it does reflect at least as good of information as that provided by any of the networks, print media etc. It is absolutely unbiased, because I wrote it and don't have a biased bone in my body. I am currently waiting for the clouds to part and to be lifted up. Hmmm, I guess this may be a long wait. So if your favorite candidate falls into the above description, I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas, not happy holidays, that is for wusses, and a Happy New Year. If your candidate does not fall into the above description, I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas, not happy holidays, that is for wusses, and a Happy New Year. My new years resolution is to be an equal opportunity blogger, maybe. I promise to be objective, maybe. I promise to limit my biases, maybe. Finally I promise to be entertaining, forthright, honest, true and benevolent, well maybe. God bless and Merry Christmas!

Who Does Your Thinking?

This was a response I wrote to a friend regarding a journalist's article saying why it was good that Herman Cain got out of the Presidential race, but not for the obvious reasons! The author of the email said it all "makes sense to me". This was my reply. Not to me! Pundits don't decide who runs for President. The people do. Cain or even you and I have the right to run. If we can get enough people to back us, then we might be President. This article is much akin to the commentators after a Presidential debate. I don't need anyone to tell me what I just heard and interpret it for me. This journalist is an entertainer just like most others. If you need someone else to tell you what the candidates mean regarding what they do or don't say, then you(any of us) need to get off our back ends and do the homework ourselves. Listening to this diatribe is the "lazy man's/woman's" way of not having to do so. How sad!

My Sabbatical

Thanks to all of you who inquired about this blog. I took some time off to go back to grad school but I am ready now to start sharing some thoughts with you as we head toward 2012. Thanks for your interest and patience. Jim

The death of O_ _ _ _ B _ _ L _ _ _ _.

I do not wish death to any human being. We are all Gods children. The ''being human" part of me wants to rejoice and celebrate the fact that "we got him" and the way it was accomplished. The spiritual part of me asks the question, "what would Jesus do". I try hard to "put off" the mortal man and embrace my spiritual being. In this case it is very hard for me to do. He now becomes a martyr. As we know in many cases of martyrdom, the legacy of the person becomes even stronger than the person themselves when they were alive. I do not want the hate, death and destruction of life that he espoused to become stronger in his memory. I want us to find a way to live in peace.

As a younger man I know that I felt hate and revenge for those who committed acts such as 9/11 and worse, Adolph Hitler comes to mind. Now I see that those feelings never made me feel any better, nothing really changed as a result and that as I have seen in so many people,including myself at times, it only took away from my ability to be the kind of person I believe Christ wants me to be. There is no time or place to celebrate hate or revenge. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord"

So on this day of celebration, according to news reports from around the world, I am tempted to join in. But I pause. In this instance, can I find my spiritual self and look at this through those eyes rather than my physical ones. I will struggle and there will be times when I won't put my "mortal by". I hope and pray there will also be times, as brief as they may be, that the still small voice will whisper in my ear, "well, done, thou good and faithful servant"

Health Care Reform Act ruled unconstitutional

Here is a link to the full text of the ruling so that you may read it for yourself:

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/107134/20110131/roger-vinson-health-care-reform-unconstitutional.html

This is one of the most thoughtful and well reasoned decisions that I have ever read. No matter which side of this issue you are on, his historical, precedent and logical approach to the evolution of the thought and law that bears on this matter, I believe will make it very difficult for the United States Supreme Court to overturn based on either reasoning or law.

This is but a first step. Now we need to, within the Constitution and legal precedent AND listening to the American people this time, go about fixing our health care system. It can be done, the question is will it get done in a bi-partisan way, which it can and should be.

The Speaker of the House has promised to "open up" the system and let the "will of the House" work it's will. We need to keep the pressure on each of our Members of Congress to make sure they follow through on this pledge.