I love God, guns, Old Glory and America -- and grits too

While I'm bragging on my gun photos, here's another one I really like.

It's a high-bright stainless Colt National Match Royal Stainless Gold Cup 1911 .45 and reflected on the bright polished stainless slide are two stars from the American flag we use in the gun shop for a backdrop on our gunbroker auctions.

If a Colt 1911 .45 and a couple of stars reflected from Old Glory don't make you want to stand up proud and say out loud "Thank God for America!" .... well then just sit down and shut the H--- up.

We started using the flag for a backdrop some time back out of patriotism. Plus the red, white and blue colors give you an excellent color register to indicate whether a photo has off-register colors. We don't have studio lights, just regular bulbs and florescent lighting, so sometimes we get color shifts.

But would you believe we have had complaints about using the flag to show off our guns? If you're one of those who gets your panties in a wad about guns and the flag, well, as I already said, just siddown and shaddup! I love God, guns, Old Glory and America -- and grits, too. And if you don't like it, you can kiss my grits.

Ignoble Obama, Chuck's God & Guns, and Hannah the Hooker

Welcome to Tuesday, another wonderful day in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood as I head off to work at the local hangout for Gun Nutz 'R' Us, also known as the gun shop. Don't you just hate cheerful people in the morning?

Let me start your day off with some words of wisdom from Wesley Pruden, editor emeritus at The Washington Times, the only real newspaper left standing in our nation's capital. Wesley takes at look at President Obama's 'Ignoble Prize.'

Pity Barack Obama. The last thing he needs is another comparison to Jimmy Carter. He could survive the endorsements of his Nobel Prize by Fidel Castro ("a positive measure"), from Dmitry Medvedev, the president of Russia ("evidence of a realistic vision"), or even from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, aspiring Jew-killer and president of Iran ("bringing justice to the world order").

He's got enough with Jimmy Carter already. Mr. Jimmy called the president's prize "a positive development." But celebrating weakness in the face of a challenge and bowing to bullies in an abject hope that the bully will go easy will always turn a real man's stomach. It's the celebration of weakness that's so infuriating. The anger is not about Mr. Obama. Not yet. He hasn't done anything...

The Nobel panel's great expectations are not unrealistic, and the panelists, who made their selection shortly after Mr. Obama was inaugurated president of the United States (not president of the world, as the Europeans suppose), have no reason to be disappointed. His apology tour to the Middle East, his bow to the king of Saudi Arabia, his dithering with Kim Jong-il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his blowing off Poland and the Czech Republic over missile bases to appease the Russians have already redeemed the bet the Norwegians put down on the American president.

The Alfred E. Neuman ("What? Me Worry?") strategy for dealing with despots, which is always the default strategy of the Europeans, inevitably leads to rape, regrets and ruin. The Nobel jury wouldn't have to look far for a caution. Norway tried to appease the Nazis, twice declaring itself neutral shortly before the outbreak of World War II. The Nazis invaded anyway, sending the royal family fleeing to London. Many Norwegians fought bravely in the resistance, but the most memorable Norwegian figure of the war was the infamous Vidkun Quisling, the head of a puppet government whose name became a synonym for traitor.

Nevertheless, appeasement is admired by the Nobel juries. FDR never got a Nobel Peace Prize. Neither did Harry Truman or Winston Churchill. Ditto Ronald Reagan. But Yasser Arafat won in 1994. And of course Mr. Jimmy in 2002. Few Americans, beyond those hopelessly in thrall of the politically correct, are any longer surprised by the silliness of the Nobel Peace Prize juries.

Now let's move on to a genuine American hero, one of those who really deserve a Nobel prize but will never get one, Chuck Norris, who writes about two of my favorite topics, God and guns.

Chuck's Code (Freedom):

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Lynyrd Skynyrd, a legendary Southern rock band, put it well in the title track of their new album, "God and Guns":

"God and guns

Keep us strong.

That's what this country

Was founded on.

Well, we might as well give up and run

If we let them take our God and guns."

And let's close with two more of my favorite people, actually three. Mike Adams writes about a visit with his friend Doug Giles and recalls that first meeting with Doug's daughter, Hannah. You may have heard her name before. She's the famous "hooker" who fried ACORN's taxpayer scam.

Hannah, while she was jogging, decided it would be interesting to dress as a hooker and go into an ACORN office seeking help in furthering a prostitution ring. She got her friend James O’Keefe to play the role of a pimp and go in with her. In the end, they went into several ACORN offices to see whether ACORN would give them money, which comes from taxpayers, to further a criminal enterprise.

The sting worked like a charm. The pair caught ACORN – on film, mind you – giving advice on how to set up a prostitution ring and funnel money into a congressional campaign fund. ACORN workers were even willing to help with the money laundering scheme after they heard of their plan to bring under-aged sex slaves into the illegal enterprise.

Hannah and James went public with the tapes. They have been on national television shows and have almost completely destroyed ACORN’s credibility. ACORN is no longer working on the U.S. Census. And they are on the verge of losing all government support in the form of taxpayer funding.

But, just like a wild hog after it has been shot, the pigs that run ACORN are fighting to the death. And, for a time, they will be more dangerous than ever before. They’ve sued Hannah Giles arguing that their rights to privacy have been violated. Their position is simple:

“We at ACORN are the real victims. We have a right to unlimited taxpayer support. Our former lawyer, Barack Obama, is the President of the United States. We have a right to spend public money without fear of public exposure. We’ll even conspire to allow your taxpayer dollars to fund child prostitution. And you will say nothing about it. Or else we will sue.”

In other words, ACORN is trying to turn America into a third world nation. But you can stop them by helping to defend Hannah Giles. Contribute to her cause www.DefendHannah.com and, together, we can destroy ACORN permanently. And we can toss the carcasses of these swine upon the ash heap of history. And we can forever stop them from feeding at the government trough.

As Hannibal Smith used to say, don't you love it when a plan comes together? Let's help Hannah fry ACORN's taxpayer scam permanently.

God Talk: Common sense from a Berkeley professor?

Believe it or else, there's a writer at the Noo Yawk Times I've added to my bookmarks. Technically speaking he's not a staff writer, just a blogger for the NYT, but what he writes actually makes good ol' common sense, which is quite uncommon today and always has been.

He's Stanley Fish and he's a liberal arts professor in Miami who has also taught at Berkeley and Duke, so he's gotta be just another leftwingnut, right? Well apparently not, based on his current column, which he titles God Talk, his review of a book by a British author.

In the opening sentence of the last chapter of his new book, “Reason, Faith and Revolution,” the British critic Terry Eagleton asks, “Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God?” His answer, elaborated in prose that is alternately witty, scabrous and angry, is that the other candidates for guidance — science, reason, liberalism, capitalism — just don’t deliver what is ultimately needed. “What other symbolic form,” he queries, “has managed to forge such direct links between the most universal and absolute of truths and the everyday practices of countless millions of men and women?”

Eagleton acknowledges that the links forged are not always benign — many terrible things have been done in religion’s name — but at least religion is trying for something more than local satisfactions, for its “subject is nothing less than the nature and destiny of humanity itself, in relation to what it takes to be its transcendent source of life.” And it is only that great subject, and the aspirations it generates, that can lead, Eagleton insists, to “a radical transformation of what we say and do.”

Fish quotes Eagleton's delightful turn of phrase, "Ditchkins", for the atheist/liberal side of the God argument, referring to writers Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.

And as for the vaunted triumph of liberalism, what about “the misery wreaked by racism and sexism, the sordid history of colonialism and imperialism, the generation of poverty and famine”? Only by ignoring all this and much more can the claim of human progress at the end of history be maintained: “If ever there was a pious myth and a piece of credulous superstition, it is the liberal-rationalist belief that, a few hiccups apart, we are all steadily en route to a finer world.”

That kind of belief will have little use for a creed that has at its center “one who spoke up for love and justice and was done to death for his pains.” No wonder “Ditchkins” — Eagleton’s contemptuous amalgam of Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, perhaps with a sidelong glance at Luke 6:39, “Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both fall into the ditch?” — seems incapable of responding to “the kind of commitment made manifest by a human being at the end of his tether, foundering in darkness, pain, and bewilderment, who nevertheless remains faithful to the promise of a transformative love.”

If you've got time for a reasoned argument about God, read God Talk. You may be enlightened.

Bitter, backwoods God and guns lovers threaten DHS

I've been thinking about how to comment on the idiotic Department of Homeland Security report about us dangerous God-and-guns-loving-bitter-backwoods-right-wing-extremists, but just haven't been able to get a round tuit.

And lo and behold (that's a Bible quote in case you missed it, DHS listeners) along comes Doug Giles, who has such a way with words I'll just let him speak for me on that topic. His latest column is about The Department of Homegrown Stupidity.

Let’s see, according to the Whitehouse’s Wizards of Obfuscation, who are the terror threats America needs to be on the lookout for? Is it anti-American douches like Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright? Nope. Is it G20esque smelly-as-a-goat-scrotum eco freaks? Wrong again. Is it Muslim radicals who are sprinkled about our country in both covert sleeper cells and plain as hell death camps? Quit being silly, that’s so yesterday. I know, I know, our cultural Dennis the Menaces are the drug cartels and their rabble that are pouring through our southern borders and kidnapping our kids? No, you lunatic, Pepe ain’t the problem. Quit being so judgmental. Hey-Soos said, “Thou shalt not judge.”

No, serfs of Obamaland, the bad people, the extremists, according to the Department of Homegrown Stupidity are the peaceful millions who love God and the Constitution and are sick of watching the clowns in the Whitehouse drive our country into an economic and moral ditch of which there isn’t a tow truck big enough to winch it out of.

Essentially, the folks everyone in America needs to be on the watch for are . . . themselves, the American soldiers and civilians who don’t do the grinning bobble-head nod when Barack spends our kids’ cash, bows to a Saudi king, trashes our Judeo-Christian heritage and disses the USA on EU soil. Yep, the terrorist threat is now folks like you, me and millions and millions of other peaceful patriots who are waking up to the fact that we are being screwed, glued and tattooed while being utterly ignored.

Don't hold back now Doug. Tell us what you really think about the DHS and BHO's ratpack.

God, guns and gumption; plus 'Why atheists hate God'

Gotta share a couple of columnists from Townhall.com this morning. First Doug Giles writes about his top three interests that give calm to his soul in these trouble times: God, Guns & Gumption.

In these times of uncertainty in which everything that can be shaken will be shaken, I’m not banking on big government wet-nursing me into Nirvana. I believe this suckulus package spawned by the Obama administration is going to leave the Americans who are looking to it as the grand societal salvo more disappointed than Lisa Marie was when she finally locked lips with Michael Jackson.

Nope, I’m fixing my hopes in the coming nightmare on God, guns and gumption. That’s my stimulus package. What’s yours?

Then Frank Turek explains why atheists hate God in Sleeping with your girlfriend.

Certainly the new atheists such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have problems with cosmic authority. Hitchens refuses to live under the “tyranny of a divine dictatorship.” Dawkins calls the God of the Bible a “malevolent bully” (among other things) and admits that he is “hostile to religion.”

It’s not that Hitchens and Dawkins offer any serious examination and rebuttal of the evidence for God. They misunderstand and dismiss hundreds of pages of metaphysical argumentation from Aristotle, Aquinas and others and fail to answer the modern arguments from the beginning and design of the universe. (Dawkins explanation for the extreme design of the universe is “luck.”)

Instead, as any honest reader of their books will see, Hitchens and Dawkins are outraged at the very thought of God. Even their titles scream out contempt (god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and The God Delusion). They don’t seem to realize that their moral outrage presupposes an objective moral standard that exists only if God exists. Objective morality—as well as the immaterial laws of reason and science—cannot exist in the materialist universe they attempt to defend.

In effect, they have to borrow from a theistic worldview in order to argue against it. They have to sit in God’s lap to slap his face.

While both men are very good writers, Hitchens and Dawkins are short on evidence and long on attitude. As I mentioned in our debate, you can sum up Christopher’s attitude in one sentence: “There is no God, and I hate him.”

Despite this, God’s attitude as evidenced by the sacrifice of Christ is: There are atheists, and I love them.

Good stuff. Read both of them.

Guess who invented 2+2? Hint. It wasn't a mathematician

Here's a book I'll try to find time to read, Is God a Mathemetician?

Did you know that 365 -- the number of days in a year -- is equal to 10 times 10, plus 11 times 11, plus 12 times 12?

Or that the sum of any successive odd numbers always equals a square number -- as in 1 + 3 = 4 (2 squared), while 1 + 3 + 5 = 9 (3 squared), and 1 + 3 + 5 + 7 = 16 (4 squared)?

Those are just the start of a remarkable number of magical patterns, coincidences and constants in mathematics. No wonder philosophers and mathematicians have been arguing for centuries over whether math is a system that humans invented or a cosmic -- possibly divine -- order that we simply discovered. That's the fundamental question Mario Livio probes in his engrossing book Is God a Mathematician?

Haven't read it, but I already know the answer. Yes. God invented math. Man discovered it.

Who lit the fuse to set off "The Big Bang"?

Got a couple of hours to consider the most fundamental question in the universe, who laid the zillion tons of dynamite and lit the fuse for the Big Bang? Watch the below video from CrossExamined Blog between Christian author Frank Turek and atheist author Christopher Hitchens as they debate the origin of the universe and whether God had anything to do with it.

Frank Turek writes the short version here at Townhall.com, including this teaser:

When I debated atheist Christopher Hitchens recently, one of the eight arguments I offered for God’s existence was the creation of this supremely fine-tuned universe out of nothing. I spoke of the five main lines of scientific evidence—denoted by the acronym SURGE—that point to the definite beginning of the space-time continuum. They are: The Second Law of Thermodynamics, the Expanding Universe, the Radiation Afterglow from the Big Bang Explosion, the Great galaxy seeds in the Radiation Afterglow, and Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.

While I don’t have space to unpack this evidence here (see I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist), it all points to the fact that the universe began from literally nothing physical or temporal. Once there was no time, no space, and no matter and then it all banged into existence out of nothing with great precision.

Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist? from Andrew Ketchum on Vimeo.

Why do bad things happen to children?

I just received an email from a Bible Q&A reader who asked me a piercing question.

Why do bad things happen to children? My 13-year-old son has brain cancer. I'm not dealing with it very well. He has had the tumor removed and all the treatment. Now it is very tough to sit and wait to see if it will come back. He was a great athlete and now he can hardly walk because of the effects of the surgery. How do I deal with all of this?

Brian M.

And here's my reply that I wrote to Brian M.

Dear Brian,

I will certainly begin praying for your son and will ask others in my church and other Christian friends to help pray for him also. Lots of evil happens in this world for which we have no explanation, your son's brain cancer being a sad example. It certainly isn't his fault or yours.

And answering why is really impossible. The closest thought I can offer is something I heard from a minister once. He answered the question "Why do bad things happen to good people?" in what is sort of a typical Jewish way, by asking another question instead of giving an answer. Have you ever noticed in Scripture how when Jesus was asked a question, He often replied with a question?

Anyway, this minister said instead of seeking an answer to that unanswerable question, perhaps we should consider the question "Why do good things happen to bad people?" because we are all sinners and if the Lord gave us what we deserve, none of us would get mercy, we're all guilty.

So the amazing thing about God is that instead of giving us the judgment we so richly deserve, instead He gives us grace and mercy through the gift of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And by faith in him, we find our sins forgiven and our souls saved for eternal life. That does not change the nature of evil in this world, nor stop bad things from happening to "good" people, saved Christians. But it does give us the assurance that there is a life beyond this one and we will live in God's kingdom eternally there. I hope your son is saved and if so, even if the Lord does not choose to answer my prayers and yours to heal him, you can be assured you will see him perfectly healthy and happy one day in heaven. There his great athletic ability will not only be restored, but even improved to the point of perfection in a new perfect body that will never get sick and live forever.

I hope this feeble answer is some encouragement. Please keep me informed about your son and your struggles with this terrible situation. If there's anything I can do, write or call me anytime.

Yours in Christ,
John Myers

Please add Brian and his son to your prayers.

Answer to 'Biggest Question in the Universe'

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." Genesis 1:1-3.

Guess what NASA's cosmologists have finally figured out? God was right! We're living in the part of the universe where the light is and cosmologists discovered that's only 1 percent. The rest is 3 percent gas and the other 96 percent is this strange stuff called ... darkness!

Let's see, three times as much gas as light, surrounded by a whole bunch of darkness. Sounds more like Washington than the universe.

The Washington Post gives the details of this startling breakthrough in And Now, the Biggest Question in the Universe

The working explanation, though by no means the definitive one, is that everything we know -- the whole cosmic fabric ranging from your coffee cup to the sun to entire clusters of galaxies -- is only about 1 percent of what's actually out there. Another 3 percent or so is hot interstellar gas we can see because it radiates X-rays and radio waves. Then things start getting weird. An invisible substance called dark matter, possibly phenomena such as giant black holes and unseen particles, is thought to compose 22 percent of the cosmos. Everything else, almost three-quarters of the total, is dark energy, a force that is apparently driving the universe apart.

Of course, the NASA scientists aren't satisfied with God's answer. They're trying to figure out just what all this darkness "stuff" is made of. Personally, I'm much more interested in the 3 percent of gas surrounding us here in the light. If we could burn that stuff... free energy!

NASA Astrophysicist Gary Hinshaw says figuring out what all that strange dark stuff is will answer the two biggest questions of all.

"I think it's one of the classic questions of human civilization: Where do we come from, and why are we here?" Hinshaw said.

News flash! God already told us that, too. We were created by God is where we came from and the reason we are here is to glorify Him. All the rest is just groping in the darkness surrounding us. But you gotta be a dumb ol' redneck like me to be satisfied with God's answers.

It’s not about Sarah, it’s about Sarah’s God

Jeffrey Lord at American Spectator

cuts to the root of the anti-Palin mania. It’s not so much an attack on her as it is the God she believes in.

This election is now being fought openly between, as Whittaker Chambers once described the same fight in a different era, "those who reject and those who worship God." Between those who believe "if man's mind is the decisive force in the world, what need is there for God?" -- and America's own Joan of Arc, Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin not only believes in God, she belongs, to the horror of her liberal critics, to the Assemblies of God, an evangelical church. For many liberals this is the equivalent of The Making of the President meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Worse she lives out in practice what Dr. Josh Moody, the senior pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in New Haven, calls, in his book by the same title, The God-Centered Life. Which is to say, in the now abruptly famous case of her Down syndrome son Trig, Palin knowingly refused to opt for an abortion. Nor did she respond to the news of her 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy with anything other than loving acceptance of a new life and encouragement of marriage. Twice over in two now ongoing and very public situations, Sarah Palin has focused on the love of God rather than herself. To those who have vested their life and career comfortably believing there is little need for God because what of what rolls around aimlessly in their heads and those of their like-minded friends at any given moment, to those who view government and the power of the state as an object of worship, this is taken as a serious, gut-level threat. A threat to the existence of their own very carefully structured non-religious secular value system.

They may say they are opposing Sarah Palin. What they really want to defeat is the idea of God.

Who you reckon will win this showdown, the leftwing nutroots and the MSM, or God? I’m giving large odds if anyone wants to place a bet.

‘God, Guns, Lipstick’ issues spark leftwing frenzy

William Kristol pens an op-ed piece for the New York Times that offers the best bird’s-eye view of this strange election season I’ve read so far. He calls the choices facing voters this year a “God, guns and lipstick” election. You’re either for it or against it, take your choice and vote on it.

The good news is that 2008 has been a thoroughly refreshing year. After two decades of Bush and Clinton and Bush presidencies, we’re getting change.

On the Democratic side, the Clinton machine supposedly couldn’t be beaten. It was. In the first real upset in either party’s nominating process in a long time, first-term senator Barack Obama mobilized new voters, volunteers and donors in a way that hadn’t been thought possible, and defeated Hillary Clinton.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party — which had nominated a Bush for president or vice president in six of the last seven elections — chose as its nominee a troublemaker who was George W. Bush’s main challenger in 2000 and his sharp critic for much of his administration. John McCain wasn’t on particularly good terms with either the G.O.P. establishment or the leaders of the conservative movement — yet he won. He then put on a Republican convention that barely acknowledged the existence of the current Republican administration.

And he chose as his running mate Sarah Palin, one of the least-known outsiders to be picked in modern times, and the first woman on a Republican ticket. This in turn sent other establishments into a frenzy.

Kristol explains why McCain’s Palin pick has created such “frenzies” in not only political establishments but also media, academics and feminists.

Is 2008 just a strange year, or is something big happening? Are we seeing one of America’s periodic political and cultural awakenings, one of our occasional, almost-convulsive democratic reactions to what is felt to be too great a distance between the people and their “establishments”? Such awakenings can be sudden and can come at once from different directions. They often have a theme in common, which is an indignant popular demand: “Stop speaking for us and start listening to us.”

We’re gonna get change, no matter which party wins control of the White House and Congress. Question is, which kind of change will we get?

We’re either going to make a sharp left turn toward socialism and bigger government or a sharp right turn toward “God, guns and lipstick.”

These three yardsticks offer the widest possible differences of viewpoints in the two presidential campaigns. McCain-Palin’s traditional church view of God and country vs. Obama’s 20 years in not-reverend Wright’s Black Liberation Theology church and his “God D---- America!” rants.

McCain-Palin’s long record of support for the 2^nd Amendment’s individual right to keep and bear arms vs. Obama and Biden’s gun-control record.

And the lipstick issue is just as stark between the two camps: women as feminists, career first, family last; or the working mom’s family first.

And believe it or else, Kristol finds agreement on Palin vs. Obama from that flaming red-headed liberal op-ed writer at the NYT, Maureen Dowd!

Sarah has single-handedly ushered out the “Sex and the City” era, and made the sexy new model for America a retro one — the glamorous Pioneer Woman, packing a gun, a baby and a Bible.

Her explosion onto the scene made Obama seem even more like a windy, wispy egghead.

Of course, Maureen really wasn’t trying to approve of anything Palin stands for or oppose anything Obama advocates, she somehow she let that pro-Palin, anti-Obama comment slip into her latest screech about how Sarah Palin threatens to bring about the end of the world as we know it.

But if Charlie Gibson can cherry-pick quotes out of context in his interview with Palin, I reserve the right to do the same with Maureen’s screech.

Maureen’s slip of the pen in her anti-Palin column is the classic definition of a political gaffe: “When a politician accidentally speaks the truth.”

Now if we could only get Maureen to read her column aloud on Youtube. That would make a great 30-second commercial for McCain-Palin.

We could call it “Pioneer Woman packing a gun, a baby and a Bible takes on the Windy, Wispy Egghead from Chicago.” Pioneer 1, Egghead 0.

Mercy, Maureen, well played! With friends like you, Obama doesn’t need any enemies. And with enemies like you, Palin needs no more friends.

But something smells sorta funny about Maureen agreeing with Bill Kristol. Is this another deep, dark plot hatched for a Hillary and Bill comeback?

Mama moosehunter vs. the Commie menace

My favorite redhead at the Noo Yawk Times, Maureen "O'Sullivan" Dowd, has her panties all in a wad again. This time it's the audacity of McCain to pick a good lookin' babe, as Rush calls her.

Maureen dips her poison pen and comes up with what I'm sure she sees as a ridiculous movie script starring the Norse queen and formerly obscure moosehunter, VP Sarah Palin, who moves up to the top job and then has a showdown vs. the Commie menace:

The movie ends with the former beauty queen shaking out her pinned-up hair, taking off her glasses, slipping on ruby red peep-toe platform heels that reveal a pink French-style pedicure, and facing down Vladimir Putin in an island in the Bering Strait. Putting away her breast pump, she points her rifle and informs him frostily that she has some expertise in Russia because it’s close to Alaska. “Back off, Commie dude,” she says. “I’m a much better shot than Cheney.”

Then she takes off in her seaplane and lands on the White House lawn, near the new ice fishing hole and hockey rink. The “First Dude,” as she calls the hunky Eskimo in the East Wing, waits on his snowmobile with the kids — Track (named after high school track meets), Bristol (after Bristol Bay where they did commercial fishing), Willow (after a community in Alaska), Piper (just a cool name) and Trig (Norse for “strength.”)

“The P.T.A. is great preparation for dealing with the K.G.B.,” President Palin murmurs to Todd, as they kiss in the final scene while she changes Trig’s diaper. “Now that Georgia’s safe, how ’bout I cook you up some caribou hot dogs and moose stew for dinner, babe?”

I'm sure that's supposed to be ridicule, but there's one little problem, Maureen honey. It sounds like a movie I'd go to see, along with all my bitter, backwoods redneck buddies as we cling to our God and our guns. You can come with me to the show, Maureen, if you promise to shut up.

Three G’s worrying Democrats

As Democrats prepare to anoint their Obamessiah at their convention, there are more signs than just PUMA screams from jilted Hillary lovers that all those happy faces are whistling past the graveyard. When the Washington Post (AKA Obama PR campaign newspaper) has a story titled For Those From Swing States, The Watchword Is . . . Worry, that just might be a sign that all is not hunky-dory under the big Democrat tent.

The story is full of doubters (who Michelle Obama lectured to Monday night), but I offer just one quote from that must-win Midwest state, Ohio:

Sarah Hamilton, a Clinton supporter who works for the Ohio Federation of Teachers, linked Obama's challenges in the state to the resistance that other Democratic presidential candidates have faced in trying to trump social issues with economic ones. "I really think it still has to do with 'Gods, guns and gays.'”

Uh, Sarah, I hate to be nitpicky, but God is usually singular, not plural, at least that’s the way we say it down here in the Bible Belt. But thanks for the thought anyway. On the three G’s, we’re for the first two and try hard to ignore the third, at least those who are out of the closet and strutting their stuff on Main Street. As my daddy used to say, a skunk don’t stink near as bad down on the branch as it does up on Front Street.

As for Obama getting a few of the “God votes,” I’d say that went down the tubes along with the Youtubes of the not-rev. Wright’s “GDA” rants.

A.W.R. Hawkins says it’s getting about time for Obama to get out his six-shooter and go duck hunting to try to bag a few of us guns’ voters.

But though Obama and the Democrats are trying to steal a few of our God and guns votes, but I don’t think too many of us bitter, backwoods rednecks are buying either line. So that leaves the third G, gays, who are an important part of the left-wing fringe and Obama openly says so.

In a letter to the party’s LGBT Caucus — the acronym stands for Lesbian/ Gay/ Bisexual/Transgender — Obama said the group “will be crucial to bringing our Party together and sweeping us to victory on November 4th.”

OK, Mr. O. You can have the LGBT vote. Us God and guns voters like BLTs, but hold the LGBTs, please (with gloves). So yeah, I gotta agree with Sarah. This is shaping up to be a three G’s election and from where I stand, we’ve got the first two and Obama’s got the third unchallenged.

I’m a bit math challenged, but I think in elections, two out of three ain’t bad odds. In election math, we could even call that a landslide victory.

Meanwhile, back at the big party, Michelle Obama issued marching orders last night, telling Democrats "to stop doubting and to start dreaming."

That oughta do it. Just tell ‘em what to do Michelle and they gotta do it. Hey, ain’t she the wife of the man who can tell the oceans to recede?

And speaking of Mr. Oceans-Recede-at-My-Command, guess what he’s up to? Remember his Chicago neighbor, Weatherman-terrorist buddy Bill Ayers? If you need a refresher, Confederate Yankee has the details. Anyway, Obama’s got his panties in a wad over an independent political ad that dares to point out his political ties to Ayers, so guess who he’s asking for help? He’s calling for President Bush’s U.S. Justice Department to investigate the ad. Mr. Bushitler’s DOJ to the rescue? I’m not sure if that’s big brass gonads or just sheer stupidity from the Amazing Mr. O.

Rick Moran at American Thinker says it’s both:

Obama's response is being hailed as a monumental blunder. First of all, it is extraordinarily weak in that it 1) admits Ayers is a "radical;" 2) wonders why McCain is worried what happened 40 years ago when the issue is how Ayers feels now about what he did; and 3) mentioning that Obama was 8 years old when Ayers committed his terrorist acts is not only irrelevant, but weird - a jarring disconnect between the issues raised in the ad and any coherent response by the Obama campaign.

The question of why Obama is on a first name basis with a terrorist is a legitimate one to bring up. But Obama's first response was to try a little hardball and sic the Justice Department on the group putting it out. Not only that, Obama is threatening an advertiser backlash directly to TV stations that run the ad.

As I said, this is hardball politics as it’s played in the Windy City. And those who believe Obama can't get in the muck and root around with the worst of them are underestimating where this guy comes from and of what he is capable of doing if he falls behind.

I have more thoughts about Obama playing hardball and "The Chicago Way" here.

Mark Hemingway at National Review’s Corner also comments on Obama’s request for a DOJ investigation of the Ayers ad:

So let me get this straight — the job of the Justice Department is not to go after unrepentant domestic terrorists such as Bill Ayers, but rather to police campaign ads about Bill Ayers. Real smooth way to handle this, Obama. Doesn't look at all overly defensive or like your campaign is losing control of their bowels over this, nosiree.

Big Trouble in River City

The Noo Yawk Times sent a reporter to tromp through the boonies of rural Pennsylvania to talk to the folks in Raccoon Township about Obama vs. McCain. Despite a majority of folks there having voted for Al Gore and John Kerry in the last two presidential elections, this is bitter, backwoods, clinging-to-guns-and-God country, and the outlook is not good for Obama there, the reporter reports.

James Stanford, a retired and still heavily muscled steel worker, stood at his door and spoke of a pension that had evaporated. “Obama got one thing right,” he said. “We are bitter here.”

…In Raccoon, Kelly Dobbins, a middle-aged factory worker, offered the same. “I’m like a duck in the water — I float there but underneath I’m paddling hard as I can go,” Mr. Dobbins said. “What’s pushing me toward McCain is Obama. Who is he? Where does he stand?”

Ruh roh! We got big trouble here in River City. If Obama loses Pennsylvania (as he did in double-digits to Hillary) he probably loses the election.

And the national polls ain’t looking good for the Obamessiah either, showing McCain either tied or in the lead on the eve of the conventions.

What in the world has happened to The Anointed One? Has his halo slipped? Maureen Dowd, the best-looking redhead on the NYT op-ed board, has a conspiracy theory. I read Maureen’s rants just because I like looking at her mug shot. Always had a weakness for pretty redheads, even when they’re bat-sh!t crazy like her. She’s always good for a laugh and even has an occasional flash of sanity. But it always passes quickly.

Her latest rant is an imaginary vodka-shot party between Hillary and McCain, celebrating their conquest of Obambi and planning his final demise.

Lordy, Maureen! Did you go off your meds again!? Check your roster girl. McCain’s not even a member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, the Reagan-Goldwater wing of the party hates him almost as much as Hillary. And Hillary is the one who first noticed the VRWC way back when Bill was its target. She is a lifetime member of the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, but the VRWC wouldn’t touch her or McCain with a 10-foot pole. That may be the only thing they have in common, other than they’re both Senators. But a conspiracy’s what the left always sees when they’re losing.

Maureen, if you really want to know who’s conspiring for the downfall of Obama, you need to read the funny papers. There you’ll find the famous words of Pogo, the swamp ‘possum: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Obama’s worst enemy looks back at him in the mirror.

Who else could possibly be to blame for hatching that idiotic idea of the fake presidential seal with the “Vero Possumus” Latin logo on it? Pogo?

Pride goeth before the fall, the Good Book warns. I bet that’s one sermon that crazy ‘ol Uncle Jeremiah never preached to adopted son Obama.

Neil Diamond: 'Man of God'!

I heard one of Neil Diamond’s new songs on the radio, I think it might have been “Man of God,” and it made me wonder if he’s gotten saved.

He's still rockin' and rollin' and his new record is the first No. 1 in his long career, says a story about him on his latest tour in the Noo Yawk Times: The Marathon Man of Pop

Always a strong concert draw, he has been making more money on the road than ever before, grossing $168 million over his last three tours, according to Billboard. And in May his 46th album on the Billboard charts, “Home Before Dark” (Columbia) — a set of stripped-down and reflective songs produced by Rick Rubin, who recorded Johnny Cash’s last releases — became his first to reach No. 1.

Like Cash in his last years, Rubin is bringing Diamond to a new generation, but some of the old-timers admit they don't care for the new and improved version, with his new songs.

Linda Aronie, a 56-year-old fan from Canton, Conn., said after the show that she was lukewarm about the new material. “I have to be honest, I’m not crazy about it,” she said. “It just doesn’t seem like him.”

Mr. Diamond said he was not bothered by the response to the new songs.

“I already have ‘Sweet Caroline,’ ” he said. “Most of these people haven’t heard ‘Hell Yeah’ or ‘Man of God,’ but I see them and they’re listening, and that’s really all I want.”

Toward the end of the concert, right after a string of megahits, including “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” and “I’m a Believer,” which he wrote for the Monkees, Mr. Diamond told the crowd he had no plans for retirement.

“This is my job,” he said. “Someone much greater than me gave me that job. He said, ‘You, you with that stupid look on your face — go out and sing until I tell you to stop.’ I haven’t heard the word yet so I’m just going to keep doing it.”

Wow, an old rocker talking about his calling from "Someone much greater than me." Rock on, Neil.

Should we thank God for Obama?

I gotta admit it took me a while to "get" this one but as I read it, the light finally dawned. And it was not the halo around the messiah's head that illuminated me. Kyle-Anne Shiver almost made me spit my coffee on my keyboard when I saw this headline on American Thinker, Why I'm Thanking God for Obama

She explains her line of thought quite well, but the short version is that old business saying about there are no problems, just opportunities. And Obama's candidacy is actually an opportunity, she reasons. I think it's a problem, too, a real big problem. Anyway, I'll let Kyle-Anne take it from here.

The bottom line here is that Barack Obama does not seem to be running against John McCain. He seems to think he's too big for that. As he told a roomful of Congressional Democrats this week, behind closed doors, he is no longer a mere man, he's "become a symbol of the possibility of America." Considering the scope of the promises he is making and the hope he is offering not only America, but the rest of the world to boot, Barack Obama seems to be running against a far higher power than himself.

Barack Obama actually appears to be running against God. By claiming that he can do things only God can do, like heal "broken souls" and fill up "holes" in people's hearts, make all "divisions" go away and disperse with all inconvenient "distractions," Barack Obama claims power that no mortal man, and certainly no mere president has ever had, or ever will have, no matter how much money he has to spend or how brilliant or how able he may be.

Most rational human beings know this without thinking hard.

That's why this isn't an ordinary election, and why it is becoming more absurd by the hour.

But this is a terrific opportunity for all of us mortal Americans who still love this Country and happen to think that our Founders were onto something quite exceptional in the history of human civilization. This election will not pit Democrats against Republicans, but those who love America against those who just love Barack and think he is the one they've been waiting for to finally close the deal and secure their love for an America perfected by the politics of Barack Obama.

Read the whole thing. It's one of the most thoughtful pieces on this election I've read. Then make up your mind -- and vote for McCain!

Thomas Lifson at American Thinker followed up Kyle-Anne's article with this observation about McCain's new ad mocking "The One," in the post directly below this one:

Released shortly after publication of Kyle-Anne Shiver's article today on the Obama campaign's godlike reach, the McCain campaign's new commercial today is devastating. When people start laughing at your pretensions, how do you recover?