The Congressional Budget Office predicts a $7 trillion deficit by 2019.

The Office of Management and Budget predicts a $9 trillion deficit for that period of time. In addition, it predicts public debt doubling and becoming three-quarters the size of the economy.

This does not make nationalized health care appear affordable, does it? It's like saying "Honey, all of our credit cards are maxed out, we have no savings, our cars both have loans on them and need work, our mortgage is too high. Let's buy a bigger house."

AMAZING GRACE


Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved:
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believed!

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come:
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me,
His word my hope secures:
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this heart and flesh shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease:
I shall possess, within the vail,
A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine:
But God who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.

This is the hymn as originally written by John Newton. You’ll notice stanzas normally left out of the hymnal and that the famous last stanza was added later. Unfortunately, hymnal editors feel free to add and subtract from the originals as people decide that the originals do not fit the times.

I prefer the original.

OBAMA APPOINTS A TASK FORCE TO QUESTION TERRORISTS POLITELY

The purpose of a task force is to make people think things are under control. Obama has been seeking a way to handle all the bad guys at Gitmo. Because George Bush was wrong and therefore all he did was wrong, Gitmo was wrong and Obama needs to find right. Howeve, right turned out to be difficult to ascertain and more difficult to manage.

Gitmo is wrong, so close it. OK, done. What do we do with the bad guys? No one wants them. I thought we should smuggle them into Mexico in RVs, but the president would not go for it because RVs don't get good gas mileage.

Then, after having a few beers with a cop and a professor, he got curious about what all those bad guys might know that would be useful. So he decided to question them. He appointed the task force to decide how to do that.

Of course, the task force decided there needed to be a committee to oversee asking questions. I knew this would happen because I am a Southern Baptist, at least until the powers that be discover this blog.

Southen Baptist pastors often appoint task forces to look at a problem and decide that what the pastor wants to do about it is a good idea. Then, they appoint a committee to do what the pastor wants and to tell the congregation it was there idea.

This is what Obama is doing. Although he clearly is no Baptist. A Baptist would not have had a beer with the cop and professor. He would have had chicken fried steak, baked potatoes and pie.

Anyway, I digress. Oh, and there will be a task force to decide how to move the prisoners from Gitmo, which is bad, to someplace less bad where nobody wants them.

But, first, let's ask them questions. But, we cannot play loud music. That would be bad. Like Metallica, for example (Can you feeeeeeeeel it). When the terrorsits head ban, their turbans fall off. So, that is no good unless you are in France where they outlaw Muslim clothing under the idea that will change the fact the country is becoming Muslim.

Anyway, I digress. So, the guys will come up with techniques to politely question bombers and murders and fanatics.

So, today I am announcing that I have managed to obtain access to highly confidential documents while the President is on vacation. Here are the suggestions of the task force. You read it here first.

First, offer the Freedom Fighter a jelly donut if he will tell us where the next attack will be or who the other Freedom Fighters are. Sprinkles will be added for telling us where Osama Bin Laden is hiding. Tell them we do not want to kill Osama, we only want to have a conference call with him and he is not answering his satellite phone.

If the Freedom Fighter will not accept the donut and talk, sing "Mandy" in your most nasal tone. When he begins to weep and ask him for mercy, ask him the questions and give him a jelly donut.

Third, if he starts to sing along with "Mandy" and do a Barry Manilow impression minus the plastic surgery, tell him if he does not talk, we are going to enroll his grand parents in the new Obama Health Program For The Greater Good of Not Sick People. Although there are no death panels as alleged by the evil Sarah Palin, there will be some counseling involved. The people who do it used to be Gitmo interrogators.

The new interrogators, who will be renamed Receivers of Voluntary Information From Freedom Fighters, may not deprive prisoners of sleep and, in fact, must tuck in all prisoners at night, using hospital corners on the bedding. If the Freedom Fighter requests a bed time story or a lullaby, that request must be granted. CDs of the Obama Childrens Choir and Army will be provided, and the stories will be read to harmonious back ground music by VP Joe Biden.

Waterboarding will not be allowed and in fact will be replace by water skiing.

Finally, the Obama task force will develop a "scientific research program for interrogation" to develop new techniques and determine a set of best practices on interrogation. They expect suggestions like, let them participate in the cash for clunkers program. If they want an abortion, they should be given one at taxpayer expense. Free medical care will be included unless the Freedom Fighter is over 55 years of age, and in that case they will be counseled about the benefits of shuffling off this mortal coil.

In addition, each Freedom Fighter will receive a Federal Bailout of $100,000. A third task force will be implemented to decide what reporting requirments will be in place and what the money can be spent on, but those guidelines are not expected to come out until after the Freedom Fighters receive the money and move on to other projects. However, an honor code will be in place.

Finally, as a show of good faith to the world, the entire Bush administration will be arrested and placed at Gitmo as soon as Obama can talk the Chinese into purchasing a bond issue to finance the program.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate past interrogation abuses. Since there will be no present or future abuses, that need not be addressed. However, Obama's name may not be mentioned in connection with the investigation or prosecution because he is "going forward" and prosecution would be "looking backward" an he does not think that is in the country's best interest. And the country has enough interest on the debt he has incurred already.

A minority view was presented by the task force, but rejected. That view was that this has taken so long and is so mired in red tape, it would be easier to close Gitmo and send all the detainees on a cruise during hurricane season.

MORE EMAIL I RECEIVED TODAY:

"Obama's health care plan will be written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it and whose members will be exempt from it, signed by a president who not familiar with parts of it, funded by a treasury chief who did not pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that is broke."

What could possibly go wrong?

(find the answer under "United States Postal Service")

INTERESTING EMAIL I RECEIVED TODAY:

OFFICIAL MASSAGE

This is to notify you that after we met today with The President, Finance Minister, The Senators, House of Representatives and The Central Bank Governor and we came to a conclusion that we have to pay you the sum of $5m and the balance will come later. The payment will be via Diplomatic courier service, therefore send your address and tel. no.

Your immediate respond is urgently needed.
Charles Soludo
2348076445452


Wow! I did not know allthose important sounding people even knew who I am, muchless thinking I deserved $5 million with more to come. Now that is a stimulus package. I could afford to trade my car in on the Cash for Clunkers program! I might could pay my taxes next year!

But, no. I guess someone falls for this, since they keep sending these messages to me.

I sent them your address and telephone number.

SQUEAKY FROMME IS OUT OF PRISON
(RIGHT HERE IN FORT WORTH)

Dedicated follower and lover of Charles Manson, Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme, has served her time after her conviction for attempting to assassinate President Gerald Ford. She served 34 years.

She should not expect to see a lot of yellow ribbons tied around the local oak trees.

Fromme apparently tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford in Sacramento, California. Oddly, the gun had no bullet in the chamber, although there were bullets in the clip. That means it would not have fired had she pulled the trigger without racking the slide. She claims she only wanted to get attention and be heard, not to kill him. She succeeded only to a limited extent.

Fromme wanted to call Manson as a witness in her trial. The judge refused because it would give him a pulpit to rant and rave. Fromme refused to participate in the proceedings from then on, except to hit the prosecutor with an apple at one point.
She was convicted in 1975 and given a life sentence.

Fromme attacked a fellow prisoner with a hammer in 1979. She escaped from prison in 1987 and was captured. She received additional time on her sentence for the escape. She became eligible for parole in 1985, but waived her right to a parole hearing. Federal prisoners who are sentenced to life usually get parole after 30 years.

Fromme is now 60. She has been in prison here in Fort Worth at the old Carwell Air Force Base, now a federal prison for women. It is now called the Federal Medical Center at Carswell. She has been in the maximum security unit. That's where they keep the Bad Girls.

I think the interesting thing will be to see if she tries to go see Manson, who is still in prison in California with a swastika tattoed on his forehead. She called him a “once in a lifetime soul”. We can only hope she is right.

Fromme grew up in what appeared to be a nice home. Her father was educated and supported the family well enough for her mother to stay home. They lived in Santa Monica, California. However, in high school she started taking drugs and began to decline. Manson, for his part, had already been to prison. He met Fromme in 1967 on Venice Beach right after his release from Terminal Island. She took up with him immediately and ran off with him.

In 1969, Manson and some of his followers broke into a house and killed every one there, including actress Sharon Tate and the baby she carried. Fromme stayed at the abandoned ranch that was there home while this mass murder was committed. Manson and his crew were arrested. Fromme camped outside the courthouse during the trial. She carved an “x” into her forehead when Manson did the same during the trial. I guess when her mom said "would you jump off a bridge just because everyone else did" she would say yes if Manson was part of the everyone.

She refused to testify in the case and was held in contempt.

She continued to be loyal to Manson, though. He basically sold her and the women in his group to the Aryan Brotherhood in prison for protection. She sent nude photos of herself to the prison and moved in with some of the guys when they got out, to pay off Manson’s debt. Although she was not convicted of it, she evidently had some involvement in a murder committed by these guys, killing a man and his wife at a cabin, leaving behind a baby girl.

Fromme has also practiced a religion that Manson invented. It is a shame she did not embrace real religion and give her life to Christ rather than Manson and the devil he represents. Her master used her and abused her and she came back for more. Christ would have loved her and changed her and made her life useful.

Manson was the ultimate adolescent. Fromme thought he saw everything differntly than everyone else. Basically, he was saying "you're not the boss of me" to everyone. He wanted to be offensive and repulsive and he succeeded, although he deluded himself into thinking he was important and different. Unfortunately, he was able to pursuade a goup of rebellious adolescents, with the assistance of drugs, that he was in fact an original thinker and someone who would do great things, leading them to a new and shiny place they would like. He played his pipe; they danced to his tune.

Most of them went to prison and spent their lives there. Fromme debased herself in everyway possible and somehow believed she was still making a statement. Instead, she became a curious and sad foot note to Manson's tawdry tale.

What a sad waste of a life.

KIRK DOUGLAS ON THE HEALTCARE REFORM THING.

LATE NIGHT INTERNET

So, it's Friday night. The Little Woman has gone to bed early because she has to get up at 4:30 and care for sick, pregnant ladies. The Oldest went upstairs to read. So, I turned on the laptop and brought up the Internet.

I trolled over to one of my favorite sites.

I scrolled over to the tab for video.

I clicked.

The video came up in crystal clear detail.

I watched a John Piper sermon.

It was great. I mean think about it. When we got cassette tapes, we thought it was wonderful to hear tapes of great preachers. Now, I can not only listen to them but watch them. I even had headphones on so I would not disturb my sleeping beauty.

A decade ago, I might not have even heard of John Piper. I now hear him preach whenever I wish, and the wireless is working. Sure, there is much about the Internet that is lamentable, but God is sovereign over the Internet, too, and he uses it to his glory. And one way he does it is by nourishing Larry's soul at odd hours with a word from his word.

Is God great or what.

SHOWING MERCY WHERE NO MERCY WAS SHOWN

Mass Murderer Abdelbeset al Megrahi is home free. The friends and relatives of his victims will likely be forever imprisoned in their grief and, now, their outrage.

Megrahi killed 270 people at one time. He placed a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 and caused it to explode over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing all the people on board and some on the ground. You might remember the pictures of the remains of the broken up plane lying in a field in Scotland, debris, bodies and body parts strewn over a wide area. People from 21 countries were murdered that day. The most, 169, were from the United States. These included a group of Syracuse University students trying to return to school. It was Britain's deadliest terror attack.

Megrahi was a Libyan intelligence agent. Libya formally accepted responsibility for the bombing. So, it was not only a mass murder, but an act of international terrorism by a hostile government. He was eventually convicted and given a life sentence. He lost one appeal, but had been allowed to mount another. He dismissed the appeal because British law would not allow his release while an appeal was pending.

Megrahi is said to be dying of prostate cancer. He has been in a British prison since 2001, but is being released on compassionate grounds. The stage was set when Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, met with Brittish Lord Mandelson, obviously working out the terms of a deal to secure the release of the murderer. Others point to Tony Blair, former prime minister of Britain, who met Gaddafi two years ago, right before the announcement that British Petroleum had a new oil contract with Libya.

Megrahi served only 8 years for killing 270 people. That’s about 11 days for each murder.
Some, including David Horovitz at the Jerusalem Post, say the real reason is not compassion, but fear of the second appeal that Megrahi had been allowed to pursue.

Horovitz writes: “By setting Megrahi free now, the British authorities are ensuring that any such miscarriage will not be definitively exposed. Critically, the widely held belief that it was Iran, and not Libya, that orchestrated the Lockerbie bombing, and that it was carried out by the Syrian-hosted Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, will not be put to renewed legal test.”

At the time of the bombing, many felt it was Iran’s revenge for the United States shooting down an Iranian Airbus full of passengers during the Iraq war. Their threat to make the sky rain blood seemed to have been kept since most of the victims were Americans.

Horovitz makes a good point when he says “You do not set free the one man convicted for the gravest single act of terrorism ever to hit Great Britain, the terrorist attack that saw more American civilians killed than any other bar 9/11, simply because he is dying. You keep such a man locked up until he draws his final breath.”

Megrahi landed in Libya about an hour ago. The Libyans did not treat the matter as the end to a tragedy and quietly receive the man back to his family. No, they treated it as the return of a hero. The government sent a jet to retrieve him. Thousands of people showed up and cheered his return. They wore t-shirts with his image and waived Libyan flags.

Clearly, Libyans see this man as a terrorist and applaud his mass murder of Americans. In addition, he was escorted from the plane by Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Gaddafi embraced him at the door of the plane. A red carpet was thrown down for him to walk on.

Certainly, mercy should be extended where appropriate. But justice is also of great value. They must be balanced.

No society, no world, can operate without justice. This is not justice. This is not even mercy. It is a political deal. In this case, mercy would include medical treatment and visits with family. Justice requires that a man at least serve out his life in prison, if not face execution, for mass murder. I cannot think of a case in the U.S. where any mass murderer has ever been released from prison, and I don’t think we’ve had any here than killed 270 people.

To his credit, President Obama both opposed the release and told Libya not to celebrate the event. He was unsuccessful at preventing either.

To the Islamic world, the West has shown itself to be both stupid and weak in their eyes. They send killers. We send them back to their families in Nike hats and white jogging suits. They execute people for having affairs and wearing the wrong clothes. They put tourists in jail for slights against their culture or walking into the wrong part of the desert. They have to be laughing at us today and shaking their heads in wonder.

This is one of the days Lady Justice is glad she has a scarf over her eyes.

RANDOM THOUGHTS ABOUT HEALTHCARE

Doesn't North Korea have national healthcare?

WHOOPING COUGH IS BACK

The local public hospital reported eight cases of whooping cough, also known as pertussis.

A lot of people think pertussis is one of those diseases that has disappeared. Unfortunately, that is not true. With the rise of immigraion and the movement to refrain from vaccination of diseases, many of the old things we thought were gone have returned. You can get the Tdap immunization and booster shot from most physicians.

Pertussis\Whooping Cough is a respiratory tract infection. Those who have it cough frequently and are prone to coughing fits or spasms. The cough can last for three weeks or longer. It is contagious. You can be tested and treated for it. It takes two to three days to get test results back. If your results are positive, you will likely receive five days of antibiotic medicine. You are no longer contagious after the fifth day. The cough, however, can continue for three weeks or longer.

LES PAUL HAS DIED

Legendary guitar player, recording artist, inventor and innovator has passed away.

THE SPACE STATION: WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE

Hre is a great animation from USA Today that shows how the Space Station was constructed. Go here.

Congratulations to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Louisville, Kentucky, on 150 years. The seminary has become the flagship of Southern Baptist seminaries under the leadership of Dr. Albert Mohler. The faculty includes many outstanding theologians. I wish I could attend.

HT: Founders

TURMOIL CONTINUES IN NORTH AMERICAN MISSION BOARD:
GEOFF HAMMOND RESIGNS FOLLOWING TRUSTEE MEETING

Two years ago, the Board of Trustees of the North American Mission Board (NAMB) believed God wanted them to hire Geoff Hammond as president of the agency. He was hired by a unanimous vote. Today they decided they were wrong.

Rumors have been flying for a week or so that a movement was being orchestrated by certain trustees to get rid of Hammond. Today Hammond and three associates resigned after a specially called trustee meeting that went on for seven hours. The board met in executive session, which is political speak for in private, so no one will know the tenor of the discussion unless it is leaked. It seems there are two things you can always count on in SBC agencies. First, they will be in continuous political turmoil. Second, they will meet in secret and not reveal who did what to whom. This particular meeting was first set to include only the executive committee of the board, but other members of the board found out about the agenda and demanded a meeting of the full board. Whether all the Southern Baptists who send money to the NAMB for its operations will ever learn why its representatives took this drastic action is questionable.

Certainly the NAMB intends to keep its secrets. Tim Patterson, Chairman, North American Mission Board, Board of Trustees, issued a statement saying that the men had resigned and the usual drivel about how it is a hard time for them, then ended with “I will not have any further comments for the media tonight, but we will be sharing more information with you very soon.” ( In other words, we will not say anything until we get together and decide how to present it.) Interestingly, Patterson made complimentary statements about Hammond at a commissioning service this May. Were those statements not true? Did Patterson change his mind within the last two months?

Patterson also said this about Hammond: "[he is one] who for the past two years has led NAMB with a steady, efficient and effective hand. He has consistently sounded the clarion call that North America is a mission field. And he has done all this with a Christ-like attitude that I have had the privilege to witness firsthand."

The NAMB trustees also unanimously approved a resolution describing NAMB as "an efficient and effective Southern Baptist entity that takes seriously the good stewardship of the Cooperative Program and Annie Armstrong Easter Offering dollars entrusted to us by Southern Baptists."

The three staff members who resigned are Dennis Culbreth, senior assistant to the president; Steve Reid, senior associate to the president for strategy development; and Brandon Pickett, communications team leader.

Hammond was highly touted by the Board and other prominent people in SBC life. He is a son and grandson of missionaries and was a missionary himself. He had been a church planter for the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia Convention. He also had an administrative role with that convention. He has also been a pastor, a seminary professor and a director of missions. .

The Board's president search committee recommended him after a nine month search. They billed that search as “intensive”. The search committee chairman, Greg Faulls, said “Dr. Hammond has proven himself to be a successful leader, strategist and practitioner in church planting missions and evangelism throughout his ministry career. Hammond understands missions at every level. He has proven skills and experience planting churches and strategically directing church planting in associations and a state convention. He is gifted in leadership and adept in the areas of business administration. He is bilingual and has a grasp of the complexity and diversity of the harvest field and clearly understands the importance and dynamics of NAMB’s relationships with her state partners. In addition, he is fully supportive of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.”

Faulls had stated in the beginning they were determined to seek God's man.

When Faulls announced the decision to present Hammond, he invoked God's approval by saying "We were so moved by the hand of God through the process concerning Dr. Hammond that we are presenting a recommendation to you unanimously as a committee-a true unanimous recommendation from our committee." If they were moved by the hand of God, how could they make a mistake that had to be corrected after only two years.

What is going on at NAMB? Is the Board micro managing the agency so severely that the only way to survive is to be a puppet for the Board? It has not been that long since Bob Reccord came and went in the same position. Is it that the Board is incompetent to judge good character?

Regardless, the Board is again without executive leadership and floundering. How can we hope to reach North America with the gospel through an agency that cannot manage it business. And how can we ask Southern Baptists across America to give money to such an agency?

IT'S OFFICICIAL: THE WISE LATINA IS NOW JUSTICE WISE LATINA

Sotomayer has been approved by a 2-1 margin as Supreme Court Justice, the first Hispanic on the high court.

There are advantages to eating vegetarian. 35% of the world's grain production is now fed to livestock instead of people.

Americans consue twice as much meat as the Chinese. Yet, China now raises half the world's pigs. China now has to import grain to feed all the pigs. All that is grain that cannot be fed to people who use grain as the staple in their diet, and likely cannot afford meat.

There are 35 million starving people in the world.

Ethanol production, mandated by the United States Government, used 30 percent of the 2008 corn crop in America.

That caused the price of corn to triple from the 2005 price to over $8.00 per bushel.

DEAR AL GORE,
SUBTITLE: HOW ETHANOL IS STARVING POOR PEOPLE

The corn used to make one 25 gallon tank of ethanol would feed one person for a year.