Here’s a youtube video produced by the Ron Paul folks that show some highlights from the recent debate on MSNBC, plus some endorsements from folks like Pat Buchanan.
And here’s the comments from the McLaughlin group:
You need to listen to these comments by presidential hopeful, Rudolph Giuliani, to a New York ferret advocate. Worse than displaying his sheer idiocy, his rant shows how this guy thinks. In 1999, Mr. Giuliani passed a law banning ferrets in New York City.
Now, I’m not really an animal guy. However, as long as your dog, cat, or pot-bellied pig stays out of my yard and doesn’t keep me awake at night, I will fight for your right to own whatever pet you want. Apparently, since Mr. Giuliani does not see any benefits to New Yorkers owning ferrets, therefore, there should be a law banning them.
Do you really want a guy like this to be president? Anything legal that you do now will be subject to Mr. Giuliani’s “sanity test”. If it doesn’t make sense to him, he might just pass a law banning it.
A debate between the Republican presidential candidates will be shown on MSNBC tonight. Here’s the list of candidates who will be participating tonight:
There’s rumors that seven of the ten candidates are in danger of not being invited to the next debate. Apparently, MSNBC has set the polling cutoff at 1%, and only three men, Giuliani, McCain, and Romney, are the only candidates consistently polling at that level.
Here’s hoping that Ron Paul presents himself well tonight, and is invited to that later debates. As I’ve said before, he’s the one candidate who I think can honestly debate the issues.
This morning, I dug up every last dandelion in the back yard – and left all the wild violets behind.
Does anyone else have a special place in their heart for flowering weeds? I once dug up many violets in the yard and lined the borders of my flowerbeds – that’s how much I love them 
I always think of this verse when I look at my lawn, dotted with flowering weeds:
Luke 12:27-29 “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you? You men of little faith!
This verse inspired me to look up more gardening verses… so I’m passing them along! Amazing how many there are, as gardening is such a perfect metaphor for so many spiritual concepts.
Wow. I snagged a great deal from Cigars International, thanks to my new friends at the Club Stogie Forums. The first one I tried tonight was a 5 Vegas Gold Robusto, and it was a nice surprise. After spending my time recently smoking through my rather strong Fighting Cocks, I was ready for a nice, mild smoke, and this was one of the milder smokes I’ve had in a while.
It was a short guy, but I wanted a relatively quick smoke. Even taking my time with it, I was through it in about a half-hour. It did start to get bitter earlier than I’ve seen in other mild cigars, but it really was an enjoyable, if brief, time on the front porch. It lit easily, and burned evenly.
This cigar would be perfect for a beginning cigar smoker. As I said, it’s not much of a time commitment, and easy on the taste buds, but really was a surprising gem.
This is the official invitation for the fifth annual Memorial Day Pig Roast at the home of Tom and Sarah Albrecht on May 28, 2007.
After going back and forth for a while, we decided to forgo doing an entire pig this year. We’ve found that our parties end up having a lot of kids who don’t really care for the barbecued pork, and a meal entirely made up of pork barbecue ends up with a lot of leftovers. So, while we will still be doing barbecued pork, we’re going to mix it up a bit with other forms of meat, including Italian pulled pork, hot dogs, sausages, and maybe some brisket and smoked turkey.
We plan on starting off around noon, and going into the evening. We’ll be serving food throughout the day, so come when you can, and don’t feel obliged to stay longer than you’re able. Please RSVP to us (phone call, email, whatever) so we can get an approximate head count and let us know if you’re interesting in helping supply food.
See you then!
I hate to be opportunistic regarding the recent massacre (there really isn’t a better word) at Virginia Tech yesterday, but since the gun control crowd has already started beating their drums, I thought that it would appropriate to point out that this tragedy proves exactly why gun control is a bad thing.
I realize it’s early in the election campaign, but I’m already throwing in my endorsement. Actually, my endorsement was given before Ron Paul even announced his candidacy. The Congressman from Texas is an oddity amongst his Republican peers, since he actually votes according to the conservative, libertarian values that those aforementioned peers merely give lip service.
Bad news. I got an email the other day from what used to by my Internet Service Provider, and is now simply my email service provider, Speakeasy. They were announcing that they were acquired by Best Buy. I hate Best Buy.
Therefore, I’m doing what I should have done earlier. I’ve decided to take my email fate into my own hands, and handle my own email hosting. Effective immediately, my new email address is talbrech@glamdring.org. My old Speakeasy address should work for a while, and I’ll be checking it occasionally as I make the transition, but please update your address books accordingly.
Our friend Miwaza from Mitaka Evangelical Church took some beautiful photos of the kids… mostly Leah, but she’s the most photogenic, so nobody complains. My wife is jealous of her camera, but it’s clear she has a good eye for composition.
You can check out Miwaza’s blog, and some of her other photography work up on Flickr.
BTW, this photo is the food on the prep table at church, getting ready to feed all the church goers. They have a team of people who prepare all the servings on the table, and carry them out to everyone all through the house where they meet.
I love when technology can take massive amounts of apparently meaningless information and compile and display that information in an intuitive, interactive display. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has teamed up with my favorite technology, Google Earth, to map out the ongoing crisis in Darfur.
The USHMM has compiled a list of information about the killings and displacements going on in the Sudan, but those numbers get lost when printed on paper. In order to make the information digestible to their audience, they teamed up with Google Earth to create a visual, multimedia presentation of their data in Google Earth, complete with geolocated photographs, videos, and icons.
You can see it yourself by downloading the Crisis in Darfur layers in Google Earth and learning more about what is going on in the Sudan.
I took some time yesterday to geo-reference some of our photos in Google Earth, so you can see where in Tōkyō some of the pictures were taken. Google Earth now runs in Windows, Mac OS, and Linux, and it’s free, so you have no excuse to not use it.
Once you install Google Earth, the link above will automatically open in Google Earth, and you’ll be able to see click on the different photo icons to see where we’ve been.
Some pictures are online – I haven’t had time to do the captions yet.
SJA
Quite simply, I didn’t feel it. We’re safe. I was on my way to church at the time.
Apparently it was 6.9 magnitude quake that hit in central Japan and created a small (6in deep) tsunami. Aftershocks are expected, so maybe we’ll get to feel one of those.
Thanks for the calls and emails to check to see if we were alright!
