Gotcha

Watch again and listen to what Sarah Palin tells Katie starting about the 20 second mark.

She says, "We had a great discussion with President Zardari as we talked about what America can and should be doing together to make sure that the terrorists do not cross borders and do not ultimately put themselves in a position of attacking America again or her allies and we will do what we have to do to secure the United States of America and her allies."

Sarah is telling Couric up front that she understood the relationship between Pakistan's new President and the USA before she made her statement to a voter's question about crossing the border to confront terrorists. Obviously she felt there was some sort of understanding between her and Zardari.

This tells us some of what was discussed in the meeting between Palin and Zardari. Since the details of the meeting were not reported, THAT [What Palin had discussed with Zardari] should have been the headline of the story.

Anonymous Posters

Unfortunately, the time has come to refuse comments from anonymous posters. I have received a couple comments now from people who are not man or woman enough to sign their name to the comment(s) they felt led to leave. I apologize to any of you who have left a comment anonymously but have signed your name. I have no problem accepting comments that I may not agree with. However, if one does not have the courage to sign their name to their opinion(s), it is not worth publishing.

Have a great week everyone!

Mexico Missions

We had the awesome privilege of hosting the Sankey family here in Keepville yesterday and today. We had such a lovely time with them and we feel so encouraged and refreshed after being with them and fellowshipping with them. The service last night was fantastic and our church responded better than we even expected! Byron will be blogging about that later today. Anyways, if you ever have a chance to get into a service where the Sankey's will be presenting their missions work, run - don't walk - to be there!! You won't be sorry!

The Sankey/Gurnee Clan

My Lesson from God Today

J-O-Y = Jesus and You with nothing in between.

Wow. That almost gives me chills!

Click to see this bigger

The last reason is my favorite.

You Know You're a Homeschool Mom

You Know You are a Homeschool Mom When.......
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/momofmhasr/584915/


You get to change more than diapers, you get to change their minds.

When a child busts a lip, and after seeing she's okay, you round up some scotch tape to capture some blood and look at it under the microscope!

You find dead animals and actually consider saving them to dissect later.

Your children never ever leave the "why?" stage.

When your teenager decides to take one community college course, and comes home and asks you why the teacher wrote "At" on his paper. (A+)

You ask for, and get, a copier instead of a diamond tennis bracelet for your wedding anniversary.

Your kids think reading history is best accomplished while lying on the floor with their head resting on the side of their patient dog.

Your husband can walk in at the end of a long day and tell how the science experiment went just by looking at the house.

You never have to drive your child's forgotten lunch to school.

Your child will never suffer the embarrassment of group showers after PE.

The only debate about the school lunch program is whose turn it is to cook.

You never have to face the dilemna of whether to take your child's side or the teacher's side in a dispute at school.

If your child get's drugs at school, it's probably Tylenol.

Your neighbors think you are insane.


Your formal dining room now has a computer, copy machine, and many book shelves and there are educational posters and maps all over the walls.

You have meal worms growing in a container....on purpose.

If you get caught talking to yourself, you can claim you're having a PTA meeting.

Talking out loud to yourself is a parent/teacher conference.

You can't make it through a movie without pointing out the historical inaccuracies.

You step on math manipulatives on your pre-dawn stumble to the bathroom.

The teacher gets to kiss the principal in the faculty lounge and no one gossips.

Your honor student can actually read the bumper sticker that you have put on your car.

If your child claims that the dog ate his homework, you can ask the dog.

Some day your children will consider you to be a miracle-working expert and will turn to you for advice.

Your kids refer to the neighbor kids as "government school inmates."

You can't make it through the grocery produce department without asking your preschooler the name and color of every vegetable.

You can't put your produce in your cart without asking your older student to estimate it's weight and verify accuracy.

You live in a one-house schoolroom.

You try to (quickly) capture the huge bee that was knocked unconscious as it accidentally flew into your car window, so the kids can classify and inspect it.

Your bank statement reflects the fact that you spend more at Books-A-Million than at fancy clothing stores.

You've got more books and bookcases than anyone you know.

You DREAM of a room (or even a whole house!) with wall to wall, ceiling to floor bookshelves.

The walls of your dining room are decorated with posters of the Periodic Table of Elements, Map of the Moon, Spanish Conjugation Chart and amoung other posters, not to mention a poster of the Ten Commandments since no one can tell you not to!

You have children draped all over the furniture....and they're reading...for the FUN of it!

Your children actually enjoy spending time with their family, even their siblings!

Your children aren't embarrassed to be seen playing with someone younger than they are!

You are on a first name basis with the majority of local librarians.

You've laughed out loud when someone asked you "What about socialization?"

My Lesson from God today

If God was as patient with me as I am with my children, how would I like it?

Ouch.

Finding the Middle of the Road

Byron posted a really great article by Keith Drury on his Blog. It really spoke to my heart today.

She's One of Us

Ok, if you know me well, you know that I appreciate sarcastic humor. I can just converse in that fashion easier. I find it refreshing and funny. I know allot of people don't. And that's ok.

I ran across this article off of Sean Hannity's web site and I just wanted to post it here. It is not filled with great meaty tidbits of wisdom but just a fun read. With sarcasm inserted at key places.

P.S. I'm not totally on board with his opinions of certain current or former U.S. Presidents.

---------------------------------------

OUR SISTER SARAH PALIN'S ANTI-ELITIST CHARM

Ralph Peters
September 20, 2008

I KNOW Sarah Palin, and so does my wife.

Neither of us ever actually met the governor of Alaska, but we grew up with her - in the small-town America despised by the leftwing elite.

One gal-pal classmate of my wife's has even traveled from New York's Finger Lakes to Alaska to hunt moose with her husband. (Got one, too.) And no, Ms. Streisand, she isn't a redneck missing half her teeth - she's a lawyer.

The sneering elites and their mediacrat fellow travelers just don't get it: How on earth could anyone vote for someone who didn't attend an Ivy League school? And having more than 1.7 children marks any woman as a rube. (If Palin had any taste, her teenage daughter would've had a quiet abortion in a discreet facility.)

And what kind of retro-Barbie would stay happily married to her high-school sweetheart? Ugh. She even kills animals and eats them. (The meat and fish served in the upscale bistros patronized by Obama supporters appears by magic - it didn't really come from living things. . .)
Palin has that hick accent, too. And that busy-mom beehive 'do. Double ugh! Bet she hasn't even read Ian McEwan's latest novel and can't explain Frank Gehry's vision for a new architecture. She and her blue-collar (triple ugh!) husband don't even own a McMansion, let alone an inherited family compound on the Cape.

And she wants to be vice president?

The opinion-maker elites see Sarah Palin clearly every time they look up from another sneering article in The New Yorker: She's a country-bumpkin chumpette from a hick state with low latte availability. She's not one of them and never will be. That's the real disqualifier in this race.
Now let me tell you what those postmodern bigots with their multiple vacation homes and their disappointing trust-fund kids don't see: Sarah Palin's one of us. She actually represents the American people.

When The New York Times, CNN, the NBC basket of basket cases and all the barking blog dogs insult Palin, they're insulting us. When they smear her, they're smearing every American who actually works for a living, who doesn't expect a handout, who doesn't have a full-time accountant to parse the family taxes, who believes in the Pledge of Allegiance and who thinks a church is more than just a tedious stop on daughter Emily's 100K wedding day.

Go ahead, faux feminists and Hollywood deep thinkers: Snicker at Sarah America's degree from the University of Idaho, but remember that most Americans didn't attend Harvard or Princeton as a legacy after daddy donated enough to buy his kid's way in.

Go ahead, campaign strategists: Mock Americans who go to church and actually pray. But you might want to run the Census numbers first.

And go right ahead: Dismiss all of us who remember how, on the first day of deer season, our high school classrooms were half empty (not a problem at Andover or Exeter).

That rube accent of Palin's? It's a howler. But she sounds a lot more like the rest of us than a Harvard man or a Smithie ever will.

Why does Sarah Palin energize all of us who don't belong to the gilded leftwing circle? Because she's us. We sat beside her in class. We hung out after school (might've even shared a backseat combat zone on prom night). And now she lives next door, raising her kids.

For the first time since Ronald Reagan, our last great president, we, the people, see a chance that one of us might have a voice in governing our country.

Speaking of Reagan (Eureka College, Illinois), every chief executive we've had since the Gipper snapped his final salute as president has had the imprimatur of an Ivy League university. And we've gone from bad to worse:
* George Herbert Walker Bush: Yale.
* William Jefferson Clinton: Georgetown, Oxford, Yale Law.
* George W. Bush: Yale and Harvard Business School.

The first lacked the sense to finish the job in Desert Storm; the second lacked the guts to go after al Qaeda when it was just a startup - and the third, well, let's just say he disappointed our low expectations.

Now we have the Ivy League elite's "he's not only like us but he's a minority and we're so wonderful to support him" candidate, Sen. Barack Obama (Columbia and Harvard Law).
Our country can't afford another one of these clowns. Harvard isn't the answer - Harvard's the problem.

So here's the message Palin is sending on behalf of the rest of us (the down-market masses Dems love at election time and ignore once the voting's done): The rule of the snobs is over. It's time to give one of us a chance to lead.

Sen. John McCain's one of us, too. He raised hell at Annapolis (quadruple ugh: military!), and he'll raise the right kind of hell in Washington.

McCain's so dumb he really loves his country.

Sarah Palin's dumb that way, too. How terribly unfashionable.

The Ant and the Grasshopper

There is an 'Old Version' and a 'Modern Version' ..
Two Different Versions! Two Different Morals!


OLD VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long,building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.


The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!
-------------------------------------------

MODERN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long,building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green. '

Al Sharpton stages a demonstration in front of the ant' s house where the news stations film the group singing, ' We shall overcome.'

Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2008!!

Is this Governor Qualified?

Is this young governor qualified to be VP?

How qualified to be vice president of the United States could a Republican be who:

Is young - under 45 years old?
Speaks in favor of economic development of Alaska?
Advocates and engages in exercise for personal fitness?
Has lived in the wilds of the American Northwest?
Fishes, hunts, and loves the great outdoors?
Has a reputation, not as an environmentalist, but as a conservationist?
Has at least five children?
Is a moralist for whom every issue is a struggle between good and evil?
Is a reformer who has taken on the GOP's "good old boy network"?
Believes corporations should be controlled, but not strangled?
Said, "These fools on Wall Street think they can go on forever. They can't"?
Has made some powerful enemies?
Believes the military needs to be expanded?
Has shown a brilliant sense of political symbolism and timing?
Believes the people, not the courts, should determine their own policies?
Is not a lawyer?
Has never been elected to national office?
Is on the GOP ticket for VP with less than two years in the governor's office?

Pretty well qualified as it turns out.

The year is 1900, and the candidate for Vice President is Theodore Roosevelt.

HT: Josh Painter

Hilarious Sign

I just saw this sign on someone's (I have no idea who they are) blog. They took this pic at a campaign stop they were at. I think it is hilarious. Please excuse a couple words on it though...

What Is At Stake

Here is an outstanding video put together by CatholicVote.com, which encourages Catholics to vote their values this November and vote for a culture of life. I'm not Cathoic, but I am an Evangelical Christian. This is by far my most favorite campaign ad so far this election. I found this video to be stirring and powerful, and focusing on what millions of evangelicals will be joining Catholics in voting for this November - LIFE.

We Remember

Tonight in our ladies Bible study we were discussing how this election seems to truly be a fight between good and evil (and I do not mean to imply that one candidate is good while the other is evil). We had special prayer for our country, the candidates and for the election. Anyways, I felt rather discouraged and defeated but as I sat down to the computer this was the first clip that I came across. It was just what I needed!

Excellent Guidelines for Modesty

Byron just posted this on his blog and I thought it was excellent. I know there are some who read my blog who do not read his so I wanted to post it here too.

Whatever Happened to Modesty?

by Michael S. Hyatt

Pres & CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers

I watched MTVs VMA awards last night. Some of my daughters’ friends are in the band Paramore, and they were nominated for an award. And—to be honest—I wanted to see how Britney Spears would do, since we are publishing her mom’s book next week.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen MTV, but I was flabbergasted. I could not believe the sensuality and decadence I witnessed. Gail and I finally had to turn it off. We just couldn’t take it any more.
As I thought about my experience later, it made me sad. I am the father of five daughters. So perhaps I’m just a little overly sensitive. But I was shocked at the complete absence of modesty, the ridicule of virginity, and the latent misogyny displayed by Russell Brand and many of the artists themselves.

One of the few redeeming moments in the evening was when Jordin Sparks, referring to Brand’s contempt for chastity, said,

I just have one thing to say about promise rings: It’s not bad to wear a promise ring, because not everybody, guy or girl, wants to be a slut.

Touché. It must have struck a nerve, because the next time Brand appeared, he apologized for his comments. Sort of.

Regardless, it got me to thinking, Where are these girls fathers? Has anyone ever taught them the concept of modesty? Or have all the men in their lives simply exploited them as sex objects
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a prude. But I do think some basic guidelines are in order. These are not rules about skirt length or the amount of cleavage you can show. I’m just not a very good legalist; they are simply guidelines.

I gave these to my girls when they were growing up. Frankly, they haven’t been perfect in following them. Modern culture exerts a powerful influence. Nevertheless, I wanted them to have something that would transcend current fashion and guide their attire once they were older and, perhaps, a little wiser.

Here they are: "Four Guidelines for Modesty":
* If you have trouble getting into it or out of it, it is probably not modest.

* If you have to be careful when you sit down or bend over, it is probably not modest.

*If people look at any part of your body before looking at your face, it is probably not modest.

*If you can see your most private body parts or an outline of those parts under the fabric, it is probably not modest.

If you think these guidelines are helpful, you might want to pass them along to the young women you know. Evidently, not many are getting the message elsewhere.

Putting our Words into Actions!!!

Well, we decided that its not good enough to just talk the talk about our candidates... we needed to walk the walk as well!!

So, today we donated some of our time and assembled a gazillion yard signs for the upcoming election. Byron also made quite a few phone calls for the McCain campaign. My zeal is pretty great but not great enough to make cold calls. LOL It was neat to see so many volunteers coming to donate time as well. The main guy there works from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM EVERYDAY of the week. Is it any surprise that he is single and not even dating?!!! LOL I asked him if he had any life and he said, "not outside this campaign!"

Anyways... here's a few pics of our family at work.

Ad for McCain

This commercial was done by Joe Cook. You have to watch the whole thing (it's not very long). When he finishes talking and walks away, you get a sense of how this could be the commercial of the campaign season.

Gov. Mom

Gov. Mom
The Land of the Midnight Sun's New Claim To Fame:

Being Led by a 24-Hour Mother

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 2, 2008; Page A21

It's quite a compelling image: An accomplished -- even glamorous -- working mother, projecting to the world that she can and does have it all: five children, a successful career and a husband who doesn't mind being Mr. Mom. Oh, and she's going to be a grandmother, and her infant has special needs, and she's running for vice president.

The facts of life for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin are fascinating and seem, frankly, exhausting. Her children range in age from 18 years to 4 months. Track, the oldest, recently enlisted in the Army and is headed for Iraq. Daughter Willow, 14, is in high school, and Piper is 7. The baby, Trig, was born in April with Down syndrome. Daughter Bristol, 17, is pregnant and is going to get married, her parents announced yesterday. That news added fuel to an already heated debate on blogs and in the street about the appropriate balance between child-rearing and working -- and whether Palin can balance the extraordinary demands of both without shortchanging either.

Within two hours of The Washington Post reporting news of the pregnancy on its Web site, more than 1,000 people had weighed in, arguing back and forth about whether Palin, 44, is placing her own political ambition above the needs of her family.

"She should not be held to a different standard than the Democratic nominee," said McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt yesterday. "No male candidate would ever be asked that question. . . . I think women in America are likely to be angered by the double standards. This isn't the 1950s."

In Michigan yesterday, Sen. Barack Obama told reporters: "How a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn't be the topic of our politics."

Palin has carefully portrayed herself throughout her career as someone committed to both family and profession -- and tough enough to handle both. She made a show of dismissing the chef at the governor's mansion saying she wanted to do her own cooking, and that the kids were old enough to make their own sandwiches. And no one can recall her ever having a full-time babysitter.

"You walk into her office and Piper is sitting there, the baby is in the crib -- that's just the way it is. This is how she lives her life. Someone who was in a meeting with her recently said she was discreetly nursing Trig," said Palin's biographer Kaylene Johnson.

From interviews with those closest to Palin emerges a description of a hectic lifestyle, but one in which the hominess and rural community of Alaska have enabled her to have her kids around her while she works and have offered a deep bench of family and friends for child-care support. She has shown up to meetings and news conferences carrying Trig in a baby pouch.

She and her husband kept their family house in the small town of Wasilla, where her parents, three siblings and closest friends live. Most of the year, she is able to commute back and forth from Anchorage daily, except when the legislature is in session in Juneau. Todd Palin is currently on leave from his job as an oil field worker, making it possible for him to be a full-time dad, said two friends. Sarah Palin's mother said in an interview Sunday that Palin's two youngest girls, Willow and Piper, attended school in Juneau for the second semester last year when the legislature was in session to be near their mother. The baby was also with Palin.

Even in the story of Trig's birth, Palin paints herself as feisty and fearless. She told the local media that she noticed her amniotic fluid was leaking right before she gave a speech in Texas last April. After her keynote address to the National Governors Association, and obtaining the consent of her doctor, Palin boarded an eight-hour flight to Anchorage. She never told the airline she was in labor. She and her husband drove 45 minutes to her hometown medical center; the baby was born seven hours later.

The McCain campaign said it could not confirm that Palin was still breastfeeding Trig, but the governor said as much in a interview with People magazine on Friday. "What I've had to do . . . is, in the middle of the night, put down the BlackBerrys and pick up the breast pump," she worked into an answer to a question about whether she was a morning person.

Palin kept her pregnancy secret for seven months, stunning even her staff with the announcement. She pointedly said at the time she would not miss work. "I had Piper on a Monday, and I was back to work on a Tuesday. I even brought her to work with me," she said, referring to the birth of her daughter.

And, in fact, after Trig's birth, she was at her desk within a few days, baby in tow and crib in her office. Johnson said the governor waited to reveal her pregnancy to avoid exactly what is going on now -- judgments from strangers saying, "How can you bring a baby into the world knowing how much energy it takes and still think you can run a state?"

"She's heard that her whole life -- the challenges of being a female and mother in the workforce," Palin's husband, Todd, said in the same interview with People a few days ago. "I remember the first time she ran for mayor one of her fellow council members told her you can't run because you've got three negatives: Track, Bristol and Willow. Those are the three kids we had at the time. So when you tell her that kind of stuff, she just gets fired up."

Although a clear majority of mothers today are in the workforce, studies show that the pendulum has swung back, and most are skeptical about mothers working full time; they see part-time jobs as the ideal. A recent survey by Pew Research reported that only 11 percent of working mothers believe it's good for children when the mother works full time.

Kristi Hamrick, a spokeswoman for the conservative Campaign for Family Values, dismissed as "stupid" any suggestions that Palin's family choices or her daughter's pregnancy would make her unsuitable to conservative voters. "This is an American family out there living out their values and doing the best job they can. Values voters understand that women who are mothers make family a priority but that many of us need to work and want to work," she said.

Trig Paxton Van Palin could end up being the best-traveled infant in America. Campaign sources said that the baby would be with his mother a good part of the time, and that arrangements are being made to have a babysitter travel with them. Confirms grandmother Sally Heath, "I can't imagine she would leave him behind."

Fun and Friends

On Tuesday, Tom & Cindy invited us to join them at the Conneaut Park for supper. Cindy made up a delicious supper and brought it over and we had a very lovely evening together. Thanks so much Tom & Cindy!!!

Welcome Back, Dad

This is my new all time favorite article about Sarah. I was too young to appreciate Ronald Reagan's presidency but from what I read and hear, it was terrific. So, to have Sarah compared to him - especially by his own son seems to be very high praise indeed.

---------------------------

Welcome Back, Dad

By Michael Reagan

I’ve been trying to convince my fellow conservatives that they have been wasting their time in a fruitless quest for a new Ronald Reagan to emerge and lead our party and our nation. I insisted that we’d never see his like again because he was one of a kind.

I was wrong!

Wednesday night I watched the Republican National Convention on television and there, before my very eyes, I saw my Dad reborn; only this time he's a she.

And what a she!

In one blockbuster of a speech, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resurrected my Dad’s indomitable spirit and sent it soaring above the convention center, shooting shock waves through the cynical media’s assigned spaces and electrifying the huge audience with the kind of inspiring rhetoric we haven’t heard since my Dad left the scene.

This was Ronald Reagan at his best -- the same Ronald Reagan who made the address known now solely as “The Speech,” which during the Goldwater campaign set the tone and the agenda for the rebirth of the traditional conservative movement that later sent him to the White House for eight years and revived the moribund GOP.

Last night was an extraordinary event. Widely seen beforehand as a make-or-break effort -- either an opportunity for Sarah Palin to show that she was the happy warrior that John McCain assured us she was, or a disaster that would dash McCain’s presidential hopes and send her back to Alaska, sadder but wiser.

Obviously un-intimidated by either the savage onslaught to which the left-leaning media had subjected her, or the incredible challenge she faced -- and oozing with confidence -- she strode defiantly to the podium and proved she was everything and even more than John McCain told us.

Much has been made of the fact that she is a woman. What we saw last night, however, was something much more than a just a woman accomplishing something no Republican woman has ever achieved. What we saw was a red-blooded American with that rare, God-given ability to rally her dispirited fellow Republicans and take up the daunting task of leading them -- and all her fellow Americans -- on a pilgrimage to that shining city on the hill my father envisioned as our nation’s real destination.

In a few words she managed to rip the mask from the faces of her Democratic rivals and reveal them for what they are -- a pair of old-fashioned liberals making promises that cannot be kept without bankrupting the nation and reducing most Americans to the status of mendicants begging for their daily bread at the feet of an all-powerful government.

Most important, by comparing her own stunning record of achievement with his, she showed Barack Obama for the sham that he is, a man without any solid accomplishments beyond conspicuous self-aggrandizement.

Like Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin is one of us. She knows how most of us live because that’s the way she lives. She shares our homespun values and our beliefs, and she glories in her status as a small-town woman who put her shoulder to the wheel and made life better for her neighbors.

Her astonishing rise up from the grass-roots, her total lack of self-importance, and her ordinary American values and modest lifestyle reveal her to be the kind of hard-working, optimistic, ordinary American who made this country the greatest, most powerful nation on the face of the earth.

As hard as you might try, you won’t find that kind of plain-spoken, down-to-earth, self-reliant American in the upper ranks of the liberal-infested, elitist Democratic Party, or in the Obama campaign.

Sarah Palin didn’t go to Harvard, or fiddle around in urban neighborhood leftist activism while engaging in opportunism within the ranks of one of the nation’s most corrupt political machines, never challenging it and going along to get along, like Barack Obama.

Instead she took on the corrupt establishment in Alaska and beat it, rising to the governorship while bringing reforms to every level of government she served in on her way up the ladder.

Welcome back, Dad, even if you’re wearing a dress and bearing children this time around.

Mr. Reagan is a syndicated radio talk-show host and the son of former President Ronald Reagan.

http://blogsforjohnmccain.com/trackback/2436

Another Article You Must Read!!

Here is yet another fantastic article about Sarah Palin. It is well worth your time!!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,416102,00.html

Thanks to Mark & Nancy Burcaw for sharing!!

Some interesting facts I've gleaned from reading this afternoon (most of my info came from http://www.thrfeed.com/2008/09/palin-ratings-s.html and a small bit from misc sources mostly trailing from http://www.drudgereport.com/):

FACT: Sarah Palin had 37 million people watch her speech.
FACT: Obama had a little over 38 million watch.

FACT: Only 6 networks showed Sarah's speech.
This means that each network had an AVERAGE of over 6 million viewers.

FACT: 10 networks showed Obama's speech.
This means that each network had an average of 3.8 million viewers.

You do the math. Sarah's a winner!

Does it seem odd to anyone besides me that she is only a V.P. candidate and comparing her totals to the opposing party's PRESIDENTIAL candidate seems a bit disingenuous? Shouldn't they compare her totals to those of Joe Biden?

Go Sarah!!

BREAKING: Sarah Palin "Winged" Her Speech Because of "Broken" Teleprompter
Posted by: Erick Erickson
Thursday, September 4, 2008 at 01:00AM

Halfway through Sarah Palin's speech tonight at the RNC, people following the speech noticed she was deviating from the prepared text.

According to sources close to the McCain campaign, the teleprompter continued scrolling during applause breaks. As a result, half way through the speech, the speech had scrolled significantly from where Governor Palin was in the speech. The malfunction also occurred during Rudy Giuliani's speech, explaining his significant deviations from his speech.

Unfazed, Governor Palin continued, from memory, to deliver her speech without the teleprompter cued to the appropriate point in her speech.

Contrast this to Barack Obama who, when last his teleprompter malfunctioned, was left stuttering before a crowd unable to advance his speech until the problem was resolved.

Sarah Palin. Winner.

------------------------------------------------

Here's a comment left by a reader from web land that totally made me almost spit out my drink...

"Broke" is MSDNC's code word for "We took a pair of scissors to the power cord because she was making our candidate look bad"

From Ann Coulter - BRILLIANT article

Ok, I'm well aware that you all can dig and find these articles yourself. However, I don't want you to waste one precious second digging. This article is positively brilliant and incredibly well written. So, without further ado, I present to you, Ann Coulter....

THE BEST MAN TURNED OUT TO BE A WOMAN

September 3, 2008

John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, as his running mate finally gave Republicans a reason to vote for him -- a reason, that is, other than B. Hussein Obama.

The media are hopping mad about McCain's vice presidential selection, but they're really furious over at MSNBC. After drawing "Keith + Obama" hearts on their denim notebooks, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews stayed up all night last Thursday, writing jokes about Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the presumed vice presidential pick. Now they can't use any of them.

So the media are taking it out on our brave Sarah and her 17-year-old daughter.

They claimed Palin was chosen only because she's a woman. In fact, Palin was chosen because she's pro-life, pro-gun, pro-drilling and pro-tax cuts. She's fought both Republicans and Democrats on public corruption and does not have hair plugs like some other vice presidential candidate I could mention. In other words, she's a "Republican."

As a right-winger, Palin will appeal to the narrow 59 percent of Americans who voted for another former small-market sportscaster: Ronald Reagan. Our motto: Sarah Palin is only a heartbeat away!

If you're going to say Palin was chosen because she's a woman, you're going to have to demonstrate that the runners-up were more qualified. Gov. Tim Pawlenty seems like a terrific fellow and fine governor, but he is not obviously more qualified than Palin.

As for former governor of Pennsylvania Tom Ridge and Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman, the other also-rans, I can think of at least 40 million unborn reasons she's better than either of them. Within the first few hours after Palin's name was announced, McCain raised $4 million in campaign donations online, reaching $10 million within the next two days. Which shortlist vice presidential pick could have beaten that?

The media hysterically denounced Palin as "inexperienced." But then people started to notice that she has more executive experience than B. Hussein Obama -- the guy at the top of the Democrats' ticket.

They tried to create a "Troopergate" for Palin, indignantly demanding to know why she wanted to get her ex-brother-in-law removed as a state trooper. Again, public corruption is not a good issue for someone like Obama, Chicago pol and noted friend of Syrian National/convicted felon Antonin Rezko.

For the cherry on top, then we found out Palin's ex-brother-in-law had Tasered his own 10-year-old stepson. Defend that, Democrats.

The bien-pensant criticized Palin, saying it's irresponsible for a woman with five children to run for vice president. Liberals' new talking point: Sarah Palin: Only five abortions away from the presidency.

They claimed her newborn wasn't her child, but the child of her 17-year-old daughter. That turned out to be a lie.

Then they attacked her daughter, who actually is pregnant now, for being unmarried. When liberals start acting like they're opposed to pre-marital sex and mothers having careers, you know McCain's vice presidential choice has knocked them back on their heels.

But at least liberal reporters had finally found someone their own size to pick on: a 17-year-old girl.

Speaking of Democrats with newborn children, the media weren't particularly concerned about John Edwards running for president despite his having a mistress with a newborn child.

While the difficult circumstances of Palin's pregnant daughter are being covered like a terrorist attack on the nation, with leering accounts of the 18-year-old father, the media remain resolutely uninterested in the parentage of Edwards' mistress's love child. Except, that is, the hardworking reporters at the National Enquirer, who say Edwards is the father.

As this goes to press, the latest media-invented scandal about Palin is that McCain didn't know her well before choosing her as his running mate. He knew her well enough, though admittedly, not as well as Obama knows William Ayers.

John F. Kennedy, who was -- from what the media tell me -- America's most beloved president, detested his vice president, Lyndon Johnson.

Until Clinton interviewed Al Gore one time before choosing him as his vice presidential candidate, he had met Gore only one other time: when Gore was running for president in 1988 and flew to Little Rock seeking Clinton's endorsement. Clinton turned him down.

To this day, there's no proof that Bill Clinton ever met one-on-one with his CIA director, James Woolsey, other than a brief chat after midnight the night before Woolsey's nomination was announced.

Barring some all-new, trivial and probably false story about Palin -- her former hairdresser got a parking ticket in 1978! -- the media apparently intend to keep being hysterical about McCain's alleged failure to "vet" Palin properly. The problem with this argument is that it presupposes that everyone is asking: "HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?"

No one's saying that.

Attacks on McCain's "vetting" process require the media to keep claiming that Palin has a lot of problems. But she doesn't have any problems. Remember? Those were all blind alleys.

Unfortunately, for the ordinary TV viewer hearing nonstop hysteria about nonspecific "problems," it takes a lot of effort to figure out that every attack liberals have launched against Palin turned out to be a lie.

It's as if a basketball player made the winning shot in the last three seconds of the game and liberals demand that we have a week-long discussion about whether the player should have taken that shot. WHAT IF HE MISSED?

With Palin, McCain didn't miss.

COPYRIGHT 2008 ANN COULTER DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE

Excerpt from Peggy Noonan

I just read an article by Peggy Noonan (http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html) that I found to be both interesting at times and boring at others. However this paragraph hit me over the head.

And when you forget you're a Bubblehead you get in trouble, you misjudge things. For one thing, you assume evangelical Christians will be appalled and left agitated by the circumstances of Mrs. Palin's daughter. But modern American evangelicals are among the last people who'd judge her harshly. It is the left that is about to go crazy with Puritan judgments; it is the right that is about to show what mellow looks like. Religious conservatives know something's wrong with us, that man's a mess. They are not left dazed by the latest applications of this fact. "This just in – there's a lot of sinning going on out there" is not a headline they'd understand to be news.

So the media's going to wait for the Christian right to rise up and condemn Mrs. Palin, and they're not going to do it because it's not their way, and in any case her problems are their problems. Christians lived through the second half of the 20th century, and the first years of the 21st. They weren't immune from the culture, they just eventually broke from it, or came to hold themselves in some ways apart from it. I think the media will explain the lack of condemnation as "Republican loyalty" and "talking points." But that's not what it will be.

Wow!!! Are we truly living up to this? Obviously the vast majority of evangelicals in society are if Ms. Noonan put it in print. However, in the last 5 days I've heard and read allot of very un Christlike comments about Sarah Palin coming from conservative holiness people. People, this is so much bigger than us. So much bigger than our petty little agendas. Yes, I happen to be hugely in favor of Sarah as the next VP. But, more importantly, I think that if we all could see the bigger picture we'd be RUSHING to buy McCain/Palin yard signs, bumper stickers, etc.

Ok... enough for now.

Conservative's!!! Please Read!!

I am bumping this back to the top of my blog. I feel this is SO important for everyone to read.

Warning: I am about to get up on my soapbox.

It's been 3 days since Sarah Palin was appointed by John McCain. In those 3 days I've already heard MORE than enough ranting from conservative women about how WRONG it is for Sarah to be even considering running as McCain's VP because she has an infant.

Today I ran across this blog entry by Elizabeth Foss. She is a Catholic homeschooling mother of eight children, author of Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home, and a longtime columnist for the Arlington Catholic Herald and Catholic Exchange.

This article totally says it all. I have bolded the major important parts.

Eating Our Own
Well that didn't take long.

Dear Elizabeth,
I can't tell you how disappointed I am that a former editor of Welcome Home would write such strong support for Sarah Palin. Don't you think that Mrs. Palin should be home with her children, particularly since she has a new baby with Down Syndrome? Shame on you!

Holly ( a longtime reader)

Dear Holly, thanks for writing. You really are a longtime reader! Because of your note, I spent a pleasant evening reminiscing fondly about my days at Welcome Home. I wrote my first published piece for that wonderful magazine when I was twenty-five years old and had one child. I was honored and grateful to be the managing editor until after I'd had my third baby. I was blessed by the professional mentoring I found there--bright women who were articulate and savvy about the publishing business shared freely from the wealth of their knowledge and experience and encouraged me unabashedly. It was a truly beautiful place to learn and grow. More than the professional experience, though, I will always, always treasure the mothering wisdom I learned from some of the best mothers on the planet.Welcome Home shaped me in so many, many ways--all of them good.

I think that you, Holly, might not understand fully the mission of Welcome Home and the Mothers at Home organization. It was never, ever to judge or condemn mothers who chose to work outside their homes. Instead, it was to encourage mothers (or fathers) who had made the decision to be at home with their families. That's a big difference in purpose. Mother at Home staunchly refused to enter into the "Mommy Wars" when media outlets persistently called for interviews and asked if we'd go on record disagreeing with the choice to be employed outside the home. It was the belief of the organization that it is counterproductive for all of us to sit in judgment over one another. Far better that we should encourage one another and build each other up. (see 1 Thessalonians 5:11)

We stand here at a precipice. We can elect a president who believes that babies who don't die in the course of abortion should be left to die alone on a dirty shelf in a hospital. Or we can elect a solidly pro-life team of candidates. The truth is, Christian women can make or break this election and the appointment of the next justices to the Supreme Court. It greatly disturbs me to read the buzz out there. We need to come to our senses. Christian women who are threatening to stay at home instead of voting for a woman who has a baby and growing family are really missing a valuable point. And it's a point we miss again and again on large and small scales.

We eat our own. We make up litmus tests and then level judgments. Does she dress the way a Christian woman should? Does she wear her hair the way a Christian woman should? Does she go to the "right" parish? Does she manage her finances the "right' way? Use the "right" curriculum? Spend her time the "right" way? Does she have enough children and are they spaced the "right" way? If the answers don't fit what we've decided--in our opinions--constitute holiness, we chew the woman up and spit her out in disgust.

And we become women of opinion, not conviction, to use a phrase coined by Colleen Mitchell. We become women who are so preoccupied by judging and condemning that we tear down our own homes with our own hands. The spirit of condemnation pervades the very being of the woman and erodes at the gentleness, peacefulness, and goodness her family deserves. She becomes a bitter women and her life bears bitter fruit.

I appreciate the trip down memory lane, Holly. I was the youngest member of the staff by far in my Welcome Home days. I learned so much from the women with whom I worked. Now, with the benefit of time and experience, I appreciate even more the "policy" Mothers at Home always had regarding women employed outside the home. It's a policy that we should extend to all our relationships.

I can't imagine being Vice President. I can't even imagine being the managing editor of a magazine, working from home, any more. And you know, I can't imagine running a lacemaking business from my home either. But Zelie Martin did. And she will be canonized a month from now. I can't imagine being a busy doctor while caring for several young children. But St. Gianna Molla did. I can't imagine starting a ministry with my husband, involving my children in it, and moving countless times as necessary to see it grow. But Sally Clarkson did. I can't imagine having to enroll my children in school and resume a professional career because my husband is gravely ill. But one of the holiest women I know did exactly that. And in every case, those women did what was right for their families. In every case, the fact that mom had a job was part of their family culture. In every case, these women and their husbands raised great kids. Every one of those women is heroic. Every one of those women was an intimate friend of God and listened to and followed His call, no matter how daunting it seemed. And God blessed that courage and conviction and discipline. God is big, very big, much bigger than our narrow notions of how women should look if they are holy women. God has big ideas for women.

We have an opportunity now to shape the future of our culture, an opportunity to ensure that our children and our grandchildren are safe in a culture of life. We have an opportunity as mothers, wives, and women to effect change: meaningful, positive change. And you can bet that the forces of evil would like nothing better than for us to be sidetracked by judging Sarah Palin's "fitness" as a Christian woman. We are the voting block that can turn the tide in this country.

I've thought almost incessantly in the past twenty-fours about how in the world Mrs. Palin can possibly accomplish all she does. I want her time management skills. I bet she doesn't waste one precious second peering into other women's homes and marriages and families and judging how they should be living out their vocations. Instead, she hears the call of her Maker. She keeps her eyes on her own work. He's asking her to make a huge sacrifice for His kingdom. He's asking her to take on a daunting task for the culture of life. He's asking her to act as a woman of conviction. Instead of wasting time worrying about the intimate details of her family, maybe we all should spend our time in prayer for her and for our country.

And then we should roll up our sleeves and help get her elected.

Our Zanesville Friends Visit Again!!

Wow. I had forgotten how much history we share too!! It was so fun to be able to visit and spend time (and make more memories) with Dave & Holly and their girls. I didn't take very many pics this time - not sure why. Other than the fact that my broken toe was making my nerves a little stressed!! LOL Anyways.... Lots of memories... not so many pics. Here's a few though.

Labor Day Picnic

We found out that there were a few people in our church who didn't have a picnic to attend on Labor Day so we had an impromptu picnic at our house that evening. It was really really fun!!! Here's a few pics!!

To All My Conservative Mom Friends

Warning: I am about to get up on my soapbox.

It's been 3 days since Sarah Palin was appointed by John McCain. In those 3 days I've already heard MORE than enough ranting from conservative women about how WRONG it is for Sarah to be even considering running as McCain's VP because she has an infant.

Today I ran across this blog entry by Elizabeth Foss. She is a Catholic homeschooling mother of eight children, author of Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home, and a longtime columnist for the Arlington Catholic Herald and Catholic Exchange.

This article totally says it all. I have bolded the major important parts.

Eating Our Own
Well that didn't take long.

Dear Elizabeth,
I can't tell you how disappointed I am that a former editor of Welcome Home would write such strong support for Sarah Palin. Don't you think that Mrs. Palin should be home with her children, particularly since she has a new baby with Down Syndrome? Shame on you!

Holly ( a longtime reader)

Dear Holly, thanks for writing. You really are a longtime reader! Because of your note, I spent a pleasant evening reminiscing fondly about my days at Welcome Home. I wrote my first published piece for that wonderful magazine when I was twenty-five years old and had one child. I was honored and grateful to be the managing editor until after I'd had my third baby. I was blessed by the professional mentoring I found there--bright women who were articulate and savvy about the publishing business shared freely from the wealth of their knowledge and experience and encouraged me unabashedly. It was a truly beautiful place to learn and grow. More than the professional experience, though, I will always, always treasure the mothering wisdom I learned from some of the best mothers on the planet.Welcome Home shaped me in so many, many ways--all of them good.

I think that you, Holly, might not understand fully the mission of Welcome Home and the Mothers at Home organization. It was never, ever to judge or condemn mothers who chose to work outside their homes. Instead, it was to encourage mothers (or fathers) who had made the decision to be at home with their families. That's a big difference in purpose. Mother at Home staunchly refused to enter into the "Mommy Wars" when media outlets persistently called for interviews and asked if we'd go on record disagreeing with the choice to be employed outside the home. It was the belief of the organization that it is counterproductive for all of us to sit in judgment over one another. Far better that we should encourage one another and build each other up. (see 1 Thessalonians 5:11)

We stand here at a precipice. We can elect a president who believes that babies who don't die in the course of abortion should be left to die alone on a dirty shelf in a hospital. Or we can elect a solidly pro-life team of candidates. The truth is, Christian women can make or break this election and the appointment of the next justices to the Supreme Court. It greatly disturbs me to read the buzz out there. We need to come to our senses. Christian women who are threatening to stay at home instead of voting for a woman who has a baby and growing family are really missing a valuable point. And it's a point we miss again and again on large and small scales.

We eat our own. We make up litmus tests and then level judgments. Does she dress the way a Christian woman should? Does she wear her hair the way a Christian woman should? Does she go to the "right" parish? Does she manage her finances the "right' way? Use the "right" curriculum? Spend her time the "right" way? Does she have enough children and are they spaced the "right" way? If the answers don't fit what we've decided--in our opinions--constitute holiness, we chew the woman up and spit her out in disgust.

And we become women of opinion, not conviction, to use a phrase coined by Colleen Mitchell. We become women who are so preoccupied by judging and condemning that we tear down our own homes with our own hands. The spirit of condemnation pervades the very being of the woman and erodes at the gentleness, peacefulness, and goodness her family deserves. She becomes a bitter women and her life bears bitter fruit.

I appreciate the trip down memory lane, Holly. I was the youngest member of the staff by far in my Welcome Home days. I learned so much from the women with whom I worked. Now, with the benefit of time and experience, I appreciate even more the "policy" Mothers at Home always had regarding women employed outside the home. It's a policy that we should extend to all our relationships.

I can't imagine being Vice President. I can't even imagine being the managing editor of a magazine, working from home, any more. And you know, I can't imagine running a lacemaking business from my home either. But Zelie Martin did. And she will be canonized a month from now. I can't imagine being a busy doctor while caring for several young children. But St. Gianna Molla did. I can't imagine starting a ministry with my husband, involving my children in it, and moving countless times as necessary to see it grow. But Sally Clarkson did. I can't imagine having to enroll my children in school and resume a professional career because my husband is gravely ill. But one of the holiest women I know did exactly that. And in every case, those women did what was right for their families. In every case, the fact that mom had a job was part of their family culture. In every case, these women and their husbands raised great kids. Every one of those women is heroic. Every one of those women was an intimate friend of God and listened to and followed His call, no matter how daunting it seemed. And God blessed that courage and conviction and discipline. God is big, very big, much bigger than our narrow notions of how women should look if they are holy women. God has big ideas for women.

We have an opportunity now to shape the future of our culture, an opportunity to ensure that our children and our grandchildren are safe in a culture of life. We have an opportunity as mothers, wives, and women to effect change: meaningful, positive change. And you can bet that the forces of evil would like nothing better than for us to be sidetracked by judging Sarah Palin's "fitness" as a Christian woman. We are the voting block that can turn the tide in this country.

I've thought almost incessantly in the past twenty-fours about how in the world Mrs. Palin can possibly accomplish all she does. I want her time management skills. I bet she doesn't waste one precious second peering into other women's homes and marriages and families and judging how they should be living out their vocations. Instead, she hears the call of her Maker. She keeps her eyes on her own work. He's asking her to make a huge sacrifice for His kingdom. He's asking her to take on a daunting task for the culture of life. He's asking her to act as a woman of conviction. Instead of wasting time worrying about the intimate details of her family, maybe we all should spend our time in prayer for her and for our country.

And then we should roll up our sleeves and help get her elected.

To All My Erie (and surrounding) County Readers

To those of you lurkers who live within driving distance of our church (and there are several of you!!!), I need you to do something for me (and ultimately for God's work and for yourself). Follow these steps....

1. Go get your calendar or daytimer.
2. Go to the little box that says "September 25th" and put a BIG red x on it.
3. Don't make the x so big that you can't write anything else though. Just big enough to catch your eye.
4. Then write.... "we must attend the Keepville Church at 7:00"

Why? Because we are having a life changing service here at our church that night (at 7:00). Rev. & Mrs. Marc Sankey and their boys will be here presenting Bible Methodist Missions in Mexico. It is a presentation that you will NOT want to miss. You will go away changed. You probably will go away askign the Lord to call YOU to Mexico. For those of you reading this who are from our church, you will see pics of "Hilda" (who is actually "Elsa" from our "Operation Hilda" last year. You will also get to see Logan whom we prayed for.

Which brings me to #5......

5. Invite all your friends and family to come as well!!! It is your obligation to make sure they see how God is working and moving!!!!

If we have an overflow crowd, we'll just do 2 services. I'll fix coffee and cookies for 1/2 of the congregation while the other half is ministered to and then we'll switch and they can have coffee and cookies while the first half has church!! So, its all good. We would love to have YOU as well as anyone you bring!!!

So.... we'll see you on September 25th at 7:00. Come early and get a good seat!!!