It's Not the Star Spangled Banner

It's called "Nuestro Himno" (Our Anthem). The lyrics have not officially been released, but early reports indicate that the lyric have been changed for more the linguistic and stylistic reasons. That means it is to a different song, with different words, sung to approximately the same tune, just like "To Anacreon in Heaven" is a different song than the "Star Spangled Banner".

What makes a song? It is the lyrics. There are numerous examples of songs with the same name and lyrics but using different tunes. Conversely there are many different songs, with different lyrics, that share the same tune. Just look through any hymnal.

I've got no problem with someone singing the Star Spangled Banner in Spanish, or any other language, as long as the lyrics are translated faithfully. Similarly, anyone is welcome to write a new song with different lyrics using the same tune as the Star Spangled Banner. That is all First Amendment-protected speech.

But, to change the meaning of the lyrics and try to claim it is still the Star Spangled Banner is fraudulent deception. People want a boycott, how about we start a boycott of any store that sells this deceptive song, and any radio station that plays it other than in jest. Now that would be a protest with some meaning.

Update: Finally got around to finding the lyrics here, at least to the first two verses. I noted that NPR has a translation about which there is some controversy. The article also seems to indicate that there are additional verses which will vary even further from the original. I stand by my comments: It ain't the U.S. National Anthem.

And I Was Born Here So I Actually Didn't Have To

I found this test via ChuBlogga via The Other Side of Kim. I'm only posting it because they gave me the code to do so.

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 10 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

Islamic Terrorism and Cowardice

Something has riled me enough to post.

First the event:

Suicide bombing kills 9 in Tel Aviv
Hamas defends attack that killed 9 in Israel

Then the reaction:

EU condemns Israel Bombing
Israel's leaders weigh response to bombing

And the results:

'Islamic terrorism' is too emotive a phrase, says EU
Israel Hits Back After Suicide Blast

Finally the analysis:

The EU condemns with words, but works to pacify terrorists and play nice with them on the side: "Do not speak ill of them or they may become offended." A pox on their cowardly house. History has shown that appeasement of aggressors never works. When that rooster comes home to roost I pray that we are not going to have to go over and drive it out, but I suspect we will.

On the other hand Israel's response is considered, but firm and to the point. "You bomb, you die." I am quite sure further bombing will result in escalating direct responses to the source of the problem. Bravo for them.

Hiatus

I'm sorry it's been almost a month since I posted anything. I've been busy and nothing has really piqued my interest enough to post about it. And frankly I don't see that changing forat least several weeks.

So I'm putting my blog on hiatus until mid-May. Readers (such as they are) should not expect any posts during this time, although I may make one or two if I get riled enough. I will also be looking at options for redoing, and maybe even rehosting, my blog. Stay tuned, and Thank you.

Afghan On Trial for Becoming a Christian

I ran across this story from multiple sources (World Magazine, Michelle Malkin, Captain's Quarters). Putting a man on trial, and potentially condemning him to death, for converting from Islam concerns me far more than all the violence in Iraq. This is a form of religious terrorism that we went into Afghanistan, and Iraq, to eradicate. I believe that a basic freedom of religious belief has to exist for any form of democratic society to take hold. If this man is convicted and executed then I believe we have lost Afghanistan to the very forces we attempted to liberate them from.

What is even sadder is the lack of outcry from the MSM and so-called "human rights" NGOs. Where is Amnesty International? Where are the new reports about this atrocity? Where is the UN? The anti-Christian attitudes pervading these groups continues to be evident. The best thing you can do is to pray for strength for Abdul Rahman and that justice will prevail. Then start writing to your Senators, Congressmen, the President and the other groups that should be up in arms over this travesty.

Good News, Bad News

I received this article from a friend in Idaho:


The good news is that there are places in this country where one can relatively easily exercise their 2nd Amendment rights. The bad news is that there are 1600 fewer gun shops in Idaho than there used to be. The GFWs continue to attack gun ownership at every level. Rebuffed in their attempts to drive manufacturers out of business, they continue to focus on making retail sales and private ownership difficult.

Looking For Web Hosting

My DW and one of my sons have started doing some web design work. They've done 2 sites so far, jestafarm.blogspot.com and yeshuasglory.blogspot.com. These are very nice sites if I say so myself.

I steered them towards Blogspot because it was a cheap way to get started. However, they've gotten to the point that the features that make Blogspot easy to use are really getting in the way of what they want to do: They need a real web site hosting arrangement. It's not a big rush, but the cost should be cheap and performance needs to be good. They don't need much in the way of tools, but the site should fully support HTML, XHTML, XML, image hosting, email, server-side scripting and CGI, and user defined site structure and sub-directories: Not fancy, but fully functional.

So, I'm taking suggestions for a good web site hosting site. Please leave a comment if you know of any you would recommend, or strongly recommend against.

Thank you.

Katrina, WMDs and Guns

Two blogs through the 15 or so I read every day and I've already come across three noteworthy items:

Via The Other Side of Kim:

• "Saddam had WMD": More evidence. I've posted before about other reports of Saddam's WMD plans and threats and nary a peep from the MSM. As Kim points out it is sad that their bias against President Bush is so strong that they cannot report this.
• "New Shooter Alert": Another one bites the dust, hey, hey, another one bites the dust...
  

And from the Captains Quarters, an insightful post pointing out even more holes in the attempted MSM attacks on President Bush over the Katrina relief efforts.

Space Cadet North of the Border

Came across this news article "Canadian college curbs Wi-Fi due to health risks" today. What a moonbat. Fred Gilbert is exactly the kind of critical thinker that should be training young people and heading up a college (NOT!). The students, parents, teachers and alumni of Lakehead University all ought to be protesting this stupid decision in their unique ways.

Teachers should be calling for Mr. Gilbert's resignation: It worked for the moonbats at Harvard. Alumni ought to join the chorus and withhold donations. Parents, too, as well threatening to pull their children out. And, the students ought to do what college students do best; protests, signs and sit-ins. Let me suggest a chant:

Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi, Ra, Ra, Ra.
Gilbert, moonbat, Bye, Bye, Bye.

I was going to call this post "Space Cadet Canuck" but looking at Mr. Gilbert's bio info in the article I realize he is from the good ole' USA, Colorado to be exact. Therefore, I must apologize to our northern neighbors for sharing this disease with them: Sorry, eh.

What's (Not) Happening

Sorry that it's been a while since I posted anything. It's been busy at work and home, and frankly most of what's been going on in the world recently has been a big "ho-hum" for me. However, in the interest of posting something, here's my reaction to various events around the world:

Winter Olympics: We never do as well as expected. It's all hype and no action. Most of the winter sports are niche activities so the networks have to hype the games so much to attract viewers that a general let-down is inevitable. Then someone forgets to clue the athletes in. Half the time it seems like they expect to just mail it in. Just ask the ice hockey teams, Bode Miller, women's curling team, Lindsey Jacobellis, Jeremy Bloom, Daren Rahlves and Johnny Weir. Then there's the selfishness of "competitors" like Shani Davis and Michelle Kwan. A few good stories are emerging, like Tanith and Benjamin, Ted Ligety and Lindsey Kildow, but it's not enough to make the whole thing particularly interesting.

Dick Cheney's Marksmanship: The press needs to get over it. Go out and do your job, and quit whining about not getting spoon-feed information. Was it a newsworthy even? Yes, but not worth an all-points bulletin. The transparency of the attacks and self-serving whining about conspiracies is laughable. Speaking of laughable, here's a good cartoon, courtesy of The Smallest Minority and Mostly Cajun. And, here's a late addition:
Muhammad Cartoons: I already said more than I planned to about this in my last post. The mainstream press reaction is also sadly predictable, as indicated by this cartoon, courtesy of Oraculations. The "resulting" riots have little to do with the cartoons, they were just an excuse to do what they do best.

Tha-tha-tha-tha-that's all folks.

Eye for an Eye

There is so much stuff being written about the cartoons of Muhammad published by a Danish newspaper that I didn't feel the need to say anything, that is until I came across this article via the World Magazine Blog. It was this statement at the end that got me going:

Islamic ethics is based on "limits and proportions," which means that the answer to an offensive cartoon is a cartoon, not the burning of embassies or the kidnapping of people designated as the enemy.

Does this mean that the Danes, and those that stand with them, are now allowed to burn embassies of Islamic countries and kidnap their citizens??? That would be "fair", but I gather that most Muslim countries are not particular interested in fairness. I think we (Western Civilization in general) are better then that.

End of the Spear and Chad Allen

Earlier this moth I posted a short mention of the fact that Chad Allen, who plays Nate and Steve Saint in the End of the Spear, is a practicing, activist homosexual and expressed my disappointment. Today I came across two articles on the Eternal Perspective Ministries web site by Randy Alcorn that provide accurate information and insightful analysis of this issue. The first is Randy's article, and the second is a conversation with the producers of the movie, one of whom is Steve Saint.

Please read both of these articles, particularly if you've read anything else about this controversy, then decide whether you need to change your opinions and actions. I did, and I have. The producers state quite clearly that they did not know about Chad's lifestyle before offering him the part and that claims to the contrary are false. I believe them. They also discuss their motives and actions after learning about Chad's homosexuality. There was no easy answer and I accept their statement that they were following God's direction to the best of their abilities.

The bottom line is that I have been wrong to speak out against this film. I apologize. I probably will not rush out to see it, mostly because I'm not a movie-go'er, but I will watch it if given the opportunity. I have heard that it is a very good movie, rather intense in places and thus not necessarily appropriate for smaller children, but all-in-all very good. Make up your own mind, but please do not base your decision on this movie on Chad Allen's presence in it.

God's Will will be done.

Micro$oft Outlook, the Case for Unintelligent Design

Several months ago my employer switched to Micro$soft Exchange for corporate email and calendaring. That forced me to start using Outlook to for calendaring. There are quite a few "features" of the Outlook Calendar that are just plain bad architecture and design, starting with its use of email as a calendaring protocol.

The latest broken "feature" I've discovered is Outlooks annoyer reminder functionality. Every other calendaring application I've ever used had a person's meeting reminders controlled by them. In other words I could determine if I wanted reminders for meetings, or not, by default and by individual event. Not so Outlook: The proposer of meetings initially determines whether there is a reminder associated with the meeting and that determination overrides local settings. Talk about annoying, backwards, useless functionality!

One can go in and turn off or modify reminders by individual meeting once they've been scheduled, but there appears to be no way to have any kind of overriding personal default that says I don't want reminders or want them at some time different from what was proposed. The other option is to turn off reminders all together, but that doesn't help if one actually wants to use reminders selectively. That also does not remove reminders from the appointments which means they show up when those meetings get synced to my Palm Pilot.

So far I've not yet found a workable fix, hack or workaround. Please post if you know of one.

Observations of Today

Another terrorist state is born. I thought there was hope for some peace for the Palestinians when Arafat passed away, but they have now cast their lot with the thugs and given up all hope of any peaceful existence. From a Biblical perspective that is inevitable, but I didn't expect to be so deliberate. I agree with The Captain's analysis that the U.S. should stop all aid, and support Israel in doing what they will need to do to remove the canker from their midst.

Protecting the family. Found this via The Rott. Huah!

Two more via the World Magazine Blog: Don't tell me the public schools are the best way to educate children. It's become "big government", more concerned with perpetuating the educrate establishment and enforcing their petty rules than actually educating children. This is the kind of attitude that lead us to home-school our children. And, yet more evidence that more government is not a good thing. People who cry for a bigger, better FEMA after Katrina have no understanding of what the problems and solutions are. They are just at best lazy.

Supporting Our Troops, And Proud of It!

Found this article via The Captain. Hugh Hewitt rips Joel Stein, the L.A. Times columnist who wrote an absolutely puerile column on not supporting our military troop, up one side and down the other. Joel's "reasoning" is based on a shallow, socialist, knee-jerk pacifistic ignorance of the U.S. military, it's role in our country and how it operates. Here's one quote that shows his utter ignorance:

But when you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you're not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you're willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism...

Anyway, read his article and the interview, clean your mouth out, and make up your own mind.

Anglos Rule!

I found this article via the World Magazine Blog. It's a little dense, with a slight dig or two at President Bush, but still a very good analysis of an interesting observation.

Lack of Humor

It still amazes me sometimes how so many people lack a funny bone. Check out this article over at the evangelical outpost, then read the comments: They're almost as funny as the article, particularly when they are not trying to be.

More Naginisms

From AOL News via World Magazine Blog:

"Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also. We're not taking care of ourselves."

and

"It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild New Orleans - the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans".

What an idiot, equating Katrina to Iraq and then calling for a segregated city. Unfortunately black-on-white racism is not considered the same as white-on-black, otherwise the MSM would have been all over this. Sadly, as long as Nagin is in charge of New Orleans I suspect they will not be able to rebuild much of anything.

Addendum: Some idiotscommenters over on the World Magazine Blog where I found this are trying to claim that Nagin meant "chocolate" to be a term for "harmoniously racially mixed". As the Colonel would say "Horse Feathers!". A quick Google search will show that "chocolate" means "black" when used in a racial manner. And if there is any doubt one only needs to read what Mayor Nagin said next:

"This city will be a majority African American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans."

You be the judge.

Reclama: Mayor Nagin apologizes for comments. My short summary of his "apology" is "I didn't think anyone was listening". Then he blames an un-named minister,

"...Nagin said his comments about God were inappropriate and stemmed from a private conversation he had with a minister...",

and his audience,

"... Nagin said, explaining he was caught up in the moment as he spoke to mostly black spectators..."

for causing his inappropriate comments. He may not be much of a politician, but he certainly has the pass-the-buck act down well.

Democrats Renege

Found this via Curmudgeonly & Skeptical. Since they couldn't derail Samuel Alito's nomination they've fallen back to drag and delay tactics. The sad thing is the apparent acquiescence of Sen. Specter. I guess after his exchange with Sen. Kennedy he had to balance the books. Arlen needs to decide if he is a Democrat or a Republican. Fence-sitters eventually fall off and usually end up hurt in the process.

More Tidbits

Here are some more articles that caught my eye:

The Mythical Monkey Mind, from the evangelical outpost, explores a fundamental contradiction in Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

Dutiful v.s. Beautiful, found via the World Magazine Blog, looks at Samuel Alito's background and how it shaped his perspectives.

Praise Gaia, and Pass the Scotch, on Curmudgeonly & Sceptical, is a short analysis of the Alito hearings, with a humerous political cartoon.

Have fun.