As much of a techno-junkie as I used to be, I stopped keeping abreast of bleeding edge updates quite a few moons ago. As such, the finer points of HTML have eluded me, much to my web-ring masters’ chagrin on more than one occasion, even though I only posted about it once.

Anyway – Gawfer started a blog roll of his own, with help from the exceedingly helpful and computer-savvy Texas Fred. I got a little piece of code (two things to watch out for – a software guy with a screwdriver, and a hardware guy with a piece of code!) and inserted it in my sidebar – now I have IKA’s Blogroll listed!

Go ahead, get the “ooh” and “aah” out of your system – I’ll wait.

After I tested the view, I noticed that IKA had a scrolling window – saving all sorts of room in the sidebar, especially as the blog roll grows. Well, I knew (being the hyper-aware kinda guy that I am) that Texas Fred’s blog roll didn’t have that little window. It only took me about five minutes of code inspection and some cut-and-paste action, and voila Fred’s roll is in a window too!

I have really come a long way, haven’t I? Well, I think I have.

P.S. to all the CAIR lurkers – until you all start standing up and denouncing the murderous activities of the “minority” of your religion, then the rest of the world will continue to see these actions as the mainstream, accepted actions of your religion, and you wouldn’t want that, would you? Unless, of course, it truly is NOT a “Religion of Peace” as you so heartily claim…

God bless you all, especially those who would reject the blessing – ya’ll are gonna have a real surprised look on your face come Judgement Day!

A big thank you and Ooh-Rah! goes out to Gunz, for this lovely photo of me in my younger years, passing on some advice to John Murtha, who recently received an award for his peace-making skills.

Pardon me while I go take a shower; the fact that I even mentioned that traitorous EX-marine makes me feel rather filthy.

Yes, this is a rare Saturday posting. I volunteered to help TMBWitW move some boxes around in the retention area at work, and I woke up a bit early.

When I saw the picture Gunz sent me, (he snagged it from sues) I about fell out of my chair laughing so hard. A little warning next time, please.

God bless you all! Even Murtha, and Lord, let me find it in my heart to forgive him for what he is doing to the morale of our troops.

I’m going to be wearing my Red Shirt tomorrow – how about you?

God bless you all and have a good weekend!

Mary had this link to an interesting article regarding the de-socialization of the United States.

The author, Vedran Vuk, has some very salient points about the state of the personal union. We, as a people, have come to accept certain government programs, and have even planned our old age around them – Social Security, Medicare, etc. – when it really comes down to taking care of our own.

Back in the day, when the family unit was more often than not located on a family farm or ranch, this made sense. Multiple generations of families living in the same household would work together and help one another – the larger the family, the fewer hired hands needed. My own family grew on the family dairy farm at Black River Falls, Wisconsin, and up until my father’s generation the family was pretty much located in Wisconsin and northern Illinois. Since then, there has been an explosion of migration all over the country – I have cousins from California to Maine, from Washington to Florida.

But have we lost the connectedness that being a close family brings? I believe so – some of you may still have close relationships with all of your siblings – I have spoken only to my older brother lately; with the exception of our cousin in Colorado no one else in my family knows that we are expecting a child in December. My mother doesn’t even know, and she isn’t returning my phone calls again. (that’s another post, and quite the soap opera, if you ask me)

Anyway – I know my family is not unique, but I also know that there are still families out there who are still close.

Back to the point – could some of these programs be dismantled? We hear about the privatization of Social Security – what about the ultimate in privatization, and return all of the money to the wage earners? Then, let them make their decision on what they want to invest in. Yes, there are some people who would have one heck of a blow-out, but then sobriety should bring them back to the sense that they just partied away their retirement fund. Along with the removal of Social Security, perhaps it would be time to look at a national sales tax again – removing the income tax and only taxing what you actually buy, instead of what you earn. This has been called a “Fair Tax” and there are much more informed people out there to discuss it with than me; don’t even get me started.

Vedran Vuk makes another good point – the mindset of those on welfare is such that if you can count on someone else to bail you out all the time, why worry? This is “letting” people shirk their child-rearing duties, especially where that pesky “Personal Responsibility” thing comes in. I cannot fathom the thought process that says you should set your children up for failure. Isn’t that worse than child abuse? My gosh, how can you look at your “adult” children in jail and know that you allowed them to get there, and then blame anyone or anything other than yourself for not giving them the decision making skills and work ethic they needed to lift themselves up?

Tell you what – you all just think about this one for a while. Let’s meet back here later and talk about it.

Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m kind of tired. I’ve cranked out a couple of Bill Whittle-esque entries, and all that venting has wiped my brain. Thus the no-brainer entry yesterday.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s lots of stuff to blog about, especially in such a target-rich environment as the world today – obliviots, morons, meatheads, politicians (oops, repeated myself there) – but I seem to be empty of words right now.

Not to worry – I am sure that something will tweak my senses again in the next day or two, and then I’ll be off and running again.

Me? Not much – I have been working on learning how to play the bass guitar for the church’s praise and worship team. The key there is working – I know where notes are on the piano, I know how to play trumpet (although it’s been a few years since I’ve puckered), but trying to translate that information to the bass guitar is … well, interesting would be one way to put it.

I still sing; in fact, I would be considered a vocalist before any other kind of musician-related “label” but the need is strong for those of us leading p&w to show that we are not limited to singing along with the CD player in front of the congregation.

And, since it’s the middle of July, we need to start working on our Christmas program. What fun!

Well, God bless you all, and go visit some of the people on the blogroll. Tell ’em I said “Hi!”