J. D. Pendry

J. D. Pendry

“An influence which cannot evade our consciousness will not go very deep.” – C. S. Lewis

I had several of them. One had a missing eye. There was a skinned over hole of an eye socket where one would expect to normally see an eyeball. He never wore a patch over it. He talked through one of those gizmos implanted in his windpipe. I was sent out of the house to play more than once by my Mother for staring at that empty eye socket or trying to mimic his bull frog like voice. Kids do that. He was ornery and a little bit nuts I was told by my older brothers, those injuries and that nuttiness all courtesy of the Nazis and World War II. Another uncle was quite the sot. The family joke was that if he was around, you must keep an eye on the after shave lotion, vanilla extract and any cough syrup remnants lest they become cocktails. My uncles were not that much of an influence on me mainly because my Father was a better counter influence. Besides when I was a young Soldier, the docs stopped handing out GI gin cough syrup that was 40 percent alcohol and the favorite cold cure of Soldiers.

Senator Obama tried to account for Reverend Jeremiah Wright by describing him as the old uncle who says a lot of things that the rest of the family does not necessarily support. I cannot speak for everyone, but personally I did not endure a weekly indoctrination from my crazy uncles for 20 years. My Mother would have certainly shooed them away if their visits were that frequent. Maybe there is a strong counter influence out there for the Senator that he is just waiting to spring on us at the right political moment. I do not expect that crazy Uncle Jeremiah’s influence on Obama will have much impact on an election that is months away. There are more important reasons than his nutty pastor why he should never be president, like for example his positions on national defense or better named national suicide.

Senator Clinton has crazy Uncle Saul Alinsky, a radical anti-war “community organizer” from Chicago in her closet. Another left wing community organizer from Chicago, now that is interesting. She kept Uncle Saul locked away for many years, at least for the duration of the Clinton Presidency. She does however have Bill who is known to enjoy an occasional intern with his after dinner cigar as the counter influence to her radical left Alinsky indoctrination. My spell checker tried to change Alinsky into Lewinksy, but I do not know of any connection there other than maybe a cosmic one.

I am sure that I was not the first to think of this, just to wander away from crazy uncles for a minute, but did you notice that anti-war Senator Clinton like anti-war Senator Kerry was quick to point out her heroic exploits in a war zone. That is the John Kerry that allied philosophically with the likes of Uncle Walter Cronkite to support Uncle Ho Chi Minh’s strategy of defeating America in the media and on our city streets as he had no prayer of doing so on the jungle battlefields of Vietnam. The difference between Clinton and Kerry is that Clinton was man enough to admit that she “misspoke”, uh, several times. In ideology, there is no difference.

Senator McCain does not need a crazy uncle influence. I think that is because he is one himself. Granted he is a better choice in my opinion to secure our country than are the others, but when he starts making those global warming treaty and listen more closely to our socialist leaning democratic allies speeches, I cringe a little. Uncle John Sydney, may I offer you some valuable yet free campaign advice. While the community organizers on the other side are hacking and slashing one another, smile, wave, look presidential and do not make any more doggoned global warming speeches.

The crazy uncle influence is alive and well in America. Our nation’s capitol has 535 crazy uncles (and aunts) at last count. There is everything from bathroom stall toe tappers to people who hide their bribery money in the home freezer to people who like to leave their girlfriends in the river while they stagger home to sober up and cover up to people who like to molest their boy pages. You know, Mark Twain was correct when he said that, “The only true criminal class in America is Congress.” Our crazy uncles are pulling the country in 535 different self-serving directions most of which fall into an ism category. Atheism, Darwinism, Moral Relativism, Environmentalism, Defeatism… We must like it because we keep sending the same pack of scoundrels back there to do that to our country.

The only deserving uncle we have that needs our undivided attention and protection is not getting it. That is our Uncle Sam.

Copyright © J. D. Pendry 2008 All Rights Reserved

J. D. Pendry

Today, I was all set to inquire of presidential candidate Barack (NMN) Obama what exactly it was that he meant when he described his Grandmother as a “typical white person” with her perceived prejudices “bred into her”, I supposed during her typical white rearing. I also wanted to ask him if his white half was typically white and was his black half typically black and would it be offensive if I referred to him as a Halfrican-American? I wanted to know if his two typically distinct sides were in perpetual conflict or was he just a chameleon capable of suppressing one side or the other as political needs arise. Then I wanted to tell him that if he truly wished to transcend race, he must be something to us that is neither typically black nor typically white. I wanted to tell him that, unfortunately, all he has managed to prove to us typical working class Americans is that he is nothing more than a typical politician.

I wanted to tell him that there is a model he could follow that would help him; he just needed to know where to find it. But, I’m not going to do that. Not today, because on this Easter Day my mind is elsewhere. It is focused on the only One I know that is not typical of any of us. One who clearly transcends the typical human frailties of all of us. Enjoy your Easter Day and your family and remember that it is about much more than bunnies and chocolate eggs. And it certainly transcends politics. The lyrics of the song state it better than I can. He is risen.

In Christ Alone

By Stuart Townend and Keith Getty

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save
‘Till on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost it’s grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Brought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life’s first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
‘Till He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand

Copyright © J.D. Pendry 2008 All Rights Reserved.

J. D. Pendry

I am not sure I know where to start, but I fear that I know where to end. The constant pounding by the 24 hour news media rarely leaves time to apply any perspective to anything. Nor does it leave much time to search for the roots of the insanity visited upon us daily. One thing for sure is that we have created a culture that is suffering from a multiple personality disorder. It is part politician, part religious zealot and part moral relativist and all of them parsed with some form of hyphenated Americanism that is reported about to us by media suffering from the same disorder. If we do not apply the right therapy to this disorder, it will surely drive us into jumping off of history’s bridge.

It is hard to figure out how we got where we are, but we better soon realize where we are headed. Politics is our new national wealth producing industry. Most media hours and print pages are either filled with politics, and politicians or so-called political strategists talking about politics and spinning for the politicians. We spend so much time on the personalities that we lose track of what it is exactly that politicians should be doing. Politics is an elitist sport that has totally consumed our country. Congress is America’s own little House of Lords. The next great American leader might be sitting on a tractor somewhere out there in the heartland, but if he is not already wealthy or supported by wealthy and influential backers he will still be riding his tractor and scratching his head on the day that America finally leaps from the bridge.

What squirts through the little end of the media funnel, bombards our senses at high velocity. It is almost like trying to drink from a fire hose. A media that is prone to choose sides and report accordingly determines what comes first through the funnel. Each of us manages to grasp some parts of what gets through, but too few of us, self included, rarely see things clearly until it is too late to change our course. Still, the stories of the day almost always include some parts of America’s chronic and possibly fatal personality disorder.

Moral collapse follows spiritual collapse. – C. S. Lewis

Add one part politics, one part moral relativism. Blend for a few years. Produce a failed politician, a disgraced family and a wealthy hooker.

We just watched a state’s governor crash and burn over his craving for hookers. The same man once prosecuted prostitution rings. Ethics was his mantra, but he failed to walk the talk. Clearly it was with the ethics of others that he was concerned. One of the first things mouthed by the pundits was how sorry we all are for his poor wife and children. It is sad for them, no doubt, but do not place that burden on anyone else when it clearly belongs to Governor Spitzer. It is he that should have shown concern for his family. Then the spin doctors emerged sharing all the morally relative arguments we heard once before. It is a private matter. Prostitution should be legal anyway. It is after all a crime without a victim.

Then there is the story of the young woman. Her pictures are plastered everywhere. It is reported that she made several hundred thousand dollars from a song downloaded from her website. The pundits predict that within weeks, she will be a millionaire several times over. Once again, our new culture teaches young women that the way to wealth and fame is to follow the paths Paris, Britney and now “Kirsten” the prostitute.

“I believe Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” – C. S. Lewis

Add one part politician, one part religious zealot, blend for 20 years then add a dash of hyphenated Americanism and twist of liberally biased media and get a leading presidential candidate.

We were graced this week with many excerpts from the sermons of Barack (NMN) Obama’s Preacher, Jeremiah Wright. While listening to that bilge spew forth, I was also noticing the cheering congregation. When he said God Damn America, they cheered. When he accused America of inventing the AIDS virus as a form of genocide, they cheered. When he said that on 9/11 America’s chickens came home to roost, the congregation cheered. There is not an Imam in the Middle East that could have whipped an angry crowd into a frenzy any better than Jeremiah did it. What Jeremiah Wright preaches is not Christianity. It is black separatist, racist, American hating garbage. He is a Louis Farrakhan clone trying to pass himself and his Church off as Christian. It appears that Obama and Oprah bought it. Do you want to know what is sad? People who are not Christian and who never attend a Church service will point and say that is why?

Barack (NMN) Obama has belonged to this church for 20 years and claims to have never heard these sermons before. And I just fell off the turnip truck. Most of the biased media will say OK, he explained it, nothing else to see here. And then, moving ever closer to the edge of that bridge, we will end up with someone in the Whitehouse that we will not even know. Until it is too late.

I will be out back working on the bunker.

Copyright © J D Pendry, 2008, All Rights Reserved

J. D. Pendry

Since 2001, ethanol production has quadrupled from 1.6 billion gallons in 2000 to an estimated 6.4 billion gallons in 2007, with the vast majority coming from corn. In 2005, the United States became the world’s leading ethanol producer, and last year, the U.S. accounted for nearly half of worldwide ethanol production. Whitehouse

That is one of the first links I encountered while perusing the Department of Energy website. It is right there with the links that are battling global warming and asking us to change the world by changing our light bulbs. Other things I see on the Whitehouse link are Renewable Fuels Mandate, Vehicle Fuel Economy Mandate, Lighting Efficiency Mandate, Appliance Efficiency Mandate… I really wonder if there are any functioning brains left in Washington, not to imply that there were ever many of them there in the first place. If we Mandate it, then it will be and San Fran Nan, Harry and now it looks like George as well can hold hands and skip merrily through Nan’s California vineyards.

Our national security problems revolving around energy first came to light during the Arab oil embargo of 1973 – 1974, which was our punishment from the Islamists for daring to help Israel defend herself. The fact that it has been a growing national security crisis for our country for so many years shows the complete lack of foresight of our career politicians.

The Arabs used oil as a weapon then as they and others are using it now. They are at war with us still, and our politicians appear too stupid to realize it or simply are unable to see beyond the next campaign cycle or contribution. None of the OPEC countries could ever challenge the United States militarily, but they are no doubt at war with us economically while we are busied with changing our doggoned light bulbs. Does it only sound stupid to me to imply that windmills are considered a progression from nuclear energy or that filling our homes with mercury filled light bulbs is going to accomplish anything toward addressing what is clearly a national security threat? I guess I am just not educated in such matters.

Our answer as outlined above is to reduce our dependence on foreign energy by, among other things, producing ethanol with the vast majority coming from corn. There is clearly an inability to see down the road in our government – to see the impact of decisions. Ethanol might, a slight might, reduce the price of a gallon of fuel at the pump by a penny or two. Does that sound like a good deal for you? Economics for dummies reminds us that when demand increases, supply reduces and prices rise according to the demand. Increased ethanol production has increased the demand for corn and subsequently the price of it. Everything that relies on corn like the beef, pork and poultry products you consume are now more expensive because it cost more to ready those products for your dinner table. It also cost more to provide you with milk, cheese, eggs, cereal, etc. etc. etc. A possible penny saved at the ethanol pump does not look like such a grand deal when it is given back with interest to purchase products we need that rely on corn, especially since we are continuing to support the Islamists and Hugo Chavez.

What makes this more disheartening is the fact that with a concerted effort, we could put OPEC out of business as far as United States National Security is concerned. Instead, our would be leaders are busily hoping you will fall for a hope for change, trying to decide who is best to answer the phone, or who is most ready to sign a Global Warming treaty.

Congress and the Whitehouse, have at their fingertips all the information they need to solve our problem. What they all lack is the foresight and courage to do it, preferring instead to change our light bulbs and then back slap one another into believing they are actually accomplishing something. All they have to do is read the studies they commissioned.

The United States has substantial unconventional fossil fuels resources that could be produced and converted to liquid fuels…

Oil Shale: America’s oil shale resource exceeds 2 trillion barrels, including about 1.5 trillion barrels of oil equivalent in high quality shales concentrated in the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Other lower quality and less concentrated resources, totaling about 619 billion barrels, are deposited in several southern and eastern states…

Coal-Derived Liquids: Current U.S. proven coal reserves exceed 267 billion short tons – approximately 250 years of supply at current production rates, about 1.1 billion tons in 2005…

Most U.S. coal is suitable for gasification with oxygen and steam. The synthetic gas can be used to generate clean electric power or various other energy carriers such as hydrogen or liquid fuels such as ultra clean diesel, and jet fuels, using Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) synthesis to convert the gas to liquids. This technology has been demonstrated at commercial scale in South Africa in three facilities operated by Sasol since 1980…

First of a kind domestic coal to liquids plants are likely to have capital costs ranging from $70,000 to $100,000 per daily barrel of capacity. Capital costs for a 50,000 Bbl/d plant would be between $3.5 and $5 billion. With these economics, produced fuels would be competitive at a world price for light sweet crude oil at or above $45 - $60/Bbl…

Competitive at $45 - $60 a barrel and we are shucking corn. It is worth your while to take time to peruse the Strategic Unconventional Fuels Task Force report and the Development of America’s Unconventional Fuels Resources, from which I have been quoting and the Overview of Unconventional Fuels. Maybe you can do it by the glow of your compact fluorescent reading lamp while enjoying a bag of corn chips. If you get angry enough to contact your favorite politician, that will be OK too.

Copyright © 2008 JD Pendry All Rights Reserved

J. D. Pendry

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name ….” – William Shakespeare

John Sydney McCain repeatedly reminds us that he has the utmost respect for both of his likely opponents in the general election for the presidency. So much so that he apologized that someone so much as dared to use the given middle name of one of them during a political rally. With that approach, Senator McCain will never lay a glove on Barack Rose Obama, especially if he tries to spar him with political rhetoric and does not try to educate the voting populace about him. Sydney will get waxed while a complicit liberal media, eager to defeat any Republican, even the moderate, liberal leaning John Sidney McCain will turn its collective head in order to help.

Have you read about Antoin “Tony” Rezko? Syrian born “Arab American” Rezko is under federal indictment (pdf) for fraud. According to the Chicago Sun Times: “Obama and Rezko have been friends since 1990, and the Wilmette businessman has raised as much as $60,000 in campaign contributions for him.“ If I were an aspiring journalist, possibly working for the New York Times or some other august publication, I would be interested in learning more about Obama’s relationship with a man that is under indictment for kickbacks on government contracts, especially contracts steered by Illinois state politicians.

Obama, a former [state] lawmaker now in his first term in the Senate, once backed a proposal to grant public money to a company formed by Rezko, and the purchase of his home got tangled up with Rezko — something he [Obama] called a “boneheaded” mistake. – Chicago Tribune

It is an interesting real estate deal. It gets more interesting if you read about it, but of course it requires that you mine for the information that no single mainstream news organization wants to bring to the forefront. Another interesting character is also tied to Obama fundraising. His name is Nahdmi Auchi. An Iraqi born billionaire and former Baathist, if one can actually be a former Baathist. He was one of Saadam’s boys. Bill Gertz points out some interesting coincidence surrounding the possible Auchi-Rezko-Obama link in his Washington Times column.

Auchi gave at least $10.5 million to Obama fundraiser Antoin “Tony” Rezko, including a payment of $3.5 million that coincided with Mr. Obama’s purchase in 2005 of a $1.65 million Chicago house, the London Times reported Tuesday. The newspaper said the timing of the payment and the house purchase, along with the purchase of land next door by Mr. Rezko’s wife Rita from the same seller, raise questions about whether Auchi helped buy the house.

That $3.5 million loan is already in the crosshairs of the prosecutor. I wonder if this trial will happen before November.

The other thing that no one is allowed to do is display the picture of Obama dressed like a Somali. It is just a picture, but it may cause a certain sector of our country to recall that it was Somalis with the help of Al Qaeda terrorists that dragged the bodies of American Soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu.

Raila Odinga, the Kenyan opposition leader claims to be Obama’s cousin. Obama’s father was Kenyan and supposedly of the same Luo community as Odinga. I love his website, “Your agent for change. Register for change. Vote for change.” It was Odinga supporters who set fire to a church, burning alive its occupants and hunting down with machetes those who escaped the fire.

EVEN the children were burnt alive. In broad daylight, a crowd of Kenyans set a church filled with hundreds of terrified families on fire and listened to their screams as flames engulfed them.

Nothing quite like change is there?

Obama has other interesting acquaintances that deserve our attention. Did you ever hear of the Weathermen Underground? They were our own Vietnam era American bred terrorists. They liked to plant bombs in federal buildings. It turns out that Obama knows the leaders of that little outfit and actually met with them during his political rise. It is not just a passing acquaintance. He served as a director of the Woods Fund along with Weatherman William C Ayers. Ayers contributed to Obama’s senatorial campaign. The Woods fund gave money to an Arab organization that bemoans the “catastrophe” of Israel. The co-founder of that pro-Palestinian organization also held a fundraiser for Obama.

Although Obama might have some interesting associations, we are assured that he is a Christian. His spiritual mentor embraces some theological concepts that are personally troubling to me. He belongs to the Trinity United Church of Christ. His pastor, Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright preaches liberation and the Black Value System (pdf). I find some parts of it quite interesting. For example:

Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness”
Classic methodology on control of captives teaches that captors must keep the captive ignorant educationally, but trained sufficiently well to serve the system. Also, the captors must be able to identify the “talented tenth” of those subjugated, especially those who show promise of providing the kind of leadership that might threaten the captor’s control.

Maybe Jehoiada will examine this theology for us one day. Read the Reverend’s words in this Church bulletin, What’s Goin’ on? (pdf)

We have lost over 3,000 boys and girls in an illegal and unjust war, and the media is on a feeding frenzy about Barack Obama’s church. Where is the outrage about the 3,000 dead American military personnel and the 600,000 dead Iraqi civilians who are dead for no reason other than greed and ego? What’s goin’ on?

It is easy to see where Obama gets his voice on the war. It is scary, however, when you tie those views together with some of the relationships that, like his given name, are simply not to be mentioned. There is another interesting relationship that comes to Obama via his pastor. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has endorsed Obama.

“This young man [Obama] is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better.” – Farrakhan

Reverend Wright honored Farrakhan recently in his Church magazine (pdf) saying of him:

“When Minister Farrakhan speaks, Black America listens… “Minister Farrakhan will be remembered as one of the 20th and 21st century giants of the African American religious experience.”

Obama had to be cajoled to give a half-hearted rejection of Farrakhan in his last debate with Clinton. Reverend Wright tells us that when Farrakhan speaks Black America listens. If that is so, then this is what they hear:

White people are potential humans — they haven’t evolved yet” Wikipedia

“The Jews don’t like Farrakhan, so they call me Hitler. Well, that’s a good name. Hitler was a very great man. He rose Germany up from the ashes.” – USA Today

“The white man is our mortal enemy, and we cannot accept him. I will fight to see that vicious beast go down into the lake of fire prepared for him from the beginning, that he never rise again to give any innocent black man, woman or child the hell that he has delighted in pouring on us for 400 years. – USA Today

John Sydney, I’m not quite sure that I know what to make of all of this. Except that you will probably apologize that I even brought any of it up.

Guilt, on the contrary, like a base thief, suspects every eye that beholds him to be privy to his transgressions, and every tongue that mentions his name to be proclaiming them. – Henry Fielding

Copyright © J. D. Pendry 2008 All Rights Reserved