Hands Off Our Dogs

Today, at Townhall.com Guy Benson has an article entitled Stay the Hell Away From Our Dogs, Radical Environmentalists. It seems that dogs eat meat (clutching pearls and heading to fainting couch.) Radical environmentalists believe, contrary to science, that the production of animals for meat creates greenhouse gas. What the environmentalists apparently don't know is that rather than creating new carbon dioxide, ruminant animals like cows and sheep are merely recycling existing CO2. In fact, ruminant animals actually protect and improve the land if managed correctly.

Meanwhile dogs are indeed man's best friend. I have three of them.

Film critic Sonny Bunch observed years ago that radical environmentalists make excellent movie villains. They are fanatically ideological, they prize notions of green "justice" over the wellbeing, comfort, happiness, and even lives of human beings. And they are gallingly and insufferably self-righteous in their extremism. What's not to loathe? Beyond the fictions of the silver screen, it really does seem as though this category of real world ghouls and grinches go out of their way to alienate normal people as aggressively and obnoxiously as possible. Think about their pointless and performative "protests" that hurl food products at priceless pieces of art, or interrupt theater performances, or block traffic. The latter tactic is particularly grating and dangerous because it can keep people away from their jobs, their children, and even from needed medical attention. But the true-life villains don't care. They have tunnel vision, and they cannot be budged. They actively undermine their own cause in the process, but they also don't seem to care about that. It's a nihilistic movement, much like the "pro-Palestine" cause (there is, of course, large overlap within that dirtbag coalition).

Of all the off-putting stunts they pull, and lectures they deliver, I'm not sure any could match the self-destructiveness of telling human beings that they shouldn't have dogs as pets -- "for the planet," of course. I cannot imagine a faster way to get a wider array of people to extend double middle fingers than to come after Man's Best Friend, but that's what they're doing. Never change, enviros. You're doing great, sweeties. Also, stay the hell away from our dogs, you monsters:

"It turns out many Americans aren't great at identifying which personal decisions contribute most to climate change. A study recently published by the National Academy of Sciences found that when asked to rank actions, such as swapping a car that uses gasoline for an electric one, carpooling or reducing food waste, participants weren’t very accurate when assessing how much those actions contributed to climate change, which is caused mostly by the release of greenhouse gases that happen when fuels like gasoline, oil and coal are burned. The top three individual actions that help the climate, including avoiding plane flights, choosing not to get a dog and using renewable electricity, were also the three that participants underestimated the most. Meanwhile, the lowest-impact actions were changing to more efficient appliances and swapping out light bulbs, recycling, and using less energy on washing clothes.

Like Benson, I will not be complying with this nonsense. Probably, at least half of gentle readers have dogs, and know what I am saying here. Dogs are excellent companions.  When you come home, the dogs are already at the door, glad to greet you.  They, unlike your best friend, love you unconditionally.  They are around you and guard you when you are sleeping.  Of course, they alert you to the approach of strangers, which is very valuable out here in the country.  As Benson says at the conclusion, "keep your grubby, ideological hands of our dogs."

Choose Wisely

At the American Thinker Mike McDaniel reminisces about his career teaching English to high school and college students. He points to the obvious, that man can not prevent God from entering anyplace He likes, including schools in God has never left American schools. He calls out an aphorism that is both funny and true: "so long as there is algebra, there will always be prayer in schools."  His point though, and it is a good one, is that understanding religion is a part of a complete education.  You don't have to push any belief on students to give them such an understanding, but it is important to at least acknowledge the impact it has had on their lives.

Conservatives often complain that God has been removed from schools and demand He be reinstalled. Amusing that anyone might imagine the Almighty must allow leftists to do anything or that He can’t defend Himself. God is omnipresent; He’s everywhere always.

It is amusing. But as people, often caught up in the events of the day, it may seem that God has abandoned us. God, after all, doesn't need man, but man needs God. Don't believe me? Look to the Old Testament, particularly the books of 1 & 2 Samuel, the books of 1 & 2 Kings, and 1 & 2 Chronicles. For that matter, how many times did God get the Israelites out of scrapes in Exodus?

But McDaniel is correct that many school districts take these things too far, believing they will somehow avoid lawsuits by parents and crazy atheists.  For more on that, read below.  They can't, so stop trying and just obey the law.  McDaniel gives us a brief on just what can be taught in public schools and what cannot:

There’s no doubt most American educators tend to the left. Even some that don’t aren’t fully aware of the law and the Constitution, and out of an overabundance of caution are sometimes overly restrictive of student’s First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. Here’s what is lawfully proscribed in schools:

*Teachers can’t proselytize. They can’t advocate for religion or try to convert their students.

*Students can’t worship in disruptive ways. They can’t roll out their prayer rugs and begin to pray in math class, nor can they jump up in the middle of a class to call down the wrath of God on their evil English teacher.

*Teachers cannot mandate prayer or lead students in prayer. If they think that’s their job, they’re in the wrong profession.

Students can do pretty much everything else. They can certainly read the Bible or any other religious book as long as they’re not doing that instead of classwork. I maintained a small library in my classroom, which included at least four different versions of the Bible and multiple books on theology.

Schools can teach the Bible as literature, even history, but not as the one, true way. My Texas high school English Department offered an elective on the literature of the Bible. It never lacked for kids. In the mythology classes I taught, comparative theology was always a part. Teaching literature in general and American literature in particular, it’s essential to speak of the role of Christianity in the founding of Western Civilization and America. How can one understand the people of the past without knowing the beliefs that shaped them—and us? That’s true of any competent English or World History class, and it’s entirely lawful and appropriate, again so long as teachers don’t take the opportunity of a captive student audience to proselytize.

The Bible tells a story and you should understand that story in order to understand our founding. You don't have to believe it, though. The Koran also tells a story, and it is a different story than the Bible tells.  You don't have to believe that story either, but it explains events in our history.  I would point out as well that the God of the Bible, and the "god" of the Koran are two very different persons. Like voting, there is no middle ground. To choose not to decide is to decide. Everyone must choose. Choose wisely.

The Chicken or the Egg

Today, at the American Thinker Noel S. Williams has a post entitled Newsflash: Crazy people are drawn to leftism. This post answers the chicken and the egg question. I had always wondered whether leftism made people crazy or if crazy people were drawn to leftism. Now I have the answer.

Confounded leftism should not be elevated to the level of legitimate political philosophies ending with the “ism” suffix. The perennial political paradoxes from time immemorial have been addressed by great thinkers whose insights are often pigeonholed by some “ism”: liberalism, conservatism, capitalism, socialism, Marxism, etc. No matter where one falls on the spectrum, the ideas underpinning them were formulated by mostly rational minds -- even if their prescriptions don’t comport with human nature.

Leftism doesn’t come close to that. Other than being consistently anti-American, it is not a coherent or cogent ideology, although its inherent demagoguery is reminiscent of some aspects of fascism. Leftism isn’t intellectually potent enough to “make people crazy.” Instead, it is a loony mish-mash of anti-tradition and anti-Trump messages just for the sake of it. It rejects commonsense conventions born of experience that have often served humanity well in our inexorable pursuit of enlightenment (with notable exceptions).

In a sense, leftism is really “wrong-ism” insofar as it reflexively rejects what’s proven to be right on the right. Why, for example, would anybody want to radically transform our society (the last great hope of Earth) after attaining comfort in our Shining City on a Hill? Why not stay whence you came if we’re so bad (e.g. Soros, Ilhan, and others…) and transform your own dysfunctional societies (Somalia is a mess, for example, and Hungary has plenty of its own problems)? Leftism didn’t make them crazy; rather, they are crazy people who contribute to an ill-conceived and disjointed patchwork of leftist poppycock.

When I was in high school, I discovered that there were people here in my country who didn't want to be here, who would prefer to be in, say, the Soviet Union, or Cuba, anyplace but here. I wondered then why they didn't go and live in one of those other places. It seemed then, and even now, that the United States was unique.  There were plenty of places to go that would satisfy these people.  The United States seemed somehow to be blessed to be a "Shining City on a Hill" as Mr. Reagan put it.

Now, at 73, I have traveled the world, having lived in Panama, and been to Europe and Central America. I still wonder. Why does, for example, an Ilhan Omar come to this country where she is apparently unhappy, get herself elected to Congress, where she uses her position there to complain about how horrible America is? Why not return to Somalia? Williams answers that question. She is crazy.

Note that there are many leftist billionaires, who made the money here, using capitalist methods, but who decry the capitalist country.  Why is that?  They are crazy, that's why.  George Soros has been crazy since his youth, having helped the Nazis to bring genocide on the Jews.  Why do the Democrats cater to a small minority of obviously disturbed people, the LGBTQ, rather than the majority?  You guessed it.

Now I am not saying that people like Omar should be institutionalized, though Williams hints at it. But at the same time, these people should be in some form of treatment. But what that form would be I have no idea. Psychiatry has not proved to be helpful, since so many leftists seem to already be seeing therapist regularly and are not cured. My solution would be to pray for anyone suffering from leftism, knowing that God alone can help these individuals, but remembering that His will be done. If God doesn't want these people in His Kingdom, why should we?

The Leftist End Game?

 Today, at Townhall.com Kurt Schlichter has an article entitled What Is the Democrats' End Game? It is filled with Schlichter's signature snark, but it also includes a very large portion of human nature and of history. I am utterly astonished by the young peoples' tolerance of Communism and socialism. Perhaps it is because they have been taught that socialism is a good thing and not taught all the evil that has been done under Communist rule. But every time Marxism has been tried, over and over and over again it has murdered millions of people and left societies in abject misery.

During COVID I was commenting on the scarcity of products and the emptiness of store shelves to a lady, and I said, "It's beginning to look like Venezuela or Cuba here." To which she replied, "What do you mean?" And these people vote. So let me at least pass on a bit of history.

When I was young, the Soviet Union put on a show of dominating the entire world.  Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev even said so by claiming that capitalists would sell him the rope to hang us with. During this time, the occasional piece would come out showing the misery of the Soviet people whenever a 5 year plan failed, and they all seemed to fail. The Russians would have to import grain from, horror of horrors, the United States. Then the Soviet Union collapsed. But China began to rise, again spurred on by the greed of international corporations (not to be confused with actual capitalists). China is looking like it too will collapse. Pol Pot has come and gone. Cuba remains a Communist hell hole, and it has been joined by Venezuela and to a lesser extent Brazil. Wherever Communism, socialism, Fascism, or Marxism goes, envy, murder, misery, and scarcity follow in its train. The Left always believes it can change man for the better and create a Utopia on earth. They only prove the Bible correct.

Schlichter writes:

Americans are more divided than we have been since the first time the Democrats started and lost a civil war, with every norm being tossed out and every legitimate exercise of lawfully attained power by us normals being shamelessly obstructed. The left rejects the idea that patriotic Americans have any moral right to participate in theirown governance, to pursue their own interests, or to assert their own rights. To them,we are nothing but thralls, tax-generating slaves who must feed them, fuel them, fight for them, and obey their commands while meekly accepting their calumny.

They are delusional. Things aren’t going to work out that way.

But things are going to work out some way, and you have to wonder what their endgame is. After all, the Democratic Party, which is entirely indistinguishable from the left, refuses to accept the legitimacy of Donald Trump or any of us and is doing everything it can to prevent us from exercising any self-governance. That specifically and notably includes enforcing laws that were passed through the proverbial Schoolhouse Rock “I’m Just a Bill” process. It’s not much of a democracy if democratically enacted laws are not enforced. We have very clear laws on illegal immigration, yet they’re doing everything they can, formally and informally, to prevent us from enforcing them to get rid of the millions of invaders they allowed into the country without our permission. We have very clear laws on racial discrimination, yet they’re doing everything they can, formally and informally, to prevent us from enforcing them, particularly when they might benefit people of pallor. We have very clear laws on crime, yet they’re doing everything they can, formally and informally, to prevent us from enforcing them to make our cities safe, like in Washington DC, where they’re perfectly happy to sacrifice hundreds of black lives, and a few white ones, to make sure Trump doesn’t score a victory by making that urban cesspool habitable again.

One of the things that is most apparent is that Trump is not doing anything that is against the law. Schlichter mentions here a few examples, but every executive order and every executive action is within the law. The Left participated in making these laws, but now that Trump is enforcing them, they screech "he can't do that."  There is no law allowing boys to play in girls' sports either, but they seem determined to make it so. As Schlichter notes, what can't go on will not go on.

What can’t go on won’t go on, and this can’t go on. You can’t have half of America denying that the other half of America has any kind of moral right to participate in Our Democracy, and believing that the other side is so morally flawed, so obviously literally fascist in its love of attractive women, blue jeans, law and order, and not being discriminated against because its ancestors came from Europe, that to even consider their interests or rights is to embrace Hitler.

...snip...

Will we just give up, shrug our shoulders, and decide to allow them to do whatever the hell they want? OK, here you go, here’s our hard-earned money to give to your deadbeat constituents and to launder to communist NGOs and your billionaire donors. Here you go, here are all our guns. We know how much you hate us having those. We’re not worried about what inevitably happens to people who disarm themselves. And we’ll just shut up now and not exercise free speech by pointing out how corrupt, stupid, venal, and ridiculous you and your ilk are. England can show us the way – if somebody hops on X (assuming it still operates after Elon Musk gets arrested for whatever made-up crime they make up) and points out that a dude with a penis can never be a woman, here comes the SWAT team! And we’ll just let you guys gerrymander your hearts out in the blue states, but we will make sure that every Jasmine Crockett-like borderline clinical moron in some bluish part of a red state gets a safe district. And we will stop expecting to have a say in everything, because of course, we’re not qualified to have a say in anything. We’re not qualified to raise our own kids. We’re not qualified to decide what injections we get. We’re not qualified to opine on weather policy, so take out cars, trucks and steaks. We’re certainly not qualified to decide whether or not we want tens of millions of Third World peasants invading our country and turning it into the kind of hellhole they fled from. So, yeah, you’re good. You pinkos take over and handle things. We’ll be here, ready to take your abuse, take the blame for anything that ever goes wrong, and obey all your commands.

But if you believe that, you’re gobbling more of your SSRIs and washing them down with more oaky Chardonnay than usual.

As Schlichter points out, we are not going to give up our right to worship our God, or our guns, or our rights to speak freely. Even if the Left stacks the Supreme Court with fellow travelers, they cannot legitimately take our rights because these were granted not by government of men but by our Creator. We will defend these and other rights because in the end it is better to be dead than to live on our knees to some tyrant.

Please read all of Kurt Schlichter's article, and of course, by guns and ammo. We all pray we will never need them, but you never know.

Remembering the Oath of Office

 Yesterday, John Petrolino had an excellent article at Bearing Arms entitled Virginia Sheriff: If Bad Guys Are Carrying Guns for Free, Why Should Good Guys Have to Pay? It is a good question. Most of us have come to accept that government at all levels acts much as the mafia. They extract taxes from their citizens by threatening them with overwhelming punishments for not paying. Supposedly they provide good roads and police and fire protection and schools. But if they don't, can you protest by deducting the parts they do not provide from your taxes? Well, good luck with that. Supposedly we get to elect our oppressors, though as we have seen lately, even that is called into question. Still, that is the system we have.

So, it is good to see a public servant who actually believes in serving the public and not himself:

How do licensing officials get away with charging for the Second Amendment? Sheriff Cline of Wythe County, Va. asked the same and abolished the Sheriff’s background check fee for CCWs.

Interim Sheriff Anthony Cline of Wythe County, Virginia recently stepped up to serve since the retirement of Sheriff Charles Foster. The first official public act that Sheriff Cline executed since taking office was the declaration that he’d no longer be collecting fees for concealed handgun permit applications. In the August 4, 2025 letter he sent to the county clerk, Cline said, “As Sheriff, I do not believe citizens should be charged to exercise their constitutional rights.”

Sheriff Cline’s move to no longer accept the sheriff’s portion of permitting fees is part of a growing movement. Cline does not attribute his action to what’s been seen in New Jersey with townships nullifying permit to carry fees. However, that does not change that this is starting to become a trend.

...snip...

“When I was sworn in by the Circuit Court Judge, I recited the following oath,” Cline said. “I, Anthony Cline, do solemnly swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge all the duties incumbent upon me in the Office of Sheriff, so help me God.”

Cline said that when he reflected upon that oath of office, “especially the part about upholding the Constitution of the United States,” he said he thought about what that truly means. “I consider myself an American patriot. While our country has its challenges, I still believe we live in the greatest nation on Earth,” Cline said.

Well, glory and halleljah. He is correct. When the state insists on a background check to issue a concealed handgun permit, it should fund that background check itself out of taxes already extracted from the people. Extracting yet another fee, which is ultimately just another tax has always felt like adding insult to injury to me. I hope he wins, and when he does, that he retains this attitude. It is refreshing.

Are You Listening, America?

 Andrea Widburg has a post up at the American Thinker today entitled Understanding the plan that Hamas supporters have for America. Widburg notes that rather than a long post, she will just post a video of a rather attractive young woman spouting (in my words) leftist and satanic garbage.

I encourage gentle readers to read Widburg's post and to watch the embedded X video. Perhaps it is God's plan that only a few of us remain when He comes again in glory. I am sure that God wants no one to doubt that He alone is the victor, and that we fallible humans had nothing to do with it and can only watch and praise Him. Still, it may be that we can take some action now to stem the tide, if only we will listen.

Does the Shroud of Turin Capture the Resurrection?

On August 3, 2025, James Zumwalt had an interesting post at the American Thinker entitled What Moment in Time Did the Shroud of Turin Actually Capture? For anyone who has looked into it, the Roman Catholic Church seems especially enamored of relics and objects said to be imbued with spiritual power. Statues of the Virgin Mary, scapulars, crucifixes, icons of the saints, and of course true pieces of the cross. Most of those are don't have any power on their own. They are there as reminders to the Catholic faithful of who they are and how they are to act and behave. For Christians, every moment of every day is to be lived for Christ.  A rosary is a bunch of beads and a crucifix unless it is prayed with faith and purpose. Then it has power.

But the Shroud of Turin is a different matter. As you will find out from reading Zumwalt's article, the Shroud cannot even now be reproduced by modern technology.

The debate about the Shroud’s authenticity has led to extensive scientific scrutiny. Pieces of its cloth were subjected to carbon dating in 1988 suggesting its origin was between 1260 and 1390. However, the carbon dating tests have since been discredited not only because the Shroud’s exposure to the 1532 fire may well have impacted accurate testing, but also because its results conflict with other scientific methods.

Contributing to its authenticity is the fact that the three-dimensional image of Jesus appears to be a photographic negative. While linear perspective—i.e., three dimensional painting—was formalized around 1415, negative photography was not developed until the early 19th century. And, had the image been painted, the paint would have deeply penetrated the fabric, which it did not.

A new theory not only further supports authenticity, it suggests it was not the dead image of Jesus that was captured but rather that of a resurrecting Christ. It surmises the image is not one of a dead Jesus lying prone but one of Him in an upright position. Discrediting the former belief is that—consistent with the law of gravity—His hair falls directly down both sides of His head, covering His ears.

...snip...

In another surprising discovery, it is discernible as well from the Shroud’s image that the subject was not static, revealing some subtle signs of movement, typical of one still breathing.

While the image does not portray a supine Jesus, nor does it show Him standing or resting upon anything but, rather, “floating.” This begs the question why would He appear to be suspended in mid-air—unless it was the moment of the resurrection that was captured on the fabric.

As the image was not painted, the theory has emerged it was created by an intense burst of energy, similar to the vacuum ultraviolet radiation of lasers, that could have discolored the linen fibers, without scorching the cloth. This further supports a conclusion that the Shroud captured the resurrection itself.

Ultimately, everyone must decide for himself or herself whether the Shroud is real or not, and whether it depicts the risen Christ or not. For me, I don't need a Shroud of Turin to believe, but if someone's faith is perhaps wavering, it provides powerful reasons to believe.