Sleeping in the Recliner!

No the lovely Mrs. farmer did not kick me out of the bedroom. I had a little run in with a dead sow and I lost.

An older sow died during pig birthing(farrowing), so her carcass had to be dragged out of the farrowing crate and taken outside. After we got her out of the crate, we used a winch to pull the carcass up onto a two wheeled cart. This cart is a frame of steel rod, the bottom 18" are at about a 30 degree angle to the floor, the total height of the cart is about five feet. The top section is approximately 70 degrees from the floor. There is a cable winch mounted on the back side of the cart, and the cable runs over a pulley at the top end, then down to the deceased critter. Attach the cable to the critter, crank the winch till it pulls the deceased up near the top end of the cart. Then, (in theory) you tip the top end down to make the cart level, and wheel the critter outside.

This particular sow was very long, and very heavy. When we got her cranked up to the top there was still a lot of her on the floor. When I tried to push the top end down, so we could roll her out, I could barely get the weight shifted, so I leaned into for all I was worth. Now I'm not a small boy, 6'2" and more than 270. I got her tipped part way then lost the battle, the top end of the cart came back up, caught me under the ribs and lifted me off the floor.

I now have very sore ribs. Deep breaths, bending over, sleeping in the bed, laughing, and other activities I will not describe, all cause considerable discomfort. So I'm sleeping in the recliner.

And the sow is still dead. Stupid swine.

Real Global Warming

Lately I have become increasingly irritated by the alarmist cries of Al Gore and the global warming crowd. We just had another 8 inch snow in April, something that tends to make any farmer trying to get to the field in early April a touch cynical. Add the fact that the loony left are having their climate change rallies today on the east coast and battling snow storms to get there and the whole thing becomes a ludicrous comedy act.

While I do not listen to Limbaugh all the time, I have heard the parody he is playing of the old Johnny Cash song "Ring of Fire" in which Paul Schanklin portraying Al Gore singing "Ball of Fire" and I laugh heartily every time. I laughed when I heard that a global warming conference being held in Minnesota, (the land of eternal winter) was canceled because of a blizzard. And I laughed when I heard that "all scientists" agreed that the temperature on the earth was 7/10 of a degree higher in the last 50 years, and it was caused by human activity.

As you can tell by now I consider the whole thing to be silly, stupid, chicken little, collectivist types, attempts to exert more control on the population by forcibly restricting personal freedoms. I was very disheartened to read that Newt had conceded the idea that global warming was caused by human activity. I'm not surprised since I have always thought that he was more about gaining power than defending truth. Lastly I think any honest(and there are very few of them) person looking at the evidence would have to admit that the change in global temperature is most likely caused by an increased temperature at our radiant heat source(the sun for you idiots). If the sun is burning hotter(it is) then guess what, it is going to be hotter here. That's the way it works with radiant heat, turn the heater up, voila', it increases the surface temperature of the object it is heating.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my pastor is preaching through II Peter. I read chapter three today. I think maybe Al gore needs to take up his global warming protest with God. After reading the last part of the chapter, I'm thinking this is some serious global warming. Mankind will be somewhat responsible, for it will be God's judgement on the wickedness of the human race. God will judge the earth with fire.

7But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
8But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
10But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
11Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?


Now that's real global warming. And it should call us to worry less about internal combustion engines, and more about the internal condition of human hearts, are you/they ready for the judgement?

Family Vacation

This is going to be a very short post.
We went on a three-day weekend tour of points south and west, seeing family and friends in the area where I grew up.
Made it to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha and to the SAC air museum between Omaha and Lincoln.

The highlight of the trip in my opinion is captured in this photo.
When you walk in the front doors of the SAC museum, this plane appears to be flying directly at you. A very cool sight.




More later.

Random Thoughts

Welcome to the schizophrenic state, Iowa. One month ago I told you about losing power in the blizzard and freezing rain combination. Today 75 and sunny with a strong south wind at 20 to 25 mph.

My son the youngest child in the family had a birthday yesterday, 7 candles. Both sets of grandparents and my wife's family were here to help celebrate. The kid made out like a bandit, even got a pair of pearl handled cap guns that dad likes to scare the kids with. All in all a good day.

I'm looking forward to the start of the baseball season. I don't expect the Royal's to be much better than last year, but a new season brings new hope, so maybe they will improve.

Don't know what to think about the decision of Steve Alford to leave for New Mexico. Personally I thought that he did a good job with what he had this year. I don't claim the guy is perfect, but I do think he was a committed Christian and I do not like seeing a good guy run out of town by the liberal media in Des Moines and Iowa City. Iowa City is the most liberal wacko place in the state and I know that they(the media) hated him.

Don't know much about Bruce Pearl, but I know he has ties to Iowa in the past, wins where he is at now, and the talk is that he will be the next coach.Time will tell.

Had a good, somewhat long, message at church today from II Peter 2. Peter did not have a lot of nice, kind, considerate things to say about false teachers. I left the service this morning wondering how many of the so called leaders of the "christian church" today are false teachers. Selling the "gospel" as a business plan, looking to get votes, errr, make money off of those who claim the name of Christ. Of course the only way to know those that teach falsehood from the truth is to know the BOOK, II Peter 1:19-21. Only by continually studing the WORD and testing the teachings we hear against that standard can we defend against "damnable heresies".

Part Two Getting Serious about Getting Married

One of the great failings of the "church" is the continual habit of taking a principle out of a passage of Scripture without the entire context of that passage. Ms. Maken uses I Corinthians 7 in defense of her position "that marriage is a good thing" while failing to include the whole context of the principle that is taught in the passage.
So before we can properly understand I Corinthians 7 a short Bible lesson. The chapter and verse numbers were added years after these books were written. I am not condemning the use of chapter and verses for finding a particular place in the book, rather we should be careful to make sure that just because verse one starts a new chapter, we know what the subject was in the last verse of the previous chapter.
In I Corinthians 6 Paul is rather harsh with the Corinthian believers. vs. 5 "I speak to your shame", vs. 8 "Nay, ye do wrong and defraud, and that your brethren." Then he reminds them who they were, in V's 9,10,11. He is trying to impress on the believers the importance of being different than they were before they accepted Christ. "Ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified," vs. 11 vs. 19 and 20 say "What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."
And what were they supposed to avoid, what sin were they to resist, because it would make the members of Christ a harlot, vs 15? "The body is not for fornication," vs. 13 "Flee fornication" vs. 18. Without doing a long thesis on porneia, let's use the following definition. Sexual immorality of all kinds.
The faithful follower of Jesus Christ is to avoid sexual immorality. To flee it. Look at chapter 6 vs. 9, the sexually immoral will "not inherit the kingdom of God". He was emphatically telling them that sexual immorality was not compatible with the lifestyle of a believer. He is making it as plain as possible that the gratification of the sexual urges normal to mankind are not to be acted upon by a believer.
Then we can proceed to chapter 7, this is where Ms. Maken starts, she failed to give context to what Paul is saying in chapter 7. I'm going to sum it up in a few words, I quote from Paul, "To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband,...if they cannot contain, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn."(with passion)that comment is from me.
So lets be clear, in God's plan, the solution for the sex drive built into humans, by God, is marriage. "Marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled." Heb. 13:4 If you have a normal sex drive, you are to satisfy that drive only in the marriage relationship. If you're using a hooker, pictures on the net and self-gratification, steamy romance novels, soap operas, heavy petting, what ever you are allowing to feed and/or quench that sex drive other than a marriage relationship is wrong.
BTW, I dare anyone to find a Biblical passage that says that God will stop your sex drive with prayer and fasting. I'm getting outside of a review of this book but this is one of my pet peeves. God's solution for sexual desire is marriage. You're having trouble with controlling your urges, find a marriage partner.
This is why Ms. Maken asked a guy on the first date what kind of eunuch he was? A somewhat rude and impertinent question I know, but the point was a valid one. What kind of normal man with a normal sex drive has remained chaste until he is 37? God's solution for a man with normal sexual urges is to find a wife. One can only assume that someone who had not had those kind of urges by the time he had reached the age of 37 must be a eunuch, right?
Now the problem is, that in our culture today, most of the men and women have long since succumbed to the urges and have been engaged in fornication, something that Paul and all other scripture expressly declares to be sinful.
If you have fallen into that sin, then the solution for a believer is to confess your sin, and find a marriage partner, now. Not when the bank balance is bigger, not when you are less stressed, not when a "10" comes along, now.
I think Ms. Maken makes a fine case in the following chapters that men who delay marriage are stealing from women, by delaying the commitment to marriage past the years when women are able to bear children. It is theft, because men want the female companionship, they date regularly, to often pushing for sexual activity, but refuse to commit to marriage out of selfish reasons tied to materialism and love of self. This is why several passages in Scripture talk about "the wife of your youth". Marriage is to be entered into by young people, woman of child bearing age, men who have the energy and stamina to deal with work, family, and serving the wife, while at the same time maintaining a Godly home. Too many men in our culture are only interested in themselves.

My greatest disagreement with anything in Ms. Maken's book is in the chapter titled, The Lack of Male Leadership. Now I hope I am able to articulate the problem I see in a clear fashion. I believe she reaches some correct conclusions, ie, The Lack of Leadership in the Home, and The Lack of Leadership in the Church. I believe that both of those things are probably true. Her mistake is a total lack of understanding of the destruction the feminist movement and no fault divorce have had on men. She also completely skips the facts concerning women and education. I simply do not have time or space here to argue all of these things. Suffice to say that in writing what she did, she shows a total lack of understanding about the current state of the male mind when it comes to marriage. In a culture where any normal man can be figuratively and literally raped by the courts in a no fault divorce. When women are unrepentant whores,.....

I'm going to insert a joke right here to illustrate the problem. A man walks up to the bar and sits down next to a beautiful woman, after a few minutes of small talk, he suddenly asks her if she would sleep with him for a million dollars. The women acts offended, but after a few seconds pass she whispers, yes. He then asks is she will sleep with him if he buys her supper. She slaps his face and says, "What kind of woman do you think I am?" He replies, "We have already established what you are, now we're just negotiating price!!"

When women are unrepentant whores, who use their bodies to catch a man, then deprive him of the marriage bed after she catches him. When it is possible that 50 percent of all marriages will end in a theft of a man's hard earned labor, depriving him of his home, financial stability and in most cases his children. It's no wonder that men are running in fear from women. And I might add even faster from educated women, since the evidence clearly shows that the higher the level of education a women has, the greater probability she will be divorced. In summary Ms. Maken does not understand the multitude of problems which are causing men to chose to remain unmarried.

Let me say again that I believe that she made an effective and clearly Biblical case that marriage is God's plan for the vast majority of men and women, she just misses the boat on why those marriages are not happening.
I find the remainder of the book useful. I personally rejected the dating scene during my single years, when I realized that it was not useful to the goal of finding a wife. I like her use of the Biblical account of Issac and Rebekah as a pattern for the concept of agency. Someone whose goal and desire is to help the single person find a Godly mate. If we as Christians believe that the family was ordained by God as His first and most important societal structure, and I do. Then the search for a proper life mate without the input of the family, and especially the God ordained leader of the family, the father, is destined to fail. And the evidence is that we are getting exactly that.

Overall I believe that Ms. Maken has written a useful book. While her complete lack of understanding of the problems leading to the current low levels of marriage in the church is rather obvious, a return to Biblical patterns and principles is always a good thing. I believe the solutions she suggests are clearly Biblical and worthy of our consideration.