I'm still here

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Google Chrome fun

I had this happen after the latest update from Google for Chrome: The "newtab" page stopped working. I have "chrome://newtab/" as my start page. This was getting redirected to "chrome-internal://newtab/" which went nowhere. After some digging, I found that bad (or, I suppose, out of date) extensions can cause this. Open "chrome://extensions/" and turn off all of your extensions. Then, one by one, turn them back on and try newtab. Then just leave the problem child disabled.

I'm posting this here in the hope that the next person who has this happen won't have to search quite so long.

So where should Christians be in the immigration debate?

I got to thinking about this earlier today while tweeting about House Speaker John Boehner and whether or not he would cave in to the Senate's demands for amnesty and a "path to citizenship". I stopped before clicking "Tweet" to consider whether or not I was just being foul tempered and snarky; or if I was being consistent with the Word of God. What should Christians think about this issue?

I had been reading in the Old Testament recently and these verses from Zechariah Ch 7 came to mind:

8 And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: 9 “This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice;show mercy and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor.Do not plot evil against each other.’

There are references throughout the Old Testament about the treatment of foreigners. God reminds the children of Israel that they too were foreigners in Egypt and thus must not mistreat foreigners in their midst.

In Zechariah, the word translated as "foreigner" is the Hebrew word "ger" (גֵּ֥ר). This word is often translated as sojourner or stranger. It implies a gentile living among the Israelites and obeying some basic rules (namely the laws given to Noah) and accepting the authority of the rabbinical court. This is as opposed to the more generic "goy" (גּוֹי) where no such adherence to the law or rabbinical authority exists. In fact, we see throughout the Old Testament that the goyim are so often the enemies of Israel; not only fighting against them and oppressing them, but also introducing them to idolatry and leading them away from God..

So for us, this tells us that there are foreigners and then there are foreigners. Those who come here and obey our laws and customs ought to be welcomed among us. Those who break our laws and ignore our customs... not so much.

So where does justice lie?

There are two options only for amnesty: Grant it or deny it. It's a binary decision. If we deny it, then there are once again, only two options open to us: Ignore those here illegally, which is de facto amnesty, or forcibly remove them from the country. The latter I believe to be unjust.

There are "officially" 10-12 million illegal aliens living in the US. Some estimates put that number at closer to 20 million. There is simply no way to move upwards of 20 million people in a forced migration without killing thousands in the process. History shows many instances of mass deportations being used as a mechanism for genocide. Why? Because it works for those bent upon killing the target population. Even when genocide isn't the intent, deaths occur whenever mass deportation is used by a government. During the "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo, the Serbs meant only to remove the Albanian population from Kosovo. Their intent wasn't genocide. However, many displaced Kosovars died anyway. Even with the resources of the United States at our disposal, I do not see how we could safely move so many people. I may not want these people here, but I don't want them dead either!

So if we're forced to grant amnesty, what about a "path to citizenship"? That, I believe, would also be unjust. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) points out that this would be ”profoundly unfair to the millions of legal immigrants who followed the rules.” It would also be unfair to the American people. A "path to citizenship" would suddenly inject millions of people into the voting public who do not share our values or our culture. This would be like opening our elections to the rest of the world. How would it be fair to the American people have their government chosen by people who do not share American values? Or worse, who may despise American values?

So if we are to seek justice and mercy, we need to value both the lives of those living among us and the liberty of the American people. We cannot force millions to move and we cannot force millions of others to accept what would amount to foreign rule.

Ladyface Alehouse & Brasserie

Agoura Hills. Go. Have the IPA. Trust me.

Humor break

The scary thing is that they vote...

How Beer Saved the World (HD)

What civilized Man? Beer...

The hurricane aftermath in NYC

Headline after headline after headline after headline speaks about the horrific conditions in NYC following Hurricane Sandy. Residents of the city are crying for help from the Obama administration and seem shocked that more help isn't forthcoming

But why should The One respond?

NYC, and all of the Northeast are what's called a captive constituency. They will vote for Obama on Tuesday no matter what. So why should he bust his hump saving their sorry asses when he has more important things to do?

Like win Ohio.

This is the problem a State finds itself in when the people of that State show slavish loyalty to one political party. There's no reason for that party to rush to the rescue of that population; no reason to expend political capital on them when they're already won over to the party. We see this whenever California gets into a jam too. The party the majority re-elects without fail will mouth comforting words, but do nothing. They don't have to. They will get re-elected no matter what. And so it is with New York City and the rest of the Northeast. They will vote for Obama on Tuesday, even if they are starving as they vote.

And Obama knows this.

I can't believe I did that...

I can't believe I did that...

I actually donated money to Mitt Romney's campaign last night. If told me a year ago that I'd be doing that, I'd have told you to put down the meth pipe. But lately, the guy had been saying things that only a conservative would; like acknowledging the existence of the 10th Amendment. Or refusing to take the "reasonable gun control" bait that Candy Crowley was trolling the other night.

If only he'd been talking like this a year ago.

More MSM lies

From the same organization that installed detonators on pick-up trucks to make their "crash test" work the way they needed it to comes this: MSNBC Caught Doctoring Clip From Romney/Ryan Rally . MoreShitNBC doctored the audio on their own footage to make it look like the crowd at a Romney/Ryan rally were supporting Ryan over Romney...

I'm not what you'd call a Romney supporter. He was my last choice in the primaries. But this crap makes me want to go out and donate to the guy.

I just got push polled

I just got a call from a pollster trying to push me toward supporting Brad Sherman in the Berman/Sherman Celebrity Death Match. I had to suppress my laughter as Sherman was described as a "fiscal conservative" at one point. Most of the questions were of the form: "Do you like Sherman more now that you know that he interfered in the free market on this issue?"

I really don't think that they wanted my answers.

An update on the solar power saga

We're still going 'round and 'round with the yutzs at the solar power company. I've been trying for months to pay them what they're owed.

This started with the lazy, idiot salesman who didn't want to redo the paperwork from a lease to a sale. Instead, he lied and claimed that this was just how the company liked to do things. At the time it seemed silly, but "whatever" we'd thought.

Next up were the dishonest weasels at the lease servicing company. They, of course, don't want to talk to us about buying the system. How would they make a dime off of that? I get that. But instead of telling us to contact the actual vendor, they pretended to be the vendor and claimed that they never do sales; just leases. But a quick check of the (real) vendor's site shows that they do, indeed, sell their systems.

So now, about once a week, I write or call the vendor trying to get them to straighten this out. Only one person has responded, after sufficient nagging on my part. She tried to get someone to contact us, but they're ignoring her just like they ignore me.

Fun with residential solar power

We just installed solar panels at the sprawling Redcloak family compound. This is something we would never have done without the stupidly generous subsidy that LADWP provides for this not-ready-for-prime-time technology. But, we saw this as a rare opportunity to get back some small portion of the moolah they've extracted from us over the years.

The company we dealt with, who shall remain nameless, but their name rhymes with sunflower, sold us on the project with the quality of their cells. While they're idiots, and their contractor is an asshat, the cells they make are beautiful. But, had we known what sort of semi-trained chimps would be sent to install the system, we would have walked away.

First off, it took 6 months from start to finish. This ain't rocket science! And, the city of L.A. does most of the work for you. Next, the chimps installed their gear in a spot where the building and safety inspector was bound to reject it. The job foreman even warned them that it was a bad location. That added 2 weeks as they tried to con me into additional, and unnecessary, work to relocate an air conditioning compressor. And by additional, I mean they wanted more money from me. The asshat contractor insisted that the inspector was fine with where he placed his gear, but that the A/C would have to move to get it away from the main electrical panel. Numbnuts finally caved when I spoke to the inspector myself and uncovered the lie. It then took the foreman (the one competent person in their entire operation!) intervening with the inspector to get the installation approved.

So now it's up and running. And last night, at about 10, my wife looks out the window and sees something funny in the yard. There are 2 signs out there. At first, I thought they were illegally placed campaign signs. It turns out that they were advertising signs placed by the idiot contractor! You'll be happy to know that I recycled them. I'm waiting for the call from them asking what happened to their signs. I'd love the opportunity to inform them that I wouldn't recommend them to someone I didn't like; let alone one of my neighbors.

Burritobortion

Actually, I thought that Sarah Silverman's abortion tweet was pretty funny; though I'm laughing at a joke she probably didn't intend to make.

What makes the joke funny is the fact that there probably are liberal women out there who would get pregnant just to have an abortion for political reasons. That kind of crazy is really there on the left.

Well that's disturbing

I just checked the spam box on a fairly new Gmail account. There're more messages in the spam box than the inbox!

Beer on tap

Have I mentioned lately how much I enjoy having beer on tap?

The perfect storm of audacity and ignorance

Couldn't he at least have brains enough to remember that he's wearing a mic?

The exchange from Jake Tapper at ABC:

President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile
defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me
space.

President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…

President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.

President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.

Spell check is not your friend

I guess you have to leave Tim behind with a shotgun when you're not adequately prepared for a disaster.

Ladyface IPA

I have a long commute, but it takes me past the Ladyface Ale Companie in Agoura Hills. Last night I had some time, so I stopped and had a pint of their signature IPA. This is a very tasty brew; big hop flavor and aroma in addition to the bitterness you expect of an American IPA.

Liberal calculus

On the way into work this morning, I heard that Jerry Brown, in addition to wanting to raise taxes, is still insisting on spending $100,000,000 on his high speed train boondoggle. Now that train may be fine and dandy for someone commuting to Corcoran, it doesn't do anyone else a bit of good. (I suppose that I should say "anyone who isn't latched onto the public teat".)

Just for giggles, I looked into what it would take to use the existing train to go to work. Only $170 per week would do it, provided that my boss doesn't mind me getting in at 10am. Of course, if Jerry Brown gets his way, I won't have that $170 to spend on train fare. It would go toward building a bullet train to Corcoran instead.

Beer on tap

I tapped that keg of "Pooh's Blustery Ale" last night. I had just spent the last day and a half on a plumbing project and needed a drink. But, in addition to having beer on tap, we now have a new hot and cold filtered water dispenser and a new kitchen faucet with a big gooseneck.