America's Roots

This is a copy of the email entitled "Our Real Roots" that has been going around at least a couple of years now. I just got it again - twice this week - and thought I would post it here. I think these are quotes that American's should be reminded of regularly. While religion and politics don't mix (and what DOES religion mix well with anyway?), Christianity itself is not at odds with politics and the moral and ethical boundaries imposed by God WERE the basis for the first laws in this country. How far we have strayed....

(Begin email)

Did you know that 52 of the 55 signers of The Declaration of Independence were orthodox, deeply committed Christians?

The other three all believed in the Bible as the divine truth, the God of scripture, and His personal intervention.

It is the same congress that formed the American Bible Society.

Immediately after creating the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress voted to purchase and import 20,000 copies of scripture for the people of this nation.

Patrick Henry, who is called the firebrand of the American Revolution, is still remembered for his words, 'Give me liberty or give me death.' But in current textbooks the context of these words is deleted. Here is what he said: 'An appeal to arms and the God of hosts is all that is left us. But we shall not fight our battle alone. There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations. The battle sir, is not of the strong alone. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.'

These sentences have been erased from our textbooks. Was Patrick Henry a Christian?

The following year, 1776, he wrote this 'It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For that reason alone, people of other faiths have been afforded freedom of worship here.'

Consider these words that Thomas Jefferson wrote on the front of his well-worn Bible: 'I am a Christian, that is to say a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator and, I hope, to the pure doctrine of Jesus also.'

Consider these words from George Washington, the Father of our Nation, in his farewell speech on September 19, 1796:
'It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible. Of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, our religion and morality are the indispensable supporters. Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that our national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.'

Was George Washington a Christian? Consider these words from his personal prayer book: 'Oh, eternal and everlasting God, direct my thoughts, words and work. Wash away my sins in the immaculate blood of the lamb and purge my heart by the Holy Spirit. Daily, frame me more and more in the likeness of thy son, Jesus Christ, that living in thy fear, and dying in thy favor, I may in thy appointed time obtain the resurrection of the justified unto eternal life. Bless, O Lord, the whole race of mankind and let the world be filled with the knowledge of thy son, Jesus Christ.'

Consider these words by John Adams, our second president, who also served as chairman of the American Bible Society.

In an address to military leaders he said, 'We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.'

How about our first Court Justice, John Jay?
He stated that when we select our national leaders, if we are to preserve our Nation, we must select Christians. ' Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian Nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers'

John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, was the sixth U.S. President.
He was also the chairman of the American Bible Society, which he considered his highest and most important role. On July 4, 1821, President Adams said, 'The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. '

Calvin Coolidge, our 30th President of the United States reaffirmed this truth when he wrote, 'The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.'

In 1782, the United States Congress voted this resolution: 'The congress of the United States recommends and approves the Holy Bible for use in all schools.'

William Holmes McGuffey is the author of the McGuffey Reader, which was used for over 100 years in our public schools with over 125 million copies sold until it was stopped in 1963.
President Lincoln called him the 'Schoolmaster of the Nation.'
Listen to these words of Mr. McGuffey: 'The Christian religion is the religion of our country. From it are derived our notions on character of God, on the great moral Governor of the universe. On its doctrines are founded the peculiarities of our free institutions. From no source has the author drawn more conspicuously than from the sacred Scriptures. From all these extracts from the Bible I make no apology.'

Of the first 108 universities founded in America, 106 were distinctly Christian, including the first...Harvard University, chartered in 1636.

In the original Harvard Student Handbook, rule number 1 was that students seeking entrance must know Latin and Greek so that they could study the scriptures. 'Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, John 17:3; and therefore to lay Jesus Christ as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning. And seeing the Lord only giveth wisdom, let everyone seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seek it of him (Proverbs 2:3).'

For over 100 years, more than 50% of all Harvard graduates were pastors!

It is clear from history that the Bible and the Christian faith, were foundational in our educational and judicial system. However in 1947, there was a radical change of direction in the Supreme Court.

Here is the prayer that was banished:
'Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence on Thee. We beg Thy blessings upon us and our parents and our teachers and our country. Amen.'

In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled that Bible reading was outlawed as unconstitutional in the public school system. The court offered this justification: 'If portions of the New Testament were read without explanation, they could and have been psychologically harmful to children.'

Bible reading was now unconstitutional, though the Bible was quoted 94 percent of the time by those who wrote our constitution and shaped our Nation and its system of education and justice and government.

In 1965, the Courts denied as unconstitutional the rights of a student in the public school cafeteria to bow his head and pray audibly for his food.

In 1980, Stone vs. Graham outlawed the Ten Commandments in our public schools.

The Supreme Court said this: 'If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments were to have any effect at all, it would be to induce school children to read them. And if they read them, meditated upon them, and perhaps venerated and observed them, this is not a permissible objective.'
Is it not a permissible objective to allow our children to follow the moral principles of the Ten Commandments?

James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution of the United States , said this: 'We have staked the whole future of our new nation, not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments. '

Today we are asking God to bless American. But how can He bless a Nation that has departed so far from Him?

Most of what you read in this article has been erased from our textbooks. Revisionists have rewritten history to remove the truth about our country's Christian roots.
(End email)

Ecodriving and Hypermiling

As fuel prices ravage the country, more and more articles are popping up on the internet and in print about getting the best fuel economy possible, no matter what vehicle you drive.

Some hypermilers are so extreme that it crosses into stupidity for the sake of saving a dollar, but the principles learned from their experiments can be safely applied to your own driving using the filter of common sense. Here is a list of the top 100 ecodriving tips

And the most important one - don't drive your vehicle unless ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY! Combine outings whenever you can, forgo some pleasure trips, walk or bike whenever you can. If we all simply become more conscious of the way we use our fuels - in the car and in our homes - the savings will be incredible over time.

State of the Banks

I am so overwhelmed with all the evidence that Ron Paul was right all along about the economic situation the USA is facing that I haven't taken the time to form an intelligent post about the problems with our banking system. Thankfully, I found this today that sums it up nicely. Make sure to click the link to read the entire article.

NO PANIC . . . YET

The failure of IndyMac this month was unique. We have not seen a bank failure this large since 1984. In one sense, this reminded the general public that individual banks can go bankrupt.

The most common reason for bankruptcy is that the bank has lent money to purchasers of real estate, which is a long-term debt, yet depositors have the right to withdraw money at any time. The bank is lent long and borrowed short. Yet this is true of every bank. The ones that get caught, which is a rare event, have merely indulged in long-term lending more than the average bank.

The failure of an individual bank does not produce mass panic any longer. It has been so long since Americans have seen a bank run that they pay no attention to a rare bank failure. Because the FDIC presently does have sufficient reserves in Treasury debt to sell and compensate depositors, depositors around the country are not tempted to go to their bank and demand currency.

The fact that the FDIC could cover the deposits of no more than a dozen banks the size of IndyMac does not disturb them.

From good to bad

On Sunday, a friend came to visit after church. We had a nice meal, then hung out at the farm and played with Luke and the puppies, Rascal and Petey. It was a hot but beautiful day, so we did some animal watching from the shady, cool front porch. Afterwards, I gave her the business tour and we picked up some dinner and brought it back home. We hung out on the porch some more and realized that Petey wasn't around...so we played with Rascal and Clark, the cat. So that was a pretty good day.

R.I.P., Petey
This morning, still no Petey, which has never happened before. I knew something had to be wrong, so searched the barn and the nearby pond for any signs. Seeing nothing, I finished getting everything ready for the day and took DS to a friend's house for the day. On the way I scanned for Petey...and found him lying on the side of the highway. I stopped and checked for life signs, but of course there were none. Rigor mortis had set in, and I got upset. DS asked if that was Petey, and if he had been hit by a car, and I said "yes, we won't be playing with Petey any more". He didn't seem to be upset by that at all, which was good. I took him to my friend and drove back to take care of Petey.

I won't go into much more detail, but I'll say that I couldn't handle things myself so called in some help to get the job done. Once everything was over, I took Rascal to work with me so he wouldn't wander around looking for Petey all day. They were brothers and best buddies, but he seems to be doing fairly well. Just a bit whiny and looking for attention, which I'm sure is normal.

I am very tired...so this was a bad day.

Flyby!!!

Happy birthday to me!! I'm a 4th of July, firecracker baby and my present from my wonderful Navy Pilot brother was a flyby!

He is lieutenant (I think) and is based at Tinker AFB in Oklahoma and I haven't seen him in a year and half. Hard to believe, but true. He is so good at what he does, they keep promoting him and now he is a trainer and the main pilot for one of the E-6 planes (top secret stuff!).

So about noon today he called me and asked if I could get to Bowling Green this afternoon, so I talked to DH and we determined that was a bit far so I called him back and asked for an alternate destination. We ended up going to Elizabethtown's Addington Field (I didn't even know they had an airport!) to watch the huge plane make a couple passes in the rain. DS, age 3, was so excited about his that he was running around the tarmac getting soaked.


I got some pictures of the plane flying over, but they won't do justice the the sound and sheer coolness factor of being there. I got to hear my brother on the flight radio thing (sorry, don't know the jargon!) saying he was coming in to fly over the airfield. The other pilots and people around were all quite amazed, and wondering what he was doing! I just said "its my birthday!" and let them wonder :)

Origins Game Fair

I spent last week in Columbus, Ohio for Origins Game Fair and had a great and exhausting time. Origins Game Fair 2008 was a change from previous years, especially for me. Not only did the "fair" aspect begin this year, but it was my first year volunteering during the show.

We started attending Origins several years ago, soon after buying our game store. The first year we went, we stayed at the DoubleTree several blocks from the convention center. I was more concerned with playing my new Sims game and relaxing than I was in actually attending the trade show. I went a day or two and walked around with hubby, though, to show my support and try out some new games. Mostly I listened to him talk to all the vendors, wishing I were elsewhere.

The next year we stayed a bit closer and I became a little more interested in what was going on during Origins. I even played in a Blink tournaments, but didn't win. I play tested more games, and made some suggestions to hubby about purchases. He still spent a lot of time talking to everyone, but I was starting to accept that talking could be his calling in life. :)

As our store and knowledge of the game industry grew, so did our interest in selling outside of our little town and small spot on the web (a yahoo store, at the time). Year 3 of Origins (for us) brought a whole new adventure as we became an Exhibitor, with a small booth toward the back of the hall. We sold only Game of Thrones, the CCG (collectible card game) while we were there, and still managed to turn a small profit after travel, hotel and food expenses. When the hall closed each evening, we took our binders of cards to the CCG hall and sold them and card sleeves to the players between rounds. A whole new worlds was opened to us.

Year 4 we went with a much larger booth and brought a wide variety of board and card games, and even accessories such as the aforementioned card sleeves. A Game of Thrones CCG was dying by this time, so we focused on other things. We brought more staff and worked hard - and again came home with a small profit.

The following year we went HUGE. We became an island unto ourselves and a show sponsor, which boosted our visibility significantly at the show and in the industry as a whole. Name and logo recognition improved dramatically, as did sales at Origins and GenCon (we followed the same growth strategies at both cons).

Those years, not only did we have large booths, but we continued running the poker tournaments more often and attendance was increasing, which made us more revenue - though not as much as some would expect, due to the overhead and large prizes we would offer.

Last year, 2007, we ran the poker tournament at Origins and GenCon, but didn't sponsor the shows or have booth space in the exhibitor hall, due to an overhaul of our year-round business online. The "World Series of GenCon" became quite popular, and the smaller tournaments we ran at Origins would feed a player into the finals while the rest came from the GenCon tournaments. Finals were always in Las Vegas, for fun and for legal reasons.

So, now here we are in 2008. Hubby is the Treasurer for the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) and I was recently elected to the GAMA Retail Division's board, at-large. What this means is we get to volunteer lots of hours to improve the organization and what we get out of it is meeting more people. For GenCon, as a GRD board member I will be helping run Trade Day seminars. For Origins, it meant being in the seminars and contributing when I could, while helping to run the Finance office. This was my first year "behind the scenes" at Origins, and it is a totally different perspective. I learned many things about the organization and its good and bad. I had a good time, though, and was able to spend some time with some great volunteers throughout the week, as well as have dinner several times with the other board members.

GenCon (www.gencon.com) is just 6 weeks away from today, and let me know if any of you will be there! Other than Trade Day, my schedule is open. Looks like I may be able to actually play some games or attend some seminars myself this year!