The other day, Rush Limbaugh talked about a new movie coming out that shows how Darwinism is the dominant philosophy on colleges all over the country. Since I work on a college campus, that announcement came as no surprise. I have to be careful what I say, because Darwinism is the dominant philosophy and the one expected to be taught.

The full-time faculty on my campus believes that Darwinism is true. The problem is that parts of Darwinism can be shown to be true. The real problem with Darwinism is when you project it to explain the origin of life. At that point, Darwinism falls apart.

There are some firmly understood laws of nature. One is that life can only come from life. That means that in order for something to be alive, it must have come from another organism that was or is alive. The second is that all living things are composed of cells. This means that in order for something to be considered to be alive, it must be a cell.

In explaining the origin of life, everyone agrees that at some point there was no life on the earth. Everyone also agrees that at some future point there was life on the earth. The only question is how that life came to be. There are really only two possible explanations off how this happened. One is that things that were not alive came together to form something that was alive. The second is that life was place upon the earth by some force. Every person that tries to describe how life came to be is using one of these two reasons for the origin of life.

Darwinists believe in the first reason. They believe that primitive carbon compounds got together to form proteins. Those proteins got together to form complex proteins. Then the complex proteins organized into primitive proto-cells. The proto-cells then improved to real cells. Then the real cells became life as we know it. The problem with this idea is the life comes from life law. Things that are not alive cannot become alive. When you explain this problem to Darwinists, they explain that it did happen once and not again. If it could happen once, it would happen more than once. Since it has never happened again, it probably never happened the first time.

The second idea is that life got here by some force. That force could be God or some alien civilization.  Life could have been placed here fully formed or it could have been placed here as a single cell or cells. Darwinists reject this idea because they reject the idea that there could even be a God. By having a “God” place life here as a single cell or as fully organized organisms it gets around the problem of life coming from life. It keeps the law that life comes from life intact. The only problem it creates is that you now have a being that is not currently on this planet having an impact on this planet. If the first cells were put here by aliens, why have they not been back? If the first cells were put here by God, God has had a continuing contact with humans since the first man was on the earth. This idea explains everything and only has the problem of where is the being that placed life here in the first place.

As a teacher on a college campus that does not believe in Darwinism, I have a problem. I do not want to teach Darwinism because I do not believe it. I also do not want to advertise that I do not believe in Darwinism because I am not a full-time instructor and could be let go for almost any reason. I also would like to become a full-time instructor some time and it would be impossible if it became common knowledge that I did not believe in Darwinism. I get around the problem by teaching courses that minimize the amount of Darwinism that I have to teach. This way I can avoid the problem. If I was a full-time instructor and had tenure, I would tackle the problem head on. As it stands, that would be suicide for my career. Face it, I am a chicken.

Today, Barack Obama had to give a speech on race. The speech was really his chance to put some distance between himself and his mentor, Minister Jeremiah Wright.

In the speech, Barack Obama said that he was present at many of the controversial preaching that Reverend Wright put on. He said that he disagreed with them, but that Reverend Wright was a good friend and would remain so. I think that Barack is trying to have it both ways. He wants to distance himself from Reverend Wright, but still keep the good will in the black community that came from him being a member of that church. There is a saying, “that dog don’t hunt”. That means that people will not believe him. Those that will drink the Democrat kool-aid will believe him. Those that are not Democrat kool-aid drinkers will not believe him.

The issue of Reverend Wright will remain with Barack Obama through the general election. He will not get rid of Reverend Wright, so the issue of what Reverend Wright has taught Barack will be an issue. We do not know much about Barack Obama. There is little history of his votes in the Senate or even in the Illinois Senate. He tends to vote present a lot. That means he does not take a stand. Since we do not know much about Barack personally, we have to look at those that surround him.

The most controversial of the people surrounding Barack Obama is Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Reverend Wright believes that the United States is an evil country. He preached that his congregation should sing, G** D*** America instead of God Bless America. He taught that the 9/11 attacks were because the US dropped the atomic bomb on Japan to end WWII. He believes that we live in the USKKKA. Reverend Wright believes that everyone should have the same amount of things, regardless of who earned them. Those ideas are way outside of the US mainstream. They are anti-American. When Barack decided to run for the Presidency, he should have left that church and joined one that was more conventional. After people find out the teachings of Reverend Wright, they will think that the teachings of the LDS church to be main stream.

Reverend Wright is not the only one close to Barack. Michelle is his wife. She recently made a comment that this is the first time in her life that she is proud of America. That is a comment that would be perfectly in line with what Reverend Wright had taught. It is way outside of where most Americans think. Most Americans believe that the US is a force for good in the world. Most Americans are proud to be American. Most Americans have been proud of their country many times in their lives.

The few votes in the US Senate and Illinois Senate show a person who is very far on the left wing of society. His conservative rating is ‘0’. He is rated as the most liberal Senator in the entire US Senate, even more liberal than Ted Kennedy. That is really saying something.

Can we believe Barack Obama when he says he will unite us? No, if he is truly the left wing Senator that he has shown, no conservative will ever unite with him. If you look at the things he has said he will do as President, no conservative will ever unite with him. Barack Obama is not a uniter, he is a divider. Instead of uniting the country, Barack Obama will further divide the country into warring camps. That is not a way to get things done.

If you look at the other Democrat candidate, you find almost the exact same problems. Mrs. Clinton is ultra-liberal, even Marxist in her beliefs. Her plans on what she plans to do to the country are almost exactly like what Barack Obama says he will do to the country. The only difference between the two is that he can make a speech and sound good, she sounds like chalk on a blackboard. He has a silver tongue, she has a screech. He has a laugh, she has a cackle. There is not a dime’s worth of difference between Mrs. Clinton and Barack Obama. The only thing is that he has a personality; she attempts to fake a personality.

In my opinion, the speech today by Barack Obama sounded good. But, when you look at it, you find the flaws that mar the pretty picture he drew. He made something bad sound like it was almost something good. Looking at the details and asking questions get you to the real point. Barack Obama believes the same things that Reverend Wright taught. He must have or he would have left the church long ago. Since he believes in so many anti-American things, he is unfit to be the President of the United States. It does not disqualify him from running; it just disqualifies him from holding the most important political position in the world.

The last week, I was in California on vacation. I was not near a computer until Saturday. I got to use my brother’s computer for about an hour on Saturday and spent the entire time catching up on my email from the past week. I had no chance to actually write in my blog. The highlights of my trip were the two days we spent at Disneyland/California Adventure and visiting my Mother who is sick of Alzheimer’s disease.

I missed most of the news as I had little chance to listen to the radio or watch TV or read the paper. On Sunday, I read the Arizona Republic from the past week. It did not give me much of a summary of the week’s events except for the report on the New York Governor. At no time did the Arizona Republic ever mention that Elliot Spitzer is a Democrat. The Republic also did not comment on the collapsing campaigns of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama.

First, Barack Obama has been a member of his church for over 20 years. He is good friends with the minister, Jeremiah Wright. Mr. Wright baptized his children and married Barack and Michelle. This past week, it comes out that Mr. Wright is anti-American and anti-white. He is also more than a socialist as he believes that his church members should work so everyone can have the same amount of things no matter who works for them. That goes beyond socialism. Barack Obama spent Friday on all the TV networks trying to diffuse the impact of these revelations. He is basically saying that Jeremiah Wright is like the crazy uncle. The problem is you do not choose your relatives, you choose your church leaders. Barack is also saying that he was not aware of Mr. Wright’s views on America or racism. That is hard to believe that he would not know. He knew Mr. Wright for over 20 years. He heard him speak in church many times in that 20 year span. He also had many private conversations with Mr. Wright. Mr. Wright might be able to hide his views for a few weeks or months, but not for 20 years. Barack has to come clean before he will be trusted.

Barack also has another problem. His primary fund raiser as a Chicago politician is now on trial. The financial dealings with Barack and Tony Rezko are very unusual. They may be usual for Chicago, but not for the rest of the country. That is another issue Barack Obama will have to come clean on.

My mother told me that she is going to vote for Barack Obama. When I told her one thing that Barack Obama wanted to do, she was shocked. She said that is not something that should be done. The one thing is Barack and/or Mrs. Clinton’s health care plan. They both want to start the US on socialized medicine. Of course they will not call it socialized medicine, because it would instantly be defeated. They call it something else. But, when you compare their plan to the socialized medicine everywhere else in the world, it is the same.

Second, Mrs. Clinton is having a shrinking campaign of her own. She has based her entire campaign on the fact that she has experience. This past week, two things she has put forth to show that she has experience have blown up in her face. Both were shown that she had no hand in making either issue happen. The first was the Irish Peace agreement. She said she was highly involved in the negotiations. The Irish people involved in the negotiations said she was not present at any time and had no input into the negotiations. The second problem; was the negotiations on the S-Chip in the US. Bill Clinton pulled the US government out of the negotiations before they ever came to a final conclusion. She had said she was the reason the S-Chip became a success. She now has a problem with her experience. She is basically left with her experience as a US Senator. That is a rather weak background to run on.

The Democrats have a real problem on their hands. They either nominate a person with a very suspect background and no experience or they nominate a person with a very suspect background and no experience. That does not sound like a winning strategy to me. Of course, there are the Democrat voters that would vote for a rock if it had a D after its name. They have voted for dead people rather than living people in an election, just because the dead person had a D after their name and the living person did not. Those people would vote for anything if it had a D after their name. That would amount to about 40% of the vote. When people learn of the sleaze and lack of experience their candidates have, the Democrat candidate is in trouble with the electorate.

Things are breaking John McCain’s way. Every election I say that is the last time I will vote for John McCain. Every election, the Democrats put up candidates that are so bad, I have to vote for John McCain. I think this may be the last time John McCain runs as a candidate for office. He is very old and cannot maintain his health too much longer. I look for him to be a one term President. There will be a new run for the White House in 2012. Who John McCain picks for Vice-President will be critical. That person would have the inside track on the Presidency in 2012.

While it is tempting to write another article on the race between the two socialists, not this time. I could write about the global warming hoax, not this time. This time I will write about my vacation. I am leaving on vacation tomorrow. We are going to Anaheim, California. That is where I grew up. I am taking my wife and my granddaughter.

We only have a couple of things planned for the week we will be gone. We know we will go to Disneyland on Wednesday. My granddaughter has insisted that is part of our agenda. Right now, we are only planning on one day at Disneyland. We were thinking of other things to do and did not want to over plan our trip.

One other thing we are going to do is visit the Queen Mary. My granddaughter has a book “101 things to do before you are 12”. One of the things is to visit a haunted place. The Queen Mary is supposed to be haunted.

The other scheduled thing is to visit my mother. She is in an assisted living home. She has Alzheimer’s disease. It is still in the early stages of the disease. So, she still recognizes some people. I am one of the names she does not forget. At times, she forgets that my brother is alive. He lives out there and has interacted with her regularly for the past number of years.

The other thing we want to do is go to the beach. It is too cold to go into the water, but it is fun just to walk on the beach and see things. We did that last year in San Diego. It was fun to smell the ocean and see the birds and seashells.

The rest of our trip is being left unscheduled at this time. We want to be able to find something interesting to do and do it without changing what we had planned. We usually over plan our vacations and do too much. This time we are taking the other approach. Maybe it will be more laid back and relaxing. We need laid back and relaxing.

The side issue to being on vacation for the next week is that I will have limited access to a computer during the week. As a result, my postings will probably be skimpy at best and probably nonexistent. I do not own a laptop and computers are hard to come by when you have to find them. If you bring your own, it is no problem. I should invest in a laptop, but I only travel one time a year. That does not justify spending a lot of money on computer coverage for one week a year. The rest of the time, I have computers at home and work. I do not need a laptop at home or work.

The original meaning of the word Democrat is: One who panders to the ignorant masses. That is so true of the Democrat party. They truly pander to the ignorant masses. They struggle to keep the masses ignorant of the truth. The Democrats then tailor their message so that anyone that is ignorant will believe their message. Anyone who has an education will understand their message and reject it because it is based on lies.

There is a commercial being played on KFYI AM 550 in Phoenix. It is from the ACLU asking people to call Congressman Harry Mitchell supporting the Democrats in their blinding of America on the FISA bill. The entire ad is based on falsehoods. There is not one shred of truth in the entire ad except for Congressman Harry Mitchell’s name and the telephone number they give out. Everything else is built on falsehoods. Anyone who has followed the issue even one little bit knows the truth. Only the truly ignorant will call Congressman Harry Mitchell’s office to support the blinding of America. What should happen is that anyone that calls to support the blinding of America should lose their vote for a period of 5 years. That would give them enough time to gain an education and overcome this gross ignorance.

The Democrat plan for socialized medicine is also based on lies. The government is a joke when it comes to efficiency. So, the plan is to turn over health care to an inefficient organization. That makes no sense. The only way to truly reform medicine is to get the government out of health care. Right now, the federal government has tons of regulations that doctors and insurance companies have to follow. If we removed all these regulations we would be able to reduce the cost of medicine by at least half. Another roadblock to health care is the government telling the consumer what insurance he/she will buy. If I go to purchase health insurance for myself, it must include childbirth. I am a man. I am never going to give birth to a child. If I could purchase a policy that contained what I wanted, I could reduce the cost of health insurance to me. If I can reduce the cost of health insurance, more people would buy health insurance. Then we would have universal health care without the government being involved at all. That is a system that would work. Democrats would never go for it. They believe that government should be the answer to everything.

The Democrats answer for everything is to get government involved. There is nothing as inefficient as the government. The way to solve almost any problem in America is to get government out of the way. The private sector will solve problems cheaper and better than government ever could. The reason is that the private sector would actually work to solve the real problem, one at a time. The government works to solve every problem at once. There is no possible way to solve all problems at the same time. The government always tries to have it solve everything at once.

I really cannot believe that people believe what the Democrats are saying. They say such outrageous things that I am shocked. The only way I believe that people could follow what the Democrats are saying are either they do not like the US, or they are so ignorant they should not be voting in the first place. People like to say that voting is a right. Voting is a privilege. We have the privilege of voting for those who represent us. I fail to understand why people who are so ignorant they cannot name the Vice-President get to have the same vote that I do. I spend a lot of time making sure that I am educated on the issues. I read all the background material necessary to understand the differing view points. How many people take the time to do that?

The only way the Democrats ever win elections is to not tell the truth. If they told the public what they really intended to do, there would never be a Democrat elected to any office in the country. The only way Democrats stay in power is to make sure that the general public is kept ignorant of what they are doing. The way to do that is to dumb down education.

On the way to work, I heard a report from Jason Lewis on the Rush Limbaugh show that Mrs. Clinton said she would preserve the Constitution. His reaction was one of amazement. She has continually wanted to abuse the Constitution by adding this program or that program to it. She is even adding health insurance to the federal government. How could someone who wants to add health insurance to the federal government possibly think that she is going to preserve the Constitution?

As Jason Lewis said, “you (meaning Mrs. Clinton) have to read the Constitution first.” The Constitution specifically states that the federal government has specific duties. It also says that all duties not expressly given to it by the Constitution are reserved for the people and the states. They are not the responsibility of the federal government. If you look at what our federal government does now, you would discover that probably half are things it is not supposed to do.

How did things get so bad? It all has to do with the commerce clause. The commerce clause is not actually part of the main part of the Constitution. It is part of the filling part between sections. As such, it is not meant to be a controlling part of the document. The controlling parts of the Constitution are the articles, not the parts leading up to the articles. The Supreme Court ruled in the 1930’s that the commerce clause controlled interstate commerce. So, the House and Senate grabbed onto that ruling and decided that everything is part of the commerce clause. As Justice Thomas said, “if that is what it means the federal government has unlimited power.” The Constitution was written to put limits on the power of the federal government.

I would hope that Mrs. Clinton HAS had a change of heart and really means to preserve the Constitution. If she does, she would repudiate her socialized health care and almost everything else she has advocated. Of course, she would have to become a Republican because no Democrat could hold those positions and be elected to anything. Making such a dramatic change in position would really mark her as a flip flopper. It would finish her political career. Nobody would believe that she had made that change and vote for her. Those that would normally vote for her would not vote for her because they could not take the chance that she had actually changed.

The statement that she is going to preserve the Constitution was just a throw away line. It was put in there to fool people into believing that she actually believes in the Constitution. Anyone who knows anything knows that she does not believe in the Constitution. She believes more in the Communist Manifesto than she does in the Constitution of the United States of America. Any politician that runs for office in the United States has to make sounds like he/she believes in the Constitution. If they don’s make the statement in support of the Constitution, people will think that they are not supporting the US. But, anyone knows that no Democrat politician actually believes in the Constitution as written. They always talk about a “living” Constitution. By that, they mean that they can change the Constitution to mean anything they want it to mean any time they want to.

We need to get back to teaching the Constitution in the schools. Every student that graduates from high school should know what the Constitution says and that it gives us a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy. If people really understood the Constitution they would not fall for the Democrat’s lies about health care and the like. Taxes would be lower and we would be a freer people. Ah, for such a dream.

Yesterday, Mrs. Clinton pulled a rabbit out of the hat and is still alive for the Democrat party nomination for President. She took three out of the four contests including the two big ones, Ohio and Texas. Her three victories yesterday, makes it impossible for one of the two candidates to get enough delegates to secure the nomination before the convention. That insures that they will be at each other’s throat from now until June. That is great for the Republican Party. We do not have to find the dirt on the candidates; they will do our research for us.

The remaining states are important for the two candidates, in that victories makes their argument stronger to the Super Delegates. The Democrats have Super Delegates that go to the convention and are not obligated to vote the same way their state voted. They did this to prevent another McGovern getting in there to get his clock cleaned. With everyone looking at the process, it looks like the old smoke filled rooms picking the candidate. That is exactly what the Democrat party is trying to avoid.

The Democrat party is caught on the horns of a dilemma. As things look right now, if the Super Delegates pick Mrs. Clinton, then Barack Obama and his supporters will be upset. They will have a point because he won more votes than she did in the primaries and he has more delegates. She will point out that she won more of the big states, the ones that the Democrat party needs to win in November. If the party picks Obama, then Mrs. Clinton’s supporters will be upset. What are they to do? What will most likely happen is that the one that promises the most to the Super Delegate gets that Super Delegate. So, the one with the most money or privilege will be the winner. The problem is that Mrs. Clinton controls the party power structure and can hand out privilege. Obama has raised the most money and can hand out the money. The difference will be in what will buy that particular Super Delegate.

Right now, Florida and Michigan have delegates that do not count. The Democrats will probably have to hold new elections in those two states to make things “fair”. Democrats love to make things “fair” Unfortunately for them, in their urge to make things fair, they make them unfair. The elections in Florida and Michigan will prolong the agony for the two campaigns. They will have to spend money like drunken sailors. Again that is good for the Republican Party. If the Democrats are spending their large bank accounts on each other, they are not spending it on John McCain. That is a good thing as John McCain will most likely have less money than the Democrat candidate for President.

For John McCain, he needs to make nice with the Republican base. That will strengthen his hand going into the November election. He just secured the nomination yesterday, but there have been no signs from John McCain that he intends to make any inroads to the Republican right. Right now, it looks like John McCain is repeating the Bob Dole campaign strategy. That strategy lost. His campaign advisors have made statements that make it sound like they do not intend to run as a Republican. They sound like they want to run John McCain as a Democrat “lite”. That is always a losing strategy. If someone wants a Democrat, they can always pick the real thing. The same thing holds true when Democrats run as Republican “lite”. That is generally a losing strategy because voters can always pick the real thing.

I hope that John McCain starts to act like a Republican and picks a Vice-President that reflects Republican values. There are a number of Republicans that would qualify in that category. I hope that he selects someone that is well respected as a conservative by the Republican base. I hope he picks someone that the Republican base can get excited about. The choice will go a long way to show what a John McCain Presidency will be like. I get the feeling that it will be like George Bush. It will be strong on National Defense and Democrat on social issues. George Bush at least is solid on abortion. I think that John McCain would also be solid on abortion. He has consistently voted pro-life over his entire career. Part of that is a reflection on the people he represents. I hope that a long tradition of support for the pro-life position will translate into a strong pro-life plank in his administration.

I do feel that John McCain can defeat either Democrat candidate. He has to get the debate around to national security to insure his victory. Al Qaeda doing a big attack during the election season, particularly in September or October would be a real boost to his candidacy. The surge on the ground is succeeding. The longer it goes on the longer the strategy is correct. The longer it is perceived as correct, the more likely that people will support the people responsible for the surge, not the people against it. If the debate ends up on Democrat issues like health care then the Democrats just might pull it out.

I read an article this morning that said that the temperature dropped 0.75 degrees Centigrade in January 2008 when compared with the 30 year average. When you combine that with the fact that the northern plains and northeast are digging out of the deepest snows since 1966, you have some real thoughts that we might be cooling. Even here in Phoenix, the air just is not warming up. I am not saying it is cold, but it is not as warm as we are used to in March.

There is a conference going on in New York City with real scientists that are skeptical about Al Gore’s global warming theories. When you hear something that has the slightest suggestion that global warming might be true, you hear it shouted from the rooftops. When you hear a lot of news that says that global warming is not occurring; you hear silence from the media. That is to be expected as the media has an agenda. They want us to be a communist country so they can be in control. Anything that gets us to that goal is great. Anything that stops us from getting us to that goal is evil. That is right; I said evil, not wrong.

The Arctic ice sheet was supposed to be melting and all the polar bears were going to drown. The latest surveys show that the ice sheet is at least as large as a normal ice sheet and is actually thicker than normal. Polar Bears are not drowning. The Arctic has been saved for at least one more year.

Phil Brennan, who writes for Newsmax, has been supporting the theory that all this is a prelude to an ice age. He says that the ice age will happen quickly, probably over a 50-60 year period. The signs that we are seeing since the beginning of 2008 seem to be supporting the ice age theory. It is way too early to tell on the ice age theory, but I am starting to question whether it might be true. But, the ice age theory does not say that it is caused by man. It is just a natural occurrence. Ice ages occur about every 10-12,000 years. It has been 12,000 years since the last ice age. These ideas where things happen in a cycle of 10-12,000 years could be off by 1000 years and still be accurate.

What is becoming very clear to anyone with a brain; is that Al Gore’s global warming theory is a hoax. Global warming is a giant hoax to get you and me to give up our freedom in order to establish a communist government. With the help of the news media, they are very close to getting the authority to put all their ducks in a row. They have two candidates from their camp attempting for the Democrat party endorsement for President. One of them will win the nomination. That person has a decent shot at winning the Presidency which would lead us down the road to destruction.

Whether the climate is going to be warmer or colder in the future, I am sure that it will. The climate is always changing except for those who believe that man is causing global warming. Then, the magical climate was the climate as it was in 1900. All climates before that and after that are unimportant as long as we get back to that magical climate of 1900. Global warming believers discount the medieval warming period where temperatures were much warmer than they are today. The population exploded during the medieval warming period. A lot of good things happened during the medieval warming period. My big example is the Vikings living in Greenland for over 300 years. Vikings could not live in Greenland today using the technology they had at the time they lived there between 800 and 1150.

There were also cooling periods like the little ice age in the 1700’s and early 1800’s. That was a time of war and starvation. The climate is much warmer than it was during the little ice age. We have just discovered some mines were people left in the fall to return in the spring and never did.

Since the climate has gone up and down before man started putting tons of carbon dioxide into the air, the theory of global warming is disproven from the start. Let Al Gore put that in his pipe and smoke it!!!

Every so often in this space, I should take the opportunity to bear my testimony of Jesus Christ. I know that Jesus is the Son of God. I know that Jesus Christ came to the earth to teach us correct principles and to take upon himself the sins of the world. He also came to die on the cross in fulfillment of those duties.

I was brought up in a Christian home. My parents believed in Jesus Christ and made a couple of attempts to take me to church to have me get religion. The church they took me to the most was the Presbyterian Church near where I grew up. That was never much of a success as my parents were not particularly strong in the religion and they wanted to do other things on Sunday’s. So as a result, I generally was brought up without religion in my background.

When I got to Colorado State College in Greeley, now the University of Northern Colorado, I met a professor named Dean Vest. I changed my major from math to biology and got Dr. Vest as my advisor. After talking to him about what I should take for classes, he invited me to a religion class he was teaching on Monday nights. Not wanting to get on his bad side, I said that I would come.

The next Monday evening, I came to where the class was being taught and saw that there were 7 women present and no men. The 7 women got my attention. The class was interesting, but something I had never heard before. I went back the next week, primarily because of the 7 women. I ended up learning more about the religion he was teaching and ended up joining his church. I never did date any of those 7 women. I am not sure now, which course it was that was being taught that semester. I ended up taking every course offered by the church during my 4 years at the University of Northern Colorado.

During my investigation, I was asked to read the Book of Mormon. The Elder’s assumed that I had read the Bible and that I believed it. At the time, I felt the Bible was probably true. I had no strong feelings one way or the other. Since I had not read the Bible, I could not really have any strong faith in whether it was true. After reading the Book of Mormon, it asked me to pray and ask God if it was true. I was struck by that task. I had never really been asked to pray about any book. I did ask God if the Book of Mormon was true. I received a burning in my heart that the Book of Mormon was true. Since the Book of Mormon tells me the Bible is true, the Bible became true also.

Since I was under 21, I had to get my parents permission to be baptized. That took me a couple of months to secure. I was baptized in March 1967. I became a Priest the next week. After joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the world opened up to me. I now had a purpose in life and a goal to aim for.

After I graduated from college, I went on a mission to the North British Mission. The name of the mission changed to the England North Mission while I was there. My first Mission President was everything I thought a Mission President should be. He was funny and friendly. He was also hard nosed when it came time to be hard nosed. My second Mission President was entirely different. I guess the differences can be traced to their background. My first Mission President owned a large ranch in Nevada. My second Mission President owned some jewelry stores in Florida. Ranchers are more prone to have fun than are businessmen, I think.

One thing from my mission that still bothers me is an incident in the mission home. We had a couple of hours of time we could do anything we wanted. I wanted to study the lessons to be prepared for the mission field, so I stayed at the home and studied. Those that did not want to study went and walked around Salt Lake City. They met the Prophet, Joseph Fielding Smith, at the Church Office building while they were on their walk. I wish I had gone on the walk with them to meet the Prophet instead of studying.  

Since returning home from my mission, I have held many church callings. I have taught Sunday School and Primary. I have been a Cub Master. I have been on the Boy Scout Committee. I have been a Branch President and on the High Council. I am now a Sunday School President. Serving in the church has made my testimony grow. Seeing the growth in others because of the service I have rendered, is immeasurable.

I am now in a Ward that is like a cocoon. We have three former Stake President’s and most of the High Priest’s quorum is made up of former Bishops. I am used to being the big fish. This is refreshing, where I am not the big fish, I am a small fish. I am comfortable and do not want to leave. I know the former stake President’s are all older than I am and will probably die before me, but that does not bother me. They are all friends of mine. I feel blessed just being able to sit in the same room with them and learn. My natural big fish tendencies are starting to show, but I hope I can suppress them for a while longer. I don’t want to answer all the questions. I would like them to answer the questions so I can pick their brains and experience.

A little over a year ago, our legislature passed a law that all public Community Colleges and Universities in the state would have a certified law enforcement officer on campus with a handgun. It took my Community College District almost a full year before they armed the certified officers they had on campus. I must admit that when they finally got around to doing it, they did it right.

The law was passed in late 2006 or early 2007. Our district took until January 2008 to comply with the law. When they armed the officers the district bought each officer a 9mm automatic. The advantage of having each officer with the same handgun is that if asked, the district would have a ready answer. If each officer had to supply their handgun and could supply any gun, it would cause confusion.

I feel a lot safer having an officer on campus with a gun. With campus shootings in the rest of the country, one thing is a constant. That is that there were no guns on campus except for the killer. Then, when guns show up, the killer has killed students and faculty, then commits suicide. If the campus security had handguns, the chance that this would occur would be greatly reduced.

There is a bill in our legislature to allow students and faculty with a concealed gun permit to carry guns on Community College and University campuses. This will also reduce the chance of a shooting on our college campuses. Even with an officer on campus with a handgun, he is not on campus all of the time there are students. With this bill, it would increase the time that handguns would be available to stop a killer. There should be some kind of registration where the school knows that there are guns in the hands of students and faculty. Students and faculty that want to carry a gun on campus would have to show their permit to the security office before being allowed to carry their gun. This would insure that the security office would know who would have guns. It would make the job of the security officer easier if he knows that there are students or faculty on campus with guns.

The bill in the legislature originally included allowing guns on all schools if the adult had a concealed carry permit. After counting noses, the sponsor realized that the bill would never pass if it included high schools and below. It means that students in our public schools are potential victims for any killer that decides to kill people. That is a shame. Maybe it will take a killer to come onto a school and kill people before the legislature wakes up. I hope not. So far, most of the killings have taken place at a college. I hope none ever happens again, but you have to be prepared.

At my college, there was a memo telling us about the bill in the state legislature. The memo hinted strongly that we should write to our legislators. I wrote to mine in support of the bill. The intent of the memo was that we would write letters against the bill. Just like at most colleges, most people at my college are liberals. They believe that if you take the guns out of the hands of law abiding people, that criminals will lay down their guns. That is a bunch of baloney. Where do killings take place? They take place in “gun free zones”. They do not take place where guns are expected. People do not go to a police office and start shooting. They go where there are no guns to start shooting.

People need to wake up and figure out that people like to do their shooting sprees in gun free zones. If we want a gun free zone, don’t advertise it as a gun free zone. Advertising a gun free zone is to advertise where the next crime will occur. A killer is not going to comply with the law. A killer will look around and decide to do their killing where the greatest chance of success seems to be. They may understand that the long term chance of success is zero, but it is the short term impact they are looking at. People say that the killers always go with the thought of suicide. That is true, but they want an impact first. If they go and get killed before they kill anyone; that would be a failure. If they manage to kill some people before getting killed, then they are successful.

Where guns are in the hands of the public, there are few killings. Where guns are taken from the public, killings occur. Look at Washington, D.C.: before they put in strict gun laws, Washington had a low murder rate. After the strict gun laws were put in, murders took off. Now, Washington is one of if not the highest murder rate city in the country. On the other hand, there was a town in Illinois where the city mandated that all heads of households own a handgun. The murder rate in that town went from the moderate rate it had to almost zero. Home break-ins were also reduced to almost zero. Burglars do not want to face an armed homeowner. Similar results are found all over the country.

Placing handguns on our colleges will reduce the chance that a killer will choose to kill at one of our colleges. That is the goal and it will be realized, if the bill gets passed. It will probably take my district a year to come up with some sort of policy. But, they would have to comply with the law sooner or later.

There has been a flap over Barack Obama’s middle name in the past few days. Some do not want it spoken or printed anywhere. I am not sure why they do not want it spoken or printed. It is his name. His parents gave it to him and thought him worthy to hold it. Maybe some people are ashamed of the name or afraid of what the name means. What a person is named has nothing to do with the person. A person makes his/her own way in the world and as such makes their own name.

Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussein. For many in the US, that brings up memories of Saddam Hussein the ruthless ruler of Iraq. For others, it brings up ideas that somehow a person with the name Hussein is a Muslim. Barack Obama is not related to Saddam Hussein. Barack Obama is not a Muslim. His father may have been a Muslim or have Muslim ancestors. If that is the case, the name Hussein does make some sense. It may have been that the name Hussein is just a family name in his father’s family. We do not know the origin of the name Hussein. Until that question is answered, nobody can criticize Barack for having the middle name Hussein.

As an example, my middle name is Thomas. There are no other family members named Thomas that I have been able to find in doing my genealogy. My father told me that I was given the name Thomas because he felt I needed to have a “regular” boy’s name. My father had the names Virgil and Archie. Neither name was common with the other boys in the playground. He was teased and got into fights because of his names. He did not want me to have the same problems.

Barack Obama could have the same kind of a story to tell about his middle name. As far as I know, Barack has not said publicly why he was named Hussein. He does not have to tell anyone why he was given the name Hussein. To tell everyone might bring unwanted attention to the name and might cause problems. To not tell might also bring unwanted attention to the name and cause fantastic stories to develop that could derail his candidacy. My advice, for what it is worth, is to come out and explain to the best of his ability why he was given the middle name Hussein. That would put the issue to rest and end speculation. Some of the worst stories have him as a closet Muslim. I believe Mr. Obama when he says he is a Christian.

Is Barack Obama’s middle name a big story? No, but it does cause some people to wag their tongues and cause some problems. In a campaign, it is better to put things like this to rest than letting them fester. My guess is that the Obama campaign will never tell us why his middle name is Hussein. If they did tell us why it is Hussein, it would bring unwanted attention. That is why I feel they will never open up and expose Barack Obama to that kind of exposure. It is a high risk, low reward kind of activity. If he is in trouble and they felt that this is the thing that is holding him back, then they might. But, that would not come until about October 2008. Until then they will sit on their hands and hope this story goes away. My feeling is that this story is just not going to go away. Those that like Mr. Obama will like him despite his middle name. Those that dislike Mr. Obama will dislike him despite his middle name. In the end, I do not feel it will have any great impact on the campaign. It is just causing some questions right now.

William Buckley died yesterday at age 82. He was one of the first conservative intellectuals. At Yale in the 1950’s he wrote, “God and Man at Yale”. That launched him as a conservative thinker. Later in 1955, he launched National Review. National Review has been one of the leading conservative magazines since that time.

I would like to say that William Buckley was important in my becoming a conservative. He was not. I would like to say I knew William Buckley. I did not. But, people that have influenced me were influenced by him. So, indirectly he has been an influence in my life.

Since I became a conservative in the 1970’s, William Buckley was sort of the father figure in conservative circles. Everyone talked about him in reverent tones and gave him a lot of credit for being one of early leading lights in the conservative movement. But, he was not really an important leader of the conservative movement in my period of time as a conservative. When I was becoming a conservative, he was turning over the leadership of the movement to people like Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan had more to do with my being a conservative than did William Buckley. But, Ronald Reagan got a lot of his early direction from William Buckley.

The conservative movement will miss people like William Buckley. He was a conservative intellectual before that came into fashion. When he became the conservative intellectual, conservatives were really without intellectuals in the lead. Conservatives instinctively knew what to do and where to go, but were short when it came to making sound arguments. William Buckley changed all that. He made sound arguments and did so with wit. That he made successful arguments is a testament that today, conservatives will consistently win discussions with liberals. Liberals have no facts to stand on. All their ideas have been shown to be full of baloney. Conservative ideas have been shown to be successful and good for large numbers of people.

Today there are a large number of conservative intellectuals. Who would be the person that would be considered the leading conservative intellectual? The mantle probably would fall on Rush Limbaugh, probably because more people listen to him than any other single person. I am not sure that makes him the leading conservative voice, but it at least makes him the most visible one. I doubt that there will ever be a single conservative voice that is the leading voice. There will always be multiple voices, each leading in their own way. Any strong movement would have that sort of arrangement. A weak or young movement would have a single strong voice. Conservatism is too strong to be reduced to a single person. If there were a strong conservative politician, he or she would be considered the leading voice in the conservative movement. That is because politicians have so much power. Power dictates leadership.

Right now, the conservative movement is in a state of disarray. There is no politician that stands out as THE conservative leader. We are stuck with John McCain, a moderate, liberal candidate for President. He is not a conservative. He is on some issues. He is not on others. Unfortunately, the ones he is not a conservative are the most important. Hopefully in four years, we will have a candidate that will galvanize the conservative base and take the Presidency by storm. Hope springs eternal!

It is interesting to watch the wheels come off the most feared political machine in the last 50 years. The Clinton political machine has been feared by every politician since Bill Clinton came on the scene in 1992. It was feared in Arkansas before that.

There was reason to fear the Clinton machine. If you dared to speak out against the Clinton machine, you might find yourself pushing up daisies in some park. At the very least, the Clinton machine was ruthless and would cut you off at the knees. They developed all that there is to hate about politics in the last 30 years. They developed the war room, where you respond quickly to any slight, no matter how small. They perfected Goebbels big lie principle. The Clinton machine constantly would attack you and make themselves the victim. I am still trying to figure out how they pulled that one out time and again.

With Bill Clinton as the front person, there was no goal too high for this political machine. No matter how bad the tactics, the candidate smoothed it all over. When they had to go with their number two candidate, the wheels have come off. Mrs. Clinton is not nearly the candidate that Bill Clinton is. When the Clinton machine made a mistake with him in front, he could get everyone to forget about it instantly. With her in the lead, that does not happen. As a result, her campaign is facing problems that his campaigns never had to face. The biggest thing her campaign is facing that his never had to face is defeat. She is looking defeat in the face and does not like the looks of it.

It is gratifying to see that the Clinton machine is facing hard times. Such a result could not be wished on a better group of people. Defeating Mrs. Clinton and her goal of bringing communism to the United States is great for our country. This country was founded on the notion of Liberty and Freedom. Mrs. Clinton has the goal to eliminate freedom from the country. I salute Barack Obama for completing the task of eliminating Mrs. Clinton and her communist ideas from the political landscape.

Now for the problem of her being defeated in the primary, Barack Obama is further to the left than Mrs. Clinton is. That puts his ideas and agenda closer to the communist ideal than her ideas and agenda. Of course, her ideas and agenda were all bogus anyway. What she really wanted to do and what she said were two different things. What he says and what he wants to do are probably close to the truth.

Mrs. Clinton has been abandoned by the hard left for someone closer to their position. His positions need to be exposed before the election is held in November. If they are exposed, maybe some of the cult of personality will be removed and he can be looked at for who and what he really is. If he is looked at as the second coming of Jesus Christ, we are all in trouble. Right now, the left is treating him as the second coming of Jesus Christ and it scares the pants off of me. We need to look at him with our real eyes, not the false eyes that people are using today. I wonder if there is enough time for the bloom to come off of the rose before November. When you get this cult of personality situation, the people that follow the cult are not in their right minds. They believe anything that the cult leader says and nothing that anyone who opposes the cult leader. That is not a healthy situation for the public to be in.

There is a lot of talk about a turn out the lights day on March 29 at 8 pm. everyone is supposed to turn out all non-essential lights at 8 pm for an hour to end global warming. This is a feel-good measure that will do nothing to help the environment. The City of Phoenix will be shutting down all non-essential lighting in the city at 8 pm for an hour. This is the height of silliness.

First of all, man-caused global warming is a hoax. As mentioned here before, man only puts out less than 5% of the greenhouse gasses each year. Mother Nature puts out the other 95%. Most of what nature puts out comes from the exhaust of volcanoes. If we were serious about reducing greenhouse gasses, we would put emissions reducers and scrubbers on volcanoes and eliminate the lion’s share of the greenhouse gasses. Instead, we go after small amounts and call it the big polluters. What a pile of horse manure.

Second, any warming of the earth is caused by the largest body in the solar system, the sun. When the sun puts out more heat, we get hotter. When the sun reduces the amount of heat, the earth cools down. This is generally regulated by the amount of sun spot activity. I am no expert, but I believe that when there are more sun spots the sun puts out more heat and when there are few sun spots the sun cools down. I may have that reversed, but the principle is true. Sun spot activity determines the temperature on the earth. Man caused greenhouse gasses may have a minor impact, but will have no measureable impact.

Third, the goal of the global warming types is not to control the environment. The goal is to control every day people. The goal is to know what everyone is doing and where they are doing it 24 hours a day. The government wants to tell us what we will watch on TV. They want to tell us when to see a doctor. They want to tell us where we will live and what kind of house we will live in. They want to tell us how many children we may have. They want to tell us what car we may drive or even if we can drive at all. The global warming types just use the environment as a tool to get people to agree to give up their freedoms in order to save the planet. When people give up their freedom voluntarily, they will be happier than when their freedom is taken from them. We are far down this path already. We do not need to go any further.

Whoever thought of using the environment as a tool to achieve communism was brilliant. I have to tip my hat to the idea that using one tool that everyone agrees is important to achieve one where no-one agrees should happen was brilliant. Unfortunately, the people that truly believe in the global warming hoax will be surprised when the trap is snapped shut on them. They will howl and cry that they were deceived. Yes, they were deceived, but they were warned and would not listen. Sometimes I feel like Cassandra in Troy who predicted that the Greeks would overtake Troy and nobody would listen to her. She was correct and not listened to. Sometimes I feel like I am correct and not listened to. The signs are all there for anyone to see, but those that believe will not see. If you look at the way to solve any global warming problem, give up your freedom and give it to the government. That is the way to enslavement, not controlling global warming.

Rush Limbaugh said something interesting today in his monologue. He said that he is a conservative more that he is a Republican. That means that he is a conservative first and a Republican second. If the two positions come into conflict, the conservative position wins and the Republican loses. I feel the same way.

I believe in conservative principles. I am a small government, fiscal conservative. I can also be called a social conservative and a foreign policy conservative. The small government, fiscal conservative position would have to be first. That gives me Libertarian leanings, but the foreign policy conservative precludes my being a Libertarian. When there is a candidate that is a small government, fiscal conservative running, that is where I will cast my vote. A social conservative can get my vote if there is no fiscal conservative in the race. That is why I supported Mitt Romney over Mike Huckabee. Mitt Romney was a small government conservative who is also a social conservative. Mike Huckabee is only a social conservative. Mike Huckabee is a big government liberal and a foreign policy moderate. John McCain used to be a small government conservative, then he drank the inside the beltway kool-aid and became a big government liberal.

My Congressman, Jeff Flake, is a small government conservative. That is why I worked for him in his first election to Congress and why I have continued to support him. If we had more Republican Congressmen like Jeff Flake, we would have a large Republican majority in the House and a large Senate delegation, also. Unfortunately, the House Republicans cannot see that Jeff Flake is the wave of the future and so they did not put him on the Appropriations Committee. Had they put him on the committee, it would have signaled that the Republicans are serious about fiscal issues. Not putting him on has signaled that the House Republicans are still locked in the past few years of big government and earmarks.

I generally support the Republican candidate, because the Republican candidate is closest to my position, I do not always support the Republican candidate. I support the most conservative candidate that I can find. No candidate is ever perfect. No candidate ever agrees with me on all the issues. All I can hope for is one that agrees with me on most of the issues. In the election for President in 2008, I do not have any candidate that I agree with even 50%. That is a real problem for me. I cannot give whole hearted support to any candidate. John McCain comes closest to my positions. I agree with John McCain about 40-45% of the time. I agree with Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton 0% of the time. I will probably end up supporting John McCain, but it will be with real misgivings. The only reason he gets my support is that the other two candidates are so bad there is no way I could let them win with a clear conscience.

My hope is that John McCain will select someone that I can support as a running mate. There are quite a few that would qualify. Condi Rice has taken her name out of consideration, but she would be good. J.C. Watts from Oklahoma would be a good selection. He is a strong conservative. Mitt Romney would be good, but McCain does not like him very much. Newt Gingrich would be great, but he would bring a lot of baggage. There are some others, but I hope he does not select a liberal like the Governor of Minnesota.

For Republicans, it is wait and see time. We have to wait and see who McCain will select as a running mate. He now knows who his opponent will be, so he can work on a running mate. Let’s hope he gets good advice. If he calls me, I could help set him straight.