RE: "If I Did It"

O J Simpson is embroiled in this whole TV interview and book deal now. But I'm wondering with all the bad press O J has endured over it whether this time it's really his fault. Apparently Rupert Murdoch put him up to it. They say the now defunct book was ghost written anyhow, so it wasn't really an OJ "confession". O J himself has called it "blood money" and is claiming to give all of the proceeds to his kids. Why not give the proceeds he's gotten to the Goldman and Brown families, to help with their grief? Simpson himself seems to regard the writing of the book a rather stupid idea to begin with and kind of says others put him up to it. Of course you know there could be a whole series on famous murders. Perhaps they could get Allester Cook to do the books on tape versions. You could have "Ted Haggard - If I did it" or how about Andria Yates, who offed her five children in the bathtub and copped an insanity plea? Lee Harvey Oswald would be a best seller. Scott Peterson is another good candidate for an "If I did it" book. The difference between Peterson and OJ Simpson is that during the Simpson trial I personally got that Perry Mason moment of "There is no doubt he did it" like with Peterson. Peterson acted guilty as sin. With O J Simpson there was overwhelming DNA and physical evidence that he did it but psychologically they never quite put the puzzle pieces together. Chris Darden never convinced me that O J just "snapped" and committed the murders out of rage. There was never any real evidence submitted that Goldman and Nicole were having an affair, but everyone assumes they were. Most of the people who testified against Simpson were less convincing than the many witnesses who testified for him. I kept looking for that key killer witness who would wrap up all the loose pieces. That VCR tape that was released didn't do a thing to promote the "sullen pent up rage" theory. Neither did all the witness the defence produced that saw OJ just before and just after the murders. Of course you know, the ultimate "If I did it" book would be by Jesus Christ. If would be "How I faked my own death and resurrection - - If I Did It". Some pious, well meaning people actually say that Jesus felt compelled by scripture to fake his own death. Rather than it being an act of fraud or deceit it was actually an act of piety. People who don't read in the original language miss traits of that language. It is said that in the book of John the "herbs and spices" were actually meant for healing and not for burrial. Also, as something I read on the internet points out, the word "resurrection" is not the usual word, just as the word for life is not the usual word. Neither is the word Love the usual word - in the original Greek. The word "life" refers to a psychological state of being and not anything physical to do with the body. And the word "resurrection" translates many places as "Awake" or "Awaken". If you are "asleep" you aren't dead. There are secret "Conspiritors" if you want to look for them. But even if there were a running VCR movie of Jesus rising from the dead, that still wouldn't explain why just seven decades later- - the Church would be centered in Rome with dezigns on ruling the world.

All of our holidays are goofed up anyhow. The Canadians have the good sense to celebrate their Thanksgiving in October, when the harvest is done. Ditto with the Germans. It makes no sense they'd be having harvest celebrations in the snow, like a Drew Carrie episode. Baseball starts up in late March now while Blizzards are still going on. The weather for Easter is terrible in much of the country when we celebrate that. It's been bordering on freezing during a lot of recent World Searies. And most people don't believe Jesus was born on Christmas (except Ruth Montgomary says that he was) but rather in the early fall. (like Zachery) The book of Luke can be leaned upon to support this theory. The only thing wrong with Luke is that he professes to make improvements in the Gospell as opposed to the three others that came before his. Luke has Jesus born in six AD during the first Roman Cencus. If it's also true that Jesus didn't begin his ministry till he was "about thirty" that places the start of his ministry about 35 AD, which is later than most people believe. There is an incident about the slaughter of Galilean worshippers by Pilate that Jesus refers to, that historians place about 35 AD. How did Jesus know about that if he died in 30 AD. Also there is a thing called the "Jubilee year" where all the workers left their farms and had time to follow prophets around. This Jewish tradition comes every fifty years and is said to have come about 35 AD, which may be what Jesus meant when he read Isaiah 61 saying "to proclaim the favorible year of our lord". Of course our holidays now are so mashed up together you can't tell where one leaves off and the other begins. Chuck Smith has a saying "If you see Christmas decorations in the stores, can Thanksgiving be far behind?" Is it normal for people to have parades during blizzards? Not that that's what they're having today but sometimes. The whole Macy's thing isn't to honor the pilgrems but rather to sell merchandise. In fact they used to call it the Christmas parade back when they first had it.

SOME OTHER NEWS ITEMS OF INTEREST

Three outrageous stories are in the news. The OJ Simpson interviews on FOX, which were to last two days are now cancled. Not only this but the book “If I did it” was all printed up ready to ship to the stores by November 30^th. for Christmas presents, and now the Publishers have pulled the release due to public outrage. Randy Rhodes says “AT least the American public are smart about certain things”.

There was a Seinfeld (?) entertainer who was at the Laugh Factory and was heckeled by a Black man and said “If this were fifty years ago you’d be hanging from a tree right now” and went on for two straight minutes of racial epithets. The crowd fell shocked and silent and with one accord everyone said the display was in bad taste.

That 89 year old “old man” who offed ten people in his car in Santa Monica in July 2003 was sentenced to “Probation” by the judge. He won’t see jail time of any sort due to his “poor health”. I know some people who would like to make his “health” a lot poorer. Perhaps he could practice medicine on himself in the jail cell if he needs medical attention, since he’s obviously used to doing things he’s not qualified for.

They once again are talking about reinstituting the draft. If I were them I’d do anything I could to keep the bill alive and make sure it gets a proper airing. In these pearlous times we bloody well might need the draft. North Korea and Iran beckon. We as a country at least need to know we have the man-power if circumstances decree that we have to fight another war. The Republicans are ridiculing the idea.

M A D D is at it again. Mothers against drunk driving has cut down drinking and driving rates by over forty percent. But they want to cut it further. So they want these cars with starters connected to a breathalyzer. You blow into them and have to pass to start the car. It sounds like a good idea. MADD wants them for all convicted drunks.

There is some talk over negative campaign guy Sadonavitch or something and Al Frankin had him doing adds against a new upcoming opponent of his, who is apparently gay. They want to crack down on these Republican “Robo-calls” that call back a minute later and mis-identify themselves. They pay the fines but they aren’t enough.

Robert Altman died at age 81. He was the director for movies such as “MASH” and “The Player” as well as “Nashville” and “Gosford Park” in 2001. I don’t know what he died from. He received some honorary award earlier this year.

I had Randy Rhodes on before this. She is concerned about all the new racism in this country. Steve Edwards commented that he thought by now racism wouldn’t be around any more. Six “Imams” were arrested and ushered off a plane because passengers felt uncomfortable in their presence. Apparently prayer is a subversive activity. But they said “We cleared all of our actions with the authorities first”. (???)

You know the same old stuff is going on with both soap operas. If I were Sean I’d try and build a relation with “Willow” and forget about Belle. How many times can you be spurned by the same woman? And now she’s starting to act like your mother. The only things that were in E J’s safe deposit box were Italian tarot cards. For all we know Charity will be turned into a frog by Tabitha before Miguel ever sees her.

The mideast picture has turned more turbulent in the past day or so. Lebanon’s president or whoever was assassinated by either Hez Ballah or else Syria. The U S government distrusts the recent Iranian and Syrian “peace overatures” to help us settle the situation in Iraq. The Lebonese government could topple altogether, which would be a bad thing for that part of the world. Syria just reestablished diplomatic relations with Iraq after twenty-five years. I can’t say that’s a good thing if you’re trying to play enemies off against each other. The facts are things in that part of the world were a hell of a lot more stable four years ago. But we can’t go back. If prayer weren’t pointless I’d advise it.

Apparently the Russian government is still bumping off dissidents, this time by poisoning them one by one. I don’t know why Bush hasn’t come down harder on the Russian government but he seems to say “Vladimir Putin isn’t a bad guy”.

W N D Hate-mongers

Sometimes I have been known to get a little bit combattive in arguing my beliefs. The thing with arguing "for" the left or the right wing specifically is that you end up going "Nya - nya" at the other side. As a debater you may decude that you are 60% right and your opponet is 40% right, but you can never let him know that in the debate. You have to argue as though your beliefs were flawless and the other guy is a blithering idiot. However- - it's easier to argue that the other side are blithering idiots when they actually act like jackasses. This is the case with a number of World Net Daily articles lately, or as I'd like to say, World "Nut" Daily. Here are a few examples of what I'm referring to. I dialed up World “Nut” Daily last night. Ted Haggard and the guy who wrote the purpose driven life were being attacked by a “Net” or “Nut” person who accused the author of being soft on Syria. Many have suggested Syria might be a good nation to approach to make peace in the mideast. Syria is neither Shiite nor Suni, which makes them a good "neutral" candidate. They are in a position to help us with both Iraq and the Palistinian problem, if we will just be civil tword them. Instead pastors like Ted Haggard and that other guy who wrote "The purpose driven life" were labeled as not "true blue" enough, in an era where "blue" meant Conservative. What we learn here is that the conservatives are against peace. Just this morning I heard on the news that Iran helped us drive the Talliban out of Afghanistan in 2001. I didn't know that. So how did we reward them? Bush labeled them as part of the "Axis of Evil". This is bad diplomicy.

In another article it was suggested that unleashing massive sulphur dioxide pollution might be the key to global warming and it was suggested one time when a volcano erupted the global mean temperature was lowered a half of a degree. WND and Rush love stories like this. Rush is constantly doing these animal species preservation stories where seemingly one species is pitted against another as a sacrifice to the cause. Rush would like nothing better than for a green flag to be given to every palluter in the planet spiewing all matter of Sulpher dioxide and Sulfuric Acid into the air. Obviously this method of "solving" global warming is madness. WND, I suspect is not really seriously suggesting anyone try sulphur pollution as an answer, they're just trying to tick off the liberals because they don't believe global warming actually exists.

World Net daily is disappointed that Murtha wasn’t elected majority leader. Then they could talk about the Abscan controversy for the next two years. John Murtha was an "unindicted co conspiritor" in the Abscam Scandal back in the 'eighties. It's something most people have forgotten about by now. The democrats in voting down Murtha have reaffirmed their resolution to have a squeaky clean congress, and boy that sure ticks off World Net Daily. Perhaps W N D should talk about the republicans and their many, many scandals more often before nipping at the democrats. What scares W N D to death is some sort of a purist reform spirited liberals revival that would sweep the nation. Well watch it, W N D. Getting control of congress is just the start. Your worse nightmares may come true when congress passes badly needed legeslation on a host of urgent matters.

It was the next night, which I guess is Friday, that I saw a couple more articles of intrest. They have been running these book ads in World Net Daily on "The Real Mohamed" saying that Mohamed was a war monger and violent and that one of his wives was a nine year old girl. I downloaded the articcle. But the magazine went on to attack President Bush for- get this - Giving Moslem terrorists aid and confort! How did Bush do this, you ask? Simple. He tried to be civil to clerics of Islan. He called Islam a religion of peace that had been recently hijacked by a few extremists. (Much as Christianity has) The President dropped the word "Crusade" in his anti Arab campaign because of its midevil conotations. World Net Daily sees Islam as the great Satan. There are Christians, and I know them, who can't stand the fact that Arabs are moving in right here in Orange County. Right here in River City! Everything about Arab culture and Islamic culture is seen as evil and Satanic. You could argue that communists aren't around any more but now society has a new whipping boy. Of course to add fuel to the fire there is that U C L A library story where a guy didn't have identification to be in the library. I've been in libraries, and campus libraries without identification. It was only later I found out the guy was Iranian. He refused to leave the building and so Campus police tazed him. Now he's appealing to the federal government and filing civil rights violation charges. The danger in "racial profiling" is that it can all too easily evolve from being a pramatic law enfourcement procedure and degenerate into a vehical for hate and bigotry.

Some may say to me, "If we were all just Christians we could all live in love and peace". I'd like that. But you know who wouldn't like it? Jesus Christ - - of K F I radio, of course. If there wern't hate and evil in the world and all matter of catastrophies man made and otherwise occuring, where would we get our Heroes from? You see Jesus believes God is so stupid he doesn't know human character without plunging the earth into hell and then find out who rises to the occasion as a hero. I wonder if the earth were plunged into such mass starvation that people resorted to canabalisum, whether people who didn't sink that low would get gold stars? Some people still believe people have to be "tested" to find out "who the real sinners are". In our last posting we talked about this notion that God doesn't even Care who the "real sinners" are. Here is a case in point. This morning Jesus was talking about the notion that there are no gradations of sin. Jesus said the reward system in heaven doesn't consist of who is the least of the sinners. He then said that Adolph Hitler has just as good of chance at getting a good seat in heaven as anybody else. The Catholics say that when you repent of sin you have to do pennance and also "make right" all of the evil you have done and the people you hurt. How long do you suppose it would take Hitler or Eichman to do this? What if Billy Grahm appeared to Jesus in a glowing vision and Billy told Jesus to preach the gospell to Adolph Hitler. Let's say the date was October 1938. But the months passed and the years passed and Jesus didn't feel it was the "right time" to preach the Gospell to Hitler. It would be too "upsetting" to him. Altogether too "inconvienient". So of course Hitler ended up killing all of the Jews as well as the Allied Forces in the War. You may say "that's an extreme example". But Jesus Christ on KFI told a boyfriend of a girl who was about to have an abortion not to make a real issue of it if it was too "upsetting" of an issue for her. I guess they say one life is a tradgity and six million is a statistic. If that it? Of course none of the Jews probably had a chance to hear the gospell but if they ever had in their entire life, no matter how flawed the vessel they heard it from, they are "responsible" for hearing the gospell. Dying in a poison shower isn't bad enough for these Jews. After they die some Christians want to send them to hell. Some may say that the thing that signifies Christians is their willingness to die for their cause. Yet "sincerety" even unto the point of Death isn't how you "get into heaven". No. You "get into heaven" by "Dialing the right phone number". If doesn't even matter if someone gives you a wrong number- - you go to hell unless you dial the right one. So Jesus once said of alchoholics that "I wouldn't trust an alcoholic to know who the real GOD is. I don't like the words "God as we (alcaholics) understand him to be". Jesus has his likes and dislikes. He hates alchoholics. Remember that time I told you about the alcoholic brother in jail and Jesus said, "Don't try and visit him. He'll only try to manipulate you". Of course mental illness is another of those "Too bad" ailments. If you have an emotional problem, you have to get rid of that before you can come to God. That's something else Jesus of KFI teaches. Hatred is less rage or uncontroled anger than it is the complete vaccuous absence of Love. (Selah)

Thumbs Down on Rudolph Juliani

Today 1150 KTLK sounded like it was being taken over by a conservative during the Randy Rhodes show. Did you know the CIA says Castro is going to die next year? Apparently he is morbidly ill and near death and dying either of pancriatic, stomach, or colon cancer. People are apparently dancing in the streets at the mere thought of Castro's death. You know, I'm still wondering whether or not Illian Gonsolaz was brainwashed by his mother and grandmother and other relatives in this country. I've heard reports that Ilian's grandmother used to routinely sexually molest him. Ilian seems happier now that he's back with his father in Cuba. Several years ago I heard that Castro was on the verge of becomming a born again Christian. The KTLK DJ seemed to portray Cuba as more backward than it in fact is. The littericy rate for kids is actually quite high in Cuba. Someone needs to tell the host that Cuba is no longer a Soviet sattalite. Apparently according to this host, George Bush has plans to invade Cuba this year, but the only thing that worries them is that he says the Soviet missiles in that country from 1962 are still there and that's why we havent invaided before. I don't believe any of this. Even is Castro dies next year, which I doubt, his brother Raul seems to have the government well in hand. It was Harry Truman who first said that America made a mistake not giving Cuba aid in 1959 before they asked for it and before they turned to the Soviets.

I don't trust Rudolph Juliani now that he's running for President. I don't see the appeal of the man myself. He was famous for a few brief weeks after the 9 - 11 crisis but come election time that event will be seven years in the past. Hopefully Al Qaida won't be as big a threat them if the democrats in congress straighten out the mess in Iraq created by the Bush adminestration. It seems that our presence there has in fact heightened divisions between Shiite, Suni, and Kurd. Personally I'd trust either John Mc Cain or Joe Lieberman any day of the week before I would trust Rudy Juliani to run the country. I've heard he has fasciest tendencies. I don't like the idea that Juliani has chief of the Guardian Angels- - Curtess Sleewah - or whatever his name is. Apparently police beatings are much more comon now in New York than we were led to believe. Curtess likes to joke constantly about "wood shampoos" adminestered by Cops. And Howard Stern adds that the one thing the LAPD did wrong in the Rodney King beatings was that they did it out in the open and not in some private back room. In the first place I don't see how Juliani can possibly get through the Republican primaries. I wouldn't vote for him and I'm still a Republican. He's pro gay; he in favor of extreme gun control, apparently; and he is pro abortion. I don't know where he stands on first amendment rights such as freedom of religion and I'm not sure I want to find out. It would seem that John Mc Cain has had much more hands on experiance at the reins of government. What has Juliani been doing. Going around the country and making speeches? Juliani is all image and no reality, and a fast fading image at that. Hopefully in these two years the democrats will have done more to implement the recomendations of the 9 - 11 commission, and Juliani will be irrelivant.

I find it a disturbing trend today that there is pressure to conform behaviorially. There is a growing near obcession with the biology of the brain, which they say can solve anything from drug addiction, to depression, to homosexuality. If homosexual's brains are different perhaps it's because of the Biblical verse "They receive in their own bodies the penalty for their deeds". God may well have intended that our brains change from year to year but that they do it from the experiances we create for ourselves and the way we condition ourselves. It would seem in this day and age personal responsability is out the windows. I don't need to tell you how disgusted I am with all this obcession over consuming various fats. It seems as if trans-fats have become the new tobacco. Back in August 1997 Rush Limbaugh did a parody on "Big Fat" that was sort of a parody of Big Tobacco, saying one day we would be as obcessed with poor eating habits as we are with smoking. You remember the Stephen King story "Quitters", don't you? Right after they cure the guy of tobacco they begin working on his eating habits. I think we may well be too concerned about certain occupational safty regulations. I realize there are extremes and it's a continuoum, but small businesses are finding themselves increasingly hampered by ISHA regulations. Not only do we have "Equal outcome based education" but we are also trying to declare all problems and tribulations of life as somehow "illegal". Sometimes when a person trips on a step it's nobody's fault but his. It's our business whether we want to sear seat belts or motor cycle helmets, or smoke or eat fast food. When we give Ritilan to our kids we just might be snuffing out some creative genious down the line. Society seems to be having an increasing intollerance for "different" people. In the old days they accepted these "differences" as just parts of peoples' personalities. One thing that bugs me is these psychological "normalcy" tests. They seem to have them for everything and my first impulse upon taking one is to cheat and look in some book to find out what the correct answers are.

Now they are going back to wishing people a Merry Christmas in department stores such as Wall Mart and Macy's. This to me is a good thing. They rightly call it a "Christmas" sale and not a "Holiday" sale. Euphamisums have always driven me nuts anyhow. It's time we just called a spade a spade. I don't want to do anything to styfle people's holiday spirit. It's so rare that we have it anyhow- - we need all the unifying fources we can get be it manger scenes or crosses on top of buildings or spelling out words on signs such as "Noel".

If I actually put out another book people could buy I'd call it God is Dead. Scientists have proved predestination. So the following things are irrelivent or impossible - - Prayer, Maracles, Divine Jealousy, Sin, Personal "testing", Divine intervention into this World, or God "Changing his mind" I'd have all those terms on the back cover or some place. Also with this theology Evolution becomes much more probable than before. Other things I'd bring out in the book would be that it wouldn't be necessary for Christ to suffer and die on the cross because since there is no free will anyhow, God could program us any way he wanted to. One other concept that would be out the window is Chance. The word IF would not exist. Things that happened are certain to happen and there is no way by which Anything could be Avoided in the past or in the future. There is no abstract "Divine ideal". It doesn't exist. People talk about mathematical odds with Evolution. Either something happened or it didn't and you don't think of one in a million, if those are the odds, all you have to worry about is the One, because that's the one that counts- - the one that Actually Happened. (Selah) In terms of an afterlife, this is a fairly simple concept. In Eccliastes it says "The spirit of a man when he dies goes back to God, who gave it (in the first place)" In other words the Afterlife isn't come "New Experiance" but a return to an old one. It's an existance in what we call Eternity where there is no Time as we know it, which the Bhudists call Nirvana. It's indeed an "extinction" of all existance. But have you considered this idea? Even DEATH as we know it has to have Existance. If you remove all "existance in time and space as we know it" not even DEATH can exist. Not only that but when we think of this life (IF we're even able to be conscious of it at all) it will neither be in the past nor in the future but at some point on the "googooplex continuoum". The entire Universe in fact will be just another point in Nowhere. The truth is that God never needs to "test" us, nor put us through any Trials, to somehow "Proove" our worthyness. God is not "Curious"; he knows everything already. If God listened to Lucifer in the testing of Job in the Bible, it was only because he wanted to and NOT because he wasn't sure whether or not Lucifer was right and somehow needed to "find out" for himself. In like manner God didn't need to "find out" whether Abraham would be obediant in sacrificing his son Isac. He knew that already. God doesn't need to test us to "find out how much we can bear". He already knows our breaking points, and if we crack, it is nore his doing than our choice. Some may say "Perhaps if God had intervened in Cain's life sooner and counsiled him, he wouldn't have killed his brother Abel". The one thing God is incapable of doing to the slightest degree is to Change what IS and what MUST BE. In this way there is no sin because there is no other way things could conceivably happen. Few people would argue with the proposition "What God Wills Gets Carried Out". Why would God "Will" something that he knew to a metaphysical certainty would Never Happen? (Selah) With examples like this I would fill my book with the cover title "God Is Dead", and perhaps with a sub title "A new scientifically demonstrated theology for the 21st. Century".

A New Day in Congress

There seems little more to do now than state the obvious, that the democrats have now taken over both houses of congress. We have not typed under this Blog heading in nearly four months. What we do is jump around from Blog to Blog usually adding about four postings in rapid succession and then jumping to another blog, so I hope you have found us. The democrats had to take six of eight key states to win the Senate and that's just what they did. They won in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Misori, and Montana. They failed to win in Tennessee and Arizona. The key event of this whole thrust came mid day Thursday when Senator George Allan conceeded the race to Jim Webb, being behind by seven thousand votes and confident that he would not be able to make this up in a protracted recount. Today George Bush is meeting with Senate leaders just as he met with Democratic house leaders on Wednesday. The democrats won at least 28 seats in the house, with a couple of races undecided. I heard 34 one place. What this all means is that it really is a new day in Congress now. Winning the house assured that President Bush could be investigated for his many questionable activities. Winning the senate means that our side is control of things like treaties and cabinent posts and who the next Supreme Court Justice is. I guess I'd also like to thank whatever Calvary Chapel Christians routinely pray "Thy Will Be Done" in terms of the election. You owe the democrats taking over both houses of congress to their prayers!

Donald Rumsfeld is out. That was the first item on the agenda and it was taken care of swiftly Wednesday morning when Bush announced his replacement, Robert Gates. And of course he was smart to do so while the old congress was still around to hurry up and confirm him without asking any embarrassing questions like his involvement in Iran Contra. Gates served as CIA chief from late 1991 to 1993. It's hoped that he will provide more lucid leadership in Iraq than we have seen there, though we can't be sure of this. Apparently now the US is being blamed for victories of Al Qaida in Iraq because the word went out at the beginning of the year that there would be withdrawals of US troops this year, therefore the enemy hearing this, became more confident. Few Democrats these days are talking about withdrawal now. Instead there is enphasis on the "basics of counter insergence" to insure success now.

NBC is talking a lot about "People of Faith" now and how you "get to heaven". Apparently if you're a Jew the key to getting to heaven is doing good works. People associate getting to heaven being a reward for people exercising sound morality. For Christians however, there's a whole other set of criteria for getting into heaven that has virtually nothing to do with morality, and we will cover this in further detale in a later blog posting.

In Mathematics there is such a thing as a "Taylor Series" that was invented in 1712 by Isac Newton or somebody. It's a formula where odd numbers do an increasing number of sine wave "itterations" that interrupt an otherwise diagonal line accross the graph. Many mathematical functions are deducable from the Taylor series including ordenary trig functions and hyperbolic trig functions- - as well as computations for calculating Base E. I say all this to remind you that math has a lot of formulas. There's a lot of "thinking" people have been doing to solve certain problems and mysteries. We all have to "stand on the shoulders of giants".

Rush Limbaugh apparently made the statement yesterday that he felt "liberated" now that Congress of either house was no longer controled by the Republicans. I'm not sure what me meant by this but it could be that Rush is considering getting out of the talk show business entirely after all these years. He's been at his current post for eighteen long years. Sometimes when people retire from a job they have a heart attack or stroke soon after. Their "will to live" is diminished. It could be Rush "just doesn't want to go through having a Democratic congress again". Apparently Rush says the Democrats didn't have any focused "Message".