The Right Voice

I had the pleasure misfortune of attending a mega church last week. Now, McLean Bible Church is not as big as Joel Osteen’s church, but with four campuses and several different worship options at each campus, it is nothing to sneeze at. In my opinion, it is far too big to effective at doing anything but having a church service. Don’t get me wrong, it is great that it can preach the Gospel to so many people, but churches are called to do more than that. Churches are supposed to provide fellowship and teaching to the believers. The book of Peter calls pastors to feed His sheep. It is not that people are not fed at these mega churches, it is just that they are fed milk. The book of Hebrews calls churches to move from milk to meat. Milk is for infant Christians. As we mature in our faith, we are supposed to be fed meat.

Part of it is my fault, I suppose. I enjoy traditional worship (Hymns and such). Since I had no idea what was going on, I walked into the only open door I saw. I was “The Edge” with “contemporary band led worship”. That is not my style at all. In fact, I despise it. To me it sounds canned and there is such a huge lack of raw emotion. People singing them just seemingly go through the motions, as it were. I was so disenchanted by the music that I did not even pay attention to what anyone was saying. I could only even make out the words through the noise during the offertory when the chorus was “Kingdom of Heaven, rain down on me.” What does that even mean? Sounds poetic, I suppose, but no one at home is ever going to say that. Once I figured out that I was in the wrong room I contemplated leaving and going to the other room, but by that time, it was much too late for that.

After worship time (seemed like an eternity, but in reality, it was about 30-35 minutes which is still quite long) there was the sermon. It was delivered via satellite from wherever he was preaching from (Loudon?). We were graced with a sermon that lasted about 15 minutes. It was about witnessing. It was part 8 in a series. I can only assume that there is so many parts because there is only so much you can say in 15 minutes anyway. It was light and fluffy like I was expecting. I was hoping for substance, but there was hardly any. He just said to preach the Gospel which is exactly what we are told to do in Matthew 28. Thanks, I definitely could not have figured that out on my own.

So after that experience at church it was time to leave. Well, that is another story. I went to the parking garage and found my car where I parked it at F3. I saw a little bit of traffic getting out, but I was not expecting what happened. I was stuck in the parking garage for upwards of 30 minutes, then when I finally got onto Route 7, There was massive amounts of traffic. The police even get involved in the mass exodus from this particular church. It took me over an hour and a half to get home. So I all in all, I had 2 and a half hours of driving time, $1.50 in tolls and a miserable church experience. I probably won’t be going back.

Todd

John McCain ran one of the worst Presidential Campaigns that I have ever seen. It seems almost like he did not want to win. Sure, there was an uphill battle, but there was so much more he could have done to make it close, or even possibly win.

1. I live in the all-important battleground state of Virginia. I was bombarded by Obama campaigners, fliers, and sample ballots. I got nothing from the McCain camp. Nothing. On election at the long lines of the polls who was there? The Democrats. Who wasn’t? McCain people. Who won Virginia? Obama. Obama volunteers knocked on one million doors the day before the election. What did the McCain camp do? nothing.

2. The Interwebz. From day one Obama embraced the Web. He was on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn, SecondLife, and multiple other Social Networking sites while McCain was nowhere to be found. McCain finally embraced the Web about two months too late. More on that in a little bit.

3. He never controlled the right narrative and always controlled the narrative  no one wanted to hear. Obama stated (for the entire campaign) that John McCain was just like George Bush. He had a response to that. About 3 weeks too late. He let that narrative control him and he was killed by it. When the economy was THE ONLY issue ANYONE cared about, McCain focused on Ayers. No one cared and it hurt him badly, yet he kept pushing it.

4. He never challenged anything that Obama said. Instead of pointing out that it is impossible for 95% of the peole to get a tax cut when 30% don’t pay taxes. He talked about a bill that Obama voted yes on in the Chicago state Senate in 2001. Who cares? No one did.

5. The financial meldown. This is where McCain’s campaign fell off the cliff. Obama stated (falsely) that it was 100% the fault of Bush and his economic policies that “McCain agreed with”. McCain did…nothing at first. Then…he did a lot more of nothing…Then he talked about Ayers and ACORN…then he came up with the worst possible solution. He wanted the Treasury to buy all the bad mortgages. Who thought that up?

6. Aside from “Country First” there were no sound bites for McCain. (unless you count “My friends”). Obama was able to lay out his plans clearly and succinctly. McCain was not. He never tried. If he had,  it would be something like “My Friends, you will spend $3,000 more on your health care, but, my friends, don’t worry. You will get a $5,000 tax credit” Whatever that means. McCain decided to focus on the strengths of his plan (which were few) instead of the weaknesses in Obama’s plans (which were more numerous).

7. Finally, everything that McCain did in the last 2 weeks of his campaign should have been done weeks, if not months, earlier. He gave a speech on election day that was full of fire and passion. Too bad it was on election day and not weeks before. he called for the resignation of Ted Stevens AFTER he was convicted. AFTER. Wow. Way to go out on a limb. Here’s what he should have done. He should have called for his resignation the day he was indicted. It would have greatly benefited many things. First, and foremost, it could have gotten Ted Stevens out og the US Senate (he was reelected BTW). It would have bolstered his position as a “maverick” (Palin too, she’s just as guilty) by going against his own party. Lastly, it would have bolstered his position as a pork buster. Lest we forget his now infamous Bridge to Nowhere? [Don’t worry though, even though he was facing criminal charges, Sen. Stevens was still able to earmark funds for Squirrel research on the bailout bill. What a disgrace.]

McCain, during the third debate, FINALLY said that he was not George Bush. He should have set the record straight during the first debate. He also came out guns ablazin’ and on the offensive during the third debate. Would have been great to see in the first two debates. He should have brought up ACORN at the beginning. Why no mention of the fact that they are under investigation in 14 states? He let him off too easy.

All in all his campaign was a failure due to both his staff for making such muddy policies and McCain himself for being “mavericky” when it wasn’t a good time to be one, and not being “mavericky” when it was time to be one.

Todd

I hate that I keep having to write posts that are so political because I know some of my readers have sharp differences in opinion, and I hate for politics to get in the way of friendships, but this is time I must say something.

I expected a lot of fluff and garbage, but nothing of substance. Even though the lies started early, I was fine until he unleashed the biggest lie of the campaign. He directly faulted George W. Bush for the financial meltdown. Here is the truth. It seems like the Obama campaign has struggled with the truth as the election draws to a close. A lot can be said about the McCain campaign and how they have altered the truth. This is much different. If anything, McCain has only stretched the truth to fit whatever point he was trying to make. Obama is flat out lying in his accusation of Bush. He says these words knowing that there is not a shred of truth in them, and the American public, as well as the media, just buys it stock, lock, and barrel. No need to look for the truth, Obama said it was so. Right? People are voting for Obama he represents “change”. Change that has yet to be defined. Let’s look at Obama’s other patterns of lies.

In Obama’s latest ad, “Try This” promoting his tax cut “facts” site, he misrepresented an analyst from The Heritage Foundation saying that he agreed with his tax plan. Even though, the analyst that was “quoted”, Rea Hederman, disputed those claims here, here, here, and here, the Obama campaign continues to run the ad. Next, the Obama campaign has the AUDACITY to criticize the McCain campaign for “selectively” editting audio tapes from Joe Biden. Obama needs to take a step down off his high horse and people need to stop putting him up on his high horse.

Todd

In case you live under a rock, Colin Powell, a Republican, endorsed Barack Obama, a Democrat, for President. I am disappointed by this. Not because he endorsed Obama, anyone can choose to support whoever they want. I am disappointed by this because of the reasons he gave for supporting Obama. The reason that stuck out to me the most was that Powell was fearful that McCain would appoint Justices like Scalia and Alito.

I thought that Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was a man of character. Apparently I was wrong. General Powell thinks that Justices should interpret the law in whatever way they see fit. That is not character. That is folding over to appease a small fraction of people. Standing up for what you believe in, in this case, the Constitution, is character. The Constitution was not written to change with whatever people might think at a certain time. It is a list of principles that this country was founded on would guide the country forever.
For YEARS, the Court has just legislated whatever they wanted without recourse from any other branch of Government. They pick and choose which parts of the Constitution they like and which parts they don’t. I wrote about it here. Interpreting the Constitution in that fashion is intellectually dishonest. In fact, there is nothing intellectual about it. All the justices do is insert whatever they think is right and make a weak, at best, Constiutional case for it. The Constitutional argument that was made for Roe v. Wade was that throughout the history of time there has been abortions. What? They also used to sacrifice virgins and burn women at the stake. Guess I can do that and it will be protected by the the Liberty clause in the 14th Amendment. Justice Blackman said it was OK for me to do that. You see how this is a slippery-slope.

This is why the Constitution was drafted. The principles found in the Constitution are unchanging. They don’t change with the times like a leaf in the wind. That is not principles, that is lacking character and principles. It’s OK to believe in something. It’s OK to have something that is unwavering. I never elected Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Why is she making legislative decisions? She is acting in a way that is contrary to what ALL the Founding Father’s agreed with. It wasn’t just the Federalists who thought this way, it was all of them. General Powell lacks character.

Todd

Yesterday, I had to do something I had never had to do before. I had to shop for a winter coat. Growing up in Southern California, I hardly ever needed anything more than a hooded sweatshirt. In Washington, however, it  gets much colder and my windbreaker would hardly cut the mustard. Work was also a reason why I had to get a winter coat. I can’t, very well, walk into the building wearing a hooded sweatshirt from Aeropostale or Hurley. Those days are over. I can only imagine the looks I would get from co-workers.

Malls near me like to charge for parking. There are two malls that do not. One of them is the Landmark Mall. That mall is less than 5 miles away. Would have taken 10-15 minutes to get there. Unfortunately, the Landmark Mall is the worst mall I have ever been to, and this is coming from someone who spent all of his formative years going to the Media City Center in Burbank. Those of you who know about the Media City Center can only imagine how bad the Landmark Mall is. It is a constant battle I have with my boss because he loves the Landmark Mall and visits it often. Anyway, I have gone way off track. The other mall near me that does not charge for parking is the MUCH nicer Tyson’s Corner. I headed down King St. and proceeded toward the mall. It is about 11 miles away and all of it is surface streets. I went down the same road (Hwy 7) but the name changed from King St. to Leesburg Pike and then finally to Broadway St. all while driving to Tyson’s Corner.

What I was not counting on on a Saturday afternoon - traffic, and lots of it. It took me a little more than an hour to drive the 11 miles. During the trip, two ambulances and a fire truck weaved through traffic. One rude ambulance driver honked at me when there was no where else for me to go. I was up as far as possible and as close to the center divider as possible. I understand that there was an emergency, but there was nothing more I could do. After about 5 seconds traffic moved enough for him to get passed me. No accidents or anything on Hwy 7, just traffic. Oh well, at least I had good music. Listened to an entire Screaming Trees album and half of a track on a Townes Van Zandt album.

I walked around the mall for about 2 hours. went to Macy’s on the advice of a friend who told me about Columbus Day sales. No such sale, just the normal 30% and 40% that they usually have. I have never seen anything full price at Macy’s. After a long time of wandering around I finally decided on a Sean John tie. After all, who knows more about fashion than P. Diddy? According to P. Diddy, no one. What was I there for again? Oh yes, a coat. I finally found a Guess wool coat that will do the job nicely. So, it was a fine day of shopping at Tyson’s Corner.

Todd

Once again I am forced to rail against Bud Selig. By allowing TBS to have a monopoly on the Division series, he once again, shut out the East Coast to baseball. How do you expect to gain new fans when playoff games start at 10 PM? I could only stay up until the 4th inning. How can I keep up? Would have been cool to see the Cubs/Dodgers game 1 and see Maddux come in as a closer. Too bad that happened at 3AM Eastern Time. Bud Selig is the absolute worst thing to ever happen to baseball, and he should be fired. I will take a decade to undo the damage he has brought to the sport.

Now that that is out of the way, lets focus in the playoffs. I am shocked that the Cubs are down 0-2 and are on the brink of elimination. They were the strongest team in the NL this year. I had them at least to the NLCS, if not the whole thing. I am also surprised by the Angels poor performance. Scosia has a solid club with offense, defense, and great pitching. I had them going to the World Series.

How about them Rays? They are an incredible story that is an example of everything right in baseball. I also hate the White Sox. I could care less about the Phillies and Brewers.

From the Files of You Can’ Make this Stuff Up:

Here is a picture I took on the Metro coming home one day

If you can’t see it, it is a can of sardines.

Todd

Well, OK, summer ended a while ago (although not officially until whenever the Autumn Equinox was, but for all intents and purposes, it ended after Labor Day), but I am just now getting around to updating my blog. I wanted to write about this because I noticed a sharp change in Washington.

I got to Washington in Mid-June when summer was just getting started. However, not being in school, I hardly cared that it was summer. The only thing it meant for me was it would be extremely hot and humid (I don’t ever recall a summer when I was more uncomfortable). I still had to get up early and go to work everyday. Boy, was I mistaken.

Washington takes the sumer off too (not me, I still had to work). I did not think much of the streets that were not completely buzzing because there was still plenty of foot and vehicle traffic. I did not think about the Metro trains that were not full to capacity, partly because we get shoved in like sardines in the morning on the Yellow train on the way to Fort Totten. I did not think much of it because it was all I knew.

July quickly became August and Washington fell asleep. Congress went on recess (except for the Republicans) and it was largely uneventful (with the exception of Sarah Palin). In fact, there was one Friday where we left work at 330 because there was absolutely no point in staying any longer. It was a ghost town (As close as a bustling metropolis can be anyway).

As the air became less thick and muggy, I knew September was upon us. Seriously, we have had good weather for a few weeks now. The weather was not the only difference. DC became alive with action. More so than in June or July. There was a significant increase in foot traffic and the Metro was much more crowded. Things are moving, people are talking. This city has awakened and summer is over.

Todd

John McCain appeared on “The View” recently and talked about Supreme Court appointees. Of course, the question of Roe v. Wade was asked. However, those of us who have read the Constitution and understand how the Court works know that there is no point at all for this “concern” to be brought up. The Constitution states that The Supreme Court only has appellate jurisdiction. That means they can only hear arguments for a case after it has gone through the state, and district courts. Also, a case has to be brought up in the first place. Historically the Court’s favorite thing to do is to take a back seat. The cases have already been decided. They adhere to Stare Decisis - Let the decision stand.

They will rarely overturn a case (except in cases that were decided by incompetance like Plessy vs. Ferguson and The Dred Scott Case). The last time a case was brought before the Court dealing with overturning Roe v. Wade was 1991, and it was not overturned despite have on conservative majority in the Court and a President against abortion. It’s a moot point, but why let that get in the way of a juicy hook? The idea that John McCain as a strict interpreter of the Constitution also came up. He believes (as well as I do) that we should interpret the Constitution the way our founders interpreted it. So he believes the case should not be up to the court (and it shouldn’t). As Justice Scalia, saying as only Justice Scalia can say said this:

The point at which life becomes ‘worthless’, and the point at which the means neccesary become ‘extraordinary’, or ‘inappropriate’ are neither set forth in the Constitutio nor known to the nine Justices of this Court any better than they are known to nine people picked at random from he Kansas City phone directory

To think that the black robe of the Supreme Court gives them clairvoyance to know anything of right and wrong, moral or immoral is foolish. To give them powers that are not granted to them in the Constitution is even more foolish.

After McCain spoke Whoopi Goldberg interrupted. She asked if she had to worry about becoming a slave because McCain said we should follow the Framers. Well, she must not know our position so I’ll tell her. We don’t agree with the notion that the principles of the Constitution change, and we don’t like Justices changing it based on their own personal preferences at the time of their ruling. We think that the only way to declare something “unconstitutional” is to change the Constitution through the amendment process. It appears that Whoopi Goldberg has never read the 13th Ammendment either, so I will help her with that too.

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Seems pretty cut and dry. I bet there is a Justice who believes in a living document that will one day read into that amendment that it was not talking about slavery and will re-institute it. Quick, let’s start a panic over nothing.
Todd

Well, not really, no, I am not. But, I was featured on the blog of Rep. Eric Cantor’s personal blog because he spoke at The Conservative Blogger’s Briefing at work today.

I’m in the purple tie. 5th from the left. Seated next to me is John Fund from the Wall Street Journal. He was there to tell us about his book Stealing Elections which talks about how voter fraud is stealing elections and how ACORN is only fueling the fire of voter fraud. He also states that Florida in 2000 was just a sample of how bad the election can be this year if steps are not taken. 14,000 lawyers have been deployed to contest any close election result. H likened it to having a lot of underbrush in a forest with 14,000 people that had matches. Not good.

Ah, August baseball. the time of the year when the Braves have already wrapped up the division and have put the scrubs in to get a taste of the show. Wait a minute, something is not right here. Let’s see where the mistakes are. Let’s see…August? Check. Scrubs in the game? Check. Ah yes I see it now. The Braves have not wrapped up the division. In fact, the Braves are 19 games below .500 and 17 Games Behind the Mets with only 25 left to play. Well, I went to the game today to see if they could avoid being swept by the worst team in the majors.

Thanks to generosity from former coworkers friends, I was able to watch the game from awesome seats. The weather was perfect, if not a little hot, but that was taken care of by the third inning, or so. I took advantage of Twitter and “tweeted” live commentary during the game. The scrubs were out in full force today. No Chipper, No McCann, no, ah, ah, I guess those are our only stars. This guy played though. This guy pitched. He also hit, but thankfully, he does not get paid to hit. The free Nationals program featured a cover story on Pat Corrales. That was kind of cool. It was also nice to see old friends like Langerhans (I always liked him) and Don Sutton.

The Braves scored 1 in the first. I started to get excited because we scored early and Jurrjens was on the hill, so we were in good hands. Ishould not have been so foolish. The Nats came back for 2 in the bottom of the inning. I tweeted cautiously:

nats get 2. not looking good for the non-hitting braves

That was the score until 4th inning when Escobar hit a three run shot to make the score 4-3. the Nats refused to quit though and came back with one in the bottom of the inning to make it 4-3. Jurrjens settled down after that. He seemed to be going strong. No sooner than I said this:

Jurrjens has retired 7 in a row

I said this:

  Jurrjens being lifted for a pinch hitter. I don”t agree with Cox on this move

Sadly, I was proven right.

Boyer was brought in to pitch the 7th. He shut the Nats down in order. Then Elmer Dessens came out to pitch the 8th. I astutely tweeted this

no idea why Boyer was taken out with the pitcher’s spot due up third in the 9th

Elmer Dessens did not last long. He gave up 5 runs in 1/3 of an inning capped by a three run homer by Aaron Boone. This happened about 4 batters too late. The Braves lost 8-4 and got swept by the Nats. The Nats are playing well right now, but come on.

One last thing before I sign off. I am really impressed with Josh Anderson I think he is going to be a solid player for us (or wherever he ends up). At the Nats games they have the President Race and Teddy Roosevelt has never won. Today was no exception. There’s always next year.

Todd