“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

It was interesting to note that in the studies on this subject, it was not economic well being, the availablity of national health care or the amount-quality of play time that caused the people questioned to feel they were happy, rather it was . . .

First, there was FAITH, people that attended church on a regular basis were generally much happier than believers that did not or non-believers. Just like in the beginning of our nation, faith still plays a critical role in whether or not we feel happy. To be sure a good job, not big paying, but one where people enjoyed going to work also played a role, as did a strong sense of family. They also spoke of charitable giving and liberty (freedom) as also being measurements of happiness.

Under freedom (liberty) there was an interesting revelation: “Not all types of freedom are [considered] the same in terms of happiness.” Moral freedom (license) in terms of a lack of moral constraints on personal behavior, did not seem to these respondents to result in personal happiness.  Those people enagaging in sexual liberation and drug use were not very happy at all.  So, licentiousness was not considered as making any contribution to our happiness. Take this along with the happiness of people of faith and it appears that we are still at heart a Judeo-Christian nation, with a strong sense of moral (family) values.

In 2004 as in almost every election cycle for many decades, despite the pundits and the skewing of data about what is or what is not a very important issue, the voters continued to choose “moral values” as the most critical issue of all.

How does this impact our voting? The people can still be fooled by the “I can feel your pain” folk on the Left and by this we see Democrat victories; but if the Right did not, out of craven fear of the liberals, atheists and those wanting to engage in licentious behavior in the Republican Party keep strong moral values, family values out of the center (heart) of their campaigns we could continue to win at the polls; but the fear of loss of power and money has made cowards of most of the Republican Party, allowing the Left to so confuse the issue that Americans are being cheated out of the very thing they desire most and our Founders desired for them - personal happiness.

Raleigh, N.C. — Jesse Helms, the firebrand U.S. senator whose outspoken, conservative views polarized North Carolina and U.S. voters for decades, died at 1:15 a.m. Friday in Raleigh, according to John Dodd, president of the Jesse Helms Center.

He joins the second and third presidents of the United States – Thomas Jefferson and John Adams Jr. – who both also died on Independence Day.

He was 86. His cause of death was not released. Funeral arrangements will be forthcoming, Dodd said.

Helms served five terms in the U.S. Senate, retiring in 2003 because of his faltering health. During his 30 years in Capitol Hill, the North Carolina Republican became a powerful voice for a conservative movement that was growing both in Congress and across the country, and he used his position to speak out against issues like gay rights, federal funding for the arts and U.S. foreign aid.

He was always a gentleman ("Jesse Helms was the kindest, most infuriating, politest, most aggravating and nicest politician I had to deal with in the United States Senate,” former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said in a 2001 interview.), he had strong core values that did not waver, even in the face of constant, direct attacks.

“It has always been my contention,” he wrote in his memoir, “that there is no sense in being in office if you don’t have the courage to do what is right, even if it is the most unpopular position in the world.”

Like him or hate him, he made his mark on this nation!

WorldNetDaily

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2037987/posts

Such drilling really frightens and hurts the Caribou:

Scares the crap out of the bears:

The American people want lower gas prices, these higher prices will grow and throw our economy into a horrible, perhaps irreversible tailspin. So why not take the fight to Obama and the Democrats? I think the American people are not willing to give up their cars and standard of living, and global warming isn’t selling outside D.C., so I suggest McCain sell the idea of Anwar, North Dakota and off-shore drilling big time, make it the centerpiece of his campaign. Also, sell it as a national security issue, the people that have the oil mostly want us dead, so we need to stop all dependence upon them for our oil.

This is, IMO, the big issue for 2008 if McCain has the cahones to back off his ‘green’ crap and sell America’s financial and national security interests.

SAN JOSE, Calif.—The nation’s largest Presbyterian denomination on Friday (June 27) cracked open the door to ordaining non-celibate gay and lesbian clergy, though the decades-old fight is far from over.

Delegates at the Presbyterian Church (USA) meeting here voted 54 percent to 46 percent to remove a clause in their constitution that requires clergy to be either married and faithful or single and chaste.

But the action still needs approval by a majority of the denomination’s 173 regional bodies, called presbyteries, and similar moves in recent years have twice failed to win ratification on the local level.

Under the new rules, candidates for ordination must “pledge themselves to live lives obedient to Jesus Christ the Head of the Church.” It makes no reference to sexual orientation or activity.

Since the entirety of the New Testament has always been viewed as authoritative, God breathed and even every word of the Epistles are essentially inspired by the Spirit of Christ; how can people have homosexual desires and/or engage in homosexual conduct and be obedient to Christ (God) at the same time? Homosexual desires and conduct are condemned by God and yet these few people, contrary to their membership, want to ordain homosexuals as ministers of the Gospel, which two things are wholly incompatible.

Whether it is the Presbyterians, the Roman Catholic Church or any other group calling themselves disciples of Christ, if members are in disagreement about basic teachings of their faith, it seems the practical, honest course is to start their own religious group, issue a man edited Bible omitting condemnations about things like homosexuality versus trying to deny the Word of God as taught by their home church.

Homosexuals, can accept Jesus as their Savior and Lord and be saved, and even struggle with their homosexual desires and even fall back into homosexual behavior at times and still remain saved, as the blood of Christ is sufficient to save any man or woman; but to have saving faith means to accept all that Jesus directly and/or through his Apostles taught us, to recognize and not try to hide our sins and to repent (agree with God about the matter) when they fail. What even by free will one cannot do and remian faithful to the teachings of Christ, IMO, is to change God’s Word to agree with their own aberrant, unChristian thoughts and actions and think they are genuinely saved.

The point? The leadership of the Presbyterian Church must be honest and say they reject God’s Word as being infallible, as regards its condemnation of homosexuality; or, they should submit themselves as servants to their membership and uphold all of God’s Word, despite any desires to feel poliotically correct.

http://pewforum.org/news/rss.php?NewsID=15953

Col. Bud Day, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, fighter pilot, Vietnam POW and roommate of John McCain at the Hanoi Hilton.

When it comes to choosing a president, the American people want to know more about a candidate than policy positions. They want to know about character, the values ingrained in his heart. For Mr. McCain, that means they will want to know more about him personally than he has been willing to reveal.

One of the stories by Col. Day Americans should hear. It involves what happened to him after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war. When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, “I told you I would make you a cripple.”

The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day’s will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at “a goofy angle,” as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again. But it didn’t heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe
punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day’s splint in place.

Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complemented the treatment he’d gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was
“Dr.” McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.

Another story I heard over dinner with the Days involved Mr. McCain serving as one of the three chaplains for his fellow prisoners. At one point, after being shuttled among different prisons, Mr. Day had found himself as the most senior officer at the Hanoi Hilton. So he tapped Mr. McCain to help administer religious services to the other prisoners.

Today, Mr. Day, a very active 83, still vividly recalls Mr. McCain’s sermons. “He remembered the Episcopal liturgy,” Mr. Day says, “and sounded
like a bona fide preacher.” One of Mr. McCain’s first sermons took as its text Luke 20:25 and Matthew 22:21, “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.” Mr. McCain said he and his fellow prisoners shouldn’t ask God to free them, but to help them become the best people they could be while serving as POWs. It was Caesar who put them in prison and Caesar who would get them out. Their task was to act with honor.

Another McCain story, somewhat better known, is about the Vietnamese practice of torturing him by tying his head between his ankles with his arms
behind him, and then leaving him for hours. The torture so badly busted up his shoulders that to this day Mr. McCain can’t raise his arms over his
head. One night, a Vietnamese guard loosened his bonds, returning at the end of his watch to tighten them again so no one would notice. Shortly after, on Christmas Day, the same guard stood beside Mr. McCain in the prison yard and drew a cross in the sand before erasing it. Mr. McCain later said that when he returned to Vietnam for the first time after the war, the only person he really wanted to meet was that guard.

Mr. Day recalls with pride Mr. McCain stubbornly refusing to accept special treatment or curry favor to be released early, even when gravely
ill. Mr. McCain knew the Vietnamese wanted the propaganda victory of the son and grandson of Navy admirals accepting special treatment. “He wasn’t corruptible then,” Mr. Day says, “and he’s not corruptible today.”

I have omitted most of the stories, they have been written elsewhere, and I still am not pleased with McCain as a candidate for a host of reasons; but let no one question his courage, his honor as a soldier or his humanity.

http://cameron.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/05/08/colonel-bud-day-on-john-mccain/

Are we being warned by this dog, does he sense a great political catastrophe on its way?

ABC News’ Rachel Humphries and Kate McCarthy report:  Michelle Obama addressed the Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council Gala in New York City Thursday night and renewed her husband’s promise to repeal federal policies that she says limit the rights of gays and lesbians.

“Barack believes that we must fight for a world as it should be.  A world where together we work to reverse discriminatory laws like D.O.M.A. (Defense of Marriage Act) and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” Mrs. Obama said, addressing an audience of 250 people at a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee.

D.O.M.A stipulates that states are not required to recognize same sex marriages, even if the marriages are recognized in another state.  The law also states that the federal government define marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman.  “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”, as it is commonly called, allows gay men and women to serve in the military but it prevents them from talking about their sexuality openly.

This appears to me to be a declaration of war to force homosexual rights upon this nation. Like a good politician, she and her husband talk about states rights; but to reverse “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and a federal definition of marraige as being between a man and woman, appears to me that they are going to make a federal case of those issues and more, being an openly pro-gay administration.

This is not, IMO, simple pandering to gain support of the gay Community, but I believe it is a truthful expression of their intentions to promote gay rights legislation and use the bully pulpit to advance the gay agenda.