by

Our Daily Thread 4-24-13

Good Morning!

On this day in 1800 the Library of Congress was established with a $5,000 allocation.

In 1877 U.S. federal troops were ordered out of New Orleans. This ended the North’s post-Civil War rule in the South.

In 1898 on this day, Spain declared war on the U.S.

In 1953 Winston Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

And in 1981 the IBM Personal Computer was introduced.

____________________________________________________

Quote of the day

“All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.”

Winston  Churchill

____________________________________________________

Sing, Sing, Sing, but there’s no singing.

____________________________________________________

Who has a QoD for us today?

38 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 4-24-13”

  1. Historical Trivia Note. Those of you from way out west or up north my not have had this experience but…
    Pledging Allegience to the Flag of the United State in the school room did not come about until Reconstruction. The flag was place near the north wall of the school room and the children were taught to plege allegience facing north. It was little subliminal things like that they used to beat us into submission..

    Like

    Reply

  2. Good morning! Becca’s finally better. She missed three days of school. Thanks for the prayers.
    What’s on everyone’s mind this blustery morning?

    Like

    Reply

  3. Thanks, Kim, for letting this true gal from the south know about all those years I was under submission and did not know it! 🙂 First time I ever heard about that flag near the north wall of the school room. Now if only I could remember my classrooms from way back then…

    Like

    Reply

  5. It is always hard on a mommy when a baby is sick.

    Janice, I am a fount of worthless information. Should we ever be in a postition to play trivia games you definately want me on your side. 😉

    Like

    Reply

  7. I don’t remember a pledge of allegiance when in school. I remember lining up and marching into chapel. It was indeed chapel.
    We marched to the tune of “Under the Double Eagle” on the school piano.

    Like

    Reply

  10. Good morning all. I see we are talking about submission again 😉

    We always pledged allegiance facing the front of the classroom which was different in every classroom, but what else would you expect in California?

    Like

    Reply

  11. From Brietbart, via Drudge:

    President Barack Obama’s 2014 budget puts a $3 million cap on tax-advantaged retirement accounts to crack down on “wealthy individuals” using these investment vehicles to earn “substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement savings.”
    But an analysis by Forbes finds that a 20-year old saving for retirement would need to amass a $9.97 million portfolio to fund just a $60,000 lifestyle by age 65. What’s more, writes David John Marotta of Forbes, $3 million today represents just $500,000 in 1970s dollars.
    Kathleen Pender of the San Francisco Chronicle also notes that Obama’s plan would not apply to himself:
    The limit would not apply to Obama’s own pension, which is worth at least $5 million, because it is not in a tax-advantaged account, according to Brian Graff, executive director of the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries. Obama’s pension, which guarantees him a Cabinet-level salary for life indexed to inflation, is a “non-qualified deferred compensation plan, similar to what corporate executives get,” he says.

    Like

    Reply

  14. Chas @ 10:40

    The fact that there is a $3 million limit on tax-advantaged accounts doesn’t mean that a person can’t save more than that for retirement. It just means that anything above that limit would have to be in non-tax-advantaged accounts.

    If you or I were rich enough, we could put $5 million in a non-advantaged account just like Obama. So I really fail to see why that’s unfair.

    And really,a limit makes sense. If you’re wealthy enough to save up $9 million pluss, you don’t need a tax saving. But if you are a small investor, like you or I probably are, struggling to scrape up a couple thou a year for an IRA contribution so you might have a couple hundred thou when you retire, you need the tax savings to help you make that contribution.

    Like

    Reply

  16. I’ll have to get caught up on the threads I’ve missed the last few days — Misten looks quite a bit different than I remember her. 😉

    (BTW, very nice picture, Cheryl.) 🙂

    Like

    Reply

  19. Interesting day so far. Son and I were going up north of Atlanta to get his driver’s license renewal, and to see my brother and give him some birthday gifts, and let him change out some filters in the car. Son’s car would not crank and this was only two days after getting a “free” oil change at the dealership. Nothing had been wrong with the car before. So we went in my car. There was no wait at the DOMV which was much nicer that what it is like closer in to Atlanta. While at my brother’s, my son discovered an almost three foot long garter snake near the house. My brother does not appreciate things like that so near the house so my son, always the naturalist since he first learned to read from The Golden Guide to Venomous Snakes and Animals when he was five, decided we would cart the creature to a safer homeland. The snake was beautiful. I was not bothered since he was bagged and boxed. We let him out along the way home. My brother and son are now in the carport here at home and I hear the car has cranked! I so hope my brother will find a job,, but it is nice when he can help us out like this. He is good with cars and things mechanical but not so much so with snakes.
    🙂

    Like

    Reply

  21. Misten! 🙂 Woof.

    I remember the Pledge of Allegiance in school. Don’t know if we faced north though. 🙂

    I’ve spent the past 5 hours (in a cold drizzle, at that) with a bunch of other media & cops at a barricaded suspect scene just a few blocks from my house. It went on for 14 hours (started last night, I got there around 7 this morning) but ended OK though Swat finally had to storm the house and get the armed suspect out. He was not a happy man. He’ll be less happier when charges are filed.

    They evacuated 2 blocks last night so many of those folks were put up in pews at the large Catholic church across the street (where the cops also set up their command post through the night). I was happy to hear the priests allowed the people to bring their pets, too. 🙂 And the cops provided donuts.

    Anyway, all’s well, always good when these things end OK (though bean bag ammunition shots were fired and the house now is riddled with bullet holes). Remodel.

    I got some new twitter followers out of it, too.

    Like

    Reply

  23. Library of Congress. On the first day it was open, a representative checked out a book, and has never returned it. The overdue fine is now $142,000,000. The Representative claimed congressional immunity. He also said, “That’s nothing compared to the national debt,” and “Collect your fine from my cold dead fingers.” (I think the book had something to do with firearms, but the issue is still being investigated.)

    Like

    Reply

  24. Americans, generally, are not a submissive people.
    We are being trained to become submissive.

    The training does not take well. Everyone wants to be in charge. Most people here claim to submit to God, but each person has their own definition and interpretation of God, and quite a few appoint themselves as the representative of God, who has stopped answering requests for information several thousand years ago. God is definitely not a submissive deity. Not the Jewish God, not the Christian God, not the Muslim God, not the Hindu pantheon, nor even the Godless Buddhist God.

    A person could get seriously confused trying to obey the correct God. I will go to Hell and obey Satan.

    Like

    Reply

  25. Here’s an interesting web page. Lists all the executed felons in Texas, their offense, and their last words.

    http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/dr_executed_offenders.html

    This looks like morbid fun, but I have only read a few of the entries. Jumping to premature and superficial conclusions:

    1. Most murderers in Texas are black. (Moral: eject all black people from Texas?)
    2. Most murderers say something about God in their last words. (Moral: a little late to think about God?)
    3. Most murders seem pretty dumb. (Moral: I think there are obvious errors in this conclusion. I presume the worst is that smarter murderers [and perhaps whiter murderers, not to mention murderers with more money and better attorneys] are less likely to get caught. (Moral: If you are going to commit a murder, don’t get caught. Especially in Texas?)
    4. Capital punishment is especially effective. Especially in Texas. (Moral: Move to Texas. You will be safe from being murdered there. Unless you are a murderer. If you are a murderer, perhaps best to move to Boston. Or apply for the job of Texas state executioner?)
    5. I am going to eat lunch, clean up the worst of my crimes, tell the hens to stay alive, and head out to pick up my wife from the train station. If I am alive after she gets home, I will suggest we move to Texas.

    Before I go, I tried to find out how much the state executioner in Texas gets paid. Anybody know? All I could find on Wikipedia:

    W. James “Jim” Estelle – Director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) between 1972 to 1983. Was designated executioner under policy developed by the TDCJ in 1976.[46] Was the individual pushing the drugs into the IV lines at the December, 1982 execution of Charlie Brooks, the first inmate in the United States to be executed by lethal injection.

    Like

    Reply

  26. Just posted a praise over on the Prayer Request thread…Praise to God for making the way for Lee to buy his own bread route (sort of like owning a franchise). The closing just finished up a little while ago.

    Like

    Reply

  29. For those of you who read my prayer request yesterday…I called Guy I Used to Work With this morning. For all of him driving me crazy he is knowledgable and we talked several times a day six days a week for over four years so we can be frank and just say what we mean. I told him about the other woman in the office being able to tell it like it is and the agents not having a problem with it but I can hint at something and they get in a snit. He told me to stop acting like a 6th grader and worry about me and the agents. He also told me that I am a very matter of fact black or white type person. ( He claimed this was why I was able to work with him for over four years without having an emotional breakdown). He told me I needed to bend over backwards to make the agents my alliy and when I thought I had bent as far as I could I needed to bend a little more–Keep in mind none of this advice benefitted him, only me– To me he made a lot of sense and I appreciated the tips on handling high maintenance personalities (sales people) and had a better day today.

    Like

    Reply

  31. Random, 16:24 #2
    It is never too late to come to Jesus.
    You once told someone here that after about 4000 years, she would become bored in heaven.
    After 4000 years, hell is going to get mighty old.

    Like

    Reply

  32. Chas, I don’t doubt your sincerity or good intentions is posting your comment. There is not the slightest whiff of empirical evidence that either Heaven or Hell exists, or that human beings exist after our physical death. On a purely theoretical level, I suppose I can imagine that Hell (whatever you imagine it to be) might be worse than Heaven (whatever you imagine it to be), but after a long enough period, unless you are talking about an endless heroin high or the equivalent, I suspect all afterlife would be Hell.

    Aside from the difficulty of envisioning what one “does” in Heaven to pass the time, my brain seems to be totally unequipped to receive “truth” (as you perceive it) by any metaphysical or spiritual means. God must have said, “Hmm, the existence of a spiritual desert is an interesting idea. I’ve made the Sahara and the Mohave (etc.) as physical deserts, and quite lovely they are, but let’s see what I can do on the psychic level. There’s an interesting brain to tinker with, let’s twist the genes a bit here; aha! I think he will be totally incapable of receiving any knowledge of my existence. Hey Jesus, Satan, come here; what do you think of this? OK, there you go, Stephen, down to earth you go. Plop.”

    Even if God, Satan, Heaven, Hell, life after death, etc., has no tangible reality, it is an interesting question (though impossible to answer in any objective way), whether it is better to try and perceive reality (as difficult as that task admittedly is) without illusions or delusions, or to tell oneself that life (or at least the afterlife if one play by the “rules”) is one big happy meal makes for a better life.

    Both from reading these religious blogs or by my various interactions in “real life” with various religious believers, I have severe doubts that either strategy really alleviates the existential dilemma that much. But if you GENUINELY experience your religious belief as making your life happier and more worthwhile, good for you.

    Like

    Reply

  33. Donna – He is feeling better about it. Still a bit nervous because of the responsibility of it all, but willing to work hard to make it work. He’s always been a hard worker, though, so that part is nothing new.

    He will go above & beyond to help out a customer. When he wasn’t getting paid any extra, he’d still go out for a couple hours on his days off to make sure the bread was stocked & well-placed. That’s part of why he has made a good name for himself among other “bread men”.

    I’m very proud of my husband!

    Like

    Reply

  36. Who wants nightcrawlers? I got ’em if you need ’em. I got a bunch. Some are only halves though…. 😯

    They break sometimes when you pull them out. But if it’s still squirmin’, it’ll work.

    🙂

    I’m goin’ fishin’ tomorrow while the girls are doing the take your kid to work thing. I got the better end of that deal. Don’t get me wrong, I love my daughter, and I’d take her fishin’ if she wanted. The 50 other kids…… But she’d rather do the fashion thing. For the life of me I can’t figure out why though. 🙂

    Like

    Reply

  38. Catching up…

    Adios, great nutshell on biblical marriage!
    Karen, congratulations to Lee!

    QoDs:
    Twitter, no.
    YouTube: classical music, of course! I don’t go there a lot, but enjoy it when I do. And I like the many videos that are posted here. I wouldn’t probably choose them on my own, but I do like watching them. They add variety and spice to my usual repertoire. 🙂

    Family happenings:
    2nd Arrow hospitalized Sunday and released Monday (details were on the recent prayer threads). She’s feeling some better, but probably won’t be back to school and work for a couple weeks.
    1st Arrow turned 23 Monday. Yes, he’s got an Earth Day birthday. 🙂
    3rd Arrow turned 16 Tuesday. I was in labor with her the whole day of 1st Arrow’s seventh birthday, but I guess she wanted her own day. 😉
    The rest of us, it’s pretty much business as usual…and hubby’s been 2nd shift for a time now. Glad that 3rd shifts are only a memory now. 🙂

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment