elbertcounty.net – Page 17 – "Just the facts M'am, Just the facts."

Morning sky

October 10, 2015 By Brooks

4 planets, the Moon, and Regulus, all in the plane of the ecliptic. From the bottom, Mercury, Moon, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Regulus. 10/10/15 5:50 A.M.

6:45 A.M.

two red tails

October 3, 2015 By Brooks

These two red tail hawks put on a hunting show at sunset tonight, artistically flying around each other while plucking rodents from the deep pasture grass.

Here’s a composite of some of the views they presented – fairly low light, not great focus circumstances.

Into a peachy sunset.

on shutting down the government

September 29, 2015 By Brooks

Neither Republicans nor Democrats will dare to “shut the government down” since, by doing so, Americans would discover free life without political Leviathan hovering over head, and they would discover just how much they don’t need Republicans and Democrats.

Without Big Brother, Americans would become self-reliant again. Without a social agency running to the rescue under lights and sirens, Americans would call on each other to help them in an emergency.

Without swarms of Officers from a multitude of New Offices sent hither to harass our people and eat out their substance*, Americans would solve their own problems, save for their own futures, provide for their own health needs, freely trade under voluntary agreements with others in America and around the world, carefully husband their physical and monetary resources to maximize wealth accumulation, preserve their environments, pursue creative income-generating acts to build better futures, care for disadvantaged and unfortunate members of their church and community, and basically do all that is necessary to form a civilized society.

Without government propaganda consuming and occupying the American discourse, Americans would discover they have the necessary skills to form a civilized society without being led by the nose like cattle.

Without politicians berating them about all that government must do for them, Americans would discover real self-esteem bubble up from within themselves as responsible functioning citizens.

Nearly 10% of Americans work for governments, however, their financial impact on America is far greater – the national debt they’ve run up is more than $2 trillion higher than our GDP. Obviously, American governments serve themselves first and foremost.

The relevant question is not whether to shut down the government. The relevant question is why on earth have we not shut it down already? It’s not like things are getting better!

Let’s turn off the microphones, close up the buildings, terminate the bureaucracies, and allow Americans to discover free life again without this crushing burden over head.

We have survived Leviathan thus far. We can certainly do much better without it dragging us down.

*See the Declaration of Independence.

Husker Football

September 28, 2015 By Brooks

max eclipse

September 28, 2015 By Brooks

Mornin’

September 24, 2015 By Brooks

On Islam

September 20, 2015 By Brooks

From The Social Contract

John Quincy Adams on Islam:

In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, [Mohammed] combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust, by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion.

He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE [capitals in original].

Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. That war is yet flagrant; nor can it cease but by the extinction of that imposture, which has been permitted by Providence to prolong the degeneracy of man. While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men. The hand of Ishmael will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. It is, indeed, amongst the mysterious dealings of God, that this delusion should have been suffered for so many ages, and during so many generations of human kind, to prevail over the doctrines of the meek and peaceful and benevolent Jesus…

The precept of the koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force.

John Quincy Adams, “Christianity—Islamism.” “Unsigned essays dealing with the Russo-Turkish War, and on Greece,” originally published in The American Annual Register for 1827–1829 (New York, 1830).

John Wesley on Islam:

Ever since the religion of Islam appeared in the world, the espousers of it … have been as wolves and tigers to all other nations, rending and tearing all that fell into their merciless paws, and grinding them with their iron teeth; that numberless cities are raised from the foundation, and only their name remaining; that many countries, which were once as the garden of God, are now a desolate wilderness; and that so many once numerous and powerful nations are vanished from the earth! Such was, and is at this day, the rage, the fury, the revenge, of these destroyers of human kind.

John Wesley, “The Doctrine of Original Sin, Works” (1841), ix 205

Winston Churchill on Islam:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammed-anism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it.

No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.

Sir Winston Spencer Churchill (The River War , first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899)