Happy Birthday Mozart!

Michelle Malkin has clued me and that it's Wolfie's birthday -- 250 years -- and I am celebrating it by listening to Mozart 250 Live from Salzburg, Austria on XM Classics satellite radio. Most of you may be surprised to know that I listen to classical music quite a bit especially when I'm working on web sites. Something about classical music helps me to concentrate better on my work. Yes, I know most of you are shocked to know that I don't listen to country music all the time even though I live in the Southwest! My musical tastes fluctuate depending upon my mood. I enjoy a variety of styles of music other than classical including jazz, country and classic rock 'n roll. When I'm not listening to classical music I usually listen to contemporary Christian artists on satellite radio XM 32 The Fish.

I WAS in the mood for chili...

A young cowboy walks into a seedy cafe in Prescott, AZ. He sits at the counter and notices an old cowboy with his arms folded staring blankly at a full bowl of chili. After fifteen minutes of just sitting there staring at it, the young cowboy bravely asks the old cowpoke, "If you ain't gonna eat that, mind if I do?" The older cowboy slowly turns his head toward the young wrangler and in his best cowboy manner says, "Nah, go ahead." Eagerly, the young cowboy reaches over and slides the bowl over to his place and starts spooning it in with delight. He gets nearly down to the bottom and notices a dead mouse in the chili. The sight was shocking and he immediately pukes up the chili into the bowl. The old cowboy quietly says, "Yep, that's as far as I got, too." You can thank my friend Colin for that one.

What is a meme?

My mother was intrigued by the meme on my blog last week so she completed her own list of the meme of four and e-mailed it to me. Now she wants to know what is a meme. According to Wikipedia -- the free encyclopedia on the Internet -- the term "meme" (rhymes with "theme"), derived from the Greek word mimema, "something imitated" often refers to a piece of information passed from one mind to another. And now you know too. Everyone I tagged completed their assignment! I am a persuasive blogger. (wink)

Choose Life

I am pro-choice -- that is I choose life. It's funny that people who are pro-choice never say that they are pro-abortion. They say you're either pro-life or your pro-choice but the pro-choice crowd doesn't let you choose anything other than abortion. But the pro-choice crowd doesn't like it when we choose life. We all have to choose life or there won't be much of us left. Our Founding Fathers chose life too and that's why they put it first in the list of unalienable rights given by God -- LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Without the first one you can't have the other two. Yesterday was National Sanctity of Human Life Day. Here's a quote from President Bush's proclamation:

National Sanctity of Human Life Day is an opportunity to strengthen our resolve in creating a society where every life has meaning and our most vulnerable members are protected and defended including unborn children, the sick and dying, and persons with disabilities and birth defects. This is an ideal that appeals to the noblest and most generous instincts within us, and this is the America we will achieve by working together.

You'll notice that President Bush included the sick and dying and people with disabilities and birth defects. If we as a society do not value those who need our help and protection the most than what kind of a society are we? If our government doesn't value every life and defend and protect the most vulnerable members of our society, then it's not a government worth having. I don't think Al Qaeda or other Islamic terrorist organizations are pro-choice. With them you don't have a choice. They certainly don't choose life, in fact they choose death over life all the time. God has given us a choice so let us choose wisely and choose life! For further reading checkout La Shawn Barber's site.

Another Blog Makeover

My adopted BlogSister, Pat, asked me to remodel another blog for her. I forgot to do a screen capture of the before look. Let's just say it was rather dark and dreary, but now it's bright and cheery. Go take a look and let Pat know what you think.

On This Day Seven Years Ago...

Norm and I got married! Yes, it's our anniversary today and we are happy to be together.

McCain-Feingold Assault on Free Speech May Die Sooner Than We Think

Greg of Rhymes with Right seems to think the death knell is tolling for Mccain-Feingold because Chief Justice John Roberts is expressing doubts about legal restrictions on political ads by outside groups. The Supreme Court is hearing a new challenge to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. You can read more about this at Rhymes with Right and from the Washington Times article. I for one hope that the Supreme Court will remove this unconstitutional law restricting our political speech. You can read more about my rants on McCain-Feingold and John McCain in particular from these previous posts: Campaign Finance Reform Is Really about Free Speech Don't Tread on Me Political Pain

The Meme of Four

Ouch! I've been tagged by the March Hare of The Mad Tea Party blog. Four Jobs I've Had in My Life: 1. Bank receptionist for customer service department 2. CompUSA customer service 3. Church administrator 4. Web site designer Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over, and Have: 1. The Best Years of Our Lives 2. Enchanted April 3. The Hunt for Red October 4. Waking Ned Divine Four Places I Have Lived: 1. Costa Mesa, California 2. Morgan City, Louisiana 3. San Diego, California 4. Scottsdale, Arizona Four TV Shows I Love to Watch: 1. Lost 2. 24 3. Waking the Dead -- on BBC America 4. Law and Order Four Places I Have Been on Vacation: 1. Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico 2. Sedona, Arizona 3. St. Louis, Missouri 4. Orlando, Florida Four Web Sites I Visit Daily: 1. Bloglines.com 2. Christianity Today 3. Arizona Central 4. Rush Limbaugh Four Favorite Foods: 1. Chocolate 2. Pork Tamales 3. Potatoes 4. Avocados Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now: 1. San Diego with my nieces -- that's it Four People I Am Tagging With This Meme: 1. Pat at Pat's Pond 2. Vanda at Thinking out Loud 3. Jack at 4 Girls 4 Me 4. The Songstress at News from the Great Beyond

An Appeal from Center-Right Bloggers

As an Arizona resident who is politically conservative, I join with other bloggers in supporting Congressmen John Shadegg of Arizona in the race for majority leader of the House of Representatives. It's about time we see some new leadership who is not tainted by scandals and influences of the past. Below is a petition that I sign as a fellow blogger.

An Appeal from Center-Right Bloggers We are bloggers with boatloads of opinions, and none of us come close to agreeing with any other one of us all of the time. But we do agree on this: The new leadership in the House of Representatives needs to be thoroughly and transparently free of the taint of the Jack Abramoff scandals, and beyond that, of undue influence of K Street. We are not naive about lobbying, and we know it can and has in fact advanced crucial issues and has often served to inform rather than simply influence Members. But we are certain that the public is disgusted with excess and with privilege. We hope the Hastert-Dreier effort leads to sweeping reforms including the end of subsidized travel and other obvious influence operations. Just as importantly, we call for major changes to increase openness, transparency and accountability in Congressional operations and in the appropriations process. As for the Republican leadership elections, we hope to see more candidates who will support these goals, and we therefore welcome the entry of Congressman John Shadegg to the race for Majority Leader. We hope every Congressman who is committed to ethical and transparent conduct supports a reform agenda and a reform candidate. And we hope all would-be members of the leadership make themselves available to new media to answer questions now and on a regular basis in the future.

Thursday's Stuff

We are still blowing our noses and coughing here. Norm and I feel we both have been sick forever! He has actually had it much longer than I have, so I am making him go to the doctor tomorrow. On to other things... My brother has a blog of his own -- 4 Girls 4 Me -- and when he has the time he writes thought-provoking stuff on fatherhood and his spiritual journey. Do go read today entries: XXX Church regarding the problem with restrictive thinking and By the Sheet or By the Roll which explains teaching his children about Costco - rather funny stuff.

This Is Why Judge Alito Will Be Confirmed to the Supreme Court

From the Christian Coalition blog: Judge Alito refused to back down on his opposition to judicial activism when Senator Grassley asked him if judicial activism is ever justified "to create a more just society" as left-wingers believe including countless federal judges who have removed the Pledge of Allegiance from schools, who have given America abortion on demand and the deaths of 40 million unborn children, who have taken God out of the public square. Judge Alito replied, "Well, I think that if the courts do the job that they're supposed to do, they will, we will produce a more just society." And he said, "The Constitution and the constitutional system that we have is designed to produce a just society." Judge Alito in today's testimony said, "But just speaking for myself, I think that it is our job to interpret and to enforce the statutes that Congress passes and not to add to those statutes and not to take away from these statutes." And he said, "The courts do not have the authority to repeal statutes or to amend statutes....it is not our job to try to produce particular results. We are not policy-makers and we shouldn't be implementing any sort of policy agenda or policy preferences that we have." Read the rest.

My Thoughts Exactly!

My BlogSister Pat has written an excellent post today on free world imperialism. Here is an excerpt:

"We are an Empire. We are Imperialists. Not only do I not argue this, I am personally glad we are. Democracy is good, it works, and those who may be unready for it still need our help to win it. More is better."

Please go read the rest because she words it so well -- far better than I ever could. She captures my thoughts exactly. Also, Pat links to a blog written by the girlfriend of a Marine who is returning to Iraq. She started the blog to express her thoughts while he is away fighting the good fight. The blog post Pat links to is the Marine's responds to those who have unjustly maligned his girlfriend for sharing her support of him in spite of her fears. It seems there are those who would use her fears against her. Unbelievable! Do go read his reply because it's the kind of thing you won't hear about on the evening news or read about in the newspaper.

Under the Influence

Drinking alcohol is something I have never indulged in for a variety of reasons. Lately, since I've had a cold, I haven't been drinking but I have been under the influence of antihistamines. Benadryl, my antihistamine of choice (mainly because it's cheap), has influenced my behavior in ways I had not expected. It always makes me somewhat drowsy, but that usually wears off after a couple of hours. Last night I went online to order groceries since I had a coupon to get a discount on delivery. Norm has had a cold for a couple of weeks now so neither of us have felt like doing a whole lot. I put in my order and scheduled delivery for today knowing that I would not be going to church this morning because my symptoms are worse when I first get up and it is not pleasant to be around me. The order arrived as scheduled and right away I noticed something strange. Some of the items I ordered were not what I thought I ordered, but looking on the printout from my online order it appears that is exactly what I ordered. How could this be? Obviously I was under the influence of Benadryl. I can understand if it was one item that I mistakenly ordered but it was more and it just didn't make any sense that I would do such a thing. It's a good thing I don't drink! Can you imagine me driving my power wheelchair under the influence of alcohol? Benadryl is bad enough. LOL I will be so glad when I get over this cold!

Dinner & a Movie Part II

While I watched one of my all-time favorite movies, "To Sir, with Love" my wonderful husband Norm reheated the Chinese takeout left over from Saturday night. It was unbelievably better tasting this time around. Quite the opposite of what usually happens with Chinese food leftovers.

Our Fight Against Terror Hits the Rose Parade

Got up late this morning so I only caught a little bit of the Rose Parade. I was flipping between two or three different channels and noticed it was ending on ABC. The ABC commentators showed what they considered to be the highlight of the parade -- when the Marine Corps band from San Diego marched through the parade and all the people sitting in the stands rose to their feet to honor them as they passed by. Had I been there I would've been standing proud, while sitting in my wheelchair, to salute our fighting forces who bravely battle those who would bring tyranny and destruction to our free way of life. I hope those people at the New York Times and those liberal politicians and bureaucrats who would thwart our nation's battle against terrorism saw the uninhibited response of praise to our military for their good work on our behalf.