Friday, May 25, 2007

Brothers with Arms....

This is how my Brother likes to spend his time on shore leave....

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Middle of Spring Cleaning...

Ok Kids! It's been over a week since I've been able to leave a post so I've got some house cleaning to do......

1. Well here in the sunshine state the fraud season has swung into hi gear. Folks there is a simple rule of thumb that was, is, and will forever hold true, There is no such thing as Free Lunch!" What does this mean? If you never played a "Spanish Lottery" How could you be a winner. Or a lottery in Canada, or a lottery held by a car dealership in South Carolina if you've never been to South Carolina?
If you receive in your mail, Snail and Email, an annoucement declaring your winnigs of some sort of lottery in Spain, Europe, Nigeria, Canada, etc...listen very carefully, IT'S A SCAM!!!
I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, or to be the party pooper, but you need to be more careful. Everyday, the criminals, who have a full-time job stealing YOUR money are gatting more creative. Since they don't have REAL jobs, they have pleanty of time to hone their creativity.
Another popular scam is to send you emails asking you to verify your information. For this reason or that. They even are kind enough to provide you a direct link to your profile to update.
DONT! It's a Scam!
Repeat after me, "My bank will never ask me to verify my full account and personal information when calling me on the phone (If you bank calls, they already have you Social Security Number and Account information.), or contacting me via email.

2. OK! We're still two weeks from the official start of the 2007 Hurricane Season and we've already had our first named storm, Sub-Tropical Storm Andrea. For all the Florida residents, June 1st thru 12th is the state-wide hurricane supplies tax holiday. So be sure to use the savings and prepare for waht will likely be a active summer for us! Florida has been given an odds of 4 times likely than average of being hit by a Hurricane this season versus 2 times as likely for the Texas Coast.

3. And finally the third..HOW BOUT THEM BRAVES!!!!!! Looks like after tonights 8-1 Win over the New York Mets, they will be in this come october so long as they can continue their dominance over the Mets.

Well, it's in the works right now, but I may start a Third Blog, this one will be nowhere serious, and for those who've known me for a long time, let me just clue you in on the predicating detail, I'm looking to team up with Mick on the venture, so it will be nothing short of laughs.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

"Super-Rabbit"

This is too awesome! If I didn't see the video, I would have never believed the story!

http://www.livevideo.com/video/embedLink/5AA0F4E198BD49F6BF686675CBC8C177/21297/super-rabbit.aspx

A great research site.

While researching and verifying some of the points and fact made in my previous post I came across a great non-profit site. It's called http://www.fairlds.org/ and in their words....

"The Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR) is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of LDS (Mormon) doctrine, belief and practice."
I urge anyone reading this post to check this site out. It is run by a couple of African-American members of the LDS Church, which in light of their work is an important perspective to be aware of. There are a number of sites out there like this one, but this is the first that I've taken a really big liking to! I feel confident that the same will hold true for anyone else that takes the time to see what they have to offer.

Friday, May 11, 2007

Al Sharpton, Mormons, and racial segregation.

Most of you reading this blog are already aware of the recent accusations and remarks made by the "Reverend" Al Sharpton. Up to this point, I've remained mum as both Romney and the LDS Church have been blindly assaulted with fictitious accusations rooted deep in the Evangelical crusade against the "Mormons." Now, not only as a member of the LDS Church, but also a passionate student of American History, I feel obligated to put in my two cents.

At no time was the LDS Church, as a religion, discriminatory towards African Americans in enforcing segregative practices towards other races and creeds within it's chapels. Let me share with you some history not commonly taught in the public schools system.
1. Joseph Smith was a strong critic of slavery, and proponent to granting freedom to all African-American slaves in the United States.
2. Black slaves were openly welcome to sit in and participate in Church services as far back as during the church presidency of Joseph Smith.
3. While in Missouri, Joseph Smith was asked by a newspaper reporter why he permitted "Negroes" to attend the church services held by the Latter-Day Saint Church. Joseph simply replied, "I don't remember ever choosing to be born with the color of my skin."
4. The first black member to be baptized was a man named Elijah Abel, who not only was baptized in 1832, but in fact was ordained to the priesthood and traveled in Brigham Young's wagon company on the journey to the Salt Lake Valley.
5. In 1867, the Constitution of the Deseret Territory, had the wording, "all white males" removed in reference to voting rights. This empowered black citizens (As well as Women) with the right to vote in government elections. (There were about 60 black citizens of the Deseret Territory at this time.) It should be noted on this point that the right was lost when the Deseret Territory became the State of Utah, as it was then subject to federal laws that at the time did not afford the same liberties as the Deseret Constitution.
6. Joseph Smith ran for President of the United States on a Anti-Slavery platform.
7. Another response from Joseph Smith on the issue was, "They came into the world slaves mentally and physically. Change their situation with the whites, and they would be like them. They have souls, and are subjects of salvation." It should be noted that Joseph Smith taught and firmly believed that if all things were equal in regards to access to education, etc. That Black slaves would be equal to the white race in every regard.
8. Before the civil rights movements of the 1960's, the LDS Church was actively proselyting in the African Continent. Although they were rejected greatly in the beginning everywhere except South Africa, the efforts of the Church continued.

This issue I feel is a tremendous effort in hypocrisy. I will forever remember the day in my AP American History class in 11th Grade, when our teacher shared with us the events of the night when the Ku Klux Klan surrounded his home on horseback, holding shotguns, and burned a cross in their yard. Why, you may ask? Because his father, a Protestant minister allowed blacks to attend his church services. Blacks in "White" religions was not a Mormon issue, it was a much broader issue that shadowed the social and religious progress of our Nation. When you take a truthful and honest look at the official positions of the LDS Church (Those delivered by The Church's Prophet as such), it was always for equal treatment of all men as prescribed in the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence. When the Church was restored by Joseph Smith, the Nation itself was not ready for blacks to be empowered with the Priesthood of God. Truth is, that fact alone had greater influence than any other person or thing in the policies of the LDS Church at that time.

Playing the race card was a poor choice for Al Sharpton. My only regret, is that Romney's campaign rewarded it with a response. Often I have felt, silence can be more powerful than the loudest of shouters.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Florida Property Taxes

When you've got a moment, take a moment to check over at our new sister blog, Views from Florida. My newest post there is in dealing with the current crisis in Florida in regards to Property Taxes and Homeowners Insurance.

GOP Debate

I've Embedded at the bottom of the Blog a feed from Mitt Romney's campaign showing highlights from the GOP Debate held last week. When I find a link to it, I'll replace it with a link showing the debate in it's entirety (If available.)

Saturday, May 05, 2007

A Guy named Mitt

For those not privileged enough to live on the West Coast, the first debate for the current Republicans seeking the party nomination (Including a few who've yet announced that they are running, such as Fred Thompson) was held a few nights ago at the Ronald Regan Presidential Library in California.

The reviews of the debate from many sources in the press have been loaded with bites, at times twisting of the real quotes from the Debate. There are two large items of note however from the Debate. One is that not one participant fell to the attempts by moderator, Chris Matthews to debase the current Bush Administration. The other is that the general consensus of those who did watch the debate is that Mitt Romney won the debate. This is really big for Romney's camp as a strong start in the public forum was essential to the viability of his campaign.

Romney's work on the Debate I feel started the previous night when he was a guess on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. IT has been a long while since I've been up that late, but I wanted to see how Mitt would do, and I felt that it was worth it. He was hitting with more one liners at times than Jay was. He showed that he's not as stiff as some have viewed him, and quickly turned the criticisms of his "perfect" appearance into a barrage of jokes, much to the delight and loud reaction of the live audience.

If this is the start for Romney and he's still warming up, I suspect that the polls will begin to reflect a change of national opinion concerning Romney. IF the reactions to Romney in my own office are any indication, the change will be much sooner than later. On this note, if you've not had the chance to read it, I would recommend Hugh Hewitt's book, "A Mormon in the White House? 10 Things Every American Should Know About Mitt Romney" I've read about halfway through and it has been an excellently written book thus far.

One more impression regarding Romney and his abilities on camera and I'll call it a night. Romney is a very articulate and intelligent man. For those not aware, his business ventures include several large corporations that got their capital funding from Bain Capital, including Staples among others. He has a MBA from Harvard University and his track record in the private, public, and service sectors are evidence of such. Friday I was speaking with two co-workers about the debate and stated that the Clinton camp has serious reason to hope against Romney getting the GOP nomination. In many ways, Romney has the charisma, looks, and people skills of a certain Arkansas politician, only this time it's a Republican who's also got morals and is true to them.

Return of the RedCushion.....
Just in time for the Summer Movies...

Yep, back from a long hiatus and many hours spent trying out a new domain. Only to find out that to do what I was hoping for I needed linux based hosting and I've got MS Hosting for the redcushionblog.com website. That's ok....I was able to set the new domain to redirect here to the original host for this blog and here it will stay it appears.

I will start first by recommending to everyone that they take the time to check out the new Spiderman 3 Movie!! It was a fantastic movie!! Erin and I saw the 1:30pm showing at the AMC here in Vero this afternoon and it was one of the only two and half hour movies we've seen that Erin wasn't complaining about the movie legnth. The movie reflects not only on the darker side of our inner selves, but also the negative repercussions that revenge can have on us. I would not hesitate in giving this movie 5 out of 5 stars.

This summer is looking to be a very expensive one for me. With at least 5 REALLY good sequels coming out, all appearing to be "must see" releases I will be spending alot of friday/satruday nights at the AMC the next few months it appears.

Later this evening I will get back to my passion and comment on the up and roaring presidential campaigns (Jeez, we're not even half way through 2007 yet!!)