What’s With Israel?

If you ever bothered to read your Bible, you’d see that the Jews are God’s people. It shows you how much love God can have for such a rebellious lot. They don’t even believe in His Son, Jesus! If His love is so great for these people, we can be secure in His love for the rest of us. So it comes down to this: you are either on God’s side, or you are on the wrong side. You will not like being on the wrong side of God on Judgment Day.

So, if you are a part of the world that wants to destroy Israel, you are going to Hell. Yes, literally! If you don’t believe in Hell, you’ll get a chance to change your mind when you get off the bus. God is not going to allow His people to be destroyed. The sooner that these world groups understand that, the better their survival will be.

The reason that the United States side with Israel is that, for the most part, we are a Christian Nation. We’ve read our Bibles. Although we are not mentioned in the Bible, we know that it clearly says that those who help the Jews will be rewarded. Those who oppose the Jews will find a bus ticket waiting for them. Look, I don’t make up the rules, and far be it from me to argue with God. He has always watched over me, and I understand Him watching over the rest of His people.

Israel has been fighting a land grab by their neighbors. God goes back a long way… from the beginning of time. Early on, God promised the Jews land. Lots and lots of land. Israel has not demanded that those nations get off their “God Given Land.” They just want to be left alone. Of course, that isn’t going to happen, and those folks are going to continue attacking Israel. Eventually, they will bring on Armageddon. You’ve seen the movies; it isn’t pretty. For years, we have tried to figure out Bible prophecy; each year it becomes clearer.

There is only one hope, one way, one truth, and damn it isn’t difficult. Get on the right team!

Am I getting Racist?

Ever since the BLM riots, I have worried that my attitude towards blacks has gotten worse. I spent much time trying to walk myself back from this racist abyss. And then I found bloggers on YouTube who shared my sentiments. They were all black, but they too were feeling Black Fatigue.

These black bloggers were feeling the same way about other blacks, but being non-white, they were free to talk about it. They, too, want to avoid what they call “ghetto blacks.” They helped me realize that I was no more racist than they were. I found kindred spirits. Everything that I was feeling about ghetto blacks was also being felt by blacks. It wasn’t a racial thing at all, it is just a feeling that good people have towards bad people; skin color plays no part. But to be fair, we have plenty of ghetto whites as well.

So, if BLM turned you into a racist, many blacks feel the same way that you do. BLM just widened the gulf between blacks and other races, including their own.

If you have been watching the news, you’ll see that the ICE protesters are following the BLM script: protest for a few hours, light a few cars on fire, then loot a few stores before heading home. And that is what makes, as the media says, a “mostly peaceful protest.” Just as BLM opened my eyes to ghetto blacks, the ICE protests have opened my eyes to the threat of illegal immigrants; it is funny how looting does that to a person.

If your cause is centered around inflicting harm on a community, you’ll never get many of us to see your cause of being anything other than domestic terrorism.

How Our Intelligence Affects Who We Are

We are experiencing a time in our history in which our great intelligence is making us stupid. God has witnessed this many times with His creation, and the Bible repeatedly reminds us that the wisdom of man is foolishness to God. We see this playing out every day in our society.

A large segment of our society has gotten so intelligent that their politicians are too smart for their constituents, too smart for the Constitution, and too smart for God. This is causing a constitutional crisis.

These “smart people” are demanding that judicial immunity be extended to allow judges to break the law and obstruct the Office of our President. They have become so smart that they prefer to protect criminal migrants over their constituents.

These are the same intelligent ones who claim there are an unlimited number of genders. When even lower lifeforms seem to know better.  Let’s put it bluntly: if you think that it is fair for men to play in women’s sports, you must have a brain aneurysm larger than your brain.

Recently, one of them told me that voting for Trump would cause a Christian to lose his salvation. This guy says he’s a devout atheist, so he isn’t someone I would take spiritual advice from. So? How do we explain this neural malfunction? Over-vaccination for COVID? Solar flares? Satan? Or, have they lost their fear of God?

Do not allow your great intelligence to make you stupid.

Rabies

When I was working in Florida, we were battling the problem of feral cats. At that time, we were using the age-old solution of trapping and killing the cats. With such a large number of cats being trapped, we found a large number of raccoons finding their way into our traps. I came up with the idea of testing the raccoons for rabies so as to determine whether if we had a problem.

Our Health Department wasn’t eager to open that bag of worms. They were worried that I would show the presence of rabies was more prevalent than they wanted. They were worried that I would unleash a crisis that they were not prepared to deal with. And for them, it was a nasty task of cutting out the brains of these animals. We eventually agreed to just deliver the head of the raccoons, so that they wouldn’t have to worry about disposing of the bodies.

I took on the task of mapping the locations where the animals that tested positive were trapped. We discovered that the presence of rabies was much higher than we expected in our raccoon population. Something that our Health Department didn’t want to be known. After all, how do you deal with rabies in a wildlife population?

Just because you find a raccoon that tests positive for rabies, you don’t necessarily have the risk that that animal is shedding the virus. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t use the presence of rabies as a PR stunt to encourage people to vaccinate their pets.

For the most part, the rabies vaccination can be purchased to provide protection for 1 year or 3 years. Many veterinarians will administer the 1 year vaccination to force their clients to come in annually for their pet’s health examination. It’s good for the veterinarian’s pocketbook, and it is a thing that responsible pet owners do.

I’ve always believed that the solution of dealing with raccoon and feral cat populations would be in the form of seeding an area with pellets that contain rabies vaccine and a sterilant I just can’t figure out how you package the pellets so that small children don’t eat them; but, no matter how gross the things that children pick up and eat, they seem to survive.

Speak your Truth

A new trend has emerged, advising people to “speak their truth.” It seems that the truth is all about perspective and not about actual truth. Silly me, I always thought that truth was up there next to wisdom; but, wisdom is based on fearing God. Truth now seems based on how someone sees something, whether it is true or not.

You can say that someone who has a penis is a woman. For many, they think that is the truth. To the rest of us who understand physiology, see that as lacking wisdom. So, if your truth lacks wisdom, then it is false. We live in a time in which we are seeing so much false truth. Because we lack wisdom, we cannot discern whether “our truth” is actually truth.

Worse yet, we are introducing this false truth into our schools. It is no wonder that college students are graduating dumber than when they started. Unless the curriculum is grounded in wisdom, it stands a good chance of being false. Truth has to pass the litmus test of being wise. God has to be the basis of our truth. When we turn over our truth to idiot professors, we are likely to be wrong.

So much of our truth arises from our sin. The more that we can drag others into our sin, our sin becomes their truth. Many want to teach their sin to school children and display their sin in parades. The rest of us show our lack of wisdom for looking the other way. I have committed plenty of acts of sinning against God, I am not proud of that sin, and I don’t parade it around, and I certainly don’t suggest that children be taught to accept my sin. Why? Because I have enough wisdom to realize that doing that would just be stupid.

Dog Bites on Postal Carriers

A couple of months ago, I received a postcard from the Post Office reminding residents of the need to secure their pets; dog bites rise in the summer months. Today, our local media reports that there has been a spike in the number of postal carriers being bitten by dogs. Two factors are present when dog bites occur: hot weather that makes dogs short-tempered, and irresponsible dog owners who let their dogs run loose. There isn’t much of a cure for either of these two factors…. Or is there?

I have always believed that the Postal Service holds the greatest cure to end the stupidity factor. They only need to stop mail service to the neighborhood with loose aggressive dogs, and the dog owners’ neighbors will begin the education process. In most cases, the dog owner sees his (or her) error and will comply with the neighborhood norms. If that doesn’t work, then the dog becomes a victim of the neighborhood by either someone holding the dog for Animal Control to pick up or by “accidentally” digesting food that disagrees with the dog.  Having the option of having animal control in the community is a good step in reducing incidents of extreme justice.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of pet owners who cannot overcome their stupidity and thus secures the careers of many animal control personnel. I used to meet up with postal carriers to check in with them about potential problems on their routes. No one knows the problem of loose dogs better than postal carriers: work with them to keep the mail flowing.

In communities where animal control is underfunded, I have heard about neighborhoods in which people carry weapons when going out for a neighborly walk.  Usually, the problem has to persist when neighbors resort to such activities; and yet,  the owner acts shocked when one of their dogs is the recipient of a neighbor’s bullet.   Clueless is right up there with stupidity for such people.

The Straight and Narrow Road

There lay a straight and narrow road ahead of me. The pavement is unadorned; it is littered with debris. All around me are dead shrubbery, not a single hint of green. I can see other paths far off in the distance. Those paths are beautiful and awe-striking. Many walk those roads, despite the fact that I’ve seen and foretold of the doom at their destination. Their roads are downhill, and very easy to tread on. My path ascends uphill, creating much difficulty. Yet, while weary, I press on because I see a great light, and golden gates in the clouds. There, a crowned man beckons all to come, and flee the path of immorality and death. Few obey, but those who reach Him are richly rewarded. Though I grow tiresome, and many fall away from the straight and narrow road, I continue on, strengthened through the call of the crowned man. When I reach the top, I am greeted by the crowned man in scarlet robes. He says to me “Well done, my good and faithful servant, in whom I am well pleased.” I rejoice greatly with all those who came before me. Here, we spend all of eternity praising our Master for saving us from everlasting torment.
Logan Flagler
10-23-24

Using GPS

Throughout my career, I have used GPS in several organizations that I have overseen.  Here are a few war stories:

In Portland, we received a call that one of our vehicles had kicked up a rock and cracked the caller’s windshield.  We checked the location of the incident against the GPS of the vehicle that the guy reported.   We found that the vehicle was on the other side of the County when the incident occurred.  We discovered that people get their windshield cracked and begin looking for a government vehicle on the road to blame the incident on and get a free windshield replacement.

In Jacksonville, we received a call about one of our drivers driving recklessly.  We pulled up the GPS data and found that our driver was driving 50 miles per hour in a 35-mile zone.  The caller was right.

Also, in Jacksonville, we deal with a lot of impatient callers who are calling in to see where the truck dispatched to their address is.  We can look at the mapping software and advise them.  It was not uncommon that we’d see the vehicle pulling up in front of their house and advise them to look outside the window.

GPS finds the best use for new drivers who are unfamiliar with your city.  It helps them get around.

GPS systems help advise your dispatcher as to which vehicle is the closest to the incident location.

We lost one of our employees in Fairfax County.  He had pressed the emergency button on his radio, and we were able to find the location of his vehicle via GPS.  When it started getting dark, we dispatched a helicopter and asked him to shine his flashlight straight up, and the helicopter pilot was able to direct our search to him.

GPS is a wonderful tool.  I used the it in Jacksonville to map the locations of raccoons that had tested positive for rabies.

In Salt Lake City, I used GPS to map the locations of dogs that had been declared dangerous.   I have heard of communities that have online mapping to let neighbors know where the dangerous dogs are in their neighborhood.

As an oldtimer, I use GPS when I am using the public transportation system in my city.    Google has a feature where you can share your location (not with just China (joking)).  So when I go out the door, I turn on Google Maps, and my daughter can track me when she turns on her Google Maps.  If I am headed out to a soccer game, she can see how far I am away.

You would be remiss if you didn’t take advantage of the tools that are available to you.

Linda

I had a young lady come into my animal shelter asking for my help to euthanize a sick infant kitten.  When I was done, we both cried for a while.  She was attending college on this side of the (state) border, and I was attending college on the other side.

She told me that while she studied, guys would approach her to get a date.  To ward them off, she would say, “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogency.”  That appeared to be sufficient to run them off.  I thought momentarily and said, “Well, visidual organs are not necessary proof of its evolution.”  For a moment, she thought that she had finally found a guy who could match her intelligence.  She didn’t know that was the topic in my genetics class the previous day.  I really like intelligent women, so I didn’t bother to set her straight.

When we went our separate ways, she told me that she would find me one day and materialize back into my life.  It’s been fifty years.  I worry about her coming into my life now because I’ve lost my good looks some time ago.

Advisory Boards

Community leaders will create advisory boards to oversee governmental operations to show their openness to community input.  The one thing that many of these boards have is attracting people with special interests.  Those same community leaders aren’t smart enough to know what they have done.

It is difficult to direct a governmental operation when your advisory board does not share your vision.  The no-kill movement exasperated the problem for animal shelters when their advisory boards were led by animal rights nuts demanding that the shelter meet its 90% live release rate to satisfy the board’s directive to become no-kill.

It is very easy to get onto an advisory board.  In most cases, you just express your desire.  Since most hard-working people aren’t interested in nightly meetings, special-interest folks will pack the board.  Usually, each county commissioner or city council member appoints a person for each board.  I witnessed incidents in which members of an animal rights interest would send letters and emails to specific council members to direct their appointee.

Keep in mind, the only purpose for creating advisory boards is to make the commission or council feel better about themselves.  They have no idea as to what they have unleashed upon the departments.  I have not witnessed many effective boards because most of those boards fail to represent the citizens at large.

School Boards and Animal Shelter Advisory Boards seem to draw the moths of the liberal hivemind to them as an automobile speeding down the highway with its highbeams on.

Imagine being given the task of solving the deer overpopulation in your community and recommending a kill solution.  That is going to make your life with the animal rights members of your advisory board difficult.  I remember hunting with my father as a child in Utah.  That seemed like a good place to move to.