Rantings of a Lunatic

Would someone please explain to me how the first statement of H. Res. 847: Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith does not infringe upon the First Ammendment of the Bill of Rights? As I read the First Ammendment, it says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (Emphasis mine.) When that is taken into account, and placed next to HR 847, where it states:

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world;

(2) expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide;

(3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith;

(4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization;

(5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and

(6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world.

Now, I am not a politician, nor am I a Political Science major but I interpret that specifically as a law respecting the establishment of a religion. So I find it difficult to understand how 372 elected officials can in good conscience set aside an ammendment to the constitution because the law is in line with their personal religious beliefs?

That is all.

So, it was May of 2006 and I was thinking about selling my tC because I had just rolled over 20,000 miles. Well, last weekend, I rolled over 40,000, and once again I am thinking half-heartedly about selling it. Only half-heartedly because I have less than two years left to pay on it, so in a short time I know it will be paid off, and I fully expect it to run to 100,000 miles easily. Add into that the fact that I average around 40 miles every day going to work, and that I am going to see my family more frequently, means I am adding miles on faster than when I first bought the car. For reference when I was in Milwaukee, my average commute was 6 miles not 40. So I probably won’t sell it, but I am thinking about it. With the house, I am constantly finding myself going to the hardware store to get things, and though I could fit 8 foot long 2×4s in the car, I can’t fit an 8 foot sheet of plywood or anything like that. Which brings me to what I would sell it for, and that is a compact truck. If that isn’t an oxymoron, but I have been looking at the Tacoma a bit, and even the Frontier a little. However, like I said, I will probably just make the payments and finish paying off the tC, and then go look into a used truck that is much cheaper, and I can drive when I need a truck, and keep the tC as the daily driver. I mean, there is no reason I can’t leave a vehicle parked in the driveway all the time right? I mean the neighbors have vehicles in the driveway, yard, and on the street all hours of the day.

The lights are up, the tree is up, and I actually bought my first present for this year, so I guess its Christmas time. In that spirit, here is a rambled list of items that would be great Christmas presents for me this year, arranged in no particular order:
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I have posted the photos from our trip to Enchanted Rock last week. It was a great trip, and though I haven’t been there in 10+ years it was exactly as I remembered it. We didn’t venture along many of the trails (PDF 121.4 KB), we basically just went straight up to the summit, and then we broke off of the trail if you can call it that, and came down the side and made our way over to the echo canyon trail which we tried to follow back to the parking lot. Unfortunately we unwittingly veered off the trail somewhere when it was in a clearing, we were probably taking photos, and ended up doing a bit of bouldering to get back down to where we figured the trail was. You can see the section where we ended up bouldering in images 29 and 33. And I just realized that some of the images appear to be stretched, I will have to look into this and figure out what is going on there.
Digressions aside, it was a great trip. We had spent the night before at a Guesthouse in Fredricksberg that was spanish styled, and had one main room downstairs, and one room upstairs with a balconette and a small courtyard. It was nice to be completely unplugged for a few days. Well, I say that, but we did watch “On her majesties secret service” on my laptop, which I had only brought because I had the PDF receipt on there and I had forgotten to print it at work and the printer at home was not behaving very well. I ended up not making it all of the way through the movie, but I will eventually. And, I know people that claim its the best Bond movie ever, and others who find it revolting before the opening title sequence. All I can say is that I did find it inline with the other bond movies of the era.