Game On! 

   Who is winning the executive-order race? While we await the Final Four basketball games and the start of Major League Baseball, here are the standings in another contest that may interest you.

   Franklin D. Roosevelt leads the pack with 310 EOs per year - 12 years in office. In second place is his older relative, Teddy Roosevelt, 270 per year.

   Far behind are Donald Trump, 55, and Barack Obama, 34 per year. 

   Watch out for a sleeper - Joe Biden has issued more than 50 executive orders in just over two months! Is he shooting for third place? He could take second place.   

   Of course, time and change erases a policy like the sun melts snow. Only the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) survives like a rock among Obama's 276 orders. FDR's internment of Japanese Americans (which Congress backed) is not to his credit. 

   Biden has struck down about half of Trump's EOs. These fickle days, any president could see his or her legacy vanish in the fog of time.   

   The Congressional branch of government has been dead for some years. To get reelected to Congress or the Senate, one just lets the president take the heat. 

   Democrats have relied on the judicial branch to confirm their wishes. President Trump tilted the courts somewhat to the right, so until Dems can recover, executive orders will have to do. 

   Know your country. Follow the executive orders, as well as the money. 

Statistics from WORLD magazine

          Jimmy

PS. Don't miss our upcoming thoughts on the land we all share, starting tomorrow. 

 

   

 You Shall Love 

Yesterday, commandments 1-5. Today, 6-10.

Comments by Mike Huckabee

   You shall not murder. 

   This commandment affirms the sacredness of human life. The goal of love is always to heal, not to hurt. 

   You shall not commit adultery. 

   Adultery defrauds the love of another and destroys the self-esteem of the one being defrauded. Promises and vows are sacred, and this commandment affirms the validity and authority of such promises. 

   You shall not steal.

   True love has the desire to give instead of take. 

   You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. 

   Gossip and falsehoods defy the character of God, who is always honest. Even when we speak well of others, remember that real love is always honest. 

   You shall not covet. 

   Love delights in the possessions of others rather than desiring what others have. 

 Love and the Commandments    

   Most of us know the two commandments Jesus called "the greatest." 

   1. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 2. Love your neighbor as yourself. 

   In his book, Rare, Medium and Done Well, former governor and pastor Mike Huckabee connects love with the ten laws in Exodus 20:1-17. Here are the first five commandments (NIV) and Mike's comments, slightly edited:

   You shall have no other gods before me. 

   God can create a relationship with us strong enough to dismiss the need for further searching. 

   You shall not make for yourself an idol...

   Creator God cannot be limited or confined to a tangible object or physical trinket. We need to be glad he can't. 

   You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God.

   This principle affirms that God's name should not be used carelessly. We must not treat God's love with contempt.  

   Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

   True love sets apart special time for those who are loved. The principle behind a day of rest is to remember God, not to forget him. 

   Honor your father and your mother. 

   Real love respects authority. We learn to honor authority first in the home. If not, we likely will never learn it at all. 

Tomorrow: Commandments 6-10

 The Light We Have

Martin Luther, 1483-1546

German monk, professor, priest, author, composer, reformer

quoted as saying

What we don't know we should leave to God.

Let the future remain in darkness.

Let it stay secret and hidden.

In the meantime, we should do what we know we ought to do.

We should live by God's Word and the light he has given to us. 

 Saving the Planet?   

   If 0.002 percent of your lawn was in weeds, would you remove all the grass and replace it with something else, rocks for instance? 

   The U.S. still has 15 coal-fired power plants and no plans to build another. But the climate police are determined to save the planet by shutting down these and other sources of air pollution. It's gotta be green or it's gotta go. 

   Air circles the globe, so let's see who is polluting who. We don't know if the following numbers are accurate, but if they are...

European Union    468 coal plants    27 being built

Turkey                   56                    93

South Africa           79                    24

India                    589                  446  

Philippines              19                    60

South Korea            58                    26

Japan                     90                    45

China                 2,363                1,171

   That's 5,615 plants on line or being built. Our 15 plants are 0.002 percent of the world. Don't expect the world to follow our lead.  

   Knowing that the political left is determined to rule us all, we assume climate change rhetoric is more about control, about power - not coal power.

        Jimmy

 Can Fish Talk?   

   American submariners and sonar operators, listening for enemy ships during World War II, were baffled by what they heard. The USS Salmon surfaced to look for a ship whose "rumbling propellers" did not exist. 

   Sailors of the USS Tarpon heard "repetitive clanging," and on the USS Permit they heard "hammering on steel." In the Chesapeake Bay, a sailor compared the sound to "pneumatic drills tearing up a concrete sidewalk." 

   So much for Cousteau's "silent world."  

   After the war, the Navy began to investigate, choosing a scientist, Marie Poland Fish, who would found the field of marine bioacoustics. She reviewed reports of "beeping, clicking, creaking, harsh croaking, crackling, whistling, grunting, hammering, moaning, mewing," even the "dragging of heavy chains." There was even a 19th century sailor who heard "jingling bells, enormous harps" and the "siren songs" of Homer's story. 

   Sound waves travel through water five times faster than through air. Ms. Fish began collecting subjects for experiments. By 1954, using hydrophones, she had studied more than 180 species, eels (bubbling put-put), sea bream (guttural thumps), sculpin (humming generators), sea horses (snapping fingers), herring (knocks), hardtails (rasps), bass (grunts), and toadfish (fog horns). 

   Some species were multitalented. Chattiest was the sea robin (cackling and clucking like a barnyard fowl). 

   Scientists were able to identify anatomy in some cases. Finfish vocalize by grinding their jaws. The toadfish "vibrates muscles against their air bladders." A spawning group of croakers could raise the ocean's background volume to 114 decibels - rock concert level. 

   The Navy uses this knowledge to train sonar operators to distinguish between enemy vessels and false targets. Except for the growling sound of toadfish in breeding season, guarding their eggs, little is known about languages. 

   Today, sonar, industrial shipping and explosive surveys for oil and gas drown out the creatures. Man made noise has fatally disoriented whales and killed young fish. There are studies to understand how humans distort marine soundscapes. 

   As the pandemic interrupted life on land, the effect of reduced shipping allowed creatures over three quarters of the earth to be heard once again.

 Smithsonian

   

One Hungry UFO 

   No sooner had we drafted yesterday's blog about a hawk and its prey, that he was back in our grove eating again. 

   It was Wednesday, midafternoon. 

   Probably 10 or 12 feet from its morning kill, the hawk was impressive. When it bent down for a bite its reddish tail was exposed. 

   So, it was a red-tailed hawk. Or was it? My bird books weren't much help. Was it a different hawk? or a falcon? a vulture? kite? harrier? eagle? The osprey looked more like it, though ospreys don't have a red tail. We'll just consider it an unidentified flying object.  

   Standing in our pool cage with binoculars, I saw long tail feathers of the victim move as the UFO shook his meal. This was no ordinary songbird. 

   Soon, the predator spotted me. To check me out, with his 48-inch wingspan he flew onto the crook of the nearest tree.

   Then in a rush he flew above the trees and began circling the grove counter clockwise. His second round came lower. His third pass was lower still. And his fourth altitude was about 15 feet overhead.

   With the sun above him, he looked all black. I was content to stay inside the pool cage. 

   He flew off, leaving his meal half-eaten. Maybe I ruined his appetite. So cancel me. 

   If the carcass wasn't an owl, your guess is good as mine. The UFO may have caught it napping in the middle of the day.  

        Jimmy