Teardown

Buona sera. Hope you're getting your sensibilities back after the New Year's festivities. Me, I don't have it in me anymore to stay up late.

So anyway. People show you their Holiday Christmas trees, yes? I'm going to do something completely different and show you where the Christmas tree was:

Isn't that lovely? We had the tree in front of the patio doors so people driving by could say, "Hey, they have a Christmas tree by their patio doors."

Actually, it was a snap to take apart the tree because Basement Cat did all the work. Here is a picture taken during a break:

(Humorless cafone Norman calls me a liar because he doesn't get that it's a joke in 3...2...1...) Ciao!

Greetings!

 

What's that, you say? Oh. Well, of course I know it's also called a wildebeest. But it wouldn't be even remotely funny if I said, "Happy Wildebeest Year", now, would it?

Your Other Resolutions

In our last exciting episode, I told you what your first New Year's resolution should be, if you're a Windows user: Put McAfee's "Stinger" and "ClamWin Portable" onto a flash drive so you can have something to fight back when a virus disables your resident scanner.

Now I want to be less specific.

I am not that big a fan of "New Year's resolutions", because if something is worth doing, it should not be put off for several weeks. (Especially Christians who are seeking to do God's will; it may not be a good idea to something off unless you feel led to go after a target date like January 1.) Last year, I had all sorts of grand ideas for getting my life organized. (I still stand by that post, and you can see it here.) I will share some of the wisdom that I have learned after the fact from several sources.

When you make a list of resolutions and plan to change your life, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. One recipe for success is to make two resolutions. That's right, Nicky, two. Sure, you can make a list, but only implement a couple of things. Then, when those are under control, add two more in two or three months. You're not overwhelmed, and you have a much better chance for success, capice? I did not like that advice when I read it, but it's proven to be correct in my experience. My goals of writing things down and calendaring them more efficiently are the goals that are most intact of the bunch I wanted to accomplish. Plus, I had other goals that I implemented during the year without putting it off until January.

Also, I would like to emphasize that, psychologically, it is a great idea to get things cleaned up, put away, filed and so forth before New Year's Day. Then, you get something new to wear. Take a shower and mentally wash away the badness of 2010. Christians should make a point of getting into the Bible and doing some serious prayer time, seeking the Lord's guidance. Hey, here's an idea! Give your life to Jesus, fully and completely. Confess your sins and make him the Lord of your life. Let God's power take you through instead of relying on your own strength and wisdom. What more can you want than the Creator of the universe living inside of you?

New Year's Resolution Number One

Buon giorno. Sit up and pay attention. I am going to tell you Windows users your first resolution for 2011, and you're going to like it, capice? Jeff! Stop smirking. I know that you Mac users do not have the virus problem that targets Windows users, but I have to do something for the people, even if I am doing a short version of this article from almost two years ago. It's still getting hits, too, so I think I did something right. Hey, Lela? Want to send this to Kathy? She wanted to know.

Anyway.

Kathy was telling me her story about a surprise virus on her computer. They are certainly getting more sophisticated. This one did something I had read was possible, but did not come into contact with someone that had the problem: It blocked her existing virus scanner. The situation has been dealt with and no harm done, but this is what I recommend for advance counter-measures.

Get a flash drive. Note that the name is misleading, it's about the memory function and not the speed. Programs on them can actually run slowly, depending on the drive. For that reason, I am recommending that you get one of the smaller capacity flash drives. What follows are small applications, so you do not need much room.

Download Stinger. This little beauty from McAfee is an "on demand" application. It is not a resident virus scanner that is always running on your computer and updating itself. Instead, it is built to target specific viruses. Over two thousand of them. Rather a lot, really. You can download that here. 

Download ClamWin Portable. This is an "on demand" virus scanner that will live on your flash drive. Download that here.

Create a new folder on your desktop, then Install ClamWin Portable to it. Don't worry, "install" is slightly misleading because it is not installing itself to your computer. If you delete it, it's gone.

Run ClamWin Portable. Fire it up. Usually, it will want to go online and update the "database signature" files. Do it. If it does not ask you automatically, the command is under "tools". I'm having you do this because, for some reason, the updating does not work directly from the flash drive. They outta fix that, really.

Drag the ClamWin folder to your flash drive, and drag Stinger to it as well. Do not install or add anything else on the flash drive, not even those pictures of Basement Cat that you downloaded from my Weblog. This should be kept clear of clutter.

Install Firefox and make it your primary browser. OK, just a recommendation and not part of the program, but Firefox is much less prone to viruses than Internet Explorer.

Now you're ready to take on a virus that disables your existing scanner. These two should take care of the problem. First, run Stinger. If you feel the need to be more thorough, launch ClamWin and tell it to scan your hard drive. (If you like, you can drag ClamWin's folder onto your desktop for faster operation.)

I recommend that you pop in your flash drive every once in a while, drag the ClamWin Portable folder onto your desktop, launch ClamWin, update the virus database, then drag the folder back to your flash drive, overwriting the existing folder. A bit annoying, sure, but less annoying than the virus would be.

OK? I think you're much more equipped than you were a few minutes ago.

Arrogant Atheists Again

The militant atheist wants nothing more than to spoil the believer's spiritual journey.

That's both meanspirited and radically unenlightened.

— S.E. Cupp

Buona sera. It's late, I'm tired and going to make this fast and dirty. A buddy from far away send me this link to an article by atheist S.E. Cupp on the arrogance of atheists. I thought it was interesting and wanted to share it.

Harsh Realities about Abortion

There are some intense images and strong pro-life feelings here, and I hope my pro-life friends will take a look and join the discussion in the comments area. Warning: Link goes to graphic images. Brace yourselves! I agree with the author, Rhomphaia (sometimes I call her Miss Sword) that these are not just an appeal for an emotional response, but rather, are evidence. This is worth getting into, especially since B. Hussein Obama has had his EEOC nominee confirmed, a pro-death abortion activist.

Comments on this post are disabled. I'm trying to encourage you to go to that first link.

These Thousand Hills

Evil God of the Old Testament

Buona sera. My father was a pastor. He was not very fond of enthusiastic people forming Bible study groups without some form of leadership or guidance. His response was, "A pooling of ignorance". I saw later that it was true to some extent. When you have people sharing thoughts but nobody has studied the subject or had a study guide, people can arrive at completely wrong ideas through a type of democratic process. (I am not advocating the other extreme, that you cannot understand anything without approved leadership, otherwise we should all become Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses and be told what to think.) Some degree of knowledgeable leadership can help.

The same pooling of ignorance happens in atheist circles. Recently, I have been reminded of the "Old Testament God is evil" mindset. How did they get their ideas? Certainly not through researching or consulting experts, which would be imperative with such a serious claim. Referring to Richard "Daffy" Dawkins, a bad philosopher who is "woefully ill-suited for engaging in real philosophy beyond preaching to an atheist pep rally" won't help. The atheist philosophers seem to be more of a "me, too!" crowd, agreeing with each other's mockery and indulging in self-congratulations.

So, if there are readers who actually want to learn something (and do not have their minds already made up, evidence not withstanding), I have some things that intellectually honest people should examine. They are not huge amounts of reading, I do not want to scare you off with too much material. But if you really want to know the truth about the straw man argument that "the Old Testament God is evil", you should look at them, capice?

Did God Commit Atrocities by Ordering the Killing of Entire Cities of People?

Is the God of the Old Testament Different From the God of the New? 

Old Testament Events and the Goodness of God

The God of The Old Testament is a Bloodthristy Killer…Or Is He?

Is the God of the Old Testament a Merciless Monster?
Edit, added: Weblog of David T. Lamb, author of God Behaving Badly

No, I do not fully endorse everything in each article. I respect people enough to at least be able to get something useful from them, however. Those ought to hold you for a while.

Feline Drug Abuse

Does Atheism Cause Brain Damage?

For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks,

but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Professing to be wise, they became fools...

Therefore God gave them over...

— Paul the Apostle

Buon giorno. I hope you had a splendid Christmas.

As I had hoped (and promised later, in some instances) the CARM radio show podcast of "Faith and Reason" was released. My discussion with Rev. Matt Slick is below. We discussed if the moral deterioration of blasphemous atheists also leads to brain damage. Also, we talked about Norman (my pet troll), how modern Internet atheists are similar to Muslims, how they are vitriolic and conniving, dishonest, obstreperous, irrational, about Christians being "haters", and more. The talk (well, he talked and I listened, mostly) is about eight minutes long.



If you read Romans chapter 1, count the number of times that it says, "God gave them over". You want to blaspheme God? OK. He will not fight with you forever.

Addendum: The cowardly Twitter trolls' responses (ie, attacks), the answer to my question appears to be "YES!" These lovers of "reason" and "logic" were posting, in essence, "You're a doo doo head!" and putting words in my mouth. (No, I did not say that infants or animals are born Christian.) People are desperate to mock instead of make an intelligent response.


Arrivederci!