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Today's Gift (3-1)

The things that make me different are the things that make me, me.
~~~~~~~~~~~ Winnie the Pooh

We've all read or heard the tale of the ugly duckling, by Hans Christian Andersen. Poor little guy wasn't really ugly at all, but being a swan surrounded by ducks, he certainly looked different. The ducks subjected him to such ridicule and abuse that when he learned to fly, he took off. He wandered around looking for a place to call home, unaware that he was growing up and changing. Eventually he encounters a group of swans on a lake, and decides to join them. As he swims out to them, he sees his reflection in the water, and realizes that he too is a swan. They take him in, and at last he's found a home.

Most of us have, at one time or another, been on both sides of this story. There have been times when we have felt very different from those around us, when we just didn't "fit in," and we went through a period of being shunned and becoming isolated. Or maybe we were part of the group that shunned someone else just because s/he wasn't like us. But over time, we change, as do the people around us, and while we may not all be swans, we all have value. We all need to be loved.

For this day, how can I embrace the differences I see in myself, and in others?

Blessings, lads and lasses.
NT
Eph 4:32 "Be ye kind to one another, tender-hearted and forgiving, even as God in Christ forgave you."
Dedicated to Allen Jones, who asked for the same forgiveness he extended to others.

PS For those able and willing to give to disaster relief efforts up in the panhandle, I recommend:

Today's Gift (Texas Independence Day!)

Independence is never given to a people, it has to be earned; and once earned, must be defended.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chaim Weizmann

HAPPY TEXAS INDEPENDENCE DAY, Y'ALL!

Yessirree, it is a great day! As John Steinbeck put it, "Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession. Above all, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word." Celebrate as you will, but whatever you do today, do not forget the value of freedom. It comes at great cost. "Victory or Death" as Travis put it.

What does that mean for each of us in our lives? To the person fighting addiction, the Travis quote is all too real, too literal. You either win this battle or you lose your life, and everything else along with it. We all have battles we need to win, things over which we must declare our independence, if we are to become the person our Maker had in mind.

Today, I pray that as brave Texans, we strive to declare our independence from all that is holding us back. Put 'em in the rearview mirror.

Blessings lads and lasses,
NT
1 Cor 15:55-58, the story of real victory
Remember that today is the memorial and celebration service for Allen Jones at Zilker, 1:00-4:00.

Scumbag Chief’s coach gets sentence commuted

Helps to have low friends in high places.

“Reid was driving his pickup truck near Arrowhead Stadium on Feb. 4, 2021, when he struck two vehicles that had stopped along the side of the highway. He had a blood alcohol content of 0.113 and was driving 84 mph in a 65 mph zone at the time of the incident, according to court documents.

Ariel Young, who was 5 years old at the time, was severely injured in the crash. She suffered "life-threatening injuries" and a "severe traumatic brain injury, a parietal fracture, brain contusions and subdural hematomas," according to court documents.“

“Reid has previously served prison time over a driving-related incident.

He pleaded guilty to simple assault and flashing a gun at another driver in a road rage incident in 2007, according to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, court records, and served prison time. While in prison, he also pleaded guilty to a charge of driving under the influence of a controlled substance from a separate incident, according to court documents.“

Question for any OB ortho docs

My 12 year old son fractured his wrist in his basketball game last night. It is a small buckle fracture in his non shooting hand, 3-5 weeks in a splint.

Question: Today is the league championship game. He wants to win this more than anything. He’s got a splint. If we wrap it too, could he play the game without risk of further injury? In other words, with the splint in place, is this more of a pain tolerance issue?

If there is true risk of further injury, I won’t let him play. If not, I’m gonna let him man up and go for it.

U of Florida completely halts DEI

You love to see it.

The University of Florida said it is dismissing all DEI staff, closing its DEI office and halting DEI contracts with outside vendors. The school also announced the laid-off staff would get 12 weeks of severance, and that the $5 million saved from the cost of DEI would go to a “faculty recruitment fund.” That’s a wrap, folks.

Dog stolen from trainer at gun point.


What a crazy story. A French bulldog was stolen from a dog trainer at gun point. We used the same trainer at the same park here in San Antonio to train our golden retriever and my son’s golden retriever. I can’t imagine having someone steal my dog.
Hope they find the dog and catch the thieves.

OT: The Texas Declaration of Independence (full text)

Maybe not quite as eloquent as what came out of Philadelphia in 1776, but not bad for a bunch of “frontier ruffians”:

The Unanimous Declaration of Independence made by the Delegates of the People of Texas in General Convention at the town of Washington on the 2nd day of March 1836.​

When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted, and so far from being a guarantee for the enjoyment of those inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression.​
When the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their government has been forcibly changed, without their consent, from a restricted federative republic, composed of sovereign states, to a consolidated central military despotism, in which every interest is disregarded but that of the army and the priesthood, both the eternal enemies of civil liberty, the everready minions of power, and the usual instruments of tyrants.​
When, long after the spirit of the constitution has departed, moderation is at length so far lost by those in power, that even the semblance of freedom is removed, and the forms themselves of the constitution discontinued, and so far from their petitions and remonstrances being regarded, the agents who bear them are thrown into dungeons, and mercenary armies sent forth to force a new government upon them at the point of the bayonet.​
When, in consequence of such acts of malfeasance and abdication on the part of the government, anarchy prevails, and civil society is dissolved into its original elements. In such a crisis, the first law of nature, the right of self-preservation, the inherent and inalienable rights of the people to appeal to first principles, and take their political affairs into their own hands in extreme cases, enjoins it as a right towards themselves, and a sacred obligation to their posterity, to abolish such government, and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them from impending dangers, and to secure their future welfare and happiness.​
Nations, as well as individuals, are amenable for their acts to the public opinion of mankind. A statement of a part of our grievances is therefore submitted to an impartial world, in justification of the hazardous but unavoidable step now taken, of severing our political connection with the Mexican people, and assuming an independent attitude among the nations of the earth.​
The Mexican government, by its colonization laws, invited and induced the Anglo-American population of Texas to colonize its wilderness under the pledged faith of a written constitution, that they should continue to enjoy that constitutional liberty and republican government to which they had been habituated in the land of their birth, the United States of America.​
In this expectation they have been cruelly disappointed, inasmuch as the Mexican nation has acquiesced in the late changes made in the government by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who having overturned the constitution of his country, now offers us the cruel alternative, either to abandon our homes, acquired by so many privations, or submit to the most intolerable of all tyranny, the combined despotism of the sword and the priesthood.​

Inclusion is a National Security Imperative ...

As usual - Thank you all for your service!

@HALOMAN & @A-10HORN ... Halo & A-10, and all of our Active-Duty Military & Vets ... Honest question - Does National Security Require Inclusion?

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And @A-10HORN - Although it's not a A-10 Warthog, this MIGHT have some potential! :p

Login to view embedded media (USAF F-35s exiting the Mach Loop in style) Watch for the still photo at the 2:18 mark.
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