Yes, we’ve been out of pocket for a few weeks now. After returning from family matters, work (yes, I have a real job) was a bit overwhelming for many reasons. At any rate, we hope that the new year will provide us both more opportutnity to share daily thoughts and to begin expanding the focus of The Conservative Reader to more principled discussions.

Tonight and tomorrow many of us will be visiting our local churches to share in celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our family will be worshiping this evening.

Three things to share today.

The First Amendment

Thank God for the freedom in our society, as declared by the wisdom of the founders of our country, to worship freely as we see fit, or not to worship at all. I’m sure that some of the motivation behind this right comes from the surprising amount of diversity and infighting among different groups (denominations) who all profess to worship the same Christ, and the history of violence of government against those who do not worship the government’s official “church”. And yet I’m also confident that the generation that established our Bill of Rights also perceived the need to protect any who chose to worship other than the norm, including Jewish, Islam, Native American religions, Oriental religions, or none at all.

This is a precious freedom, and one of a handful that if we ever [...]

My dear wife told me I was going to enjoy the Get Fuzzy comic strip today (May 1).  She was right!  I can only refer you to the strips web site, since showing the actual strip violates the copyright they are exercising, but if you click over there before May 30, you’ll be able to [...]

It took a couple of months. As you may recall, we checked out our reading level at criticsrant.com back in November. At the time, our rating was “elementary school”. Well, we’re proud to say we’ve moved up, and we’re now at “High School”. Although the writers here are college educated, this [...]

Some of you may already be aware of this, but there is a great site ( I got info from my employer today) where you can trade in your accumulated airline miles so family members of wounded servicemen and women can get free plane tickets to visit their loved ones recovering at military hospitals across the country.  [...]

On Van and Bonnie on WHO this morning, there was an interview with a political telemarketing expert from George Washington University.  The topic was the technologies, techniques, and purpose for all those phone calls we’ve been getting here in Iowa the past few weeks.  You can listen to the interview here.

We made the move to WordPress, and with a few minor glitches, got things working. The old address (blog.conservativereader.net) points here now, as well as www.conservativereader.net and just conservativereader.net. Thanks to BitHead at BitsBlog for recommending WordPress… I love it! And thanks to my dear wife for putting up with my vacation [...]

So, Christmas morning 2007 started with a bright sun on a cold, snow-less ground.  We are staying with family and enjoying a pleasant and relaxing morning.  Gifts were handled last night.  My niece started off the time last night with a reading of the Christmas Story from the Gospel of Luke, followed by a brief [...]