Went to Bigfork for an interview. Now, the interview went well, but I must carefully advise those who are visiting Montana to enjoy the beauty of the state not to visit Bigfork for your own good.

TIf you're into art, it has some attractions but otherwise is an over-priced place where tourists come to surrender their money. The high costs of goods in the town are out of control. If you're coming to Glacier to witness the failed forest management policies of the Clinton administration, buy your food and goods in Kalispell or prepare to get soaked in Bigfork.

Continuing on the same vain. Occupational based interviewing and testing will work best. Give employees situations like they'll be working in. I have to admit the way Don Cyphers hired me made sense.

I called Cyphers up on the phone and was asking where to send my resume. He said he didn't care about my resume. He just cared if I could write. He put me on the spot at 4 o'clock on a Friday afternoon and gave me a deadline: I had two hours to get him two stories. He hung up the phone and I panicked. Everything was closed, everyone was out of town. Somehow I tracked down a story and the rest is history (or legal history as the case may be).

The man was a fraud and a crook but he had the most common sense, effective away of screening an employee. I give him that much.

Went to an application writing class. Oh man, the application gives me a headache. It's a nightmarish thing, I dread and hate the application and this class hasn't helped that. There's so much artificial effort required to get a job, it's not funny.

The lady teaching the class, told us it's all a game. It's a game set up by employers but I seriously doubt they come out better for it. You may get someone capable of making their getting fired for being late for work positive but are you getting an employee who's going to really do well for your company.

I've been through so many rings, hoops, and circles and gotten so much contradictory information, it's absurd. What employers don't know is that they're being taken. There are people who know how to work the system but will not do a good job. I've seen people who can just walk into a business and the employer will say, "You're hired!" and then they'll be late for work all the time or flake out on you.

I've seen others who may not apply well, may not interview well, but when they get on the job, they'll be a heck of an employee. It's really time for smart employers to find some way to base their decision on who can do the job best, not who has the best suit and who can kiss up to them the most.

A new Screwtape Report has been released. Most of the reports have a good deal of humor in them, so maybe I'm not bad in the entertainment value portion of blogging. In fact, I probably rock. :)

There's something rotten in the State of California. Three very different, divergent polls have been released in the last few days:

In the CNN-Time Poll taken last week Arnold leads the Lieutenant Governor 25-15%. A Majority support the recall.

In the MSNBC poll Arnold leads 31-18. 59% favored recalling Davis.

In the most amazing poll result from 10 News and Survey USA, the State terminates Davis with extreme prejudice (66% favor recalling) and then Arnold terminates Lt. Governor Bustamante (51-17%). Now folks, people do not change their minds so quickly.

The polls are varying so much on the top two questions that it's ridiculous. One big problem may be that none took a big enough sample, each asked around 500 voters and I have a stinking suspicion that a larger sample will lead to a different result.

The only way this shift is even possible is if California voters have decided: 1) Davis will be recalled, 2) Arnold will be the next governor, 3) the state needs to be unified. The higher the vote for Arnold, the easier it will be for him to govern, the easier it will be for him to resolve the state's impossible problems. For Californians to make such a quick analysis seems unlikely. Rather the sample is probably very flawed.

I have more time to blog when I'm unemployed. Is that odd or what?

Looking for works is the greatest drudgery on the face of the Earth. I don't exaggerate. It's bad when you're doing wrong, it's worse when you're doing it right. When you're doing it wrong, you're sending the resume off to every employer and getting rejected. When you're doing it right, you're handcrafting resumes to each employer's needs and not getting considered.

Let me be clear. I love working. I wrote a poem about working after I got my last job at Stream International and found a measure of success:

I thank the Lord for hands with which to work,
I praise Him for a voice to rejoice despite the jerks,
I lift up my voice to the One on High,
Who gives me my daily bread to live by,
I thank him for the trials,
I praise him for the smiles,
I thank Him for hard honest toil,
I praise Him for the fertile soil,
I thank Him for the pay,
I praise Him for every day,
I thank Him for doing more than His part,
I praise Him for the joy of working with all my heart.

To work is to live, to have a function in society. I'm on my second week of looking for work without a job and I'm going stir crazy. Prior to the site closure I was looking while working which was exhausting. Something should be about to break. If not, I'll be on unemployment which bothers me to no end. I want to be working, not living off the government. I'm not judging those who do take unemployment. (My wife is amongst those doing so.) But, I don't want an unemployment check, I want to work.

I heard Rush read the following article on the air and it's given me some thought about how I can improve my blogging.

Some of it's not applicable. The first point of show prep is obviously not. I am very careful to research my case to make the best case I can. I don't blog as much as most bloggers. I've found that being unemployed gives me more time to Blog.

I've been guilty of bad blogging in terms of design. Until today, my font has been far too tiny and I've been using the HTML pargraph tag when it has been merited but I will reform. Of course, bad design depends on whether just the blog is the blog or my whole site of which the blog is only a part is the blog. If the latter is the case, the design is adequate but is now better.

The areas that I suffer most in is entertainment value and the audience bond. The entertainment value is marginal. There's very little entertainment value in Michael Reagan and a lot less in Hannity. The lack of a personal bond and personal stories is problematic. From this day forward though, I will reform. You'll see. This will be a very different Adam's Blog.

Came up with a fair compromise on the McClintock-Simon-Arnold issue:

I think that right now the race is Arnold's to lose. I wouldn't put too much stock in these early polls. One poll shows simon in 3rd, one shows Uberoff, and one shows McClintock. It doesn't look good for either of them politically at this point.
But, I would hasten to add this is very early. We're two months before the election for crying out loud. If I'm in the Simon or McClintock campaign, I know that this is bad, but that Arnold may very well fade down the stretch.

I would spend the next six weeks trying to win the governorship, and I'd watch Arnold very closely. If two weeks before the election, McClintock and Simon are still in single digits and Arnold's ahead, they should get out.

What Arnold supporters are asking is a little on the absurd side. They want every other Republican to drop out, leaving us with no fall back should Arnold implode.

There's a lot of stuff the Democrats are going to throw at him in this campaign and we have no clue if it's going to stick. If it does and Arnold's damaged, strategically we'd be left with no fallback. His political career is six days old. He has yet to articulate a single issue for the voters of California and Simon and McClintock should drop out?

I think the nervous nellys in the Arnold camp need to chill, hear Arnold's campaign play out, and ease off of Simon, Uberoth, and McClintock. Let these guys see if they can sell themselves to voters. If they're not able to connect with voters then they should just go ahead and drop out.

We're a long ways from that decision, however.

I'd hasten to add that this decision is easy for me to make in Montana, but I'd have a heck of a time voting for Arnold under any circumstances if I had to make the call.

Okay, so Drudge was wrong about Arnold. I think Schwarzenegger isn't the best Republican in the race, but we may see a huge surprise this October. Polls mean nothing. The best candidate is about 16 points back, but people are just getting established right now.

Expect some things to come down the pike soon. Currently I'm working on an e-book for 29ways.com and will soon officially endorse a Presidential Candidate for 2004. I'm looking for work and may be looking at an out of state move. The Flathead Valley is Northwest Montana is a great place to live by the price of living here is really high. I'm sorry to say.

Does anyone get tired of Drudge telegraphing the news? Not only does he have the fact that Arnold's not running for governor, but that Dick Riordan will announce. It takes a lot of pagentry out of politics to know how everything will come down. Still give Drudge credit, he does have his sources.

If you are interested in a job, don't go through Vector Marketing. While the wages promised are great, it appears to be a scam based on what people are saying. This page saved me a trip to Missoula.
I'm not going to repeat my Kirby mistake.

Many people are acting as if the Episcopalean Church's decision to ordain an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire makes it apostate.

Wrong! The Episcopal Church has been Apostate for several years

Consider that a third of Episcopalean ministers don't believe in the resurrection and that John Shelby Spong spouts his blasphemy with the title of Episcopal bishop attached to his rantings. That Reverend Robinson was even a Priest.

To those true Christians remaining in the Episcopal Church, I admonish you according to Revelations 18:4, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."

The Graceless Left

Bob Hope died at the age of 100. I thought Bob Hope as a comedian was okay. Bob Hope as a man was far more than that. How few of our modern entertainers would have the courage and guts to go into harms way to bring some "hope" and laughter to the troops. Bob Hope was.

Mr. Hope died and you'd think this would be a time of solemn remembrance and mourning. Instead, it was time for a left wing cultural critic to decry all of this "God Bless America" remembrance of Hope, because he didn't get any of his jokes.

Christopher Hitchens who has now become an expert on comedy has declared Hope "hopelessly unfunny". even daring to accuse him of cowardice. I thought the liberals pecking at Strom Thurmond's corpse was really tasteless, even though Thurmond had done some awful things in his life. Hitchen however has attacked a dead man because his style of comedy didn't exactly fit his tastes and preferences.

How cruel and disrespectful is that? It used to be that when people died, we would put RIP (Rest in Peace) on their grave. Such a practice should be abandonned as the left certainly will have none of that for anyone who did anything for this country.

Not One More War

If the question is war, the answer is no. I supported the war in Afghanistan strongly, I stayed neutral throughout the Congressional debate on the war in Iraq but enough is enough. I oppose going to Liberia or any other hellhole that our politicians try and send our troops to.

The idea that patriotism requires we declare our support for every war is repugnant. While the yahoos who've fueled the anti-war movement in this country heretofore have been communists and other malcontents, unlimited continuous war is neither patriotic nor prudent.

Where in the world are our troops? Germany, Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan, South Korea, among dozens of others. Our armed forces are stretched thin and I will not support a draft or massive increases in defense spending for the sake of such noble goals such as "ridding the World of evil". (More on that in a future column.)

Having trashed one author published in Slate, let me praise another. William Saletin has done a splendid job in a series of buzzword articles. In the articles, Saletin uses wit and intelligence to get to the heart of the Democratic buzzwords and sayings. So far, he's done all nine Democrats with President Bush remaining. Here's an example of some of Saletin's translation of candidate's statements:

From Dick Gephardt on Fiscal Relief

Example: "Dick Gephardt today announced that his health care plan, if passed into law, would cover all Americans, stimulate the economy and provide the state of New Hampshire $767 million in fiscal relief over the course of three years" (press release, June 3, 2003).

What it means: Money.

What it hides: The money gets counted three times: as health care, economic stimulus, and aid to states and cities. And by the way, it comes from you.

Subtext: What I've learned from 27 years in Congress is to spin everything as a special-interest appropriation.

From Dennis Kucinich on "Free"

Examples: "Democrats can move this county forward … to making education our top funding priority and providing free college education for all" (speech to Democratic National Committee, Feb. 22, 2003). "We need to make it possible for fully paid college in this country, so everyone who wants to go to college, and that includes higher education, and law school, and medical school." (Children's Defense Fund forum, April 9, 2003).

What it means: You pay nothing …

What it hides: … until April 15.

Subtext: Nobody's going to outbid me for the campus vote.

I can't show you anymore, but read the whole series for yourself.

I have a simple principle for politics. "Politics should stop at death's door".

Apparently, some of our Leftist friends don't seem to think so. Former United States Senator Strom Thurmond's body was hardly cold when Slate Columnist Diane McWhorter accused Thurmond of fathering a Black, illegitimate child when he was 23! You got to hand it to Slate and Diane McWhorter it takes a lot of guts to raise allegations against a dead man when he can no longer rebut the charge!

It was originally made five years ago in a little read "unauthorized biography". McWhorter full of indignation demanded to know why this allegation hasn't been more widely circulated. Indeed, I could bring equal indignation to the fact that many of Bill Clinton's relatively recent affairs (as reported in "The Secret Life of Bill Clinton" by Ambrose Evans Pritchard are not better known). However, the fact that someone is alleging something does not make it so.

More importantly, such an incredible poor taste and lack of grace was shown in making this attack that I'm astonished at it! But the Cartoonist are worst. Bill Day of the Nashville Commercial Appeal portrays Thurmond as flying upward to Heaven with a terrified look on his face as he head towards the the hand of a Black god. Apparently in the left's world, the only one it's okay to suggest faces a less than pleasant eternity is Strom Thurmond.

Ann Telnaes never to be outdone for plain, simple mean-spiritedness drew a picture of Thurmond's grave with the epitath, "Strom Thurmond: Born a Segregationist, Died an Opportunist." I'm sure the grieving Senator's family appreciates this. I'm sure South Carolinans of all races who have benefitted from Thurmond's service are pleased.

In the end, these warped leftist now view funerals as political affairs. Like every other event in life, death is an opportunity to score political points, to kick the corpse of a World War II hero and deny his family the right to grieve in piece. Let me be brutally honest. Senator Paul Wellstone's record and legacy will be shown by history to be more ominous, diabolical, and damaging to the American country. Wellstone championed infanticide and the destruction of American liberty. Still, conservatives manage to show a shred of decency lacking from these most recent detestable attacks.

Just got back from a great vacation up at the Bend Guard station. My wife and I celebrated our first anniversary! Wow! I can't believe it's been a whole year. We spent two days and three nights at the very nice Guard Station. In the course of our visit and our subsequent trip to Glacier we saw a Moose, 7 deer, and 2 cows.

During the trip, the Lord gave me a sermon/pamphlet idea I'll be working on. I feel refreshed and renewed, though pretty tired.

I don't have a television in my house, for the simple reason that I'm addicted to it. I shouldn't be around television like some people shouldn't be around alcohol. (Okay, so I may be overstating that just a tad).

This week I found myself stuck at a laundromat without a book and caught a rerun of David Kelly's The Practice. I hadn't seen a full episode before, but while I was at home my dad was a big fan and as he blared the sound at full blast, I heard several episodes.

Despite it's liberal bias, "The Practice" is a great drama. It paints a very realistic picture of criminal defense attorneys and their clients (as realistic of a picture as you can paint without getting boring as a totally realistic lawyer show would spend 90% of the time working out plea bargains and 10% at trial). This episode I saw was about a prison inmate who killed his bunkmate in his sleep. A female attorney tried to get him to plead guilty as he'd signed a confession, his prints were on the murder weapon, and his bunkmate was sleeping.

The prisoner defended himself in court, claiming the common law defense of necessity. He testified that a man serving three life sentences for three prior murders had threatened to kill him unless he slayed his bunkmate. The story (inadvertently I'm sure) raises some very serious problems for the anti-death penalty crowd. What happens to a man when you can't touch him? If he's in for three consecutive life sentences, what else can you do to him with no death penalty deterrent?

The story ends with the prisoner escaping from the courthouse after killing a guard. One thing I do like from what I've seen/heard of the series is that Kelly isn't pretentious and doesn't glamorize criminal defense lawyers. He's quite honest that many of their clients are guilty, that if they are released they will commit more crimes, even against the attorneys that defended them. While it's more gritty than shows like Perry Mason and Matlock, it avoids painting an unrealistic picture of the legal profession and it's clients: Clean cut all-american kids who are wrongly accused were most of them. The degree of honesty Kelly shows is refreshing and it's important that people who may be interested in law get a proper perception of what they're getting into, rather than the glamorized notions provided by Lawyer shows past.

The media claims to be smart. Oftentimes, their own pretention finds them out. One of my absolute favorite sites is PoliticalCartoons.com. Generally, the authors are clever in making their point, even if they aren't right. This week, however, I found two really dumb comics.

One cartoon showed George Bush jumping on a map of America drawn as the Incredible Hulk screaming, "Me Save America by destroying it." and the caption read, "The Incredible Bush". That wouldn't be stupid, except the Hulk never said anything like that. Such statements belong to "Bizarro", the opposite of Superman not to the Hulk.

Another comic portrayed John Ashcroft as the INS officer who took Elian Gonzalez away but this time Ashcroft was saying he would detain Elian to find out what he was up to. Stupid! If your readers have a short attention span, they'll not know what you're talking about. If they don't, they'll be reminded of another attorney general. This Attorney General who used Gestapo tactics to seize a boy from his uncle's home in the middle of the night. It reminds us of the Attorney General whose impatience, recklessness, and many would say malice aforethought led to the deaths of eighty Americans at Waco, Texas. This same Attorney General turned a blind eye to President Clinton's violations of the law, refusing to call her lawless boss to account.

The comic reminds that as unhappy as I am with some of John Ashcroft's heavy-handed tactics, I'm so glad that he. and not our prior Attorney General, Janet Reno is in that office.

Have you ever felt like you're witnessing the end of an era? America has great institutions of government that are slowly being degraded, as hardly anyone, not even the people in those institution understand how they're supposed to work. In America, the love of the church has grown cold. It's a lack of love that crosses all denominational barriers. I don't care whether you're Pentecostal, Baptist, or Catholic, there's been less of a committement to the faith.

I just finished a book by Rick Warren called the Purpose Driven Life. The book's far from perfect, especially as far as the writing goes. But if people would really apply want Warren says, Christians in America could change this country. Sadly, I fear much of his good advice will go unheeded. The heart of the church is cold and needs to awaken to God's truth. Sadly, I fear we're losing our way to sins of worldliness and materialism. The American church is becoming so cold, it's very sad.

I find myself wondering if this is the "Great Falling Away" and whether at last we will see the return of our Lord, who'll set all right. Though, we must go through the fire, come Lord Jesus, come.

Sadly, this is probably just another great apostasy that Christians must survive and fight through and that God must move to bring revival. Still, it seems worse than reports of times past. Then again, it's different I suppose when you read about something as opposed to living through it. The Saints of old thought the end was near to. Work while the light is with you for the hour of darkness comes when no man can work.