Derek Jeter was temporary; Jesus is Eternal!!!

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal."
Matthew 6:19-20

#FarewellCaptain; "Well, the script is there, the last page is in Derek's Hands":



Michael Kay said it best: "Where fantasy becomes reality."

It's impossible to do justice to my love for Derek Jeter.  He's my favorite.  He always has been and he always will be.  Unfortunately, there's a dirty secret.  Jeter's baseball success was always temporary.

And isn't that just the dirty little secret of life: Success on this side of Heaven, even if you're Derek Jeter, is always temporary.

I never expected Derek Jeter's retirement to put "worldly treasures" in perspective, yet here we are.  I'm stuck with the fact that five world championships out of 19 years eventually came to an end.  Suffice to say, if you'd offered me the deal "Derek Jeter will play 19 seasons and win championships in 1 out of 4 of them" in 1994 I would have taken it.

But still...those 19 years came to an end.

Yet the resurrection is eternal.

Every one of us is separated from God.  Every one of us needs a savior.  Derek Jeter's heroism tonight proves nothing except the fact that the good guys eventually retire.  Yet, eternity continues to concern everyone.  Yankee fans, like all Americans, would be well served to trust in Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior....

Straus Lieutenants Continue to Attempt Witness Intimidation

"He who is often rebuked, and hardens his neck,
Will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."
Proverbs 29:1

First, Lyle Larson:

Larson witness intimidation letter -- 9/18

Next, Frank Ferdinand Fischer:

TMF witness intimidation letter

(h/t Watchdog)

#HookemDoh: Democrat Canvasser recruiting fails at U.T.

"He frustrates the devices of the crafty,
So that their hands cannot carry out their plans."
Job 5:12

University of Texas -- Three days ago, this author was walking across the University of Texas campus when we noticed that the #HailSatanTX Democrats had flyered the campus hoping to add to their paid campaign staff.  They were the type of flyers where interested potential counterparties are supposed to tear off a tag on the bottom.  Typically, on a popular item, the tiny little squares are gone within a day.  Tonight, we attended an event on campus and decided to scout the flyers while killing time.  The three day progress report speaks for itself:
 

 

Each picture is a separate flyer; political consultants have a word for this: Metrics.

Austin Church Vandalized

"But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive."
Genesis 50:20

That's too bad:

MyFoxAustin.com | KTBC Fox 7 | News, Weather, Sports

Highlights:

• This isn't the first time the Church has been vandalized.

• "Somebody that's hurting had to have done something like this. You don't just come into establishments like this, especially the church, where you just come in and destroy."

• Suspects left behind "a ton" of fingerprint evidence.

Longhorns Poach a Baylor Recruit

"Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith."
Galatians 6:10

Score one for Charlie Strong:

Austin Westlake linebacker Breckyn Hager (6-3, 210) has flipped his commitment to the Texas Longhorns from conference rival Baylor. Hager was recently rumored to have received an offer from the Longhorns, but it was not confirmed until today.

The 6-foot-3-inch, 210-pound Hager is ranked as a three-star defensive end prospect by 247Sports. With no current linebacker commitments in the 2015 recruiting class, in addition to 2013 signee Deoundrei Davis no longer being in the program and 2014 signee Andrew Beck moving to tight end, the Longhorns need help at linebacker.

....

Hager is the son of former Texas All-American linebacker Britt Hager. Hager, who wore No. 60 at Texas, holds the all-time record on the Forty Acres for single season (195 in 1988) and and career (499) tackles.

Read the whole thing here.

"Duke University Porn Star": The Truth Emerges....

"While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage."
2 Peter 2:19

We declined to discuss the 'Duke University Porn Star' story when it emerged.  We figured it would get a lot more complicated over time.  Didn't take long:

Hundreds of thousands of fans know her as Belle Knox, one of the most popular names in porn. The media often refers to her as the “Duke University porn star,” after a classmate revealed that she was paying her tuition by starring in porn shoots. We later discovered that the name her friends and family know her by is Miriam Weeks.

She has been touted far and wide as proof that porn can be empowering and evidence that feminists can sell their bodies as objects and still be, well, “feminist.” Here, porn supporters told us with satisfaction, is a nice girl from a Catholic home who loves to do porn just because she loves sex. Porn is, as Weeks told the cameras, “empowering” and “freeing” and “the way the world should be.”

And then, recently, Weeks did a series of interviews for an upcoming documentary. In them, she paints a much different picture than the freeing, empowering, sex-fueled fantasy world her fans and porn supporters claim she inhabits.

“The sex industry has a way of making you very cynical and very bitter,” a tired-looking Weeks tells an off-camera interviewer, “In a way I’ve started to become kind of a bit bitter and a bit cynical.”

Why? “It teaches you to be street smart and not to trust people…I’m so used to being on the lookout for scammers, people who are going to try pimp me out or traffic me. I think my experiences have aged me. I don’t have the mind of an eighteen-year-old. I have the emotional baggage of someone much, much older than me.”

....

In many interviews, Weeks talks obsessively about how porn gives her control over her own sexual destiny: “In porn, everything is on my terms. I can say no whenever I want to. I am in control.” Later on, we discover why this is so important to her: Weeks reveals that she had been raped. “What porn has done for me,” she says firmly, “is it has given me back my agency.”

Even amidst the perverted adulation of porn-addicted fans, however, she still bears the scars of self-loathing. In some cases, literal scars. One day looking in the mirror, she became so overcome with self-hatred that she smashed the mirror and cut herself, slicing the jagged letters “FAT” into the flesh of her thigh.

....

Miriam herself admits that her first scene, shot for a company she refers to as “Facial Abuse,” was “a really, really rough scene. I wasn’t prepared for how rough it was. It was weird having some random photographer watch me have my a** kicked on camera.” She talks about getting literally torn up during porn shoots. She admits that porn shoots in which she was physically beaten up until she sobbed were probably shoots she should have refused. Yet she didn’t.

The control is a myth too, of course. The porn industry has many ways of coercing the human beings they market into doing what they want. For one shoot, Miriam recalls almost tearfully, her agent wouldn’t tell her who she had to “work with.” When she arrived at the set, she realized he was fifty years old. She wanted to leave, but then she’d have to pay a 300 dollar “kill fee,” the director would have been furious, and, she says, she could never have worked for that company again. So she did it.

“I felt like crying during the entire scene and afterwards I was really, really upset,” Miriam says tearfully to the camera, looking like nothing more than the hurting 18-year-old girl she is. “I just thought of my mom, who was always there for me and always protected me…I think about my mom a lot when I do porn scenes. Just how sad she would be that her little daughter was doing this.”

We'll review the interviews and, if they're not too graphic, will re-post them on this website; in the meantime, read the whole thing here.

Deregulation begets Entrepreneurship in Texas

"And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you,"
1 Thessalonians 3:12

We'd heard about the cottage food movement from some of the libertarian circles in which we hang out in Austin, but this is a fantastic write up:

Texas is enjoying a burst of entrepreneurship after enacting laws that let anyone turn a home kitchen into a business incubator. Under “cottage food” laws, people can sell food baked or cooked at home, like cookies, cakes and jams, if it’s deemed to have a very low chance of causing foodborne illnesses. Crucially, cottage food laws exempt home bakers from having to rent commercial kitchen space.

....

Under the new cottage food law, Padilla reopened Bellissimo Bakery, so she could carry on customizing children’s birthday cakes and selling her cupcakes, in flavors like Kona Kahlua or Death by Chocolate. Since 2011, her sales have increased by 25 percent every year, and she’s predicting an increase of up to 50 percent this year. “Not only do I love creating custom cakes and cupcakes, but I love that my cottage food bakery has the ability to financially make a difference,” she added. “I couldn’t be happier that this law is in effect.”

The Texas cottage food law does not extend to “potentially hazardous” foods, like dishes that have meat or shellfish, so consumers have had few problems with home bakers. After contacting both the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) and environmental health departments for the 25 largest cities and counties in Texas, the Institute for Justice found no complaints regarding foodborne illnesses from a cottage food business.

An exact number of just how many of these operations have sprung up is rather hard to come by. Since Texas does not issue permits or licenses for cottage food production operations, the state does not have a precise way to track them. However, anyone who wants to operate a cottage food business is required to become a certified food handler. In Texas, there are at least two organizations that offer courses specifically designed for cottage food: Texas Food Safety Training and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. Between the two of them, over 1,400 individuals have purchased and completed courses over the past year. Given that cottage food entrepreneurs can also comply with the state’s regulations by taking a general food handler course, the true number of home baking businesses may be even higher.

For bakers like Masters and Padilla, complying with the state’s regulations is relatively painless. Aspiring entrepreneurs need only pass a “food handler” course to learn common-sense information about food safety, hygiene and cross-contamination. Not only are these courses available online, home bakers can finish one in two hours and for as little as $8. Additionally, Texas requires cottage food businesses to properly package and label their products.

Under the first cottage food law (SB 81) passed back in 2011, Texans were limited to selling only baked goods, jams, jellies and dried herbs. But the state’s second cottage food law (HB 970), enacted September 1, 2013, redefined “cottage food” to make it more encompassing. Now Texans can legally create and sell candy, coated and uncoated nuts, fruit butters, cereal, dried fruits and vegetables, vinegar, pickles, mustard, roasted coffee and popcorn out of their homes. Moreover, HB 970 allows modern-day homesteaders to sell their treats at more locations, including at farmers’ markets, roadside stands and events like county fairs. Previously, the law only permitted selling out of the home directly to consumers.

With HB 970, Texas lawmakers also closed a loophole in the state’s first cottage food law. By enforcing zoning ordinances, local governments could essentially ban bakers from operating out of their homes. One woman in Frisco was told her home-based gluten-free bakery violated the town’s zoning laws. Now state law explicitly bans cities and counties from using zoning to stop cottage food businesses.