Poof that I actually delivered it.

My name is Peter Giessel. I was first moved to Anchorage when I was 6 weeks old.

I hope you are all here to do good.

This begs the question, "What is good and what is evil?"

Just as "legal" and "illegal" have no meaning apart from the law, "good" and "evil" lose all meaning apart from moral law. Just as no law exists without a law giving authority (such this assembly), there can be no moral law without a moral law giver. This nation's founding father's recognized this when they wrote that they were "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." Our founding fathers weren't appealing to British law, but to a higher law, a moral law. Laws of man, if they are just, are subservient to and in support of this moral law. Thus laws protecting property rights are in support of the moral law against theft. Laws against physically harming another are in support of the moral law which forbids murder and calls on us to love one another.

The same moral law giver who condemns murder and theft also condemns the practice of homosexuality.

In Romans Chapter 1, the Apostle Paul writes, "Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error."

Clearly the behavior described by Paul is contrary to the moral law given by God. Mandating acceptance of this behavior is therefore also clearly contrary to the moral law given by God. Laws that contradict the moral law can only be described as evil. Therefore, this proposed law can only be described as evil. As it is written in Job, "Behold, the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”

On the day of Judgment, God will judge all of us for our actions. However, you will be judged by the voters before that day comes. In a mere 287 days, the voters will judge if you have done evil or good here tonight. If you pass these changes, there will almost certainly be a ballot initiative to undo what you have done. It will drive many to the polls that will not have forgotten how you voted.

I hope you will vote wisely and see you in 287 days.

By the way, if you haven't seen either of the subject items and don't want spoilers, go away now.

One of the things that I've seen more and more is the premise that humans are basically good, but get corrupted by the civilization they create. One of the places this was evident was in the Battlestar series finale. Humans once again "started over", just the clothes on their back and a few supplies. The idea was that humanity was worth saving but their culture, their history, their civilization was not. In Knowing, the angel aliens or whatever they were saved a few of the children, but no sign of saving adults, presumably to save those who were uncorrupted. It seemed to me that like in Battlestar, although not stated quite a blatantly, the idea was to save humanity, but not human culture, history, or civilization.

The truth on the other hand, is exactly the opposite.

Romans 3 (KJV):

9What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;

10As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

11There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

12They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

13Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:

14Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

15Their feet are swift to shed blood:

16Destruction and misery are in their ways:

17And the way of peace have they not known:

18There is no fear of God before their eyes.

19Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

20Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Romans 5:

12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

13(For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

Paul makes it clear that through the law, we can know our sin and therefore know that we need a savior. Without the law there is no knowledge of sin. Sin is still present, but we do not know how offensive we are to God. So, by leaving behind the history and law of our civilization (which is still at its core based on the morality given by God), we would be giving up the only stabilizing influence to the lusts of the flesh (Romans 1:28-32). Rather than having a chance at a Utopian society as portrayed, the Bible makes it quite clear that the exact opposite would occur. This elevation of the goodness of man and the de-elevation of the importance of our true history and the law really rubs me the wrong way. While I enjoyed Battlestar as it had much to like (the entire show highlighted the depravity of man over and over, it annoyed me that they made an attempt to deny the depravity of man in the finale, although one could argue that they showed that their attempt to deny the depravity of man was unsuccessful based on the results of their experiment), I couldn't find anything redeeming in Knowing and in the end did not enjoy it.

Enough said.

First you form up the shape of the thing that you are going to make out of concrete. In this current case, its a 5 foot tall, 13 foot diameter circle. Next you put the required rebar into in. In this case, its #8 bars (1" diameter rebar). You put in ducts or sleeved post-tensioning strands as well. Then you pour the concrete. This is where the waiting game comes into play. When you pour the concrete, you take samples. You test these samples at various times to try to find out when the concrete gains enough strength to tension the rods. In this case, the specifications said that the concrete should obtain a strength of at least 6000 psi in 28 days. It also said that the concrete should obtain a strength of 5000 psi before you tension the rods. They screwed up the mix big time, so it will only obtain maybe 4500 psi in 28 days, meaning that it will probably never get to 5000 psi. At 5 days, the concrete had only obtained 3600 psi. So, we went back to the engineer who did the calcs, and asked, "what is the bare minimum you NEED, not how much you WANT". He said, the bare minimum he could accept is 4500 psi (OK) and the minimum we need for tensioning is 3000 psi.

Basically, as soon as we heard that, we realize that we could tension as soon as we could mobilize out there to do so. So, it was first available plane out there to tension the rods.

Tensioning the rods is VERY critical to the overall strength of the final product, so they needed an engineer's representative to be on-site to make sure they followed procedure. The tension on each rod (rock anchor in this case) is 240,000 pounds for this project. That is a lot of force on each rod.

The procedure for tensioning is very specific. The first rod should undergo the following: Tension to 45,000 pounds, measure the elongation, release to zero pounds, measure any residual elongation, tension to 45,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 90,000 pounds, measure the elongation, release to zero pounds, measure any residual elongation, tension to 45,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 90,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 135,000 pounds, measure the elongation, release to zero pounds, measure any residual elongation, tension to 45,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 90,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 135,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 180,000 pounds, measure the elongation, release to zero pounds, measure any residual elongation, tension to 45,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 90,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 135,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 180,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 217,000 pounds, measure the elongation, release to zero pounds, measure any residual elongation, tension to 45,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 90,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 135,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 180,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 217,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 240,000 pounds, measure the elongation, hold for 10 minutes, measuring the elongation every minute. If there is no additional elongation after ten minutes, lock off the load.

For every additional rod, tension to 45,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 90,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 135,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 180,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 217,000 pounds, measure the elongation, release to zero pounds, measure any residual elongation, tension to 45,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 90,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 135,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 180,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 217,000 pounds, measure the elongation, tension to 240,000 pounds, measure the elongation, hold for 10 minutes, measuring the elongation every minute. If there is no additional elongation after ten minutes, lock off the load.

The first rod then takes about an hour. The process of setting up the jack on each rod, then going through the loading, measuring, and locking off process on each additional rod takes more than 20 minutes per rod. The jack alone weighs something like 150 pounds, and is not the easiest thing to move.

Anyway, it takes time. Its not "waiting for concrete to cure", its tensioning rods. If I were waiting for concrete to cure, I would be there for days. Also if the concrete isn't strong enough, putting these kinds of loads onto the concrete would split it. That would be very dangerous to anyone within, I don't know... half a mile? When a one and three quarters inch rod that is holding 240,000 pounds lets go, lets just say that you don't want to be in the same zip code.

That isn't the only danger involved. There is also the crane over your head that they use to move the stupid jack around. There is also the danger of dropping one of the 50 pound wrenches on your toe. Ever seen a one and three quarter inch rod's nut? It ain't small. Not to mention flying around on dirt runways in a Cessna Caravan.

Well, enough ranting. Everyone should understand the basics of prestressing, and trust your engineers. And pay them more money. And pay them on time (GDM Architects, I'm looking in your direction).

MURPHY, WILLIAM
GRAND RAPIDS, MI 49506
THIRD DISTRICT

  MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC STATE CENTRAL COMMITEE
    01/07/1997 250.00 97032280300
    05/06/1997 250.00 97032280300

MURPHY, WILLIAM W
LANSING, MI 48910
SELF/CUSTODIAN

  AMERICA COMING TOGETHER
    09/25/2004 241.00 24962495624

Those are the only William or Bill Murphys in Michigan.

In 2004 I had the extreme honor to meet Tony Snow in person at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. From that short time meeting him, I can tell you that he was in person exactly the person you see on TV. As Rush Limbaugh said today on the radio, "He had the ability, be it from behind the microphone or from behind the camera, he was consistently genuine, he was totally authentic. There were no airs about the guy, and when you met Tony Snow from one day to the next, he was Tony Snow. He was never Tony Snow on television. He was never Tony Snow on radio. He was never Tony Snow at the White House briefing room and podium. He was just Tony Snow." Rush also said that Tony Snow "looked at death as a promotion." From what of his life I could see, I certainly believe that is true, and I will not be at all surprised when I get to Heaven to be able to shake his hand once again. This weekend we lost a truly great man and he will be missed.

A link, such as Peter's Crappy Page is done this way:
<a href="http://www.giessel.org/index.php/blog/category/1.html">Peter's Crappy Page</a>

A new paragraph can be created by using the break tag:
<br />

An image, such as:

Is technically done this way:
<img src="http://www.leela.ws/~leela/gallery/thumbs/702_1.png" style="width:120px;height:90px" alt="My Server" />
It can be simplified to:
<img src="http://www.leela.ws/~leela/gallery/thumbs/702_1.png" />

Bold text is done this way:
<b>Bolt text</b>

Italic text is done this way:
<i>Italic text</i>

Carrots need to be written this way: < = &lt;, > = &gt;

Lists (such as bulleted lists) need to be written as such:

• Item 1
• Item 2

<ul>      (unordered list - not numbered, aka bulleted)
<li>Item 1</li>
<li>Item 2</li>
</ul>      (don't forget the close tags)

- Legalize "hemp" (Marijuana)

- Repeal the: Patriot Act, Real ID act, and/or any other act used to fight terrorism

- Condemn the U.S. Military for participating in an "illegal" war

- Repeal the 16th Amendment to the US Constitution (which they contended was illegal anyway)

- Remove the party chair

The legalize "hemp" arguments were especially interesting. We were told the following:

- Genesis 1 requires the use of hemp (as it is a green plant - totally ignoring Genesis 3 where weed is the result of sin).

- The oil industry is repressing hemp because they know that:

(A) its biomass is so much higher than corn it would replace oil if it could be used for ethanol production

(B) cars can be powered by water (zero point energy - like in Stargate Atlantis)

- Would you deny his grandmother the only relief that works for him? (yes)

The removal of the party chair was interesting too, especially when they started trying to shout down the parliamentarian and tell him he was wrong. That was especially entertaining, and drove more people away from their cause(s) than anything else that they did.

It turns out that they thought (for some unknown reason) that I was one of their supporters, so about the fourth time that I voted against one of their stupid pet causes in the judiciary committee that I was a part of, they started shouting at me, "Way to go Ron Paul supporter! What do you think you are doing voting that way? I'll have to tell our guy that you are opposing us!" To which I replied, "What makes you think I'm a Ron Paul supporter?" They replied, "Our guy told us you were." I told them Ron Paul was my last choice, so they started taunting me as a McCain supporter, to which I shrugged and said that I support him more than Paul, so they flipped me off repeatedly the rest of convention. The level of maturity was overwhelming.

All in all, rather entertaining, but annoying at the same time.