November 13, 2010

Pinedale Wyoming Recreation Information

PINEDALE WYOMING • Sublette County in Western Wyoming is the gateway to the Wind River Mountains, the Upper Green River Valley, The Gros Ventre Range, and the Wyoming Range that includes two rugged wilderness areas, the spectacular Bridger Wilderness and Gros Ventre Wilderness are pristine unspoiled places where man is only a visitor. Over 1300 lakes, including Fremont Lake and Half Moon Lake dot the region and are said to be some of the best trout fishing outside Alaska. Throughout Sublette County you will find spectacular scenery, wildlife, fishing, hiking, horseback riding, photography, and so many more exciting adventure opportunities.

F

This rural farming and ranching valley have only about 7,000 residents throughout 4883 square miles. The county is 80% public land including Bureau of Land Management, State, and the Bridger-Teton National Forest.
Fishing here is legendary The New Fork River starts high in the Wind River Range as a glacial stream before flowing into the New Fork Lakes, just north of Pinedale. From the lakes, it flows as a small stream down the Green River Valley and behind the town of Pinedale. While it widens after merging with Duck Creek, it is still a small, stream that provides excellent habitat for German Brown Trout. The Green River starts as a small glacial stream high in the Wind River Mountains. Like the New Fork River, it dumps from the glaciers into a pair of large lakes in the northern region of the Winds and emerges suddenly as a fast-flowing, freestone river with a deep emerald color that appropriately gives the Green its name. As it flows through the valley, it widens, slows, and begins to wind its way south. The good bank structure provides holding ground for wild Brown Trout, while the freestone qualities created at the headwaters hold a strong population of hard-fighting Rainbow Trout. Many high mountain lakes of the Wind River Range are home to five-pound golden trout and the morainel lakes at the base of the Wind River Mountains are home to many giant Lake Trout. Due to the afore mentioned plethora of wildlife The Green River Valley is a hunters nirvana.
Average summer temperatures are in the 70s-80s and winter about 15 degrees F. Average rainfall is about ten inches per year. Pinedale is your base camp for adventure into the beautiful Wind River Mountains, and right on the way to Yellowstone National Park, the Tetons and Jackson Hole!Gannet Peak is the highest mountain peak in Wyoming and has 5 rugged glaciers on its flank, the largest glaciers in the American Rocky Mountains. It is remote and considered an exciting alpine mountaineering challenge due to its inaccessibility and moderate difficulty. This trip is best tackled by experienced climbers with great stamina well acclimated to high elevations. Gannett Peak is the longest round trip of any climb, including Danali in Alaska. The hike is at least 40 miles roundtrip and an almost 9,000 foot vertical climb.
Whether you are searching for golden trout, bagging Gannett Peak, plotting a new route up Pingora in the Cirque of the Towers, or just heading in for a quick day hike to enjoy the beautiful wildflowers, you are sure to find this area to be a special place, and will want to return again and again. If you're looking for fewer crowds, western hospitality, and fantastic scenery consider visiting the Upper Green River Valley.

Learn More About Pinedale Wyoming's Recreation Opportunities in the Wind River Mountains

October 28, 2010

Yellowstone Wolf Photo Gallery


Yellowstone Wolf Photo Gallery
















A Photo Gallery about Yellowstone Wolves. Perhaps more than any other member of the animal kingdom, wolves have historically played the villain's role. Misperceptions about wolves have abounded for centuries, historically, cultures worldwide, believed that wolves were so aggressive that they posed a risk to humans but, ironically, wolves are wary of humans because man has been killing wolves for millennia. Folklore is littered with proverbs and metaphors about this fearsome carnivore, from Peter and the Wolf in Russia to the wolf’s mysticism in Native American culture; wolves have long been a powerful symbol. Even today, wolves engender excitement merely at the possibility of an appearance on the wilderness stage. Wolves nearly disappeared from the west by the early 1900s. In 1930, a federal agent killed the last indigenous gray wolf of Yellowstone. In 1933, the Yellowstone adopted a policy, limiting the unnecessary killing of predators in the park, but it was too late for Yellowstone’s wolf. Since then a conceptual evolution has taken place, in 1972, ideas of restoring the wolf to the Yellowstone eco-system, to restore endemic biodiversity, began to circulate. A new philosophy of wildlife management took root when the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, Consequently, wolves were listed as an endangered species in the United States. As part of a recovery plan the Fish and Wildlife Service, recommended introducing an experimental population of wolves into Yellowstone National Park. The plan included special regulations that took effect in November 1994, outlining how wolves would be managed as a nonessential experimental population under section ten of the Endangered Species Act.

October 23, 2010

Wyoming Landscape Photos

A photo portfolio of the Wyoming Landscape mostly in the Greatet Yellowstone vicinity including Jackson Hole, Cody, the Wind River Valley and Pinedale Wyoming and their mountians including the Grand Tetons, the Wind River Range, the Gros Ventre Range, the Wyoming Range, the Snake River Range and the Absaroka Mountain Range.




Montana Landscape Photos

Scenic photos of the Montana Landscape including, the Yellowstone, Gallatin, Boulder and Madison Rivers, Fall Colors, The Gallatin Range, the Absaroka Mountains, ranching heritage and more. Active lifestyle and farming photos and wildlife will be found in other catagories.Montana Landscape




October 17, 2010

Idaho Photo Portfolio


A photo portfolio of Idaho mostly from Teton Valley, Swan Valley, Island Park and the Idaho Falls Region. These valleys are home to the Grand Tetons, the Snake River Range, the Bighole Mountains, Centennial Mountains and their rivers, the Teton, Henry’s Fork of the Snake, the South Fork of the Snake River. The portfolio also includes photos from the rest Idaho including the Sawtooth Range of Stanley Idaho and Lost River Range of Mackey.


August 21, 2010

The US standard railroad gauge



The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England , and English expatriates designed the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in   England , because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels.

Since the chariots were made for Imperial   Rome , they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with this?' , you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)


Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in  Utah

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything... and
CURRENT Horses Asses in Washington are controlling everything else

August 09, 2010

Smelling The Flowers

A grizzly Bear forages south of Yellowstone National Park.

August 05, 2010

Buck having Lupin Lunch


"Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder."




"Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder." Arnold J. Toynbee 

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul , Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning last November's Presidential election: 


Number of States won by: Obama: 19 McCain: 29

Square miles of land won by: Obama: 580,000 McCain: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million McCain: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Obama: 13.2 McCain: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory McCain won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.

 Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase. 
 If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegals - and they vote - then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years. 

 If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message.

If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

August 04, 2010

Cutting Hay, Jackson Hole, Wyoming

A Jackson Hole farmer rushes to get his hay put up before looming thunderstorm damages the crop. Although a beautiful scene I bet this farmer had other things on his mind besides pretty farmscapes.

Many Rocky Mountain ranchers move their cattle to the national forests in the mountains so they can grow hay on their property so the cows will have something to eat when they come out of the mountains for the winter. The cowboys of the west are under assault because many don't like to see their cows on public land. I have written a couple of articles articulating the problem.

If the Western Watersheds Project and other anti grazing organizations has its was ranchers like these will be put out of business and these wonderful green spaces will be lost to development.

The Public Grazing Conundrum

The Cowboy: an endangered species

July 16, 2010

Trout Lake, Yellowstone National Park


This serene and beautiful lake is accessible via a short hike through the forest. It is a steep 1/2-mile trail through a Douglas fir forest leads to the lake. Trout lake sits in a depression on a high bench above the Soda Butte Creek Canyon south of Cooke City. Formerly known as Fish Lake and Soda Butte Lake this 12-acre gem is a popular backcountry lake for hikers and anglers.

Upon reaching the lake you can take a nice easy walk around it with great views in every direction. Mount Hornaday is seen behind the lake and in spring to early summer will sometimes have a waterfall on the side. 10,003 foot Mount Hornaday was named in 1938 for naturalist William Temple Hornaday, a former director of the New York Zoological Gardens who championed the cause of saving the American Bison from extinction.


A River Otter Family takes in a little sun between fishing expeditions into Trout Lake.
Many River Otters frequent the lake that are quite used to people making them very easy to photograph and observe. Otters are known for their playfulness, exhibiting behaviors such as mud/snow sliding, burrowing through the snow, and water play. Many "play" activities actually serve a purpose. Some are used to strengthen social bonds, to practice hunting techniques, and to scent mark. North American river otters get their boundless energy from their very high metabolism, which also requires them to eat a great deal during the day. Trout Lake’s otters may be a bigger reason for the popularity of the lake than the fishing.

Trout Lake has always been popular with anglers for its large (14-20") Cutthroat trout and very large (20-30") Rainbow trout and Rainbow/Cutthroat Hybrids. In the early days of Yellowstone, Trout Lake was used as a fish hatchery to transplant fish to other parts of the park. There is a small wooden bridge over the inlet of the lake. In early summer you will see trout spawning here.
fisherman, Trout Lake, Yellowstone National Park
Woman fly-fisherman trying to land a fish at Trout Lake
The lake can be easily fished from the shoreline, however, many fishermen use float tubes to access the deeper parts of the lake. Using a float tube on Yellowstone lakes requires a park service boating permit. The lake opens for fishing in mid June, but a section of the lake near the inlet stream is closed until mid-July to protect spawning Cutthroat trout, but the otters can’t read the sign. All Cutthroat trout and Cutthroat/Rainbow hybrids caught in Trout Lake must be released.
Fishing permits are required at Yellowstone Park and can be purchased at all park ranger stations, visitor centers, or Yellowstone Park General Stores. All adults and kids 16 and up are required to purchase a $15 three-day permit, a $20 seven-day permit or a $35 season permit. Children under 15 may fish without a permit if they are fishing under the direct supervision of an adult who has a valid park fishing permit, or they can obtain a free permit signed by a responsible adult; with this permit, a child can fish without direct adult supervision.

Spawning Trout
Hikers, Trout Lake
A trout going up the stream above the lake to spawn
Hikers, Mount Hornaday, Trout Lake
Boy jumping Stream

June 11, 2010

New Daryl L. Hunter - Photo Gallery

New Photo Gallery http://www.daryl-hunter.com


When I was a wander lusting young man I would often find myself in beautiful places, so I bought a camera so I could document my wanderlust.

1n 1987 I packed up my Toyo 4X5 view camera, Pentex 6X7 medium format camera, and my 35-millimeter cameras and headed to 
Jackson Hole Wyoming, one of the best places on earth to be an outdoor photographer.

Jackson Hole is full of active lifestyle types, fly-fishing, hunting, whitewater sports, horseback riding, etc. I became a freelance guide as well, fly-fishing, snowmobile, park tour guiding, and horseback wrangling my way to beautiful pictures all over the area and throughout the spectrum of activities in the area.

Jackson Hole abuts Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park an embarrassment of riches for wildlife and scenic photography.

My freelance photography bifurcated to include graphic design work, which opened the door to web publishing requiring that I learned to write. I publish 
The Greater Yellowstone Resource Guide.

My photographs have been published by National Geographic, Outside Magazine, Snow Country, Outdoor life, International Wolf Magazine, Esquire Sports, West Coast Board Sailor, Warren Miller Productions, U.S.A. Today, San Francisco Magazine, Fly-fisherman, Beet, a Belgian fishing magazine and Fit For Fun a German sports Magazine.

I am proficient with small, medium, large format photography. As a stock photographer my photos have been used in hundreds of brochures, rack cards, newspapers, and websites promoting the Greater Yellowstone area and beyond. Today I shoot exclusively with my Canon EOS D5 Mark ll, its 21-megapixel censor can produce Tiff files of 60 megabytes, a size that can reproduce very large prints, or provide the opportunity for cropping tight and still having plenty of resolution to work with.

I have been working with Photoshop extensively since 1995 and am proficient with photo manipulation and montage. Today my photo management system is Aperture by Apple; it is superb at color correction with the added benefit of photo database management.

Education: Independent study of photography and digital design:

Photography has more pay offs than monetary. It drives us to search out pretty places or to dissect our surroundings to find it where we are. It makes us seek out beautiful things even in adverse conditions. Wherever we go we are looking for a beautiful rectangle we can isolate out of the chaos of life, when you are always seeking beauty, you will find more than your share - that is rich.

April 29, 2010

The Hole Picture Safaris - Yellowstone Tours

Bull Elk, Fulld Moon
The Hole Picture Safaris are more than just a wildlife safari company; we also do national park tours of Yellowstone and Grand Teton Parks. We do photography tours that cater to photographers and get them to the pretty spots when the light is good or to where the wildlife is active. Our Wildlife Safaris strive to show you as much of Yellowstone and Grand Tetons‚ megafana as possible in the allotted amount of time. Custom tours are available for those who have a different idea of what they want to see or do, ideas that coalesce between the minds of the tour contractee and tour contractor.


Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is the last remaining large, nearly intact ecosystem in the northern temperate zone of the Earth and is only partly located in Yellowstone National Park. The Greater Yellow Ecosystem is one of the world's foremost natural laboratories in landscape ecology and geology and is a world-renowned recreational site The Greater Yellowstone Region is a huge place, Yellowstone Park is 2.2 million acres but its whole eco-system is about 10 million acres, much of it drop dead beautiful and much of it deserves to be seen as much as Grand Teton and Yellowstone Parks.

Our region is gifted with an embarrassment of riches scenic of splendor accented with a plethora of wildlife. Hole Picture Safaris will show you where to find what you hope for as well as many things you never knew of.
All tours provide natural resource information including information about our wolves, grizzly bears, mountain goats, black bears, mule deer, elk, bison etc. We also provide information about our mountains, lakes, rivers, trout streams, National Forests and National Parks. Our natural history orations are not to be outdone by our tales of human history.

Go To Website

April 28, 2010

The Hole Picture - Photography

where is Jackson HoleThe Hole Picture got its name because I do most of my photography in and around Jackson Hole Wyoming, hence the name.

To buy photographic prints the Gallery Print button will take you to my ImageKind Storefront my purveyor can handle sales of simple prints you can frame yourself to massive framed and glazed pieces of art suitable for professional buildings or elegant homes. Imagekind makes custom framing easy. They offer over 160 frames and 140 mats from the best manufacturers in the world. Whether it is a simple black frame, a gilded silver delight or a rustic looking cherry, you can find something to make your gallery print pop and ImageKind provides real-time digital representations complete with what it will look like on your wall.
I lead Photo Safaris around the Greater Yellowstone Region Follow the Photo Safari Link too learn more about them.

January 26, 2010

Native Wisdom?

The old Cherokee chief sat in his reservation hut
 smoking the ceremonial pipe and eyeing the two US
 government officials sent to interview him.

"Chief Two Eagles," one official began, "you have
 observed the white man for many generations, you have
 seen his wars and his products, you have seen all his
progress and all his problems."

 The chief nodded.

The official continued, "Considering recent events, in
 your opinion where has the white man gone wrong?"

The chief stared at the government officials for over
 a minute, and then calmly replied:
 "When white man found this land Indians were running
it. No taxes. No debt. Plenty buffalo. Plenty
 beaver. Women did most of the work. Medicine man
 free. Indian men hunted and fished all the time."
The chief smiled and added quietly, "White man dumb
 enough to think he could improve system like that."

January 12, 2010

All About 1988 Yellowstone Fires


Compiled, plegerized and pseudo authorized by Daryl L. Hunter


A lodgepole seedling has the opportunity to sprout because the seeds were released by fire
Fire is good; Yellowstone has long been shaped by fire and not just the cool, creeping ground fires often described as "good" for grass production. The natural history of fire in the park includes large-scale conflagrations sweeping across the park's vast volcanic plateaus, hot, wind-driven fires torching up the trunks to the crowns of the pine and fir trees at several hundred-year intervals. It is supposed to be this way. During the first half of the twentieth century, most people, forest managers included considered forest fires to be destructive and without positive value. For this reason, Yellowstone and throughout the National Park Service had a policy of putting out all fires on national interest wildlands lands. In the second half of the century, forest managers of national parks and forests began to understand the importance of periodic wildland fires. With the help of Smokey the Bear most of America was in consensus that all wildfires were bad. Most Americans steeped in Smokey the Bear's "Only you can prevent forest fires!" mantra, the very thought that forest fires might have a positive side seemed preposterous. We all learned this as children and it is damned hard to change, as our indoctrination to this policy was total. Unfortunately man’s past practice of total forest fire suppression has changed the forest into a much shadier forest floor habitat causing heavy fuel accumulation on the forest floor resulting in the very hot forest fires we see lately that result in maximum loss of the forest. The Natural Burn Policy The National Park Service interprets its mission as letting natural processes play out unimpeded by man. Biologists and park managers have defined its policy: "We allow a park that has documented the role of fire as a natural part of the ecosystem, and that has an approved fire-management plan specifying the prescriptions under which natural fires may burn, to manage each fire on an individual basis."

The "prescribed-fire" approach, which allows fires to burn under certain previously defined conditions called "prescriptions"), has evolved as federal policy since the 1970s, and it was just a matter of time before a prescribed fire consumed some wildland dear to the public's heart. And in a way, it's appropriate, because Yellowstone has both the largest area and one of the most ecologically progressive fire-management plans of any parcel of public land in the contiguous United States.

What has become known as the “D” words: death, defoliation, demise, desolation, destruction, and devastation, are often used to character assassinate the fires that actually are an integral part of the life cycle of the park and the terms and references make biologists with knowledge of biological fire science shutter because of the ignorance peddling.--------------------------------> Rest of Essay

December 08, 2009

Christmas Present

By Daryl L. Hunter
Growing up as a child in America, as all children, I loved the Christmas season, the Christmas tree, lights, lawn decorations, candy, mistletoe, cookies, Santa Claus, elves, reindeer and most of all presents, it was a magical time of year.


It sure was a surprise at age 12 when I found out that Christ was the root word in Christmas, my secular home had never pointed out the connection. Today I remain more secular than anything else and I question myself, why do I get so flipping angry when ACLU types are trying to remove all vestiges of Christmas from the public square when I am not religious.


The answer must be, the homogenization of Christmas is just another symptom of the dismemberment of traditional American Culture, another victim of the Culture War, call me old fashioned but I liked the America of Christmas past, the time of the singular Scrooge. Today Christmas to me is a lot less about presents and more about turkey, tom and jerrys with friends, family and tradition, but embarrassingly with only a perfunctory explanation and observation of the meaning of Christmas to the kids.


When Christmas retailers insult the patrons of their biggest season by removing the Christmas greeting it makes me want to not buy, when I was told that a member of the Start Bus Board forbade the drivers from displaying the Merry Christmas programmed into their electric signs I was outraged, When Christmas trees became holliday trees I was apoplectic.


I have a hunch that the ACLU and their minions are offending more than just their sworn enemies, the Christian right. If their goal is "not to offend" it is a fool's errand as it is an impossible task because to accommodate the 15% of Americans who are not Christian you have a remaining 85% at risk of being offended as an unintended consequence. If their goal is to offend, they have aspired to a goal they have a gift for achieving.


My hope is my 8 and 11 year olds find the magic in Christmas that I had the privilege to enjoy as a child; I hope it is still possible in this increasingly divisive and hostile social climate. As for me and many others I suppose, I have had a giant intangible stolen from me by the secular leftists of the ACLU and their Christophobe allies and my Christmas's will never be the same.


All the people of the western world are going to have a Christmas on 12-25 of every year, most will have a day off from work whether they celebrate Christmas or not. It stands to reason that a Muslim, Jew or atheist would celebrate an extra day off so merry Christmas to you all.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


I originally wrote this in 2006 for a Jackson Hole newspaper "Planet Jackson Hole" but it is a Christmas tradition of mine to repost it every year here on my blog.
Maybe with some additions ~
The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Jackson Lake sunset, the ice is nearly all gone hinting the promise of Spring. A promise of a sunset that fell short is symbolic of the many false promises of summer we get during our cold and wet Springs.  I filtered this photo to give it a softer, more pleasing feel.

November 26, 2009

General Thanksgiving By the PRESIDENT 10/3/1789

http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/imgs/washington%20praying.jpg

General Thanksgiving
By the PRESIDENT
of the United States of America
A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANKSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

AND ALSO, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

George Washington
Web Bug from http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/pocatelloteaparty/~4/EKQRllbOmOg

November 15, 2009

October 31, 2009

Billy Graham's Prayer For Our Country


THIS MAN SURE HAS A GOOD VIEW OF WHAT'S HAPPENING TO OUR COUNTRY!

'Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable. We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem. We have abused power and called it politics. We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Amen!'