Dry Tea

Camping with Urge

2011-09-25T23:27:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, we went camping with some friends and Lilly’s mom up at Ray Robert Lake State Park. It was blast, and we had a great campsite. It was also our debut camping experience with Urge, the VW Camper Bus. The new popup tent worked great, and the original freestanding side tent turned out to be great, too! We were actually really shocked at how good it’s condition was. Here are some pictures.

More Photos of Urge

2011-09-07T14:54:00.001-05:00

I thought I would upload some newer pictures of the Camper Bus as we have been working on it. These are from this past Saturday when we were installing the new poptop tent material.

This last one is an autostitch.

Urge, the 40 year old camper

2011-06-24T10:18:00.001-05:00

We have a new car!

Well, new + 40 years...

We have Aunt Joy and Uncle Stan's old Volkswagen Campmobile.

We are working on cleaning it up and restoring it. It's very cool.

It's in pretty good shape, too. (considering it is 40 years old!). Engine runs well. The old pop up canvas is falling apart from age, and so is some of the interior lining and seat cushions. The paint is also showing some age with various scratches, etc.

All in all though, it is in prime condition for restoration. :)

Car fun (not) - Part 3

2011-05-14T05:27:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, I gave up, and we brought our car to Christian Brothers Automotive to get some diagnostic assistance. I am generally skeptical of automotive garages, but I had heard a couple of good stories from this one. So, I thought I'd try them out.

From the very beginning, I had reason to be skeptical. The guy I was speaking to seemed convinced that I was trying to deny him and his mechanic work by bringing my car to get diagnosed by them. I'm not sure how that makes sense unless one assumes that I only have 2 choices, diagnostic or full repair. I actually had a third choice: I could not come at all. Therefore, by coming, period, I am providing business they would not otherwise have had. I'm still annoyed about his faulty logic.

Anyways, I bring it in for diagnosis. By the end of the afternoon, I'm expecting to be able to come and pick it up. Nope. They're not finished. So, I have to wait until today. Finally, I am needing to have some kind of clue as to what is going on. So, I call them. "I was just about to call you," he says. "Let me call you in about twenty minutes. I am with a customer." So, I wait. He call. He informs me that he can completely fix my car for only $1,300. My eyes are almost bug out of my head. That's way beyond my budget. It's totally outside of my price range. I tell him that's impossible. So, he tries to convince me that he can partially fix it for ~$800. That's still way outside my price range, and, frankly, I am not wanting him to fix it. I just want to know what's wrong. So, he starts giving me a lecture about how I'm denying him business and his guy has put in a ton of hours already and what was I expecting anyways? I'm starting to get fed up here. This is ridiculous. After all, I was upfront with him from the beginning. I never planned to have them fix my car. Well, then he tells I can come pick it up and pay nothing, but they won't tell me what's wrong with it. I'm flabbergasted. I explain to him: $800, let alone $1,300 is just totally impossible, and I reiterate that I never wanted them to fix the car, just to tell me what's wrong. I explain I'm not trying to rob him. I actually planned all along to pay for this work. So, he tells me a new price. This is the price to know what is wrong with the car: $522. That is the absolute upper limit of what I'm able to afford. What am I going to do now? Let them waste their time and mine? I did try asking ahead of time what kind of charges I would be looking at, with no definite answer. I even told him ahead of time that I couldn't afford hundreds of dollars to do this. This price was sick. Still, I was desperate. And, so, feeling a bit intimidated and worried about my car, I agreed to the $522.

In retrospect, I am glad to have found out what was wrong. Apparently, we had received some defective part from Autozone. This included an incorrect AND defective EGR Valve. It also included the wrong distributor cap and rotor combination, something which led to the rotor rubbing a groove into the top of the distributor cap. Very sad. Also, apparently, the fuel pump on the car was bad along with the distributor itself and the catalytic converter.

Tonight, my dad and I got to work and affected some repairs. Now, the suburban has a new fuel pump, the correct EGR valve, and a new distributor with a new cap and rotor. Success. She is purring like a kitten again. It makes me very happy. We still have some stuff to do. Mainly the catalytic converter and the power steering (something we've been meaning to do but have been postponing). At least my car is working again.

And, so, with that done, completed at 4:15 AM, and with it now being more than an hour later (5:26 AM), I say goodnight.

My truck is working again.

Praise the Lord!

Car fun (not) - Part 2

2011-05-11T01:10:00.001-05:00

So, now I can add the following to my list of remedial measures undertaken to repair my car in the previous post:
-Replaced the Throttle Body (TBI) gasket, cleansed the assembly, and completely unblocked a nasty caked port on it that went to the pcv valve.
-Replaced the Intake Manifold Gaskets. (Big job)
-Replaced Valve Cover Baskets
-Replaced the Purge Canistor Valve Solenoid
-Discovered that the vacuum pressure, which should be up between 17-22" Hg on a healthy engine, is actually closer to 8-10" Hg on mine. Can't figure out why, but we're pretty sure that's a big part of the problem. It's fluctuating a bit, too.
-Replaced the Thermostat Gasket (really a result of the Intake Manifold Gasket getting done)
-Replaced the fuel line o-rings on the Throttle Body (also a result of the Intake Manifold Gasket and the the Throttle Body cleaning, etc.)
-Replaced the PCV valve and hose.
-Performed a cylinder compression test. All cylinders are within operational bounds. The pressure is supposed to be about 150 psi with up to 20 psi variance between cylinders. Driver's side averaged about 165 with a high of 75 and a low of, I believe, 155. Passenger side averaged lower at around 160 or 155 with a high of 165 and a low of 145. This is good news as we were starting to worry about a cracked head or block or even a blown head gasket.

Not sure where to go from here. Diagnostic data doesn't seem to be giving us too many clues. We know that, around idle, the fuel/air mixture becomes fuel rich and the fuel injector "pulse width" (I'm not 100% sure what that means) spikes. This in addition to the vacuum testing I mention above. Do we delve into the fuel system from here? Measure fuel pressure? What about diagnosing vacuum on the purge canister and it's connection to the fuel tank? Is that the right direction? Maybe we should continue throwing money at it blindly, buy more part. I could imagine buying a purge canister, new fuel injectors, a fuel pressure regulator, and even a fuel pump. Why not throw in the fuel relay while we're at it?

Of course, I don't have the money to blow on these things. So, what to do? Tomorrow, I may bite the bullet and take the car to a shop. I'm thinking about Christian Brothers Automotive Repair. I've heard good things about them. Even so, I have an intense phobia of taking my car(s) into any shop. Praying for the Lord's guidance and provision along with some answers. Please pray also.

Here's some pictures from the last couple of days:

Car fun (not)

2011-05-08T02:00:00.001-05:00

My '95 suburban has been acting rather strange lately. I was experiencing a loss of power during acceleration, and it was stalling at stop signs. So, we have been trying to solve the problem. Now, we're about $400 later, and we've done the following:
-Fixed the THERMAC sensor
-Replaced two Temperature Sensors on the engine
-Tested the TPS (Throttle Position Sensor) (it was fine)
-Replaced the Spark Plugs
-Replaced the Spark Plug Wires
-Replaced the Distributor cap
-Replaced the Rotor
-Replaced the Ignition Module
-Replaced the Ignition Coil
-Replaced the Pickup Coil
-Replaced the MAP (Manifold Air Pressure) Sensor
-Replaced the ECM/ECC (Engine Control Module/Engine Control Computer)
-Replaced the EGR Valve
-Replaced the Oxygen Sensor
-Replaced the IAC (Idle Air Control) Valve
-Built an OBD 1 ALDL Serial cable to diagnose the engine with from scratch
-Checked for Vacuum Leaks (none found so far)

At this point, we've cleared all trouble codes, and seem to have narrowed the problem down to the idle. The car has power again when accelerating. But, when idling, the mixture becomes too rich, and the car stalls (We know this from running the diagnostic software on it, which is really cool). I'm sick with frustration. What do we do now? It's a TBI (Throttle Body Injection) system. The next steps I can think of are to check for vacuum leaks again, maybe disassemble and clean the TBI "carburetor" unit itself, and check the EST (Electronic Spark Timing) wiring for continuity and resistance problems. Any thoughts?

Concerning the death of Osama Bin Laden

2011-05-02T23:12:00.001-05:00

Concerning Bin Laden, what should the appropriate Christian reaction be?

My Greek professor asked us that question in class tonight, and then pretty much gave the same answer I've been thinking through since the news came:

We should not rejoice that a soul is (pretty certainly) lost forever to the fire and torment of Hell. We can rejoice that justice has been carried out, and that terrorism may have been dealt a temporarily crippling blow, but we should never rejoice, no matter how wicked the individual, when a soul is lost forever to Hell. Our testimony as Christians must recount this. For, in the eyes of God, we are no better than Bin Laden (a sinner and an enemy of God) save for the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.

Do I actually delight in the death of the wicked, declares the sovereign LORD? Do I not prefer that he turn from his wicked conduct and live?
- Ezekiel 18:23 (NET)

Another Dog Attack

2011-03-30T00:23:00.001-06:00

Another dog attack on the cats in our hood. This time it was another nameless stray that got hit. They got her pretty bad before I chased them off, and her rear legs and end were no longer functioning. Animal Control came and got her, and they're going to put her down. It makes me so angry that these dogs keep getting away with this.

I keep praying that it won't be Iggy or Bellah (the two outside cats we look after) next.

Oh, and these were the same dogs that got the mother cat from my previous post and Buttercup a couple of years ago.

Yup.

Kittens

2011-03-27T01:08:00.004-06:00

I am writing this from the tail end of a long day.

I woke up this morning to a text from our downstairs neighbor, Sean, saying that there was a dead cat in the front yard. Needless to say this was a chilling thought. But, even more chilling, was the question in my head of whether or not it was a cat we knew or a cat we didn't know. Lilly looked first. She confirmed one of my fears. "It looks like the momma cat", she said. I knew which cat she meant.

A week or so ago, while Lilly's mother was in town (Mutti), we discovered a cat and her litter hiding in a corner of our back yard. We gave her some food, and we checked in on her every few hours during the day to make sure she was okay.

Then, she seemed to vanish. Her kittens did, too. We wondered what had happened to them, and then she showed up again on her own. We fed her, and we suspected that she might have stowed her kittens under Sean's car. However, we didn't look.

As I looked out over our balcony this morning, I knew what I was seeing. I didn't want it to be true, but there she was. We hadn't even given her a name yet, and she'd only just began trusting us enough that we could get close to petting her. I think she actually let Lilly pet her. Now, she was dead.

We would learn later, from our other downstairs neighbors, that two dogs were responsible. This brought back bitter memories. Judging by the descriptions, these were the same dogs that killed Buttercup a couple of years ago. (I believe I wrote about that incident on here already) Here, it seems, they had killed again. Oh, I hate those dogs!

We buried her next to Buttercup, our hearts heavy. Then, as we dumped the shovels underneath the back stairs, we went to look for the kittens. We didn't know if we would find them. We didn't have to look long. Lilly quickly found one between Sean and Marks car in the grass. I hadn't even made it over there yet! She handed the little one to me, and then she looked under Sean's car. There it was! A second one! Both were still alive, but obviously still dependent on a mother who wasn't coming back. We took them upstairs. Lilly watched them while I went to Petsmart to buy some formula and kitty bottles. While I was gone, she spoke to Mutti, who remembered there being a third kitten. When I got back, Lilly looked again, and found her. This was the saddest of the three. She bore a puncture mark on her chest, obviously from one of the dogs. It wasn't big, but we were worried. Neither of us were holding out much hope.

I spent the next 3 hours watching and trying to nurse them while Lilly had to go to a party.

They were so tiny. They all seemed to have a bit of strength in them, but I was really worried because I couldn't get them to eat much, and I couldn't get them to poop properly. (You're apparently supposed to rub their bellies and genitals with a warm, wet cotton swab to simulate their mother's tongue) Nothing was working.

Lilly came back from the party, Mark came over, and we (mostly Mark) started calling animal shelters. It was becoming quickly obvious to me that we needed to find these kitties some professional help or else one or more of them would die.

I think this one was Lilly's favorite.

This one was the man of the litter.

This one was the one that was injured.

Eventually, we settled on the city's Animal Control. They had veterinarians on staff, and, it turned out, they had an employee with experience who was willing to foster the kittens!! They told us that the kittens were just old enough to be weaned. That's a good thing. They also told us that even the little injured one has a good amount of hope. The wound didn't look too serious. That was an even better thing! Finally, they assured us that, due to the age and apparent health of the kittens, they would almost certainly be snagged by one of the local animal shelters to be adopted out. That made us very happy. Next week, we'll even be able to call in and find out what happened to them. We're hoping and praying they eventually end up with good homes!

From there the day stayed long, but got much more boring. I've been studying Egyptian history all evening for class. I won't bore you with the details though. So, instead, here are some more pictures of the kittens posing with Lilly. :)

Τό Τέλος

2011-03-07T01:49:00.001-06:00

The word 'τέλος' was part of my vocab in Greek this week. It means "end". Thus 'Τό Τέλος' means 'The End'. There's no meaning here for this post in saying that. It just seemed like a cool phrase. I wonder if it appears at the end of Greek movies..

I've been trying to push through the mental barriers that my ADD puts in front of me and get my studying done. It's difficult though. At times like this, I can run through the paces, but all I'm processing is a blur. I'm hoping I remember enough from our chapter on 3rd declension nouns to get an A on the quiz tomorrow (Monday) night. It's probably vain and prideful of me, but I'm aiming for an A+ in Greek this semester. To complicate matters, I've got a test in my Ancient World class on Tuesday that I'm also preparing for.

For most of my life, I have been a mediocre, at best, student. It's not because I'm unintelligent. Surprisingly, I am probably pretty smart. The problem has always been one of not caring and, as a result, just slipping by. After more than ten years of being outside the classroom, I have returned with an intention to succeed. I've been doing okay so far, but my biggest obstacles are in establishing the kinds of study habits that lead to success. I am desiring an A. I am aiming for a high GPA. I hope that, although I sense some vanity in it, this desire will help drive me to excellence.

I think I am really at the right school. I don't remember if I have mentioned it on here before, but I am attending Criswell College, pursuing a BA of Biblical Studies. The more I get to talk to my professors, the more I enjoy it. They're really cool and genuine people. I went through a spiritual disciplines class last semester along with Greek. As part of the spiritual disciplines class, we had to go through Matthew 5-7, memorizing key words. It forced us to be exposed in a repetitive fashion to the text. I found myself meditating on it frequently. The text in question concerns the sermon in the mount. This meditation on this text was really good. It has challenged me, and I'm still leaning the depth of that challenge.

In other parts of life, it has been a tough year. We've already gone through 2 or 3 deaths in our family, close ones. Additionally, at our church, which is small and therefore pretty close knit, we have also been experiencing several deaths and poignant moments of suffering. I feel so much that I can't say for those who are going through so much right now. I find it important to remember though that we are called to worship, even in times of suffering and trial. We are called to persevere. And, we are called to pray. We must pray, and we must do so, remembering that our God is real, the one true God, who gave so much for us and suffered so much for us, and who loves us and loves to give good gifts to us. Being so, we wonder how he can allow us to suffer like this. Yet, even as we grieve, we must pray. And, as we pray, we must remember also that our God is the one who spoke the world into being with a "fiat", a command. We have, and we have a promise of things to come.

So, I leave you now with this song. It showed up on Pandora for me tonight, and I think it speaks well of this topic:

Casting Crowns - Praise You In This Storm

Would You Deny Christ to Save the Life of Your Child?

2011-03-03T00:43:00.004-06:00

"Would you be willing to die for Christ if it meant no one would know your name and no one would remember it? Would you be willing to die instead of denying the gospel even if no one ever saw you do it?"

That question was primarily intended to expose pride. When I first wrote it on Facebook earlier this evening, I thought about phrasing it as "die for Christ's Kingdom" or "die for the gospel", but I decided that would not be the best way of saying what I meant to convey. I think it sufficiently raises the question of pride. However, there is more to it. On of my friends, in the Facebook conversation that followed, said the following, "I don't believe that God expects me to say 'Yes' to a gunman's question if it means that I would leave my son without a father. In that case, then no, the answer is not black and white. If you would have asked me before I became a father then yes, the answer was perfectly clear back then" He had a powerful point.

When I think of dying for Christ in this sense, I think of Matthew 10:32-33 where Christ says, "So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven."

I imagine myself standing in a lineup of Christians before the anti Christ, and being told I could live if I would only deny Christ. Otherwise I would be the recipient of a "bullet in the brain pan" I think I frequently envision this scenario. I don't necessarily view it as likely, but it reminds me of this verse and therefore the importance of not denying Christ. We know from scripture that Peter denied Christ....three times! And, there was repentance and restoration. God's mercy covers a multitude of sins! Yet, it was obvious as well from scripture that Peter's denial was a pretty big deal. (see John 21:15-17) So, I ask myself, "What would it take for me to deny Christ?" Would I do it to save my child as my friend ponders above? I'm not a parent. So, it's hard to understand for me the depth of emotion that question brings. Would I do it for my wife? What if it wasn't my life on the line but one of theirs! My choice deciding their fate! It's a scary thought.

Today I read in the news that a Pakistani official was assassinated. He had been receiving a lot of death threats. See, he was a Christian living in Pakistan and fighting for the repeal of the blasphemy laws. Pamphlets were found at the scene of his assassination citing his opposition to the blasphemy laws as the reason. ( Pakistan's only Christian minister assassinated over blasphemy row ) He is a martyr. He died for his faith. Could you? Would you?

This is getting long. So, I will finish it by bringing up Matthew 10 again. After Jesus said the part about acknowledgement and denial which I quoted above, he went on to say this immediately thereafter:
"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."
- Matthew 10:34-39

As I am not a parent, I wonder, parents, what do you think of that in relation to what my friend said earlier? How do you think you would answer if you were facing a bullet or forced to make a choice between denial of Christ or the life of your child or even someone else's child?

Still Funny...

2010-11-18T18:11:00.003-06:00

I went to Microsoft's website today looking for some information on Visual Studio 2010 and whether or not they have express editions of it available. I never actually found out. Why? Because I was distracted by this:

You're probably wondering: Why would anyone be distracted by this?

Because it's funny.

And if you don't know why, then you probably haven't seen this:

or this:

"Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers!" - Steve Ballmer

Death: The Great Curse

2010-10-26T22:40:00.004-05:00

Some say that how we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life. Personally, I get all bottled up with my emotions and find it very difficult to talk about them. (at least in a personal setting) My Great Aunt Winnie, a person with whom I haven't spoken to so much in the last few years, but whom was very influential as I grew up and is still very important to me, is dying. They say she is barely holding on. I love her, and I know I'll see her again thanks to the hope we have in Jesus Christ. But death is still a reminder of the curse, and it makes us rightly sad. I am sad...

I have to admit also that I don't know what to pray here. Do we pray for a peaceful passing? I guess we should pray for the peaceful part, but I don't think it's right to pray for the passing. Death is bad. Should we pray for the resurrection to come soon? Of course, but always. Should we pray for her health to stabilize so that she may remain her with us longer? I just don't know. So, I can only throw up my hands and say, "Lord, your will be done, please." I know he's making it all right in the end.

Jesus was the firstfruit for the resurrection, but it's not over yet. (1 Corinthians 15:23) He is coming, and then we shall rise to be with him, too. That's the great and coming hope for the Christian and the promise to which his resurrection testifies to. Praise be to God that we have such a hope for reconciliation through Christ's blood to God the Father and in a resurrection to eternal life.

Shalom.

Why I won't be buying one of the new Apple TV's

2010-09-01T14:25:00.001-05:00

Simply put: it requires HDMI for everything and HDCP for protected content. I don't have ANY devices that will handle that, and I don't plan to acquire any anytime soon.

Your loss, Steve. Your loss.

- Posted using Blogpress from my iPhone

Attachments, or How I Said Good-bye to the Blurry Vision

2010-08-16T12:22:00.001-05:00

I find myself all too easily drawn into the web of attachment to things. Maybe it's a car or a computer. Sometimes, it's a television set. There's nothing wrong with caring about your property, as long as you're not worshipping it. However, it can become extremely difficult to get rid of said property, when the time is right, if one has become too emotionally attached to it. This is especially true if the object in question has a story.

One such object of this variety in my life was an old television set. I bought it several years ago at a consignment store for $25. Why only $25? Well, that's because the picture didn't work. Why buy it then? A picture-less television set kind of lacks the vision component of the word television. I bought it because it was a 40" television set.

Upon buying it and transferring it home, we soon discovered why it was without picture. It was one of those three tube projection models, and the box that transferred the voltage to the three tubes was shorting out. To make this even worse, it was a rubber encased box that was responsible for distributing extremely high voltage. The rubber was deteriorating, causing internal arcing. We disconnected the box and my dad held the cable ends up to a piece of metal so we could see if it worked. Sure enough, all three tubes came to life! We called around to seek out a new high voltage distribution box. Nothing could be found. It turned out that this tv was not only old, it was also rare, and no spare parts existed to repair it!

The only option left to us was to repair the broken part ourselves. We decided to use silicon for the job. I carefully scraped all of the old rubber out of the box, laying out the exposed parts as I uncovered them. When it was all clear, we laid down silicon layer by layer and rebuilt the box. It was a painstaking process. If we added all the silicon at once, it wouldn't dry properly. Ultimately, this took a couple of days to complete. When we were done, however, the tv came to life, and it has worked ever since!

Unfortunately, it did not work 100% perfectly. The sound on it was great, but due to the rebuilding of the box or the age of the tv, the picture alignment and individual tube focus adjustment never quite aligned properly. Therefore, we dubbed it the Blurry Vision.

The Blurry Vision was great as a second TV. Perfect for watching sports games while doing something else on a primary TV, it was also good for putting things on and driving friends crazy when moving in and out of a second floor apartment! The last couple of years or so, I haven't used it too much I actually used it last week!), but it has been faithful.

Alas, we come to the sad part of the story. In about a month, Lilly and I will be moving upstairs. The prospect of carrying the Blurry Vision upstairs, coupled with the knowledge that my wife has always barely tolerated it and the desire to have more space, led to the decision to leave the Blurry Vision at the curb for bulk trash day. It was my hope that someone might see potential in it and take it for themselves. Last night, we moved it out to the curb. This morning, we placed some other Faith House bulk garbage with it. Then, I took a shower.

When I came out of the shower, I peeked out the window and saw this:

The Blurry Vision is gone! The fact that some of the other trash remains indicates there's a good chance it has found a new home. Or, perhaps, it was picked up by scrappers. I choose to hope in the former. Several people stopped to examine it, and some even rang the bell! At any rate, I shall never see this faithful TV again. I hope that it has many years of service still before it, but, even if not, it has served me well. Good-bye, Blurry Vision!!

A New Cat

2010-08-12T12:37:00.001-05:00

We now have two cats. Just a week or so ago, Lilly went to the vet to get some medicine for Rajah, and she fell in love with a cat they were giving away for free. She asked, I said, "okay", and now we have two.

She's adjusted a little bit by now, and we're discovering that she has a very sweet personality. She even (mostly) gets along with Rajah. And the most impressive thing? Rajah seems okay with her, too. He hasn't pee'd on the bed even once!!

Enough of the talk though. I'm sure what you really want to see are the pictures. So, without delay, I present a couple of photos of our new cat, Professor Frida!

- Posted using Blogpress from my iPhone

Ryan-Greenberg for the win!!!

2010-08-05T01:18:00.000-05:00

You can read the live blog of the auction from WFAAa.com here, but the important fact is that the Ryan-Greenberg group came out on top! I'm looking forward to seeing what the new Texas Rangers ownership will do!

"We were here to win the bidding process, and we're here to win the World Series."

- Chuck Greenberg after his group won the auction

An Update on Life

2010-07-29T11:33:00.000-05:00

In a few weeks, I am planning to start going to school at Criswell College. This will be the first time in almost 12 years that I will be enrolled in an academic endeavor. Furthermore, instead of pursuing Computer Science, a field in which I have demonstrated a high degree of aptitude in the past and continue to be employed in in the present, I have decided to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies at a local bible college. I'm looking forward to this experience and what I will be learning.

I'm still writing software for a living. I'm still at the same job I've been at for over a decade now. I feel God is leading me in this direction though. I've been praying about it a lot.

Tomorrow, I am going to be taking a CLEP test to test out of English 101. I think I will be fine. Prayers are appreciated though. I need the English 101 so that I can start this semester with Greek. I have been looking forward to taking the Greek, too. Additionally, if I pass the test, that should save me close to $1,800 in tuition for taking an English course and allow me to go ahead and take a different course now. I think that would be financially wise. Even so, there's a part of me that wants to take the English 101. (I can take it in parallel to the Greek)

I'm really excited about this. And, I'm worried. It's not going to be easy to get back into school after a hiatus of more than a decade. So, I'd appreciate a lot of prayers.

We will be moving soon. It's just upstairs, but it will be a slightly bigger apartment. I'm excited about it. However, the rush of packing and preparing has not yet set in. Lilly's parents are coming in town right before the move. We may have some access to the new apartment then, and, if so, the plan is to prepare it some with them.

And, because our lives do not have enough turmoil in them, our life group is metamorphosing into something new. We're due to begin meeting soon at the church on Wednesday nights. The hope is that this will lead into an actual Wednesday night service/worship/meeting thing called 'Engage!'. (I was in no way involved in the choosing of that name). It's hoped that it will be similar to 63. I hope it succeeds in what it's meant to be. I have long been an advocate and proponent of such a service at Highland Baptist Church. No more details on it yet though.

The Criswell College Logo

'When a man is asked to write down what he really thinks on education, a certain gravity grips and stiffens his soul, which might be mistaken by the superficial for disgust. If it be really true that men sickened of sacred words and wearied of theology, if this largely unreasoning irritation against "dogma" did arise out of some ridiculous excess of such things among priests in the past, then I fancy we must be laying up a fine crop of cant for our descendants to grow tired of.'

- G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With the World

Thinking on the Words of a Song

2010-07-23T02:04:00.000-05:00

I was listening to a Hillsong song today that starts with a line about how Jesus surrendered on the cross:

"In Your surrender
As You laid down Your life"

(King of All Days, Hillsong United)

It got me thinking: Jesus didn't surrender on the cross!! He took upon himself the weight of our sin, becoming the focus of God's wrath, and dying as such on that cross. That death was not a surrender though. For, although he laid down his life, he then took it up again, rising from the grave. And, in doing so, there was no sorrow or humiliation of surrender and defeat, but, rather, the joy and glory of victory!! And it was an awesome victory, the greatest victory in the history of victories! Hallelujah!!

I generally enjoy the song, but that one line kind of dampens it, huh? I understand they are most likely referring to Christ's death as a surrender. Still, I think it mischaracterizes what was happening to say that. Christ wasn't surrendering at all. He was winning, and, although the war still goes on around us, it's outcome is sealed by that victory of The Lamb. What a great hope and promise we have as a result! The truth is awesome.

BlogPress

2010-07-05T15:42:00.003-05:00

Finally, a decent (I think!) blogging app for Blogger on my iPhone!

It even has an iPad version!

A Really Good Article on the Idolatry of Patriotism

2010-07-05T14:42:00.001-05:00

A friend sent me this link. I think this guy pretty much hit the nail on the head:
RELEVANT Magazine - For (Too Much) Love of Country

Separation of Church and State

2010-07-05T01:10:00.009-05:00

When does patriotism cross the line to idolatry? Today is the Fourth of July here in America, and patriotism is running higher today than any other day of the year. I, like millions of Americans around me, love my country. I cherish and bask in the freedom that thousands upon thousands of American men and women have fought and died for. It's a great blessing from the Lord for those of us who live here that we get to enjoy it. I respect our soldiers for their bravery and am thankful for their courage and sacrifice.

Today is the Fourth of July here in America, and it falls, this year, on a Sunday. As such, there was the singing of patriotic songs in church this morning along with the prominent display of the American flag in the center of the stage. Little flags lined the walkways leading up to the front doors of the church, and there were even flower pots, devoid of flowers, planted with a half dozen tiny flags, placed on the stage itself. There was prayer for our troops and our nation, and several people were asked to stand if they have men or women in their family who have served in the armed forces. Our worship leader even led the congregation in the singing of "God Bless America". (A separate work could be written about the ridiculous audacity of singing this song, what it implies, and why it is not appropriate in church, but I will not address it here)

The question being asked here is this: Is this behavior idolatry? To answer this question, we must first ask: What is idolatry? In a Christian context, especially a Protestant one, idolatry could and probably is defined as the worship of anything other than God Almighty. This definition would allow and actually encourage worship of any and all members of The Trinity (God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit), but would forbid anyone or anything else. (Assuming that one view idolatry as a sin, which Christianity and the bible do).

In church, we worship God through many avenues, but one of the most prominent is the worship of God through song. In doing so, we sing about who God is. We sing about God's character and deeds. We sing about his promises,and we sing about the sacrifice that the father made through sending the son to die and which the son made in doing the dying on the cross as the propitiation for our sin. In doing so, we honor God through worship.

So, what does it mean then when we come together and sing songs glorifying and praising our country and those who have served it? Are we not glorifying works of man in a place where we have come to glorify God? If we place a symbol of our country in the center of the stage, are we not placing country ahead of God in worship? Even if for only one Sunday, are we not relegating God to a secondary position?

I want to be careful in voicing my criticism here. I do believe that we should pray for our country and it's leaders. We should do that often. I don't object either to being grateful for this beautiful country God has blessed us with either. I'm even somewhat open to the idea of honoring our troops who have fought for this freedom. As I read and study scripture, I find myself leaning more and more towards a position of total pacifism, but I still appreciate the courage these men and women have shown and the sacrifices they have made though. Because of this, I find myself wondering about the appropriateness of honoring soldiers for battle in church. I'm not worried about this though, at this junction, for the sake of idolatry however. So, will not address this further.

What bothers me is the tying of our religious beliefs and cultural identity into a celebration of the state. I'm deeply concerned that this is inappropriate. I'm further concerned that this is church condoned idolatry and a sin. As a member of the church, I wonder if I can continue to be a part of a community that allows this. In doing so without objection, I effectively participate in and accept the group's sinful behavior. I have come to believe this behavior is wrong, and, therefore, I ask: is it okay to sit silently or must I act to voice my concerns?

When we gather together to worship the Lord, we should be careful not to allow things of this world to take precedence over him in our hearts and minds. Even when we are not in church, we must be careful that we do not express our love for nation, music, sports teams, etc. to be expressed in a way that is worship. For worshipping anything or anyone other than God Almighty is, as stated above, idolatry.

So, do we go wrong then in placing the flag on the center of the stage and singing patriotic hymns? Do we honor the man made ideals of democracy in a way that is worship of mankind and nation? Does a strong showing of patriotism in church amount to idolatry? I believe the answer is yes to all three, and therefore I think it must stop. Because, if it is idolatry, then to not stop it would mean that the church is leading the congregation in sin.

"Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God."
- Christendom in Dublin, 1933 - G.K. Chesterton

"America is the only country ever founded on a creed."

- What I Saw In America, 1922 - G.K. Chesterton

iPad = magic paper

2010-04-19T00:24:00.013-05:00

I got an iPad this week. (and, by the way, I'm typing this post on said iPad. So please excuse any random typos you see.) I have to say, this thing is pretty freaking cool. I got it for development purposes, but it is rapidly becoming my main go to machine around the house for everything short of app development. (Steve, I want Xcode on my iPad. Seriously, this should happen, even if it was to be only for registered developers....) At first, I was mostly enamored with the Netflix app. Then I found Adobe ideas and several news programs. Now, I find it taking over for many tasks that I had been either doing on my iphone or on normal computer. I'm still getting used to the typing, and I'm highly annoyed that it doesn't have a Greek keyboard like the iphone does. I'm predicting it will. Hopefully sooner rather than later though. I'm forced to input my Greek vocab on my iPhone in Study Aid in the mean time.

Speaking of Study Aid, I have to admit that I'm really enjoying some of the new API stuff Apple has introduced in iPhone OS 3.2 (only available on the iPad at the time I write this). I really like the popover controller, and I'm glad that in 3.2 and higher we are able to edit the cut & paste menu. Then there's the document sharing and syncing. I'm hoping that makes it over to the iphone as well. Okay. So, yeah, I'm a dork, but i do like these things. I'm also strange in that I seem to enjoy programming in Objective-C.... Too bad we're all Microsoft all the time at my normal job. (on the flip side, that means I could probably start programming Windows Phone 7 stuff with my eyes closed if I ever want to. I guess I could probably crank out a Win Phone 7 version of Study Aid in a day or two. If only they had a good marketplace set up for developers...maybe they do or will?)

Anyways, I started this post because I wanted to do a simple list of my favorite iPad apps so far. I didn't quite wish to torture everyone on Facebook with it though. So, I decided to post it here. And hear it is (in no definitive order):

Adobe Ideas for iPad (free and very very cool)
TabToolkit (a universal build and worth every penny of the $9.99 it currently is if you're a guitar or bass player)
Pages
AIM
Mocha VNC
Wikipanion
Netflix
Klondike Solitaire by Softick
Kindle
MaxJournal by OMAX Media
BBC News
USA Today
The Weather Channel

In the "I can't believe they're charging this much for their app. What a bunch of money hoarding clowns" category, I am going to place MLB's At Bat program. They made a separate iPad app, and they're charging $14.99 for it and another $14.99 for the iPhone one. It's not worth it. If it was a universal app then maybe. So, I can not offer a review other then "The screenshots look nice". (those delusional clowns seriously think we all want to pay them tons of money so we can watch only out of market games. (it's somewhere around $120 or something a year to get their MLB.tv package that is required in order to watch more than one random out of market game a day in the program you've already paid $14.99 for!). They have an anti trust exemption, folks. This should be a form of serious anti trust exemption abuse.

Anyways, there are my programs so far. Of course, once I submit and get them approved, you'll be able to obtain the iPad versions of Study Aid and Esteem Aid as well.those should be submitted sometime this week. (Maybe even tomorrow?)

Last thing: there's a really awesome bible reading app for the iPhone by a guy named Paul Avery. (you can search by his name in iTunes.) it's free, and it's awesome. He claims there's going to be an iPad version of it out very soon! Keep an eye out for it. I know I am.

-

Howling in the Night

2010-03-06T12:00:00.007-06:00

Howling in the night
Who can mend the weeping hearts?
Only, you, Jesus.

Hungry, they cry out.
In need and desperation
They come to your throne

Give them strength to walk,
boldly following in love,
your righteous ways.

Let them testify,
"Great is He who has saved us!
Removed is our sin!"

May they glorify you.
May your name be on their tongues,
and may they praise you.

And may they know peace,
Resting in your perfect love
For all of their days.

by: Kelly

Login incorrect.
Only perfect spellers may
Enter this system.

Errors have occurred.
We won't tell you where or why.
Lazy programmers.

Server's poor response
Not quick enough for browser.
Timed out, plum blossom.

Bartender yells loud
Your site cannot be found, boy
Buy another drink.

- A sample of Haiku error messages from the famous BeOS web browser, NetPositive.

chromium os (a.k.a. the developer build of Google’s new Chrome OS)

2009-11-20T02:14:00.009-06:00

* Edit - I added a Chrome OS UI Concept video from Google at the bottom As you may or may not know, Google today released the source code for their new OS: Chrome OS. They released it as part of the chromium project. You can read about it here or here.

Tonight, I spent a little bit of time downloading and compiling chromium os per Google’s instructions under Ubuntu 9.10 in Sun’s VirtualBox.

It turned out to be pretty straightforward. There were no unexpected obstacles to overcome. And, as a result, I now have a usb stick (and a VirtualBox virtual hard drive image) of chromium os. It works! (I was actually pretty shocked it worked because I have been reading that they wanted to trim everything down to a bare reference platform. As such, I was surprised that the network and video seemed to be working just fine.) I haven’t tested it outside of VirtualBox yet (I’m planning to do that tomorrow), but I thought I’d share with you some screenshots. Enjoy!

It’s still a little rough around the edges. There seems to be no “logout” feature, for example. However, boot time was very fast. It was under 10 seconds after the bios screen, and you can’t help but admire the “goats teleported” statistic. :)

Of course, with all of this Google Chrome OS stuff, I would be negligent not to mention Microsoft’s Azure platform. Are they ultimately looking to provide the same thing in possibly different or possibly even the same ways? We’ll see…

"At its core, Azure is Windows—Windows Server"

- Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, Nov. 19, 2009 during a keynote speech. (quote pulled from this article: Microsoft's Thinking About Azure Platform Evolved

Participating in an Endemic Surveilance Society

2009-11-17T02:02:00.004-06:00

I just set up security cameras around our house. I hate living in an endemic surveilance society, and, yet, I am becoming a contributor! What has caused this seeming betrayal of principle: fear. That's right, fear. The thing of which we are told: "The only thing to fear is fear itself" (an incorrect statement, by the way). So, why then am I afraid? What is it I'm afraid of?

Well, tonight, for the second time in the last three Mondays, we had a trespasser on the property. Two Mondays ago, it was two guys (whom Lilly spotted), and they made off with Brian's car battery. Tonight, it was one guy, and we confronted him. At which point, he produced the excuse that he was just "looking for Larry". Of course, Lilly had actually watched him peering into the windows of each of our cars...(Lilly is pretty vigilant) he left peacefully, but now we are wary. Very wary.

So, before heading to bed, I set up a couple of cameras. It doesn't matter if they are hooked up to a recorder yet. (I've been having Linux compatibility issues when I tried to set up Zoneminder) Just having them there creates a potentially useful deterent. I hope it works.

Ultimately though, our protection Lies with Christ. You can make all sorts of arguments for a doctrine of suffering and about how are time on Earth is limited. Or, you can make the argument that we are meant to suffer. But, when I read the Psalms, I am constantly struck by how the Psalmist (probably David for many or most of them) looked to God as his protector. This gives me comfort for it tells me about the character of God. Namely, that he does protect us and shelter us. It is undoubtably true that He also allows bad things to happen to us, but I am convinced that these things always fit in his plan in the end. Meanwhile, it is at least appropriate to ask him for our protection. And so we do. I am thankful that it is so, and thankful also that no scheme of man or Satan can deprive me of the grace I have in Christ. The war between Satan and God has already been won by Christ. That is pretty cool.

So, with that being said, I hereby say, "Goodnight.". Please be praying for us as I do so and hereafter that Yahweh, God Almighty, will continue to protect us. I pray that he will protect you, too.

Goodnight.

    1 The LORD is my light and my salvation—
       whom shall I fear?
       The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
       of whom shall I be afraid?

    2 When evil men advance against me
       to devour my flesh,
       when my enemies and my foes attack me,
       they will stumble and fall.

    3 Though an army besiege me,
       my heart will not fear;
       though war break out against me,
       even then will I be confident.

    4 One thing I ask of the LORD,
       this is what I seek:
       that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
       all the days of my life,
       to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
       and to seek him in his temple.

    5 For in the day of trouble
       he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
       he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle
       and set me high upon a rock.

    6 Then my head will be exalted
       above the enemies who surround me;
       at his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy;
       I will sing and make music to the LORD.

    7 Hear my voice when I call, O LORD;
       be merciful to me and answer me.

    8 My heart says of you, "Seek his face!"
       Your face, LORD, I will seek.

    9 Do not hide your face from me,
       do not turn your servant away in anger;
       you have been my helper.
       Do not reject me or forsake me,
       O God my Savior.

    10 Though my father and mother forsake me,
       the LORD will receive me.

    11 Teach me your way, O LORD;
       lead me in a straight path
       because of my oppressors.

    12 Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes,
       for false witnesses rise up against me,
       breathing out violence.

    13 I am still confident of this:
       I will see the goodness of the LORD
       in the land of the living.

    14 Wait for the LORD;
       be strong and take heart
       and wait for the LORD.

- Psalm 27

Ewok WIN

2009-10-30T11:38:00.001-06:00

Ewoks wreaked some havoc on the Today show (I’m guessing this was today) with some Martini drinking, fist fighting, moonwalking Ewok crazy greatness.

From look on Al Roker’s face, I’m calling this a total WIN.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Windows 7 vs. Linux

2009-10-26T02:21:00.001-06:00

It’s the battle of the noob OS (Windows 7) vs. the entrenched one (Linux). As I stated in my previous post, I just upgraded my system from XP to Windows 7. What I think I did not mention was that my system was a dual booting system that was running XP and Ubuntu. I was fully prepared to deal with the harsh truth that Microsoft forces Windows to be the active partition when it installs. Normally, I would just go into the disk management tool, and reset the Linux partition back to active (I keep GRUB on the partition, and not on the MBR (Master Boot Record) to make these things go smoother), and things would be back to normal. Unfortunately, Windows 7’s disk management tool doesn’t want to let me set the Linux partition as the active partition. I’m not sure what to make of that. Maybe it’s a permission setting somewhere in the policy editor? I haven’t really looked yet. At any rate, I decided to just use Linux to set the active boot partition back. Unfortunately, all of my Linux LiveCD’s are locking during boot. (I have a theory now as to why, but I didn’t think of it until much later in the story and I haven’t tested it yet) Somewhat miffed, I downloaded a DSL (Damn Small Linux) cd image and burned it. Same thing. At this point, I was pretty annoyed. I know Linux works on here, but I couldn’t figure out why it was doing this!

Then, I remembered my Norton System Works Recovery CD. This CD is a few years old, but it sports an NT recovery environment and a nice set of GUI utilities for doing recovery specific tasks. I popped it in, and waited for it to load. When it finally did, it offered me a set of recovery tools, just like I remembered, and it had one specifically labeled something along the lines of “Set Active Partition”. Bingo. Switching the partition, I rebooted, and immediately discovered that GRUB had returned. After verifying that Linux still worked, I went to boot into Windows again, satisfied that my evening was over, and now I could head to bed.

WRONG!

Windows 7 suddenly would not boot. It would just hang at the initial loading screen. I discovered and tried the very spiffy recovery console (new to me, this was apparently added in Vista), and it informed me that it could not repair the problem. Furthermore, the error message relating to it was vague. It said something along the lines of: “System files corrupted”. At this point, I began to realize that my only repair solution would be a complete, 100% reinstall.

#%$#%!!

Hopelessly, I tried googling for information. (My Macbook is my friend) The first thing I noticed was that there was none. This is not good. If there’s no information, that means that no one else is having the problem. This means you’re alone, and, furthermore, you’re pretty screwed. Finally, well looking at some article about bootrec.exe (I’m still not sure what that exactly does), I had inserted the install disk and was going through the listed instructions for some “boot repairing operation” when I noticed one of the screens referring to my Windows installation (the one needing repair) being on “(unknown) DriveC” At first, this probably seems innocuous. But, at second glance, the lack of a space between Drive and C might become apparent. You see, I name my partitions with the drive letter I wish to assign then to avoid confusion if I ever have to do so. (Windows allows you to change the drive letters in the Disk Management program) So, what I realized as I looked at this was that the other part said “(unknown)”. What this was basically saying was that it did not know what drive letter to assign that drive to. So, it was not drive c:. This is where some of the terminology on that Norton Recovery disk’s program suddenly flashed into my mind: When they had asked me what disk I wanted to make active, it had said something about a “disk id”…

Aborting what I was doing, I quickly popped in the Norton disk again, and waited…and waited…and waited until it finally loaded up. Rapidly, I switched the active partition back to the correct drive, and rebooted. BINGO! Windows 7 booted perfectly.

So, heads up: don’t change the disk letter of your system drive. That’s just a bad idea, especially if it ends up assigned to NOTHING.

Now, I only need to figure out either why the Linux LiveCD’s are crashing on startup or how to make disk manager change the active partition, and I should be back in business. :)

You can use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) to troubleshoot and repair the following items in Windows Vista or Windows 7:

A master boot record (MBR)

A boot sector

A Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store

Note When you are troubleshooting startup issues by using the Windows RE, you should first try the Startup Repair option in the System Recovery Options dialog box. If the Startup Repair option does not resolve the issue, or if you must troubleshoot more steps manually, use the Bootrec.exe tool.

- How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows

Εν άρχη ην ό Λόγος και ό γόγος ην πρός τον Θεόν και Θεός ην ό λόγος

- John 1:1

Upgrading to Windows 7 from Windows XP

2009-10-25T14:50:00.003-06:00

There are things to know thinking about upgrading your Microsoft OS.

If you wanted a pain free experience, use Ubuntu or Mac OS X instead. Their upgrade paths are far more pleasant, and Ubuntu’s is completely free.
If you do not buy a new computer every two years, but instead choose to upgrade hardware and your existing OS, you’ll have to do it eventually. Otherwise, you won’t be able to use contemporary software for too long.
You might lose all of your data. Or, maybe, just some. In rare instances, you might get to keep it all.

I’ve been running Windows XP on my desktop for many years. I am one of those people who doesn’t buy an OEM computer (unless it’s a laptop), and prefers upgrade his hardware over time. My computer is definitely an “evolutionary” build. Since Vista came out, I’ve been frustrated at the idea that, slowly, my beloved XP is becoming obsolete. Increasingly, software was not running full featured on there. I didn’t want Vista though. Everything I had heard was negative. We bought a Vista laptop for my wife back in January, and the first week or two was just frustrations as we transferred her data (using the “Windows Easy Transfer” tool which was….well….not very thorough) and tried to get everything working. The wireless card would routinely break our wireless network, bringing the whole thing down on an average of every 30 minutes or so. If I was playing an online game (like Guild Wars for example), this meant being randomly disconnected from the server. Of course, this only happened when her computer was on. We never figured out why. I just stopped playing online games. (We actually had her running on a wired internet connection for awhile because that was the only way, but it was too cumbersome. Recently, the problem seems to have vanished. Maybe our habits have changed to where I don’t notice it, or maybe it was fixed in a Microsoft/HP update of some kind. I simply don’t know.)

So, this past week, Windows 7 came out. I was one of those people who installed the Windows 7 beta on a computer (my Macbook) when it became available in February, and I liked it. I actually was using it around the same time as all our Vista nightmares were taking place, and it seemed significantly faster and more stable. I decided pretty early then that I would want to replace my aging XP with it. When the 50% off preorder deal was offered back in June/July, I preordered it for both Lilly and myself. Much of this weekend was spent installing it.

Being that my computer is a somewhat “evolutionary” build, I have years worth of data (probably about 10-15 years worth) of data that has accumulated. That’s data in the form of software as well as things like images and writing, etc. The software was particularly concerning. Being that Microsoft has historically used this thing called a “Registry”, you can’t just copy the programs like you can on a Mac. A serial key or activation information will get left behind. Usually, the program has to be completely reinstalled. In my case, I had all of this data scattered all over several partitions (it was, once upon a time, a collection of hard drives). Preserving the organizational structure of my system is important to me.

Microsoft offers no “in place” upgrade path for XP to Windows 7. Additionally, I wanted to go fro 32-bit to 64-bit, and there’s no option for that from XP to Vista or Vista to Windows 7 either. That meant that my only option was a “clean” install. In other words, my data would not be automatically preserved. Luckily though, there was a way. That same tool, “Windows Easy Transfer”, which sort of worked for copying Lilly’s old information from her old XP laptop to her Vista laptop back in Jan./Feb., was what I needed to use now. Using it, I was able to back up all of my user account data, etc. It wanted me to back up all of my programs (games, etc.) spanning across all of my drives, but that would have been a 400+GB backup. I didn’t have the space, nor did I want to spend the time doing that. So, I only backed up my system drive. This had the unfortunate (but unknowable to me at the time) consequence of NOT transferring the registry settings for all of these programs. I wish it had. Before I “upgraded”, I also used a free tool called “dd'” in Linux to make a byte for byte backup of my system drive. Basically, if things went catastrophic, I would be able to restore my system drive EXACTLY to that image. (dd is a cool tool)

So, Friday night, after deauthorizing iTunes (very important!), I began my install. Booting off of the Windows 7 64-bit disc, I chose the “Custom (Advanced)” install option. Surprisingly, where I thought it was going to format the system drive, it surprised me by offering the chance to NOT do that. In fact, it even offered me that option of copying my old Windows directories (Windows, Program Files, and Documents and Settings) to a “Windows.old” directory. This made me pretty happy. From here, I continued the install, feeling pretty good. I was waiting for something bad to happen.

When the install finished, pretty much everything worked. The only driver I had to install was my printer driver. (I later installed the NVidia drivers because I figure those usually are better, and I wanted the NVidia control panel.) It took me longer to run the Windows Easy Transfer tool to restore my account data than it did to install Windows, but that went smoothly as well. The user account I created when first installing the system was NOT the same name as the user account I was planning to transfer in. I recommend this. I also recommend installing some of your common programs like iTunes, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc. before transferring your old account and settings in. I did this with some, but not with other programs. I realized afterwards that, for the programs I installed before restoring the user account, everything seemed to be restored pretty well. For those that were not, the install programs for those programs didn’t always preserve the restored settings. I, for example, did not install Thunderbird until after the restore, and I had to completely redo all of my Thunderbird settings and the Thunderbird address book. (Luckily, I have an IMAP server, so I didn’t lose my email)

The dust has settled now though, and the install went pretty well. This was probably the most painless Windows upgrade I’ve done. While, of course, it doesn’t hold a candle to the ease of the Snow Leopard upgrade I did recently (basically a “fire and forget” kind of operation that just works, you just run the updater and wait awhile while it does it's thing) or the Ubuntu upgrades I do about twice a year (a “click and forget” operation where it tells you an upgrade is available, you click on the upgrade button, and then you wait awhile, only having to answer questions periodically.), it was still relatively painless next to other Windows upgrades. Considering I was going the “clean install” route, that’s pretty good.

Last night, I also upgraded Lilly’s laptop, which was running Vista 64, to Windows 7 64. That was an in-place upgrade, and, while it took about 5 hours, it was pretty painless, too.

Before you try these upgrades, I would recommend running the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor tool first. It will really warn you about things that will or will not work. It sometimes will tell you things aren’t compatible when they will end up working anyways. I had this experience with Nero 6. I didn’t want to shell out another $70 for Nero, and so I tried reinstalling my Nero 6. Windows told me it is “incompatible”, but it let me install it anyways. It works just fine, too.

Lastly, I was very surprised when I realized that, some of the “cool” new and not so cool traditional programs that had been included in Vista and XP were not available now in Windows 7. For example, Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, Windows Messenger, and Windows Photo Gallery. It didn’t bother me though. Then, today, I discovered that you can go download something called “Windows Live Essentials” from Microsoft. What is this? Well, it’s basically all of these programs. You can select which ones you want to install. I think I prefer this. I’ve now got Windows Photo Gallery (still not as cool as Picasa), Windows Movie Maker, and a cool program called Windows Live Writer installed. The last of these is a “blog writer” program. I’m using it right now in fact to type this. It seems to work with Blogger, and that is good. I would recommend installing at least some of these.

“I'm actually having fun using Seven, something I haven't said about a Microsoft operating system since Windows 95.”

- Joe Wilcox/MicrosoftWatch

Who is the Big Bad Bar Monkey?

2009-10-01T00:41:00.035-05:00

So, today was my friend, Eric's, 30th birthday. Him and a bunch of our friends are leaving in the morning for Destin, FL. But, before then, we all gathered around for a couple of drinks at the Backyard Beach Bar. I took some video of the celebration with my phone.

It was lots of fun. I miss all of these guys a lot, but it always reminds me, like a slap in the face, of how far away from them I have gone. We live very different lives now. The days of me going out to the bar on a regular basis are long behind me. When a hot girl walks by, I turn away, while many of them turn, ogle, say something, or even whistle. This is not true of all of them of course. Some of them are married. Most of them are single though, and there is a big difference between the practices of married life and the practices of the life of the bachelor.

Every time I go out and drink with my friends, I feel a bit nostalgic. There's no way I would want to go back to the bachelor lifestyle, but I do miss hanging with all of them. Our paths have diverged in many more ways than I've listed already here. I've come into a walk with Christ where him and his will are increasingly at the center of my life. I try to act so that every action is reflective of that fact. It's very difficult. It is difficult when around secular people in general, but it is especially so when being around a bunch of secular friends. They do not hold themselves to Christian values or Christian morality (being, as far as I know, not Christians), which I do try to hold myself to. So, when I go out to a bar with my old friends, I have to be on guard against myself that I don't accidentally do something (from an old habit) that would reflect badly on all that God has done in my life. I endeavor to consider the testimony and witness God has given me very seriously.

If I agree to admire a woman's chest, I'm not only risking a just reprimand from my wife, I'm endangering the integrity of my testimony concerning what God has done in my life. The sad truth is, I really don't even care about admiring this random woman's chest, but when everyone else seems to be doing it, I have to physically look away to avoid it. To some of my friends, this isn't perceived as something wrong. It's just normal guy behavior. As a Christian, I know and believe that God's will is for me not to do this. The temptation I experience to the contrary shows how our peers have a powerful influence on our lives and our behavior. Sometimes, I wonder if Adam really wanted to eat the fruit in the garden or if he did it out of that feeling of peer pressure from his wife. He does seem to cite that as an excuse. (Genesis 3:12) Obviously, that does not excuse him from the just results of his action in eating of the fruit. (Genesis 3:17-19)

The temptation to follow the influence of one's peers reminds me of my battle to quit smoking. When I quit smoking (Was it almost 4 years ago!?!?!), I literally had to stop going to bars and stop hanging out regularly with several of my friends in order to keep my commitment to God. I had decided to promise God that I would quit cigarettes, but I would need his help in making it work. Some would say that's a dangerous promise. It probably is. So far though, it has worked because I fear God's ability to hold me accountable way more than I fear my friend's ability or my own. Most importantly though, it has worked because God has really given me the strength to resist the temptation, even when I still experience it from time to time. Even now, although I've been quit for several years, it's the reminder in my head that keeping this promise is a way in which I love God that helps keep me stay quit. (1 John 5:1-5) Many times I have had the thought in my head, "Only one cigarette will be okay...", and I have rebutted it with the simple logic that it would break my promise to my heavenly father. These temptations almost exclusively happen when I am hanging out with my friends who smoke. They happen even more so when I am hanging out with them at a bar.

I spent a few minutes with a couple of my friends talking about kids and the joys and work of having and raising them. They laughed at me when I admitted it, but I have been softening to the idea of having kids more and more. So many of our friends from church have them that it is hard not to soften to the idea!!! We're not planning on having them yet, of course, but we're at the point where we are thinking more openly about it. I'm happy about that. When God leads us to have children, I want to embrace it joyously.

All in all though, in spite of temptation and the occasional bout of nostalgia, I think tonight went pretty well. I got to hang with and have fun with several of my friends, and it was good. I don't think I compromised the integrity of my testimony. I didn't smoke any cigarettes or ogle any woman's chest. I ate some good cake though, had a couple of good drinks (I have a small weak spot for the occasional Crown on the rocks), and I had a really good time. Considering the occasion, I think that is what it should be all about. (That, and, of course, poking fun at Eric for being "old")

And so, Eric, if you so happen to chance upon this:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OLD MAN!!!

Waste

I close my eyes, and all I see
are thousands of people walking aimlessly.
A darkened sky; no sign of moon.
No stars shining bright, just eternal gloom.
The ground is barren and doesn't show
the tracks of the people walking to and fro.
The air is heavy, visibility low,
and the people don't notice it.
For just a moment the world is clear;
I see things as they're meant to appear.
I see life: the empty void.
The path I walk: crooked, destroyed.
I see the light of a thousand moons
raining down on my face with a thousand wounds.
I see the beasts, decrepit and dead,
worms crawling out of their rotting heads.
Then it is gone in a blink and a flash.
I open my eyes and the moment's passed.

- by: Me (Kelly) - I've posted this before, but I wanted to post it again. :)

For some random amusement:

Dry Tea Layout Updated

2009-09-30T01:15:00.002-05:00

I updated the blog tonight to use the new Blogger "Layout" template style. I figure they'll phase out the old ones eventually. So, it'll probably be beneficial to control when it happens to mine as opposed to opening my blog one day and finding it suddenly changed. At any rate, I spent a lot of time tweaking the layout to bring in some of the elements from the old design. In the end, I think I have it pretty much working, but there's a bug for you IE6 users involving the sidebar. I started to mess with it, but, after about 30 minutes, I realized something: YOU SHOULDN'T BE USING IE6 ANYMORE!! JUST STOP!! Seriously, if you are using IE6, get a new browser. I have it on this computer for testing purposes, but won't anymore in a couple of weeks when I update to Windows 7. (I use Chrome primarily anyways. It's WAY better than IE6.)

If you find any problems, and you're NOT using IE6 (or some other archaic or unpopular browser I won't support), let me know!

Thanks!

It's All Greek to Me

2009-09-29T02:18:00.021-05:00

Recently, our upstairs neighbor, Mark, offered to teach Lilly and our neighbor, Sean, Greek. That's specifically "Koine Greek" or "New Testament Greek". He was offering this for pretty cheap (and we've been informed by others that he's pretty knowledgeable on the topic), and so Lilly and I both decided to join his class. Larry joined as well, and thus completes our happy group. (actually, I've heard there might be a couple of others joining us soon, too.)

Our first session was this past Saturday (9/26/2009). We talked about the syllabus, the books we will need (I hope Lilly was taking notes), and then covered some basics on the Greek alphabet, breathing marks, accents, diphthongs, etc. It's fascinating to me that, for the language of a culture that has both influenced us greatly and contributed some of the more remarkable works of literature man has ever known, we can not say for certain how the language is actually pronounced! So, instead, because we will be needing to read out loud for some of our classroom work, we are learning a pseudo common artificial pronunciation.

Our Greek class - From left to right: Larry, Lilly, Mark, & Sean

In the coming weeks, I'm hoping that I will be able to keep this up and actually learn the language. I'm not really very good at foreign languages (mostly just good at computer languages), and I think that learning Greek would be really good for helping me in my walk with Christ to understand the bible more correctly. I say this, of course, because the New Testament of the Christian bible was originally written in Koine Greek. (Hence why Koine Greek is sometimes referred to as "New Testament Greek") Already, albeit it only a couple of days, I have been able to memorize the Greek alphabet to the point of saying it forwards and backwards! (I can't even do that with the English alphabet, and, yes, by saying this I am probably showing off.) I've already plugged the alphabet into Study Aid on my iPhone, and I'm getting pretty good at recognizing most of the symbols. Apparently, upper case is pretty rare. So, I've been focusing on the lower case ones. I found an iPhone app that allows me to view an English and the Byzantine Greek translation of the New Testament side by side (Yes, it was free!), and I've been practicing my character recognition off of that Byzantine Greek text. Yes, I am probably enjoying this too much.

So far, there has only been one unfortunate drawback other than the squirm and wiggle battle of trying to keep my mouth shut from rattling off way too much about this to other people because I'm excited about it. (Ok...so I haven't been doing very well at that battle.) The only really unfortunate drawback so far is the consequence of Mark teaching us a song mnemonic to help us learn the alphabet. I've had it stuck in my head all day now!!! Basically, it's the Greek alphabet sung to the tune of the classic tune: "Shortenin' Bread"

All in all though, I'm still pretty excited about this opportunity to learn Greek. I've already had some pretty corny Greek jokes to pass around. Example: "You are the Ioto that completes my diphthong." It sounds way worse than it is. In the classroom, we each have different names based on Greek letters, too. Alpha and Omega were kicked out of contention, and the rest of us got pretty cool ones. I ended up being branded "Epsilon". Lilly ended up being "Iota", and together, we actually do complete a diphthong.

I really hope that this works. If God has a call on Lilly and my life, this could end up coming in really handy at some point. I'm hoping that's the case.

"Mammy's little baby loves short'nin', short'nin',"
Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon...
"Mammy's little baby loves short'nin' bread"
Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda

- a quick comparison between the first part of the Greek alphabet and a couple lines from the Shortenin' Bread song that you can sing it to

"He Believes in Himself"

2009-08-31T13:01:00.001-05:00

I like this quote:

There is a sceptic far more terrible than he who believes that everything began in matter. It is possible to meet the sceptic who believes that everything began in himself. He doubts not the existence of angels or devils, but the existence of men and cows. For him his own friends are a mythology made up by himself. He created his own father and his own mother. This horrible fancy has in it something decidedly attractive to the somewhat mystical egoism of our day. That publisher who thought that men would get on if they believed in themselves, those seekers after the Superman who are always looking for him in the looking-glass, those writers who talk about impressing their personalities instead of creating life for the world, all these people have really only an inch between them and this awful emptiness. Then when this kindly world all round the man has been blackened out like a lie; when friends fade into ghosts, and the foundations of the world fail; then when the man, believing in nothing and in no man, is alone in his own nightmare, then the great individualistic motto shall be written over him in avenging irony. The stars will be only dots in the blackness of his own brain; his mother's face will be only a sketch from his own insane pencil on the walls of his cell. But over his cell shall be written, with dreadful truth, "He believes in himself."

- G.K. Chesterton - Orthodoxy

On The Topic of Eternal Judgement and Hell

2009-08-29T04:38:00.011-05:00

In Matthew 13, there are recorded several parables which Jesus tells to explain the Kingdom of Heaven to his followers. In one of them (the NIV calls it "The Parable of the Net") Jesus says:

47 “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. 48 When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. 49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

What is going to happen in "a fiery furnace" to something that is thrown in it? It's going to get destroyed. If you say then that you are following Jesus, but that God is not judgemental, how then do you reconcile Jesus's (God's) illustration here of the judgement (separation of the wicked and the righteous) at the "end of the age" where the wicked will be destroyed with your position? What Jesus is describing sounds pretty judgemental to me. God is THE righteous judge. (2 Timothy 4:8, Psalm 7:11, Psalm 8:8, Psalm 98:9) It is no less a defining attribute of God's character than his love!

For too long, too many have harped about God's love to the detrimental absence of talking about his just, perfect, and righteous judgement and justice. These things are all part of his holy character, and our understanding of him should be shaped not by the foolish and self centered wishing of the world and us who are in it but by the truth he presents to us in his word. If you wish to deny the accuracy of that truth and word (i.e. Scriptural accuracy), you can not arbitrarily pick and choose what parts to belief. You must either accept it as true or you can rely on none of it at all. C.S. Lewis once wrote that:

"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." – Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis)

In the same way which Lewis states we are limited on our understanding of Christ's deity and humanity, we are limited in how we choose to trust holy scripture (i.e. The Bible). If we say that we do not trust what it says concerning Christ's teachings on judgement and Hell, we can not trust any of those teachings at all. If we do trust those teachings, we must accept that he said these things. Then, to deny the things themselves, you would be calling him either a madman or a liar. Jesus has not left open the question of judgement with eternal consequences. If you are a true follower of him, it logically follows that you should believe what he says on this as well.

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?

- C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity

Communications

2009-08-09T00:34:00.003-05:00

I find myself sometimes wrestling with communications. (I pluralize that term purposefully.) I've introspectively discovered that, with each person I meet and interact with, I establish a new form of communication. Each individual has different needs and expectations. Therefore, how I communicate with that person adjusts to coordinate as best as possible with their needs and expectations. (as I understand them) this usually takes some time, but, when successful, has generally led me into deeper friendships with those whom I really get to know. (this also means heavier falls when a friendship falls apart. Thankfully, that doesn't happen too often)

This approach has with it pros and cons, like most things. I've mentioned already a pro: that relationships tend to be deeper. One of the cons is the chaos my brain finds itself in when I enter a room with several people who I've been getting to know, and the communications are all different. Maybe one person expects me to be more legalistic than another. Those expectations affect how I might tell a story to them. Communicating a problem in my life might need to be told in different ways so that the individual audience understands me. So, in a room with many people, I often find myself scatter brained and confused. My ADD is causing me to eavesdrop on snippets of almost every conversation (almost unconsciously), and I'm trying to relate a story to two or three (or four!?) people who are each hearing it a little differently.

Listening is also a difficult task in this environment. My brain remembers things largely based on triggers. A conversation with one individual will bring back memories of other conversations with that individual as it goes, thus allowing me to remember things they've said before and understand better what they're saying now. When there several people in the conversation, the triggers going off in my brain become disorientating. I become lost and I lose track of the conversation.

The result of all this, I think, is that I come across as a fool or, at best, an ass. This bothers me because I really wish I had time to listen and share things properly with each individual I'm communicating with. I wish I could explain the backstory of a thing in a way each person could understand and listen with well thought out questions to everything someone is saying to me. Alas, most of the time I can't. So, I'm sorry if I've let you down. I'll keep trying to do better next time.

Twitter!!!

2009-07-23T16:36:00.003-05:00

If you aren't familiar with Twitter by now, well, that's ok. It's really over-hyped. That being said, it does have some cool functionality and some interesting uses. For example, a business seeking to have an easy way to inform their customers of deals, product updates, etc., can simply broadcast them via Twitter, and anyone subscribing to their feed will get them easily and seamlessly.

So, what is Twitter? Well, perhaps I should have started there: Twitter is essentially a service for posting short messages about what's going on. It's limited to about 140 characters per "tweet", and you can easily set it up to work with even your old cellphone. All you need is SMS capability. It's essentially a live micro-blogging service. In fact, that's why I'm posting about it here and now.

I decided a while back to experiment with a Twitter feed to see what uses and purposes I could discover. I've been using it for a couple of months now, and, while I don't find it anywhere near as useful as Facebook, I figured I might get some use out of it by adding it to my blog. So, with that being said, I hereby present, in the sidebar of my blog, MY TWITTER FEED!!! * bows to the echos of raucous applause which ensue *

To emphasize the tone of my announcement, I now also present you with the following short YouTube video from Current TV. (It pretty much sums up Twitter perfectly)

"Did you get my tweets? I just twoted all over the place!"

- The above clip from Current TV

Flock....?

2009-07-13T16:11:00.001-05:00

So, a short while ago, Cate was asking me a question about how to do something on the net. It had to with a picture from e-bay or somesuch. You can see it here:

german jungle: i want to ride my....

Anyways, she was having trouble in Safari, so I told her to use Firefox. Instead, she cheerfully tells me, she was able to do it successfully with Flock. "In Flock?", I asked. "It's Firefox in a Christian name", she said. Confused, I decided to look it up. (I had never heard of 'Flock' before, but you can find it here: Flock Browser - The Social Web Browser) Turns out, while I saw nothing about the Christian part of it (not saying it's not the case...just didn't notice it), I did finally figure out why somebody felt the need to rebrand Firefox as "Flock". It's all about the "Social Networking". Basically, Flock runs an older version of Firefox (I think it's currently based on 3.0), and integrates a "sidebar" on the left hand side that allows you to seamlessly access Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Gmail, Flicker, Yahoo! mail, Blogger, and then some. I decided to test it out, and I'm actually writing this post IN Flock's blog posting screen as part of that test. What do I think though?

Well, I like the integration. I like the look of the browser, too. It's nice. I'm a little hesitant about the security being that the browser is based on an older version of Firefox though. Also, it's significantly slower than Chrome, Safari 4, and Firefox 3.5. It might even be slower than IE8 (although, that would be pretty tough to do). The integration though is pretty A+ from what I've seen so far. So, if you are a Facebook / Twitter / Flicker / Gmail / Blogger, etc. etc. etc. junkie, you might find it worth checking out. (I like the blog entry creator a lot...wish I could access and edit my old blogger posts from it though)

Kelly out.

* Edited to add a link to Flock *

Blogged with the Flock Browser

A New Revolution in Iran?

2009-06-21T16:21:00.018-05:00

For the past several days, something unusual has been happening in Iran. It's something that has really not happened since 1979. After an election where the majority of the citizens have doubted the results, a massive upheaval in the form of many many protests has occurred. Things have been getting progressively out of hand for Iran's religious dictatorship there. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, ordered the protests to stop, and that order hasn't really changed much. Now, some of the protesters are apparently shouting "Death to Khamenei!", and now, in spite of Iran's attempts to lock down all journalism, cellphone, and internet access to the outside world, the protests continue. But, they are becoming increasingly violent.

Even Time.com is talking about this video: here

Yesterday, June 20th, a young woman, named , was shot in killed while reportedly standing nearby and watching (just watching) the protests. Graphic amateur video made it onto YouTube and spread like wildfire throughout the Twittersphere and Facebook network. This video broke my heart.

One of the most remarkable things about Twitter is its ability to allow everyone to write or receive live updates to major news stories. If you have Twitter, you can click on #iranelection and see what is currently happening. When I was watching it yesterday, it seemed to be jumping at the rate of over 200+ a minute. That's with the government of Iran trying as best it can to prevent any of its citizens from using Twitter at all!!

Twitter, it seems, is no friend of the oppressive government. Facebook and YouTube are not much better in that regard, of course. Between the three of them, information has been getting out in spite of Iran's best attempts to thwart it. I remember reading a couple of days ago on Twitter and elsewhere how lonely the Iranian people felt. They kept saying, "Where're the Americans now?" Kind of surprising actually. However, while American citizens are not so easily able to provide the support they were looking for, people from around the world (and America, too, of course!) have been providing other support by electronically masking their identities as best they can to confuse the Iranian government into thinking that they (and help prevent the tracking down of those who are posting on Twitter, Facebook, and the like.

So, what are you going to do?

Well, here's an idea. To show their support, Twitter users (and now Facebook users, too!) have been altering their profile images to be tinted green. Green being the color of the candidate who "supposedly" lost the election, it has become the rallying color of the protesters throughout the country and their friends around the world. It may not be much, but it's easy to do. I used a free open source image editing program called The Gimp to modify mine. It's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and easy to install on all three. Just modify the color balance, and re-upload your profile pic.

Meanwhile, I want to leave you with some scripture to think about:

Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun:
I saw the tears of the oppressed—
and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors—
and they have no comforter.

And I declared that the dead,
who had already died,
are happier than the living,
who are still alive.

But better than both
is he who has not yet been,
who has not seen the evil
that is done under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 4:1-3

The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

Luke 4:17-21

Praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD, O my soul.

I will praise the LORD all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortal men, who cannot save.

When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD his God,

the Maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and everything in them—
the LORD, who remains faithful forever.

He upholds the cause of the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets prisoners free,

the LORD gives sight to the blind,
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down,
the LORD loves the righteous.

The LORD watches over the alien
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

The LORD reigns forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the LORD.

Psalm 146

Highland Baptist Night of Worship

2009-06-18T10:23:00.006-05:00

This Saturday night, between 6-8 PM, our church, Highland Baptist Church, is having an awesome contemporary Night of Worship. We've been working really hard on this (Personally speaking, I'm playing bass, and Lilly is sharing her testimony!), so we'd love it for you to come!

Highland Baptist is located at:
8202 Boedeker
Dallas, TX

We're within spitting distance of Northpark Mall.

A Memorial Day Prayer

2009-05-25T12:41:00.002-05:00

Lord, thank you for bringing us out of that war
Thank you for bringing our sons and daughters home
Thank you for the freedom we celebrate each year
Paid for by the blood of those we've held dear
Thank you for the grace that let's us come near
Your throne and rejoice without the fear
Of everlasting death.

And so we know
That our brothers,
Our fathers,
Our husbands,
Our wives,
And sisters, too,
Our sons and our daughters and all who followed you
Whom we have lost...
Have the hope and promise of everlasting life
With you, our Father,
without the pain and strife of this world.
As do we
For that, we rejoice, we come before you, and sing
Great praises of your love, mercy, and wisdom.
Today, we remember them,
And how they fought valiantly for us.
And for our freedom
That we have the availability in this land
To come before you now.

Father, we still have soldiers, family and friends,
fighting to preserve this freedom
In a world that hates you
In a time that despises your name
We pray for their safety like we did before
And that, if their time has come, you will take them safely home
And comfort us in our sorrow,
Help us to know and see
That victory over death has already been won.
Thanks to Jesus!
And if and when you being them back to us instead
Let us rejoice again
for the grace which you freely give
and the love that you show to your people.
We rejoice like that now, too, and sing
Hallelujah!!
We will rise again!

No matter the pain we endure
The illness that puts us down
The conflict that sends us to the grave

No matter the sins we have committed
For we have surrendered all to you
No matter the punishment we deserve

Our condemnation is not coming!
Eternal life with you is waiting!
We will rise again

Like our king already has.

Praise be to you, Lord! Hallelujah!

Countdown: Sean Hannity Offers to be Waterboarded "For the Troops"

2009-04-24T19:10:00.003-05:00

Ladies and gentleman, Keith Olbermann on Sean Hannity's latest brilliant idea (clip of Hannity included):

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Charles Grodin: "Would you consent to be waterboarded so we could get the truth out of you?"

Sean Hannity: "Yes. Yeah, sure."

Charles Grodin: "If we can waterboard you, are you busy on Sunday?"

Sean Hannity: *laughs* "I'll do it for charity. I'll let you do it."

Charles Grodin: "I wouldn't do it"

Sean Hannity: "I'll do it for the troop's families."

- Sean Hannity and Charles Grodin discussing waterboarding

Added a "Share on Facebook" Link

2009-04-16T13:49:00.004-05:00

Curious as to how difficult it would be, I looked and then added a "Share on Facebook" link to the bottom of each post on Dry Tea.

Looks like it works well!

An Easter Project at the Faith House

2009-04-12T17:07:00.016-05:00

As the storm was approaching, I felt the sting of fear in my heart. "Oh, no! What if it rains all over these, they're ruined, and we don't get the most important panel up in time for Easter!?!" I decided to test the paint. It felt mostly dry to the touch. Lilly and I started to discuss whether or not we should move them back across the street to the house to finish drying or whether not to. We definitely didn't want to get black paint on the Faith House! At that moment, I felt a couple of drops of rain. "Okay. We're going now!", I said, and, with that, we pulled our creations up off of the slightly paint stained grass, and started racing for the gate from the garden in the back of the church. It's not easy carrying giant cardboard cutouts (backed with various pieces of wood and bamboo for rigidity) as the wind picks up. It wants to snag them like giant kites without strings and yank them from us. As Lilly locked the garden gate, I raced across the street and scurried up the front steps to the safety of the porch. Just in the nick of time!! Before Lilly even caught up with me, and just as I was setting them down, the rain came. Huge, pouring, drenching sheets of Texas rain. We had just barely made it!

So, what was the big deal about what we were working on? Well, some would say maybe nothing. We would say Maybe everything. What we were working on had the power to potentially change lives! It was a picturesque storytelling of the most important event in the bible: The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We already had panels up telling the story of his death on the cross on Good Friday and we had a panel of an empty cross up for Saturday to signify that he was taken off of the cross and buried. The panel we were working on at the onset of the rain was the most important. It was the telling of the resurrection. The apostle Paul says the following about it:

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them? And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? I die every day—I mean that, brothers—just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord. If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised,
"Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die."

- 1 Corinthians 15:12-32

So, as you can see, this was the most important panel of the three! We waited another hour or so until the weather abated again before we put it up, but the result is pretty cool. (Pictures coming at the end of this post!)

As we are a Christian house, interested in engaging the surrounding community in a missional sense, Easter presented for us a unique opportunity to tell the story to the surrounding community. Thinking of the popularity of Christmas decorations, I decided we should put up Easter decorations. It wasn't until Thursday morning that I had a clear image of how these should look and be done. After that, it was a race against the clock to get the materials, and prepare the panels. We actually didn't get anything at all up until Friday! (I was wanting to stagger the display of each panel to correspond with each day of the weekend) In the end, we really like the result, and we hope it will have an impact on the dozens of people who walk past our house each day.

Now, for pictures (some images are smaller than others due to a funny setting I had on my iPhone):

Upon completion:

Panel 1

Panel 2

Panel 3

The whole thing

"He is risen!"

"He is risen indeed!"

- Paschal greeting at our church

discussing the emerging church

2009-03-23T20:53:00.007-06:00

In the last few weeks, in bible study, we've been conversing about the emerging church. Dan posted a great link to an article on the subject on his blog. Since then, I have been doing a lot of thinking and talking about it. Tonight, Dan had to go to a birthday party for his daughter, and so Sean pressed us into watching this sermon by a guy named Mark Driscoll, whom many people associate with the emerging church.

It might be helpful for me to point out that this is a very controversial topic. See, the emerging church seems to have become a buzzword for far left (liberal) Christianity. Apparently, there are several rather outspoken emerging church leaders who are saying and doing all manner of horrid things like: denying the Trinity, denying that Jesus Christ was (is) fully God and fully man, denying that homosexuality is a sin, and denying the legitimacy/accuracy of The Bible. This causes confusion, but, more importantly, this is teaching of false doctrine. This IS actually a turning of Christianity into a ministry of condemnation. Mark Driscoll, in the following sermon, very clearly separates himself and others from those radicals.

Perhaps I should also mention that the emerging church is very often associated with postmodernism. That's a valuable insight to have when addressing the topic. Of course, postmodernism can be most easily described in this context as a tearing up of old way, beliefs, and methods. People tend to rely more on personal experience than logical conclusions or tradition to understand the truth. So, people often try to reanalyze what they have been taught, and it often ends up being very destructive. Do you see how this could cause such controversy in the church today?

Many people believe that the emerging church is a destructive presence in contemporary Christianity. When you look at the radical liberal elements of it, there can be no doubt about that. But I think that, when one considers it in the postive sense Driscoll is talking about below (the first three lanes he discusses), it is actually a good thing. Maybe it's just a modern contextualization of the church. Maybe it's the actions of the Holy Spirit moving the church in the direction of revival. I'm not sure. But I do not think it is a manifest action of Satan to destroy the church though or that, if it was, it would succeed.

All that being said, I will leave you to the video. I warn you: It is about an hour long. But, if you have questions about what the emerging church is or what it means in the context of the future of the Christian church, I think you might do well to watch it. (Note: there seems to be downloads of it available as well. If you go here, you can find them)

Peace!

There is a strong drift toward the hard theological left. Some emergent types [want] to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up. I fear some are becoming more cultural than Christian, and without a big Jesus who has authority and hates sin as revealed in the Bible, we will have less and less Christians, and more and more confused, spiritually self-righteous blogger critics of Christianity.

- Mark Driscoll (taken from the wikipedia page on him)

A Quick Comment Before Bed

2009-03-17T03:42:00.000-06:00

Combining the streaming aspect of Netflix with the Xbox 360 is pretty much brilliant. Blockbuster's doom is pretty much all but certain as far as I can see. I don't know if I even care about the dvd mailing part of Netflix. Just the streaming part is pretty cool (even if it is somewhat limited). This is already going to save Lilly and myself lots of money in terms of what we watch. We won't have to buy the two Stargate SG-1 movies for example. I don't need to find the last three seasons of Red Dwarf I've been wanting to watch. We don't have to wait to catch up on Heroes season 3. This is pretty cool. We watched "Legend of the Drunken Master" (2) tonight for movie night courtesy of this functionality. Just as easy as Time Warner's video on demand feature....minus the $3.99-$5.99 per movie view. Compared to that as a benchmark: If we watch more than 2 movies a month, we'll have already earned our monthly $8.99 Netflix fee in terms of what we've received. We live in such a culture of instant gratification. This sort of service may end up being the death of the corner video store, and possibly the doom for couch potato haters everywhere.

To venture into the realm of the philosophical for a second: This sort of functionality could be the death of civilization. Seriously. Nothing will promote laziness more than instant gratification we have begun to receive at home. There are already people who won't leave their houses because they seem to have everything they need there. We can easily communicate with our friends from home in a variety of ways. We can order food to our home (not quite instantly yet, but wouldn't that be something?). Many people can work from home, and most can find entertainment that they actually want only a button away at home. I remember a bit of a scandal a couple of years ago because someone set up a site where people could actually hunt deer from home. (I think it was shut down) Imagine what will happen when robots permeate our society and we can, controlling them from home, extend a physical reach into the real world via a mechanical (instead of virtual) avatar. How will a church respond when the members start showing up in avatar form?

I think it's pretty obvious our bodies are not meant for this. The logical ramifications of such a stagnation of even a segment of a modern society would suggest the fall of that country or community long before the rest of the world came with it. Or would it?

I remember reading in C.S. Lewis's "That Hideous Strength" about how the N.I.C.E.'s eventual plan was to replace real trees and real birds with metal trees with metal birds that sang the recordings of long dead bird songs. The metal trees would serve the same breathable air providing function of the replaced real trees. They would just be metal and therefore devoid of life. It was all about purifying the world. What were they purifying it of? Life. Is that dissimilar to how we presently enter a world where only our perceived experiences matter to us? Where a virtual, computer generated reality is mimicking actual reality to the point where we no longer care which is which? There are scientists and engineers working on technologies that would allow the replication of smells. Why? So that we can watch movies or play video games and smell the realness of the simulated environment. Visual replication will only go so far before we can not visually distinguish the difference between real and fake. We're closer to that than it seems. As engineers work to create more perfect virtual realities that simulate everything from motion and sight to the smells and physical sensations of a simulated reality, a future not too dissimilar from the science fiction of The Matrix becomes less difficult to see.

I digress. I'm not going to be the first to think like this. Obviously so in fact. When we see movies like The Matrix, they are a warning to the future possibility of these ideas. Possible futures where we can get almost anything we want, even sex, without leaving our homes or even coming into contact with another human being. It's a frightening, dismal picture, and some of us may see large parts of it come to pass within our lifetimes. Almost certainly within our children's lifetimes if Christ does not return first or if a world war does not send our civilization into oblivion. The avalanche starts with a tiny snowball. Inch by inch new ways and new habits leap into our lives as the pace of civilization's growth grows faster and faster. How do you want it to end?

In the meantime, I still really like the instant gratification of being able to obtain my favorite mind dulling entertainment and media material at the press of a button. I think this will continue to get worse and worse though, and I wonder when we will hit the bottom.

note: The following, being the text of C.S. Lewis's which I mention above, is also a rather convincing argument for sex. :)

At dinner [Mark Studdock] sat next to Filostrato. There were no other members of the inner circle within earshot. The Italian was in good spirits and talkative. He had just given orders for the cutting down of some fine beech trees in the grounds.

"Why have you done that, Professor?” said a Mr. Winter who sat opposite. “I shouldn't have thought they did much harm at that distance from the house. I'm rather fond of trees myself."

"Oh yes, yes," replied Filostrato. “The pretty trees , the garden trees. But not the savages. I put the rose in my garden, but not the briar. The forest tree is a weed. But I tell you I have seen the civilised tree in Persia. It was a French attache who had it, because he was in a place where trees do not grow. It was made of metal. A poor, crude thing. But how if it were perfected? Light, made of aluminium. So natural, it would even deceive."

"It would hardly be the same as a real tree," said Winter.

"But consider the advantages! You get tired of him in one place: two workmen carry him somewhere else: wherever you please. It never dies. No leaves to fall, no twigs, no birds building nests, no muck and mess."

"I suppose one or two, as curiosities, might be rather amusing."

"Why one or two? At present, I allow, we must have forest for the atmosphere. Presently we find a chemical substitute. And then, why any natural trees? I foresee nothing but the art tree all over the earth. In fact, we clean the planet."

"Do you mean," put in a man called Gould, “that we are to have no vegetation at all?”

"Exactly. You shave your face: even, in the English fashion, you shave him every day. One day we shave the planet."

"I wonder what the birds will make of it?”

"I would not have any birds either. On the art tree I would have the art birds all singing when you press a switch inside the house. When you are tired of the singing you switch them off. Consider again the improvement. No feathers dropped about, no nests, no eggs, no dirt."

"It sounds," said Mark, “like abolishing pretty well all organic life."

"And why not? It is simple hygiene. Listen, my friends. If you pick up some rotten thing and find this organic life crawling over it, do you not say, `Oh, the horrid thing. It is alive,' and then drop it?”

"Go on," said Winter.

"And you, especially you English, are you not hostile to any organic life except your own on your own body? Rather than permit it you have invented the daily bath."

"That's true."

"And what do you call dirty dirt? Is it not precisely the organic? Minerals are clean dirt. But the real filth is what comes from organisms - sweat, spittles, excretions. Is not your whole idea of purity one huge example? The impure and the organic are interchangeable conceptions."

"What are you driving at, Professor?” said Gould.

"After all we are organisms ourselves."

"I grant it. That is the point. In us organic life has produced Mind. It has done its work. After that we want no more of it. We do not want the world any longer furred over with organic life, like what you call the blue mould - all sprouting and budding and breeding and decaying. We must get rid of it. By little and little, of course; slowly we learn how. Learn to make our brains live with less and less body: learn to build our bodies directly with chemicals, no longer have to stuff them full of dead brutes and weeds. Learn how to reproduce ourselves without copulation."

"I don't think that would be much fun," said Winter.

"My friend, you have already separated the Fun, as you call it, from the fertility. The Fun itself begins to pass away. Bah! I know that is not what you think. But look at your English women. Six out of ten are frigid are they not? You see? Nature herself begins to throw away the anachronism. When she has quite thrown it away, then real civilisation becomes possible. You would understand if you were peasants. Who would try to work with stallions and bulls? No, no; we want geldings and oxen. There will never be peace and order and discipline so long as there is sex.

- C.S. Lewis - That Hideous Strength

An Obituary

2009-03-12T01:06:00.021-06:00

WARNING! - This might not be for the faint of heart or for those who are particularly sensitive when it comes to subject matter involving animals and violence.

Buttercup was Larry and Mark's cat. She was also a dear friend to all in the house.

Last night, I awoke to my wife screaming one word into my face: "Buttercup!!!!!"

This was quickly followed by something along the lines of, "She's in trouble! Help her!" My first thought was that she was in a cat fight. Not too uncommon, but the growling quickly changed that thought. (Keep in mind, this whole train of action and thought occurred in under two seconds) Leaping to the window, I quickly saw Buttercup surrounded by two mid to large size dogs. They were biting her, and tossing her around in their mouths. We pounded on the window for a second, but there was no change. So, I raced to the back door, opened it just enough to see out, and started making the best angry barking sound I could. Apparently, that worked because the dogs vanished into the night. But, alas, for poor Buttercup it was too late.

Scrambling to put on a shirt (it was really cold), and grabbing a bo-staff that Lilly handed me (the bo-staff is courtesy of Todd at the moment), I ran out to Buttercup. She was breathing, but, as I approached, it was painfully obvious that it was already too late. She lay there on her side, breathing heavily, and, there, across her belly, was a four or five inch gash. Out of it hung her stomach. We tried to comfort her. Lilly had already called Mark, and both he and Larry came out the upstairs door within a few seconds. Even then, by the time they got to her the breathing had stopped, and her body was growing cold.

The sad event had happened around 4:12AM. By around 4:30 AM, the four of us had ventured out into the cold, pre-storm morning air for a sad and hasty funeral. Larry and Mark dug a small, cat sized hole. And, with a few words about how wonderful of a kitty she had been, what gift from God she was, and how remarkably long her life had been, we laid Buttercup to rest and covered her with dirt, leaves, and dust.

Today, the memories of last night have not ceased in haunting me. I realize with a detached sort of logic that all life on this earth must come to an end, and that this is why our Christian eschatalogical hope is so great. In e-mails we passed around today, we talked about how we think and hope that animals (at least some of them) go to heaven. And we also talked about them having voices there again. For, we know that:

The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

- Romans 8:19-22

and that the bible says also this:

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:
"To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!"

- Revelations 5:13

We all loved Buttercup. Lilly enjoyed very much giving her soft food from time to time. I particularly enjoyed the way she would greet us every time we came home and every time we stepped out our back door to leave. I can say that I felt loved by her when, arriving home from work, she would meet me at my car, walk (more like trot) with me back up to the back door, and generally just enjoy a little bit of loving attention as I would pet her before going inside. She also loved to try to sneak in to our flat. Just the other day, I went to answer the door to let in Daniel. As I was doing so,he was reaching down to pet Buttercup (whom, in her loving fashion, had solicited him for love as well). As I opened the door, Buttercup sprinted inside. She rocketed past my feet, and would have made it deep into the house if I had not called to her sternly. Then she stopped, turned obediently, and raced back outside. I don't know if it was as funny for her, but it left Daniel and I giggling for the next several minutes. Sometimes, we would let Buttercup and Rajah see and talk to each other from a couple of feet apart, and Rajah would certainly watch her from our bedroom window at night. I'm pretty sure he saw the whole incident as well.

There's such a minor bond between Lilly and myself to Buttercup though when compared to what Larry and Mark must have had. I can't imagine all the fun stories they might have. (and, as I write this, it is too late in the evening to ask them) In the winter time, I know she would be allowed in to sleep on Mark's bed. And, as for Larry, I don't know when he acquired her, but I know that the guy who had her before him had her as far back as '94 and '95. I think Larry has had her most of the time since. How many stories must he have of her crazy antics?

She was an old cat, and I guess that when compared to other ways for her to have gone (slow painful ones), this one was probably much better. Buttercup will be missed. She was a gift from God to all who knew her. She was a dear friend to all in the house. She was also Larry and Mark's cat.

"Now, Mrs. Studdock," said the Director, "you shall see a diversion. But you must be perfectly still." With these words he took from his pocket a little silver whistle and blew a note on it. And Jane sat still till the room became filled with silence like a solid thing and there was first a scratching and then a rustling and presently she saw three plump mice working their passage across what was to them the thick undergrowth of the carpet, nosing this way and that so that if their course had been drawn it would have resembled that of a winding river, until they were so close that she could see the palpitation of their noses. In spite of what she said she did not really care for mice in the neighborhood of her feet and it was with an effort that she sat still. Thanks to this effort she saw mice for the first time as a really are - not as creeping things but as dainty quadrupeds, almost, when they sat up, like tiny kangaroos, with sensitive kid-gloved forepaws and transparent ears. With quick inaudible movements they ranged to and fro till not a crumb was left on the floor. Then the blew a second time on his whistle and with a sudden whisk of tails all three of them were racing for home and in a few seconds had disappeared behind the coal box. The Director looked at her with laughter in his eyes....

"There," he said, "a very simple adjustment. Humans want crumbs removed; mice are anxious to remove them. It ought never to have been a cause of war."

- C. S. Lewis, in That Hideous Strength

I love Obadja.

2009-03-05T00:18:00.005-06:00

Check them out at http://www.obadja.com/. You can download the whole cd for their last album, "Unforced Rhythms of Freedom", there as well. It's freakin' awesome. (about half of it is in english, btw)

You can "see" the full version of the above song here:

The Bacon Explosion - A Story in Pictures...

2009-02-02T16:19:00.007-06:00

This was started by an article in the NY Times about a recipe on a web site called, "The Bacon Explosion". My friend, Russell (seen in one of the pictures below cooking bacon) sent this to us in shock calling this a symbol of what America now is. Out of amusement, I decided we would try this at our upcoming Superbowl party. After Daniel and Brian (who were hosting the party) threatened to shut off access to the bathrooms should this be attempted, I, resolved now to succeed in this endeavor, decided to proceed anyways. Luckily, they did not follow through on their threats. The following is the story of our deeds...

"The evil Dr. Atkins has created an unstoppable monster. Mild mannered Clark Kent notices a massive bacon log of destruction heading right towards unsuspecting arteries. This looks like a job for Superman!

Sadly, Superman was no match for the Artery Gooey Kablooie and the evil Dr. Atkins now holds world in his greasy clutches."

- Rob

A world free from DRM, copyrights and patents (a personal opinion)

2009-01-14T01:19:00.009-06:00

I was reading this article called A world free from DRM, copyrights and patents over on my favorite tech news site: www.tgdaily.com. It was less of an opinion piece, and more of an invitation for discussion than anything else, and it was on one of my favorite topics to vocalize my opinion about: copyright and patent law.

The article basically asked the following question:

What would it be like to wake up tomorrow and have the ability to take everything that exists and recreate it as needed absolutely free from royalty or limitation? If people and companies could copy anything in existence, rolling it into whatever product they can design, and then attempt to sell it to others ... what would that world look like?

After writing my response, I decided I would bring it over here as well. So, that being said, here it is:

A world without DRM would be a beautiful place.

A world without copyright and patents? Perhaps less so.

DRM is a little different from copyrights and patents in this discussion however. See, DRM is actually an enforcement of copyright. Without copyright, it would not exist. It is an example of the horribleness of the extreme position to which copyright law has been pushed.

It is important to remember that copyrights and patents exist for legitimate reasons. Namely, to protect the creators of the technology or work. They were originally intended to protect said creator(s) for a short period of time to allow them to profit exclusively from their work. That's a good thing. The bad thing is what they exist as now.

Copyrights now last an absurd amount of time. Perpetually forever in some cases. Mickey Mouse, for example, should have been in the public domain long ago except for the changes that we have seen to copyright law which now seem to provide Disney the ability to maintain copyright on Mickey forever.

Patents were originally created with a reasonable time attached to them as well...until technology advanced to the point that we are creating and manufacturing new things so much faster than when patent law was originally written. Especially in the case of software (which should not be able to be patented in my book), advancements are happening so fast that the long term of copyright no longer merely protects the creator from profitability, it stymies the creativity of others to the point of stymieing innovation.

The solution? Adjust patents and copyright terms to reflect modern innovation and technology. Copyright needs to go back to it's original term lengths (if not shorter), and patents need to have their term lengths set based on the creative pace of their respective industry. In other words, it may be appropriate for a special type of clutch on a tractor to have a patent lasting 20 years, but the idea of patenting multi-touch interfaces on mobile devices should probably not be able to last more than 4 or 5 years due to the pace of innovation in the industry.

I think with these kinds of modifications, patent and copyright law still serve a very valid purpose. It's only in it's current state that it becomes so evil.

The reason I say all this is because I can imagine a world without any of these things (DRM, patents, and copyright). Unfortunately, as we live in a world of fast paced innovation and proliferation of information, I think it would be impossible for people to profit legitimately from their work without some form of protection. We have rampant piracy now from countries that don't enforce copyright law. Imagine if it was out of control like that here because there was no copyright law. Suddenly, we would have less movies, less video games, less advancements in medicine, computers, and science. Sure, a program like Windows would greatly advance from the kind of openness that Linux currently profits from, but for how long before it fell apart or simply dried up?

The danger of these kinds of laws lies in the extremes. We have been steadily pushed by the big media and technology corporations towards increased DRM, copyright, and patent law to protect their profit margins for things that are now becoming ancient. If we are not already at the extreme and pushing beyond it, we are certainly at least approaching it. Likewise, we can and should not advocate the total opposite extreme. We needed the laws and rules to begin with to spark innovation. Now, we still need them. We just need them back towards to the point of balance where they began, and not towards the point of extreme at which they exist now.

And, below, is a thoughtful quote by a guy who is very outspoken and opinionated on the above subject: Richard Stallman

I don't have a problem with someone using their talents to become successful, I just don't think the highest calling is success. Things like freedom and the expansion of knowledge are beyond success, beyond the personal. Personal success is not wrong, but it is limited in importance, and once you have enough of it it is a shame to keep striving for that, instead of for truth, beauty, or justice.

- Richard Stallman - An Interview with Znet

"It's very rude to start a conversation"

2009-01-13T22:44:00.003-06:00

Someone said this to me tonight. Is it right or wrong? You decide.

What Criteria Made You Choose Your Church? Was That Criteria Just? updated

2009-01-12T01:57:00.007-06:00

Tuesday night, one of our beloved upstairs neighbors took us out to eat at a charming little italian place called Angelo's. It's near here in the Lakewood area. As we sat and talked, conversation turned to (amongst other things) the subject of why people go to the specific church that they go to. What keeps them there? Why do some people leave, and others stick around through the heaviest of crisis?

The question came up dinner though this week, and boiled down (for me) to this: What should we reasonably expect from church, and when should we walk away as opposed to staying put during a time of hardship? How much hardship should we endure before we leave? Should we tell someone?

I think we can easily start talking about this issue by looking at some of the commonly stated reasons for leaving:

1.) Doctrine - what does the church teach? What has it declared that it believes? Where do you stand in relationship to those beliefs? When we become members of a church, we are essentially committing ourselves to the teaching of and adherence to those beliefs. So, it's important to know not only where you stand, but where the church stands. This is also why denominational schisms have erupted over the millenia. People disagree on doctrine, and chose to convene with and worship with people of like doctrine.

2.) Preaching - pushing the very important doctrinal aspect aside for the moment, a lot of people will chose their church entirely on the oratorial skills of the pastor. Is this an appropriate criteria for church selection and membership of or departure from?

3.) Worship Format - for a lot of people, the style of worship makes a big difference. Does it make you have that feeling of being all warm and fuzzy inside? Do you feel close to God during it? (FYI - I'm stating some common opinions about how worship is "supposed" to be here that are very debatable) Is the worship time somber or ecstatic? Is it traditional or contemporary? Is there a choir or a band?

4.) Community - What are the people like? Are they local or transplanted? (a term I had not heard used in this context until recently) Is it easy to establish relationships with others, or does everybody vanish into their lives post benediction until next week? Are friendships an "in church only" thing or do they reach out of the weekly service into each person's daily life? Are their social cliques which make it hard for an outsider to fit in? Do you have your "friends" and then your "church friends"?

5.) Programs - What kind of programs does the church have for people to fit into? Do some of it's members go out each week to feed the homeless? Maybe they knit socks for the poor or run blanket drives for the needy. Is a person able to easily get involved?

6.) Size - Usually an issue because of it's percieved association with some of these other issues, the size of a church is usually one of the first things people look at. Is it so big that it'll be hard to fit in? Maybe they really just want to blend into a crowd. Maybe they want a small church for the sense of community or a large church so it's easier to get involved in large scale community service projects.

7.) Status in the surrounding community - How respected is the church locally? What is it's reputation? Do you want to be associated with that body of believers?

8.) Educational Programs for youth - Does it have a good children's ministry with good teachers, solid doctrine, wise discipline, and a safe environment? How about a teenage ministry? A young adults ministry? Singles?

9.) Family - For some people, the church they go to was decided before they were even born by their family. For others, maybe they want to leave for that exact reason.

10.) History (of or with) - What is the history of that church. Is it prestigious? Is it humble? Has it been around for more than 20 years? 50? 100?

11.) Prayer activity - Does the church engage in active prayer? Are there regular prayer meetings? Does it successfully keep it's members informed of their current prayer needs of their peers and needs in the community? Does it pray faithfully?

12.) Denomination - Is it the denomination you fit in with? Maybe you want a non-denominational church.

13.) Conflict - This is really a reason for staying/leaving moreso than finding, but there are times when it might be best to leave due to conflict.

There are a lot of reasons why people chose their church, and I've probably missed some. We certainly didn't cover all of these at the dinner table, but we instead focused on the ones that either annoy us personally or that we follow. I tend to think that Doctrine followed by community are the most important ones. We should go to a church that does not teach practices, beliefs, and principles that are in contradiction to The Word. For example: as Christians, we should not attend a church that supports modalism. (modalism being an early church heresy that attempts to explain the Trinity by saying that The Father BECAME The Son who then BECAME The Holy Spirit) It's very important that we surround ourselves with peers and teaching that conforms to appropriate Christian doctrine.

I also believe that community and the availability of that community are very important. When I read about the early church in Acts, the things that shocks me the most is the sense of community. It's something I see as often lacking in our western church mentality. Now, maybe Rich Mullins was right when he said that he thinks that if we took all the highlighted verses from all the bibles in all the world we would discover that all of the bible was highlighted because different people are affected differently by different scriptures. (that's somewhat paraphrased) Maybe I am fascinated by Jesus's authority to heal the sick while someone Ethiopia is impressed with his generosity and charity for the poor. That being said though, I still believe that community is a vital and fundamental part of the church. It is one of the biggest roles of the church in my opinion.

I will say that, while it is definatly not a "deal breaker", the time of worship is important to me, too. I tend to like modern contemporary praise music with a band over the old hymns of yesteryear being sung by a choir. Not saying I hate the choir. Just stating my preference. For me it is easier to focus on worshipping God when singing the songs I am familiar with, and that is usually more modern stuff. I do thing though that the quest for a worship time/service that makes you "feel good" is kind of wishy-washy. I'm not saying you should be miserable during worship or anything, but I feel that the quest for "that emotion" is foolhardy.

I don't want to break down every criteria I listed above. I think that, for me, the Doctrine and the community are the "deal breaker" issues. I think the rest can be tolerated. (maybe the denominational issue is "deal breaker" important, but I think the import aspects of that can be summed up in the doctrine criteria). Obviously, the issue of conflict is not going to be always tolerable either.

I think that, ultimately, when I see someone leaving a church for some of these "lesser" reasons, I feel dismayed. I find myself wishing people had more backbone, and wondering about their priorities since they seem to be focused on what they are "getting" out of church. Is church here to service your expectations? Or, is it a gathering of people of like faith into a local representation of a global, universal body? If it is the latter, what right do we have to complain about the worship music or lack of programs? I'm obviously siding a little bit towards the "stick it out" ground, but maybe there is a bit of a middle ground. There are definitely legitimate times when one should leave. Sometimes, the community really isn't there or the church is teaching bad doctrine and sticking with it. I once walked away from even considering a church for membership because of a guest speaker who preached that we should all be rich. (yes, he was talking about money, and, yes, the congregation was jumping out of their seats with joy and acceptance of that message)

As for this post: you decide. Let me (and thus us) know what you think by posting a comment.

Peace.

Spock: Don't grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh...
James T. Kirk: The needs of the few...
Spock: Or the one.
- Star Trek II

Spock: My father says that you have been my friend. You came back for me.
James T. Kirk: You would have done the same for me.
Spock: Why would you do this?
James T. Kirk: Because sometimes the needs of the one... outweigh the needs of the many.

- Star Trek III

Bringing in the new year with Feuersangenbolle

2009-01-01T11:02:00.001-06:00

Mystery Science Theater 3000 with....A Patrick Swayze Christmas

2008-12-19T12:41:00.001-06:00

This is greatness.

Mac vs. PC vs. Linux

2008-12-16T14:36:00.001-06:00

So, a friend sent me this link to a video...

2008-11-26T21:18:00.008-06:00

...and it's pretty cool. Pay attention to the skit.

Everything

Find Me Here
Speak To Me
I want to feel you
I need to hear you
You are the light
That's leading me
To the place where I find peace again.

You are the strength, that keeps me walking.
You are the hope, that keeps me trusting.
You are the light to my soul.
You are my purpose...you're everything.

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

You calm the storms, and you give me rest.
You hold me in your hands, you won't let me fall.
You steal my heart, and you take my breath away.
Would you take me in? Take me deeper now?

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?
And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

Cause you're all I want, You're all I need
You're everything,everything
You're all I want your all I need
You're everything, everything.
You're all I want you're all I need.
You're everything, everything
You're all I want you're all I need, you're everything, everything.

And How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?
How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

- Lifehouse

Follow the election live...

2008-11-04T15:34:00.001-06:00

Obama on Faith and Politics - His 2006 Speech entitled: Call to Renewal

2008-11-03T12:59:00.004-06:00

the following embedded speech by Barack Obama in 2006 talks about his belief in Christ, the separation of church and state, and role of religion in politics. It's a very good speech, and I encourage you to watch it or to read the text which I have included at the bottom of this post. I especially encourage my christian brethren (with an extra emphasis on those who wrongly believe Obama is a Muslim) to watch this. It might change your opinion.

Quick Note: For those wondering what document he is talking about at the beginning of his speech, you can find it here.

And, now, the speech (there are 5 parts):

"(Obama's speech on faith) may be the most important pronouncement by a Democrat on faith and politics since John F. Kennedy's Houston speech in 1960 declaring his independence from the Vatican...Obama offers the first faith testimony I have heard from any politician that speaks honestly about the uncertainties of belief."

- E.J. Dionne, Op-Ed., Washington Post, June 30, 2006

Good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to speak here at the Call to Renewal's Building a Covenant for a New America conference. I've had the opportunity to take a look at your Covenant for a New America. It is filled with outstanding policies and prescriptions for much of what ails this country. So I'd like to congratulate you all on the thoughtful presentations you've given so far about poverty and justice in America, and for putting fire under the feet of the political leadership here in Washington.

But today I'd like to talk about the connection between religion and politics and perhaps offer some thoughts about how we can sort through some of the often bitter arguments that we've been seeing over the last several years.

I do so because, as you all know, we can affirm the importance of poverty in the Bible; and we can raise up and pass out this Covenant for a New America. We can talk to the press, and we can discuss the religious call to address poverty and environmental stewardship all we want, but it won't have an impact unless we tackle head-on the mutual suspicion that sometimes exists between religious America and secular America.

I want to give you an example that I think illustrates this fact. As some of you know, during the 2004 U.S. Senate General Election I ran against a gentleman named Alan Keyes. Mr. Keyes is well-versed in the Jerry Falwell-Pat Robertson style of rhetoric that often labels progressives as both immoral and godless.

Indeed, Mr. Keyes announced towards the end of the campaign that, "Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama. Christ would not vote for Barack Obama because Barack Obama has behaved in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved."

Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama.

Now, I was urged by some of my liberal supporters not to take this statement seriously, to essentially ignore it. To them, Mr. Keyes was an extremist, and his arguments not worth entertaining. And since at the time, I was up 40 points in the polls, it probably wasn't a bad piece of strategic advice.

But what they didn't understand, however, was that I had to take Mr. Keyes seriously, for he claimed to speak for my religion, and my God. He claimed knowledge of certain truths.

Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, he was saying, and yet he supports a lifestyle that the Bible calls an abomination.

Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, but supports the destruction of innocent and sacred life.

And so what would my supporters have me say? How should I respond? Should I say that a literalist reading of the Bible was folly? Should I say that Mr. Keyes, who is a Roman Catholic, should ignore the teachings of the Pope?

Unwilling to go there, I answered with what has come to be the typically liberal response in such debates - namely, I said that we live in a pluralistic society, that I can't impose my own religious views on another, that I was running to be the U.S. Senator of Illinois and not the Minister of Illinois.

But Mr. Keyes's implicit accusation that I was not a true Christian nagged at me, and I was also aware that my answer did not adequately address the role my faith has in guiding my own values and my own beliefs.

Now, my dilemma was by no means unique. In a way, it reflected the broader debate we've been having in this country for the last thirty years over the role of religion in politics.

For some time now, there has been plenty of talk among pundits and pollsters that the political divide in this country has fallen sharply along religious lines. Indeed, the single biggest "gap" in party affiliation among white Americans today is not between men and women, or those who reside in so-called Red States and those who reside in Blue, but between those who attend church regularly and those who don't.

Conservative leaders have been all too happy to exploit this gap, consistently reminding evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their Church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design.

Democrats, for the most part, have taken the bait. At best, we may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that - regardless of our personal beliefs - constitutional principles tie our hands. At worst, there are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word "Christian" describes one's political opponents, not people of faith.

Now, such strategies of avoidance may work for progressives when our opponent is Alan Keyes. But over the long haul, I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people's lives -- in the lives of the American people -- and I think it's time that we join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy.

And if we're going to do that then we first need to understand that Americans are a religious people. 90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people in America believe in angels than they do in evolution.

This religious tendency is not simply the result of successful marketing by skilled preachers or the draw of popular mega-churches. In fact, it speaks to a hunger that's deeper than that - a hunger that goes beyond any particular issue or cause.

Each day, it seems, thousands of Americans are going about their daily rounds - dropping off the kids at school, driving to the office, flying to a business meeting, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets - and they're coming to the realization that something is missing. They are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough.

They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They're looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them - that they are not just destined to travel down that long highway towards nothingness.

And I speak with some experience on this matter. I was not raised in a particularly religious household, as undoubtedly many in the audience were. My father, who returned to Kenya when I was just two, was born Muslim but as an adult became an atheist. My mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists and Methodists, was probably one of the most spiritual and kindest people I've ever known, but grew up with a healthy skepticism of organized religion herself. As a consequence, so did I.

It wasn't until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual dilemma.

I was working with churches, and the Christians who I worked with recognized themselves in me. They saw that I knew their Book and that I shared their values and sang their songs. But they sensed that a part of me that remained removed, detached, that I was an observer in their midst.

And in time, I came to realize that something was missing as well -- that without a vessel for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone.

And if it weren't for the particular attributes of the historically black church, I may have accepted this fate. But as the months passed in Chicago, I found myself drawn - not just to work with the church, but to be in the church.

For one thing, I believed and still believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change, a power made real by some of the leaders here today. Because of its past, the black church understands in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and cloth the naked and challenge powers and principalities. And in its historical struggles for freedom and the rights of man, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world. As a source of hope.

And perhaps it was out of this intimate knowledge of hardship -- the grounding of faith in struggle -- that the church offered me a second insight, one that I think is important to emphasize today.

Faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts.

You need to come to church in the first place precisely because you are first of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away - because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey.

It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street in the Southside of Chicago one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. I didn't fall out in church. The questions I had didn't magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt that I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.

That's a path that has been shared by millions upon millions of Americans - evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims alike; some since birth, others at certain turning points in their lives. It is not something they set apart from the rest of their beliefs and values. In fact, it is often what drives their beliefs and their values.

And that is why that, if we truly hope to speak to people where they're at - to communicate our hopes and values in a way that's relevant to their own - then as progressives, we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse.

Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome - others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.

In other words, if we don't reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, then the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons and Alan Keyeses will continue to hold sway.

More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms. Some of the problem here is rhetorical - if we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice.

Imagine Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address without reference to "the judgments of the Lord." Or King's I Have a Dream speech without references to "all of God's children." Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible, and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.

Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical, though. Our fear of getting "preachy" may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems.

After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness - in the imperfections of man.

Solving these problems will require changes in government policy, but it will also require changes in hearts and a change in minds. I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturers' lobby - but I also believe that when a gang-banger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, we've got a moral problem. There's a hole in that young man's heart - a hole that the government alone cannot fix.

I believe in vigorous enforcement of our non-discrimination laws. But I also believe that a transformation of conscience and a genuine commitment to diversity on the part of the nation's CEOs could bring about quicker results than a battalion of lawyers. They have more lawyers than us anyway.

I think that we should put more of our tax dollars into educating poor girls and boys. I think that the work that Marian Wright Edelman has done all her life is absolutely how we should prioritize our resources in the wealthiest nation on earth. I also think that we should give them the information about contraception that can prevent unwanted pregnancies, lower abortion rates, and help assure that that every child is loved and cherished.

But, you know, my Bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it. So I think faith and guidance can help fortify a young woman's sense of self, a young man's sense of responsibility, and a sense of reverence that all young people should have for the act of sexual intimacy.

I am not suggesting that every progressive suddenly latch on to religious terminology - that can be dangerous. Nothing is more transparent than inauthentic expressions of faith. As Jim has mentioned, some politicians come and clap -- off rhythm -- to the choir. We don't need that.

In fact, because I do not believe that religious people have a monopoly on morality, I would rather have someone who is grounded in morality and ethics, and who is also secular, affirm their morality and ethics and values without pretending that they're something they're not. They don't need to do that. None of us need to do that.

But what I am suggesting is this - secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Moreover, if we progressives shed some of these biases, we might recognize some overlapping values that both religious and secular people share when it comes to the moral and material direction of our country. We might recognize that the call to sacrifice on behalf of the next generation, the need to think in terms of "thou" and not just "I," resonates in religious congregations all across the country. And we might realize that we have the ability to reach out to the evangelical community and engage millions of religious Americans in the larger project of American renewal.

Some of this is already beginning to happen. Pastors, friends of mine like Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes are wielding their enormous influences to confront AIDS, Third World debt relief, and the genocide in Darfur. Religious thinkers and activists like our good friend Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo are lifting up the Biblical injunction to help the poor as a means of mobilizing Christians against budget cuts to social programs and growing inequality.

And by the way, we need Christians on Capitol Hill, Jews on Capitol Hill and Muslims on Capitol Hill talking about the estate tax. When you've got an estate tax debate that proposes a trillion dollars being taken out of social programs to go to a handful of folks who don't need and weren't even asking for it, you know that we need an injection of morality in our political debate.

Across the country, individual churches like my own and your own are sponsoring day care programs, building senior centers, helping ex-offenders reclaim their lives, and rebuilding our gulf coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

So the question is, how do we build on these still-tentative partnerships between religious and secular people of good will? It's going to take more work, a lot more work than we've done so far. The tensions and the suspicions on each side of the religious divide will have to be squarely addressed. And each side will need to accept some ground rules for collaboration.

While I've already laid out some of the work that progressive leaders need to do, I want to talk a little bit about what conservative leaders need to do -- some truths they need to acknowledge.

For one, they need to understand the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice. Folks tend to forget that during our founding, it wasn't the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the First Amendment. It was the persecuted minorities, it was Baptists like John Leland who didn't want the established churches to impose their views on folks who were getting happy out in the fields and teaching the scripture to slaves. It was the forbearers of the evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religious, because they did not want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice their faith as they understood it.

Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles.

This brings me to my second point. Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what's possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing. And if you doubt that, let me give you an example.

We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded.

Of course, in the end God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, and Abraham passes God's test of devotion.

But it's fair to say that if any of us leaving this church saw Abraham on a roof of a building raising his knife, we would, at the very least, call the police and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham. We would do so because we do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that we all see, and that we all hear, be it common laws or basic reason.

Finally, any reconciliation between faith and democratic pluralism requires some sense of proportion.

This goes for both sides.

Even those who claim the Bible's inerrancy make distinctions between Scriptural edicts, sensing that some passages - the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ's divinity - are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life.

The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics.

But a sense of proportion should also guide those who police the boundaries between church and state. Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation - context matters. It is doubtful that children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase "under God." I didn't. Having voluntary student prayer groups use school property to meet should not be a threat, any more than its use by the High School Republicans should threaten Democrats. And one can envision certain faith-based programs - targeting ex-offenders or substance abusers - that offer a uniquely powerful way of solving problems.

So we all have some work to do here. But I am hopeful that we can bridge the gaps that exist and overcome the prejudices each of us bring to this debate. And I have faith that millions of believing Americans want that to happen. No matter how religious they may or may not be, people are tired of seeing faith used as a tool of attack. They don't want faith used to belittle or to divide. They're tired of hearing folks deliver more screed than sermon. Because in the end, that's not how they think about faith in their own lives.

So let me end with just one other interaction I had during my campaign. A few days after I won the Democratic nomination in my U.S. Senate race, I received an email from a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical School that said the following:

"Congratulations on your overwhelming and inspiring primary win. I was happy to vote for you, and I will tell you that I am seriously considering voting for you in the general election. I write to express my concerns that may, in the end, prevent me from supporting you."

The doctor described himself as a Christian who understood his commitments to be "totalizing." His faith led him to a strong opposition to abortion and gay marriage, although he said that his faith also led him to question the idolatry of the free market and quick resort to militarism that seemed to characterize much of the Republican agenda.

But the reason the doctor was considering not voting for me was not simply my position on abortion. Rather, he had read an entry that my campaign had posted on my website, which suggested that I would fight "right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose." The doctor went on to write:

"I sense that you have a strong sense of justice...and I also sense that you are a fair minded person with a high regard for reason...Whatever your convictions, if you truly believe that those who oppose abortion are all ideologues driven by perverse desires to inflict suffering on women, then you, in my judgment, are not fair-minded....You know that we enter times that are fraught with possibilities for good and for harm, times when we are struggling to make sense of a common polity in the context of plurality, when we are unsure of what grounds we have for making any claims that involve others...I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words."

Fair-minded words.

So I looked at my website and found the offending words. In fairness to them, my staff had written them using standard Democratic boilerplate language to summarize my pro-choice position during the Democratic primary, at a time when some of my opponents were questioning my commitment to protect Roe v. Wade.

Re-reading the doctor's letter, though, I felt a pang of shame. It is people like him who are looking for a deeper, fuller conversation about religion in this country. They may not change their positions, but they are willing to listen and learn from those who are willing to speak in fair-minded words. Those who know of the central and awesome place that God holds in the lives of so many, and who refuse to treat faith as simply another political issue with which to score points.

So I wrote back to the doctor, and I thanked him for his advice. The next day, I circulated the email to my staff and changed the language on my website to state in clear but simple terms my pro-choice position. And that night, before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own - a prayer that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me.

And that night, before I went to bed I said a prayer of my own. It's a prayer I think I share with a lot of Americans. A hope that we can live with one another in a way that reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all. It's a prayer worth praying, and a conversation worth having in this country in the months and years to come.

Thank you.

- Barack Obama - Call to Renewal (full text of the speech taken from Obama's campaing website. You can view it there by clicking here.)

More Pictures From Colorado

2008-10-31T10:01:00.006-06:00

Tiny Town Miniature Golf lives up to its name with this tiny resident. It's also a great miniature golf course for only $2.50 a game.

Yes, we brought it home.

Another beautiful autostitch

The signs at the miniature golf course were fantastic.

Another great sign.

Some Pictures From Our Trip to Estes Park, CO

2008-10-30T01:32:00.000-06:00

"Sunrise, sunrise"

Autostitch is a wonderful program. Works well under WINE, too...

This was a "one hand out the window" shot while driving down the highway.

These are the same mountains at the top of this post. You can see they got capped while we were there.

This is an autostitched and cropped view from a place called "Bible Point" on the YMCA grounds.

We all loved the snow. Lilly was the only one that sang to it though...

You would think Daniel was cold, but no. He liked it this way.

"As you can see, the car is perfectly safe. But, NO, THE CAR IS ON FIRE!"

- Kelly (me)

Quick Note!

2008-10-28T11:57:00.002-06:00

I updated the links on the righthand side of the page to include Dan's new blog, and also mark Paul and Becca's blog as new (both with NEW! indicators to indicate their exclusive coolness).

These guys were pretty close...

2008-10-20T16:58:00.001-05:00

This group was right next to our car when we stopped. Upon me pulling
out the phone the one right next to the window ran away. Very sad. I
still got these. Pretty good for a camera phone, eh?

More from Estes Park, CO

2008-10-20T15:28:00.001-05:00

This is a pretty good pic....for a camera phone.

Sunrise in Estes Park, CO

2008-10-20T13:10:00.001-05:00

This is the view from the front porch of our cabin here at the YMCA in
Estes Park, CO. Good stuff.

It pays to know Doctor Gray...

2008-10-12T14:46:00.005-05:00

For those that may not have known, Lilly was in the hospital pretty much all of last week. She got very sick late Sun. night, and started puking violently. She was also feeling very weak and sweating profusely. I though it was food poisoning. So, for about 3-4 hours, we waited it out. It just seemed to be getting worse. Finally, after speaking to her mom, we went to the ER.

Later that morning, they admitted her to Baylor. She had pancreatitous. Apparently, this is one of the more painful things an individual can have. The two most common causes: Binge Drinking (look out Rob, Jason, and Pat!) and gall stones. Both the catscan and ultrasound came back negative for gall stones though, and Lilly hadn't even had any alcohol for a many days (maybe weeks?).

So, we were left not knowing what the problem was. For three days, Lilly was fed only via IV. Then, on Thurs., they sent a camera down her throat to look around. They found something. Apparently, she had the beginnings of gall stones forming. Her gall bladder was heavily infected, and thus her pancreas as well. They decided to remove her gall bladder. So, the next day, they did. Thy had her on a liquid diet on Thursday night up until about midnight. On Friday, post surgery there was more of the same. By Friday night she was eating solid food!!

Saturday, they took her off of the IV. But they didn't want to let her go because her white count was 14, still high. Apparently normal is 11. We were hoping very much that they would let her go today (Sun.). This morning they came in, and told us that everything looked good...., but they didn't have the white count yet. If it was low enough they would let her go. Ten minutes later, they had it....13.8. They wanted her to stay for another day.

We were pretty let down. Another day in the hospital. We prayed that God would work out a way for her to get out still today, but we knew that was not a logical possibility.

Flashback: at our wedding, we had a pair of witnesses in addition to "Best Man" and "Maid of Honor". My witness was a guy named Paul. Doctor Paul Gray. He recently left the U.S. to work in Sodo, Ethiopia.

Back to the present: On Saturday I was e-mailing him about Lilly's condition, and he asked who the surgeon was who removed her gall bladder. It turns out she was someone he had worked with on the same team there at Baylor for his whole residency!! He told me to say "hello" I didn't think I would get the chance to do so.

This morning, she came up to the room to talk to us. This was after we had already been told that Lilly could not go home. She reiterated this, and explained that Lilly's white count was still high, and that was why. Seizing the opportunity, I mentioned Paul, and said that he had said, "hello". She looked pretty shocked that we knew him. I ended up giving her Paul's new blog address as well. She left the room. Only a couple of minutes later, she came back! She had convinced Lilly's other doctors to let her go! Woohoo!

I don't know if mentioning Paul had anything to do with it. We like to thing it did. Either way, we're glad to be home! Lilly seems to be feeling well. We have another appoitment with the doctor on Tuesday, but it is so good to be home today!

Now, if only dropping names could solve the bill, too.... :)

- Just for Men Commercial Featuring the line, "No play for Mr. Gray" (hehe)

More SNL Greatness in the Political Season

2008-10-05T21:45:00.001-05:00

"...maverick..."

- Sarah Palin (200 billion times)

Homer Simpson Tried to Vote for Obama....

2008-10-02T17:00:00.001-05:00

"This doesn't happen in America! Maybe Ohio, but not in America! Ahhhhh!!"

- Homer Simpson (the above clip)

Maybe it's not very nice to poke fun at Sarah Palin...

2008-09-30T14:20:00.003-05:00

...but, apparently, it's a lot of fun.

The New Yorker has a great cover today poking fun at Sarah Palin's foreign policy experience. The Huffington Post writes about it here. (I know, I'm alienating conservative readers everywhere right now....a bit ironic actually...)

The Christian Science Monitor (which occasionally has good reporting) did what I think is a really thoughtful and objective story on the upcoming VP Debate and whether or not Palin has any chances at all. Of course, they also posted a link to a hilarious Sarah Palin Fictional Quote Generator. Good Stuff.

"It's Alaska that has to be considered also to help shore up our economy."

- Sarah Palin Fictional Quote Generator v1.0

Tina Fey Really Does a Perfect Sarah Palin - Updated

2008-09-29T14:31:00.013-05:00

At one point in the following SNL skit, she even quotes Sarah Palin word for word:

CNN points it out here:

For those that missed the SNL skit with Hillary and Sarah from a couple of weeks ago, here it is: (this is also hilarious)

Incidentally, you can view the actual Sarah Palin interviews with Katie Couric here:

Sarah Palin Interview with Katie Couric - Part I

Sarah Palin Interview with Katie Couric - Part II plus A Small Section With Henry Kissinger

Update -
After all the flack they've been receiving over the last few days concerning the Katie Couric / Sarah Palin interview above, it is shocking that they would bring Palin back onto the same show for yet another interview! Less shocking, however, is the fact that, this time, she brings "daddy" McCain along to complain about "gotcha" journalism.

Sarah Palin and McCain on a new interview with Katie Couric

"Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. They are fast, faster than you could believe, don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink. Good luck."

- Sarah Palin (taken from wikiquote.org)

"As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska."

- Sarah Palin - during her Katie Curic interview (September 25, 2008)(taken from wikiquote.org)

Update to the Josh Howard Story

2008-09-18T14:27:00.015-05:00

Mark Cuban has posted(updated link to cache after Cuban took the post down) some of the more "fantastic" (sarcasm) e-mails he has received concerning the Josh Howard story. It's horrifying how racist this country is. Of course, Mark also posted their real e-mail address, too. Go Mark!

From: “Billy Leto”
To: mark.cuban@dallasmavs.com
Date: 09/18/2008 09:20 AM
Subject: are you kidding me?
MC,
Tell Howard that him and Hussein Obama can go to another country and live if they don’t want to support our symbol of freedom.–
Billy

From: Donald Joy
To: mark.cuban@dallasmavs.com
Date: 09/18/2008 09:20 AM
Subject: Howard’s(and the rest of them) anti-American, thuggish remarks/attitude
These black criminals that you people coddle and cultivate are the reason why I no longer watch/follow professional sports. Sickening.
From: Larry Smith
To:
Date: 09/17/2008 08:51 PM
Subject: Your boy
You need to get rid of your nigger howard before you go down with him!

From: “Manuel Rodriguez”
Cc:
Date: 09/17/2008 10:09 PM
Subject: Maverick Josh Howard

You better get that piece of work out of your team for talking and disrespecting the national anthem or you are going to pay the price for it….. What kind of org. allows a looser and an idiot play for them? You are so low you make me vomit!!!! If you allow a hate of America play for your team, you also Hate AMERICA. GET OUT OF HERE!!!!

Have a Blessed Day:

Manuel A. Rodriguez

- A Sample of some of the more "colorful" e-mails on Cuban's blog. (emphasis added to some of the more colorful words/phrases) Disgusting.

Thoughts on Josh Howard's Big Fat "Unpatriotic" Mouth and Why People Are Mad For All the Wrong Reasons

2008-09-18T14:27:00.011-05:00

Ick, over at Ick's corner, posted a thoughtful commentary on Josh Howard's recent gaffe in front of a cellphone camera concerning The Star Spangled Banner:

This started a long thread on comments concerning his patriotism and whether or not he should of said that since he is, essentially, a role model for children. After posting a couple of times in that heated conversation, I decided I would take my comments, and repost them here with mild editing (just to glue them together a bit so they stand on their own.) To give a quick lead up, here is liverdamage's post to which I was primarily responding to. (I was also, of course, responding to Ick's initial post as well)

I’m about to get flamed harsh here:

Am I going to be the only person who supports political dissent? Freedom of speech, freedom of expression?

Not legally being allowed to say something that offends someone else? Where the hell is that line drawn?

A league wide ethics panel? Imposing conduct on LEGAL beliefs? This is not a drug policy or code of conduct based on ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES. This is forcing a person to relinquish his rights in order to work.

I fully support total individual freedom (so long as it doesn’t impede anyone else’s) and capitalism. Capitalism is the great regulator. Josh Howard can disrespect the national anthem… and there will be consequences for his actions. Are you going to purchase merchandise from companies he sponsors? His choices will cost him at at least 10 million in advertising revenue alone.

He has the right to express his opinions. I am choosing to express my opinion that he is an idiot, and I will not be buying from anyone he sponsors. If he offends me more, I will not be watching Mavs games until he is off the roster… even more personally offensive, NBA games all together.

Every individual has power and freedom. I suggest you use it, instead of bitching and asking for social regulation.

- liverdamage (posted with permission)

So, that being said, here is my commentary on the importance of political dissent:

What ever happened to support of political dissent? Is patriotism in a democracy demonstrated through a 100% capitulation to the views disseminated by the government in charge? Is patriotism demonstrated by holding your hand over your heart and taking off your hat during a song? Is it at its fullest in reciting a pledge which we’ve been mindlessly saying since we were kindergartners? No.

In a democracy, political dissent is vital to survival. Without political dissent, the George W. Bushes and John McCains of the world will lead us into a 1984esque world where the government watches us pee in public bathrooms to make sure that we don’t litter.

Mankind has an inherent sense of morality that often governs our senses of what is right and wrong. Governments take advantage of that at an early age to coach us into believing that we must always follow the band, wagon and all. Are you as American as Apple Pie?

Next time you get all uppity about someone’s political opinion being different from yours (maybe Josh sees the Star Spangled banner ceremony as just that: a ceremony. Something he is forced to go through every time he plays), you need to remember: Our country was founded on political dissent. Our country was founded on the idea that we have the right to abstain from these ceremonies and rituals when we want to. That’s what freedom is all about. Our forefathers knew that, and had a marvelous plan laid out to bring that realization to the people. Now, more than 225 years later, we see how corruption and greed try to obfuscate that plan with ceremony, and we run right along with it.

Liverdamage is right about another thing, too. Josh will suffer the consequences for his words. We all do. That doesn’t mean he loves the U.S. and less. It just means he thinks the ceremony is dumb. Do you agree?

Do we have the moral and legal authority to question Josh Howard’s statement?

Maybe a better way of putting it is: Where do you get off saying he has to censor himself in order to work? The general sentiment seems to be: Josh Howard shouldn’t have the right to say these things because they offend us and he’s in the public spotlight!! Doesn’t that sentiment walk in firm opposition to freedom of speech?

Did I even mention anything about what Josh Howard said being illegal? No. I suggested that the government wants you to treat it as such. They are getting exactly that.

You’re job in a democracy is to question the authority of the government in every circumstance. Democracy is based on the idea that WE should be in charge of it. The truth of this situation is such that the government has participated in brainwashing us into mindless patriotism, and have then redefined patriotism to be something that, in a democracy, it is not. In a democracy, it is patriotic to question the government. In democracy, it is patriotic to oppose policies we disagree with. Anti-war protests are patriotic because they are actually the demonstration of the will of the people to change the course of the country.

What Josh Howard said might be more patriotic than not. His example might actually be positive in that it encourages people to speak out their opinions, and not to hide them because the vocal majority disagrees. That’s a positive lesson for our children.

I never said that Josh Howard was going to jail. I only said that we have a problem here in that the flames of the mob are being fanned. I suggest they are being fanned improperly.

- Kelly

A quick followup to all of that: I actually DO have a problem with Josh Howard's rant. But it's not for purposes of political dissent. I think they were racist and dumb. My problem is not that he feels like he doesn't have to participate in the Star Spangled Banner, but, rather, that he feels he doesn't have to participate because he is black. A black American is just as much of an American as a white one. That is where I become offended by his words.

"The Star-Spangled Banner’ is going on. I don’t celebrate this [expletive]. I’m black."

- Josh Howard of the Dallas Mavericks

Another of McCain's Lies

2008-09-12T16:57:00.004-05:00

Do you want to elect someone who not only resorts to such dishonest tactics, but also does so by attacking legislation meant to protect children from sexual predators? Planned Parenthood has come out with an ad addressing McCain's lies on this matter. First though, the blatantly false ad from McCain:

and here's Planned Parenthood's response:

1110 Vermont Ave, NW Suite 300 Washington, DC 20005 · PHONE: 202.973.4800 · www.plannedparenthoodaction.org
McCain-Palin 2008
P.O. Box 16118
Arlington, VA 22215
FAX: 703-752-2515
Delivered via Fax, email, and postal mail
Sept. 11, 2008

Dear Steve Schmidt/McCain-Palin campaign,
I am writing to ask that the McCain campaign immediately take down your false and misleading ad attacking Senator Obama for his support of a bill that would have helped protect young children from sexual predators.
This ad is a misleading attack on Senator Obama AND on the substance of the bill itself. As one of many organizations the supported the bill, we are outraged that the McCain campaign would seek to play political games with children’s health and safety. We are also disappointed that Senator McCain has reneged on his own promise to refrain from such tactics. In 2003, Planned Parenthood worked with Illinois state legislators to introduce the bill highlighted in Senator McCain’s negative ad. The bill, SB 99, would have taught kindergartners how to recognize inappropriate touching and how to defend against sexual predators. In addition, the bill “was supported by a coalition of education and public health organizations, including the
Illinois Parent Teacher Association, the Illinois State Medical Society, the Illinois Public Health Association and the Illinois Education Association.” (New York Times, 9/11/08) Bill SB 99 of the 2003 Illinois Legislative session explicitly states, “Course material and instruction shall teach pupils to not make unwanted physical and verbal sexual advances and how to say no to unwanted sexual advances and shall include information about verbal, physical, and visual sexual harassment, including without limitation nonconsensual sexual advances, nonconsensual physical sexual contact, and rape by an acquaintance.” Several analyses and fact checks of the McCain campaign’s attack ad have criticized the ad, and found that it is a “factual failure” and “seriously distort(s) the record.” The New York Times: McCain’s ad “distorts” Obama’s record: The New York Times reports that McCain’s ad “severely distorts” Obama’s record and is “recycling old and discredited arguments.” The Times goes on to report that “The advertisement, then, also misrepresents what
the bill meant by “comprehensive.” The instruction the bill required was comprehensive in that it called for a curriculum that went from kindergarten and through high school, not in the sense that kindergarteners would have been fully exposed to the entire gamut of sex-related issues.” [The New York Times, 9/11/08]
The Washington Post: The McCain ad “fails test”: The Washington Post examined the “education” ad created by McCain and said that political ads “should not misrepresent the record of the other side and should clearly distinguish quotes from non-partisan news sources from standard political rhetoric. The McCain ‘education’ ad fails this test.” [The Washington Post, 9/11/08] Factcheck.org: McCain ad is a “Factual Failure”: Factcheck.org writes, “A McCain-Palin campaign ad claims Obama's ‘one accomplishment’ in the area of education was ‘legislation to teach “comprehensive sex education” to kindergarteners.’ But the claim is simply false, and it dates back to Alan Keyes' failed race against Obama for an open Senate seat in 2004. Obama, contrary to the ad's insinuation, does not support explicit sex education for kindergarteners. And the bill, which would have allowed only ‘age appropriate’ material and a no-questions-asked optout policy for parents, was not his accomplishment to claim in any case, since he was not even a cosponsor – and the bill never left the state Senate.” [Factcheck.org; 9/10/08] Congressional Quartely: McCain makes “dubious” claims about Obama’s character. CQ writes, “McCain appears to be banking on the assumption that he has enough credibility with voters that he can maintain their faith in his character even if he makes dubious claims about Obama's…. [T]he underlying suggestion of ‘Education’ -- that Obama favors teaching 5-yearolds the kind of sex ed taught to high school students -- is a significant stretch.” [CQ, 9/11/08] We all want to protect our children, and we should be able to agree not to politicize issues that are critical to the safety and well-being of our children. That is why Senator Obama supported this bill. With that in mind, I respectfully ask that the McCain campaign stop airing this misleading attack ad on Senator Obama’s education record, and on the bill itself.

Sincerely,
Cecile Richards
President
Planned Parenthood Action Fund

- letter from Planned Parenthood chief Cecile Richards - text taken from Ben Smith's Blog: Planned Parenthood defends Obama, attacks McCain

So, we're going to be moving...

2008-09-09T18:44:00.003-05:00

In two weeks, Lilly and I will be leaving behind the apartment I have been living in for the past 5 or 6 years. (I think it's about 5 1/2). We're looking forward to it. Lilly is especially looking forward to it. I don't think she's ever really liked it here that much. We're going to see a drastic drop in our rent from this, and we'll be moving into a house that also house that also shelters a few of our friends from church and bible study. It's a quadplex, and it's apparently obtained a reputation for being known as "The Faith House". (the name comes from the church that owns the property)

We're both really hoping that this will help us out a lot financially. Rent here in The Village just kept going up, up, up... So, please be praying for us as we go through the next couple of weeks of moving, stress, etc. (Did I mention the Pontiac isn't working?). Now is one time when I really miss my old suburban.

"Meow"

- Rajah

Too Important to Pass Up...

2008-09-03T16:49:00.012-05:00

Journalists are being arrested and peaceful, lawful protests are being prevented up in St. Paul, MN as the RNC gets into full swing. Here are some links:

St. Paul Mayor and Media Mum on Journalism Crackdown - Timothy Karr - Huggington Post

Two J-Students and Adviser Still Jailed In RNC Protests - Associated Press

And this is a video:

"Amy Goodman, the host of "Democracy Now!," a nationally syndicated public radio and television program, says she was arrested Monday despite clearly identifying herself as a journalist.

Goodman says she had just heard two of her producers had been arrested and she ran up to a police line to inquire about her colleagues. She says the seemingly simple act got her arrested, too."

- Amy Goodman's arrest: When journalists are the story

These are scary times, people.

Of course, there is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists. If we lived in a country that allowed the police to search your home at any time for any reason; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to open your mail, eavesdrop on your phone conversations, or intercept your email communications; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to hold people in jail indefinitely based on what they write or think, or based on mere suspicion that they are up to no good, then the government would no doubt discover and arrest more terrorists. But that probably would not be a country in which we would want to live. And that would not be a country for which we could, in good conscience, ask our young people to fight and die. In short, that would not be America.

- Russ Feingold - The only senator to vote against the Patriot Act - quoted here in a statement in the US Senate on the USA-PATRIOT Act

Mobile blogging

2008-09-03T14:26:00.010-05:00

So, I now have the ability to blog from my iPhone. Lot's of fun.

(I've come back in and touched it up of course...)

The Clone Wars Must Be Dumb.

2008-08-29T13:00:00.004-05:00

Everyone who knows me well knows that I've been a Star Wars fan for most of my life. I'm even one of those dorks that dresses up for new Star Wars movies. I was Qui-gon Jinn for Episode I, Anakin for Episode II, and finally Darth Vader for III. Too bad those movies (well, at least II and III....still kind of like I) all sucked!

You can't imagine how annoying it is for a long time fan like myself to see his beloved franchise disintegrate to dust before his eyes as the creator takes a large buzz saw, and chops it into tiny pieces. It's horrid. Of course, he couldn't just leave it there!

Now, he's go this new movie out called "Star Wars: The Clone Wars". I haven't seen it. It's got a horrible ranking on Rotten Tomatoes. Something like a 20 or some such. I have no plans to see it either. Today though, something brutally got in my way. I was reading a comic Rob sent me, and it linked to a comic that reviewed the movie (mostly saying it sucked). What really got me though was the dialog in the second pane....

"Some people might be bothered that Luke randomly comes across a droid his father built 40 years earlier or that the woman that kills Jabba the Hutt is the daughter of the Jedi that rescued his missing son before she was born..."

- Digital Pimp Online - Joe Loves Crappy Movies (a webcomic)

Now, to those who may not know... the last time I checked, Leia killed Jabba the Hutt. Leia is, of course, Luke's sister. Now, I'm confused.

What kind of horrible movie is this that threatens my knowledge of Star Wars canon!!!! How can he get away with this? You know, as soon as we get done fixing some of the major problems in our government (i.e. patent and copyright reform, foolish wars, government spying, breach of privacy and civil liberties, total lack of necessary restrictions and oversight on corporations, etc.), we need to pass a bill to protect Star Wars from George Lucas. I know, that's absurd! But, we live in a democracy. Why the heck can't we vote to take out of his hands control and ownership of something that was once great, but is now so totally mismanaged!!! It makes me angry. I hope I don't end up having to watch this crappy movie just to keep up with Star Wars canon. I think, at this point, I would just surrender, and walk away. Grrr....

"They have billed Star Wars: The Clone Wars as the untold story. If only the untelling of the told could now be done."

- Jeff Bayer - The Scorecard Review (taken from RottenTomatoes.com)

The Cold War Continues... Was it Ever Really Over?

2008-08-11T12:09:00.009-05:00

By now, assuming you have been paying any attention at all to the news for the last several days, you should have heard about Russia's rapidly escalating invasion of Georgia. They're pretty much after a regime change because Georgia's president happens to want to join NATO. Ole' Mother Russia can't have that, so she's bombing a tiny country. So far, up until today, I have only been hearing the rest of the world's opinion on this. Today, thanks to digg.com, I have now "seen the light" of the other perspective. And, here it is, in all of its Cold War sounding propagandist flavor, Russia, Again Savior of Peace and Life from the Russian news organization: Pravda. (note: this Pravda is apparently, according to Wikipedia, an "unrelated" newspaper run by former Pravda employees...)

It features such amazingly insightful quotes as:

"After having offered a cease fire in hostilities, the back stabbing Georgians immediately violated the cease fire, invading South Ossetia and causing massive destruction and death among innocent civilians, among peacekeepers and also destroying a hospital."

"Georgian troops attempted to storm the city much as Hitler‘s Panzer divisions blazed through Europe. Also noteworthy is the fact that Georgian tanks and infantry were being aided by Israeli advisors, a true indicator that this conflict was instigated by outside forces."

"Meanwhile, the western corporate media was maintaining a blackout of “the grand silence” on the aggression of Georgia. When they did finally report on it, they were as usual telling the story backwards with headlines such as “Russian Jets Attack Georgia” and “They Have Declared War Against Us” as though Georgia had not done anything wrong."

- Russia, Again Savior of Peace and Life

It's pretty ridiculous. Meanwhile, according to the Los Angeles Times: "Russian soldiers open second front in Georgia", Russia has been expanding the frontlines, further confirming the "rapidly escalating invasion" bit I wrote above.

Russia is becoming a big western problem. We could be seeing another Cold War beginning. About a month or so ago, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had a rather old skool idea: Putin says Russia needs to go back to Cuba: media At about the same time, this story came out:
Newspaper Hints at Return of Russian Bombers to Cuba You can also read it in Newsweek here: Russian Moves in the Americas

That story has, since then, been vigorously denied. You can read about that here: 'Cuba bomber plan' denied by Moscow But, don't be surprised if it happens anyways. I won't be. Angry, yes. Surprised, no.

It seemed that an impertinent fellow had dressed himself up as a preposterous parody of myself. I had drunk more champagne than was good for me, and in a flash of folly I decided to see the situation through. Consequently it was to meet the glare of the company and my own lifted eyebrows and freezing eyes that the real Professor came into the room.

"I need hardly say there was a collision. The pessimists all round me looked anxiously from one Professor to the other Professor to see which was really the more feeble. But I won. An old man in poor health, like my rival, could not be expected to be so impressively feeble as a young actor in the prime of life. You see, he really had paralysis, and working within this definite limitation, he couldn't be so jolly paralytic as I was. Then he tried to blast my claims intellectually. I countered that by a very simple dodge. Whenever he said something that nobody but he could understand, I replied with something which I could not even understand myself. 'I don't fancy,' he said, 'that you could have worked out the principle that evolution is only negation, since there inheres in it the introduction of lacuna, which are an essential of differentiation.' I replied quite scornfully, 'You read all that up in Pinckwerts; the notion that involution functioned eugenically was exposed long ago by Glumpe.' It is unnecessary for me to say that there never were such people as Pinckwerts and Glumpe. But the people all round (rather to my surprise) seemed to remember them quite well, and the Professor, finding that the learned and mysterious method left him rather at the mercy of an enemy slightly deficient in scruples, fell back upon a more popular form of wit. 'I see,' he sneered, 'you prevail like the false pig in Aesop.' 'And you fail,' I answered, smiling, 'like the hedgehog in Montaigne.' Need I say that there is no hedgehog in Montaigne? 'Your claptrap comes off,' he said; 'so would your beard.' I had no intelligent answer to this, which was quite true and rather witty. But I laughed heartily, answered, 'Like the Pantheist's boots,' at random, and turned on my heel with all the honours of victory. The real Professor was thrown out, but not with violence, though one man tried very patiently to pull off his nose. He is now, I believe, received everywhere in Europe as a delightful impostor. His apparent earnestness and anger, you see, make him all the more entertaining."

- The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton

The Closing of a Cool Blog

2008-08-04T15:39:00.002-05:00

Sometime in the last couple of weeks, I stumbled across an interesting article about jokes and copyright (link points to Google cache, so it may expire...the page itself was deleted) over on The Patry Copyright Blog. Now, I am sad to say, it seems the blog has been shut down. :-(

If you follow the link to the blog, he seems to have deleted all but the most current "shutdown" post, but, even there, he provides what I see as a valuable assessment of the current state of copyright law from someone who has been working in the for 26 or more years. (someone who is also knowledgeable enough to have been hired by Google...)

All that being said, and while trying to remain sensitive to his reasons for shutting it down, I have decided to post the following quote from his final post:

Copyright law has abandoned its reason for being: to encourage learning and the creation of new works. Instead, its principal functions now are to preserve existing failed business models, to suppress new business models and technologies, and to obtain, if possible, enormous windfall profits from activity that not only causes no harm, but which is beneficial to copyright owners. Like Humpty-Dumpty, the copyright law we used to know can never be put back together again: multilateral and trade agreements have ensured that, and quite deliberately.

- William Patry - The Patry Copyright Blog

6.6 Degrees of Separation

2008-08-04T15:16:00.003-05:00

Ever heard of the six degrees of Kevin Bacon game? According to this article, Microsoft conducted a study on it's MSN Messenger network and concluded that we are all, in fact, only 6.6 degrees separated from each other. It's an interesting example of your hard earned cash (attributed to Microsoft via advertising and, more commonly, Windows money) funneling odd corporate investigations. I'm willing to bet they're already salivating over ideas on how to put this new data to use. At any rate, the results of the investigation are also interesting to the average user I suppose. I guess I'm only 6.6 (although, they decided to round it up to 7) degrees away from Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.... I shudder to think about how close that puts me to George W. Bush...

"This is the first time a planetary-scale social network has been available to validate the well-known 'six-degrees of separation finding,'"

- Eric Horvitz of Microsoft and Jure Leskovec of Carnegie Mellon University, in a paper that was presented earlier this year at the WWW 2008 conference in Beijing. - quote taken from the above linked article: Everyone Really Is Just Six Degrees From Kevin Bacon, Microsoft Says by: Paul McDougall on InformationWeek

When Art Meets Video Games

2008-07-30T21:16:00.003-05:00

This is a fascinating article about a guy who created an extremely controversial video game as a kind of documentary and even a work of art. He wrote a game which allows the player to relive, through the viewpoint of the shooters, the viewpoints of the Columbine Shooters. He then went on to make a documentary about his experiences in making the game and the discussion and reactions that followed. It's a fascinating story on MSNBC, and, if you are into art, video games, documentaries, or even just controversy, I suggest you check it out. (by "check it out", I don't necessarily mean: "play the game". Rather, I mean: "Read the article")

It does challenge the general notion that games are for kids...

"I'll risk saying it: these are the types of games that truly elevate the medium. Those outside the gaming culture may not realize it, but games as a whole are taking a cultural shift right now, fighting between being ‘art’ and ‘entertainment’ … I think it's only right to point out that some of the greatest art in the world is daring and tests boundaries."

- Steve Watts, a 26-year-old games enthusiast from Baltimore - quote taken from the article linked above, called: These games really push our buttons by: Winda Benedetti

This is Not Vigilante Justice

2008-07-28T11:50:00.006-05:00

I was alerted to the following story via digg.com:

How to Perform a Citizen's Arrest of A Bush Administration Official

That's out of the Huffington Post. The Raw Story has the background story of what happened:

Activists charged with trespassing after attempt to arrest Karl Rove

I haven't looked, but I wonder if there is video of this attempt to arrest Rove. I would love to see the look on his face.

Incidentally, the Huffington Post suggests that any citizen thinking about trying to conduct a citizen's arrest of Rove look at the following statute as a possible reason for said arrest:

§ 1505. Obstruction of proceedings before departments, agencies, and committees

Whoever, with intent to avoid, evade, prevent, or obstruct compliance, in whole or in part, with any civil investigative demand duly and properly made under the Antitrust Civil Process Act, willfully withholds, misrepresents, removes from any place, conceals, covers up, destroys, mutilates, alters, or by other means falsifies any documentary material, answers to written interrogatories, or oral testimony, which is the subject of such demand; or attempts to do so or solicits another to do so; or
Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress—
Shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both.

- Title 1, Section 18, Chapter 73, S. 1505 of the US Code

I just thought this was a cool quote....

2008-07-26T12:01:00.006-05:00

I was reading this article about Obama's visit to Germany, and I really liked this quote at the end. So, I had to write a blog post just so I could put it at the bottom. :-D

There is been really good news here. I finally have gotten some software submitted for the iPhone on the App Store. It's still under review, but at least this means that the ball is "in their court". Once everything gets reviewed, It's possible that my new company, Wet Leaf Software, will finally be getting into action. Maybe we'll even make some money! (I'm hoping we do! lol) Seriously though, this is an answer to prayer over the last few weeks.

So, I've got a new website up for Wet Leaf Software. You can view it here. It's mostly ready, but there's still a little bit of work to be done. (The support page isn't functioning fully yet. I'm hosting it through GoDaddy, and they tend to restrict what their users are actually able to do. I've also had to disable the counter functionality on it for now...) Hopefully, Apple will now get the review process done with quickly. I have to confess, I am so excited / anxious right now about all of this! I've been working on this stuff for most of the last two or three months. Almost every evening I come home from work, and start working again....on this stuff. Hopefully it will generate enough sales to validate that time. It's been one massive ball of anxiety until Apple allowed me to register in the paid-for developers program about 2 weeks ago. Then it's been a couple of weeks of trying to get all the legal work sorted out, and also polishing up our first real program: Convert Aid. I also wrote a new, amusement program called Esteem Aid. Esteem Aid is free, but we might have some followup apps that are very similar in design that cost about $.99. We just have to get our content together. Of course, the trick is navigating the realm of existing material while not violating any copyright. I'm very careful about that. About as careful as I can be. That pretty much limits me to public domain kind of stuff. We'll have to wait and see what materializes next. Praise be to God though for all the ideas He has given me lately, and for allowing us and helping us to come this far! It's all in His hands!

"Optimists refuse to acknowledge reality. Idealists remind us that it isn’t fixed. "

- taken from the last line of an Op-Ed in the NY Times called "Change Germans Can’t Believe In" by SUSAN NEIMAN

Apple, the Apple logo, iPod, and iTunes are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. iPhone is a trademark of Apple Inc.

From the "Texas is going green" department...

2008-07-22T16:47:00.002-05:00

This is a cool story about Texas's ongoing efforts to be one of (if not the) leading wind energy producers in the world. We're already number one in the country, and with the completion of this project, we should have more wind capacity than all of the 14 states following us. Even California has less than half the wind power capacity we already boast.

"The capacity for wind generation in west and north Texas is so great that we could position ourselves in Texas to be the world leader in wind and renewable energy in the next 100 years, just as we were the world leader in oil and gas for the past 100 years.”

- Texas State representative Mark Strama

Enrolled!! But still not making any money...

2008-07-19T00:15:00.003-05:00

I've been pretty busy lately. Even without knowing when Apple would open up it's App Store beta program, I've been busy writing software for it with the sdk (software development kit). Last Friday, the same day that they launched the new 3g iPhone, they contacted me regarding my enrollment status. I am now enrolled!!!

That's really pretty awesome because we've been praying for that for awhile. This last week has, therefore, been a whirlwind. I have now registered a new business name, aquired myself a tax ID, purchased a domain name, and I'm currently setting up the web site for my new company. I was hoping to have the first program in the App Store by the end of this week, but that's looking doubtful at the moment. I'm waiting for Apple to get back to me on some of the more legal aspects of things. Please be praying that we don't have to wait long! I think that it's important to get one's app(s) into the store as quickly as possible. Once I've got the website up and running, I'll try to post the link on here so you can go see it if you want to. In the meantime, mum's the word!

I'll tell you something though... I feel like I'm freaking out here. I feel like one big ball of anxiety. It's a bit risky starting one's own company. Especially when that company is going to be potentially exposed to a large worldwide audience. There are over 6 million iPhone customers in the world, and any of them who to run 3rd party apps on their phone have two choices: "jailbreak" their iPhones or use Apple's App Store. That means that we (Daniel and I) will have our product(s) exposed to an audience of 6+ million potential customers. I've heard estimates of an additional 10 million in the next year. This could be huge for us!!!!

We're hoping it is, of course! We're praying for it, too. Please be praying with us, and pray also that we'll be able to get our stuff in the store very soon!

On another note: The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed I added a new link on the right to Paul and Becca's blog. They're currently roaming the U.S., but will be leaving us for lovely, safe, and wealthy Ethiopia (please note the sarcasm in my chosen adjectives) within the next couple of weeks. They are going as missionaries to work in / with a missions hospital over there. They are awesome people, and I know God is going to do amazing things with and through them there! They are not just going for a short trip. This is a career decision. Paul will be training surgeons there in a country that has a doctor / patient ratio of about 2 million people to one doctor. They could totally use all the support you are willing to give. They probably mention this on their site, but you can support them through Global Outreach. (you can donate specifically to Paul and Becca if you click on the "Please Give a Donation" button, and then click on the "donate to a specific missionary" link. Just look for Paul and Rebecca Gray )

"In little more than two decades we've gone from a position of energy independence to one in which almost half the oil we use comes from foreign countries, at prices that are going through the roof. Our excessive dependence on OPEC has already taken a tremendous toll on our economy and our people. This is the direct cause of the long lines which have made millions of you spend aggravating hours waiting for gasoline. It's a cause of the increased inflation and unemployment that we now face. This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation. The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them."

- Jimmy Carter in a televised speech delivered on July 15, 1979

Pluralism in the United States of America

2008-06-23T13:31:00.013-05:00

Do you believe there are many ways to Heaven?

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

- John 14:6

Apparently, most of the U.S. does believe there are multiple ways to Heaven. This including a majority amongst Christians. Pluralism seems to have taken a solid hold here. There's an article being published in tomorrow's NY Times attesting to this. Here's an excerpt:

"70 percent of Americans affiliated with a religion or denomination said they agreed that “many religions can lead to eternal life,” including majorities among Protestants and Catholics. Among evangelical Christians, 57 percent agreed with the statement, and among Catholics, 79 percent did.

Among minority faiths, more than 80 percent of Jews, Hindus and Buddhists agreed with the statement, and more than half of Muslims did."

- NY Times article entitled "Survey Shows U.S. Religious Tolerance " by: Neela Banerjee - click here to read.

I believe this is a problem. I think "religious tolerance" is something that should be applied to our dealings with others in a general sense. I think it should be applied to politics and government, but not to the truth of what is and what isn't. I don't imply a religious tolerance where we should not try to spread the word and gospel of Christ. I simply mean that we should respect people's freedom to ultimately choose what they believe as we would like to be respected.

That still leaves a problem. You see, I'm a Christian, and I know that the only way to Heaven is through Christ. I'm not going to tell you that believing in Buddha will save your soul. Or following the laws of Islam. They won't. From an eternal perspective, if you believe in either of those, you're doomed. You need Christ.

So, what am I getting at here? Well, basically, we Christians should be worried about ourselves and our brethren here. Apparently, a bunch of us (57% of evangelical Christians!!!) don't realize the truth that no one comes to the Father except through Christ. That's disturbing.

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

- Jude 1:3-4

**Updated with the following **

In other news that is pretty cool, there is this article out of the Chicago Tribune about the growing number of churches and Christians in China. Good stuff.

Just when you thought the horrible FISA bill was dead...

2008-06-20T13:06:00.002-05:00

So, after waiting just long enough for the bill to mostly fade from the public mind, Congress and Bush are at it again. The House has just passed the FISA bill that grants immunity to companies for breaking the law at Bush's behest. It's expected to pass in the Senate next week. This is another step closer to warrantless wiretaps that would allow the government to eavesdrop on you all the time.

Big Brother's real, people. Your freedom is being hung outside the window. If you want to stop this, you'd better stand up now.

Let's Go Rangers!

2008-06-15T12:42:00.004-05:00

This is a great video of the Texas Ranger's players entertaining fans during a rain delay at Shea Stadium (The Mets) in NY. I didn't catch if you can hear it in this video, but in others of the same event, you can loudly hear the Met's fans screaming, "Let's Go Rangers!"

Two Current Political Must Reads.....

2008-05-20T13:42:00.009-05:00

I know I've probably been devoting way too much time to politics on here lately. For those who know me, and know my normall conservative leanings, it must be pretty surprising how liberal I am sounding, too. Bottom line is though: Our Republican president has been horrible to the utmost extremes of evil. He has misled (lied to) us into a war that has cost over 4,000 American lives. He has brought into practice the worst possible surveillance measures to a degree that we are now labeled as an "endemic surveillance society." He has promoted corporate growth to the detriment of the citizens, and attempted to shutter access to the knowledge of what he is doing from the officials who are supposed to be able to monitor and watchdog his actions. All in the name of terrorism. George W. Bush has been the biggest terrorist threat to our country since 9/11, and he has, in fact, been responsible for more American deaths.

As for McCain.... Well, McCain thinks we need to keep doing what Bush has been doing.... So, is a vote for McCain a vote for 4,000 more American deaths?

(Incidentally, I'm only tallying American deaths here, but, if you include Iraqi deaths, the tally is up more towards 100,000.... We pray about the Myanmar cyclone disaster and the China earthquake, but how often to we pray that leaders who purposely bring about the deaths of 100,000 people get thrown in jail? Bush, as the first article below stipulates, should be impeached....and tried for murder)

Article #1, "Vincent Bugliosi: The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder" is excerpted below. You can read it here

Perhaps the most amazing thing to me about the belief of many that George Bush lied to the American public in starting his war with Iraq is that the liberal columnists who have accused him of doing this merely make this point, and then go on to the next paragraph in their columns. Only very infrequently does a columnist add that because of it Bush should be impeached. If the charges are true, of course Bush should have been impeached, convicted, and removed from office. That's almost too self-evident to state. But he deserves much more than impeachment.

- Vincent Bugliosi - The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder

Article #2, "McCain Confronted With New Iran Gaffe, Gets Facts Wrong Again" is excerpted below. You can read it here

KLEIN: Also checked, also checked with the Obama campaign and he never, he's never sai -- mentioned Ahmadinejad directly by name. He did say he would negotiate with the leaders, but as you know - Ayatollah, MCCAIN: (Laughing) Ahmadinejad is, was the leader. KLEIN: But if - MCCAIN: Maybe I'm mistaken. KLEIN: Maybe you are, because - MCCAIN: Maybe. I don't think so though. KLEIN: The Supreme, you know, according to most diplomatic experts, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is the guy who's in charge of Iranian foreign policy and also in charge of the nuclear program, but you never mention him. Do you, you know, um, why do you always keep talking about Ahmadinejad since he doesn't have power in that, in that realm?

- excerpt from : McCain Confronted With New Iran Gaffe, Gets Facts Wrong Again

Followup on: Real, Modern, Illegal U.S. Government Propaganda

2008-05-17T11:39:00.000-05:00

This story, found here, about the government's program of dispersing propaganda through supposedly neutral military "analysts", designed to bolster public support for things like the war in Iraq, etc., is probably something that every patriotic American should read. I posted on this a while back when it first started coming out. The only TV network brave enough to talk about it seems to be PBS. Everyone else has tried to sweep it under the rug to cover their culpability.

The bottom line is, our government is disseminating propaganda via supposedly "neutral" military analysts to an unaware public for the purpose of convincing people to buy their party line viewpoint on serious issues like Iraq.

Well, now, two of the top Dems in congress are demanding an investigation. House Energy Committee Chair John Dingell (D-MI) and House Agriculture Subcommittee chair Rosa L. DeLauro (D-CT) wrote a letter to the FCC chairmen, Kevin Martin about the issue saying, "The American people should never be subject to a covert propaganda campaign but rather should be clearly notified of who is sponsoring what they are watching". (quote taken from the linked article, Top Dems demand FCC review of Pentagon fake news)

I hope something comes out of this, but the reality is, like when congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) asked FCC chairmen Kevin Martin to investigate the telecom companies harvesting private data (i.e. recording your phone calls and emails) for the NSA, this will likely be ignored and rejected by Mr. Martin and the FCC.

Dear Chairman Martin: We write to express our deep concern with regard to a troubling story recently reported in the New York Times detailing an extensive program within the Department of Defense (DoD) to recruit ex-military officers to support the administration’s position on the war in Iraq, conditions at Guantánamo Bay and other activities associated with efforts to combat terrorism under the guise of objective analysis on major television news programs and 24-hour cable news networks. Many of these military analysts were simultaneously representing more than 150 companies competing for billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts. While we deem the DoD’s policy unethical and perhaps illegal, we also question whether the analysts and the networks are potentially equally culpable pursuant to the sponsorship identification requirements in the Communications Act of 1934 (the Act) and the rules of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). As you may know, the program, which began in early 2002, ultimately included more than 75 retired military analysts who echoed administration talking points on television, radio, printed publications and websites. According to the Times, internal DoD documents describe these “military analysts as ‘message force multipliers’ or ‘surrogates’ who could be counted on to deliver administration ‘themes and messages’ to millions of Americans ‘in the form of their own opinions.’” As a result of the program, analysts, many of whom represented military contractors or ran their own military consulting or contracting firms, were granted special access to the senior civilian and military leaders directly involved in determining how war funding should be spent. According to the report, analysts that were critical of the administration’s policy could “lose all access,” creating an environment in which these analysts felt compelled, and at times eager, to convey specific Defense Department talking points to the American public, even when they did not necessarily agree with them. It could appear that some of these analysts were indirectly paid for fostering the Pentagon’s views on these critical issues. Our chief concern is that as a result of the analysts’ participation in this DoD program, which included the DoD’s paying for their commercial airfare on DoD-sponsored trips to Iraq, the analysts and the networks that hired them could have run afoul of certain laws or regulations, among them the sponsorship identification requirements in the Act and the FCC’s rules. For example, we are concerned that the military analysts may have violated Section 507 of the Act, 47 U.S.C. § 507, which, among other things, prohibits those involved with preparing program matter intended for broadcast from accepting valuable consideration for including particular matter in a program without disclosure. Similarly, the Commission’s rules require a station to make an appropriate announcement when it receives a disclosure from someone involved with preparing program matter for the station, 47 C.F.R. § 73.1212. When seemingly objective television commentators are in fact highly motivated to promote the agenda of a government agency, a gross violation of the public trust occurs. The American people should never be subject to a covert propaganda campaign but rather should be clearly notified of who is sponsoring what they are watching. We therefore respectfully request that you immediately commence a full investigation of this matter to determine whether any violations have occurred. We thank you for your prompt attention.

The preceeding is the full text of the letter written to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin by House Energy Committee Chair John Dingell (D-MI) and House Agriculture Subcommittee chair Rosa L. DeLauro (D-CT) (Text copied from: Hill Wants FCC to Investigate DOD 'Experts' Program

Technology and Elections in 2008

2008-05-17T11:28:00.002-05:00

I was just reading an article entitled "FCC 2.0: Change we can believe in?, it mentioned an interesting tidbit about the three remaining candidates for President of the Unites States and their viewpoints on the future of communications technology. (i.e., big media mergers, net neutrality, the deployment of broadband throughout the U.S., etc.) On these topics, the candidates stances apparently are something like as follows:

John McCain....apparently has no stance. His issues page says nothing at all about technology or the future of it. The closest he comes is with a small section on "America's Space Program", and it quotes, "Let us now embark upon this great journey into the stars to find whatever may await us." Apparently, he supports NASA. (nothing to do with the internet, net neutrality, etc.)
Hillary Clinton....has a page on her site devoted to "innovation". It slightly touches some of the issues. Focuses more on jobs and wages.
Barack Obama....has a big big page complete with a detailed analysis of the problems, and a spelled out plan on how he wants to alter the scene. It's good. It's real good. If you know the issues and read his page, you'll quickly see that he (or at least his staff) seem to have a firm grip on the issues that are big and important in this sector. (I'm not saying I agree with him on everything he says, but it's at least a well thought out plan...as opposed to the big nothing offered by his competitors...)

"Sir, to show your solidarity with them you gave up golf?!?!"

2008-05-16T15:47:00.003-05:00

"Mr. President, you haven't been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?" - Interviewer

"Yes, it really is. I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf....

...I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best I can with them. And, I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal." - Our President, George W. Bush

- A May 13th, 2008 interview with Politico.com and online users of Yahoo!

Bumped because I think it's important.

Funny Chevy Commercial

2008-05-16T13:19:00.001-05:00

"Does it do that a lot?"

"Yeah."

- the above commercial

Thoughts on Chapter II of "The Everlasting Man", by G.K. Chesterton

2008-05-15T03:56:00.001-05:00

I haven't finished it yet, but chapter II of "The Everlasting Man" seems to give one of the strongest arguements to the rationality of evolution as I have ever read. Chesterton meticulously lays out a complex arguement based on the idea of : "Modern science says [this], but how does it really know?" he bases it on a seemingly common practice of the time for professors studying ancient man to infer behaviors and characteristics of said man without having any real evidence of said behaviors or chacteristics at all. For example, the idea (and even modern association) of the caveman / cavewoman relationship involving some sort of clubbing over the head behavior. (Mel Brooks even draws upon that common assumtion about the caveman in his "History of the World, Part I"

It's always been fascinating for me how science can claim they have the only valid/scientific account of the beginning of the world on the logic that, in order for something to be scientific, you must be able to disprove it if it is incorrect. They argue against religion and creationism with this logic, suggesting that a theory like intelligent design must not be taught in schools because it would require God, someone who's existance they cannot disprove. It is, to me, silly then for them to cling do tightly to a theory which is equally unable to be disproven.

The bottom line is, until we have the ability to travel backwards in time to the beginning of the world, both theories are simply that: non-disproveable theories.

It's been a good book so far. It's always hard to get into Chesterton's non-fiction work. I've been trying to make progress in it, but I have not gotten yet. I did recently purchase one if Chesterton's fictional works: "The Man Who Was Thursday" it was a very good book. I was riveted until the end. I highly recomend it, too.

Enough about Chesterton though...

I have some cool news:

Lilly has discovered that it may be (probably is) possible for her to get her German schoolwork concerted into a bachelors after all! Yay!! This is an awesome blessing from the Lord! She's already looking into it. If it ends up going smoothly, she might even be able to get into a teacher certification program in time to get certified for the upcoming school year! Yay!!!

So, I'm pretty excited about that. She, naturally, is, too!

Last, but not least, I just want to ask everyone to pray for my friend Nate tonight/this morning/when you read this. He and his wife are waiting on a visa so she can enter the U.S. Lilly and I are very familiar with that process, and I can feel a bit of his pain as he needs to have it come through asap (as in tomorrow/today) so that they will not lose their place on the list for the married couples dorm at his school. So, please pray for them...(I would say her name here, too, but I'm not sure how to spell it, and I don't want to butcher it!)