That's my King too

I had never heard this before it was played at the beginning of our church service a few weeks ago. I made me want to say amen. The preacher is the late S.M. Lockridge. Lockridge was the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church is San Diego, CA for forty years. It is apparently somewhat famous, considering that there are a dozen different videos for it on YouTube. This is a condensed version.

Peace Symbol is 50

The peace symbol turned 50 years old last week. I had no idea of the origin of the peace symbol until I read this article. The symbol is derived from the flag signaling (semaphore) alphabet and was created by a British anti-nuclear activist. With the 'N' for nuclear and the 'D' for disarmament placed on a circle symbolizing the Earth.

Pray for 50 more years with no nuclear war.

Imagine whirled peas

I was reminded today that John McCain first laid out his plan to bring peace to Iraq nearly two years ago when he told a group of New York Republican bigwigs that, "One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit,’”. If only President Bush had adopted that strategy. If McCain is elected president, I am confident that a thousand years of animosity will be put aside and the Shiite/Sunni conflict will be quickly resolved. And if it works in Iraq, surely it will work with the Israeli/Palestinian, China/Taiwan, China/Tibet, etc., conflicts as well.

McCain revealed his much touted foreign policy expertise more than once while in the Middle East last week when he claimed that Iran is training Al Qaeda, see here and here. Although his campaign claims that he merely misspoke (multiple times), I believe that one of the following is more likely: (1) McCain is ignorant of simple facts about the Middle East such as the conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, (2) he is senile, or (3) he is deliberately trying to deceive the American sheeple. If any of the above are true then he should not be the next president.

Longhorn Lament

What if...? While watching the Longhorns clobber Stanford 82-62 to reach the final eight of the NCAA hoops tournament, I couldn't help but wonder what if...? What if Kevin Durant, the college basketball player of the year last year, had returned to UT for his sophomore season? Longhorn fans have asked the question before - when Chris Mihm left after his junior year and especially when T.J. Ford left after leading the Horns to the Final Four in his sophomore season.

What if? A question asked by sports fans everywhere.

He is risen

Happy Easter. He is risen.

It is still the greatest story ever told. The Son of God became a man ("And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us..." John 1:14) Born of a virgin, both fully God and fully man. He lived a perfect, sinless life. He then humbled Himself to the point of death, taking the world's sin upon himself and suffering death on the cross. Paying for us the debt that we ourselves are unable to pay. After three days in the grave He rose again, conquering sin and death.

"Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the son of the world." John 1:29

Those who belief and trust in Him, and repent of their sins are redeemed and saved from the rightful judgment and death that is the result of our sin.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16
"That if you confess with you mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved." Romans 10:9

He is risen indeed.

And now for something completely different...

It's the 5th anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, but instead of dwelling on that debacle I'm opting to celebrate the brighter, lighter side of life. This video makes me laugh. Of course, I'm pretty easily amused.

What happened to the Southern Baptists?

As a follow-up to yesterday's post regarding Just War, I'm linking to an article by Laurence Vance titled "What Happened to the Southern Baptists?"

As a Southern Baptist myself, I have a hard time reconciling evangelical support of the war-mongering Bush administration with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Now I'm no red-letter Christian, but I don't believe that we should ignore the Sermon on the Mount (i.e., blessed are the gentle, blessed are the peacemakers, etc.).

Anyway, that's my two cents.

Just War? Five years later

Five years ago, in the weeks/months leading up to our invasion of Iraq, I heard a sermon on 'Just War' from the preacher of the Southern Baptist megachurch that I attended at the time. I recall he used as an outline the criteria for 'Just War' conceived by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. The preacher's intent was to get the sheep in the pews behind the President and his impending war. And it worked. I'm sad to say that I was right there with the rest of the flock.

Let's look again at the criteria for a 'Just War'. Five years later, we can say that the war was not/is not a 'Just War'.

1. Proper or just cause - To redress a wrong suffered or as Aquinas wrote, "...those who are attacked, should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault." We were told that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and that there were links between the Saddam regime and al Qaida. No weapons of mass destruction were found (and you can be sure we have turned over every stone). And last week the findings of a Pentagon-sponsored investigation that reviewed 600,000 Iraqi documents searching for a link between the Saddam Hussein regime and al Qaida were released. The exhaustive review found no evidence of a connection. The bottom line - we were lied into a war by the Bush administration and there was no just cause.
2. Proper authority - Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution states that, "The Congress shall have the power... to declare war". There was never a declaration of war from the Congress. The President does not have the authority to wage war. Look for President McCain to take full advantage of the executive powers usurped by Bush.
3. Reasonable chance of success - The cakewalk that we were promised did not materialize. Five years (and 4,000 dead troops later) later and there is no end in sight. We won WWII in less than four years. John McCain says that 100 years in Iraq "would be fine with me." That is not my definition (or any other sane person's) definition of success.
4. Proportionality - The benefit gained must be worth the harm or evil inflicted by the war. As noted above, Iraq was no threat to the U.S. And there are tens of thousands of dead innocent Iraqis, 2 million Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan, another 4 million Iraqis displaced within Iraq, thousands of dead Americans and a trillion dollar price tag. Was it worth it?
5. Last resort - all viable peaceful alternatives have been exhausted. Since there was no just cause, war was definitely not the last resort.

The Iraq War meets none of the criteria noted above. I'd like to think that the preacher who delivered that sermon would take the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the start of the war to admit that he was wrong, apologize to his congregation and come out in opposition to the war. But I won't hold my breath.

Homeschooling in Texas

The California homeschool case in the news this week got me thinking about how fortunate we are in Texas to have such liberal homeschool requirements.

In the 1987 case of Leeper v. Arlington Indep. School Dist the court ruled that home schools in Texas can legally operate as private schools. As a result of the Leeper decision, home schools do not have to initiate contact with a school district, submit to home visits, have curriculum approved or have any specific teacher certification. Home schools need only have a written curriculum, conduct it in a bona fide manner and teach math, reading, spelling, grammar, and good citizenship.

That's it.

Update: Those are merely the state requirements. You need a willing wife with the patience of Job to actually pull it off.

California homeschoolers under assault

"Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children," Justice H. Walter Croskey wrote in a Feb. 28 opinion for the 2nd District Court of Appeals.

According to Justice Croskey, homeschooling parents in California must have teaching credentials or they could be subject to criminal action. An estimated 166,000 students in California are home schooled and the overwhelming majority may be affected by the court's ruling. CA has traditionally had a 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' attitude toward homeschooling. Homeschool advocates such as Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) are closely watching the case and Pacific Justice Institute will represent the homeschoolers before the CA Supreme Court.

The CA court opinion states that, "A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare." So according to the state of California, loyalty to the state is paramount - your children be damned. (Note: No other primary purposes of the ed. system were mentioned in the court opinion)

Now don't get me wrong, I hope to instill a love of country in my children, but this sounds like a bunch of Marxist crap to me. I plan on educating my children so that they can think for themselves and provide for themselves and their families.

And after all, the American government education system is not doing such a wonderful job. See here and here. Could my wife (with a degree in accounting) really do any worse. We don't think so.

Lessons to Learn: (1) Don't trust the government to do what is best for your children, and (2) Don't live in the People's Republic of California.

Texas Primary Election

Today was primary election day in Texas. I avoided the lines and cast my vote for Ron Paul on the first day of early voting. I can't figure out why everyone doesn't early vote. It is so convenient - you can vote at any polling place in the county. I voted at a polling place near my office during my lunch hour and was in and out in ten minutes. Although convenient, this election cycle reinforced my dislike of electronic voting; I have little confidence that my vote was actually counted.

I'm watching the returns on politico.com and the Office of the Texas Secretary of State and Obama and Hillary are even with 28% of precincts reporting. Hillary is winning big among heavily-Hispanic counties (Bexar-San Antonio, Nueces-Corpus Christi, Webb-Laredo, Cameron-Brownsville) while Obama is winning big in Harris, Travis and Dallas counties. Unfortunately for Obama, Hispanics outnumber blacks by 2-to-1 in Texas. I don't have a dog in this fight, but it is fun to watch if you're a political junkie like me.

Republican voters continue to disappoint as McCain has a 57-37 lead over Huck, with Paul only garnering ~5%. However, there was one pleasant outcome today. I am happy to say that voters in U.S Representative District 14 are selecting Dr. Paul by a 2-to-1 margin. Unless something drastic happens after I go to bed, Ron Paul will be returning to the Washington.

Although Dr. Paul has repeatedly said that he will not run as a third party candidate there are rumors on the web about a possible Ron Paul/Bob Barr third party ticket. The Constitution Party nominating convention is April 23-26. I will wait and see. But I'm not holding my breath - I went ahead and removed the Ron Paul for President stickers from the bumpers of our cars this evening.

Update: Ron Paul crushed his opponent, Chris Peden, 70-30%. Dr. Paul will run unopposed in the November election and will return to Washington for another term.

Why kids in Finland are so smart

An alternate title to the article, 'What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?' in the Wall Street Journal could be 'Why American Government Schools Suck'. Although previously unaware of the success of Finnish schools, I happily noted while reading the article that several of the reasons attributed to the success of schools in Finland are things that we set out to do when we decided to homeschool our kids. The similarities between the Finnish system and our homeschool include:
• A more relaxed, back-to-basics approach with no pressure to perform on standardized tests. This includes not assigning a lot of homework. Hopefully this will result in a less pressured childhood for our kids. Kids in Finland don't even start school until age 7 and even in high school rarely have more than a half-hour of home work a night.
• Create lessons tailored to the needs of the individual child. Children are not the same and it is ridiculous to expect all children to learn using the same techniques/methods.
• Instill a love for reading. By reading to the kids from an early age and providing plenty of books for them to read we hope that the kids will become independent learners and pursue their own interests.

I thought is was interesting that the Finns don't even spend as much money per student as the U.S does ($8700 vs. $7500). The article states that American educators have gone to Finland to try and figure out how to replicate the success. Somehow I doubt that they will be successful. On the other hand, I have the utmost confidence that our family will see similar results.

I'm ready for March Madness

It is a good time to be a basketball fan in Texas, especially if the teams that you root for are the Texas Longhorns and the Houston Rockets. The No. 5 ranked Longhorns are possibly the hottest team in college hoops. The Horns went undefeated in the month of February for the first time ever and may have earned a No. 1 seed in the tournament if they can finish the season by beating Tech in Lubbock and Nebraska and have a good conference tourney.

And you have to like this if you're a Horns fan. "I'm definitely coming back (to play at Texas as a senior). I'm not looking at stuff like that. I'm not looking at any awards or the NBA." - Texas guard D.J. Augustin. Of course we'll see if he's still singing the same tune in April.

And the Rockets are definitely the hottest team in the NBA, winning their 14th game in a row tonight. What they will do now that Yao is lost for the season is a huge questions mark. Can McGrady actually step up,be the superstar that he supposedly is and carry the team? I'm expected the worst and hoping for the best.

Update: So much for a No. 1 seed for the Horns. They were upset by Tech in Lubbock 83-80.

Update II: The Rockets win their team record 16th straight game (3/5/08)