The socialization myth

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, especially when the picture is a clever cartoon from Inflatable Studios. When educrats talk about socialization, what they mean is conforming to the system. The recent California court opinion that could effectively outlaw homeschooling in CA stated, "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." The system is about raising good sheep and my wife and I have decided not to turn our kids over to the custody of the government shepherd.

C.S. Lewis Quote of the Day

"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 patronising non-sense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Charlton Heston, RIP

Although his role as Moses in 'The Ten Commandments' is probably his most famous, this is how I prefer to remember Heston:

As Taylor from "Planet of the Apes",


Or as president of the NRA and spokesman for the right to bear arms.

Know your Muslims - Sunni or Shiite

I don't really care about the differences among the divisions of Islam, but I do believe that it is important to know who is who. Twenty percent of the world population is Muslim and there are now more Muslims than Catholics. So here is a scorecard.

Approximately 80-85% of Muslims are Sunni. Nations that are majority Sunni include Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt, Somalia, Sudan, Libya and the other N. African states, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Bangladesh, Syria, Kuwait and Turkey. Kurds and most Palestinian Muslims are Sunni. Russia and India are both over 10% Muslim and Nigeria (the most populated country in Africa) is 50% Muslim - all predominately Sunni. Although not typically thought of for its Muslim population, India has the third largest population of Muslims after Indonesia and Pakistan.

The balance of the world's Muslims are mostly Shiite (or Shi'a). Nations that are predominately Shiite include Iran, Bahrain, Azerbaijan and Iraq (65%). Lebanon's Muslims are nearly split 50-50, but the terrorist group Hizbollah is Shiite. Turkey, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and India all have substantial minority Shiite populations.

Sources: CIA World Factbook and Wikipedia

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)

I'm proud to be an American (usually)

Presidential candidate Barack Obama's wife Michelle stuck her foot in her mouth last week when she said, "For the first time... I'm proud of my country". I will give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she either misspoke or was misunderstood. Cindy McCain quickly let it be known that, “I always have been and will always be extremely proud of my country."

I believe that there is middle ground somewhere between the views of these two women, one of whom will likely be the next first lady of our country. There is certainly much to be proud of about America. It is still the land of the free (mostly - see below) and home of the brave. Opportunities still exist for people who are willing to work hard. We are free to worship as we please.

However, for Americans who are not too preoccupied by the modern equivalents of bread and circuses, there are numerous reasons why one may not be so proud. Such as:

• There are 1 million unborn babies murdered in our country every year. And this tragedy goes largely unmentioned except at election time when the Republican faction of the Government party want the Christian vote.
  
• One of every 100 American adults is in jail or prison. The U.S incarcerates more people than any other nation and is also the leader in inmates per capita. This is not healthy for a nation, whatever the reasons/causes may be.
  
• Nearly 40% of American children are born out of wedlock. Again, not healthy for the future of our nation.
  
• Our country launched a pre-emptive, i.e, unprovoked, war in Iraq that has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, not to mention 4 thousand dead Americans and a trillion dollar price tag.
  
• Supposedly 40% of Americans attend church on a weekly basis. Based on my neighborhood on a Sunday morning I guess that the number is maybe half of that (and I'm in the Bible belt).

And don't get me started on the government. Of course no one should make the mistake of considering the country and the government as one and the same thing. I can be proud of my country while I detest the government.

The kid's favorite

This is the kids favorite video courtesy of YouTube. Their favorite part is at 3:15 into the video.

You Never Let Go by Matt Redman



Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
Your perfect love is casting out fear
And even when I'm caught in the middle of the storms of this life
I won't turn back
I know You are near

And I will fear no evil
For my God is with me
And if my God is with me
Whom then shall I fear?
Whom then shall I fear?

Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me

And I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
A glorious light beyond all compare
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
We'll live to know You here on the earth

Yes, I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
Still I will praise You, still I will praise You

Thoughts on 'The Pilgrim's Progress'

I'm currently wading through John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress". If you ever decide to read this Christian allegory classic then I recommend the modern English version. However, even in the original version (published 1678), Bunyan's story of the character Christian's pilgrimage is an interesting and worthwhile read (not to mention theologically enlightening).

Update: If you are buying a used book, do a quick scan to make sure it is not missing pages 177-208. I enjoyed Part I of the book (Christian's Pilgrimage), but the only book more sleep inducing for me than Part II was Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers". "The Pickwick Papers" put me to sleep every night for months.

A more important topic

Now that Dr. Paul's bid for the presidency is over, let's move on to a more important topic. Pitchers and catchers reported to spring training today and the middle of the Astros lineup is murderer's row. Tejada, Berkman, Carlos Lee and Hunter Pence will need to provide plenty of run production to support a weak pitching staff (Roy O. excluded).

To celebrate a new baseball season why not waste some time at a unique website that I came across - 88 Topps Cards. They take a look at the 1988 Topps baseball card set, card by card, and provide some amusing commentary as well. The only thing better would have been a 1978 Topps Cards website - 1978 being the midst of my own card collecting years.

McCain - A Candidate Inspires

Although not a supporter of Barack Obama, I do like this video. And as the video says, good luck with that in November.

I'm throwing in the towel

In a message last week to his supporters Ron Paul ruled out a third party candidacy, which means that I'm throwing in the towel on the 2008 presidential election.

I won't remove the 'Ron Paul for President' sticker from my bumper until after the March 4 Texas primary and will still cast my primary vote for Dr. Paul, but my hopes for real change in Washington (not the socialist hell disguised as change that is promised by Obama) have been extinguished.

Although sometimes frustrating, Ron Paul's candidacy has been very formative in my own political beliefs. I've come to realize that there is no place for me and my beliefs in the Republican party. I cannot support the perpetual war candidate. (As a selfish aside - my son will be draft age in 12 years, just 1/8 of the way through McCain's 100 year plan for Iraq.) And of course the Democratic party offers no alternative. As disgusted as I am with the GOP, the democrats are still socialists who think it is OK to murder unborn babies.

The lesser of two evils is still evil, so I will either stay home in November or vote for the Libertarian/Constitution party candidate. Either way, come January 20, 2009 we will have a new president; and I will still go to work every day, pay my taxes, pay my bills, love my wife and kids, cheer for the Texas Longhorns, take my family to church on Sunday, and put my faith in God (and not any man).

You won't see this in the MSM

According to the Federal Election Commission report on 4th quarter 2007 campaign contributions that was released today, Ron Paul received more donations from members of the military than all other presidential candidates combined.

Paul: $286,764; 1349 donors
McCain: $79,597; 413 donors
Romney: $29,250; 140 donors
Huckabee: $24,562; 94 donors

Obama: $81,037; 466 donors
Clinton: $49,523; 181 donors

While John McCain says having US troops in Iraq for 100 years "would be fine with me," Ron Paul wants to bring the troops home. And apparently members of the US military agree with Ron Paul.