Monday, August 30, 2004

Ricers on Onramps

If your going to be a ricer and drive a lowered civic with big alteza tail-lights and a fart pipe muffler, at least drive fast. Seriously. 55 in a 65 coming off my favorite onramp is really annoying. At least learn to get out of the way of people like me driving stock sedans.

Update: My Girl thinks that "ricer" is derogatory. She may have a point but I'm leaving it. For the record I drive a 2004 Mazda Protege with an AEM short ram intake. I have plans to put an new exhaust system on it eventually. So I drive a modified japanese "sport" sedan. That makes me a ricer too so I'm allowed to use the term as much as I want. So there.

Fundamentalists

Get Religion has two posts worthy of note. The first is part of their Red America vs. Blue America series. The second is about the misuse of the term "fundamentalist". The second post starts by quoting me, so I thought I would bring it up.

Joe Biden

People are comparing Delaware's own Joe Biden in his presidential candidacy in 1988 to John Kerry. Instapundit is posting on it here. He's also linking to John Rosenberg's post on a similar subject.

People are basically saying Joe Biden lost his presidential Biden because he plagarized some speeches, but everyone is looking the other way with John Kerry for similar acts during his Vietnam testimony. Commentators have gone as far as using this as an example of the moral breakdown of the democratic party in the last 16 years.

Hold on. Joe Biden didn't fail to weather the plagiarism storm because of the moral compunctions of his party. He failed to weather it because he lacked the standing to be a bankable candidate. Let me demonstrate.

I live in Delaware. When I visit My Girl in North Carolina, people hear me talk, notice my accent (or lack thereof), and ask where I'm from. I tell them that I live in Delaware. They ask what state thats in. This isn't a criticism of the geographic knowledge of North Carolineans. Delawareans get this a lot no matter where we go in the US.

Delaware is a small state with 3 counties and, more importantly for a national political race, 3 electoral votes. We're not exactly New York, California, or Texas. This isn't the place to raise up a major national figure. This is also why people are talking about Biden for a stint as Secretary of State if Kerry wins the Presidency. Delaware has a glass ceiling of mediocrity and that sort of national office might get him somewhere.

Worse yet Delaware is a state full of moderate politics. We're notorious ticket splitters. Tom Carper, Joe Biden, and Mike Castle are all moderates. Where is that gonna get Joe Biden in the primaries? Nowhere. Primaries reliably select party faithful and extremists, not centrists.

Maybe as more people move to Delaware from Maryland and Jersey and bring their politics with them, Newcastle County will get liberal enough to produce a candidate that will satisfy the DNC. Hopefully it won't happen though. The policy those transplants bring in will screw up our state just like they screwed up their old states.

Saturday, August 28, 2004

The Importance of the Local Church

There is an interesting link at Challies that leads to Steve Camp's article on the importance of the local church.

In it Camp basically calls the seminary system worthless, unbiblical, and made of straw. His problems are these:

  • Seminaries do not train men in godliness or spirituality, they train them in theology and ministry theory. This is undoubtedly true. Of course men don't train men in spirituality, God does...
  • Seminaries often have poor doctrine and can hasten the propogation of false doctrine. He gives examples. He's right and its not pretty.
  • It creates the illusion of pastoral spiritual superiority and tends toward a "one man show" church. Again, this should not be.

    His counter to this is the biblical model of local congregations raising up leaders and training them for ministry. Examples are: Jesus training the apostles. The Apostles trained Barnabas and others. Paul trained Timothy and Titus. He also trained Priscilla and Aquilla.

    In the end Steve challenges the local church to raise up leaders from within itself instead of relying on seminarians from without.

    He's partly right. The church needs to raise up spiritual leaders from within via participation in ministry. You cannot send a weak christian to seminary and expect to have him return a spiritual colossus. What you get is a weak christian with book learnin' instead. Churches are better to raise up leaders with small groups. This will train local men (and women) of faith into strong spiritual leaders.

    Likewise a church needs to judge carefully and well before they call a man to be their pastor. Failure to do so will heap nothing but troubles on their heads because not all seminaries and not all seminarians are created equal and committed to following the Lord.

    Lastly, pastors must always remain humble as christ was humble. Quick to accept correction for if even Peter the Rock was corrected by Paul, anyone should be of open mind to correction by the Holy Spirit and their fellow Christians.

    On the other hand scrapping the seminary system is foolhardy. It is laughable to use Paul as an example of an non-seminarian. He was a pharisee, trained in schuls by Rabbis. Trained not only in Jewish theology, but in the logic and rhetoric of the Greeks. Paul is as close to a New Testament seminarian as you can get. Steve is right, Saul's education did not insulate him from the workings of the devil as he persecuted the church. It did however become a huge tool that the Holy Spirit was able to use in Paul's ministry and his writings. It is no coincidence that much of Paul's ministry was training up leaders because it was his education that allowed him to do it effectively. It was no coincidence that it was Paul who stood up and corrected Peter, Rock of the Church and Keeper of the Keys of Heaven, for leading people astray. Finally, it was no coincidence that it is Paul's logical mind that was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write the majority of the New Testament.

    It is also no coincidents that the New Testament letters were written to instruct the churches in right-thinking. It was no coincidence that letters like I John directly address heresies like Gnosticism. It was no coincidence that Paul's writings addressed the spiritual struggles of each of his churches. My brothers these were the academic publications of their day. Works diseminated to instruct other believes in orthodoxy. Seminaries may be led astray by the devil, but they are also great tools for the disemination of true doctrine as well as false. You cannot take the bad but forget the good. That is foolishness.

    Likewise a church without a pastor runs into a known problem: depth. At some point the knowledge of the pastor is invaluable in taking his ministry to the next level. It is critical in the training up of good local leaders. I am a local leader in my church, but I am no Pastor. I do not have their depth of insight or understanding of scripture. Without them as a resource I would be lost.

    Lastly, let us remember that local congregations can also go astray. It was local congregations that fell to the Judaisers. Similarly it was local teachers raising in the system Steve espouses that caused most of the heresies found in the early church. It was the this system that raised Paul to question whether people followed Christ or Apollos. The Nicene Creed, which I blogged on earlier, was written to fight one of these heresies.

    My brothers it cannot only be the seminary. This is true. It also cannot only be the local church. It must be both. It is the local church that should feed the seminary with godly men. It is the seminary who should equip these godly men with a depth of understanding they can impart to others. Just as the body of christ cannot only be a foot or only be a head, so the Church must have both to survive.
  • Friday, August 27, 2004

    On Ramps

    I'd like to personally thank the guy who designed the onramp from southbound Maryland Rt 279 (Elkton Rd.) onto I95 south. I'm not being sarcastic here, its a wonderful piece of transit engineering. The onramp is both long and wide. Its straight enough that you can pick up speed properly, but curvy enough that it keeps things interesting.

    Its a really fun onramp, especially if no one is in front of you and you can open up a little bit. You just hit the gas up off Elkton Rd and accelerate through the bends. The side to side makes it fun and then your on the highway going 70 in a 65 like everybody else. Merging is a breeze at that point. Its patches of roadway like this that make me want to taking driving lessons so I can do them better. Especially since I drive it every day going south to work.

    By the way, the anti-thesis of this is the Market Street ramp onto I95 South in Pennsylvania. Its got a tiny hairpin cloverleaf and a short ramp. It dumps you onto 95 with much faster moving traffic. Its not fun at all and people tend to get forced off onto the shoulder to complete the merge if they don't floor it early enough. Shame on you road engineer.

    Thursday, August 26, 2004

    Sunday Sabbath

    Donald Sensing has a post up about Family Christian Stores being open on Sundays. He feels it isn't a good thing. He also has a Sunday sermon on a similar Sabbath-related topic.

    Well I'm going to be a particularly devilish devils advocate and take the other side on this one. Here are a few verses about Sundays:
    Exodus 35:2
    For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.

    Leviticus 16:31
    It is a Sabbath of rest, and you must deny yourselves; it is a lasting ordinance.

    Leviticus 23:3
    There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the LORD.
    You will notice two things. The first is rest. The Sabbath is a day of rest. Second is that it is the Lord's day and set apart. Third is that then, as now, it was used as a time a sacred assembly.

    Now this is what my typical Sunday looks like. I wake up shower/shave/etc. I put on nice clothes (khakis, shirt, tie, sportcoat) and get in my car. Its a 25 minute drive to church from my apartment. I go to Sunday school at 10am and I usher for the 11:15am service I attend. I try to make contact with the guys in my small group and see how they are doing. After church I have lunch with my parents and brother. Then my brother and I typically go do something we both enjoy like see a movie or shoot. Maybe I go home but maybe we head to my parents house for more family time. In the evenings I talk to my girlfriend.

    So you can see a parts of my Sundays are non-restful and those same parts are either church or family related. I don't do any professional work I get paid for so avoid getting stoned or cast out. I do perform a lot of work on Sundays as part of my responsibilities in my church.

    What does this have to do with anything about books? Well a big part of my job as a small group leader is looking at books to figure out lessons. Since it is the Lord's work, shouldn't I do it on the Lord's Day when I am most spiritually aware and able and often have the free time? What a great idea, but I can't because unlike churches, which are always open for business on Sunday, Christian bookstore are closed.

    Until now. Huzzah! Instead of having to run around like a crazy man during the regular week trying to do this and everything else, I can discharge all my holy duties on the holy day. I can do it with peace and rest. Good for you FCS. For once I like the results of your heartless corporate outlook.

    Now hopefully FCS will work their Sunday shifts so that the employees can attend services, but other than that I don't see a problem with it. A christian book store is about providing a spiritual service to the community. Provided they do it wisely I have no problem with them doing it on Sundays.

    Foreign Policy Analysis at AEI

    The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has an amazing article by Charles Krauthammer online. His analysis of the various schools of foreign policy lead him this conclusion:
    Call it democratic realism. And this is its axiom: We will support democracy everywhere, but we will commit blood and treasure only in places where there is a strategic necessity--meaning, places central to the larger war against the existential enemy, the enemy that poses a global mortal threat to freedom.
    It is well worth the read so read it.

    Hat tip to Kim du Toit.

    Wednesday, August 25, 2004

    Poor Writing at the AP

    Head Investigator of the latest Abu Ghraib prison report, Gen. Paul Kern, speaks with reporters about the "serious misconduct and a loss of moral values" at the Pentagon, Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2004, in Washington.
    That was a caption on a story in Yahoo news. Makes it sound like Kern was condemning the Pentagon doesn't it? He wasn't of course, he condemned the unit and its immediate chain of command. He gave the briefing at the Pentagon. Man is that an awful way to caption a story. The "in washington" preposition stuck on the end there just makes it worse.

    John Kerry has this to say:
    "Harry Truman had that sign on the desk and it said, 'The buck stops here,'" Kerry said. "The buck doesn't stop at the Pentagon."
    Now what does John Kerry have with this story? Also, shouldn't a self-confessed war criminal like Kerry be a bit more tight-lipped and a little less critical?

    Soft Drinks and Obesity

    Todd Zywicki at the Volokh Conspiracy is writing on the relationship between soft drink consumption and obesity. Now I'm not saying there is one for you, but I have definitely noticed a trend in me.

    When I graduated college I was 6' and 155 lbs. By the time I took my current job with the Army, I was 175 lbs. I topped out at around 185. It wasn't good weight either. I was starting to turn into a skinny kid with a gut. Not pretty.

    What happened? Well I went from walking several miles a day in college to sitting on my butt for 9 hours a day at a desk. Plus I was consuming a lot of processed foods and soft drinks. What did I do to fix this? I used the thermodynamics diet. I consumed fewer empty calories and started increasing my activity level to burn off what I had put on. Now I play Ultimate Frisbee after work once a week and make the occasional trips to the gym or walk around the neighborhood. I also cut my soda consumption down to one can of Coke in the morning. Everything else is 0 calorie diet. I never ate a good breakfast so I cut breakfast out entirely and made sure my dinner was a good meal not a sodium laced "create-a-meal" out of a bag.

    My weight is holding fairly constant at 175 which is good for my height. To this day I can tell when I'm gaining though and its not by how my clothes fit or any of that. I simply look in my recycling container at home. Lots of soda cans or bottles corrolates to fatter.

    Council of Nicaea

    For those that aren't into early church history, today is the 1679th anniversary of the conclusion of the first ecumenical conference of the Christian church, the First Council of Nicaea. While the Davinci Code calls ths council the origin of the belief in Christ's divinity, this is not the case.

    The council was called by Roman Emperor Constantine to address the developing division in the church between the followers of Arius (Arians) and main body of believers. Arius taught that Jesus was not truly God, but instead a lesser form of Diety. For this he was cast out of the church as were the small number (2-5 out of the 325 in the council) of bishops who sided with him. The Divinity of Christ was firmly established and the norm in the church in Nicaea unlike what Dan Brown would have you believe.

    The major work to come out of the First Council of Nicaea is the Nicene Creed or Symbol:
    We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
    Later the following was added when similar concerns over the Divinity of the Holy Spirit were raised in the Ecumenical Council in Constantinople:
    We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
    The underlined "and the son" is called the filioque clause and is only used in Catholic and Western Christian churches. Orthodox and Eastern churches don't use it. It is one of the causes of the Great Schism between East and West.

    Tuesday, August 24, 2004

    Too Much Politics

    A post over at Parablemania is making me think. I needed to be reminded that no matter who wins in November, God's will can be done through him. After all, Paul wrote this in Romans 13:
    Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
    Paul may have written that during the reign of Nero. He was falsely imprisoned and in due course would be martyred. If he said this then, can we do any less?

    I started this blog as a place I could write about things that mattered to me. So far its mostly been about politics. My brothers this should not be. There isn't much Baptist about this blog, so its time I get cracking on that side of my life and bring it back into balance. I'm going to have to work on those theology and ethics drafts that are sitting around so look for them soon.

    Kerry and the Swift Vets

    So the talk of both sides of the blogosphere is the Swift Vets. I'd link in something but anybody on my blogroll has covered it at some point. For someone who wants the Republicans to "Bring it on!", Kerry's acting like a wuss. The Swift Vets are one organization with something like a 9 million dollar budget. Bush has 9 organizations coming after him with a combined budget of 145 million dollars. Yet Kerry is the one complaining about being persecuted... Suffice it to say I am not impressed with his capacity to handle stress. How is this man going to handle a real war?

    Oh and "but its only the Swift Vets who are lying". Right... Hmm I'd give, let me think, 9 to 1 odds of that being incorrect.

    Monday, August 23, 2004

    Auditing in Iraq

    Matthew Yglesias is blogging about a Foxnews story on financial auditing of the Coalition Provisional Authority. He makes two points. One, it is inconsistent to say that effective management of Iraq is important one minute and then say this is unimportant the next. Two, this shows how awful a job the CPA has done.

    He is at correct on the first point. Effective management is important. Very important. This needs to be followed up. Some heads should roll. The question is who's head. Which brings us two part two.

    Is this the CPA's fault as Matthew accuses here?
    Suppose that an organization with which you were affiliated had undertaken some venture whose success you strongly believed was vital for the continued success of the organization. Now suppose it was revealed that the management of the organization had taken several billion dollars that had been allocated to the venture and lost them.
    The problem here is that I read the Fox News article. It says things like this:
    A soon-to-be-released audit will show that at least $8.8 billion in Iraqi money that was given to Iraqi ministries by the former U.S.-led authority there cannot be accounted for, FOX News has confirmed.
    And this:
    Its handling has already come under fire in a U.N.-mandated audit released last month, which found no evidence of spending fraud by the CPA but said there wasn't enough oversight to ensure money was used for its intended purposes.
    Emphasis mine of course.

    Its not the CPA that "lost" the money. It is not an organization US taxpayers are directly affiliated with that is having the problems. The problem is that the CPA paid people money for services and support. Those contractors and Iraqi ministries did not keep good account of how they spent the money or refused to release their records (like Halliburton did). So that money is not necessarily gone or funneled into graft and corruption. Spending was simply poorly documented. Parts of Iraq saw fighting all last year and that's not conducive to good documentation. People trashing government buildings left and right burning documents, as also happened, is even worse.

    How did this happen? People are greedy. Normally you do a yearly audit to catch it, if my calendar is correct this is what the CPA did. The only problem is what do you do with the information now? The CPA doesn't exist anymore. All the bureaucrats have turned their jobs over to Iraqis. Maybe the audit report will be turned over to the new Iraqi government and they can do something. The ministries in question can be taken to task and contracts can be eliminated for the dishonest or non-compliant contractors. In the here and now I think this will probably be the most effective thing to do.

    But all the CPA's fault? Considering it was actively fighting insurgency and rebuilding most of Iraqi society at the same time, is it any wonder they didn't hound their contractors and ministries for accountability? Oh well time for the CPA to pay the piper for their decisions anyway.

    The New Soldier

    For future reference: John Kerry's book The New Soldier is being distributed in PDF on the internet. This is important because Kerry has done his damnedest to keep this from publication anywhere.

    I got this from QandO which you can also find on the new Blogroll I just put in. Blogrolling is really nice incidentally.

    Sunday, August 22, 2004

    Ties

    I had a little time to spare before church this morning so I looked up various ways to tie a tie. Anyway I realized why people have trouble with it. Its the damn windsor knot.

    I taught myself how to tie a tie when I was a kid. I think my dad was out of town the first time I had to, so I basically came up with something. It turns out to be four-in-hand or something similar. Its easy and I can do it in a second, but the knot isn't symmetrical and it doesn't look quite right. I tried to learn windsor this morning and I couldn't get it to work out. So I did a half-windsor which looks good and leaves a little more room around my throat to boot. Half windsor is the way to go.

    Incidentally if anyone has a better term than "tie a tie" I'd like to hear it. Writing "tie a tie" a bunch of times seems stupid to me.

    Friday, August 20, 2004

    Standing Up against Fascism

    Stephen Green at VodkaPundit has a good long fisking of Ronald Asmus's troop realignment story. McQ over at QandO is talking about a similar story in The New Republic.

    Here is the long and short of their points. Moving our troops out of the middle of Germany is a good idea. Their positions have been outdated since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Reunification of Germany. The free world controls both sides of the Fulda Gap now. The Russians have moved their tank forces back from East Germany into Russia proper, so the response time of our heavy forces is much less critical. Time to bring the boys home. The only reason a lot of those folks put up with us over there is that they like the color of our money.

    The plan also calls for pulling some troops out of South Korea. After all the South Koreans don't want us there say McQ and Stephen. They have a point, however I think this is a very short-sighted idea. To explain, let me tell you a little story.

    Once upon a time a great man died. He had been out of the public eye for a long time because of illness, but none of that mattered. He had plotted the course that vanquished evil and saved the free world. Anyone with any sense thanked him for it, prayed for his soul, and revered his memory. That man was Ronald Reagan.

    One of the things Reagan taught us were that freedom is better than oppression and tyranny. Its more efficient and far more powerful in the long run. Likewise he taught us that evil can and should be opposed instead of tolerated. The agents of freedom can defeat tyranny, possibly without violence, by application of pressure of their superior efficiency.

    Why am I talking about this? How different is the situation in North Korea from the old situation that we faced with the Soviet Union? North Korea might be able to lob WMDs at the West Coast. So what? The Soviets could vaporize the world multiple times over. We still opposed them and we were right to do so. We should at least be willing to do the same thing now. Haven't we learned our lesson? Obviously not.

    If it were not for the War on Terror, I would advocate ramping up our troop levels in Korea. As it is, we need to maintain them. North Korea is on its last legs economically. Were it not for help from China and the Clinton Administation, they would be gone already. All we need to do is apply pressure and they will fold. They can do nothing else because both sides know that they can't challenge us. The time is coming when the agents of freedom must once again oppose the forces of tyranny.

    As an aside, we should look at our relations with North Korea (and possibly China too) and re-evaluate the Reagan Legacy. I heard many people proposing that the Soviets would have fallen without Reagan's policies. Perhaps, but North Korea is still here. So far the NKoms seem much happier to attempt to extort money from the free peoples with threats of force. That never would have happened to Reagan. I don't see too many people talking about the inevitability of their downfall now either.

    Thursday, August 19, 2004

    The Rich Getting Poorer

    The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid has a piece up on what is happening to the income of those damn rich folks. Turns out the Recession has hit the rich very hard with upper brackets taking over 50% cuts in income. Meanwhile normal people like the rest of us making under six figures have maintained or gained income. So the poor are getting richer (or staying the same) and the rich have gotten a lot poorer. But you won't see or hear this on the news of course.

    In a similar related story, top income earners are also paying most of the taxes collected in this country.

    Both these link came from the quick links bar on QandO. Unfortunately this means they will disappear shortly. I put the links here for my benefit. This way I can use the blogger search function to find them again instead of having to wade through bookmarks or google the entire internet.

    Delaware Sweet Stinky Delaware

    My Girl sent me this. If you were born in Delaware perhaps you will get all of them. I'm a transplant from Pennsylvania so I get most of them.

    Tuesday, August 17, 2004

    Furk Ding Blasted Internet, Part II

    My cable modem went out again. Grrrrr. It lost connection right before I was going to chat with My Girl too. Its a real pain to have an unreliable internet connection when you're long distance and depending on it for important contact with loved ones. Stupid Viking Communications...

    As with last time, posts will be infrequent as I try not to blog from work too much.

    UPDATE: I got home to find my cable modem working again. Yippee. Lets see if I come home to a working internet connection tomorrow.

    Sunday, August 15, 2004

    Enter the Curmudgeon

    I'm not that old. Honestly I'm not. I've only been out of college for a few years. Well, it was graduate school. College was a few years before that. So when did I turn in to the old man that shakes his fist and curses the careless collegians when they step in front of moving vehicles? I guess I've grown up.

    I live in Newark, Delaware. It's a college town home to the University of Delaware. Did I mention that our football team is the NCAA Division 1-AA Football National Champions? Go Blue Hens. I went there for 7 years including graduate school. I met my girlfriend there and with a little luck she's probably going to become my wife. We'll probably get our names in some UD alumni publication at that point. She's looking forward to seeing our names together in the UD Messenger, I couldn't care less. She doesn't live here anymore and I do. What can I say, familiarity has started to breed contempt.

    Where am I going with this? You would think that by the time people get to college they would remember what they learned in kindergarten. No, not that stuff about numbers or the alphabet. I hope, they have that down. Well maybe not the business majors. No, I'm talking about common sense rule number one: Look both ways before you cross the street.

    Is that too much to ask? Your mom only told you that a thousand times since you were old enough to walk! I drove down Main Street today. It was an ill-advised shortcut. I barely managed to avoid hitting several pedestrians and a few skate-boarding townies. Now this isn't because I'm some sort of careless driver who ignores crosswalks, etc. This is because these fools walked right out in front of a moving car without a care in the world or a glance in the direction of oncoming traffic. And I wasn't the only one this was happening to. And Main Street is one way, so they wouldn't even have to look both ways to get it right.

    It's really sad too. There are essentially three leading causes for student mortality at Delaware. One, students get drunk and get hit by trains on one of the many railroad tracks just outside of campus. Perhaps they, like deer, are perplexed by the bright oncoming light and want to see if it will be friends with them. I don't know and they aren't here anymore to say. Two, they get drunk and fall from a great height like the window or balcony of a dormitory. Presumably this is preceded by "Hey Guys! Watch this!" Lastly, they get run over in local traffic.

    Notice that the last one is the only case that doesn't involve the consumption of massive quantities of alcohol. Oh it can involve that granted, but usually it's just caused by pure unadulterated carelessness. If it was up to me, student orientation would include the entire freshman class reciting "I will look both ways before I cross the street. I will not play on railroad tracks. I will not dangle myself from great height to impress my fellow fools. I will use some fucking common sense." Frankly it's the least I could do in my orientation speech.

    Man I feel old all of the sudden. God help me when I have kids. I might as well start shaking my fists now.

    Saturday, August 14, 2004

    Updates

    Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

    Back

    Well my internet access is back up and I'm making improvements. Look for trackback and sitemeter to be here soon.

    Thursday, August 05, 2004

    Furk Ding Blasted Internet

    I'll probably be posting a lot more infrequently for a while. My internet service at home switched over from DSL connection (that worked fine) to Cable modem (which doesn't work at all). So my usual update times at night aren't going to be happening until I can get things worked out.

    Christian Martyrdom in Iraq

    Donald Sensing has a great post up on recent church bombings in Iraq. If you want to see the effect that Christian martyrdom can have on a nation, then keep your eye on the people of Iraq.

    The post-Saddam period has seen a disheartening increase in violence against Iraqi christians. After Zeyad moved to Basrah, he talked about christian liquor store owners being targeted in the militant Shiite south. Muslims are not allowed to partake of wine or beer at all. Christians, like Jews, are simply encouraged not to drink to excess. Part of the Moral Muslim Majority was to speak against these christians profiting from peddling immorality to their Muslim brothers. Never mind that these Muslims liked having a beer after work of course.

    Tuesday, August 03, 2004

    Awww...

    Ok this is one of the cutest pictures ever.