Flush With Gambling

Christianity Today points to a story from the Christian Science Monitor detailing the rise in gambling on college campuses. I saw this rise especially during my junior and senior years of school. Don't think this is just some innocuous past time. People are at the very least losing some serious money and at the worst getting into gambling debt. Just this past week I encountered a client who is in a gambling treatment center. Her gambling habit has wrecked her family. As this client's 80 year old mother stated in exasperation, "they just keep building more casinos."

It's funny how gambling continues to increase in America and we as a soceity glorify it and turn a blind eye to its unsavory collateral damage. Oklahoma approved state sanctioned gambling in the form of a lottery and racinos in the fall of 2005. A certain amount of gambling revenue is designated to gambling treatment programs (talk about ironic...or stupid). This past spring Oklahoma Republicans fought to increase this program money. However, Oklahoma Democrats blocked this proposal. The problem will only get worse. Turning a blind eye won't help.

A Confession

I am a conservative and I listen to NPR (yes, National Public Radio). I know, I know, that's taboo in the conservative world. We are supposed to be listening to Rush, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and Bill O'Reilly (truth be told, I think they're all rabid and advance the conservative cause very little). But alas, my quest for intelligent, serious, interesting discussions on the world and national events and culture brings me to listen to NPR during my morning and evening commutes. Yeah, there is a bit of a liberal bias, and the folks at Morning Edition and All Things Considered may be seen as a little snobbish and hoity-toity here in the Heartland, but I get alot out of the programming. Joe Carter has a great post that does a lot to sum up how I feel about NPR, so I'm going to point you over to his place to read a lilttle more.

Now, just for the record: Laura Ingraham is amazing and while I'm not able to receive Bill Bennett and Hugh Hewitt on the radio dial, I think they've got great shows. It's just that on top of the highly partisan attack shows I need a little more balance, a little more engagement, and a little more debate.

Observations From The Candidate Forum

I went to a candidate forum hosted by the Norman Chamber of Commerce. Candidates for District Attorney, County Commissioner, and State House and Senate districts were present. Let me tell you it was a hoot and a holler (yeah, I said it). A few things I noticed: All of the candidates were white. All but three were at least over 40. Only one candidate was female. As for the audience: a majority were at least over 50, majority white (I saw two non-white spectators), and one or two under 30.

The format of the forum was pretty bad. Each candidate was allowed a two minute opening statement and then one minute to answer each question. While this did allow for the candidates to get out a few of their points, it really stifled any meaningful debate. Of course, this is no surprise, because we are in a soundbite culture.

Two other observations: "incentivize" is the new buzzword, and the Main St./I-35 overpass in Norman is the worst overpass in the state, but construction won't start until 2011!

Overall, it was a good experience as I was able to get a better idea of who to vote for come next Tuesday.

Inside Hezbollah

Read a great piece by Robin Wright of the Washington Post detailing Hezbollah's current leader. It gives a good, brief look at what makes Hezbollah tick.

Supporting Israel

Israel, Lebanon, and Hezbollah

Want to know why this whole conflict between Israel and Hezbollah (which has subsequently spread into Lebanon) got started? Look no further than Prof. Joshua Landis's blog, Syria Comment. While Landis is primarily looking at things through how events affect Syria, he provides good insight into why Hezbollah took Israeli soliders hostage in the first place (to use as a bargaining chip). Check it out and get a brief education on the whole subject.

Liberal Christianity And Irrelevance

Beliefnet columnist Charlotte Allen writes a scathing indictment of Liberal Christianity in the Los Angeles Times.

To whet your appetite:

So this is the liberal Christianity that was supposed to be the Christianity of the future: disarray, schism, rapidly falling numbers of adherents, a collapse of Christology and national meetings that rival those of the Modern Language Assn. for their potential for cheap laughs. And they keep telling the Catholic Church that it had better get with the liberal program — ordain women, bless gay unions and so forth — or die. Sure.

HT: Albert Mohler

My Kind Of Feminist

Mark Noll writes in the Wall Street Journal concerning the King James version of the Bible and it's influence on American culture. In so doing, he describes those feminists whom I respect:

In the 1890s Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other aggrieved feminists published
"The Woman's Bible" in an effort to counter interpretations of Scripture that
had done women harm. When they asked others to comment, Frances Willard of the
Women's Christian Temperance Union made a telling response: "No such woman, as
Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with her heart aflame against all forms of injustice and of cruelty . . . has ever been produced in a country where the Bible was not incorporated into the thoughts and the affections of the people and had not been so during many generations."

Gender Gap

The New York Times has a great story detailing how women are leaving men behind at college. A few interesting observations are included in this piece. At most universities across the country more women are graduating with honors than men, and 58% of those enrolled in college are women. Though feminazis want to continue to brainwash us that there is a glass ceiling and women are being oppressed when it comes to attaining a higher education and successful job, the facts show that this is just not true.

Newsweek ran a story several months ago on how boys are suddenly being left behind when it comes to elementary and secondary education (sorry, the story is archived, unless you're a print subscriber). This lack of attention on the education and socialization of boys is also found in the Times article. Women are more driven than their male counterparts, with more men likely to be slackers when it comes to their studies. College men, as we all know, are more likely to play video games. And we're not just talking about a few times a week or even a few hours each day, but instead 4-5 hours each day. C'mon fellas! Step it up! To think that we are breeding in males the idea that slacking off pays off is an idictment of decades of feminist propaganda. White male guilt is still alive and kicking and the feminization of our culture (including our churches) will only worsen the situation. Hopefully we aren't raising up a generation of "girly men" (Hat Tip to the Governator!).

North Korea

Foreign Policy Blog has a great, link-filled post on North Korea. As the blogger adeptly points out, outrage over the grave humanitarian misdeeds of Kim Jung Il is largely absent in the world.

Let Freedom Ring!

I am so grateful that God has given us America. He has blessed us with freedom and liberty. I am thankful for the men and women in the United States Armed Forces who today serve to not only preserve, protect, and defend our Constitution, but also to promote freedom and liberty to the despotically ruled, destitute regions of the world including Iraq and Afghanistan. May we reflect upon the great truths espoused in one of our greatest founding documents, the Declaration of Independence. May God bless America and may America bless God.

The Delcaration of Independence

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

• He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
  
• He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
  
• He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
  
• He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
  
• He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
  
• He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
  
• He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
  
• He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
  
• He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
  
• He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
  
• He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
  
• He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
  
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
  
• For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
  
• For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
  
• For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
  
• For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
  
• For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
  
• For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
  
• For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
  
• For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
  
• For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
  
• He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
  
• He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
  
• He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the head of a civilized nation.
  
• He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
  
• He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
  

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levey war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

On Fighting Old Battles

I can't believe that Democrats are still up in arms over the 2000 and 2004 elections. The lastest conspiracy theory comes from Robert F Kennedy Jr. in an article in the bastion of journalistic integrity and excellence, Rolling Stone. One of my favorite lefty bloggers, Chuck Currie blogs on this latest article, and I responded. Here's hoping the Dems continue with this absurd distraction while the Republicans gear up for '08. Go McCain Go!

UPDATE: The "intellectual" debate over at Chuck's continues. It never ceases to amaze me that people think the government of the United States is incapable of doing more than one thing.

The Scourge of Global Poverty

Presbyterian pastor Mark Roberts wrote a series of posts on the ONE campaign that I found particularly thought-provoking. I would encourage you to read his ruminations as he engages the issue of global poverty.

Roberts also linked to these two articles from evangelical Christian Ron Sider: Is God Really on the Side of the Poor, and An Evangelical Theology of Liberation. Both are excellent, thought-provoking articles.

Cambodia and Corruption

The World Bank wants Cambodia to pay back millions in contracts they say were misprocured due to corruption in the Cambodian government. Prime minister Hun Sen is having none of this, though. He's asking for proof from the World Bank of the corruption before he returns any money. The World Bank has given non-specific information to the Cambodian government because the Bank wants to protect their sources. That's not good enough for the always honest Prime Minister (errr....right...), and he'll wait it out til he gets the information he wants. It's no surprise that this is a problem in Cambodia--it's still full of corruption. Hopefully as more pressure is put on the country from international entities like the World Bank, the corruption can be cleaned up and the country can continue to develop.

Now That's My Kind Of Kid!

A three year old picked The Newshour with Jim Lehrer to be his theme for his birthday party. How cool is that?!?! The video is even better than the story...what an awesome kid!

Veritas

Thanks to Brandon for providing this link to the Veritas Forum. Many great and thought-provoking messages.

Now It's Confirmed!

I'm a huge West Wing fan (even if it's off air, I still have the DVDs!). Sam was always may favorite character (well, I liked Leo as well) so it is good to find out by such a reliable source that I am most like Sam.



The idealistic speechwriter is well-liked by just about everyone. He's known for his excellent writing, sense of humor, and tendency to be clutzy. Although being younger than the rest of the staff, he's often treated as so, much to his dismay.

:: Which West Wing character are you? ::

Quick Links

A few links I found interesting:

There are two particularly thought-provoking posts on Evangelical Outposts (two of many, by the way). One concerns youth ministry in the early church (worth the read and subsequent moments of pondering). The other concerns rejoicing in the deaths of terrorist leaders like Zarqawi (an aside: yesterday, when I heard of Zarqawi's death I was elated. It was until later in the day that I thought about whether such a reaction was "right." This clears that up).

Charles Krauthammer's column on protecting marriage expresses most of my thoughts in a much more clear and succinct way. Read it for good insight. Also, read Larry Kudlow's column on taxing the rich. His sarcasm accurately exposes the lunacy of attacks made on the rich by liberals.

Last, but not least, not all scientists agree that global warming is occurring (also see here). So younger scientists are intimidated by older scientists into toeing the party line, huh? Sounds like what's happening with evolution.

Laughing At Someone Else's Expense

For a good laugh, click here!

From Newsweek

A few articles from Newsweek that I especially enjoyed:

Here's an online special detailing 15 ideas to "recharge America". No real substantial or detailed ideas are put forth--just broad themes. However one in particular caught my eye. It's from Pete Peterson of the Blackstone Group, in which he warns of the need to reign in our sickening spending problem, particularly referring to the entitlement programs of Social Security and Medicare. A choice nugget, "If we don't fundamentally reform our gargantuan entitlement programs and at the same time our gluttonous energy and consumption habits and meager savings levels, we simply won't have the resources for these desperately needed R&D investments."

George Will writes as only George Will can write on "white guilt". He tells us of a new book written by "America's most discerning black writer" on the detriments of not taking personal responsibility in the black community. To whet your appetite, "Black 'mililtants' preaching militant dependency want guilt-ridden whites to feel obligated to deliver black advancement."

Finally, read about the hypocrisy of Mexican immigration policy. President Vicente Fox has sent troops to Mexico's southern border with Guatemala to crack down on the illegal Guatemalans coming into Mexico. Fox has been urging America to grant amnesty to millions of Mexicans while his government has only granted legal status to about 15,000 illegals in his country. Wages for illegal Guatemalans are abyssmal--$3.50 a day, and sometimes room and board is deducted! Want to know what the coffee plantation operators think of Mexican workers? Look no further: "You can't depend on Mexicans, they're irresponsible." Hmmm...sounds familiar. Meanwhile, Fox and other Hispanics lecture the US on our treatment of illegals immigrants. Gimme a break!