Gun Free Zone

When I was a little girl (about 6), there were a rash of burglaries in my neighborhood. As my parents sat discussing this, I came up with a plan. We could put a sign in our yard saying, "Please do not steal." Then the person would know that you shouldn't steal. My parents didn't follow my advice.

The other day my husband and I were watching short clip on YouTube and came upon this Gun Free Zone bit from Fox. It is about two years old, so you might have already seen it. But I thought it was funny.

Productivity

A friend e-mailed me an interesting (and convicting) article from American Vision about productivity. The main point is that increased productivity comes from "sacrifice, i.e. from forbearing present consumption plus ideas and work. Increasing productivity always comes at a cost."

The author laments that Americans have gone away from this principle that lead to our success.

For the last century Americans have gradually adopted an economic doctrine completely hostile to the spirit of their Puritan forefathers and to common sense in general: That not sacrifice, but consumption is what produces economic growth. We think we have found the way to both eat the cake and have it at the same time. If we eat more, buy new cars more often, spend more money on entertainment, these will somehow make us richer and more productive.

The author has some pretty pointed (and true) thoughts about the current government plans to "fix" our economy.

Even simple common sense tells us that production for consumption and investing for economic growth are two completely different activities, and they compete for our resources. The more we consume, the less we will have to make our life better in the future. And vice versa, the more we sacrifice and save, the more we will have to invest and make ourselves more productive.

I encourage you to read the whole thing. It really made me think and want to be more productive.

Pres. Obama as Teacher of the Hour

Pres. Obama will be visiting many of the nation's classrooms next Tuesday via satellite. To me, this just emphasizes the fact that public schools are government schools. Though I am sure the President's speech will be largely innocuous (it is supposed to be about taking responsibility in school and goal setting), it is completely subversive to the parents' god-given rights to guide and raise up their children. I don't want the president discussing responsibility and goals with my kids. I want those things to come from a biblical perspective and taught by me and my husband. Those two things need to be rooted in the Bible and bringing glory to God not rooted in humanistic, pluralistic thinking.

By the way. . .
Yes, I am aware that the first Pres. Bush also did a similar talk back in 1991. Even though I liked Pres. Bush (granted I was in high school and not as much of a critical thinker), I think today I would still say the same thing. The president has no business helping my children set goals.

8 Days in an Upturned Boat

Three Texas fishermen were rescued after 8 days in their upturned boat. They had a little fresh water and very little food. To me, this was the most interesting part of Yahoo's article:

"It was on a day-to-day basis that everybody had their breakdown," Tressel Hawkins told NBC's "Today Show" Monday. "The power of prayer had us feeling safe as far as knowing that we were going to make it out of it, but didn't know how long that we were going to have to endure this."

It is pleasant to hear stories of people's faith in hard times.

I am excited for their families. The 8 days of not knowing must have been terrible.

40,000 California Inmates to Be Released

Sometimes judges do things that are koo-koo crazy from my point of view.

For example. . .
A group of judges in California ordered the release of more than 40,000 of California's 160,000 inmates. No lie: They claimed that releasing one-quarter of state inmates would not have "a meaningful adverse impact on public safety," according to an article by Debra Saunders.


These judges willingness to ignore facts is scary:

It helps if you ignore the fact that California's violent crimes have fallen by about a third since California passed "three strikes" legislation in 1994 -- as the inmate population grew by 50,000.

As for the judges' contention that the state can release mentally ill inmates to no ill effect on public safety: All I can say is that it helps if you don't read a 2008 report commissioned by the Department of Justice on the California parole system. It found that parolees with a record of mental health problems have a 52 percent higher risk of committing the most serious violent offenses than other inmates.

Of course this is California we are talking about. . .

One last note: It's true, California prisons are officially overcrowded and running at 190 percent capacity. But that's only because 100 percent capacity means one inmate per cell and single bunks in dormitories.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that prisoner comfort comes before public safety.

It makes me like Sheriff Joe Arpaio even more.

Yeast and Appendix

I ran across two interesting articles recently that support creation.

The first is from Institute for Creation Research about brewer's yeast that is supposedly 45 million years old. This is the opening paragraph.

Stumptown Brewery in Guerneville, California, brews its beer according to a unique formula. Although standard ingredients such as malt and hops are used, the yeast that is added is supposedly 45 million years old.¹ The yeast was found in the digestive tract of a bee encased in amber. How could yeast cells survive and still be able to make beer after such a long time?

Seriously. . . How can anything be alive and functional after 45 million years? Hundreds or thousands is amazing enough.

The next article was a secular article about the appendix from Yahoo News.

The body's appendix has long been thought of as nothing more than a worthless evolutionary artifact, good for nothing save a potentially lethal case of inflammation.

Now researchers suggest the appendix is a lot more than a useless remnant. Not only was it recently proposed to actually possess a critical function, but scientists now find it appears in nature a lot more often than before thought.

No less than Charles Darwin first suggested that the appendix was a vestigial organ from an ancestor that ate leaves, theorizing that it was the evolutionary remains of a larger structure, called a cecum, which once was used by now-extinct predecessors for digesting food.



Parker and his colleagues recently suggested that the appendix still served as a vital safehouse where good bacteria could lie in wait until they were needed to repopulate the gut after a nasty case of diarrhea. Past studies had also found the appendix can help make, direct, and train white blood cells.

Yet non of this functionality point these people to a Designer. It is sad really.


"We're not saying that Darwin's idea of evolution is wrong - that would be absurd, as we're using his ideas on evolution to do this work," Parker told LiveScience. "It's just that Darwin simply didn't have the information we have now."

God has left evidence all around us of his handiwork. He is truly amazing in so many ways.

Critter Corner v. 7 Chick Report

Well, we have had a big last couple of days! Sunday evening I noticed that one of the eggs had hatched. Two more were jostling around. Since then we have been watching eggs and chicks a lot. Out of 7 eggs we have 6 chicks with the last one hatching yesterday evening. (We will leave the last egg in the incubator just to be sure, but there are no sounds coming from it so we are assuming it was not fertilized.)

Here is a picture of them with their names and the order in which they were hatch.

We have been really praising God for 6. We have been praying this whole time for at least one to hatch despite our less than perfect incubating and egg turning skills. The egg itself is an amazing creation.

The kids are especially proud of the ones that they named. This is my daughter with Majesty. (She wanted it to be princess, but I reminded her that we can't tell if they are male or female.)
Notice the Keepers t-shirt. If you are looking for a Christian scouting-type organization, Keepers of the Faith is a good one.

This is my son with Chickpea. He was going to be Chickpeeper, but ended up with the easier to say Chickpea.

It is a good thing we are having two weeks vacation. I think we would be having a hard time concentrating on school with all the excitement. It has been a great learning experience. We get to keep them at least until Sunday. Then they will be going to live on the farm where they came from.