Race to the Top

Family Research Council published a post recently about Pres. Obama's "Race to the Top" program. One of factoid that jumped out at me was the amount of money America spends per student per year: a whopping $9,266.

That made me start thinking. . . What would I do with $18,532 a year for education of my two kids? So here is my wish list with approximate costs.

1. Native Spanish speaker Spanish tutor, 72 sessions x $30= $2160
2. Master Gardener to dig a garden and supervise the kids and I as we produce organic vegetables and herbs, gardener+garden = $3000
3. A lab quality microscope with computer hookup, $1500
4. Private astronomy lessons by someone who could help us figure out our telescope, 36 sessions x $25= $900
5. Right Start Math curriculum level D, $150
6. Karate classes for my son, 12 months x $30= $360
7. Horse Riding lessons for my daughter,12 months x $40= $480
8. Fort Worth zoo membership= $170
9. Awesome thinking games like Qwirkle cubes and others= $200
10. As I still have about $9500 left, I guess I could pay myself as the teacher and use it to by a minivan.

So what would you spend your $9,266 on?

What do you think the public schools spent it on? That is about $203,000/classroom.

Are we really getting that much bang for our buck?

Dark Horse Rising

I am excited to see that Scott Brown won Teddy Kennedy's old seat. To me this is one of those times when God reminded us that we don't know squat. While I couldn't sing the praises of Mr. Brown whole-heartedly (he's not what I would call pro-life), I am excited that he will vote against the health care bill. I am also excited because if a conservative leaning moderate can take Massachusets, what is going to happen during the main elections in November. I have to think a sharp kick in the pants is coming to the liberals. The fact that Pres. Obama and Pres. Clinton couldn't pull this out emphasizes that point. One of my favorite quotes comes from the LifeSiteNews correspondent in DC.

Here in Washington, the group of about 30 pro-life leaders that we were with Tuesday evening erupted in loud cheers when the television screen showed AP's declaration of Scott Brown as the winner of the Massachusetts Senate race.

You would think that a last inning, game winning home run had just been hit or a last second hockey Stanley cup goal was scored. I haven't seen anything like this before. Although Brown cannot be considered a pro-life politician, the leaders all recognized the historical significance of this dramatic vote result. The game has now suddenly changed and the Democrat social radicals are real danger of huge vote losses in the November elections. Their reckless and ruthless health care fiasco is costing them dearly.

Where will it all go from here? It should be very, very interesting.

Steve Jalsevac

Very interesting indeed. There is still a spark out there in America that is tired of all this bigger government, big deficit, big bail out bull corn. Let's fan that spark into a flame.

Marching for Life

I participated in the Dallas March for Life this past Saturday. It was great to participate with so many people (about 5000). Because of permit issues we had to walk on the sidewalk (last year a lane of the street was coned off), it took an hour for all of the people to make from the cathedral to the courthouse were the original Roe v. Wade was filed. Of the many pro-life t-shirts, the one that made me think the most was this one.

One of the facts it lists is this:

87% of the people that have an abortion claim to know Christ.


If we focused on discipleship instead of just conversion or "accepting Christ", how many lives would be saved?


Also over this MLK weekend, many thousands marched in protest against the enormous Planned Parenthood under construction in Houston. People from all over the country came to make their voices heard.

Climate Change

I read two interesting articles yesterday about climate change. The first was by Walter Williams. The main point of the article is the climate change/environmentalism has become a religion for many people. Here are a couple of quotes:

The very idea that mankind can make significant parametric changes to the Earth has to be the height of arrogance. How about a few questions because temperature is just one characteristic of the Earth. The Earth's orbit is another. If all 6.5 billion of us, all at once, started jumping up and down for a little while, do you think we'd change the Earth's orbit or rotation?

Over long periods of time, there is absolutely no close relationship between C02 levels and temperature. Humans contribute approximately 3.4 percent of annual C02 levels compared to 96.6 percent by nature.

I feel I should go on record here and say that I don't buy into Dr. Williams' "billions of years", but that is the topic for another post. I think that he is right in this: People cannot change any major earth system.

The other article was by Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance. The article was about how we may be in line for a cold trend. Check out their graph. It looks convincing to me. I wonder if we will now all be encouraged to send as much CO2 into the air as possible? Somehow I doubt it.

Pray Against Houston Mega Abortion Clinic

Planned Parenthood is planning on opening the largest abortion facility in America in Houston, TX. The six-story clinic is targeting low-income women, minorities, and college students. The facility will kill babies in the 1st and 2nd term of development. It is estimated that 12,000 children will die every year in this abortuary.

If you are in the Houston area, please plan on participating in the prayer and fasting event being held over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend to beseech God to close the doors of this awful place before it even opens. If you live far from Houston, please join me in prayer against this place.

Nurse vs IRS

NURSE WINS! The reason this made the top of Yahoo News is because it is amazingly rare for 1 person to take on the IRS without a lawyer and win. This is one of the reasons that I think our current tax system is unjust. How can a system be truly just when "[t]he IRS's rules on deducting work-related tuition are complicated and onerous"? This same line could be said of a great deal of the ever-expanding, ever-changing tax code. Even tax preparers and accountants have difficulty keeping track of what is allowed. It has taken her about 3 years of persistent battling to get her $14,000+ deduction. She indicates that she had faced many bullies through this process saying of the judge, "But he wasn't a bully. I had met with the bullies before." Do we really want a tax system with bullying as a major component?

I think we would be much better off with the Fair Tax. Or I would even be in favor of a flat tax over the current system.

Go Swiss!

Sometimes you have to hand it to the Swiss. Not too long ago, my husband sent me this video about their gun policy and why they have such a low crime rate.




Then today I read an interesting article by American Vision about a new Swiss ban on minarets being added to mosques. Here are a few snips from the article.

In a referendum, 57 percent of the voters and 22 out of 26 cantons voted in favor of a ban on building minarets to the mosques in the nation.

The Swiss did not ban the minarets just because they didn’t like them, or because they would go “against the traditions.” On the contrary, the referendum went under the definite statement that “Islam is a religion of intolerance and dictatorship.”

Our liberty and prosperity are based on our Christian religion, and they are a package deal. You can’t have the fruits without the roots. If you want the roots of a different religion, go back where you have the fruits of it as well.