Mosasaur Soft Tissues

You might remember the T-rex soft tissues found a few years ago and how scientists still claimed that they were millions of years old. Well yesterday ICR posted an article about mosasaur remnants that still had several kinds of soft tissue. How can eye, skin, and blood tissue be millions of years old? As it says in the article, ". . . it is highly unlikely that this mosasaur is even thousands of years old, since these tissues decay so quickly. Therefore, insisting that they are over 80 million years old defies all reason."

Good Song (even if it is country)

So, we have a 26-year-old assistant football coach who is quite creative and who is tired of Obama and his policies. He writes a song, and, as the new report indicates, he sends a link the song to everyone in his "personal e-mail list." Thus, he wasn't taking class time or practice time to tell students about his political views. He was on his on time, with his own computer, sending to his own list. And now he is fired? Come on people! If you don't like it, complain to the man directly. Ask him to take you off his list or something. But this is just crazy.

This is the quote from an article about Bryan Glover and the song that he co-wrote. Now I don't like country but this song has enough rock in it to like. The lyrics are great. And since Mr. Glover is now jobless, I am sure he could use whatever money can be made from purchasing his song. (It only costs $1.29.) So here are some of the lyrics and the link to the website.

There’ll be a party come this November

Where we’re gonna set things straight

All good people gonna gather ‘round

Gonna show what made this country great

We’ll run off the schemers and back-room dealers

So the Red, White and Blue will prevail

When we’re holding the hammer

When we’re holding the hammer

When we’re holding the hammer

Every one of them looks like a nail

Arrested for Sharing the Gospel

My husband gave me this video from Dearborn, MI where some men were arrested for handing out the Gospel of John outside of a Muslim festival. Are we ready for persecution?

A Little American (Christian) History

This video was e-mailed to me by our missions minister. I thought it was worth sharing.

Back to a Normal Routine

My kids and I have been off for our summer break for the month of July. Now we are back in the swing of things. I have given the kids more personal responsibility for their tasks and they really have stepped up and seem to be enjoying it.

Since I haven't posted anything in a month, I have all kinds of links I have been saving up.

Some are just depressing. Like the fact that Planned Parenthood can't account for 1.3 billion of our dollars. Or this one about the disconnect between teens attending church and teens actually living moral lives. Look at this quote for example.

Forty-seven percent of Protestant teens reported active involvement in their church’s youth group, compared to 38 percent of all teens. The majority of Protestant teens also reported that they attend Sunday School “a few times a month, participate in youth retreats, rallies, and conferences.”

In all, ninety percent of Protestant teens say they believe in God, compared to 85 percent of all teens; only 12 percent of all teens say they are “unsure about the existence of God.”

Clearly this generation is anything but irreligious; quite the contrary. However, further examination of the research begins to reveal the disconnect I mentioned earlier. According to the study, only 55 percent of Protestant teens believe in life after death—a belief held by 50 percent of all teens, including the nonreligious. In a further contradiction, 69 percent of Protestant teens say they have made “a personal commitment to live for God” and yet only 32 percent read the Bible once a week or more, while 19 percent report having had premarital intercourse in the last year compared to 22 percent of those who are unchurched. Additionally, 63 percent of Protestant teens report cheating in school compared to only 58 percent of all teens and 41 percent say that morals are relative—that “there are no definite rights or wrongs for everybody.”


Others made me think. Like this video about not having any kind of federal income tax.



Some made me smile. Like this one about the 2010 winners of the Stuck at the Prom contest from the makers of Duck Tape brand duct tape. The contestants design formal wear out of duct tape.

Happy Independence Day!

I am posting the Declaration of Independence. Enjoy reading it and enjoy your freedom.

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 of 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 shewn 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 mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations 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 legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the 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 a 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 benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring 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 into 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, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy 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 endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an 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 attentions 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. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. 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 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 levy 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.

The Good, the Struggles, and the Fizzle

Friday was our last day of school. We will start up again at the beginning of August. I decided to look back on what I wanted to accomplish at the beginning of the year. Some things we did awesome. On other things I was overly ambitious and let them fizzle. Other things we are still struggling with.

The Good

My son has improved so much in reading that we are actually going to start with 3rd grade level stuff in August. I am going to try Total Language Plus. This is a program that uses 2-3 "classic" books a year to do all of the vocabulary, grammar, writing, etc. You read the book slowly (a chapter a week/a couple of pages a day). You buy the curriculum a classic at a time. If you don't like it, you haven't blown your whole budget only about $30. And there is a convenient place to shift gears if it isn't working for you. These are all pluses to me. The first book is The Courage of Sarah Noble which seems to be a very charming tale of life in the early 1700's in the Connecticut wilderness. He also did very well with spelling but I think we are ready to try something besides the Writing Road to Reading. He actually wants to take spelling at the homeschool co-op that we will be participating in next year.

My daughter finished the handmade reader and got promoted to the My Father's World reader that my son started out on. He later progressed to Day-by-Day Begin to Read Bible and made it almost through the whole thing. My daughter does a great job of reading, but her 6-year-old self doesn't like to sit still very long to do it.

We all really like the Right Start Math curriculum. They both say that math is their best subject and I think it is in large part because of this curriculum.

I think that the wisdom traits lessons and the big fat lies were a success. We did 10 of each and then reviewed them throughout the year. The kids really seemed to get a grasp of these things so I plan on weaving them throughout the next year (and maybe adding a few more big fat lies).

Texas geography was fun even though it was kind of a lot of work for me. The kids thought that some of the official things were kind of funny. For example the official vegetable of Texas is the sweet onion. We finished the whole state with plenty of time to spare. I did sort of simplify it as time went on though. I am looking forward to American geography with Cantering the Country. This is a guide that gives you hints and resource lists to do unit studies on each state. We are going to start with the states we have been to and then work our way around the country.

We also had a great time with anatomy. We did all of the experiments in the Magic School Bus body experiments. That was a great addition to reading through the DK First Human Body Encyclopedia.


The Fizzle

We kind of fizzled on the astronomy. We only got through the sun, Mercury, Venus, and the Earth. We also only fit one star party into our schedules. We will continue in the coming year though because the we did enjoy it.

The biggest fizzle was quilting. I had trouble with the machine when we got to the actual sewing part. By the time I got it going we were out of the routine of doing it.

Daily grammar worksheets were a big dud. I found it much easier just to let my son write things he was interested in and correct his grammar. I am so glad that grammar stuff is included in the Total Language Plus stuff. It is helpful to only have one thing to keep track of.


The Struggle
My kids struggle with handwriting. I had to give up on lower-case (for the time being) with my daughter and continue with capitals over and over. Now she can write all of them reasonably clearly, but I am really going to have to hunker down on handwriting next year. My son has improved a lot, but there is no way we are moving on to cursive for a while.

Timed tests is another struggle. If there is no time factor, my son can do the problems no problems. But when then instructions are to try to finish a certain number in a certain amount of time, he freezes. We have made some progress on this, but we have to keep working on it next year.