Growing up

Its amazing how, because they have more incentive to meet the needs of their customers, private business is more efficient in helping after a disaster.

Backyard Missionary drops a lengthy quote from N.T. Wright. I wish everyone in Christendom could read this passage.

Man, I absolutely love hearing stories like this. What makes me angry is that, often times, those that react to violence this way are not Christians. Well, then again, maybe they are. They are the ones that are acting like Christ. Unlike many of us who resort to violence as a first defense.

but this stuck out at me over at Lew Rockwell’s site. Apparently in the UK, 4 of 10 women in labor are turned away at the hospital (this is not the exact link I wanted, but its broken right now) their health system has stopped paying for a drug that saves people with a lung disease, and a 61 year old woman was turned down for a 10,000 dollar heart surgery because she was too old.

Man… its great that these people are being served by selfless bureaucrats and not greedy capitalists.

A government that is powerful enough to give you universal health care is also powerful enough to deny you care.

Glenn Beck asks why politicians aren’t doing anything about this? I wanna know why more citizens aren’t worried about this? And why they still think we need more government programs.

Somebody help me out here…

I watched American Idol last night. I do every week. Its not my favorite show, but Carrie loves it, so I do what any good husband should.

Anyway, Carrie and I have been noticing a phenomenon recently regarding who stays and goes on Idol. Pretty much, no matter how bad you sing, if Simon says its good, you’ll be back in the next round. I have yet to see America vote differently.

Now I will tell you, one might ask whether or not Simon just says bad things to bad singers. Not necessarily. This season, Kristy Lee Cook is STILL on the show, and to be polite, she sucks. Hard. Also, David Hernandez lasted two weeks longer than he should have, on Simon’s comments alone. One week he was so out of tune that I had to mute the television, and Simon said it was his “best performance of the competition”.  And he didn’t go home that week. Basically, what Carrie and I have noticed is that the viewers of Idol are easily manipulated by Simon… which I’m sure he knew going into this TV show. He could essentially pick the winner, and make the ratings good, all by how he doles out his praise and criticism.

My question is, how much does the media affect the election? Would people have thought Ron Paul was crazy if they hadn’t heard story after story after story  where the mainstream media said that he was? Can the American people elect a President against the will of the media?

I can’t comment on this. Its absolutely revolting. Realize my friends, that our governments are trying to ban homeschooling.

I don’t know if this will actually be a series or not, though it looks promising as there are tons of things that make me angry, but as of right now, there is nothing that is making me madder than the government forcing gas companies to add up to 10% ethanol in all gasoline.

About 3 weeks ago, I started noticing that every few tanks I was getting significantly less mpg than normal. I reset my odometer every fill up, cause I like to know what kind of mileage I’m getting. Anyway, on a normal tank of 12 gallons I was getting about 350 miles before I was extremely low on fuel. However, I started noticing that every now and then, I’d end up with about 290-310 before I was forced to fill up fearing that my car was going to run out of gas. I wasn’t sure what to blame on this. Initially, I thought maybe there was a problem with my car… maybe I bought gas at a discount station, but then one day, I actually noticed the small sign above at the filling station at which I was buying gas. All of the sudden, it clicked.

I have a 96 Acura Integra, manual transmission, GSR (the fast kind). The manual says that you should put 91 grade unleaded in for best performance. Since 91 doesn’t really exist anymore, I tend to go every other tank with Plus Grade (89) and Premium Grade (93) which I figure balances out to a cool 91. The car has run fine doing this, except occasionally if I get Plus Grade at Kroger or another discount place, I will hear some pinging in the engine during acceleration.

But this Ethanol stuff is NOT MADE FOR MY CAR. Newer cars are built to handle the low quality fuel, but higher performance vehicles, especially older ones like mine, are definitely not. Ethanol is 85 Grade. And depending upon how much of it is added to the fuel at any given station (up to 10%) my gas mileage, as well as my engine quality, drop proportionally. Ethanol only gets 30% of the mileage of regular fuel, I found out in a news story the other day, so it makes sense as to why my MPG have been lower. I initially tried avoiding stations that put ethanol in their fuel, but I discovered, the government is requiring it. Thank you government. I am holding you responsible when my car breaks down because of the crappy gas you are forcing me to buy.

Note: I do not mind paying a little bit more to get, you know, real gasoline. I would gladly do it. And I imagine, refineries and stations would gladly produce it for my consumption, if , you know, the government wasn’t so freakin obsessed with trying to force the market to move to alternative fuels when they aren’t cost feasible yet. Not to mention, their tinkering with things has shot the price of corn through the roof, so, pretty much everything you buy at the grocery store is significantly more expensive than it was just 2 years ago. I used to buy eggs for 79 cents. They are 1.79 now. Someone please shoot me. Its just going to get worse.

It always does. Look what happened when some California schools banned junk food.

First, since today was Easter, here’s a scene from my favorite Jesus based movie/play.  Not the most scripturally accurate, but I love that it captures the political stuff that was going on at the time. Not to mention, the music is rockin.

Second, according to the London Telegraph, we narrowly avoided a “derivatives chernobyl” last week with the Bear Sterns bailout. We can only bail out so many banking corporations before hyperinflation sets in.

And third, for theology junkies, Richard Beck is discussing the merits and problems of Penal Substitution… if you haven’t read much theology, be ready to think. A lot.