Unemployment is poised to soar. Few are prepared for it.

Mish reports here.

R.C. Sproul Jr. – Evangelizing Your Children

Video available online from Ligonier, part of the 2008 National Conference. Click the video tab, look for video on 6/24.

One quote I liked.

“As we remember friends, that belief is a supernatural gift from God and not some sort of intellectual attainment, then we can remember the single most important thing we can do for the evangelizing of our children, and that is, we can pray for them. You don’t have to become a genius in apologetics to do that. You don’t have to become the worlds greatest child-rearer to do that. We all have it in us, by God’s grace, to pray for our children.”

Jeff Sharlet: “The Family”

The usual from NPR, secret society wacko Christians are really in control!

The Queen of Narnia interviews author Jeff Sharlet, author of “The Family”.

A very naive girl explains “Friends with Benefits”

Sad really.

I attended a conference quite a few years back on marriage and relationships for Christians (Song of Solomon by Tommy Nelson). It took place in a college town and was well attended. One thing I recall quite vividly are the faces of some of the woman who attended. You could see anger, pain, sadness and a sense of loss as the lies (like the one Miss Marshall espouses) were peeled away. I am not sure you can blame the girls, the blame falls on fathers primarily and then on the young men and their lack of character.

Good time to plug another conference which I wish I could attend.

Father Hunger

Homeschool in Germany, Go to Jail

Home Education Magazine reports.

Technorati Tags: Homeshcool, Statism, Germany

Frontline: Young & Restless in China

Looks interesting.

Technorati Tags: Frontline, PBS, China

The Pill Kills: Case Overstated?

In the interest of fairness (regarding my previous posts here and here) I want to point to two posts at LTI blog by Rich Poupard. Read them here and here. I think Rich does a good job of making the case that we can not know with certainty that the pill kills. However, assuming he is right what we are left with is uncertainty and I still see an ethical problem for Christians.

Technorati Tags: The Pill

Note to wife. Teach the children to take the 5′th.

This is an informative video by Professor James Duane called “Don’t Talk to the Police”. He makes a very good case for why you should never talk to the police.

This is the response by Officer Bruch of the Virginia Beach police department. One fun thing, he tells us why anytime you are pulled over for speeding by the police they ask “Do you know how fast you were going?”.

Technorati Tags: Constitutional Law, Law, Video, Free Homeschool Curriculum

Source: Chalcedon

PerotCharts.com

Ross Perot has launched a new site.

Update: This post is getting a lot of traffic and probably from people who have some interest in economics. If you are not aware of Mises.org I highly recommend you also spend some time looking at what they have to offer, they have an enormous amount of material available.

Technorati Tags: Economics, Government

16 Horsepower and Pandora

If you don’t use pandora give it a try. I love it. I have a station called “Hutterite Mile” which plays a lot of music from 16 Horsepower and Woven Hand (same guy in both bands). I get a kick out of listening to this style of music when I am reading the prophets. Filing this under the category of “Things I Love”.

Technorati Tags: David Eugene Edwards, Pandora, 16 Horsepower, Woven Hand, Things I Love

The Letter

For more context read here.

Homosexual Agenda Wicked

June 17, 2002

The following is not intended for those who are suffering from an unwanted sexual identity crisis. For you, I have understanding, care, compassion and tolerance. I sympathize with you and offer you my love and fellowship. I prayerfully beseech you to seek help, and I assure you that your present enslavement to homosexuality can be remedied. Many outspoken, former homosexuals are free today.

Instead, this is aimed precisely at every individual that in any way supports the homosexual machine that has been mercilessly gaining ground in our society since the 1960s. I cannot pity you any longer and remain inactive. You have caused far too much damage.

My banner has now been raised and war has been declared so as to defend the precious sanctity of our innocent children and youth, that you so eagerly toil, day and night, to consume. With me stand the greatest weapons that you have encountered to date – God and the “Moral Majority.” Know this, we will defeat you, then heal the damage that you have caused. Modern society has become dispassionate to the cause of righteousness. Many people are so apathetic and desensitized today that they cannot even accurately define the term “morality.”

The masses have dug in and continue to excuse their failure to stand against horrendous atrocities such as the aggressive propagation of homo- and bisexuality. Inexcusable justifications such as, “I’m just not sure where the truth lies,” or “If they don’t affect me then I don’t care what they do,” abound from the lips of the quantifiable majority.

Face the facts, it is affecting you. Like it or not, every professing heterosexual is have their future aggressively chopped at the roots.

Edmund Burke’s observation that, “All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing,” has been confirmed time and time again. From kindergarten class on, our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators.

Our children are being victimized by repugnant and premeditated strategies, aimed at desensitizing and eventually recruiting our young into their camps. Think about it, children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights.

Your children are being warped into believing that same-sex families are acceptable; that men kissing men is appropriate.

Your teenagers are being instructed on how to perform so-called safe same gender oral and anal sex and at the same time being told that it is normal, natural and even productive. Will your child be the next victim that tests homosexuality positive?

Come on people, wake up! It’s time to stand together and take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness that our lethargy has authorized to spawn. Where homosexuality flourishes, all manner of wickedness abounds.

Regardless of what you hear, the militant homosexual agenda isn’t rooted in protecting homosexuals from “gay bashing.” The agenda is clearly about homosexual activists that include, teachers, politicians, lawyers, Supreme Court judges, and God forbid, even so-called ministers, who are all determined to gain complete equality in our nation and even worse, our world.

Don’t allow yourself to be deceived any longer. These activists are not morally upright citizens, concerned about the best interests of our society. They are perverse, self-centered and morally deprived individuals who are spreading their psychological disease into every area of our lives. Homosexual rights activists and those that defend them, are just as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities.

The homosexual agenda is not gaining ground because it is morally backed. It is gaining ground simply because you, Mr. and Mrs. Heterosexual, do nothing to stop it. It is only a matter of time before some of these morally bankrupt individuals such as those involved with NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Lovers Association, will achieve their goal to have sexual relations with children and assert that it is a matter of free choice and claim that we are intolerant bigots not to accept it.

If you are reading this and think that this is alarmist, then I simply ask you this: how bad do things have to become before you will get involved? It’s time to start taking back what the enemy has taken from you. The safety and future of our children is at stake.

Rev Stephen Boissoin

Technorati Tags: Free Speech, Stephen Boissoin, Orwellian, Canada

High School Kids Cause Global Warming

Gary Demar makes a great suggestion (June 7 show) for reducing the carbon footprint at Sanger High, make them take the bus! Have you ever noticed how many cars are in the average high school student parking lot?

Just an FYI, that is not the point of the show, the topic is described as “Gary responds to a listener who believes that Christians should only “preach the gospel” and not be concerned with social, economic, or political issues.”

Technorati Tags: Global Warming, Save the Planet, Gary Demar

Drugging Our Children

John Whitehead thinks we are drugging our children and I agree. The video below is good but this edition (psychiatric drugs) of St. Anne’s Public House is excellent. I have also been thinking of watching this episode (The Medicated Child) of Frontline. Wait, I am not done yet, you should also listen to this interview with Richard Noll from Mars Hill Audio titled The Quest for the Historical Jung. Unfortunately this one is only available on tape.

Quick update to this post, I just read a little of the transcript from the Frontline program (here). This is a must watch! Shocking, sad, and amazing.  If you have ever considered putting your kid on some sort of drug to deal with his or her so called behavior problem please listen to the St. Anne’s interviews and watch the Frontline program.

Technorati Tags: Psychoquacks, Carl Jung, Mars Hill Audio, Frontline, Rutherford Institute

Prom and the Decline of Western Civilization

I am listening “The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America” by Roger Kimball. Tonight Kimball discussed the influence of Wilhem Reich. Interesting man, quite the inventor. After reading the Wikipedia article I was reminded of a few items I had wanted to post.

Memphis High School: Reading, Writing and Bumping & Grinding

This American Life: Prom

Sorry I am not providing much context here, I am a bit lazy. If you’re interested read the Wikipedia article on Reich, read the post on the Memphis High School and then listen to the entire episode of This American Life if you dare! I will leave you with one of many quotable moments.

On the dance floor there was a certain amount of copping feels and kissing, but the sexual tension at the prom hit a kind of surreal zenith when the DJ told the boys to bring chairs down to the dance floor, girls were seated in the chairs and the garter ceremony began. Over 100 teenage girls presented bare legs with garters, all men have to put your hands behind your back, meaning the men have to grab the garter with their teeth.

Finally, as one who is always trying to help the kids down at Alfred Kinsey High, if you want to be a sure fire hit at the science fair, consider building one of these (read the article on Reich if you really want to know what this is…you probably don’t).

Howie Bursen – Dancing on the Air Radio

In a blogging mood tonight for some reason. If you like old timey banjo check out Dancing on the Air Radio Archive for May 2008. They have four songs up by Howie Bursen. Pretty good stuff. Listening to them now.

Lord save us from the people who want to be relevant.

Stunning but true, Sex and the City gets 3 out of 4 stars from Christianity Today magazine. Read it here. My search for the author of that review turned up this Girl’s Get-A-Way Cruise. If any of you ladies have been thinking of killing off your ultra cool reformed, beard wearing, pipe smoking, R.C. listening hubbies get him on that boat. I would jump off ten times willingly to flee the drivel to come. I am sure they are very nice however.

OK, so perhaps CT is not on the downgrade. They also gave Brokeback 3 stars. So no downgrade, instead been there for quite sometime. Read the review here.

The Pill, The Good Samaritan, The Distraught Woman and Baseball

This is a good follow up to my last entry here.

Doug Phillips has posted a few quotes from an article in Chronicles Magazine by Aaron D. Wolf ‘Hating Babies, Hating God‘. One thing I have often thought to myself in the past and which Wolf points out is that the Church’s position on abortion is largely hypocritical given that the pill (in all forms, even the “low dosage ones”, the patch etc…) acts as an abortive agent.

For a moment assume that your wife is taking some sort of hormone based contraceptive. You are on your way to get the prescription filled when you stumble upon a distraught women crying in her car parked outside the pharmacy. As the sort of Christian who knows the story of the Good Samaritan inside and out you stop to see if you can help. You find out that she is there to pick up the abortion pill. She asks why you are there. Now, what do you tell her? How to you try to explain that her choice is a bad choice and yours is a good one? What if she has heard that the drug you take is capable of doing that same thing as her drug? Tough dilemma don’t you think? You want to talk about baseball now? Read the article if you don’t get the baseball reference.

I mentioned in my last entry that the manufacturers own materials document that hormone based contraceptives prevent implantation of a the child by creating a hostile environment. A quick search turned up this, not hard to find, read the text in the image below.

IUD’s are no better because they have no idea how they work. You can read here if you want, the image above is from the same site. Warning, a lot of graphic sex-ed type medical drawings.

Precisely how the IUD prevents pregnancy is a mystery. They may kill sperm or prevent them from moving, which prevents fertilization from occurring. They may also stop a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus.

Protest the Pill Day ‘08

If you are easily offended, stop reading here.

You have been warned.

Tim Bayly points out a protest put together by Catholics. I have done quite a but of reading on this particular topic. In short the pill has three ways of preventing pregnancy and one of them is to make the environment inside the womb hostile to the implantation of the child (as admitted in documents produced by the pill manufacturers). However, there is an affiliation of Christian doctors on record as saying “we don’t really know if this is true”. I think the evidence that it does is obvious but even if it wasn’t we have a dilemma to deal with. Do you blow up a building if someone “might” be inside? If the pill might kill a child do you take it?

Christian’s ought to be known by a number of things (their love for one another for example). We should also be known for reflecting the sovereignty of God. Our neighbors ought to be able to look down the street and say, oh they must be Christians because…

We need to be careful how we end that sentence but I am not afraid to end it with “because…their wives are not sovereign over their wombs.” Does the church feel any shame when we read that we are not to be conformed to the world and then consider the fact that the fall in the birth rate for Christians over the last 40 years has pretty much exactly paralleled the culture? How do we explain this?

Finally, I am not convinced that any measure to plan family size or time children is wrong, however, it is an area fraught with sin and largely ignored by the people of God and their Shepherds. This topic is “controversial” and thus avoided, left to the conscience of the individual (and maybe it should be) but the church has a role in searing our consciences when they appear to be misguided and that they are is obvious to me.

Homeschool Exercise of the Day:

Materials: Advil, Hammer

Scripture: Gen. 1:28

Description: Take children outside and put pills on ground. Read scripture and tell children that these pills kill children. Have children take turns smashing pills with hammer. This exercise is appropriate for children of all ages.

Something for the kids at Alfred Kinsey High

Have your parents opt you out of sex-ed and organize a pill smashing event in front of the school instead.

Hazel Creek – Bluegrass Video

Fun little Bluegrass video.

Grow a beard, smoke a pipe, play guitar.

The Deliberate Agrarian points to some sermons by Michael Bunker in which he makes the Biblical case for wearing beards. Now before you scoff recall it isn’t hard to make the case for head coverings (see my post here on that sticky subject), Michael might have a pretty good argument.

Well I don’t need convincing because I just bought this book by Dick Fegy. My flatpicking has improved but more importantly the picture of Dick on the cover brought back a lot of memories and has inspired me. I grew up in the 70’s and a number of important men in my life wore beards and on occasion smoked a pipe. I am all for more beard, I have some already, but I need a pipe, I long for the smell of pipe smoke wafting through my beard.

Coolidge Ave. 1974 – 1976

Wow, it been 32 years since I lived on Coolidge Ave. (click the picture for more detail). It was a dump when I lived there (1976) and it looks even worse today. I went to the elementary school located on the corner of Hudson and Bellevue. My first fight occurred on the grass near the corner. I won and it was actually pretty brutal as I recall, somebody paid me back pretty good 14 years later. I don’t think it was the same guy. We would watch movies (perhaps on Saturdays) at the school. I think I saw a Bad Bad Leroy Brown video, we loved that song. I walked to school by myself or with a friend, in the winter, in the snow, when I was 5. My sister is deaf, she went to a special school. I would stop at a store on the way and buy candy. Sometimes I would see and hear things I wasn’t suppose to. Adults didn’t seem to notice kids much. The school held a mock election, we got to vote in a box. I voted for Carter, I regret that now, thankfully it didn’t count. My best friend, Michael, lived on Palmer street. We knew all the cuss words and used them frequently. We played marbles a lot, cats eyes and steelies. His father was black and his mother was white. She was a nice women. I can still see his older brother hobbling out of his house one day, flesh hanging out of his knee, blood pouring and his father (a very large man) right behind him with a belt. The buckle tore open his knee. The ice cream man would come around. We loved the rocket ones, red white and blue I think. I had a bunch of money once, I bought everyone ice cream then we went to a garage sale a few blocks away. The only thing I remember buying was some blue dye. I had the dye for years. What did I need blue dye for? Swat was cool. Lucky Charms were magically delicious. We had a garage sale before I moved to raise money for my friend so he could come to Texas with us. I wrote prices on everything I owned. I didn’t sell much. I tried to sell my rabbit but cried. I couldn’t do it. I can see the driveway my cat got killed in. I had to go down with a shovel and put it in a bag. I remember grieving on the porch of our house and how the sun felt as it leaked through the large pine on to me. I remember the feeling of loss. We rented, the bottom of the house was occupied by two elderly woman. They had a poodle. They like to work on puzzles. I remember coming home and seeing our front door smashed in. Someone tried to break into our house. I don’t recall being scared much, but perhaps I was. I can remember a lot more but I won’t bore you. I don’t regret any of this, just interesting to ponder the road I have traveled.