As the few of you who read this probably already know, I hate the following argument put forth by Georgetown Forward Jeff Green:

School is only going to be here four years," Green told the newspaper. "The NBA will be there forever. You can't just give up that. That's a big thought in this process.

No Jeff, school will be there forever, and you can afford any college you want after you make your NBA money. While I don't disagree with his pending decision to return to school, improve his skills, and try his luck next year in a weaker draft, his reasoning is all wrong. Colleges will always be there, one only has a limited time to make their money in professional sports.

I did something today that I haven't done in a long time, abandoned a book. So long Theroux, I loved "Dark Star Safari" but just couldn't get into "The Happy Isles of Oceania," maybe I'll pick it up at a later date with more time on my hands to read about something I don't have a lot of interest in.

Welcome "Velvet Elvis," although the intro didn't catch me, this quote on the back did, "Just because I'm a Christian and I'm trying to articulate a Christian worldview doesn't mean I've got it nailed. I'm contributing to the discussion. God has spoken, and the rest is commentary, right?"

Peter Beinart wrote a solid article in Time an issue or two ago regarding the falling of freedom around the world. He makes a solid point about the price of oil and level of personal freedom:

Then there's oil. As Thomas Friedman has noted, the price of crude and the tide of freedom tend to move in opposite directions. Before 9/11, the price per bbl. fluctuated between $20 and $30. Now it hovers between $50 and $65. And that's not likely to change anytime soon, given rising demand from China and India. That gives oil-producing autocracies such as Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Sudan and now Nigeria more money to crush or buy off internal dissent. And it makes it easier for them to win friends and influence people around the world. A decade ago, authoritarian governments were largely on the defensive. Today Venezuela's Hugo Chávez is cloning himself in Bolivia and Ecuador. And Iran is on the verge of dominating the Middle East.

Easterly made a similar point in "White Man's Burden":

A natural resource oligarchy is particularly inimical to democracy. Oil is infamious for undermining or preventing democracy. Oil revenues are very easy to redistribute, so wealthy and well-connected insiders who benefit from oil controlled by dictatorship have a lot to lose from a democracy that would surely result in redistribution (as I noted in a post last year). Hense, we get oil societies desperate to prevent democracy, ranging from the oil-rich Middle East to Africa. NYU politics professor Leonard Wantchekon documented systemactically the association of resource wealth with autocracy in Africa, as others did using worldwide patterns. Wantchenkon shows that new democracies have succeeded in Africa mainly in resource-poor places such as Benin, Madagascar, and Mali, while oil-rich states such as Algeria, Cameroon, Gabon, and Libya still have dictators. Worldwise, oil producers were on average in the worst fourth of the world's countries in democracy in 2004, as democracy was measured by three World Bank researchers. (125-126)

Just today, the Wall Street Journal reported on the state takeover of the one of the last independent news sources in Venezuela, and the impending distaster awaiting that country. Their quote, "Having built his claim to legitimacy on the spurious assertion that he presides over a democracy, you can bet that Mr. Chávez would not have gone after RCTV unless he deemed control of TV news vital to his survival. It may indeed be. The reason is because the economy has been so mismanaged that a crisis now appears unavoidable. How it will end, in rationing and hunger or hyperinflationary madness, is hard to say. But when the whole thing comes a cropper, the last thing the president will want is TV images of popular protests that could be contagious." Seems to fit the studies presented above.

I had to laugh last night as I was perusing the channels and saw this interview being conducted on 60 Minutes. Truly, this is a terrible thing, anytime this amount of tax payers money is wasted, I want to cry. But where in the world does this Rep. get off taking the high and mighty route in scolding these private contractors for wasting the money of US tax payers? Is not the irony flowing from his lips? I read articles every day calling out the government for their wasteful programs and here is this guy trying to cover his butt by lashing out at these contractors. Sure, they may be wrong, but he needs to take care of his own house before messing around in someone else's.

A while back I had to go to this multi-cultural sensitivity panel for my job, it was actually a lot better than I had expected. Anyway, one of the guys, the Hmong representative, made a great analogy regarding schools. He said something to the tune of back in the day, schools (and teachers in particular) operated much like an ancient king or kingdom, "I am king, you come to me, you fear me!" But now that is changing, schools and teachers have to be more sensitive to the needs of students, especially in our ever-changing world. I love that analogy!


I also felt that it could be related to the Church over the last two thousand years. In the past, especially in your more orthodox churches, the priests or whomever was at the top acted much like the King, "I am king, you come to me, you fear me!" and they even presented God in this light. But more and more those layers are breaking down, in many circles this hierarchical leadership in the church is being outed for the mockery they have become. Furthermore, more and more literature is being published that is showing God for the loving, merciful, forgiving, just God that He is, not this big bad angry father up in the sky just waiting to get you. Thanks be to God for that!

I was having a great conversation with my main man John today and this Scripture came to mind:

For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law.

WOW! That has been one of my favorite Scriptures for some time. We discussed how utterly incomprehensible it is to the human mind to understand what happened when Jesus died on the cross, when the veil was torn, when He took on our sin and then defeated it with the Resurrection three days later. An utterly astonishing event. I could go on, but since no words I write can even scratch the surface of the meaning behind this event, I'm going to stop.

A crazy, heart-wrenching, tear-jerking story as posted on the from the New York Times as posted on the Freakanomics blog.

Joseph Loconte wrote an article in Friday's WSJ titled "Christianity Without Salvation," a review of Walter Rauschenbusch's 1907 book titled "Christianity and the Social Crisis." Fortunately I was able to link to the entire article, you should be able to read it for free. GREAT ARTICLE! YOU HAVE TO READ IT! It's very short, let me know what you think.

Two paragraphs stood out as particularly true and poignant:

As such, Rauschenbusch's gospel had little need of a Savior. It merely displaced the problem of evil--the supreme tragedy of the human soul in rebellion against God--with the challenge of social iniquities. The Kingdom of Heaven would come soon enough, if only we put our hands to the plow...

This is exactly what I wrote about here a while back, I truly believe that the leaders of the emerging church are advocating a type of postmillenial thought, similar to Rauschenbusch above, where we need to perfect the earth and prepare the way for the Lord's Second return. It's interesting that the article quotes Wallis and Campolo, two of the leading emergent spokesmen of our day. Count me out!

The Christian confession of faith, by itself, offers no guarantee that either individuals or societies will be transformed. But, for believers, not even the smallest steps forward can be taken without it.

Again, take a look at the article and tell me what you think.

I am angry right now! Very angry! So angry about this situation that I find it difficult to speak or write coherently about it. I'm referring to the World Bank situation regarding Wolfowitz , his girlfriend, and those calling for his head.

Now, of course I don't know the entire situation, just what a few news outlets and magazines have written, each with their own side. Did he tell the powers that be that he was dating this girl before he took the job? Did they tell him to move her and give her the pay raise that was merited with such a move? Did he act favorably in accordance with their relationship? I don't know the answers to these or a myriad of other questions. What I do know is that the situation at the World Bank and the global development community is broken, and whether Wolfowitz is the man to fix it or not we are not sure, but it needs to be fixed or cease to exist. I'm sick of the 30% funding that is given to their poor countries ending up being siphoned off the top in bribes and another 40% being sent right back to foreign banks. I'm sick of the people who need the hand up the most received pennies on the dollar. I'm sick of the problems being exascerbated because we are not out to fix them, only prop up these evil regimes and keep the poor in control. I'm sick of it, I'm sick of it, I'm sick of it! This is not a political issue (though it's evolved into one), it's a people issue, and I've walked and talked with too many who need this hand up much more than the corrupt government offical needs a new Mercedes.

I remember thinking shortly after watching "The Titanic" back in college that I was not and would never be a fan of Leonardo DiCaprio. Of course, the first movie I remember noting post-Titanic was "The Beach" and just by the cover and trailer there was no way I was going to watch this chick flick (although as you will remember, I've since viewed this movie and LOVE IT!). But when "Gangs of New York" released in 2002 followed by "Catch Me If You Can" the same year, I was rethinking my stereotype of him. Then came "The Aviator" in 2004, which I loved, followed by "The Departed" which I felt was overrated and "Blood Diamond," which I loved. All in all, what I'm saying is that I've changed my mind, I'm a fan of DiCaprio, have the utmost respect for him, and echo what Scorsese wrote of him in the latest edition of Time.

I had not heard about this but an nevertheless moved:

On Wednesday morning, April 18, 2007, the three men left home to attend a Bible study. It was there that they were attacked, bound, tortured for three hours, and martyred. In a letter from the Protestant Church of Smyrna to Christians around the globe the men were described as "the first martyrs for Christ out of the Turkish Church."

Perhaps one of more surprising outcomes of this tragedy has been the reaction of the men’s widows. Their willingness to forgive their husband’s killers has captured the attention of a nation - something the attackers probably did not anticipate. Following is an excerpt of the letter from the church in Smyrna:

In an act that hit front pages in the largest newspapers in Turkey, Susanne Geske in a television interview expressed her forgiveness. She did not want revenge, she told reporters. "Oh God, forgive them for they know not what they do," she said, wholeheartedly agreeing with the words of Christ on Calvary (Luke 23:34).

In a country where blood-for-blood revenge is as normal as breathing, many many reports have come to the attention of the church of how this comment of Susanne Geske has changed lives. One columnist wrote of her comment, "She said in one sentence what 1000 missionaries in 1000 years could never do."

My friends, we have just witnessed the Kingdom of God at work!

Pretty good article on the economics of "the poor" taken from The Economist. I was particularly intrigued by the following information from the study:

A dollar a day would seem to leave little room for choice or discretion. Hunger is surely the most binding of constraints. And yet these pillages of privacy show that the poor do make choices. They also suggest they are not always the best ones.

The poor do not complain much, the two authors note. (Only 9% of people in their Udaipur survey say their life makes them generally unhappy.) But they have a lot to complain about. Beset by hunger and illness, many are scrawny (65% of adult men in Udaipur are underweight), over half are anaemic, and about a seventh suffer from impaired eyesight. Many had to go without food on at least one day in the previous year.

And yet they do not eat as much as they could. According to Mr Banerjee and Ms Duflo, the typical poor household in Udaipur could spend up to 30% more on food than it does, if only it stopped devoting money to alcohol, tobacco and festivals. That last item, which includes weddings, funerals and religious events, typically accounts for about a tenth of the household's budget. This spending might be motivated by escapism—the poor have a lot to escape—or perhaps by social emulation. Even those in absolute poverty care about their relative standing.

Are we to chide them for their foolishness in spending or stand by them in understanding that this is their method of escape? Read the article and let me know what you think.

This was somewhat a surprise for me, I had heard of the ban in NYC and had assumed that the evidence proved that aluminum bats were more dangerous, I should have known better, as pointed out by the Wall Street Journal:

Reasonable people can disagree on the relative merits of wood versus aluminum, but leave it to the New York City to conclude that government should decide this issue for everyone else.
The City Council recently outlawed all metal bats in the city's high school baseball games come September. Proponents of banning metal...claim that balls go faster when hit with metal bats. But this hasn't caused more serious accidents: Studies from the American Legion and Consumer Product Safety Commission found zero reason for alarm.

As for New Yorkers, the peril of getting beaned with a line drive is hardly the most pressing concern for city's kids. Little League Baseball leaves the choice of wood or metal up to its local chapters because it says "there are no facts-none at all-to support" the claim that aluminum bats are more dangerous. Even at the college level, where metal bats are common, baseball is among the safer sports, with serious injury rates roughly on par with women's volleyball.

The current campaign is headlined by a couple of sad accidents, but these cases were literally less than on in a million. Legislation by anecdote is a good way to end up with minimum sentencing guidelines for swimming after eating a sandwich...

Gotta love this from TMQ:

Note: Keyshawn Johnson did well for a novice sportscaster, but also garnered the best garbled comment of the weekend's coverage. As Green Bay's pick approached and all speculation was on Brady Quinn as Favre's successor, Keyshawn gushed, "Quinn could lead the Packers into the next millennium." Keyshawn, the next millennium starts in 994 years.