It Comes to This

I have long suspected and accused the radical environmentalist of being mithanthropes with an anti-human agenda. It is why I ask Christians to be more discerning when supporting causes championed by the Captain Planet crowd. The blatant dualism of these radicals should send up red flags to all good Christians. This dualism claims that humans are somehow alien to the environment thus more humans=environmental destruction. I reject the foundations of this philosophy. If humans are created to live on this planet, then we belong here. The question should not consider humans as invaders rather how are humans to live and multiply and use their brains to better understand and influence the environment for the positive.

In this article, a so-called minister is wrong on many counts...especially his criticism of population growth. Will a Christian please show me the people who should not be on the planet. I have trouble reading my Bible and discerning God's plan for the misanthropic non-crisis of human overpopulation.

A note to all churches who have websites

Dear churches who have websites,
I have a very simple question to ask: Why are your websites so hard to navigate to find simple information on? I know not all of you have this challenge. Some of you have websites that are logical. It is easy to find the information that I seek. Others of you, here are some things to think about: Do you have a Sunday/Saturday or other weekly service? Please make the service times easy to locate! Do you have a phone number or email address that people can use to contact you? These also should be easy to find. And when you are organizing your website -- please, please PLEASE make it make sense! For instance, the "Services" tab should have information about your services -- not just a map to your church.

I hope I am not asking too much in this simple request.

sincerely,

melissa

Tax Day in America

Being a former accountant, I keep my ear to the ground on taxes. Being conservative in my politics, I find a never ending task in battling liberal demagoguery concerning taxes. The classic, never questioned, liberal position is the rich don't pay their fair share in taxes. Well, a simple review of IRS figures shows otherwise. The liberals have set up a straw man begging to be knocked down. However, when the mainstream media carries water for the liberal politician, expect no such challenge to a long-standing absurdity.

As of 2005, here is how the IRS numbers stack up:

Top 1% pay 39.34% of Tax burden
Top 5% pay 59.67% of Tax burden
Top 10% pay 70.30% of Tax burden
Top 25% pay 85.99% of Tax burden
Top 50% pay 96.93% of Tax burden

So, the poorest in America don't pay any taxes. In fact, the top 1% pay MORE in taxes than before Bush's so-called tax cuts for the rich up from 33.96% of tax burden in 2001.

I Passed....

....I Think. Having dutifully waited by the computer all weekend for an email telling me of my academic fate, no news seems to be good news. This is a relief. Now I will start posting more political rants and social commentaries. Mac.

Where in the world are we?!

Since the end of February we have been unusually immobile -- yes, folks, its true... for the first time in a year, we spent over 6 weeks in the same location! I feel like we should get a prize or something, or be sent to a lab for testing, because being this stable in one location for so long is really quite strange for us it seems.

But the end is looming. Tomorrow we jump on a plane and head west to Vancouver. We're looking forward to reconnecting with friends -- but mostly this trip is about one thing -- getting Mac's degree finished! On Thursday the 10th he sits for his comprehensive exam, then he may or may not have an oral exam on the following Monday. We'll be busy while we're out there -- using the library and connecting with friends. Then we arrive back in Toronto on the 15th. After a few days rest we will get in the car and head south on the 21st for a long-overdue trip to Virginia beach. There we'll be working on finishing up some projects that we started but got interrupted by school work. We'll be in VA beach until around May 5th (we think) and then its back to Toronto for who knows how long (we haven't planned that far ahead yet).

In other news, we still have no word about the visa. We're hoping that we'll here sometime May/June, but whether that is a realistic hope or a fool's hope we don't know. (We're praying its the first!!) We're thinking we may have to go to Montreal as my (Melissa's) passport on record with the visa people is still under the name Lane and its been since updated to Davis. But if we get called to Montreal for a visa interview it'll be a fun little mini-vacation. Both Mac and I have friends in Montreal, so it will be good for a visit. Though, we must admit, that as much as we would love to see our friends, we also just want this waiting to be over.

All in one life time, all in one life time, gone.

Mac and I listen to Ravi Zaccharais frequently. The following quote is one he likes to use in a number of his messages. It really is beautiful, so I took the time to transcribe it today so i could have a record of it and share it with others. It really puts perspective on Christ vis-a-vis our history.

We look back upon history and what do we see? Empires rising and falling. Revolutions and counter revolutions. Wealth accumulated and wealth dispersed. Shakespeare has spoken of the rise and fall of great ones that ebb and flow with the moon. He says, ‘I look back upon my own fellow country men, once upon a time dominating a quarter of the world, most of them convinced in the words of what is still a popular song that the God who made them mighty will make them mightier yet.

I’ve heard a crazed-cracked Austrian announce to the world the establishment of a Reich that will last a thousand years. I’ve seen an Italian clown saying he was going to stop and restart the calendar with his own ascension to power. I met a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin acclaimed by the intellectual elite of the world as a wiser-than-Solomon, more humane than Marcus Aureoles, more enlightened than Ashoka. I have seen America wealthier and in terms of military weaponry more powerful than the rest of the world put together, so that had the American people so desired, they could have out-done a Caesar or Alexander in the range and scale of their conquest. All in one life time, all in one life time, gone. Gone with the wind.

England part of a tiny island off the coast of Europe threatened with dismemberment and even bankruptcy. Hitler and Mussolini dead remembered only infamy. Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he helped found and dominate for some three decades. America haunted by fears of running out of those precious fluids that keep the motorways roaring and the smog settling. With troubled memories and painful memories of a disastrous campaign in Vietnam and the victory of the Don Quixotes of the media as they charged the windmills of Watergate. All in one life time, all in one life time, gone. Gone with the wind.

Behind the debris of these solemn supermen and self-styled imperial diplomatists stands the gigantic figure of one person, because of whom, by whom and in whom and through whom alone mankind may still have hope – the person of Jesus of Christ. The more I look at the saviours of men, the more beautiful the lamb of God looks to me.

Malcolm Muggeridge