Commentary: Ad Hominem Strikes Again!

It's happening again. Every other year all members of the US House come up for re-election. And every other year, the Democrat party starts desperately trying to unseat Representative Ryun from his seat. Just like last time, they're running out Nancy Boyda. And just like last time, I expect them to pull all of their bag of cheap tricks out.

For example, most of the time last year, Boyda spent her campaign money trying to look like Ryun. She ran ads about how she biked across Kansas or about how important her faith was to her. (By the way, vague statements about faith don't win over Christian voters. We know that there's a difference between faith in faith and faith in Jesus Christ.) Above all, though, when all of those tactics failed, her campaign degenerated to ad hominem arguments against Ryun, a strong Christian man of wonderful character.
Now, the Democrat party is at it again. The Washington Post ran a questionable story, and the Topeka Democrat, er, Capital-Journal picked it up. It attempts to tie Ryun to the scandal-ridden lobbyist Abrahamoff through a real estate deal. Not direclty, of course. It's more like the game "Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon." Ryun bought real estate from a non-profit (step 1) founded by former House Speaker Tom DeLay (step 2). DeLay did not run the organization (step 3). Abrahamoff is the now-infamous lobbyist with ties to Republicans and Democrats, including Mr. DeLay (step 4). The house itself had some structural issues that lowered its asking price significantly.
However, the media quickly jumped on the story, claiming that Ryun is guilty of some sort of corrupt behavior for buying a run-down property. Give me a break! That charge is patently false, as anyone who takes the time to read through the entire story will know. As absurd is the attempt to connect Ryun with Abrahamoff. Ryun is a tenuous 4 steps away from Abrahamoff at best. In reality, there is no connection. This is just mudslinging out of season. Did the Democrats remember to get their license for out-of-season mudslinging? Probably. The party seems to be capable solely of that and not much more.
What's sad about this story is that a lot of swing voters won't take the time to read the whole story, and all they'll do is associate Ryun with scandal. This, of course, is exactly what the Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media want. They want conservatives who disagree with them out, and they're willing to go to great lengths, including the printing of questionable stories, to get it.

Commentary: Iraq

War weariness is setting in for some Americans. They understandably are tired of hearing about what's wrong in Iraq. Of course, there's a lot of good being done in Iraq. The media, of course, ignores this. Notice, for example, that the majority of the problems are centered in one or two spots within the country. Overall, the country is in pretty good shape.
A more significant problem right now, though, is the constant attack by "peace" activists on the war. "The US is the weapon of mass destruction", they claim. "If we leave, Iraq will be better off." I want to take a second to respond to these two claims because they are false and because they fail to take into account the attitude of the enemy.

First, to blame the US for damage done to civilians by the Iraqi opposition is like blaming the Allies during World War II for the damage done during the Battle of Britain. The enemy is the one causing the damage, not the US. It is the Islamic terrorists who are driving explosive-laden cars into marketplaces, not the US government. It is terrorists who ambush Iraqi and US military convoys, not caring if they hit civilians in the process.
Now, some argue that the radical element in Iraq would stop attacking if the US weren't there. "Iraq will be peaceful if the US leaves," they claim. This statement shows an inherent lack of understanding about the enemy is. Our enemy is going to attack anyone and everyone who disagrees with them. Their sole goal is to establish an Islamic theocracy in Iraq, and anyone who stands in their way must convert, flee, or be killed. There is no true peace with them. If the US were not there, providing support and even fighting, Iraq would degenerate into civil war between the moderate Muslim majority and a fanatical group of Islamic fascists. The "peace" activists operate under the flawed humanist assumption that everyone is inherently good and that given the choice, each person would chose to live a quiet life and mind his own business. The history of the world shows otherwise. These terrorists will go attack somewhere else if they weren't attacking the Iraqis. The only way to have peace is not to retreat into a protective shell. We have to fight. Such is the way of this fallen world.

Rambling: Have You Ever Noticed?

Once in a while, I like to stop to notice the little things about this world and wonder why they are the way they are. Have you ever noticed...

-- That M and N look a lot alike even though they are different sounds? M and B are very similar in terms of how they are produced, yet they look very different. Why do M and N look so similar?
-- That stop signs all have white borders? Why a white border? Why not yellow or green or orange?
-- That in most languages, people write from the left towards the right? Why that direction? In Middle Eastern languages, like Arabic and Hebrew, they write from right to left. Again, why that way? Which way did the first writer write?
-- That stop lights always have a yellow body? The box that holds the signal is inevitably painted yellow. Why? Have you ever seen a stop light painted another color?
-- That we tell time in 12-hour increments? Why 12-hours? Why not 24? Why not 4 or 6? All of those go into 360 evenly. Who decided that we should always measure time as ante meridim (AM) or post meridim (PM)?
-- That the sky during the day is blue? I'm being serious. Why should it be blue? Why didn't God design the sky so that it looked red or orange or yellow or pink or black?

Hmmm...interesting thoughts. I'll stop there and let you ponder that. Any thoughts are welcome.

Rambling: Tired

I've been very busy. I have nothing to post, and I am very tired. The end.

Rambling: Duck! And Cover!

Today is going to be an interesting weather day. The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, OK, has put NE Kansas in a High Risk area for severe weather. For those of you who don't know what that means, the SPC only puts out High Risk areas about two or three times a year. It's basically their way of saying, "Be ready to take cover quickly, because the weather is about to get ugly."

I've only seen only High Risk outlook ever come to nothing, and that was 9 years ago, when the SPC put Iowa in a High Risk area. In that case, dry air in the middle levels of the troposphere prevented the storms from firing. I don't think that will be the case today.
Neither does the SPC. Right now, we are in a PDS Tornado Watch. The PDS stands for Particularly Dangerous Situation, meaning the potential for strong, long-lived tornadoes; damaging straight line winds; and extremely large hail are all possible between now and sunset.
So, being trained as a meteorologist, I'm excited on the one-hand to see how today will unfold. As a person, though, I'm praying that God will spare those who are in the direct path of these storms.
So, whatever you do today, keep an eye on the weather and be ready to head for shelter should the weather become severe.

Rant: Laundromats

<rant>I had a large amount of laundry to do, so I thought I'd go to a laundromat in an effort to speed up the process. Bad idea.

First, the environment was not good. It was a noisy place, with a lot of washers and driers making a tremendous racket. The laundromat was playing a radio station that was doing the best of the '80s. I grew up during the late '80s, but I can only take some much Aerosmith before I just reach overload.
To make matters worse, the washers were more expensive than in my complex, so I wound up spending nearly 10 dollars to do what would have cost me just over half that here.
Moreover, the driers were incredibly slow, resulting in it taking 2 hours for me to get laundry done, about equal to the time it would have taken me to do all of my laundry here in my apartment building, where I wouldn't have had to nearly break into a sweat in a hot, smelly environment while listening to the best of the Police.
Actually, I expected about as much, although in hindsight I still say that I would have gone. Why? One simple reason: I didn't have enough quarters, and the laundromat is the only place where there is a change machine. The moral of the story: always have enough quarters so you can stay at home.</rant>

Rambling: Down Go the Cyclones

My alma mater's basketball team is done again, this time losing to Oklahoma State in the Big XII tournament.

We crawled to within 2, and then the classic Iowa State collapse began. Players drove into an overcrowded lane and turned the ball over, guards missed free throws left and right, and post players missed easy layups. We easily could have won the game by making a few more free throws or by committing a few less stupid mistakes.
Well, it's off, maybe, to the NIT, and on to next year. [Sigh]

Hebrews 12:7-11

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?

If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Rambling: Lent

Wednesday is a significant day in the church calendar, and it's a day that, sadly, will go unnoticed by a majority of evangelical Christians. That day is Ash Wednesday, the first day of a liturgical season called Lent.

The season of Lent has traditionally been a time set aside to lead up to Easter, a time of humbling ourselves before God in a more focused way than usual. (After all, we should always keep ourselves in right relationship with God.) Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the season. While it's found nowhere in Scripture, the message at an Ash Wednesday service is quite Scriptural: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return." It's so easy in an age of "all about me" Christianity to forget that we are the servants of a holy God and not the other way around. And it's good to be reminded that, outside of Christ, we can do nothing of any value, not even save ourselves from hell. Ash Wednesday -- and the whole season of Lent -- are meant to be a reminder of it. So, even though my church won't have an Ash Wednesday service, I'm still going to remind myself that I am nothing without my Lord and Savior. It's a reminder that I know I need.

Rambling: Dollar Bills Are Tough

You could say that I engaged in some money laundering this afternoon. It's not what you think, though.

I accidentally left a couple of dollar bills in one of my pants pockets when I threw the pants into the washer. Usually, paper thrown in a washing machine winds up looking like some sort of biohazard. These dollar bills, however, survived quite well. Presently, they are sitting on my desk, drying, wrinkled but whole and looking quite clean. The government uses some very sturdy paper for its money!

Rambling: Untitled

ABCDEFG
HIJKLMNOP
QRS
TUV
W
X
Y and Z
Now I've typed my ABC's. Next won't you type with me? :-)

Rant: Ice Dancing Is an Olympic Event?

<rant>So, I'm trying to watch the Winter Olympics, and I want to see the interesting sports, like ski jump, super G, and speed skating. What does NBC show, though, right in prime time? Ice dancing. Ice dancing -- a bizarre combination of dancing and figure skating, complete with all the things that don't appeal to me about either of the two events.

All difficult tosses, spins, and jumps of figure skating are gone. All that's left is a few carries and a lot of boring dance stuff. It's just not atheltic on the same level as pure ice skating. Don't get me wrong, I like to dance, but it doesn't make sense for ice dancing to be an Olympic event. After all, when was the last time you heard of someone at the summer games winning a gold medal in ballet? It's not that dance isn't athletic. It is. Yet ice dancing clearly does not belong at the Olympic level. Then there are the immodest, gaudy costumes that ice dancers feel compelled to wear. The colors and lack of material bring me to the verge of nausea.
I don't know why NBC feels so compelled to show us all of this when there are more legitimate sports such as hockey, skiing, ski jump, speed skating, and even figure skating. Make it stop, please. No more ice dancing! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!</rant>

Commentary: Big Brother Government and Bad Science

Big brother government is watching you, especially if you're Wal-Mart. And apparently staring means counting. I'll explain those two statements in commentaries below.

First, the Massachusetts pharmacy board has that Wal-mart must carry the "morning-after" pill. (This pill is a form of abortion because conception has already occurred...it is not "emergency contraception" as the liberal media would have us believe. After all, how can it be prevent conception if conception has already occurred? But I digress...). The issue I'm dealing with here is whether the board can force Wal-Mart--or any retailer--to carry a particular pill. And the answer to that question should be no. The last time I checked, this was the United States and not the Soviet Union. The government in a capitalist system (as opposed to the Soviet's command system) is not supposed to tell stores what to carry on their shelves, whether the store is a pharmacy, a grocery store, or a bookstore. Can you imagine the government telling a bookstore that it had to carry a particular book? No, that seems silly, and in the same way, requiring Wal-Mart to carry the contra-pregnancy pill is foolish as well. Wal-Mart is within its rights to decide what it will and will not stock. If a woman wants to find the pill, there are other pharmacies that sell it. Neither Wal-Mart nor any other store should be forced by the government to sell anything. This is plain and simple a case of the government forcing its will unfairly upon a corporation. [Sigh] America is becoming more and more like Europe every day. Let me know when techno and discos starting showing up again and when believing in Jesus Christ will be hate speech.
The second item deals with the third in a string of absurd conclusions that a few scientists have made in the past few years about counting. A few years ago, a small group of scientists concluded that dogs could count. Last year, another group decided that monkeys could count. Now, a group has used the same flawed reasoning as the other two studies to conclude that babies can count sooner than we previously thought. The problem with all of these studies is that the reasoning used to determine when a dog (or monkey or baby) is "counting".
In each experiment, the subject is shown a picture (or hears a sound) of a certain number of things. With the dogs, it was pictures of food pellets. I forget what it was with the monkeys. With babies, it was the sound of 2 or 3 women's voices saying, "Look". In each case, researchers found that the subjects stared longer when the same number of things were present than when a different number was present. For example, the dogs stared longer at the food pile if the same amount of food was there as in the picture, and the babies stared longer at pictures of women that matched the number of voices that they heard. In other words, the likelihood of something being counted is directly proportional to the time that the viewer looks at it. 1...2...3....Say what?!!!!!!!!!!!
That is one of the worst conclusions I have ever heard! It makes no sense! Logically, why would anyone (or any animal) stare longer at something that matched its expectations? If something is as expected, don't we spend less time looking at it? So, why the reverse assumption? I don't know. It doesn't make sense. The conclusion is logically flawed at its core, and I'm amazed that any serious researcher would actually make it. If anything, I think their findings disprove their hypothesis. [Double sigh]

Rambling: Rain Dilemma

Here's a classic dilemma pondered by many math and physics people at the college level. It's raining, and you want to make it from your car to wherever you're headed while staying as dry as possible. Should you run or should you walk?

Human instinct is to run because running decreases the amount of time that you're in the rain. However, running increases the effective rate at which the rain hits you (think about how much harder it seems to be raining when you're driving a car on the highway as opposed sitting still). This increased rate could potentially nullify the benefit from being out in the rain for less time.
So would walking make more sense, then? Maybe, but that does increase the amount of time that you are out in the rain, meaning that you have longer to get wet.
The answer this question can be found using mathematics, but I don't have the time or desire to work on it right now. For now, I welcome your thoughts. If I have a little time, I might try to work out this puzzle.

Rambling: Writer's Block II

I want to post something, but I just don't feel like writing at all.
So, I'll leave you with one little thought, inspired by the KU-ISU game -- "If you play well, the referees can't do anything that will beat you."

Rambling: Riddle

It moves but is always there.
It can hold things but has no arms.
It be taken in and pushed out but cannot be touched.
It is necessary for life yet too much of it can be deadly.
What is it?

Air
Air moves (the wind) yet there is always air around you, even if the wind blows.
Air can hold things such dust, leaves, and water vapor.
Air is taken in when you breathe and pushed out by ventilation fans yet it is intangible.
Without air, we cannot live, yet too much of it (too much pressure) kills.

Commentary: The Frustrations of Urban Renewal

Change is never easy, especially when it comes to revitalizing older, decaying urban areas. A case in point is happening right here in Topeka.
A developer wants to transform an area near the Washburn University campus into a new, reinvigorated shopping center and apartment complex. I drive right by the area that the developer wants to work on. It's primarily an old collection of older buildings either run down and vacant or occupied by small businesses. If anywhere is in need of "urban renewal", then this is the place. It is example of what people think of when they mockingly refer to Topeka as "To-puke-a".

Most of the property owners in the stretch under consideration have already agreed to sell to the developer. However, two holdouts remain. The most publicized holdout is the owner of a small bike shop. He is refusing to sell for one simple reason: he knows that his property is worth something to the developer, and he's trying to get as much as he can out of the deal. Let me say clearly that I have no ill will towards the man for wishing to profit from the sale of his property, and while it makes sense that he should profit, some of his reported asking prices border on astronomical, such as $1.8 million, which is 18 times the value of the location.
The owner claims that he wishes to keep his business open. His actions, however, seem to belie those claims. If he really wanted to keep his business, then he could be given three times his property's worth, which would easily allow him to start over in a new location near the university and still have plenty of money to spare. Or he could negotiate a deal to have his business be given space in the new project. Yet he continues to demand much greater sums.
I am disappointed in this situation. I'm disappointed that this owner seems concerned solely with his own well-being and makes seemingly unrealistic demands upon the developer. These demands have hindered the progress of a development that will wind up helping to revitalize a portion of central Topeka. Now, I'm not at all suggesting that this many shouldn't be allowed to sell for two or even three times the worth for his property, but I'm disappointed that his asking price is so dramatically high.
I'm equally disappointed, though, in the developers, who are calling for the use of eminent domain to force the owner to sell his property. To do so would be to abuse governmental power and to violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution. I don't care what the Supreme Court has said. I think it was wrong to say that it was okay for the government to seize land for economic development purposes. Eminent domain should be reserved for situations involving the construction of governmental facilities for public use (such as roads and bridges), and even then its use should be as limited as possible. Governmental intervention is not the solution here.
The solution to this problem lies with the two parties. Hopefully, the owner of the bike shop and the developer will be able to work out a deal that will allow the owner to make a good profit off of it (which is fine with me) while still keeping the cost of the development from becoming prohibitive. I urge them both to do so because this development will do much to help the heart of Topeka begin to come alive again.

Rambling: So Much for Global Warming!

According to a report released today by the local National Weather Service, this January was Topeka's 2nd warmest on record. The warmest ever was in 1933. While this unusually warm January doubtless will be used by local global warming proponents for months to come, the fact that this type of anomaly has occurred before, back in the Dust Bowl days, undermines pointing to this unusual weather as evidence for global warming. Is there other evidence? In my opinion, yes, there is some, but I am also not convinced of it. And I am qualified to make that judgment; my degree is in Meteorology.

Still, this warm January was close to the record. The average temperature was 41 degrees. The 1933 average was 41.4 degrees. That's warm, considering that a "normal" average high for the month is 39 with an average low of 18. We clearly have had an unusual run of warm weather. Will it end? Or will we just skip winter altogether and head right for Spring? I don't know. I don't make the weather. I don't even predict it much anymore. There is cold air up in Alaska, which is upstream from us. If it moves this way, we could see our temperatures plunge down. For now, I just am grateful to God for such an enjoyable month.

Commentary: Yeah!

I was glad to hear today that the Senate rejected petty politics in favor of doing something to help the country. The call for a fillibuster of Judge Alito (made by Senator while he was in Switzerland) thankfully went unheeded by most Senators.

All that remains for the confirmation of Mr. Alito is a vote by the Senate, which will result in his confirmation to the Supreme Court. This confirmation should result in a court that will not be so left leaning. Not that America's deepest problems can be solved by legislative or judicial means.
Americas' true problem can only be solved by God, whom we have slowly removed from our culture and our society. America will only become what so many long for it to be when turn our hearts to Jesus Christ. It is my prayer that such a thing will happen. Otherwise, I fear that we will suffer the same fate as so many of the other declined world powers of previous eras.

Rambling: Gray, Rainy Day

It's a gray, rainy day, and it feels more like October than January. A day like this almost belongs in a movie out of the film noir genre, like maybe Casablanca. It's just sort of a mellow day.

How strange the weather has been! This has to have been one of the warmest months of January in the history of Topeka. I was outside the other day in short sleeves. That's not even close to how it should be. It's almost like the world paused while the past three months happened. If I walk outside right now and ignore the calendar, it could easily be the end of October instead of the end of January. I don't get it. One more in the ever-increasing population of things in my life that I just don't understand.
Anyway, if you'll excuse you me, I'm going to go find a movie camera to look into while I'm delivering a long monologue. :-)