Of course there are .22 caliber shotguns! The internet told me so. A couple of years ago I overheard a recent college grad, at work, exclaim to a colleague, "What did they do before there was Google?" It seems they were searching for some elusive answer to an inquiry they had. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I use the internet for a variety of searches, typically those involving how to get a piece of software/hardware to do what it is supposed to do. However, a good dose of incredulity is in order whenever one reads a search result on the internet. Especially from an "ehow" type site.
Rep. King Calls Out TSA on Security Breach Of course, this now means that TSA will step-up pat-downs of 5 year-old girls, 90 year-olds in walkers, armed forces personnel, and nuns.
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Facebook Tip for Parents Did you know you can submit an underage report for your kid if they've signed up to FB and are under age 13?
In Detroit, two armed and masked men attempted to rob a Walgreens at 4:30 am. However, pharmacist Jeremy Hoven responded by drawing his concealed handgun and firing at the robbers. They fled.
Hoven's former Walgreens colleagues were oh so grateful for his possibly saving their lives that night. I say "former" colleagues because Walgreens thanked Hoven by firing him.
In Seattle, pharmacist Michael Donohue was confronted by a hooded robber demanding OxyContin which, evidently, has become a hot item for those interested in abusing drugs. However, Donohue responded by drawing his Glock 19 and pointing it at the robber. The robber fled (notice a pattern here?).
You might think that, with so many pharmacies out there, that some of them are bound to be targeted for robbery. Michael Donohue could tell you about that, for it seems that the incident describe above occurred only two hours after he identified (in a police lineup) a man who had held up his pharmacy previously.
In this CNN video report on the story, note the ending in which some pharmacies have taken to posting signs indicating that they do not carry OxyContin. If only it were as simple as putting up a sign. In an interview on Armed American Radio, Donohue tells of a pharmacist friend who was killed in a hold-up and of another colleague who insures that he always has a supply of OxyContin on hand, for would-be robbers.
As point of fact, it should be noted that any form of self-defense training, especially that involving the use of firearms, should also include knowledge of the laws pertaining to the use of deadly force. Another pharmacist, in Oklahoma City, is now in prison for murder after shooting a robber in his pharmacy.
It seems that, in their zeal to keep America safe, TSA will leave no one untouched. In yet another absurd, yet politically correct, incident we find a 15 year-old girl randomly selected for full-body scanning, as well as a subsequent full-body assault pat-down. This time, however, the girl has written about her experience.
When the dirty deed was done, the agent indicated we could leave. No explanation, no apology.
I was no longer even remotely happy. I felt dirty — like a criminal. Except criminals are told what they’ve done wrong and they’re read their rights.
We ran to the departure gate, but my plane had left for Florida without me. We had to wait at Midway another six hours for the next flight.
During our wait, my mother and I sat quietly — each of us fearing for the future of a country where you can be singled out and humiliated for no reason whatsoever.
Indeed, a free society should understand that such freedom also brings with it the chance of injury by those abusing the freedom society, as a whole, enjoys. Safety, in theory and in practice, is not a result of randomness. In other words, the mindset of being prepared is grounded on the notion that one cannot predict when and where such preparedness will have to be exercised. For example, when driving I do not latch my seat belt on random occasions or when I think I may need it. Or when I pump gas or visit the ATM I do not assess the surroundings and people around me on a random basis. And while an assault can come from anyone there are certainly indicators that should send up warning flags.
I’m getting to be a crabby old man and I’m not even fifty. But working at a liberal university for eighteen years has taught me never to accept responsibility for my actions or my disposition. Instead I blame my most recent bad mood (the one I’m in right now) on a student who just asked me a question about the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case United States v. Leon, (1984). Wanting to know the holding, he asked if it meant “that the police can rely upon a search warrant they don’t reasonably no is invalid.” I almost told the student there was know way he was going to pass my course if he didn’t no the difference between “know” and “no.” But I just new I would get in trouble if I did.
Maybe I'm getting to be a crabby old man, and I'm already over fifty, but I don't recall there being such a disparity between college-age adults and post-college adults when I was in university.
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Experience without Reason results in empty pews It's become hip for Christian leaders to toss around the "80% [or substitute some other large value] of the kids in our youth groups will leave Christianity by the time they finish college" warning. Regardless of the actual number, most will agree that we live in a time when more people claim to have no belief (or religious affiliation) than ever before.
Brett Kunkle, at Stand to Reason, has a novel idea: Why not teach apologetics to our Christian youth before they leave for college? Yeah, I know, in an age of touchy-feely, Jesus-wants-to-have-a-personal-relationship-with-you Christianity, teaching hard-hitting material which causes one to exercise their brain is considered revolutionary.
To drive the point home, Brett will sometimes role-play as an atheist college professor and present his case to unsuspecting Christian high school students (see video below). Take the time to see how the youth do in defending their faith. How would the youth group in your church do?
I’ve been a professor of political philosophy in the political science department at Michigan State University for almost 40 years. I was chair of the department for four years. So I know a thing or two about the state of the student body...
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...more and more of my students, and not just freshmen, can’t tie their own shoes. They lose syllabi and can’t follow simple instructions; they don’t get the right books; they e-mail me to ask when and where the final exam will be held (as if they didn’t know when they signed up and don’t know how to find out); they forget to bring blue books to exams; they make appointments and don’t keep them; and many never come to office hours at all, except perhaps on the day before an exam.
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College is a waste of time Some college students are finding the whole idea of dropping a wad (or, their parent's wad) to be caged in for four years, inculcated in the ways of the world, to not be their style. Dale Stephens writes,
I left college two months ago because it rewards conformity rather than independence, competition rather than collaboration, regurgitation rather than learning and theory rather than application. Our creativity, innovation and curiosity are schooled out of us.
In a Michael Ellsberg article highlighting Stephens, we get a glimpse at the counter-cultural notion that young-adults (aka teenagers) are more than capable of entering the full-fledged "adult" world.
Usually when we hear the words “disruption” together with “teenagers,” we think of loud talking in movie theaters, playing clown in class, and other discipline problems.
But teenagers like Stephens are engaging forcefully in a very different—and more profitable—form of disruption: disruptive innovation, as first described in detail by Clayton Christensen in The Innovator’s Dilemma.
Instead of perpetuating the myth of adolescence, in which we train our young-adults to expect the years of 13 - 20+ to be years of unfettered FUN, why not task them with the responsibility of being productive members of society?
One of the pleasures I've had, over the past school year, is going through Stand to Reason's The Bible Fast Forward series with my oldest daughter (who just completed 10th grade). While it's always a homeschooler's joy to be able to engage in one on one teaching and conversation with their children, this series, taught by Greg Koukl, was particulary thought provoking.
The series is comprised of 8 one-hour lectures combined with a PDF notebook of the outlined topics. The objective of the series is to present the Bible as a unified whole, specifically addressing its purpose and how it reveals and amplifies God's Rulership of His Kingdom. In doing so, the series neatly unpacks topics such as the aforementioned rulership, kingdom while also tieing in the various covenants in the Bible as well as concepts such as progressive revelation, the Trinity, hypostatic union, kenosis, etc.
My daughter thoroughly enjoyed the series and commented how it opened up various concepts that she didn't know were contained in the Bible (particularly such early references to the New Covenant and the fact of God's blessing upon all the peoples of the earth).
Shortly after we completed the series we received an added bonus in that Greg Koukl presented the entire set of lectures, to re-record and update the series, over the course of a Friday evening / Saturday at his home church. What a blessing to receive this teaching directly!
We belong to a home school group and, at the end of every school year, the various families will gather for an "Open House", highlighting the various projects and work the students have been working on. My daughter prepared a 2X poster-board sized chart, outlining some of the main concepts she learned in the series.
You can view the low-res version below, or click on this link View the Hi-Res photo to download a higher resolution version (~4mb).
I highly recommend the series The Bible Fast Forward, but wait until the newer audio version is released (supposed to be soon), or wait several months for the video version.
Also, if you don't already subscribe to the Stand to Reason weekly podcast, please do so. And there's a wealth of apologetic information at their website to help equip Christ Followers in explaining the Gospel message to a post-modern, relativistic world in dire need of the Truth.
If you drove on a public highway yesterday, then you almost killed someone else in a head-on collision Or so goes the logic which was applied to Joe Zamudio. Zamudio was the armed citizen who happened to be buying cigarettes inside a store near where Gabby Giffords was conducting her constituent meet-up. Upon hearing (and recognizing) the gunshots, he ran towards the scene and helped secure the alleged shooter. While he considered drawing his weapon, his assessment of the situation upon his arrival was to keep it holstered. From an LA Times article, we read,
A bystander with a Ruger intent on ending the violence almost shot the wrong guy. But he made a split-second decision to keep the weapon in his pocket. (emphasis added)
So, as Massad Ayoob, firearms trainer and podcaster, says,
...by that standard, if you’re listening to this podcast while driving, you just “almost” had a hundred head-on collisions with traffic in the opposite lane.
You can listen to an extended interview of Zamudio, by the Ayoob group, in which he explains not only what happened that day he was buying cigarettes, but afterwards with the media. The Zamudio interview begins around 10 minutes into the podcast. Note that Zamudio categorically states that he did not draw his weapon. Yet another quote from the Times article states,
Zamudio, 24, had his finger on the trigger and seconds to decide. He lifted his finger from the trigger and ran toward the struggling men.
No, he did not have his finger on the trigger. Bottomline: if the media ever wants to interview you, then make sure you also record the entire interview.
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An interview of the Bell on Hell Interviewer Audio interview of Martin Bashir, who recently interviewed Rob Bell regarding his universalist book Love Wins and, according to many Bell followers, was really mean to Bell.
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