Classes Begin: Tuesday, September 2
Classes End: Thursday, December 18

LS 600: Shaping the Mind of a Leader–This course is designed to introduce  students preparing for leadership ministry to a distinctive, theologically-driven manner of thinking that will enable them to successfully pursue seminary  education and develop lifelong learning skills that will benefit them in any sphere of church-related services.  The course focuses on defi ning, demonstrating, and doing “Biblical worldview” thinking in both academic and pastoral contexts, as well as attaining the research and communication skills necessary to long-term effective ministry.  This course is required of all students and should be taken during the first year of seminary residency. (Wednesdays 1:00-3:30 PM)

AP 606:  Biblical and Philosophical Ethics–A comparative analysis of theistic and non-theistic approaches to ethics and their application to moral issues in today’s world.  Ethical principles arising from Scripture are compared with key philosophical options in ethical theory. (Tuesdays 6:30-9:00 PM)

TH 694: Imaging God’s World–This class seeks to equip students to deal redemptively with images and messages in cinema and television.  Students will learn some of the basic elements of filmmaking, how to use movies and TV shows to explore our common human experience, how to communicate the gospel more effectively in a video culture, and how to critique from a theological perspective the worldview and ethics in visual presentations.  Specifi c problems and possibilities will be explored through lectures, class discussions, and fi lm clips. Students will be given  recommendations for TV shows and movies as well as tools for analysis and critique. (Intensive: Monday October 20-Friday October 24)

That’s right folks, I’m blogging directly from my iPod Touch using the Wordpress For iPhone app. I had a few problems getting my Wordpress installation set up, but as you can see it works now. I can’t see myself using it very often, but for on the spot blogging it will be great.

American Christians often overlook the benefits of being a Christian in America. As such, we spend our share of time complaining about the rising cost of fuel, political discord, and all the other things that ‘make the world spin’. Of course we should be involved in the political process, and the rising price of fuel is an important issue to every American (this one included), but the July 2008 newsletter from Mission Network News helps put things in perspective a little. For perspective on the rising price of fuel:

Ten years ago the price of a barrel of crude oil was only $10. Now, it’s about $140 per barrel–a new high. Gasoline prices are soaring and affecting missions and relief work around the world.

“The first to feel the skyrocketing prices are workers on the [mission] field,” says Bruce Smith of Wycliffe Associates. “As prices go up, typically their support does not…”

Relief agencies are feeling it, too.

“We’re finding the price of food is going up due to transportation costs and production costs,” says Gary Zander of Food For the Hungry.” When those two things are put together, the amount of money you had available for food is strained even more. There’s just less available.”

It’s impacting every area of ministry for the Slavic Gospel Association, says Eric Mock, vice president of ministry operations for the organization.

“It has caused the operation costs of the seminaries and Bible institutes we support to go up,” he says. “It’s reduced [our support for] church planters. They cannot travel to remote villages where often they’re planting two, three or four churches.”

How about some perspective on political discord? We have all been hearing about the “election” in Zimbabwe, but how does it affect missions?

“Groups of youth were roaming the streets,” (following the vote) said Charles Debter with Global Aid Network (GAiN USA), who has a minsitry partner in Zimbabwe. “If a person was stopped by them and couldn’t recite a particular political slogan or sing a political song, they may be put in jail.

“There have been ministry volunteers who have been jailed because they were not able to recite those slogans…”

The work of Operation Mobilization (OM) in Zimbabwe was also affected when it had to close a day-care center as well as its mobile clinic. Food aid, which millions of people depend on, has stopped.

Obviously, just because someone else has bigger problems than our own does not mean they are not important to us as well, but it is critical as American Christians that we understand the gifts we have been given, and what is expected of us because of that (See Philippians 4 et al).

In case you decide to open the coffers a little wider I am providing a list of all the agencies mentioned in the article:

• Wycliffe Associates
• Food For The Hungry
• Slavic Gospel Association
• Global Aid Network
• Operation Mobilization
• Mission Network News

For further reading:

• High fuel prices affecting ministry abroad
• High fuel prices impact relief efforts abroad
• Soaring fuel prices are affecting missionaries
• High fuel costs will hurt short-term missions
• Cost of fuel, food prices and the dollar hurt summer camp ministry
• New tools boost missional opportunities amidst soaring fuel costs
• Fuel costs have an interesting impact on ministry in Ghana
• Fuel crisis marks points of impact around the world

Finally, I will be adding news items from Mission Network News directly to the sidebar to keep you updated each time you visit High Caliber Guns. Mission Network News has made many resources (many free) available. Be sure to check out their website to see if there is anything that might be helpful to you or your ministry.

My MacBook Pro hasn’t arrived yet, but my free iPod Touch arrived yesterday. You really can’t appreciate the iPod Touch until you have held it. I had seen pictures, read a lot about it, even watched videos showing off its features, but you just have to, well, touch it. The screen is amazing, the OS is intuitive, and it just gives you a good feeling inside. Note: In order to use the App Store you must upgrade your iPod Touch to version 2.0, and this upgrade will cost you $10. I assume that the next generation will already be equipped with the latest version, and I’m not too keen about forking over the $10, but considering that I got the thing for free I won’t complain too much.

Pros:

• Free (With Academic Promotion)
• Amazing Screen/Experience
• Intuitive OS
• Audio/Video/YouTube
• Safari (Truly Amazing Mobile Browsing)
• Tons Of Apps Available!

Cons:

• Constantly Entering iTunes Password For App Store
• Keyboard Is Tough To Get Used To With My Large Fingers
• Finger Prints (Obviously)
• Only 8GB
• No External Speaker
• No Dock

Use Dipity to create timelines of your data, life, or anything else. Share your timelines, allow community participation etc. Here is a timeline of High Caliber Guns.

I placed an order today at The Apple Store, and I am understandably excited. I have waited a long time to purchase a new laptop, and I’m glad I held off for the one I wanted. Of course when the goodies start to arrive I will do an unboxing post even though it may well be the last one done on this particular MacBook Pro before they are updated. Incidentally, I saved $540 because of academic pricing and the free iPod Touch promotion!

I just read a very interesting article from Tom’s Hardware that set out to bust some of the myths surrounding the price difference between Apple computers and PCs running Windows. What makes this article even more interesting is that Tom’s Hardware is basically a Windows ‘fanboy” site as evidenced by the closing sentence of the article:

The bottom line is the operating system. I personally can’t wait to see the next major release of Windows — that’s more exciting to me than the next release of Mac OS X.

The author, Tuan Nguyen, compares Apple systems to comparable Windows based PCs and find little difference in price. He points out that you start to see a huge discrepancy when you add upgrades to your Apple computer. For instance, if you add RAM or a larger hard drive to your base-line Apple the markups are extreme. The bottom line: if you buy a Mac be sure to purchase your upgrades AFTER you get the computer…of course I don’t know what that will do to your AppleCare Protection Plan.

Read The Entire Article

I’m one of these people that needs almost no time to make certain decisions like have a baby, buy a house, get a new car, and weeks or months to make others like, which grill do I buy, which humidor do I buy, or which computer do I buy.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have been sans laptop for a good long while. That is a difficult situation to find oneself in these days, especially if your work is research and presentation related. I’ve also mentioned that I’m going back to school in a few weeks and that means I will be buying a new laptop, but which one?

The first quesiton I had to answer is should I stay in Windows camp or should I venture back into Mac territory? I say ‘back’ because several years ago I was the proud owner of an iMac…one of the egg shaped dealios. Mine was graphite, and it looked wonderful and hip (at the time). The problem was that OS 9 pretty much stunk. As a matter of fact it was no better or worse than Windows 98, and it required hundreds of dollars of extra software to make sure you were compatible with the rest of the world…and even then it didn’t always work.

Well, much has happened since that time, and not only can the Mac run Windows natively it also has an entirely new OS called OS X based on Unix. Of course Apple products still cost more than most Windows based laptops, but they are also made from better components…right? Unfortunately, according to Consumer Reports this isn’t necessarily the case. Still, there is a lot to be said for Apple as a company, and for their products. Add to that the abysmal failure that is Windows Vista, and in the end I decided to go with a Mac.

Now, which Mac laptop do I buy. There are a few choices here. First, I could buy a MacBook. These are Apple’s ‘entry level’ laptops. They have a plastic case (as do most laptops), and come in white (truly ugly) and black (pretty cool). Of course, the problem with these little beauties is that they are ‘little’ beauties. A 13″ screen just doesn’t do it for me. Of course the other components in the MacBook line are also not a robust as those in the other lines, but the screen is the biggest pitfall for me.

Next up is the relatively new MacBook Air. This sucker is certainly thin and would be pretty cool for the ‘road-warrior’, but I’m not impressed with it specs, and what I really want in a laptop is a desktop replacement or as close as I can get to one.

Finally, there is the MacBook Pro. These venerable machine come in 15″ and 17″ models and are just what the doctor ordered. Lots of RAM, great graphics, USB, Firewire, etc. In addition, the MacBook Pros sport aluminum cases for added durability, and they just look cool in my opinion. AND to make matters even more attractive, if you buy a MacBook Pro (or any of the other Mac laptops) before September 15 you get a free 8GB iPod Touch! Ok, decision reached. Pull the trigger right?

Not quite. It turns out that Apple is going to be releasing new products at the end of September. And of course, when the new products come out the iPod Touch deal goes away. In addition, my HTC 8525 Windows Mobile phone went the way of the Dodo a couple months ago and I need a new phone as well. I’m eligible for an upgrade in May of next year, and I figure I will probably go with an iPhone this time considering the luck I had with my Windows Mobile gear. So the question is this:

Do I purchase the MacBook Pro now, get the free iPod Touch and turn it over to the wife when May roles around, OR do I wait, buy the latest and greatest from Mac at the end of September (a month into school), miss out on the free iPod Touch, and upgrade to an iPhone in May?

It probably sounds easy to most people. They would read this and say, “that’s easy, just…” But for me, this will continue to be a heartrending decision that is made and remade day after day until I finally make myself buy now or wait to long…Oh the humanity of it all!

You may have noticed the facelift High Caliber Guns recently recieved. In addition to the new theme I have been playing around with adding more content in the form of rss feeds in the sidebar. The first section you see is a list of my most recent tweets from Twitter. Basically it is a blog within a blog. It gives short updates on what I’m doing at any particular time (I know, you can’t wait for the updates). The second item I added just a few minutes ago is a list of the most recent contributions I have made at YouVersion, the online Bible collaboration site. Finally, there is a list of Mac related news items that are pulled directly from my Google Reader feeds (most of these items come from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW). My goal is to add more content to the blog that will make it a bit more interesting for my three readers. More content may follow, or I may remove items as I play around with the idea.

I really should give some credit here. My friend Anthony Martin turned me on to Google Reader, and after two or three attempts to get me interested I finally started using it. It really is a great tool.

Just to make things interesting, I’ll explain how I discovered YouVersion. Google Reader grabbed a post from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) which detailed an iPhone app written by the folks at YouVersion, and I followed the link back to the YouVersion website. Ah, information!

Anyway, YouVersion is a very cool idea that leverages Web 2.0 ideas and software to create an online Bible collaboration tool. YouVersion is still in beta, and there is a lot of functionality that isn’t up and running yet. Still, you can add text, links, audio or video to any reference or group of references you want. You can keep your ideas private or allow the entire community to see them. I wouldn’t count on this as a sermon prep tool at this point because of its beta status, but it is very cool nonetheless. One last thing that I consider important with any Bible study tool, YouVersion supports several high quality translations including: New International Version, New American Standard Bible, English Standard Version and Holman Christian Standard Bible. In addition, there are three Spanish versions as well as German, French, Swedish and Chinese translations.

A revolutionary online Bible that enables community and collaboration like never before.

• Organize - YouVersion empowers you to organize the content that’s important to you!
• Share - Simply share meaningful content with anyone, anytime, anywhere.
• Community - YouVersion makes it easy to connect and collaborate with others.
• Contribute - With YouVersion you have the power to share your content with your closest friends, family, or anyone online!

I have noticed a pattern in the arguments of the “New Atheists” that goes something like this:

Atheist Argument: “There are things we do for the welfare of mankind and this makes them right and wrong.”
Theist Response: “But without and objective source, and given the matter/energy makeup of the universe, there cannot be ‘welfare’ or ‘right and wrong’. After all, if it would have been more advantageous to the human race for Hitler to win would it have been ‘right’? etc. ad infinitum”
Atheist Response To Theist Response: “There are things we do for the welfare of mankind and this makes them right and wrong.”

In other words the atheist response is no response. If I could get something like, “The universe is meaningless as are our lives, but we create ‘meaning’ out of nothing as a safety net for our psyche much the same way that Christians do by belief in God.” At least at this point we would be getting somewhere. Then we could begin to explore the psyche etc. and try to answer the questions that arise from that point. As it is we just keep going in circles.

At this point I am often confronted with questions about the veracity of the Bible and other particulars of the Christian faith (which I am happy to discuss), but before these matters can be discussed in a meaningful way it is necessary for the atheist to step up and live the intellectually honest lives they claim to live.

When the atheist is willing to admit the utter meaninglessness of the universe and of their lives with the resultant removal of objectively based moral values the discussion can move on. After all, it is possible to be an atheist while at the same time accepting the fact that life without a Creator is meaningless, and all that remains is experience. Of course this ultimtely leads to Nihilism and nobody wants that. So, “There are things we do for the welfare of mankind and this makes them right and wrong.”

According to the June 2008 issue of Consumer Reports, and accounting for the negation of three percentage points as outlined in the magazine, one in five laptops purchased between 2003 and 2007 have needed repairs or “had a serious problem.” Does this seem crazy to anyone other than me? That’s 20% guys and gals! This seems high to me. I could live with one in seven, or better yet one in ten but one our of every five? While the highest percentage went to Apple with 23% they also won the pole position in the category of customer support according to the same issue. The bottom line is this: if you buy a laptop there is a fairly good chance you are going to run into some problems with the hardware regardless of the brand. Perhaps we need to make our choice based on who handles those problems best, and what software the computer is running? It would be nice not to have to place those limitations on ourselves, but this is the technology world we live in.

Lenovo (IBM): 20%
Compaq: 20%
Sony: 21%
Toshiba: 21%
Dell: 22%
HP: 22%
Gateway: 22%
Apple: 23%
Data are based on 75,576 responses…to our annual Product Reliability Survey, conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center. Data have been adjusted to eliminate differences solely linked to the age and the usage of the product.

I’ve written several times about the quintessential resource for candy lovers, Candy Addict. But lets face it, candy isn’t the only thing we love to eat before meals, in between meals, after meals, before bedtime, after bedtime, well you get it. There is a whole world of wonderful snacks that enhance our lives, and point to the necessity of a Creator! And in an effort to make sure that all snacks, not just candy, are treated equally, Brian Pipa, the founder of Candy Addict, has created a new resource that provides a haven for snacks of all shapes and sizes: Snackerrific! Snackerrific is “all about snacks. Sweet, salty, meaty, even liquid…” If it’s a snack, it’s Snackerrific!

Visit Candy Addict & Snackerrific!

As a rule I do not purchase Cuban cigars as it is illegal to do so (although I have had a few gifted to me), and to many “aficionados” that makes me (and all other NC smokers) nothing more than “drugstore” cigar smokers. Of course I disagree with that assessment as will anyone with half a pallet that has tasted a Swisher Sweet and any one of the many great domestic cigars. Still, if you want to find the “best” domestic cigars there are some rules that will help you find them.

1. Ignore Price–there are some really good domestic sticks out there for $5 and under. There are also some really nasty sticks out there for over $5!
2. Ignore Half-Naked Women–sex sells, but not good cigars.
3. Ignore “Cuban” Nomenclature–many domestic cigars are “rolled in the fine Cuban tradition” or have a distinct “Cuban” flavor. I’m not saying some of the cigars marketed using this strategy aren’t good, but it isn’t because of anything “Cuban” about the cigar.
4. Ignore Ostentatious Packaging–sure those fancy boxes and bands are attractive, but they have no correlation to the quality of the cigar.
5. Ignore Most Cigars With Stolen Cuban Names–when America placed an embargo against Cuba many of the names used for Cuban cigars were stolen and placed on domestic cigars. As a general rule these cigars are manufactured by large companies pumping out tons of cigars that are just a notch above those drugstore smokes mentioned earlier. That isn’t to say you won’t find a few good ones, but if you stick with boutique or family owned shops you will find better smokes.

Taken from the August 2008 issue of America’s 1st Freedom.

One must wonder how far airport security has slid, given the recent detainment of a man at London’s Heathrow Airport. Brad Jayakody was stopped from boarding for wearing a “Transformers” T-shirt showing a cartoon gun. Bradley said the guard stated, “You cannot get on the plane because there is a gun on your T-shirt.”

Thank goodness he wasn’t a Ginsu salesman!

The following is taken from the August 2008 issue of America’s 1st Freedom, and it is not particularly shocking. Actually, it is something that everyone willing to look at the situation honestly has seen coming for some time. It is so stupid that it is almost embarrassing to read.

As criminal use of firearms continues to rise in Britain despite the gun ban there, criminals with knives are also causing major problems for law-abiding British citizens.

In what a Christian Science Monitor report called a “growing knife-crime culture,” [DOES THAT SOUND FAMILIAR?] British authorities are finding themselves in a losing battle to stop young people from carrying knives.

Along with stop-and-search operations on the street, the government is instituting a $6 million ad campaign to warn youths about the dangers of carrying a knife. [YES, $6 MILLION]

According to the report, Britain sees 200 to 250 stabbing murders a year, a number that has some pushing for less-lethal knives.

Dr. Mike Beckett is pushing to do away with tips on all kitchen knives in Britain.

“What people want in a kitchen knife is the edge,” he told the BBC. “The point on the end of the knife actually serves little culinary purpose, but it is the point that kills people.” [I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP..."IT IS THE POINT THAT KILLS PEOPLE." iF YOU HAVEN'T FIGURED OUT HOW IGNORANT THIS ARGUMENT IS WHEN APPLIED TO FIREARMS MAYBE THIS WILL HELP TO WAKE YOU UP...I HOPE!]

These are quotes taken from Thomas Boston’s, Human Nature In Its Fourfold State. The excerpt in full is found on the Providence Baptist Ministries website as provided by Monergism.com.

A man may bring as many buckets of water to a house that is on fire, as he is able to carry, and yet it may be consumed, and will be so, if he bring not as many as will quench the fire. Even so, although you should do what you are able, in keeping the commandments, if you fail in the least degree of obedience which the law enjoins, you are certainly ruined forever, unless you take hold of Christ, renouncing all your righteousness as filthy rags.

Objection 1: If we be under an utter inability to do any good, how can God require us to do it? Answer: God making man upright (Eccl. 7:29), gave him a power to do everything that He should require of him; this power man lost by his own fault…Now, we having, by our own fault, disabled ourselves, shall God lose His right of requiring our task, because we have thrown away the strength He gave us whereby to perform it? Has the creditor no right to require payment of his money because the debtor had squandered it away, and is not able to pay him?

But all this is needless, seeing we are utterly unable to help ourselves out of the state of sin and wrath. Answer: Give not place to that delusion, which puts asunder what God has joined, namely, the use of means and a sense of our own impotency. If ever the Spirit of God graciously influence your souls, you will become thoroughly sensible of your absolute inability, and yet enter upon a vigorous use of means. You will do for yourselves, as if you were to do all, and yet overlook all you do, as if you had done nothing. Will you do nothing for yourselves because you cannot do all? Lay down no such impious conclusion against your own souls. Do what you can; and, it may be, while you are doing what you can for yourselves, God will do for you what you cannot.

I have applied to Lincoln Christian Seminary in hopes of beginning my graduate work in August of this year. While I have received affirmation concerning financial aid, I have not yet received a Letter of Acceptance so I may be counting my chickens before they hatch. My plan is to pursue a Master of Divinity degree with a specialization in Christian apologetics. While I have not made a final decision, I may also pursue a Master of Religious Education degree at the same time.

In addition to graduate classes I will also be teaching my three boys using the Weaver Curriculum this fall, and I continue to fill the pulpit at Isabel Christian church. Because of these obligations I will only be attending classes part time for the foreseeable future at 6 hours per semester.

UPDATE: I recieved my Letter of Acceptance today, and will begin course work in the first week of September.

1. Oliva–makers of such wonderful cigars as the Serie V and Serie O, the Oliva family has been making cigars, first in Cuba, and now in Nicaragua for over one hundred years.
2. Padron–another ‘century in the making’ company, Padron boasts some of the best top-dollar sticks around including the 1926 Serie and the 1964 Anniversary Series.
3. Perdomo–the Perdomo line includes the wonderfully affordable, yet amazingly tasty Lot 23 as well as the flavor packed Perdomo Habano.

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I don’t have an iPhone or and iPod Touch, but now there is one more reason to think abou it. Pandora is now available for the iPhone and the iPod Touch! Free, comercial free, customized music anytime and anywhere (WiFi connection needed for iPod Touch). This will certainly help out those running out of room for all their music…now they can listen to without putting it on the device.

Covenant Transport is a Christian owned and operated trucking company out of Tennessee. If you live in the Midwest you have probably seen one of their trucks with the blue rectangle on the back door that reads, “ITS NOT A CHOICE ITS A CHILD”. A few days ago I saw one of these truck that had been vandalized. The words ITS NOT A CHOICE ITS A CHILD had been marked through, and underneath was written, “I don’t judge you!”

What really irritates me about this is not so much that someone out there believes abortion is ok, but that they are a) ignorant enough to not understand the self-defeating characteristic of their own comments, and b) are willing to commit a crime (vandalism) in order to deface the first amendment rights of someone else. Of course it upsets me that people believe abortion is a valid option, but the point here is that if people are unable to think critically enough to avoid ignorance of this kind, it is not surprising when we cannot explain the fallacious nature of abortion to them.

I ran across a cool program today called EclipseCrossword. The program is one of several programs created by Green Eclipse (I also used EclipseStyle, their stylesheet editor, today). Obviously EclipseCrossword allows you to create customized crossword puzzles that can be printed, saved to file, or even shared online. I created a sample puzzle for your crossword enjoyment. Give it a try!

My wife and kids made it to the front page of the Lincoln Courier yesterday…well, sort of.

Jody [sic] Jackson of Lincoln, brought her children, Josh, 9, Caleb, 6, Seth, 5, and Sarai, 10 months, for a peek at the elephants. Two of the huge beasts, along with a baby, were waiting to erect the big top later this morning.

In February I purchased the Xikar Genesis Lighter. I had heard great things about the Xikar company, and I was tired of fussing with matches and cheap lighters. Within four months I started having trouble getting my Genesis to stay lit so I took advantage of the Xikar Lifetime Warranty, and mailed the lighter back for repairs. Apparently they were unable to repair it becuase today a package came with a brand new Xikar Genesis Lighter! In a world where customer service means “sell them something they don’t need, and hope you never see them again,” it is refreshing when you have a great cusotmer service expereince. Thank you Xikar!

The worst “enviro-nut propaganda piece” disguised as the worst M. Night Shyamalan film? This reviewer says yes!

I’m preaching on contentment this coming Sunday, and I created this diagram as a handout.

I was unable to find a good hi-res version of the Square of Opposition, so I decided to make my own. You are free to use this image without limitation as long as you don’t charge for it’s use. (Click on the image for the hi-res version.) You can also download a .pdf version.

]]> http://www.highcaliberguns.com/2008/06/09/square-of-opposition/feed/ http://www.highcaliberguns.com/2008/06/09/whats-left-to-discuss/ http://www.highcaliberguns.com/2008/06/09/whats-left-to-discuss/#comments Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:39:55 +0000 Aaron Jackson http://www.highcaliberguns.com/?p=297

I have heard that in some debating clubs there is a rule that the members may discuss anything except religion and politics. I cannot imagine what they do discuss; but it is quite evident that they have ruled out the only two subjects which are either important or amusing. The thing is a part of a certain modern tendency to avoid things because they lead to warmth; whereas, obvious]y, we ought, even in a social sense, to seek those things specially. The warmth of the discussion is as much a part of hospitality as the warmth of the fire. G. K. Chesterton From The Preface To Charles Dickens, Hard Times

My wife took the kids up to the community recycle bin the other day to dump off our recyclable trash. She did dump our old stuff, but she also came back with 30 unused folders that she took out of the bin! Ok, that’s embarrassing enough, but then she told me there were dozens more and I took her back. We got 93 free folders, and only one person saw us digging in the trash. Score!!

After two attempts and a hammer claw to the knee, my wife now has a clothesline. I used the old-style cloth line, and it stretches like mad so I have to change it out for something less pliable.

The garden has been planted, and we have radishes and cucumbers coming up. We planted flowers at one end as well, and Marigolds at the end of each row to keep out the rabbits.

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER

SOD REMOVAL — CALEB

SOD REMOVAL — JOSHUA

MUCH MORE TO COME…

An article in the Summer 2008 issue of Cigar Magazine entitled, Secondhand Smoke and Global Warming More Connected Than You Think?, by James M. Taylor speaks to the similarities in scare tactics, biased reporting, and bad science found in the battles against secondhand smoke, and our carbon footprint. Taylor points out that as a whole, Antarctica is actually getting colder not warmer. The ice melt on Kilimanjaro is not related to global warming, and that the glacier atop the mountain has been retreating since the 1800s. A Gulf Stream shutdown is not going to happen. Droughts are actually occurring less frequently. And there is no scientific consensus concerning global warming despite what the media is telling us.

Among the most interesting tidbits included in the article are the fact that Al Gore’s, Inconvenient Truth, “contained so many misrepresentations of scientific fact that the British government could no longer allow it to be part of the public school curriculum unless they government first provided teachers with a list of the movie’s numerous scientific errors”, and that there is a petition found at the Web site of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine that has been signed by no less than 19,000 scientists that do not believe the erroneous information the world is being fed about global warming.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate the entire article online. However, I have contacted the author and perhaps he will provide me with such a link. In addition, I remarked how nicely the issue of firearms ownership would have fit into his article if he had wanted to make it a hat trick. You can find much of the same information in similar articles written by Taylor at the Web site for the Heartland Institute.

My wife and I stimulated the economy today with the purchase of a Troy-Bilt Bronco CRT Garden Tiller–garden to follow.

An article in today’s USA Today entitled, Pressur Mounts For Pharmacies To Put Out Smokes would have been more aptly titled, Pressur Mounts For America To Become Socialist. The article, written by Wendy Koch, is another glimpse into the growing ignorance of what a free market can and should do, and a corresponding ignorance of what socialism can not and should not do.

This month, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom proposed an unprecedented city ban on drugstores selling tobacco products, including cigars, pipes and smokeless tobacco. “This will be the beginning of a national movement,” Newson predicts…

Others are on the same track. Bills are pending in New Hampshire, Illinois and Tennessee to bar pharmacies with walk-in clinics from selling tobacco, and a bill in New York would apply to all pharmacies, including those in big stores such as Wal-Mart. “Pharmacies are places we go to get healthy,” says Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, author of the New York proposal. “It just seems inappropriate that on the other hand, they sell something that kills.”

Thank you for your insight Mr. Hoyt, but America is where people go to be free. It just seems inappropriate that on the other hand, you should take that freedom away.

“But if a robust Christian faith could handle non-Christian learning without compromising, it was all too easy for Greek and Roman thought forms to creep into the cracks and chinks of a faith which was less and less founded on the Bible and more and more resting on the authority of church pronouncements.” — Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?

Schaeffer is speaking here about the changes taking place during the Middle Ages in which human reason began to be as important to the church as revelation. You can trace much of the destructive influence of this situation by doing even a cursory study on the history of the Catholic church. However, note the first sentence. The inference is that if we approach human reason (philosophy, science, etc.) while standing on the firm foundation of what Schaeffer calls a “robust” Christian faith we gain something. This begs the question , “What does a robust Christian faith look like?” (It also begs the question, “What is non-Christian learning?”, but we will defer that to another time.)

Paul gives us pictures of this robust faith throughout the New Testament. The robust faith is one in which the glory of God is the ultimate goal. The robust faith is concerned not with blind obedience to a set of rules (can you say Pharisee?), but with a transformation of the self as Paul speaks of in Romans, and again, this transformation is not for our ultimate good, but for the glory of God.

Indeed, if we take Paul’s example it could be said that the robust faith must embrace non-Christian learning in order to follow the directive that we are to always be “ready to give a defense”. Of course, by embrace we do not necessarily mean agreement. Paul was familiar with the non-Christian philosophy of the first century, and it could be argued that it is even more critical for the Christian apologist (that is all of us right?) today to have a clear understanding of the non-Christian philosophy surrounding us in order to combat ideas that are simply false. However, it is also important to remember that all truth is God’s truth, and God has not chosen to give a comprehensive revelation in the Scriptures. For instance, the Bible does not teach us the science of mathematics, yet we know that two plus two does indeed equal four.

In the end we we must constantly ask ourselves two questions as we interact with non-Christian ideas: “Is my faith a robust transformational faith with the glory of God as its highest goal?”, and “Is the non-Christian philosophy I am studying, and the way I am interacting with it helping to fulfill that goal?”

I got this unexpected gift in the mail today directly from Oliva. Included with this beauty was an Oliva sampler to break it in with! I’m not sure why I got the gift, but it may have something to do with some insignificant help I offered for the Oliva website…than again, maybe not. Either way, it absolutely rocks!

Under, Head Lines, in the May 2008 issue of Christianity Today, we read that Armond Morales is being taken to court by his son over who has the right to use the name Imperials (as a name for their singing group). Armond says, “They have set out to really put me out of business…”, and his son says, “He’s hurting our business on a regular basis.” Way to build the Kingdom of God!

Mike S. Adams, a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts “Womyn” On Campus, recently wrote a short article for TownHall.com entitled, Five Great Cigars And Why I Smoke Them. The article provides not only Mike’s impetus for smoking each cigar, but also a short review and flavor profile of each. The most interesting celebration is that of the conversion of one of of Mike’s detractors to faith in Christ. Mike writes, “I celebrated my reader’s conversion with an Edge. Jesus would have liked the Edge. After all, he lived on the Edge.” I wish I had thought of that when I was asked “What Would Jesus Smoke” the other day!

Read The Entire Article 

My wife sent me to Indianapolis for a Nub Cigar event as a birthday gift this year. It was an incredible day! In attendance were Sam Leccia, the creator of Nub Cigars (and a flat out great guy), and Jose Oliva of the Oliva family, the makers of Nub and Oliva Cigars. I came away with a box of 464 Cameroon Nubs signed by both Sam and Jose, and a few other goodies. The cigars were great, and having a day to myself was great, but the best part of the day was toward the end when Jose Oliva sat next to me, and we started chatting.

Jose Oliva is a member of the Oliva family which produces some of the finest cigars in the business. Oliva cigars are rolled in Esteli Nicaragua and are sold at any worthwhile tobacconist. Jose lives in Miami Florida, and represents the Oliva family in the states. He rubs shoulders with some of the most famous men in America in the course of his work and charity activities, men like Rush Limbaugh, Rudy Giuliani, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Marvin Shanken, Francis Ford Coppola, etc. He told me a story about drinking a glass of wine from a bottle that was won at auction for $30,000 (I think by Marvin Shanken, but I’m not sure) during the Prostate Cancer Foundation’s, A Night To Remember. I asked him how it was, and he said, “It was wonderful! Someone gives you a glass of wine that cost $30,000, and all objectivity is gone.”

So here I am talking with Jose Oliva about family (he is about my age, and has two kids), politics (he is what I would call conservative, and studies history with a passion), and of course cigars, when finally my favorite subject is brought up and we start talking about Jesus. We talked for a long time about the church and its relationship to science, marriage, wealth, and a bunch of other areas. It was simply one of the most gratifying experiences of my life. Birthdays come and go, but this year has been the best one in my 32 years.

A few months ago (few meaning over a year ago) my wife told me she wanted to start playing the piano again. She took a few lessons when she was young, and she wanted to pick up where she left off. To that end I got an old piano from her aunt, bought her some lesson books, and waited for the music to fill the house.

Turns out the piano needed some rather expensive repairs, and oddly enough my wife just didn’t spend much time practicing (it must have been the low quality of the instrument). Well, the kids are getting older, and the wife still insists she is going to learn to play, so today we bought the Yahmaha CLP-220M from Samuel Music through a piano sale for Alumni of Lincoln Christian College. If everyone goes crazy with playing we can trade in the CLP-220 for its full value for up to 12 months (just in case we need that baby grand). Only time will tell what wonderous tunes will soon fill our home.

When preparing a sermon based on one of the apostle Paul’s letters, I often reference John B. Polhill’s, Paul and his Letters. I find it an invaluable resource for such study, but today when researching the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Colossians I ran across the following statement concluding Polhill’s comments on Colossians 1:15-20.

Finally, it is significant that Paul’s great Christological statement is set in the form of a hymn, a confession of faith. It is often in our worship and our praise that we are brought closest to a full awareness of God and his greatness, something that the purely rational exercise of our theological endeavors could never do. Polhill, Paul and His Letters, 342 (endnote referencing E. Schweizer, The Letter to the Colossians, 82-88)

I just couldn’t disagree more with this statement. The simple truth of the matter is that for many of us, the deepest form of worship we experience is “the purely rational exercise of our theological endeavors.” Certainly I understand the significance of Paul using a hymn to clarify theological concerns. This certainly is one of the easiest, and perhaps best, ways of getting theology into the minds of the body of Christ. However, everyone does not share this “full awareness of God” brought about during what is considered the “ordinary” method of worship. For those of us trapped in an almost completely “rational” awareness of God, theological study brings us closer to His glory than any poetic hymn could do.

This is one of my favorite Bob Hope moments.

After launching an “undercover investigation” of the monastery’s henhouses  and following  it with almost a year of complaints and publicity stunts, Peaple for the Ethical Treatment of Aninmals (PETA) has succeeded in forcing Mepkin Abbey to shut down its egg operation.

PETA’s complaint? That the monks treat the chickens cruelly. How? In short, by keeping them in cages and preventing them from pecking each other to death.

In other words, by complying with every animal welfare standard established by the United Egg Producers.

Yet with its trademark overheated rhetoric, PETA calls Mepkin Abbey “hell on earth for chickens,” a place where the birds suffer “nothing less than torture.”

Taken From The April 2008 Issue Of America’s 1st Freedom

 Kentucky Fried Chicken

Figures released in January show that during the six years since Michigan joined the American mainstream by offering citizens a shall-issue Right-to-Carry law, the number of firearms related fatalities dropped–even though opponents predicted rampant mayhem…

Overall, the violent crime rate in Michigan during the years since passage of Right-to-Carry was significantly less than the rate during the six years prior to passage. At the same time, the number of firearm fatalities, including those stemming from suicide and accidents, also declined…

Opponents of Right-to-Carry predicted an outbreak of firearm violence, even though concealed-carry options are now the norm rather than the exception across much of America. Similar predictions of Wild West-style shootouts in a number of other Right-to-Carry states also never materialized, dating back to the uproar in Florida some 17 years ago…

One official with the Michigan chapter of the Million Mom March actually said that despite the figures, she still believes that gun violence has grown, owing to what she feels is inadequate reporting. And, she adds, even if the statistics prove to be correct, there are still more guns in Michigan homes and on the street, in her opinion offering the potential for increased violence some day in the future…

Taken From The April 2008 Edition Of America’s 1st Freedom 

This is the type of person we are fighting. It doesn’t matter what is really happening. It only matters what I think is happening because I am so smart, and kids are dying in our streets!

The World Health Organization’s Second Hand Smoke Study

The World Health Organization’s first study on second hand smoke is a textbook example of the right way to conduct an epidemiological study. Unfortunately for them, it yielded unexpected results. They responded by doing a second one, a meta-analysis, that allowed them to extract the results they wanted. This is an analysis of their first study.

• The World Health Organization conducted a study of Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) and lung cancer in Europe.
• ETS is commonly referred to as Second Hand Smoke (SHS). The two terms are interchangeable.
• This was a case control study using a large sample size.
• The purpose of the study was to provide a more precise estimate of risk, to discover any differences between different sources of ETS, and the effect of ETS exposure on different types of lung cancer.
• The study was conducted from twelve centers in seven European countries over a period of seven years.
• The participants consisted of 650 patients with lung cancer and 1542 control subjects. Patients with smoking related diseases were excluded from the control group. None of the subjects in either group had smoked more than 400 cigarettes in their lifetime.
• Three of the study centers interviewed family members of the participants to confirm the subjects were not smokers.
• The study found no statistically significant risk existed for non-smokers who either lived or worked with smokers.
• The only statistically significant number was a decrease in the risk of lung cancer among the children of smokers.
• The study found a Relative Risk (RR) for spousal exposure of 1.16, with a Confidence Interval (CI) of .93 - 1.44. In layman’s terms, that means
  • Exposure to the ETS from a spouse increases the risk of getting lung cancer by 16%.
  • Where you’d normally find 100 cases of lung cancer, you’d find 116….BUT
  • Because the Confidence Interval includes 1.0, The Relative Risk of 1.16 number is not statistically significant.
• The real RR can be any number within the CI. The CI includes 1.0, meaning that the real number could be no increase at all. It also includes numbers below 1.0, which would indicate a protective effect. This means that the RR of 1.16 is not statistically significant.
• A RR of less than 2.0 is usually not considered important and, most likely to be due to error or bias. An RR of 3.0 or higher is considered desirable. (This rule of thumb is routinely ignored by the anti-smoker activists.)
• The study found no Dose/Response relationship for spousal ETS exposure.
• The RR for workplace ETS was 1.17 with a CI of .94 - 1.45, well below the preferred 2.0 - 3.0, and with another CI that straddled 1.0.
• The RR for exposure from both a smoking spouse and a smoky workplace was 1.14, with a CI of .88 - 1.47.
• The RR for exposure during childhood was 0.78, with a CI of .64 - .96. This indicates a protective effect! Children exposed to ETS in the home during childhood are 22% less likely to get lung cancer, according to this study. Note that this was the only result in the study that did not include 1.0 in the CI.

The WHO quickly buried the report. The British press got wind of it and hounded them for weeks.

On March 8, 1998, the British newspaper The Telegraph reported “The world’s leading health organization has withheld from publication a study which shows that not only might there be no link between passive smoking and lung cancer but that it could have even a protective effect.”

Finally, the WHO issued a press release. Although their study showed no statistically significant risk from ETS, their press release had the misleading headline “Passive Smoking Does Cause Lung Cancer - Do Not Let Them Fool You.” (I say “misleading” because it would be impolite to call it an outright lie.)

In paragraph four they admitted the facts: “The study found that there was an estimated 16% increased risk of lung cancer among nonsmoking spouses of smokers. For workplace exposure the estimated increase in risk was 17%. However, due to small sample size, neither increased risk was statistically significant.” (Emphasis added.)

The press release doesn’t mention the one statistically significant result from the study, that children raised by smokers were 22% less likely to get lung cancer.

The WHO tried to blame the results on a small sample size. However, in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, where the results were published, the researchers clearly state: “An important aspect of our study in relation to previous studies is its size, which allowed us to obtain risk estimates with good statistical precision…”

It should also be noted that the most likely effect of a larger sample size wouldn’t be a large change to the RR, but a narrowed CI.

Download an abstract of the study.
Download the full study.
Download the WHO’s press release.
Synopsis of the WHO Study provided courtesy of The Hitt Chronicle. via Cigarmony.com 

Well, it all started a month or so ago when I droped my humidor. I knew it wasn’t sealing as well as it had been, but I wasn’t sure just how bad it was. What I did know is that my Cigar Oasis Ultra was running all the time, and the finish was scratched up pretty bad.

During this same time I had been considering putting together a coolidor in which to store full boxes of cigars in the future, and had already begun on that doomed project (more later). One night during my usual insomnia I decided I would get the humidor down and see if there was some way I could refinish the box so it would at least look like it had not been dropped. Imagine my surprise when I opened the humidor only to discover that the hinge screws were all coming out. Of course this was not an expensive humidor so the body was made of press board and once this material starts separating there is no way to fix it.

At this point I knew my coolidor project was going to have to come together quickly. You may be wondering why I didn’t just pop the sticks into the coolidor I had already been working on at this point. Well, let me tell you a thing or two about painting a cooler. Don’t try it. (See Comments Below)

I primed the cooler with Valspar Plastic Primer, and finished with Valspar Enamel, but the paint just wouldn’t stick. There