Ok, I am posting this in response to an email that I got.

Friends,
I want to be able to watch Conference on
TV in the future so I felt this was a good cause.
This is important. Please, if you don’t wish to
participate, return this to the person who sent it to
you so they can at least keep this going, or forward
it to someone you think will wish to participate.

Dr. Dobson is going on CNBC to urge every Christian to
get involved. I hope you will think about signing this
and forwarding it to all your family and friends.

Dr. James Dobson, with Focus on the Family, pleads for
our action. An organization has been granted a Federal
Hearing on the same
subject by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
in Washington, DC.

Their petition, Number 2493, would ultimately pave the
way to stop the reading of the gospel of our Lord and
Savior, on the air waves of America. They got 287,000
signatures to back their stand! If this attempt is
successful, all Sunday worship services being
broadcast on the radio or by television will be
stopped. This group is also campaigning to remove all
Christmas programs and Christmas Carols from public
schools! You as a Christian can help! We are praying
for at least 1 million signatures. This would defeat
their effort and show that there are many Christians
alive, well and concerned about our country. As
Christians, we must unite on this. Please don’t take
this lightly. We ignored one lady once and lost prayer
in our schools and in offices across the nation.
Please stand up for your religious freedom and let
your voice be heard. Together we can make a
difference in our country while creating an
opportunity for the lost to know the Lord.

This is a bogus email. I went to Snopes and checked it out because I specific part seemed odd.

Please help defeat this organization and keep the
right of our
freedom of religion. When you get to 1000 please
e-mail back to:

Email petitions have no power, James Dobson would have real petitions. Anytime you get an email that seems overly grand or has this revolutionary information, please run it through Snopes(or a similar site) before you email it to everyone.
According to Snopes this myth has been around since 1975. There was an original petition Number 2493 and this is what Snopes said,

The intent of the infamous RM-2493 was to ensure channels reserved for educational purposes ended up being used for education and not be taken up by religious groups looking to use them for a different purpose. RM-2493 has since come to be understood as a petition seeking the ban of religious broadcasting, and from there it was further attributed as the work of Madalyn Murray O’Hair, arguably the best-known atheist of our times. How this great a misunderstanding of the actual petition then in front of the FCC came about is anyone’s guess.

The real petition the FCC was asked to consider was filed in December 1974 and defeated in August 1975. Even through the smokescreen of thousands of people misunderstanding what it had been asked to consider and heatedly arguing issues that weren’t on the table, the FCC saw its role in such matters quite clearly:
As a government agency, the Commission is enjoined by the First Amendment to observe a stance of neutrality toward religion, acting neither to promote nor inhibit religion.

Added note to the original sender, I have seen this one before so you are not the first;).

Ok, sometimes oldies are just goodies. I am watching McGee and Me with my toddlers. This is a show that was put out by Focus on the Family back in 1986. The NerdBug came home talking about this movie he saw at church and I remembered it. I remember watching this with my brother and sisters when they were little. So far we have covered jealousy and telling the truth. They actually use words like “sin” and “relationship with God”. Yes, the music is outdated(very 80’s) but the truth is the truth and the kids love it. If you have kids try out McGee and Me. If any of you have any programming recommendations, please, let me know.

Using Nanotechnology scientists has enabled injured hamsters to see again.In this BBC article, scientists injected hamsters with a solution of nanoparticles. Then the severed optical nerves regrew and then regained sight. I think this is so cool. The only problem is that it may mean the Borg are on the right track;). The article also mentioned one other interesting little fact. In order to simulate trama, the scientist severed the optic nerve. Has PETA heard about this? Have they issued a statement? Just curious;).

(HT: Instapundit)

The 11th Homeschooling Carnival is up over at the Common Room. We are on it!

This is so cool. Somehow this physicists create heat hotter than the sun(for a moment). I say somehow because they don’t know how they did it.

(HT:Jonah Goldberg at The Corner)

I recently was turned onto the free online tours on the Internet. Living in California my options for fieldtrips are somewhat limited. I can drive for hours and still be in the state and that is not taking into count the expense. Having children of different ages and interests also can present a problem. Well, I did a little research and found some great tours. Since Nerdbug is into the “West Wing” Show the White House Historical tour is something that interests him. This is filled with photos and facts. The Vatican has a great Virtual tour that goes through differents exhibits you can choose from. You can even stop and focus on things. The E-one factory tour is cool becasue they make fire engines (they charge $8/adult and $6/kid in person). The Southern Ca Edison San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station plant tour is cool because instead of a “tour” they have flow charts showing all the components working together. As someone who did the Stanford Linear Accelerator tour in high school, the only real helpful thing I saw were the diagrams showing how it all worked together. This is great for older kids who are in science or even just learning logic and flow. I have to say that this once again reaffirms my position that the Internet is the number one resource for my homschooling(and its free;).

Ok, I watch this show called Starting Over. It is kind of a reality show/ soap opera all based on women’s lives. These women move into a house to deal with issues in their lives so they can lead better, happier, functioning lives. There is a lot of counseling, life coaching, etc. It is like nails on a chalkboard for NerdDad. Now that the kids are napping I am watching today’s episode on TIVO(gotta love it). The shrink on the show, Dr. Stan, has said something I have never heard about parents before. You know how everyone always says, “they did the best they could” so you can’t blame anyone? He pointed out that parents don’t always do the “best they could”. That sometimes they make parent centered decision instead of the child-centered decisions. And now I am quoting, “We as children always want to somehow forgive our parents without confronting the issues.” He goes onto say that sometimes those decisions are mistakes and we can forgive for that. I just find that refreshing.

There is a discussion on church size going on over at Shlog. There was concern that his group wasn’t growing and then the discussion was also about big and small churches. I think that there is a place for both large and small churches. If you have a church that is small but you all have the same needs (ie they can all get met) I think a small church is great. I go to a very large(in my opinion) church. New Covenant has about 1500 attenders but we meet a diverse group of needs. When the NerdFamily moved back to Fresno we looked at a great church of less than 100. It just didn’t meet our family’s needs. I go to a midweek during the day Bible Study(with free childcare for my 3 little ones), we have gotten meals from the Meals for Moms program, taken a Growing Kids God’s Way Class, attend a couple’s Sunday school and my oldest goes to Awana and VBS. We couldn’t have gotten that variety of things from a smaller church. Between the women’s Bible study and Sunday school class we have a small group. The Women’s Bible study is a diverse group of women and the Couple’s Sunday School is a small group(maybe 6 couples) of people that are in the same place in life. It is evident that we are in the same place because we had 7 babies with in 1 year;). We also have a care pastor(who rocks), Pastor Mike, that came to the hospital before my last nerdling was born and a care team that will pray for you. Since the church is so large we have a lot of talented people, as a result we have killer worship provided by Pastor Pat. We have a brilliant head pastor, Pastor Jan(it has dots over the a but I don’t know how to do that;). He taught a great class on Thomas Aquinas that we loved. The reality is only a small percentage of people are interested in that kind of stuff so with a large church we could yield a class. If we had found a small church that could have met all these needs we would have gone there but we haven’t and now we love it.

No this isn’t a Dilbert character. This is a rediscovered animal in Laos. Over on CNN they are saying that it is reapearing after 11 million years. It is a cool looking little thing, cool in the see it on a website not in my back yard kind of way. It looks as if this isn’t the first time scientists have rediscovered an animal. I think this is all very interesting. Do scientists really know enough to say if something is endangered, much less extinct?

(HT: John J. Miller at the Corner)

Yes, you read correctly. This is taken from a post on Don Surber’s blog

A 25-year-old computer programmer is ready to file suit to block a child support order to pay for a daughter he does not want. The National Center for Men plans to use the suit to establish that men, too, can choose whether they want to become parents. The Associated Press quotes the center’s director, Mel Fiet:

“There’s such a spectrum of choice that women have – it’s her body, her pregnancy and she has the ultimate right to make decisions. I’m trying to find a way for a man also to have some say over decisions that affect his life profoundly.”

I also agree with his analysis of the situation:

That said, as long as we are going to pretend women have abortion rights, then the 14th Amendment compels us as a nation to extend this parental termination rights to men. This lawsuit should do what South Dakota’s misguided abortion ban cannot do: End abortion rights.

The double standard is outrageous. Consider AP’s quote of feminist Jennifer Brown:

“Roe is based on an extreme intrusion by the government – literally to force a woman to continue a pregnancy she doesn’t want. There’s nothing equivalent for men. They have the same ability as women to use contraception, to get sterilized.”

Excuse me, but the federal government collects $22 billion a year in child support. There are heavy fines for companies that do not dock the pay of parents to comply with this intrusive law.

But let us take it a little further. I believe that if women can decide not to be mothers, once pregnant, fathers should be able to also. I am talking at the time of pregnancy not years after. Let me develop this thought a little further. I know women who have had babies on their own. Meaning that the father has chosen to not be involved but his parental rights have not been terminated. So 10 years down the road he can show up and demand to be part of that child’s life if he pays back child support. I know some of these women who are afraid to allow their current husband to adopt the child he (the current husband) has raised for fear of the biological father coming back into that child’s life and demanding a role.

Mother’s can also choose to give a child up for adoption on her own. Yes, later the biological father can come back and contest the adoption but he is not needed up front. So why can women legally give up a child? If she chooses to keep that child she can hound that man for child support for 18 years. If you change this aspect of dealing with pregnancy you would radically change the amount of premarital, unprotected sex (in my humble opinion). This wouldn’t change everyone’s behavior but would change some. Let us look at a lot of the famous sport’s players and rappers. Or to take from Kanye West’s Golddigger (never thought you would see me reference that did you:), a woman can target a man (amd his bank account) and have him paying her money for 18 years. Maybe if that wasn’t such a pay off women wouldn’t be chasing after these men who aren’t of quality.

Just food for thought.