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.

I don’t know what to say about The Anti-Griddle except that I’m fascinated with its existence. It also may come in handy if you accidentally produce superheated gas that’s hotter than the Sun!

I don’t know what to say about The Anti-Griddle except that I’m fascinated with its existence. It also may come in handy if you accidentally produce superheated gas that’s hotter than the Sun!

McDonald’s changes sign to woo kosher diners from Reuters.

In a first for McDonald’s Corp., the golden arches at the two branches have new blue backgrounds, replacing the trademark red ones. The new signs also display the word “kosher”, both in Hebrew and English.

No mention is made of McDavid’s.