Pray.

On March 26-27, 2013; the Supreme Court of the United States will hear two cases on the issue of homosexual marriage. First off, United States v Windsor will rule on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (A Federal law); and then Hollingsworth v. Perry will decide whether Proposition 8 (California's state constitutional amendment illegalizing homosexual marriage) is constitutional.

I considered making a post with all the logical, scriptural, and legal arguments about why the definition of marriage should remain: "A union between one man and one woman" (I may still do that later) But for now, I am merely going to exhort you to pray.

Pray

•  That God would be honored  by the outcome of the cases
•  That marriage would be defended so strongly that it will never again be challenged.
•  That God would keep anything or anyone from interfering with the case
•  For honesty and fairness during the trial; and permanent for victory for what's right.

For the lawyers and plaintiffs defending marriage:

• Pray for wisdom, discernment and clear minds as they argue and prepare to argue
• Pray that God would bless them, their families, and their work
• Pray for strength, endurance, protection, and joy
• Pray for an honest victory

For the lawyers and plaintiffs opposing marriage:

• Pray for God's blessing in their life
• Pray for God to become real in their lives, that they would know him as Lord
• Pray that God would expose the foolishness in their arguments
• Pray for honesty and integrity as they argue

For the Justices who will hear the cases:

• That they would rule with wisdom and discernment to protect marriage
• That God would protect the Justices and their families
• For God to be made manifest in their lives
• For intellectual and logical honesty

If you want a great resource to pray through in the days leading up to the case, check out the ADF's prayer sheets

http://www.alliancedefendingfreedom.org/issues/marriage-and-family

Holy Father, you knew before there was time that this case would come; and you already know what the outcome will be. Thank you God, for being in control. Thank you God, that we live in a country where we have the right to stand up and argue for what we believe in. I pray for victory for what is right. I pray that we would listen to you, I pray that we as a nation would do what is right. I pray for the Supreme Court Justices, all of them, that they would cast their vote for what is right. I pray for victory for what is right, and for a fair and honest case, free of outside interference. I thank you for the people who are standing up for what's right; and I pray for blessing, protection, wisdom, discernment, and victory for them. For those whom they're opposing, God, I pray that they would know you as Lord, and that they would experience Your blessing in their life. It is in your precious Son's name that I pray these things God, Amen.

What God Taught Me Today

What. A. Day.

I work for an internet marketing company. And let me tell you; it is slightly difficult to work for an internet marketing company if you have no internet.

Let's start from the beginning. I walked into our building this morning and saw that the lights were off and the elevators were not working. Ok, no big deal. I climbed the stairs and walked to our office, and kicked off what was to be a day I shall remember for quite some time.

We had no phones, we had no internet. Thankfully, our website was still running, so we could still make some sales; but it was near-impossible for me to get anything done. So, I went to Starbucks, not too far from the office, and used the Wi-fi there. A couple of hours later, I got an email saying the power had come back on. So I headed back to the office.

Yes, we had power. But power =/= internet. I was better off than many for the day; but I still had no internet, and aside from that whole 'not-being-able-to-do-what-I'm-being-paid-to-do' thing; I had no MUSIC!!

Just to put this in perspective, here is my normal pattern at work
1. Plug in laptop
2. Do initial tasks for day
3. Turn on Grooveshark or Pandora.
4. Listen to music the entire time I'm working.

There are a couple reasons I do this; 1. I'm an introvert in a room of introverts, and it's nice background.
 2. Music energizes me. I mean, how can you listen to this song and not be energized? (Some apparently can; but I can't).

But today; I couldn't do this, and for a few hours, I was frustrated that a) I wasn't getting as much done as I needed to; and b) I was not getting to listen to my music, which was c) making me tired.

And then I realized that the root of all of those was this: My goals were being blocked. I was not getting what I wanted, and that was frustrating me, just like a two-year-old.

So the question from now on is "Why am I frustrated?" and "Is that worth being frustrated over?"

On a totally unrelated note...

I got a phone call today at work. From one Kayla Kurtz. That name probably means nothing to you; but if you're in the Paid Search Advertising world, you most likely know that she's a noted search marketer who works for a world-class firm; speaks at conferences, and is generally a thought leader in the Pay-Per-Click world. I'd attended a couple of webinars that she did; and she was calling around to the people who'd attended those webinars, asking for feedback. She also offered us a discount to Heroconf! I was so sad to have to decline.

All in all, it was the most interesting day I've had in awhile.


Holy Father, help me to really learn the lessons you taught me today. Help me to apply them to my life, and help me to honor you.

By the numbers

In 2009, the government dropped a "Stimulus" into the economy. Literally, they gave people money, hoping they would spend it. Supposedly, the theory was that eventually, people would spend the money and stimulate the economy.

I could talk for awhile about the inherent issues (Note the plural) with this, but for one of them, really it's much simpler to show you.
(NOTE: Numbers are rounded to the nearest whole)

You see where this is going? No matter how the money is spent, the government taxes it, which means that eventually it all goes back to the government anyway.

A much healthier flow would look like this:

Now how much better does that look? almost $100 difference, and that was after just three times changing hands.

It's so absurdly simple, and yet the government continues to tax and spend us into oblivion.

It's almost like it's on purpose...

What Does It Mean? And Why Did I Care So Much?

I enjoy trying to figure out the message and the meaning of different types of media; whether it be songs, books, movies or TV. I want to understand the perspective of the artist that is behind the song.

            A song that I’ve spent a fair amount of time deciphering lately is “Through Glass” by Stone Sour. Take a minute and at least scan through the lyrics. Here’s the link to the song on Grooveshark; listen to that if you so desire. Musically, it appeals to pretty much everybody.  

I thought for awhile that this song was just postmodern. It didn’t really mean anything at all; but that’s really not the case. Let’s take a look at some key lyrical points in the song.  

“I'm looking at you through the glass
Don't know how much time has passed”

“I” (We don’t know who the singer is yet) is looking at somebody else, through some kind of barrier, and has been for so long that they don’t even know how long they’ve been doing it.

“So while you're outside looking in
Describing what you see
Remember what you're staring at is me”

So the singer is “in” he is being stared at and dehumanized in some way; and he is asking that we remember that he is an actual person.

From the previous two passages, here is what we know so far:

1. There is a transparent barrier that is keeping people from the singer.
2. People look through this barrier for long periods of time
3. People mentally dehumanize the singer

With those three points in mind, let’s keep going

“How much is real?
So much to question
An epidemic of the mannequins
Contaminating everything

We thought came from the heart
But never did right from the start” 

Those first two lines are what made me call this song postmodern for as long as I did; but that’s not what it is. Look at the lines after it. What are mannequins? They’re fake people. Fake people. Contaminating everything we thought was from the heart; but it never did.  

So now, here’s what we know:

4. There are people involved who the singer thought were “real”.
5. These people are “fake” and are “contaminating” something that the singer thought was pure
6. This “contaminated” stuff has always been contaminated.

Okay, now for me to reveal the advantage that I had while I was analyzing: I was aware that two out of the four band members (The vocalist/lyricist and the guitarist) are also members of Slipknot. What is one thing that Slipknot’s famous for? They wear masks onstage; which would definitely lead to the dehumanization of the performers by the audience. And here’s a quote from the vocalist Corey Taylor

 "Originally, we were just going to wear the jumpsuits [...] we figured we might as well take that further and number ourselves. [...] We were basically saying, 'Hey, we're a product!'"

This would definitely lead to the perception, even if it were subconscious; of himself and his fellow band members as “fake” Now we seem to be getting somewhere, but first, we need to look at two more key lyrics.

“And it's the stars
The stars that shine for you, yeah ah
And it's the stars
The stars that lie to you, yeah yeah

Oh when the stars
Oh when the stars they lie.”

Now, we need to clarify something. These lyrics came from elyrics.net. If you Google “Through Glass lyrics”; look at the top four results and scroll down to the very bottom of each, all of them have different interpretations of that last line. My proposal: They’re all wrong. That last line should read “Oh we’re the stars, Oh we’re the stars that lie”. Take a listen (start at 4:25), and decide if I’m right or wrong.

The key question here is if he’s talking about literal or metaphorical “stars”. Since the stars “lie to you”; I think we can safely classify them as metaphorical. Slipknot and Stone Sour both definitely count as “stars” of the music world. And if you believe my interpretation of the last two lines, then Corey Taylor is openly declaring “We are stars. We shine for you (meaning, so you can enjoy our music) but we’re lying to you. We’re fake.”

This, I believe, is what this song is really declaring. It is someone on “the inside” declaring to those on the “outside looking in” that the people they see are “mannequins”. That what they produce is just that, a product, it’s not anything that came “from the heart”. The singer may have believed it was when he got into the music world; but since he has realized that it’s all “contaminated” (Note that he said “WE thought (the contaminated stuff came from the heart”). Taylor is telling his audience that he and his fellow music-makers are fake; that they merely produce a product, and that product happens to be music.

But now the real crux of the matter. At church the last couple of weeks, we’ve discussed two questions. Taking the premise of “We are all worshipers”, the questions become: A) What do you worship? B) What should you worship? And I determined that while I do worship God; the question came to mind: “What if you spent this much time doing this kind of analysis on the Bible, rather than the rantings of secular heathens?” Ad thus, I decided I was going to put my thoughts down on paper, be done with it, and go apply my analytical powers, such as they are, to the Word of God, which will in the end, serve me much better than analyzing Corey Taylor.  

Gun Violence-Short and Sweet

For all the talk lately about ways to reduce gun violence; there seems to be very little hard evidence. Lots of facebook memes, talking heads, and celebrity videos to be sure; but precious little hard evidence. So, I'm going to present you with some.
This is a link to a table that was published in the Washington Post on gun ownership and gun violence. http://goo.gl/68ozG. Don't worry, I'm not asking you to go and sift through the data and determine what it means; it's just so you can see where the numbers came from
I put this data in Excel, and ran a formula* that will give you the statistical relationship between two different sets of data. Go ahead and scan the results; noting the cells highlighted in green.

Now, if you think about it, if the number in the cell (called the correlation coefficient) is less than .5, then the two numbers coincide only half the time; meaning that you could have come up with them by flipping a coin or rolling a die; thus for our purposes, we will say that any number under .5 is not meaningful. You can see that there is:

NO CORRELATION between either A) Guns per 100 people and % of homicides by guns (percentage relationships) OR B) Total Civilian Guns and Total Homicides By Guns  (Total number relationships)
A SLIGHTLY NEGATIVE CORRELATION between both A) guns per 100 people and homicides by guns per 100,00 people (percentage relationships) and B) Total Civilian Guns and Homicides By Guns Per 100,000 people (crossing a percentage with a hard number). If you're a conservative, this makes sense. If you're a liberal, I would encourage you to think about why this doesn't make sense.

Now, I am not a mathematician or statistician; but you don't have to be either to look at these numbers, which  came from A) The Washington Post (not a conservative company) and B) Excel 2010 (An unbiased computer program.) To see that more guns DOES NOT mean more gun violence, and actually means a little bit LESS gun violence.



*=Correl(Data Range 1, Data Range 2)

The Unemployment Rate

Fox News has got it right; it's basic, undeniable math. Great article by Elizabeth MacDonald!
http://www.foxbusiness.com/government/2012/10/05/real-unemployment-rate/

Presidential Debate-Round 1

At the request of the City Rose:

Two nights ago, President Barack Obama squared off against Governor Mitt Romney in the first of three presidential debates.
I will say this: I don't particularly like either of the candidates; but Romney is the clear choice over the re-election of President Obama.

Romney: "I'm not going to reduce the share of taxes paid by high-income people. High-income people are doing just fine in this economy. They'll do fine whether you're president or I am."

This statement scares me; because it shows one of two things.
A) Romney doesn't actually believe this, and he's just saying it because he thinks that saying he'll cut taxes for the rich won't go over well. If this is the case, then he could take a few lessons in manning up (Chris Christie comes to mind as a good teacher for that class)

B) He actually does believe this, in which case, he is, at heart, a progressive, and does not believe in the truth of the Laffer Curve, which is the basic theory of conservative economics. He believes that the rich should be taxed, because they earn more, when really, they could do more good with their wealth if they were allowed to hang on to it.

Obama: Under my plan, 97 percent of small businesses would not see their income taxes go up. Governor Romney says, well, those top 3 percent, they're the job creators, they'd be burdened.under my plan, 97 percent of small businesses would not see their income taxes go up. Governor Romney says, well, those top 3 percent, they're the job creators, they'd be burdened.

Question: What is the difference between a large business and a small business?
Answer: According to the Small Business Administration, a small business may generate no more than $7 million in revenue; and they may employ no more than 500 people. So, our President wants to penalize  businesses that employ large numbers of people; why does this seem like a good idea?

On the topic of Obamacare; Romney had this to say. One of the things that makes me nervous about Romney is that as governor of Massachusetts, he actually implemented what basically amounted to Obamacare at a state level. His argument is that it's a states rights issue, which I'll buy; but only because the alternative is so much worse.

Romney: So entirely on a partisan basis, instead of bringing America together and having a discussion on this important topic, you pushed through something that you and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid thought was the best answer and drove it through.

What we did in a legislature 87 percent Democrat, we worked together; 200 legislators in my legislature, only two voted against the plan by the time we were finished. What were some differences? We didn't raise taxes. You've raised them by $1 trillion under Obamacare. We didn't cut Medicare. Of course, we don't have Medicare, but we didn't cut Medicare by $716 billion. 

This is accurate. There was not a single Republican that voted for Obamacare, not one. Obama decided that he knows what's best for the country, and he rammed the bill through over a plethora of objections. Romney worked with his party and the Democrats to accomplish his goal, in my mind, showing that he is a team player.

There is so much more to say about this debate; but at this point, I am going to act on Proverbs 10:19

Where words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise. 

Dear God, thank you for making us a great nation. I pray that you would continue to make us a great nation; and that we would honor you in our actions. I pray for this election, I pray that you would remove the corrupt and unrighteous from power, and put those who are righteous in power. Thank you God, for making me an American.