The Hispanic Votes and Immigration Reform

Posted on January 28, 2013 by timlyg

Obama's 71 votes from the Hispanic community while only 27 votes for Mitt Romney have caused the Republicans to "compromise" a lot recently.

While some conservative Republicans go even as far as condemning the whole idea of citizenship, many in the party have seen the political risk on this, whether they favor it or not.

They either give up politics or change their view on patriotism. Becoming at least a little less discriminatory towards foreigners should be a start for their goal. Merely learning how to "bribe" votes from the Hispanics is not a solution and that would only make matter and their integrity worse.

Mitt Romney made a grave mistake on associating his campaign with the white supremacy crowd (seems that way in the videos). Only single-issue voters would vote for him.

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Human Origin

Posted on January 28, 2013 by timlyg

The up-to-date belief of evolutionists' understanding of human origin is the Y-Adam and Mitochondrial Eve. from Africa. Though, some Europeans may have Neanderthal ancestry.

All thanks to the discussion forum of my Genetics and Evolution class. I think the community is shy (vague) on commenting if any human is thus..."less" evolved.

Since even genetic mappings are dealing with probabilities most of the times, I doubt we can serious conclude evolution over creationism. Evolution over fantastic superstitions and mythical beings, yes.

Posted in Biology | Leave a comment

In Defense of Church Hoppers

Posted on January 28, 2013 by timlyg

A very well put article. It strives against shallow labeling of "shop around Christians" upon earnest believers of Christ seeking real fellowship with other believers, by many church leaders.

Martin Luther said, "Anyone who is to find Christ must first find the church. How could anyone know where Christ is and what faith is in him unless he knew where his believers are?" Sometimes it takes a marathon of church hopping to find them.

I couldn't have said it any better. Nevertheless, Hebrews 10:24-25 must be an emphasized law against the nonchalant church hoppers who believe they could even fellowship with cats and Schnauzers when human fellowship fails.

It is not about looking for a perfect church, as it is none in existence on this Earth; It is about sorting out fake believers in this day and age.

Posted in Theologization | Leave a comment

The American Adoption Scandal

Posted on January 28, 2013 by timlyg

To have the right heart to adopt, one cannot pick and choose the type of child. I can excuse the adopters for choice of age and maybe even race, but types of possible emotions, cultural background? This just shows that they are not meant to adopt anyone.

It is sad and a dim future when American consumers add adoption to their list of products.

In treating the adopted progeny of this type, caution is required. They maybe like anyone else, but they family value must seriously be examined.

Posted in News | 1 Comment

'Irrational exuberance' over MOOCs

Posted on January 27, 2013 by timlyg

I think the article is written by sympathizer of traditional professors in colleges and universities. Those who think they can have tenure and go on sabbatical would have to think twice with the advent of MOOC, because they never thought twice about the rising tuition fee under all that financial bureaucracy of the schools they work for.

MOOC has far better learning opportunity. The author "forgot" to mention MOOC's discussion forums.

These are the ones whose chief interest is not teaching, but financial stability.

There are those professors whose main passion is teaching and learning. Those are rare gems.

Posted in News | 1 Comment

SSI - Server Side Includes

Posted on January 25, 2013 by timlyg

To include HTML (or other extension) files into another HTML file,

<!--#include VIRTUAL="/filetoinclude.html" --> is the line to use.

VIRTUAL is used when file path is not local, such as when "/" is used. Otherwise, it can be replaced by FILE="filetoinclude.html".

For this to work, SSI on web server must be enabled. Most servers such as Apache CPanel default this to shtml. So, to have the Apache CPanel use html extension as the host file as well, add handler: server-parsed and extension: .html

Included files can have any extension, supposedly.

If the host file is php, then maybe it's better to use <?php include("../leftmenu.html"); ?>
The path "../" or full path "http://...." seems necessary, because merely "/leftmenu.html" would not work.

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Oriental Church Problem

Posted on January 25, 2013 by timlyg

A common one, that's even infecting the West. Something I've noted before.

The inability to discern volunteer and command/order apart is due to timidity towards holding others accountable. For the East has long loved to put making social standing first, thus, you scratch my back, I scratch yours.

Well, you can scratch my back. But I won't necessarily scratch yours.

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WindowsAndroid

Posted on January 25, 2013 by timlyg

With so many virtual platform to test Android apps, I'd better catch up.

Posted in Reflection, Technical | Leave a comment

A real case of Alex Cross, perhaps

Posted on January 22, 2013 by timlyg

Would I believe that the U.K. grandmother was really being forced to smuggle drugs into Indonesia?

Capital punishment is nothing to be joked around with. This only shows that wherever Sandiford is from, there needs severe investigation.

I personally support both capital punishment and amnesty.

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Sunday Service Reflection

Posted on January 22, 2013 by timlyg

Early Christians were the true starter of philanthropy. Even the Roman Emperor Julian, had to admit it out of hatred:

"Why do we not observe that it is their benevolence to strangers, their care for the graves of the dead, and the pretended holiness of their lives that have done most to increase unbelief of the pagan gods? For it is disgraceful that, when no Jew ever has to beg, and the impious Christians support not only their own poor but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us."

I had trouble singing at Redeemer the hymn "Be Still, My Soul" (a shorter version) by Katharina von Schlegel. "The Lord is on your side"? I had to change it to something like "stand firm on His side".
"Be still, my soul: the Lord is on your side. Leave to your God to order and provide. In every change faithful he'll remain. Be still, my soul: the Lord is on your side!"

Now, I have looked up that hymn, I learned that it is perhaps based on Psalm 46:10-11:
Psa 46:10  Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
Psa 46:11  The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

or

Psalm 118:6
The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?

Of course, the keyword would be perspective. I am very much with Lincoln on who should be on whose side. But scripture cannot be erred. One must be sensitive enough to know the perspective of a statement. "Leave to your God to order..." This can easily suggest one being on God's side. For that, I should not have trouble with the hymn. May His mercy be upon me.

I came across the biography of Horatio Spafford, who authored the hymn "It is well, with my soul", which was penned after multiple remarkable tragedies he has faced: Death of sons and daughters. His Presbyterian church was wrong in interpreting this as divine punishment, which led to his family forming their own sect: The American Colony, in Jerusalem. This inspired the writing of the Nobel prize novel: Jerusalem, by Selma Lagerlöf. I have not fully examine the hymn, but the ministry of American Colony turned into a hotel due to inner tension. I believe this could be due to liberalism since they focus on charity, instead of the Gospel.

I have still two sermons by Tim Keller which I should review in my coming entry after I have re-listened to them.

Posted in Memory Verses, Reflection, Theologization | Leave a comment