text: I freely admit it: I'm often heard spouting thoughts such as "sleep is overrated," or "life is too precious to be spent sleeping."
  But rest assured, to those who are worried about my sleep patterns, the facts related in this Reuters article come as no surprise to me.
  Prince Harry of England -- a picture is worth a thousand words.
  This is appropriate since it's less then an hour until I turn twenty-four. It seems there are people out there who have a unique vision for me. The best one is this group who apparently thinks I'm ready to retire -- maybe my boss would agree!
  No problem! I'll just present this letter next time there is an opportunity for a senior discount.
  But the fun doesn't end there. Another group out there wants to call me a senior as well. They just went about it differently.
  Hope you can read that. I've circled the date so you know it was sent to me AFTER I got this:
  Oh well. I suppose it can't be all bad for them to keep sending me encouraging letters telling me that I'm so close to graduations, and to give it one more shot. But no. I already tried to call them up to tell them to stop wasting my tax money on letters telling me I'm still a senior. No luck yet.
  Cheers! I'm a senior!
  posted by Mark at 1:27 PM 2 comments
  In the space of about 12 hours, I think I received about six requests to explain my current leanings with regard to the race for the GOP nomination. These have come both orally and written, from Huckabee, McCain and Paul supporters and neutral people alike.
  Let me just say it: I would support McCain over Paul or Huckabee. As many people are prone to do in a primary situation, I released a lot of vitriol at McCain in the last few weeks -- I was almost carried away to the point of siding with Ann Coulter, who says she would campaign for Hillary over McCain.
  Normally, it would go against the grain to support a senator over a governor as a candidate. However, Huckabee has demonstrated so much ineptitude for real leadership, and sleazy campaign tactics reminiscent of Slick Willy himself that I find it hard to give him the benefit of the doubt when I see his list of endorsements and his endless list of ethics complaints.
  He also didn't win much respect in my eyes with his trilogy of gaffs over just one foreign policy issue: Pakistan. He apologized for the Bhutto assassination, claimed Pakistanis made up the largest chunk illegal immigrants next to Mexicans and also claimed it too early to say whether martial law should "continue" in Pakistan, even though martial law had been lifted two weeks previous -- oh, and who can for get his geographical challenged statements regarding the "western border" of Pakistan. Whew!
  And finally, any conservative should stop and think if Phillys Schlafly had this to say about him: "He destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas, and left the Republican Party a shambles."
  I've already spent enough time on Ron Paul. So I'll quickly state why I'm ready to settle for McCain: In short, it is because of Sen. Tom Coburn. I'd encourage you to watch his speech at CPAC introducing McCain last week. I am familiar with Mr. Coburn and good reason to respect his opinion. Coburn is the benchmark of fiscal conservatism in the Senate. I had the pleasure of hearing him speak in D.C. while at the Eagle Forum collegiate summit a couple years ago. I think many conservatives were convinced by Coburn's speech and I encourage you to watch it yourself.
  I did not caucus for anyone. Take it or leave it, I didn't think it would truly serve anyone's interest to any serious degree. And since I believe the only motivation we should have for being involved should be concern for our neighbor's wellbeing, I found I my time was better spent on other things.
  Please remember, fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, even though we may disagree on these things, I hope we can be of one mind sufficiently enough to keep us from getting carried away in the rush to idolize these things. God is still God. All authority belongs to Him. "The king's (president's) heart is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water...He turns it wherever he wishes."
  Don't forget that the real agent of change in this world is not the public servant, not the senator, not the president... The real agent of change is the Church, as we faithfully proclaim Christ to the world by our words and actions.
  Author's note: here are the links for my three postings touching on Ron Paul.
  I figured I should post something here about this.
  Here's this week's feature about a number of Lynden families adopting from abroad.
  Here's the link for the online version. I've known the Diacogiannis family for a while which made it was doubly cool to see this happen for them.
  Jim and Laurel Diacogiannis didn't plan on having 13 children by their 25th wedding anniversary -- not even as recently as one year ago, when they still only had 10.
  Laurel had considered the possibility of adopting, but Jim wasn't as open to the idea. "I was very content with 10 kids," he said.
  But that was before he read an e-mail from Kelly Sheehan, of Lynden, who was in Ghana helping at the Beacon House orphanage.
  Sheehan's e-mail asked if they would consider adoption, and she supplied pictures of three siblings: Jacob, 11, Sarah, 9, and Rachel, 6.
  "Jim got the e-mail and made the decision right away," Laurel said. The Diacogiannises are now the adoptive parents of all three. They left on Sunday to meet them at Beacon House.
  Several families from their church (North County Christ the King) also are adopting children from Africa. Three other families are adopting from Ghana: Dave and Carrie Blaske, Ryan and Kelly Sheehan, and Phil and Amanda Loher. Two families are adopting from Ethiopia: Monte and Kelli Bode and Mike and Kristi Molendyk.
  Here's a video of Jim and Laurel meeting their kids in Ghana (thanks Cassie)
  the Diacogiannis family
  The Lohrer family
  The Blaske family
  His Kids Our Homes (Lynden)
  Beacon House (Ghana)
  posted by Mark at 6:15 PM 3 comments
  I just came across one of the best David Limbaugh articles I've ever read. It's like Ann Coulter with more eloquence.
  If I'm a paid staffer for McCain or a high-school debater forced to take the affirmative side of the proposition that McCain is a conservative, I can make a colorable case -- intellectual honesty be damned -- that he's a conservative. But I am under no such constraints.