Rich Kao

I don't know T. Boone  Pickens, but I know he is doing what billionaires should do.  Use their incredible wealth and influence to help others benefit greatly.  Here in Vancouver, my kids are benefitting from billionaire Jim Pattison who has set up a K-12 school that is capitalized like a college campus, educating thousands of kids (ranks top 10% in quality in BC) and incalculating missions and service to God in a charismatic environment to boot!  Bill Gates is tackling malaria, AIDS and more.  One of the wealthiest billionaire families in Taiwan is building hundreds of elementary schools in China for the underprivileged.  This is what billionaires should do.  And now T. Boone Pickens has the audacity to propose, plan and promote an entire energy plan for the United States of America so she can be unshackled from her dependance on foreign oil.  Brilliant.  And here's what cool...he wants to use WIND to generate a new energy source for America.  Say Pickens:  "US is the Saudi Arabia of wind power." That's a grabber.  Jon Stewart got so exited whilte interviewing Mr. Pickens he volunteered to walk off the set with the audience to help the cause.  Watch this four minute clip that explains the big picture of his plan, and then go to PickensPlan.com to do your part!

Here's a wonderfully cute little recitation of Psalm 23, and "Shirley?"  Enjoy.

Thanks to Pastor John Piper for an well articulated position on why being an "one-issue" voter can be necessary and represents intelligent voting.

John Piper:

Investigating dog life in Minnesota has solidified my decision to vote against those who endorse the right to abortion. So then what is my response to the charge of being a one-issue voter?

No endorsement of any single issue qualifies a person to hold public office. Being pro-life does not make a person a good governor, mayor, or president. But there are numerous single issues that disqualify a person from public office. For example, any candidate who endorsed bribery as a form of government efficiency would be disqualified, no matter what his party or platform was. Or a person who endorsed corporate fraud (say under $50 million) would be disqualified no matter what else he endorsed. Or a person who said that no black people could hold office—on that single issue alone he would be unfit for office. Or a person who said that rape is only a misdemeanor—that single issue would end his political career. These examples could go on and on. Everybody knows a single issue that for them would disqualify a candidate for office.

It's the same with marriage. No one quality makes a good wife or husband, but some qualities would make a person unacceptable. For example, back when I was thinking about getting married, not liking cats would not have disqualified a woman as my wife, but not liking people would. Drinking coffee would not, but drinking whiskey would. Kissing dogs wouldn't, but kissing the mailman would. And so on. Being a single-issue fiancé does not mean that only one issue matters. It means that some issues may matter enough to break off the relationship.

So it is with politics. You have to decide what those issues are for you. What do you think disqualifies a person from holding public office? I believe that the endorsement of the right to kill unborn children disqualifies a person from any position of public office. It's simply the same as saying that the endorsement of racism, fraud, or bribery would disqualify him—except that child-killing is more serious than those.

When we bought our dog at the Humane Society, I picked up a brochure on the laws of Minnesota concerning animals. Statute 343.2, subdivision 1 says, "No person shall . . . unjustifiably injure, maim, mutilate or kill any animal." Subdivision 7 says, "No person shall willfully instigate or in any way further any act of cruelty to any animal." The penalty: "A person who fails to comply with any provision of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor."

Now this set me to pondering the rights of the unborn. An eight-week-old human fetus has a beating heart, an EKG, brain waves, thumb-sucking, pain sensitivity, finger-grasping, and genetic humanity, but under our present laws is not a human person with rights under the 14th Amendment, which says that "no state shall deprive any person of life . . . without due process of law." Well, I wondered, if the unborn do not qualify as persons, it seems that they could at least qualify as animals, say a dog, or at least a cat. Could we not at least charge abortion clinics with cruelty to animals under Statute 343.2, subdivision 7? Why is it legal to "maim, mutilate and kill" a pain-sensitive unborn human being but not an animal?

These reflections have confirmed my conviction never to vote for a person who endorses such an evil—even if he could balance the budget tomorrow and end all taxation.

* * * This article is from A Godward Life, Book I: Savoring the Supremacy of God in All of Life by John Piper (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 1997), pp. 279-280.

I found a great new tool by called RefTagger that lets you annotate posts with scriptures references which will then pop up in the context of your sentence or paragraph when you mouse over it.  It's a fantastic tool.  I encourage everyone that manages blogs to go get the code at their site.  Here's an example of how it works.  I've been meditating on this passage from Rom. 8:26 and realizing from the context that one of the main purposes for the gift of tongues is to fortfy us against sins and the temptations of the flesh.  In using RefTagger, I just typed the scriptures reference in my editor window, and then when I publish it, the reference will pop-up whenever wants to see the entire quotation.  Super neat!  It'd be great if someone could develop such a tool for powerpoints!

That's me sandwiched between two amazing pastors. During a recent leadership summit in California, I got seated next to Pastor Jon Davis (left; blue blazer), pastor of Beijing International Christian Fellowship, the largest international church in China, and one of the most strategic in the world.  I also was seated next to Chris Hodges (right; brown blazer with his wife Tammy), pastor of Church of the Highlands, the fastest growing church in America in 2008.  In seven years, from start to now, they've grown to over 10,000 people!  We were united by our common love for China.  What a treat it was to rub shoulders with these great men.