Walter Cronkite
Cronkite says, "Today there is growing skepticism concerning his [Bush's] promise to stay the course in Iraq." Can someone tell me what planet this guy is from? It is the democrats who what to pull the plug on Afghanistan and Iraq. It has been the resolution of our president that has kept us in there doing the right thing for the Iraqi people. Wow. See article.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The long weekend has finally arrived!
Wednesday couldn't have been crazier in my estimation. So much to do and so little time. Dad was bragging about his new copy of MS Office 2003... oh yeah, well, uhh.. my computer is older and has, you know... ok, you win.

Might blog tomorrow, but if not... be thankful, eat lots of turkey, watch football and Happy Thanksgiving!

Usability
Jakob Nielsen's useit.com cracks me up. He is one of the premier proponents of making web sites easy to use and his site is one of the most confusing that I have seen. My head nearly explodes when I look at his site and my eyes are not drawn anywhere when viewing it. There has to be an easier site design he could employ to make me believe that he is an expert.

Example: When I search for sites that specialize in "web design" I only stay if I think that their site is well designed. If a site is confusing, or there is too much information scattered everywhere, I leave. If a site looks cheesy, I leave. If there are annoying elements, I seldom stay.

This is why I never spend much time at About.com. There is tons of great information there, but the pop up ads are a bother and when you click on an outside link you are still left with the About.com navigation strip at the top of the page. I want to kick people who do that with their site. They have to make money, but get real.

So ends my web usability rant.

Happy Holidays To You
Is it me or is the phrase "Happy Holidays" really one of the most inaccurate and annoying labels created in this politically correct world? Lets face it... we are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ on December 25. We don't call Ramadan "Happy Fasting Month" or Hanukkah "Be Kind To Jews Day." We (90% of the American population) are celebrating Christmas, not a happy holiday. The reason that we give gifts is based upon God the Father's gift of his Son for humanity. PC is stupid, anti-historical, and utterly ridiculous.

Liberals want each and every culture preserved except our own. They would never force democratic capitalism upon another culture, but are hailed as heroes because of their mission to eradicate our Christian heritage from daily life.

We all want to be unique, new, fresh (Tommy Dhyne) or whatever. The best way to be unique is to reflect the creativity of God in your life. There ought to be no cookie cutter Christians. Ask God a simple question, "How can I uniquely express your character in my life?" If you aren't full of life, perhaps it's because you are trying to make everybody but God happy.

Wazzabe?!
Hey folks... just got back home from a house-sitting assignment.

Comments are up and running... it is nice to hear from you folks. Jeff

I wanted to acknowledge the impact that Mike Yacconelli had on the youth ministry world. He died in a car accident a couple of weeks ago and it was strange how much it affected me. I never met Mike and only started visiting his "Youth Specialties" site about a year ago. I guess that I felt I had lost a comrade. Youth pastors are in dire need of someone to understand them as they are. We are people who (contrary to some people's opinion) have real jobs and real struggles like the rest of the world. We aren't waiting for our ship to come in so that we can enter the real world... we are in the real world. I felt that Mike understood that. He was an advocate and someone who loved all youth workers whether he knew them or not.

I thought that it would be nice to acknowledge him and ask you to pray for his family. There is a really great Memorial up for him at the YS site. Click here to visit it.

I can't stop editing the site... it's an obsession with me. Feedback on the site layout and colors would be appreciated. You can reach me at jeff@rustyhinges.com.

I don't believe that the comments are working for anyone but me and I don't have anything to say about what I've already said. I'll try to fix that soon.

Have you ever thought about that fact that the word "homophobic" didn't exist 20 years ago. Ah, how far we have come in such a short time. When you pull out the truth stops, there is nothing to hold you back. It is high time for God's people to operate as salt and light.

I have included an article about Thanksgiving that will also appear in the Ketchikan Daily News weekend edition.

I have developed the "avalanche" thoughts a little further and will include them as next weeks "Weekly Article" here.

Thank You
Thank you to the many friends and family who have visited rustyhinges.com. I hope that you will find it interesting and the pictures of Madeline adorable. We think she's pretty great.

For those of you who might be curious a "blog" is short for "web log." A "weblog," as they are called, is a web page just like this one that allows users to easily post thoughts and ideas to the internet and automatically archives those thoughts by month or however else you decide. It has sparked quite a revolution on the internet.

Thanks for visiting and please stop by every every-so-often for updates or every Wednesday for the column.

Jeff

Moral Avalanche
We are witnessing an avalanche of moral decay in America. In "Whatever Happened to
the Human Race" by former surgeon general C. Everett Koop, and Christian philosopher and apologist Francis A. Schaeffer say that what is unthinkable in one generation will become thinkable in the next. We are witnessing just such a phenomenon. Mainstream culture would have never considered homosexuality acceptable just forty years ago and yet now it is becoming accepted and openly promoted today.

This kind of behavior now qualifies anyone for being "sophisticated." Sophistication is a slippery slope because it is based upon human opinion and emotion. Koop and Schaeffer go on to say we have come to the point where popular opinion, not truth, will dictate law. In other words, whatever 51 percent of the people say is right will be right. It reminds me of the words of the Bible that talk about people being "right in their own eyes." We are living that drama right now in America.

This is truly an avalanche of indecency. We who hold truth above popular opinion should speak now while there is time. There is not much time before the avalache has so much momentum that we are unable to do anything. Not that we'll stop speaking... we will just have to pay a much higher price to speak.

Jeff

Weblog. I just wanted to say again how much better this blogger template is than the b2 look that I had before. You can actually read this one... what a concept. One day I might stop being so cheap and actually pay for this so that I don't have the add at the top. No big deal. Free is good:).

I was saying on the other blog that a baptism will never get old. It was such a privilege to be a part of that earlier tonight. Way to go Stephanie, Natalie, Amber and Katie! Keep going... keep seeking God.

I think the thing that I love is that baptisms are such a visual picture of what Jesus does for us. We die to the old person and are raised to new life. So all of those old desires... that's the old you.

The layout of this site is uhhh... way better than the last one.

Here's the launch of another blog. I'm not happy with the one provided to me by b2 simply because I'm not tech savvy enough to set it up myself. I'm stuck with the lame look that is given to me and the title is... brace yourself... "my weblog." That's more than I can take... so here's another try.