• Cambodia - Day 10

    27Jan
    Categories: Photos Comments: 2

    I took all these pictures (except the last two) out the window on the taxi ride from Siem Reap to the Thailand border.


    On the way to school, waiting to cross the road


    On the way to school


    Intercity commerce


    Laborers on the way to work


    Double decker transport


    Best friends on the way to school



    Flower maiden


    The family mini-van


    Taking flowers to market




    Mother and child


    Fisherman


    Rice and sky



    Too early in the morning


    Young fisherman


    Hog transport


    It’s a long and lonely road



    One of many detours


    Earth, water, fields, and sky


    Built-in pillow


    Temple in Bangkok at night

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  • Cambodia - Day 9

    26Jan
    Categories: Photos Comments: 0


    Dedication service for a C that the Korean M’s built


    Ready to hit the road for Chiang Mai

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  • Huckabee-McCain part deux

    26Jan
    Categories: Political Comments: 0

    NYT:

    Mr. McCain also seems to have fallen into a mutual nonaggression pact with Mr. Huckabee, who has been almost fawning in his compliments for Mr. McCain and dripping with contempt when discussing Mr. Romney.

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  • Cambodia - Day 8

    25Jan
    Categories: Photos Comments: 0


    Teaching English


    Ever-present technology


    Hanging out with our English students


    Buried by Lilliputians


    Eating with Korean M’s


    Making a path for the Korean M’s

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  • Cambodia - Day 7

    24Jan
    Categories: Photos Comments: 0


    Washing my face in the morning at the well


    Floating village kids


    Floating village school


    Curious onlooker


    Floating village


    These floating village schools were built by South Koreans


    Walking the floating school gangplank



    Kelly hanging with the Cambodian teachers


    Singing songs with motions


    Teaching English

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  • Rumsfeld’s Winning Strategy in Iraq

    24Jan
    Categories: Political Comments: 5

    An incredibly interesting blog post takes a close look at Rumsfeld’s strategy in Iraq and shows how it has brought the US to this point of continuing success in Iraq today. It uses letters from Al Qaeda leaders to expose their strategies and to show how Rumsfeld’s counter-strategy was the most effective imaginable. Incredibly interesting and thought-provoking. (If you disagree with the logic or facts in the post, please drop a comment there along with one here pointing to your comment on the post. I’m still processing the post.)

    Why did the Iraqis turn against al Qaeda and Iran? Because al Qaeda and Iran were murdering them en masse. And why were al Qaeda and Iran murdering Iraqis en masse? Because Defense Secretary Rumfeld’s small-footprint force-protection strategy meant that they couldn’t attack American troops without getting immediately annihilated.

    In order to get the “continuing violence” that their allies in the Western media could use to create American defeat on the home front, the Saudi and Iranian proxy warriors in Iraq had no choice but to wage war on the Iraqi people.

    They understood the risks: that playing for a media victory would cost them the war on the ground. This is clear in the letter that al Qaeda #2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, wrote to al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the Fall of 2005:

    The policy followed by the brothers in Baghdad is a media oriented policy without a clear comprehensive plan to capture an area or an enemy center. Other word, the significance of the strategy of their work is to show in the media that the American and the government do not control the situation and there is resistance against them. This policy dragged us to the type of operations that are attracted to the media, and we go to the streets from time to time for more possible noisy operations which follow the same direction.

    This direction has large positive effects; however, being preoccupied with it alone delays more important operations such as taking control of some areas, … That is why every year is worse than the previous year as far as the Mujahidin’s control and influence over Baghdad.

    Read the whole thing.

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  • Cambodia - Day 6

    23Jan
    Categories: Photos Comments: 3


    Carseats aren’t the law


    Nothing like teaching a song filled with puns, idioms, etc to ESL students. Here the song is transliterated into Cambodian letters.


    One of the outstanding bits of beauty in Cambodia were the water flowers


    More water flowers


    Monkmobile


    Village grandma


    Village spider


    Cleaning village church


    Squinting to see



    Dru making horrible screeching noises


    Shy curiosity (this and the next several pictures are of TESOL students in the village where Dru lived and taught English)


    Delight!


    Emotional contrast


    Hilarity


    Posing and distracted


    Rapt attention


    Kiat teaching a Bible class


    Playing games with the village children


    Swimming!


    Vine swing


    Village friends


    Worker’s house


    Village well where Dru took his bath

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  • Read of the Day: Huckabee presents the best choice for Reagan supporters

    22Jan
    Categories: Political Comments: 0

    Huckabee presents the best choice for Reagan supporters:

    Reagan won that election with the support of Larry Lunch-bucket and Betty Brownbag. They were called the Reagan Democrats. When we celebrated that victory, I asked some of them why they chose to join us. They said, “When he talked, we felt that he was talking to us.” The Reagan Democrats believe they have been ignored since 1988.

    The establishment doesn’t like change. They have always felt that their seats at the head table were threatened by those new to the club. The establishment that so ardently opposed Reagan’s nomination in 1980 crawled all over each other to chair his 1984 race.

    Today they now see themselves as those who put Reagan in power. His presidency was their presidency. They believe they are the keepers of the flame.

    Today’s establishment includes elected officials, consultants, lobbyists and even conservative writers and commentators. Unless you allow them to write the rules and approve of your positions you are unwelcome. Anyone who does not genuflect before their altar is “not conservative.”

    When you look at the many fine candidates seeking the Republican nomination for president, who do you believe can best speak to those Reagan Democrats?

    I believe that candidate is Mike Huckabee.

    Read the whole thing.

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  • Cambodia - Day 5

    22Jan
    Categories: Photos Comments: 0


    An Indian school teacher preaching in English and being translated to Cambodian


    Beside our Vietnamese restaurant


    Purple water flower


    Eating at a Vietnamese restaurant


    Goods transport


    SE Asian couch


    Hiking back to a village church


    Curious young face


    Dru preaching


    Sunday School

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  • Kenyans Riot as Votes Are Counted

    22Jan
    Categories: Political Comments: 0

    I wrote this post on Dec. 29 and thought I had posted it, but I had actually just saved it as a draft. Here it is belatedly…


    TAKING COVER: Kenyan security forces who fired tear gas and live rounds in response to the stoning of a vote center in Ngong Town, south of Nairobi, by an angry crowd seek protection near ballot boxes. Political parties criticized the slow pace of the count nationally.

    Photo and caption: LA Times

    I have friends in Kenya who are in the heavily Luo area of Kisumu. The Luos are ticked that Odinga (who is Luo) had been strongly beating Kibaki (the incumbent, who is Kikuyu) in the presidential elections, but now is shown with only a slim lead. Kibaki’s supporters say that is simply because the districts in which Odinga had the most support were counted first, which seems logical–it happens all the time in the States. However, Odinga’s supporters are crying corruption and vote fixing. They are also rioting and burning and looting Kikuyu stores and homes.

    LA Times:

    There was also mayhem in Kisumu, on the shores of Lake Victoria in western Kenya, the Reuters news agency reported. Police battled rioting opposition supporters, who looted goods from shops and burned buildings. At least one person died in the unrest.


    Kenyan army soldiers and policemen fired tear gas and live rounds as election and party officials took cover after an angry crowd started throwing stones in Ngong Town on Friday.

    Photo and caption: New York Times

    My friend Ruth from Kisumu says:

    ODM (Raila [Odinga]’s party) was on the lookout for all forms of corruption that President Kibaki (PNU) could use to try to be re-elected. They caught a number of buses which were smuggled in from the Uganda border–loaded with PNU ballot boxes. They screened out other forms of corruption. Today the Luos are rioting in town because of the delay in counting votes. They aren’t happy either that Raila was ahead by a million votes, and now he’s only ahead by a very small margin.

    Pray for the Kuepfers and others in Kenya during this tense and dangerous time.

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  • Huckabee Endorsement

    14Jan
    Categories: Personal, Political Comments: 6

    Since I am too busy writing my thesis for graduation, being on Student Council, and studying Greek, I will take the lazy route and reprint a portion of a Huckabee endorsement written by my friend Randy that closely mirrors my own thoughts on the matter:

    [B]oth sides seemed to be pointing out the same things about Huckabee. It seemed to simply be a matter of his stances and not a problem with the man himself. As the presidential-hopeful field expanded I didn’t see another candidate that I thought better represented my views on the “issues” that Huckabee. Now granted, a candidate here or there may have been closer on a specific issue, but as a package Huckabee was the best that I found.

    By the time the debates started last year I was extremely impressed with Huckabee, just ask Tricia, and I believed, in spite of the opinions of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, etc., that Huckabee could be elected. At different times I heard all three of those I named say that Huckabee was a good guy, and while they didn’t agree with him completely a decent politician, but they always came back to he has no chance among the better known candidates. I even heard Sean Hannity say last spring that Huckabee shouldn’t be allowed to take place in the debates, because he was a perpetual “second-tier” candidate who just distracted from the “real contenders.”

    [...]

    While I realize that Iowa is a small state, and not necessarily a bellwether when it comes to American politics, the state does show that when Huckabee’s positions are heard he does impress people. Over the next month or so we’ll find out if Iowa was a fluke or if it was the beginning of Huckabee’s road to the nomination. As I’m sure it comes to no surprise, I’m going to guess that in just over a year there will be a new President from Arkansas (and I don’t mean Hillary Rodham-Clinton, although if she is put up on the Democrats side it would help Huckabee or any GOP candidate’s chances).

    Go read the whole thing.

    I would also like to give a bulleted list of more reasons to vote for Huckabee:

    • A Godly, commonsense stance on immigration that does not mirror the Republican establishment’s (at times nearly racist) stance.
    • A person who actually knows and believes the Bible rather than a political opportunist that tries to harness religion to advance his own ends, like the rest of candidates.
    • FairTax - a sales tax on consumption that is every consistent laissez-faire, free market, economic conservatives ideal. I don’t care about tax increases that AR’s Supreme Court forced Huckabee to make–it’s not fair to attribute those to him. The simplification of the tax code is in itself a significant tax cut/economic boost, not to mention a taxing paradigm shift that would streamline, revolutionize, and incentivize our economy to incredible lengths.
    • Strongest candidate on the abortion issue. (McCain thinks an exception for rape or incest is OK and Fred Thompson thinks it should be an issue for the states.)

    There’s more, but I need to get back to memorizing Greek declension 2.2 for neuter nouns–declension #2 of about 40. A declension is a set of 9 noun endings (360 total) for the five cases (nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, and dative) and the three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter). That’s not to mention the 507 grammatical forms a Greek verb can take…

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  • Scraping the Bottom of the Huckabee Barrel

    12Jan
    Categories: Political Comments: 0

    As I wrote earlier, I’m getting quite frustrated at the absurd and baseless character attacks* directed at Mike Huckabee. I simply must take comfort in the fact that people are simply scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for insults and quite simply coming up empty. Here’s yet another example:

    Riehl World View:

    I’m glad the media has noticed. Thompson attacked Huckabee for his policy positions and Mr. Jesus couldn’t keep himself from striking back personally in several different shots at Thompson. For all his preaching, Huckabee seems like a very low-minded, mean individual. That should be a concern. Character counts and Huckabee doesn’t have very much of it.

    Ok, those are Mr. Riehl’s conclusions and he goes on to present the facts given in an AP article to support his conclusion. It is interesting to note that the claim Mr. Riehl makes is quite a common one: that Mr. Huckabee is really a nasty, mean-spirited, vindicative person underneath, even though everyone thinks he is nice. AP:

    GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) - Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee went from Mr. Nice to Mr. Nasty when rival Fred Thompson started calling him what he considered a bad name—a liberal.

    Huckabee said Friday that the lawyer-turned-actor-turned-politician had little to show for his time in the Senate.

    “Eight years is a pretty long time to get a check from the federal government and not be able to say” he passed a major bill, Huckabee sniped.

    If you read the whole article (which is entitled “Huckabee and Thompson Trade Barbs”), you’ll see this is the breakdown of comments made:

    Thompson: Huckabee is a liberal who would follow an opposite direction that Reagan took. (Notice no facts involved)
    Thompson/AP (the article isn’t clear whether Thompson said this or the AP): Huckabee “called President Bush’s foreign policy ‘arrogant’ [fact], he supported taxpayer-funded scholarships for children of illegal immigrants [fact], and he signed a smoking ban into law. [fact]”
    Huckabee: Fred Thompson supported Gerald Ford in 1976 instead of Reagan (fact) and Howard Baker in 1980 instead of Reagan (fact). I (Huckabee) supported Reagan back then (fact). Thompson is a recent convert to being a Reagan fan (fact).
    Huckabee: Thompson didn’t get any of his significant legislation passed in his eight years in the Senate (fact**).
    Huckabee jokes: Thompson should lighten up and take some digestive aid Metamucil.
    Huckabee, when criticized for his joke replied:

    “I really do believe if people can’t have some sense of humor as they approach this stuff, then it causes everybody to be so locked down and consultant driven that their campaigns become so boring because all they’re going to do is give this robotic answer to everything that’s very carefully scripted. I promise you, you won’t have moments like this,” Huckabee said, gesturing to the handful of reporters that had gathered around him for an on-the-record conversation that would last about 40 minutes…

    “If I thought I couldn’t be a human being. That I gotta wait till six handlers tell me what I can and can’t say and I have to read it, you know, it’s not worth it.”

    Take a look at the above interchange. Read the article if you don’t believe my summary and quotation thereof.

    Please tell me which of these attacks was “striking back personally” (Riehl) or an ad hominem attack? There simply aren’t any! Everything Huckabee said was fact-based and policy-based. Riehl’s conclusion that Huckabee “seems like a very low-minded, mean individual. That should be a concern. Character counts and Huckabee doesn’t have very much of it… You can tell his anger gets in the way of his judgment.” is totally unsupported and unfounded.

    The real head-scratcher occurs when Riehl goes on to praise Thompson for the very thing he was attempting to criticize Huckabee for:

    “But then last night — we hadn’t even been thinking about him — all of a sudden it was clear he was the one,” said Mr. Berenberk, a retired teacher. “The bluntness, the forcefulness. He was really impressive.”

    So now Riehl’s attacks on Huckabee not only do not have a factual basis, but they also do not have a moral basis.

    Now please don’t get me wrong. I really like Thompson and am not at all trying to knock him. I think he’d make a great president and I just wish he would get his campaign off the ground and that more people would support him over people like Giuliani and Romney. My gripe is not with Thompson, but rather with those who have consistently been opining that Huckabee is a “low-minded, mean individual” who doesn’t have much “character” without any factual basis whatsoever to back it up.

    * I realize there are legitimate policy attacks which attack areas in which Huckabee is not in line with the Republican establishment.
    ** I assume this is a fact. Surely Riehl would have attacked what Huckabee said on factual grounds rather than a flimsy “personal attack” grounds if it were possible to do so.

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  • More random pictures: Chiang Mai, SMBI, Pennsylvania

    12Jan
    Categories: Photos Comments: 2


    A funky HDR shot of Chiang Mai from the lookout. I took this pic a very long time ago with my TX-1, manually adjusting the exposure compensation between each shot. I used a lot of Photoshop “interpretation” (levels, curves, color balance, color temperature), as it were. Ditto on all accounts for the next two.




    I decided to re-release this picture because I made some nice color balance adjustments in the meantime.


    A pic I shot just the other day at SMBI. It’s an HDR pano of eight pictures.


    HDR of little church by SMBI


    HDR, gravestone by little stone church


    Graveyard by little stone church


    Little stone church

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  • St. Louis Arch

    05Jan
    Categories: Photos Comments: 5

    Benji and I left KS at 3 PM for SMBI. We arrived in St. Louis at about 10 PM and stopped for about an hour and a half at the Arch to shoot it. Below are my results. (As usual, Benji got better results which you should badger (comment, email) him to post.)

    (All in all I drove from 3 PM CST ’til 8 AM EST. Benji drove the last 4 hours ’til noon when we arrived at a friend’s house in PA. We’ll go down to SMBI Sunday afternoon.)


    A pano of 10 pictures (f3.5, 1/10, 1600)


    The park surrounding the arch


    Pano of 9 pictures


    HDR


    HDR pano


    HDR pano


    An HDR pano of a nice mountain valley on I-80 in PA

    Feedback from those skilled pros among my readers would be helpful! :-D

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  • Huckabee-McCain

    03Jan
    Categories: Political Comments: 6

    I’m calling for a Huckabee-McCain ticket.

    Here’re the results for Iowa so far:

    Huckabee - 34%
    Romney - 25%
    Thompson - 14%
    McCain - 13%
    Paul - 10%
    Giuliani - 4%

    CNN, ABC, etc have called Iowa for Huckabee.

    Here’s what ABC says:

    McCain, who has been defended by Huckabee during recent attacks by Romney, made the first candidate statement after the announcement of Huckabee’s victory in Iowa. McCain congratulated Huckabee, and then took an apparent shot at Romney. “The lesson (of Iowa) is one, that you can’t buy an election in Iowa, and negative campaigns don’t work,” McCain said. “They don’t work there in Iowa and they don’t work here in New Hampshire.”

    A Huckabee-McCain ticket would be perfect! A ticket with McCain would perfectly fill out Huckabee’s foreign policy and economic policy credentials. I would be highly, highly pumped about such a ticket.

    Has anyone teamed up into a ticket before the end of the primaries? What would be the political dynamics of that? Would that combine their supporters?

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