Here is what happened with Jill for those who are asking.

They were on their way back from a family reunion to do a wedding at El Dorado, they had a wreck and Jill was thrown from the car. They had to do CPR on her on the scene and rush her to the hospital. While they were at the hospital in Pine Bluff, they put her on a ventilator even though she was breathing on her own as a precautionary measure. They did a CT scan and it showed that there were some contusions, cerebral edema (swelling of the brain) and a subdural hematoma (bleeding from the veins around the brain). They airlifted her to UAMS at about 6 pm. Upon arriving they did an initial work up on her and she does have some bleeding in her abdomen. They have given her 7 units of blood, and are doing a lengthy surgery on her abdomen to find and stop the bleeding. The main concern is her brain at this point. We don't know how severe the damage is. The good news is that she was breathing on her own, she did not have any broken bones except for a small fracture in one of her lower vertebrates, and her vital organs are not damaged.

Update on Jill

Jill is at UAMS in Little Rock and is currently being prepped for surgery. She has some bleeding in her abdomen and they don't know where it is coming from. They are going to try to stop the bleeding and work on her head trauma. She has some hematomas in her brain along with swelling and contusions. She has received 7 units of blood, which means she goes to OR automatically. It is still very much a "touch and go" situation so please be in prayer.
Scott is physically fine, but is understandably upset. He trusts in our good and sovereign God.
Thank you for your prayers.
Jonathan

Urgent Prayer Concern

For those who may not know our pastor and family was in a bad car wreck earlier today. Scott and Bryce were not injured, but Jill was seriously injured. She is in a coma and has head trauma. They are worried about her brain right now, but the rest of her organs and body is ok. Please be in prayer for them. The doctors are meeting with Scott right now.

Happy Reformation Day!!!

I wanted to take time out of my busy day to thank God for Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. It is an amazing providence of God that a monk and a mallet changed the world in such a way. 491 years ago today he nailed his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg. May we be so bold in our own day to stand up against corruption and error, with our pens ready, our minds sharp, our hearts breaking, and our joy unspeakable.
Semper Reformanda

Why McCain Deserves to Lose

You know my opinion. I want McCain to win, but he hasn't really convinced me that he wants it. I don't think he has convinced the American people either. Here are a few reasons why McCain deserves to lose the election.

1. He has been inconsistent on his main message. Not that he has said a bunch of contradictory things, but he has failed at developing and communicating a consistent message to the people of the United States (as my good friend Chuck Flurry pointed out to me earlier today).
2. He has been unable to clearly articulate his plan to the American people. It is a good plan, a workable plan, an affordable plan, but he just can't sell it to the people.
3. His campaign has been a disaster, and he hasn't done anything about it. Look at Obama's campaign, could they have done a better job? If it were possible I don't know how.
4. He has failed to reach the people that could have elected him, the middle class. This is the bread and butter of the Republican party, and he has conceded many of them to Obama.
5. I believe that things ought to be done in an excellent way, McCain has not met the level of excellence that I and most Americans expect.
6. He says the same lines over and over in the exact same way. It's ok to say the same thing over and over, but saying it the same way comes across as canned and disingenuous.
7. He hasn't defended himself as being different from Bush, nor the Republicans from getting ALL of the blame for the economic crisis. These two issues are the main reasons he is probably going to lose.
8. He hasn't communicated his compassion. Obama has done a great job at communicating his compassion for people, McCain has failed at this.

It's times like this that make me wish even more that Mike Huckabee would have won the nomination.

How Might McCain Win?

Here is the scenario (however unlikely)...

1. The markets continue to surge for the rest of the week. People forget about how bad the market is (was).
2. They begin to pay attention to Obama's socialist connections and get scared.
3. The conservative talking heads start saying how crazy it would be for there to be a Democrat in the White House and a Democrat controlled congress. Remember, the American people like gridlock, as my favorite Democrat commentator told me once.
4. McCain does a media blitz and clearly and passionately communicates his vision for America and why it is superior to Obama's.

Here are all the factors that will cause McCain to lose.
1. The economy and how the R is getting the blame for it. If the economy was doing well, McCain would be ahead slightly.
2. His connection to Bush (which is related to reason number 1).
3. His inability to clearly communicate his vision for America.

If something could happen to affect these three things very positively in the next 7 days McCain could win.

Will it happen? Not likely.

I put the odds of McCain winning at about 20-30% at this point.

Who Really Cares?

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that all liberals are ungenerous, many of them are more generous than I am. I'm just looking at the statistics and reporting. Don't shoot the messenger.

Further disclosure: One mitigating factor in the disparity between "liberals" and "conservatives" giving is that "liberals" normally live in areas where cost of living is higher (urban areas) than in more rural areas where people are more conservative. However, I don't think this makes up for the 30% difference.

A lot of people think that liberals are more caring, and more concerned with the poor and the welfare of society than conservatives. As I have said before, it simply is not true. Conservatives are MORE concerned about the betterment of society than liberals, at least, our checkbooks, our time, and our blood says so. This study was between principled conservatives and principled liberals. It compared the 30% of society that calls themselves liberal, versus the 40% of society that calls themselves conservative. The 30% of society that calls themselves "centrist" or "moderate" was excluded from this study. Conservative families give 30% more to charities, and lest you think the conservative families have higher incomes, they didn't in this study, the liberal families made 6% more income, yet gave 30% less to charity. In addition, the conservative group were 51% more likely to volunteer and conservative volunteers spent 12% more hours volunteering than liberals in any given year. If liberals and moderates gave as much blood as conservatives we would increase our blood supply by 45% (meaning that conservatives give about twice as much blood as liberals.)

In addition to conservatives being more generous, the things that they do to help the poor are more effective, and more personal than what liberals do for the poor and downtrodden. The bottom line is the "common knowledge" that liberals care more about the poor and downtrodden than conservatives is a myth.

I got these statistics from Arthur C. Brooks' book "Who Really Cares?" You can find it on Google books for free here. If you don't want to wade through the book read this article.

Republican Tax Policies

If you aren't yet convinced that Republicans have better tax policies than Democrats I dare you to read these two posts.

Here, and here.

The Importance of This Election and Some Predictions

This election is very important, and there are two very imperfect candidates up for election. Politics is necessarily about compromise, and that is what we all must do with our respective candidates, weigh the pros and cons and then compromise by picking the lesser of two evils. If you see it as anything other than that, I would question your sanity. I do fight hard for McCain and Palin, not because they are perfect or that everything will go my way if they get elected, not because they will usher in some kind of Christian utopia or theocracy, or even because they are "stand-up" people. To not do so will enable a genuinely nice guy like Obama to get elected who will enact policies harmful to the moral fabric of America by signing the Freedom of Choice Act. He will elect liberal justices to the supreme court who will legislate from the bench. He will take us further down the road of failed socialistic welfare and healthcare policies. He will put more oppressive taxes on the system and will not cut spending.

If Obama gets elected this will speed the decline of American Exceptionalism in the world. I'm not saying things will go to Hell in a handbasket, but we will see the further (or at least faster) decline of society, abortions will no doubt skyrocket both in number and per capita (I'm guessing by 5% per year at the end of his 4th year), we will see even more fatherless families (see the video below about how not to help the poor). Our economy will probably be ok, but it will be stifled by his tax and spend agenda, and the welfare aspect of his utopian dream will discourage hard work and ingenuity. Again, I'm not saying McCain would prevent all of these things from happening we may well be on an irreversible course toward some of these things I mentioned above, but an Obama Presidency will get us there faster.

Ten Things I Hate About You... McCain

1. Your support of stem-cell research.
2. Your support of exceptions for abortion.
3. Your recent language about "predatory lending" instead of calling Americans financially irresponsible as we really are. I know why he did it. He didn't want to call all the idiots who got themselves into loans that they couldn't afford morons because they might not vote for him. This group represents a sizable constituency. Yeah, the lenders had culpability too, but "Every man's got to know his limitations" to quote the brilliant philosopher Clint Eastwood.
4. Your inability to communicate why your plans and policies are better than Obama's. He has some really good policies and positions, but he is unable to communicate them with the American people, and show the big distinction between him and Obama.
5. Your lack of eloquence. There's not much he can do about this, but he is a midget in the midst of a giant when sitting next to Obama.
6. Your inability or unwillingness to separate yourself from Bush. You have failed to separate yourself from W, and it will probably cost you the election.
7. Your inability to defend the Republican party's good economic policies, and attack the Democrats for their responsibility in the recent market meltdown. I'm not saying that Republicans are completely free of liability here nor that Dems are fully to blame, but he has been consistently unable or unwilling to attack the Democrats on their ties with Fannie and Freddie and their unwillingness to regulate these Government Sponsored Entities while Republicans were asking for it!!! As a result of this he will probably lose the election.
8. Your "unendorsement" of the Fair Tax. Again, this was probably a calculated political move to unendorse a workable plan because it hasn't caught traction yet with the American people.
9. Your oldness. Not that I have anything against old people. I just wish he were 10 years younger. Again, nothing he can do about it, and I would much rather have his elderliness than Obama's inexperience and greenness.
10. Your Washington insider-ness. Again, nothing he can do about it, but I wish someone could get elected that was well known, tested, and without any connections to lobbyists. His "Washington insiderness" is mitigated by Palin, and his own record as a Maverick, and I would rather have his insiderness than Obama, with his baggage of lobbyists and troublesome aquaintances (Wright, Raines, Ayers, New Party Socialist buddies etc.).

I know, I know, I used McCain as a spring board from which to attack Obama. I was just anticipating retorts. As I said in my post about Obama, I do have an opinion.