The King of Pop

So by now, everyone has heard, Michael Jackson, the King of Pop has died. Ever since I heard, I've been trying to put together a blog post, one that would accurately capture my feelings about this. I don't know that I'll be able to. For years, I've been conflicted about Michael Jackson. One of the most important albums of my life was the "Bad" album. It was the first vinyl album I purchased, and one that I purchased on tape as well. I have memories of dancing to the "Thriller" album with my cousins Joel, Lendale and Shonnie, while in my late father's basement. I saw "Captain EO" at both Disneyland and Epcot Center in 1988. I remember that a music video by Michael Jackson was something far different than a music video by any other artist. For example, the video for "Remember the Time" excited me as much as the first time I saw "The Matrix". When he and Janet made the video for "Scream", I thought my head would explode from the sheer awesomeness.

When I started dancing, it was my goal to be able to moonwalk (one which I haven't reached, but will). Michael Jackson inspired the dance moves for an entire generation of performers such as Usher, B2K, Marques Houston, Ginuwine, Chris Brown, etc.

Yes, the man had his personal issues, but no one will ever be able to deny his talent. I hope that before his death, he came to know Jesus Christ. If he did, then he will truly be able to Rest In Peace.

You will be missed Michael. Thank you for entertaining us for these years, and showing me how to feel the music.

Universal Demand Law

I came across this while reading about the ROM machine. If I had $15,000 and NO DEBT, I would probably buy one. Exercise for 4 minutes a day? I'm all about it. They are available cheaper on eBay, and once we complete our Debt Snowball, I may save for one. But, the head of manufacturing of the ROM machine, Alf Temme, has some good insight and some good ideas. I was at another one of his sites, and I'm going to post the text in its entirety, because I thought it was that good. You can find the original article here.

Mr. Temme, I hope you don't mind my posting your ideas here. I just love the insight and look forward to more.
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Universal Demand Law The Universal Demand Law makes clear what outcomes to expect from placing demands on anything living and, more importantly, what outcomes to expect from NOT placing a demand on anything living. Worst of all would be to give support to anything living that could survive without support. The word DEMAND here is to be understood as placing a load on anything living and as "requiring or requesting something urgently and forcefully". It is not to be understood as in "supply and demand". Not only does this law govern human affairs, it actually affects all aspects of life in all things living. This law of nature makes abundantly clear that Mother Nature is not a socialist but instead an apparently heartless and mean practitioner of laissez-faire economics. Violations against this important law of nature are punished by Mother Nature with outcomes that are totally unexpected by most that have no knowledge of this most powerful and as yet not widely known law discovered by me around 1975. It deserves to be taught in schools and specially in universities. It should be mandatory to be applied by politicians whenever they are creating new laws and regulations. It should also be retroactively applied to existing laws and regulations to strke them from the books if they fail the UniversalDemandLaw litmus test. That would result in far fewer laws and regulations on the books and it would restore and preserve more of our freedoms. It would prevent the majority of economic and societal disasters created by so many undoubtedly well-intentioned laws and regulations. This law applies to anything living such as a single living cell, or a cell tissue, a whole organ, an entire person or animal, groups of people, a leaf of a tree, a branch or a whole tree. The 4 points of the Universal Demand Law 1. If a demand or overdemand is made on any living thing, it will strengthen and/or improve that living thing. The greater the demand the greater the potential improvement. 2. If a demand is decreased on any living thing or support is given to a living thing that would survive without such support, the living thing will weaken and/or deteriorate. The lower the demand, the more deterioration. 3. If the demand on any living thing is too great it will break or malfunction . . . . . . 4. . . . . from which the living organism will recover, and will emerge stronger than before it was broken, IF IT WAS NOT BROKEN BEYOND REPAIR. The Universal Demand Law as tested against the real world: To test and demonstrate the theoretical validity of any Universal Law, the best method is to test it against known outcomes in the physical real world. Some examples 1. RUN OVER BY A TRUCK If you are run over by a truck, the demand likely is a too great overdemand and the body will be broken beyond proper repair. 2. BREAKING A MAJOR BONE If you break a major bone in arm or leg and it is a clean break, and it is not broken beyond proper repair, then the place where the bone mends will be repaired by the body with denser bone tissue and it will be stronger than before the break happened. 3. PARENTS DISCIPLINING THEIR CHILDREN If parents place a demand on their children, even if it is a slight overdemand, those children will have a good propects to develop into reasonably well functioning adults. 4. PARENTS NOT DISCIPLINING THEIR CHILDREN If there is no demand placed on children, they more likely will deteriorate and more likely develop into poorly functioning adults. Click on "Parenting" 5. WELL INTENTIONED SOCIALISM If you take the natural demands of normal daily life away from adults by placing them on one or other form of socialist program such as welfare for example, the Universal Demand Law predicts that they will deteriorate further. 6. EQUAL EDUCATION FOR ALL IS NOT GOOD If students are subjected to equal education for all, the Universal Demand Law predicts that only a small percentage of the students (perhaps 20%) are subjected to the proper demand to induce optimum learning improvement and 40% or so may have an over-demand and another 40% may have an under demand resulting in the predictable disappointing outcomes that can be expected according to the Ubiversal Demand Law, namely deterioration and failure in the group on which equal education for all results in an under-demand and mental overload for the group that is not sufficiently mentally equipped for the demands placed upon them, with the resulting breaking and malfunctioning. Most members of this latter group will still benefit from the over-demand if they were not broken beyond repair. 7. ADVERSE EFFECTS FROM LOWER REQUIREMENTS Lowering University entrance requirements for special ethnic groups is counter to the Universal Demand Law and can only lead to other than the loftily envisioned and doubtless well-intentioned outcomes. 8. PROHIBITION ALWAYS FAILS According to the Universal Demand Law, placing a heavy demand on illegal drug use will only increase the consumption of illegal drugs. According to the Universal Demand Law, prohibition is the wrong way to proceed against hard drugs or similarly desired (but generally un-desirable) substances or services (prostitution). Giving people the freedom to fail is always the lesser of the evils. Good advice and education is the best prevention or remedy. The role of parents is to give valuable advice and guidance to their children in their formative years. The role of parents is not to keep their children in a straightjacket for life. Similarly the function of Governments is to give valuable advice to the governed. The function of Government is not to keep its constituents in a straightjacket of freedom restricting laws and regulations for life. 9. MUSCLE STRENGTH Placing a demand on muscles makes them stronger. Conversely, taking a demand off muscles will cause them to atrophy (a leg in a cast for six weeks will have lost a lot of muscle tissue). The health of a person confined to a hospital bed (or any other bed) will deteriorate very rapidly because demand is taken off the entire body. Specially when that person is given sedatives because that will keep that bedridden person even from making movements and from employing any muscles, adding to muscle deterioration. 10. LANGUAGE IMMERSION COURSES Placing a heavy demand upon immigrant children by teaching them in an immersion course the language of their new adoptive country will render them fluent in that new language in record time. Conversely, taking the demand off them by coddling them with lessons taught in their native language will handicap them for long periods of time and may prevent them from ever fully integrating in the society of their new adoptive country. 11. EMOTIONAL DEMANDS A person enduring adverse human experience such as losing loved ones or going through a divorce or being subjected to other mental pressures, will emerge stronger as a result of the adverse mental demands or will succumb to them and be mentally broken in the process if the demands were too great where they broke the person beyond repair. 12. PHYSICAL HANDICAPS People born with physical handicaps may be mentally strengthened by the extra demands placed upon them through the constant mental demands placed upon them (dealing with the handicap) and will excel in life beyond expectations. Others will not benefit from the extra physical demands when society will try to offset the demands by over-compensating for those demands with institutionalized social support for physically handicapped people. The list of examples that prove the Universal Demand Law is endless. You can test the UD-law yourself with examples of your own and you will find that it holds true in every instance. It is difficult to determine the right dose of demand Since all living entities, including people, have different levels of capacity to tolerate demands placed upon them, it is difficult to determine what constitutes a demand and what will be an over demand or a demand that will break the living organism beyond proper repair. What may be an under demand for one, may be an over demand for another. The most effective method for maximum result may be a slow and gradual increase of demand to slightly past the point of failure. THat would constitute a small overdemand but would not break the living organism beyond proper repair. The importance of the UD-law. The discovery of the Universal Demand Law is extremely important to the future of the human condition because it explains in all instances the reason for success or failure of human endeavors. The UD-law will shed light on many aspects of all things living and on the functioning of their subcomponent parts. Naming of laws that govern the workings of things within the Universe. I prefer the term “Universal Laws” to describe the absolute unassailable laws by which the Universe seems to function. Unfortunately this term has been confusingly used to describe many other concepts as well, including metaphysical and religious concepts. Known Universal Laws and this recently discovered Universal Law. A well known Universal Law is the Universal Law of Gravitation discovered by Sir Isaac Newton. Newton’s law is also referred to as the law of gravity. Another well known Universal Law is Einstein’s Law of Relativity. Both of these laws seem to be subject of dispute about their Universal applicability and correctness. An additional newly discovered Universal Law is this one, Alf Temme’s Universal Demand Law. Very essential knowledge to understanding the Universe It is very likely that most everything that happens and everything existing within the Universe could be adequately explained if all Universal Laws were known and correctly interpreted. Most Universal Laws remain undiscovered and religion, myths and misinformation fill the void where human knowledge and understanding is lacking. Unfortunately the human race has not as yet discovered much about Universal Laws. Consequent to this lack of knowledge and lack of understanding, humans are subject to a lot of wonderment and awe about many things and happenings within the Universe. Where knowledge and understanding are lacking, myths and religion and misinformation fill the void. Interestingly, most religious writings do not portray their Gods and deities as dictators. They rather portray their Gods and deities as wise and tolerant guides that give their constituency all the freedom to fail while teaching and proposing the methods and the guidelines for actions and behavior with which to succeed. Practical application of UD-Law to exercise. I have been involved in the development of a very clever but very expensive exercise machine called ROM (www.FastExercise.com ). This machine gives maximum results for minimum time investment. The full daily workout on the ROM requires EXACTLY 4 minutes (never more). Also here the rule applies: Where knowledge and understanding are lacking (in exercise) myths will fill the void. The objective of exercise is to place a demand on muscles which in turn will place a demand on tendons and joints and on the cardio-vascular system. To achieve optimum results from exercise the demand on all body systems involved in the exercise should be such that all the systems are slightly traumatized (damaged) but not damaged beyond proper repair. The ROM machine follows the Universal Demand Law to near perfection in that it adaps its workload every second during its 4 minute workout to precisely slightly over-match the user's ability to perform work so that a slight overdemand results and slight damage and slight pain will be invoked. Following the ROM exercise the muscles, tendons and joints must have at least a 48 hour recovery time to repair the slight "damage" that has been induced by the exercise. All bodily systems, that were subjected to a small over-demand, will emerge better and stronger after the 48 hour recovery period. Predictable patterns Universal Laws are laws of nature that apply to observed highly predictable patterns of occurrences in nature or the universe as a whole. Universal Laws apply to patterns of behavior or outcomes that can be predicted with near 100% accuracy. Such observed patterns of outcomes or behavior were observed by Newton, Kepler, Faraday, Pascal, Boyle, and the like and the laws of nature, or universal laws, observed and described by them became known as laws with their names attached to them, such as Newton's Law, Law of Pascal, Kepler's Law. Law of Faraday, Einstein's Law, Boyle's Law, Heisenberg's Law etc. So you could call this Universal Demand Law "Temme's Law" but I think "Universal Demand Law" is better and certainly more descriptive. Maybe Temme's UniversalDemand Law? I discovered the pattern of predictability of this law that I eventually named "Universal Demand Law". I became very convinced by the universality of this law starting around 1970, but I was still unsure about its universal applications to all things living. Around 1985 I had gained enough confidence in the law to give it the name of Universal Demand Law and in 1999 I decided that the law appeared unassailable and ready for publication. It would be a great service to society as a whole and the economy in particular if the law became known and applied by all government bodies around the Globe so that all new law proposals could be tested against the Universal Demand Law for their efficacy before they were to be enacted as laws . People could use the law to improve their personal lives and modify their decision making processes as well. The UD-law explains why many actions taken by humans have such unexpected and often disappointing not intentioned outcomes. If you wish to comment or have some suggestions on more examples that support the universal applicability and validity of my "Universal Demand Law", please feel free to email me at alf@fastexercise.com Alf Temme

Jesus and the Law

So, I had this paper due for my Philosophy class, and some friends said they wanted to read it. I was originally going to post the paper here, but MS Word doesn't mix well with Blogger, so the formatting got all wonky, and it bothered me. Email me, or send a message to my Facebook and I'll send you a copy of it. Please be gentle...

Take Photos With Your Murdered Child!

Last week, I discussed the murder of George Tiller, aka "Tiller the Killer". However, I neglected to go through the feeds on my Google Reader. If I had, I'd have seen this horrific scene brought to public awareness by Ingrid Schlueter of Slice of Laodicea.

Seriously, murder your kid, then have a "memorial service"? I don't even have words for this.

(H/T: Slice of Laodicea)

P.S. Ingrid and her husband Tom are expecting a beautiful baby girl in a few weeks. Please pray for their family.

Should a Murderer Be Mourned?

This article will offend some of you. Most of my regular readers know that offending people is something I care little about. If you're offended, there isn't much I can do about that. All I can do is speak my mind, and the truth. If you want to leave, click here. You've been warned.
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Dr. George Tiller, also known as "Tiller the Killer" was killed as he went through the motions of being an usher at his church on Sunday, May 31, 2009. Why "went through the motions"? Because someone who regularly murders human beings for a living is just going through the motions at church. I also have to wonder about a "church" who would have a known murderer serving in any capacity, but that's not the point. My point is this, if this man had been known for killing over 60,000 3 month old cooing babies versus that many unborn babies, would the public be as sympathetic? No. He murdered unborn human beings for MONEY. This isn't a man who was a saint. He was a killer. Would there be this much outpouring of sympathy if he were Hitler, Stalin or Mao? Of course not. The only tragic thing is that this man wasted his life, taking the lives of others. I'm assuming he wasn't saved. Is that arrogant? Probably. But someone who kills people for a living, in what appears to be an unrepentant manner is probably not saved. I really don't view his death as a tragedy.

Doug Phillips, the Director of Vision Forum Ministries, has written an excellent piece on Tiller. I linked to it, because the text is a bit long. He handles his post with far more tact than I do. Check it out.

Movement

The Ogunbase Family is moving. Yes. Again. I know. Well, why the move?

A couple weeks ago, I was laid off at my job. So, in the course of seeking other employment, I applied for an advertising company that was looking for reps for New Orleans, Austin and Memphis. Well, since we decided that we'll never leave Texas (unless I go here for seminary, and then head right back), and we consider Austin to be home, I applied for the position.

After a longer interview process, an offer was made, and we are moving to Austin!

Pros: H.E.B., Bush's Chicken, the Brushy Creek Sprinkler Park, employment, large savings in monthly expenses ($1250/mo current rent vs $760/mo future rent).
Cons: Saying good-bye to LifeChurch Fort Worth, lifelong friends we've made here, as well as a couple of my best friends.

We're hoping and praying that this will provide the stability for us to get on our feet financially, and actually get ahead.

To all of our friends in the DFW area, thank you for inviting us into your lives and hearts, and you are always welcome in Austin!