Fresh on the heals of OSU’s announcement that it is raising tuition almost 10%, we have the report from NewsOK that:

University of Oklahoma Regents will be asked to raise tuition and fees 9.7 percent, or about $497 a year, for in-state students seeking undergraduate degrees.

The increase would bring the average annual cost, based on taking 30 credit hours, to $5,607.

And at the end of the story, we see that the other schools governed by the OU Regents are all following suit:

Cameron has asked to raise in-state tuition by 9.3 percent and nonresident tuition by 9.5 percent. Rogers State requests tuition increases of 8.9 percent for both resident and nonresident tuition.

I renew my call for the Legislature to take the tuition-setting power back from the Regents. In addition, unless and until OU makes public information detailing its litigation (including settlements) with faculty, staff, and students, it should not receive one more dime of Oklahomans’ money.

I just love the typo in their test result!

Handwriting Analysis Test Smart and Intelligent This indicates that you are a person who thinks before acting, intelligent and thorough. You are a person with a well-organized mind and very reponsible. Your a good person to be around =) Keep being yourself! Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

KTUL reports:

The Oklahoma A-and-M Board of Regents today approved a nearly ten percent increase in tuition and fees for students starting this fall.

University officials say the increase is needed because of rising costs, competitive pressures and fewer dollars allocated by the Legislature.

The cost for in-state students will rise from just under five-thousand dollars a year in tuition and fees to nearly 55-hundred dollars a year.

Out-of-state students who paid just over 13-thousand-500-dollars last year will have to pay nearly 15-thousand-dollars a year in tuition and fees this fall.

As I have pointed out many times before, it is time for the Oklahoma legislature to take tuition-setting control back from the Regents. The foxes are guarding the henhouse, and it needs to stop.

And “fewer dollars allocated by the Legislature” just means the University wants to spend more than they have.

According to the Oklahoma Lottery page, 45% of the $122 Million raised for education by the lottery was allocated for higher education. That’s approximately $55 Million that is split between higher ed institutions. Imagine how much tuition would go up if they didn’t have the lottery dough.

I implore someone in the legislature to push a bill through taking this power back from the Regents. If you remember, it made it through the special session last year, but Gov. Henry vetoed it because he said it did not fit the purpose for which he called the special session. With the Regents approving increases of almost the allowable maximum every year, it has becoem dereliction of duty for the state lawmakers not to take back the power they delegated several years ago.

As an homage to MeeCiteeWurkor, who has shared with us many stories of him v. several things (lawnmower, weedeater, mosquito, giant insect, Linux, etc.), I present Mr. Wynn v. the Waterpik. I mentioned in earlier posts (scroll down) about my recent return to the dental chair. As a result of my improper brushing, I had to go in for a below-the-gumline cleaning, for which they numbed me up good. In the oral care instruction part of the visit, in addition to being shown how to brush, I was also prescribed a Waterpik.

Now, for someone who has practically every episode of Seinfeld lodged in his subconsious, the only think one can thing of when he hears the word “Waterpik” is Estelle Costanza yelling at Frank, “You’re not giving away our Waterpik!” And then, of course, Frank’s response, “Serenity now!”

But the hygienist talked it up pretty good, so on the way home I stopped by Big Box Mart to pick up my very own. I just finished using it for the first time.

Here are some tips if you want to use one for yourself.

1. Prepare to get wet. This thing pumps a lot of water through and it has to go somewhere. The goal is to lean over a sink and funnel everything into it as it runs out of your mouth. If I ever develop this skill, it’ll be a wonder.

2. Buy a squeegie. I thought the mirror was bad because of my SonicCare. The good thing is if I brush with the SonicCare first, then Waterpik, the water from the Waterpik will dilute the toothpaste and help rinse it away.

3. Learn to use it correctly. Water pressure can cut through cement and metal. While the Waterpik isn’t that powerful, it is shooting pressurized water, so you need to make sure you do it right. The key is not to aim it at the gum, but upward through the teeth (for the bottom teeth) and downward through the teeth (for the upper teeth). This creates a flow of water which actually creates a vacuum which suctions the harmful bacteria out from in between your teeth where they like to party down and make more bacteria.

And so, there ya have it: The continuing saga of me trying to avoid costly dental work.

Were it not for the evil of abortion, the black population of the United States would be 33% larger than it is.

In this sermon, John Piper blatently tries to impress upon his hearers that abortion is racism at its most insideous. Give him a listen and dare to disagree. (Click the link, then click on the listen icon. You need no special player.)

After a few years of total neglect, I have been forced to attend to my teeth. I don’t like going to the denist. A couple bad experiences when I was younger combined with the inconvenience of the whole dentist process (”Let’s schedule a cleaning first, then I can do a checkup.” “We need to see you back so we can take care of that cavity before it gets too bad. Let’s see, our first opening is in six months; will that work?”) has led me to ignore that aspect of my health. And, of course, after a couple years of neglect, there’s some work that needs to be done. Fortunately, I am thrilled to say that I found a great dentist. For anyone who is in the Claremore area, I highly recommend R. Randall Hakins.

That said, I was struck today by something I learned in my oral care consulation with the dental hygienist. Basically, when I was young, I learned to brush my teeth wrong.

When I was in grade school, we had some dental expert come in and do the dental lesson, complete with the corny film strips with the dancing molars and the little red tablets you could chew that would show the nasty plaque on your teeth. Then we were given tooth brushes and instructed in their use. And the one thing I remember being taught was Never, ever brush your teeth up and down because you will damage your gums. Always brush side to side. So much for that theory. Turns out our gums are hearty enough to stand up to the bristles of a toothbrush and fragile enough to suffer if they are not brushed. At least that is the current theory.

So here I am, a 30-year-old man, and I apparently didn’t know how to brush my teeth.

The whole episode got me to thinking about life in general. It can really make you wonder Is there anything else I mis-learned? If I can be wrong about something so simple and basic as brushing my teeth, what else could I have missed? When we learn something wrong, it is no less learned than the things we learned correctly. If and when we discover that it is wrong, it takes a concerted effort to re-learn it the right way. And practice. And repitition. And repitition.

In speaking of liberals, Ronald Reagan once said that it wasn’t that they were ignorant, it was just that they knew so much that wasn’t true. True words from the great man.

Within the realm of Christianity and the church, there certainly is a problem with biblical ignorance. But there is also a huge problem with people knowing so much that is not true. Most heresies originate in a misunderstanding of the nature of God. And so, if we learn something wrong–especially doctrine–somewhere along the way, it can be not only terribly difficult to overcome but also  catastrophic in its destruction.

When the Church has so much to do and such a short time to do it, it is a shame that there are so many who seem to know so much that isn’t true and are dedicated to propagating it to the ends of the earth. Pet doctrines, impositions on the Scriptures, and out-and-out lies are preached and taught by men who come in the name of my Savior.

If there ever was a time for us to recommit ourselves to the essentials of the faith, it is now. I am happy that the messengers at this year’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting took steps to ensure that we are unified around essentials, free to use our liberty in non-essentials, and charitable to all in all things.

The task, then, becomes for us to unlearn, overcome, and transcend the things we learned wrong.

While tooling around the net, I came across this:

No, there is no way there could have been an Intelligent Designer behind this. How could you have been so stupid as to even consider it. How could you look at this exceedingly specialized creature and suppose that it is the result of anything other than millennia of random chance and natural trial and error. You fools! Of course this critter instantly makes one think, Yep, it just randomly developed this skill one day and it stuck with it. And that’s very convenient, since it seems to be the little dude’s primary means of feeding itself. Long live Darwin!

I don’t write this blog for comments. But it’s nice to get them. And it’s been a while since I had any. I am bad about it, too. I read someone’s blog, agree mentally, and surf on down the road. Well, I am asking visitors to comment just for the sake of commenting this one time. It’s more of a roll call I guess. You can use your real name or a fake one, but take a sec to say, “Hi!” or “I read you,” or “You’re an idiot.” It would help my self esteem.

And remember, if you don’t see your comment appear right away it’s waiting for me to approve it.

I voted for George W. Bush twice. He was not who I would have selected in the primary. In fact, he was not who I voted for in the primary. However, he was far batter than the other option presented, both times. He has done wonderfully on some things. He has been relentless in pursuing and killing terrorists who want to destroy Americans–be they liberal, conservative, or in between. He has done that in the face of treasonous attacks by hate-America leftists who will do anything and say anything to win, or more precisely, to see our side fail.

Bush has also done a respectible job of appointing judges, save the Harriet Meyers debacle. And when you consider that there is no guarantee when a President chooses a federal judge–just look at some of the previous Republican presidents’ choices who have been so disappointing–Bush has made outstanding choices.

But there are, of course, some areas where Bush has been a big, fat, stinking disappointment. Compassionate conervativism obviously means huge expansion of the federal government. Bush has signed off on bigger budgets than Bill Clinton could have ever begged for. The government has grown more under Bush than any president in recent history.

And then there’s immigration. Bush has wanted amnesty since he was elected. The silver lining to our huge losses in the last mid-term elections for Bush was the prospect of getting his immigration bill through. And now he’s doing all he can.

Some patriots in the Senate derailed it last week, but it’s rearing its ugly head again today. It needs to be defeated.

The unified voice of Americans that I hear is saying, “Control the borders first! Then we’ll talk about guest worker programs, etc.” The President insists on amnesty for those who are already here illegally. And he has said some very mean things about and insulted the intelligence of those of us who disagree with him. In fact, his responses have been eerily similar to those the left usually makes against us. Bush was adament he would win the battle on Harriet Meyers. We proved him wrong. We must do so again.

And that leads me to Chairman Ann. Her column this week is a must-read. We should all see the horrible, shabby way in which our country–our President–has treated U.S. Border agents who were doing their jobs trying to keep illegals and drugs out of America. It will make you seeth with anger as you see just how backwards our country and leaders have it.

Ann piques our interest this way:

Bush keeps claiming he’s dying to enforce the border, but he just can’t do it unless we immediately grant amnesty to 12 million illegal aliens. I wonder if that worked on Laura Bush:

Laura: George, it’s time you quit drinking.
George: OK, honey, let’s discuss it over cocktails.

As usual, her analysis is dead-on accurate. You should read the whole thing here.