I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding in our society about the meaning of the word hypocrite.
From its misuse in popular reference, I observe that many people think a hypocrite is someone who says one thing and does another. Certainly, that is a small part of the meaning of this word, but if that were all, there would be no point in having the word, because we already have a word for that: human.
Yes, every human whose father and mother were born on this planet has said things and then done different things. No human alive today has ever been completely consistent in words and actions. And you wouldn't want to meet someone who did, because there are often good reasons for changing our minds and not following through on something we said we should or would do.
No, there is something much more important in the meaning of the word hypocrite.
To understand this, we need to go back to the root of the word. The ways we use and misuse words changes over time, but however we twist the meanings, the words themselves will always convey to some their original meaning, and it is often useful to return a word to its proper meaning, because words have no purpose if they do not clearly and properly convey information.
Now, this word hypocrite comes from a Greek word that means actor. And therein lies its true meaning.
A hypocrite is not someone who says one thing and does another. A hypocrite is someone who does wrong and pretends to be doing right. It is easy to confuse the two, but there is a huge difference. Saying one thing and doing another may in many circumstances (either because the situation has changed or because it is realized that following through would be worse than not doing what was promised) be helpful to all, but pretending to be doing good while behaving wickedly is never helpful.
A hypocrite is a pretender, not someone who strives for a good goal and misses the mark. We are all human, and we all make mistakes. No one can consistently do good and never do anything wrong. The tendency, though, is to expect this of others and to pretend that we are always right. And by judging the foibles of others who are trying to do right, we ourselves become the true hypocrites, pretending and deceiving ourselves that we are better because we don't talk about the good we're trying to do.
The truly righteous people acknowledge that they are no better than anyone else, try to do right, and don't, when they do something wrong, pretend in self-righteousness that they are doing right.

Barack Obama said recently, "Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at age 16, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information."

Others have covered the angle that he is essentially putting pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases in the same category. I won't go into that.

My problem is with the word he chose: ( punishment. )
Words are important. Choose them carefully. The words of a president are even more important, because leaders around the world make decisions based on what the leader of the U.S.A. says. Choose them carefully, too.

Politics is a touchy subject with some people. And with many, it is the realm of emotion rather than reason.
With some politicians throwing around words like hope, change, and future without giving any clarification for what they mean by these words, I thought it would be a good idea to examine the possibilities and the mindsets that I've observed in recent months.
I think it fitting to begin with the future. Politicians love the future. After all, if all your promises are about the future, you don't have to actually do anything about them, because the future is always yet to be. The future is nebulous, unclear, and unpredictable. This is appropriate, because political promises tend to be the same things. I don't trust people who talk about the future in vague terms. If you want to talk about the future, put it in firm language so I know what you really mean to do.
Hope is a wonderful thing, but we need to have real hope, not throwaway hope. We need the kind of hope that is mentioned in Jeremiah 29:11, where God says His plans will give us a future with hope, that is, something real to look forward to. We need to avoid making political decisions based on throwaway hope, like when we look at the dark clouds and say, "I hope it doesn't rain." When we say that, we don't expect it to stay dry, and we don't really mind if that throwaway hope is not fulfilled. It's not real hope, and we don't care much whether it comes to pass. In fact, we expect that it will not be realized. This is a terrible way to make important decisions, because we have more at stake than whether we will have our picnic cut short by a rain that does us no more harm than making us wet.
No matter what anyone says, humans don't like change. We often feel there is no guarantee that the change will be for the better. Except when a politician talks about it. This is a good time to be wary. Pin people down. "What changes are you suggesting?" After all, someone who promises change can fulfill that promise by locking every person into an isolation cell. It's change, but do you support it? Change for the sake of change is not good. Changes need to happen as a logical solution to a problem. If the change is not adequately considered, it may do more harm than good. And question assumptions about what needs to change and why. It may be that someone has a vested interest in a change that hurts other people.
Of course, the most disturbing thing I've seen lately is not with the politicians themselves but with the voters. Many voters have been getting excited about candidates who say they will give them things ... things that are not really in their legitimate power to give ... things the Constitution doesn't grant the federal government power to enact.
Be careful, voters.
The road to totalitarian dictatorship is reached often through the side street of 'bread and circuses'. Be wary of anyone who promises to give you things that are not rightly yours. Government is supposed to protect your ability to use your gifts and talents and efforts to make a good life for yourself with what God has provided. Government is not supposed to give to some at the expense of others. It is supposed to protect and give equally to all (roads, etc.).
"In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'" --Dosteovsky's Grand Inquisitor
"The mob is traitor to the people." —Victor Hugo

And now, to the field of mathematics.
Averages are an important part of our daily lives. We don't have time to look at columns of data on every issue and try to reach conclusions based on that glut of numbers. So, we use averages to boil large amounts of data down to a single number we can use to make ballpark estimates about how we wish to proceed.
But the word average has limited specific meaning. This is largely because average usually replaces one of three more specific terms. They are mean, median, and mode.
These three types of averages describe different facets for different purposes.
The mean is what most people think of when they hear that something is an average. It is a series of numbers added together and that sum divided by the number of numbers: x = (a + b + c)/3. It is used for mathematical calculations of averages not dependent on chance. If you buy some number of items at different prices and sell them at a uniform price, the mean of the purchase prices will tell you what sale price you need to get to break even.
But a mean is not useful for problems involving prediction of likelihood or frequency of occurrences.
Another average is the median. This is a useful number for determining likelihood of future numerical values, such as the salaries of employees in a certain industry or nation. To get the median, all the values are ordered from highest to lowest, and the middle value in the list is chosen. For example, if there are n values, they are ordered a, b, c, ..., value #n; Then, the value in the middle is chosen. If n is odd, it is the value at position n/2 rounded up. If n is even, it is the mean of the two values at half-n and half-n plus one. This gives a more accurate picture of the "average" salary in a group, since outliers (values far above or below most of the other values, like the CEO's salary) will skew the arithmetic mean. Ex: 15k, 15k, 15k, 16k, 16k, 17k, 17k, 200k would yield a mean of 37k, but the greater likelihood is that someone working there will make about 16k, which is the median income.
But the median still doesn't tell you what the most common numerical value is.
For that, we need the mode. The mode is simply the value with the highest frequency. Many data sets will give a single mode (the company above has a mode of 15k, which means that if you go to work there, that's the most likely value for your salary, all other things being equal. However, mode is a little more complicated, because it can be more than one number. A data set might be bimodal or trimodal, for example, if two values tie for the greatest frequency, for example: 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5 is bimodal, with 2 and 4 being the modes. The mode tells the tendency of something, for example, the number of plates in individual households might be best described by the mode (unless you think the median plate count is more important).

I had not intended to write about this, but my sense of linguistic purity compels me to make note of a misused word.
Tragedy.
News reports have repeatedly included the word tragedy in describing something that is not.
A tragedy is a lamentable occurrence or disaster. Tragic events merit lamenting. Why do we lament? Because tragedies occur outside of conscious control.
In ancient drama, according to Wikipedia, a tragedy involved the downfall, characterized by seriousness and dignity, of a great person through either a character flaw in the great person or a conflict between the person and a higher power, such as fate or society or the law.
An earthquake in which many people die is a tragedy. An automobile accident in which numerous or special people die is a tragedy. Being lost at sea and drowning or starving is a tragedy. Missing a safety step in an experiment that causes an explosion is a tragedy. When a building collapses because it wasn't designed for the snowfall it receives, killing people, that is a tragedy. When a ship sinks because it was going too fast for the watch to see a hazard, and people die, that is a tragedy.
These things happen through some means (whatever your beliefs about why things happen) outside the conscious control of those who set them into motion.
Crimes, including murders, are not tragic. They can be heinous, horrific, vicious, or other adjectives, but one thing they never are is tragic.
When planes fly down and shoot and bomb people having worship services on a Sunday morning, it is not a tragedy but a crime. When someone sets off a bomb in a sports arena or a marketplace to kill people, it is not a tragedy but a crime. When someone flies a large plane into a building, killing many hundreds of people, it is not a tragedy but a crime. When someone picks up a gun and willfully murders people, it is not a tragedy but a crime.
The proper reaction to a crime is not lamentation, it is justice. Lamenting is appropriate for events beyond our control. Crimes demand justice. Deaths may be lamented as tragic. Crimes themselves are never tragic, because there is a choice of will to bring them about, so the event of a crime is not a tragedy.

Quoted: "You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and liberty." -- Henrik Ibsen

Explanations: I was at the Men's Rally for Christ on August 14, the weekend Charlie went through Florida, and one of the speakers there, Dr. Tony Campolo, told about an experience he had. I think this is an important thing for Christians to consider. Let me mention, first of all, that if this is your first exposure to Dr. Campolo, bear in mind that this is not something he usually says, in my experience:
( Language Warning )
More explanations later...

Talk to me: What living American do you think would be the best person to be the President of the USA? I don't want to hear which candidate you've chosen to receive your vote, unless that happens to be the person you think should be President. I want to hear who would be President if the choice were completely yours.

Link of the Day: The Diamond 16 Puzzle - Today's LOTD is a math puzzle you might enjoy. Flip different groups of tiles to form a specific design. I hope you enjoy it.

A couple of things from my reading this morning:

Good Spy:
James Bond Camera

Bad Spy:
From Gator Forces Site To Remove 'Spyware' Label [language warning] on /.:
"I feel that software is "spyware" if it meets the following tests:

1. Does the software install itself without the user's knowledge or consent?
2. Does it monitor user behaviour of any kind?
3. Does it do this monitoring without the user's consent?

[...]

If Gator meets these 3 tests, it's spyware. Whether it has other functions that allow it to be called "adware" is irrelevant.</a>" --B.D.Mills, on the discussion topic.
...and...
"What do we do when someone tries to grab the freedom of speech from us?
Everyone who has a website will put up exactly the thing that they dont want us putting out." --Too_bad, on the same discussion topic.

That's right. Gator and how it operates (The link at the bottom of the linked page goes to an HTML document describing the testing).

In my opinion, "Gator" is spyware, malware, and qualifies as a virus. Doesn't that gator image on their ad banners look shifty? Exercise your First Amendment rights, while they're still protected...

WHAT DO YOU CALL...
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This quiz brought to you in Skreyola's journal by http://www.livejournal.com/users/skreyola/110966.html?mode=reply. Please pass it on so I can get a good sample for my poll. Thanks. :)

Age: 26
Where did you grow up: northwest Florida

WHAT DO YOU CALL:

1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks?
Stream

2. The thing you push around the grocery store?
Shopping cart

3. A metal container to carry a meal in?
Lunch box

4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in?
Frying pan

5. The piece of furniture that seats three people?
Couch

6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof?
Gutter

7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening?
Porch

8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages?
Soda

9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup?
Pancake

10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself?
Sub(marine sandwich)

11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach?
Swimming shorts/Swim suit

12. Shoes worn for sports?
Sneaker (A tennis shoe is a special shoe for playing tennis)

13. Putting a room in order?
Cleaning

14. A flying insect that glows in the dark?
Lightning bug

15. The little insect that curls up into a ball?
Roly-poly, of course! :)

16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down?
See-saw

17. How do you eat your pizza?
Knife and fork, if it's fresh. From the fridge, I take a slice in hand.

18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff?
Garage sale/Yard sale

19. What's the evening meal?
Dinner

20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are?
Flooded; Florida has a high water table... (Okay, a Basement)

21. A window covering on a roller that pulls down.
Shade

22. A new, limited access, multi-lane road.
Interstate

23. Heavy garments worn for work.
Overalls

24. The highest grade of gasoline?
Premium