Records

Filed Principle Media first sales tax return with the Texas Comptroller office today. It's great that I get a half percent for timely filing discount.

I finally tracked down and learned the meaning of .OB and .PK that you often see following a stock symbol.

This article stating that the British government is prepared to present GPS data showing that its sailors and marines were in Iraqi waters at the time of them being captured by Iranian forces. This reminds what I was told by a friend, who knows what he's talking about, that China now can move a truck into an area and all the GPS signals within 200 miles would be all distorted, such that the satellites that provide signals think that they are half way around the world on the other side. This is in addition to China's ability to shoot down a satellite as well as to have its submarine trailing a US aircraft carrier group undetected, all the while having the carrier within it's torpedo range. Our government needs to wake up fast.

It's an understatement to say that Farmers Branch councilman Tim O'Hare got a Texas size welcome and endorsement at tonight's Greater Irving Republican Club meeting. It's good to know that Farmers Branch police are ready to be trained in the 287(g) program. The Carrollton city council already voted 6-2 to join this program. Can't wait to see it enforced!

I haven't paid much attention to the race for chairman of the Young Republican National Federation but it appears that Glen Murphy has gotten delegates from the three biggest states: California, Texas and Florida with people on his tickets from as many states as you can possibly have while Jason Weingartner has mostly people in the northeast, especially New York, his home state and only Georgia in the south. It looks pretty much like a done deal waiting only to become official the weekend after July 4th in Miami.

With regard to this report of the NYPD preconvention preparation, as an alternate delegate from the 24th congressional district of Texas who attended the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, I would like to say that I appreciate very much all that the law enforcement officers and emergency personnels, including the FDNY had done, both before and during the convention. There was one officer who was pulled off his horse and beaten unconscious late at night during the convention, so all these protesters were not nice people. One girl had sour milk poured all over her as she walked the street. We were advised to put away our convention credentials as a precaution while we were outside the secured zone.

The Dallas/Fort Worth Asian American Citizens Council had its quarterly board meeting today. I came in the office afterward, was pretty productive there for a few hours before we went out to see Reign Over Me. It was a pretty decent movie. It would have been great movie if there weren't all these gratuitous curse words being thrown around. The best moment in the movie was when the four of them ran into each other at the door to the office of Angela Oakhurst, the psychologist, played by Liv Tyler. She played the role real well though I wish the script writer could have written better lines for her, you know, more in depth, more realistic psychology. Jada Pinkett Smith played the role of Janeane Johnson extremely well. I didn't think the part of the two police officers banging Charlie Fineman, played by Adam Sandler, against the column after they had already cuffed him was necessary. I appreciate our law enforcement officers a lot and wish the script writer had not chosen to portray our police officers in that light when thousand of them put their lives on the line for our safety every minute of every hour of every day.

Talking about putting their lives on the line, at our weekly small group get together, we always pray for our men and women in the armed forces and their families. We don't think it's right that they only get 10 days of R&R and had to wait on standby at the airport for 18 hours or even 2 days. That reminds me to bring it up with Kenny Marchant, my congressman and see if there is anything he can do about it.

We went to Tokyo One yesterday to celebrate Rob's birthday and I got my sushi fix. I rarely eat fish unless it's sushi.

My boss also officially informed me of the raise, effective March 19th, which I will see in the check next Friday, praise God! God is so good to me. Counting all the blessings since God brought me to the US fourteen years ago, I can't wait to see what good things He has in store for me the next 14 years.

I am now benching 155 lbs, making steady progress there. First time getting back to do cardiovascular exercise again on stationary bike. It felt good.

Went for a check up on my knee last week. The doctor ordered an MRI because he suspected I had torn the meniscus and the torn part had gotten into the joint and thus preventing me from straightening the knee all the way. He also suspected I had torn more than just the MCL as initially diagnosed by the doctor at Vail Valley Medical Center because there was still fluid in the joint four weeks after the injury occurred. He went over the MRI films and report and discussed with me today. I had partially torn the MCL, the ACL, the meniscus, crush some bone at the end of my femur, .... He said I was very lucky that I was just below the threshold of complete blow out my knee with complete torn the ACL, MCL, and the meniscus, .... I told him God had mercy. God still answer prayer, and mine specifically that I would not need surgery and that I would be able to ski again next year. So, praise God for everything! This is the first time in my life I had need of an orthopedist and I wholeheartedly recommend doctor John Wey. He's competent, thorough, and explain well to his patient what's going on, what he's doing about it, .... With the help of the internet, and good search engine like Google, I can take a much more active part in my own medical care. I really feel empowered!

We heard from detective B.A. Dirks of the Dallas PD gang unit tonight at our North Dallas Republican Club meeting. He specializes on dealing with graffiti. And it's a big problem in all quarters of the city. The most prominent and recent incident being the tagging on the highway signs at the split between I-35 N and I-30 W on the west side coming out of downtown. I learned that kids can be part of a gang as early as in second grade, imagine that, a 7 year-old kid. I know what MS-13, Blood, and Crip are, having gone through the Carrollton Citizen Police Academy. But hearing of gang members getting elected to office in the Chicago area is a totally different ball game. This is when it's good to know that God is sovereign!

Heard Jerry Rassamni's testimony from Jihad to Jesus tonight at Dallas Bible Church. A lot of things I heard about were made much more clearer tonight about Islam, such as the pre-Medina and post-Medina Islam, about glorifying 7th century Arabia, about the 72 virgins in heaven, .... But did you know that II Timothy 4:7 where Paul said "I have fought the good fight," is translated in Arabic fight as jihad? However, the Christian jihad if we look at the life of the apostle Paul, meant to be beaten, to be poisoned, to be beheaded for the sake of the gospel. Contrast that with the jihad the Islamo-fascistss are calling for, to behead the infidels, as they call the rest of the world who aren't Muslim.

These terrorists are here to stay so we need to keep fighting the war with everything we got. However, M16 and precision guided bombs can only killed the terrorists, not the terrorists factories. In the short term, pesident Bush is already doing what he can to eliminate the conditions that leads to these terrorists factories: introducing democratic governments, economic freedom, education reform, ... into the Arab world. Things that have been crying out in the pages of the Arab human development reports. But ultimately, only by changing the hearts of men and women, which in and of itself is evil because of the fallen nature of mankind, can we really have peace. In the long term, we need to show the Muslims a better way than hatred, love. They need to see Christ in us, the love of Christ through us. Or as Jerry put it, Christ in skin, which is what Christians are all about.

Paul gave me this link to download H&R Block Tax Cut for free so I punched in my numbers and did my own federal income tax return this year instead of paying someone else to do it like previous years. My charitable giving amounts to 10.675% of my total income, pretty decent. My effective tax rate is not too bad, though it could be lower.

I went shopping for ski gears this afternoon with Teresa and Saun at Sun and Ski in Grapevine. Got me a pair of Volkl skis and Nordica ski boots.

Went to the office for a little bit before going over to Paul and Sharon's place for some really good crawfish that my brother helped cook up. It was a feast. We had gumbo, cheesecake, ice cream, and the durian fruit. To this day I haven't seen one Caucasian friend eating that fruit though I have seen plenty of brave missionaries tried and loved our distinctly Vietnamese fish sauce, and all the other "stinky" food.

Both our senior and associate pastors as well as the treasurer are out of town in Atlanta tonight but we have 10 people came and went out to share the gospel with others. Thank God for the EE ministry at our church.

My next door neighbor has gone home to be with the Lord sometimes last year. Her son and daughter are divesting her estate. They donated the piano to our church so I and six other strong guys came to pick up and transport to the piano to our church tonight. We stopped by Henry's place for dinner since he and his wife hosted our church's Arlington small group tonight.

We heard from Steve Forbes at the Heritage Foundation luncheon today. He's a great speaker, short, straight to the point, precise, succinct. Talking about health care, he advocates putting people in charge of their asset and people will get values for their money. Example is the LASIK eye surgery procedure, which has gone down dramatically in cost over the last few years, partly because it's not covered by insurance and people spend their own money. Both the provider and consumer contributed in driving down the cost. Just like everything else when it's left to free market and competition. On the same topic of health care, people will automatically get generic drug without anyone having to tell them so if they pay for it with money from their own health saving accounts. We should do away with health insurance as we know it. Expand health saving accounts and catastrophic insurance instead.

An innovative way of improving health care is people seeing specialists. Put a specialist in a round table with ten or fifteen people. In an hour or two, the specialist can see 15 people, which is a great rate for the specialist. The people can be relax instead being hurry through. They will have all their questions answered. Questions they may not even think of before may pop up during those two hours and they can get them answered as well.

Talking about Washington DC, the slogan he has is "No lobbyist left behind." One ridiculous example is the fact that Starbucks defined crushing coffee beans as manufacturing. The tax code, about 9 million words in all, is beyond anyone's comprehension and every day Joe is held accountable for it when IRS people who answer the phone do not even know what they are talking about most of the time. Contrast that with the Bible, which has about 770,000 words, took 40 writers from three different continents over 1,600 years to complete. He's advocating for the flat tax, the first $46K is not being taxed, 17 cent per dollar after that. And no death tax, in another word, no taxation without respiration.

Talking about 2008 presidential election, Democrat Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, may not be that bad of a candidate at all. He cut state income tax by almost half, and also cut capital gain tax.

Last topic he touched on is the current war against Islamic terrorists. The ideology is not new. It's only a mutation of marxism and communism. Ultimately free people will win.

I got a ride to camp with Thuy & Ben. Stapled the program book together on our way there. Brought my cutting board and we made name tag once we got to camp.

Camp was so much fun. Check the Vietnamese Alliance Youth Southwest Region for all the pictures and video clips.

Another reason I believe it will be hard for Rudy Giuliani is what his son said in the New York Times. Rudy's current wife Judith strained the relationship between father and son Andrew. Andrew, aspires to become a professional golfer, will be too busy with golf to be involved in his father's presidential campaign. Now we Asian understand that real well. The son refuses to help in the father's most important endeavor he will ever engage in his life. Put that up against the perfect image of Mitt Romney, surrounds with loving wife, children and grandchildren. And we haven't even mentioned the Clinton machine yet.

I invited everyone who is concerned about global warming to read the Nine Facts About Climate Change by Ray Evans of the Lavoisier Group. I am glad to read that the Kyoto Treaty is pretty much in the dust bin of history. That the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate or AP6 is there to respond to climate change issues rationally through technological progress and adaptation.

Spent a few hours on saturday getting everything ready for the upcoming Springbreak camp at Pineywoods: schedule, nametags, program books, room assigment, ....

The new CPAC straw poll had Romney came in first at 21% with Giuliani second at 17%, my ticket Mitt Romney/Kay Baily Hutchison still stand the best chance.

This is the United States Navy, dismissing one of its chaplain because he prayed "in Jesus name." I guess this is where we ought to obey God rather than man but at the same time be shrewd as a serpent but innocent as dove.

I invite you to read this article from the April 28, 1975 issue of Newsweek. They warned that unless we took drastic measure like artificially melting the artic ice cap, we will face major worldwide problems with crop production and thus food supply. Now that the ice cap is melting all by itself, they warn that unless we take drastic measure, the world will be submerged under water. I am not sure 30 years from now, what would be their warning? Any guess on what drastic measure they would want to ram down your throat with their more-than-conclusive evidence of global warming?