Beware of Russians Bearing Advice...

Have you read the op-ed in the NY Times labeled as being written by Vlad Putin?  It oozes emotional appeal and socialist underpinnings.  I believe if he indeed wrote this, he is appealing to the globalists and liberals that see the free market and Capitalism as a bad thing. 

There are many points to discuss but at first glance the points that stand out are:

United Nations being of utmost importance.  The UN is a nice formal way to facilitate social events and coordinate operations of countries doing joint operations, but it is in no way superior, or even close to the United States own ability to rule itself and by the UN’s idea of a league of nations opposes nearly everything the USA stands for.  We will and always have made our own decisions.  Our system of government  has proven itself to be the most successful.  Of late the players and corruption have caused our form of government to fail.  The players are corrupted not the system, history clearly shows that.

In his Op-ed piece Putin says “No one doubts the use of nerve gas, but it was the rebels not the Syrian government.”  To me if that were true, how could Assad assure anybody he can turn control of the gas to any global organization if he doesn’t fully control it?  Believe me, this is never going to happen.  They may do something symbolic, but that’s all.  Russia is their ally and could possibly have given the nerve gas to them.

Toward the end of the piece he (Putin) voices his disagreement with Mr. Obama and his speaking of
American exceptionalism.    This echoes his allegiance to the communism of this past leaders and government.  Socialism, and communism’s worst enemy and their Kryptonite are individualism and excellence.  As echoed by modern liberalism promoting competition free outcomes so no one has to lose.  Sameness of outcome in almost all things they control, under the guise of “fairness” and “equality”.  In the United States we already enjoy the utmost freedoms of any place on earth, not because we guarantee the sameness of outcomes for everybody, but our form of government allows for anybody to strike out on their own and seek to excel at anything they want to put their time and resources toward.  I admit it is increasingly tougher to attain success in private industry as no sooner than you announce your plan to become a for profit entity our beloved government becomes a silent partner by force and threat of retaliation.  Their partnership is in your profits and never in the liabilities, but we can overcome even their intrusions.  If we succumb to becoming a part of the rest of the world and their regulation we will continue to have to “dumb down” or economy and our dominance in the economic arena.  I believe the world would be a worse place without our leadership.  Having said that, there are many corrupt aspects of our government that the world wouldn’t miss as well.

Bottom line:  This is not a man or country we should trust.  We have nothing to gain by joining the “We are the world” brigade.  They have the potential to topple the world’s strongest nation.  We are in a little bit of a nose dive, due largely to a leader that isn’t.  But hopefully we can shed ourselves of him and his ilk and get a leader that is decisive and strong and get back on track.  This kind of foreign affairs faux pas is very reminiscent of the presidency of Jimmy Carter and the Iranian hostages.  The hostages had been held and bandied about for months, while an inept Carter tried the same limp wristed diplomacy that Obama is using, but within 5 days of Ronald Reagan’s election, they released the hostages with no complications.  Our enemies watch closely for our weaknesses, and like undisciplined children, push to the limit.  Now our adversary, Russia is sounding more American than our president, which in my opinion is a scam of monumental proportion and demands keen leadership more now than ever.

                                                                                                                                                                          

Don’t let ‘sustainable’ turn political

  Editorial reprinted from The Capital Press 

Occasionally, I come across an article that sums up my same sentiments and says it much better that I can.  This is a reprint of just such an editorial from the September 6th edition.

We like the concept of sustainability, and so does almost everyone.

It is difficult to argue against the concept of farmers, ranchers and others operating in a “sustainable” manner.

But a problem arises in defining the concept.

When it comes to agriculture, the definition of sustainable is in the eye of the beholder. A family that homesteaded 160 acres and has farmed that ground for 150 years need only look in the mirror to see what sustainable is. The farm has supported the family, provided a livelihood for generations and helped feed the world.

That just about says it all. By any measure, that farm should be considered sustainable.

Yet other individuals and groups have gone to great lengths to define and redefine sustainable using the lens they prefer. That can include leanings toward a particular type of production or lifestyle. Or it can include certain political tenets.

Agricultural concerns large and small are taking up the sustainable banner these days. They want to be able to tell their customers that the food they eat is not only good for them but that it is sustainable.

One example of this effort is General Mills, which has gone to farmers that produce some of the commodities that go into the company’s many products. Working with farmers, the company hopes to develop criteria that show those commodities are grown in a way that is sustainable. That makes sense. All companies, including food processors and retailers, need to listen closely to their customers. If customers want a certain type of products, including those produced sustainably, that company’s leadership would be wise to find a way to meet that expectation.

Working with farmers and others, the companies can develop a definition of sustainability that makes sense economically and environmentally.

Our biggest fear is that politicians might try to hijack the term sustainable. Mind you, government is famous for tripping over itself whenever a new buzzword enters the political lexicon. Some years ago, “renewable” was all the rage in state capitals and in Washington, D.C. Legislators wanted to define it according to their political leanings. Wind turbines and photovoltaic panels were “renewable” even though they required subsidies, but hydroelectric dams were not. In the West and the rest of the nation, dams provide flood control and generate massive amounts of low cost electricity, providing a renewable source of energy and bolstering regional economies.

Yet some politicians refuse to acknowledge that they are “renewable.”

Now sustainability has gained currency, and we can only hope that it will not fall to the same political fate as “renewable.”

Our hope is that politicians will resist the temptation to inflict their views on a concept that, to a large degree, is common sense.

Why can't we just be honest...

Why can’t we just be honest…  I have lost any presumptions that I once may have had that GW Bush was an angel… quite the opposite, I am very disappointed in his last four years for sure and I am very skeptical about some of his motives in the first four, but for entirely different reasons than liberals condemn him.  Economically the US did very well even excluding the sub-prime or ultra-low interest times that were strewn throughout his presidency.   

Oh sure you can, and liberals do, attribute the sub-prime mortgage crash to him, which is unfortunate.  They also say the tax rate reductions were for the upper echelon as some sort of payoff or boost to rich people… whatever.  They also say “the eight failed years” of his presidency, when they weren't all a failure… especially compared to our current leader.  Of course, even the lack of performance of our current leader is blamed on Mr. Bush, and that is where I am distraught with today’s up and coming young people.  I believe they check their brains at the door and belly up to the main stream trough and lap up the swill of liberal lies deferring blame from every unsavory thing and hanging it on the Republican’s necks.

The Republican’s are doing a pretty good job of hanging themselves right now, so the libs could probably sit it out for a while and watch them implode, with little or no effort.  I believe young thinking minds must differentiate between the Republicans and Conservatism, or we will all be sunk.   The Republicans, or most of them anyway, aren’t doing a very good job of defending conservative values and free market capitalism today.  They are too busy, it seems, trying to meld with the liberals, who want only to have them on a stick.  It makes no sense to me, as they are only proving who among them has the stones to stay the course, and who should go.

 Following the pop-culture, and mainstream media should be a no brainer to the average thinking person, but I can only believe that the liberal invasion of our public institutions of higher, and intermediate learning have begun to produce fruit.  The evidence is shown in watching nearly anything in the news represented by the younger generation.  (For the record, not ALL of the younger generation, as there is still young people that have been properly inoculated by loving parents that won’t allow the pollution of their progeny’s minds by the liberal onslaught)

A case in point:  As our economy stagnates into its fifth, or sixth year, with high unemployment (much higher than the MSM reports) and the Federal Reserve printing money like there’s no tomorrow (but there will be), there are tell tail signs of distress in the masses.  One such display is the current flurry of protests of big chain employers, like McDonalds, Wal-Mart, etc. not paying high enough wages and the all too willing Federal government setting minimum wages.   The protesting youth are completely missing the point and will never ever reach an average lifestyle such as my generation has had in the past by following the tripe they are being fed.  The market ALWAYS dictates the minimum wage… always.  Nobody can legislate private sector wealth; it doesn’t work that way, it can’t.  The employers aren’t screwing the workers any more now than they did at any other time, they offer the lowest wage that their business can pay and still keep afloat.  The way we increase our wages is one of two ways:  Either get a higher paying job, i.e. get training, our get more experience, or seniority at the job you have to get a higher wage, or, if there are more job opportunities the employer in question will pay a higher rate to attract workers.

The idea that this wage business, is an emotional idea and that compassion is somehow involved is the absolute wrong way to look at the free market and is very disingenuous of the liberal media to skew it in their “reporting”.  Especially when they themselves are engaging in the very free market capitalism they so markedly disdain. (Weird?)  Back to the wage thing:  The people protesting need to look a little deeper for the root of their lack of making ends meet with their current wage. 

There is high unemployment = It’s an employer’s market, sorry, that’s just the way it is.  If we want more money, we need more jobs to make them to compete for our help.

The Fed is printing the buying power of our money away.  They don’t have to raise our taxes, they just print so much money that ours is worthless, this equals inflation.  Things don’t go up in price as much as our money doesn't buy as much as it did before.  (This is keeping the stock market flush too; watch what happens when the Fed threatens interest rate increase or no more QE)

A business is a venture by an average person taking on the risk of losing the money and work they have put into building a business.  It’s their business, and they can run it as they see fit.  If we don’t like the wages they pay, we shouldn't continue to work for them.  If there aren't any other jobs out there to make them compete for our labor it’s not the employer’s fault, so we must look elsewhere for the root of the problem. 

This is where the MSM has bamboozled the youth of today along with liberal indoctrination, and no stand up conservatives explaining how things really work:  As I said before, the real problem with low wages is that they don’t buy what we want, and they don’t get any higher when there’s no competition.  Why?  I’ll tell you.  Our government is too busy trying to do things far, far out of their job description.  Their job is to protect us and keep the infrastructure up, nothing more.  Everything else should be done at a state level.  If it we kept our money here at home, we wouldn't need the Feds for much of anything.  The private sector is much more capable at doing nearly everything the Feds do now and the free market does them exponentially better, mostly because in a business setting there is accountability, government has none.  They try to manipulate the markets by regulating, and prohibiting activities and sometimes on an experimental basis and blame capitalism when it fails.  We haven’t seen true free market capitalism for a long time and I will submit that all we have seen is crony-capitalism from our leaders.  In a true free market the market will choose the winners and cull the losers, and the consumer always wins.  But sadly nobody teaches that today.  We are stuck trying to make a business pay higher wages than the market will allow in a down time and further upset the apple cart by making prices go higher as the business will pass the cost on to the consumers in an endless downward spiral, unless we address the real problem and change leadership to real leaders, not a bunch of liberals trying to institute socialism in the one country it has never ever been allowed.  They are trying in institute a system that has a very obvious history of failure every time it is tried.  So why can’t we open our eyes? 

Oh and for you that point to some obscure little country that claims to be socialist and say its working there…  Socialism is only surviving in those countries as a benefit of the capitalism that is there too, mark my words.  In any place it’s been tried to be fully instituted it has been a disaster.

The United States future rests in the young people of today.  If they don’t use their God given understanding and reason to get past the drab deceit of liberalism, they will be ensuring their generation and the ones to follow for a long time will not be able to see the prosperity that generations of the past were able to have simply by falling prey to the Communists of today and their warped ideology.  I will say I admired the “Occupy” movement and their zeal until they aptly demonstrated they weren't going to draw the correlation between the big business they hated and the relationship the same big business enjoyed with our government, thus making them co-conspirators.

 But alas, there is always hope…

No Hatred Here...

Does this sound familiar?  “Man, I can’t stand those Bible thumpers, always trying to shove their religion down my throat.”  I hear it quite regularly, and wonder why those very same people will sit for hours and hours and peruse the internet media sites, or listen to the mainstream television media, or cable documentary channels that convey perspectives with which they may disagree, but still absorb the entirety of the message being delivered.

What is so objectionable that causes people to act so vehemently negative toward the very hearing of God’s Word?  Why do we get squeamish, angry, or put on guard when the name of Jesus Christ is invoked in average conversation other than being used as a curse?  This has always fascinated me, and as a young man it made me uncomfortable too until I trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior, then those situations weren’t a threat, but still fascinated me nonetheless.

I was recently in a conversation with several people talking about the idea that homosexuality as a predisposition opposed to a moral choice.  I put myself in this situation because I love discussion, (not that I am a good debater, I love to hear other people’s opinions) not thinking I would offend anyone.  The discussion was taking place on a popular social media forum which everybody knows, so people were popping in and out of the conversation.  A dear acquaintance joined in and was put off by the mention of my position, which is God’s position toward homosexuality.  Needless to say, I felt very bad that I had offended a person I care for dearly, so I bowed out; tail tucked firmly between my legs and left the exchange.  I am convinced God’s Word is undisputedly true, so forgoing a discussion for someone’s feelings seemed the better thing to do than continue on and risk alienating a friend.  However, (you knew this was coming…) there is a point where truth must clash with error, and finding an objection-free way to discuss it is becoming more and more difficult.

I will attempt to explain why I think speaking out against homosexuality, abortion, pornography, murder, adultery, promiscuity, or any other sin as defined in God’s Word is not hate speech, but love speech. 

Guilt.  We all feel guilt to some varying degree when we disobey God.  It’s hard-wired into our consciences for a reason, which is to make us accountable to the knowledge God has built into each and every one of us.  So long as we are striving to exalt and please God we will assuage our guilt by confessing our sin and repenting, and in turn, He will impute His righteousness to us.  If we want to disobey God more than guilt will let us, we must make a means of escaping the feelings of guilt, and at some point, we must suppress the truth of God’s Word and convince ourselves the behavior we are involved in is not bad, but good.  We can either say something ludicrous like “truth is subjective and can’t really be known”, or we redefine what sin is to soothe our consciences.

But that’s not enough, we still feel guilt because we are worried what others might think of us, so if we still want to try to escape feelings of guilt, we believe we must get others to agree with our position that God’s Word is not the truth (more suppression).  So, as in almost all sexual sin, and abortion, we have slowly over the years and decades convinced lawmakers, teachers, and some of the populace at large that sin is not bad, just misunderstood, and in some cases undeniably built in to us, so we must embrace and accommodate it, rather than shun and discourage it.

This dynamic is chronicled in the Bible in many places, especially in the book of Romans, where Paul is writing a letter to the church at Rome and explaining how God abandons a society that suppresses the truth and the resulting evidences that it is happening.  In chapter 1 verse 18, Paul is conveying to the church the consequences of unbelief. “18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness…” 

Paul continued explaining what the results would be of rebellion and suppressing the truth:                         “25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”

And after enough suppression of the truth, and kidding ourselves that sin really isn’t sin, God allows our minds to become depraved, which is defined as: Morally corrupt, or evil, lacking good judgment:             “28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper…”

But the good part is, in Paul's letter to the Roman church, he reminds them that some of them were just as corrupt, and it’s never too late to turn your face toward God and repent and He will restore you and even the society He has abandoned.  Paul reassures the believers in letter to the church at Corinth:                                ” ⁹ Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

In short, this is why people are angered by the mere mention of God’s Word, and why disagreeing with our nations embracing of open sin has nothing to do with hate, but an act of love, wanting only to save our country and the people in it from ruin.  I will admit there are misguided believers that confuse God’s Word with a personal vendetta on sin, but that is to misconstrue the true intent of God’s relationship toward us.  It is my hope that in an open discussion about any controversial issue, that we can talk about the merits of the issue, rather than painting anyone as having hatred as a motivation for disagreement.

A different Approach

A different Approach

One of my mantras is railing against the forces that are eroding the traditional values that make these United States what they are.  Today after listening to a powerful message by none other than Grace Community’s own Pastor Roger Olson, I was moved to use his sermon as a point of reference to look at our nation in purely patriotic terms, and the effects of patriotism on our country.

American patriotism is what has given our country its own identity uniquely separating it from any other nation ever, and patriotism in the United States is indivisibly linked to the belief in being free to worship our Creator and give Him our full allegiance and acknowledgement of our freedoms here as being fully His work and blessing upon us.  Our rich history recounts our founding with a desire to be free from tyranny and an overbearing, over-reaching government’s rule.  Along with the desire to be free from a tyrant’s rule, was a desire to worship our God in freedom and in an uninhibited way in our daily lives. 

The freedoms we enjoy here are a product of the adherence and practice of keeping the very ideals our early founders fought for in the forefront of our daily existence.  Over the years, many selfless men and women have given their hearts and lives, even unto death to protect and ensure our free and liberty filled life style here by remembering the ideals and sacrifices those brave travelers envisioned when they made the trek from England so many years ago.  These soldiers are of the highest character, and believe God and country come before their lives, and strive to ensure the people back at home remain safe for generations to come.

In today’s age, there is a threat to our way of life, not from a foreign enemy, but one of a domestic nature.  There is, and has been a movement to uproot traditional values and replace them with values of a self-centered, humanistic nature that fly in the face of the ideals that have kept our country separate from the rest of the world.  It has many facets in its attack: It seeks to revise history, contaminate our young by infiltrating our schools; it rejects sound doctrine and applauds deceit and evil.  The movement seeks to strengthen its hold on our society by sleight of hand and deceitfulness.  It goes by many names, progressivism, liberalism, moderation, and “open-mindedness” (though it’s not) to name a few.

The idea bandied about today that true “tolerance” involves accepting all things and rejecting only those that disagree with the popular culture is a mistake of colossal proportion.  The idea of “discriminating” in today’s society has been assigned a negative connotation, and brings ideas of mistreatment, racial prejudice and oppression.  To discriminate is defined as recognizing or making identification between things, good or evil.  We make distinctions every day to try to do the very best we can for ourselves, why can’t we make those same choices for the embetterment of our culture? 

A noted philosopher once said “Those who don’t understand history are bound to repeat it.”  Many others have echoed similar warnings along the way.  These philosophical thinkers weren’t just adding to their repertoire of pithy sayings, some had lived in a time where it was coming true and others could see as students of history how the cycle repeats itself.  We are living in a time where past history is reliving itself as it did in other cultures of old.  The Roman Empire always comes to mind, and ironically our country adopted a lot of our governmental structure from it.  Rome was thought to be invincible at times and in many ways was very similar to our culture today.  It lasted for more than two millennia, depending on who the historian is, and was not weakened by external forces, but by moral decay.  It was eventually overtaken by a foreign enemy.

This same “progressive” movement that seeks to make an emotional plea to embrace all things based on our “feelings”, rather than what history teaches us, is an invitation to destroy the very culture we have grown to be and protected for so many years.  By allowing all things by the emotional sentiment attached to them we ignore the negative effects they may result in, and in some cases are returning our country to the very things our founders fled from.  We need to use what we know to be true rather than riding an emotional high that we are being coerced to believe is freedom.  True freedom must be fought for, and is a disciplined process to keep.

In the last several decades, our country as a whole has begun to take our great freedom for granted.  The biggest change that has come over our land is how our God, our Creator has been removed from our schools, and from our governmental institutions.  By legislating the removal of the very God that has blessed us, is to commit an epic mistake with regard to our future prosperity and freedom.  The United States is the most popular country immigrants flock to for the chance for a better life, and should tell us how truly blessed we are and we should cherish and meditate on the idea daily.  We should be ashamed for allowing our freedom to become something so trivial and assumed.  And shame on us for treating our God and Creator with such reckless abandon in our culture, some of us even railing against Him.  

History teaches that behavior like our culture is exhibiting doesn’t lead to improvement, and if your honest, you can already see the decline in our leadership, morality, lack of patriotism (love of country), and especially the willingness to commiserate one with another, on a personal level. In fact history teaches that the declines we see in our society are products of our abandonment of those ideas our founders pursued so vehemently.

I can’t end without recalling a historical event that is ending well:  From its beginning Israel has had its share of fighting, falling from Grace, and returning to good favor, and falling again, and even complete dissolution, but their favor in God’s eyes has brought them back into existence as a nation, and resurrected the Hebrew language again spoken today.  Though tiny and still plagued by hateful angry neighbors, Israel should be proof that by turning our collective faces to God, He will honor our praise and bless us.  I am using Israel as an example for anybody that would shun the Bible as evidence of historical proof of God’s blessing to those who turn to Him, as Israel is living proof in real time.

There is much more that can be said in reference to God blessing us as a nation, and the Christian influence upon the founding of our nation, but I will save that for another blog.  Suffice it to say, it’s never too late to change course as a nation.  Believer’s in Christ already know the battle has been won, and that is a great comfort in these times, but we want to take as many as possible with us when we go home.

An Atheist's Opinion...

I just finished reading an op-ed piece by a modern day self-proclaimed atheist named Sam Harris expressing his distaste for the appointment of a scientist named Frank Collins to the head of the NIH (National Institutes of Health).  Mr. Harris, like other “new atheists” attacks Dr. Collins because he is a Christian, and tries to draw blood as if he screams loud enough and makes a big enough stir his point will have some validity. 
 Mr. Harris and many other modern day atheists remind me of my then teen-age daughter trying to side step household chores, or facing the consequences of disobedience.  She (who will remain unnamed) would work up such a production over anything other than the task at hand, that if left unchecked would skew the entire point of the confrontation, and I will admit, made me reluctant to engage her unless I was fully ready for the clash. 
I believe the new atheists employ a lot of bluster which include a façade of deep thinking, big words, and yes, eloquence in delivery (as would be associated with a successful used car salesman).  But I also learned a simple trick that my teen age kid taught me that I haphazardly named “table-turning”.  Table turning is obviously where if I as a parent, were to ask my kid why she did not load the dishes into the dishwasher, she, in her defense would ask me when the last time I loaded them, or a variation would be to inform me that I didn’t require my other child to perform the same task as much as I had asked her.
I do not operate on the same level as these new atheists obviously, even though nothing would make me happier than to see them enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ, trusting His atoning death at Calvary for their eternal salvation.  I fully understand they have an agenda, rather than a belief, because it would require faith in their understanding of “science” which they will never cop to.  Their agenda is a little hazy as to the catalyst, but not to the intent.  The intent is to deface and utterly oppose Christianity at every turn.  Not Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Mormons, the Dalai Lama, or the Easter bunny, though they do give lip service to them.  They are 100% dedicated to the promotion of the idea that the only “science” knowable is on their terms, by their definition of standards, and must exclude, and always carry the disclaimer that religion (which in atheist-speak is always Christianity) isn't compatible with true discovery.  This, in their way of looking at things, has to be to perpetuate their agenda, this is clear.
The hazy part, of the agenda is the motivation.  As a Believer, the first explanation for their motivation is Satan, as he clearly is the largest single opposition to God Almighty, not formidable, but in opposition.  But human rebellion is nearly as consistent as well, these self-proclaimed atheists may deep down need a comforter to woo them back to sleep at night when they awaken to the fleeting thought that, maybe there is a God, and the potential for eternal separation from Him in a unspeakable place is really awaiting their disbelief.  So the agenda could be to quash Christianity and, misery loves company.  In any event, for whatever reason that motivates these people to antagonize Christian Believers and society at large,  if their arguments turned are in reverse, yield the same problems for them, again, they will never cop to them, but so is the political realm we live in today of intellectual cat and mouse. 
The clear image I took away from my read of Mr. Harris’s opinion was that outside his sphere of influence, his opinion means exactly squat.  It can only be made sense of by a like-minded thinker, and then I am left with the idea that modern atheism is just another example of societal decay due to abandoning the recognition and worship of our Creator.
When I have time to write more I can help connect the dots that show conclusively the relation of vacating our dependence on God and the moral and societal decay we are experiencing, but I have to leave for work.  God Bless.

OUYA : At First Glance

For those who care, my initial assessment of the OUYA console and entertainment system is positive.  The only reservations I have at this time are in it’s not being an Xbox, PlayStation, or Wii.  Which it isn't trying to be, but when you have the controller in your hand it’s almost by second nature you expect to command the same activity on the TV screen that more expensive consoles offer.

One thing that is unique is the presence of the Android OS.  It is familiar and intuitive to those of us Androidians.  Apple users can play catch-up in no time at all.  The games available to The OUYA are limited to about 150 at this time of which probably 20-30 are decent, but this is an all comers console for developers to show their wares.  I imagine as time goes on a plethora of user sites will spring up guiding the OUYA gamers to the worthwhile games and steering them from the “less desirable” ones. 

I was pleasantly surprised when I installed the XBMC port for OUYA.  It works remarkably well and gives worth to the little console as a media center.  For those of you missing the joy of XBMC, it is an open source development of the old Xbox media center from the first Xbox, which has gained much popularity as an internet based media program.  The OUYA plays and streams video at 720 and 1080p, and can process up to 5.1 Dolby Stereo.  An interesting surprise is the OUYA’s ability to render 3D graphics as well.

One nice thing open source hardware and software can do, such as the OUYA console that their commercial counterparts cannot, is be a little more practical in their wearing of more than one hat for the same price as they don’t have to always be selling you additional services to remunerate their makers.   In terms of saving money, this little gadget is fully customizable, with most all the free android apps that are currently available for your smart phone, though they might not be usable on a game console.  In time I believe the developers will make apps and software for home activities that will make this an even more welcome addition to your home.

It’s implications as a viable media/gaming console are only limited to the media available for it at this time.  But make no mistake, it is a $99 console and has definite limitations.  However, for what it is I believe it will be a great offering for enthusiasts that are on a budget and want a fully functioning media center for their TV on budget pricing.  The accompanying media supply will only get better and better as they have not even been released for public consumption yet.  They are scheduled to be released on June 25.  I heartily recommend them in their own category of competition.  Unless you are expecting them to be an Xbox, you won’t be disappointed.