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Website of the Week
For those who are gluttons for listening punishment, here is my official myspace musician page.
Local Pump Price of Unleaded Gasoline:
$3.52/gallon
Price Per Barrel of Oil:
$125.96 (previously $107.90)
last modified May 11, 2008 at 18:16
As we were passing by a huge papermill in a nearby town, my children looked out the windows and noticed the billows of water vapor coming from the smokestacks.
Child 1 (excited): Hey, look! It's the cloud factory!
Child 2: So that's why it's been raining.
Child 1 (frowning): It's not fair for them to make it rain so much.
I'm trying to frame this positively:
What kind of future occupation might one expect for a 2 year old boy that likes to:
* twist eyeglasses beyond repair
* remove the batteries from remote controls
* pull the SPACE, ALT, /, and CTRL keys from my laptop
* unplug television/bend antenna
It seems that much of the opposition of the so-called "UAE port deal" is based in reactionary thinking framed in the rhetoric of post-9/11 fears of Arabic nations.
As if anyone cared, but I support this deal. What is the one weapon that Iran can hold over our heads, the one thing that makes a military strike against Iran so dangerous to our country? Answer: the economic impact of Iran cutting off their oil production from the United States. This could cause oil prices to skyrocket and significantly impact our economy for the worse.
So, how can this deal with the UAE help the United States? I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I imagine that a country with over 98 billion barrels of oil reserves might be a great help to us if there is a sudden disruption in oil reserves due to a military strike on Iran. And don't you think that President Bush is well aware of this fact?
On the lighter side, I like Jonah Goldberg's aside:
"ENOUGH ABOUT PORT SECURITY
What about cognac security?"
Doug Phillips, over at Vision Forum, does not have many kind words for End of the Spear:
The single most disappointing development of the last decade in the rising independent Christian film movement was the decision on the part of Every Tribe Entertainment to knowingly and deliberately retain a practicing sodomite and radical homosexual rights activist in the role of Christian martyr Nate Saint for the film End of the Spear after they had been notified of his behavior and were given the opportunity to release him from the project.
What do you think? Is he on target or does he miss the mark? (Sorry, terrible puns. So shoot me.)
I was taking a walk through the neighborhood with my children this weekend and noticed a peculiar object in someone's yard.
"Hey, R, look!" I said. "Do you see that little Buddha statue over there?"
"Ohhhhh," she said. "They must be Jewish."
This is good news:
Shins to release third album in June of 2006. And it looks to be a good one, too.
Mercer says he hasn't written many of the lyrics yet, but the one's he's jotted down so far have to do with the misery of modern life. "Human life is about enjoying it," Mercer says of his new lyrics, "and this American work ethic prevents people from really experiencing life."
It looks like Mormonism is getting its foundation shook a bit by some genetic research that seems to disprove the Book of Mormon (from the LATimes):
Critics of the Book of Mormon have long cited anachronisms in its narrative to argue that it is not the work of God. For instance, the Mormon scriptures contain references to a seven-day week, domesticated horses, cows and sheep, silk, chariots and steel. None had been introduced in the Americas at the time of Christ.
In the 1990s, DNA studies gave Mormon detractors further ammunition and new allies such as Simon G. Southerton, a molecular biologist and former bishop in the church.
Southerton, a senior research scientist with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia, said genetic research allowed him to test his religious views against his scientific training.
Genetic testing of Jews throughout the world had already shown that they shared common strains of DNA from the Middle East. Southerton examined studies of DNA lineages among Polynesians and indigenous peoples in North, Central and South America. One mapped maternal DNA lines from 7,300 Native Americans from 175 tribes.
Southerton found no trace of Middle Eastern DNA in the genetic strands of today's American Indians and Pacific Islanders.
Marc at Purgatorio posted a humorous offering a couple of months ago (hat tip to the notoriously infamous irby) that rings a little too true for some of us Calvinists:
25 Warning Signs that you might be obsessing about Calvinism:
Here's a sample:
13. Someone tells you they go to
and you think they're going
Note the contrast between this passage (2 Corinthians 4:16-18) in the English Standard Version
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
and the same passage in The Message
So we're not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There's far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever. [bold added for emphasis]
Punxsutawney Phil (the groundhog...ahem) has predicted six more weeks of winter. Quite a bold claim on the face of it.
However...
Upon closer scrutiny, I've come to the conclusion that our groundhog friend is hedging his bets (no pun intended for the groundhog's little relative). How, you might ask? You see, six more weeks of winter would be a bold claim if that meant six more weeks of snow, ice, and below freezing temperatures, but no, six more weeks of winter will mean six more weeks of balmy, warm temperatures.
So, if we have warm weather early this year, the groundhog is right, because this winter has been so warm. Technically, it would be six more weeks of winter.
Or, if we have a late season cold snap, the groundhog is right, because it would be six weeks of what people typically think of as winter.
A regular Solomon, that Punxsatawney Phil.
Zach Parsons of Something Awful has a hilarious entry today called "Leave a Message in the Anonymous Muslim Man Complaint Box". WARNING: Contains some rough language.
A sample:
Inshallah Muslim Man Complaint Box,
My child was drawing pictures for school and this is forbidden. What makes the situation worse is that the picture was of our whole family and also blessed Mohammad. It was not a very clear picture of Mohammad and I think his likeness would be considered obscured by the scriptures. Just to be sure I hanged my son and burned his body and then my brothers burned the school and also hanged the teacher. What I want to know is what can be done about the ability to draw? Any child can go about creating blasphemous rendering of Mohammad! This is lightning in the hands of the unprotected. My son is in the afterlife now because of these crayons and "construction" paper, which I say is "destruction" paper. That is a little joke, but I am not laughing. Something must be done.
Happy Birthday to the 2nd oldest (I'm the 8th) member of the Hogue eleven: my big brother James. May God bless you with many, many more, bro.
JH
This is just simply brilliant. A guy from Pixar has re-edited some clips from Sleepless in Seattle to make it appear to be a suspense/thriller. Just goes to show that you can never trust a movie trailer.
Click here for the trailer.
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