Friday, October 16, 2009

Hither and thither 10/16/09

Lots of fun things, lots of irritating things, lots of interesting things. However, I'll be on the road for the latter part of the day, so comments may be delayed... well, until I next get on The Intrawebs. I'd be happy too see a nice passel of comments to moderate.
  • Wait wait wait — you mean everything scientists say about what was what a gazillion years ago might not be 100% accurate?  L, IB.
  • Onoes! Looks like Kermit, Josiah and I have even more to be thankful for than we knew!
  • I love my iPhone, but hate iTunes. Just wiped everything off my iPhone, for the whatever-th time. That in spite of doing a backup just beforehand, and then trying to restore from backup. Grrr.
  • USA Today writer Tom Krattenmaker makes it very clear: he doesn't object to Christian athletes being Christians. He just objects to their practicing Christianity. Meaning: he objects to Christian athletes being Christians. (HT reader "Laptops and More.")
  • Don't you just sleep better at night, knowing that the geniuses running public schools are keeping us safe from dangerous, six-year-old Cub Scouts? As one wag noted, at least he's earned his "Suspended from School" belt loop. Here's my concern: in the interim, he's being homeschooled. Will he be able to dumb back down when they re-admit him?
  • Whee. Racism is still another accusation that only needs to be made, to cause harm. Not proven.
  • I think racism in America is grossly exaggerated. However, every now and then an ugly example rears up to say that neither racism nor stupidity has yet become obsolete.
  • Good grief. Question for rock aficionados who are also regular readers: what painfully-obvious name is missing from this list?
  • So what does $400 worth of Legos look like? This (with some commentary here):
  • I don't know if any of you are Sam Storms fans. You might want to listen to this talk, featuring every influential evangelical eschatological perspective... well, except the most influential one. Why listen? It's remarkable to hear Storms say that, if the Apostle John doesn't agree with him, Sam Storms, then John is in error.
  • Thinking of taking your kids to Where the Wild Things Are? I'm really not. I wasn't already: it looks dumb, and I didn't love the book, where the insufferably bratty kid's parents end up caving. I was even less tempted when I learned that the author, Maurice Sendak, was an angry, lost, unhappy "gay" with messed-up views about the family (— did I just say the same thing twice?), who really didn't like positive, happy books that might encourage well-behaved kids. Now that I read Sendak telling concerned parents to go to He!!, I'm even less inclined.
  • Some are shocked that supposed conservative stalwart Dick Armey would throw in with pro-abort Kay Hutchison for the Texas gubernatorial election. I'm not; but then, I have a memory. Armey used to be a good guy, maybe until he got his nose out of joint for not being supported to lead Congress. Hard to say when something cracked, but Armey launched a nasty attack against politically-involved Christians. (See also Dobson's response.) So I'm sad, but not shocked, to see Armey support a pro-abort "earmarks queen" against a pro-family, pro-life candidate.
  • Our Title of the Week this time is not picked because it's odd, but because it's so good:  It's a 12-day miracle! Praise Obama and pass the Hopium. Columnist breaks it down that the 12 days between 0's inauguration and the nominating deadline left "a mere 288 hours for Obama to have been credentialed as President Peace."
  • In a sane world, the Nobel Committee would never again be able to buy a "give-a-rip" from the public. 
  • Any chance the benighted clones of the Nobel committee are beginning to realize what a laughing-stock they've made of themselves?
  • Update since writing that previous. What was I thinking? Being liberal means never having to say you're pathetic, clueless and embarrassing. Think Jimmy Carter. Or see this.
  • To the Title of the Week, maybe I'll add line of the week as an occasional feature. This week's entry is from an article on Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is planning another sweep for illegal aliens, though it may irritate the feds. Then we're told, "He said he expects to use a 'new secret weapon,' but declined to say what it is." Really? I'm going out on a limb here, but could that be because it's, you know, secret?
  • One Baptist church will be having a hot time on Halloween eve. They'll be burning... well, all sorts of things.  Like Bibles (Readers: "Ungh?") — that is, Bibles that aren't the KJV. (Readers: "Sheesh.") And books by "heretics." (Readers: "Oh?") Heretics like Erwin McManus and Robert Schuller and Rob Bell and Benny Hinn. (Readers: "Ahhh.")  And "heretics" like John MacArthur and John Piper and Chuck Swindoll. (Readers: "Huh?!") Oh, and "Satan's music," like "country, rap, rock, pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel, contemporary Christian, jazz, soul (and) oldies." I guess surf music is OK. Whew! But wait, you haven't heard the punch-line.
  • The church's name is — I Kid You Not! — "Amazing Grace Baptist Church." Click.
  • Everyone's favorite Aussie ex-pat, Rachael Starke, ran a little graphic for folks thinking of moving Down Under. I'm not sure where Aussie Vicki Lowing fits on the chart... but she's got her some interesting priorities.
  • So, having already demoralized the military, the transformational president now adds this: he has in mind further to demoralize and distract it by forcing it to enlist broken individuals plagued by sexual perversion which, instead of resisting and seeking deliverance from, they openly embrace and practice. Obama: the bill that keeps getting steeper and steeper and steeper and....
  • Say, though, isn't it reassuring that the leader of the free world has finally squared his shoulders and identified an enemy, a threat that calls for his firm, focused, and relentless opposition?  Yes indeedy.
  • Woo hoo. Turns out I'm going to live forever (interpreting "educated" as "smart"), and Baby Allen will live to be at least 100
  • Will knuckle-cracking give you arthritis? Maybe not. But it's still obnoxious.
  • Then the dessert-tray:












 



57 comments:

Fred Butler said...

Their not burning Mozart? I mean, that guy was wack. He would automatic write everything. It just had to be the devil possessing him.


By the way, people tend to forget Sam Storms got caught up in all that Kansas City prophets non-sense, but maybe I am being a bit of a meanie.

Associate-to-the-Pastor said...

Yeah, I listened to that last week. It was interesting to listen to. I thought Dr. Hamilton made a decent case, but it got a little heated between he and Storms for a bit.

Whatever did you mean about the most influential view being left out?

NoLongerBlind said...

re: missing guitar great, I'm quite certain that the person you're referring to as being glaringly omitted has to be Jerome (aka Jerry) Garcia.



=;^P





running for cover............

DJP said...

AttP - click the link in the item.

NLB - yeah, except NO.

Associate-to-the-Pastor said...

I was being sarcastic, DJP. It doesn't always translate well... :)

Anonymous said...

Eric Johnson, Eric Clapton, Eddie Van Halen...?

(Just covering a few bases)

DJP said...

< forehead slap! > Oh! Sorry!

The "whatever" should have clued me. Blame the reader (me).

DJP said...

My last was to AttP.

Daryl. No, no, and no.

Al said...

How about Jim Croche? He is dead. I think you may be thinking of John Lennon though.

al sends

DJP said...

You people are toying with me.

Al said...

Bob Marley also played guitar... also dead.

al sends

NoLongerBlind said...

Punchline at the book burning:

"During the burning, barbecued chicken and all the fixin's will be served!"

Wow! What a party! Wonder if they're burning the books in the barbecue?

I wonder what that church puts in their koolaid?

Al said...

John Lee Hooker? I am running out of guitarists now.

NoLongerBlind said...

Iknow, Iknow, Iknow, Iknow

(jumping in air, raising hand)

the missing deceased (FYI, Daryl!) guitar great is

George Harrison.

DJP said...

ohmygosh, i SO NEED a comment service that lets me CLOWN commenters....

NoLongerBlind said...

Here's a resourceful website for looking up Dead Rock Stars.

It's a really long list, alphabetized by last name; I gave up looking for DJP's mystery guitarist after the letter J, figuring there was no point going any further.......





(I've always wanted to be a clown!)

DJP said...

Dude, if I had the power, you'd be there.

Right.

NOW.

NoLongerBlind said...

"You'd be there....", as in on that list?



A musician, I'm not.






Clown - especially of the "Class-" variety - definitely. But most certainly NOT a musician.

=;^P

Andrew Faris said...

There was this guy named Harrison who played with a few guys from Liverpool that weren't bad...

Michelle said...

About that book-burning. Just this morning I was listening to "heretic" John MacArthur answer questions about that *heretical* teaching on the sovereignty of God in salvation, and he was quoting from an evil pseudo Bible. Just yesterday I was listening to "Satan's music". And today I'm wearing long pants. And I crack my knuckles.

I've been bad. :)

Jay said...

I do know enough actively gay men and women in the military to know that in many cases, DADT simply isn't being enforced. I know one acquaintance who openly lived with his boyfriend on a base in Washington state. They even noted their relationship on Facebook, and nothing came of it.

I also know enough pregnant-out-of-wedlock military girlfriends to know that sexual perversion and brokenness is a general problem in the military already, homosexual or heterosexual.

I'm not sure what the solution is. On the one hand, it shames me that towns like Fayetteville and Jacksonville in NC (where our military bases are) have more strip clubs than bigger cities like Raleigh and Charlotte. Is it right for the military to crack down upon one type of sexual sin (homosexual behavior) but not on things like fornication and promiscuity that are rampant among the heterosexual servicemen?

trogdor said...

You guys keep forgetting the biggest guitar legend of all: Kurt Cobain.

matt mckendrick said...

Ditto on Where the Wild Things Are. Never liked the original story, and I'm sure Hollywood found a way to make it even worse. (Exhibit A- those recent Dr. Seuss abominations.) It also annoys me that rather than come up with fresh ideas, they constantly take an existing short story and pad it to death to make a feature-length movie. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was a cute little story before they stuffed it full of extra hackneyed plot elements.

SolaMommy said...

Santana?

SolaMommy said...

Oh, DEAD rock guitarists...

SolaMommy said...

Janis Joplin?

David Regier said...

Les Paul wasn't exactly rock, but he coulda schooled a lot of those boys.

And Tiny Tim played the uke, not the guitar.

David Regier said...

Randy Rhoads? You didn't strike me as an Ozzy fan.

Anonymous said...

Ah...OK I missed the dead part.

Never claimed to be all that quick...


Is Chuck Berry still around?

JackW said...

I'll guess the dude from Chicago that shot himself.

Fred Butler said...

Santana?

Oh, DEAD rock guitarists...


Yep, exactly.

Gilbert said...

DJP, you can't clown people! Frank copyrighted it. :-)

I'm afraid I couldn't read all of the stories. I got to the end of the one with the 6 year old kid being yanked for bringing that Cub Scout utensil in. Seriously. Is this what we have come to? You'd think after all this human evolution, we'd be so much more intelligent than that right now. /sarcasm

Oh, and I couldn't get through to the church web site because their account has been suspended. I guess they burned their server, too! BibleWorks on Linux with all those evil translations? Pass the lighter fluid!

Dan hasn't passed on moderated comments for a few hours now. I'm getting concerned he jumped head first into a pile of Chicago records with that guy Terry K...ornhusker! Yeah, that was it.

I'm sooooo clowned out of the universe...

:-P

VcdeChagn said...

Randy Rhoads? You didn't strike me as an Ozzy fan.

That was my thought as well. I wondered if anyone was going to say it...and it was the last comment.

Lazy Brain FTW :)

Gilbert said...

By the way, being on a Friday...if you are single and are looking for a date, here's my romance tip from me to you...

http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/epic-fail-personal-ad-fail.jpg

Run away!

SandMan said...

You have to be referring to the KING. Elvis, right? I mean, without him were not having this discussion. Is there a prize? Please don't say a clown.

Herding Grasshoppers said...

Dan,

Your Boy Scout story reminded me of something that happened to my oldest before we pulled him out of the government schools.

All the kids in the class were supposed to make something to sell. They all earned special "class bucks" for good behavior and turning in assignments, etc.

My son drew three pictures to sell: an Old West scene with a train, a huge multi-car-crash at the speedway, and a WW2 submarine being hit by a torpedo.

Oh heavens! Alarms and horrors! His pencil drawing of the WW2 battle scene - you guessed it - "violated the school weapons policy".

I kid you not.

At least he wasn't suspended, but his picture was confiscated.

We were so, so very DONE.

Julie

Craig and Heather said...

Aren't Halloween bonfire parties a distinctly Pagan practice?



My Aussie SIL frequently suggests that we should come down for a visit...and then proceeds to tell me of hand-sized spiders that invade their home, drought and water rationing, out of control bush fires and poisonous snakes.

Those three angrily grimacing dolls are kind of scary looking.

Heather

NoLongerBlind said...

Julie, I can relate to your story.

Our son, who draws quite well, drew a picture of a sword during some free time while in the fourth grade, IIRC.

Just a samurai-type long sword, out of its scabbard. No blood, no gruesome aspect to it at all.

Result: teacher confiscated it, and sent a note home requesting a meeting. "Inappropriate drawing for the school setting" was the "charge".

After informing the teacher of my disagreement with her judgment, telling her how it could have been inappropriate (cue the typical Hollweird slasher-type movie poster), I took the drawing home and hung it on our son's bedroom wall.

Unfortunately, home-schooling isn't something that would work for our family, so, the "public option" is what we're left with.

Our son is now a freshman in High School, which is a HUGE on-going motive for prayer for my wife and I.

Tom

SandMan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Herding Grasshoppers said...

NLB,

Exactly. Nothing gruesome about a sword.

What I began to wonder was how on earth do they expect to teach history? Are they editing out all the battles?

Of course, I don't think they teach history in the elementary school... just "Social Studies".

Hang in there,

Julie

NoLongerBlind said...

Are those Mrs. O dolls actually Pez dispensers?


Also, what are they called?

Aaron said...

1.) I guess they'll have to replace a whole lot of signs at the museums that provide "facts" about dinosaurs. I've always said that there is way too much speculation in science.

2.) Of course he objects to practicing Christians. The truth that you're going to hell is not particularly welcome to sinners.

3.) Jay: heterosexual sex between military personnel is a huge problem. Despite being illegal to fornicate on a ship, it still happens in amazing percentages. Put people that are sexually attracted to one another in very close working conditions under stressful situations for 24 hours a day for weeks on end and they have sex. Hunh, imagine that.

4.) Gilbert: There are two reasons why people can't use judgement. (a) they don't have any. As a Fed, I could tell you some great stories. (b) using judgement can lead to charges of discrimination. Better to suspend the kid than lose your job and/or be sued for discrimination.

5.) My wife's mother is a New Zealand native. My wife still has family there. I think I may just emigrate there although the thought of giant spiders sounds intriguing.

6.) What the heck are you doing to your IPhone? I've owned mine a few weeks longer than yours and haven't h ad any problems. (but I hate Itunes and its propietary music format.) I also hate the fact that it doesn't have good categorization for podcasts that you want to keep.

Jugulum said...

Dan,

Hmm... Regarding the Evening of Eschatology.

Would you take any statement of the form, "Scripture 1 teaches A so clearly, that if I thought Scripture 2 taught !A, I'd have to deny inerrancy", the same way you took Storms' statement? Or was there something more particular about what he said?

candy said...

Dan. You DO know that Phil Keaggy isn't dead yet right?

Susan said...

1. The church's name is — I Kid You Not! — "Amazing Grace Baptist Church."

(Reader: "EHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?????")

2. Greatest dead rock guitarist....Buddy Holly? Roy Orbison?? (Sorry, I'm very lacking in terms of rock guitarist trivia....)

threegirldad said...

i SO NEED a comment service that lets me CLOWN commenters....

There's this nifty service called HaloScan that will let you do that. You should give it a try.

Rachael Starke said...

Well here's some irony for you guys- right now I'm in Dan's neck of the woods in the mountains by Auburn and it's pretty beautiful. Plus, my dear husband and I are at this wonderful conference on parenting with Paul Tripp, and with terrible cell phone reception so I can remain blissfully ignorant of what's going on in the rest of the world. I'm pretty content to be right here. :)

but here's another bizarre thing about life in Australia. In the public schools, there are Religious Instruction classes which are actually pretty open. People of different faiths come in to teach on their religion, and argument and dialog ensues. But at the private, ostensibly Christian schools, like the Presbyterian girls' school I went to, the "religious instruction" is a farce. The year I graduated we were given a Good News version of the Bible and a cookbook, and a lot of parents were offended by such a conventional, impractical gift.

Herding Grasshoppers said...

Rachael,

How funny. At Catholic school in Australia I was also given a 'Good News Bible'. Go figure. Mid '80's.

Julie

Jon said...

Julie,

Did you ask the teacher at the time if they had "history" text books that had pictures of weapons and such? You'd think that would shut them up, but then again logic isn't something people admire.

Solameanie said...

As Frank would say, "Pheh! Baptists!"

Solameanie said...

Congratulations to Gilbert for divining Terry Kath. Dan might award you a Nobel for that. :)

DJP said...

Oh, Jon, there you go with that logic-thingie again.

Anonymous said...

Okay...I know you don't wanna see it Dan....

BUT "WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE" WAS AWESOME!!!!!

Sorry, my filmmaking side had to gush. Seriously though, it was beautiful to watch, and it had some really good allegorical points to it.

Not to say it was perfect(a couple of times it submitted to disney style "Your parents don't understand you stuff) but mostly, it was pure art. So much better than the book....and the bitter man who wrote it.

Oh...and in regardsto the church bonfire...They're actually ALLOWED to eat Fried Chicken "with all the sides"?

DJP said...

You may have to turn in your BibChr decoder-ring, Joshua.

Anonymous said...

So then I probably shouldn't mention I liked 'Zombieland' as well?

;)

trogdor said...

It's amazing what passes for legitimate science these days. The dinosaur story reminds me of all the 'hominids' that supposedly are the links from ape to man, and the amazing amount of extrapolation that goes on to invent these supposed species. From a three-inch fragment of a scapula, we're supposedly able to determine that a previously-unknown species had elongated forearms, four extra ribs, webbed feet, gills, a third intestine, was colorblind, and was burdened with a Khan-like inability to think strategically in three dimensions. The garbage extrapolation they try to pass off would be like a mechanic looking at a two square inch chunk of a muffler and claiming the vehicle clearly has previously-unknown fuel injectors, air filters, and speakers. It's utterly absurd, and makes you think the whole system is one big Piltdown.

From the Cub Scout story: "some school administrators argue that it is difficult to distinguish innocent pranks and mistakes from more serious threats".

Here's a handy guide for them, free of charge. If the incident involves a six-year-old Cub Scout, and the weapon in question is an eating utensil they would actually issue to a six-year-old, it's not a serious threat, mmmkay?

Sadly, when it comes to The Obama's peace prize, the committee probably accomplished exactly what they set out to do. To people like that, the biggest obstacle to peace is not those who attack the innocent, but the fact that we're bigger and stronger, and we use our might to protect the innocent and fight back. Their idea of peace is not to eliminate the bad guys, but to bring us down to size (at which point the enemies will magically go away). What's worst of all, there's little reason to believe Maximum Leader doesn't share their beliefs.

This is a much, much better idea for a prize.

Or maybe this would have been better. The only problem is that it assumes rational actors, which so far describes everyone in the club. Once Iran joins, all bets are off.

Herding Grasshoppers said...

Jon,

You're right about some people not being fond of logic...

but in a comical twist of fate, that very teacher was pregnant by the end of the school year, and had a son.

I can only imagine what she'll do when he chews a graham cracker into the shape of a pistol and 'shoots' her over the breakfast table some day. KA-POW! KA-POW! KA-POW!

(sinister laughter)

Julie