Smart-phoners: Olive Tree back to school sale

Check it out.

FWIW, while I have Logos' powerful app on my iPhone, I very seldom use it. Olive Tree's interface is intuitive, fast, powerful, nice. I prefer it.

Seen in a used bookstore in Bishop, CA

There is a really excellent used bookstore in Bishop, CA, which I visit whenever I can. One book I've seen on the shelf for years and years is...

When I see it, I invariably think two things:

1. "Um... no."
2. "This book will never sell."

So far, it hasn't. But it is California, after all. Someone might snap it up. Some emergent, for instance, could market the book as the very latest thing, amass a following, and see his name in lights.

I did a bit more digging for you, Dear Reader, and wasn't too surprised at the results. You can (if you like) see the whole book online, hosted at a site called The Gnostic Society Library, root URL gnosis.org.  Ah ha.

Turns out Mead was a Theosophist, and private secretary of Madam Blavatsky. Later, after writing the above-named tome, Mead left the Theosophists to form, with other defectors, the Quest society.

And now... you (and I) know that.

Bollywood's "Robot" - wow

I have never ever watched a Bollywood movie all the way through.

But if I ever did... it just might have to be this one.

Monday music: "White Knuckles," by OK Go

If this was done in one continuous shot, this may be the most amazing music video I've seen.

The song isn't as bad as previous, but I wish I liked their music as well as I like their videos.

Thanks to reader Gil Sebenste for telling me about this.

UPDATE: reader Al Sends found that it was indeed one continuous shot -- but that take was number 72 out of 124.

Hither and thither 9/24/10

Well, friends, here's what I've found time to serve up for you. Enjoy!

• Wow! Did you hear about Sarah Palin talking to a whites-only group of GOP legislators, and calling their political opponents "the other side," speaking divisively, and whipping them to go out and proselytize their people? Of course you didn't. Never happened. But boy, if it had, you'd sure be bearing about it, wouldn't you? About how divisive she is, what a racist, what a negative, polarizing figure?
• On the other hand, President Obama did meet with a blacks-only group of legislators, and he did exactly that. Think the MSM will be upset? Yeah, me neither.
• Oopsie: speaking to another racist group, the president indicates... well, several things. One is that he's delusional about history in general, and about Nancy Pelosi in particular. But my focus is that President Obama evidently feels that the Preamble to the Declaration is too long... by three words. Guess which three?
• Oh my: ba-dum bum:

• Ever hear of paraprosdokians? It means a statement that starts out one way, but ends in an unforeseen way. Here is a pretty good list of them. Some of my favorites: "Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience"; "Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad"; "I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure."
• Though some have tried to paint it as strictly about money, turns out the Tea Party movement cares about life, too. Four RINOs bumped off in the nomination so far have been staunch pro-aborts, all replaced by staunch pro-lifers.
• Mourning in America ad. Excellent concept — though I'm not in love with the punch line. I don't really want a government that cares more about me. I want one that protects my countries and my rights as defined in the Constitution, and then leaves me the Gehenna alone.
• Those old enough to remember the brilliant Contract with America from the eighties, crafted and pursued by Newt Gingrich, will correctly connect it to the GOP's new Pledge to America. Hope they mean it. (More here: the Dems are trotting out the usual lies and irrelevancies, now that they have a target. Letting us keep our money and reining in exploding statism is always a bad thing, to the Dems. Are voters any smarter? We'll see.)
• To counter the GOP agenda, the Dems quickly offered... well, nothing. Not even "thanks for the target." But I think we all know what the agenda is.
• Meanwhile, turns out the 0-admin makes misleading (or meaningless) claims about "green" jobs they've created. Surprised? Oh, wait... you read this blog. Never mind.
• Our Trogdor throws down on Steven Hawking, and it ain't pretty for the doc.
• In the town of Delusionville, there is a corner with only one resident, who has that particular tract of land all to hisself.
• Confused? Perhaps this will help:

• Not so much? Sorry.
• Reader/meteorologist Gil Sebenste found a self-described "eco-fascist" who, Gil says, will not be getting a Christmas card from him this year. At least glance it over; chilling stuff.
• Very cool Lego SF creations.
• Last week, Berry Davis found a flight we might all want to be on. This week, Kerry Garrett found a cruiser's voyage none of us would want to be on.
• Um, no.

• March towards military draft update: no less than a lieutenant general gave a chilling preview into the future of a military re-crafted to force approval of individuals who embrace perverted sexual desires. Eat too much? Out. Pursue perverted sexual desires for members of your own sex? In! Just like skin-color! Folks who agree with God out loud will no longer be welcome. Picture the shape of that military.
• I'm wondering whether my birthday-buddy Mike Riccardi had this for his annual celebratory meal. Looks good to me.
• Canine spirituality of a sort, for our dog-lovers.  (Jango has at least learned which words mean "You can eat now.") It's true, you'll never see a cat doing this. Though our family did have a really terrific cat, who would always come for prayers.
• Now, for a very special subset of my readers:

• And finally, in case you still have time left over this weekend, thanks to Julie Garrett you can find out what you ought to know about grammar. 
• Well okay, finally-finally:

Lego in life video

I know we have a lot of Lego fans among our readers. This is for you!

Build Anything from Studiocanoe on Vimeo.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden... Jedi?

(Thanks to reader Gregg Hanke for the link)

For hummingbird lovers

Video week at BibChr.

This gent got closer to a baby and mother hummingbird than most will ever experience.

Monday music: "Cantes Por Bulerias," Paco Pena

Now we'll move south, stylistically — and I don't mean America's southern states.

Stirring flamenco style playing, from Paco Peña.

Hither and thither 9/17/10

Various things have conspired to me really having to scramble to cobble this together this week. Haven't even had the time to look at some last-minute submissions. Updates? Maybe. Supplement some other day? Maybe.

But for now, I hope you'll enjoy this.

• You know it's Phillips birthday month, yesterday being my very-accomplished dear wife's birthday. Just realized that's not all: happy birthday to the U. S. Constitution, as well.

• I am a cat-lover, in that there are some cats I love. But this village for homeless cats is a bit much, even for me. (A Wal-mart? Eeh.)
• Following up on yesterday's post about Glenn Beck, Andree Seu, and WORLD magazine: I note today (thanks to reader Paula) that the Sola Sisters are not so sanguine about the polytheistic Mr. Beck.
• UPDATE: check the update on the Seu/Beck/WORLD thingie in the original post.
• Then, following up on our post on the Qu'ran-burning-threat incident (itself followed up in Pyro), it's weird to know that a Supreme Court Justice (Breyer; thanks to President Nameless One) thinks the First Amendment doesn't protect the right to do it — though it evidently does cover flag-burning and Bible-burning.
• Detroit's Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, whose most-important-thing her office wants you to know is her skin-color, has a solution for parents missing parent-teacher conferences. The solution? Jail them. Well, there y'go. No comment yet from Obama.
• What is Worthy's political party? Oh, friends, come on! Need you ask?
• Reader Robert notes that Dems are attempting a re-branding and asks, "Do they really think people are that stupid?" To which I reply: of course they do — and with good reason. Look at who's in the White House.
• Well, at any rate this headline gives hope that some of the most inexcusably dim-witted voters in America might be slowly waking up.
• If so, maybe they feel like this:

• Economics lesson: when government takes money from working citizens, and gives it to government ostensibly to create jobs, what is the result? Wellsir, $111 million "creates" 56 jobs — at the cost of #2 million per job.
• Doncha just love "moderates"? Here's how it works: conservatives are supposed to bend left to support "moderates" in the name of Big Tentmanship. But "moderates"? Tip right, even a little? Go on with your bad self.
• Why you shouldn't buy a Mac.
• Oh my. Reader Dave Sloan sees that someone "found" Satan in a bathroom tile. How'd he know it was Satan and not heavy-metal rocker Dee Snyder Snider?

• Reader Heath Norment found a video of Canadian soldiers disassembling and rebuilding a Jeep in under 4 minutes.
• Reader Susan learned that spray-on clothing is about to be a reality. I've seen some this week that could've been already, anyway. Me, I don't think it will pass the sister-show-mercy test.
• Here's a creative display of Post-it art — unfortunately, not at a reliably kid-safe site. Be warned.
• Aah! Run! DAOD found this about killer shrimp!
• On the subject of DAOD, here's her early birthday-present to her DOD:

• Stimulus money at work?

• Not all jihad is violent. There is good reason to see a stealth jihad underway in America. (Reader Chris Carney sent a link.)
• A sign they know they'll lose? We can hope. The Dems on the Judiciary Committee are finally, after turning down four years of minority (GOP) requests, showing great interest in refurbishing the digs for the minority staff.
• Oh dear.
• Similarly, one greets the news of a Reagan biopic with some trepidation. But there is some reason to hope that it will be better than the James Brolin hit-job TV movie.
• Reader Jugulum may have found an image of the last thing this would be autograph-collector ever saw:

• Irony Is Pretty Ironic Alert. Getting weary and worried over America's Obamafied slog towards Socialism? Maybe you should move somewhere heading in the opposite direction. Like, I don't know... Cuba?
• Fred Butler indirectly directed me to the work of Scott Wade, who makes dirty pretty. What kind of "dirty"? Dirty cars.

• Homeschoolers doing geology should find this set of thirteen of Earth's strangest lakes interesting. I love how God loves diversity... if that word isn't ruined forever.
• For Josiah: never, never do this:

• Chicken-wire sculpture.
• Reader Kelly Garrett showed me some pictures that led to a search ending with pencil sculptor Dalton Ghetti, who produces the most amazing art from pencil lead. There are various online "galleries," such as here and here. Ghetti is currently working on a longterm project, a tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attack. Samples:

   

 

 

• Writers: Justin Taylor reprints some advice on writing from C. S. Lewis. The nub: (1) Know exactly what you want to say; (2) Say exactly that.
• Say... that's not bad advice for preachers either, is it?
• Speaking of book-burning, reader Pastor John found what's got to be a pretty big, hot fire. James White will love to see the company he's in, I imagine. It is tempting, though: "fried chicken, with all the sides." Mm-mmm. Makes me hungry just to think of it. I'd toss on my NRSV for that.
• Phil Johnson has done a lot of flying... but has he ever had a flight like this? (Thanks to Berry Davis for link.)
• Berry takes comfort in the fact that we're never more than 115 miles away from a McDonald's.
• ...where Berry (and we) are likelier to eat, than we are to eat this sandwich.
• Freeeeeeeeeeedom!!!

• I pretty much despise PETA hypocrites, who are all wrought up about pain caused to the lowest life-forms, but utterly uninterested in torture-murders of unborn humans. So I reject their rationale...yet find myself sharing to some degree their horror at the (now-former) practice of a local restaurant. My motivation is all about Proverbs 12:10, though, and none about human/animal equivalence.
• Please do not link to the video of some Asian chef frying and serving up a still-living fish. I've seen it. It disgusts me. No one needs his food to be that "fresh." I catch trout, and I have taught all my children to kill them immediately.

Justin and Kevin: also kinda funny

Worthy bros Justin Taylor and Kevin DeYoung are shocked, shocked that WORLD magazine would print an article by Andree Seu lauding Glenn Beck and dubbing the practicing Mormon a born-again Christian.

What about the "but-Beck's-a-Mormon" thingie? Seu dismissively chirps, "I know he’s Mormon and all that" — leaving one to assume that "all that" includes polygamy, damning Gospel of works-righteosness, adding books to the Bible, etc. She hopes he's just like Apollos: a little off, ripe for someone to explain the difference. Which no one has done. Ri-i-i-ight.

But anyway, back to Justin and Kevin. Both find Seu's column shocking. I myself used to love Seu's writing. This is shocking.

But is it more shocking than gushing all over an unrepentant murderess and antinomian, dubbing her (also) a "Christian"?

Is it more shocking than accepting as "Christian" a convert to Roman Catholicism, without as much as one question about the meaning of the Gospel?

WORLD did all this, and it was duly noted... more than four years ago.

By someone.

UPDATE: now WORLD magazine has clarified (?) matters by stating "All of us need editing. Our website editing system failed in regard to Andrée’s post about Glenn Beck." Nice. What does that mean? They don't say. They do say that they will all the more press to interview Beck and "ask hard questions." Well, that's also nice. I hope they do.

But before we get too happy, note that the writer goes on to say, "One of the hardest aspects of reporting is assessing hearts, so we try not to do it...." If memory serves, that was the excuse the reporter gave years ago for not even asking Ann Rice what she thinks the Gospel is.

So... we'll see.

(HT Justin)

Bibles: know any text-only editions?

Reader Justin Durst wrote me asking if I know of any Bibles published without titles or headings beyond the minimum. I didn't, so I ask you.

What Justin is referring to is those "helpful" (?) chapter and section titles that editors insert, such as "Jesus casts out a demon" or "Samson swings a jawbone," or whatever. He wonders if there's an edition of the Bible free from such editorializations in the text.

Anyone know of any?

Justin says that, if he's unable to find such an edition, he'll try to publish one himself.

"Progressive Church" commercial

(Thanks to FRiend Tim for the link)

Monday music: "Uptown," Chicago

I plan to feed through a number of high-quality vintage videos of my favorite band, Chicago, at its peak. I'll focus on live performances of songs you probably never heard. When Chicago was at its best, it was the best.

This little tune is "Uptown," from 1977 (lyrics).

On guitar is the phenomenal, late great Terry Kath. Stars above, but that man could make his guitar walk and talk, and laugh and weep! If you've ever even tried to play, notice how Terry plays both rhythm and lead. What a towering talent.

Any "greatest guitarists" list that leaves off his name is worthless.

9/11/2001 — do not forget

NOTE CAREFULLY

This video is upsetting and graphic. It is the best brief editing-together of gut-wrenching, focused images of the attack America endured 9 years ago, today. It includes multiple angles of the attacks, falling bodies, falling buildings. So be warned: viewing is at your discretion.

We should never forget. Our leaders have. The unity that the country knew after this attack was brief and passing, unlike our focused, national unity during World War 2.

But we should never forget this devastating sally in the ongoing war by Islamic extremists against the rest of the world.

"And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains" (Matthew 24:6-8)

It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come, and say: "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore; but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken. (Micah 4:1-4)

They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:9)

---

After posting this, I saw that Squirrel had picked the same video, adding his own thoughts and a CW song.

Hither and thither 9/10/10

Another very full week, unusually hard to find time to cobble this together. If you enjoy, you should thank the dear wife for helping me have the time last night.

Have fun; updates possible until noon PT

• Without a rudder, the ship drifts. Now the American Academy of Pediatrics, while with one side of its mouth denouncing hypersexualized media, with the other side also denounces abstinence education. Hm. I wonder if that's also their policy on cigarette smoking? I'm thinking... no.
• B+H Publishing is launching a beta page for My Study Bible, using the CSB. Check it out.
• Reader Angus Nicholson notes that the Scottish Episcopal Church in its liturgy has "improved" on the Bible once again by removing masculine references to God... at least for "priests" who "have difficulties with a male God." Showing a rare gift for understatement, Rev Darren McFarland, convener of the church's liturgy committee, admitted that "The changing of God language is a little tricky." Oh, boy, you have no idea.
• Ninja prankster monkey.

• Interesting. Logos is coming out with a new commentary series called the Evangelical Exegetical Commentary. Looking over the list of contributors, I see they've got just about all the books of the Bible sewn up... oh, except — Proverbs. Hmmm....
• Well, well, well. Says here that your faithful correspondent is — ahem! — an "astute Christian blogger." This is in the course of a healthy whacking of the eminently whackable Biologos site. Thanks to Fred Butler and Steve Drake for noticing.
• One groans. Ronald Reagan is the subject of a biopic. However, the projected tone is said to be "reverential." Yeah well, we'll see.
• You'll like this. Reader Lauren Krysti found us a Lego island. (No, not in the ocean; in the kitchen!)

• You'll like this, too. Nom.

• ConsumerReports says: try store brands over name brands. You might save 30%, and the quality difference may be negligible. That's my experience. Medicine such as pain pills and allergy pills = big savings; food often a fair trade-off. We've liked a number of Winco's store brands. And it's non-Union. (Thanks to Berry Davis for the link.)
• You heard that Dr. Stephen Hawking made a rule that says nothing created something out of nothing, so there, because I said so? Or, as more commonly reported, his book says that God is not necessary to explain the universe? Well, turn about being fair play, evidently the universe has stated that Hawking is not necessary to explain his book, either. So there.
• Reader Robert noted to me that the IRS seems oddly clear where some Christians are foggy. An electronic church is not a church. Yeah, well... duh. (This one, doubly so: it's Roy Masters' mess.)

• And now, a BibChr Public Service Announcement. Some of you good folks have lamented that don't know how to post links. It's actually fairly simple. Here is a tutorial. In fact, you don't even need the quotation-marks that the tutorial shows... but they won't hurt.
• Homeschooling parents in Botswana are feeling the hot breath of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, breathing down their necks. (Thanks to Pastor John for the link.)
• Government workers ("Green Police"), pawing through your trash? Believe it, notes reader Chris Carney.
• Chris is also hoping that a couple of whistleblowers could do some real damage to Planned Parenthood.
• Good-hearted, maybe (or bad-lawed), but...

• Who said, "The right to life is the most fundamental of all rights"? In a Have I Retired to Bedlam? moment, it was actually Arthur Spitzer, an attorney for the ACLU. "What?!" you exclaim. "Has the ACLU discovered rights for unborn humans?" No, no no. Just for terrorists.
• Reader Angie found a little explanation (and illustration) of the difference between laughter and "clapter."
• Terrific. A California judge, who was appointed (surprise!) by Bill Clinton, has just done what she could to make the return of the draft likelier.
• So the Qu'ran-burning has been cancelled. Or not. It's confusing. I don't think much of this pastor overall, but oddly the predictable barking, screaming, foam-flecked Muslim reaction has rather made his point, hasn't it?
• There are, I think, ironies in the juxtaposition of the previous two items. See them?
• Fake images of little girls, designed to scare drivers? Good heavens, how many ways can this brilliant idea go horribly wrong? No worries, though; David Dunne of the Safety Foundation said "that he doesn't think the illusion of the girl running through the road will be a hazard." Ah, I feel all better now. (Thanks to reader James Joyce for the link.)