Further up, further in, and running wild

Logos is developing, refining, and enacting its master plan for Bible study domination. That pleases me more than you know.

I was particularly struck with the idea of a Bible study community, since I have been working on a project with that goal — building community around Bible study — in mind.

Community. We study, learn, teach, and share in community with others. We are planning new ways to connect with others around Bible study. We will have ways to collaborate on documents, aids to studying in a group, and tools that help you share the fruit of your study with others. You will be able to link your Logos.com account to multiple groups and choose what you share with the communities important to you. And because we know that Logos Bible Software is itself part of a larger community, we plan new ways to connect our tools with the work of others.

I strongly suggest you become part of the community.

via Logos Bible Software: The Master Plan – Logos Bible Software Blog

“The education system is built on the three pillars of mediocrity: lockstep pay, lifetime tenure and seniority,” was Joel Klein’s assessment…

via Getting Schooled in Aspen – John Fund

Go read Walter Williams – The Founders’ Vision Versus Ours

In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist some French refugees, James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, stood on the floor of the House to object, saying, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” He later added, “(T)he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” Two hundred years later, at least two-thirds of a multi-trillion-dollar federal budget is spent on charity or “objects of benevolence.”

Here are a few more quotes I found interesting:

The founders envisioned a republican form of government, but as Benjamin Franklin warned, “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”

What would the founders think about our respect for democracy and majority rule? Here’s what Thomas Jefferson said: “The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.”

John Adams advised, “Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

John Adams explained: “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.”

George Mason explained, “(T)o disarm the people (is) the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”

Noah Webster elaborated: “Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed. … The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.”

– Forty-three percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage and a porch or patio.

– Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

– Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded; two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.

– The typical poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens and other cities throughout Europe. These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.

– Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.

– Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

– Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

– Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.

via Walter Williams – Where Best To Be Poor

Supreme Court extends gun rights

xkcd: Public Opinion

We need to learn to live in the tension between eschatological hope and persevering in the present, between the Kingdom breaking through into the present and the understanding that what we see now is only in part. When we seek to live missionally and call others to do so, we must be ever honest with this dynamic. We must live in grace in the present reality of our imperfect pursuit of Christ, not as compromise, but as humility.

via Missional Living & Idealism: Incompatible

I’M 63 AND I’M TIRED

By Robert A. Hall
Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate
Dennis Miller Radio

I’m 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I’ve worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven’t called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn’t inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there’s no retirement in sight, and I’m tired. Very tired.

I’m tired of being told that I have to “spread the wealth” to people who don’t have my work ethic. I’m tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I’m tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to “keep people in their homes.” Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I’m willing to help. But if they bought McMansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the left-wing Congress-critters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble help them with their own money.

I’m tired of being told how bad America is by left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood Entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers. In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have the economy of Zimbabwe, the freedom of the press of China, the crime and violence of Mexico, the tolerance for Christian people of Iran, and the freedom of speech of Venezuela.

I’m tired of being told that Islam is a “Religion of Peace,” when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family “honor;” of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren’t “believers;” of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for “adultery;” of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur’an and Shari’a law tells them to.

I’m tired of being told that “race doesn’t matter” in the post-racial world of Obama, when it’s all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities (harming them the most), government contract set-asides, tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of U.S. Senators from Illinois. I think it’s very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less arrogantly of an all-knowing government.

I’m tired of a news media that thinks Bush’s fundraising and inaugural expenses were obscene, but that think Obama’s, at triple the cost, were wonderful; that thinks Bush exercising daily was a waste of presidential time, but Obama exercising is a great example for the public to control weight and stress; that picked over every line of Bush’s military records, but never demanded that Kerry release his; that slammed Palin, with two years as Governor, for being too inexperienced for VP, but touted Obama with three years as senator as potentially the best president ever. Wonder why people are dropping their subscriptions or switching to Fox News? Get a clue. I didn’t vote for Bush in 2000, but the media and Kerry drove me to his camp in 2004.

I’m tired of being told that out of “tolerance for other cultures” we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and mandrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America, while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.

I’m tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate. My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs. We also own a three-bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughter live. Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore’s, and if you’re greener than Gore, you’re green enough.

I’m tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off? I don’t think Gay people choose to be Gay, but I damn sure think druggies chose to take drugs. And I’m tired of harassment from cool people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana.

I’m tired of illegal aliens being called “undocumented workers,” especially the ones who aren’t working, but are living on welfare or crime. What’s next? Calling drug dealers, “Undocumented Pharmacists”? And, no, I’m not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic, and it’s been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion. I’m willing to fast track for citizenship any Hispanic person, who can speak English, doesn’t have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military…Those are the citizens we need.

I’m tired of latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station, trashing our military. They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life-and-death circumstances, and bad mouth better people than themselves. Do bad things happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years and still are? Not even close. So here’s the deal. I’ll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, and the critics can let themselves be subject to captivity by the Muslims, who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia, because the girls were Christian. Then we’ll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear.

I’m tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers; bums are bipartisan. And I’m tired of people telling me we need bipartisanship. I live in Illinois , where the “Illinois Combine” of Democrats has worked to loot the public for years. Not to mention the tax cheats in Obama’s cabinet.

I’m tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I’m tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

Speaking of poor, I’m tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn’t have that in 1970, but we didn’t know we were “poor.” The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing.

I’m real tired of people who don’t take responsibility for their lives and actions. I’m tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.

Yes, I’m damn tired. But I’m also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I’m not going to have to see the world these people are making. I’m just sorry for my granddaughter.

I’m not quite 63 yet, but I’m tired of the same stuff.

HackedIRL.com is usually just funny, but I actually found this one poignant.

It’s time the producers just stood up to the leeches. And I really mean that.

It’s my stuff. It may not be much to you, but I worked to be able to obtain it. Why should I stand by and let someone else take it and use it instead of me?

If you are a leech reading this (on a library computer, I guess), leave my stuff alone.

Even though some people say we are living in a “knowledge economy,” we are living in a political atmosphere in which ignorance has more power than ever. Washington politicians who have never run any business are telling all kinds of businesses– from automobile companies and banks to hospitals and insurance companies– how they have to run their businesses. This is the golden age of ignorance in power.

via Thomas Sowell : Random Thoughts

Conservatives are so enraged at Obama’s socialism and radicalism that they are increasingly surprised to learn that he is incompetent as well. The sight of his blithering and blustering while the most massive oil spill in history moves closer to America’s beaches not only reminds one of Bush’s terrible performance during Katrina, but calls to mind Jimmy Carter’s incompetence in the face of the hostage crisis.

via Morris: Obama doesn’t have a clue – TheHill.com

The Seven Types of Café Workers

1. The Networker
2. The Nomad
3. The Hog
4. The Socialite
5. The Talker
6. The Moaner
7. The Geek

Brilliant stuff.

As the U.S. Senate prepares to consider enormously expensive cap-and-trade legislation, supposedly aimed at curbing alleged global warming caused by man-made emissions, scientists and policy makers at a conference in Chicago heard from experts in various scientific fields challenging the crumbling assumptions that have provided the foundation for global-warming alarmism.

via Earth Is Cooling, Sea Levels Not Rising, Scientists Say

[Post updated with screencaps]

I’ve been running my iPad hard since the day I got it, which was the first day you could get one. I’ve cycled through a lot of applications, and I’m sure I’ll go through a lot more before the thing becomes archaic. Some I’ve completely discarded and others I’ve moved to the back pages, just in case I ever need them

But some have risen to the top as applications that I use regularly. I’ll try to organized them by function and give some reasoning behind my choices.

ToDo

I have been through three iterations here, eliminating Things and Taska, not because they are bad, but because they just don’t do what I wanted to do. Actually, those are both very nice and are perfectly functional in the GTD environment I want. But I finally am using the ToodleDo application because it syncs with the ToodleDo website and with my Google calendar and with the iPad calendar. For the first time ever, we have a system we can use for family and personal calendaring, including scheduled tasks on any of our platforms, all synchronized. That deserves a woo and a hoo. Even my Blackberry is totally on board the whole deal.

Cloud storage

I’ve tried several of these guys, including box.net and MobileMe, but I’ve settled on Dropbox as my standard. So far I haven’t had to use it enough to pay for more storage than is available for free, but I won’t hesitate to pay when the time comes, because it just works and works well. I love the fact that it can easily shuffle the files out to the appropriate applications, if needed.

I also use Evernote on a regular basis. My only problem with the iPad application is that it isn’t yet possible to actually download the files to the iPad. If this is fixed in future revisions, it will be better.

Printing

I use PrintCentral. I tried a few, and this one seems to be the easiest to use.

PDF Reading

Several seem to work well, but I’ve narrowed it down to GoodReader, and the occasional use of PDFReader. GoodReader is capable of reading Office documents and lots of other stuff, too, and it excels at big files. It’s file management facilities are quite nice, and I love that it has a built in browser to surf for PDFs. Or if you already know the URL, you can just enter it into GoodReader, and Bob’s your uncle. Nice work.

Weather

I use TWC Max, but WeatherBug is pretty good, too. Take your pick.

News

The USA Today application is very well done. As long as you don’t mind USA Today content.

Bible Study

Logos. That is all. But why did my downloaded books disappear? I had to re-download.

RSS Reader

NewsRack is the app of choice. This guy works like it should. It works more like the Google Reader web application than the Google Reader mobile application does. Don’t bother with Google.

Twitter Client

I’m using Twittelator right now. I’ve tried a couple others, but they fell short in one way or another. TweetDeck was what I expected to use, but Twittelator is better. There will be probably be a war over Twitter clients, and the situation may change rapidly.

Voice Memos

Voice Memos

EReader

I use both the Kindle application and iBooks. Books seem to be cheaper and more plentiful at the Kindle store, but the iBooks store has it’s niches. I’ve had some limited success at converting PDFs to the iBooks EPUB format, too. Both readers work just fine. As far as I’m concerned, neither looks better than the other, vaunted Apple designers notwithstanding.

Miscellaneous Notables

I’m using the Netflix app and it works flawlessly. Slacker is a great radio application, but I also like Tuner2, which is listener supported. Note that these applications will not be optimal until multitasking of non-Apple apps is possible. The music goes away when you leave the app. Instapaper works just like it ought to, and it has the buzzy tilt scrolling feature. (Someone told me this morning that tilt scrolling is guaranteed to add years to the lifetime of your iPad suspension.) Teavana came in handy last evening for steeping a pot of Precious Peach. Urbanspoon is a nice application when you are trying to decide where to eat.

Games

Gotta have some games. Carol and I love playing Scrabble and Maxi Dice (which is Yahtzee) together. The Scrabble application has an excellent pass and play feature, which makes for the most relaxing Scrabble I’ve ever played. I can actually take a short nap while Carol plays her turn, and I don’t have to stress over my next play, since I can’t see the board anyway. I might even enjoy playing with some of my family members who play Scrabble for blood, if they would play on the iPad.

I enjoy Backgammon Plus, but either I’m a really good backgammon player or the average player is really bad, because I have to put the game on the hardest setting to get a good game against the computer. And even then he makes some dumb plays.

I guess that’s about it for now. I have lots of other applications besides these installed on the iPad, but many of them have not been used or tested enough for me to have an opinion yet. More later, I suppose.

I would love to hear about what is working for other people. Add a comment.

By the way, my iPad experience is very good. I would have to say that it has surpassed my expectations, and that it has more capability than I knew. I’m using it more and more and my desktop less and less. I can’t take my desktop to a comfy chair with me.

I’m a day late linking to this, but you will still enjoy it today.

Earth Day is a sad, sick, stupid joke played on the gullible, the forgetful and the guilt-ravaged. It helps nothing, it wastes time and it diverts our attention from real, solvable problems – like artificial turf and the designated hitter rule. (I contend that the world started going to hell with the advent of both.)

via Jack Heald » Blog Archive » Earth Day Blues

But there’s no doubt that hating the government and the powerful interests that pull Washington’s strings has gone from the radical precincts of the Right and Left to the mainstream.

It turns out that watching Goldman Sachs, the United Auto Workers, public employee unions and a raft of other vampires drain the treasury at America’s weakest moment in a generation will make a person pretty hacked off.

via Hating the government finally goes mainstream | Washington Examiner

Tragically, minimum wages have the unquestioned support of good-hearted, well-meaning people with little understanding who become the useful idiots of charlatans, quacks and racists.

via Walter E. Williams : Minimum Wage Cruelty

While it is consistent with the prediction of the Hypothesis, the conclusion in my previous post that liberals are on average more intelligent than conservatives may not resonate with most people’s daily observations and experiences. If they are more intelligent, why are liberals – especially those in Hollywood and academia – so much more likely than conservatives to say and do stupid things and hold incredulous beliefs and ideas that stretch credibility?

via If Liberals Are More Intelligent than Conservatives, Why Are Liberals So Stupid? | Psychology Today

• Why would a healthy, strong, adult, American male choose to hit the wheelchair button to open the door in front himself, particularly when it takes him several steps off course to hit the button?
• Last night we watched the most recent episode of Dog the Bounty Hunter. Dog’s sons, Duane Lee and Leland, were playing tennis. I haven’t picked up a tennis racket in thirty years and I’m 400 pounds overweight, and I could beat them both, blindfolded with one arm.
• Participated in a Christianized Seder last evening. I had never before eaten straight, raw horseradish. It reminds me of cabbage core, which I love, but much hotter. If you ever go to a Seder, go easy on the horseradish.
• My iPad is supposed to be delivered tomorrow. I’ve noticed that people who decided, so far, not to get one are sometimes fond of trying to convince me that I made a bad decision. Why? Why do they care what I do? And why does it trouble me that they care?
• Michael Spencer is sick and many of the old time Boar’s Head Tavern have been returning to the online bar to reminisce and participate in the ongoing discussion there about nothing in particular. To me, it feels like having Eddie Feigner and his Court show up for the weekend softball game.
• When will evangelical Christians figure out that there are no solutions to be had by way of politics?
• I love to listen to Dennis Miller’s radio show. As opposed to many of the other radio yappers, Dennis doesn’t pretend to be a pundit. He’s like everyman, but with a twisted sense of humor. Hey, maybe that’s why I like him; he’s a lot like me.
• I’ll be avoiding downtown Indy this weekend, once I leave work this afternoon.
• It would be really cool if Butler would actually win the NCAA tournament. I know, it’s a long shot, but it was a long shot that they would be in the final four. I’m not going to bandwagon on and claim to be a real Butler fan, but I am a fan of team-oriented basketball and tough defense. Those are in short supply these days. Butler is kind of a throwback team. Bobby Knight probably enjoys watching this team. So I hope they win.
• We slept with windows open and fans on the last two nights. How wonderful it felt! I was cuddled up next to Carol this morning and didn’t want to get out of bed. Even when she smacked me in my CPAP mask, I still didn’t want to stop cuddling.
• I was in a meeting yesterday wherein a third-way kind of solution popped up because of the conversation. All four of us in the meeting were engaged in a way I rarely see at work anymore. It was refreshing and invigorating to be part of at least one small thing that felt innovative, efficient, and elegant, all at the same time. And this one could actually be implemented.
• I don’t do a good enough job staying in touch with my family. I have good intentions but bad follow through. Maybe we can have everyone at our house for a cookout before long. Note to self: power wash the grill.
• Nothing motivates me more than to know that I have pleased my wife. When she expresses to me that she is proud of me or that she likes what I did or said or that she is with me, that just spins me up to about 10k rpm. I wonder if she feels the same thing toward me and I wonder if I do a good enough job letting her know just how pleased I am with her.
• Craig has a job interview this weekend. Please pray for him.
• I have discovered that I am not a very religious person. Don’t mistake what I just said as saying anything about my relationship with God. I love God. I am committed to him and his cause. But I’m tired of all the fal-de-ral.
• Today is Good Friday and Sunday is Easter. There is the gospel for you. Right there.

One of my friends at the BHT is looking for a church. I happen to agree with everything he wants in a church. Take a gander:

I’d like a community that has old people. When I walk into a church populated by nothing but 20 and 30-somethings, something is wrong. You’ve either made it plain to the older people in the church that they are not appreciated or you’ve planned your new church in a way that focuses only on the young. Apart from the myriad of practical reasons to have older people be part of the congregation, there is also a wisdom gap. There is no substitute for the gentle wisdom of a mature saint. Without it, your young enthusiasm will quite likely lead you off a cliff. In addition, the worship of youth is one of our culture’s biggest problems, one that the church should be prophetically acting against.

Don’t have a traditional and contemporary service. At my home, everyone wants to do different things at dinnertime. One daughter wants to text, one wants to call her friends, and my son wants to play video games. I make them sit together, with all of our differences in hand, and talk with one another. At the end of the dinner, we’re have more in common with each other than when we started. Isolating differences to cater to tastes is not a good way to foster community.

Symbols: they’re important. I’m not even talking about the Supper (not yet, at least). Get rid of the US flag in the sanctuary. I’m a veteran and have sacrificed for my country. I did not however, sacrifice myself for all of humanity, so my flag of chocie should not get featured in the worship place of the One who did. Its idolatrous, there, I said it. Also, I wouldn’t mind seeing a cross (empty or not) in the church. You’re not doing your congregation any favors by obscuring that part of Christianity. Sure, its bloody, its awful, its horrifying…but its also been redeemed by the blood. Get it? There’s a sermon in there somewhere.

The gospel: if you don’t have it you might as well be a Dunkin Doughnuts. If you’re not focused on the redeeming story of God throughout time, centered on Jesus, climaxing on the death and resurrection of Christ, and looking forward to the ultimate restoration of all things, what are you doing? I’ll tell you what you’re doing: you’re wasting people’s time and quite possibly tying a double knot on a rope connected to a millstone.

via My Craigslist personal ad: MWM looking for TU-IP Church : The Boar’s Head Tavern

’08 race worker held in damage to Colorado Democratic HQ – The Denver Post

Here is at least one case of a Democrat attacking a Democrat office in an attempt for the damage to be blamed on the tea partiers.

There seems to be a concerted effort right now by the Democrats to claim that they are being threatened and harassed. Friends and neighbors, it’s politics. You can’t believe a single word they say.

These Democrats are dirty. They forced a massive health insurance bill down our throats and they know they are in trouble. They don’t have many ways to fight back, so they are painting Republicans and conservatives as neanderthals and racists.

Thanks to Rick Moore for finding this one.

I received sad news in an email recently: Clark Pinnock is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Clark sent John Sanders and me the following note:

Dear Tom and John:

I want to inform you that I am now middle stage Alzheimer’s. I will not be able to do my writing etc. I am 73 years now, and I’ve enjoyed my biblical three score and ten. I am not bitter. I have had a good life. I’ll meet you over Jordan if not before.

You are free to make this news known.

With love,

Clark

via Pinnock, Alzheimer’s, and Open Theology · For The Love of Wisdom and The Wisdom of Love · Thomas Jay Oord

I feel like I’ve been flooded out with bad news about people I love and respect, people who have helped make me who I am today. Intellectually, I know that it isn’t about me and that I’m one of the least affected. But in my soul, this is really hurting a great deal.

First it was the Jollyblogger, David Wayne. Then I was just getting to know Matt Chandler, and he was stricken with cancer. Then the worst blow, Michael Spencer. I just found out last evening that Michael and his family have decided to cease treatment and engage the help of hospice.

Now today, I found out that Clark Pinnock is suffering from Alzheimer’s. This is devastating. His work is over. I’ve seen in my own family how this terrible disease is, in some ways, worse than dying.

But the common thread in these four pieces of bad news is this: each one of these men knows Jesus and intend to live with him forever. It is my hope to spend some time with each of them “over Jordan”, when their minds and bodies are right again, and to tell them how much I appreciated how they lived and how they died.

Stanford professor and environmentalist Paul Ehrlich, in one of the e-mails obtained by the Washington Times said, “Most of our colleagues don’t seem to grasp that we’re not in a gentlepersons’ debate, we’re in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules.”

Professor Thomas Sowell’s most recent book, “Intellectuals and Society,” has a quote from Eric Hoffer, “One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputation.” Environmentalist Professor Paul Ehrlich, who’s giving advice to the warmers, is an excellent example of Hoffer’s observation. Ehrlich in his widely read 1968 book, “The Population Bomb,” predicted, “The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer.” Ehrlich also predicted the earth’s then-5 billion population would starve back to 2 billion people by 2025. In 1969, Dr. Ehrlich warned Britain’s Institute of Biology, “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” Despite these asinine predictions, Ehrlich has won no less than 16 awards, including the 1980 Crafoord Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science’s highest award.

via Walter E. Williams : The Warmers Strike Back

I may not be the world’s most stable man, I suppose, but I’m pretty reliable. It’s not too easy to put me off my feed.

The two biggest crack ups of my adult life, though, have both come under similar circumstances:

The pastor of my church resigned and I was partially responsible for procuring the services of a new one.

Doesn’t sound like a big deal, does it? I guess it was for me. Both time I have pretty much gone down for the count in the aftermath.

Crack up number one came about seventeen years ago. The results of the process did not go the way I wanted them to go and I feared for the future of the church. (I was right, by the way.) In the months and even the years following, I became sullen, moody, depressed, and a pain to everyone around me. It didn’t help that I had to move for my job in the middle of the change process. I felt like I was leaving my church in the lurch. And I felt like I had failed them and then moved away.

I remember a time some good friends visited us in our new location and I was snappy and unpleasant with them. I really know how to screw up a friendship. Carol would say that doing so is within my area of expertise. That friendship is still not what it once was, sixteen years later.

The second crack up is much more recent. Recent enough to have been documented in the pages in Facebook and in the lives of my current friends and some probably-ex-friends.

This time it was the aftermath of the change process that blew me up. Things didn’t go as I thought they would and I felt both responsible and helpless. I lashed out at people I loved and hurt them badly, probably so badly that the rift is unhealable. I’d call that a crack up.

I’m an analytical guy and sometimes it takes me a while to put stuff together. I’m in the process of doing that now. Here’s what I have learned about myself in this analysis of the two crack ups:

1. Church became overly important to me. Notice that I said “church”, not “God”. When something becomes inordinately large in my life, it can mess me up when things get out of whack.
2. I am full of the need to control my environment and a sense of pride in my ability to do it. (Think Al Gore.) When I fail to control it, it is a personal failure. I should be smart enough to see all the possibilities and manipulate circumstances for the best outcome.
3. When I crack up, I end up hurting people who love me. Inside and outside my home. Why, I don’t know.

So, I need to get things in order. I can’t have a third crack up. I’m still trying to heal me and my world from the first two.

• I need to realize that my local church is not the locus of God’s presence and kingdom on earth. I know that, but I need to realize my knowledge.
• I need to pare down my involvement and personal investment in the local church. Particularly in leadership. I think it must be a lot easier to sit on the sidelines and pick at the leaders than it is to be a leader. I’m up for some easy. Furthermore, over-involvement in church brings along with it under-involvement in my other communities, which is where God’s kingdom should be moving into, through me.
• I need to build in some protections so I don’t hurt people that I love. This can never, ever happen again.

No more crack ups for me. Crack ups are not all they are cracked up to be.

What follows is Craig’s definitive list of steampunk books for those interested in exploring the genre. In order:

1. Steampunk Anthology, edited by Ann Vandermeer
2. The Difference Engine, by William Gibson
3. The Steampunk Trilogy, by Paul di Fillipo
4. Whitechapel Gods, by S.M. Peters
5. Extraordinary Engines, by Nick Gevers
6. A Nomad of the Time Streams, Michael Moorcock

Here is an interesting read for a Monday morning. I have tons of sympathy and connection with where this writer is headed. I will not likely follow him all the way there, but I understand.

Why I don’t believe in “Church” | the Jesus Manifesto

To summarize the main points:

Appearance and Performance: We parade ourselves before one another without the ability to speak to one another, we are there to watch and listen, not to participate.

Centralization of Power: How could one possibly speak for the whole?

Waste of Resources: We come together in buildings that need not be constructed for the church to exist.

The Way is Narrow: Apparently Jesus didn’t mean it when He said that the way was narrow and that it would be difficult to be His followers.

Entitlement and Self-fulfillment: Our churches reinforce the notion of our individual rights that Christians have to continue living in whatever way they choose, continuing to over-consume, over-pollute, over-simplify and under-question.