One device to rule them all? The Motorola Droid
This has nothing to do with the Bible or God, but I had to blog on it. I am nearing the end of my ATT wireless contract, and am a gadget geek looking for a new phone. There are so many phones either coming or just arrived that are so tempting, including the
But today I found out about the Motorola Droid, the first Verizon phone to use the Google Android operating system, coming November 6th!
But what really wins my heart over is that I can replace SIX electronic devices with this one device, and the last is just radical – besides being a
- phone
- 5Mp camera
- DVD-quality video recorder (720×480 resolution)
- portable media player
- GPS navigator (it is the first to come with Google Maps™ Navigation – free turn-by-turn directions!!)
if you buy the multimedia dock (pictured) it can charge while being your alarm clock!!!
I am smitten! More gushing after the jump.
Augustine on Christians and Civil Government
Evangel, the evangelical blog at First Things has a nice series of posts entitled Augustine on Christians and Civil Government. Enjoy these goodies:
1. Introduction: Christianity and Politics
2. Augustine on Civil Government: The Two Cities
3. Augustine on Civil Government: Two Further Preliminaries
4. Augustine on Civil Government: Authority
5. Augustine on Civil Government: The City of God and Compromise
6. Christian Political Participation
7. Religious Motivations in Politics
Vision or prison?
This wonderful cartoon from ASBO Jesus got me thinking about the whole vision thing. As a pastor, one of the chief difficulties is inspiring volunteers to pursue a vision. Here's my comments.
- Inspire, don't threaten.
- People are more important than the work or the timeline
- To inspire, YOU must be inspired, and keeping yourself motivated and 'inspirational' while going through life's normal ups and downs is a tough discipline.
- WITHOUT a vision, church is boring and lethargic. People like to be part of a ship that's going somewhere.
- Forging a vision that works first involves forging it with a team, not just yourself.
- God uses our own passions and experience from which we draw our vision and inspiration, but it is also GOD's vision and timeline that matter, and discerning which is which is tough. Having a team (see #5) helps lend some objectivity to help figure out what is 'me and God' and what is just 'me.'
- Aim at nothing, hit nothing. But if you do aim at something, be happy no matter what you hit, you are almost sure NOT to hit exactly what you were aiming at. Learn from it.
Why Europe will be Muslim in a decade, and why secularism can’t help
According to the alarming video below, most of anglo Europe is close to negative population growth, and so low that it won’t recover it’s population anyway for over a century even if it does bring up it’s birth rate. Worse, the populations of these countries are growing from Muslim immigration, and at the current rate, most of Europe will be majority Muslim before the decade is out.
What caused this problem? Liberal, selfish individualistic, anti-child values keep the child count low, and abortion on demand kills 4000 children a day here in the states – I’m not sure how many are murdered in Europe.
The Micah Mandate
One of my favorite authors, Stephen Mansfield (The Faith of George W. Bush), has just completed a new book entitled "The Faith of the American Soldier". He’s been posting excerpts of the book on his blog at his website.
In his May 10 entry (no permalink available) he explains the story of "The Micah Mandate". In 1917 as the United States was preparing to enter World War I, the New York Bible Society wanted to give a New Testament to each soldier and called upon former President Theodore Roosevelt to provide an inscription to be printed inside them. The following is the text of his inscription which has become known as "The Micah Mandate":
Examining the historical and logical links between Darwin and eugenics
In the latest podcast over at Reasonable Doubt, the resident atheists discuss my comment on their blog, where I suggested that there is a historical link between Darwinism and Nazism. Naturally, since I attacked their religion science worldview, they took issue with me.
Unfortunately, their interesting, amusing and often profanity-laden podcast (I say that with some affection but not admiration ;) often misrepresented my points, and created a few straw men to boot.
I ask you fellas (challenge you?) to address your ‘mistakes’ in a future podcast. Like you, I don’t enjoy being ridiculed or misrepresented. Here’s my response to your discussion. I hope these clear things up and lead to reasoned argument!
Obama supporters were excited about him being a Kenyan before it ‘mattered’
I’m not a birther, but I have to admit that the Obama administration’s evasive and delayed responses to the accusations that he was not American born did arouse suspicion. And of course, past articles like this one from 2004 (somehow not found by the Obama news scrubbers) makes it clear that even his supporters were excited that a foreigner could rise to such heights in the U.S. Conservative conspiracy? I think not.
CAIR – Lying for Allah
Takeyya (noun) – the Islamic principle of lying for the greater good of the progress of Islam. Or as Mohammed wrote:
He is not a false person who through al-tekeyya settles conciliation among people, supports good or says what is good.
While lying to the Nazis to protect the Jews your are hiding might fall into this category, unfortunately, in this case, the Nazi-like aggressors are the followers of Islam, and they lie to gain the trust of unsuspecting multicuturalists so that we can all live under Sharia Law and convert, pay the jizzya, or die.
And no one does it better than the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR). Good thing that brave people are infiltrating corrupt organizations like Acorn, Planned Parenthood, and now, CAIR. Chris Gaubat, after working for six months inside of CAIR's Washington D.C. office, contributed to Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that's Conspiring to Islamize America.
You can read a review at jewkey.com. And as a bonus, there's some bonus CAIR video after the jump.
Grocial Security
To Paine and the boys at Shire Network News have prepared another superior podcast, continuing their mission to 'protect the Anglosphere through satire.' I excerpted this short bit on the introduction of government-run grocery stores. Awesome.
Download Grocial Security (mp3)
Podcast: Play in new window
The need for virile masculine spiritual leadership
One of my favorite subjects is restoring the true masculine to spirituality in the Church. The fact that we have female lead pastors in violation of scripture (see item 13 in Pet Peeves – in church), a feminized spirituality that fails to appeal to men (who by design need to be Warriors, Wildmen, and Kings), and a lack of a serious call to leadership and discipleship in the Church all lead us to weak spirituality, and a failure to be salt and light in society.
Even worse, the liberal churches, esp. the Anglicans/Episcopalians, having abandoned the biblical leadership mandates and distinctions for men in the family and church, have gone the next step beyond feminization to the heresy of ordaining unrepentant homosexuals.
Over the years, men’s ministries such as Promise Keepers, as well as good books such as No More Christian Nice Guy: When Being Nice–Instead of Good–Hurts Men, Women and Children, Healing the Masculine Soul: God’s Restoration of Men to Real Manhood, and Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul have stepped into the gap to address weak masculine spirituality.
Now, American Vision offers us a four part DVD series entitled Masculine Spiritual Leadership, on sale for $10 instead of $30! I’ve ordered it today, and look forward to viewing and using it with our men. Here’s the outline of what’s in it. BTW, nice cover art – kind of steam-punkish.
- PART 1: A Lost Art�Masculine Spiritual Leadership (27 minutes)
- PART 2: Leading Ourselves, Our Wives, & Our Children (37 minutes)
- PART 3: In Search of Virtue (26 minutes)
- PART 4: Decision Making in the Home: Dictatorships, Disagreements and the Garden of Eden (37 minutes)
ASDF Jesus 001 : Know-it-alls
This is an ode to one of my favorite online toons, ASBO Jesus. My motto should be "Bringing the gospel home" (get it? ASDF = home keys). Enjoy.
Unbalanced, one-sided, dogmatic intellectuals confuse the crap out of the common person.
How long before Disney creates a cross-dressing prince or animated gay romance?
Now that Disney has elevated gay activist Rich Ross to studio chief,it won't be long now until we have a new more 'diverse' princess. I can only imagine the titles.
- The Dragon and the Two Princes – A manly prince saves the swishy one from the awful Dragon and his hateful, narrow, conservative, white, hetero master.
- Queen for a Day - The widowed King is sad, and the only person that can make him happy is the 'dramatic' court jester, who secretly is romantically in love with the King. With the help of a butch Fairy Godmother, the jester is transformed into a beautiful princess for 24 hours, in which time, if she can get a kiss of true love from the King, 'she' can stay as a woman and live with the man of 'her' dreams, the lonely King.
- Escape to Brokeback Mountain - two human-like aliens crash their ship in the desert, and are helped by a gay cowboy to escape the pursuit of the evil hetero government agents. In the movie's climax (no pun intended), the two androgenous aliens and the gay cowboy have an intimate threesome encounter, showing the beauty of cross-species love and multiple partners. In the end, the aliens take the cowboy with them to live in sexual bliss in the more enlightened alien world.
- Fabulous! - The prince lives in the gray world of a fashionless kingdom ruled by his hetero father. Through the love and genious of a local taylor, they turn everyone on to colorful fashions. The father finally admits that he should have appreciated the Prince for his own 'fabulous' values.
- The Legend of the Fairy Prince - the heartwarming story of a Prince who always wanted to be a princess, and through the magic of a fairy God mother, becomes an androgenous fairy who no longer has to worry about gender.
- Cinderfella (my apologies to Jerry Lewis) – classic retelling of Cinderella, except that the Prince secretly likes men, and rejoices when the cross-dressing handmaiden shows up at the ball in drag, and they dance the night away. After a valiant search, the size 13 glass slipper turns out to fit the young, handsome, muscular, shirtless, hairless handyman slaving in the barn, and they live happily ever after.
- Beautician and the Beast – the young male beautician is trapped in the home of the Beast, who is cursed by God with facial hair, chest hair, and a penis. While the beautician can do nothing about the bulge in the Beast's pants (which he kind of likes), he *can* help the beast get laser hair removal, and show him how to stop hating himself and use facial base to cover his hair follicles.
- The Emperor's New Groove 3 – The Prince gets sex-reassignment surgery. (Get it? New 'groove'?)
We'll see if all of this diversity really comes to pass, but as ONN remarks, we all like to use our influence to push our values:
The sad reality is that whenever you see a homosexual activist at the top, nine times out of ten they end up pushing that gay agenda using their influence to push it wherever they can.
Living it out rather than getting out
One of the topics I am interested in, for personal and academic reasons, is the Biblical view of homosexuality, as well as the potential for recovery FROM homosexuality. Of course, pro-gay commenters make all kinds of accusations about my interest, suggesting that I am a closet homo, or am supressing my homosexual or pedophile thoughts or actions, or that I have some other disingenuous, hateful or self-hateful motive. I guess you’ll have to take my word that such is not the case, or wait until I am exposed by some investigative reporter.
ANYWAY, you may be aware that there are quite a few who basically consider themselves gay Christians or Evangelical and Gay. In this same vein, there is a new book out entitled Living it Out, with a descriptive subtitle of a survival guide written by lesbian, gay and bisexual Christians, our families, friends and allies.
Anyway, for those of us interested in not only securing right doctrine on homosexuality, but developing a heart and methods for reaching them with transforming, liberating truth (and helping them heal from their ‘dysfunction’), this book, basically a compilation of their stories and journeys in trying to be gay and Christian, might be instructive in seeking first to understand. Enjoy.
Global Warming: Not Evil, Just Wrong
In less than a week, a new film critiquing the many mistakes of Al Gore’s global warming alarm movie An Inconvenient Truth, will be released. Not Evil, Just Wrong discusses the impact, not of global warming, but of global warming alarmism, and the shaky facts that this political abuse of science is causing. Enjoy the trailer after the jump.
Even better, you can host a Not Evil, Just Wrong premier party next week by ordering a party kit from the link in the right column. You can also read an interview with the filmmakers over at Big Hollywood – here’s an interesting snippet:
“It’s a liberal, socialist film. It’s about poor people in Africa and America,” McAleer says. “We’re not interested in insulting anyone or winning political points,” McAleer continues. “I don’t care about your politics and I’m not going to demonize you.”
The dog ate my global warming data
Ever wonder how the whole global warming scare all came about? As it turns out, the original data used to get us all alarmed is MISSING, and the scientists that first massaged it to 'prove' global warming don't have the original data anymore. What a convenient loss of truth!
You can read the entire story in The Dog Ate Global Warming, written by Patrick J. Michaels, author of Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know. Here's a money quote from the article:
Now begins the fun. Warwick Hughes, an Australian scientist, wondered where that “+/–” came from, so he politely wrote Phil Jones in early 2005, asking for the original data. Jones’s response to a fellow scientist attempting to replicate his work was, “We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”
Reread that statement, for it is breathtaking in its anti-scientific thrust. In fact, the entire purpose of replication is to “try and find something wrong.” The ultimate objective of science is to do things so well that, indeed, nothing is wrong….
Roger Pielke Jr., an
esteemed professor of environmental studies at the University of
Colorado, then requested the raw data from Jones. Jones responded:Since the 1980s, we
have merged the data we have received into existing series or begun new
ones, so it is impossible to say if all stations within a particular
country or if all of an individual record should be freely available.
Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to
keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after
adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the
original raw data but only the value-added (i.e., quality controlled
and homogenized) data.
Global Warming Alarmism is just one of the manufactured crises of modern day liberal politics. What about the 4000 unborn children killed daily? What about the fact that half of all black American pregnancies end in abortion? Not a crisis?
Outrage over abortion needs to increase
The first article below is very good – if the outrage over corruption at Planned Parenthood is amped up, perhaps we can get them defunded too. God knows abortion mills are more evil than what happens at ACORN – I mean, come on, covering up statutory rape?
We need to quit pumping tax dollars into organizations that kill in the name of health.
Perspective: Outrage over ACORN, but not abortion
The ACORN scandal shows that if Congress wants to act, it can.
ACORN-related documents requested of feds
Judicial
Watch has filed three Freedom of Information Act lawsuits seeking
documents related to the controversial community activist organization
ACORN.
America's pro-life, pro-abortion gap oh so slight
A recent poll indicates Americans are more pro-life than ever.
School cancels speech from conservative activist
Conservative
activist David Horowitz has been asked not to present a speech titled
"Islamo-Fascism Awareness and Civil Rights" at St. Louis University.
Perspective: Wouldn't it be nice?
…if we had a president more interested in defending the honor of his country than in polishing his own global celebrity?
