I’ve only felt one, very minor, tremor in my life. Maybe 35 years ago in Iowa from the New Madrid fault. I remember feeling the ground move a little bit. Nothing major, though the memory has stuck with me.
Security cameras caught the 8.8 magnitude earthquake earlier today in Chile and the ground violently shakes in a way I cannot imagine experiencing.
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How to Geek posted a link to First Person Tetris the other day. It is classic Tetris, based on graphics and sounds very similar to the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game, but when you rotate the falling piece, its perspective to you remains the same and the game screen rotates around it. The How to Geek article states it “will take you back and test your sanity all at once”. They’ve nailed that sanity part quite well! 
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I visited a church this morning in which the pastor preached from John 8:1-12. This is the story of the woman who had been caught in the act of adultery that the Pharisees and scribes brought to Jesus. Jesus said “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” then drew on the ground with his finger while all of the accusers left, one by one, having been convicted of their own sin by their consciences.
The pastor preached out of the New International Version, which presents John 8:9 like this:
John 8:9 – NIV
9: At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.
Here is that same verse, in the King James Version.
John 8:9 – KJV
9: And they which heard [it], being convicted by [their own] conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, [even] unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
What a difference the translation makes! The NIV version omits “being convicted by their own conscience” and just says that they began to go away, one at a time. Did they leave because they were bored? Or was it because they had came to see a stoning and figured that wasn’t going to happen?
The NIV translation takes away one of the key points of this passage – that we are to be convicted of our own sins when we are in the presence of Jesus Christ. I believe it is difficult to fully grasp what it will be like to be in God’s presence when we come before him after we die. God and Jesus Christ, who are pure and holy compared to us, who are sinful is a monumental gap that we will not be able to bridge on our own. Only God can bridge that gap by forgiving us of our sins and allowing us into His heaven where we can exist pure and holy, without sin.
But until that day, we are called to come before Christ, be convicted of our sins by our conscience, and confess them so that they can be forgiven. The New International Version doesn’t help with that by leaving out significant parts of the original text. I believe it hurts, in fact, by changing the meaning and leaving its readers with an incomplete (in this case) understanding of the Bible.
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The Bluegrass Blog links to a PopMatters article with their list of the top ten bluegrass albums of 2009. They are:
The PopMatters article has links to listen to each of the albums – which is very cool. The list is pretty good. There are a few albums on it that I’ve not heard – so I’ll probably be off to Amazon again soon!
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Or, rather, not leading from the left.
U.S. Senate Democrats lost their 20 seat majority yesterday when Republican Scott Brown won the special election for the Senate seat vacated when Ted Kennedy died last year. Once he is seated, in a week or two after the election paperwork is shuffled, Democrats will be down to an 18 seat majority. Their majority will drop from 60-40 to 59-41.
A shift of one senator from the Democrats to the Republicans. One senator.
Yet it is already making a tremendous difference. President Obama and Democrat leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives are already apparently considering trying to pass a pared-down bill in place of the massive (and massively flawed) plans in conference now.
One seat changes from Democrat to Republican and big changes occur. Democrats go from controlling 60 of 100 seats to 59 and big changes occur. Why?
I think this is indicative of the position from which Democrats are leading – or rather trying (and failing) to lead. President Obama has turned out to be the ultra-liberal that those who didn’t vote for him knew him to be. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have been trying to shove an ultra-liberal agenda down our throats and it hasn’t worked. Senate Democrats have a larger majority, even once Scott Brown is seated, at 59 seats than Republicans ever did during President Bush’s terms and yet President Bush got the things done that he wanted to do.
President Obama hasn’t. And apparently won’t.
They try to lead from a position that is much, much too far left for most people to stomach. And it is finally catching up with them.
Who knows what this means for the normal election cycle this November. Now to then is a long time, politically speaking. Republicans didn’t exactly lead with high-morals and virtues when they help majorities in the Senate and House recently. But they did get more done with lesser majorities than Democrats are doing now. The Republicans need to recognize the seriousness of the message they’ve been given every bit as much as the Democrats do.
I’m not necessarily confident that either group will do so, however.
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Despite the fact that the Iowa State (my alma mater) Cyclone football team just won the Insight Bowl over the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers and that this was the first bowl game for Iowa State since 2005, any bowl game that invites a team that went 6-6 shouldn’t exist.
There are too many bowl games.
And what is with all the bowl games on or after January 1? January 1 used to be the big bowl game day. Then the national championship game was moved out to give it its own night and increase the number of people who would watch the game on television. I understand that. But there are fourteen bowl games on or after January 1 this year. Including the GMAC Bowl on January 6, after every other bowl except the national championship game. It features traditional football powerhouses Troy and Central Michigan.
Ooooooohhhhh! Aaaaaaahhhhhh! Can’t you just feel the excitement.
Bah! Humbug!
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I learned something today.
Something about Google. Steve Rubel taught it to me through a Twitter post of his. He tweeted this last night:
NFL Network is not on my cable deck here so here’s how I am watching the Cowboys Saints game http://j.mp/4J92vS
When you click through to the shortened link, you get to a Google search for “cowboys”. What is cool about it – and this is what I learned – is that it constantly updates in real-time with what is showing up in the Google search index for that term. What I hadn’t seen before was that option. Here’s how you get it to work.
1. Search for the term you’re looking for, “cowboys” on Google. Here’s something along the lines of what you see. (Click the picture for a larger version.)
In the upper left corner of the screen, there is a plus sign icon and a hyperlink for “show options”. Click on it and a list of options opens up on the left side of the window, like this:
Click “updates” under the “All results” heading and most of the other options go away. And the results screen starts updating anytime something that meets your search criteria is added to the Google search index.
Very cool.
And very useful. I can imagine leaving a window open on my work PC with work-related search terms set up. Nice feature. Thanks, Steve!
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My elder daughter has been selling hand-made crafts on her Etsy shop, Road to Grinnell, for several months. She opened up a Twitter account the other day to promote her shop.
She makes paper crafts (like greeting cards and stationary) and knit items (like head bands and dish cloths). Here is one of her current greeting cards:
Check out her shop and be sure to let her know if you don’t see what you’re looking for. She will do custom work as well.
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I’m sure you’ve seen the articles about Abby Johnson, the director of a Planned Parenthood clinic who resigned her position after witnessing ultrasonic video of an abortion in which the 13 week old baby tried to pull away from the probe the doctor was using to kill him/her. Here’s what she told ABC News after resigning.
“I just thought, ‘What am I doing?’” she told ABC News. “And then I thought, ‘Never again.’”
“What am I doing?” That sums it up pretty well. And it is a question that I hope and pray everyone involved in abortions asks themselves. Because what they are doing is killing.
Planned Parenthood and those who are pro-abortion tell us that we’re doing nothing more significant than removing an unwanted skin blemish – taking away something that isn’t wanted. What they don’t tell us is that the actual abortion procedure is barbaric and that it is killing an unborn baby. Not a lump of unwanted tissue – a baby. A baby that will recoil from a probe in a way that looks like he or she is experiencing pain from the probe. A baby that was a special creation of God.
The thing that struck me here is that question, “What am I doing?”. It certainly isn’t a question that applies only to those who provide or facilitate abortions. It is a question that applies to each of us because we all sin. What we are doing is moving against what God desires and against God himself.
Abby Johnson seems to have been confronted with that question for the first time after witnessing the true brutality and horror of an abortion. What does it take for us to be confronted with that question for the brutality and horror of our own sin? And how do we respond when we ask that question of ourselves?
“What am I doing?” indeed.
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A week or so ago, I had pondered whether to buy a netbook computer to use while traveling. I decided to do so, and bought one of the Toshiba models. I bought a Toshiba N205-N312BL model to get Windows XP and the relatively larger keyboard. So far, I like it.
The screen is smaller than the 15.4 inch widescreen Dell XPS1530 on which I’m typing now, but the system sure is slim! I’ve been carrying it to work in my laptop bag, usually with my work laptop. I do notice the extra weight (2 pounds or so), but not all that much. The computer is about the size of a slim hardcover book and probably doesn’t weigh much more than that.
Its processor is less powerful than what I’ve been buying the last two or three years, to be sure, but it seems to run Windows XP just fine. I installed Office 2007 on it as well as ActiveWords and I don’t notice any slowness. I needed to connect through my network and load the installation CD for Office into another computer, but that worked very well.
I went with a Windows XP model because Windows 7 Starter Edition seemed too much dumbed down. You can’t do some rather basic things on it, like change the desktop wallpaper – and I like having nature scenes on my wallpaper. It just seemed to feature deprived. I could have updated to a better version of Windows 7, and I kind of wanted to do that, but I was worried that the 1GB of ram, in particular, might cause problems. It surely doesn’t for Windows XP.
Battery life is phenomenal. Specs say the netbook will run for 9 hours on a battery charge and I believe it! I haven’t been bothering to take the power cord with me to work, which is nice. My collection of cords is impressive enough without this one.
The speakers – or rather speaker – leave something to be desired. I bought an inexpensive set of speakers that I take with me when I travel. They plug into the headphone jack and give enough sound to let me play music in my hotel room.
So far, I like the system a lot. We’ll see how well it does with my first trip.
Thanks to everyone who commented.
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