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Showing posts from September, 2009

Deliver Us, Obama!

You know, I used to think that when people on my side of things (politically) criticized President Obama's followers for viewing him as the Messiah, that they were exaggerating a little. Well, I am man enough to admit that I was wrong. If anything, they were understating the case. Here, Obama worshippers pray to him that he will deliver them from all woes related to health care: I guess this campaign ad for Obama should have given me a clue, eh?

Leftist Economics @Trinity Wall Street

Trinity Episcopal Church, Wall Street (yes, the folks who brought you the Clown Eucharist) are apparently going to run a socialist economics institute next January. Here, participants will apparently be taught of the foolishness of the notion of Private Property (a Biblical principle, without which " Thou shalt not steal " is a commandment without meaning). Listen as University of Chicago Divinity School Professor Kathryn Tanner explains (0:29) that the notion of Private Property ( not sloth or other sin) is what causes scarcity. She goes on (3:08ff) to explain that, because God gives us His grace without our meriting it, we should distribute money to people without regard to merit. She neglects, of course, the fact that with God's grace He sovereignly changes our ways of behaving, while socialism leaves the recipient of (other people's confiscated) money no less sinful in the ways they act. And for the climactic statement of the video (5:43), Prof. Tanner deduces t...

FaceBook and the New Personal Integrity

Joining FaceBook has done an odd and somewhat unexpected thing to me: it seems to have strengthened my integrity. And by integrity, I mean two things. I mean it first in the common sense of "adhering to an ethical code". But I also mean it in the sense of "having internal consistency". How has this happened? And why is the title of this blog entry not " The Internet and the New Personal Integrity "? The answer these questions lie in the fact that FaceBook has, for me, become a place where I interact with a very diverse group of friends, many of whom do not know my other friends. Granted, there are clusters of friends (Anglicans, bodybuilders, car guys, family, ex-students, etc.) who know each other. But people from one cluster don't know or share the same interests with people in the other clusters. Elsewhere on the internet, things tend to be specialized. There are entire websites (nay, pairs or trios of rival websites!) dedicated to a single model o...

In the Firing Line.

Click here to read the latest report by Greenpeace:

The Satelliters - Lost In Time (Suddenly, it's 1965!)

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when you are old, he will send you links to stuff infinitely cooler than you ever could have imagined ... That came to me by way of my 15-year-old son. Watch for the Vox Phantom guitar in this video. And the Farfisa organ! And the Jim McGuinn haircut. Some of these poses seem to be taken straight from early Byrds publicity stills. Fab!

Diocese of Michigan - Lost and Adrift

I received my regular e-mailing of the Diocese of Michigan 's "The Record Weekly" in my Inbox this morning. And, even though I spent 6.5 years inside the belly of the beast, what I read from Herb Gunn in that email still managed to stun me. A comprehensive visioning project is underway in the Diocese of Michigan. The project grew--actually shrank--from the Extended Ministries Fund (EMF) Task Force that began two years ago to study the appropriate use of the ministry fund. Funds in the EMF are unrestricted, but the EMF policy states that the corpus is not to be used without specific authorization from Diocesan Convention. Approximately five million dollars in market-driven appreciated value has been used for operating expenses over the past eight years, but as the financial markets have declined, the appreciated value has disappeared. It was somewhat refreshing to see Herb admit that things are shrinking in the Diocese of Michigan. (As the joke goes: How do you ...

designing an icon

I am approximately 8 months late with this entry. I've been busy, I suppose. The designing an icon exhibition at the Elaine L. Jacob Gallery of Wayne State University was held from November 21, 2008 through January 16, 2009. I had meant to get there between Christmas and New Year's Day, but kept procrastinating until January 15 to finally see it. Because of this, I think, Eliot and I had the entire gallery to ourselves. As I've blogged here before, Eliot is my ( award winning! ) son, a future car designer, and so this exhibition, subtitled Creativity and the American Automobile , was doubly pleasant because he was with me to discuss the art. Many of the designs brought an instant nod of recognition, since the concepts were later incarnated into sheet metal. For instance, this one by Bob Hubbach, is even labeled "CHARGER". This one by Don Wood, though looking like a Camaro, was a Chevelle concept if I'm not mistaken. Here, we clearly have a Ford Thunderb...

Laura Bailey

I've known about Figure competitor Laura Bailey for some time now. Her (excellent) blog is one of the ones listed on my sidebar here. I don't know how many of you are members of bodybuilding.com , but for those who are, Laura makes a good case for why she should get your vote in the IronMan Magazine BodySpace SpokesModel Search . You can vote daily. Her name there is jumper11 . Laura not only keeps up a busy competitive schedule, but is pursuing her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology!