Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
Then I realized my true bid would be $3002.50!
No way!
Pastor and His Family for Sale
I’m not even going to Google it, but I wonder how many male bloggers are having a hey day with the idea of buying the family and keeping the wife and/or daughter.
And, vile being what vile is, how many other male bloggers are fantasizing about keeping the boy.
Not a wise move on Chad’s part.
Sure, he’s an unconventional pastor, but still . . . .
Closing out his first hour this afternoon (at least here in Oregon on 750 KXL), Michael Savage said (and I quote to the best of my recollection):
| I don’t know if God Himself can save this nation. |
Sir, God can save this nation!
“Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34).
Yes, God can save America.
But will He?
Or is the cup of iniquity of the United States of America too close to full by now?
I don’t know.
And if God chooses to bring judgment on the USA, what will I do?
Would to God that I will stand strong. And shine strongly with the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Iranians consider mandatory execution for apostasy:
| A plan is being discussed by lawmakers in Iran that would require the death penalty for anyone who leaves Islam for Christianity or someone who promotes such a conversion even on the Internet, according to a new report from Compass Direct News.
Those discussions of a penal code that was drafted earlier this year bring urgency to situations such as the two men arrested recently and under interrogation for that very crime, the report said. The report said Iranian authorities arrested a number of converts to Christianity in the city of Shiraz about two months ago on suspicion of “apostasy.” Arash Bandari, 44, and Mahmood Matin, 52, were arrested at the time along with 13 other Muslim converts to Christianity. But while the other 13 were told they have a court case pending and then released, Bandari and Matin have been held ever since. The 13 who have been released have not been told of any specific charges, but they report the nature of their questioning gives them reason to think the allegations may include apostasy and political crimes. The other two, Bandari and Matin, have been held almost incommunicado. Matin’s wife was able to see him for several minutes on June 24, when the prisoner told his wife “there had been a misunderstanding and that he could not teach Christianity any more,” Compass reported. […] Compass noted that under the existing sharia laws in Iran, the death penalty is available for the crime of apostasy, but not required. |
Something’s weird here, in my estimation:
| A student at the University of Central Florida says he’s now getting death threats after he stole and later returned a wafer representing the “Body of Christ” from a Catholic Mass in Orlando.
The student senator, Webster Cook, originally claimed he merely wanted to show the Eucharist to a friend who had questions about Catholicism before consuming the host. Cook, who was raised Catholic, said he decided to bring the wafer home June 29 after a church leader tried to physically pry it from his hand. Cook broke Church rules by failing to consume it immediately during Communion and then removing it from his mouth once seated. The wafer was kept in a Ziploc bag until Cook returned it days later along with an e-mail stating, “I am returning the Eucharist to you in response to the e-mails I have received from Catholics in the UCF community. I still want the community to understand that the use physical force is wrong, especially when based on assumptions. However, I feel it is unnecessary to cause pain for those who are not at fault in this situation.” Cook has reportedly been getting death threats, prompting his friend, who wants to remain nameless, to discuss the situation with local media. “I was kind of confused because I always thought that Jesus was a pacifist, and they’re using violence in order to get back the body of a pacifist,” he told WOFL-TV. Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented on the case, stating: “For a student to disrupt Mass by taking the Body of Christ hostage – regardless of the alleged nature of his grievance – is beyond hate speech. That is why the UCF administration needs to act swiftly and decisively in seeing that justice is done. All options should be on the table, including expulsion.” |
Is this on a par with “desecrating” the Koran?
Or cartooning Mohammed?
And does The Nameless Friend have a valid point on the violence angle?
And what about Bill Donohue — does he have a good point also?
PS: I reject the doctrine of transubstantiation.
Over at Life in the Shoe, Dorcas Smucker as a short-but-excellent post on Looking Like a Mom:
| Obviously the implication here is that looking like a mom is a bad thing. Maybe that’s because the popular perception is that looking like a mom is all physical, and all moms are sloppy and out of shape. At least that’s the impression I get when people meet me and insist that I can’t possibly have six children, which is flattering in its way, but I think the essence of a real mom shows up on her face and I hope that’s what people can see in me.
I am proud to be a mom, and I hope people can look at me and tell right off that if they have a problem they can tell me about it, that I’ve survived enough crises to know what to get upset about and what not to, that I’ll happily dispense advice, that I believe in better things for them, that I’ll drop everything to make them a cup of hot tea, that I’ll happily mother anyone who needs mothering. And if someone stops me in a store to ask what to buy for a ten-year-old, I’ll feel honored. |
Way to go, Dorcas!
While I do not wish to look like a mother (or a grandmother), I want to “feel” likewise honored in looking like a father or even a grandfather.
After all, that’s what I am.
Whether or not I look like one, let me be the best at both that I can be.
Long ago I wished for a father’s heart like the Father’s heart. My wish was sincere. And intense. And quite ignorant.
Ignorant because I didn’t know the breaking and restructuring the granting of such a wish would require.
Ignorant because I didn’t realize the fragility of such a heart. (No, that doesn’t make God fragile!)
Do I now have a heart like the Father’s? Not even close. But I’m far closer than I was before making that request of Him.
And I think I understand His heart better than I used to.
So — again — I ask: Let me look and love and lead and live like a father should.
And like the Father does.
I use the Internet.
But I’m very wary of it. Or if not of it, of the way it can be used and is used by people (as individuals, as corporations, as governments, as other people groupings).
So three headlines caught my attention earlier this morning:
| Congress studies how people track your online use
Executives from major Internet players — Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. — are due for a grilling about online privacy in a Senate committee Wednesday, but the company likely to get the most scrutiny is a small Silicon Valley startup called NebuAd Inc. NebuAd has drawn fierce criticism from privacy advocates in recent weeks for working with Internet service providers to track the online behavior of their customers and then serve up targeted banner ads based on that behavior. […] “This is analogous to AT&T listening to your phone calls all day in order to figure out what to sell you in the middle of dinner,” said Robert Topolski, a technology consultant to Public Knowledge and Free Press, two other public interest groups that have raised concerns about NebuAd. […] Besides NebuAd, Wednesday’s hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee may also examine Facebook’s “Beacon” monitoring tool, which tracked online purchases made by Facebook members and sent alerts to their friends on the site. |
For the record: Congressional hearings don’t rank highly with me either. 🙂
Anyway, I’ll say it again: Trusting the Web to maintain privacy requires the willing suspension of disbelief.
OK, on to Story Number Two:
| Internet flaw could let hackers take over the Web
Computer industry heavyweights are hustling to fix a flaw in the foundation of the Internet that would let hackers control traffic on the World Wide Web. Major software and hardware makers worked in secret for months to create a software “patch” released on Tuesday to repair the problem, which is in the way computers are routed to web page addresses. “It’s a very fundamental issue with how the entire addressing scheme of the Internet works,” Securosis analyst Rich Mogul said in a media conference call. “You’d have the Internet, but it wouldn’t be the Internet you expect. (Hackers) would control everything.” The flaw would be a boon for “phishing” cons that involve leading people to imitation web pages of businesses such as bank or credit card companies to trick them into disclosing account numbers, passwords and other information. Attackers could use the vulnerability to route Internet users wherever they wanted no matter what website address is typed into a web browser. […] On Tuesday the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT), a joint government-private sector security partnership, issued a warning to underscore the serious of so-called DNS “cache poisoning attacks” the vulnerability could allow. […] “Consequently, web traffic, email, and other important network data can be redirected to systems under the attacker’s control.” […] Automated updating should protect most personal computers. Microsoft released the fix in a software update package Tuesday. […] Hackers using the vulnerability to attack company computer networks would also be able to capture email and other business data. |
And “they” want me to trust the Internet for data storage and data back-up?! Ha!
And “they” think I’m paranoid for warning even about plain ole email communications?! Hmph!
And “they” still think I’m a TechnoPetriefied Kook. Fine. Here’s Story Number Three:
| Google ventures into virtual reality with ‘Lively’
…Google Inc. hopes to orchestrate more fantasizing on the Web. […] Google thinks Lively will encourage even more people to dive into alternate realities…. The Lively application already works on Facebook, one of the Web’s hottest hangouts, and Google is working on a version suitable for an even larger online social network, News Corp.’s MySpace. […] Lively’s users will be able to sculpt an avatar that can be male, female or even a different species. An avatar can assume a new identity, change clothes or convey emotions with a few clicks of the mouse. The service also enables users to create different digital dimensions to roam, from a coffeehouse to an exotic island. The settings can be decorated with a wide variety of furniture, including large-screen televisions that can be set up to play different clips from YouTube.com, Google’s video-sharing service. Lively users can then invite their friends and family into their virtual realities, where they can chat, hug, cry, laugh and interact as if they were characters in a video game. As a precaution, Google is requiring Lively’s users to be at least 13 years old — a constraint that hasn’t been enough to prevent young children from running into trouble on other social spots on the Web. |
“As a precaution…” — oh, please!
Anyway, Lively is further good news for those wishing to exploit and expand the depravity of man. Stay away from it!
OK, now you may virtually stick your virtual head back in the virtual sand.
Over at WorldMagBlog, Andrée Seu has done it again. Here are some pieces to entice you to click the link:
| Beyond “mere men”
Is there anything about you that, if people only knew, they would not judge you so harshly? A little benefit of the doubt please. We all want to be understood and accepted. But most of us have learned not to expect much from one another in the way of understanding and patience. How sad. We have learned that people are pretty much the same — Christian or non-Christian: they’re nice when you’re nice or when you appeal to them, and not nice when you sin or you look like a loser. Push a Christian more than an inch and he will react pretty much like a pagan. But God has called us to be extraordinary. Paul chided the Corinthians for behaving like “mere men” (1 Corinthians 3:3). The place where God is glorified is the distance our love pushes through beyond where the world stops loving. Let us beseech the Lord for unkillable love. Let the world “[take] note that these men have been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). |
Ouch!