220 Dates for the End of the world! - Sermon Resource

For those interested in the many, many incorrect predictions for "the end of the world" and Christ's second coming. As mentioned in my sermon for today.

Ken Harney's article

You should be able to follow just about any of the links in this Google search to read Ken Harney's article on a lousy credit card practice, in your newspaper of choice.

The Motley Fool: "Credit Cards Sabotaging Mortgages"

Having watched the PBS Frontline investigation on which the New York Times article I blogged on was based, I'm even less impressed with the lack of ethics - lack of a conscience, really - displayed by the credit card companies. Their mercenary, anti-consumer practices are allowed by regulatory agencies to continue because our current economic recovery, and indeed the entire modern American economy, depends on easy access to credit. It would be political suicide to take on these companies before the outcry from citizens becomes much louder than it is.

Now there's this little morsel from The Motley Fool, a down-to-earth financial web site, about how 46% of cardholders are having their credit ratings artificially damaged so their banks can keep a "competitive" edge:

Unbeknownst to you, while you innocently trot your respectable credit score around to lenders as you shop for a mortgage or car loan, your credit card companies may be mucking things up. Here's what's going on: A study by the Federal Reserve Board has found that some credit card companies are failing to report your credit limit to the credit bureaus that maintain your credit history and credit score -- and missing credit limits can often affect the interest rates you're offered when you need to borrow money.

Why would they do such a seemingly harmless thing? For competitive reasons. They don't want you to get 'poached' by other credit card companies that routinely scan the system, looking for folks with certain characteristics. When your credit limit is omitted, your information is incomplete, and your score is lower than it otherwise would be, through no fault of your own....

In a recent article, columnist Ken Harney offered some frightening details: 'According to Fair Isaac, a 677 FICO score in today's market would qualify a borrower for a 6.23% 30-year fixed rate on a $150,000 home loan. A 30-point drop in that score because of non-reporting of credit limits would push the best rate available to 7.38%. Monthly principal and interest to the applicant with the artificially depressed score would be $115 a month higher than it should be.' That's $1,380 per year in unnecessary payments -- ouch.

Your best move - read the TMF article and then follow their advice for checking your credit report and dealing with your bank if they're pulling this trick on you. This is no small deal - in the example above, the bank's choice to protect itself from "poachers" comes at a cost of $41,400 to the customer!

Nicholas Kristof: "Apocalypse (Almost) Now"

While Kristof is off base on a few points in this column, his analysis of the "Left Behind" juggernaut is right on the money:

Being wrong has rarely been so lucrative.

Now we have the hugely profitable 'Left Behind' financial empire, whose Web site flatly says that the authors 'think this generation will witness the end of history.' The site sells every 'Left Behind' spinoff imaginable, including screen savers, regular prophecies sent to your mobile phone, children's versions of the books, audiobooks, graphic novels, videos, calendars, music and a $6.50-a-month prophesy club. This isn't religion, this is brand management.

If Mr. LaHaye and Mr. Jenkins honestly believe that the end of the world may be imminent, why not waive royalties? Why don't they use the millions of dollars in profits to help the poor?

Poor Ellie! (Or, "My Canine Conehead")

The birthday girl has been doing a lot of itching lately. I think the ladybugs nibbled on her a month ago, and she's never stopped scratching the location of the bites on her head. This weekend she managed to open up a few wounds on her head, her scratching was so vigorous. Today she was in to the vet.

In order for Nathan to get a good look at the wounds to diagnose them, Ellie needed to get a "bad haircut." =( Hopefully when she goes in for grooming in two weeks they'll be able to help her out a little with her 'do.

She's got a prescription for antibiotics, to take care of any infection from the wounds. And she "gets" to wear an Elizabethan collar, more commonly known as a "cone" or a "lampshade," for at least 7-10 days. The cones nowadays are made of a light, clear plastic, so they're not as bad as they once were, but Ellie's still not tickled with the idea. It's the only way to keep her from scratching those wounds, though, and reopening them again and again. It needs to be done.

She's still herself, when she's not sulking. She played some tonight, and has been enjoying the extra treats and sympathy coming her way since her doctor visit. I expect she's positively bask in it when she goes to Mom and Dad's over Thanksgiving!

Yahoo! News - Heroic dolphin pod saves swimmers

Four New Zealanders found themselves suddenly surrounded by a circling pod of dolphins three weeks ago. Yahoo! News reports:

Lifesavers Rob Howes, his 15-year-old daughter Niccy, Karina Cooper and Helen Slade were swimming 300 feet off Ocean Beach near Whangarei on New Zealand's North Island when the dolphins herded them -- apparently to protect them from a shark.

The shark, a nine-foot great white according to Howles, came within six feet of the group, but was not able to penetrate the dolphins' protective huddle. The dolphins circled for another 40 minutes before the danger had passed and the four swimmers were allowed by their guardians to return to shore.

Dub - Then and Now

Whether you believe it's presenile dementia, a stroke, or something else, it's hard to argue that the president we have today shows a disturbing decrease in mental and verbal agility. This is not partisan sniping - it's easy enough to demonstrate with a little bit of archival footage. The Quicktime video in the link features extensive bits of George W. Bush speaking off the cuff at a 1994 event, and then presents footage from the first 2004 presidential debate. Sure, everyone has their off nights, but this hardly seems like the same man. The White House needs to address this question - what is the reason behind the president's failing faculties?

Salon: "More relief for struggling millionaires"

So is the Bush administration truly pushing a system in which someone who lives off interest and dividends -- say, Paris Hilton -- would pay less tax than the person who cleans her bathroom? 'Yes,' Press says.

Irons explains it this way: 'I was recently at the Treasury Department, where they were talking about eliminating the estate tax. The attitude was very much, 'Why doesn't everyone realize that we're the ones who create the jobs? Why doesn't everyone realize that it's us, the super-rich, that drive the economy?''

He continues: 'The attitude is that everyone who is working 40 hours a week doing an average job at a construction site, or is a store clerk, or me sitting in an office doing economic analysis, is feeding off the people who are the real successes. The attitude is that the economy should be geared to benefit the people who are business owners, who are rich, who are giving us the benefit of jobs. That's what you really see in the tax code.'

An unexpected occupational hazard...

This from Yahoo! News:

Scientists from Maastricht University found that burning candles and incense in church can release dangerous levels of potentially carcinogenic particles, according to research published this week in the European Respiratory Journal.

The article goes on to suggest that average churchgoers might not be at significant risk, but to express concern for clergy, choirs, and others whose church attendance is more regular. The scientists are calling for studies into whether worship leaders are more prone to lung diseases than probability would suggest.

So there's a good reason to go to Christmas Day worship services instead of the beloved Christmas Even candlelight service! ;)

NYT: "The Plastic Trap"

The New York Times carries this feature-length article on

the new era of consumer credit, in which thousands of Americans are paying millions of dollars each month in fees that they did not expect and that strike them as unreasonable. Invoking clauses tucked into the fine print of their contract agreements, lenders are doubling or tripling interest rates with little warning or explanation.

The thieves' banks' tactics are upsetting, and Americans' debt loads are disturbing.

I've used the word "evil" before to describe some of the worse scam artists credit card companies out there, and that's not a word that I toss around lightly as a pastor. Certainly individuals carry a major share of the responsibility for their predicament, but there's something especially heinous about the practice of lending to people precisely because they aren't creditworthy. Banks count on being able to snag people at arbitrarily high interest rates, with obscene late and over-limit fees, regular increases in the credit line, and ridiculously low minimum payments. Their accountants have done the math, and the few people who shouldn't have credit and prove it by declaring bankruptcy are far outweighed in the balance sheet by the countless poor saps who will be paying 24% interest at $30 a month, with the occasional $45 service charge, for the rest of their natural lives.

The people behind these schemes are subhuman - the capitalist system at its "finest"... I sometimes wonder whether Tyler Durden didn't have the right idea after all. Too bad for multiply redundant backups...

How nauseating!

No kidding - a video game developer is set to release a new title that recreates the assassination of John F. Kennedy. "JFK Reloaded" will be available for a $10 download. According to Yahoo! News:

[Developer] Traffic Games said the objective was for a player to fire three shots at Kennedy's motorcade from assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's digitally recreated sixth-floor perch in the Texas School Book Depository.

Points are awarded or subtracted based on how accurately the shots match the official version of events as documented in by the Warren Commission, which investigated Kennedy's assassination.

Shooting the image of Kennedy in the right spots in the right sequence adds to the score, while 'errors' like shooting first lady Jacqueline Kennedy lead to deductions.

Happy birthday, Ellie!

Ellie is celebrating her first birthday today. =) You can send her your birthday wishes at Elanor@BobSchaefer.com. Her photo album is still online, but there aren't many recent additions. I'll put some pictures of her up next time she's back from the groomers.

My pooch is a real sweetie, and she's been a blessing each day. Thanks to Duane and Cindy for the best gift I've ever received, on her birthday.

A poem for Hastings

This poem was written by Loren R. Ingebretson for the people of Hastings, ND.

It was just a sleepy little town,
It's youth long grown and moved away
And, by the looks of Main Street now,
There was nothing here, for which to stay!

But still, the grass is mowed, and trimmed.
And where once the school was found,
The flag still waves like in the days,
When children's feet blackened the now green ground!

And the church stands clean and white
God still is worshiped here,
It was important back then, and important now,
As what I was seeing became quite clear!

We stopped at the old hotel:
A museum of antiques today,
And, as Grandma walked up those steps she said:
Right here, is where I lived and played!

Two little rooms in that old hotel,
Housed a family of seven,
Simple surroundings, to be sure,
That love made a bit of heaven!

Larry and Mary own it now,
And the graciously showed us around,
For just like Grandma Coral,
It is here, where his roots are found!

Three floors in the old hotel,
Home for some, and for others a place to rest,
And it stands straight and tall, remembering,
When the Sioux line ran East and West!

My eyes beheld a dying town,
But my heart began to see,
A place where many a Mother and Dad,
Had bounced a child on their knee!

I salute you little Hastings,
And I thank you for showing me why,
That it's important to pass on the heritage,
And not leave, what is true wealth, to die!

Poor folk lived in Hastings,
They worked and worshiped and played,
The hard times, were there, to be sure!
But the treasures of life, with its people have stayed!

If at first you don't succeed...

A photo esssay in perseverence.

Satire - "Bush Proposes Faith-Based National Healthcare"

From the Holy Observer, the Christian equivalent of The Onion.

Google up some research

Those of you looking for some serious research on the Internet will be delighted to learn about Google Research Scholar, a new and free offering from the search giant. It works like any other Google search, except that the results are limited to serious scholarly journals indexed by Google, and the results pages feature no advertising at all - Google considers this its gift to the research world, apparently, whose insights have benefited the company.

Of course, all these hits would be delivered in a regular old Google search - the difference is that Google has figured out how to identify scholarly items and weed out the casual items.

It seems to be fairly comprehensive. I tried a few obscure terms from my field of expertise - "perichoreisis," "satis est," "confessio augustana" and "deuteronomistic" - and Google Research Scholar found entries for each item.

I'm impressed enough to bookmark it. If research is your thing, you would do well to do the same.

Correction: I originally called the service "Google Research." Although a research tool, the service is actually named "Google Scholar."

Inspiration for the techies

My mom sent a variation on this my way this morning. Thought I'd share it.

Very cheesy day!

Apparently this blog is one of the web's noteworthy sources of information regarding the there-and-gone-and-back-again grilled cheese sandwich bearing the "miraculous" image of the Virgin Mary. Today I was swamped with 36 separate visitors seeking more information about this most holy of relics. (Go ahead and laugh, but for a small-time blog, I count 36 visits in one day on one topic a veritable deluge!)

The latest in the saga, according to the Sidney Herald:

Owner Diana Duyser, 52, of Hollywood, Florida, said eBay earlier pulled the half-sandwich from its listings, telling her it does not allow items intended as a joke.

But the snack was back on eBay today along with a picture of a sandwich bearing what appears to be the image of a woman's face.

'I made this sandwich 10 years ago. When I took a bite out of it, I saw a face looking up at me; it was Virgin Mary starring (sic) back at me. I was in total shock; I would like to point out there is no mould or (disintegration),' the message said.

The divine sandwich has sparked a cottage industry of imitators on eBay, along with a slew of "clever" merchants adding the words "mary," "virgin," "cheese" and "grilled" to their ads to drive up the visibility of their auctions.

Yahoo! News - Aid Worker Hassan Believed Slain in Video

How revoltingly senseless. The kidnapping and execution of civilians in Iraq by militant thugs is repulsive enough, but what on earth can they possibly hope to gain by murdering a woman like Margaret Hassan - an Irish woman who had converted to Islam, held Iraqi citizenship, and was the director of CARE, a humanitarian agency working to bring relief to the Iraqi people? Here is a woman who was in solidarity with the people of Iraq in every way... how could slaughtering her accomplish anything but bitter outrage against such a crime?

I believe, contrary to much popular opinion, that terrorists are generally the preeminently rational actors, following the logic of asymmetrical warfare to its gruesome outcome precisely because it accomplishes their purposes. Terrorists would not commit these crimes if they did not affect a desired outcome, however reprehensible that outcome may be.

But this cannot affect any favorable turn of events for these militant brigands. Of all the hateful executions the world has witnessed since this whole mess began, this is the one that most breaks my heart - because in a land of senseless violence, this is perhaps the least comprehensible slaying of them all.

Rest in peace, Margaret Hassan. God have mercy on your killers - they have snuffed a precious light shining in their stricken land, butchering a friend and ally in the process.

Take Action: Close the School of the Americas

Please take a minute to send a letter to your congressperson using Sojourners' quick and easy form. The School of the Americas has been turning out some of the worst criminals in the world, having prepped them with US tax dollars in at its facilites in Georgia, for decades. A House resolution is on the floor proposing to close and investigate the "School" and to prevent it from reopening under a merely cosmetic remake. You can encourage your representative to support HR1258 by calling or using Sojourner's form. Thank you for your time with this important issue.

kuro5hin.org: "Status Report: Wormwood to Screwtape"

In the style of C.S. Lewis comes this report from Wormwood to his uncle Screwtape. It should be noted that in Lewis' Screwtape Letters, it is always the high ranking Screwtape who writes in response to his subordinate nephew.

If you look through the comments of this bit of creative writing, you'll come across one reader with an excellent idea - since Screwtape constantly chastises young Wormwood for his naivete and hapless tempting, it would be fascinating and appropriate for a writer on the opposite side of the issue to take up the gauntlet laid down by this essay's author and write a reply in the voice of old Screwtape.

Elle, how 'bout it?

NYT: "Why the Democrats Need to Stop Thinking About Elephants"

This piece in today's Times takes up the catch phrase of the day - "values" - and looks at how perceived values really shape American elections. He then goes on to talk about what the Democratic Party will need to do to make any headway.

Trying not to think of elephants, Dr. Lakoff suggests, sums up the Democrats' plight. Since Republicans have framed the key issues, Democrats cannot avoid being on the losing side. Take taxes. Republicans have succeeded in framing the issue as 'tax relief,' a metaphor that presents an affliction, and that predetermines who are the heroes - tax opponents - and villains. Taxes are, of course, necessary even for programs Republicans back, like the military, and simple economics dictates that we cannot keep cutting taxes and maintaining spending forever. But the Democrats are hard-pressed to make these points once the frame is tax relief.'

...

After the election, pundits made much of the influence of a few 'moral' issues, like gay marriage and abortion, on the outcome. But Dr. Lakoff argues that values play an important role in almost every campaign issue. The Republicans' success has been driven in large part, he argues, by their ability to frame less morally charged subjects in terms of core values. He is impressed by a line from President Bush's last State of the Union address: that we do not need a 'permission slip' to defend America. It reframed multilateralism, once a widely accepted foreign policy principle, as weakness and national infantilization.

As Dr. Lakoff sees it, Democrats need to start framing issues in terms of their own values, which, he insists, are no less popular with the American people than the Republicans' values.

Yahoo! News: "Trial Shows How Spammers Operate"

If you've ever wondered what kind of sleaze sends spam, wonder no more:

As one of the world's most prolific spammers, Jeremy Jaynes pumped out at least 10 million e-mails a day with the help of 16 high-speed lines, the kind of Internet capacity a 1,000-employee company would need.

Thomas Friedman: "The Arafat Voids"

Thomas Friedman's column in the Times today is one of the best, most honest assessments of Yasir Arafat's failings as a leader - and a much needed prescription for world leaders who would not - must not! - follow in his path:

Yasir Arafat preferred to die, beloved by all his people, in a Paris military hospital - rather than sacrifice his popularity and maybe his life so that the majority of his people could live and die at home. Will Ariel Sharon, George Bush and the Arab and Palestinian leaders now follow his model and play to the crowds, or play to history?

Are jingles protected?

Are radio station ID jingles protected by copyright? If so, I think Microsoft is in some trouble!

Upon firing up Money 2005, I was greeted with the program's "launch" sound: launch.wav. I almost fell out of my chair - it's the WCCO audio logo! The same jingle I heard countless times growing up in Minnesota, where listening to 830 AM is virtually inescapable.

Listen to the two files and see for yourself - the Microsoft version has different orchestration, obviously, but the jingle is 100% identical - same notes, same rhythm. The only difference is that most (but not all) versions of 'CCO's jingle have a little pause and a stinger: W-C-C.........O! Not enough, I wouldn't think, to make this a new composition.

I wonder if the WCCO accounting department uses Money 2005? *evil grin*

Matthew Yglesias: "Social Security From The Ground Up"

Matthew Yglesias reimagines Social Security:

Say we didn't have Social Security or some equivalent program and you were a liberal trying to design some government programs to help out old people. What would you do?

One thing you would definitely do is put some kind of health care plan into place. It's unlikely that you would come up with the current Medicare system, since it treats prescription drugs so oddly and has other problems, but we'll just bracket that and call it 'Medicare.' What else would you do? What you almost certainly wouldn't do is create a huge intergenerational wealth transfer scheme funded by a very high and regressive tax that pays out money according to a formula whose mild progressivity is undermined by the way it favors the (predominantly wealthy) long lived over the (predominantly poor) short lived.

Instead, you would want to put in place some kind of 'welfare for old people' such that a citizen who has worked hard all of his or her life and now is too old to work can live out the remainder of his or her days in dignity.

Such a program would be like Social Security in many respects -- pay-as-you-go financing out of current tax receipts and based around guaranteed monthly checks. But instead of the benefit level being calculated based on how much you used to pay in taxes when you were working, it would be based around how poor you are. The poorest people would get the most generous checks, and it would phase down so that well-off people weren't getting any public assistance.

Intellectual inconsistancies in the abortion debate

It's fascinating to me that Jack Stoller, a liberal blogger and unabashed "abortion-rights extremist", and my friend and debate partner Elle, a conservative pro-life Lutheran, use the same argument about the inconsistancies of logic when people allow abortion in some circumstances but not others... yet this recognition leads these two smart people to opposite conclusions.

VERY cool optical illusion!

OK, so what if everyone else on the blogosphere is linking to this - I'm going to go with the herd here, because this is just so darn cool!

The site features a little paper cutout dragon, whose neck appears to twist and turn to follow you around the room. You can watch the video there to see it in action, and then download a printable plan for making your own little full-color dragon.

Remember, the illusion is a variation on the "hollow face" optical illusion, so be sure to fold his head "inside out" when you put him together - I thought I was following the instructions, but did it the "intuitive" way, so it didn't work until I did it the way I wasn't expecting.

Also, in order for the illusion to work, you need to close one eye. It's part of how your brain reads depth into things it recognizes, like a face or a head. When both of your eyes are open, your stereo vision reveals the illusion plainly, and your brain isn't fooled for a moment. But once that eye closes... wow! It's hard not to be tricked.

From trees to grilled cheese - Mary gets around!

Jason sends along this link to an eBay auction where you can bid on a grilled cheese sandwhich (one half of a sandwhich, actually, with one bite taken) on which the Virgin Mary miraculously appeared ten years ago. There are three days left to get your bid in - 14 bidders already have - but this tasty little nugget of the divine will cost you. The reserve price of $15,099.00 has already been met. ;)

Top 25

I am quite pleased to know that my blog is in the top 25 Google search results for the query virgin mary appears in tree. =)

Bob Jones and the Myth of the Pagan Christ-Hating Liberals

Congratulatory letter to President George W. Bush from Dr. Bob Jones III
(emphasis added)

November 3, 2004

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

The media tells us that you have received the largest number of popular votes of any president in America's history. Congratulations!

In your re-election, God has graciously granted America—though she doesn't deserve it—a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. You have been given a mandate. We the people expect your voice to be like the clear and certain sound of a trumpet. Because you seek the Lord daily, we who know the Lord will follow that kind of voice eagerly.

Don't equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. Honor the Lord, and He will honor you.

Had your opponent won, I would have still given thanks, because the Bible says I must (I Thessalonians 5:18). It would have been hard, but because the Lord lifts up whom He will and pulls down whom He will, I would have done it. It is easy to rejoice today, because Christ has allowed you to be His servant in this nation for another presidential term. Undoubtedly, you will have opportunity to appoint many conservative judges and exercise forceful leadership with the Congress in passing legislation that is defined by biblical norm regarding the family, sexuality, sanctity of life, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and limited government. You have four years—a brief time only—to leave an imprint for righteousness upon this nation that brings with it the blessings of Almighty God.

Christ said, “If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my father honour” (John 12:26).

The student body, faculty, and staff at Bob Jones University commit ourselves to pray for you—that you would do right and honor the Savior. Pull out all the stops and make a difference. If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them. Conservative Americans would love to see one president who doesn't care whether he is liked, but cares infinitely that he does right.

Best wishes.

Sincerely your friend,

Bob Jones III
President

BJIII:lw

PS: A few moments ago I read this letter to the students in Chapel. They applauded loudly their approval.

When I told them that Tom Daschle was no longer the minority leader of the Senate, they cheered again.

On occasion, Christians have not agreed with things you said during your first term. Nonetheless, we could not be more thankful that God has given you four more years to serve Him in the White House, never taking off your Christian faith and laying it aside as a man takes off a jacket, but living, speaking, and making decisions as one who knows the Bible to be eternally true.

What is Bob Jones smoking??? Does he truly believe that liberals hate Jesus? Does he honestly think that those of us who oppose George W. Bush are breast-baring, Asherah-worshiping pagans? Can he really be so biblically ignorant as to miss the countless ways in which the Bush administration has trampled all over fundamental Christian values championed by liberals - like caring for the poor, homeless and broken; being Christ-blessed peacemakers; steadfastly opposing torture and murder, no matter how "bad" a person may appear; and striving for justice even when it's inconvenient and unpopular, because it's the right thing to do?

The truth is that neither political party comes close to embodying the fulness of Christian ethics. The Republican Party (and the administration of George W. Bush) is every bit as offensive to Christians who take scripture and their Lord seriously as the worst excesses of the left wing. To quote Sojourners' "Take Back Our Faith" campaign, "God is not a Republican. Or a Democrat."

Or put more pointedly, there are plenty of shamelessly heathen, Christ-ignoring sinners to fill both parties' conventions... and there are also many faithful people doing their best to seek God's will in a political system that opens itself to all comers - religious and irreligious alike - in the belief that our freedom is best protected in the fray.

I might add that God's will is perhaps best discovered in the thoughtful debate between red and blue people of faith.

Bob Jones and his chapel full of dittoheads appear to be so enthralled with the neoconservative deity they have erected and named "God" that they fail to see the blasphemy and idolatry inherent in such a ludicrous position.

To Mr. Jones and his ilk, a few questions are in order: Whose "pagan" agenda are you referring to? Specifically. In detail. Tell us, please liberals are pushing goddess worship, orgiastic ritual sex or Druidic incantations on you and your university? We'd like to know. Certainly not me, or my family, or any other liberals I know! Certainly not John Kerry or John Edwards. Certainly not Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, or even that much-hated and now deceased Paul Wellstone. Let's have some names, please.

And which Christ-haters are you thinking of when you cast that broad smear on all liberals? Do you mean the pope, who opposed your man's war in Iraq? Do you mean all the Lutheran pastors in this red state who gathered for our text study Tuesday morning and discovered we'd all voted blue? Are we the Christ-hating liberals you've got in mind? I can't really think of any instances of liberal politicians standing up and declaring that Jesus Christ is just a lousy charlatan, an SOB who fooled the world and has no relevance to anything today... can you let me know which of the Democrats has said this, so I can promptly write them and express my disagreement?

Or, perhaps, Mr. Jones, if you can do none of the above, you ought to ask yourself how being the prophet of your idolatrous "god" advances the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the one true God we believers worship.

May that one true God save the Jonesians from their blindness, and America from the Jonesians.

NYT: "On 'Moral Values,' It's Blue in a Landslide"

Everything about the election results - and about American culture itself - confirms an inescapable reality: John Kerry's defeat notwithstanding, it's blue America, not red, that is inexorably winning the culture war, and by a landslide. Kerry voters who have been flagellating themselves since Election Day with a vengeance worthy of "The Passion of the Christ" should wake up and smell the Chardonnay.

The blue ascendancy is nearly as strong among Republicans as it is among Democrats. Those whose "moral values" are invested in cultural heroes like the accused loofah fetishist Bill O'Reilly and the self-gratifying drug consumer Rush Limbaugh are surely joking when they turn apoplectic over MTV. William Bennett's name is now as synonymous with Las Vegas as silicone. The Democrats' Ashton Kutcher is trumped by the Republicans' Britney Spears. Excess and vulgarity, as always, enjoy a vast, bipartisan constituency, and in a democracy no political party will ever stamp them out.

If anyone is laughing all the way to the bank this election year, it must be the undisputed king of the red cultural elite, Rupert Murdoch. Fox News is a rising profit center within his News Corporation, and each red-state dollar that it makes can be plowed back into the rest of Fox's very blue entertainment portfolio. The Murdoch cultural stable includes recent books like Jenna Jameson's "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star" and the Vivid Girls' "How to Have a XXX Sex Life," which have both been synergistically, even joyously, promoted on Fox News by willing hosts like Rita Cosby and, needless to say, Mr. O'Reilly. There are "real fun parts and exciting parts," said Ms. Cosby to Ms. Jameson on Fox News's "Big Story Weekend," an encounter broadcast on Saturday at 9 p.m., assuring its maximum exposure to unsupervised kids.

Michael Horowitz's "Examples of Bad Email Messages"

Michael Horowitz has set up this excellent primer on the various malicious e-mails a person might receive, how to identify them, and what to do with them. Required reading for e-mail neophytes, and a helpful refresher for the old vets.

The perils of Wikipedia

The New York Times posts a humorous but cautionary article on Wikipedia, the free colloborative encyclopedia. While its unique nature makes Wikipedia very responsive and much broader than a regular encyclopedia (all it takes for a subject to gain an entry is a single netizen interested enough to write it up and post it), the ability of anyone and everyone to edit whatever entry they like instantaneously also casts a shadow over Wikipedia's reliability on hot-button issues. Bush and Kerry found their Wikipedia entries repeatedly vandalized over the course of the last two weeks.

Best example - two days after the election, Kerry's entire entry had been replaced with a single sentence: "John Kerry is a girl."

Wikipedia is a phenomenal resource, and an intriguing idea... but it's important to take the more controversial entries with a grain of salt.

Slate: Tin foil doesn't look good on anyone's head

Slate does a pretty good job of addressing the theories that optical voting in Florida was hacked. As you may recall, the argument was that in counties with huge majorities of registered Democrats, Bush still won by seemingly impossibly large margins. Clearly a case of fraud, right?

Slate thinks this is

a bit, well, crazy. Take a look at the geography: All four counties are either in Florida's panhandle—known by some as the Redneck Riviera—or the northern part of the state. Like their neighbors in Georgia and Alabama, northern Florida voters tend to be very conservative. Baker, Dixie, Franklin, and Holmes counties are represented in the House by two Republicans and a Blue Dog Democrat who lists his No. 1 issue as 'Second Amendment rights.' Democratic registrations here are more an artifact of history than evidence of massive fraud.

Sojouners: "God-talk and Moral Values"

A really fine piece by David Batstone on the differences in the way politically liberal and conservative Christians apply "values" to their voting.

Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked?

I'm fascinated by the various claims of conspiracy and fraud in this month's election. I don't know how much stock to put in them - my hunch is, "not much" - but perhaps the simplest, most logical explanation as to why the exit polls were so off (and only off in such a way as to favor Bush) is that there was foul play.

The piece I've linked to discusses the strange way in which non-touch screen precincts in Florida with 70+% of their registered voters being Democrats happened to give astonishingly large tallies to Bush. Rather than hacking individual counting machines, the speculation is that the results were tampered with on the "central tabulators" - the Windows-based PCs that all the voting machines phone home to in order to report their results.

Most persuasively, the article sites a program in which a technically-inclined grandmother demonstrates live for Howard Dean how easy it is to manipulate the master database of votes on a Diebold tabulator... without leaving a trace, and in less than two minutes:

Harris sat up a bit straighter, smiled, and said, 'We just edited an election, and it took us 90 seconds.'

On live national television. (You can see the clip on www.votergate.tv.) And they had left no tracks whatsoever, Harris said, noting that it would be nearly impossible for the election software – or a County election official - to know that the vote database had been altered.

*puts on tin foil hat*

Ding, dong, the witch is dead!

Well, politically speaking, anyway. Attorney General and Wicked Witch of the Justice Department John Ashcroft has submitted his letter of resignation to the White House, and the president has accepted it.

Presumably there is no one scarier that Bush could push through the confirmation process then Ashcroft, although I've been surprised before.

God willing, whoever puts on the former AG's ruby slippers will conjure up a better America and not the martial state Ashcroft set us on the road toward.

Another Tony Campolo interview

Here's one more link from Jonathan featuring Tony Campolo. This time it's from the PBS "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly".

Tony Campolo - "'Evangelical Christianity Has Been Hijacked"

Thanks to Jonathan Rundman for the link to this article. Campolo is a very sensible, faithful Christian whose ministry I have admired for some time. His comments are a challenge both for his own evangelical Christians and for mainline believers as well.

Is the “Sinner’s Prayer” required for salvation?

More good words from Greg Albrecht, of >Plain Truth Ministries:

Q. A few religious people have told me that God does not hear our prayers until we say what is called a ”Sinner's Prayer.' Recently a friend told me that she believes God does not hear her prayers because she does not regularly attend church and because she had not said a Sinner's Prayer. I disagreed with her, and told her that God loves her. Later, she let me know that a preacher where she goes to church would be glad to talk with me about the Sinner's Prayer and explain it to me. I need some insight. Maybe you have not heard of this.

A. The "Sinners Prayer" is just another attempt to forge some instrument or device that will help proclaim the gospel. It's an evangelical prayer designed to help people see their need of God. It is neither virtuous or evil, right or wrong, of and by itself. The Sinner's Prayer is not sacred. It might be "a" tool to help some -- but it is certainly not the only tool. I believe that we can dogmatically say that many have been saved without ever saying the Sinners Prayer.

Nothing in the Bible suggests that God limits himself to hearing the prayers of those who regularly attend church, or a specific church. Thank God! The idea of any human explaining to another why God hasn't/doesn't/won't answer prayers is religiosity at its worst. God makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45).

In Christ
Greg Albrecht

Yahoo! News: "Clergy in Drive to Join Auto Union"

Not sure what to think about this...

Election result maps - the real story

What is this odd-looking splotchy blob? Do you recognize it? It's a far cry from the ones you've seen on TV and in the newspapers, but this is a map of the United States, showing how we voted last week. In fact, its odd appearance makes it much more accurate than anything you've seen before.

This map has a few interesting features that allow it to better represent the political views of the United States, circa 2004. First of all, it is what my brother might call "super deformed." Like that style of Japanese animation, the map you see above is morphed into an odd, deformed shape. Specifically, it shows counties in the US in according to the size of their populations, rather than their geography. Hence, the highly populous counties on the coasts, in Florida, and in the Great Lakes area are shown much larger than they are on a normal map. Barnes County, North Dakota, meanwhile, vanishes away into practically nothing. Because large metropolitan areas tend to vote Democratic, the undeformed map (whether by county or state) tends to give the impression that a vast majority of Americans favor the Republican Party. In fact, what those maps tell us is (1) the distorted political reality of the Electoral College, and (2) that people who voted for Bush tend to live in really large, spread-out states. The deformed map, or cartogram, shows how "blue" America really is.

This particular cartogram also features shades of purple. Like a regular electoral map, areas in blue and red were solidly won by the candidates. The shades of purple show narrower victories in those counties, with the bluer shades being narrow Kerry wins, and the redder shades being narrow Bush wins. When the close races are figured in, you can see how truly America is divided right down the middle.

Conservatives will take great pleasure from showing the red-and-blue US map, because of how big their red hunks are. But those maps don't tell the real story.

You can see more of these cartograms and read about their creation here.

Tip of the hat to Mary Hess for the link.

ADDENDUM (11/8/04, 1:01 am): In further reflection, I've decided that the tension between the traditional electoral map and the deformed version highlights a parallel tension within our nation: As the standard map shows, more places in this country supported George Bush, by a long shot. However, the deformed map clearly shows that almost as many people in the United States cast their vote for Kerry as for Bush. So it's true - "Bush country" is vast, covering huge swaths of our nation. You could drive for hundreds of miles without passing through a Democratic stronghold. But the odds are pretty good you could also drive for hundreds of miles without passing through much of anything. As vast as "Bush country" is, there just aren't that many people to fill it up. About as many people live in the tiny little geographic pockets of resistance known as "Kerry turf" as live in all the sprawling acres of Bushdom.

So while it's fair to say Bush holds a majority in most places in this nation, that's not at all to say he has even close to what you might think of as broad popular support in the hearts of the people. A critical distinction to make.

NYT: "I, Pee-wee"

Growing up, I was a huge fan of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure." It's in my DVD collection right now. Who can forget Paul Reubens' character, Pee-wee Herman, desperately searching for his bicycle, encountering ghostly truckers, and dancing in a biker bar to "Tequila"?

Unfortunately, a pair of legal problems tripped Reubens up, and their sexual nature made him suddenly much less "kid-friendly" than his acclaimed "Pee-wee's Playhouse" television program demanded. Pee-wee Herman vanished from the scene, and Paul Reubens hasn't donned the Pee-wee suit in 13 years.

The New York Times features this interview with the man who was (and is) Pee-wee Herman. For fans, worth a read, if only for the nostalgia.

Salon: "Bush, God and the Democrats"

Hat tip in Mary Hess's direction for the link...

In a country where upward of 75 percent of the population believes in God and an afterlife (in its decidedly Christian registers), only fools do not avail themselves of such a diverse and vibrant rhetoric for communicating concerns around a whole host of issues concerning justice and what possible ethical and social meanings can be attached to our sojourns here on earth.

Well, the Democratic Party leadership is such a collection of secular and rational fools. There are obvious exceptions in the black churches and the mainline Protestant denominations, but the religious rhetorics of these communities have rarely taken center stage in the last decade or so. In short, the Democratic Party needs to stop pretending it lives in a secular country.... The Democratic leadership will have to fashion its messages for the deeply religious country it presumes to lead one day.

At least he might win somewhere...

As observed in today's St. Paul Pioneer Press:

As of Thursday, John Kerry led George W. Bush in the race for a commissioner's seat on the Hennepin County Soil and Water District.

The office apparently had no candidate on the ballot, so some 32,000 voters wrote in their favorite (or least favorite?) candidate for the unwanted position. Also gaining votes were Jesse Ventura, Johan Santana, Randy Moss, and Latrell Sprewell, among many others.

The paper went on to note:

Under state law, whoever winds up elected to represent District 3 - it could come as a complete surprise to the winner - can refuse to serve or might not be qualified for the job. In that case, the other commissioners can name a replacement, [Hennepin County elections specialist David] Maeda said.

And what if the winner is Kerry or Bush?

'They don't meet the qualifications,' Maeda said. 'For one thing, they don't live in the district.'

"Get behind me, Dems!"

As reported in the New York Times:

His second term secured, Bush asked the 55 million people who voted to oust him from office to get behind him.

In a victory speech late Wednesday, Bush said reaching his goals 'will require the broad support of Americans.' He asked Kerry's disappointed supporters to back him - even though many of his proposals are anathema to those who opposed his re-election.

Precisely. Why on earth would I want to support the president in reaching his goals, when so many of them are appalling to me? Where he is walking down the center, proposing fair, reasonable things, I'll surely support him. But while he can play the "you've got to support me, I'm your Commander-In-Chief" card on unfortunate military men and women, I'll support George Bush when I see him doing something worthy of my support.

I support people, Mr. President, because of their actions, not their title. Get used to it.

A sign of things to come

Obviously I'm in a fairly despondent frame of mind right now, and the front page doublespeak from the Republican Party isn't doing much to soothe my seething mind:

Bush Wins Re-Election, Reaches Out to Foes - 27 minutes ago
President Bush won re-election to a second four-year term over Democratic Sen. John Kerry on Wednesday and promised deeply divided Americans he would earn their support and trust.

That's the first headline from Reuters. Here's the one just two lines below it:

Republican Congress Set to Push Bush Agenda - 3 hours ago
Republicans, having expanded their control of Congress, were positioned on Wednesday to provide greater help to President Bush to push a stepped-up conservative agenda in his second term.

In other words, more of the same from the man who promised four years ago he was a "uniter, not a divider," and then proceeded to enact policies that were outrageous to a tiny fraction shy of half the population of this country. Four more years, indeed... four more years of Bush saying one thing while his administration and the Republicans on Capitol Hill do the other.

And the American people actually voted for this man. I feel sick, and we haven't even begun the second four years of the Bush Dynasty.

NYT: "Suffering the Pornographers"

Craig Gross and Mike Foster, two young pastors from California, were looking for direction when one day in 2001, Mr. Foster said, God came to him in the shower and said one word: 'Pornography.' Mr. Foster, 33, said he did not often get such visits, and so he treated it as a divine calling. Since it came with no further instructions, the two reasoned that it was up to them to figure out what to do next.

And so it came to be that on a Sunday afternoon three years later, Mr. Gross, 28, and Mr. Foster were tooling around a mall parking lot here in a black Scion xB festooned with ads declaring, 'XXXChurch.com: The No. 1 Christian Porn Site.' An air freshener with an image of Jesus dangled above the dash.

'You can see people checking us out,' Mr. Gross said.

For Mr. Gross and Mr. Foster, who sometimes refer to themselves as 'the goofballs,' it was just another day of 21st century ministry, combining technology, self-promotion, sensationalism and humor to address what they see as an equally up-to-date scourge on modern society: Internet pornography. Their approach bears little resemblance to what most people think of as church.

I'm a subscriber at Craig and Mike's site, and have been impressed withe what they're trying to do. You ought to take a read the article and look.