:: Monday, February 10, 2003 ::

Ever heard the phrase "damned if I do, damned if I don't"?

-Peace

:: Dave King 21:07 :: (0) comments ::
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Unlike the mute in the kitchen

In our small group we're reading Luke, last week we made it through Chapter 1. Durring the discusion there was an interesting compairson between Zechariah and Marry.

Zechariah told by the angel Gabriel that he and Elizabeth would have a child, asks "How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years." Gabriel replied "now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words".

Marry on the other hand, told that she will bear a son by "power of the Most High", responds with "I am the Lord's servant, May it be to me as you have said."

when Marry goes to visit Elizabeth and Zechariah, Elibeth, filled with Holy Spirit, greets Marry.

Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!
But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!"

As that last line was read, I pictured Elizabeth raising her voice so that Zechariah, in the next room, would be sure to hear. Could it be that Zechariah was being gently mocked by his wife and the Holy Spirt? No idea, but it was a fun picture.

- Peace

:: Dave King 21:02 :: (0) comments ::
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From Tattooed Love by Steve Beard

That was the first time in my life I've been hugged by a man in a leather vest and earrings

ya got to read the article.

-Peace

:: Dave King 09:32 :: (0) comments ::
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From the 'feel good pop', guilty pleasures dept:

Riley Armstrong has posted the video for What I've Found on the Whatever the Weather page.

-Peace

:: Dave King 08:11 :: (0) comments ::
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Columbia FAQ: Hard Questions, Simple Answers – space.com, as seen on /.


Looks like I wasn't the only one wondering about using the Canada Arm, or a space walk to look under the shuttle for damage. See: If NASA knew something might have been wrong, why did they try the re-entry? I didn't realize that docking with the international space satiation was out of the question, they didn't have the fuel to reach station orbit. Science fact is so much harsher than Science fiction.

- Peace

:: Dave King 06:59 :: (0) comments ::
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Why the rest of Canada hates people in Vancouver.

-Peace

:: Dave King 08:32 :: (0) comments ::
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NASA Discounted Damage to Tiles - Wired News

I’ve been wondering why they didn’t check the underside of the shuttle for damaged tiles in orbit. A quick a space walk to check if everything was ok. So I asked a friend who does work at the JPL. The doomed flight was carrying the science module to do experiments. In this configuration they don’t have access to an air lock, nor do they have the CanadaArm wich might have been used to look under the shuttle. So they had to rely on the judgment of the engineers on the ground.

-Peace

:: Dave King 12:46 :: (0) comments ::
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[N]obody ever said it would be risk-free. If it were, it wouldn’t be glorious.

- William Gibson.

-Peace

:: Dave King 22:49 :: (0) comments ::
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Dreamers may perish ... but our dreams will continue.

- joy of tech

-Peace

:: Dave King 22:43 :: (0) comments ::
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Yup, we all crave affirmation. Hug a geek today.

-Peace

:: Dave King 22:29 :: (0) comments ::
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The Jamaican Bobsled Team has a web site. Yes, I did just watch Cool Runnings, why?

-Peace

:: Dave King 21:39 :: (0) comments ::
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Cool, I'm the only person to misspell 'blogssphere' on the web!

-Peace

:: Dave King 21:17 :: (0) comments ::
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The New York Times identifies Vaclav Havel as "a playwright and a humanist first", even though his faith is well known. Bias? What bias? Despite that over simplification, the article Exit Havel, to Muted Applause From Czechs is worth the read. This section caught my attention.

When he first came to office, for example, he gave amnesty to a large portion of Czechoslovakia's prison population, ordinary prisoners and political prisoners alike. The move was consistent with the concept of a fresh start for a new democracy, and with Mr. Havel's own years as a prisoner. But he has continued to issue presidential pardons — of a woman who murdered her own child, for example — without explaining them, and that has alienated many Czechs.

One family has even filed suit with the United Nations, alleging that Mr. Havel's pardon of a drunken driver who killed their son was a violation of their human rights.

Two things strike me, first the obvious comparison with G.W. Bush's unblemished record of pardons while Governor of Texas. The second is that mercy always scandalizes those who feel no need for it.

Thanks to Sainteros for pointing out the article.

- Peace

:: Dave King 21:13 :: (0) comments ::
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Just finished Eugene H. Perterson’s Leap Over a Wall. The book is a set of reflections on the life of David. In the final chaper, Death, Perterson writes:

Those who take a firm and prayerful stance against the removal of limits know what they’re doing: ridding our selves of inconvenient lives that seem to interfere with our living results not in more life for us, but less.

In the footnotes he adds:

Abortion at one end the spectrum, euthanasia at the other and murder anywhere in between are the commonest attempts at this “removal of limitations,” but there seems to be plenty of other ways to accomplish the same thing through both subtle and blatant specices of abandonment, abuse, desertion and avoidance.

-Peace

:: Dave King 17:02 :: (0) comments ::
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For Mike: Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down under, and anyone else who loves pun-ishment.

-Peace

:: Dave King 08:36 :: (0) comments ::
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Laugh Out Loud - Portraits of Mr. Wright.

-Peace

:: Dave King 08:07 :: (0) comments ::
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Today's Dave proverb:

Real Life gets in the way of blogging.

It's true.

-Peace

:: Dave King 21:41 :: (0) comments ::
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Caught a good chunk of Buffyworld on Ideas last night. The web page summary of Buffyworld is a good intro into the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Thoughts to follow.

-Peace

:: Dave King 06:21 :: (0) comments ::
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Learned a new word today:

picayune

adj : (informal terms) small and of little importance; "a fiddling sum of money"; "a footling gesture"; "our worries are lilliputian compared with those of countries that are at war"; "a little (or small) matter"; "a dispute over niggling details"; "limited to petty enterprises"; "piffling efforts"; "giving a police officer a free meal may be against the law, but it seems to be a picayune infraction"

-Peace

:: Dave King 12:03 :: (0) comments ::
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Read "Bush, Sr." for "Bilbo" and "Saddam" for "Gollum"

-Peace

:: Dave King 08:28 :: (0) comments ::
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Thousands pray for peace in downtown Seoul

SEOUL - Tens of thousands of Koreans rallied in downtown Seoul on Sunday, to pray for peace and to support the U.S. military presence in South Korea.

Put together by the General Association of Christian Organizations, the demonstration called for the United States to find a peaceful solution to the crisis surrounding North Korea's nuclear programs.

The protesters sang along to gospel music, waved U.S. and South Korean flags, and carried placards declaring, "Korea and U.S. are blood brothers."

-Peace

:: Dave King 09:22 :: (0) comments ::
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"[Mircrosoft's] accumulation [$43.4 billion] is almost world record, and it's getting embarrassing,"

Ralph Nader from the Wired News article Microsoft Reverses on Dividends

-Peace

:: Dave King 10:30 :: (0) comments ::
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Sally Anne Sk8 Church!. Story via ChristDot.

-Peace

:: Dave King 22:43 :: (0) comments ::
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Frodo Failed?

-Peace

:: Dave King 22:36 :: (0) comments ::
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Bad Hair - the book by Mark Rahner. See sample pics! As seen on Thunderstruck.

-Peace

:: Dave King 21:53 :: (0) comments ::
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It's hard to get over the disappointment that God, having made an exception in my case, doesn't call nice people to repentance.

Eugene H. Peterson, Leap Over A Wall

:: Dave King 21:42 :: (0) comments ::
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Have you heard the inspiring story of the twenty six angles that protected a missionary because twenty six men in Michigan prayed? I have, it's been read in my church twice. It appears in the book: Minute Meditations for Couples by Bob and Emilie Barnes. A woman on our worship team owns a copy and has read it in church as part of the the service. It's a great story. Problem is, it isn't true.

And that's too bad cause it makes people, well me at least, cynical about great stories like the ones Mike shared. One we know is true, cause Mike knows the woman, but the other I doubt simply because of the number of other "spiritual stories" that turned out to be junk.

I think we tend to like stories that agree with how we see the world and reserve our critical thinking for things we don't like. I'm not sure that's a healthy habit, it leaves open to all sorts of charlatans. Consider some of the stories told by WorldCom Executives for example. Lots of people wanted to believe that the net was doubling every three months, it made the Internet bubble easy to justify, but in the end it just turned out to be a nice sounding story, that cost investors billions.

What gets me about the 26 angles story is it's often used as an example of how important it is to yield the spirit urging us to pray. Why is it that these people who imply every Christian should be tuned in to God enough to know exactly when to pray for people half way around the world, aren't tuned in to the Spirit of Truth enough to see a hoax right in front of them?

-Peace
Dave

PS How I know it isn't true

The time lines just don't add up. Most of Michigan is in the Eastern Time Zone, (GMT – 5h). Central Africa Time is GMT + 2. So at 6:00 (am) in most of Michigan it is 13:00(1 pm) in Africa, give or take an hour if you are in East Africa or West Africa. That's not the middle of the night as the story claims. There is exactly one verifiable fact in the story and it's completely off.

:: Dave King 22:34 :: (0) comments ::
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On Sept. 11, 2001, as 3,000 people died in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, [Tony Compolo] said 30,000 children died the same day of hunger or a disease related to malnutrition, just as they do every day.

Point of life is not to get more stuff by Cynthia J. Drake
as seen on Thunderstruck.

:: Dave King 20:49 :: (0) comments ::
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