Darn Experiments

Men show their character in nothing more clearly
than by what they find laughable. ~Anonymous

Darwinists do best when they simply have ideas in their heads and don't try to verify them in the real world. They can even manage to give their ideas a romantic appeal as they hide behind time and chance. "Surely given enough time with conditions that are just so . . ." Thus, the "infinite monkey theorem" has been employed by Darwinists from time to time as an illustration that this ol' world could indeed have been produced by that magic cocktail of time and chance. Sounds alright, until you try it at home! From leithart.com:

How long will monkeys typing randomly on typewriters take to produce the works of Shakespeare? That's been a way of thinking about Darwinian evolution since who knows where. In 2002, researchers at the Paignton Zoo in England decided to find out. They left a computer terminal in a cage with six monkeys. The results: Mike Phillips, one of the researchers, said "They pressed a lot of S's" and "the lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it." That is not even to mention the regular urination and defecation on the keyboard. After a month, the monkeys had produced about 5 pages of material, with very little resemblance to Shakespeare.

Now, that's funny right there, I don't care who you are!

Erotic Worship

This should get things stirred up around here and further cement my "NC-17" rating. Some of you regulars won't be with me on this, but it should lead to some good discussion. The subject is worship. Specifically, the erotic character of too much contemporary worship. Over at the Boar's Head Tavern "Pirate" sarcastically writes:

Let’s point out the obvious: replace the buxom blonde babes with stout matrons in their late 50’s, and the worship experience just plain doesn’t happen. Hire an older fellow that walks with a cane as your worship pastor instead of that handsome, young, energetic [bible college] graduate, and Sunday morning just won’t “work.” That should indicate something is wrong. This kind of “worship” isn’t anything new. Maybe fog machines, synthesizers, and colored lights are new, but sensuality and eroticism in worship aren’t. It’s just that in the olden-tymie days, you had to go to a pagan temple to get that. [The Church] did a remarkably bad job of incorporating the pagan culture into their worship. A few things changed with the imperialization of the Church, but the damage had already been done. Christian worship was doomed to centuries of reverence, formality, seriousness, regularity, and deliberation until the 20th century brought Aphrodite back to her rightful place as the orchestrator of our worship.

I'm in essential agreement with that, and I would love to hear someone defend the thesis that typical evengelical worship forms ("praise bands," "worship leaders," "special music solos," etc.) DO NOT come from pagan sources.

Tiger, Golf, and Our Military

If you like any of the above you need to watch this.  Tiger in Special Ops?  It might have happened!  And I love when he lets his caddy take the putt.  Nice event, Tiger. Watch the first six minutes or so of this video . . .

A Word of Caution . . .

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

• death (56x)
• abortion (25x)
• kill (11x)
• hell (8x)
• gay (7x)
• pain (5x)
• dangerous (4x)
• gun (3x)
• drugs (2x)
• bomb (1x)

Consider yourself warned.

Meet the Carolina Chocolate Drops

I was introduced to these guys this past weekend. They play "Old Timey Music from the Carolina Piedmont." Click below to watch "Sourwood Mountain." YouTube has better videos of them, but I like the line "Big dog bark, the little one bite you" in this one. That's certainly my experience; the only dog that ever bit me was one with a definite Napoleon complex. You can hear more of the Drops here, like "Viper Mad," which has another good line: "Good tea is my weakness." Amen!

I found this great interview with the band which was part of an event at the Atlanta History Center. "We’re trying not to make a big agenda, we just play the music. You can see that we’re black, we’re a string band, and that should be enough of a message." Very interesting.

It's not easy being green!

At least that's what color I think this shriveled up frog was once upon a time. This guy was found on my route between Rack Room Shoes and Lane Bryant. He appears to have been victimized by a work order in some office somewhere: his leaky faucet was fixed and his water supply was gone! A tough break in the middle of a drought!

Happy Independence Day!

Our morning July 4th celebration in Oxford. You'll notice that #2 son is missing. I'm sure he would love to tell you why.

There's nothing more expensive
than what the government promises to give you for free.
~Jerry Agar~

Try Foxit

I got an e-mail from Pop asking about a program called Foxit. It's an alternative PDF reader to Adobe Acrobat. Like Acrobat Reader, Foxit is free and has pay versions for additional features. I had never heard of Foxit before, but I downloaded it and it is great! The word that comes to mind is "FAST," which is definitely not the word that comes to mind with Adobe. Try it out.

46-53!

Sanity prevails, if only for the moment! The Senate rejected the Immigrant Amnesty today in a very interesting vote. Here are the 46 turncoats who joined with Sen. "Grahamnesty" to "embrace the 12 million," as he says.

Akaka (D-HI) Bennett (R-UT) Biden (D-DE) Boxer (D-CA) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Clinton (D-NY) Conrad (D-ND) Craig (R-ID) Dodd (D-CT) Durbin (D-IL) Feingold (D-WI) Feinstein (D-CA) Graham (R-SC)

Gregg (R-NH) Hagel (R-NE) Inouye (D-HI) Kennedy (D-MA) Kerry (D-MA) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Kyl (R-AZ) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Lott (R-MS) Lugar (R-IN) Martinez (R-FL)

McCain (R-AZ) Menendez (D-NJ) Mikulski (D-MD) Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Obama (D-IL) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Salazar (D-CO) Schumer (D-NY) Snowe (R-ME) Specter (R-PA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR)

The guys in bold have to be remembered whenever their primaries finally come around. The biggest surprise, even though he was part of the backroom dealings, is Kyl; I can't believe he actually pulled the trigger in the end. And McCain, who was on life support, is now officially dead in his bid for la casa blanca.

This bill was bad for many reasons, but fiscally it would have been a complete disaster. In fact, I was so unimpressed with the Senate's lack of examination of the financial ramifications of the bill that I sent a donation to the Heritage Foundation for Robert Rector's early number crunching that warned us all of the trillions we taxpayers would be out as a result of this legislation. Kudos to Heritage. Kudos to the 53. Kudos to talk radio, "the generators of simplicity." Kudos to the American people.

We Could Do Worse . . .

How's this for a potential '08 ticket? I guess they would run as independents?

Remodeling

Major redesign underway! Everything should still be here . . . somewhere. Posts will resume shortly. For now, the mail must go through!

"I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and Fries."
~Stephen King~

I Passed the US Citizenship Quiz:

Congratulations - you got 10 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Quiz?

The best data we have (concerning the big bang) are exactly what I would have predicted had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.
~Arno Penzias~

FDR's D-Day Prayer

I heard this on the radio on my way home today. I don't know why I've never heard this before! (I guess government schools are as bad as I thought.) This is the prayer FDR led the nation in by radio the evening of D-Day, June 6, 1944. There are enough mentions of Almighty God and faith to make any self-respecting atheist squeamish. What is amazing is placing yourself in the context of that day, sitting by the radio and praying along with the president in such uncertain times. Incredible!

Text here. Audio here. For you high-speeders here is an excellent video presentation of the prayer appropriately updated for our nation's current conflict. And for something else interesting, even General Eisenhower made mention of Almighty God in his Order of the Day delivered to the Allied Expeditionary Force that morning.

D-Day Remembered

On the 40th anniversary of Operation Overlord, known forvever to the world as D-Day, June 6, 1944, Ronald Reagan spoke at the site of the U.S. Ranger Monument above the beaches upon which so many had died. In addition to the valor of those troops, the words of our 40th president are also worth remembering. You can read the whole speech here, but here is a portion:

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge--and pray God we have not lost it--that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you."...you knew the people of your countries were behind you."

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They thought--or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4 a.m., in Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-Day: their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer he told them: Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do. Also that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.''

He goes on to add words for which Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, William F. Buckley, and the like ought to give heed:

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two World Wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent.

May we never forget.

Talk (or rather Listen) to Mr. Ed !

Back to the Grindstone!

Wow. "Vacation" is over. Now the garage is cleaner; the basement could probably still be called a mess (too many toys); my cousin is married due in small part to Jacob's ringbearing and my eating a good share of the rehearsal dinner! So, it's back to the Post Office and maybe even back to blogging.

"Self Portrait" by Drew

Drew says, "This is how I look when I'm scared." That's his hair going wild with fright. I wish you could see the whole thing; it fills a 12 x 18 inch page, but our scanner isn't that big.

He says you can tell it's him by the "whale tail" necklace. You can also recognize him by the square jaw (if you don't first mistake him for Tom Petty or Steve Tyler!).