Some folks are getting suspicious of Google. (Instapundit) In my uninformed biased opinion, they have the best stuff and can afford to boast a little.

powered by performancing firefox

Closing out the year with Oswald Chambers:

Security from Yesterday. "God requireth that which is past."
At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for
the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise from remembering the
yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God's grace is apt to be checked
by the memory of yesterday's sins and blunders. But God is the God of
our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them in order to turn the
past into a ministry of spiritual culture for the future. God reminds
us of the past lest we get into a shallow security in the present.

Security for To-morrow. "For the Lord will go before
you." This is a gracious revelation, that God will garrison where we
have failed to. He will watch lest things trip us up again into like
failure, as they assuredly would do if He were not our rereward. God's
hand reaches back to the past and makes a clearing-house for
conscience.

Security for To-day. "For ye shall not go out with
haste." As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste
of impetuous, unremembering delight, nor with the flight of impulsive
thoughtlessness, but with the patient power of knowing that the God of
Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays present irreparable things to
us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return,
but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive
thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on
the bosom of Christ.

Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him.

powered by performancing firefox

VOM, India:

Hindu extremists launched two known attacks against Christians last week, assaulting a pastor in the state of Chhattisgarh on December 17 and beating a couple in Haryana on December 20. In Raipur, a group of about 50 extremists from the Dharam Raksha Sena beat an independent pastor and accused him of forced conversions. They attacked Philip Jagdalla as he returned to his home after teaching Sunday school at his church. About 50 Bajrang Dal extremists attacked the Christian couple, Rakesh Sen and Suman Sen, at their home. The attackers were upset at the couple for regularly allowing their New Life Fellowship church to meet in their home and warned them against doing so in the future.

All of these "forced conversions" charges appear to me to be rather ironic.

Incredible rescue story.

The next morning it snowed.

powered by performancing firefox

Ripples: Artisan careers in a flattening world.

powered by performancing firefox

Looking at resisting the Holocaust. Good history, if nothing else.

UPDATE: Part II

powered by performancing firefox

Li-Ion technology comes of age. (Economist)

powered by performancing firefox

Ron on the invasion of Somalia. Very incisive. (Also, Wikipedia)

powered by performancing firefox

From the Economist: the art of conversation.

For enthusiasts conversation is an art, one of the great pleasures of life, even the basis of civilised society. Mme de Staël, a great talker and intellectual of the French ancien régime, called conversation “a means of reciprocally and rapidly giving one another pleasure; of speaking just as quickly as one thinks; of spontaneously
enjoying one's self; of being applauded without working...[A] sort of electricity that causes sparks to fly, and that relieves some people of the burden of their excess vivacity and awakens others from a state of painful apathy”.

powered by performancing firefox

Gerald Ford has died at 93: one of only four presidents to live beyond 90. It's a tough job.

powered by performancing firefox

The UN has cracked down on Iran - passing resolution 1737 which froze assets and imposed sanctions - after the country failed to comply satisfactorily with a July resolution intended to halt nuclear development. The Iranians aren't too happy about it.

powered by performancing firefox

Continuing tensions on the Gaza Strip. "What don't you understand about 'ceasefire?'" (Hat tip: Pajamas Media)

powered by performancing firefox

The fine and finicky shades of libertarianism: LVMI disagrees with Friedman monetarist theory. This fellow has even suggested that libertarianism would be better off without a party.

UPDATE: Instapundit had the original anti-party article I was looking for.

powered by performancing firefox

Australia heads into its second-coldest Christmas season ever: not-so-good news for Al Gore. (Hat tip: Pajamas Media)

Nobody's posting much; I'm wondering where everyone is. Must be a holiday or something.

The Economist strikes again, with a pre-release analysis of Windows Vista and a brief discussion of other OS options.

A U.S. Airways flight altered its itinerary after a passenger sent a threatening note to the pilot which he claimed was "written by God." (It is not clear whether the plane was diverted to a convenient airport en route or was actually turned around.) Airlines still seem to be rather jumpy, but this behavior is admittedly a bit over the top.

Google now has a book search, in beta. I think I'm doomed...

Check out stumbleupon.com for some fascinating randomized learning. Mildly addictive.

Former President Jimmy Carter has authored a controversial book (amazon...) that is being criticized as Anti-Semitic and factually sloppy. The whole thing seems a bit queer.

Toyota is expected to steal second place in the vehicle market from Ford, and possibly go on to take first place from GM. The Mises Institute adds a few comments.

More on the evolution of digital camera technology. (Earlier post here.)

UPDATE: Should have also linked to the Instapundit's post.

An interesting roundup of topics in this week's Economist. I really may have to look into getting this mag at some point.

RonMcK is bashing Christmas:

Never before in human history
have so many people
spent so much money they do not have
on gifts they do not like
for people who do not need them.

Read the whole post. It's short.

Six health workers are handed death sentences by a Libyan court over allegedly infecting several hundred children with the AIDS virus. This is too serious to be called bizarre; the rest of the world is joining in protest.

VOM in Iran:

On Sunday, December 10, Iranian secret police began to raid and arrest leaders of the Islamic republic's indigenous "Jesus Only" movement, arriving unannounced in the early morning hours to search their homes in Tehran, Karaj, Rasht and Bandar-i Anzali. For five days, several members of the house-church movement were called in for a day or more of interrogations and then released. But eight remain under arrest, including one woman. According to one source, those arrested have been told they face 10 accusations, including evangelization activities and actions against the national security of Iran. Pray God will protect His servants...

Milton Friedman's 1980's public television series - Free to Choose - is now streaming for free courtesy of ideachannel.tv.

UPDATE: The above source plays rather sporadically. A little homework, and voila! there it is on Google video, Free to Views. Much better.

I can always tell instantly when I stumble upon the blog of another actual human being. It's like receiving a free bowl of ice cream after three weeks of nothing but broccoli.

All right, I don't usually go for stuff like this, but there really is some wild stuff in here: 99 of the strangest images from the news of 2006.

How much are we paying these guys?

The FDA and two drug makers issued a warning for Rituxan, a drug commonly used to treat cancer and rheumatoid arthritis, after two patients taking the drug died. (WSJ)

Brilliant.

MercatorNet comments on the death of Augusto Pinochet, and offers a crash course in 20th century Chilean history. (The current president is a woman: it seems we're seeing this more and more.)

UPDATE:
Looks as if most of the world is not sure what to think. I suppose it is somewhat difficult to reconcile economic/ideological success with political/dictatorial brutality.

Handling bulky items on the internet market just got easier: behold bidnearby.com.

Blogging predicted to peak in 2007.

Everyone thinks they have something to say, until they're put on stage and asked to say it.

More on the integration of faith and science, (along this line); probably a little deeper than I'm ready to go at present. (I am, however, hoping to get to this book before too long.)

Good message from Greg Boyd last week. Particularly helpful as I've already been thinking about identity for awhile.

A little tweak for your browser platform, if you like that sort of thing. Seemed to help a little.

Looking intelligently at the immigration problem. I'm for opening up the borders and indulging in some sanity.

Castro may be going to sleep; Cuba may be waking up.

Digital cameras are coming of age, and a leading manufacturer is challenging the rampantly myopic pursuit of pixels. Makes sense.

An excellent, if disturbing, analysis of the sociological and economic implications of China's one-child policy. (MercatorNet.)

Head over to typingtest.com to see how much fear you inspire in keyboards. My best was about 90 WPM, on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz test.

So Skype and ebay are bedfellows. Interesting.

Here's how it looks in a listing.

How to fix a dented ping-pong ball, and more, including something I've never been able to do, on WikiHow.

Yeah, libertarianism is cool.

The last two days of Utmost are about the Personality/Individuality distinction that I am always running on about.

More bombs in Baghdad - this one reminds me of the Tower of Siloam.

Bookcloseouts.com just announced their annual dollar for dollar sale, ending December 31. Pssst: there's one Os Guinness title, but I'm going to make you find it.

I'm an admitted tool-hound, but this is just too much. (From the recent issue of Backpacker.)

A friend just tipped me off on Alister McGrath, an English Christian Theologian who's website seems to have a lot of material available, both print and audio, notably on the lectures page. His particular interests in and qualifications for marrying science with theology accord him a uniquely useful perspective.

Everyone's favorite penguin is learning to drive. Don't ditch the windows, guys!

The Instapundit on blogging fatigue. He ought to know.

LVMI has posted a synopsis of an excellent article critiquing the NASA Moon-base project.

I especially like that he ridicules the government's claim that establishing a moon presence will help us create "heritage sites" -- i.e., nature preserves of nothing but lunar dust that no one would disturb anyway!

Bare lunacy.

A positive angle on the cell phone = brain cancer debate.

Around here:

• What used to be the Psychic venue in Coarsegold is now vacant and for rent.
• Carl's JR. is running a mean Philly Cheesesteak Burger.
• Susanna got her cast removed.

Cool visual post on the nature of church. Seems pretty accurate.

Fiji is going through some political upheaval - again. Wikipedia is quick.

Peter's really excelling with his pictures.

Making me hungry.

Martin Marty on Christian Books:

So many Christian books written today are either 'theologically theological' or 'practically practical.' What we need most are books that are 'theologically practical.'

- courtesy KP of The Christian Mind

Check out these tricked out public toilets. Nothing is simple in Silicon Valley.

Missouri is recovering from an uncharacteristically serious storm - 15 to 16 inches of snow in places - centered around St. Louis. National Guard personnel, local power companies, and other resources are working to answer the situation.

A hearty happy birthday to Jonathan Marshall!

Some great finds today at the library sale, but this was the last one until sometime in February. (*sniff*, *sniff*)

Japan's new prime minister is pushing patriotism in the school system. I guess it worked for the United States.

Abe, 52, the hand-picked successor to retiring Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, stormed to office as a champion of the security pact with its top ally, Washington, revision of the pacifist constitution, a more outspoken foreign policy, and more patriotic education.

Ron has posted some good stuff recently on the Blessed Economist, which is actually a pretty interesting blog.

A few of Murphy's other laws:

• The things that come to those who wait will be the things left by those who got there first.
• Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
• Flashlight: A case for holding dead batteries.

Go to Nevada to swap your marriage, go to New York City to swap your gender.

From the Voice of the Martyrs e-newsletter:

Christian Solidarity Worldwide learned about an internal Vietnamese government training manual, which outlines a plan "to resolutely subdue the abnormally rapid and spontaneous development of the Protestant religion." This plan seeks to dampen the spread of Protestantism among ethnic minorities in the country's northwest highlands. Pray God will continue the "abnormal" growth of His kingdom in Vietnam.

Mercator on Milton Friedman, finally.