Emperor Palpatine, a Dementor, a Nazgûl, and a moth

AFP Photo:

Caption: "Rehearsal : Performer Bartabas rides a racehorse on stage during a full dress rehearsal of the show "Entr’aperçu [sic]." (AFP/Bertrand Guay)"

It is the age old problem. Too many house plants, and not enough space. Every inch of available floor and shelf space is covered with house plants. There are so many that you don’t have any place for your stereo speakers. What do you do?

Back in the dark ages, you would have to toss a few plants to get the required space. But thankfully, those days are now over. Now you can keep your plants and turn them into speakers.

Headline AP: Japan Gadget Turns Plants Into Speakers

TOKYO – The therapeutic power of flowers takes on new meaning with a Japanese gadget that turns plants into audio speakers, making the petals and leaves tremble with good vibrations.

Called Ka-on, which means “flower sound” in Japanese, the machine consists of a donut-shaped magnet and coil at the base of a vase that hooks up to a CD player, stereo or TV.

Place the flowers into the vase, turn on Ka-on and the magnet and coil relay the sound vibrations up the stems through the plant’s water tubes.

Near your ear and hear the music emanate from the petals. Touch a leaf, and feel it shake as though in a quiet dance.

Do you get the feeling this was originally written in Japanese and was badly translated? “Near your ear”?

As practical as speaker plants are, the great ideas don’t stop there. Soon you can use your plants as a phone.

Later this month, you’ll be able to carry on a telephone conversation with a flower with a planned speaker phone model.

Do you think they will offer a mobile plant phone? (“Excuse me for a moment. The African Violet in my pocket is ringing.”) A mobile plant phone would be almost as good as a shoe phone.

So far, everything sounds great (pun intended). But there is one last question. How do the plants feel about being used to transmit sound?

“The plant is happy listening to music,” says [president of the company that makes the speaker plants, Masumi] Gotoh, showing off a rubber plant hooked up to Ka-on in his Tokyo office.

Hey, as long as the plants are happy. Go ahead and near your ear to give it a listen.

The difference between being a Christian and not being a Christian is not one of degree, it is one of essence and quality, so that the most unworthy Christian is in a better position that [sic] the best man outside Christianity. Perhaps the best way of understanding all this is to think of it in terms of relationship. It is a question of blood, if you like; the humblest and the most unworthy member of the royal family is in a more advantageous position from the standpoint of social arrangements in most countries than the greatest and most able person outside that family. A man outside the royal family may be much more cultured, may be a finer specimen of humanity in every respect, yet on all state occasions and great occasions, he has to follow after the humblest and the least worthy member of the royal family. How do you assess his position? You do not assess it in terms of ability and achievement, you assess it in terms of blood relationship. Now that is precisely what the New Testament says about the Christian. He is one who had become a partaker of the divine nature; he is in an entirely new relationship; He has a new nature and quality; a new order of life has entered into him.

[Martyn Lloyd-Jones commenting on John 17:2-3 in The Assurance of Our Salvation, page 137]

Q.107. What does the conclusion of the Lord’s prayer teach us?

A. The conclusion of the Lord’s prayer (for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever) teaches us to be encouraged only by God in our prayers and to praise Him by acknowledging that kingdom, power, and glory are His. To show that we want to be heard and have confidence that we are, we say Amen.

Headline AP: Man Arrested After Leaving Small Tip

Headline AP: Some Pieces Of Genesis Are Intact, NASA Says

We couldn’t decide on the best headline for this picture, so we’ll leave it up to you, with a few of our own (unsatisfactory) suggestions.

1. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
2. You talking to me?
3. I’m all ears.
4. The Flying Nun’s dog.

Reuters Photo:

Caption: “Two-year-old Basset ‘Jack’ is posed for a photographer in a public park in Fulda near Frankfurt September 9, 2004. The Basset hound living in Fulda has made it into the Guinness book of records for having the longest ears in the world, measuring 33.2 centimeters. REUTERS/Alex Grimm”

Angela Logomasini begins with the following joke in her National Review article:

“Why don’t we just give them ours?” Jay Leno asked last summer as the Bush administration was helping Iraq develop a constitution. After all, Leno noted: “It’s served us well for over two hundred years, and besides, we’re not using it anymore.” The joke is both funny and sad — because it’s somewhat true.

Unfortunately, the joke is more than somewhat true. The article relates how the US Senate is attempting to pass legislation on a treaty that would allow the Environmental Protection Agency to administer changes to the international treaty rather than follow the Constitutionally proscribed method for amending treaties (Presidential signature and ratification by two-thirds of the Senate).

This is only one example of how we fail to follow the Constitution. Another would be the way we wage war without a Congressional declaration of war. Or how the federal government continues to legislate local issues (like education) which because they are not explicitly given to the federal government in the Constitution, are therefore solely under the control of the states. As I’ve heard R.C. Sproul Jr. ask, what is the Constitutional grounds for the federal government subsidizing tobacco farmers?

Unfortunately, in many ways, we don’t use the Constitution anymore.

Before I begin, I would like to wish President Clinton the best in recovering from his heart surgery. Fortunately, they found the problem in time and were able to intervene before he actually had a heart attack, and I am pleased to hear that President Clinton is recovering well. Now on the the point of the post.

I remember when I was a young child, and our cousins came to visit. We had a snow storm, and we played outside building snow men and snow forts, and having snow ball fights. When we went in for the evening, I told my cousin of my plans for the next day to build many snow structures like a snow slide and big snow forts. My cousin and his family left early the next morning, and I went out to build the many structures I had planned. However, overnight, the temperature had dropped, and the snow had all frozen. I couldn’t build anything. I realized that I couldn’t accomplish what I had stated. I was horrified because I had LIED to my cousin. I told him I was going to do something, and then I didn’t do it. I felt terrible about this for many days until I finally came to realize there is a difference between lying and saying something that you believed to be true at the time but later found was not correct. Based on comments from many people these days, the lesson I learned from that episode is not known by everyone.

Paul Kengor in the National Review reports on how the press covers discussions of religion differently based on whether it is a Republican politician or a Democratic politician speaking. Keno makes the following statement:

The underreported story at the start of convention week was Bill Clinton’s Sunday talk at the radical Riverside Church in New York. Clinton addressed the congregation during the worship service, accusing Republicans of bearing "false witness" and being "the people of the Nine Commandments."

What is President Bush’s "false witness"? Although the article does not state what President Clinton believes to be this lie, it is clear from many others that the fact that we have not found large caches of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq means that George Bush is a liar. Those who believe that this amounts to lying need to learn the lesson of a five year old boy on a cold snowy morning.

But I found it amazing that President Clinton, a man who was impeached (but not convicted) for lying under oath about his marital infidelities, would have the nerve to accuse the current president of bearing "false witness" and only following nine of the Ten Commandments. By his own standard, Clinton could be accused of being only a person of the Eight Commandments.

This might not surprise either of my readers, but I am registered Republican. However, I don’t consider myself a Republican. I will not vote for someone just because they are a Republican (i.e. Arlen Specter). I consider what they believe and how they will fill the office, and vote accordingly. Their party is a secondary consideration, at best.

But some people disagree with that philosophy. For them, party is all that matters. They believe that considering the issues and voting for those who most accurately reflect your beliefs is wrong. Always pull the straight party lever, and never question your party’s candidate. Above all, never, ever campaign against your party’s candidate, no matter how far he deviates from what you believe to be right.

Headline AP: Carter Calls Miller’s GOP Speech Disloyal

WASHINGTON – Former President Jimmy Carter is accusing fellow Georgia Democrat Zell Miller of “unprecedented disloyalty” for the senator’s speech at the Republican convention.

According to Carter, you should ALWAYS put party loyalty ahead of principle. My party, right or wrong.