Now here’s a story of a man who suffers for his wrongs.

Headline AP: Man Tries to Toss Cigarette, SUV Ignites

SAN FRANCISCO - A man barely escaped serious injury Thursday after a lit cigarette he tried to toss out the window while driving across the Bay Bridge blew back in and ignited the vehicle, according to the California Highway Patrol.

The unidentified man was driving westbound at about 10:40 a.m. when he tossed the cigarette out the window of his Ford Expedition, said CHP Officer Shawn Chase.

Isn’t that a great name for a California Highway Patrolman? Officer Chase.

Carried by the wind, the cigarette landed in his back seat and almost immediately burst into flames. The man quickly pulled to the side of the road, and leapt from the flame-filled SUV, which continued rolling into a guard rail, Chase said….

“He thought he had thrown it in park, but he didn’t and it just kept going,” the officer said. “It was in flames by the time he got out. He had some of his hair singed on the back of his head. It burnt down to the frame. There was nothing left.”

Now that’s an oddly worded paragraph. He throws a cigarette, and then he thinks he threw “it” (the cigarette?) into park. His hair on the back of his head is singed, and then burns to the frame. What frame? His skull? But after burning down to the frame, it turns out there is nothing is left. That must be a very insubstantial frame.

“We see people throwing cigarettes out the window all the time but never a situation like this where it comes back in,” Chase said. “This guy was lucky.”

What luck, Officer Chase! Nobody else’s car ever burns to the ground when they throw their cigarette out the window except this fortunate fellow. If you don’t mind, I will be pleased to avoid such luck, thank you very much.

But look on the bright side. He pays for violating the three laws of political correctness: Think of it. In San Francisco. He drives an SUV. He litters. And worst of all, he smokes.

How are Frankenstein, bicycles, and an Indonesian volcanic eruption all related? Well, according to New Scientist, the third caused the previous two.

ON 5 April 1815, Mount Tambora in Indonesia began to grumble. A week later the volcano blew its top in a spectacular eruption that went on until July. It was the biggest eruption in recorded history, killing around 92,000 people and ejecting so much ash into the atmosphere that average global temperatures dipped by 3 °C. In the northern hemisphere 1816 became known as the year without a summer. New England had blizzards in July and crops failed. Europe was hit just as badly.

On holiday by Lake Geneva the 18-year-old Mary Shelley and her husband Percy were trapped in Lord Byron’s house by constant rain. To divert his guests Byron suggested a competition to write a ghost story. The result was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Across the border in the German state of Baden the soaring price of oats prompted the 32-year-old Karl Drais to invent a replacement for the horse - the first bicycle.

I wonder what caused Bram Stoker to write Dracula?

Headline AP: NHL Cancels Season Over Labor Dispute

It’s the first time a major pro sports league in North America lost an entire season to a labor dispute. The resulting damage could be immeasurable to hockey, which already has limited appeal in the United States.

Living in Pittsburgh, it is surprising how no one is talking about this. No one cares that the Penguins are not playing this year. It’s not that people aren’t animated or that they aren’t taking sides. It’s as if there wasn’t a hockey team based in the city at all.

Which prompts the question: If a major pro sports league cancels an entire season and no one notices, is the season really canceled?

I love this new world we live in.

Today we got an auto registration in the mail, and there was a minor problem. Mrs. Knilram’s last name was spelled incorrectly. In the old world, I would have had to go the the Department of Motor Vehicles office, stand in line to talk to someone and get a form to fill out.

Instead, we went on line and found the phone number to call. Work through the phone menu to get the correct person on the line. She told me the form number to fill out. I hung up, went to the web site, downloaded the form, and everything is ready.

We aren’t all the way to where I’d like our world to be. It would be great to get all the information on the web so I could have skipped the phone call, and filled out the form online so we didn’t have to mail it in. But it is great how far we have come.

I don’t think my kids realize what an amazing world we live in, since they grew up with the Internet. I’ve told them that we didn’t have computers when I was their age. But they also think we didn’t need computers since we didn’t have telephones or cars that required registration back then either. (”I mean, how did you place Voice over IP phone calls before TCP/IP? And how did your fuel injectors ever work if you didn’t have computer chips in the car’s engine?”)

P.G. Wodehouse makes another appearance in today’s Telegraph:

President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya is said to have taken to his bed in despair, finding solace, according to a cabinet colleague, “only in the works of P G Wodehouse”.

His choice of author is telling. Mr Kibaki’s two wives, when not bickering with each other, dictate the president’s schedule and often lock out those who might offer him wiser counsel. Their resemblance to many a Wodehouse aunt may strike a chord with the increasingly doddery septuagenarian leader.

But with all the problems Mr. Kibaki might have with his two wives, at least he should only need to buy a couple BMWs for them.

King Mswati III of Swaziland, one of the world’s poorest countries, has spent £450,000 on 10 new BMWs for his 11 wives and three teenage fiancees.

No word on whether King Mswati has secluded himself with the works of P.G. Wodehouse. It seems that he doesn’t have time what with having to spend all the international donations.

Swaziland is kept afloat by more than £14 million of international aid. Yet last year, the king spent almost £9 million on palaces, parties and cars. His 36th birthday party, which was celebrated in the national stadium with 10,000 guests, cost £330,000.

King Mswati does live Bertie Wooster’s lifestyle. I recall at one point Bertie was engaged to two women simultaneously. And he does spend extravagantly on parties. But a key difference: Bertie never intended to marry either of his two fiancees.

Just in case you were getting a little peckish, and were wanting a snack, please be warned that cain toads are highly poisonous. In case you don’t know what they look like, here’s a picture of one.

Reuters Photo:

(Notice that the eyes look a little like stained glass windows.)

But what really struck me was how resilient some animals are.

[Cane toads] have highly poisonous sacs behind their head which quickly kill native animals, such as quolls, that prey on them.

Cane toads are so toxic that crocodiles, death adder snakes and wild dingo dogs can die within 15 minutes of cardiac arrest after eating a toad.

So we learn that when they eat a cain toad, crocodiles, death adder snakes and wild dingo dogs can live for 15 minutes after their hearts have stopped beating. I wonder how much longer they could live after cardiac arrest if they hadn’t eaten a fatally poisonous toad.

My current favorite song is Don Henley’s The Garden of Allah. The liner notes add this sub-title: "(A tale in which the Devil visits a large Western city and finds that he has become obsolete)". Like many other Henley’s songs, I like it not only for the music itself, but also for the insightful lyrics.

In one section, the Devil says the following (copied exactly from the liner notes):

"Today I made an appearance downtown
I am an expert witness, because I say I am
And I said, ‘Gentlemen….and I use that word loosely….
I will testify for you
I’m a gun for hire, I’m a saint, I’m a liar
Because there are no facts, there is no truth
Just data to be manipulated
I can get you any result you like
What’s it worth to ya?
Because there is no wrong, there is no right
And I sleep very well at night
No shame, no solution
No remorse, no retribution
Just people selling t-shirts
Just opportunity to participate in the pathetic little circus
And winning, winning, winning"

I like the definition of what makes an expert witness, and have decided to add it as a tag line to the header of the blog.

I am an expert witness, because I say I am.

It looks more like a contortionist’s chair to me.

AFP Photo:

Caption: “Ambient chair: Model Carolin presents an easy chair displayed at the ‘Ambiente’ consumer goods trade fair in Frankfurt, Germany. (AFP/DDP/Martin Oeser)”

I really enjoy reading (and watching) P.G. Wodehouse, and not surprisingly, I am not alone.

Headline Telegraph: Wodehouse clicks with India’s computer generation

Jeeves would probably have found it, like one of his master’s more garish suits, “a trifle too bizarre” but the wonderful Indian world of information technology is in the throes of an obsession with all things P G Wodehouse….

Rather than being discarded as outmoded, however, Wodehouse is now being embraced by India’s computer generation. The epicentre of Wodehouse mania is the southern city of Bangalore, where quiz nights and discussion evenings are organised by enthusiasts whose nicknames are taken from the novels’ characters.

“We get some pretty curious looks from other diners when we address each other,” said Deepak Misra, 40, a manager for an IT company, who is known to his peers as J Hamilton Beamish.

Isn’t that going a little over the top? I mean, who would go around using a P.G. Wodehouse character as a pseudonym?

Best regards,

J.W. Stoker

How do we handle the apparent difference in Paul’s and James’ statements about the role of faith and works?

Galatians 3:1-9

^1O O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. ² Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? ³ Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? ⁴ Did you suffer so many things in vain–if indeed it was in vain? ⁵ Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith– ⁶ just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

⁷ Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. ⁸ And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” ⁹ So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

James 2:14-26

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? ¹⁵ If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? ¹⁷ So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. ¹⁹ You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe–and shudder! ²⁰ Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? ²¹ Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? ²² You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; ²³ and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”– and he was called a friend of God. ²⁴ You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. ²⁵ And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? ²⁶ For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Mark Dever writes a concise explanation of this in this weekend’s Table Talk magazine (from R.C. Sproul’s Ligonier Ministries):

In James 2:14-26, James tells us that true and saving faith always includes more than just thoughts — it inevitably shows itself in actions. The actions don’t save. The actions don’t apprehend the work of Christ that saves. The actions don’t create the faith that grabs hold of the work of Christ that saves. But the actions are the inevitable result of the faith that savingly trusts in Christ alone.

Consider this example: an imaginary animal casts no shadow. One very real difference between an imaginary creature in your young child’s playful mind and a real animal in your backyard or garden is whether or not it has a shadow. The imaginary one doesn’t. The real animal does. But that doesn’t mean that the shadow is the animal, it is simply the proof that it is the real animal. A real animal comes with shadows, and real faith comes with actions.

Paul and James were not disagreeing. They were talking about different (though related) things. Paul insists that salvation is based solely upon faith apart from good works, and James tells us that a saving faith will be accompanied by good works. Just as a real animal will have a shadow, so will saving faith show itself with good works.