Headline AFP: Speedy but spiritual: British cleric unveils ‘100-Minute Bible’
LONDON (AFP) - Business folk are used to reading executive summaries of important documents, and now would-be Christians are to have the same privilege, in the form of a chopped-down Bible that can be read in under two hours.
A Church of England vicar was on Wednesday unveiling his self-styled “100-Minute Bible”, an ultra-condensed edition of the Christian holy book which claims to neatly summarise every teaching from the Creation to the Revelation.
Considered in its best light, this is an attempt to make the Bible more accessible to people who would otherwise not have read it.
There are many difficult parts of the Bible. If someone sat down intending to read from start to finish without much knowledge of what they were going to encounter, the would probable make it easily halfway through Exodus (the second book of 66 in the Bible) before they start to bog down, and most people would probably quit in Leviticus (the third book) or Numbers (the fourth). Cutting out the difficult parts makes it much easier to read through.
But I have a problem with removing parts of the Scriptures just because they require a bit of work to get through them. Not everything is going to be easy, and just because something is hard doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.
A bulletproof vest. In case you think I’m joking, check this out:
Scientists at Nexia Biotechnologies in Montreal have discovered what happens when you cross a spider with a goat. The answer: a stronger bulletproof vest. The company has bred dairy goats with a spider in order to produce a unique protein. This protein will be extracted from the milk to produce silk fibers, called BioSteel, for bulletproof vests, medical supplies and space equipment.
I wonder if the goats now have eight legs?
Via Digg.
Flickr has groups where people submit pictures of letters. So you can see a collection of pictures of the the letter “Q”, or “G”.
Kastner has created a script that allows you to enter a word, and it goes to Flickr to gather the letters to spell the word.
Via digg.
Q.50. What does the second commandment require?
A. The second commandment requires us to receive, respectfully perform, and preserve completely and purely all the regulations for religion and worship that God has established in His word.
This week’s question drives home the point that the second commandment goes far beyond just not making a physical idol. We haven’t fully kept the commandment if we don’t carve a block of wood or fashion a golden calf and say it is God.
This commandment shows that God is very concerned about how we worship Him, and to fully keep this commandment we need to carefully observe all the rules God has given for our worship.
To put it as Jesus did to the woman at the well, we must worship in spirit and in truth.
John 4:23
23 “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Driving east on the Pennsylvania Turnpike last Friday, I rolled down the passenger side window and shot some pictures. Most were what you would expect: blurred foreground and badly composed. But this one came out rather nicely, I thought.
Headline Reuters: Power-dressing man leaves trail of destruction
SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man built up a 40,000-volt charge of static electricity in his clothes as he walked, leaving a trail of scorched carpet and molten plastic and forcing firefighters to evacuate a building.
Frank Clewer, who was wearing a woolen shirt and a synthetic nylon jacket, was oblivious to the growing electrical current that was building up as his clothes rubbed together.
When he walked into a building in the country town of Warrnambool in the southern state of Victoria Thursday, the electrical charge ignited the carpet….
Clewer, who after leaving the building discovered he had scorched a piece of plastic on the floor of his car, returned to seek help from the firefighters.
“We tested his clothes with a static electricity field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited,” Barton said….
Firefighters took possession of Clewer’s jacket and stored it in the courtyard of the fire station, where it continued to give off a strong electrical current.
Maybe my kids watch too many movies.
The other day, I was just minding my own business, when one of my daughters quietly walked up behind me, stuck a banana to my head and said, “Dodge this.”
I turned my head, and this is what I saw.
Your job is to find the small discrepancy in these two quotes.
From The Princess Bride by William Goldman. Goldman’s schtick in this book is that he is just editing a book by S. Morgenstern to remove the boring parts.
This quote is from when Inigo and Fezzik bring Wesley’s body to Miracle Max.
There is some action stuff which I cut, which I never did anywhere else, and here’s my logic: Inigo and Fezik have to go through a certain amount of derring-do in order to come up with the proper ingredients for the resurrection pill, stuff like Inigo finding some frog dust while Fezzik is off after holocaust mud, this latter for example, requiring, first, Fezzik’s acquiring a holocaust cloak so he doesn’t burn to death gathering the mud, etc. Well, it’s my conviction that this is the same kind of thing as the Wizard of Oz sending Dorothy’s friends to the wicked witch’s castle for the ruby slippers; its got the same ‘feel,’ if you know what I mean, and I didn’t want to risk, when the book’s building to climax, the reader’s saying, ‘Oh, this is just like the Oz books.’ Here’s the kicker, though: Morgenstern’s Florinese version came before Baum wrote The Wizard of Oz, so in spite of the fact that he was the originator, he comes out just the other way around. It would be nice if somebody, maybe a PH.D. candidate on the loose, did a little something for Morgenstern’s reputation, because believe me, if being ignored is suffering, the guy has suffered.
Now from the Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum:
“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Who are you, and why do you seek me?”
It was not such an awful voice as she had expected to come from the big Head; so she took courage and answered:
“I am Dorothy, the Small and Meek. I have come to you for help.”
The eyes looked at her thoughtfully for a full minute. Then said the voice:
“Where did you get the silver shoes?”
“I got them from the Wicked Witch of the East, when my house fell on her and killed her,” she replied.
“Where did you get the mark upon your forehead?” continued the voice.
“That is where the Good Witch of the North kissed me when she bade me good-bye and sent me to you,” said the girl.
Again the eyes looked at her sharply, and they saw she was telling the truth. Then Oz asked, “What do you wish me to do?”
“Send me back to Kansas, where my Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are,” she answered earnestly. “I don’t like your country, although it is so beautiful. And I am sure Aunt Em will be dreadfully worried over my being away so long.”
The eyes winked three times, and then they turned up to the ceiling and down to the floor and rolled around so queerly that they seemed to see every part of the room. And at last they looked at Dorothy again.
“Why should I do this for you?” asked Oz.
“Because you are strong and I am weak; because you are a Great Wizard and I am only a little girl.”
“But you were strong enough to kill the Wicked Witch of the East,” said Oz.
“That just happened,” returned Dorothy simply; “I could not help it.”
“Well,” said the Head, “I will give you my answer. You have no right to expect me to send you back to Kansas unless you do something for me in return. In this country everyone must pay for everything he gets. If you wish me to use my magic power to send you home again you must do something for me first. Help me and I will help you.”
“What must I do?” asked the girl.
“Kill the Wicked Witch of the West,” answered Oz.
“But I cannot!” exclaimed Dorothy, greatly surprised.
“You killed the Witch of the East and you wear the silver shoes, which bear a powerful charm. There is now but one Wicked Witch left in all this land, and when you can tell me she is dead I will send you back to Kansas–but not before.”
The little girl began to weep, she was so much disappointed; and the eyes winked again and looked upon her anxiously, as if the Great Oz felt that she could help him if she would.
“I never killed anything, willingly,” she sobbed. “Even if I wanted to, how could I kill the Wicked Witch? If you, who are Great and Terrible, cannot kill her yourself, how do you expect me to do it?”
“I do not know,” said the Head; “but that is my answer, and until the Wicked Witch dies you will not see your uncle and aunt again. Remember that the Witch is Wicked–tremendously Wicked -and ought to be killed. Now go, and do not ask to see me again until you have done your task.”
