Caption contest

All right, it's not my caption contest; it's one going on over at Ship of Fools. But there are some wonderful ones:

The lucky Calvinist knew the simplicity of mating by predestination...

Now, THAT is what I call 'irresistable.'

No, honey, I didn't say I was Elect, I said I was ... oh, whatever.

Oh baby, you bring out the total depravity in me like nobody ever has before.... Can you feel it too?

Get in touch with your inner smart-elbow and see if you can come up with some more. If you really are a Calvinist (are you still reading, Pilgrim?), give yourself double points for being able to laugh at yourself.

Pastors on crack

That's the only explanation I can find for some of these church signs. Is it really necessary to hawk Jesus like he was a used Honda?

Rosie got something right

At least, Pastor Mike finds some unintentional truth in Rosie O'Donnell's blather about fearing "Radical Christianity":

If radical Christianity took root in this country it threatens our way of life and the underpinnings of this great nation....

Let's look at the potential damage a bit closer:
Radically following the person and teachings of Jesus would erode materialism and obliterate a financial system that is derived from leveraging debt over and over again.
Radical Christianity would cause millions of jobs to be lost as prisons became nearly vacant, court rooms had no backlog, hospitals didn't have many sick, and peace officers across the country are laid off because crime rates drop to a ridiculous level.
Marraige counselors would be broke as repentance and humility and honesty took root in families across this great nation...

Go read the whole thing. Then let's go live it, and show Rosie and her ilk what there is to be afraid of.

Yep. That's about what happened.

H/T to Pastor Jeff.

Here's a thought to take with you into the weekend

Pervert seduces 12-year-old girl, then lives undetected in her bedroom for three months.



Apparently the vermin had hollowed out a space under the girl's bed and hid out under there.

Sleep well, parents!

More visual aids

This kind of puts the whole embryonic stem cell thing into perspective, I think:

Hat tip to Pr. Paul McCain.

I guess that's a silver lining

Emily managed to find something good in the election results:

The good news about Democrats taking the House is that we won't have to endure months and months of lawyering over election fraud and imagined disenfranchisement. Because when Republicans win, it's only by acts of thuggery and abuse. When Democrats win, it's because The People™ have spoken.

What she said.

The day after

Reagan announced in 1981 that it was "morning in America." Well, it's morning again, but this time with a hangover that will last for years. Our country is now run by people who believe that it's not only permissible but actually preferable to slaughter the unborn, the elderly and the infirm; who would abandon the Iraqis to a theocratic power vacuum and gloat at the deaths of soldiers; and who would demand that religions that hold to traditional marriage abandon their beliefs or pay the price. We are at the mercy of a party for whom mercy is at best a joke and at worst an abomination.

God help us, because the electoral process has not.

Today's the day!

Remember: If you don't vote, you can't bitch.

Worth a thousand words of apologetics

Found on Crossed the Tiber, along with a plethora of other good stuff.

"The ketchup bottle you rolled in on?"

Warning: Extreme language alert!

Over at It Comes in Pints?, there's a weekly tradition called the "Friday [Fornincate]-Off Thread," where you can get in touch with your inner mouth-foamer and release all your anger at anybody you choose. Now, I'm moderately skilled at the use of profanity, but the folks that post there are out-and-out masters of the art. In particular, Val Prieto of Babalu Blog launched into John Kerry this week in such blistering terms that I just had to reproduce it here verbatim. (My very humble apologies to anybody who has a problem with the language. I usually keep it clean, but editing this would destroy the whole effect.)

To that Senator from Massachusetts - no, not the drunk fat rat bastard, the other skinny YOU RANG? LURCH looking one - that exemplifies the definition of arrogance and hubris and condescension and who saw fit to denigrate men and women in the Armed Forces that have more honesty, courage, integrity and dignity in a pinky nail clipping than you have in your whole entire wrinkled sorry excuse for a body: FUCK THE FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING WHY THE LONG FACE? MONSTER LOOKING, MONEY MARRYING, VIETCONG ASS KISSING WHILE MEN WERE STILL DYING IN VIETNAM, FALSE CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY GIVING, FORM 180 SERVICE RECORD HIDING SNIVELLING PURPLE HEART FOR A MOSQUITO BITE RECIEVING COMMIE ASS KISSING POLITICAL OPPORUNIST DOESNT EVEN HAVE THE BALLS TO STAND BY WHAT HE BELIEVES OR SAYS MOMTHERFUCKING FUCK OF FUCKING FUCKHEAD FUCK MOTHERFUCKER. No, seriously, FUCK YOU JOHN FORBES FUCKING KERRY AND THE FUCKING KETCHUP BOTTLE YOU ROLLED IN ON.

Whew! How cathartic is that? Extra points if you can read that whole thing without coming up for air.

The contrast

This just about sums up the level of discourse between right and left:

Liberal gesture to Bush
Conservative gesture to Kerry

And yet liberals honestly believe we're their intellectual inferiors.

First snow...

... just started coming down a few minutes ago.

This is part of why I like living in central Washington. Although it's been years since Moses Lake had a really snowy winter, there's still a charm about the first flurry of the season. It's not sticking yet, and I'll be surprised if it does this time, but it's still fun to watch through the window. Preferably with a fire and a hot cup of something.

Update: Rats! It's morphed into plain ol' freezing rain. Ah, well, for one bright shining moment...

Feeling my age

It just occurred to me, listening to the reporters in this newsroom (average age about 24), that I still think of "chill" as strictly a transitive verb. Which makes me a geezer.

Sigh.

Blogroll addition

I'd like to welcome to the blogroll Dani, of Life in 3D, who's a homeschooling stay-at-home mom, an old friend and a helluva writer with some really good things to say. You'll find her link under "Prods" in the sidebar. Mosey on over and say "hi." (Maybe this will make her blog more frequently.) :)

Spam zen

Every once in a while I actually look at one of the spams that show up in my inbox, not because I have the slightest interest in whatever they're hawking, but to see the random text they use for filler. There's some interesting meditative possibilities in it.

Today's Spam Zen: When you see the chess board, it means that the insurance agent self-flagellates.

Now, what shall we make of this? Let's consider first the chess board. What does it represent? At first glance it's an icon not only of war, but of coolheaded, measured warfare. It's war as fought by the generals, not by the dogfaces in the trenches. By men whose personal courage may have already been tested – probably they would willingly stand in harm's way, and most likely did in their youth – but who have nevertheless been relegated to a swivel-chair and a duty less physically dangerous but harder on the soul: that of ordering younger men to die, and figuring out how to extract the most good from their deaths.

Moving to the next part of the sentence, what has the insurance agent done that he should so mistreat himself? Has he cheated his clients? Has he cost his employers by speaking truthfully to his clients, sinning through virtue? Or is there some secret sin in his private, non-insurance life for which he must atone?

Let's assume it's related to his profession. Insurance agents serve the function of insulating people from risk. Chess, like war, is by its nature a give-and-take of risk and sacrifice. One trades one's pawn for a queen, and occasionally gambles on one's opponent failing to discern one's plan. It's not too hard to draw a connection here between the chess board and an insurance agent in distress.

But one question remains: Why is it that the salesman's self-punishment only becomes known when you see the chess board? Surely he was aware of its presence all along, and it appears that he's been whipping himself already, independent of your perception. Moreover, why should you be looking for indications that the salesman is practicing his self-sadism? Is it perhaps a Schrödinger's Cat phenomenon, wherein he either is or is not self-flagellating until the chess board is seen, at which time the waveforms resolve themselves into one or the other? That seems the most likely explanation, albeit one that leaves open several more questions. At what point does the insurance agent let up on the whipping? Does he tire, or grow weak from blood loss, or merely continue until he dies? Is his self-torture affected by the arrangement of the pieces on the board? And if so, what does he do at checkmate?

Let's make a meme out of this. I charge you, O faithful readers, to take a random line from your spam and squeeze it like a used tea bag for insights. (Keep it clean!) I'm tagging Patrick, Hindu, Ms. Kitty (hers ought to be really interesting), and Ken. And, as always, my Lovely and Brilliant Wife.

St. Crispin's Day

I had completely forgotten that Wednesday was St. Crispin's Day until Ken mentioned it yesterday. Because it's Friday, and because I literally can't read this without a lump in my throat, here's the St. Crispin's day speech from Henry V:

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Here's a dilemma

What's a pro-abort to do when this happens?

COLVILLE, WASH. - A Stevens County man accused of trying to hire a hitman to kill his unborn child pleaded not guilty on Tuesday.

Charles Young, 18, of Suncrest northwest of Spokane, was charged with solicitation to commit first-degree murder and solicitation to commit first-degree manslaughter.

Prosecutors allege Young offered an undercover officer posing as a hitman $3,250 to injure his 17-year-old ex-girlfriend so badly that her nearly full-term fetus would die...

Young said he wanted his ex-girlfriend beaten in the stomach sufficiently to cause the death of the fetus and that he wouldn't mind if she also perished, the sheriff said.

The murder solicitation charge relates to the ex-girlfriend, who was eight months pregnant, while the manslaughter solicitation charge relates to the fetus, prosecutors said.

Okay, so it's a little weird that he's charged with attempted murder against the girlfriend when nobody is asserting that he intended to kill her (he simply didn't care if she was collateral damage). But you can't charge him with attempted manslaughter against something that's not a person. Vandalism, maybe. Possibly even animal cruelty, although even that would establish the baby's right to live.

So where will the pro-aborts line up? Will they cheer to see this guy sent up for trying to have a woman beaten up? Ordinarily, yes, they would. But I will bet a silk pajama that if it comes down to a choice between nailing an abuser or allowing an unborn baby to have rights, the pro-deathers will side with the man. Sure, abuse of women is a bad thing, but it's still better than preventing abuse of the unborn. There are priorities, after all.

Give us Barabbas!

Book meme

My painted, tainted, sainted aunt tagged me with this meme. Sorry it took so long, but I... well.. I sorta have... a life.

1. One book that changed your life?
I'm tempted to say "Mere Christianity," because I read that as a teenager and it was the first time I had actually had any of my questions regarding Christianity answered. I suspect I probably would have become a practicing Christian as an adult anyway, though, just out of kind of a spiritual inertia. I had been raised with certain Christian assumptions, after all, and I never really dropped them even when I was seriously questioning them. I suppose I had been looking for an excuse to believe what I had been taught.

But the book that jolted me out of my rather shallow Protestantism and into serious study of historic Christianity was The Way by Clark Carlton, a Protestant-turned-Greek Orthodox Christian apologist. It was a bit of a shock to realize that the Baptist Protestantism I was raised believing was kind of a stripped-down version of a faith that had not only begun in the first century but had continued uninterrupted. As Carlton put it, the Church is still at Corinth.

2. One book you have read more than once?
That would be most of the ones I've read, actually. I'm a terrible one for rereading. The one currently by my bed is John the Balladeer, a collection of Manly Wade Wellman's wonderful forays into Appalachian mythology.

3. One book you would want on a desert island?
A guide to boatbuilding with minimal materials would be appealing. But I don't think that's what the memestress had in mind. I suppose I should say a Bible, but if so, it should be one of those interlinear ones with originals and various translations.

4. One book that made you laugh?
Almost anything by George MacDonald Fraser. I'm seriously addicted to his Flashman series, but by far his funniest was The Pyrates. Anybody who enjoys the old swashbuckling movies will want to glut themselves on that one.

5. One book that made you cry?
My Daddy was a Pistol and I'm a Son of a Gun, by Lewis Grizzard. No further comment.

6. One book you wish had been written?
At one time there was a two-volume biography of Robert Heinlein planned, but I haven't heard anything about it for several years now. I wish that had been written. (Not that I've given up hope.)

7. One book you wish had never been written?
My auntie, who tagged me for this, mentioned The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion as one possibility. I have to disagree with that. (As my PC readers gasp and create a suction to rival a jet engine, let me make it worse by admitting that I actually have a copy.) The Protocols only collected in one place what was "common knowledge" at the time. (That it was a forgery didn't make a lot of difference; it would simply have been called "truthy.") The long-term result of the propaganda was a Holocaust that galvanized the Jewish people like nothing else could have. Had there been no Holocaust, it's entirely possible that world Jewry might have been whittled down by attrition, from pogrom after pogrom, or assimilated into the cultures around them. Zionism was kind of a faddish thing among a few "intellectuals," not a policy anybody paid a lot of attention to.

But after the horrors of the Nazi extermination, the Jews that were left became determined that nobody – but nobody – was going to make victims of them again. Much of the rest of the world rallied to the Jews' side and made it possible to establish a nation, a single corner of the world where (as one writer put it) the word "Jew" would never be a slur. Today, no country on earth is so ready to fight for its survival as Israel, and the Chosen People are unlikely ever to be wiped out.

So what book do I wish had never been written? How about the Koran? With no waves of Islam, the Middle East would still be Christian, and I suspect that the Protestant Reformation could have been averted as well. One of the reasons that the Church was in such desperate need of housecleaning was that so much of the leadership's attention was being absorbed by successive Muslim assaults on Europe. The Spanish Inquisition grew out of the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain, which probably wouldn't have happened had the peninsula not been under Muslim domination for several centuries. (I don't know if the East-West schism would still have occurred, but it might have been easier to reconcile without the barbarian literally at the gates.) Imagine a world with no 95 Theses, no Institutes of the Christian Religion, no Black Legend. And no foaming fanatics eager to strap on a bomb belt and die with an honor guard.

8. One book you are currently reading?
Currently I'm reading – and enjoying thoroughly – Forgotten Kingdom, a history of Utah during the years between the first settlement in the Salt Lake Valley and the extension of US control over Utah in the 1850s. The Mormon "Kingdom of Deseret" was a virtually autonomous theocracy during that time, and the society they created is a fascinating historical study.

9. One book you have been meaning to read?
Well, I've been wrestling with Aquinas' Summa Theologica for years, and every so often I tackle it again. Someday I'll get through it. I've also got a copy of Mein Kampf in the original that I've been meaning to read. (Pause while readers resume breathing normally.) The little bit I've read creeps me out about as much as The Turner Diaries did. But my German is really rusty, and I don't want to read a translation because God knows what a translator has done with it. If I'm going to read something so socially poisonous, I at least want to know what it really says. So it's slow going.

I'd also like to read some St. John of the Cross, which shouldn't be too difficult because my Lovely and Brilliant Wife has it all over the house. (Hint: notice her blog title.) But somehow every time I try, my head spins. I'm ot what anyone would call a mystic, and John confuses me. Oh yes, and I'd like to read St. Augustine's City of God. He's my patron, and I feel bad not having read more of him.

Okay, I'm inflicting this on Pastor Paul, Pastor Doug, Pastor Jeff, Pastor Mike (whenever he gets back from lolling around in Hawaii), and Father Sam. Let's see what the clergy read.

And of course, the love of my life.

Is it just my imagination...

... or do stories like this and this seem to show up more during October?

Warning: The second link is pretty grody. Don't try to read it at lunchtime.