Jase and Rachel are visiting...

...and this is the only group photo (so far).

Apologies... it's just another link

Sorry to keep posting just to direct you elsewhere, but I really thought THIS post (again, from Kevin DeYoung) was worth pointing out. It deals a little bit with women and ministry, but not so much in a "this is what I believe" way... more like a "it's an interesting division in the church" way.

At some point I just might stop linking to DeYoung's blog, so it'd be worth your while to subscribe to it on your own. I haven't read his books yet (though I've wanted to quite badly), but he's definitely one of my favorite bloggers.

A couple of things for your perusal

If you CLICK HERE you can read a very good blog post from Kevin DeYoung about gambling. It's kind of long (he quotes extensively from a Christian-perspective article about gambling), but it's well worth the read. It makes me want to blow up Las Vegas (okay, not really).

This video is hilarious. You will think so too if you've ever read or heard about President Obama's reliance on teleprompters for speaking engagements. The Onion is definitely one of my favorite news outlets.

I hope you can follow this post

(Accidentally posted this on my football blog before realizing my mistake!)
I just wrote on facebook that I'm not as smitten with Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz and other best-sellers) as many young Christians are. Here's part of the reason why.

Mark Driscoll's 3 most recent tweets:
1. Is Jesus God or Man? #Basictraining. http://bit.ly/Jesus_God_or_Man http://bit.ly/1JwN75
2. Worship = Adoration +Action. #Basictraining. http://bit.ly/Wrshp_Adoratn_Actn http://bit.ly/3prgw4
3. How to organize a day of silence & solitude. Part 1 http://bit.ly/rOcUS http://bit.ly/2k1mAN

Stuff Christians Like blogger Jon Acuff's 3 most recent tweets:
1.Two words we all start with but lose along the way. New SCL http://bit.ly/1VeX02
2. "You removed my sackcloth & clothed me with joy." God won't replace old clothes with slightly better. He gives new life not upgrades. P30:11
3. It's interesting that twitter scams focus on 2 insecurities. Vanity (Is this you on this?) and intelligence (take this quiz)

John Piper's 3 most recent tweets:
1. Why God withholds (and shows) wrath: "I acted for the sake of my name that it should not be profaned" (Ezek 20:9; Ex 14:17f).
2. Born today 1615, Richard Baxter: "In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity."
3. Don't even try. "If one wished to contend with God, one could not answer him once in a thousand times" (Job 9:3).

Donald Miller's most recent tweet:
Watching Bill Gates on csnbc. Wish the pc was a superior computer because bill gates is a better human being than steve jobbs.

Question for you, Mr. Miller: Have you ever met either of these men? What makes one a "better human being" than the other? Since you're the judge, how do I stack up to these guys? You can probably find a youtube video with me in it somewhere, so take a look and get back to me. Thanks.

Dear President Obama,

Watch this video, and then explain to me why you're pro-choice. Then watch an ultrasound during an abortion and explain to me why you're still pro-choice. After watching a baby in the womb try to escape from the instrument of its death, this former Planned Parenthood clinic director quit her job and began speaking out against abortion. Perhaps you, Mr. President, ought to do the same.

ROOT BEER FUN!!

A few weeks back while on campus we ran into our friend, Lisa, who was drinking a brand of root beer I'd never heard of before. I know there's some kinds of pop with which I'm not familiar, but I didn't know there was a whole niche market devoted to manufacturing root beer. I've lived my life drinking Mug, A&W, Dad's, Barq's, and when I get really lucky, IBC. Lisa told me that there are a lot of root beers that are MUCH better than those I listed above, so we decided to hold a root beer party. Lisa shopped around for some lesser-known brands at specialty stores, and Elizabeth and I showed up today to partake of 8 different root beers.

The Lineup. (To the left of the bottles of root beer you can see the shot glasses we used to sample each different drink. I know it looks like the counter of an alcoholic, but I promise, it is ROOT beer.)

A couple of the brands were particularly nasty. The one Lisa is holding is a generic organic brand from a grocery chain. Until I'd tried some of these other, very good, kinds of root beer, I would have just considered it sort of "cheap" tasting. The one I'm holding is sweetened with agave nectar (rather than sugar or honey), and it's GROSS. It tastes really bad. I don't recommend it.

This is another picture of the eight contestants before we began trying them, and again, our shot glasses for sampling. We had a really good time trying out new kinds of root beer. A couple of them are FABULOUS. Better than I ever thought root beer could be (and it's my favorite kind of pop). After the tasting we watched Willy Wonka, because it has a scene involving fizzy lifting drinks... which are sort of like root beer.

That's too bad...

Many of you might not care, but the New York Yankees just won the World Series. That doesn't bother me. In fact, I was sort of rooting for them in this series.

What does bother me is that the designated hitter won the MVP award for the series (Hideki Matsui). Now, there's no doubt that Matsui's hitting was fantastic in the series, and I like the guy just fine. But I am, first of all, opposed to the very idea of the designated hitter, and because of that I don't like that the DH got the highest honor from the series.

If you want to argue with me, I'll totally hear you out. I just think baseball is one of those sports (like basketball) where the players who are in the game ought to play both offense and defense. I hate the idea that American League pitchers don't ever have to bat. That's HALF of the sport. And the DH doesn't ever have to field. That's the other half. Anyway... just wanted to share.

This Just In: Hate Crimes Legislation is Stupid

I hate Redskins fans. And guys who wear mullets. And annoying people who used to come into the store where I worked and say, do, or ask really stupid things. Fortunately, I can attack any of these groups of people without worrying about whether I'll be given a stiffer penalty, because none of those groups of people are mentioned in the hate crimes legislation that President Obama signed the other day. Lucky me! Of course, if I attacked a Redskins fan and then later found out he was gay (or had a mental disability, or was from Djibouti) then I'd be in big trouble, apparently.

My apologies to the parents of Matthew Shepherd, but the idea that we can legislate more severe penalties depending on what a criminal is thinking when he or she commits the crime couldn't be more ludicrous to me. The new hate crimes bill defines hate crimes as attacks which are "based on a person's race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or mental or physical disability." That's great, but doesn't that list seem a little arbitrary? Who decided where the list ends and how did they decide it? What about a person's personality? Or clothing? Or favorite sports team? And how do you enforce it? I mean, if I attack a Hindu because he's Hindu, can't I just say that I did it because he cut me off in traffic? What if "hate" as defined in this bill is one of five reasons someone gets attacked? "I killed that guy because he's obnoxious, he smells funny, he only wears two different shirts in any given week, he's smarter than me... and he's hispanic." Is that a hate crime or not? Can it be counted as 1/5th of a hate crime? Let's say Joe Schmo gets tied to a fence post, has bottles and rocks thrown at his head, gets stripped naked and left for dead. Two weeks later the same thing happens to my brother. Should the criminals in case #2 be punished less than those in case #1 because Joe Schmo is gay? And isn't crime #2 a hate crime too, because after all, my brother has a race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, AND gender identity (and maybe a mental disability... but HAHA, you don't know which brother I'm talking about!)?

If anyone is or would be willing to pretend to be a liberal, I'd appreciate hearing an argument in favor of such a ridiculous notion.