I now own a 10GB iPod. Thank you family! :)

The rest of the world is laughing at us.
Well, at least the Brits are. It's all because of our schizophrenic way of handling Christmas. They get how ridiculous we look chasing any sign of religion out of the public life. Yes folks, this is American post-modernism at its finest.

I do not look good in a fedora. They were the baseball cap of the 1930's, everyone wore them. I do look okay in a bowler and a baseball cap.

That reminds me. Back in 1985 (or so) I had an optometrists appointment at an Air Force clinic with an active duty doctor. When I came in I had my hat in my hand. The doctor, sounding like Fred Rogers, said, "You may place your Air Force cap here." I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing at him. My "Air Force cap"?

European Abortion Battle
In 1991 a woman in France went in for pre-natal care. Her doctor confused her for a woman who was in to have a contraceptive coil removed. He pierced her amniotic sac and therefore she had to have an abortion. The doctor was found guilty of unintentional homicide. It was overturned on appeals. The woman is appealing to the EU high court.

What I find most fascinating about the article is that the defense is chiefly worried about what the ruling means for abortion and birth control, not what it means for the woman or her unborn child. The French courts determined that the fetus is not a human being and therefore the doctor cannot be guilty of homicide. If that gets overturned, then a fetus is a human being and has a right to life. It is just amazing that the primary concern in the debate is not over the welfare of an unborn child.

It is even more fascinating that France is opposed to the death penalty. They claim that a person guilty of murder has a right to life but an unborn child does not. The guilty get to live and the innocent are killed. What kind of logic is that?

Don't it figure. I just wrote an 8 page paper explaining the what I see as the weaknesses in amillennialism and briefly defending historic premillennialism to explain why I waffle between the two positions. I thought it had to be 10 pages so I was going to try to pull out one more example of a premillennial reign of Jesus when I double checked the syllabus. It is a 4-5 page paper. Great, now I have to chop it down, not puff it up. All that work falls to the cut command.

Here's something I have been wondering about. Militant Muslims who carry out acts of terror often kill Muslims in the process. Why would the Muslim community of the world (militant or otherwise) tolerate that? The insurgents in Iraq are killing American service men and women, but they are also killing Iraqis who help them. Aren't they implicitly saying that those Iraqis are not Muslims? They're even attacking mosques. The examples of this could be multiplied.

Now in Indonesia the radicals are actually thinking about this. An interesting phrase in the article is "Some militants...want their jihad, or holy war, to focus on fighting Christians in certain regions of Indonesia rather than bombing Western targets where Muslims die, too". What you have to remember, though, is that for many Muslims (especially outside the US) to be an American is to be a Christian. Still, the intention is chilling.

So my son got a MacWireless USB kit for his iMac (rev b) and I have an Airport card for my iBook. We now have a wireless network in our house. Too cool. As a matter of fact I'm on the internet via the network right now. We're streaming iTunes to each other. Next we're going to work on some networked games.

Holding the stars accountable
It is about time someone got around to doing this!

"I think that g@y marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman," Arnold Schwarzenegger.