Thursday May 25, 2006

Weird: Dignan has learned that Pat Robertson can leg press 2000 pounds. “On Robertson’s website, he is plugging his “Age-Defying” protein shake. And the best part is that his shake enables him to leg press 2,000 lbs!!!”

Humor: Joe Carter took on the blogosphere in a long, rambling, humorous post entitled “Royal Rumble in Godblogdom.” “Tim has read more books this year than are in the library at Bob Jones University.” I’m not sure if that is a compliment or an insult!

Humor Bonus: The folks at SermonSpice have done it again. Put down your Coke or coffee and take a look at Prosperity Praise.

Wednesday May 24, 2006

Technology: Apple and Nike have joined forces to make a shoe that will tell a runner how far and how fast he has run.

Theology: Steve Camp has posted part two of Lars Larson’s excellent article dealing with spiritual discernment.

Du Jour: Dan Phillips takes a look at an article in the Washington Post dealing with Bart Ehrman and realizes that his faith has been shattered. “To the media, there is only one kind of noble, admirable Christian fundamentalist: an ex-Christian-fundamentalist.”

Photography: Michael Wolf has an amazing collection of pictures from Hong Kong’s oldest public housing estate. It has 100 rooms, each 100 square feet.

Tuesday May 23, 2006

Blogspotting: Following our recent conversation here, Dr Mike, Carla Rolfe, and Phil Johnson have a few choice words for those who like to use a few choice words. Commenter joythruchrist points out why it’s not Pharisaic to say so. Her cat agrees.

News: Boy, 7, completes swim from Alcatraz. Asked what the hardest part was, he replied: “The swimming.”

Blogspotting Bonus: Jollyblogger also decided to chime in with a pretty good (and slightly angry) post. Something about throwing Mark Driscoll under a bus.

Science: BusinessWeek has an article discussing the myths and realities of Ethanol, which is touted as being the fuel of the future. The article does a good job of answering the basic questions.

Monday May 22, 2006

Weird: FoxNews has the story of a man who collected some 80,000 empty beer cans in his rented house over the course of 8 years. That means he drank 24 beers every day. Judging by the pictures, he was fond of Coors. The cans were returned and the deposits totalled $800.

Da Vinci: Steve Camp went to see the Da Vinci Code movie and wrote a small review. Not surpisingly, he thought it was awful. This is pretty well what most reviewers are saying—it’s just a bad movie.

Reviews: I recently updated Discerning Reader with many new reviews, including some written by the new editors. Take a look and get caught up!

Friday May 19, 2006

Award: Apparently I’ve been awarded something called a “Bologna Badge.” I can’t say I’ve ever heard of this particular award, but I’m sure it’s prestigious. More here.

Gospel: Ligon Duncan posted a roundup of quotes about the gospel that are sure to bless you. Here is a favorite: “When we preach Christ crucified, we have no reason to stammer, or stutter, or hesitate, or apologize; there is nothing in the gospel of which we have any cause to be ashamed.”

Women: Carolyn McCulley has an interesting article entitled “Sex Trafficking: A Death Sentence by AIDS.” “In some sections of India, girls as young as 12 are “married” to a Hindu god and forced into temple prostitution for at least the next 20 years.”

Theology: Steve Camp has uploaded a very good article (part 1) of a tw-part series written by Lars Larson and dealing with biblical discernment.

Thursday May 18, 2006

Technology: ESV Blog brings news of an ESV plugin for Microsoft Word. It uses “the ESV Web Service to insert a passage into a Word document.” Sounds useful enough…

A La Carte: This is the 200th edition of A La Carte (according to the statistics in Movabletype). That’s not half bad! This feature arose as an attempt to “give away” traffic to deserving (and sometimes just plain fun or just plain stupid) blogs and web sites. On the whole I think it has done well at just that.

Language: Now here is a link that will surely bore everyone who clicks on it. But my interest in linguistics makes it a little bit interesting to me. Some enterprising soul has collected a list of animal noises in a bunch of different languages.

In Memoriam: Al Mohler is one of several bloggers to remember Jaroslav Pelikan, the church historian who went to be with the Lord last weekend.

Wednesday May 17, 2006

Video: In case you missed Katie Couric’s interview with Joel Osteen on The Today Show (and you probably did), Keith has a link to it.

Film: “AgapePress” has a good article, written by Ed Vitagliano which reflects on the “End of the Spear” controversy. “Sadly, the result has been a blunted Spear, reducing the impact of the film, not only on many of the Christians who saw the movie, but also on those who refused to see it, and on unbelievers who observed the confusion.”

Audio: The panel discussions from the Together for the Gospel Conference are now available for purchase from the Sovereign Grace Store.

Humor: Did any of you attend the Together 4 Each Other Conference? One attender gives his post-conference report. Unfortunately, no one was invited to live-blog it. Maybe next year…

Tuesday May 16, 2006

Giveaway: Adrian Warnock is having a small giveaway for bloggers who would like to blog their way through the Together For the Gospel Statement.

Music: Kerry, a.k.a. BlackCalvinist, made a bootleg recording of one of the songs sung at the T4G Conference. He did not realize that he was not supposed to do this, but the organizers have generously allowed him to post it regardless. This is what it sounds like when 3000 men sing a hymn!

Video: Desiring God has put together a four-part interview with John Piper in which he discusses the upcoming Desiring God National Conference (which I will be, once again, live-blogging). Justin Taylor has the links. There is also a promotional trailer which you can view here.

Da Vinci: “Discover Magazine” has an article listing 20 things you didn’t know about Leonardo Da Vinci (it includes, unfortunately, one moderately vulgar pun). “An ambidextrous, paranoid dyslexic, Leonardo could draw forward with one hand while writing backward with the other, producing a mirror-image script that others found difficult to read.”

Monday May 15, 2006

Web: “Washington Post” has a list of the most-visited domains in February 2005 and 2006. Unfortunately they only list the first fifty as I’m pretty sure Challies Dot Com would be ranked 51st.

Web Bonus: “The Inquirer” has a list of the most dangerous search phrases. Typing any of these into a search engine, they say, is “the equivalent of lighting a blue touch paper and standing well back.”

Family: There is an interesting story in FoxNews about a girl who was kidnapped on Mother’s Day 30 years ago and was just discovered alive and well by police.

Da Vinci: You’re probably as sick of hearing about “Da Vinci” as I am. Still, the “Boston Globe” has an interesting article suggesting that the film will prove a win-win for the filmmakers and for Christians,. “In fact, debunking the book, especially in anticipation of the film, has become a sort of mini-industry in itself.”

Email: I thought I’d share an email that came in to my account through Discerning Reader. This had the subject “D.Martyn Lloyd-Jones.” “You and your new web page suck. I type in Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by D.Martyn Lloyd-Jones and get nothing even related. The old site was user friendly yours is not.” I was grateful for the encouragement. I hope the good doctor can teach this gentleman some grace.

Friday May 12, 2006

Politics: Justin Taylor had what I thought was a very good reflection on American Pessimism. “What used to be a moral sense that we had done something wrong now becomes conflated with compassion and is a sense that we should feel “guilty” and pessimistic if others are worse off than us.”

History: And while we’re on the topic of Justin Taylor, he has a helpful roundup of historical biographies given by Michael Haykin.

Video: Here is a really interesting (if you’re a geek like me) video of FedEx airplane arrivals at the Memphis hub while a thunderstorm rolls through the area.

Da Vinci: Jonathan Morris, who writes for FoxNews and has had some interesting comments on Dan Brown and all things Da Vinci, has posted some interesting quotes by Dan Brown. “We are unable to conceive of our hopes, dreams, memories, and spirits evaporating into thin air when we die, so therefore we say there must be an afterlife. We cant imagine it another way.”