Liveblogging 24 again this week. I'll keep it up as long as strength and interest remains, although many people are leaving this show due to its implausible and redonkulous plot-lines. As I've always said, when you've lost Jen, you've lost America.

****** Major spoilers below the fold ******
Read the rest of this entry . . .

I know this event is old news now, but something happened there that deserved some reporting, I think...Did anyone else hear anything about this? In his hour-long discussion with Republicans Obama said:

The last thing I will say, though -- let me say this about health care and the health care debate, because I think it also bears on a whole lot of other issues. If you look at the package that we've presented -- and there's some stray cats and dogs that got in there that we were eliminating, we were in the process of eliminating. For example, we said from the start that it was going to be important for us to be consistent in saying to people if you can have your -- if you want to keep the health insurance you got, you can keep it, that you're not going to have anybody getting in between you and your doctor in your decision making. And I think that some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge. [emphasis added]

Tom Bevan at Real Clear Politics (owned by Time Magazine) said:

If we take this statement at face value, President Obama is admitting the the health care bills passed by either the House or Senate (or both) contained provisions which were "snuck in" - presumably by Democratic members and perhaps on behalf of certain lobbyists - that would have in fact prevented people from keeping their current insurance and/or choosing the doctor they want.

This was one of the core debates on health care throughout last year: Would President Obama and the Democrats' legislation allow government to come between citizens and their choice of doctors and insurers? Obama promised it wouldn't. Republicans said it would, and this was one of the aspects of the legislation that led them to characterize it as a government takeover of health care - the same characterization that Obama chastized the GOP for today.

So it's a bit of shock to find out now - from the President himself, no less - that one or both of the bills that passed Congress late last year (the House passed its version in late November, the Senate on Christmas Eve Day) contained language that would have violated this pledge.

What do you think? Bevan's post title was "Obama's Stunning Admission", I took out the middle word for my post title because I really wasn't all that shocked...well, maybe I was surprised he admitted it. :-)

Ask me if I care.

Well, I guess you don't have to ask now, since that was just an expression.

Pre-game show is on, and there was just some big to-do about "The Who" having done everything in 40 years of music...except this. And oh, what a challenge it was condensing 40 years of music into 12 minutes... blah, blah, blah.

Then I heard the CSI theme song and decided that will probably be the most well-known song.

Comments and thoughts on the half-time show, go here...

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him.

- John 6:66-71 (emphasis mine)

This is an addendum to my previous post.

This passage captures one of the several times when Peter just absolutely nailed it. Seriously . . . grand slam home run for Peter.

I didn't catch this until I was studying it tonight . . . and I could be wrong. But do you sense a smile on Jesus lips when he says "Did I not choose you, the Twelve?" The smile disappears in the next sentence, but I can picture Jesus, tired at the end of a trying day, and after having been deserted by many of his disciples. He asks the Twelve "Do you want to go away as well?"

Peter answers: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life . . ." I can almost see, and I think it's implied, some solemn, determined nods of affirmation for these words from the other eleven too.

I wonder if Jesus' heart wasn't warmed and encouraged by that? His disciples could be frustrating, thick, faithless, and foolish. They fought with each other about who was the greatest. They tried to give Jesus advice, and it was almost always bad advice. They had trouble seeing the big picture.

But on this most important question, they got it. And the Lord, who had chosen them regardless of (and, I think, in spite of) their lack of qualifications, knew that in his divine wisdom, he had chosen well.

I think that he smiled upon them at that moment, as their friend, leader, teacher and Lord, with the pride that most parents know well.

"Did I not choose you?"

I'm teaching a series on the seven I Am statements of Jesus in the book of John in our College and Young Singles class. Last week was introductory, concentrating on the "I Am that I Am" from Exodus and the glorious "Before Abraham was, I am" in John 8:58. Tomorrow's lesson is from John 6, where Jesus declares himself to be the Bread of Life.

Early in the chapter, Jesus feeds the five thousand. And from that point on, the crowd is only focused on one thing, all the way to near the end of the chapter when Jesus purposefully loses the crowds with this declaration: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

What were they focused on until that time? Well, pretty much just bread. They couldn't get their minds off of it. This man, this Prophet, had fed them. Just have a listen . . .

. . . so they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” (And he's got BREAD!)

. . . perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king . . . (And just maybe I can swing a job in the Royal Bread Distribution Task-force.)

Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. (Because maybe he will give us some more bread!)

Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? . . . as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.' (so, hint hint . . . can you turn the bread spigot on again?)

They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” (and by "this", we mean like you did before. This time, can you give us some nice sourdough, or maybe some Pita, rather than the barley we had last time?)

As you read the chapter, Jesus continues to try to point them higher. “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” In other words, the bread you want from me doesn't last. It will only feed you for a day. I can give you bread that lasts forever. In fact, I am the bread that came down from heaven. I am the bread of life; partake of me, and you'll never be hungry again!

We've had recent conversations in this space regarding whether Jesus makes life better. I believe that following Christ always makes life better (note: if you disagree with that, please consider that it might be semantics. Most likely I agree with you . . .), even though circumstantially following Christ can - and probably should - make life in this world more difficult. I also think that immersing oneself in Jesus, in his word and wisdom, often can lead even to temporal "better" in this life, though that's not an ironclad guarantee.

We are indeed fed from the Lord's hand, generously.

I'm going to write more about that in a later post that's been percolatin'. But at this point I just wanted to say this . . .

Choosing temporary "better" over eternal BEST is crazy. Read John chapter 6. You can sense Jesus' frustration with the crowds. The bread was a gift, but only a temporary one, meant to point them to the real Gift, the real Bread, Himself. Yet when he finally got through to them with the answer to what they really needed, to partake of, to eat the real Bread of Life which was sent to heaven, in the person of Jesus whose body was to be broken for them . . . well, that was a bit too much.

I don't know about you, but I know that I am so often satisfied with the little, temporal "betters" of this life, the gifts from the Lord's generous hand. Just don't ask me to jump in too deep Lord. Shame on me.

Jesus offers us eternal glory with him. To choose or value a temporary better over and above that is whacked.

All right, tell us:

Who do you want to win?

Who do you think will win, if different?

This post is probably for nobody but myself (and maybe nhe), but I have some thoughts on the current season of "Big Love," which is a brilliant work of televised art . . .
Read the rest of this entry . . .

This is just an inquisitive observation, but I wonder if we haven't traded a listener for a talker between our last and current presidents.

All politics aside, with no reference to who's "right" or "wrong" or what-have-you, I think George W. Bush was never better than when he was on the ground in Mississippi, Louisiana, Ground Zero in New York, listening and hugging and consoling. Genuinely. The guy was a real people person. But he was never worse than when he had to speak, especially when he had to speak extemporaneously. He just sounded too often like a dum-dum. (Which is not the same thing as being a dum-dum.)

On the other hand, President Obama is a fine and dandy speech giver (usually; I think he's somewhat overrated), never better than when he's talking, which he does a lot. But he is, in my estimation, practically tone deaf to the American people. He might care a great deal about us average schmucks, but he doesn't seem like he does (which, again, is not the same thing as not caring).

Did we trade a listener for a talker?

No liveblog tonight (because, are you kidding me? It's TWO HOURS. My fingers would fall off). Plus we have friends from the College and Young Singles over to watch, and I wouldn't be much fun hunched over a laptop the whole time.

But feel free to leave your thoughts, theories, and impressions in the comments.

LOST IS BACK!!!

***** Expect Major Spoilers in the Comments Thread *****

First of all, the phrase “forgive and forget” is not in the Bible. (And I couldn't find the phrase "sea of forgetfulness" either.) However, the Bible makes it quite clear that we should forgive others. “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13).

The Bible speaks of forgiveness in terms of removing the barrier that sin creates so that a relationship can be restored. Another way to define forgiveness is treating someone as though they never wronged you. That may be easy to understand, but it’s hard to do.

God is our model. There are many different images that the Bible uses to describe God’s forgiveness. Sometimes the Bible speaks of sin being sent far away. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:12). Other times, the Bible speaks of our sins being covered up or blotted out (Psalm 51:9). Sometimes forgiveness is pictured as a process of washing and cleansing (Psalm 51:7). Sin is also pictured as a debt or penalty, so forgiveness is when that debt is paid for or canceled. “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12).

When God forgives, it means that he doesn’t hold our sins against us anymore. “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19). “No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,’ declares the LORD. ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more’” (Jeremiah 31:34). The reason for all this is so that we might be reconciled in our relationship with God. Likewise, God wants us to be reconciled to other people. The Bible also makes it clear that we should forgive others as God has forgiven us. So what about forgetting?

Though we humans forget things, it is impossible to willfully forget something. The more you think about forgetting it, the more you will remember it! But it is possible to not hold it against someone anymore. This is why the Bible says, “Love keeps no record of wrongs” (I Corinthians 13:5). To forgive means that we act as though it is forgotten. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32).

The Bible never tells us to literally forget sin. God can't literally "forget" either or he would cease to be omniscient. God still knows what happened, but he “forgets” our sin in the sense that he treats us as though the event never occurred. Is that how you and I forgive others?

The events of the following semi-live-blog take place in semi-real-time . . .



********* Spoilers below the fold **********
Read the rest of this entry . . .

A highly scientific analysis of the Thinklings' Moot-ichlorian counts:

thinklings moot-ichlorian counts:

rod: 35,000

bird: 28,000 with tolkeinian pipe (20,000 without)

bill: 21,500

shrode: 19,000

blo: approx. 18,500 (never around long enough to calculate)

I came in third, which is pretty respectable (ignore the fact that Shrode, who is a capital fellow by all accounts, has never been to Moot and this "blo" Stroke refers to is not a real person).

But this seems right. Rod is the Hub of the Thinklings Wheel and we all pretty much spend our time in awe of him anyway (and hope he posts again soon). And Bird is the bees knees, pipe or not. I can't imagine a Moot without Bird's running, hilarious commentary.

Here are a few of my photos from World Mandate:

Saw this over at Jared's blog:

Please continue to pray for Michael Spencer. If you are able, I know he and his wife would appreciate your donation (click on the PayPal Donate link at his site). He has lost his job now, having exceeded approved FMLA leave, and it's not like he was bankin' anyway. His medical bills will be killer.

Michael (the iMonk) has cancer. here's an update on his site.

Update: As many of you know, David Wayne is also suffering. As is Matt Chandler (H/T again, Jared). Prayers appreciated.

Just give me one of these.

Disclaimer: this is not a political post. It is just the lament of a bona-fide Apollo moon mission geek and all-around space-exploration nerd.

Planned NASA missions to the moon dropped from U.S. Budget

[The president's] 2011 budget, to be submitted to Congress on Monday, will propose abandoning a program to return US astronauts to the Moon, two Florida newspapers said.

Citing administration and NASA officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the reports said the White House would call on the space agency to focus on other programs, including the development of commercial services to ferry US astronauts to the International Space Station.

Florida Today and the Orlando Sentinel, two papers based in the area around the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, said [the president] would seek to boost NASA's budget by six billion dollars over five years, despite a pledge to freeze most discretionary spending.

But the boost will fall far short of the money NASA needs to finance the Constellation program launched in 2004 by [the former president] after the space shuttle Columbia crash in 2003 effectively brought the shuttle program to a close.

I know, I know. We're in a financial crisis. There are bigger fish to fry. We can't be blowing money to visit a lifeless rock 250,000 miles from us.

But I still grieve. The moon missions of the late 1960s enchant me. The Apollo program was perhaps the greatest feat of human engineering and exploration in history.

It's enlightening to note that the views of the future presented in movies of the late sixties (such as 1968's 2001 A Space Odyssey) were not whimsical. People then just assumed that, of course, we would be visiting the outer planets in person by the beginning of the next millennium. Instead, we've been stuck in low earth orbit since Apollo 17 lifted off from the moon in late 1972.

I was really looking forward to going back to the moon. At this point, I'm betting we don't go back in my lifetime, if ever. And I think that's a loss for our country.

Most people I know are losing their minds over the iPad already. Gotta have something that didn't even exist ten minutes ago.

I haven't checked into the iPad much yet, but my guess is that my take would be a lot like Challies: iPad: The Greatest Disappointment in Human History

Yesterday I sat and watched liveblog coverage of the long-awaited announcement from Apple. To no one’s great surprise, they unveiled their newest device, the iPad. While everyone knew this tablet device was coming, everyone had wondered exactly what it would be. Apple has high standards when it comes to devices like this one and I, for one, was prepared to be amazed. Alas, I was disappointed. iDisappointed, even. I’m ready to declare that the iPad is the greatest disappointment in all of human history (at least since The Phantom Menace).

[Hat Tip: The Fantabulous BIF]

I have used the following definition for GRACE for years.

Unmerited favor.

I use it often in sermons, when I write, when I teach. I use it all the time. I recently received the constructive criticism that this definition is inaccessible to the average hearer, and certainly to an unchurched person. At first I disagreed. The more I look at it, that may be true.

What do you think?

What would suggest as a good non-scholarly-sounding, easy-to-understand, brief definition of the Biblical concept of grace?

I really want to know. Tell me under comments.

In a word: Wow.

(Side note: to those of you who have been putting it off, stop. Read the books. Or better yet, rent them on audio from your local library. Listening to Robert Dale perform these books has got to be the best way to experience them. Better than just reading them, and better than the movies. The Dude is amazing. Plus it's a timesaver because you can listen in your car.)

This book is ... I'm at a loss for words. If I call it a masterpiece, those of you who haven't read it will think I'm exagerating. Let's just say that it is up there among the finest of Children's literature...though this book really isn't for elementary age children.

These books really do keep getting better and better. The end of this one was like reading the end of "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. The whole thing is at school kid-stuff, even while the seriousness of the adult world is looming, it's still "out there", in the sense that it's not really in the realm of serious worry. And then you get to the end, and the hero (and the reader) finds out that what's been going on in school was the real world. And it's serious. And wham-o! It's life or death.

Whereas "Prisoner of Azkaban" lays the groundwork, this is where it turns really serious. The endings of books 3 and 4 are both amazing pieces of adrenaline rushes. It's like finally coming to the end of a roller coaster ride, only to find that the final screaming descent doesn't stop...It just keeps going. The endings of these two books just pulled me along.

A few thoughts:

Yaaaay. Finally, one of the books starts somewhere other than the Dursleys. I also liked that there is lots of story before we ever get to Hogwarts. The Quidditch World Cup...

The rift between Harry and Ron was a great addition to the story. Realistic. I began to root for them to reconcile, but was actually surprised (but relieved) that it happened as soon as it did. The scene where they reconcile is brilliant.

Ron is hilarious. "Percy wouldn't recognize a joke if it danced in front of him naked...wearing a house-elf's tea towel." I haven't said much about Ron, yet, but he is a brilliant character. His wisecracks are awesome. Each character in these books has real personality. ("House Elf Liberation Front!")

The Christmas Ball was hilarious. What a great picture of "the middle school dance". Neither Harry or Ron's dates really like them, and end up wandering off. Rowling does a great job of showing that at that age, girls are better at that romantic stuff than boys. She also does a great job of portraying how awkward and uncomfortable and stressful such things like who's taking whom to the dance is to young adolescents. Though it is set in the fantastical wizarding world, it was still so real. This is always a good mark of good sci-fi/fantasy.

Rowling is a great mystery writer too. Every thread every detail of the story ends up being important. When the big reveals come at the end, it turns out that everything that happened in the first chapters had a reason. How a writer has the end so well worked out even in the beginning, I'll never fully understand.

One quibble: if Voldemort's inside man had just turned Harry's Broomstick into a port key in the beginning, half the book wouldn't even have been necessary. ;-)

Please put your discussion and thoughts about book 4 under comments. I want to hear from you! But I haven't read books 5, 6, 7 yet, so no spoilers please!

Finally, someone understood that.

Two News Teams dug out a little girl in Haiti.

He is the only Australian TV cameraman ever to win the Gold Walkley for journalism but when Richard Moran heard the soft, desperate cry of a baby girl beneath the rubble in Haiti, he put down his camera and started to dig.

"He was up to his waist, lifting out pieces of concrete," says Nine Network reporter Robert Penfold, who was with him.

"And then, out of the ruins came this little girl, and I will never forget it. She did not cry. She looked astonished, almost as if she was seeing the world for the first time".

Confusing local viewers, however, was that both Nine and its rival, Seven, were saying they helped bring the little girl out, and the footage seen around the world was indeed of Seven's Mike Amor, standing above the hole in the ground.

He reaches forward to take the dusty little girl, pours water over her head to clear away dust, and then gives her something to drink.

Nine doesn't have that footage, and its team was yesterday feeling a bit of the kick in the guts that good journalists get when rivals have exclusive footage of something so marvellous but, as Amor himself said: "That moment, it was beyond news.

"The focus of everybody on that hill was the little girl, and as any of us will tell you, it was Deiby who went into that hole, and dug, and dug, until he got that little girl out. He's the hero."

Deiby Celestino is the Nine Network's fixer (interpreter, and sometime security guy).

He had gone "up the hill" (meaning, to an area outside Port-au-Prince, where many homes were destroyed) with the Nine team, because Save the Children promised to make an Australian aid worker available for interviews. Seven was there, too. While they were waiting, locals told them they could hear a baby crying under the rubble. "We walked perhaps 3m across this hillside of completely collapsed homes," says Penfold. "We had to walk over sheets of tin, and then climb up over concrete, and then jump down, on to another slab of concrete, to where four men were standing, pointing, and you could hear crying, from somewhere underneath."

Moran, who won the highest award for journalism, the Gold Walkley, in 2003 for his coverage of the Canberra bushfires, put his camera with a microphone attached into a cavity, and Penfold said: "It was gut-wrenching. "There were slabs of concrete all around, and we couldn't see what we could do, and at the same time, we couldn't walk away."

He said Deiby, "who is this short, wiry, muscly guy", said "I think I can get in there" and down he went. Mr Celestino told The Australian: "I could hear her . . . I had to keep going." He called out in Creole "Come to me?" and then, out of the darkness, the 18-month-old's face emerged.

Of seeing the toddler emerge from the rubble, Amor said: "I haven't seen anything so remarkable since the birth of my own child. "The emotion for all of us has been incredible."

If I understood correctly, two rival newsteams teamed up momentarily to help rescue this girl. But only one got footage, the other cared more about the girl.

When it says that the camera was put into a cavity, does that mean they pointed it so they could see down there where the girl was, not for the purpose of getting news footage, but for the purpose of trying to rescue the girl? That's how I understood it. Channel Nine used its camera to find the girl, and Channel Seven used its camera to capture the whole event while men from both teams helped to rescue her. Am I understanding the event correctly?