Just thought you should know. :-)

Slogan from an AT&T commercial I just saw (the context is an imagined future elementary school spelling bee that has been going on for 48 hours with no one eliminated):

Access to the Internet makes all of us smarter.

I love literal videos!



Disclaimer - I guess this will further solidify my reputation as the Edge-y Thinkling . . .

This video is somewhere between PG and PG-13, lyrics-wise. Just FYI.

For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a ninja. I’m out. I remain committed to martial arts as always but not to being “ninja” or to being part of ninja stuff. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile,disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years,... I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

Sometimes when I'm writing and get stuck, in order to get a mental break, I type something random in my google window just to see what I get back.

Just now I googled "I like broccoli". I don't know why. I just wanted to see if anyone actually wrote that. (Only 154,000 results.)

What about you? What's the weirdest thing you've ever typed into a search engine, and what kind of results did you get?

From the Espys:

A kid's interpretation of Herb Brooks' speech to the 1980 USA Olympic hockey team before their semifinal game with Russia (he's quoting from the movie Miracle) . . .

Masterful . . .

I love these things . . . this is the Opera Company of Philadelphia performing "Brindisi" from Verdi's La Traviata in the Reading Terminal Market, during their Italian Festival.



[H/T The Spyglass]

Well, no he didn't.

This is just a shameless plea to get someone to comment on something we post here.

Maybe somebody just needs to start a good argument. ;-)

About once every twenty five years I get the urge for some Rundgren.

[Hat tip: Andrew]

I got to thinking the other day; there are a number of skills and abilities that affluent westerners are losing, a little bit every day. They include:

- The ability to do math in one's head
- The ability to spell
- The ability to write in cursive
- Penmanship [if you were born after 1980 you probably don't even know what I'm referring to)
- The ability to wait
- The ability to remember phone numbers
- The ability to just stand there and smile for a picture
- The ability to ration out the pictures in a roll of 24, carefully choosing each shot
- The ability to sit quietly, with nothing to do, and just think. And to be OK with that
- The ability to drive a stick shift
- The ability to work on one's own car (with the way engines are designed today, it's nearly impossible)
- (for little kids) The ability to run around free all summer, playing outside with friends

Can you think of anything I've missed? If so, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.

This is funny, but as I watched it I reflected on how I wouldn't have understood this video a dozen years ago. Boy, do I get it now.

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

[H/T The Prodigal Thinkling]

I'm 99.9 percent sure Noah's ark has not been found. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, go here.)

For one, the "ark" was found by evangelicals. I'm an evangelical. I can tell you with certainty we don't have the experience or archaeological expertise to find the ark. No way. Potlucks? Yes, we can do that with precision. Indiana Jones-esque exploratory discovery? Forget about it.

For two, the carbon dating of the "ark" supposedly dates it at like 4,800 years old. Puh-lease! Like a real ark discovery would really buttress the whole Young Earth theory.

For three, Jack T. Chick would never allow it. The Pope and the Church of Satan are in cahoots to hide the whereabouts of Noah's wessel (pardon my Chekov accent), and if you don't believe it, just buy one of his tracts at your local Christian megastore.

For four, the "discoverers" claim they found a perfectly preserved 1611 King James Bible resting comfortably in Noah's sleeping quarters, thus proving that Jimmy's translation is God's perfect Word.

Ok, just kidding about that last one.

"And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree" - (Revelations 9:4) - As seen by me on an Earth Day T-Shirt.

"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." (Ecclesiastes 10:2) - Seen on a Tshirt at a website selling politically conservative stuff.

May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership. The text of Psalm 109:8 which appears on "Pray for Obama" Tshirts. That one was deliberate.

Then of course there is all those youth group shirts that use a Bible verse to parody some popular cultural trend...

And the over-used "Do not judge" that is quoted on on blogs on message boards anytime people start arguing about homosexuality.

I keep waiting to see an atheist Tshirt that says "There is no God" and cites: Deuteronomy 32:39, 2 Samuel 7:22, 1 Kings 8:23, 2 Kings 1:3, 2 Kings 1:6, 2 Kings 1:16, 2 Kings 5:15, 1 Chronicles 17:20, 2 Chronicles 6:14, Psalm 14:1, Psalm 53:1, Isaiah 44:6, Isaiah 45:5, Isaiah 45:21, 1 Corinthians 8:4! (And yes, all those verses do say "there is no God". I dare you to go check.

What are your favorite examples of out of context or otherwise misused Bible verses?

A nifty U2/John Mayer mashup.

On April 1, 1996, a full page ad appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News, and USA Today. It said: “In an effort to help the national debt, Taco Bell is pleased to announce that we have agreed to purchase the Liberty Bell, one of our country’s most historic treasures. It will now be called the “Taco Liberty Bell” and will still be accessible to the American public for viewing.”

This was an April Fool’s day joke and publicity stunt all in one. Later that day, the White House spokesman joined in. “We’ll be doing a series of these. Ford Motor Co. is joining today in an effort to refurbish the Lincoln Memorial. It will be the Lincoln Mercury Memorial,” he said.

The Top 100 April Fool's Pranks Of All Time

I know I'm a few days late, but in honor of one of the silliest holidays ever, I will list here a series of quotes about fools and foolishness. All of the quotes are real, no fooling.

“April 1 is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three-hundred and sixty-four” (Mark Twain).

“Wise men learn more from fools than fools from wise men” (Marcus Cato).

“The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes” (Winston Churchill).

“You can always tell a Texan, but not much” (Unknown).

“I bought some batteries, but they weren’t included” (Steven Wright).

“There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want” (Bill Watterson).

“He who winks maliciously causes grief, and a chattering fool comes to ruin” (Proverbs 10:10).

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1).

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline” (Proverbs 1:7).

“Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent” (Proverbs 17:28).

“It is not fitting for a fool to live in luxury” (Proverbs 19:10).

"Like an archer who wounds at random is he who hires a fool or any passer-by"(Proverbs 26:10).

"Like a thornbush in a drunkard's hand is a proverb in the mouth of a fool" (Proverbs 26:9) (Or on the blogpost of a Phil)

“Because your sins are so many and your hostility so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired man a maniac” (Hosea 9:7).

“Anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell” (Matthew 5:22).

“But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand” (Matthew 7:26).

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (I Corinthians 1:18).

“The wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight” (I Corinthians 3:18-19).

At our house, we are running a ministry to single socks. While doing laundry, we had 16 different mateless socks laid out.

Single people are important and useful to God. "It is good for a man not to marry" (I Cor. 7:1).

Single socks? Not so much. They need mates.

You can't make this stuff up. First Baptist Church, Fort Worth has a history better than fiction.

A new, long chapter in the church's history began when it called as pastor John Franklyn Norris, owner-editor of the Baptist Standard from 1907 to 1909. Norris accepted the pastorate in 1909 and remained at First Baptist for the rest of his life. The church lost at least 600 members in 1911 after a division, and the following year lost its building and pastor's home by fire. Though Norris was indicted for arson, he was acquitted after a month-long trial. During his long tenure, the church's personality became inseparably entwined with that of its pastor. It aligned with the prohibition movement, sponsored an interdenominational Bible school, and became the leader of the World's Christian Fundamentals Conference in 1919. That year the church built a 5,000-seat auditorium, and four years later it helped to form the Baptist Bible Union of America. Because of Norris's continued open criticism of the Southern Baptist Convention, his decision to discard SBC literature, his attacks on SBC schools (particularly Baylor University, which he charged with teaching "evolution and infidelity"), and his spirit of noncooperation, the Tarrant County Baptist Association withdrew fellowship from the church in 1922. The Baptist General Convention of Texas refused Norris a seat at the state convention in 1923 and permanently excluded him in 1924.

On July 18, 1926, Norris shot and killed a Fort Worth lumberman, Dexter Elliot Chipps, in the church office. He was charged with murder but was acquitted on a ruling of self-defense at his trial in Austin. Two years later the church and parsonage were burned again. By 1931 the church reported 12,000 members, with 6,000 attending Sunday school, and property valued at $1.5 million. Throughout the next two decades Norris and the First Baptist Church stood solidly against Modernism, Communism, liberalism, evolution, ecclesiasticism, and organized crime. The growing congregation gained notoriety for extreme independence, a controversial and pugilistic attitude, and a flare for sensationalism.

Discord and internal rivalry surfaced in 1945, when Norris's son George became pastor of a dissenting party that split from the First Baptist Church. Norris's health began to fail in 1948, and the Premillennium Fellowship fractured in May 1950, the same month Norris was dismissed by the church in Detroit.

Norris died on August 20, 1952, and the First Baptist Church called Homer Ritchie as pastor four days later. Ritchie served in that capacity until October 11, 1981, much of that time with his twin brother Omer serving as his co-pastor.

Did you get all that?
The pastor was acquitted of arson! Later he shot and killed a man in his church office. He was acquitted of murder on the grounds that it was self-defense. And two years later the church and parsonage burned again.

And here's my favorite part. Four days after he died, Homer Ritchie became pastor. Over the next 30 years, Homer and his brother Omer co-pastored the church. Homer and Omer. Man, even the Coen brothers couldn't make up stuff this good.

Of course the history on the church's official website doesn't mention any of that stuff. I guess I don't blame them.