Prophetic Musings

I've got to agree with Steve on this. Most of those products don't really seem to be "Web 2.0" to me. I'm looking for something that looks, acts, and reacts like a desktop application would. Beyond that, it should do things that before now, would seem impossible to do inside an internet browser. YouTube, MySpace, WordPress, Flick, all those sites are merely an extention of what the web has always been about. The first things to pop up on the internet were chat rooms and bulletin boards. These are merely extensions of that initial idea. YouTube, Revver, and any other video or media file site are simply providing a community where media is shared. These have become popular primarily because before the recent past, most internet users didn't have the bandwidth to be able to consume sites like this. Personally, I think MySpace needs to be blown up. Most pages on there are impossible to decipher and have awful layouts.

Dharmesh Shah at OnStartups.com has an interesting view on the whole "Web 2.0" thing as well.  

Just read this in the Dallas Morning News that 7-Eleven is dropping Citgo brand gas. Good for them.

Just remember... 

 

(Thanks, Michelle) 

You have more than I could ever imagine. A huge bank account. Athletic ability. You play a game for a living. You must have all kinds of peace knowing that you'll never have to worry about money for the rest of your life, at least so long as you spend it wisely. However, I think I've got one thing that you haven't picked up on yet.

Spiritual peace.

This isn't an empty, "come to Jesus" comment. Seriously, it's from the heart. The only thing that will give you true peace is Jesus Christ. My financial house is in shambles (we're rennovating though, getting better) but my family is as near to perfect as I can imagine. I know that no matter what anyone does or says to me on this Earth, Jesus will always be there for me. I have peace knowing that it will all eventually work out.

You can have that peace too Terrell.

If you need someone to pray with, you let me know. I'm not interested in publicity. I don't even care that you play for the Cowboys. I know you're hurting. I don't the reason why, but I know the answer to it. Maybe I can't relate to your situation, but I can pray for you regardless. 

I heard about this from someone this last week and thought it was ridiculous. A "Christian" version of Linux? It's an operating system, therefore it has no religious affiliation. If you are wanting to trumpet the family-friendly features that are installed with it go right ahead, but call it a "Family" version of Linux. By assigning the Christian tag to it, you are further segmenting the Christian population from society as a whole.

Romans 12:2 says "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." This does not mean creating an entire subculture of only Christian stuff. How about instead of making Christian versions of secular things, we make things inspired by our own Christianity? Great things can be created if we focus on what God would have us do and not on what we can market to a secular world.

I'm going to point you over to something that Jason Janz wrote at Sharper Iron back in August. A quote from his piece:

We don’t need a “Christian” everything that creates a Christian subculture. We are not to cloister in safe communities, but rather to penetrate the culture with the light of the Gospel.

Let’s join the soccer leagues filled with unbelievers and share Christ. Let’s ride rafts with those who need a Christian witness. Let’s join book clubs and confront this culture enthralled with the theology of Dr. Phil.

I think that really boils it down well. How can we let a light shine if we hide it in our own little Christian group? I'm just as guilty of this as anyone else. Let's change the world from the inside out, not look for ways to make us more acceptable to the world.

 

Joe Carter over at the Evangelical Outpost has some good thoughts on what it means to be on the "religious right". My favorite is this one:

We must keep in mind that term “religious right” encompasses two spectrums. Because of our commitment to the faith, we will often find ourselves in agreement with the religious left. And because our conservatism is informed by our religion, we will find also find ourselves in disagreement with the secular right.

Our political alliances, therefore, will often be tenuous and shift based on particular issues. For example, at the Washington Briefing, Richard Land said that he’d vote for a Jewish pro-life politician who promised to raise his taxes before he’d vote a Christian pro-choice candidate who promised to cut them. The rousing applause he received would be as disturbing to most Republicans as it would to most Democrats.

Good stuff. I've got a couple more links from EO that I'm going to be posting in the next few days.  

 

I was reading this article about Jet Li in the Orlando Sentinel and this section jumped out at me.

Li has donated money to the Chinese Red Cross and has spoken to teenagers in his native country to encourage them to find honor in themselves. He has been horrified over the number of suicides in the country by young people, which in 2003 numbered about 280,000.

The actor says young Chinese have given up hope because "everything is too good. With a single child in the home, they are spoiled when they are little. The mother and the father give things to them. The economy is better and better. As teenagers, they don't know how to handle their lives. I want to tell them to be strong. Life is not easy. I wrote a special line in the film, 'I cannot choose when I am born, but with courage I go to the end.' "

280,000 suicides in one year?  According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (here) , there were 30,622 suicide deaths in the United States in 2001. The population in the US in 2000 was about 281,421,000 so that's roughly 1.1% of the population that dies due to suicide. China's population is roughly 1,306,313,812, making the percentage of suicide deaths about 2.1%. That doesn't seem like that much of a difference, but consider that it's still nine times higher than the US average. Also, this is only those suicides among "young people", which I'm guessing means up to 35 years old or so.

That got me to thinking, why is the rate that high? Is it as Jet Li said, that "everything is too good"? Or is it something more spiritual. I really don't know. That many people killing themselves has to have a simple root cause. Is there that little hope in China right now? It's really kind of disturbing.

Having grown up in south-central Kansas, I had always heard about the space camps that were held at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center (KSCS) though back in my day it was the Kansas Cosmosphere and Discovery Center. Anyway, I remember thinking that it would be pretty neat to be able to go to one of these things, but it was expensive and besides, I wanted to go to Kansas State for basketball camp which was much cheaper.

At KSCS they have the Future Astronaut Training Program which has four levels, the previous one being a prerequisite for the next. The prices range from $495 to $1500, depending on level. Yes, that's pretty high but for what they get out of it, if either of my kids want to do it and I can pay for it, I'll happily do it. The $1500 Level 4 camp includes a trip to Kennedy Space Center in the price, and that would be pretty neat for a high school age kid who is interested enough in space travel to go through all four camp levels. You have to be at least entering grade 7 in order to do the first camp, so it will be a few years before my kids are old enough to do it.

But what if I want to do something like this? I had heard of their Elderhostel program, but it's only for 55 and up. (Mom, Dad, you want to go?). I know because of my eyes that I'll never be able to fly in space, but then I read about this program.

The two-day training experience will include briefings by the Cosmosphere's education staff, a behind-the-scenes tour of the Hall of Space Museum and exciting training on the Cosmosphere's state-of-the-art simulators. Participants will perform stress tests in the Centrifuge, the Cosmosphere's g-force trainer and fly the T-38 Advanced Flight Simulator. You will direct a lunar rover mission much like the Mars Spirit and work in teams on the Robotic Challenge. The experience will culminate with a space shuttle mission aboard the Cosmosphere's motion-based shuttle simulator, the Falcon.

I simply must go. Honey, we need to make this happen. It costs $275 ($400 if you want two days hotel stay). We can visit Mom and Dad and they can watch the kids for a couple of nights, we'll have a couple days by ourselves, you can sleep at the hotel and I'll go play pilot and astronaut. Granted, it's not going to the beach, and there really isn't a terrible amount of things to do in central Kansas, but I think it's worth it. I have to lose more weight first though, because I don't want to see this body in the centrifuge. Yikes.

 

Well, look no further as your prayers have been answered.

(too funny)
 

I've updated my site with the latest version of the software I'm using. I think it looks pretty cool now. It will take you straight to this blog page now, which is really what I wanted all along. The photos and everything are still on line, if you look to the left you'll see a section title Navigation, then Photos right underneath that.

Big things are happening here. I'm having fun.

Australia's Prime Minister John Howard has a pretty good suggestion for the Muslims ofended by the Pope's statements this week.

Move on.

Honestly, I don't see how Australia has not been attacked in some way in the past few years, unless I'm forgetting something. I don't recall one hitting any Australian interests. Can someone tell me if I'm wrong?

(H/T Little Green Footballs)

***I'm bumping this back up to the top because I still want some replies. I've got one so far, and it was pretty good.***

I'm taking a class which is studying the distinctive characteristics of Christianity. I would like for everyone who reads this to answer a question for me.

In Christian theology, we are taught that God is our Father. This is unique among major world religions. Hinduism teachers an impersonal litany of gods, Buddhism denies a personal being, and Islam offers a god who is judge and creator. However, no other world religion uses the intimate term of Father, or speaks of God in these kind of terms.

My question to everyone is: What do you think about God as Father? Send me an email to clay at claywginn.com and let me know.

Jay Tea over at Wizbang has a good one going here. I'll link to the intro piece, which will have links to the subsequent ones. Unless Jay Tea doesn't update the intro, then I'll come back and link the others. Part II from today was especially good.

Check out his new video here. It's for a song off his new CD "Straight Out of Lynwood" called "White and Nerdy". What bugs me is that he is talking about me. Except for the Star Trek stuff, he pretty much describes me in this song. What does that say about me?

It's great stuff.

(As a Star Wars fan, there are two good references in the video. First, the Star Wars Kid, and second the Holiday Special. Both I can relate to, and both are difficult to watch.)

(No, I don't have a fanny pack. That's just stupid.)

I used to watch The Weather Channel (hereafter known as TWC because I don't want to type it all out) all the time. I would leave it on all night long if for nothing but the music. I'm a certified weather nut, but I can't stand the channel anymore. Why? Because they aren't catering to my particular niche any longer.

You see, when TWC first started back in the 80s, it was thought to be a crazy idea. "Nobody will just sit around and watch you talk about weather!" Well, in actuality, they did. This really caused TWC to catch on, because there were those of us who would sit around and do exactly that. The world is full of weather nuts, which would explain to explosive growth of weather sites on the internet.

However, TWC realized that advertisers wouldn't really pay for the eyes of weather nerds, so TWC began to develop their own shows. Things like First Outlook popped up, which were no big deal. They were basically giving a name to what they already did. Then came Storm Stories, Full Force Nature, and It Could Happen Tomorrow, all trying to get viewers based on the adrenaline pumping stories of storm chasers and reality video. Not so exciting for me.

I have to take a moment and say that while I enjoy Jim Cantore and what he does reporting the weather, I hate Storm Stories. Why? I don't know. It's another real-life adventures show that I have no interest in.

Now, the thing that really gets me is when there is a significant weather event going on somewhere in the US, but one of these shows are on, the show keeps playing. In the old days, this wasn't a factore because it was all weather, and these shows were on. That doesn't happen now.

This wouldn't bother a cable subscriber too much because they will still get warnings about their own area. However, for we satellite subscribers, it doesn't work that way. We get the national feed of the channel and not the local stuff. No Local on the 8s or anything like that. All national, all the time.

Now there is a new show starting up called Abrams & Bettes: Beyond the Forecast. I have less than zero interest in this one. However, it goes beyond what I've been saying about my dislike for TWC's shows. I've been a reader of their blog for a few months, and while I disagree with many of their global warming diatribes, there is sometimes good information on there. The last two weeks have been nothing but ads for the new show. I want information, not advertising. They've taken the last bit of good weather information I got from them and cluttered it with ads for their own stuff. I quit.

So, there you have it. I no longer watch TWC all the time. If a hurricane is coming, I'll probably turn it on because at least they know more than the average talking pile of clothes in television news. Even this gets tiresome though, because I don't understand the double standard of telling everyone to stay indoors or evacuate an area while standing on the beach lettting the wind blow you over, rain pounding you, all while holding an ELECTRONIC MICROPHONE.

The Anchoress writes this, and I only wish I could have put it in words as well as she does.

The world has more than amply demonstrated that it would like to see Islam put away its swords and get on with the business of simply living life - which is difficult enough without having to worry about jihad - and yet Islam will not comply. With Benedict’s words, the world is finally free to come out and ask, “Okay, short of our surrender and our conversions, what is it going to take to get you folks to settle down?”

That is the quintessential question of the age, for without the answer we will continue to ***-foot and dance around the whole issue of Islamic violence for another few decades. A clear question and a clear answer will finally and fully tell the West what it needs to know in order to either defend itself seriously, or simply capitulate.

Great stuff. Read it all. Also, the full text of the Pope's speech is here. It is really scholarly and a very good read as well.