The Peaceful Gnome

Now, that's some guitar playing!

Cal Thomas says it well: June 24th, 2008 12:44 PM Eastern Do They Think Jesus Was a Liar? By Cal Thomas Syndicated Columnist/FOX News Contributor I am shocked and appalled over a newly published survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life . It finds most Americans believe there are many ways to salvation besides their own faith. Most disturbing of all is the majority of self-identified evangelical Christians who believe this. Apparently they must think Jesus was a liar, or mistaken, when he said: “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but by me.” Look it up. Read the whole story here.

Don't these people watch SciFi? Autonomous, self fueling, war robots, brilliant. Not.

21% of "atheists" believe in God ... I really can't say anything more than that to make it funnier, it just boggles the mind. These are public school educated "atheists" no doubt ;-) Reading the whole article it really shows an appalling amount of ignorance about their own religions by the vast majority of Americans. It also shows the complete meaninglessness of assertions such as "We are Christian country!" or "In God we trust" when most people have no idea what a Christian is or who God is, and I'm not talking just denominational differences but about ignorance of what their own denomination teaches.

From Father Hollywood a commentary on marketing vs. the gospel: I just received a certain publication from a certain administrative subdivision of a certain Lutheran church body. On page 2 of this publication, the word Ablaze!(tm) is given great prominence - attested by the editorial standard that the word always begins with a capital "A", ends with an exclamation point, is set in an italic font, and is always in bold. This one page contains seventeen mentions of Ablaze!(tm) . So, how's Jesus faring these days? By contrast, our Blessed Lord, the King of the universe, the One who died on the cross for our sins, rose triumphantly from the dead, and lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit for all eternity was mentioned four times - sans exclamation point, and with no bolding. Ablaze!(tm) 17, Jesus 4. The rest of the post is here , and well worth reading too.

I saw this at Uneasy Priest and thought it would be fun. I'm providing Amazon or other links where possible because I know some of the music I listen to is, well, not all that well known, many have sample clips so you can check it out, cool huh?: IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE? Here's how it works: 1. Open your library (iTunes, Media Player, iPod, etc) 2. Put it on shuffle 3. Press play 4. For every question, type the song that's playing 5. When you go to a new question, press the next button 6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool... 7. Include commentary OPENING CREDITS: "Flight, for Robert Frost" by Michael Hoppe (from " The Poet, Romances for Cello ") Nice, quiet, peaceful and bit sad. Good for the into I guess. WAKING UP: "Madness" by Ravi Shankar (from Transmigration Macabre ) OK, well that is what came up, what can I say? ;-/ FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL: "Only a Lad" by Oingo Boingo (From Only a L...

I just got Kenneth Miller's book, Only a Theory in the mail from Amazon yesterday, I'm looking forward to reading it just as soon as I finish Exploring Consciousness, which I'm finding hard to put down.

Whoo Hoo! Yet another reason to do what I already do and want to do more! :-) And do take note, this does not work with girlie white whine! ;-P~~~~ Red Wine's Resveratrol May Help Battle Obesity ScienceDaily (Jun. 17, 2008) — Resveratrol, a compound present in grapes and red wine, reduces the number of fat cells and may one day be used to treat or prevent obesity, according to a new study. Read full story .

Serenity came down with a virus of some sort on Friday, the day after our big bike trip. She had been exposed to a neighbor child who had the same thing a few days before and probably the stress of a long bike ride and all that playing really tired her out which allowed her to get sick. Or, more to my liking, the eating McDonald's food just one time weakened her immune system :-) Heh, not really but it sounds good! She was very miserable, a fever that went up to 103 on Saturday began to decline on Sunday and we trust she will be fine by today or tomorrow. Because Serenity was sick we skipped the Pirate Festival in Vallejo :-( We had been looking forward to that but what can you do? Lora and I watched Canvas last night, a movie about a mentally ill mother and the impact her hospitalization had on her husband and young son. From one review I read in the NY Times I learned that the director and writer Joseph Greco's mother suffered from schizophrenia and this was a "lab...

So yesterday was Livermore park day and Jenny had set up a free day at the Valley Rock Climbing Gym for the Tri-Valley Explorers ! "What a cool idea!" I thought, and it was too. There was a great turn out and Serenity had a blast. Early in the day,when I mentioned to Serenity that it was park day and we were going to the rock climbing gym, she argued for the idea of riding from the house to Livermore on our bicycles. That is 8.5 miles, each way . I tried to convince her that it was too far to ride but she was adamant about the plan and I decided to let her find out how far 8.5 miles really is. :-) We took about 2 1/2 hours to get there, including a stop at McDonald's for lunch... Yeah I know, what happened to " Mr. Healthy Vegetarian Guy ?" He was hungry ;-/ Serenity made it just fine to the gym, then spent over 2 hours scrambling up the rock walls, both with a belaying rope and without. She went pretty high, maybe 20 or 25 feet up :-) She had a blast ...

...web sites that impose their music or video advertisements on me! (You know who you are.) Give me a break, if I wanted to hear your music I'd be playing it already. I often have background music playing on my computer via Pandora.com or SomaFM and to have some country western tune or the loud jangling jingle of an ad mingling with my jazz or ambient drone is too jarring for words. Please, if you want to offer your music on your web site have a mute button prominently displayed at the TOP of the page! Give me some way to escape your pathetic choice of tunes other than leaving the page, because that is just what I'm going to do if there is no obvious way to turn it off. We now return you to your regular morning rants...

A friend of mine sent me this in an email, my response to him is at the very end: -------------- Don't overlook the very last comment..... In Obama's own words . Below are a few lines from Obama's books . his words: Pay close attention to the last comment!! From Dreams From My Father (Published 1995): 'I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.' From Dreams From My Father: 'I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mothers race.' From Dreams From My Father: 'There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.' From Dreams From My Father: ; 'It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.' From Dreams From My Father: 'I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn...

A story from Science Daily about how red wine "...mimic[s] the effects of what is known as caloric restriction - diets with 20-30 percent fewer calories than a typical diet - that in numerous studies has been shown to extend lifespan and blunt the effects of aging." So, chow down and drink up! Psalm 104:14-16 (English Standard Version) 14 You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth 15 and wine to gladden the heart of man , oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart. 16 The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. Praise the Lord! :-)

Wow, I just noticed I've neglected my blog for a week! Where did I go? I didn't go anywhere at all. I just got lazy, or maybe nothing really earth shaking happened this week. Of course the fact that nothing much is going on hasn't stopped my from yacking on and on in the past :-) So, what went on this week? Serenity and I went for a nice long bike ride on Wednesday morning, and then in the evening Lora and Serenity and I rode the 3 miles to downtown Pleasanton for the 1st Wednesday street fair , that was fun. On Thursday I did laundry and went to church... that's about it. On Friday Serenity, Lora and me rode back to Main Street and had a huge breakfast at Dean's Cafe . And now it's Saturday again and I'm sitting here writing and listening to TWIS (This Week in Science). My plans for today involve much sloth and relaxation, maybe some reading with Serenity (Lora does math with her, we both do science.) Oh yeah, tonight we are going to Mt. Diablo ...