Mr. Mischief Returns

(Apparently Trey wanted to freshen up his feet with baby powder.)

He found my mascara - most of the bottle was in his hair.

What a Little Bird

I found The Mincing Mockingbird on Etsy awhile ago, and have really been wanting an excuse to buy some of her magnets. They are hilarious! 

Her descriptions alone make me laugh - not to mention the expressions of the birds. Love it!

Sisters, sisters

Don't be mad at me, Em, but I had to show off your goods!!

Doesn't her display look cute?

Chase kept getting in the mix.... lucky he's so cute.

An Ancient Rivalry

Em and Luke came to visit this past weekend, and we had such a good time with them. (Thanks for coming, guys!) Em and I had an open house together, and she had her cards and prints out - they looked fantastic!

They brought their new Devon Rex kitty with them, and we tried to introduce Chase to Rinkle. I'm not sure how it would have gone if we would have just let them go all weekend (Rinkle spent some time in the garage), but we tried to put them together twice, and there was LOTS of hissing!

And hiding.

(P.S. Don't judge me for the thick layer of dust under the bookcase.) 

Illusion of Neutrality or a Glorious Hypocrisy

I read about Pleasant Grove City, UT v. Summum case a couple of weeks ago in World magazine and heard about it again on NPR the other day. I think cases like this are interesting because it brings out underlying presuppositions that aren't usually talked (or even thought) about. The shallowness of American theology rears it's ugly head here. We pretend that we think all religions are created equal, and that anyone who thinks one religion is superior to another is both arrogant and ignorant (i.e. ignorant of the "fact" that it's impossible to know anything about God). Then something like the “Seven Aphorisms of Summum” shows up and wants to join the party.

If the city says that the 10 C's monument reflects the views of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the Summum folks can say that their group should be able to have their monument put up. If they say that the 10 C's monument (after donation) reflects the city governments views, then there's (supposedly) a violation of church and state. I'm sure the arguments are going to get more nuanced than this, but it may end up coming down to something like: "the 10 C's, unlike the Seven Aphorisms, are interwoven in the foundation of Western Civilization" or "The Fraternal Order of Eagles has longstanding ties to the community" (which I think was the original argument).

The problem is, even though this case is going to the highest court of the land to be scrutinized by our finest legal minds and ought to bring about deep, probing insights into religious epistemology, what we're probably going to get is legal technicalities which obscure the real issue: Cities should be able to reject monuments like the Seven Aphorisms of Summum because they are heretical, hurtful, and false.

It's either an illusion of neutrality that's going to ultimately end up hurting us as our public religious sphere gets more and more absurd, or a glorious hypocrisy which allows us to have a civil, productive society despite fundamental religious diversity.

I'm sure Nate and Andy will tell me that I'm just an ignorant layperson.

Screamy T Welcome

Screamy T's Training Techniques

Tree Huggin'

I don't consider myself a radical environmentalist. I did a 6th grade report on the dangers the spotted owl faces, I recycle, and I compost. I understand the importance of good stewardship of our environment, but I have no intention of making it some sort of religion like most college-educated white people. Still, when I witnessed the amount of packing that Borders used to send us two 6-packs of Mister Men books, I couldn't help but feel a little guilty. Check it out:

(By my rough estimate, that's about 60 square feet of packing paper)

What a waste. I'm glad some companies are doing something about it. I don't care if it's just a marketing ploy. That's one of the nice things about capitalism i.e., if values change (in this case customers hating the wasteful, bulky packaging) people that want to make money change their policies.

Thank You, Onion

The last 30 seconds of this video are hilarious. Yes we can!


Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Tackle

Jay is teaching Trey how to play football.... I don't know much about football (sorry, Mom) , but I think he needs to work a little more on defense.

No.. no... no... NOOOOOO!!!!

Political depression has set in. We're about to elect the most leftist, pro-abortion candidate to ever hold the office of the presidency (and evangelical Christians are actually voting for him). I've had 2 Smithwicks (sorry, K-Bam) - they didn't help. I'm about to have a vanilla milkshake which I don't think is going to help. We read Romans 8 after dinner, that actually did help.

Anyhow, the current situation, coupled with many recent half-jokes about moving to Dubai made me think of this article from LarkNews: In face of declining U.S. morality, Christians emigrate to Muslim countries. Genius.

Halloween/Reformation Day fun

We've been really getting some good use out of the scrubs from Aunt Katie & Uncle Andy! Trey got the hang of Trick-or-Treating ("tiioteee") after a few houses, and had a great time. We went to visit some friends and neighbors, which was the best part!

Trey and "Lala":

Max, Jack, and Trey - don't you love the elephant costumes?


And the best part....

Now I Know How Michelle Obama Felt

Keeping up the trend of posting when I buy new things...

Michelle Obama drew headlines a while back when she said that "for 'the first time' in her adult life, 'she was proud of America.'" Well, now I think I know the sentiment.

We got our new ESV Study Bible in the mail a few days ago. It's basically the normal English Standard Version, but with TONS of footnotes, maps, cross-references, artistic renderings of buildings and cities, short articles on historical backgrounds, etc. It's jam-packed. It would be wrong of me to say there isn't anything evangelical I'm grateful for, but it has to be admitted that sites like purgatorio and LarkNews wouldn't exist if there wasn't buckets of tripe, shysters, canoodlers, and miscreants in the mix.

I'm excited about this too:

Hitchens/Wilson sneak peak from LEVEL4 on Vimeo.

UPDATE: My wife had no idea what the above video was in reference to. Douglas Wilson (Christian pastor and general skylarker) and Christopher Hitchens (latest atheist with a British accent) did an on-line debate hosted by Christianity Today called Is Christianity Good for the World? They ended up writing a book together (not sure if it's just the debate republished or not). To promote the book, they did a number of appearances together over the past week or so. It sounds like they got along really well. This post is in reference to the video.

The Saggy Cowboy

And his faithful dog.

Sippy cup

Who knew the top of a sippy cup could be so hysterical? Boys....

Freebie

I just found this coupon for a free tall latte, cappuccino, espresso, coffee, or tea at Barnes & Noble!

And they say you can't get somethin' for nothin'.

Sunday afternoon

It was cooooold at the park!



Jay is teaching Trey how to play tackle football... great idea, eh?


A great way to end Sunday afternoon...

A little help???

Yes, this is our child stuck in a beer box and eating a cold hot dog for dinner. How did YOU get some time to relax this weekend?

*For you cynics out there, he sat in that box on his own accord. I promise.

This one. NO! THIS one!

Do you like how Jay and I keep fighting over the look of this blog? Every time I get on it looks different. This blue-ness is Jay's. Too much color! Maybe we should have a vote. But I win.

Say What?

It's sentences like this from this weeks JAMA that keep me from reading as much primary medical literature as I ought:

The minimum OR detectable with 80% power in a 2-sided test with an level of .05 was 1.48 for a rare binary covariate of prevalence 1% and reached a minimum of 1.08 for an exposure of prevalence 50%.

Thanks, guys, that's helpful. This is why I stick to a handful of resources and pray to God that they don't sell out (or haven't already sold out) to the man.