And now . . . this – Apr. 30/05

Have you got anything a little less froggy?

Peruvian officials saved some 4,000 endangered frogs from being whizzed into popular drinks after they were found hidden in an abattoir.

[Full Story]

This is just wrong on so many levels. First of all, that’s not what frogs are for.

Truly painful

The convoluted rhetoric that open theists will use to deny the omniscience of God is staggering.

Head over to the Fightin’ Fundamentalist Forum and check out the ravings of poster “oh_once,” particularly his interactions with this thread and this one.

His particular flavour of Socinianism seems poorly thought out, contradictory, and confusing in its use of terminology. And tell me it isn’t excruciating to watch him turn into a human pretzel saying things like:

No one who can anticipate everything could possibly be ‘caught off guard’. Obviously, it is possible that the outcome would be different than EXPECTED or DESIRED if free agents make free choices. God says several times that things did not turn out the way He expected.

or

Again, no one is challenging the fact that God knows everything. The question is whether events that have not yet happened are part of that everything.

Oh_once is an open theist for one reason: He is a knee-jerk contrarian against those who love God’s total sovereignty. People who are presuppositionally committed to an unbiblical view of human autonomy are often the first to spew incomprehensible, pseudo-philosophical bibble-babble in the hopes of dealing the truth the death of a thousand qualifications. Unfortunately such persons are a dime a dozen on the FFF and elsewhere.

Friday in the wild – Apr. 29, 2005

This week, Rebecca writes about, of all things, classic gas station design:

Even if you think you know no architects, you’ve still probably heard of this one. If you are up on architectural things, you may look at the photo of Bena’s station and think it looks a bit like something designed by a certain famous 20th century architect, but you’ve read in all the books that the only gas station he ever designed is the one pictured on the right. Ignore the experts and go with your gut.

[Read Who Designed It?]

After a hiatus, Joe Carter has started posting in his “Know Your Evangelicals” series again. Number 30 covers the late Stanley Grenz, probably the theologian with the most influence on the “Emergent Church” movement. I have his Primer on Postmodernism and found it most helpful in trying to make sense of this philosophical phenomenon.

His blog is only a week out of drydock, but The Howling Coyote gets off a good one with this post on the immutability of God:

I think this is an important aspect of God which would be easy to miss if all we considered were his immutability and eternalness. God is a personal God. He interacts with his creation.

When men sin, God reacts in anger.

When men sin, God responds in judgment.

When men repent, God gives mercy.

When men pray God hears and answers prayer.

More than just that, God invites men to come, invites them to pray, makes conditional promises to them. If they meet a condition, he will respond to that.

But none of God’s interaction with his creatures in time contradicts the fact that God knows all and has purposed and permitted all according to his eternal decrees.

[Read Does God Repent?]

Thanks to my little April Fool’s gag (see here and here), as of this week I’m actually the #1 Google hit for Google Search: “creed of the alexandrian cult”. Oh, the irony. No other really interesting searches brought people to the Crusty Curmudgeon this week, except that it looks like all the students have finished their papers on John Cheever’s “The Swimmer” and moved on to Life of Pi.

Till next week: Enjoy.

UN Blue Conspiracy Update

Roughly paraphrasing a comment made by Joyce Riley on The Power Hour this morning:

I’m not saying all blue is UN blue, but when Dr. Bill Frist wears an orange tie with a blue shirt to a conference, you have to wonder what’s going on.

Yeah. Who’s laying out his clothes for him, Stevie Wonder?

Booga booga!

Serenity trailer is out

A couple years ago, when Fox cancelled the Joss Whedon SF series Firefly, Whedon promised a feature film. As of today, the trailer is out for Serenity.

If the trailer is any indication - though everyone knows how much the marketers like to “sex up” the advertising to make movies appear more exciting than they really are - then Serenity is a fair bit more action-oriented than the laconic Firefly. Predictably, the plot focuses on River Tam (Summer Glau), the gifted-but-disturbed teenage girl that was the McGuffin for so much of the series’ plot arc, although her story was never resolved before Firefly got the axe. All the regulars are present – I spotted every major character on screen except for Shepherd Book (Ron Glass, Barney Miller). But the IMDb lists him in the cast. I guess a contemplative missionary isn’t trailer material.

Serenity opens September 30, wisely avoiding the summer blockbuster season. Wouldn’t want to have to compete with Spielberg and Lucas in the same summer . . .

And now . . . this – Apr. 25/05

Tastes like chicken

City officials are perplexed over the discovery of mysterious chunks of flesh that have been clogging up city water lines. A month ago, city officials sent a hunk of meaty-fatty tissue to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources for identification.

As they wait for those results, three similar chunks of fleshy material were found on Thursday in another water main during routine flushing, Public Works Director Randy Krauel said. . . .

Krauel said drinking water was not affected by the blockages and is safe to drink.

Chlorine levels have been temporarily increased as a precaution, he said.

[Full Story]

Call me picky, but whether your eau de javex avec des gros morceaux de rat mort is “safe to drink” seems to be beside the point, n’est-ce pas?

Soon rice will be cooking you

Scientists have begun mixing human genes with rice in an attempt to take genetically modified crops to the next level.

Researchers have inserted into rice a gene from the human liver that produces an enzyme which is good at breaking down harmful chemicals in the human body.

[Full Story]

Ingredients: Uncle Ben, rice.

Has the Schumacher/Ferrari machine met its match at last?

Vrroom! Looks like Ferrari has finally gotten their crap together this year. For the last ten laps around Imola at today’s San Marino Grand Prix, Michael Schumacher’s red car was all over leader Fernando Alonso’s Renault, blasting his way through the pack from his 13th-place start to give the Spanish driver a run for his money.

Nonetheless, despite his best race so far this year (and his only podium finish in the 2005 season to date) Schumacher couldn’t keep Alonso from grabbing a hat trick as he took the checkered flag for the third consecutive Grand Prix on Ferrari’s home turf.

Meanwhile, a few corners behind, Jacques Villeneuve finished a respectable 6th; hopefully, finally justifying (somewhat) Sauber’s faith in his skills.