Check out these neat Star Wars pumpkins. Now that’s some fancy carving. I like the Death Star one the best. (Click on the image for a larger picture.)

Do you need a lightsaber to carve a pumpkin like that? Visit Wired.com to see more Star Wars pumpkins, including R2-D2, C-3PO, General Grievous and Chewbacca! (HT: Verum Serum)

Related posts:

• Yoda Promotes Small Groups
• Tim Keller and Darth Vader
• Darth Vader Plays a Mean Harmonica
• Jedi Squirrels
• George Lucas Syndrome

John Mark Reynolds offers the following 5 Halloween Hints. I’ll leave my own comments after each one.

1. Read Descent into Hell by Charles Williams. Great suggestion! Charles Williams’ novels are the best theologically-poetically-historically informed supernatural thrillers you will ever read. Question for John: Why did you pick Descent into Hell over All Hallows’ Eve?
2. Watch one of the following: Charlie Brown Halloween special; original Frankenstein; or The Village. I like all three, but I vote for Charlie Brown.
3. Recall for your family the righteous dead of your own line. If you don’t have a godly heritage, borrow the heroes of the faith. Interesting suggestion. I never thought of doing this.
4. Do give out candy and not tracts. I know a lot of Christians would disagree with me here, but I’m with John on this one. Maybe a tract with the candy, but definitely not instead of.
5. Scare a friend or family member. Hmmm. Watch out family and friends!

What do you think? Do you have any suggestions for Halloween?

Ligonier Ministries is offering a genuine leather edition of the Reformation Study Bible for any gift amount from Oct. 27 to Nov. 2 while supplies last (retails for $69.99). Click here for details on the offer. Click here to read R.C. Sproul’s Introduction to the Reformation Study Bible.

Just in case you were wondering.

(Video length: 1:50)

HT: Steve Weaver

Happy Reformation Day! Also, be sure to check out the Reformation Day Symposium at Challies.com.

In September of 2007 Senator Barack Obama told Planned Parenthood that “the first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.” Of course, this is either good news or bad news for you depending on what you think of the Act itself. (You can read more about what the Freedom of Choice Act entails and what effect it would have on abortion here: What is the Freedom of Choice Act?) How about you? Do you support or oppose the Freedom of Choice Act?

(Video length: 1:51)

Click here for more abortion related posts.

NEWSFLASH! TIME Magazine argues that experience is not necessary to be president — except that was seven months ago in March when they ran a two-article cover story on Sen. Barack Obama. Check out the following excerpts defending Sen. Obama’s lack of experience. (Where was TIME when people started attacking Gov. Sarah Palin as being light on experience?)

From: Does Experience Matter in a President?

Obama’s relatively light political resume … continues to be the focus of his rivals’ attacks [i.e. Hillary] … Obama’s credentials would be an issue in any election year. He would be sworn in at age 47, making him one of the youngest Presidents in history, and would arrive in the Oval Office with less executive experience than most of his predecessors …

Wouldn’t it be nice if time on the job and tickets punched translated neatly into superior performance? Then finding great Presidents would be a simple matter of weighing résumés … But it has never worked that way, which is why Lincoln’s statue occupies a marble temple on the Mall in Washington, while his far more experienced rival William Seward has a little seat on a pedestal in New York City.

If knowing the system is so useful, then second-term presidencies should be more successful than first-term. Instead, many Presidents lose effectiveness as they go along … To a keen student of human nature, all of life offers lessons in how to lead, inspire and endure. Lincoln’s ability to apply useful lessons from his motley experiences was among his most striking traits.

From: The Science of Experience.

In making the case that she would be a better President than Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton never forgets to summon the argument that she has more experience. But as the Florida State simulations show, experience doesn’t always help. In fact, three decades of research into expert performance has shown that experience itself … can actually hinder your ability to deliver reproducibly superior performance …

Experience is not only insufficient for expert performance; in some cases, it can hurt. Highly experienced people tend to execute routine tasks almost unconsciously … and they retrieve the information they need quickly, rarely pausing to apply rules … Which is not to say that, if elected, Clinton or John McCain would drive the country off a cliff — or that Obama, as a comparative novice, would be more cautious and less burdened by his habits. But the study of experience does indicate that the more seasoned candidates wouldn’t automatically outperform Obama as President.

Do you find TIME’s arguments convincing? Either way, it makes for some interesting reading seven months later and just days away from the election.

Related post: Obama, McCain and Palin TIME Magazine Covers

All the TIME covers from the past year featuring Obama, McCain and Palin.

(Note: Updated to include November 3 cover.)

One of my commenters asked me yesterday about the coverage of Obama vs. McCain on the cover of TIME Magazine. I found conflicting reports online, so I decided to compile the information myself. There have been fifteen issues of TIME Magazine in the last twelve months with pictures of the current presidential and vice-presidential candidates on the cover. Here is the numerical breakdown of total appearances. (Note: On some of the covers two candidates appear together.)

• Barack Obama appeared on 12 covers (all but three)
• John McCain appeared on 5 covers
• Sarah Palin appeared on 1 cover
• Joe Biden appeared on zero (sorry Joe!)

I don’t know that this means anything other than TIME appears to be more interested in Obama than in McCain, Palin or Biden. But I did notice a few interesting things going through the various covers. For example, the May issue with Obama and Clinton on the front is titled There Can Only Be One: was this before or after people started calling Obama “The One?”

It is also interesting to compare the most recent October issue (Does Temperament Matter?) with the March 10 issue (Does Experience Matter?). The March issue contains two cover articles defending Obama’s lack of experience, one from a historical vantage and the other from a scientific viewpoint. Both articles argue that experience is not necessary to be president and may even be harmful! Of course, this makes for very interesting reading seven months later now that much of the media has accused Sarah Palin of lacking the necessary experience to be Vice President.

Here are all the covers. You can click on the title to go to the online issue or click on the thumbnail for a larger picture. If you find anything interesting, be sure to share it in the comments.

December 10, 2007 – The Contender
Barack Obama

February 4, 2008 – The Phoenix
John McCain

February 18, 2008 – The Struggle For the Soul of the Democrats
Barack Obama (with Hillary Clinton)

March 10, 2008 – How Much Does Experience Matter?
Barack Obama

April 21, 2008 – Raising Obama
Barack Obama

May 5, 2008 – There Can Only Be One
Barack Obama (with Hillary Clinton)

May 12, 2008 – The TIME 100 (The Most Influential People in the World)
Barack Obama and John McCain

May 19, 2008 – And The Winner* Is
Barack Obama

August 11, 2008 – The Economy
Barack Obama and John McCain

September 1, 2008 – Special Issue: The Democrats
Barack Obama

September 8, 2008 – Special Issue: The Republicans
John McCain

September 15, 2008 – The Education of Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin

October 20, 2008 – Why the Economy is Trumping Race
Barack Obama

October 27, 2008 – Does Temperament Matter?
Barack Obama and John McCain

November 3, 2008 – 7 Things That Could Go Wrong on Election Day
Barack Obama (tiny, but he’s still there in the upper corner)

 

Related post: TIME Magazine Says Experience Not Necessary to be President!

And for those of you who need a break from politics, here’s this:

            German Police Seek Speeding British Muppet

Looks like Animal to me.

I am not a big Simpson’s fan, but I thought this was pretty funny.

(Video length: 1:20)

(HT: Althouse)

This reminds me of a hilarious interactive online “ballot” during the 2000 Bush/Gore election. It was basically a flash animation with a picture of Bush on the right and a picture of Gore on the left. The instructions said to click on the one you wanted for president. If you clicked on Gore’s face, you got Gore. But if you moused over Bush’s face to click on him, the faces would switch places. So then you would mouse over to Bush on the left to click on him, but the faces would shift again. If you tried too many times, both faces turned into Al Gore. There was no possible way to vote for Bush.

I have looked for it online since, but have never been able to find it again. Does anyone remember this or know where to find it online today?

By the way, I was living in Fort Lauderdale, FL in 2000, home of the hanging chads and butterfly ballots. There were a lot of funny things posted online at that time about the election. There must be a collection of it all online somewhere. Again, does anyone know where?

HIGHLY PARTISAN POLITICAL EDITION.

• How the Press Reported the 2008 General Election. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, a nonpartisan journalism watchdog organization, reports greater unfavorable press coverage for McCain’s campaign than Obama’s.

• Redistribution of Wealth Experiment. A restaurant diner “spreads the wealth” by redistributing his tip to a homeless person outside.
• Chuck Norris : I’m Voting for Those Not Yet Born. Chuck Norris speaks up on behalf of the unborn.
• An Instructive Candidacy. Victor Davis Hanson reflects on what Sarah Palin has taught us about ourselves during this election cycle.
• The Obama Temptation. “Fainting audience members at rallies. Special Obama flags and an Obama presidential seal … Young school children singing songs praising Obama. Teenagers wearing camouflage outfits and marching in military order chanting Obama’s name and the professions he is going to open to them. An Obama world tour, culminating in a speech in Berlin where Obama proclaims we are all citizens of the world.”
• Deregulation: The Big Lie. “The current crisis was not caused by a deregulated ‘anything goes’ market, but by liberal intervention in the market, i.e. forcing banks to make high-risk loans or face costly lawsuits.”

SMALL HOUSE EDITION.

A House Divided. The divorce settlement for a Cambodian couple entailed sawing their house in two. “Very strange, but this is what my husband wanted,” said the wife. “He brought his relatives and used saws to cut the house in half,” she said, adding that she now owns the other half that is still standing.

Walking House. This 10-foot high home is solar and wind powered and can stroll at walking pace across all terrains. It has a living room, kitchen, toilet, bed, wood stove and mainframe computer which controls the legs. Designers say it provides a solution to the problem of rising water levels as the house can simply walk away from floods (or annoying neighbors).

Downsizing. Bill and Sharon Kastrinos moved from their 1,800-square-foot home into this 154-square-foot home on their daughter’s property. The home has wheels and can be pulled behind their vehicle and plugged into any RV park in the nation. The downstairs has a sitting area, tiny kitchen and bathroom in a space that’s 98 square feet. The upstairs loft has a bed in 56 square feet of space. They keep extra clothes in their car.

What do you think? Could you live in a small house like this, or would that just be too much downsizing for you? (Or do you already live in a small house?)

Yesterday’s message in the Called series was titled Called to Contribute, taken from various scriptures. The main idea of the message was that we must all work together in the body of Christ in order to achieve God’s purposes. Here is a brief outline of the message:

    I. Give of your time and talents. (Ephesians 4:7-13)

    II. Give of your finances. (1 Corinthians 16:2; 2 Corinthians 9:7)

    III. Give of your love. (John 13:34-35; 1 Corinthians 13:3)

Note: Click on the Sermons tab at the top of the blog for this and other messages.