Archive for the 'Around the Web' Category

Around the Web - 12/11/2008

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Ray Fowler
on December 11, 2008
in Around the Web
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  • Why Xmas? R.C. Sproul explains why “X” is used when it replaces Christ in Christmas.
  • Mozart or Salieri? Listen to the audio clips and see if you can guess the right composer. Quiz will be graded and corrected at the end. (I only got 6 out of 10 right.)
  • Finding Baby Jesus. Churches are putting GPS devices inside their nativity figures to track them down if stolen.
  • Film Ethics Course. Professor John Stackhouse is teaming up with film producer Ralph Winter (Star Trek; X-Men; Fantastic Four) to teach a class on the ethics of filmmaking this summer at Regent College in Vancouver. This sounds like a great course. I wish I lived closer.

Around the Web - 12/3/2008

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on December 3, 2008
in Abortion and Around the Web
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Around the Web - 11/26/2008

Published
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Ray Fowler
on November 26, 2008
in Around the Web
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  • Bible Maps. BibleAtlas.org has quick links to maps for each of the Biblical place names along with encyclopedia and concordance information.
  • National Toy Hall of Fame. Looking for the best toy suggestions for your kids? Check out the 41 toys that have been inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame.
  • Jay Walker’s Library. From King James to James Bond and Chaucer to Sputnik, internet entrepreneur Jay Walker has an amazing personal library in his home.
  • Bob Jones Apologizes. Bob Jones University of Greenville, South Carolina, issued an online statement last week apologizing for “racially hurtful” practices of its past, including prohibiting married African American students until 1971 and unmarried African American students until 1975, and banning interracial dating until 2000.

Around the Web - 11/19/2008

Published
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Ray Fowler
on November 19, 2008
in Around the Web
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  • 10 Things You’d Love to Say at Work But Can’t. From Michael Hyatt.
  • LIFE Photo Archive. Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today.
  • Mini-Nuclear Power Plants. Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.
  • Missionary Taxi Club. Christian taxi drivers in South Korea use Christian radio in hopes of leading passengers to Christ. There are 450 members in the Missionary Taxi Club who have been meeting monthly for 25 years to worship and discuss opportunities to share the Good News with their passengers.

Around the Web - 11/6/2008

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on November 6, 2008
in Around the Web and Television
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  • WEA General Assembly. The World Evangleical Alliance closed its first general assembly in six years last week with a renewed commitment to world evangelism and six major resolutions setting out an evangelical response to religious liberty, HIV and Aids, poverty, peacemaking, creation care and the global financial crisis.
  • Orcs Are Back! British film makers are hoping to recreate the magic of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in a low budget movie inspired by JRR Tolkien’s books. Born of Hope is a prequel to the fantasy novels and tells the story of the Dúnedain, the Rangers of the North, before the return of the King.
  • Brain-Computer Interface. People who are completely paralyzed due to illness or trauma are getting help communicating with a new technology that connects their brains to a computer.
  • TV and Sex. Research suggests that pregnancy rates are higher among teens who watch a lot of TV with sexual dialogue and behavior. Teens who watched shows with sexual content were twice as likely to become pregnant over the next three years as those who watched few such programs.
  • Jesus Creed Moves. Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog has moved to Beliefnet. The new web address is: http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/
  • How to Make Maple Syrup. Yum.

Around the Web - 10/29/2008

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on October 29, 2008
in Around the Web and Politics
. 7 Comments

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.

Tone of Press Coverage for McCain and Obama | The Pew Research Center

  • 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.”

Around the Web - 10/21/2008

Published
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Ray Fowler
on October 21, 2008
in Around the Web
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  • Taliban Kills Aid Worker. Taliban soldiers killed a Christian aid worker from South Africa in a drive-by motorcycle shooting. A Taliban spokesman said, “We killed her … because she was spreading Christianity.”
  • Through the Storm. Bill Reichart reviews the new book written by Lynne Spears, mother of Britney and Jamie Lynn (published by Thomas Nelson). Lynne describes her book as “the story of one simple, Southern woman whose family got caught in a tornado called fame and who is still trying to sort through the debris scattered all over her life in the aftermath.”
  • Lord of the Rings Live in London. The Royal Albert Hall and the London Philharmonic Orchestra will present The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring in high definition with Howard Shore’s Academy award-winning score performed live on stage by the original soundtrack orchestra and choirs. I so want to be there!
  • Sarah Palin Live in New York. Gov. Sarah Palin enjoyed some good-natured fun at her own expense on Saturday Night Live this weekend, which enjoyed its highest ratings in 14 years. Tina Fey’s impersonation of Palin is pretty amazing. (Can you tell them apart? Apparently Alec Baldwin can’t!)

Around the Web - 10/16/2008

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on October 16, 2008
in Around the Web
. 1 Comment
  • Lawsuit against God dismissed. “A judge has thrown out a Nebraska legislator’s lawsuit against God, saying the Almighty wasn’t properly served, because of his unlisted home address.”
  • Trek Alert! SlashFilm has photos from the new Star Trek movie. The bridge looks awesome. My son asked, “Why does the technology look cooler when you’re actually going back earlier in time?” I guess the Star Wars prequels had the same problem.
  • Free Christian Film Festival. If you are in central Florida, check out the Greater Orlando Christian Film Festival, which kicks off today at Regal Cinemas in Orlando. The festival is sponsored by Christian Film Festivals of America and is evangelistic in purpose.
  • Mystery Worshipers. The Wall Street Journal reports on churches hiring professional “mystery worshipers” to evaluate their church. “To try to keep their flocks, churches are turning to undercover inspectors, who note water stains, dull sermons and poor hospitality.”
  • Q-Drum. Check out the Q-Drum, a low cost rollable water container for developing countries. Looks like someone re-invented the wheel, but in a good sense this time!

    Q-Drum

Around the Web - 10/1/2008

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on October 1, 2008
in Around the Web
. 0 Comments
  • Spliced. Splicd allows you to share just the portion you want from any YouTube video. Just enter the start and end points and voilá!
  • Bible to be Handwritten by 31,000. Zondervan’s next edition of the Bible will be handwritten by more than 31,000 Americans. (Hmmm, maybe they’ve been reading Ray Pritchard’s blog.)
  • Star Trek continuity errors galore! Peter Chattaway posts a number of YouTube mashups of Star Trek continuity errors. They are fun to browse, but I would never have time to watch them all.
  • Funerals for the Living. Al Mohler reports on “funerals for the living” in Thailand. People pay money for a two-minute funeral experience in a Buddhist temple where they are offered “an opportunity to die, rise up again newborn and make a fresh start in life.”

Around the Web - 9/30/2008

Published
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Ray Fowler
on September 30, 2008
in Around the Web
. 0 Comments
  • Pastors’ Pulpit Politics Draw Complaints. Americans United for Separation of Church and State has already filed complaints against six of the 33 pastors who deliberately defied federal tax law by endorsing candidates from their pulpits on Sunday.
  • The Perelandra Project. The Oxford C.S. Lewis Society and the Donald Swann Estate are planning a production of PERELANDRA the Opera to debut in June 2009. (Perelandra is the second book in C.S. Lewis’ space trilogy.)
  • Iron Man 2 Conflicts with Dawn Treader. Not again? As much as I enjoyed the first Iron Man, I still think it’s release schedule had a negative impact on Prince Caspian at the box office.
  • Incognito Browsing. Tim Challies warns parents about new features on web browsers which could allow children to browse the web without leaving a history of the sites visited. (See Taming the Internet in the Home for further tips on protecting your children online.)

Around the Web - 9/24/2008

Published
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Ray Fowler
on September 24, 2008
in Around the Web
. 0 Comments

Around the Web - 9/19/2008

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on September 19, 2008
in Around the Web
. 0 Comments
  • Free Engineering Courses at Stanford. “For the first time in its history, Stanford is offering some of its most popular engineering classes free of charge to students and educators around the world.”
  • Mob violence against IJM staff in Peru. “The mob of 300+ angry villagers forcibly accosted our staff and tied them up in the center of the village.” A young woman from our church recently completed an assignment with IJM in Thailand. It is dangerous work, and we prayed for her constantly.
  • Thinking Biblically about the Banking Crisis. Justin Taylor interviews David Kotter on the current banking crisis.
  • Don’t Check Your Portfolio! “New research shows that the less often investors check the value of their portfolios, the happier they are. And the wealthier they are, too.” Well, it might not hurt to look a little bit!
  • Sarah Palin and Complementarianism. Denny Burke responds to David Gushee’s questions about complementarian Christians who support Sarah Palin’s bid for the Vice-Presidency.