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I love this video. It is a remarkable blend of musical, lyrical and visual arts working together as the artists reflect on the bittersweet (but mostly sweet!) transition from single to family life from a Christian perspective.
Google Earth now has a feature that lets you explore ancient Rome as it looked in 320 AD and even fly down to see famous buildings and monuments in 3D. Just select the “Ancient Rome 3D” layer under Gallery in Google Earth.
This was pretty neat — Wolf Blitzer conducting a live interview with reporter Jessica Yellin via hologram on election night.
(Video length: 3:57)
Update: Whoops, looks like this was not a real hologram after all. Apparently we could see Jessica on our television screens, but Wolf Blitzer could not see her in the studio.
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?
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?
Are you having trouble promoting small groups (home groups, growth groups, life groups, etc.) in your church? Perhaps Yoda can help. In this video Yoda shares about his first experience at a small group. May the Force be with you!
VeggieTales is celebrating its 15 year anniversary. Our children range in age from 12-17 so, as you can probably guess, VeggieTales have been a big part of our house over the past 15 years. Here are my two favorite Silly Songs with Larry (the part of the show where Larry comes out and sings a silly song).
I Love my Lips! (Video length: 3:22)
“My friends all laughed and I just stood there until the fire department came and broke the lock with a crowbar and I had to spend the next six weeks in lip rehab with this kid named Oscar who got stung by a bee right on the lip, and we couldn’t even talk to each other until the fifth week because both of our lips were so swollen and when he did start speaking he just spoke Polish and I only knew like three words in Polish except now I know four because Oscar taught me the word for lip — OOSTA!” (Larry the Cucumber)
I am teaching my oldest son church history this year, so I just had to put this one up. (Perhaps he can use it to study for his final.) I am not sure whether they should call it the Modern Church Historical or the Modern Church Hysterical!
(Video length: 2:34)
Parody of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Modern Major General covering the entire history of the church. From Paul Aldrich Comedy. (HT: MMI)
Palin mistakenly claimed that troop levels in Iraq had returned to “pre-surge” levels. Levels are gradually coming down but current plans would have levels higher than pre-surge numbers through early next year, at least.
Palin repeated a false claim that Obama once voted in favor of higher taxes on “families” making as little as $42,000 a year. He did not. The budget bill in question called for an increase only on singles making that amount, but a family of four would not have been affected unless they made at least $90,000 a year.
Palin claimed McCain’s health care plan would be “budget neutral,” costing the government nothing. Independent budget experts estimate McCain’s plan would cost tens of billions each year, though details are too fuzzy to allow for exact estimates.
Palin wrongly claimed that “millions of small businesses” would see tax increases under Obama’s tax proposals. At most, several hundred thousand business owners would see increases.
Sen. Joe Biden:
Biden incorrectly said “John McCain voted the exact same way” as Obama on a controversial troop funding bill. The two were actually on opposite sides.
Biden wrongly claimed that McCain “voted the exact same way” as Obama on the budget bill that contained an increase on singles making as little as $42,000 a year. McCain voted against it. Biden was referring to an amendment that didn’t address taxes at that income level.
Biden wrongly claimed that McCain had said “he wouldn’t even sit down” with the government of Spain. Actually, McCain didn’t reject a meeting, but simply refused to commit himself one way or the other during an interview.
In case you missed it, here is the video of the full 2008 Vice
Presidential Debate between Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Joe Biden.
(Video length: 1:32:30)
This was put out by the Gospel Coalition in 2007. Tim Keller answers the question: “What do you tell pastors about their family life?” You have probably heard it all before, but these are wise words and well worth repeating.
(Video length: 1:43)
I don’t really know of any minister that gets to the tenth or the twentieth year that doesn’t wish they had spent more time with their family. I don’t know of anybody. In fact my wife likes to say: No minister on his death bed said, “I wish I had spent more time at the office.” Or … even, “I wish I had spent more time in ministry.” This is very hard to imagine, ministers on their death bed feeling like that. They almost always will say, “I wish I had spent more time with God, one on one, and I wish I had spent more time with my children and my wife.” … It’s so obvious as soon as you think about it … you know what you’re going to regret, so why don’t you try to diminish those regrets right now …
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that there is no way for that to happen easily, and people are going to get mad at you if you do it right. And Jesus says, “Beware when all men speak well of you.” So … balls are going to drop and people are going to be angry at you, but guess what, balls are going to drop and people are going to be angry at you anyway, and then you’ll be prayerless and you won’t have a strong family. So you might as well have a strong relationship with God and a strong family and have people mad at you, because they’re going to be mad at you anyway.
Here is an interesting graph from the New York Times showing the history of home values from 1890 to the present adjusted for inflation.
(Click on the image for a larger picture. Click a second time to zoom in.)
The Yale economist Robert J. Shiller created an index of American housing prices going back to 1890. It is based on sale prices of standard existing houses, not new construction, to track the value of housing as an investment over time. It presents housing values in consistent terms over 116 years, factoring out the effects of inflation.
Or, if you prefer, you can view the same chart plotted on a roller coaster graph below. (HT: Between Two Worlds)
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