Ray Fowler .org

Will the Large Hadron Collider destroy the world? Get up to the minute information at the following two links. (There are conflicting reports on this so be sure to check both links.)

• Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?
• Webcam at the Hadron Collider facility (Watch for at least 30 seconds!)

• Holy Ghost Building. Christianity Today interviews Mike Roe about the new 77s album. Mike is also preparing to travel Route 66 with fellow musician Terry Taylor to interview people in preparation for a new Lost Dogs album.
• Confiscating snacks. Find out what snacks airport security will and will not allow you to take on the airplane with you these days. You know, life was a lot funner when you could bring your own food into airplanes and movie theaters.
• David Brickner Explains Remarks in Wasilla. David Brickner (Executive Director of Jews for Jesus) explains how his remarks at Sarah Palin’s church in Wasilla were distorted by the media.
• Pro-Life Resources for Churches. Stand to Reason links a number of resources to help church leaders equip their members to defend the unborn.
• Jetpack in flight. Wired has the video. Of course, this is nothing new. Here is footage of a real jetpack used in the TV show Lost in Space back in 1965. (Video length: 2:02)

From the Big Picture: Seven Years Since — Looking Back and Forward on 9/11

This is an artist’s rendering provided by the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. It shows an aerial view of the proposed memorial quadrant. The museum unveiled the design Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008, for the entrance pavilion, top center, and repeated hopes that a new construction schedule at ground zero would allow the memorial to open by the attacks’ 10th anniversary. (AP Photo/National September 11 Memorial & Museum, Squared Design Lab)

Related posts:
    • 9/11/2010
    • 9/11 – Words of Remembrance

First test:  “The world’s largest particle collider successfully completed its first major test by firing a beam of protons all the way around a 17-mile (27-kilometer) tunnel Wednesday in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe.” (AP)  Hey, and what do you know, the world’s still here. Except this was just an initial test of operations. The actual proton smashing doesn’t begin until next month.

What exact is the Large Hadron Collider and how does it work?

• The Big Picture has some amazing photos of the LHC here.
• Popular Mechanics gives the following explanation of how the LHC works:

Inside the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), massive, powerful magnets chilled to a few degrees above absolute zero — colder than outer space — will zip beams of superenergetic protons and lead nuclei in a loop at speeds within a hairsbreadth of the speed of light, then collide them head-on. The energy released will be so vast that the impacts will recreate conditions in the universe as they existed just a fraction of a second after the big bang. If the LHC performs as expected, it could at last nail down that holy grail of contemporary physics, the Higgs boson — known as the “God particle” because it is thought to lend mass to matter. It may even finally unveil the secret of dark matter, the mysterious entity that makes up 85 percent of the universe — thereby shedding light on as-yet-unexplainable motions of galaxies.

• Or, if you prefer a video explanation (complete with music), check out the Hadron Collider Rap. (Video length: 4:49)

Is it the end of the world?

• Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?
• Of course, this webcam from the LHC says otherwise.

LHC Game: Check out the Large Hadron Collider Game here.

Republican Vice Presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, attends Wasilla Bible Church, a non-denominational church in Wasilla, Alaska. The Christian Post has an interesting article about what took place at Palin’s church on Sunday. Apparently there were quite a few guests in attendance.

• Pastor Larry Kroon welcomed the attendees including the journalists and guests who were visiting.
• The pastor asked any reporters who might be in the crowd to respect church members’ opportunity to worship. “This isn’t the place to be fishing for interviews,” he said.
• He asked the congregants to pray for all of the candidates for president and vice president, and to be thankful that all four are willing to provide the nation with their public service.
• He urged churchgoers to “pray for the press.” Kroon said the media are to be “cherished and respected,” citing 19th century philosopher Alexander de Tocqueville’s works describing a free press and freedom of religion as essential pillars of democracy.
• He urged congregants to do their own thorough research and investigations when deciding who to vote for.

That all sounds reasonable to me. What do you think?

Related posts:

• Palin, Prayer and Pipelines
• Palin, Prayer and Precedent
• Journalists Code of Ethics
• Sarah Palin Roundup

I am participating in the 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World. Here is today’s entry on the Hui people in Beijing.

BEIJING
Population: 15,380,000
Ethnic Han Chinese: 96%
Major Muslim group: Hui people (approx. 2% or about 280,000)
There are about 12 million Hui in all of China.

The Hui people trace their ancestors back to Muslim traders, soldiers, and officials who came to China during the seventh through fourteenth centuries. These men settled and married local native (Han) Chinese women. The Hui have so well assimilated into the Chinese society that they are almost indistinguishable from the Han Chinese, except in dietary and religious practices.

There is very little if any Christian witness to the Hui Muslims in general. There are no known believers among the Muslim Hui in Beijing. Beijing is the capital of the People’s Republic of China, The city was founded more than 3,000 years ago, and was regarded as the capital of China for over 850 years.

Prayer Starters:

• May God open doors for Chinese believers in the Messiah to proclaim Christ to Muslims.
• May God cause the Muslim Hui people in the Beijing area to seek the true God.
• Pray that Chinese believers can be agents of blessing and positive change for the city and the Muslim population.

If you would like to participate in the 30 Days of Prayer, you can click here for daily prayer summaries via e-mail or click here to subscribe to the 30 Days RSS feed.

Related posts:

• Ramadan – 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World
• Around the Web – 9/3/2008

• 10 Free Dates. The Frugal Dad lists 10 free dates that your wife will love. (Free is good.)
• Hurricanes from Outer Space. The Big Picture offers up some stunning photographs of hurricanes as seen from orbit (including Hurricane Ike as a Category 4).
• Hadron Collider Goes Online. The Large Hadron Collider goes online today, and Popular Mechanics shares 5 things you need to know about it. My favorite is #2: Even if the LHC does cause the world to end, it won’t be today. (It will be next month sometime.)

Can you tell your life story in six words? Inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s famous six-word short story (“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”), that’s what SMITH magazine editors Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser asked their online readers in 2006. They have now collected a number of these six-word autobiographies and published them in the book, Not Quite What I Was Planning (notice the number of words in the title).

Here are some examples from the book:

Brought it to a boil, often. (Mario Batali, chef)
Couldn’t cope, so I wrote songs. (Aimee Mann, singer, songwriter)
Maybe you had to be there. (Roy Blount Jr., humorist)
Cursed with cancer. Blessed by friends. (9 year old Hannah Davies)
Struggled with how the mind works. (Steven J. Pinker, psychologist)
Nobody cared, then they did. Why? (Chuck Klosterman, journalist)
Well, I thought it was funny. (Stephen Colbert, comedian)
Revenge is living well, without you. (Joyce Carol Oates, author)
Woke up. Went back to sleep. (Anonymous)
No wife. No kids. No problems. (Rip Riley)
I still make coffee for two. (Zak Nelson)
Yes, you can edit this biography. (Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder)

Here was my first attempt: “God, family, church; Bible, music, books.” Not very creative, too much of a list, but it does capture the main influences in my life.

Next I tried this one: “Met Christ; married Rose; had boys.” This one is more event-oriented. It does capture the three primary events in my life, but it still seemed too cut and dry.

So I finally decided on this: “New creation in Christ – everything changes.” This one is based on my life verse and pretty much sums it all up for me. Christ entered my life and changed everything. Everything good I have in my life I owe to him. He is still changing me day by day, and one day I will stand complete in his presence. It doesn’t get much better than that.

How about you? Feel free to share your six-word autobiography in the comments section. And if you are really brave, you can also submit it to SMITH magazine for the next edition of their book. (I did! You can find it here: Six-Word Memoir by Ray Fowler)

MY LIFE VERSE:  “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Yesterday’s message was called When Christ Died For Us, taken from Romans 5:6-11. The main idea of the message was that Christ died for us at just the right time. Here is a brief outline of the message:

I. Christ died for us at just the right time. (6a)
    A. We were at our point of deepest need.
    B. This was the greatest demonstration of God’s love.

II. What were we like when Christ died for us?
    A. He died for us when we were powerless (6b)
    B. He died for us when we were ungodly (6c)
    C. He died for us when we were sinners (7-8)
    D. He died for us when we were God’s enemies (9-11)

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

You know it’s Monday when …

the Monday night football game is pre-empted by a Gidget film festival.

_________________________________________________________

Click on a month for more Garfield Mondays:  January, February, March,
    April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

Click here for Real Life Garfield.
Click here for Garfield Monday Extra.

Check back the first Monday of each month for more Garfield Mondays.

If you are a regular reader or subscriber to this blog, then you probably noticed the site was down for a good portion of last week. I am sorry for such a long period of down time.

The host server had some technical issues and crashed the site on Wednesday. I have spent too many hours since then talking back and forth to the tech support staff at Midphase (AN Hosting) trying to get the site back up, but they finally informed me this afternoon that they do not have the proper backup files to restore the site themselves.

My most recent personal backup was from August 13, so I have been able to restore the site at least up to a few weeks ago. However, I will need to rebuild everything else by hand. This will take some time, so please be patient with me as you see the old posts from the previous weeks returning to the blog.

Update 1: I have updated all the missing posts. I will work on restoring the missing comments next.

Update 2: I was able to find and restore all the missing comments — except my own! But it’s getting late and I need some sleep, so it’s time to take a break. It looks like I will need to re-respond to your comments as best as I can remember. Some of them were quite detailed, so this could be a challenge. (Yet another good reason to go to sleep and come back to this later.)

Update 3: Well, using a combination of old backups, emailed posts and comments, Google cache, and stored RSS feeds, I believe I have finally restored all missing posts and comments. And I just ran a full backup to catch myself up to date, too! Officially done.

Update 4: Midphase contacted me by phone and gave me a year of free hosting in light of this issue. I think that is very decent of them, and I appreciate them taking this step to make things right.

Have you ever had server problems? Feel free to share your story of woe below!

Democrats and Republicans both seem to agree that Sarah Palin hit the ball out of the park with her speech at the Republican National Convention last night. Here is the video of the speech followed by a roundup of interesting links on Sarah. (By the way, I thought her speech was fantastic. And though I don’t care much for Rudy Giuliani, his speech was a lot of fun, too.)

(Video length: 44:40)

On Sarah’s speech:

• Sarah Palin: A Republican Star Is Born
• Gunny Hartman provides a good summary and highlights

On Sarah’s politics:

• Clashing Worldviews, by Chuck Colson

On Sarah’s Christian faith:

• An interview with her biographer

On gender roles and political leadership:

• An Unexpected New Motherhood Debate
• On Sarah Palin as a working mother VP
• Does Governor Sarah Palin Present a Dilemma for Complementarians?
      – Part 2 here; Part 3 here; Part 4 here.
• God Save Sarah Palin!

So, what do you think of Sarah Palin as nominee for Vice President of the United States?

Related posts:

• Palin, Prayer and Pipelines
• Palin, Prayer and Precedent
• Journalists Code of Ethics
• Sunday at Sarah Palin’s Church