Tag: news

Amusing Comment

As you may or may not know, I love reading comments posted by users on newspaper websites.  Some people are just crazy and there’s no wonder they have no job and have time to post comments to random stories.  The following comment was posted on AZCentral.com as a response to a truly ignorant comment.  It shouldn’t be hard to figure out what kind of story these comments were written about.  This is probably one of the more amusing comments I’ve ever seen on the site.  Enjoy!

Haran,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s law. I have learned a great deal from you, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.

When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. How should I deal with this?

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as it suggests in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

Lev. 25:44 states that I may buy slaves from the nations that are around us. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans but not Canadians. Can you clarify?

I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 10:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this?

Lev. 20:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Fuel Costs

Average cost of a gallon of gasoline in the USA is $3.89. The average cost of a gallon of gasoline in Germany is $8.33. Europeans have been paying double what Americans have been paying for quite a few years now. They’ve all had time to adjust to this cost as a fact of life and have budgeted for this cost.

What I find interesting is that there are signs that our society is changing, albeit slowly. We’ve seen a decline in Ford Super Duty trucks and Hummers in the first quarter of 2008 and a recent survey shows that many Americans feel that $5/gallon gasoline will be a reality by early 2009 and that the price will probably never drop below $4/gallon ever again.

Have you been changing anything in your daily routines to cope with the higher fuel costs?

Harry Potter News – The Deathly Hallows Film(s)!

The Dathly Hallows

According to Variety the final book in the Harry Potter series will be made into two films. FINALLY! The producers of this franchise have finally realized that it’s just too difficult to put everything that happens in these long books into a 2 hour film. Sadly, we have almost 3 years to wait before these final installments will be released. Thankfully, we’ll only have to wait six months between the releases. Hearing this news just makes me happy. At least they’re not going to torture us by making us wait for two full production schedules between releases. The final installment will be filmed concurrently in the same way “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Potter fans everywhere should be looking forward to November 2010 and May 2011 for the story to come to an end on the big screen.

In other Potter news… Just in case you didn’t know, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be in theatres this November. The film is slated for release on November 21st. The last film was released on July 11th, 2007. Almost a year and a half later, we’ll be getting the next film. Not too bad. That being said, it’s going to be a long 2 years between this film and the first installment of the final film. I guess you can’t have everything in life, right?

Anyway, I know some of you are just as excited as I am to hear this news.

“Eco-Scandal”

The read link to this story is below. Here’s the gist. American Airlines is under fire from “Friends of the Earth” for flying a Boeing 777 from Chicago to London with only five passengers on it. Earlier in the day, AA had to cancel one of it’s regularly scheduled flights from Chicago to London, which was sold out. They had to find suitable accommodations for each of those passengers on other flights throughout the day. There were able to successfully find spots for all passengers on other airlines, except for five. The story doesn’t mention how they got a plane to be empty but I’m going to say that it’s safe to assume that the plane these people were on was the one originally scheduled to make the trip from Chicago to London. AA decided to fly these passengers to London and now they are being accused of being obscenely wasteful.

Does this group not realize how the airline industry functions? Without this plane making the trip to London, all the passengers scheduled to take this plane back to Chicago would have been stranded at Heathrow. How would that help anyone? You know if any of them were planning on making that flight, they’d be pissed if it were cancelled. Airlines deadhead planes to various airports all the time carrying only the flight crew. It’s necessary for everything to function smoothly. A waste? Sure… but don’t you want to get home from your vacation or business trip on time?

Read.

American Airlines

Another “Wonderful” Az Republic Story

The linked story below is just another reason why I dislike the Arizona Republic. The story only shows one side of the issue and treats Global Warming as fact. The piece is titled “Climate-change Realities Could Ruin Water Planning”, which caught my interest. Too bad it’s a worthless read. Anyway, feel free to read it here. That is, if you can get past the first paragraph:

Human-caused climate change could undermine a century of building dams, canals and reservoirs across the West as warmer temperatures alter the way water flows through the dry country, scientists say.

Global Warming Pressure

Hoax

Candidates and Gay Issues

I thought this would be a good day to post this article. A week away from Super Tuesday and the day the people of Florida vote (even though the Dems have no delegates at stake in FL). The following quote is from this article about how the current democratic candidates are frustrating some gay activists. An interesting read.

Even as they expect to support whichever Democrat gets the presidential nomination, many activists are disappointed that the three leading contenders rarely mention gay-rights topics unless responding to a question.

“They don’t want to broach civil unions, marriage, equalizing benefits for same-sex couples,” said Jennifer Chrisler, head of the Family Equality Council, which supports gay and lesbian families. “The vast majority of politicians don’t lead, they follow.”

There are other frustrations as well. Activists were dismayed that the Democratic-led Congress failed to approve two much-anticipated bills late last year – one defining anti-gay assaults as a federal hate crime, the other prohibiting anti-gay job discrimination.

We don’t need four more years of this:

George W Classifies Gay Marriage

I found this cartoon drawn by the Arizona Republic’s own Benson. Love it.

Benson’s Gay Marriage Cartoon

Comment Obsession

I have a small obsession with reading comments. This obession is not with reading comments on blogs, as you might expect. I love reading comments on news stories. In particluar, I really love reading the comments by readers of stories on AZ Central, which is the official website of the Arizona Republic.

First of all, let me mention an annoyance I have with the AZ Central site. Because of the insane comments that were being posted on Immigration stories and others of that nature, they have started disabling comments on any story that may be controversial. What does that accomplish? Nothing. People just post comments about these “hot” issues on other articles. Kind of amusing. This is one reason why I get joy out of reading these comments. Let’s call this reason #1.

Reason #2: People start flame wars with one another. Awesome.

Reason #3: Posts from people who deem themselves “experts*” on a subject. (*know it alls)

Reason #4: Someone who just responds to multiple people’s comments with their posts. See the example below. This person responds to multiple people’s comments and in an amusing way. Love it! Read the story this is in reference to here.

Some Random Things

I’ve found myself spending lots of time reading various news stories lately. I mean, for all sorts of outlets. Everything from the International Herald Tribune to Breitbart to the Drudge Report. It seems that I’m just hungry for information and these sites are just a few that I am finding myself visiting on a daily basis. I love my Google Reader but I’ve been reluctant to add some of these sites to it. I have way too many subscriptions (current unread article count – 114) now that I can hardly keep up with. I think it’s a bit more efficient if I just keep some of these sites out of Reader.

On another subject, the new American Gladiators show kicks ass. It’s way corney but so good. I recommend you give it a shot. It’ll being back fond memories of your childhood if nothing else.

Sadly, my YouTube addiction is coming back with a vengance. I guess it’s not a bad thing but it sure does eat up a lot of free time!!

These past few weeks have been some of the best weeks ever. I’m hoping that this continues for a very long time. Everything is going so well… I love it. I hope everyone’s 2008 is going well and that it will continue on into the rest of this year.

Oh, and it appears that I’m doing better at this posting thing. Maybe it’s the fact that I take time out of my day (lunch break) to go to the closest Starbucks and sign on to the net? Maybe I can make this a daily (or almost daily) ritual? Wouldn’t that be nice?