My Christmas present to the self proclaimed Reformed Movie Critic

food for thought

In modern society we've been accustomed to all manner of insurance. Dental, medical, life, auto, homeowners, boat, ATV, snowmobile, and probably some other silly insurance that I don't know about. You can't buy a big ticket item without an attempt to be sold some sort of 'factory extended' insurance. That leads me to question the quality of the item purchased at best and just a plain ole fashioned scam at worst.
I'm generally pretty skeptical of insurance. Not that it's intrinsically bad, but I just get the feeling that when push comes to shove, the policy holder will lose. Let's be real, insurance isn't a non-profit industry.
Lately, however I've been a big advocate of insurance, i.e. food insurance. I've been telling some people that it would be a good idea to store up, say, 6 months worth of food. "What for? What's going to happen?" is the typical response. My response is "I don't know, I just think it's a good idea. If you don't need it, you can always eat it."
This is the ultimate insurance. It's really a win-win situation.

advertising...the consumer pays

"Obama is Coca-Cola and McCain is Pepsi - at the end of the day you’re still drinking the same beverage."

The "new direction" our country will be heading into is certainly not, and to quote Obama, 'what out founding fathers' have intended.
I was going to list all the unconstitutional actions our government is involved in, but it was making me sick when I started write them down.

Guess that President

"We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled governments in the civilized world-no longer a government by …a vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."

Clothes

This past weekend we visited some of our friends in State College.  While there, we worshipped at our old church.  Bear in mind there are some striking differences from this church in PA to our new church in NY.   One of them being that the elders wear vestments.

Not missing a beat, Andrew asked me as soon as the pastor walked up front, "Why [does he have his] clothes off?"

Progress

Back in May...




And now!

Different angularity

Carbon hoofprint... never heard of that one.

Ahh, that's it!

That's the reason why I don't drink canned beer. Canned beer is factory beer; jostled around by machines at the rate of 700 cans/minute. That's not really the kind of statistic I look for in a good IPA.

Like water flowing down an inclined thingy

Wondered when this would come about.

Country Livin'

I had stayed longer at a friend's house than I planned and I was anxious to get home. It was late at night, and next to nobody was on the road. I needed to get gas and I also needed to go no. 1 like real bad.
I stopped at the first gas station I came to. By that time, I couldn't get gas into the tank fast enough. As I was filling up the truck I was scoping out the store.

Don't see an outside entrance bathroom.

Don't see an inside one either. Won't hurt to ask.

So I looked around again as I walked in. I paid.

Then I asked, "Do you have a public bathroom?"
Then she said in a rehearsed manner, "No, but you can go around back by the dumpster. There's no security cameras there."

uncommunion

"The irony of Protestant history is that although the sixteenth-century Reformers fought like tigers to restore the wine to the people, their descendants have now deprived the people of both bread and wine. the Protestant celebration, when it is on rare occasions held has been spiritualized to the extent that it could scarcely be recognized as a meal at all. The purely symbolic wafer of the Roman celebration, which John Knox thundered against as a distortion of Christ's "common bread," has, in most Protestant churches, been replaced by minute, carefully diced pieces of bread unlike any other bread ever eaten by any culture. The common cup which the medieval Church withheld from the faithful is, except among Anglicans, still the sole possession of the clergy. the unordained are now given thimble-like glasses filled with Welch's grape juice. the symbolism is quite clear. We all come before God individually; with our individual bits of bread and our individual cups of juice, we are not of one loaf and one chalice. Our relationship to Christ is private and personal. What may be even more significant is that by partaking of this unearthly meal with our unbreadly bread and our unwinely wine, we are making a clear statement that the bread and wine of spiritual communion has no connection with earthly communion."

Against the Protestant Gnostics, Philip J. Lee

Arrows

of dogs and vomit

I was kinda taken back when npr did an analysis on why men seek prostitutes. (As if an average 14 year old boy couldn't tell you.) I really wondered what gives. And then it hit me. Men are generally hated and looked upon as scum. Eliot Spitzer is scum, therefore all men are scum.

Even though Mr. Spitzer is scum (actually he's the anaerobic scum that grows on the bottom of scum), we must consider one other thing. There are also women who will sell their bodies for pieces of green paper. All this together is a plague not just on men, but women also. The solution in political scandal is not more oversight by man, but regeneration from the Spirit.

water and oil

If us Presbyterians ever get our act together (that is with fellow Presbyterians) and then enlist the Baptist, we'd have one heck of a party.

I just found this on the Voddie Baucham website.

Ready or not...

I've been asked a lot of questions lately about the general safety of milk; more specifically if rbST is a food safety issue. My short answer is a qualified 'if the consumer doesn't want to drink milk from cows supplemented with rbST, then that's what they should get'.
However, the point at which technology and food meet is a relatively new area of dispute. This issue of bST is only the tip of an iceberg. Soon we'll be right in the thick of it with cloned animals.

Quite literally our entire modern day food supply has been manipulated since the early 1900s, so it only stands to reason that it would lead to recombinant technology and roundup ready dandelions. I personally have no problem consuming milk from cows supplemented with rbST. It's a hormone injected under the skin which is metabolized and used by the cow. (On a side note, I do take issue with it's near blanket use on any bovine with four legs.) Unfortunately, consumers (and other farmers) are quick to capture the high ground by claiming a specific way of farming as unethical. The only thing about farming that is unethical is the farmer.

There's a whole new wave of technology coming, and I'm not saying all if it's beneficial. I'd just like for someone other than Monsanto to be proactive about food production.

On Saturday we...

...loaded up the car and hauled off to Harrisburg.

Free sampes upon arrival

Our fearless leader

Chris Troegner, one of two brothers that started the brewery, led the tour. There must of been 50 people on the first tour. There was another 30 or so waiting for tour number 2. Must be there's not much else to do in Harrisburg.

.

beer is the victor

hi-tech airlock

Racking

My only regret...

I should have bought one of these!
Visit my web album to see all the pics.

Who da thunk?

Farmers do have health insurance.

dress rehersal

Corky has a new casa

Techcowlogy

I just got a new dairy magazine in the mail yesterday. 95% of these magazines (probably like any other industry pub) is rehash from some older issue except with different vets quoting the same thing.
Anyway, I came across the neatest gadget. It's a rumen bolus that has an imbeded RFID chip and temperature sensor. Cow temp could be monitored with a handheld device or while entering the parlor. As well, health events could be stored on the chip. Really cool stuff. Probably quite expensive too.

Proof Positive

I guess Google Earth has been up and running longer than I thought.