Archives for June, 2007
Six Years of Blogging
It was six years ago at the end of June that I started blogging. I first heard about Blogger as a Content Management Tool from Andrew Careaga in his newsletter and started playing around with it after that. It’s been fun. Not sure if I plan to keep doing this much longer but one never knows. Thanks for reading!
In the next week or so I plan to start photoblogging again. I am trying to decide whether to incorporate a daily photo into this blog or set up another dedicated photoblog. If you have any thoughts (you know, as my readers), let me know in the comments below.
Contextless Links
- The dark side of Google?
- Oligarchy in the church: Sociologists have discovered that in virtually all forms of social organizations, from friendship groups to nations, a small self-perpetuating group grabs most of the power. This tendency to concentrate power in the hands of a few persons is called the law of oligarchy. Through His various words and actions that we read in the Bible, Jesus condemns oligarchy in social, economic, political and religious spheres of life.
- Scot McKnight asks if Christianity is mercenary?
- The electability of John Edwards :: A top handicapper told me recently that he expects Hillary to perform in a general election as ‘Generic Democrat Minus Five Points.’ Meaning that she can win — but only in another wave election like we saw in the 2006 election, where resentment against Bush and the GOP gives Dems a 6 to 8 point head start. Barack Obama may have a similar structural disadvantage. (Though given his ability to mobilize untraditional voters — millennials and gen xers in particular — he might be able to make up for it. He remains as ever a wild card.) If Democrats are looking for a safer bet to take back the Oval office, Edwards the silver tongued Southern senator looks like a winner from this poll data… especially if he’s fortunate to run against another flip flopper from Massachusetts.
- Font Sugar: Ray Larabie has put together a selection of fonts great for casual use via
- Jason Evans on the “house church model”
- “People don’t change that much”: Bishop Willimon is talking about Marcus Buckingham’s book but there are are incredible implications to his statement about discipleship in addition to just leadership.
- Google zooms in on the Darfur genocide
- Missional living in an age of abandoned kids
- Mark is off to grade 2 :: Now we have the summer together to torment each other.
- Homelessness is chronic in Canada :: For more information, you can check out www.homeslessness.gc.ca.
- Life at Google from a Microsoft perspective: An interesting look at how the two organizations interact.
- Guy Kawasaki’s iPhone review: Same old bad cell phone tech support.
- Barbara Ehrenreich asks who Hillary Clinton is:
- Quote of the week
- Mark Andreesen’s guide to start ups: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
- Are Presidential elections just a higher stakes version of American Idol?
- So what does Ann Coulter actually have against John Edwards? :: But really. What is it with Coulter and Edwards… this virulent Barbie hates Ken thing? My best guess is that Edwards makes an easy proxy target. Rabid rightwingers can no longer safely call Hillary the B word, much less call Obama the N word (although that hasn’t stopped Rush from calling him a Negro), but you can still get away with calling Edwards a “faggot.” And apologize for it by voicing your deathwishes for him on Good Morning America.
- Doug Pagitt reminds us that the Emergent Gathering is coming up in October
- Abandon the pastoral church
- Missional Church? Prepare to lose
- The Brand that Saved Baseball
- An open letter to airlines
- Holiness and the mission
- Corruption in the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS :: In his opening essay, Bono writes that in just nine months, (Product) Red has raised around $25 million for its beneficiary, the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. What he doesn’t mention is that throughout its brief existence, the Global Fund—a Sachs brainchild—has been wracked by corruption scandals. Last week, the news in Uganda was dominated by the arrests of four onetime government officials, including the powerful (and immensely wealthy) former health minister, on charges of skimming huge sums off the millions in Global Fund grants Uganda has received. And, lest we think corruption is purely an African problem, an internal audit revealed earlier this year that the British executive director of the fund, Sir Richard Feachem, was using his expense account to rent limousines and to throw expensive dinner parties. New luxury, indeed. On a recent return visit to Uganda, where I’d lived for two years, one of the first changes I noticed was that a multistory residential building had been erected across the dirt road from the little pub I frequented. My friends told me the owner of the property worked for the health ministry. They’d nicknamed the place the “Global Fund Apartments.” We all laughed at the joke: Ugandans know that there are worse sins in this world than corruption. They’ve learned, through rough experience, to see Africa for what it is: a continent of people, not vessels for our pity. Their Africa is a vibrant, funny, human place. I wish we could separate it from this business of being inspi(red). :: Also, here is another link on Bono’s hypocrisy over taxes :: Before you flame me, we give Bono a lot of link love over the years but the last link really bothered me.
- How to turn around a dying organization
- How did the CCCP really collapse? It’s the economy stupid!
ODEO to Google
I logged into draft.blogger.com recently and saw that Google is offering a video upload feature for Blogger (which makes little sense to me as they own YouTube/Google Video but whatever). What I and many Blogger users wouldn’t mind is a hosted podcasting service tie in. I have been a long term fan of ODEO but with it for sale, I think it would be a great fit for Google since it already has the infrastructure in place to host and serve that kind of bandwidth. Also, since aquiring Feedburner, they have aquired the company that made it easier for users of Blogger to start podcasting (Blogger used only Atom which didn’t have the enclosure feature of RSS 2.0). With the advertising technology that Google is developing and selling for YouTube, the same thing could be created for ODEO and Google becomes not only the leader in video but also has some really good tools to take on and popularize the podcasting market. Will it happen, probably not but who predicted Google’s purchase of Blogger?
Canada Day Picnic
I posted about this before but I thought I would let you know that the Church of the Exiles is getting together for a picnic on Sunday at Kinsmen Park. All of the details can be found here but here is the important stuff.
- Time: 4:00 p.m.
- Location: The plan is to meet at Kinsmen Park in the area that is in between City Hospital and the Kinsmen Park parking lot and is just west of the Mendel Art Gallery.
- What to bring: Lawn chairs, mosquito repellent, food for a picnic. We will bring a propane powered stove (there are no BBQ’s in the park).
- Activities: Water park, Frisbee, food, and reflecting on what Canada would be like if William Shatner becomes Prime Minister.
Top Secret
I enjoy when Alan Creech posts about things we don’t know about him but I have never done it myself. Here are ten things you probably didn’t know about me.
- Despite never having been to a NFL game, I met future Miami Dolphin defensive lineman, Chuck Klingbeil at a defunk water park called Penguin Park when he was playing for the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 1990. Former Notre Dame QB, Tony Rice was there as well. While I thought Rice was the greatest when he was at Notre Dame, I took it personally when he was asked if he was going to keep playing professional football when he wasn’t drafted and he said something like, “No, I am going to play in Canada”. Sadly for us Saskatchewan fans he showed the same amount of talent passing the ball up here as he did for Notre Dame which wasn’t a lot when he wasn’t in an option offence. I remember Klingbeil as being the cooler of the two while Tony Rice was probably depressed to think that a year or two before he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and now he was doing dumb personal appearances at a waterslide park in Saskatoon. For all of you Clemson fans out there, Homer Jordan was also a Saskatchewan Roughrider QB as was West Virginia’s Major Harris (for a week or so before getting cut).
- I don’t normally like to look down on people but when Mark was six months old, we were in Las Vegas in the lobby of MGM Grand waiting for some people when Marie Osmond walked by. She was doing a concert and was also selling some of her ceramic dolls. Part of the P.R. campaign was her standing there being photographed with fans. I tried to get Wendy to get a photo with her and Wendy refused. All of the people in line were middle aged men who all had to tell her that they had her poster up on the wall when they were teenagers. Wendy and I started to laugh which generated an icy stare from Osmond but I did feel sorry for her as she looked quite uncomfortable and more than a little grossed out.
- I have never been arrested or charged with a crime but I may have committed aggravated assault on my father when I may have broken up an Ex-Lax bar into a bowl of Rocky Road Ice Cream and watched them eat it when I was 12. Does anyone expect a court ordered visitation to go any differently?
- I hate spaghetti. Ate too much of it as a kid and lost my stomach for it was I was 17. I can eat it now as it tastes okay but some reason I have a huge mental block towards it. Funny thing is if there is a different pasta noodle used I am fine with it so it is all in my head.
- I have a very clear memory of watching in person the 1981 Canada Cup in the Calgary Corral. We had standing room only tickets and Team Canada beat the CCCP. I went online to find out the score a couple of months ago and there was not a Canada Cup game in Calgary in 1981. Looking back it must have been an exhibition game but it is weird finding out that a favorite childhood memory wasn’t even close to how you remembered it.
- I have never been even close drunk but I do enjoy the taste of some red wines and never have more than half a glass in an evening. I was a hospitality suite of the Hon. John Crosbie once and he served me the first bit of alcohol that I ever had… Newfoundland Screech.
- I don’t gamble. Why play something that is programmed to take more of you money away than it is to give back. That’s not chance, that’s idiocy.
- My first web host was GeoCities back when there was less than 100,000 users and 1 megabyte of space for free was an insane amount of space to work with.
- The times I have tossed a baseball in front of radar gun, I have been ashamed with how slow my “fastball” is.
- I am dyslexic which explains some but not all of the spelling and grammatical mistakes that are made on this blog.
Exiles
This came from a friend of mine in response to this post.
Amma Syncletica said, “We ought to govern our souls with discretion and to remain in the community, neither following our own will nor seeking our own good. We are like exiles: we have been separated from the things of this world and have given ourselves in one faith to the one Father. We need nothing of what we have left behind. There we had reputation and plenty to eat; here we have little to eat and little of everything else.”
Contextless Links
- New government in England, Time let’s us know what to expect. Newsweek looks back at the early days.
- Why Germany hates Tom Cruise: Apparently it has nothing to do with Mission Impossible II
- Note to the L.A. Lakers: Cut your ties with Kobe. Do you actually think that unless Phil Jackson can win every game and let Kobe score 100 points a game, he will start complaining about KG by Christmas.
- Calgary close to signing Iginla: Apparently he hasn’t heard who his coach will be.
- NHL, NBA to develop blogger policies
- Why is Microsoft threatening Linux: Also an interesting bit on Google Data Centres: A lot of people do not realize that Google’s architecture is based on cheap PCs running Linux and a customized networking system interlinking them. This design has galled and hurt the companies that make big iron servers, since Google’s solution is cheaper and just as reliable. Well, at least it is as reliable as any PC. The actual beauty of the architecture is that if one of the PCs craps out and dies in the grid, it is just left there to rot. There is no need to swap it out. (This eliminates the need for a lot of workers, too.) This is similar in concept to a hard drive, where bad sectors are simply mapped out of existence. Slick.
- Total Cost of iPhone Ownership: Up to $5,914.76. Black turtleneck not included.
Our Generations Legacy
Glen Murray has a thoughtful piece in the Toronto Star on the controversy over Toronto firefighters and police taking the yellow ribbons off their cars.
While ribbons and rubber wrist bands have been de rigueur fashion for the politically correct, most who wear them invest little more than a loonie or the risk of a pinprick as sacrifice to the colour-coded cause.
It is a little different when the city’s first responders stick a ribbon decal on their vehicles. They live the same commitment as soldiers do to protect others. Police officers stand between us and harm. Firefighters walk into situations we are taught to flee, and few people are more engaged in dealing with unrelenting life-and-death crises than paramedics, who must possess a stamina I can’t even imagine to do their jobs.
Police officers, firefighters, paramedics and, most of all, soldiers, represent the highest expression of citizenship and public service as they offer themselves as the price for its preservation.
We seem to take those freedoms for granted as we stumble out of bed each day and hop the subway to safe jobs in safe buildings without fearing a bomb will go off or a bullet will be fired at us.
The strength of a civil society, for which so many have given their lives, depends on the quality of its citizenship. Citizenship is about more than casting a vote or paying taxes. Citizens are more than passive consumers of events; they try to make a difference.
Elected officials are paid to pursue the public good on behalf of the citizens they represent, to advocate and speak out against injustice, and to mobilize the resources of their community to improve the quality of peoples’ lives. All this in an effort to build a just society.
So little is asked of us today. We are the generation that inherited from our parents what is arguably the world’s strongest economy and greatest democracy.
We are healthier and better educated; we live longer, enjoy more liberty and have at our fingertips greater technology and knowledge than any past generation.
This is our inheritance from a generation that faced war, depression, and who came to Canada fleeing genocide, oppression and holocaust to arrive on this young nation’s soil in search of hope. From so little they left us so much. We should start to consider what our legacy will be.
Serpent Handling Churches ™
The next big thing in churches? Forget Purpose Drive, here are the Serpent Handling Churches…
Just in case you were wondering
Here is a list of problems solved by MacGyver
Also, since we are all wondering…. MacGyver’s Swiss Army Knife went through a few changes over the early episodes. His first and most often used knife was a “Spartan” model from Victorinox. In “Thief of Budapest” he gives it away; in the next episode he is using a “Traveler” model from Wenger. He is soon back to his “Spartan.” At one point he uses an Orange Peeler blade; probably from a Victorinox “Executive.” He may have used an older model “Explorer” from Victorinox later in the series. He also used the Sportsman “Lost Love pt. 1 and 2″, the Recruit “GX-1″, and the Climber “Three for the Road.” In “Tough Boys” he uses a Tinker (with the key ring removed) to unlock a large padlock. He also had a couple of non-production models that were obviously modified for the series. In “Serenity,” he has a knife with wood handles on it, to flow with the time setting of the episode. In “Strictly Business” he used a knife with the Victorinox shield on the back handle of the knife instead of the front. He seems to have used all of the slimmer models available at that time. The Tinker was (and still is) available in a slightly smaller model, which he may have used. The Sportsman, Tourist, and Spartan are virtually indistinguishable with the blades closed, so he may have used any one of these three, or only one. The knife seen in the opening of each episode was a Wenger, as noted by its long keychain.
The best of Saskatoon Online
- SaskatoonLive.com :: While I can’t wait until the Saskatoonist launches (check out the Gothamist for why I want it). SaskatoonLive.com is a wonderful website that chronicles what makes Saskatoon great.
- Craigslist :: The famous Craigslist finally expanded to Saskatoon two years ago and while it is huge is places like San Francisco and New York, it has been slow to be adopted by those of us in Saskatoon. It is free to post your events, classifieds, and other things you think people in Saskatoon need to know about. If you do have something for sale, why not post it here. The more it is used, the more people it attracts, and the more useful stuff is posted here and a good thing keeps getting better and better. You get the idea. The same thing could be said for using Kijiji.
- Saskatoon.ca :: The City of Saskatoon is surprisingly good. If you need civic information, you can find it here.
- Upcoming.org :: Another site that is very popular in other cities but it underused in Saskatoon. Basically it is a place for upcoming events and a great place to post concerts, church events, community events, conferences…. those kinds of things. Owned by Yahoo!, it also allows you to create groups where events for a common people of interest can all be posted. More of us need to post events to it!
- Mendel Art Gallery weblog :: One of the easiest ways to find out what is new or coming soon to the MAG.
- Saskatoonhomepage.ca :: Horrible URL but one of the few places where you can can get current news for Saskatoon. CKOM’s website is another option. Yes I know the Star Phoenix has a website but most of the content is locked. CBC Sask is another option but only has a couple of stories a day and it is Saskatchewan specific rather than Toontown specific. The bad part is neither site published a RSS feed.
- The Paris of the Prairies Flickr Group :: Some of the best photos taken in and around Saskatoon submitted by almost 100 photographers. There is also a Saskatchewan group as well.
Corruption
Larry Lessig is changing his focus from IP/copyright law to what he calls corruption.
In one of the handful of opportunities I had to watch Gore deliver his global warming Keynote, I recognized a link in the problem that he was describing and the work that I have been doing during this past decade. After talking about the basic inability of our political system to reckon the truth about global warming, Gore observed that this was really just part of a much bigger problem. That the real problem here was (what I will call a “corruption” of) the political process. That our government can’t understand basic facts when strong interests have an interest in its misunderstanding.
This is a thought I’ve often had in the debates I’ve been a part of, especially with respect to IP. Think, for example, about term extension. From a public policy perspective, the question of extending existing copyright terms is, as Milton Friedman put it, a “no brainer.” As the Gowers Commission concluded in Britain, a government should never extend an existing copyright term. No public regarding justification could justify the extraordinary deadweight loss that such extensions impose.
Yet governments continue to push ahead with this idiot idea — both Britain and Japan for example are considering extending existing terms. Why?
The answer is a kind of corruption of the political process. Or better, a “corruption” of the political process. I don’t mean corruption in the simple sense of bribery. I mean “corruption” in the sense that the system is so queered by the influence of money that it can’t even get an issue as simple and clear as term extension right. Politicians are starved for the resources concentrated interests can provide. In the US, listening to money is the only way to secure reelection. And so an economy of influence bends public policy away from sense, always to dollars.
Lessig has changed the way that millions of us see intellectual property, the commons, culture, and the law. I can’t wait to see what the impact of the next decade of his life brings.
Update on Darren
Wendy, Mark and I went to Royal University Hospital to visit Darren tonight. He is doing as well as one would expect after having his heart stopped for several hours but he was in good spirits and we had a short visit, dance (the famous straw stirring the drink) and prayer together. They send him home on Friday but it will be a while until he is back to normal. Thanks for everyone who has been praying.
Speaking of the Simple Way
A fire ravaged their neighborhood last night, destroying their community centre. More information can be found on their website. Prayers and donations would be appreciated.
Church Shopping
From The Onion but true enough that it is more sad than funny.
Our Cabin Weblog- Recently listened to music
- David Gray – Be Mine October 19, 2008
- David Gray – December October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Knowhere October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Real Love October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Last Boat To America October 19, 2008
- Recently additions to my library
- Messy Faith: Daring to Live by Grace by A. J. Gregory October 28, 2008
- Rediscovering Church: The Story and Vision of Willow Creek Community Church by Lynne Hybels October 26, 2008
- The Teeth of the Tiger, A Novel by Tom Clancy October 26, 2008
- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell October 26, 2008
- The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy October 26, 2008
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