Happy New Year!

Happy 2010! For those wanting a nugget of great wisdom, wait just a little longer- As you can see, I have not been blogging much, but will post more in due course.

Happy Thanksgiving!

For those of you who are surfing to this blog for nuggets of profound wisdom and erudition, you will have to come back in January when we are done with our life moves. Until then, you will only get a periodic wiseass comment (of profound wisdom, of course) along with an occasional tantalizing hint of something possibly interesting that we both know will fall flat when you get all the details. Best to wait until I can think of something good.

In consolation, however, you will get a picture or two posted of a really cute baby. (Which is what people who know me really want to see, anyway).





You have been warned.

Which Theologian are you?

You scored as Karl Barth, The daddy of 20th Century theology. You perceive liberal theology to be a disaster and so you insist that the revelation of Christ, not human experience, should be the starting point for all theology. Karl Barth 93% Charles Finney 67% John Calvin 67% Anselm 60% Martin Luther 53% Jürgen Moltmann 47% Augustine 33% Friedrich Schleiermacher 33% Jonathan Edwards 27% Paul Tillich 27% Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Happy New Year!

2007 promises to be a year of enormous impact.

Dark Side of the Band

No..... Not the "Rolling Stones" kind of band....

This One. ----->

(Excerpted from Wired Magazine by Jason Walsh)

Shortwave radio bands, ignored by commercial broadcasters because of their low fidelity, have long been home to government activity -- whether for national broadcasts such as the BBC World Service, Voice of America and Radio France International, or propaganda broadcasts from the likes of Radio Havana or the U.S.-backed Radio Free Iraq.

Meanwhile, for the last 30 years an altogether more curious kind of international station has been noted on the airwaves.

Across the world, high-powered transmitters with global reach are broadcasting seemingly meaningless strings of numbers or letters, along with a lot of buzzing and beeping noises.

Some have speculated that the signals from these "numbers stations" are operated by drug cartels. However, it's more likely they're run by intelligence agencies, as tacitly acknowledged by the British government, and accidentally by the Cubans.

As shortwave is abandoned by public broadcasters in favor of satellite and the internet, these curious stations continue to broadcast, seemingly unaffected by the end of the Cold War or the development of new technologies. But even listening to the signals is illegal in some countries.

A subculture of obsessive listeners has built up around the stations, despite the fact that they have little hope of ever decoding the signals.

Such is the curiosity value of these oddball transmissions that they have had an impact on popular culture and have been featured in the movie Vanilla Sky and music by Wilco, Porcupine Tree and Stereolab. A U.K.-based label, Irdial Discs, released a four-CD recording of various stations, an odd soundtrack approaching conceptual art.

No government has ever acknowledged a numbers station, but the British Department of Trade and Industry told London's Daily Telegraph in 1997 that there was no mystery and that the stations were not "intended for public consumption."

....more of this story here and another story here.

This is an audio glimpse into the Cold War and the surreal.

Goodbye, Cafe Yemaya

Fare thee well, Cafe Yemaya- You will be sorely missed from Ocean Beach. Thanks for the great company, waffles and soy lattes!

Hitchens on Zarqawi

Excellent commentary by Christopher Hitchens on "Why Zarqawi's Death Matters."

Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers

Fantastic book. This book states the justification of the value and wisdom of patristic history and thought and seeks to teach Christians of their rich heritage that modern Protestants are largely unaware of. Althought far from perfect, the Church Fathers still speak to their children across the centuries to imbue convey their wisdom and experience and (hopefully) prevent further harm to the church through needless repetition of doctrinal battles that have been fought before.