Synergistic Exegesis

Here’s a little exercise in using two disparate, seemingly unrelated, scriptures in the Bible to cast illumination on each other. One is from the New Testament and the other from the Old Testament. I’ll comment on the process elsewhere, but for now, consider this New Testament passage:

13 And they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, to catch him in his words. 14 And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man: for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? 12:15 Shall we give, or shall we not give? But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye me? bring me a penny, that I may see it.
16 And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar’s. 17 And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at him. –Mark 12:13-17

Continue reading “Synergistic Exegesis”

Help out… and pass it on.

Sgt Jones.jpg

SGT Rickey Jones

Forwarded to me by LindaSog, this link to A Soldier’s Perspective’s campaign to support the family of SGT Rickey Jones, killed Feb. 22 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee during patrol operations in Hawijah, Iraq:

I am trying to help organize a letter writing campaign to the family of SGT Rickey Jones. As you may have read earlier, their home was vandalized by idiots who wouldn’t understand patriotism if it flew a plane through their bedroom window.

If you own a blog, please post this effort on your respective blogs and ask your readers to post it on their blogs. If you are as disgusted as I am and would like to write a letter to have delivered to this family, please email Lauren (MyWay716@aol.com) for more information. The good people over at Operation Military Pride are helping facilitate the delivery of these letters.

Folks, let’s not let the cretinous pieces of filth who have vandalized the family’s home and called with hateful messages of “Your son deserved to die” color this family’s memory of their son. Look into this for yourself. And if you are as (rightfully) angered by these actions and by the announced plans of Fred Phelps and his cult of hate (gee, you’d think they were Muslims or something) to “protest” this soldier’s funeral as am I, please write the family with your support and encourage others to do so as well.

Euphoric Reality also has an address to send cards. Funeral services are set for this coming Monday.

PSA’d at Basil’s Blog.

Ya think I should send this email?

I hate it when people impose their stupidity on me. Here’s a dipwad that’s a prime example, and the email I have sitting in my outbox awaiting my CLICK of the “send” button…

[Oh, I’m not the list administrator, so I’ve substituted “XXXX” for the list name below)


From: me
To: rleamer@greenhills.net (yeh, the idiot’s real email address)

Note: the below is in response to your unconscionably lazy, stupid and inconsiderate behavior:

Ya know, I have developed a distaste, over the past 15 years or so, for people who are too lazy to unsubscribe from lists according to published protocols. I try to be as nice about it as I can be, but cluttering up MY mailbox with your assinine request to be removed when there’s a perfectly good PRESCRIBED METHOD for removing yourself IN THE FOOTER OF EVERY LISTMAIL YOU’VE RECIEVED is simply evidence of your cluelessness, laziness or complete disregard for any kind of polite discourse whatsoever.

Or all three.

Please use the proper method to unsubscribe yourself. Read through the mesage below, quoting YOUR OWN EMAIL, sent through the listserver showing you EXACTLY how to unsubscribe.

Sending an email to the entire list is not, repeat NOT the way to do it, as anyone with two active brain cells can easily tell.

Now, you think you can get it right?

(I doubt it.)

Feel bad, puppy? Next time, use some sense. or if you have none, ask someone who has some to do your “thinking” for you.

Dipwad.

On Fri, 03 Mar 2006 22:53:46 -0600, Richard Leamer wrote:

> Please remove me from your email list.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS
>
> Visit your group “XXXX” on the web.
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> XXXX-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
>
>


So, hit the “send” button or not? What’s your vote?

I should note that gentle pointers to such clueless idiots in the past have usually netted hate mail, anyway, so I thought it’d not get any worse if I simply spoke bluntly. Different strokes: you may disagree.

Polling the public at TMH’s Bacon Bits

Bacon and Onion Muffins

This one is right up my alley: delicious and easy. I found it in a recipe book compiled for the Lutheran church my Wonder Woman’s aunt attends in a little Minnesota hamlet that doesn’t even have its own post office. As is my norm, I’ve modified it slightly to suit my taste.

  • 2 C flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp dry mustard powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt (and as you know, I only use non-iodized Kosher salt for cooking. OK, maybe you didn’t know. You do now.)
  • 3/4 C chopped green onions–just the green (eat the rest, of course)
  • 1/2 C finely chopped Canadian bacon or cooked, trimmed bacon.
  • 1 egg
  • 1 C milk
  • 1/4 C olive oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. “Grease” 12-“cup” muffin pan. Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately (holding green onions and bacon bits in reserve). Pour egg/milk/oil mixture into dry ingredient mixture and stir until they are juuuust combined, then add the bacon/onion. Spoon batter into the muffin pan (you can even it out, but it’ll be avout 1/4 cup per muffin). Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes. You can test the muffins by inserting a toothpick–if it comes out clean, they’re done.

Serve ’em hot with butter. You can vary this by making a half-and half flour/cornmeal muffin and serving with a good pot of beans, or just eat ’em by themselves or with any meal you feel they’d complement.

Enjoy!

Another re-run: How can you detect an islamofascist terrorist?

[NOTE: This is a rerun from summer fare. Important information nonetheless. *s* Yeh, re-runs. I have plenty of new stuff bubbling, but it’s Saturday, I’m feeling a bit lazy and besides, this is important information. It could save human lives, feed some needy catfish and provide you with useful explosives for ethical purposes.]


A Precision Guided Humor Assignment from The Alliance of Free Blogs: How can you tell if someone is a terrorist?

Now, admittedly, I’ve modified this a bit to exclude waning IRA terrorists and others by narrowing the assignment further to islamofascist murdering savage SOBs, but I think I may be forgiven for that. If not, what’s the Alliance going to do? Send a splodydope to America’s Third World County™? We’d welcome one or twelve. There are always stumps to clear from fields, you know, and some fish just won’t bite and need to be persuaded to “come to papa” *heh* [note; OK, maybe ya don’t tell the game warden about that one]. The idea that an islamofascist murdering savage SOB terrorist could slip by the Third World County™ detection system is laughable.

The Third World County™ Profiler’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Detecting an Islamofascist Murdering Savage SOB Terrorist.

See a suspect? Maneuver to get the wind on ’em. (Scent’s your first clue apart from the fact that the guy looks like an Ay-rab.)

Step 1.) Does the goober smell worse than, well, Goober? If so, he’s either a Loony Left Moonbat or an Islamofascist murdering savage SOB. Bag ‘im either way.

Step 2.) When you perform a “cranial echo test” (whack ‘im on the head with an axe handle) does a “thunk” or no sound at all procede from his pie hole? If a “thunk” then it’s a Loony Left Moonbat and good for catfish feed or for bait for wild boar. If no sound at all issues, then there’s nothing inside (sound doesn’t travel in a vaccuum, you know) and you have a splodydope. Remove any useful explosives and see uses for Loony Left Moonbat, above. If the critter attempts to bite the axe handle, it’s an osama and should be doused with gasoline and burned (after removing any useful explosives for later use fishing or blowing stumps).

Do bury any remains of an osama in pig manure and turn the compost frequently. Use this compost to kill kudzu.


This has been a re-run of a third world county classic post.

PSA’d at The Uncooperative Blogger, Adam’s Blog and Blue Star Chronicles.

What to bring to a counter-protest

[N.B. this is a re-run of a post from September 29, 2005 at the “old” TWC, written for that week’s Precision Gided Humor Assignment.]


The Precision Guided Humor Assignment for this week is, “What should you bring with you to protest an anti-war rally?”

When you think about it for a second or three, that’s really a silly question. Who’s going to see your protest of the “protest”? Self-made idiots of the Loony Left Moonbat Brigade there to celebrate their braindead embrace of anti-war rhetoric, Mass Media Podpeople (also self-made idiots) or people who already agree that the other two classes of creatures that may once have been human are now devolved or replaced by Podpeople from the planet “Reality-Based Fantasia”. The first two classes of beings will not be impacted at all by your protest and the latter class have lives to live, people to feed, bills to pay, etc., and have little time for such foolishness.

If, however, you want to spend some time viewing barking moonbats in their natural habitat for pleasure or education, here are a few of the items you MUST take with you:

A good gas mask.  It’s the stench of unwashed bodies, you know.

MilitarypatchSome heavy-duty insect repellent. Lice, fleas, etc. on unwashed moonbats. (Oh, and the rest of the gear pictured might not be such a bad idea, either. Barking moonbats have been known to throw hissy-fits, and they scratch and bite something fierce.)

You might consider having one of these standing by, as well, a Mobile Topical Applicator and Inhabitant Delouser:
And even with a gas mask, you may well need one of these:barf-bag

Duly noted at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, TMH’s Bacon Bits, The Liberal Wrong Wing and Stuck on Stupid

Head ’em up…

…move ’em out!

Yet another roundup of a few posts and articles that have caught my eye recently around and about.

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!! Homeland Security REALLY needs to look into THIS!!!

Male Whales Beach Selves Instead of Asking Directions is actually just the first short squib in The Cretan Times section of the current Credenda Agenda.

Oscars for Osama, Charles Krauthammer’s latest column, spurred this thought (with some help from Lovely Daughter): Isn’t it eerie how much Julia Roberts looks like Oaama bin Laden (and vice versa)? Is there a connection we don’t know about? Could it be that we can’t find Osama because Julia Roberts is Osama??? We’ll not get close enough to tug on Osama’s beard any time soon, I fear, so perhaps someone who’s better with Photoshop than I wouldn’t mind putting a beard on Julia along with a little dark pancake… Oh, well, maybe it’s just my mind’s eye being decieved because my ear hears so much similarity in their speech… Still, I’m pretty sure the small differences in the nose area can be easily accomplished with an appliance.

which_is_who.jpg

While we’re in the moose-limb woods, how about Abagav’s “Overheard at a funeral”? The “dearly departed” being mourned died in a “work related accident”. No OSHA for Palestinians, I guess.

A very interesting “guest post” and analysis, “Peace Studies” Protester Speaks, at Rhymes With Right. It effectively hilights, IMO, the clear differences between the faux liberalism of the left today and a more genuine, classic liberalism. Worth a read.

Lucifer’s Hammer, anyone? More interesting posts (like this one) at Chaos Manor Musings. Other letters to Dr. Pournelle led to…

An article by John Derbyshire on “Hesperophobia” that was spiked by NRO, as well as a commentary by Steve Sailer that sharpens the focus a bit. Both elightening abd thought-provoking non-pc articles exploring the question, Why do so many hate the West, and especially the U.S.? Must-reads, IMO.

And this also from Dr. Pournelle’s site, Sex and Mathematics. Commonsense from a mathematician on the so-called “gender gap” in academia. Non-pc, of course.

Being Sued for Bathing. Read the whole thing. Personally, I think the gal being sued should countersue and demand the folks suing her stop getting any older and stupider. Works for me.

ABC: Scare Tactics Good When Used by Liberals on Global Warming. So, let me get this right… It’s OK for the “news” readers to lie to us? This is news? Anyone with two brain cells with actively firing synapses knew this when Dan Blather wasn’t fired…

‘S’all for now.

Sneaking ants into the picnic over at Basil’s, breaking early for Spring at Rhymes with Right and playing the “Rant with Sam” game at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns.

Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd (and Open Post)

Or, “Do the little things.”

This phrase, taken from what has been traditionally acredited to St David’s last sermon, characterize the life and faith of

St. Lily, surnamed Gwas-Dewy, that is, St. David’s man, [was David’s] beloved disciple and companion in his retirement.(*)

St Lily apparently took to heart the lessons he heard and learned from his mentor, since he is honored (still, primarily in Wales) for his faithfulness to Davids teaching to

“Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed. Do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about (**)

Augustine also echoed Christ when he said, “To be faithful in little things is a big thing.” for as Christ said,

“He who is faithful in very little things is faithful also in much.” – Luke 16:10

This is an Open post all weekend long. Link here and trackback.

Also note the other fine blogs featuring linkfests at

Linkfest Haven.Linkfest Haven

My Dream Job

Just talking with Lovely Daughter on the phone. We came up with my dream job.

Getting paid to irritate people.

*sigh*

Alas! there are no job openings at the DMV…

UPDATE: Thanks to a perspicacious suggestion in comments by LomaAlta, I have decided that an IT position with the Post Office would afford me the best opportunity to irritate the gratest number of people. I shall therefore endeavor to obtain such a position. The only fly in the ointment is that I fear the very position I seek has already been filled by someone with greeater talent irritating people than I possess…

Looking for help from a Higher Life Form at Ferdy’s place while checking for runoff at Mental Rhinorrhea where—BE WARNED—unless you wanna be struck blind you’d best not look at the picture of BB…

Just had the book(s) thrown at me…

Yeh, I’m a sucker. Everybody knows they can tag me with these faux “memes” (what I like to call blogosphere meme pool games) that’re really just a way of showing that this blogging thing is really a game for networking and gettin’ to know one another. As I always say, folks who take themselves too seriously to play these things are probably just too dull for words.

Even a curmudgeon like me will play the things.

(OK, I’ll admit it: some folks really do have more important things to do. But they are few and far between.)

Here’s the deal Random Yak tagged me with, the big ox:

Name the book or books you are currently reading or about to start, by title and genre.

Gee… I usually have at least one or two that I have to take in small bites and digest and zip through a few lighter things on the side–usually novels of various genres.

The Founders Constitution. Politics/history. No surprise to anyone who’s been around here regularly in the last month or so. I find I have to stop, look up ancilliary resources and chase down historical rabbit trails quite often. I expect this one to take a while, cos I also keep going back and reviewing previous sections in light of later portions. Interesting read.

Improbable Light semi-sci-fi/sorta thriller/action that plays with Heisenberg, quantum theory, Budhism and a lot of semi-mystical nonsense, but has to be far better fiction than the silly Butterfly Effect had to have been (I refuse to watch a film with Ashton Kucher in a lead role) by at least a couple of orders of magnitude. Still, someone needs to explain to the author that people who’ve just busted their kneecap don’t go running around the countryside on makeshift splints… (serious suspension of disbelief issue there)

The Psalms. Yup, those. Written by folks who know what it’s like to struggle with one’s place in the world.

A Man of Means DeLIGHTful fiction. Six stories by P.G. Wodehouse. Who? Oh, the finest novelist of the twentieth century. Seriously. He wrote stories. The heart of a goof, but when he wrote of “bumblebees fooling about in the flowerbed” as a little toss-off in an already brilliant descriptive narative, he hooked me for life. Farcical and convoluted plots, memorable characters (who, having once met him, could forget Psmith?), sparkling dialog: all combine with Wodehouse’s descriptive narative to make absolutely delightful wastes of time that… turn out not to be wastes after all, because he lifts the spirit and leaves ones loads lighter after a good dose of his prose.

Nothing much else right now except for some technical junk that I need to wade through.

Now, who to tag… who to tag… Yak didn’t say what number should be tagged, so I’m going to tag a few and then send off a coupla emails to folks. I’ll follow up with “formal” tags as an update here…

Tagged Angel over at Woman Honor Thyself and she’s already responded with TaG!..Yikes I wasn’t fast enuf.