Here is a little article from UK Telegraph.

At the last moment a member of the Chinese politburo who was watching a rehearsal pronounced that the winner, a girl called Yang Peiyi, might have a perfect voice but was unsuited to the lead role because of her buck teeth...

"The main consideration was the national interest," he said. "The child on the screen should be flawless in image, in her internal feelings, and in her expression. In the matter of her voice, Yang Peiyi was flawless, in the unanimous opinion of all the members of the team."

That was until attention turned to Yang Peiyi's teeth. Nevertheless, Mr Chen thought the end result a perfect compromise.

"We have a responsibility to face the audience of the whole country, and to be open with this explanation," he said. "We should all understand it like this: it is a question of the national interest. It is a question of the image of our national music, our national culture.

"Especially at the entrance of our national flag, this is an extremely important, an extremely serious matter.

"So we made the choice. I think it is fair to both Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi - after all, we have a perfect voice, a perfect image and a perfect show, in our team's view, all together."

 Watch the video at Hot Air.

al se

al sends

Well, Google recently announced that they had cataloged over one TRILLION unique web pages. 10 years ago they had 'only' 26 million pages. They add several billion pages a day to their database.

If you start now and visit 500 pages per day, it will take you over five million years* to visit all the pages that existed when this number was tallied.  Get busy.

al sends

*somebody check my math.

First Disclaimer:  The above site is sponsored by a real dating service.  This link does not constitute an endorsement of that service or website.  Nor do the Basketeers want to give the impression that zombies are anything other than the blood thirsty undead.

Second Disclaimer:  It may go without saying, but inter-animated dating is less than godly.  Please, remember this bit is piety and receive your warning:

al sends

This headline appeared on Drudge this morning:

SHOCK: Swastika symbol appears as TOP search trend at GOOGLE...

Here is more information!

al sends

I have a friend:  Good guy.  One of my favorite guys.  Superb Dentist.  Loves Jesus Christ.  Owns a MacBook Pro. 

That last little trait has been, for me, a stumbling block in our relationship.  Not because I own a Dell, I do, but that is not why.  It is because I suffer from Mac Envy.  Sure, I try to cover up my envy with snippy little remarks about how Apple can make a guy in a t-shirt and jeans look pompous or how I hate the fact it is 'MacBook' and not 'Mac Book'.  Again, pompous.

Well, I am pleased to report that my envy has been dealt a death's blow.  Phil Johnson has posted about his experience with a MacBook (I feel icky just typing that), their tech support, the Apple Store and keyboards.  It is a lovely piece of writing. 

I took joy in reading about his troubles, not for his sake you understand - bless his heart-, but for mine and my struggle with besetting sin.  I am sure Phil is Job like right now, stating that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away - Blessed be the Name of the Lord.  And I am like a real friend of Job, simply agreeing and rejoicing right along with him.  See?  Righteousness all around.

And as I glance at my Dell, with its hideous boxy shape, hiding massive amounts of bloated code and a Windows registry that is bigger and more unwieldy than a Shanghai phone book - I smile.

Yep, envy has been laid low.  I am sure you can tell.

al sends

*** I am still working on self-deceipt and pride.

Well, no, no, no, no, no, and no. But to think that the answers to any of these questions is yes, you have to be (a) a bad speller, (2) exposed to some really, really bad theology, and (c) determined to think that the United States of America is the climax and pinnacle of human history.

Consider: there is no Book of Revelations in the Bible. There is no person called "the Antichrist" in the Book of Revelation. Barack Obama is a confessing Christian. The United States of America will be on the scrap heap of history long before Christ returns. The Man of Sin was a petty tyrant named Nero now moldering in the Italian loam.

Rather than spending endless amounts of time and energy speculating about screwy-headed eschatalogical schedules and conspiracies, Christians ought to be busy about good works to the glory of God. That is what the Heavenly Father has laid in store for us.

"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them' (Ephesians 2:10). Speculating about imaginary end times events is not one of those good works He prepared beforehand.

That's all I have to say about that.

I think it was one of the Graham ladies who said something like, "If God does not destroy America He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah."  Well, this whole "pregnant man" drivel is another item in the long list of grievances the God may be weighing.

It is not so much the bizarre nature of a woman who takes pleasure in shaving that is so damning.  Rather, it is our media's response to a circus act, the modern equivilant of a "Geek Show".  They are falling all over themselves to show the world how tolerant they are and how bigoted and foolish you are for wanting to throw-up in your mouth at the sight of her.

Ben Shapiro over at Townhall has written a lovely stick-in-the-eye piece, detailing the media fascination with this deluded woman.  Click the quote to go to the site.

Thracy isn't the first pregnant man -- she is only the latest lesbian spokesperson for radical amorality, festooned with the plumage of masculinity. Testosterone doesn't make a woman a man. And a bearded pregnant woman doesn't make wrong right, no matter what the media says.

May God have mercy on her and us.

al sends

A Crunchy Con Manifesto

By Rod Dreher

1. We are conservatives who stand outside the conservative mainstream; therefore, we can see things that matter more clearly.

2. Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power, and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character.

3. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.

4. Culture is more important than politics and economics.

5. A conservatism that does not practice restraint, humility, and good stewardship—especially of the natural world—is not fundamentally conservative.

6. Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New, and Abstract.

7. Beauty is more important than efficiency.

8. The relentlessness of media-driven pop culture deadens our senses to authentic truth, beauty, and wisdom.

9. We share Russell Kirk’s conviction that “the institution most essential to conserve is the family.”

10. Politics and economics won’t save us; if our culture is to be saved at all, it will be by faithfully living by the Permanent Things, conserving these ancient moral truths in the choices we make in our everyday lives.

When I was a kid we had TV.  It was the 60's and 70's so many of the good people who wrote our shows were on acid, LSD for unhip.   Case in point HR PuffnStuff:

Now, my reason for posting that little bit of hazy nostalgia is not to just post a silly video, at least not that silly video.  No, my purpose here is get you look at this worship service that was referenced by Ed Morrisey, a good Catholic boy at Hot Air. as ‘irretrievably silly’.  The 70's day trippers have found religion, specifically the Roman Catholic faith. 

My favorite parts were not the big puppets, but the dancers spraying everyone down with what I can only assume is vodka. 

I wonder what the Pope would say if he stumbled across this little backwater of a blog?

al sends

By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.

This is great!  Instead of ramping up our world-famous production machine, we are going to sue a bunch of foreign companies/countries for not playing fair! 

Here are some other suggestions our government might employ to teach these mean ol' OPECers a lesson.

1. We could stomp our feet.
2. Hold our breath.  When we're dead, boy, then they will miss us! 
3. We might try running away. Only to the Caribbean though; its scary out there in the real world.
4. Paint their names on a water tower with unflattering epitaphs.  Something like:  OPEC is Gay!  or VENEZUELA EATS DOG POO!
5. We could pull their shorts down (or lift up their robes) at the next UN meeting.
6. Last resort, get Canada to beat them up.

While Michelle Obama only recently became proud of her country, I am growing increasingly ashamed.

al sends

This information has landed in the Basket:  The Vatican says it is okay to believe in UFOs.  Okay in the spiritual sense.  In other words, it is perfectly compatible with "The Faith" to also believe in ET:

The Vatican's chief astronomer says there is no conflict between believing in God and in the possibility of extraterrestrial "brothers" perhaps more evolved than humans.

"In my opinion this possibility exists," said the Reverend José Gabriel Funes, head of the Vatican Observatory and a scientific adviser to Pope Benedict XVI, referring to life on other planets.

"How can we exclude that life has developed elsewhere," he said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, published in its Tuesday-Wednesday edition. The large number of galaxies with their own planets makes this possible, he noted.

Asked if he was referring to beings similar to humans or even more evolved than humans, he said: "Certainly, in a universe this big you can't exclude this hypothesis."

In the interview headlined, "The extraterrestrial is my brother," he said he saw no conflict between belief in such beings and faith in God.

Well, isn't that special!  I am not sure a Calvinist, with a firm belief in the headship of both Adam and Christ, can go along with Rome.  Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, had to come as a man in order to save mankind (Its all in Romans and Hebrews folks).  So, if there were other "brothers" out there, would he also have to come as the Great Gazoo?

A few more questions...  Who knew the Vatican had its own Astronomer?  Seriously, what other officeholders are there in Rome?  Is there a Chief Botanist?  Who would issue rulings on the potential for man eating plants from space, the astronomer or the botanist?  FEED ME SEYMOUR! 

UPDATE FOR SUSAN:  to show her that we at the basket still love her

We love you too Bucky, but I have no idea what you are talking about with those fanny aliens.  Enlighten?

al sends

AllahPundit over at HotAir said this of the Time cover:

 All that’s missing is a milkshake with two straws in it and the headline, “You have beautiful eyes.”

And that is one funny line...

al sends

Seven young artists from Berlin are trying to stretch the boundaries of art by living in an Israeli museum for three weeks with lice in their hair.

The artists, who sleep, eat and bathe in the gallery, said the exhibition toyed with ideas about hosts and guests in line with a theme set by the museum and aimed to blur the boundaries between art and reality.

...

In Bat Yam, Gitzin-Adiram said she spent weeks exploring the gallery's theme of "hosting," turning to philosophers such as Jacques Derrida and even the Bible for inspiration. She received proposals from around the world but was won over by the lice.

Two things to remember:  

1. If everything is art, then nothing is. 
2. Youth is wasted on the young. 

Did I say 'Dude" already?   'Cuz - Dude!

al sends

(HT:  HOTAIR)

Miley Cyrus aka Hannah Montana, took an "artistic" picture for Vanity Fair and the picture is simply exploitative.  Here is what she said with it came to the attention of world outside Hollywood:

"I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed," she said in a statement released today. "I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about."

I don't blame the child, but I pray that God would put this rag out of existence.  They knew exactly what they were doing.

al sends

(I will not link the picture here, but google it and show it to your teenage daughters - show them what flattery can do to a young lady.)

NEW YORK (AP) - Hundreds of angry people marched through Harlem on Saturday after the Rev. Al Sharpton promised to "close this city down" to protest the acquittals of three police detectives in the 50-shot barrage that killed a groom on his wedding day and wounded two friends.

"We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians," Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. "This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell."

For by means of a harlot 
A man is reduced to a crust of bread; 
And an adulteress will prey upon his precious life.

More about Sharpton than about New York.

al sends

Real hills, where sledding takes place and breathing increases as you trudge to the crest. We just don't have those kind of hills in Pensacola and they are in abundance in Northern Idaho. It is as though the earth hunched its shoulders and they got stuck that way, just like its mother said they would.

I am in Moscow, Idaho, visiting New Saint Andrews College, going to church at Trinity Presbyterian, and seeing folks we have never met yet wanted to for awhile. Providence has directed that our hotel reservations suffer a loss, namely the middle two nights of our stay were deleted out of the hotel's system. So, we are staying with the Atwood family. We are most grateful for their hospitality and praise God for their love of strangers. And we are stranger than most.

I will pass along what I thought about the college some other time, but the vision for a whole community of Christians living in the world, yet not of the world, has been something wonderful to see. I like it... a lot.

We also got to have dinner with Josh Gibbs and his lovely wife Paula. Josh writes at TheCedarRoom, which will make its way to the blogroll eventually I'm sure. They cooked us a wonderful dish of chicken and potatoes with a baked zucchini that was very tasty. The best part of the night though was putting a face and voice with the scribblings of an anonymous blogger.

We attended church on at Trinity Reformed Church on Sunday. The Atwoods and the Gibbs both attend there. It was a blessing to be around the Saints of God, singing psalms we have never sung, singing the Lord's Prayer and passing the peace.  I now know what it is like for visitors to come into our church on Sunday mornings.  It can be pleasantly unsettling.

Tonight, we will be visiting with Dale Courtney who writes the RightMind blog.  His site is already linked on the right under worldview and gives you a little insight into life in N. Idaho.  He has seven college students living with his family so our dinner should be very interesting.

This whole trip has been eye opening for us.  This is what a Christian Community should look like.  I recommend a visit if you get the time.

al sends

al sends

Gary Gygax died this week.  Most of us say, "who was Gary Gygax."  While others of you are wrist-weary after trying so many saving throws, trying to bring him back. (my eyes are cutting over to David right now)

Here is a tribute:

al sends

HT: MM at HotAir

First, he storms onto the national scene and proceeds to rip Hillary's inheritance out of her grip. Then he practically morphs into a cult of personality. A phenomenon, they are saying. Now he's doing riffs on Bible interpretation. Turns out the Sermon on the Mount teaches us that homosexuals should be accorded rights as partners in civil unions, while the first chapter of Romans is an obscure part of the Bible that can be easily disregarded. The Obama has spoken. (And go see Blog and Mablog for an excellent thought on what this means for the way our nation thinks of Scripture.)
And now in what is, I suppose, a manifestation of the phenomenology of Obama, there are multiplied scores of new words, neologisms, to describe the Obama experience. Go check out the Encyclopedia Baracktannia. Get a chuckle, but also learn how to enter a political discussion when you need to mention the Barackstar. Or when you exhibit signs of Obamania. Or when you are mesmerized by his Omentum. Or when you are needing to speak to an Obombre.

Somebody please get me a Baracktail.

Anyone living in the P-cola area interested in meeting up for the U2-3D movie let me know.

 al sends

I ran across these two gems last week.

CHRISTIAN, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

REPENTANCE, n. The faithful attendant and follower of Punishment. It is usually manifest in a degree of reformation that is not inconsistent with continuity of sin.

We just make it too easy for our critics.

And by the way, you can find the book online here. I especially like the zaniness of the entry under "Regalia." Enjoy.

"The Associated Sovereigns of Mendacity": that's what we are, fellow Basketeers!

Here is all you need to know about Ajinbayo Akinsiku' graphic novel adaptation of the Bible:

The Sermon on the Mount did not make the book, though, because there was not enough action to it.

This is not Christ the Divine Warrior David talked about.  This is literally a caricature of the Divine Warrior of Scripture.

 al sends

al sends

 I hope Neil Young will remember,
Southern man don't need him around, anyhow.

Of course, while it is true that music can't save the world - science and 'spirituality' can.  There is no fool like an old fool. 

 al sends