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I became a Christian in my sophomore year of college. The people who had led me to the Lord immediately began my discipleship. They taught me to evangelize and they taught me what they felt a Christian should believe. But most importantly they were a loving family of believers which was a welcome oasis for someone like me whose home life had been less than familial. Thus, when I was told that Christians must believe in a young-earth and a global flood, I went along willingly. I believed. Being a physics major in college I had not taken any geology...

Really? No kidding?I've always said that if people really knew what was going on in the Middle East then Bush would have an approval rating in the upper 80s while Democrats couldn't be elected as dogcatchers. From AP: [Associated Press CEO Tom] Curley said in a speech that news organizations should quit thinking like gatekeepers of information and reach out to people who are accustomed to receiving news in real time online and customizing the ways they see and read it."Editors need to stop pining for the old world and intensify the leading to the new one," Curley told a...

There's nothing like a good dose of schadenfreude to make one's morning. From Editor & Publisher: NEW YORK The Audit Bureau of Circulations released circulation numbers for more than 700 daily newspapers this morning for the six-month period ending September 2007. Of the top 25 papers in daily circulation (see chart, separate story), only four showed gains.According to an analysis of ABC figures, for 538 daily U.S. newspapers, circulation declined 2.5% to 40,689,617. For 609 papers that filed on Sunday, overall circulation dropped 3.5% to 46,771,486. The percentages are based on comparisons from the same period a year ago.For The...

I was chatting with a neighbor a couple of weeks ago, and he mentioned how America was suffering from a bad economy. I expressed amazement, threw out a figures, and asked him exactly what bad economy he was talking about. He travels often and said that the economy was better in Texas than up north, but he fully believed that the US was suffering from an economic slowdown. He's no liberal either, but evidently has heard enough bad reporting lately to believe the phony news. I read a story last week stating that approximately half the country thought that we...

The actual launch of the much-vaunted Google Gphone won't happen till the middle of next summer, but this Monday Google will announce some of its plans. From The Wall Street Journal: We won’t have to wait much longer to hear from Google about its big plans in wireless. The company looks set to make a splash in the mobile market on Monday, announcing an alliance with various handset makers and cellphone operators around the world that are willing to push its “open” platform for cellphone applications, sources say. It’s always possible the announcement’s timing could change, but Monday looks like...

Stingray is back. Well, sort of back. Between a long and huge project at work that often kept me working until midnight, my father's illness, two minor illnesses of my own, taking weekend classes to better my C# skills, and just plain busyness I have been on an unintended hiatus since late July.Thanks to all who keep checking back and to those who have written personally to see what I was up to — Chrys, Oink, Kate, and others. I promise to write you back personally as time permits.The first thing you've probably noticed is that the blog has been...

Stingray: a blog for salty Christians is back. Well, sort of back. Between a long and huge project at work that often kept me working until midnight, my father's illness, two minor illnesses of my own, taking weekend classes to better my C# skills, and just plain busyness I have been on an unintended hiatus since late July.Thanks to all who keep checking back and to those who have written personally to see what I was up to — Chrys, Oink, Kate, and others. I promise to write you back personally as time permits.The first thing you've probably noticed is...

More interesting news on the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi still alive after bombingAccording to the Associated Press, al-Zarqawi was still alive when Iraqi police arrived at the scene of the attack. His last sight on earth was of US armed forces while his next sight in eternity was not Paradise, but rather hell. What a way to go. A mortally wounded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was still alive and mumbling after American airstrikes on his hideout and tried to get off a stretcher when he became aware of U.S. troops at the scene, a top military official said Friday....Al-Zarqawi could...

By now, everyone knows that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has assumed room temperature, which in the Iraqi summer, is probably more like the temperature in hell. It's a good thing that al-Zarqawi is no stranger to hot temperatures because I have the feeling that he's finding out about now that Allah is a demon. From the Centcom press release: “Ladies and Gentlemen, Coalition Forces killed al-Qaeda terrorist leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and one of his key lieutenants, spiritual adviser Sheik Abd-Al-Rahman, yesterday, June 7, at 6:15 p.m. in an air strike against an identified, isolated safe house. “Tips and intelligence from...

This is the first in a series that will ultimately publish and provide commentary for each chapter of the book of Proverbs. The inspiration for this is the new book entitled “The Richest Man who Ever Lived” by Steven K. Scott. It's the best book I have read in a long time and is already changing my life.Author Steven Scott has been through it all. He lost 9 jobs in his first 6 years out of college and was tagged as a hopeless corporate failure. On the advice of his friend Gary Smalley, who was also a nobody at the...

I came across an article written a few weeks ago and was even more amazed than usual at how little truth the piece contained. The title is ominous -- Iraq Quagmire, Domestic Troubles Have Bush Setting Sites on Iran -- and the writer, John Hanchette, has credentials out the yin-yang. John Hanchette, a professor of journalism at St. Bonaventure University, is a former editor of the Niagara Gazette and a Pulitzer Prize-winning national correspondent. He was a founding editor of USA Today and was recently named by Gannett as one of the Top 10 reporters of the past 25 years....

Did you know that God actually commands us to be joyful? Joy is not an option for a Christian, but must be a part of your daily life if you are to walk with God and grow spiritually. We are not only to rejoice when things are going well, but we are to rejoice at all times, even when things are going badly for us. 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18  )4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. (Philippians...

Have you ever spent 15 or 20 minutes or more on the telephone trying to speak to a real live human while getting the runaround from the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system? If so, this blogsite and database is for you. It has ways to bypass the IVR and speak to a human for 356 companies and goverment organizations as of today. Everyone from American Express to Bank of America to Verizon is on the list. I give it two thumbs and a salute!

Thanks (I think) to Ace of Spades for pointing out a 1973 video of William Shatner singing Harry Chapin's "Taxi" on the Dinah Shore show.  If that's not enough for you, have a gander at multiple William Shatners singing Elton John's "Rocketman."If you're really brave, watch Shatner rap something about Julius Caesar.For an encore, see this music video set to a excerpt of Shatner singing "Lucy in the sky with Diamonds."Don't ever say that I don't bring you guys true entertainment.

We cannot understand in this present life how much God loves us. Much of it is due to the fact that our earthly minds do not understand God's holiness and the the truly destructive power of sin. Even more, we cannot understand God's love for us that he would take our sins upon himself so that we may be re-united with him.What is holiness? It means that God is separate, not just separate like an ant is to a man, but transcendentally separate in a way that we cannot understood. We are created in his image, but our power, understanding,...

Today was the day of the big immigration reform protest here in Dallas. The official estimates are that the crowd numbered between 350,000 and 400,000. The protest was against proposed immigration restrictions being proposed in Washington and to support legalizing what the New York Times calls "undocumented workers." Anytime we read a story in any newspaper now, we have to wonder whether a reporter was paid to make the subject look good or bad.But I digress.I watched some of the protests on television at my parents' house, and then watched a bit more here at home on the internet. It was...

Someone at TIME Magazine has finally figured out why Democrats lose elections. Joe Klein blames the losing record of the Democrats on their dependence on consultants and focus groups. Limbaugh has been saying this for years -- I don't know why it's taken so long for a smart man like Klein to figure this one out. When it comes to politics, the Democrats are still at "Ned in the First Reader."Of course, the other reason that Democrats lose elections is that they're wrong on the issues, but Klein hasn't figured that one out yet and probably won't.Klein talks of Gore...

Last week, the Democratic Party unveiled its new Campaign 2006 theme:  Real Security: The Democratic Plan to Protect America and Restore Our Leadership in the World. Yep, the Donks are saying that they're the party who will keep us safe. If the Donks are so good about security, then why didn't they do anything about terrorism in the 1990s? The answer is that Clinton is good at dropping things -- he dropped his trousers at internists and dropped the ball on terrorism. White House interns weren't very secure at all around Sir Grope-A-Lot.On February 26, 1993, a terrorist cell headed...

Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, a former White House national security adviser, plans to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, and will acknowledge intentionally removing and destroying copies of a classified document about the Clinton administration's record on terrorism. Berger's plea agreement, which was described yesterday by his advisers and was confirmed by Justice Department officials, will have one of former president Bill Clinton's most influential advisers and one of the Democratic Party's leading foreign policy advisers in a federal court this afternoon.

O Lord, why does life have to be so hard? I cry out but I hear no answer. I pray to you and ask you to help me be a better person. I work towards that goal thinking that I'm in partnership but persist in making mistakes. I do 10 things and 9 of them will turn out perfectly but it's the 10th thing -- the one that I mess up -- that gets all the attention. Why am I not appreciated for the things that I do right? Why does the one thing that I mess up have to be the most...