bloganovel

Over at Gutsy Faith, author, publisher, father and youth worker Jeff Edmondson has some great thoughts, including comments on Farris Hassan and Bono.

Meanwhile, in the Sweptover land my ancestors passed through on their way to Penn's Woods, (or was it the other way around? My wife would know) author, father, follower of Christ, and interstellar wordsmith Scott Lyons hammers out a poem that even I like. And I don't like poetry.

Blessings, brothers!

If you're in need of a good laugh, Lileks writes of the twelve catastrophes of Christmas. I especially enjoyed catastrophes six and eight.

Add another blogger to the "people at work who blog" column. Jeff Edmondson is our Youth Publisher and an all-around good guy. He's just getting his blog off the ground, so drop by and see what he's got to say.

Blogspirit was down most of Friday as far as I could tell. Saturday was Bible quizzing for Eldest (she took a 3rd place ribbon and one of our 2.5 teams took first overall - but it's not about the competition - we're excited that they're hiding the Word in their heart). Youngest was at Grandma's and went on "Jam calls" with a friend from their church, who happens to be Wonderful Wife's former supervisor - way back when, before Youngest was bornded into the world.

Stopped at the library to tell Wonderful Wife how Eldest did with her quizzing. The local nature center was there with some birds of prey so we stayed for the show. Let's see. There was a Great Horned Owl, a Barn Owl, one of those little falcons that's related to a Peregrine (I know the name is stored in here somewhere, I just can't access that file right now), and a Red-Tailed Hawk.

I was glad to hear President Bush defending his decision to go to war. If you think he lied about WMD, let's talk about 1) the definition of lie; 2) what President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Senator John Kerry, and any number of Democrats said about WMD in the late '90s and early '00s; 3) what the consensus was among world intelligence communities in the same time frame; 4) how many children does a dictator have to have killed or imprisoned before we say "Enough!"?

I think they call that a run-on sentence. I tend to do that when I feel strongly about something I guess. You could call it a rant.

Anyway, the text of President Bush's speech is here (via Instapundit). Time for me to get ready for the day. May be back later with links to fill in the Clinton/Gore/Kerry trail. Or google Bill Clinton Saddam Hussein Iraq weapons.

I've added new links to my blogroll: spriggs.blogspot.com and joedonahue.org. These are the programmers from work that I blogged about earlier.

Check them out - they update more often than I do and they have a broader range of interests than me.

Buddy Matt Zimmer has a good post on real love. Quote:

...in a world where sticks and stones may not break bones but name calling really hurts, in a world where some come to Sunday worship and sing "it's all about You Jesus" but inside it's really all about them, these words from Jesus really press in on a person.

Preach it, brother!

Herein is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us...

1 John 4:10

Update: The link was broke, but it ain't no more.

This Washington Post article seems like very, very good news.

In a striking finding, predominantly Muslim populations in a sampling of six North African, Middle East and Asian countries also shared to "a considerable degree" Western nations' concerns about Islamic extremism, the survey found. Many in those Muslim nations see it as threat to their own country, the poll found.

"Most Muslim publics are expressing less support for terrorism than in the past. Confidence in Osama bin Laden has declined markedly in some countries, and fewer believe suicide bombings that target civilians are justified in the defense of Islam," concluded the Pew Global Attitudes Project.

There are still some barriers to overcome, as indicated in the article. On the whole, the news is welcome in this man's world. Read the whole thing.

Via Instapundit.

James Lileks, in that oh-so-subtle Lileks Manner, ponders the past, the present, and the future of Britannia. Long may she live.

[Warning: Lileks subtlety can sometimes be graphic.]

Be sure to listen to the music clips. They're worth the time.

We all need to take time, especially now, but always, to look for that which transcends.

My post about the personal significance of July 8th might be a little late...

One of the unwritten treasures of the blogosphere is that blogs have archived history. So often, we jump from blog to blog without really bothering to score a hit on the hoarded gold and jewels in their archives.

Well, tonight, I was searching for something I had read on Barbara Curtis' blog, and found this article, which isn't exactly what I thought I remembered, but that's good, right? 'Cause now I'll go back and root around in the vault some more.

After the tragedy in London today, maybe we all need to take some lessons in leadership to heart.

You probably don't need to read my blog to know what happened in London this morning. Instapundit has lots of links, of course, as do others. The Belmont Club has good analysis.

Also found on The Belmont Club today: this animated map of coalition military deaths in Iraq. While it provides an interesting picture, I don't know that it really provides quantitative data. The animation loaded quickly (less than 30 seconds) on my 26.4k dial-up connection.