Swap Blog

Milton Stanley, bouncing off a piece by Tony Myles, has a post up looking at why churches may be full of unkind Christians. Milton’s Post Here

For me it has always come down to religion over relationship in the end. When we began to “practice religion” we tend to stop WORKING on our relationship with God. Soon after that love and compassion are replaced by rules, and outreach is replaced by selective association. That is just me though, what do I know…I am just a church member with some leadership responsibilities, I don’t know anything about how most churches really work.

Since we seem to be talking about mental health day - Why Did I Miss This and A Scary Education / limited freedom - it only seems that we should mention The Hatemonger’s Quarterly take on Dennis K questioning George Bush’s mental sanity. Post Here

The title of this post / the above quote comes from Dave Farquhar of The Silicon Underground and relates to his preference to use AMD CPU’s instead of Intel chips. I completely agree with David on this.

David says he was a second gen AMD backer, as he as a Amiga guy when the first AMD gen rolled out. I was still using at Atari 520ST at the time, but I was integrating / selling PC’s at the time and I pushed many customer to first gen AMD chips. I believed then, and still do, that AMD offers a better price / performance ratio then INTEL. Dave also hits on how the computer industry is stagnant due to Microsoft’s dominance and how OS/2 (IBM’s attempt to move into the OS business) offered the last real competition Microsoft had. IF any of this matters to you and you want to read a great post about why many in the IT say AMD INSTEAD give Davids’ Full Post a read.

Today, on Halloween, Sigmund Carl and Alfred has one of the scariest posts I have read in a LONG TIME!!!. This post is about how the University of Delaware is trying to become the thought police by limiting / controlling both speech and individuality of its students with a program to REQUIRE certain views of those that living in their residence halls. Those that disagree with the expressed views are offered “TREATMENT” for their views and ideas.

The program defines ALL WHITES as racists - “[a] racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality.” The program also involves the RA’s asking very personal questions and reporting in writing on anyone that is uncomfortable with the questions to their supervisors. This is scary stuff.

Where is that part of higher education where ALL views are appreciated and discussed? Bad ideas and views flush out naturally with MOST people. It is not the role of government or public education in a free nation to determine which views are to be held by its citizens or students.

Full story below.

Pink Kitty took the challenge of determining what she would save in a fire last week (here), and today we decided to take it on. Following her pattern we will list six items.

1. The dogs (all three) - including their “go” bag (a few days of food, leashes, etc)
2. The external hard drive that backs up all the “important” data on the computer - music and photos included
3. The laptops and computer bags (that has my MP3 player in it)
4. The Bible my parents gave me when I graduated college - the others can be replaced
5. The wedding photo album and other photo albums /annuals
6. The “pen and watch” bag - holds my modest pen and watch collection

If I had time I would grab the kilt and part of my large T-shirt collection. After that some of my books and the magazines that I have collected over the years.

John T Brown from Scotwise has a great post up that talks about a key component of the church - meeting together and building each other up. Unfortunately, some times those meetings can become sessions where more damage then construction is done.

We have the foundations on which to build concrete hope, when we remind ourselves, that Salvation is by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, to atone for our sins, and to ransom our souls. We should join in prayer and praise one with another.

John’s post is a great one. Give it a read here.

Rueters has a very interesting story up that discusses why the Google phone (and Google’s “perceived” marketing approach) may work better in Europe then in the US, due to the nature of how mobile phone providers handle their phones, features and financial plans in the US. Direct to the end user is harder to pull off in the US. Full Story here

Due to the closed “haunted cave” (looks like the 30th is listed to me…oh well) the lovely wife and I ended up back at the in laws house eating chili and watching The Biggest Loser last night. This is the first time we have seen the show in a few years. Dang DUDE DRANK 2 GALLONS OF WATER LAST WEEK BEFORE THE WEIGH IN!!! WOW!! Still losing 33 pounds in a week, even if 17 pounds was water and such that he ADDED last week that is still impressive. That Kae chic really needs to learn to appreciate all she has done and not focus on the number of pounds, but the ratio and overall loss that she has achieved.

Looks like that David guy really stayed on course after getting booted. Based on the hanging of his clothes though I think the guy will have to get a skin tuck to get all the loose skin removed after he reaches his goal. That is a small price to pay for getting your life and your future back though.

For me though it is a reminder that we all really need to be consistent in our physical health.

Any long time reader of Swap Blog knows that we have a political side. In fact, we follow politics (local, state and federal) closely year round. We just do not comment on it as much as we use due to frustration with BOTH parties, but that is a topic for another day.

Anyway, last night we were out with family attempting to attend a “haunted cave” that claimed be open, but was not when we arrived. Apparently we were not the only ones that read the web site, instead of the sign out front, as there were about 10 other cars that pulled in while we were in the parking lot discussing the issue. Again, that is another topic for another time. Bottom line, we were not home last night until about 10PM and we did not see the debate.

This seemed to be the one to catch. John Edwards calling Hillary Clinton out for changing her answer within 2 minutes, Edwards inferring that the Republicans may be going after Clinton because she is the one that they WANT to run against, Obama going on the attack and accusing Hillary of flip flopping, Richardson calling for a end of personal attacks, and Dennis Kucinich talking about UFO’s. Classic stuff. Dang Halloween.

Lemuel Calhoon from Hillybilly White Trash did catch the show. He thinks they are aiming at the wrong target - since Bush is not running in 2008. LC&#