I hate that so many bloggers on blogspot want to force you to have a blogger account in order to post comments. I don’t want a blogger account! Ever! Sheesh! But I really want to comment on some of your blogs!
Archive for July, 2006
Blogspot’s Snobbism
Monday, July 31st, 2006Circumcision and Blood
Sunday, July 23rd, 2006Regarding circumcision, someone recently asked me,
If God is so loving, why base his entire covenant with His Chosen on violence especially against the most helpless? The whole point of Jesus’ ministry was to replace that law with a new standard of gentleness and forgiveness, so why seal it with still more violence? It just doesn’t add up to me.
His covenant was (and is) based on redemption and restoration. Circumcision is only a sign of that covenant. There is a lot of blood involved in God’s interaction with mankind. I don’t completely understand that, but I recognize a few hints. First, for whatever reason Adam chose death over life, and that decision has affected everything. The violence is already there by the actions of people, and the controlled violence of blood covenants serves in part to restrain the uncontrolled violence of mankind’s natural tendencies. Second, blood has some kind of cleansing property in a spiritual sense in that it allows God to interact with people who would otherwise be too repulsive to him. Third, blood symbolizes the life-and-death nature and permanency of covenants. It’s a solemnizer.
I can understand your confusion regarding the apparent disparity between Jesus’ message of love and the necessity of his violent death. It never added up for me either. However, the problem is in our perceptions of Jesus’ ministry and purpose. He didn’t come to replace the law with a new standard. In fact, he said the exact opposite: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy [kataluo: to tear down], but to fulfil [pleroo: to build up or to carry into effect]. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” If fulfilling the law is the same as annulling it for everyone else, then Jesus’ statement here was meaningless: “I am not come to destroy, but to abolish.”
Jesus mission in regards to fulfilling the Law was three-fold. First, he completed or built up our understanding of it through his teachings on the two central commands of Torah: love God and love your neighbor. Second, he fulfilled (and will fulfill) various prophecies embedded in the Law. Third, he fulfilled the requirement of blood to allow us to approach God (or God to approach us) despite our spiritual stench. This is a physical manifestation of a spiritual law that we don’t have to understand in order to take advantage of. Something like quantum theory. The laws that govern the interactions of subatomic particles are incomprehensible to most of us, but still necessary for life. The thing that we have to acknowledge is that nothing other than the mercy shown through his blood (and no other action, inaction, or attitude) would be entirely sufficient to restore us to a right relationship with God.
For what it’s worth, you’re in good company. Moses’ wife was none too happy about circumcision, either. “Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.” Blood is a mysterious thing that science can never quite understand, and violence does solve some problems.
More info:
Blood Draws Near by Jon Behrens
Circumcision and Cutting a Covenant by Walter Snyder
The Seven Everlasting Covenants by Monte Judah
Technorati Tags: circumcision, torah, theology, covenants, messianic, salvation, law, blood, sacrifice
Super-Duper, Extra-Special Network Engineer
Wednesday, July 19th, 2006Something that has been really bugging me about my chosen career field is how quickly things change. If you’re a carpenter or a mason or some other kind of craftsman, you can eventually master your craft. You learn skills that have been fine tuned over thousands of years, and you build on that until you know what you’re doing backwards and forwards. You can’t do that in the computer industry, and systems administration is worse than some other areas. The hardware isn’t such a big deal. The manufacturers usually design things so that the new stuff plugs in and works pretty much the same as the old stuff. Software is a nightmare. Every few years you have to upgrade your operating systems, and that means you have to upgrade half your software–all of it if you’re in a really specialized shop. You have to learn new procedures, new quirks (aka undocumented features), new commands, rewrite your scripts, and wait for the calls telling you that nothing on the new system works.
I hate that.
Hoping to get a jump on this process, I’ve been thinking about what skills I will need to be at the top of the sys admin heep over the next few years. What follows is the end result. Mind you that this is mostly just resume fodder and not necessarily the absolute most useful stuff in the real world.
- Four year degree in a computer-related field.
- MCSE. MCSA plus a few CompTIA certs might be good enough.
- CCNA/CCNE or at least significant Cisco experience.
- Project Management experience. Successful PM experience. E.i. no one got fired.
- Voice Over IP experience. The more, the better. Can’t have enough of it.
- Business skills, as in accounting, budgeting, juggling, etc.
- People skills. Charismatic, outgoing, motivating, and manipulating. What? did I say that out loud?
If you have all that, then you can write your own ticket. You’ll probably have to fight to stay in systems and network engineering. Somebody might try to promote you out of usefulness.
Now I have to ask myself if I’m capable of accomplishing all that. Well, maybe I’m capable, but do I really want to?
Technorati Tags: certification, mcse, mcsa, microsoft, windows, network+engineering, network+administration
Snopes on Plastic and Styrofoam
Tuesday, July 18th, 2006In researching rumors about plastic and styrofoam used in the microwave, I found conflicting information, and very little that anyone knew for certain:
Is there really something to the central claim of this e-mail, that heating plastic in microwaves releases a cancer-causing agent into the food? It’s within the realm of possibility, but it must be stressed the FDA does impose stringent regulations on plastics meant for microwaving. Also, if there are dioxins lurking in the plastic containers we heat food in and the process of warming those receptacles looses those nasties into our ingestibles, we’ve yet to locate the studies that prove this.
…the results of the experiment described tended to indicate that diethylhexyl adipate (DEHA) and xenoestrogens could migrate from plastic wraps into microwaved food (specifically olive oil, the “food” used in the experiment), but only with some brands of plastic wrap (primarily ones not sold as “microwave-safe”) and only when the plastic wrap was in direct contact with the food being heated; moreover, no research has yet demonstrated that DEHA poses a significant cancer risk to humans at the levels noted here (even though they exceed FDA standards) or that xenoestrogens are a direct cause of breast cancer in women or reduced sperm counts in men. [Bold emphasis added.]
Most plastic used in the kitchen melts at relatively low temperatures. You can see the evidence of that melting in the pitted sides or warped lid of any supposedly microwavable plastic container that has been used for a long time. If you’ve eaten at a cafeteria or lunch counter that serves food on styrofoam plates, I’m sure you’ve seen your food melt right into them. The chemicals used in plastics are universally regarded as being unhealthy to ingest, so it is self evident that putting hot food (or microwaving food) in plastic or styrofoam containers is going to be bad for you. The only questions are how bad for you and in what ways.
The Snopes article is misleading in at least three ways:
1) As far as I can tell, the FDA does not impose “stringent regulations on plastics meant for microwaving.” It made some regulations, but doesn’t enforce them. A manufacturer can stamp “microwave safe” on his plastic containers without actually having to prove the claim to anyone. The FDA is notorious for allowing these kinds of claims. If you have enough money, jump through the right paperwork hoops or if you know the right people, then you can get your products approved for just about anything. The FDA is probably responsible for as many lost lives through misplaced trust as it is for saved lives through safer products.
2) Cancer is the only malady addressed, with only a passing mention of one small aspect of fertility. Admittedly that’s what the original question was about, but they really should have mentioned the fact that the chemicals potentially released by hot plastic could cause many more problems than just cancer. Some things that ought to be looked into: impotence, infertility, birth defects, developmental disorders, immune system disorders, and probably a thousand other things.
3) Snopes uncritically accepts the word of plastic industry proponents over that of its detractors. The very serious findings of Miss Nelson’s two years of research are dismissed with a “no research has yet demonstrated…a significant cancer risk to humans…” BS. Use your brains.
I refer to Snopes to verify or refute a lot of the rumors that people send through email. They do a decent job with most things. They really did a sloppy job with this one, though. Considering the massive volume of plastic in every aspect of our lives, I think that avoiding ingesting them might be a good idea.
More info:
-Snopes: Plastic-Tac-Toe
-Chemicals In Frying Pan A Potential Hazard To Environment
-The Straight Dope
Technorati Tags: hormone, hormones, feminization, autism, sterility, sterilization, hermaphrodite, hermaphroditism, bribery, fertility, cancer, infertility
Feminism’s Unintended Consequences
Tuesday, July 18th, 2006At Eternal Bachelor, Duncan Idaho commented on an Independent News article:
When you take into account housing benefit and things like not having to pay Council Tax, prescriptions, etc, single mothers tend to have more income than single people and often more than a couple who both work full-time.
If you reward skank behaviour rather than punish it, you will encourage skank behaviour. Obviously.
This is both good and bad. The article states,
An extensive study published today reveals that girls as young as 13 are making a “career choice” by deciding to have children, since they see parenting as preferable to working in a dead-end job.
Most of the subjects of the report are not actually children–or at least they shouldn’t be acting like children. By the time a girl is fifteen years old, she should be behaving like an adult and she should have been well prepared by her parents to be a wife and mother. Fifteen is past childhood and on the border of womanhood. A nineteen year old should be fully a woman. That’s when she really should be having children.
At least these young women acknowledge that motherhood is a better career choice than desk-hood. But notice that I said wife and mother. Rampant bastardy and the subsequent rises in crime and socialism are products of modern feminism. Follow this ironic chain of unintended consequences: chivalry -> feminism -> licentiousness -> bastardy -> poverty and maltreatment of women. The feminazis actually wanted the process to go from bastardy back to more feminism and the further dissolution of the family. Unfortunately for them, you get what you pay for. The family is the foundation of a healthy society. If you lose that, you lose everything else.
Duncan Idaho essentially said the same,
It also shows that many girls do want to be full-time mothers rather than work full-time in a dreary office or factory. It’s feminism they have to thank for that. Fifty-years ago, before feminists drove women in to the workplace, it would have been easily possible – and encouraged – for a girl to get married in her late teens and have a far more worthwhile career of running a home and raising children. Feminists didn’t think women would want that – or, in some cases, knew women want that but decided that they, feminists, had more right to dictate what other women wanted than those women themselves. The more single mothers, the more cost to taxpayers, meaning it gets harder and harder for the few remaining traditional women to be full-time mothers and housewives.
So, whilst females used to marry young and have children, now many do the same but without the marriage bit, because the increase in the welfare state means the government can support a stay at home mother but the average man can’t. So women who want to be full-time mothers often have no choice but to effectively make the government the daddy. This makes the welfare bill rise further, starting a chain reaction whereby more girls will have to have kids out of wedlock just to be able to be a full time mother. On and on it will go until the welfare kittie is empty.
And then everything falls apart, and hopefully we can forget about all this nonsense and get on with family life the way God intended it to be.
Taking the Name of Israel
Monday, July 17th, 2006But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine….Fear not: for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth; Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him. Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears. Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled: who among them can declare this, and shew us former things? let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified: or let them hear, and say, It is truth. Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me….
Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen: Thus saith the LORD that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant; and thou, Jesurun, whom I have chosen. For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring: And they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses. One shall say, I am the LORD’S; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the LORD, and surname himself by the name of Israel.
When Israel left Egypt, a “mixed multitude” left with them and became a part of the nation of Israel. When they stood with Israel before the mountain of God, they spoke along with the rest of the nation and promised to obey and hear God’s laws.
Just like the first Exodus, in the latter Exodus a mixed multitude will accompany the natural born children of Israel out of the world and into the Promised Land. They are those who were of Israel, were scattered, and have forgotten their identity. They are also those who were born into the nations and were ignorant of God’s laws and love (i.e. blind and deaf), but who have eyes to see and ears to hear the truth. They have stood up and claimed the name of God’s chosen people for their own. They are chosen by God for their willingness to obey and to hear, and not for any great acts of righteousness. They are Israel alongside their Jewish brothers who have not rejected God in favor of the traditions of men.
Technorati Tags: messianic, judaism, two-house, ephraim, israelite, church, theology, covenant
Euro-crits
Tuesday, July 11th, 2006From the Salt Lake Tribune, “Turkish polygamists start to rethink the outlawed practice”:
“The EU is looking for any excuse not to let Turkey in, and polygamy reinforces the stereotype of Turkey as a backward country,” said Handan Coskun, director of a women’s center….
Two years ago, Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan tried to attack polygamy by criminalizing adultery, after prominent members of his Justice and Development Party were rumored to have taken second wives. But even though it condemns polygamy, the European Union criticized him for intervening in the nation’s bedrooms, leading him to back down.
This is one example of what I posted about a few weeks ago. Western Europe looks down on Turkey because many Turks are polygamists, but they complain that outlawing adultery would be wrong (even after redefining adultery to include sex with your own wives). That would interfere with the right of “monogamous” men to have sex with the wives of other “monogamous” men, and we can’t have that!
Technorati Tags: polygamy, polygyny, monogamy, adultery, morality
Growing Up Too Fast?
Monday, July 10th, 2006Ever since I was old enough to understand, I have heard people lamenting how fast kids grow up. “Don’t be in such a hurry to grow up. Have fun being a kid.” Statistics now call nineteen-year-olds “children.” Nonsense, I say. Grow up. Take some responsibility. Learn some responsibility. One great thing about the Boy Scouts is that they give young men opportunities to lead and to be responsible. Parents need to do more of that. Our job is to teach our children how to be adults. We can’t do that by encouraging them to remain children. By the time they are physically mature, our children should also be emotionally and spiritually mature enough to handle their physical reality. We shouldn’t have to worry so much about teenagers having babies, because most teenagers should be fully capable of making responsible decisions, including whether or not it’s a good time to get married and start a family. That they are not capable of those kinds of decisions is an indictment of our parenting and our culture.
I just found a great audio clip of John Taylor Gatto on this very subject: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/multimedia/jtgsound_paradox.htm .
Keywords: age, betrothal, accountability, adulthood, childhood, unwed, teenagers, marriage
Low Risk Marriage
Friday, July 7th, 2006I’ve been saying all along that an acceptance of proper gender roles is important to a healthy marriage. I stumbled across this old article this morning. It introduces a study that confirmed my opinion: Couples who “share a traditional interpretation of gender roles” have the lowest risk of divorce. Some other interesting points from the article:
- A husband who ignores his wife’s complaints (or a wife who complains too much) puts his marriage in the highest risk category. Wives, focus on what’s important, don’t cry wolf, and don’t nag. Husbands, pay attention. Every problem doesn’t need to be fixed, but you can’t be passive. Marital problems don’t go away if you ignore them. They grow into man eating monsters.
- Clingy can be bad, but distant is worse. Emotional detachment can be fatal.
- Egalitarian and casual isn’t the best, but may not be all that bad, either. I suspect that trust and selflessness are the real secrets here, and not ideological egalitarianism.
- A much older husband isn’t a problem, but a much older wife could be.
Definitely interesting stuff. I’ll try to get better info on this study.