Archives for August 2011

when is a link not a link?

A friend of mine posted an article to which I objected. I objected privately, so I’m not going to post a link. We had a brief and I think courteous exchange of views. But the whole discussion gets me thinking about the whole paradigm shift that the new media is. That is, I think we are still getting used to the internet (or, as one of my hockey bloggers calls it, “the AlGore”).

It is common practice in the blogosphere to link to other blogs or articles online. This is part of the ‘netiquette’ of blogging, especially when you are writing a contrary opinion. The link provides context, your readers can go to your online ‘opponent’ to see what they said in context in order to decide whether they will agree with you or him or neither.

It is also common practice to link to news items of interest with a brief comment suggesting why the link was interesting to you.

I have occasionally linked to Christianity Today when I see articles of interest there, or when I wish to take issue with something said there. Some of my fellow fundamentalists have commented when I have done that without much of a disclaimer. I guess I don’t think a disclaimer is all that necessary when I am critiquing an article. It is pretty clear that I am not agreeing!  (Does anyone think I am ambiguous when I disagree?) And I don’t think a disclaimer is always necessary when I am just passing along a link to say: look at this, it’s interesting.

But what if I was writing an article listing a whole host of sites as “good resources for church planting” or “good resources for spiritual growth” or “good resources for theology”?

[Read more…]

more hilarity from a spammer

Got a spam e-mail from someone claiming to be doing social work in North Korea and also claiming I had been in contact with them in the past. Then it closed with this disclaimer:

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE – This e-mail transmission, and any documents, files or previous e-mail messages attached to it may contain information that is confidential or legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you must not read this transmission and that any disclosure, copying, printing, distribution or use of any of the information contained in or attached to this transmission is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. If you have received this transmission in error, please immediately notify the sender by telephone or return e-mail and delete the original transmission and its attachments without reading or saving in any manner. Thank you.

Please note:

1. This disclaimer comes at the END of the message, after I’ve already read it.

2. It tells me that if I am not the intended recipient, I am prohibited from reading it.

What does this tell you about the intelligence level of the average spammer? Genii?? I think not!

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P. S. I plan to get to some serious blogging soon. I know it’s been a bit light lately.

maybe you’ve seen this one

BREAKING NEWS: The epicenter of the quake has been pinpointed to a graveyard outside of DC, where all our Founding Fathers just rolled over in their graves due to current leadership in Washington.

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook, I  thought it was funny, so am passing it along.

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54 hair-width’s of change

In my life time, that’s how much the radius of the earth has changed, according to NASA.

The scientists estimated the average change in Earth’s radius to be 0.004 inches (0.1 millimeters) per year, or about the thickness of a human hair, a rate considered statistically insignificant.

I am sure you were waiting with bated breath for that bit of news!

I’m just wondering if that means 108 hair-widths for the diameter??

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hippo critter?

It’s all very well to call the young, the restless, and the reformed to maturity and discernment, but… well, just read the comments following the post.

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Machen–Christianity and Liberalism

Have you ever read this classic? I’ve heard about it all my ministry life, from the days of training at BJU til now, but, incredible as it may seem, never read the book.

I found a copy of the text online and converted it to the Kindle. I’m about half way through. I’m hoping to do some blogging about the ideas in it sometime soon (when life slows down… Hah!). In the meantime, I’d like to urge you to read it if you have never done so.

It is available online here. There is a Kindle version here, it’s 1.99 for that version. I found a free one somewhere, but it was poorly scanned, so I formatted my own from the website I linked to first.

One last item: Tim Challies just completed a group reading of Christianity and Liberalism. The blog series begins here, with links to each of the subsequent blogs at the bottom of the article. Challies is an interesting guy. He and some of his readers might be getting Machen’s point a bit, but most of them don’t seem to realize that if you are going to oppose liberalism as aggressively as Machen did, you will either be forced out as Machen was or you will realize you have to come out. You can’t take Machen’s stand and remain in fellowship with apostasy.

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