never been here before

A $10 million fine was handed down to Topeka's own Fred Phelps and his ignorant, obnoxious, makes-me-sick-to-my-stomach "congregation". From the article in the Baltimore Sun: [Judge] Bennett affirmed the jury's verdict in favor of Snyder's father, who sued the church for emotional distress and invasion of his family's privacy after Westboro Baptist Church members waved signs decrying homosexuality at his son's funeral in March 2006. But the judge also reduced the $10.9 million award announced in October to $5 million, noting constitutional concerns of appropriateness. He held up the jury's compensatory damage award of $2.9 million but reduced the total punitive damages to $2.1. Read the rest of the story here . This just makes my whole decade. HT to David .

In honor of the 80th Annual Oscar Ceremony last night, a classic quote from a best picture winner: K-Mart sucks.

And no, it's not Photoshopped. Read the story here .

My squeeeee moment for the night... getting to see Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova perform at the Oscars tonight... and to see them win!

Chris Matthews recently interviewed a supporter of Barack Obama and a supporter of Hillary Clinton. Obama's support flubbed in a major way - see the video over at Kansas Bob 's. A response to Kansas Bob is located here: Is Barack Obama an empty suit? It doesn't get much better than this.

We are tackling the tough text of Matthew 19 a week from this Sunday. What's better song to include than the great Derek Webb song Rich Young Ruler ? Here's a video I made to show at the service.

Can we all just take a moment to make fun of this?

This one's way too easy... especially if you watched this season of the Office. Break me off a piece of that ___ ___ ___.

For the past several weeks, God's been doing a funny thing to me. It started with a surprising incident - during a time of worship that I wasn't leading. He makes all things good was the line in the song that stuck out for me, brought me to my knees and filled my eyes with tears. A bunch of things began to change with me in January. Subtle things... things I'm not even sure I can articulate. After reading Soul Cravings , and going through a similar topics in my small group, the shift started. It began with a sense of awareness in how hard I was. On myself, on others. How hard my heart had grown toward people. I guess I thought that after a breakthrough last summer , everything else with my heart would follow suit. But like the parent who doesn't just save his child from drowning and leave them by the side of the pool, God is giving me CPR. It's slow, and I find myself breathing in and breathing out with a deliberateness that wasn't there before. Then two weeks...

I was tagged by Kansas Bob: 1. Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!) 2. Find Page 123. 3. Find the first 5 sentences. 4. Post the next 3 sentences. 5. Tag 5 people. The book closest to me was a music book, so I could really count that. The next one was a book that anyone could have figure out based on content, so this was the third, which is still a dead give away if you are familiar with the classics: The Karenins always had two or three people dining with them. This time there was an old lady, a cousin of Karenin's, the Chief Secretary and his wife and a young man who had been recommended to Karenin for a post in the service. Anna went to the drawing room to entertain them. Which book?

She's fair game, Joe. It's always open season on princesses.

For well over a year now, I've been tossing around in my head this term: "New Conservative" - those of us with Baby Boomers for parents and were raised in the 80s decade of excess. We were cynical in the grunge decade of the 90s, and are now grown adults striving to overcome past sins. Not just these past sins of excess and cynicism, but the sins of our culture. A culture which, at times, gleefully uses up our nations resources without second thought; a culture that instilled in us this idea that money is good, all we need is more stuff, and only a job that made you that money (to get more stuff) was worth your time. Okay, I may be exaggerating a little here, but you get my drift. The majority of my friends are in my age group; we are in that stage of knowing who you are, what you believe, and what makes you happy. But even more than that, we are aware that we can do to make a difference. My generation no longer just wants the white picket fence and the 2.5 kids. We wa...

Courtesy of the view from her : Don't drink anything while reading the following text, or I will owe you a new keyboard. ____________________________________________________________________ The Daily Mail reports , "Vasectomies could be a thing of the past thanks to a remote controlled implant that can stop the flow of sperm. The valve-like device can be opened and shut at the press of a button, using the same technology that locks a car using a key fob." Well. This is genius. It finally gives men a way to be responsible for contraception, in a form they like: a remote control. Now let's just try to picture how this works. The implant, which contains a tiny antenna, is inserted you-know-where, using a needle. The valve remains closed most of the time, as a contraceptive. Should a man desire to try to conceive, he can open the valve with his remote control. He just points it at...himself, and clicks. (Okay, is anyone but me laughing? I mean besides the women.) The rem...

Dad, Denise pushed us out of the bathroom, so the soap's in Rudy's eyes and she wouldn't let me rinse out the shampoo like Mom said and now Rudy might be blinded for life! If she is, can we get a dog?

Continuing on my theme of growth, I seem to be viewing several experiences I've had lately with this lens . A lens that filters through the junk of the experience (all the negative stuff) and allows me to see with clear site what it is I am to take away from said experience. I kinda like it. This last month I was blessed with the presence of my friend Shannon , who currently lives in Budapest working as a missionary with YWAM. After about 2 years, she was finally able to come home for a while to spend January here in Kearney. I have a fair amount of conservative friends, and a fair amount of liberals one. (On a political level, not a moral one.) I'll admit to avoiding conversations about politics with my conservative friends because #1) They tend to be more ignorant than they should be and #2) They are the BEST (or worse, depending on how you look at it) conversation-stoppers. This is NOT a sweeping generalization on conservatives - this just happens to be the case with ones I ...

New posts are coming, I promise. In the meantime, for all you music people out there... And if you think of it, say a prayer for my brother - He broke his ankle yesterday. A farmer has a hard time not being on his feet.