Fox News has an interview with 9-year-old Samuel Armas, who was “born famous” after photograher Michael Clancy took a shot of Armas while Dr. Joseph Bruner was performing prenatal surgery. The picture below is stunning and amazing all at the same time.
This is what Armas looks like now:
Amazon today announced the new 9.7-inch Kindle DX, along with deals from textbook and newspaper publishers. The new e-reader is priced at $489 and will be shipped this summer.
What’s the big deal? According to MacRumors:
The Kindle DX is being positioned as a device for reading documents such as newspapers, textbooks, and research journal articles whose formats have not worked ideally with the smaller 6″ screen of the current Kindle 2 model.
The Kindle DX features a built-in accelerometer that allows for auto-rotation of content between portrait and landscape orientations, and increased storage over the Kindle 2 of 3.3 GB, which provides space for up to 3,500 books periodicals, and documents. Like the Kindle 2, which will remain available at its current price of $359, the Kindle DX offers free 3G access through Sprint’s network to allow downloading of content on the go. Native PDF support is also included.
The Boston Globe, The New York Times and The Washington Post are all planning to offer long-term subscriptions for Kindle newspaper editions at discounted prices.
From Thomas Sowell in National Review Online:
That President Obama has made “empathy” with certain groups one of his criteria for choosing a Supreme Court nominee is a dangerous sign of how much farther the Supreme Court may be pushed away from the rule of law and toward even more arbitrary judicial edicts to advance the agenda of the Left and set it in legal concrete, immune from the democratic process.
Would you want to go into court to appear before a judge with “empathy” for groups A, B, and C, if you were a member of groups X, Y, or Z? Nothing could be farther from the rule of law. That would be bad news, even in a traffic court, much less in a court that has the last word on your rights under the Constitution of the United States.
Appoint enough Supreme Court justices with “empathy” for particular groups and you would have, for all practical purposes, repealed the 14th Amendment, which guarantees “equal protection of the laws” for all Americans.
We would have entered a strange new world, where everybody is equal but some are more equal than others. The very idea of the rule of law becomes meaningless when it is replaced by the empathies of judges.
Barack Obama solves this contradiction, as he solves so many other problems, with rhetoric. If you believe in the rule of law, he will say the words “rule of law.” And if you are willing to buy it, he will keep on selling it.
Those people who just accept soothing words from politicians they like are gambling with the future of a nation. If you were German, would you be in favor of a law “to relieve the distress of the German people and nation”? That was the law that gave Hitler dictatorial power.
He was just another German chancellor at the time. He was not elected on a platform of war, dictatorship, or genocide. He got the power to do those things because of a law “to relieve the distress of the German people.”
When you buy words, you had better know what you are buying.
So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. — Romans 14:12
If you notice, that verse says “each of us.” That means believers and unbelievers alike. So, the question is, what if, as a believer, I have a poor account to give on that day? What we need to remember is that when we were saved by God, Christ covered our sins on the cross — past and future. But we also know that we still struggle daily against sins and thus need to continually look to the sacrifice Christ made for us (I John 1:9).
The thing to remember is that we are NOT saved by our works but by the blood of Christ. If we are pointing to a lifetime of good works as our salvation then we are relying on our own efforts and not Christ’s. And we will not enter into the Kingdom of God. Instead, our acceptance on that day will be on the basis of Christ’s atoning death.
What then, is the purpose of our deeds once we have been saved? The recounting of our deeds will be evidence that Christ died for us. For some there will be ample fruit, and for others there will be little to point to. Both, however, will enter based on the blood of Christ. Depending on what fruit was shown in our deeds, we will be rewarded accordingly in the kingdom to come.
For more on this, see John Piper’s recent Q&A at Desiring God.
The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. — Acts 17:10-12
This was the passage we looked at today at church. In the passage, it says the people in Berea “were more noble” than those in Thessalonica, who expelled Paul and Silas from their midst. In the ESV Study Bible, it says: Noble translates the Greek eugenēs, which originally meant “of noble birth” or “well born.” The word was also applied to people who exhibited noble behavior, in that they were open-minded, fair, and thoughtful.
In other words, Luke is commending those who are open-minded when it comes to examining the scripture, those who look to it daily, examining what it says and not trying to shape it with their own biases and preconceived ideas. It is my prayer that I will seek God’s word so that it may teach me, rebuke me, encourage me, shock me and ultimately make me into someone who knows God intimately. The world likes to tell you what the Bible says and how it is either right or wrong about what we see every day. Instead, we need to go to the Bible first and let it be the prism through which we see everything else.
I am so looking forward to seeing the latest Pixar movie “Up” when it opens in theaters May 29. One of the more hilarious characters I’ve seen in the trailers is Dug the Talking Dog. Here is a Pixar featurette talking about that character along with a few more scenes from the movie.
HT: The Pixar Blog
Tim Challies, as part of his regular Free-Stuff Fridays, is offering a great collection of books that would make a fine gift to a graduate or maybe just a great collection to your personal library. From Crossway Books:
As part of the contest, all you need to do is sign up for a free drawing by midnight tonight. Thanks much to Tim for offering these great books! Go to the link above to sign up.
Just to be clear, here is what God says in the Bible about whether there is anyone — or anything – like him in all the universe. So, then the next thing is, do you know him?
HT: Abraham Piper at Desiring God
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. — John 10:27
Erik Raymond has written a great post today and a great reminder that we can never make Jesus more appealing than he is. I cannot take Jesus and make him clearer and more appealing than he is in the Bible. As I read through John 10 today, I saw Jesus boldly make claims that offended his hearers and led them to want to kill him. I thought, “If Jesus himself can be rejected by some of his listeners, what makes me think I can do better?”
It took a miracle of God to break through my own resistance to him when I became a believer. He made what was heart of stone become alive to him and changed my passions. Did that mean that others didn’t play some part? By all means, no! But the final, saving action was done by God alone and I responded to that work of God.
We believe because we hear the voice of the Shepherd and follow. The fact that Jesus preached his message while he was on earth and we have the Bible points to the fact that, while we are saved by God alone, there are means he uses to bring us to that point. To those who don’t believe, this is all foolishness, but the hope is that it will one day be clear to them through Jesus Christ.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. — I Corinthians 1:22-25
On Thursday, April 23, 2009, at Park Community Church in Chicago, IL, the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School hosted Dr. John Piper ofBethlehem Baptist Church and Dr. D. A. Carson of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Titled “The Pastor as Scholar, and the Scholar as Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry with John Piper and D.A. Carson”, the evening featured hour-long lectures by Drs. Piper and Carson offering reflections of a theological and personal nature on the work of the pastor and the scholar, respectively. Below are video links to their talks.
Rockstanding 
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