Memorial Day is tomorow, so I do not think it inapropriate to link to this site. In Rememberance.

At some point, I think we all knew the beer gals were going to have to go. I hinted at it a while back, but I am sick of having beer gals disappear on me. So, one of the gals (the one with the wedding ring) has gone on to join the endless stream of 1s and 0s on the internet. The other beer gal, however, has found a new home. It's just up to you to figure out where she is now...

I did promise long ago that I would put up a stratigraphic section for you on this blog. Go ahead and scroll down to the bottom to where the Bach picture that now resides top your left once resided and see what I have up for you all. I know it doesn't even come close to replacing the beer gals, but I did promise I would post something like this, so a promise is a promise.

I'm reading GK Chesterton's Orthodoxy, and I am crawling my way through chapter 3.

At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own. Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced. The meek do not inherit the earth; but modern skeptics are too meek even to claim their inheritance. It is exactly this intellectual helplessness that is our second problem.

p. 28

I think the beer gal has finally been taken off for good. I keep waiting, hoping the website I ripped her picture from will put her back up, but to no avail. I'm going to have to replace her. Maybe Elle could put on the Bavarian costume and run around with huge mugs of beer.

I'm glad a three-day weekend is here. It will give me time to talk to Elle and ignore this blog all the more.

The questions about blogging and teaching keep coming up on different blogs. I think this question does need to be thought about seriously because no one wants to run afoul of the Augsburg Confession, even if unintentionally. I do have thoughts on this, but they'll have to wait until I am a little less silly and tired.

I know many of you were sad when Josh's blog Fearsome Pirate went the way of the Dodo. Fear not, my friends. Thanks to the web archive, the Fearsome Pirate still lives. See Josh go off on Calvinists. For all of you who are new, see what the Lutheran blogsphere looked like before Here We Stand.

So, Acerbic Lady, what part of give me your email address or tell us who you are did you not understand? Not only that, why did you decide to piss me off even more by posting at another IP address, thus getting around my ban? Why did you do this after making the rules of commenting on this blog crystal clear? As far as I'm concerned, your question deserves no answer at this point because you seem content to flaunt the rules of this blog. That's OK. I banned your new IP address as well. If you feel the need for an answer to your question, you can email him and ask him yourself. He'll probably tell you that enjoying a bunch of puppets destroying a city is different from actually wanting to see a city destroyed and that the jump you made isn't logical, but he just might give you a different answer. Like I said, you can email him yourself and ask.

Since I have to do this every once in a while, I would like to reiterate the rules of commenting on my blog.

1) No pseudonyms without a posted email address.
2) If you pot your real name, I still need an email address.
3) No one calls me or any of my friends assholes.

It's funny when people decide to lecture you on Christian love then turn around and call you an asshole. So, Acerbic Lady, I'm actually not banning you from commenting for any of those reasons. I'm banning you because, by degrading your argument by adding an ad hominem attack, you've shown yourself to be an intellectually impaired, thus violating the fourth rule: don't piss the author off. If you wish to comment some more, you'll have to email me and suddenly not be anonymous and not hide behind that pseudonym of yours. Of course, that would mean being accountable for what you said and we can't have that. Let's all call each other assholes while hiding behind pseudonyms. That would make the world a much better place, don't you think? I think the world would be swell if we all hid behind pseudonyms and called each other assholes. We could call it South Park! We could drop S-bombs, F-bombs, M-Fer bombs, etc. and not be accountable for what we said! What fun.

We're all here, with our names and emails out for the world to see. You're hiding behind a pseudonym and don't even have the guts to tell us who you are. Do you I'm going to sit here and let you call me an asshole while lecturing me on how I'm supposed to be loving? Get the log out of your own eye.

I've let the poll go long enough. Here are the final results for those who are interested.

What do you think about the lawsuit filed by the Lutheran Concerns Association?

I support it 100%: 39%, 41 votes
In general, I support it but with some reservations: 13%, 14 votes
I really don't know what to think about it: 8%, 8 votes
In general, I am against it but with some reservations: 10%, 10 votes
I am against it 100%: 30%, 31 votes

I am putting up a new poll. Do you read the Deuterocanonical books of the Bible?

I'm finally getting around to adding a sitemeter. I've had this blog for over 2 years now and I am just getting a sitemeter. I really don't care how many people come and look at my blog, but there is a curiosity there to see what kind of traffic this blog is pulling in and how many "silent readers" I have out there. Blogs are kind of like talk radio: only a small fraction of the people actually listening to talk radio call in. Only a small fraction of the people reading my blog are bothering to comment I am sure. Now, at least, I'll know exactly how many people visit each day.

I was recently a message board I frequent and the topic came up in the theology section about the mark of the beast. What is the mark of the beast? I think the fact that they are even asking a question like that brings up multiple concerns. First, I have to wonder about how these people interpret apocalyptic literature in the Bible. Secondly, you wonder if these people are able to interpret the rest of the Bible because this question betrays an inability to keep Christ central in their lives. Finally, it shows a lack of faith because these people believe the beast is coming and they want to avoid the mark, seemingly unable to realize that clinging to Christ will be enough to protect them from the mark, if that is even a future reference. What amazes me is how faulty Christologies end up leading into all sorts of errors. Through just discussing with these people and what they believe, I have figured this out. Of course, there are many people who are probably reading this saying, "It's about time you figured it out!" I thought about this today, and there isn't one heresy I can think of that doesn't start out with a false sense of who Christ is. There may be some out there, but you get my point. Christology is central to the faith and if you get it wrong, there is a lot that can go wrong.

Enough said about this news story:

Europe unites in hatred of French.

I guess my xenophobia is inherited from my German, English, Irish, Scotch-Irish, ... ancestors.

I'm updating this post to add this classic line:

Interestingly, the Swedes consider them "disobedient, immoral, disorganised, neo-colonialist and dirty".

You know you're in really bad shape when the Swedes start talking nasty about you.

I have really messed with my blogroll. With the demise of the group hamblog, I had to eliminate it. I have to replace what I eliminate, so Elle is now in an honored place on my blog, even above the Blog of the Week(TM). As I mentioned in my comments, if you want pictures of me and Elle, you must email me. My email address is scattered throughout the comments section of this blog, so don't complain that you can't find it.

I've updated my blogroll again. That seems to be getting rarer and rarer these days.

The funniest thing about this whole lawsuit thing is I detest lawsuits in general as a waste of money, time, and energy. After thinking about this whole thing some more, I realized my general political belief that stupid lawsuits and Paul's admonition must trump whatever good I may or may not think this lawsuit would maybe do. You see, I am a sinner just like everyone else, and I sometimes get these crazy ideas about how the blogsphere can conquer the LCMS or that a lawsuit might actually do some good. You'll have to forgive me and my sometimes over-anal-ytical mind. God has to keep killing the theology of glory welling up in me. This won't be the last stupid thing I write. At least I know it is stupid.

If you haven't checked out the results of the poll, you might take a look. The distribution of votes is quite fascinating. It looks like a bell curve, except inversed. I find it fascinating how many people have decided it is either a good idea or bad idea period. It also fascinated me as to how many of you voted as quickly as you did. Most of you had your minds made up extremely quickly as to what you believe. I find it fascinating, especially in light of the fact I have given a lot of thought about it and I have yet to actually decide what to think about it. Everytime I think I have it figured out, I think of some other wrinkle that throws it back to square one. I do know this: no matter what, mediation is needed to deal with these issues. The problem is finding someone who both sides would trust to mediate. Yes, the blood has become that bad. If it wasn't, this lawsuit wouldn't even have been considered. My honest dilemma is whether this is beyond mediation, or if some type of outside arbitration is needed. Whether the arbitration is the courts or some other non-partisan authority is another question to be pondered. I do know this: if anyone thinks Matthew 18 is even remotely possible at this point, I've read of too many people try to contact SP Kieshnick too many times and get stonewalled in the process. Miracles are possible, but past performance tends to say we could try, but it's just not going to happen. In a way, I can understand the lawsuit as a last-ditch attempt to wake him up. Then again, are we at the point where last-ditch efforts are needed?

In the end, I always end up shrugging my shoulders and saying, "I don't know." To so many of you, it probably does seem obvious. Of course, none of you have probably read through every shred of material I can get my hands on since the beginning of this whole mess. I read Jesus First/Daystar(NI!) and Concord and Consensus and on and on and on. I'll admit, the reason why I have trouble with deciding is I know too much. You pile so much information into one brain, and you find yourself processing so much information you don't know what to make of it. If any of you are as well read about the whole mess (I'd use another term, but this is a clean blog now), I'll listen to you. If not, I'll find some sort of reason to doubt your argument.

I've corrected the mistake I made.

Kieschnick Responds to Accusation of Voter Fraud At 2004 Convention

Member of BoD Responds to Pres. Kieschnick

Attorney Reports LCMS President's Article Filled with Contradictions

Nothing sucks more than getting sick. I fly to Alaska and back and it is just enough to weaken my immune system and allow me to catch a cold. I almost lost my lunch this afternoon, so I even left work early. I'm about to go to bed, unlike most Fridays when I stay up really late so I can talk to Elle. So, I ate some chicken soup and I'm off to bed. I'm in bad enough shape I didn't even bother going to the Y. It's probably from arguing too much with Anton.

Good night everyone.

As much as I love all the comments for this post, it is OK if you go to my girlfriend's blog and leave a comment there. I promise I won't beat you into a bloody pulp if you do.

The Wycliffe Bible Translators have been busy recently. Go see a sample of its new translation.

This is quite possibly the most serious poll I have ever presented on this blog. There has been presented a Solicitation to Join Class Action Lawsuit Against LCMS President. I have known this was coming for quite a while now because the BOD voted not to sue because they knew this suit was in the works. I'll let you all decide how you want to think about this, and I'll let you all in on my thoughts later.

I decided two weeks was just too long to allow everyone to vote on where I was. With that in mind, I'm letting the cat out of the bag tonight. First, if I were to pubcrawl across London, John H. would have heard from me and I would be posting about my exploits on Purpose Driven Drinking. Second, if I had gone to Belize, you would have known about it and I would have, again, posted my exploits on Purpose Driven Drinking. This leaves two possibilities: I was in Alaska meeting with a fellow Lutheran blogger or I was just lazy. As much as many of you want to believe I was just being lazy, I was in fact meeting a Lutheran blogger in Alaska. Intolerant Elle to be exact. I emailed her a little over five months ago and we've been emailing and Skyping each other ever since. Anyway, I went up to meet her and her family to see if we made any sense. I'm now sure we do. I'm sorry I've got a bad case of Chris Williams Syndrome, as Theresa so eloquently put it. My blogging has suffered because, well, I've been distracted. As far as I know, this is the first Lutheran Blog romance I know of, so this ought to be fun. Anyway, if you were wondering why my posting has decreased lately, you now know why. If you'll excuse me, I need to go create a new poll.

Guess what? The new poll is finally up, and it asks where I've been the past 10 days. I'm leaving this one up for two weeks, and you can vote daily. There are a few of you out there who do know where I was, so don't tell anyone. It would be even better if you didn't vote on the poll initially.

I know, I haven't updated in for 8 days, nearly tying my old record for not posting. I cannot promise that this blog will be updated as much as many of you would like, but I shall try. I'm still planning on doing hymn parodies, and I also plan on showing you all what I have been up to recently. Also, I have to reply to some of the concerns from my thoughts on the Lutheran blogsphere. I havn't had time to really think of how to reply.

Golly, I haven't posted in a while. I've decided that, for my birthday again this year, I will be writing new hymns using all my sarcastic wit to thrash the LCMS, David Benke, our SP, and all the usual targets (Purpose Driven Life, etc.) Anyway, I'll try to be a little more prompt in posting this next week. I do have more thoughts on the Lutheran blogsphere and other things. The poll will be changing soon, so look for that. I'm sorry I haven't posted much this past week.