Lutheran Carnival VII is now up.

I have put up a new poll for everyone to vote on. Unlike my previous polls, on this one you can choose multiple answers. All this for a simple yes/no poll, you would figure. As we like to say, the exceptions proves (modern English: tests) the rule.

Thank the Swede for saving the Carnival. I know I laid the law down today, but I had to. I've talked to Elle, and we agree that the carnival should go biweekly and see if that helps everybody. That means Lutheran Carnival IX will happen on October 9, not October 2 as originally planned. Also, I think I need to end all suggested topics for posts. That hasn't seemed to help at all. I really do thank everybody who contributed to this carnival, even if because I gave you a guilt trip. Consider this, however. The people who volunteer do spend some time putting things together. Often, they go look for portraits of Christians who have come before, find a little information on this person, and put it all together with the links. It takes some creativity and some time to edit it into one cohesive whole. I don't want to burden a host with taking all this time and having only a few links to show for it. I'm completely unwilling to continue the carnival in such circumstances. If it is as bad next time as it was this time, I will not hesitate to shut the carnival down. All we need from you all is a couple minutes to fill out a little information because we will take most anything you might post about, whether it is about theology or not. If I can send in links about geology, you all can send in whatever you like.

Someone better step up in the next 10 minutes.

If you've been busy and you're juggling your life, but somehow, you have managed to put up a few posts on your blog, you might consider sending one of those posts in to the carnival. No excuses. It takes five minutes max to email the link and description. Everyone's busy. I'd rather see the carnival stay, but not with the minimal participation I've seen so far. If we can't get to 10 links, I don't even think it's worth saving. Period.

I'll consider going biweekly, but I told Brian to publish on Sunday, and he's either going to publish or there will be no carnival.

This is going to be simple. There are four submissions to the carnival as of now. If Brian doesn't get at least ten, I'm shutting the carnival down for good. I'm not going to waste my time and I'm not going to waste the hosts time in putting together a carnival no one wants to participate in. It's that simple. If you have a link you wish to submit send it using the proper format to lutherancarnival AT gmail DOT com. You have until 7pm CDT to get them in. If Brian doesn't have 10 by then, I'm telling him not to bother.

This past week of work for me has been incredibly enjoyable. I finally got to apply what I have been trained to do: look for oil and gas. I have to admit it is a tedious process. There was a time or two I wanted to stab my eyes out with a toothpick and bang my head against the wooden door of my office as I try to figure the geology out, which is never easy, but my coworkers said I haven't looked this happy in quite a while. I'm excited to talk to them and bounce my ideas off of them. I am a little more confident that I do know what I am doing, that I do know something about this planet, and that I can use that to find the energy this country needs more than ever to keep it running. The whole reason for this? The server went down at work, so I had time to work on this project at work rather than home, where a certain someone tends to take more of a priority. Anyway, I got a lot done. This is all a process to prove that I can produce prospects and make the company money.

Anyway, I can't talk about a lot of things I do at work because so much of it is confidential. That's the reason I don't blog much about work, discuss who I work with, and even where I work. It's better safe than sorry in this business, and I'd rather be safe.

I'm finding geology is taking more and more of a prominent role on my blog as I talk less and less about theology and synod politics. There are so many people who now say the same things I want to say, just much better. I guess geology is the one area where I can speak from authority and still be unique in this little segment of the blogsphere.

Speaking of geology, I wish to make a point about the fossil record. Anyone who tells you the fossil record proves evolution is engaging in a non-sequitur. Simply put, the fossil record doesn't prove neo-Darwinism, no matter how much they want it to. All the fossil record proves is faunal succession. That's it. The mechanism that drives faunal succession is a hypothesis to try to explain why we see faunal succession. Other means will be needed to prove such hypotheses. The fossil record just cannot bear the load of proving one mechanism over another.

The current number of Lutheran Carnival submissions is not what we would hope for. We really do appreciate it when you send in links to the carnival! We hope that you all would continue to make the carnival as interesting and diverse as possible. The wide variety of topics within the Lutheran Blogsphere help drive the carnival. I better stop this before it turns into a PBS pledge drive.

I've created a new poll for everyone to vote on right now. If you were wondering about the results of the last poll, Base Jumping won, but licking rocks should have won. Anyway, this poll is something of a preemptive strike, and I do have an opinion on this too, but you'll have to wait for it.

In case you're wondering, we are getting ready for Rita too. The county I live in has ordered thousands of sandbags. There's plenty of sand and mud to fill them up here, believe me.

I hate blogger sometimes. Right now is one of those times.

Avast! I wish to announce to ye all that there be a new host for the carnival this week. 'Tis Brian at Nonpareil. Send him some links or I'll make ye walk the plank. If ye need remindin' of the email address, send your links to lutherancarnival AT gmail DOT com. Send them or I'll make ye shark bait. AAAARRRRRRRR!

Avast! This here is Pirate Jake the Dagger, yes, that Pirate Jake. Arrr! I stabbed so many land lubbers in the back that me mateys named me the dagger. There are two things me mateys and me hate: bilge rats and land lubbers. Arrrr! Let me get some grog from me bunghole. Arrr! If you don't know what a bunghole is matey, I'll make ye walk the plank.

My pirate name is:

Dirty Davy Flint

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Lutheran Carnival VI is now up.

Tomorrow is International Talk like a Pirate Day. This blog will be celbrating by posting on a topic that will (hopefully) cause many of you to want to comment. All comments on my blog for posts on International Talk like a Pirate Day should also be like you are talking like a pirate. If you don't, I''ll make ye walk the plank.

One more reason for me to not trust John H's and Chris W's "Auntie."

Blair attacks BBC over ‘anti-US bias’

HT Instapundit

Oklahoma is going to drive me to an early grave. Arrrrggggg. The offense is best described as schizo. The defense is playing well, but when you fumble seven times and give up three of them, you're going to lose.

This is getting silly. If you have something to contribute to the Lutheran Carnival, email the link to lutherancarnival AT gmail DOT com. You can even contribute someone else's link this week! Send your link before 12 CDT today!

As many of you know, this blog is just whatever I feel like on any given day. I must admit it was once much easier to blog when there were fewer Lutheran bloggers around. Heck, for a while, there was one pastor and a few laymen. We all just climbed into our niches and went on. Now, it can be tough to find something interesting to blog about because so many people blog about the stuff I used to cover. So, if you're wondering why there hasn't been much LCMS news lately, that's why. At this point, the only useful thing I have to say is that rebuilding New Orleans is stupid and leaving the Port there is even dumber.

Why you ask? If you look at a map of Louisiana, most of Southern Louisiana is on the Mississippi Delta. I'm sure now you're thinking I'm as crazy as a one-legged man trying to make hops. "Most of Southern Louisiana is swampland you idiot" I'm sure you're saying. Now it is, but much of what we call Southern Louisiana is various lobes of the Mississippi Delta. The fact that I'm talking about lobes of the delta should be setting off alarms in your head. This map should put to rest any doubts you may have. The river shifts. If the wonderful organization we call the Army Corps of Engineers hadn't messed with the river, we'd have a new delta lobe forming right now. Even with them messing with the river, they almost lost it in 1960s (I think it was 1967, but I don't remember and I can't seem to find any info on it at the moment). Anyway, the river will shift at some point, and no levee is going to stop it when it happens. Such is life. That also means New Orleans will go from a major transportation point to a useless mudhole. Not exactly a sunny prognostication for the city, is it?

We are now taking posts for Lutheran Carnival VI, hosted by Chaz. If you want to join this merry carnival, send your link (or a freind's link) to lutherancarnival AT gmail DOT com. Chaz wants the posts by Saturday at Noon CDT.

This is the best linkfest for 9/11 I have seen yet.

If you have thought about hosting the carnival, but have not emailed either Elle and I, please do. We currently have no one to host after Lutheran Carnival VI. It is an interesting experience. You get to read all the submissions beforehand (and reading the submissions takes up most of the time). If you are interested, email me at daniel dot sellers at gmail dot com.

Lutheran Carnival V is now up at Necessary Roughness. Thanks for hosting Dan!

There are lots of things I would love to blog about. For instance, I would love to tell everyone about why you shouldn't ask me about why oil and gas prices have risen. I could also discuss another reason why New Orleans should be abandoned and why the port should be moved upriver. Of course, it involves a geomorphic explanation. I could also discuss my disappointment in University of Oklahoma football, my penchant for becoming a potty mouth when drinking and playing poker, the new store in Wichita called Gander Mountain (we couldn't manage a Cabela's or Bass Pro Shops). I could discuss who thought of putting a toilet seat on a 5 gallon bucket. I find this product quite amusing, especially the pocket for the reading material. This has "for guys only" written all over it. OK, maybe I've had too much fun reading the Cabela's catalog that came to me Friday, saying a percentage of everything I buy would go to the NRA Foundation. Which brings up another topic: why gun control is hitting what you aim at. I could have discussed that. I could have discussed my political ambitions, which includes a plan to reduce the number of lawyers, turning all farmland into hops fields, and sending Hillary on a fact-finding mission on the North slope, in the winter. I could have even discussed my Chargers and why the Faiders are perpetually overrated. I could also discuss why the Texas Shorthorns will be spanked by the Ohio State Luckeyes tomorrow and what a bunch of overrated yahoos Texas is.

Yeah, I could have written about all of that, and more. But I am distracted.

I went to get my lunch today. While standing in line, waiting for to get my sandwich at Quiznos, the guy standing behind me in line saw a guy he knew. They started talking and he asked the other guy why he was in town. The other guy said he was going through "diversity training."

Why do we have to train people to be diverse when it is well known that good manners equal good business? Are people so dumb that they can't realize that being polite and kind to one another leads to a good place to work? Are we so far gone as to think we cannot adjust to some of the realities of the world? People who I have talked to say diversity training didn't teach them anything that they didn't already know. They also said it bored them out of their minds. So, companies are paying for people to go training about something they already know, pays them to go to something they already know, and gets no productive work in return. What do you call this? A waste, that's what you call this. Add the politically correct garbage that is added to these programs, and you almost guarantee falling morale and an air of suspicion in the office. I am thankful I work for a company so small that we don't even think about crap like this, and guess what: it's a really good place to work. Imagine that. Of course, we know that we'll get fired if we say something stupid and offensive. It doesn't take diversity training to figure that out, and to figure out what is and isn't offensive.

SHELL'S INGENIOUS APPROACH TO OIL SHALE IS PRETTY SLICK.

This opens up a whole new world for exploration, and might actually give the United States a chance to be self-suficient with respect to oil and gas.

Lutheran Carnival IV is now up at Aardvark Alley. The Aadvark and I need to talk...

I would encourage all my readers to please make a donation to LCMS World Relief. When our fellow brothers and sisters are in trouble, we help them. Whatever you might be able to afford, please give.

One of the things I have is a KIOGA press kit. KIOGA stands for Kansas Independent Oil and Gas Association, which covers just about every country except the majors that operate the Hugoton Gas Field, which is in Southeastern Kansas. Some of the more interesting stats are the differences in state taxes on top of the 18.4 cents per gallon. Alaska has the lowest taxes at 8 cents per gallon. Hawaii has the highest taxes at 36.3 cents per gallon. My fair state of Kansas has a tax of 25 cents per gallon. Wyoming's tax is 14 cents per gallon.

In case you are wondering about gas prices, consider you pay about $4.52 a gallon for Evion, $8.52 per gallon for a bottle of Budweiser, $19.68 a gallon for Scope, and $38.65 for Head & Shoulders Shampoo. Tobasco Sauce costs $63.36 a gallon. Jack Daniels (which can be used as gasoline in a pinch) costs $98.61 per gallon. Remy Martin Champagne costs $187.14 per gallon. Visine (get the red out) is a whopping $776.72 per gallon and the kicker is Flonase. If you use that, you're paying $14,763.45 per gallon. You might also like to know you're paying $2.25 a gallon for that Coke. Enjoy.