Tuesday, June 30, 2009

I'm sorry, but he's not "excessively evil"

Bernie Madoff is a jerk, and he's greedy. It looks like 10 of his closest friends and relatives will be going to jail with him. However, I don't understand the "excessively evil" part.

Madoff took people's money. That's it. He didn't kill, he didn't threaten, he didn't even extort. People who were greedy for "guaranteed results" flocked to give him money when they should have known he was crooked.

I'm sorry that a lot of innocent people lost their life's savings. If it is your life's savings, you shouldn't have every cent of it with one person anyway.

Bernie's old; any sentence worthy of his crime would be a life sentence. I just can't see the glee at 150 years when murderers get less.

Leaving Questionable Preachers to God

We are studying Phillipians for an in-home Bible study with the kids. Once again, Paul has struck me with something very uncomfortable:

Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill: The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains; but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice. (Phillipians 1:15-18 New King James Version).

We have had issues with my previous church. I think the minister there was too young, and should have had a career before becoming a minister. This has reinforced my beliefs against the ministry career path for some time.

Even so, Paul doesn't give me that option. So long as the Gospel is preached, I'm supposed to rejoice that it's being preached. It's not my job to question the motives; God will take care of that. We should correct incorrect teaching, and lead all who will be lead. Even so, those who are not against us are for us, as Jesus said.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Not quite 100%

I looked at the test twice, and I still couldn't figure out which answer it wanted for a couple. Oh, well....

88% Geek

Hat tip to The Grey Monk.

Monday, June 8, 2009

A surprise WWDC

Apple has made an impressive WWDC. First, they snuck a complete refresh of the MacBook Pros under the radar. There wasn't a single rumor out there of any of it, and boy, are they sweet! Then, they make Snow Leopard $29, and integrate it with Exchange (that's my work killer app).

Then, iPhone OS 3.0 is announced, and its very nice too. IMHO, the killer app is "Remote Wipe". If you lose your iPhone, you can log into MobileMe and brick it remotely. You can also make it make noise, even if you had the phone ringer off. That alone might be worth the $99/year for MobileMe. Plus the idea of writing third party hardware add-ons (think old school) is just too neat.

Now, if Jobs had just walked out with the iPhone Tablet as one last thing...

Number 1 Son has pericarditis again

Last weekend, Number 1 son started hurting all over, including his chest. Of course, he doesn't ever hurt on weekdays, only the weekend. His body loves going to the ER even if the rest of us don't.

This time, it acted more like the flu than pericarditis, so we treated him with ibuprofen for the fevers and body aches and waited until Monday. This let just enough fluid build up to let them tell that the pericarditis was back, and had probably never gone completely away the last time.

He's back on the colchicine, a steroid, and ibuprofen.

Monday, June 1, 2009

The United States of Europe

We now have nationalized banks and a zombified national automobile maker. All we need is a national strike or two, and we'll be Britain or France.