Health is measured using Body Mass Index (BMI), while economic health is measured by the Big Mac Index (BMI).
Ben (economist Ben not Vanishing Point Ben) scoffs at the Big Mac index. He thinks it’s economically trite. I think it’s a worthy comparison of the economies of different countries. Here’s a new chart that takes an interesting new direction with the traditional concept used to measure purchasing power…
This shirt will help you answer that awkward question that everybody faces at least once in their lives… It’s pretty awesome.
This is quite literally the best fancy dress outfit ever. I say that with confidence because like Warren the word over use watchdog – I hate it when the word literally is abused.
Check it out.
The Ashes are, without a doubt, the single most important piece of post colonial national pride. There is no other contest so closely fought between Australia and England. It’s important. People who don’t understand sport can’t see the influence that cricket has on the national psyche. But our sporting dominance over the Poms is important because they’re better at other stuff – like comedy – than us.
Now that we’re going to lose the Ashes again, in all probability, from a seemingly unlosable position, I’m going to go on the record (again) with my statement that Ricky Ponting is the worst captain of Australia in my lifetime.
I can’t speak for previous generations – but he’s not a patch on Waugh, Border, or Taylor (listed in order of captaincy nouse from least to greatest). He is a great batsmen – but if he can’t get his players to keep their heads, and their wickets, when the pressure is on, then he absolutely should not be leading the team.
He’s also terrible at managing his players, setting attacking fields, using his bowlers, and all the other rudimentary elements of captaincy. Unfortunately, like the Liberal Party, there doesn’t seem to be an obviously palatable replacement.
Turns out the Catholics already have a saint named Eutychus. I’m not sure it’s the same guy.
But there is a great little song about Eutychus on YouTube – skip to about a minute forty five in for the good bit.
Alternatively, watch it in lego…
The Friendly Atheist thought it was pretty funny that Google says mean things about some Christian leaders when you type their names and “is” using Google’s predictive search thing.
I ran the test. I came up with some interesting results.
Here they are.
Google gets this one right…
This is probably highly irresponsible. But stun guns aren’t readily available in Australia so I feel safe reposting it. Plus it’s available on Make Magazine’s YouTube channel. A stun gun triggered potato cannon. Brilliant. Science at its best. This one is basically for Tim. I reckon we should make a couple next year Tim, what say you?
Alternatively, we could put together a potato gatling gun.
I often feel discouraged when talking to my atheist friends. Not because their arguments are compelling, but because I love them and believe Christianity is true and offers hope.
It’s hard. It’s like talking to a brick wall. But this long quote gives me a fair bit of hope that all is not lost.
“My commitment to atheism essentially came in three steps. The first was when I was in junior high school and began asking Christians uncomfortable questions, like, “How can there be a loving God with so much suffering in the world?” And, “How can a loving God send people to hell?” And, “How can Jesus be the only way to God?” Rather than engage with me, they basically told me to keep my questions to myself. I quickly concluded that the reason they didn’t want to discuss these matters was because there were no good answers from the Christian perspective.
The second step came when I began studying neo-Darwinism in high school. I was particularly struck by Stanley Miller’s 1959 experiment in which he recreated what he thought was the original atmosphere of the primitive Earth, shot electricity through it to simulate lightning, and discovered the creation of some amino acids, the building blocks of life. I naively concluded that Miller had proven that life could have emerged in a purely naturalistic way. To me, that meant God was out of a job!”
That’s Lee Strobel – American author of a number of books of Christian apologetics. He said it in answers to a series of questions from the Friendly Atheist back in January.
You can find them here, here, here, and here. It’s a great example of respectful dialogue between two opposing camps.
And here’s the encouraging rub.
For nearly two years, I investigated science, philosophy, and history. I read literature (both pro and con), quizzed experts, and studied archaeology. On November 8th, 1981, alone in my room, I took a yellow legal pad and began summarizing the evidence I had encountered. In light of the scientific evidence that points toward a Creator and the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, I came to the conclusion that it would have required more faith for me to maintain my atheism than to become a Christian.
Essentially, I realized that to stay an atheist, I would have to believe that nothing produces everything; non-life produces life; randomness produces fine-tuning; chaos produces information; unconsciousness produces consciousness; and non-reason produces reason. Those leaps of faith were simply too big for me to take, especially in light of the affirmative case for God’s existence and Jesus’ resurrection (and, hence, his divinity). In other words, in my assessment the Christian worldview accounted for the totality of the evidence much better than the atheistic worldview.
Technology has an incredibly limited shelf life. Remember the floppy disk? They were those square three and a quarter inch plastic things. There were even bigger ones than that once upon a time. Back in the olden days. Coming across a box of redundant technology is just like discovering buried dinosaur bones…
Artist Christopher Locke has created a bunch of fossilised redundant technology.
So you’re a wimp. It’s ok. You can’t all be big and strong like me. And having to interact with those of us who walk in the land of giants must be tough when you have such puny arms. Especially on the roads – where you never know who’s going to cut you off, requiring an extra stern stare. This can get you in a bit of trouble. Because you are a runt who can’t take on anybody.
Avoid needless confrontation by sticking one of these on your car. It’ll be the best US$0.50 you’ve ever spent.
You know how coffee smells incredible. It does. It’s awesome. It’s also just as good for you as drinking it. Well, almost… a guy named Han-Seok Seo, of the Seoul National University in South Korea did this study with rats. Good news people. Good news. From a wholelattelove.
“Seo and his colleagues have done studies on lab rats which were stressed by sleep deprivation. They allowed the sleep deprived Rats to sniff the aroma that coffee produces. They then compared the expression of certain genes and proteins in the rats’ brains with other sleep deprived rats who were not allowed to sniff the coffee. They found in the rats that sniffed the coffee, some of the genes expressed proteins that have healthful antioxidant properties that are known to protect nerve cells from stress related damage. The rats that were not allowed to smell the coffee aroma did not show these expressions in their genes.”
The first movie I ever saw on a cinema screen was All Dogs Go To Heaven. It was in the little cinema in Grafton, 40 minutes from our home town in Maclean. It’s a Disney cartoon with really bad theology. There’s no Biblical reason to expect your pet to be in heaven with you (except perhaps for the Biblical illustration of lions lying down with lambs… but I’d say that’s more an allusion…).
Even the atheists know this. In fact. In the same vein as the service that sends post cards to your unsaved loved ones post rapture comes a new service offering to care for your pets.
We are a group of dedicated animal lovers, and atheists. Each
Eternal Earth-Bound Pet representative is a confirmed atheist, and as such will still be here on Earth after you’ve received your reward. Our network of animal activists are committed to step in when you step up to Jesus.
For those who doubted – this is proof that atheists can be moral people after all.
Which is sweet. We’ll have two very appreciative turtles – which is lucky – because apparently turtles are impervious to fire.
The Japanese are responsible for a lot of great television. This isn’t one of those moments. Pig rodeos. What will they think of next.
Tetris is making a comeback. With a new version. I didn’t know it had ever left. Here’s the new ad.
New York…
And Seoul…
