The Uniqueness of Christianity

A good response to the "all religions are basically the same" idea.

via Catholic Pillow Fight

The Christmas Tour of (Blogger) Homes

What a great idea over at BooMama. Click here to see all the entires to the 2006 tour (link down at the bottom of the post). If I were able to deal with complicated things like decorating my home for Christmas, I'd definitely participate!

Seeing the face of Jesus

A sweet post about how you can sometimes catch a glimpse of Christ himself in the people around you.

Top 87 Bad Predictions about the Future

Amusing.

via The Wine Dark Sea

A good analogy on suffering

The Mom writes about redemptive suffering. (Don't miss her amazing post I linked to a while back about her experience with RU-486.)

via Literacy-chic

Blogger's informal survey reveals interesting insights into healthcare workers' opinions on abortion

Check out the surprising results of this survey that Cortney created for the healthcare professionals at her hospital's women's clinic.

Catholic teaching and overpopulation

Peter makes some good points about the difficulty of getting people to listen to the other side of the "Catholic teaching leads to overpopulation" argument. When I was first considering Catholicism I looked into this issue, and was surprised to find some pretty compelling data (like this) that show that cultures without birth control are not automatically plunged into overpopulation situations.

Atheist evangelization in schools

Dinesh D'Souza on the "atheist indoctrination project":

This is how many secular teachers treat the traditional beliefs of students...[they] subject them to such scorn that they are pushed outside the bounds of acceptable debate. This strategy is effective because young people who go to good colleges are extremely eager to learn what it means to be an educated Harvard man or Stanford woman. Consequently their teachers can very easily steer them to think a certain way merely by making that point of view seem fashionable and enlightened.

Wow, did he actually sit in on my college classes? Because this is exactly what I saw.

via...somebody -- sorry, can't remember where I found this!

Compare the various translations of Bible verses

This is a neat site where you can compare the various English translations of any Bible verse, as well as viewing it in different languages.

Why one family doesn't celebrate Halloween

I've never known anyone who didn't celebrate Halloween, so I thought this post at Mama Says was interesting.

Sexy Halloween costumes...for children

I saw some of these at my neighborhood Halloween party this weekend. Really, really disturbing.

Beautiful videos about the priesthood

Longtime readers of my other site have already seen me post this, but I wanted to add it here because I just love these videos so much.

Neuroscience and free will

Some good thoughts at a new blog.

Nice video of Psalm 23

This simple little video was a nice break from my hectic morning. Very peaceful.

Flag folding now banned at veterans' funerals

One of the more disturbing developments in the secularization of our culture.

The man who saved millions of lives

A fascinating article about how terrifyingly close we came to nuclear war. Via Red Cardigan, who has some interesting thoughts about it.

Some interesting thoughts on Muslim women, modesty and empowerment

An interesting perspective:

[T]he burqa can actually be empowering, by offering me the privacy and anonymity to just carry on with my work instead of worrying about whether my hips look huge in that dress...there are psychological effects of not wearing a burqa as well -- a tendency to get too caught up in trying to achieve the perfect look, for example.

via Tradicionalista

Close to God

Simcha on babies.

Feeling light

Matthew has a great post about his life when he was "enlightened" and didn't have faith. His experience was very similar to mine:

Yet somehow I was proud of my deep dark edgy miserableness. I consoled myself that everyone else wasn’t brave enough to face the nothingness. But I was. I laughed off everything and found myself dreadfully serious...Oddly enough, when I was enlightened I felt burdened...I didn't take life seriously but I thought of death incessantly.

Read the whole thing.

Famous trials

Some amazing stories here.

Seven clues that Dumbledore was gay

I may never stop laughing about this:

While the anagram to 'Tom Marvolo Riddle' is 'I am Lord Voldemort,' as my good friend pointed out, 'Albus Dumbledore' becomes 'Male bods rule, bud!'

via the comments to this post at DarwinCatholic

15 famous photos of "ghosts"

Kind of creepy.

via Neatorama

Some thoughts on gratitude

Amber, who is temporarily living in a cramped trailer with no indoor plumbing and limited electricity, is trying to appreciate how many luxuries she still has. Yet she brings up an interesting point about comparing ourselves to people who have fewer conveniences:

It is easy to move from thinking about what other people lack to pitying them for lacking these "essentials"...it can almost start sounding like the only way to live a good life is to have running water, a warm, spacious, cozy home and easily accessible, easy to use laundry facilities. At that point, I’m about as ridiculous as some billionaire socialite who can’t imagine how all the little people live without an army of servants, a summer home, and a private jet.

Some good food for thought.

What if there's a chance there's a baby in the box?

A short, thought-provoking video. It's a good summary of the point that Jonah Goldberg recently made here.

via InsideCatholic

Playing with the numbers

A Ph.D. statistician looks at recent study by the Guttmacher Institute (a research wing of Planned Parenthood).

via Curt Jester

The music delusion

When will the unenlightened masses give up on their silly ideas about music? Don't they know that science proves it doesn't exist?

via Claw of the Conciliator

A response to an angry NPR listener

A listener writes to a public radio show who featured a story about a Christian woman who runs a food pantry:

I wonder how an intelligent, intellectual woman can buy into such clap-trap...Isn't it time we gave up on the primitive ideas of an unenlightened time now two thousand years gone? Our future as a species lies in our intelligence and creativity, not in polarizing folk tales about invisible spirits and miracles. I wish NPR would resist indulging such weak-minded ideas with so little resistance.

Claw of the Conciliator has a great response.


via BlogWatch

Why the "Dumbledor was gay!" revelation is frustrating

I linked to that story a couple days ago, but I couldn't articulate exactly why I thought it was an annoying move on Rowling's part. Red Cardigan has some good points:

Truly great literature doesn't tie itself in such a slapdash way to an issue of the day...[She is not] playing fair with her readers to insert Dumbledore's gay-contemporary- political-identity into the works after the fact! This is the worst kind of cheating, when the author decides to pander to some political identity group when the final book has been published, and the readers think they know everything important about the characters that there is to know.

Slavery and the slippery slope of sin

Some very interesting thoughts on slavery and the Christians who participated in it (I'm definitely going to read this book).

Teen STD rate soars in California despite comprehensive sex ed programs

This isn't surprising. Does anyone really think that modern kids get STD's or have unplanned pregnancies because they just don't know what this elusive "contraception" thing is or how to get access to it? Sheesh, any kid who's watched MTV for more than 10 minutes is an expert on the subject.

Giving, even when it's tough

Sarah, whose blog is a beautiful, honest chronicle of her efforts to rebuild her life and her marriage after some devastating events, writes another touching post about generosity in tough financial times.

Amazing hot air balloons

Wow. I also liked the post about the world's largest swimming pool.

How Google maps the earth

An interesting article about the technology behind Google Earth.

via Geekpress

Brewing beer in a pumpkin

Heck, why not? Some more photos here.

The beautiful life

Hope has a really nice post from a while back about letting go of our perfect vision for how we want our lives to go, and trusting God.

How terrorists could use insects for weapons

Interesting article (though no mention of scorpions). Also, from the article, I didn't know this:

Armies have long used bugs to spread disease among their enemies. The Black Death arrived in Europe after the Mongols catapulted flea-ridden corpses into the city of Kaffa on the Black Sea...Those who fled from the city brought with them bubonic plague, which killed 75 million people in the 14th century.

When the continents come together again

What will happen in about 250 million years when the continents collide to form a new Pangea?

[T]he new supercontinent wouldn’t be a fun place to live for most plants and animals...Most of the future supercontinent would be desert, since no rain would develop over the vast interior. On the coasts between the tropical latitudes, the weather would vary from 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer to minus 4 degrees in the winter, punctuated by hurricanes 50% stronger than the fiercest ones today.

56 roller coasters as seen from the front seat

Pretty cool.

via Metafilter

Interactive map shows spread of religions over time

Very interesting.

via The Atheocracy

Dumbledore was gay? Seriously?

Must homosexuality be discussed everywhere, all the time?

Evidently the answer is yes: J. K. Rowling Reveals Potter Mentor Was Into Wizards, Not Witches

via Metafilter

Easy (and yummy) weekday dinners

Danielle Bean and I both had the same idea to ask our readers for their suggestions for quick / easy / yummy / healthy meals for weekday prep. Here are all the great recipes her readers suggested, and here are the ones my readers suggested. Tons of good stuff there!

Create your own chocolate bar

Create a picture of a chocolate bar with your own custom message.

via The Generator Blog

Why are pirates often shown with parrots on their shoulders?

Find out here. Also, check out this pirate keyboard.

Religions and the claims they're based on

Dr. Bob takes on the common secular mentality that goes something like, "all religions claim to have the truth, about things which are unprovable, so let’s just dismiss them all as fantasies and move on, shall we?"

Political Debate Bingo

Some humor for the upcoming election season.

A touching rap video I saw on MTV

Usually the words "touching," "rap video," and "MTV" don't end up in the same sentence, but this video by DMC (of the legendary Run DMC) is really beautiful. In it he chronicles the story of his own adoption, and it also features fellow adoptee Sarah McLachlan. Don't miss the story behind its creation.

Famous adoptees

A list of famous people who were adopted. Here's another, much longer list.

Fascinating: 700-year-old prayer book contains Archimedes' lost work

Why don't I ever find stuff like this in my attic?

via Geekpress

Thing we take for granted #2,867: air travel

People in some parts of the world will pay to sit in a broken plane on a runway just to know what it's like.

via Geekpress

For the first time in five years, I wish I had a job

Just for today, so that I could try this: Lifehacker shows you how to change the default message on any HP printer.

Various office workers have written in to announce that it worked and they changed the office printer's display to say stuff like "INSERT COIN", "OUT OF CHEESE", "FEED ME KITTENS"...and even the dreaded "PC LOAD LETTER". If anyone actually does this please let me know so that I can live vicariously through you.

One at a time

Mum2Twelve shares her secret to parenting 12 children.

via Karen Edmisten

Erring on the side of the accused

Jonah Goldberg has a really thought-provoking article in which he points out that it's deeply ingrained in the American conscience that we always want to err on the side of the accused -- meaning, when there's a gray area, we'd rather err by let a guilty person go free than by punishing an innocent person. ...Yet that mentality flies out the window when it comes to abortion. Read the whole thing.

via The Paragraph Farmer

Faith and large families

Patrick Archbold shares his stories about the comments he and his wife get about their family size, and Danielle Bean offers some nice advice to readers who struggle with discerning whether or not they should have another child.

"Why am I Catholic?"

Mark Shea has a really short answer to the question, and shares some interesting insights into his conversion process.

via Cow Bike Rider

Take your Paper/Rock/Scissors game to the next level

Next time someone challenges you to do paper / rock / scissors with them, bust out with some of these handy moves like axe, dynamite and sponge. Be sure to see the image at its full size so you can see the hard work the authors put into figuring out the hierarchy.

via Memepool

Every parent should know infant CPR

Suzanne tells the extremely scary story of how she found her newborn daughter unconscious and not breathing in her crib last Thursday. Luckily she was able to save her with infant CPR. A good cautionary tale to all of us parents! Check out this video she just posted describing the basic CPR techniques.

Disappearing human languages

Edith, OSB has an interesting post about the quest to record disappearing human languages and the wisdom they contain.

These kids have some good questions

A woman tries to explain Planned Parenthood to her confused children.

Chastity and the single woman

The blogger at Just Doing My Best, who is not (yet) married, recounts what happened when she told a bridal forum that she is 38 and waiting until marriage to have sex.

Awarded are the Peace Makers

DarwinCatholic on Al Gore, environmentalism and the global warming movement. Great stuff.

The miraculous conversion Claude Newman

This is a pretty amazing story. The events described are definitely spectacular, but I know some people who are researching this story and have found that the claims have checked out so far. Unfortunately there's an antiquated, offensive racial term at the beginning of the testimony, but the story is worth reading. Very intriguing.

A standing ovation for a phone salesman

Check out this great clip from Britain's Got Talent, and don't miss the follow-up final performance here. I'll admit it, I got teary-eyed.

Adoption and tough times

Heidi Hess Saxton, mom of two former foster children, offers an honest account of the tough times that adoptive parents sometimes face, as well as words of encouragement for how to get through them.

via My Three Sons

There are actually underwater post offices

Seriously.

via Neatorama

Five scandals that rocked art

Some crazy/cool/interesting reading over at Neatorama.

Forbes: God Goes Online

Forbes has an interesting article about the online presence of Christians. (Side note: that video of the little girl reciting Psalm 23 has been viewed 3.7 million times?! I thought it was cute, but...3.7 million times?) Anyway, I discovered the very cool video site God Tube through that article.

via The Deacon's Bench

Halloween: "I may be acting like a jerk, but at least it's not blasphemy"

Yet another hilarious post from Simcha.

Staying at home after the children leave

Lady Lydia has a nice post about older women continuing their roles as homemakers even after the children leave. I always love reading her and Mrs. Alexandra's reflections about the beauty of home living. Here's another recent post that brightened my day.

Another contender for the Nobel Peace Prize

I'm going to have to beg to differ with whoever decided to give Al Gore the Nobel Peace Prize instead of this amazing woman. Read more about her here. What an absolutely incredible person.

via Simcha

God never promised us tomorrow

Yet another touching post with amazing insights from Heather, a mom of three who is going through chemo to battle brain cancer.

Name that beer bottle

Can you match unlabeled beer bottles with their correct labels? Find out with this quiz. If you get them all right...is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Chick Flicks vs. Macho Movies

Hilarious.

Ben Stein has a new movie and a blog

About the movie (from its website): "Ben realizes that he has been 'Expelled,' and that educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired -- for the 'crime' of merely believing that there might be evidence of 'design' in nature, and that perhaps life is not just the result of accidental, random chance." Watch the trailer here.

He's also started a blog, which should be interesting to follow. Here's his first post (that received more than 1,800 comments!)

10 Embarrassingly Obvious Health Studies

Scientific studies show that cigarettes cost money and that combining alcohol and cocaine use can have negative effects on the brain. Amazing!

Einstein on the Church

Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks...

Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.

- Albert Einstein
Time Magazine, December 23, 1940

The origins of common nursery rhymes

Lots of interesting stories here about where some of our common children's songs and nursery rhymes come from.

I thought of Googling this after singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to my baby daughter last night. As I sang the words "how I wonder what you are," I realized that this must have been composed a long time ago, before we knew much about astronomy. Sure enough, it was first published as a poem in 1806. It's so neat that I learned it from my mom, who learned it from her mom, who learned it from her mom, and so on and so on all the way back to a person 200 years ago who was gazing up at the sky, wondering about the stars, and decided to create a little rhyme about it.

40 Reasons to Have Kids

Karen Edmisten has a great response to this shocking, sad article.

What is the Liturgy of the Hours?

Darwin has a great summary (one of the most concise I've seen on the topic) over at his new blog.

Very cool dynamic periodic table

Homeschoolers and nerds will love this. :) Click on any of the elements for tons of info.

via Digg

"As long as the baby's healthy"

Melissa Wiley has some interesting thoughts on that oft-used phrase. You'll also like these two posts on related topics: this one, also by Wiley; and this one by Rachel.

via The Wine Dark Sea

Quote of the day

Veronica writes about taking the kids to church, and offers the best sentence I've read today: "I am eager for the day that worship services feel more like worship again, and less like circus-training the monkeys. Even if they're cute monkeys that Jesus loves."

Clothing us with dignity and beauty

Aimee Milburn shows that she can even make a shopping trip interesting with her latest post about the difficulty of finding clothes that flatter the female figure without flaunting it. If you've ever walked out of Macy's feeling really demoralized, this post is for you.

Inspiring stories from the 40 Days for Life campaign

...can be found on the 40 Days for Life blog.

via Sheila Liaugminas

The loss of a child, suffering, and God

Wow. Boothe Farley writes on the death of her baby daughter. It's one of the best blog posts I've ever read. So is her previous post. Both are must-reads.

via BooMama

Creating Frodo's Hobbit House

Now this is an impressive doll house! Here are some pictures of its creation.

via Neatorama

Women's roles in population decline

I thought this Time article was interesting. Though Yanagisawa's comments were insulting, it seems that part of the outrage is simply at the notion that women have any kind of "duty" to society to have babies that will be the next generation. Some interesting food for thought.

They don't make atheists like they used to

One atheist understood the moral consequences of his unbelief: That was Nietzsche, who argued that God is dead, but acknowledged that without God there could be no binding and objective moral order.

Of course, the “New Atheists” deny this. Instead, they unconvincingly argue that you can have the benefits of an altruistic, Christian-like morality without God.

Nietzsche would laugh—and wonder why they don’t make atheists like they used to.

Read the rest from Chuck Colson.


via Happy Catholic

If they only knew...

This video was just light humor when it was created in 1930. Found via Will Cubbedge, who quips: "from a funny novel idea to a dark portent in 77 short years."

A hand gesture that says 1,000 words

View the ASL (American Sign Language) sign for abortion.

via Un-Muted Mumblings

"If you have tears, prepare to shed them now"

Christopher Hitchens, who is often known these days for his vitriolic rants against Mother Teresa and Christianity, offers a beautiful article about a young man who recently died in Iraq. He writes of discovering that the young man decided serve in part because of Hitchens' writings on the moral case for war:

I don't exaggerate by much when I say that I froze. I certainly felt a very deep pang of cold dismay...I feverishly clicked on all the links from the article and found myself on Lieutenant Daily's MySpace site, where his statement "Why I Joined" was posted....And there, at the top of the page, was a link to a passage from one of my articles, in which I poured scorn on those who were neutral about the battle for Iraq … I don't remember ever feeling, in every allowable sense of the word, quite so hollow.

It's a really touching piece. Well done, Mr. Hitchens.


via From Burke to Kirk

Choosing the right handbasket

Red Cardigan wins the "almost made me spew water all over my keyboard" award for today with her description of the differences between Republicans and Democrats:

This is not to say that the two parties are identical. Democrats, for the most part, exclude pro-life Americans, while Republicans merely treat them with disdain and contempt until just before each major election. Republicans favor preemptive war with any nation that has threateningly large amounts of oil, while Democrats would prefer to stick to their oddly successful tactic of sending Jimmy Carter around the world to become the focal point of the world's anger, taking the heat off of the rest of us. Democrats are in favor of gay marriage, while Republicans are in favor of not being asked questions about that issue, which they invariably answer with mumblings about civil unions that don't fool anybody.

Read the rest.

Chart: 2008 candidates' positions on the issues

I found this chart to be helpful in figuring out what issues each 2008 candidate supports and opposes.

How to make a volcano cake with vibrations, smoke and sound effects

...and strawberry-flavored lava flow. Sweet! (Here's the main page with a video of it in action. The instructions start here.)

via Neatorama

Feminism and femininity

Oz Conservative offers some interesting thoughts on an article about feminism and "the inner woman". From the article he excerpts:

Yet it turns out there are rather obdurate female longings with regard to dependency on men, despite pronouncements to the contrary - women need men like fish need bicycles - back in the heady years of the second wave. It turns out that fish are devoted cyclists. Indeed, the problem these days is that the bicycles seem to be fleeing the fish.

What's it like to have 18 brothers and sisters?

Bettnet.com has an excerpt from a nice article about a family of 19 kids. A good reminder that happy families come in all sizes.

Common vaccines actually use aborted fetus tissue?!

UPDATE: I spent a lot of time researching this this weekend and have summarized what I found on my other site.

==================

I always assumed that was an urban myth! The comments on this post at Catholic Dads would seem to indicate otherwise. Here's an article from Catholic World News about it, and here's a chart of which vaccines use aborted fetal cells as well as ethical alternatives.

Some quick Google searches would seem to indicate that this info is accurate, but it's just hard to believe that you don't hear about this more. Does anyone have any additional info?

Politicians and the Bible

Patrick calls b.s. on Giuliani's statement that he's "guided" by Jesus' admonishment not to judge others. Patrick notes:

Jesus did indeed chide the Pharisees for being hypocrites, mainly because they presented him with the woman while not bringing the man with whom she committed adultery. After they went away without stoning the woman, what did He tell her? It's in verse 11: "Go now and leave your life of sin." Some translations say "Go and sin no more." No translation that I have seen says anything like "Go and continue your sin, and tell anyone who asks that it is a purely personal matter."

Yeah, I haven't seen the "go ahead and continue sinning" translation either. Maybe politicians have a different version of the Bible.

What do 300 calorie meals look like?

Find out here. It's amazing how easy it is to rack up calories without realizing it.

via Neatorama

Creating a minimalist, functional wardrobe

I've been watching Tim Gunn's Guide to Style too much lately, so Regina Doman's posts here and here about paring down her wardrobe really caught my attention. I especially loved this diagram -- it's a great visual for thinking about how many of what kinds of clothes you really need.

via And Sometimes Tea

How to know when your blog is submitted to Digg

ProBlogger relays a useful (and really easy) tip for finding out when someone submits your blog to Digg: just go to Digg's search page, search for your URL, and then subscribe to the results page on a feed reader like Bloglines (you'll see the little orange feed symbol on the bottom right of the results page).

Tips for kids who want to save the environment

Young people are going to just love this post by Mrs. Darwin! She offers some solid tips for kids who are really concerned about saving the environment, like: wash the dishes by hand, wash your own clothes and use a clothesline instead of a dryer, turn off your TV and computer, etc. I bet young environmentalists are going to be all over this one. :)

RobK will buy you cool stuff

RobK of Catholic Dads and Kyrie Eleison is offering to buy the entire Reason for Our Hope series to the first five people who comment on this post. Nobody's commented yet -- go get it!

Two excellent articles on homeschooling

I've linked to both of these on my other site, but in case anyone missed them I wanted to highlight two of the best articles I've ever read on the subject of homeschooling, both by Sally Thomas:

• Schooling at Home
  
• Homeschooling and Christian Duty

Both are must-reads for anyone even remotely interested in the subject.

When men and women go shopping

Funny diagram of how a man goes about buying a pair of pants vs. how a woman goes about it.

On being a Christian man

Aimee Milburn has a good excerpt from a recent article by Archbishop Chaput, as well as some good commentary, as always. This was my favorite part (from the article):

Christian love is not weak or anesthetic. It’s an act of the will. It takes guts. It’s a deliberate submission of our selfishness to the needs of others. There’s nothing "unmanly" about it, and there’s nothing -- and I mean nothing -- more demanding and rewarding in the world.

Amen to that.

Creating the master race

Mary Meets Dolly highlights a fascinating article about an exhibit that "forces the public to ask tough questions about where we are going with genetic testing and genetic engineering by looking back at the atrocities of Nazi Germany". One of the things I found most interesting:

Most people are unaware the the atrocities in Germany started with the marginalization of those deemed "unfit". And even less known is the fact that it wasn't Nazi soldiers who were pushing the eugenics movement, it was the doctors, the social workers and the teachers.

Read the whole article at Cleveland.com here. The link to the exhibit's website is here.

Amusing parody to that Dove ad

I got a chuckle out of this parody to the video I featured in the last post.

Show this video to your daughters

This has been around, but in case you haven't seen it, it's great.

Women who change their last names are "in denial"

Wow. Quite an article here from Catherine Deveny. She writes:

Wake up! We are in 2007. Women are no longer owned by their father and then their husband. So why are some women still changing their surnames? And why do some men still want them to? It's sad, it's misogynous, it's archaic, it's insecure and it's unnecessary. Why would you do something so drastic simply because you decided to delude yourself it was easier? Because you are deeply insecure, deeply conservative or deeply stupid. And in deep denial.

Oz Conservative has some good thoughts.

A pro-life woman takes RU-486

A mother whose baby died in utero at 18 weeks recounts a stunning story of her experience taking RU-486. Here's one part that's really stuck with me:

I have never seen such agony as I saw on my husband's face when he heard her whisper, "It's a girl." His face looked like it folded in on itself. Our baby was really and truly dead. Somehow it didn't seem real until we held her in our hands and looked at her through our tears...I later learned from my midwife that [the doctor] performed abortions herself and was deeply disturbed by our pain. She told our midwife to get us out of the hospital as quickly as possible because we were upsetting the staff.

Read the whole thing.


via Thoughts of a Regular Guy

How to get attention online: a brainstorming session

Very amusing. (Scroll down for the content).

via Neatorama

From the "What Is Wrong With People?" files...

There's such a thing as a baby crying contest in Japan.

via Neatorama

Choosing a sperm donor with family values

Oz Conservative has a very concise, thought-provoking post about a single woman who plans to have a large family by IVF and sperm donation alone. Really interesting thoughts here.

via BlogWatch

Video: Shopping in Texas

An excellent summary of the experience of conversion

Aimee Milburn said this in the comments to a post by Abigail:

St. Augustine wrote in City of God that there are just two cities, the City of God and the city of man, and they interpenetrate each other. When one has been a citizen of the city of man, and changes to the City of God, there's a whole new way of life and thinking to be learned, like entering the culture of another country.

Great analogy.

Kids need happy endings

I've been thinking about Simcha's latest post all day. An excerpt:

In Fairytopia, for example, the spindly little heroine is the only fairy without wings. Because of her disability, though, she alone is not sickened by the poison spread by the bad guy...and she musters up her courage and defeats the villain in some way.

And as a reward, she gets wings.

See? She doesn't learn that her uniqueness is what makes life livable. She doesn't come to recognize her deformity as some kind of superiority. She was braver than she wanted to be, and is rewarded with really, really pretty wings.

As I said in the comments, I feel like there's a connection to the general rejection of happy endings that I was talking about here. Interesting.

Which 2008 candidate agrees with you?

A few friends and family have emailed me this presidential candidate quiz, and all say it's really accurate.

From paper-clip to house, in 14 trades

I'd seen this story before, but hadn't read the details. Really neat idea.

Afghan Hands

An inspiring project that sells beautifully embroidered shawls, scarves and other items created by Afghan widows to help them earn an income and get an education. Their collection looks beautiful. Their website is also very well done, with a blog and pictures of the women they employ. Keep this site in mind for your Christmas shopping!