From the Flooded Grounds of Houston
Christians, we should be at our best when affliction does its worst.
Disaster has the potential to knit our hearts together in love. When the apostle Paul tells us to weep with those weeping, and to rejoice with those rejoicing, he doesn’t mean these are the only two emotions we should share. We should grieve with the grieving, and ache with the affected.
When I hear more rain on my back patio, my heart aches. Our city is sinking. I shake my head in disbelief as rain and sirens blare around us. As I tell my kids to wear their helmets during a tornado warning, I must look to heaven, past Harvey, for help.
State of the Bible 2017: Top Findings
Many Americans are searching for beacons of hope and moral grounding amidst uncertainty and perceived moral decline. Barna conducted the annual State of the Bible survey, commissioned by American Bible Society, to examine behaviors and beliefs about the Bible among U.S. adults. The results show that Americans overwhelmingly believe the Bible is a source of hope and a force for good even as they express growing concern for our nation’s morals. These and other snapshots are included in our list of top 10 findings from this year’s State of the Bible report.
Six Traits of a Church Disrupter
- He often seeks positions in the church so he can get attention.
- He often votes “no” in business meetings.
- He loves to say, “People are saying…”
- He tries to get followers at the church for his cause of the moment.
- He often assures the pastor and other church leaders how much he loves them and supports them.
- He loves to use “facts’ loosely for his case or cause.
An unforgiveable pardon for Sheriff Joe
The powers of pardon bestowed on an American president—modelled on those enjoyed by English monarchs in centuries past—are so sweeping and awful that they impose their own discipline on chief executives, or so Alexander Hamilton predicted in Federalist 74. The responsibility of deciding the fate of a fellow-creature will “naturally inspire scrupulousness and caution,” wrote Hamilton. What is more, a president would so “dread” being accused of misusing those powers in a fit of “weakness or connivance”, that he will use them with the utmost “circumspection.”
Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, And It Won’t Tell Me How
What makes the results so unsettling is the range of data sources—location information, activity on other apps, facial recognition on photographs—that Facebook has at its disposal to cross-check its users against one another, in the hopes of keeping them more deeply attached to the site. People generally are aware that Facebook is keeping tabs on who they are and how they use the network, but the depth and persistence of that monitoring is hard to grasp. And People You May Know, or “PYMK” in the company’s internal shorthand, is a black box.
A Fix For Food Waste And Hunger: Big Batches Of Soup
DeYoung’s answer was to found La Soupe, a nonprofit that collects leftover produce from grocery stores and local organic farms to make an array of flavorful and inventive soups, which are then frozen and redistributed locally to stop child hunger.
Pogue’s Basics: YouTube transcripts
Go to the video manager, click Edit Subtitles, pick a language, and look — now you can either upload a script you’ve already written, or you can say, do your best to create it automatically— and then you can edit it. You can watch the video and type as you go. YouTube even pauses the video as you type.
Twenty Years Later, StarCraft’s Story is Still an Engrossing Take on Space Opera
The effect of this is that, even at its most trope-y, StarCraft’s storytelling always feels urgent. As different factions of each race play off each other, the game pulls the player into their struggles, compels empathy and fascination even for the entirely alien Zerg. The world of StarCraft is dense, but it feels lived in and alive. I don’t just learn about and fear the alien hordes. Here, I am the alien hordes. Even more than the immaculate tactical gameplay, that sort of storytelling is addictive.
Bull wounds anti-bullfighting activist in French arena
An anti-bullfighting activist jumped into the arena in Carcassone, southern France, on Sunday and was promptly attacked by one of the animals he wants to protect, local police said.