Mark 3:7-19a

7Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him; 8hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. 9He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him; 10for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. 11Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, “You are the Son of God!” 12But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.

via PC(USA) – Devotions – Daily readings for Monday, March 1, 2010.

One of my sons has been playing Civilisation and Grepolis. He commented that you wanted one culture, one set of morals to win in the game. Neal Ferguson, in his history of the long war (or short century, 1914 — 1990)  pointed out that the areas of greatest ethnic conflict were those where the groups were admixed.

The Boederlands were mistrusted. They had limited education. There was no prestige. Jesus was from there, and he is moving in power. But when the spirits opposing hims have to admit this, he silences them. He has been to the desert and he will not allow the cheap and spectacular to be the hallmark of his ministry. (To my Pentecostal friends, he heals. Thank G_d. However, he does not bang thr drum about it.

1 Corinthians 4:8-10

8Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings! Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we might be kings with you! 9For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals. 10We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute.

Paul was a Roman Citizen. He knew the protocol of the triuph. After the General, the slaves, the booty, the army… came the leaders. In shackles. They were led, from the froum, to the strangler. Paul is putting himself in the position of maximal shame. He is identifing himself with rubbish.

The world’s fashion is to say we should have self esteem and be at the front. (Interestingly, those with high self esteem do less weel than those without high self esteem).

And we preach triumph and prosperity. Here and now. Have we become fashionable, instead of faithful?

This is so cool. It may not be accurate, but it is soooo cool.

AGW_hockey_stick_graph_big.gif (GIF Image, 1102×742 pixels).

So let’s look at today’s reading

Romans 6:3-14

3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.5For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

12Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.

via PCUSA – Devotions – Daily readings for Sunday, February 28, 2010.

Paul has a pattern. He starts with elaborating the reasons behind a point. He appeals to our heads: he is the first theologian (and has been beaten up for this for ever: the critics ignore his discussions of tears…).

Then he says “do not let sin exercise dominion”. This does not make immediate sense because he has just said we “is dead” and thus are not compelled into sin.

But we can choose to do it. And we do. The text is about becoming holy. It is not about being perfect. In fact, to state we are perfect is to be in a state of sin: for in our position “above” others we can easily class those who are not as udermenschen — to be ignored, patronised or destroyed. (The German word is the best I know for this, but since I can barely speak it, my spelling is off).

And in this we are all Catholic. We accept that the Church is full of fallen, imperfect people. Some of whom are not interested in moving towards Righteousness. Some of whom are not of God. But we cannot tell who will told they were a good and faithful servant. We hold the balance of accepting we are poor, weak and inconsistent and also striving for the best. And in this, Reformed people can state “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church…”

Don’t get me wrong. I am all for saving the earth; it’s the only planet known to have bourbon

via A decline in Prius envy | The Daily Caller – Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment.

Jesus overtly claimed to  forgive sins. This is the perogative of G_d. He is either mad, blaspheming, or what he said he is.

5When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” 6Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, 7″Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 8At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? 9Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Stand up and take your mat and walk'? 10But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” – he said to the paralytic – 11″I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.” 12And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

via PCUSA – Devotions – Daily readings for Thursday, February 25, 2010.

• Jesus told this man to do what the Law commanded and get his cure for leprosy ritrually cleansed so he could rejoin society and corporate worship.
• Jesus said no publicity. This is unlike a lot of modern people, who proclaim the miraculous. Jesus, who was miraculous, at this point wanted to be able to go into villages.
• But he got too big. He had to stay in the country. People flocked to hear him

40A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” 41Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” 42Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, 44saying to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” 45But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

via PC(USA) – Devotions – Daily readings for Wednesday, February 24, 2010.

And doing good is a command. Doing good at times causes hassles in our lives. We should still do good.

Here’s the rub: security is a state of mind, not a procedure. Procedures can't cope with attackers, because they're inflexible. If you search passengers for guns, someone will carry a knife. If you search for knives, someone will sew themselves a set of underwear full of PETN. And so on. To deal with a threat — say, someone who wants to attack your air travel infrastructure — you must look for the attacker, not their tools, because they can change their tools at will to exploit weaknesses in your procedure for identifying tools.

via Charlie’s Diary.

What Charles is comparing is the US versus the rest of the world on getting through an airport.

In most of Europe and Asia, you book in, and you go through a security screen and immigration  with your bag. When you get to the gate your bags are screened.

Multiple, parallel methods.

In the US, Auckland (which is horrible — I’d rather fly directly from Christchurch or Dunedin to Australia) there are many flights going through one or two screeners and people doing rote searches. Clearly bored. Not interacting with the tourists.

He was worried about the risks of the queues. My issue is “why?”

I’ve two suggestions.

1.  NZ and Oz are islands with a large agricultural industries. We have to screen for contraband such as pests. We got used to using multiple Xray machines DECADES ago. Plus dogs walking around — because we cannot afford to lose our exports.

2.  In much of the world Tourism is a big industry. The tourist experience begins on the plane, and on landing first impressions count. It does not take much to teach staff to smile. It takes a little more to teach staff to interact and observe. (Which is what Israel does — and they are the experts on security).

The US? Had some good times there… (though travelling through upper Georgia with my Kiwi Chinese ex was interesting). But there an assumption that it is a privilege to have people arrive in officialdom, not a realisation that people can go somewhere else…

And there are consequences. I set my flights up to Avoid the USA. I do not go to learned conferences in the US. It’s not worth the hassle. And it is probably safer.

1 Corinthians 1:20-31

20Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.26Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29so that no one might boast in the presence of God. 30He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

via PCUSA – Devotions – Daily readings for Today.

It is not about righeteousness, it is about mercy.

What’s good.
1. Plugins to open office work.
2. I can sync bibliographies
3. Imports my old Bibtex files
4. Has the most common citation systems up and working.

What’s bad…
The word processor plugin that is cross compatible requires you save in .doc format. The open office only version is NOT cross compatable. As most medical editors require word, this is an issue.

Best advantage — is a firefox plug in and is a free firefox plugin.

We don’t need endnote no more.

Site is at http://www.zotero.org/

The teenagers think it is cool, which is probably a bad thing. Oh, and I have updated to Wordpress 2.9.2