Hamas Wins; Don't Be Fooled

So Hamas won most of the seats in Palestine's parliamentary elections. In case you didn't know, Hamas is the Palestinian terrorist and political group that openly admits that they want to drive Israel out of existence.

Many in the liberal media are already trying to spin this to say that Hamas really won't focus on killing all the Jews, even though that agenda is the reason for their existence. Oh, no, they'll focus on realistic things and try to advance their people and all of that nice stuff.

How can anyone believe that? How can the writers of these articles believe that? I am convinced that there is a demonic influence on the media against Israel. How else could a group that consistently denies Israel's existence, a group that consistently attacks and kills Jews, a group that consistently admits its goal of killing every Jew in the world and wiping Israel into non-existence because of their intense hatred ~ How else could this group even be tempted to be put in a positive light by people of the developed world who claim to be open-minded and rational?

It would be like if the "Al-Qaeda Party" won most of the positions in Iraq and editorialists said, oh, they won't try to kill Americans. They'll definitely work on getting electricity to their citizens. No one would believe that for a second. There is simply no natural explanation for the treatment of Palestine by the world today.

Edmond the Hun

Important Business News

www.stltoday.com

McDonald's Corp. stock rose to a 5 1/2-year high Tuesday after the fast-food chain reported a 53-percent jump in fourth-quarter profit on continuing strong sales at its U.S. outlets and improving results in Europe...

Extended operating hours, cashless payments and new menu items all have helped keep the momentum going in McDonald's U.S. restaurants, which also got a fourth-quarter boost from stronger breakfast sales.

Link Update: Super B

By the way, I've updated the link on the left to my friend SuperBgirl06, formerly known as The Local Superhero. Anyway, she has left Blogger for Xanga. A little heavy on the purple and pink, perhaps, but a valiant effort nonetheless. Feel free to check it out sometime.

And don't forget about Onataura's Xanga, either. Currently you can read the harrowing account of his minor and untragic accident.

I would say don't forget about John's (Truth For Free) but I can't always access that myself. Silly Myspace. He should convert to Blogger. Or at least Xanga.

Edmond the Hun

$227 Million For Some Stardust

Apparently we sent up a little spaceship a few years ago to catch some comet material. And apparently it came back successfully. The scientists are excited about analyzing the material to discover clues about the universe's origins. I'm not up on my cometology, although I am fascinated by outer space, both its vastness and its varied contents.

I'm just interested in what the scientists observe because I believe the universe began differently than most of them do. For example, they don't know exactly how the earth got all of its water. They used to think that comets could have provided it (don't ask me how, this is what the article said). But recent advances have discovered that comet water seems to have a different chemical signature than Earth water does.

Again, I don't understand all of that. I do understand that God created the water with a word, so I'm not surprised if comet water doesn't seem to do the job. And I won't be surprised if analyzing these comet particles proves that theory wrong for good. To what will they turn next? After all the comet dust is settled, what will be revealed?

Edmond the Hun

(Source: www.msnbc.com)

The Stupid People and the Angry Spies

There once was a land full of stupid people. This land was ruled by a smart president. The stupid people wanted to live their lives in safety, without the smart president interfering.

Now there was some angry people who hated the stupid people and wanted to kill them, so they sent some spies to pretend to be stupid people and figure out how to kill them. The angry spies called their angry leader with information. They made a bomb and killed some of the stupid people.

“This is bad,” said the smart president. “To find out which stupid people are really angry spies, I will send my grasshoppers to the people's houses, and whenever they call someone from another land, my bugs will come tell me what they said.”

For four years, the president's bugs listened and helped him stop the angry spies from killing any more stupid people. But one day, a stupid person called his grandmother in another land to say “Happy Birthday,” and he caught a bug listening to him.

He was mad, and told everyone, “The president is listening to our phone calls!”

This made all the stupid people mad. “How dare you!” they yelled at the president.

“I have to figure out which of you are angry spies!” he said.

“That's an invasion of privacy,” they said. “From now on, you can't send your grasshoppers to a house unless you have evidence that the person is an angry spy.”

“But how will I know who's a spy if I don't listen?”

“We don't know. You're the smart one.”

So the smart president stopped sending his bugs because it wasn't nice. The angry spies called their leader, but no one knew what they said. So they made a really big bomb, and all the stupid people died.

But they were happy. Death is a small price to pay for privacy.

The Radio vs. the iPod

www.stltoday.com

I read in the paper yesterday that some radio stations believe they are losing listeners to iPods, because while they only have playlists of a few hundred songs of a specific genre, the iPod owner has thousands of songs of all sorts of genres. In other words, the radio is a lot more boring.

The radio people have concluded that to increase and retain their audience, they need to play a much bigger variety of songs. This new format is called "jack." They don't care whether it's country or hip-hop, as long as it's a song that will sound familiar.

As St. Louis's 106.5 programmer Jewels Riley says, "I think there is enough variety that if they don't like Madonna, they can switch back in three minutes and hear Aerosmith."

I disagree.

If radios are losing audiences to iPods, trying to copy the iPod is not going to solve the problem. If someone doesn't like Madonna, they're not going to come back. They're going to go back to their iPod, where they can just skip Madonna, and not have to listen to commercial breaks. And people who used to like the station for a certain style will be unsatisfied when half of the songs are not of a style they enjoy.

In trying to please all of the people all of the time, I am afraid they will end up pleasing no one. What do you think?

Edmond the Hun

The Art of Music

It'll be a day like this one, when the world caves in...

Just thought I'd take a quick post to comment on the wonderful powers of music. When life is at its confusingest, there's nothing like figuring out the piano chords to a Switchfoot song to get away and set one's mind at ease. I think playing the piano is for me what painting is for Finien.

Edmond the Hun

Interesting News: Regarding Wardrobes

Here's a bit of fun, lightheard, non-political, interesting news:

Dueling claims to inspiration for Narnia story
www.boston.com

Two small Christian colleges both lay claim to owning a big, portable closet that may have inspired Lewis when he penned ''The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," the first tale written in his ''Chronicles of Narnia" series for children.

Which campus deserves bragging rights?

Nobody knows. But with a $150 million hit movie drawing holiday crowds, some 95 million ''Narnia" books in circulation since 1950, and a current ''Christianity Today" cover story likening Clive Staples Lewis of Oxford to Elvis Aron Presley of Memphis, there has been plenty of interest.

Further fueling the curiosity, the Disney film has riled critics who say it serves an evangelical agenda. Lewis, one of the 20th century's most noted theologians, built his children's stories around themes of sin and redemption, with Aslan, Narnia's lion, standing in for Jesus.

Besieged with media inquiries, each school tells reporters much the same thing: Their wardrobes were certainly owned by the prolific don, who died Nov. 22, 1963; however, it is unclear whether Lewis had either one in mind when the four children in his story poked into an armoire and somehow wound up cavorting with the chatty animals inhabiting Narnia.

At Westmont's campus outside Santa Barbara, Paul Delaney, a professor, recently showed visitors the piece of furniture at issue in the lobby outside faculty offices.

''We can't say for sure that it's the wardrobe," he said, ''but it definitely came from his house and closely matches the description in the book."

Westmont's website is less reserved, saying the Lewis wardrobe in Reynolds Hall ''served as a model for the magical one he described in his famous children's book."

At Wheaton, officials downplay the possibility that their Marion E. Wade Center library holds the portal to Narnia. Even so, they've posted a sign near their wardrobe that leaves little doubt as to their true position: ''We do not take responsibility for people disappearing."

Built to resemble an English cottage, the center also has Lewis's writing desk and more than 2,000 of his letters, as well as a mountain of documents chronicling the careers of Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and five other British writers.

''For casual visitors, the wardrobe is the biggest draw," said archivist Heidi Truty. ''When families -- even students -- come through the door, the question we hear most often is: 'Where's the wardrobe?' "

Snagged at a 1973 auction in England by a Wheaton economics professor, the school's ornate double-door black oak wardrobe was handcrafted by Lewis's grandfather, a shipbuilder in Belfast. Although it barely resembles the modest piece described in ''Narnia," it still may have triggered the imagination of Lewis, known by friends as ''Jack."

''A cousin of Lewis's visited and mentioned that, as children, they used to climb into this wardrobe and Jack would tell adventure stories to his playmates," Truty said.

The year after Wheaton's find, Westmont students doing a semester in England learned that the owners of the author's old house had found a wardrobe that was to be turned into scrap because it could not be carted out whole through a remodeled, narrower doorway. The students took it off their hands for about $50, had it dismantled, and shipped it to campus.

Unlike Wheaton's version, this wardrobe is as ''perfectly ordinary" as the Narnia entryway into a world of fantasy, Delaney of Westmont said. Like the one in the book, it has a single door with a mirror and a threshold low enough for a small child to step into -- as opposed to the 3-foot-high jump required to access the Wheaton wardrobe.

''Read the book," Delaney said.

KC Chiefs Coach Dick Vermeil Retires For A Third Time

I wonder which NFL team he'll be coaching next year... :)