There is a logical explaination for this, sir.

You're Tony Nelson! It doesn't get any more stable
than you. You love peace and quiet, manual
reading and gardening are among your exciting
weekend endeavors.

So who are you? Does Dr. Bellows need to analyze you too or can you blink your problems away?

But the real question is: Does it Come with Free Shipping?

It seems that someone is working on copying Dell's build-to-order model in another industry: Cars. Build-to-Order Inc. is hoping to create an on-demand car manufacturing business with low inventory and quick arrival of parts from suppliers.

It works well for computers, but I wonder how well it works for cars?

Rebates, Rebates, and More Rebates

Yikes! I had a stack of rebates that had been waiting on my desk to be filled out for several weeks. sigh It ended up taking me thirty minutes to get through the stack, although fortunately with the new technique of printing the rebates on the receipts themselves, it makes things easier. Still, I just don't like doing rebates for some reason… at least I don't have to think about it any more.

The Case of the Lost Comments

I think I figured out what might have been causing some comments to get lost after posting. If you did post and your comment didn't stay online, please try again. I think everything should be working now. Thanks!

What about Forgiveness?

Consider the case of President Clinton. There is no getting around it: Clinton made lots of mistakes. He made some of what we tend to think of as “big” sins. He was not really helpful to Christian causes.

But, let's especially focus on that “big” sins thing. My Bible doesn't have a “big” sins category; Jesus blew that concept away. Consider what he said during the Sermon on the Mount. President Clinton committed adultery, yes, but according to Jesus, “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28) President Clinton lied, but I think I can safely say anyone who said they never lie would have to be lying to say that.

Even if we could avoid falling into the types of sin Mr. Clinton often gets condemned for, we ought to still consider the cost of sin. “[T]he wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), the Apostle Paul reminds us. No, it isn't the wages of the really big, get on national TV sins is death. It is simply the wages of any and all sin. We are all in the same boat.

Indeed, “[a]ll have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) In other words, “[t]here is none Righteous, no not one.” (Romans 3:10) Yes, we are all sinful and dispicably marred by sin in the eyes of God.

We need forgiveness to fix that problem, and speaking of forgiveness, we are also reminded that “if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matthew 6:14) and “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:1-2)

It should strike us as ironic that we, believers in something that revolves around the concept of forgiveness of sin, can't seem to forgive sin. It is fine for us to say “hey, this is wrong — that's sin,” but it is very very wrong for us to go around condemning people and not forgiving them. It may be politically handy to do so, but not Biblically right. Yet, I think President Clinton could come out tomorrow in sack cloth and beg for forgiveness from the nation and it wouldn't do any good at all. (I say all this keeping in mind that I have been as guilty of condemning him and others as anyone else.)

President Clinton has been condemned by Christians for years. Five years after his attempted impeachment we are still busy condemning him and certainly not forgiving him. Why is that? Does God keep condemning us for past sins? Does he take years to forgive us? No! Yet we judge others, such as Clinton, with a holier-than-thou attitude. What kind of example does that present to the world? What kind of testimony does it give when we talk about forgiveness but show nothing of it? Where is that Change?

This is coming out far more jumbled than I had hoped, but I guess what I am trying to say is that it is time to forget what is politically beneficial and worry about what gets the important goal accomplished (bringing more people into a relationship with Christ Jesus). I fear that in our maneuvering to get more votes we may do so at the price of losing souls.

So, it seems to me — to bring this back to where I started — that when President Clinton says something nice, we shouldn't be so quick to start the condemning process again. That just makes us look (and in reality, quite possibly be) hypocritical. We certainly wouldn't want that type of behavior directed toward us. In the recent case, as Kevin pointed out, he didn't have to say anything nice, but he did. We should have said something nice in return… did we?

Phew... what a day.

Well, you may be wondering were I've been. Yesterday I spent the day in a hospital waiting room. Dad went in for a angiogram and possibly an angioplasty (after the doctors noticed a small anomaly during a stress test) and instead ended up getting a quadruple bypass surgery. It was, needless to say, very worrisome — he had several passages with 90% blockage and a few with 70 or 80%.

Going in yesterday he really didn't expect more than possibly an angioplasty (where they use a balloon to clear blockages), since it didn't even look like he had more than a blockage-in-formation. We are just thankful it was caught when it was — leaving it alone for longer possibly would have caused a massive heart attack.

At any rate, he's doing fairly well today. The hospital moved him out of ICU ahead of schedule, and he might be released by Monday, which is amazing, to say the least. While the toughest part is (hopefully) over, prayers would still be appreciated.

Mr. Former President: Thanks.

In part, Clinton stated, “I thought the White House did the right thing in just saying 'we probably shouldn't have said that.'” He continued, “You know, everybody makes mistakes when they are president. I mean, you can't make as many calls as you have to make without messing up once in a while. The thing we ought to be focused on is what is the right thing to do now. That's what I think.”

Unlike other democrats that have seen this as an ideal way to hurt the Bush Administration's chances for reelection, most notably Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.), Clinton urged that it was time to move on. He urged that “People can quarrel with whether we should have more troops in Afghanistan or internationalize Iraq or whatever, but it is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons.”

Of course, not everyone of the former President's staff agreed. You can read the full report here.

In all, I'm left a bit speechless by this. Everyone knows Clinton was critical of the administration's moves toward Iraq earlier this year. Yet has shown a very commendable view at a time when he could have easily been a strong voice for the Dem's best hope at hurting the administration thus far. I can't believe I'm writing this, but I'm impressed with former President Clinton's forward focus on the issue.

For that, I thank you Mr. Clinton. Let's hope that this is the action people try to copy from you.

New Graphic.

First graphical logo for the site (circa Summer 2001):

Pre-asisaid.com logo (circa April 2002):

Old logo (circa March 2003):

New logo (circa right now!):

So, which one's best? Yeah, I know, don't quit my day job.

Need a Bible geek button?

I was just thinking, what better way to acknowledge that you consider yourself a Bible geek (small “g”), and thus believe it is a generic term, than to put a button on your blog/site somewhere?

Feel free to include a link to your own Bible geek graphics in the comments section!

I'm a Bible geek.

I can't believe it. As I just found out on Sakamuyo, some guy that goes by the name Bible Geek has trademarked the name and has threatened to sue a Christian blogger that used the same name (see the original post on Cruciform Chronicle). This isn't Christian, and I would suggest it is even dubious trademark — after all, Bible geek is a descriptive term that is quite generic and used by more than just this one fellow.

Imagine if I trademarked the name Linux Geek or Computer Geek? It's really not that different in this case, except that someone claiming to desire seeing the spread of the Gospel has gone against Christian principles and threatened to sue another Christian for claiming to be a Bible geek.

While I won't claim that lawsuits are never acceptable, consider Jesus' words:

“Why don't you judge for yourselves what is right? As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled to him on the way, or he may drag you off to the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.” — Luke 12:57-59 (NIV)

And can you guess Paul's stance on the issue?

If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church! I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? But instead, one brother goes to law against another—and this in front of unbelievers! The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers.
— 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 (NIV)

And yet, it would seem the Bible Geek® guy, who seems to fancy himself a Bible Answer Man, oh, oops, Hank probably owns that trademark, is busy threatening a brother in Christ and blogger who has the nickname Bible Geek.

This is a sad day for Christianity.