Economics and the Environment

KMOX today featured Dr. Ken Chilton, director of the Institute for the Study of Economics and the Environment (ISEE) at Lindenwood University, on its program talking about global warming and what economists can tell us about that subject. Take a listen here. It is an excellent interview that is well worth your time.

Dr. Chilton is a mentor, a friend and a dear brother in Christ. I first met Dr. Chilton six years ago, when he happened to be the advisor on duty at Lindenwood taking care of working up a first semester schedule for freshmen business students — he helped me come up with my first semester schedule. I had the honor of being one of Dr. Chilton's students in a couple of classes, as well, one two years after that, and another a year later. The neat thing about this interview is it gives you a real taste of what he taught in his “Economics and the Environment” class (BA 383) in just twenty minutes. Now if only his complete lectures were online, but even this is an exciting opportunity for you to “meet” Dr. Chilton. Check it out.

Answers to QOTW

Well, I meant to reply to my own meme earlier, but… the best laid plans… Since I took so long, I thought I'd just use my answers for another blog post.

Q - What is your favorite part about the month of April? Reciting Chaucer, no doubt. Actually, I'd probably say the nice spring air.

O - Is it raining right now? No, but it soon will be.

T - Do you have a memory of a favorite April? What was it? Yes, April 2005. I spent a lot of time with a particular friend I am no longer in contact with (sadly) having a series of delightful outdoor conversations while enjoying the aforementioned spring air. I miss those conversations.

W - Did anyone fool you on April Fool’s Day? Yes, several people did, in fact. sniff

QOTW: April

Once more, I thought I'd try reviving the old Question of the Week meme. Feel free to answer in the comment or own your own blog. If you do the latter, please trackback or leave a comment about where you posted your answers.

Q - What is your favorite part about the month of April?

O - Is it raining right now?

T - Do you have a memory of a favorite April? What was it?

W - Did anyone fool you on April Fool's Day?

I'll put my answers in the comments section tomorrow.

Accordance

I've been using the Accordance Bible Software package for a number of months now in preparation for a review on OFB. I've liked it enough that I bought several modules that were useful for seminary studies. After years of trying to contend that SWORD was a nearly ideal Bible software system, I finally have to admit it isn't — no wonder I typically didn't even use it. Accordance blows it away and works well enough I've finally all but kicked the habit of preferring BibleGateway to my copy of MacSword. That's not to be harsh on the SWORD folks, they are a dedicated and talented bunch — they are simply working at some what of a disadvantage.

But the big point is that Accordance is really amazing. Accordance just gets a lot of things right with its unique, well thought out interface, and they have a lot of the best, most authoritative study resources available.

All that to say, I attended an Accordance all day seminar on Monday and am even more impressed having been introduced to more of what this program can do. Case and point: using Accordance's nicely designed drag and drop query builder, you can build a rule that will search for occurrences of the Granville Sharp Rule (two singular nouns governed by a single article and a conjunction). Unfortunately, my Greek text does not have nouns tagged as being common or proper, otherwise it would be perfect, for Accordance supports throwing in the final condition of Granville Sharp, namely that the nouns must be common. I suppose if you buy a different Greek module, then, it would be quite possible to run the full rule through. But even with that limitation on the standard Nestle-Aland/UBS module, this still demonstrates a breakthrough in easy, powerful searching — it's surely saves a lot of time when trying to do textual analysis!

I'm just amazed.

The Dems Should Bowl for the Nomination says Clinton

Check out this important announcement from Sen. Clinton.

On the Lighter Side

So I was talking about coconut being in something today. Therefore, Harry Nilsson:

Brother bought a coconut, he bought it for a dime
His sister had another one, she paid it for the lime
She put the lime in the coconut, she drank 'em both up
Put the lime in the coconut, she called the doctor, woke him up, and said

Doctor, ain't there nothin' I can take, I said
Doctor, to relieve this bellyache, I said
Doctor, ain't there nothin' I can take, I said
Now let me get this straight

Happy Easter!

He is risen!

I hope all of you had a great Easter.

Pilate's Truth

For Good Friday, I republished on OFB a meditation entitled “Pilate's Truth” which I originally presented during a Good Friday service two years ago and subsequently posted here. You can find it over at OFB.

Fallen Idol

I forgot to post on here that I placed a commentary on the Obama issue over at OFB the other day. Check it out here. I plan on running a series of presidential commentaries on OFB as we look towards the final Democratic primaries.

Jeremiah was My Pastor

Listen here for an amusing parody of “Joy to the World (“Jeremiah was a Bullfrog”), with reference to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It's hardly a laughing matter, admittedly, when someone spews hate, racism and anti-semeticism, but still, everything has its lighter side, no?

Hat tip for the song: guess who.

The more serious take I have not given online until now: Sen. Obama has shown a troubling and absolutely huge lack of judgment belonging to Trinity UCC for the last twenty years. I've thought that for months, since I first became aware of the situation. I am glad the whole controversy has come to the top, because people should know and consider why a man wanting to be the leader of the free world would call a hateful man like Rev. Wright a mentor and his “spiritual advisor.” Neither McCain nor Clinton have close ties to anyone like this, and attempts to suggest that McCain being endorsed by someone like Hagee or Clinton being defended by Ferraro is on the same plain as Obama being guided by Wright is inexcusably disingenuous. Folks, you should be ashamed of yourselves for even attempting it.

The end result? Obama is a terribly slippery politician that belonged to the church to build up his base, a terribly judge of character who stayed at the church because he was incapable of understanding what Wright was doing, or he is lying and actually agrees with Wright's racist, anti-American opinions. Do any of those speak to someone we want as president?

Like everyone else, I was entranced by Obama at the DNC '04, where he gave his “Audacity of Hope” speech. Seeing him then, I am totally unsurprised that he is only steps away from the presidency now. But just the slightest understanding of Obama and his stands (politically and otherwise) ought to shake anyone from a naive, passive acceptance of his opinions.