Tuesday, December 7

Random

> Seattle Police are now broadcasting stolen car info over Twitter. It is not clear whether they have recovered anything, yet. ~ link

Google launched Google Books yesterday to compete with Amazon's Kindle Reader. So far, the Google e-book reader isn't quite ready for prime time. They don't seem to have any way to insert bookmarks or notes. (We're already giving up a lot to not be able to scribble notes and symbols on paper.)

Google says that the advantage of their system is that it is in the clouds -- that you can sync multiple devices to be able to read their books. Is that any different than the Kindle? I read my Amazon books off three computers and a Droid -- and they sync together so that when I open the book on one device it goes right to where I left off on the previous device. The Google e-book reader doesn't seem to sync so tightly -- at least that was my experience yesterday. They do, however, have the classic Google sense of humor -- as evidenced by their artwork.

Pollsters asked pastors, "Which, if any, of the following people do you believe are Christians?": The names listed were Oprah Winfrey, President George Bush, Glenn Beck, President Barack Obama, and Sarah Palin. ~ link

There is a lot of disagreement about what the term "Christian" means. I'd say that Oprah does not identify herself as such so she is probably not. Beck identifies himself as a Mormon (which, while using some similar terminology, has a fundamentally different understanding of who God is, who Christ is, and what he did, than what has been historically understood as Christianity). Bush, Obama, and Palin all identify themselves as Christians. And while I may question some of their actions at times I don't think I need to put myself in the position of judging whether they are Christian believers. Perhaps if the question were framed, "Which, if any, of the following people do you believe are followers of Christ?" the answers might be different still. Which is the more fundamental question?

Baby Jesus -- now with GPS ~ link (via)

1 comment:

Tim said...

I have always thought it was interesting that we Jesus chose the 12, he chose Simon the Zealot and Levi the tax collector. Those two guys could not have been further apart on the political spectrum of the day. Therefor I do not think that we should judge peoples relationship to Christ based on their political views.