the tindog coffeehouse

I hate Walmart. I detest it. I hate everything about it. I hate the parking lot. I hate that the medicine and toiletries section is on the complete opposite side of the store as everything else you need. I hate that even if you’re just running in for five things, you still have to get a full-size cart because you can never find a handbasket. I hate that they have 78 checkout lanes, but only two are open at any given time. And I hate that if you use the self-checkout lane, there’s a 99.9% chance something won’t work, and you’ll have to wait around for ten minutes for a worker to come by and enter a random code that you probably could’ve entered yourself.

And yet I still shop there.

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Now that the Navy SEALs have taken down Osama bin Laden, America’s finest can concentrate on a much more elusive, homegrown terror threat: the Mojave ground squirrel.

The Air Force claims their quest to build an automated ground squirrel tracking device is only meant to protect the endangered critters, not destroy them and their fellow insurgents of the Squirrel Liberation Front. Right. Just like Area 51 is just another military base, and JFK wasn’t killed by a tiger.

Previously:
Squirrel Uprising in Vermont: ‘This was an attack’
Squirrel Uprising: The hunters become the hunted
Squirrel Uprising: Spies among us!
Squirrel Uprising: Rise of the black ‘super squirrel’

Could challenging the teaching of evolution in public schools be as simple as redefining the starting point? Possibly so, at least according to evolutionary biologist Stephen Sample, who recently submitted several science modules to the Texas State Board of Education for curriculum consideration.

According to Sample, it all depends on what the null hypothesis is. In science, a null hypothesis is “a hypothesis which the researcher tries to disprove, reject or nullify.” It’s the default position, or the commonly accepted hypothesis (H₀) that researchers must disprove (H₁). It’s similar to saying a person is presumed innocent (H₀) until proven guilty (H₁).

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Quick, what is the longest book of the Bible? If you’re measuring strictly by the number of words, it’s Jeremiah. Now, what is the book of the Bible that I seem to be stuck on? You guessed it: Jeremiah.

I’m about halfway in but have hit a wall. After spending the last 12 weeks plowing through 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, and 13 other prophetic books of the Old Testament (including the 66-chapter Isaiah), I’m having a hard time getting through this one.

I feel like Man v. Food‘s Adam Richman, staring down the barrel of a 5-pound burrito with only 30 minutes left to polish it off. (Mmm, burritos….)

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Today is the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. To quote King James I himself, thou shalt party as if it were 1699.

Below is a photo of Matthew 3 from my first real Bible, a King James red-letter Bible given to me by my grandmother in 1984. I honestly don’t know how anyone in the 20th century — let alone the 21st — could make sense of it. Thank God for more contemporary translations, and translations without everything being spelled out in phonetics!

Previously:
Memento Vivere

“God Save the Foolish Kings” by House of Heroes. Why?

1. Because it’s almost summer, and Suburba is the perfect summertime album.
2. Because I’ve been reading a lot of Old Testament stuff lately, especially 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, and a bunch of prophetic books such as Jeremiah, which is what I’m reading now. And there are a lot of foolish kings throughout those books.
3. And just because it’s an awesome song.

Previously:
Bible reading: At the halfway mark
Thoughts on Genesis
House of Heroes and Seabird at The Prophet Bar in Dallas tonight!