Have your photo taken with the Lamb of God!

Just like our friend, Marynell, did:

“Christian theme park a holy land experience - USATODAY.com
ORLANDO — Jesus Christ is crucified and resurrected here six days a week.

Snarling Roman soldiers whip and drag him, and somber audience members watch. Some quietly weep at a pageant bloody and cruel.

It is the grand finale at the Holy Land Experience, and not the attraction most tourists envision in an Orlando vacation. Just miles from Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld in this city’s overstimulated tourist corridor, Holy Land has in its six years of operation aimed to recreate Jerusalem of Biblical times.

…

The attraction opened in 2001, the vision of a New Jersey preacher who came South to expand his reach. It was controversial because the Rev. Marvin Rosenthal is a Baptist born Jewish, and now considers himself a “Hebrew Christian” or “Messianic Jew.” That means he believes Jesus is the Messiah, contrary to traditional Jewish beliefs. Some local Jews were upset he was creating an attraction, and their conflict made international news when the park started.

“We were given tremendous promotion by the fact that there were a few voices that didn’t want to see us open the facility,” Rosenthal said. “Consequently, the media got wind of that and I wound up being on most of the networks. Good Morning America, Good Night America, Good Afternoon America, The O’Reilly Factor. I had people coming from Russia, from Israel, from South America, from Europe. Out of that event we received what had to be many millions of dollars worth of publicity.

…

Audience members are encouraged to participate. Jesus walked among them with a wireless microphone, calling children and picking one up. Excited parents with digital and disposable cameras crept forward as their kids fidgeted and kicked at sand.

Lisa Bell, 42, husband David Bell, 50, and their 2-year-old son came from Ripley, Tenn., after seeing Holy Land on Trinity. She said they didn’t consider attending the other parks.

“Oh no. Jesus was just holding him,” Lisa Bell said, nodding to her sunburned son. “He knows who Jesus is.”"

“With all the guns in this county, couldn’t we kill a muskrat?”

The Associated Press: Burrowing muskrat causes levee to fail in Missouri

Somehow, I just have to laugh at that quote. Is she pro-gun? Or is she just anti-muskrat? Either way, she’s just begging for PETA and the NRA to come knocking on her door.

“too busy with your fancy career”

GraphJam: Pop culture for people in cubicles. (AKA Song Chart Meme)

Graph By: Glen O.

“Anyone who is on ‘our team’ is excused for moral transgressions”

From Courtney. Click the link for the full article.

Findings - Deep Down, We Can’t Fool Even Ourselves - NYTimes.com

“You show up for an experiment and are told that you and a person arriving later will each have to do a different task on a computer. One job involves a fairly easy hunt through photos that will take just 10 minutes. The other task is a more tedious exercise in mental geometry that takes 45 minutes.

You get to decide how to divvy up the chores: either let a computer assign the tasks randomly, or make the assignments yourself. Either way, the other person will not know you had anything to do with the assignments.

Now, what is the fair way to divvy up the chores?

When the researchers posed this question in the abstract to people who were not involved in the tasks, everyone gave the same answer: It would be unfair to give yourself the easy job.

But when the researchers actually put another group of people in this situation, more than three-quarters of them took the easy job. Then, under subsequent questioning, they gave themselves high marks for acting fairly. The researchers call this moral hypocrisy because the people were absolving themselves of violating a widely held standard of fairness (even though they themselves hadn’t explicitly endorsed that standard beforehand).

A double standard of morality also emerged when other people were arbitrarily divided in two groups and given differently colored wristbands. They watched as one person, either from their group or from the other group, went through the exercise and assigned himself the easy job.

Even though the observers had no personal stake in the outcome — they knew they would not be stuck with the boring job — they were still biased. On average, they judged it to be unfair for someone in the other group to give himself the easy job, but they considered it fair when someone in their own group did the same thing.

“Anyone who is on ‘our team’ is excused for moral transgressions,” said Dr. DeSteno, a psychologist at Northeastern University. “The importance of group cohesion, of any type, simply extends our moral radius for lenience. Basically, it’s a form of one person’s patriot is another’s terrorist.”

…

But as useful as hypocrisy can be, it’s apparently not quite as basic as the human instinct to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Your mind can justify double standards, it seems, but in your heart you know you’re wrong.”

Sarah: That’s not fair!
Jareth: You say that so often, I wonder what your basis for comparison is?

Click on “Yarn Harlot” to read 1-15 and 20-67

Making a baby sweater is harder than you may think. Liz sent this to me.  ;)

Yarn Harlot
16. Realize that working knowledge of size of baby would be good.
17. Do vast amount of research on chest sizes of babies while drinking red wine.
18. Do math, based on research.
19. Realize that math and wine are running counter to each other, and that my math skills are so tenuous that there may be no amount of alcohol that can be consumed during math process.

They pulled the ad.

Heinz Mayo Ad Features Two Men Kissing In UK Campaign To “Give Your BLT A Little NYC” - Business on The Huffington Post
A commercial for Heinz Mayo featuring two men kissing premieres on UK TV Monday evening. As the UK’s Guardian reports,

Heinz’ new ad opens with a family on a normal morning routine with a young boy and girl getting ready for school and their father preparing for the office.

The young boy and girl go to the kitchen to get their sandwiches, which are being prepared by a man with a New York accent dressed in a deli serving outfit who they refer to as “mum”.

When their father goes to get his sandwich he says to mum in the kitchen “See you tonight love”.

However, mum barks back “Hey, ain’t you forgetting something?”, at which point the two men share a kiss. Mum then sends the father off with the words: “Love you. Straight home from work, sweet cheeks.”

I coast a lot.

Hypermiling :: No more need to compare gas prices

After hearing about Hypermilers on NPR, I decided to try a few of their techniques. Fortunately, the Miata is a stick shift, so it’s easier for me to shift into neutral. If the light ahead is red, I pull the car into neutral and coast to the light. If I’m going downhill, I put it in neutral and coast until I start to lose speed.

But I do more than just coast downhill. If I want to drive with the top down, I put it down BEFORE I start the car. I also roll down the windows BEFORE I start the car. Alternatively, I stop the car and THEN put up the top and roll up the windows.

I make a conscious effort to parallel park as efficiently as possible.

So far, I think I’ve added 30 miles to my tank of gas. Isn’t that amazing?

It makes me think that Driver’s Ed should teach fuel-efficient driving.

Reel Affirmations Blog

The Reel Goes Round
“In this age of Ugly Betty, Project Runway, and The Devil Wears Prada, Funny Face really stands the test of time.
It even has its own dance remix now.”

Funny Face was one of the Divas Outdoors films this year!

I’m from Quincy.

The flood in ‘93 destroyed so much - homes, jobs, farms. I remember a friend who lived on the Missouri side of the river in a trailer home but worked in Quincy. She stayed in Quincy during the work week, then drove up to Keokuk, IA, to cross the river and drive back down on the Missouri side to her home. The heat during that time was incredible, and her home was closed up during the week. One weekend when she went home, she went into the trailer to find her wedding candle had melted.

Another friend used to bring a suitcase to work every day - but she didn’t carry clothes in it. Instead, it was full of FEMA paperwork that she had to deal with to rebuild her home that was destroyed by the flood. Every break and every lunch was spent poring over mounds and mounds of paperwork. I don’t remember where she and her husband lived in the meantime. (Her name, by the way, was Anita. Those who know me know her last name, too. ::wink::)

“Swollen Mississippi Washes Over Levees in Illinois - NYTimes.com
CANTON, Mo. — The Mississippi River washed over two levees in western Illinois early Wednesday, forcing people out of their homes, destroying countless acres of crops, and bringing the number of levees that have given way to the river this week to nearly 20.

The latest breaks occurred overnight near the small town of Meyer on the western border of Illinois and Missouri, deluging roads and farmland and prompting the authorities to force about 50 people to leave their homes. The river was expected to crest early this afternoon farther downstream in Quincy, Ill., an elevated town of about 40,000 people perched on the banks of the Mississippi.”

“We must take back our nation from all the people who think that anything that offends them should be removed.”

haha!! I got this email from Dave this morning. It’s circulating the email system at my old job. The title of this post is my favorite line in the whole thing, especially when you add the letter to the editor (a separate thing altogether) to it.

“Subject: FW: WRITE IT ON THE BACK OF YOUR ENVELOPES

LET’S DO IT!!!!!

WRITE IT ON THE BACK OF YOUR ENVELOPES

I THINK THIS A GREAT IDEA. I WILL START WRITING THIS ON THE FRONT OF ALL MY ENVELOPES, TOO!

You may have heard in the news that the Post Office has been forced to take down small posters that say ” IN GOD WE TRUST ” The law, they say, is being violated Anyway, I heard proposed on a radio station show, that we should all write ” IN GOD WE TRUST ” on the back of all our mail…after all, that is our national motto and it’s on all of the money we use to buy those stamps. I think it’s a wonderful idea. We must take back our nation from all the people who think that anything that offends them should be removed.

If you like this idea, please pass it on. It has been reported that 86% of Americans believe in God. Therefore, I have! a very hard time understanding why there is such a mess about having ” In God We Trust” on our money a nd having God in th e pledge of Allegiance.

Could it be that WE just need to take action and tell the 14% to sit down and shut up?

If you agree, pass this on again, if not delete.”

AND THEN THERE’S THIS: