Airport Status, NW USA

Another useful website.

How and Why

This is fun, about Escher stuff in real life. This is fun too, about why we say things.

A break from recipes

Those of you not so interested in the gluten-free recipes might enjoy sites I stumbled across: a review of ramen, and tips for fluffly waffles.

An Apology

Blogging has been non-existent for a while. Sorry!

My wife and I went on a vacation for the week of September 18th. Vacationing for a week with someone who is gluten intolerant requires a bit of preparation, so time was limited before we left, too.

The week of September 25th classes started at LCC, where I teach math.

And this week starts the High Holy Days, so my ministry work is extra busy.

Enjoy the links I've collected in the past three weeks (below). Sorry I don't have time for more blog content than that.

Various Links

I have no yearning to own most gadgets that are sold these days. But this would be quite cool to have, in a way I don't think I can explain.

A good joke is hard to find, even in a page supposedly having ten of them.

Remember that old "Powers of Ten" video? Now it is a website animation.

My wife and I have been working on more gluten-free recipes. We have macaroni and cheese almost ready, and are experimenting with power bars. But we don't play with our food nearly as much as some people.

Has anyone heard of HeyMath!?

If you want to print your own graph paper, this site has many varieties.

How many famous people you already know of were Jewish and believed in Yeshua?

And visit New York City with someone's Kermit the Frog doll.

Google Maps and Katrina

Google Maps now offers a comparison of New Orleans before and after Katrina's damage. Zoom in a little, and then you can scroll around and use the buttons labeled "Satellite" and "Katrina" to see the flooding in detail.

Pizza Dough

Gluten-free pizza? No big deal.

This recipe makes one batch of dough for a typically-sized large home pizza pan, or two batches of a very thin crust for those with the patience to pat it out very flat. (Or sometimes we split a double batch into three parts, for an intermediate thickness.)

It refrigerates well for a few days, so you can prepare the dough before you want to actually make a pizza.

In a large mixing bowl combine:

• 1 1/3 cup lukewarm water
• 1 Tbsp yeast
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 4 cups gluten-free four mix
• 1 tsp white sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp xanthan gum
• 2 tsp vinegar

Mix well, first with a wooden spoon and then by kneading. Depending upon humidity and your flour mix, you may need to add a few teaspoons more warm water or flour mix: the dough should have a consistency that is "rubbery", not "dry" or "sticky".

This dough tastes better the more it rises. Let it rise for at least 4 hours. You can let some of the rising happen after you pat the dough flat onto the pizza pan (and you'll have to pat it, it can't be rolled).

Worshipping Grief

Last week's sermon was about the difference between forgiveness and pardon. It discussed why Yeshua had to suffer so much.

This discussion going around the blogosphere puts similar issues in a very different context. Do people who have suffered have higher moral authority? That sounds quite un-American and un-democratic. Rephrased: does suffering produce moral wisdom?

Sadly, it doesn't. Occasionally suffering prompts people to stop and think more. But just as often it prompts people to mindless vengeance.

God's plan is not that we need to suffer to grow wise, but that we can identify with him and his suffering, to avoid the need for our own suffering.

The novel The Bridge to Terabithia ends with a character inspired to live in the way a virtuous friend would have lived. He will put into the world what the friend would have, because the world needs it. The same plot is how we are supposed to think of suffering and Yeshua.

Bike Commute Challenge

If you live in Eugene and bike to work, try this.

Being Abled

I have some deaf friends in Rochester who will love this video.

Disaster

I have been a part of a few conversations in which someone Jewish wondered if the damage done by Hurricane Katrina was related to the U.S. supporting expelling Israelis from their coastal homes.

The best answer I have relates to a bumper sticker I saw last November: "If God wanted us to vote he would have given us candidates". (The saying has been attributed elsewhere to Jay Leno.)

Exactly how were those who lost there homes supposed to have done anything different politically? Most of the damaged counties voted for the more pro-Israel candidate. It wasn't the high-population counties that did otherwise that bore the brunt of a natural disaster.

For news about Katrina you might other miss, check Terry Teachout's page.

Truth in Advertising

Those of us not super refined might find this bit of truth in advertising amusing. But truth still does not mean "meaningful information".

The Problem with Miracles

This is a cool video about why God is not a D.J.

Orange Flags, Green Flags

Today I'm getting contacted by people wanting to know more about the Israeli withdrawals.

Here are some pictures. Here are others (click "next" by the picture to see more). Here are more and more.

Today also had more coverage of a two-day old report that U.N. money financed the new PA propoganda. The articles mention but do not include any actual picture of the banners that said "Today Gaza and Tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem" beside a U.N. logo. Another article states that Hamas has also received U.N. money.

If you want a map of Israel, this one is interactive.

Remember that Israel retains ownership of land it allows the PA to administer. People are speaking sloppily when they speak of Israel "giving land" to the PA now or in the past. There is still no Palestinian State. Perhaps the withdrawal is proceeding without being opposed by an expected miracle because legally this is about government, not land, and God's covenants are legal agreements that contain no assurance of good government.

Two very different kinds creativity

If you are bored with a traditional globe or bicycle, be bored no longer.

As for myself, I think I'll merely ride my three-speed around town. I'm happy enough knowing a nifty way to fold a t-shirt.

A Sermon's Links

The sermon I am preparing for Saturday is about the tension between scripture's view that obedience to God allows us to best "get on with life" and the human need to do more to make life holy and complete, and thus to make obedience to God an end rather than a beginning.

The sermon will be added to the P'nei Adonai website FAQ page as "How does Messianic Judaism teach me to sanctify life?".

At one point I write a paragraph that could include two hyperlinks to give credit to sources that caused me to ponder. But such linking would be inappropriate from the P'nei website. Since I do not cite anything from those other webpages it is not necessary to cite them to avoid plagarism, and linking would be a distraction to the reader of the essay.

So here, in this more appropriate place, is the paragraph with the links.
We naturally prefer activity that allows us to feel in control. Today we can see political protesters who do activity that makes their cause less popular because it feels "good for their soul", and we see abused children who convince themselves that they are at fault since deserving the abuse means they can also stop the abuse. Similarly, we desire spiritual activity in which we do something that is good for our soul, so that we can do more when we want more improvement, and do what comes easily to allow easy improvement. It is uncomfortable when God's Spirit asks us to remove a firmly established bad habit we would rather not deal with and then rest as God's Spirit replaces it with virtue.

Update: During the sermon I also mentioned a link to an essay conjecturing that each of the Narnia books focuses on a different one of Gregory's "Seven Deadly Sins".

Better than Bubble Wrap

My brother and I used to like popping bubble wrap so much we would get each other sheets of it as birthday presents.

But we were clearly in the small league compared to these guys.

Preying on a Predator

I'm not a fan of RealOne player. It has unwanted options that lack obvious ways to turn off. But I needed to install it because of the ORT website with audio Torah reading, which some of my congregants use to help them prepare for reading from the Torah.

But now I'm glad it is on my computer, so I could watch this video from the Seattle Aquarium in which a giant octopus grabs and kills a large shark.

Telephone Game

What happens if you translate Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith into Chinese and then back into English?

Star War: The Backstroke of the West

(Some profanity, strangely enough. Very much silliness.)

Penguins!

Ah, the joys of a photoshop contest.

Or, at least, the select picks from one.

• Rocket penguin!
• Heavenly penguins!
• Hovercraft penguins!
• Penguin begins